[I]n all essentials the savage and the child of civilization are identical. - H. Rider Haggard

In this country, England, where I write, there are bridges everywhere and no one seems to appreciate them. If they think of them at all it is to grumble about the cost of their upkeep. I wish they could have experienced what a lack of them means in a wild country during times of excessive rain, and the same remark applied to roads. You should think more of your blessings, my friends, as the old woman said to her complaining daughter who had twins two years running, adding that they might have been triplets.

How true is the saying that the very highest in rank are always the most simple and kindly. It is in your half-and-half sort of people that you find pompousness and vulgarity.

. . . if you live long enough, you will learn that this world is full of deceptions