comparatively there was silence. After the ear-splitting racket it was almost still enough to hurt. And in that silence over the top we went. Lanes had been cut through our wire, and we got through them quickly. The trenches were about one hundred twenty yards apart and we still had nearly one hundred to go. We dropped and started to crawl. I skinned both my knees on something, probably old wire, and both hands. I could feel the blood running into my puttees, and my rifle bothered me as I was afraid of jabbing Jerry, who was just ahead of me as first bayonet man. They say a drowning man or a man in great danger reviews his past. I didn't. I spent those few minutes wondering when the machine-gun fire would come. I had the same "gone" feeling in the pit of the stomach that you have when you drop fast in an elevator. The skin on my face felt tight, and I remember that I wanted to pucker my nose and pull my upper lip down over my teeth. We got clean up to their wi...
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she had laid out in building a stately house, and making a handsome garden, in an elevated situation in Lichfield. Johnson, when here by himself, used to live at her house. She reverenced him, and he had a parental tenderness for her. We then visited Mr. Peter Garrick, who had that morning received a letter from his brother David, announcing our coming to Lichfield. He was engaged to dinner, but asked us to tea, and to sleep at his house. Johnson, however, would not quit his old acquaintance Wilkins, of the Three Crowns. The family likeness of the Garricks was very striking; and Johnson thought that David's vivacity was not so peculiar to himself as was supposed. 'Sir, (said he,) I don't know but if Peter had cultivated all the arts of gaiety as much as David has done, he might have been as brisk and lively. Depend upon it, Sir, vivacity is much an art, and depends greatly on habit.' I believe there is a good deal of truth in this, notwithstanding a ludicrou...
Cromwell's soldiers introduced them; and one might thus shew how arts are propagated by conquest, as they were by the Roman arms.' He seemed to be much diverted with the fertility of his own fancy. I told him, that I heard Dr. Percy was writing the history of the wolf in Great-Britain. JOHNSON. 'The wolf, Sir! why the wolf? why does he not write of the bear, which we had formerly? Nay, it is said we had the beaver. Or why does he not write of the grey rat, the Hanover rat, as it is called, because it is said to have come into this country about the time that the family of Hanover came? I should like to see The History of the Grey Rat, by Thomas Percy, D. D., Chaplain in Ordinary to his Majesty,' (laughing immoderately). BOSWELL. 'I am afraid a court chaplain could not decently write of the grey rat.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, he need not give it the name of the Hanover rat.' Thus could he indulge a luxuriant sportive imagination, when talking of a frien...
stuff, which Baretti had lately published. He joined with me, and said, 'Nothing odd will do long. Tristram Shandy did not last.' I expressed a desire to be acquainted with a lady who had been much talked of, and universally celebrated for extraordinary address and insinuation. JOHNSON. 'Never believe extraordinary characters which you hear of people. Depend upon it, Sir, they are exaggerated. You do not see one man shoot a great deal higher than another.' I mentioned Mr. Burke. JOHNSON. 'Yes; Burke is an extraordinary man. His stream of mind is perpetual.' It is very pleasing to me to record, that Johnson's high estimation of the talents of this gentleman was uniform from their early acquaintance. Sir Joshua Reynolds informs me, that when Mr. Burke was first elected a member of Parliament, and Sir John Hawkins expressed a wonder at his attaining a seat, Johnson said, 'Now we who know Mr. Burke, know, that he will be one of the first men in t...
the way, that the people may go in a straight line to the bridge.'--'No, Sir, (said Gwyn,) I am putting the church IN the way, that the people may not GO OUT OF THE WAY.' JOHNSON. (with a hearty loud laugh of approbation,) 'Speak no more. Rest your colloquial fame upon this.' Upon our arrival at Oxford, Dr. Johnson and I went directly to University College, but were disappointed on finding that one of the fellows, his friend Mr. Scott, who accompanied him from Newcastle to Edinburgh, was gone to the country. We put up at the Angel inn, and passed the evening by ourselves in easy and familiar conversation. Talking of constitutional melancholy, he observed, 'A man so afflicted, Sir, must divert distressing thoughts, and not combat with them.' BOSWELL. 'May not he think them down, Sir?' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir. To attempt to THINK THEM DOWN is madness. He should have a lamp constantly burning in his bed-chamber during the night, and if wakefu...
