To one who habitually endeavors to contemplate the true state of things, the political state can hardly be said to have any existence whatever. It is unreal, incredible, and insignificant to him, and for him to endeavor to extract the truth from such lean material is like making sugar from linen rags, when sugar-cane may be had.

Playing golf is not hot work. Cutting sugar cane for a dollar a day – that’s hot work. Hotter than my first wrist watch.

My forebears refused to cut the sugar cane for plantation owners, and I am recognisably a product of that background.

You can be up to your boobies in white satin, with gardenias in your hair and no sugar cane for miles, but you can still be working on a plantation.