The 'crownd' is still the unit, the favourite coin of the labourers, especially the elder folk. They use the word something in the same sense as the dollar, and look with regret upon the gradual disappearance of the broad silver disc with the figure of 'St. Gaarge' conquering the dragon.
The old Greeks dwelt on the tendency of human affairs to drift downwards irresistibly to unhappiness. Guilt - that is, untoward and often involuntary actions - pulls generation after generation heavily as lead down, down, down.
The heart has a yearning for the unknown, a longing to penetrate the deep shadow and the winding glade, where, as it seems, no human foot has been.
It is easier to speak to those who have had similar experiences than to those who are as yet ignorant.
No tyrant, however evil, has yet lacked ready hands to execute his most abominable will. To read how eagerly men have rushed to serve the despot is the bitterest, the saddest matter of history; it is the saddest sight in our own day.
Grief falls upon human beings as the rain, not selecting good or evil, visiting the innocent, condemning those who have done no wrong.
When even the most strictly logical mind looks round and investigates the phenomena attending its own existence, perhaps the first fact to attract attention by its strongly marked prominence is the remarkable loneliness of man. He stands alone.
Almost every labourer has his Sunday suit, very often really good clothes, sometimes glossy black, with the regulation 'chimney pot'. His unfortunate walk betrays him, dress how he will.
Do you always do as you would like to do were it in your power? I find that circumstances force me often to act in a manner quite opposite to what I should prefer; I am, of course, judged by my acts, but do they really afford a true key to my character? I think not.
If every plant and flower were found in all places, the charm of locality would not exist. Everything varies, and that gives the interest.
The impression left after watching the motions of birds is that of extreme mobility - a life of perpetual impulse checked only by fear.
Ever since the world began, it has been the belief of mankind that desolate places are the special haunt of supernatural beings.
Beauty - what is beauty, forsooth? Form and color; that is, surface only. Fortune - what is fortune? Nothing is ever a pleasure or a real profit to him who has to labour for it. Truth - you die in the pursuit, and the sea beats the beach as it did a thousand years ago. The stolid are alone happy.
A kestrel can and does hover in the dead calm of summer days, when there is not the faintest breath of wind. He will, and does, hover in the still, soft atmosphere of early autumn, when the gossamer falls in showers, coming straight down as if it were raining silk.
The cottages erected by farmers or by landlords are now, one and all, fit and proper habitations for human beings; and I verifly believe it would be impossible throughout the length and breadth of Wiltshire to find a single bad cottage on any large estate, so well and so thoroughly have the landed proprietors done their work.