“None of us ever escape the first few years of our lives. They make a mould into which we are cast, and though it may be broken, and we turned loose, some remnant of it, some intangible evil or lovely thing or both, will remain with us, like the odor to a flower, or the smoothness to a piece of ivory. It is part of the immortality of youth.”

On the indelible shaping power of early childhood · A Victorian Village: Reminiscences of Other Days, 1929

• Childhood
• Memory
• Youth

“Thrice blessed are they whose early years are spent in some countryside. The flowering and withering of the seasons, and every exquisite sound and sight make them affluent with a treasure which neither change nor chance can steal away.”

Praising the lasting wealth of rural childhood · A Victorian Village: Reminiscences of Other Days, 1929

• Childhood
• Memory
• Nature