Non Fiction Authors From England

"The most complete human being is he or she who consciously or unconsciously obeys the profound physical laws of our being in such a way that the spirit receives much help and as little hindrance from the body as possible."

"From the body of the loved one's simple, sweetly colored flesh, which our animal instincts urge us to desire, there springs not only the wonder of a new bodily life, but also the enlargement of the horizon of human sympathy and the glow of spiritual understanding which one could never have attained alone."

"There is a moral as well as a physical character to all animal life, however humble it may be, enveloped indeed in obscurity, and with a mysterious solemnity, which must ever belong to the secrets of the Eternal. Let us then approach with caution the unknown character of the brute, as being an emanation from Himself; and treat with tenderness and respect the helpless creatures derived from such a source."

"Opinion against ordeals hardened during the twelfth century, and in 1215 the pope prohibited priests from taking part in them, a ban which effectively ended the practice, leading, in Britain, to trial by jury instead."

"None of this is to say that Rufus was not homosexual. But if he were, there is no evidence for it. Too many historians—though not all, it should be said—have simply inherited a lurid tradition and embellished it."

"There is nothing to indicate that Rufus learned to read or write—unlike Henry, who did, whether because he had originally been intended for the priesthood, or because he was ten years younger than Rufus, in a world of changing expectations. By the 1120s the saying ‘an illiterate king is an ass wearing a crown’ had become proverbial."

"The major churches were immensely rich. Approximately one-quarter of the wealth of all England as measured in Domesday Book belonged to them."

"As an investment on which he expected a good return, Robert Bloet had been willing to pay £5,000 for his bishopric. Henry of Huntingdon remembered being in Bishop Robert’s household: ‘the handsome knights, noble young men, expensive horses, his golden and gilt dishes, the number of courses, the splendour of his servants, the purple garments and the satins’."

"But despite dangers to themselves, rulers and would-be rulers were expected to share the risks when they sent their followers to fight, not stay behind their desks as rulers do today. For as long as this expectation prevailed, it was virtually impossible for women to become monarchs."

"In eleventh-century Europe, kingdoms, like other landed estates, were family firms and, as in modern family businesses, there was no fixed order of succession. At any time a struggle for control could pit brother against brother, nephew against uncle or, as here, son against father. Victory brought massive rewards. We know from Domesday Book (1086) that the winner in this game of thrones got no less than 20 per cent of all the land in England."

"Hunting, like war, was dangerous. One of Rufus’ older brothers, Richard, died as a result of injuries suffered while hunting in the New Forest. In consequence Rufus became the second oldest of the three surviving brothers: Robert, William, Henry. Their rivalry was to shape the politics of a generation."

"The , that common small hawk, may also be known and instantly distinguished from the — which is more of a woodland bird — by it manner of hovering in the air. The sparrow-hawk glides along, dashes round bushes, sweeps over a hedge and disappears; but the kestrel mounts to a fair height, quivers its wings, spreads its tail like a fan and hangs poised in mid-arie for what seems to the watcher a considerable time. It is watching for s in the herbage below."

"The are undoubtedly direct descendants of the " forest bulls " of Norman times, but we have no evidence to prove, and a good deal to disprove, that these were the aboriginal wild cattle. The animals which roamed about the country in the Middle Ages, and which evidently were wild and fierce enough, were not the original indigenous species, the that was common during the , but merely " gone wild " or feral beasts that had escaped from domestication. Far from being of pure primigenius descent, they were certainly related to the tiny Bos longifrons, otherwise the Celtic shorthorn. This was the domestic breed of the Neolithic and early Celtic peoples. The existing , and are its descendants. It was the only domestic ox known in these islands up to the time of the Romans, but afterwards became mixed with larger breeds of the Urus type that were brought over by the Romans, Saxons, Danes, Normans, etc."

