Significant quotes of Talbot Munday from
"Tros of Samothrace" and "The Purple Pirate"
Most are from the log of Lord Captain Tros.


I have found this writer expresses accurately so much of how I have considered and viewed humanity. The thoughts they bring to my mind are those I have believed and tried to adhere to in my life.

Heavens! How many obstacles there are between a resolution and its fulfillment! How much compromising to be done with unessential issues to preserve the main thing whole and worthy! Each new obstacle to be surmounted in its turn, its smashed entanglements converted into means toward the main end! And the main end never to be overlooked, forgotten, substituted, changed, abandoned, nor once dishonored by a coward doubt!
The worst hour is the eve of the final effort, when the goal that seemed so near, seems passing out of reach; and all the work done hitherto that seemed so wise, appears ill done and ill-conceived; and all the unpredictable, imponderable dangers suddenly invade the mind like specters. Then a man needs courage. Aye, he needs the courage to believe his vision all along, from the first until now, was clear, and all his efforts well aimed to a good conclusion.

Choose, and take the consequences. Choose to command, and learn the pain of the barbed treachery of envy. Choose to obey, and learn how soon obedience begets contempt. Choose the philosopher’s life, and learn the famished waste of thought that, like a barren woman, lusts unpregnant. Choose . . . or become the victim of others’ choosing.

I have observed that generous determination to attain an objective come what may, reveals the means as if the generosity were lamplight.

Of all Life’s difficulties I have found it hardest to compel myself to recognize and concede a woman’s right to meet me on even terms. But it seems equally hard for a woman to understand my attitude. No more than all the priests, philosophers and poets do I know what love is. Unlike many of them, I am unwilling to pretend that I do know. Neither do I know what life is. But it seems to me that if love or life lack dignity, neither the one nor the other is worth the sacrifice of half a moment’s thought.

I am familiar with the arguments of priests whose truth I vigorously doubt because they take for granted claims impossible to prove. I am equally familiar with the logic that denies all speculative thought, as if a midnight to a midnight were the limit of existence, and a man no more important than a louse. I find the one as superstitious as the other, and, of the two, perhaps the priests less stupid.
As for me, I am a mystic, not denying what I merely do not like or do not understand, nor claiming absoluteness for the truth I think I know. And I believe, and enjoy believing, that a greater mystery than human mind can know, selects and sets us amid flames of love and hate, wherein we forge new weapons and for them new uses, and for our souls new destiny.

How hard it is to draw the line between a necessary act of justice, and mere malice; between savagery, and proper punishment intended solely to prevent recurrence of something wrong. No matter what the provocation I have found it wiser to abstain from vengeance, but to beware of those upon whom I might have had it. Not always, but not seldom they find it harder to forgive the magnanimity, than it is to forgive their enmity, And it is natural enough: nature is not trusted to direct our motives, only to beglamour them with false names.

I have learned only too well to understand, in part at least, the reason why I have felt my heart break and had to watch my pride burn in outward composure. Time and again, beneath a mask of composure and admirable manners, I have inwardly laughed at another’s downfall. Yes, I know it. But I know no law that binds me to betray my grief when destiny permits another’s malice to inflict a penalty I owe.

Hitherto I have found my real goal unattainable. But I persist, since the attainable is no more than a rung on the ladder of life, on which a man may climb to grander view, though it will break beneath him if he linger too long.

Too much planning is the commonest cause of defeat. The mediocre strategist conceives a plan and, like a pregnant woman, thinks the offspring of his belly and his mood shall set a heel on destiny. A true commander’s plans are changeable, adaptable, reversible, sudden, frequently surprising even to himself; they are the means that his genius seizes, to employ his full strength, at a well considered moment, to a foreseen, unflinched from and undeviating purpose.

It never was my view that women are the worse for audacity. To be mothers of sons worth weaning, they should have the manly virtues in addition to the qualities that charm and tempt.

Manners? They are like a cloak, that either illustrates its wearer’s self-respect, or masks his vileness; popinjays his vices, or reveals his taste. I have observed that decent manners are invariable befitting the occasion; blunt and direct when causes are at issue; civil to the verge of gentleness where nothing but another’s momentary comfort is at stake. Too smooth manners in the face of issues is a sign of fear, or treachery, or weakness, or of all three.

Any form of government is good that actually governs and not offers opportunity to rogues to buy and sell preferment. Let a ruler rule, and let the ruled obey. But woe betide a ruler who is faithless to the lonely task of ruling firmly, justly, decorously, wisely and, to sum the terrifying total . . . well.

I trust or mistrust, having found no middle course worth following. But the charlatan zone between these courses is a wilderness wherein another’s treachery by no means can be held to justify my own bad faith. A man must stand or fall, judge and be judged, by his own faith, always.

To an honest man, though I may veil or dissemble my thoughts, I will never leave in doubt the main question: am I for him or against him? Honesty deserves honesty. But I have yet to be persuaded that a lying scoundrel has a claim on me, that I should feel in duty bound to guide his guessing.

I know of no justification for the wars that men wage on one another. On the other hand, I know no reason, and perceive no wisdom in the floods and famines, pestilence and earthquakes, fire and hurricane, which priests say the Gods devise against us.

