You have ruled England for four hundred years. By your own
account you have not made the countryside endurable to men.
By your own account you have helped the victory of vulgarity and smoke.
And by your own account you are hand and glove with those very
money-grubbers and adventurers whom gentlemen have no other business
but to keep at bay. I do not know what your people will do;
but my people would kill you."
Some seconds afterwards he had left the Duke's house, and some hours
afterwards the Duke's estate.
The Glory of Grey
I suppose that, taking this summer as a whole, people will not
call it an appropriate time for praising the English climate.
But for my part I will praise the English climate till I die--
even if I die of the English climate. There is no weather
so good as English weather. Nay, in a real sense there is no
weather at all anywhere but in England. In France you have much
sun and some rain; in Italy you have hot winds and cold winds;
in Scotland and Ireland you have rain, either thick or thin;
in America you have hells of heat and cold, and in the Tropics you have
sunstrokes varied by thunderbolts. But all these you have on a broad
and brutal scale, and you settle down into contentment or despair.
Only in our own romantic country do you have the strictly romantic
thing called Weather; beautiful and changing as a woman.
Pages:
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98