Tim Jeal > Quotes

“Stanley must have realized that this postponement would probably be fatal. But while he did not give up, he never for a moment thought of abandoning his African quest [...] Yet Stanley still longed for the security of marriage, and hoped he could find Livingstone and marry Katie. [...] The romantic side of his nature told him that their story ought to end in marriage: the workhouse boy, having distinguished himself beyond all expectations, weds the daughter of the respectable local gentleman, and they live happily ever afterwards in a big house
[...] But Katie had never understood his inner conviction of being chosen for a great task.”
― Tim Jeal, Stanley: The Impossible Life of Africa's Greatest Explorer

“they had been originally wicked … They will not reflect that circumstances changed them … At home these men had no cause to show their natural savagery … They were suddenly transplanted to Africa & its miseries. They were deprived of butcher’s meat & bread & wine, books, newspapers, the society & influence of their friends. Fever seized them, wrecked minds and bodies. Good nature was banished by anxiety. Pleasantness was eliminated by toil. Cheerfulness yielded to internal anguish … until they became but shadows, morally & physically of what they had been in English society … Home people if they desire to judge fairly must think of all this.30”
― Tim Jeal, Stanley: Africa's Greatest Explorer

“I do not want to miss the opportunity of our obtaining a share in this magnificent African cake.”
― Tim Jeal, Stanley: Africa's Greatest Explorer

“He [Stanley] had stated that he longed to do something wonderful for the African tribes along the Congo, and instead, as would become all too apparent, had set them up for a terrible fate. In 1877 he came down the great river as the first European ever to do so, declaring his hope that the Congo should become like `a torch to those who sought to do good'." Instead, it became the torch that attracted the archexploiter King Leopold II of Belgium.”
― Tim Jeal, Stanley: The Impossible Life of Africa's Greatest Explorer