If a friend in friendship errs, it is vile to retaliate. Recrimination is a waste of time and breath. Regret is stupid. There is nothing to be done but to redeem the error. Friendship is not measurable by an error, no, no matter how great or how disastrous.

A man may be a murderer and faithful. Many are. A man may be a courtier and faithful. Some are. But the courtier-murderer, disarmed and faced with the alternative of cold steel in his throat, will babble all he knows to avoid the kind of death he has meted out to others. But first, disarm him. Armed, he believes himself an honorable man. Disarmed, he knows he has no honor.

There are some who are too proud to yield until compelled by force. They are not to be blamed. It is their privilege; I also, if I think my cause is just, maintain it to the last breath. But let them not blame me when I accept the challenge. I will yield anything for friendship’s sake, except a principle that I believe is right.

As to whether there are gods, or not, I am ignorant. I have never set eyes on a god, nor seen, nor heard anything, anywhere, that seems to me to justify the belief in gods, or to suggest that, if gods there be, their doings justify respect. But I have been observant all my days. Whoever believes there is no such force as destiny directing us and our occasions, would waste breath seeking to unconvince me. I have been in the grip of destiny, have seen its shape, have felt the weight of its hand. I know.

They who laugh at a commander’s failure, usually lack ability or will to understand the nature of his problem. Detail, detail, detail, each dependent on another’s or a hundred others’ loyalty, devotion, skill, intelligence, obedience and health. One sick man, fretting faithfully to do his stint, unknowingly, unknown, may wreck a well-imagined strategy before its details unfold. I have heard self-styled critics speak . . . aye, and I have read the books of some historians who write, as if a warship can put to sea without a thousand cares first well attended. And if a ship, what of a fleet? What of an army? It is a pity, for their foes’ sake, that some critics are not taken at their own evaluation and entrusted with command.

When I ask myself, as I think all thoughtful men inevitably do: have I done my duty? Have I acted manly? I perceive it is impossible oneself to answer. That is something that only other men can do, until the gods’ day comes to issue judgement; aye, and beware of flattery! Man’s speech is seldom sheeted close to truth’s wind. But their deeds are eloquent. So that when ignorant dogs of bawdy seamen, who I have shepherded and thrashed and loved and led, behave like loyal comrades behind my back, then I take comfort. My men shall judge me. Gods, if gods there be, may judge me by the good foul-weather friends, who have stood by.

It was the sea, with its roaring rage and smiling treachery, that taught me sometimes to appear to yield. Many a time I have luffed and let an enemy believe me to be beaten. I have avoided battle. I have run. But I have never struck my flag. Storm lover though I have ever been, and conqueror of storms though I have had to be . . . aye, though I pray for a storm if I must meet an enemy at sea . . . I see no wisdom in opposing storm and enemy. Rather, I use the one to help me defeat the other. And if it seems advisable I run from both, to await my moment.

Certain philosophers, some priests, and many women have accused me of loving war. I hate it. I despise it as an arbiter of quarrels. Would that my intelligence and vigor might be put to a more creative use. But I have seen that they, whose speech is most contemptuous of warriors, are also they whose blunders, acrimony, ignorance and malice aggravate the quarrels that produce war. To avoid war, for the sake of friendship, aye, to prevent a quarrel, I am willing to risk all that I have and to forego my own ambition. But I will yield to no tyrant. And, when I find myself at war, I choose to win.

Two heads are better than one, and three than two, but when a plan is reached, let there be one commander. One only. Let the others obey. I would rather obey a man, whose talent for command I thought inferior to mine, than make the unwise effort to attempt to share authority.


The one test of a commander’s competence is battle, no other. There is no denying a defeat. No argument annuls a victory.
The incomparable depth of stupidity is that of the commander who does that which his enemy expects, because tradition justifies it. The only time when traditional strategy and tactics are fit to employ, is when the enemy expects something else and therefore mistakes old methods for a ruse.

It is unwise to expect a clever opportunist to obey, if given opportunity to disobedience to serve himself. Your aims, your plans, aye, and your dangers also, should he know them, would be the natural means by which he would secretly seek to advance himself, inevitably to your cost and perhaps your ruin. There is one wise way, and only one, to make use of such men. Study their natural cunning, as the hunter studies animals, in order to be able to predict their probable behavior when free to follow their inclination.

Money to pay for provisions is more important to a ship’s commander than the wind. He can wait for a fair wind. He can hunt a lee in stormy weather. But unless he can pay for supplies there is no alternative but piracy, disguised or open. And whoever thinks that pirates avoid paying for their depredations is either very ignorant or void of common sense.

It is not the unpredictables that govern issues. It is the steady, unwavering, iday-by-day persistent exercise of judgement, always hewing nearer to the line of wisdom. Far though it may be from wisdom yet, that effort rarifies its maker’s thought, until he fits himself for swift and right decision in emergencies that baffle them who envision only purpose and let wisdom wait, as if it were not, or as if it were a poet’s word for something unattainable or unknown.

Half of human history was made by drunkards in their cups and written down by slaves of one imposter or another in the hope of table-leavings.

I was born and taught upon the threshold of the holy mystery, and all my days I have been faithful to the duty laid upon me to pursue peace . . . aye, and to forego my own advantage if thereby peace might come. But I have found no peace on earth, nor any honorable way of avoiding war.