O, but Everyone Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done. - Siegfried Sassoon

He belonged to the old school of country gentlemen, ruling his estate with semi-benevolent tyranny and turning his back on all symptoms of social innovation. Under his domination the Packlestone country had been looked after on feudal system lines. His method of dealing with epistolary complaints from discontented farmers was to ignore them; in verbal intercourse he bulled them and sent them about their business with a good round oath. Such people, he firmly believed, were put there by Providence to touch their hats and do as they were told by their betters...And as such he continued beyond his eightieth year, until he fell into a fish-pond on his estate and was buried by the parson whose existence he had spurned by his arrogance.

As regards being dead, however, one of my main consolations has always been that I have the strongest intention of being an extremely active ghost. Let nobody make any mistake about that.

Against the background of the War and its brutal stupidity those men had stood glorified by the thing which sought to destroy them…. I