Flora Thompson

So quiet and subtle is the beauty of December that escapes the notice of many people their whole lives through.. Colour gives way to form. every branch distinct, in a delicate tracery against the sky.. new vistas obscured all Summer by leafage, now open up.

The children did not remain children long. Boys of seven or eight went to work in the fields... Girl children of ten or eleven sent out into service...

A grasshopper shrilled in a tuft at her feet and was answered by other shrillings among the gorse bushes; a solitary rook flapped heavily overhead, and a pair of goldfinches twittered among the thistle-down; there was no other sound except the scarcely perceptible never-ceasing sighing of the wind in the pines and its rustling of acres of heath-bells.

It was still the custom of the countryside to build with local materials produced as close to the selected site as possible, for transport was difficult, even the best of country roads being more fitted for horseback traffic rather than heavy loads.

Special qualities are required of the essayist. A poem or a novel may spring from the inner consciousness of an author.. reasoning powers must be brought to reinforce imagination.