This was born after browsing through the pages of Wikipedia (as I do every day). I found myself engrossed in an article about Haggard's 1886 novel "She: A History of Adventure."
As any schoolboy of my generation knows, Haggard wrote his novel after a stint as a civil servant in Africa. His adventures included the expedition that established British control over the Boer republic in the Transvaal. Haggard himself raised the Union flag over the capital of Pretoria in May 1877. Later he declared:
"It will be some years before people at home realize how great an act it has been, an act without parallel. I am very proud of having been connected with it. Twenty years hence it will be a great thing to have hoisted the Union Jack over the Transvaal for the first time."
Haggard believed it was Britain's mission to conquer and hold in subjection, "not from thirst of conquest but for the sake of law, justice, and order." To my jaded eye, his Transvall adventure bears a striking resemblance to Trump's recent exploits in Iran and Venezuela, his dreams of annexing Canada and Greenland, doing something to Cuba, renaming the Gulf of Mexico, and God only knows what will follow.
I wish it would all go away like a bad dream or a bout with diarrhea. But that's not likely to happen soon enough.
N.B. Haggard's novel was recreated in the 1965 movie "She" starring Ursula Andress.
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