You bloody vandals

      My first thought was, why, you bloody vandals, I don’t shock easy, and have no more of the milk of human kindness than you’d put in a cup of tea; I’ll taunt and gloat over a fallen foe any day, and out a boot in his ribs if he sasses back — but I’m a brute and a bully. These were your upstanding pillars of society, bursting with Christian piety and love thy neighbour, and here they were, shaking their sanctimonious heads as they harassed and goaded a seemingly dying man… They even had the effrontery to argue and hector him, now that he was beat and helpless — I’d have liked to see ’em argue with him eight hours back, when he was standing up with his guns on.


Flashman and the Angel of the Lord, p.339, Harper Collins, 1995.


Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, taunt.

Odd fish, no vandal

He was an odd fish, was Elgin. He was no vandal, certainly; indeed, bar Wolseley, he was probably the most sincere lover of the arts in the army — not that I’m authority, you understand; give me Rubens and you can keep the rest. So how could he bring himself to destroy so much that was rare and beautiful and valuable? I’ll tell you. He was avenging our dead with cold-blooded fury, striking at their murderers (the Emperor, Sang, Prince I, and — although he didn’t know it — Yehonala, who probably shaped Imperial policy more than all the rest) in the way he knew would hurt them most.


Flashman and the Dragon, p.281, Fontana Paperback edition, 1986.



Tags: Flashman, Flashman quotes, vandal.