Why we should not leave Twitter

There is a tendency among liberal-minded people to leave Twitter, saying they cannot justify being in such a toxic environment any more, it has become too right-wing, too Musky. Off to Bluesky, or for a brief time before that, Mastodon, they go. I'm on both, as well as Twitter. But I don't see me making either my primary venue for mumbling into the aether. Not only because some of the most interesting people are still on Twitter, but there is anothe rreason.

I think it's a mistake to leave - and worse, I think it is playing into the hands of the extremists to go. We might feel like we are crying in the wilderness, but surely that is our duty? Someone needs to be a voice for liberalism, for reason, for humanity. And as Granny used to say, "Well Duncan, are you someone or are you no-one?" To leave is to admit defeat, and to surrender the field to the forces of evil. 

In the aftermath of the failed revolutions of 1848 and the crushing of Chartism, Arthur Hugh Clough wrote "The Struggle". It is as relevant now as it was then.

Say not the struggle naught availeth,

The labour and the wounds are vain,

The enemy faints not, nor faileth,

And as things have been they remain.

 

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;

It may be, in yon smoke conceal'd,

Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers,

And, but for you, possess the field.

 

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,

Seem here no painful inch to gain,

Far back, through creeks and inlets making,

Comes silent, flooding in, the main.

And not by eastern windows only,

When daylight comes, comes in the light;

In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly!

But westward, look, the land is bright!

When you find No Highway more...

 Nevil Shute's 1948 novel No Highway starts with three stanzas from John Masefield, who died this day 1967.

Therefore, go forth, companion: when you find

No Highway more, no track, all being blind,

The way to go shall glimmer in the mind.

Though you have conquered Earth and charted Sea

And planned the courses of all Stars that be,

Adventure on, more wonders are in Thee,

Adventure on, for from the littlest clue

Has come whatever worth man ever knew;

The next to lighten all men may be you . . .

The acknowledgments say they are from The Wanderer. I've been looking for the original poem for years, Masefield did write a poem "The Wanderer", but they are not from that. Last night I tried again and found a presentation by Ken Croasdale to a Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers function, identifying the source as Masefield's book The Wanderer of Liverpool. In that book they form part of a longer poem "The Ending", which tells of the end of the ship The Wanderer. 

The poem ends:

"Adventure on, companions, the attempt 

At high adventure brings reward undreamt. 

The raging sea is grim with reefs un conn’d : 

There is a way, a haven is beyond. 

Way for yourself, a harbourage for you, 

Where every quarry spirit can pursue 

Is, in the glory of the dream come true."

So singing, she wanders the waters with white wing on wing 

Star-lighted, star-guided, the sea-gleaming beautiful thing.

The Wanderer

Archive.org has The Wanderer of Liverpool, the poem "The Ending" is here, pages 76-87

Lloyd George Knew His Father

While browsing The Times digital archive the other day I came across a letter calling for a memorial to the poet Edward Thomas. It particularly caught my eye as it was signed by Stanley Baldwin and David Lloyd George, two very unlikely bedfellows. I asked the Edward Thomas Fellowship if they knew anything more about it. They were able to tell me both that this was the appeal which led to the memorial on Shoulder of Mutton Hill, above Thomas's home in Steep, and that Lloyd George knew Edward Thomas's father. Philip Henry Thomas, a civil servant, was a Liberal, standing for Clapham in the 1918 general election. He had known Lloyd George for some time before this, and they even used to travel together into London to work. 

Lloyd George was also to write a foreword to John Moore's Life and Letters of Edward Thomas in 1939. I shall have to look out for a copy. 

In Memoriam: Easter 1915

The flowers left thick at nightfall in the wood

This Eastertide call into mind the men,

Now far from home, who, with their sweethearts, should

Have gathered them and will do never again