Take of English earth as much As either hand may rightly clutch. In the taking of it breathe Prayer for all who lie beneath. - Rudyard Kipling

(An unhappy childhood was not) an unsuitable preparation for my future, in that it demanded a constant wariness, the habit of observation, and the attendance on moods and tempers; the noting of discrepancies between speech and action; a certain reserve of demeanour; and automatic suspicion of sudden favours.

I've just read that I'm dead. Don't forget to delete me from your list of subscribers.

Yet there be certain times in a young man’s life, when, through great sorrow or sin, all the boy in him is burnt and seared away so that he passes at one step to the more sorrowful state of manhood