[Robert Bontine Cunningham Graham, from “Up Stage”, an essay on Reginald Montague’s Ascog grave:] ‘”Failure”, he wrote, “alone can interest the speculative mind”, adding “For those who fail, for those who have sunk beneath the muddy waves of life, we keep our love, and that curiosity about their lives which make their memory green”.
He goes on, “how many successful people are interesting? The unlucky Stewarts, from the first poey [I must have mistyped that] king slain at the ball game, to the poor mildewed Cardinal of York, with all their faults they leave the stolid Georges, millions of miles behind, sunk in their pudding and prosperity.”‘ {note how ‘sunk’ reverses its application}
Particularly interesting on the attempts by the US inheritors (first Frederick, then Ferdinand, Campbell) to unravel John Stewart’s posthumous conditions and sell the estate.