Some great poet or philosopher once said that " he who goes to nature for comfort must go to her empty handed " , and I think he was right. - Flora Thompson

It is the fashion to talk of our changing climate and bewail the hot summers and hard winters of tradition, but how seldom we pause to marvel at the remarkable constancy of the weather from year to year.

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.

There was no Victoria in the school ... That great name was sacred to the Queen and was not copied by her subjects to the extent imagined by period novelists of today. <small>— (ch. 11, School)</small>