The Devil Drives...
Richard Francis Burton, 1863:
“Starting in a hollowed log of wood — some thousand miles up a river, with an infinitesimal prospect of returning! I ask myself “Why?” and the only echo is “damned fool! … the devil drives!”
This quotation captures the sense of intellectual adventure and hungry curiosity I have about the things that interest me. “The Devil Drives” is a fantastic book by Fawn Brodie about the life of Sir Richard Francis Burton. Burton was incredibly talented - linguist, soldier, explorer, anthropologist, translator, swordsman, writer, scholar, poet, and amateur physician - and had the most fascinating of lives. Mainstream Victorian society understandably considered him both dangerous and shocking. He was ahead of his time.
The quotation has stayed with me from the first time I read it - what drives Burton to do these incredible things?… he retorts “how the hell would I know?” in a manner that hints at his own underlying diabolical nature…