"It is because they kill the tiresome mice that people should not shoot, or trap, or allow the eggs to be taken, of hawks and owls. Owls, and the in particular, live almost entirely on mice and young rats, and when we kill a (the barn owl is the white owl which files about so silently over the fields) we are allowing hundreds of mice to live and thrive and eat our things."

"Though the whole trend of modern scientific thought is to lay stress on the fact that animals differ from us in degree rather than in kind, yet the moment we go out into the open the widespread fear, the overwhelming horror, that most undomesticated creatures display at the approach of a human being, the panic with which nearly all flee, show what an awful and fearsome thing he is to them. Man is an object of horror, the dealer of death and destruction, with which they have nothing whatsoever in common. The wild animals that one moment were feeding happily in company with horses and cattle, the rabbits nibbling the grass, the starlings perching on the beasts' backs, or hopping in and out between their legs, have fled for their lives at the mere sound of a human footfall."

"... has no place beneath the trees nor where the fresh winds blow. Hunt and be hunted is the rule of wild life."

"The Greater Spotted, like all the woodpeckers, lays pure white eggs, with the faintest flush of pink from the yolk showing through the thin shell. The colourlessness of tis eggs is a characteristic that the woodpecker shares in common with most other birds that nest in holes and dark places. Colour in eggs is usually associated with exposed nesting sites, and apparently serves to camouflage the dainty morsels from the hungry gaze of the many creatures that are always ready to raid a nest. In a dark hole colour is useless, and it is a significant fact that the eggs of the majority of birds that nest in holes are white."

", to say a person "carries the horn" signifies that he hunts the pack. It is often said of a that he "carries the horn," meaning that he acts as , or contrawise that he "does not carry the horn" which means he employs a huntsman to hunt hounds for him."

"Glorious with the hues of the , a living gem of colour that seems strangely out of place beside our quiet English rivers and babbling streams, the kingfisher is well and aptly names, for it is indeed clad in royal robes, a very king of birds and a prince of fishers. There is no bird on the to compare with it for brilliance of colouring, but of its hues bird-books give us little idea."

"There are many ferocious predators in the , such as that carnivorous monster the and the bloodthirsty , with its equally predatory grub."

"Another small bird that has to find shelter these winter nights is the , or 'Jenny Wren' as we call it in the countryside, and it likes snug quarters, a really good place being often patronised by several birds. A hayrick is a popular dormitory."

"If the tumults of the eleventh century had taught the English anything, however, it was that a hereditary claim to power could easily be trumped by other factors. Violence was one, as the Vikings had shown. Virtue was another."

"Welsh politics were extremely volatile, even by medieval standards, with almost constant fighting between rival ruling dynasties, and an occasional tendency to spill across the border into England."

"His appointment as abbot may have been an excellent thing for the monastery, but it cannot be denied that it was a great misfortune for science."

"Thanks to the Domesday Book, we know more about eleventh-century England than any other medieval society anywhere in the world."

"William’s reign did indeed prove to be long, but it was far from peaceful. While he wore the crown, England experienced greater and more seismic change than at any point before or since.…The old ruling elite of England were swept away in their thousands and replaced by continental newcomers, who spoke a different language and had very different views about the way society should be ordered."

"From the linguistic data alone... it is not possible to draw definite conclusions about the homeland of the speakers of PIE, or even the age of the language family."

"What does this mean for the origin of the Indic languages, and by extension, the origin of the Indic civilization? My answer is, I am afraid, inconclusive. From the linguistic data alone, without taking into account the evidence of archaeology or early texts, it is not possible to draw definite conclusions about the homeland of the speakers of Proto-Indo-European, or even the age of the language family. The Indo-European model, as a model of language relationships and of linguistic descent, tells us nothing certain about the origin of the Indic civilization."

"In summary the Indo-Europeanist’s data and method do not allow the question ‘When was PIE spoken?’ to be answered in any really meaningful or helpful way."

"Thus, in the case of Indo-European language relationships, it is possible to make the argument that the creation of a hypothesis relating the languages of Northern India to those of Europe was initially created and promulgated by nineteenth century scholars in order to promote agendas of colonialism or racism."

