illustrators-from-england

"Fairies are very shy creatures and prefer to keep themselves hidden from human eyes"

"Fairies, elves, mermaids and water-babies inhabit the magical world created by Shirley Barber"

"The world of fairies is all around us, though we seldom notice it"

"If you look very carefully, you may see a fairy in your garden"

"In one home, the newly-wed is learning to cook, and as her husband enjoyed straight , she is enchanted when her roast chicken with its , and stuffings, is a success. In another home, with more adventures tastes, the of steak, potatoes and onions, is (unusually for our palates) flavoured not only with marjoram but with the pungency of seeds."

"A striking plant from Tibet, the asafoetida has stimulant properties, and is a close relative of ) which it resembles to some extent, as it has the typical divided foliage and inflorescence of the (the family)."

"grows some 6–12in. high, spreading laterally, with a "japanses" style of growth, and has mint-blue flowers, like the type. It needs a really warm, dry and sheltered spot outside and is a risky investment, but makes a delightful cool greenhouse plant, with the flowers coming out in February and March, an encouraging harbinger of spring. Prostrate Rosemary is also suitable as a specimen for a sheltered sink garden."

"... This is a most decorative herb, with pink buds on stems covered with purplish-grey hairs that glisten in the sun. The flowers are intense blue with a black cone of s. The plant usually grows 18ins. to 2½ft. high."

"The material [Homer] used (c. 850 BC) had existed for many hundreds of years, passed on orally. In the most vivid and lively language he gives a dear picture of men's minds as well as their actions. These tales were accepted as a true record of events in Homer's own time and in classical Greece as well as during the whole of the Roman period and throughout the Middle Ages; it was the scepticism of eighteenth-and nineteenth-century scholarship which damned them as being mere fairy-tales. Then, during the last years of the nineteenth century, the discoveries of Heinrich Schliemann and Sir Arthur Evans transmuted what was thought to be the base metal of unfounded legend into the pure gold of ascertained fact. They uncovered Troy itself and Golden Mycenae, and the palaces of Minos in Crete...Wonderful as these material discoveries were, perhaps their greatest value was the proof that the story of Troy was no legend, but an historical event. This makes sense of the vivid realism of Homer's characters, his attention to small details of behaviour—how clearly we see the sleeping Diomedes...Here indeed is flesh to cover the archaeological bones."

"For more than 1,000 years the aristocratic charioteer was the arbiter of battle all over the world. Then, during the fourth century BC army formations similar to the ancient style of Egypt appeared in an infinitely more formidable guise—the legions of Rome. It was not long before the pendulum had swung and the legions swept everything before them, and for the next 600 years the Roman infantry was almost the only military force to be reckoned with in the civilized world. Even so, behind her northern and eastern frontiers were many nations of unsubdued barbarians...These nations were the force which eventually swung the pendulum back; they flooded into the Empire, not with chariots as of old, but as heavy cavalry. The weapon of impact had come into its own again, and would be the dominant force in the world until the English cloth-yard arrow began to weaken it during the fourteenth century; it finally gave way when the perfection of gunpowder in the fifteenth century brought in its turn another concept of war."

"From somewhere in Western Asia people of a fighting race began to move southward and eastward about 1900 BC. In the following two centuries the southbound arm of this great prehistoric pincer movement founded the nations of Hatti (known to us as the Hittites) and Mittanni, and imposed upon the indigenous people of the Aegean an aristocracy which Homer called the "brown-haired Achaeans", and which we refer to as the Myceneans, while part of it pressed on to overthrow the weak and divided government of the 14th Dynasty of Egypt, occupying that land for 200 years. The eastbound arm moved upon North-West India, crushing the militarily helpless but otherwise magnificent and powerful people of the Indus.Modern ethnography has dubbed this race "Indo-European", and they are in every sense the founders of the modem world. From them the Greeks and Romans are sprung, and most of the races of India as well as the Celts and the Teutonic peoples of the North; they are the ancestors of India and of every Western civilization. The reason for their success was their power in war, power based on a concept of fighting which in the second millennium BC was entirely new.This was the use of horses, not as cavalry in the accepted sense but drawing light chariots each carrying one or two armed men, a highly mobile armoured fighting vehicle. When these chariots were deployed in squadrons, acting together as disciplined corps, then the ancient formations of pedestrian spearmen were doomed."

"In the of Linnæus mosses were placed among the . It is true that the various parts of their are so small as only to be fully examined by the help of a , but the flower and fruit as a whole may on most species be easily seen."

"In the order of the universe we find that the use of mosses is primarily to other and more . They are spread at the roots of trees, and by their depth keeps the warmth about them in winter, and the moisture in summer, which are necessary to their growth. But when they grow on their trunks and branches, mosses injure trees, by clogging their breathing pores. We next find that mosses are useful to the insect tribe, countless numbers of which find homes among their branches, and roam about in their shades as in mighty forests, and look with their thousand eyes upon the wonders of their gauzy leaves, and sun their wings of purple and gold, and burnish their shining armour upon the polished columns of their urns. Over her nest the constructs a dome of moss; and ascending higher yet, we find the bird's nest "built of wool and hay and moss.""

