Thomas Hardy

A man's silence is wonderful to listen to.

If a path to the better there be, it begins with a full look at the worst.

. . . the cruelty that goes under the barbarous regime we call civilisation.

A little one-eyed, blinking sort o' place.

But-a stirring thrills the air Like to sounds of joyance there That the rages Of the ages Shall be cancelled, and deliverance offered from the darts that were, Consciousness the Will informing, till it fashion all things fair!

And the spirits of those who were homing Passed on, rushingly, Like the Pentecost Wind.

Ah! stirring times we live in-stirring times.

That long drip of human tears.

The courses of theVictory were absorbed into the main, then her topsails went, and then her top-gallants. She was now no more than a dead fly's wing on a sheet of spider's web; and even this fragment diminished. Anne could hardly bear to see the end, and yet she resolved not to flinch. The admiral's flag sank behind the watery line, and in a minute the very trunk of the last main-mast stole away. The Victory was gone.

My argument is that War makes rattling good history; but Peace is poor reading.