With the end of the Victorian era, we passed into what I feel I must call the terrible 20th century

It is remarkable that Lord Esher should be so much astray...We must conclude that an uncontrollable fondness for fiction forbade him to forsake it for fact. Such constancy is a defect in an historian.

Immense deposits of kimmeridge clay, containing the oil-bearing bands or seams, stretch across England from Dorsetshire to Lincolnshire. [An early political recognition of the native resource. The Geological Survey had identified the inflammable oil shale in reports since at least 1888.]

Wealth, taste and leisure can bring many things but they do not bring happiness.

In the past we have had a light which flickered, in the present we have a light which flames, and in the future there will be a light which shines over all the land and sea.

Tidiness is a virtue, symmetry is often a constituent of beauty.

Writing is an adventure.