"Dear Reader, you may take it from me, that however hard you try — or don't try; whatever you do — or don't do; for better, for worse; for richer, for poorer; every way and every day: . So it is no good bothering about it. When the little pests grow up they will certainly tell you exactly what you did wrong in their case. But never mind; they will be just as wrong themselves in their turn."

"The chief thing I learnt at school was how to tell lies. Or rather, how to try to tell them; for, of course, I did it very badly."

"You can have no idea, if you have not tried, how difficult it is to find out anything whatever from an encyclopaedia, unless you know all about it already."

"The first religious experience that I can remember is getting under the nursery table to pray that the dancing mistress might be dead before we got to the Dancing Class."

"In my grandparents' house it was a distinction and a mournful pleasure to be ill. This was partly because my grandfather was always ill, and his children adored him and were inclined to imitate him; and partly because it was so delightful to be pitied and nursed by my grandmother."

"Ladies were ladies in those days; they did not do things themselves."

"I have defined Ladies as people who did not do things themselves. Aunt Etty was most emphatically such a person."

"Mr. Worthington Smith has devoted himself for many years to a study of the localities near London where implements have been found, and has described the various floors with great minuteness, and illustrated them with great artistic skill. In this book he brings all his previous discoveries together, and groups them round his last work at , near , on the borders of and . He has presented to us a monograph on palæolithic camping-places, rather than a general treatise on Man, the Primeval Savage."

"The first stage coach passed through on Monday, April 12th, 1742. ... , presented great difficulties for coaches, seven or eight horses were required to take the coach from Brewer's Hill Road to the top of the hill."

"Worthington Smith was an important member of the group of archaeologists whose work established as a discipline in Britain. He observed, meticulously recorded and published traces of some of the best sites ever to come to light in England. While his overview of the period has inevitably not stood the test of time, his publications remain of great value for the factual information they contain, and for his fine illustrations. Most of his artefact collections also survive, well-documented in spite of the loss of many of his written notes, and these too are important."

"When potatoes are destroyed by parasitic in the autumn, it does not always happen that the parasite is the dreaded putrefactive fungus of the murrain, named ' Another highly destructive fungus, named ', , is sometimes equally damaging to potatoes with the Peronospora itself. The name Fusisporium refers to the spindle-shaped crescent form of the spores,—fusus a spindle ; Solani of course, refers to the genus to which the potato belongs."

"The mere barbarians, the chippers of rude weapons and tools of stone, who lived in North Britain at the time of the Roman conquest, — the men who had been driven north, ages before the Roman occupation, by from the mainland of Europe, are quite recent as compared with the far-off time when primeval savages lived in what is now Britain. The barbarians who preceded the ancient civilisations of , , and are modern as compared with the remote antiquity of the savages whose bones, weapons, and tools are here described and sketched."

"The (certainly one of the most exquisitely delicious of all our fungi) is generally neglected, or regarded with great suspicion. Under the name of 'champillion,' however, it is well known to the weavers and labouring men of the , who may be seen gathering it in considerable numbers any autumn day amongst the short grass of ."

"At one time trees were , principally to provide fuel. Such are the famous , ... pollarded from about 1500 to 1820, when the use of became general; such, too are the numerous pollards in ."

"Of the geologically younger s, the is mainly to be found in Yorkshire; , built like so many s with stone found on its own estate, is a fine example. ... ... has been used extensively in and especially Cornwall; it dictates its own forms—gritty, grainy, sparing in ornamentation but magnificently durable."

"... in 1722 was made head gardener at , the director at the time was a certain —a learned but hot-tempered and difficult man, whose reputation was soon quite eclipsed by the fame of his gardener, for in 1724 was issued the first volume of Philip Miller's ."

": ' A family of shrubs and trees, chiefly tropical and subtropical. Many have bitter bark; that of ' Linnaeus, a South American species, provides the quassia chips of commerce. ... of about 28 genera only Ailanthus is likely to be seen in Britain … Two or three species are now cultivated in Britain, but all except the following are exceedingly uncommon. Ailanthus is a latinized form for ailanto, the native name of ; it means 'a tree tall enough to reach the skies.'"

"... until his tragic end on 13th July 1834 when, in Hawaii, he fell into a trap and was crushed to death by the wild bull that it had ensnared, devoted his life to exploration. To described the adventures and extreme hardships of this adventurous young botanist, ornithologist, and, in his later trips, surveyor, is beyond our scope. He was temperamental and, though lionized on his visits to London, was inclined to be quarrelsome when the urgency of travel and exploration did not keep him occupied."

"was a doctor, a self-sacrificing man who lived and practised in not far from the . In spite of the grimy surroundings of his home, he was an ardent naturalist."

"s enabled 'sculpture', ornaments, and fountains to be produced cheaply in quantity; Felix Austin of the Artificial Stone Works, New Road, , offered a range of fountains, all designed in the best taste."