"What has always filled me with wonder is the assurance with which many historical linguists assign a date to their reconstructed proto-language. . . . We are told that proto-Indo- European was spoken about 6,000 years ago. What is know with a fair degree of certainty is the time between proto-Indo-Aryan and the modern Inclo-Aryan languages—something in the order of 3,000 years. But how can anyone tell that the development from proto- Indo-European to proto-Indo-Aryan took another 3,000 years? . . . Languages are known to change at different rates. There is no way of knowing how long it took to go from the presumed homogeneity of proto-Indo-European to the linguistic diversity of proto-Indo- Iranian, proto-Celtic, proto-Germanic, etc. The changes could have been rapid or slow. We simply don't know. . . .Why couldn't proto-lndo-European have been spoken about 10,500 years ago? . . . The received opinion of a date of around 6000 BP for proto-Indo- European . . . is an ingrained one. I have found this a difficult matter to get specialists to even discuss. Yet it does seem to be a house of cards. (47-49)"

"The town of Zoháb has been usually considered the representative of the city of —but this is incorrect. The real site of Holwán, one of the eight primeval cities of the world, was at , distant about 8 miles south of the modern town, and situated on the high road conducting from Baghdád to . This is the of , ... and the of the Israelitish captivity. ... It gave to the surrounding district the name of , which we meet with in most of the ancient geographers. ... particularises the city, under the name of Chala, ... and the appears to allude to the same place as Kalchas. ..."

"Whilst the seat of Semitic empire was still upon the Lower , and before the building, perhaps, either of Babylon or , that remarkable expedition to Palestine must have taken place, which is described in Genesis, and in which are found the vassal kings of and , ranged under the banners of , king of ."

"What appeals to me about Morton's work is that you are reading two histories at once. As he recounts stories of the and eras, he is also giving a contemporary account of a world that has entirely vanished. He writes with a crisp matter-of-factness about his faith and his place as an Englishman abroad in the 1930s. I don't mean in a colonially superior way, but just with a certainty that I think few could express today. In the book he is mostly exploring the youthful nation state of 's . For Morton, visiting what remains of the places where stayed is often a case of begging a ride from a local. It is still an age when traveling in the near East is more an expedition than a holiday. When Morton visits the site of the for example, it is a waterlogged ruin, where he imagines the frogs to be croaking out her name. A plate image in the book shows a desolate empty location, and he laments the mutilated statues on the road from the village of ."

"With the 1927 publication of In Search of England, H. V. Morton began to establish his name as the most popular travel writer in Britain. Part of Morton's appeal, particularly to the lower middle class, was that he engagingly interwove human interest accounts of his journeys with potted historical and literary vignettes to convey the sense of an enjoyable holiday. Yet beyond these seemingly casual aspects lay serious ideological purposes, and these are of importance in exploring interwar views on . Morton insisted that the nations's strength ultimately depended on the health of its rural areas. Yet the urban and industrial revolutions had inflicted fundamental damage on the fabric of the nation. Morton called for renewed recognition of the central continuities, especially , in ."

"The Persia of to-day is not, it is true, the Persia of , nor even is it the Persia of ; but it is a country, which for good or for ill, may powerfully affect the fortunes of , and which requires, therefore, to be studied by our statesmen with care, with patience, and, above all, in a generous and indulgent spirit."

"In the quiet village of , men still talk about the as though it happened last week. Eyam is the last place in England with a vivid memory of the . Eyam is a mile-long street of fortress-like stone houses set in a cosy cleft of the wild moors. There is a church, a manor-house behind a wall, and the remains of the village stocks. I went into the church, where the elderly caretaker began to talk, as they all do in Eyam, of the Plague ... (She might have been talking about that year's influenza!)"

