…for the village that can offer a happy community life, sustained by the people themselves, is able to hold its people.Charlotte Mason
Towards a Philosophy of Education, p.286
“Mr. Bennet, how can you abuse your own children in such a way? You take delight in vexing me. You have no compassion on my poor nerves.” “You mistake me, my dear. I have a high respect for your nerves. They are my old friends. I have heard you mention them with consideration these twenty years at least.”Mr. & Mrs. Bennet
Pride & Prejudice
Yet, looking at you, the language of miracles
Seems exactly right; your tiny hands
Are so perfect, intricate instruments
Made for mending watches, typing,
Stitching rendered tissue, arranging
The material world in ways we call art;
Your head, so small, is nonetheless
The locus of a galaxy of cells into which ancient wisdom is already encoded;
That makes me think of miracles again…Alexander McCall Smith
On Looking at a Child, Time in Distance
We stand upon this grave of a once-proud city, and again feel a little envious of Demetrius, envious of the poetic world he lived in. How sad, how cruel, that this world should have been so completely destroyed; for was it not, perhaps, a better world than ours? We have radios and airplanes and motorcars, but Demetrius and Diomede, like most Greeks of that Golden Age in his-tory, had the time and the desire to love beauty, and to understand beauty, and to live for beauty. If Demetrius should return to earth today, would he be happy to remain here, or would he want to go back to the ghosts of ancient Greece as fast as he could? What do you think?Richard Halliburton
Book of Marvels, Halicarnassus