A dangerous mix of humiliation and desperation: that sums up the prevailing mood in the Pakistani Armed Forces and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in the wake of the killing of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad by US naval commandos. For the ISI, the sense of humiliation arises from the fact that bin Laden was living undetected at Abbottabad for over five years. The international community and even large sections of public opinion within Pakistan believe that without the complicity or the silent connivance of the ISI, he could not have lived that long in that area. The Director-General of ISI, Ahmed Shuja Pasha, tried to shift the blame for ISI's failure to trace bin Laden on to the Intelligence Bureau. AFP In his secret testimony before an in-camera session of the Pakistan Parliament on May 13, Lt-Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha, the Director-General of the ISI, tried to shift part of the blame for this huge intelligence failure on to the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and the police, both of ...
Editor’s note: The following short story is one of the essays included in the new anthology on Kashmir edited by Sanjay Kak titled, Until My Freedom has Come: The New Intifada in Kashmir, (Penguin, India). Featuring contributions from journalists, academics and artists, it offers a rare insight into the lives of those caught in the crossfire. The book is priced at Rs. 299 and you can purchase it by clicking here . In the heart of Srinagar, in the winding streets of its downtown, the protesting stone-pelters—mostly school and college students—had organized themselves into small, compact units. When not busy clashing with the police and the paramilitary forces, they engaged in endless discussions. These were wide-ranging, from narratives of love affairs to the unravelling of the Kashmir problem and the search for a solution, as well as the comparing of notes on the various instruments and techniques of stone-pelting. As the curfew became stricter, the debates too bloomed. On ...
“Being accused of violating our own high standard of business recently made me lose several nights of sleep,” said outgoing Infosys chairman NR Narayan Murthy in an emotional letter to shareholders. The company published its annual report late evening on Tuesday. “Deliberating all alone on the resignation offer of a co-founder is not something I would wish upon even my enemy,” he adds. As founders of the company make way for the new generation, the transition of power has created acrimony. Mohandas Pai, ex-Director for Human Resources, had criticised the strategy to allow co-founders to have a shot at being Infosys CEO. Murthy does not deliberate on the specific issue in the annual report but has said in an interview to the Economic Times that if given a choice between two deserving candidates, seniority will take precedence. A Rs 9,500-investment in 1993 has become a staggering Rs 4.15 crore today. Screen grab from the annual Infosys report Murthy complains in his no...
Princeton: How the mighty International Monetary Fund has fallen! More than a decade ago, the French magazine Paris Match carried a picture of the Fund’s then Managing Director, Michel Camdessus, with the title: “The Most Powerful Frenchman in the World.” Today, his successor, Dominique Strauss-Kahn (DSK), handcuffed and grave in ubiquitous front-page photos, is the most humiliated Frenchman in the world. One unanticipated result of the lurid New York sex attack scandal involving DSK is that the question of his successor is attracting an unprecedented level of public interest and concern. Indeed, the scandal has exposed some fundamental problems about the IMF’s governance, and even about its existence. DSK tried to remake the IMF into a doctor of global finance, rather than a policeman. In mitigating or even preventing financial crises, however, sometimes policemen are needed. At the moment, the combination of excesses still evident in the financial sector and in publ...
The only people who think property prices in Mumbai aren’t high enough seem to be sitting in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA). Why else would they insist that the dwindling number of flat buyers in Mumbai can afford to shell out another 10 percent of property value on purchase as ‘development tax’. Granted, infrastructure is Mumbai is pretty abysmal when compared to any world-class metropolis. However, going by the MMRDA’s track record in creating infrastructure in Mumbai, not many people would be excited about more money being pumped into this organisation in the name of ‘infrastructure creation’. Where are the cyclists? Ivor Soans Whether it’s the first metro line or the monorail, everything is behind schedule—actually, so far behind schedule that it won’t be long before some enterprising Mumbaikars start small scale businesses under the half built structures—if they haven’t already. But not all is lost. The MMRDA has built some infrastructure that it mus...