"The Memoir of Sir Henry Rawlinson affords a striking illustration of the powerful influence that early association with a master-mind may exercise on a man's career in life, and of what great things may be achieved if he takes full advantage of his opportunities, and sets out with a determination to make the most of his life and raise himself above his fellows. It may therefore be considered a piece of good fortune for a young cadet like Rawlinson, bound to India to seek his fortune, to find himself thrown as a fellow-passenger with Sir , , a distinguished soldier, an equally distinguished diplomatist, and an of no mean reputation."

"At the highest point of the stands the and the 's private walk. At this part of the hill has never been built over, or shaved off and lowered, like so many of the famous , it preserved its original height. ... I do not know of a more beautifully situated radio station, unless it is on its Pyrenean mountain, whose insistent voice dominates the air over southern France and northern Spain. The immensely powerful Vatican Radio broadcasts on twenty-four short, and three medium, wave-lengths and in every language."

"Shakespeare's London was a small walled town whose gates were shut each night with the coming of darkness. His contemporaries went a-Maying and gathering s where now are tramcars and gasometers. A Londoner was to Shakespeare a man who was born probably within sound of , who worked and slept within the ancient town wall of London, and would probably die there and be buried in one of the city churchyards. London three centuries ago was a small comprehensible cathedral city standing behind its wall, and its citizens could look at it and walk all round it, as men can walk round and . A mile or so away was the royal , where the King lived. There were two ways to it, one by river and the other along the strand of the . To the north of the were meadows and hedges, a , a and more fields stretching up to a rural lane that led to and was to become known by the odd name of ."

"In spite of the fact that one knew it all beforehand as an Englishman would to whom India in picture and by hearsay was familiar from childhood, who had played with brass s and had broken gilt alabaster s and s and s (with dire corporeal results) before he donned , it was strange to me to realize the fact of the actual worship of Ganesa and Siva and Vishnu in their own land in the temples of their cults at , as strange as if I were to find and still venerated in some Egyptian temple such as or . Egypt and her gods and priests all alive, mixed up with London; with the , , , the , and the : that was the impression I gained of Bombay. There was no doubt of the specifically English (not merely European) impression, and the combination is extraordinary. I felt I loved better Egypt, where the old gods are safely dead and their lore can be studied by such as I without impossible modern contaminations and antinomies, where the ; now calls uncontradicted the simple praises of the One, where the clean desert air breathes health, not septic soddenness, and where one is not likely nowadays to find an - in one’s bed."

"The new discoveries of the earliest age of Greece are chiefly associated with the name of , and rightly so, as his work first revealed prehistoric Greece to us. But since his time a totally new face has been given to our knowledge by the Cretan discoveries of and , which has rendered out of date all books on the general subject published before 1902. The now prehistooric Greece is very different from the old one of the two decades succeeding Schliemann’s discoveries. He, however, was the pioneer, and his finds explained various ieolaied discoveries made before his time, chiefly of vases, which it had been impossible to bring into any intelligible relation with our knowledge of the relics of classical antiquity. Best known to us of these are perhaps the vases of in , presented to the by in 1870."

"When sat on the throne of the Pharaohs and it became fashionable to inquire into the past history of the extraordinary country which had been brought willy-nilly within the pale of Hellenism, a learned priest named , "The Gift of " (Manethoth), or possibly "The Gift of " (Manutjo), of in the , was commissioned by to collect all that was known of the Egyptian annals and translate them into Greek as Αἰγυπτιαϰὰ. This was done, and until the discoveries of Manetho's work, half destroyed as it now is, imitated and garbled by generations of ignorant copyists, was, with the exception of the sketches by Herodotus and , the sole Egyptian authority on the history of Egypt. A similar rôle with regard to the history of Mesopotamia was played by the work of a Babylonian priest named , who is said to have been a contemporary of (250 B.C.). ... Like that of Manetho, his work is only known to us through the labours of copyists and compilers."

