Daar is treffende karakteriserings van mense in Harold Nicolson se Diaries and Letters, 1939-1945. Winston Churchill lyk soos "the Chinese god of plenty suffering from acute indigestion" (p 37). Churchill "is too belligerent for this pacifist age, and although once anger comes to steel our sloppiness, his voice will be welcome to them, at the moment it reminds them of heroism which they do not really feel" (p 59). [Hierin is daar dalk ’n boodskap vir blankes in die nuwe Suid-Afrika. Willie Esterhuyse skryf in sy boek, Eindstryd (2012): "Binne die wit Afrikaanse gemeenskap was daar nie ’n groot poel van kreatiewe geeste en moedige leiersfigure nie" (p 323)] Stanley Baldwin het in 1943 van Churchill gesê: "The furnace of the war has smelted out all base metals from him" (p 307).
Toe Duff Cooper, die minister van inligting, sy openbare skakelbeamptes toespreek: He "glowers at them as if they were coolies in some Cingalese copper-mine" (p 177).
In 1943 is EA Fitzroy as speaker deur Clifton Brown vervang. "For all these years I have been accustomed to see that wig, that throne, framing the Carolean features of Fitzroy; saturnine he was, and sallow, and tall. Clifton Brown is pink and gay and white. The effect is strange. It is like seeing the fireman's nephew, on holiday from Wolverhampton, putting on his uncle's helmet" (p 284).
Oor Nancy Astor se toespraak in die parlement: "She has one of those minds that work from association to association, and therefore spreads sideways with extreme rapidity ... It was like playing squash with a dish of scrambled eggs ... Lady Astor had said that women had never been given any chance to show their capacity in foreign politics. I said that they might not have been given chances, but ... they had taken chances, and that the results had been disastrous ... Intuition and sympathy were the two main feminine virtues, each of these was of little value in diplomacy" (p 285).
Oor Henri Pétain: "The only thing he regrets in life is that Hitler should have praised him" (p 192).
Victor Cazalet "cannot see a pie without wishing to have his finger in it. I wish I could get a clear map of Victor's soul. I think you would find much swamp and little firm ground, and round the edges there would be a vague area labelled terra incognita" (p 224).
Dylan Thomas "looks as if he will be washed out of poetry by whisky" (p 186).
Toe Harold in 1941 as ’n adjunk-minister van sy pligte onthef is, het hy gevoel hy is ’n mislukking. "Success should come late in life in order to compensate for the loss of youth; I had youth and success together, and now I have old age and failure" (p 180). "The main quality demanded of a politician is not that he should be gifted or honest or wise, but 'formidable'" (p 277). In 1943: "I do feel it strange that a person of my experience is so much ignored nowadays" (p 304). Stanley Baldwin het die volgende raad aan hom gegee: "You will find in politics that you are much exposed to the attribution of false motive. Never complain and never explain" (p 307). Aan die einde van die oorlog het Harold sy setel in die algemene verkiesing verloor. Churchill het toe gesê: "'The House [of Commons] will be a sadder place without him' - then he paused, and added, 'and smaller'" (p 479).
’n Aantal jare lank was Harold een van die goewerneurs (raadslede) van die BBC. "Only the BBC can teach the public to think correctly, to feel nobly, to enjoy themselves intelligently, to have some conception of what is meant by the good life," maar in die praktyk ervaar hy "the BBC's unerring instinct for the second-rate" (p 314). [Wat sou ’n mens dan van die SABC sê?]
Harold was in sy vroeë jare twee dekades lank ’n diplomaat. Let op hoe kundig hanteer hy ’n vraag in die parlement: Mander: "Is it not one of the rules that Civil Servants are not allowed to criticise their Department, and therefore was it in order for one of the chief officials of the Hon Gentleman's Department to criticise the Government, and say that the Department had been given a pitchfork to deal with a tank?" Nicolson: "The British Civil Service is an organism and not a machine. It owes its vitality to the fact that even its most rigid rules are sometimes violated" (p 177).
Harold het oorlogspropaganda krities ontleed. "I notice that when we get on both sides of an enemy, that enemy is described as 'surrounded', but when the enemy get on both sides of us, we are told that we have driven 'a wedge' between two armies" (p 192). In November 1943: "We have been held up in Italy 'by the weather', which is rather a lame excuse considering what the Russians are doing" (p 330).
Teen die einde van die oorlog skryf Harold: "The Russians do not behave like Europeans even in the best of circumstances and at their most sober" (p 463). Oor Amerikaners was hy altyd sinies. "I had an appointment to conduct some American doughboys round the Palace of Westminster. In they slouched, chewing gum, conscious of their inferiority in training, equipment, breeding, culture, experience and history, determined in no circumstances to be either interested or impressed ... their jaws working at the gum ... Jaws chewed unflinchingly ... 'I will show you the Great Seal.' Through the corridors they slouched apathetically, expecting to be shown a large wet animal such as they had seen so often at the Aquarium in San Francisco. But not at all. All they were shown were two cylinders of steel with a pattern inside" (p 275).
’n Amerikaanse geleerde het Engeland in 1943 besoek om vas te stel wat die Britse publiek se houding teenoor die VSA is. "I said that such prejudice as existed (and really, there is not much) should be divided into an upper and a lower level. He was thrilled by this, since it suggested graphs and pseudo-scientific diagrams. The upper level were afraid that America would insist on imposing its idealism upon Europe ... The lower level did not care for American boasting, much disliked their being richer than our men, and thought that all their Hemingway he-men were soft, hating cold, shuddering in the slightest draught, and starting to limp if asked to walk more than two miles" (p 288-289).
Amerikaners "condemn British imperialism as sin.They never think (a) about their own imperialism; (b) that they would never have existed without British imperialism" (p 310).
Volgende keer skryf ek oor die derde boekdeel.
Johannes Comestor