"... when the was formed, and at times seemed inclined to devote a preponderance of its activities towards the study of vegetables and fruit, was there to urge the merits of botany and s. For a time, too, he acted as its honorary secretary ..."

"A man of grave and almost melancholy cast of countenance, handsome withal, was ; quiet, reserved, and gentlemanly in manner, a hearty hater of posing, and noise, and publicity. Save at the weekly dinner, he consorted but little with his colleagues on Punch, with the exception of Thackeray: he was intimate, at one time, with Dickens, to whom he gave a walking-stick inscribed "C. D., from J. L.," which Dickens often carried; with , with Mowbray Morris, and with . He and had been fellow medical students at the Hospital, fellow assistants to that general practitioner who figures in Ledbury as "Mr. Rawkins,” but in later life there was not much in common between them. I fear Albert was a little too rowdy for Leech."

"When between six and seven years of age, some of Leech's drawings were seen by the great , and, after carefully looking at them and the boy, he said, 'That boy must be an artist; he will be nothing else or less.' This was said in full consciousness of what is involved in advising such a step. His father wisely, doubtless, thought otherwise, and put him to the medical profession at , under Mr. . He was very near being sent to Edinburgh, and apprenticed to Sir ."

". "I think, sir, if you would be so good as to go first, and break the top rail, my pony would get over.""

"... His stay of nine years at never brought him nearer to the top of the school than the fifth form — the forms being at that time counted downwards, not upwards, as now. He had as a fellow-pupil the famous William Makepeace Thackeray, with whom he formed a friendship that ripened day by day, and never ceased until death parted them. It is said that Leech once had the intense happiness of hearing that when Thackeray was asked to name his dearest friend, he replied, after a few moments' thought, "John Leech.""

"(to silent Partner). "Pray! have you no conversation?""

". "So, you're going to marry old Mrs. . Well, I think you're a dooced lucky fellah!" . "By Jove, I don't think the luck is all on my side! If she finds money, hang it, I find blood and—haw—beauty!""

"Hot on Sunday, Cold on Monday, Hashed on Tuesday, Minced on Wednesday, Curried Thursday, Broth on Friday, Cottage pie Saturday."

"Were all other monuments swept away from the face of Hindustan, were all its inhabitants destroyed, and its name forgotten, the existence of the Sanskrit language would prove that it once contained a race who had reached a high degree of refinement, and who must have been blessed with many rare advantages before such a language could have been formed and polished. Amidst the wreck of nations where it flourished, and superior to the havoc of war and conquest, it remains a venerable monument of the splendour of other times, as the solid Pyramid in the deserts of Egypt.""

"The Hindus claim the honour of having invented the method of teaching by apologues…"

"A stranger in India will not fail to be struck with the indiscriminate respect which the lower classes of Hindus pay to the objects worshipped by all other sects. I have seen them making their little offerings, and joining the processions at the Mussulman feasts of Hassan and Hossein, and as frequently appearing at the doors of the Romish Portuguese chapels, with presents of candles to burn before the saints, and flowers to adorn the shrines; in short, whatever is regarded as holy by others, they approach with reverence, so much are uncultivated men the creatures of imitation and habit."

"In short, I consider morality like the sciences and arts, to be only slumbering not forgotten in India; and that to awaken the Hindus to a knowledge of the treasures in their own hands is the only thing wanting to set them fairly in the course of improvement with other nations."

"Everywhere in the ancient Hindu books we find the maxims of that pure and sound morality which is founded on the nature of man as a rational and social being…."

"Our missionaries are very apt to split upon this rock, and in order to place our religion in the brightest light, as if it wanted their feeble aid, they lay claim exclusively to all the sublime maxims of morality and tell those they wish to convert, that their own books contain nothing but abominations, the belief of which they must abandon in order to receive the purer doctrine of Christianity. Mistaken men! Mistaken men! Could they desire a better opening to their hopes than to find already established that morality which says, it is enjoined to man even at the moment of destruction to wish to benefit his foes, ‘as the sandal tree in the instant of its overthrow sheds perfume on the axe that fells it.’…"

"…perhaps I should be ashamed to own that I had so far strayed from good-nature and good-sense, as to forget, that whatever reproaches may be deserved by some of the Hindus for their moral practices the fundamental principles of morality itself are so firmly implanted in the soul of man that no vicious practice and no mistaken code can change their nature..."

"Hunter Thompson wasn't Joseph Conrad, Jimmy Carter wasn't Harry Trueman. But strangely, Richard Nixon was Richard Nixon. I'm no Pablo Picasso but there's no harm in straining. After all, the charm of any activity is in the trying and so rarely in the finished article."

"We thought that we had suffered all our wars and now we could enjoy a time of peace and tranquillity. However, people never learn and a newer type of war was to envelope us. We seem doomed to repeat all our mistakes and find that we are being groomed, and doomed, by the legions of war, Odin's messengers, who would have us believe that aggression is the only way forward. Now we live in a war zone, the entire world."