"The present energy of the archaeologist in Greece and the modern interest in early Greek archaeology date from and are a consequence of the epoch-making discoveries of the beginning of the XIXth century in the domain of Egyptian and Oriental archaeology. A new world was opened to us by these discoveries; the horizon of our knowledge of the ancient civilizations of the earth was widened indefinitely by them; and it was not long before classical students began, after much doubt and incredulity, to ask themselves how far this new knowledge might bear upon the early . But not all: many classical scholars were utterly unable to conform themselves to the new order of ideas. The keen intellect of , for instance, was unable to grasp the meaning of the new discoveries; he continued to the end of his days refusing to believe that anybody could read a single or interpret a single group of ."

"The right Education of the Female Sex, as it is in a manner every where neglected, so it ought to be generally lamented. Most in this depraved later Age think a Woman learned and wise enough if she can distinguish her Husbands Bed from anothers."

"There is so much servility in rigor and restraint, that of consequence there can be no greater ene∣my to Ingenuity and good nature. Fools are to be always bauld upon, and blows are fitter for beasts than rational creatures; wherefore there can nothing more engage an ingenious generous soul, than cheerfulness and liberty; not over-frightned."

"The great n poem, or series of legends, which narrates the , was termed by the Assyrians and s , “When in the height,” from the two opening words of the text. The poem consisted of some nine hundred and ninety-four lines, and was divided into seven sections, each of which was inscribed upon a separate . ... The poem embodies the beliefs of the Babylonians and Assyrians concerning the origin of the universe; it describes the coming forth of the gods from chaos, and tells the story of how the forces of disorder, represented by the primeval water-gods and , were overthrown by and respectively, and how Marduk, after completing the triumph of the gods over chaos, proceeded to create the world and man. The poem is known to us from portions of several Assyrian and late-Babylonian copies of the work, and from extracts from it written out upon the so-called “practice-tablets,” or students’ exercises, by pupils of the Babylonian scribes. The Assyrian copies of the work are from the great library which was founded at by , king of Assyria from 668 to about 626; the Babylonian copies and extracts were inscribed during the period of the kings of the Neo-Babylonian and Persian periods; and one copy of the Seventh Tablet may probably be assigned to as late a date as the . All the tablets and fragments, which have hitherto been identified as inscribed with portions of the text of the poem, are preserved in the . From the time of the first discovery of fragments considerable attention has been directed towards them, for not only are the legends themselves the principal source of our knowledge of the , but passages in them bear a striking resemblance to the cognate narratives in the Book of Genesis concerning the creation of the world."

"The greater part of our knowledge of early has been derived from the wonderfully successful series of excavations carried out by the late at , ... between 1877 and 1900, and continued for some months in 1903 by Captain (now Commandant) . These mounds mark the site of the city of , and lie a few miles to the north-east of the modern village of , to the east of the , and about an hour’s ride from the present course of the stream. It is evident, however, that the city was built upon the stream, which at this point may originally have formed a branch of the Euphrates, ... for there are traces of a dry channel upon its western side."

"The great religious works of the ns are known to us from documents which do not date from an earlier period than the seventh century In the palaces that were unearthed at , there were found, scattered throusjh the mounds of earth, thousands of s written in the , and in many cases with colophons bearing the name of and the statement that he had caused them to be included in his library. This monarch reigned from 669 to about 625, and, though one of the last kings to occupy the , he made strenuous efforts to preserve the ancient literature of and Assyria. His scribes visited specially the ancient cities and temples in the south, and made copies of literary compositions of all classes which they found there. These they collected and arranged in his palace at Nineveh, and it is from them that the greater part of our knowledge of is derived."

"The ancient authors, who founded the Science of History, whose names remain household words amongst us still, such as Herodotus or Xenophon, have transmitted to modern times some far-off echoes of the fame of . Many scattered references in classical writers serve to show the impression that its wealth and power had made on the Greek imagination. Aeschylus and Aristophanes, Aristotle and others, will be recalled. After Alexander the Great had included it in his conquests, a closer acquaintance with its still marvellous remains and magnificent traditions enhanced its interest for many writers less generally known: Arrian, , Pausanias may be named."