There are some things (like first love and one’s first reviews) at which a woman in her middle years does not care to look too closely.

Dawn crept over the Downs like a sinister white animal, followed by the snarling cries of a wind eating its way between the black boughs of the thorns. The wind was the furious voice of this sluggish animal light that was baring the dormers and mullions and scullions of Cold Comfort Farm.

Like all really strong-minded women, on whom everybody flops, she adored being bossed about. It was so restful.

Well,' said Mrs Smiling, 'it sounds an appalling place, but in a different way from all the others. I mean, it does sound interesting and appalling, while the others just sound appalling.

Curious how Love destroys every vestige of that politeness which the human race, in its years of evolution, has so painfully acquired.

The education bestowed on Flora Poste by her parents had been expensive, athletic and prolonged; and when they died within a few weeks of one another during the annual epidemic of the influenza or Spanish Plague which occurred in her twentieth year, she was discovered to possess every art and grace save that of earning her own living.

A straight nose is a great help if one wishes to look serious'.