Lost knowledge

Of which British 20th Century figure was its said by an American onlooker that his misfortune was that “He was born a Roman and died an Italian”? It could have been Churchill or possibly Keynes, though I think that Keynes died too early for the full weight of the lash to fall. But the phrase is not in Google and I need it for a piece I am writing. Though, of course, if you have lived this long from the days of the empire, you are in danger, though born Roman, of dying a Romanian. I wouldn’t like to claim Italian levels of civilisation for modern England.

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One Response to Lost knowledge

  1. ShaunR says:

    “I wouldn’t like to claim Italian levels of civilisation for modern England.” Good, but not a patch on today’s unimprovable Peter Hitchens headline:

    A future of 80 million Britons, and no one you can trust… Why I’m quite glad I’ll be dead

    (Your phrase sounds like something Andrew Roberts would quote with relish. Might you have come across it in something of his)?

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