Aging My Way
I came across a quote by John F. Kennedy this morning that I thought was worthy of being copied into my journal. “Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought,” he said. As I don’t want to write about politics today, I’ll let you put your own understanding and meaning to these words.
Meanwhile, I frequently copy quotes into my journal. Usually, they are ones that cleverly and inspiringly put into words something meaningful to me, sometimes even causing me to rethink a subject.
One quote that came to my wandering/wondering brain this morning was the well-known (well at least it sure be familiar to some of you) was “The pen is mightier than the sword.” As I added those words to my journal as part of my thoughts, I wanted to give credit to the author. My brain was telling me it was Benjamin Franklin, but then the old reporter adage, “double check even if your mother says it’s so,” sent me doing some quick research.
I’m glad I did because I discovered that the phrase was first written by novelist and playwright Edward Bulwer-Lytton. He penned the words in his historical play Cardinal Richelieu in 1839.
As so often happens, that search sent me on another search. Why was Edward’s last name hyphenated? The answer was that his father’s name was General William Earle Bulwer and his mother’s name was Elizabeth Barbara Lytton.
Now that seemed odd to me, as in those days women were still considered property. So, who was Elizabeth?
My research continued and I learned that she was a member of the Lytton family of Knebworth House in Hertfordshire, England. After her father’s death, Elizabeth resumed her father’s surname, by a royal license of 1811. That year she returned to Knebworth House, which by then had become dilapidated. She renovated it by demolishing three of its four sides and adding Gothic towers and battlements to the remaining building.
She lived at Knebworth with her son, the writer Edward Bulwer-Lytton, until her death. Because of a long-standing dispute she had with the church, she is buried not with her ancestors at St Mary’s Knebworth, but in the Lytton Mausoleum.
Hmm. I wonder if the dispute had anything to do with women’s rights. But what’s the significance of Knebworth House. My brain was still on a roll.
It’s an English Country House (Looked like a mansion to me), according to Wikipedia, that has been the home of the Lytton family since 1490. Furthermore, the grounds are home to the Knebworth Festival, a recurring open-air rock and pop concert held since 1974, and until 2014 was home to another hard rock festival, Sonisphere.
And suddenly I realized the morning was almost over. This happens a lot.
It’s a good thing I’m retired.
Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, an enthusiastic birder, the author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), is always searching for life’s silver lining, and these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.
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