The strength of the House of Commons is dissipated, its time consumed, and its dignity and reputation are threatened by the attempt to manage in one … - Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon

When we are bored, when we are out of tune, when we have little worries, it clears our feelings and changes our mood if we can get in touch with the beauty of the natural world.

Europe was some time ago divided into two, I will not say hostile, but certainly not friendly, camps—the Triple Alliance and the Dual Alliance. There has been a tendency to obliteration of the hard-and-fast lines between those two camps... There has been a tendency to more direct inter-communication, more direct settlement; and this has been more favourable to a frank adjustment of the relations between these Powers; and we in our turn have now taken part in making a sort of arrangement with a view to creating greater frankness and friendliness between ourselves and France. It would not have been possible to establish this Agreement between ourselves and France some years ago, because the atmosphere... between ourselves and France may be said to have been of the glacial epoch. It has happily now changed to a genial epoch.

The most awful responsibility is resting upon the Government in deciding what to advise the House of Commons to do.