The Best Years Are When You Know

I Strike Up Conversations All The Time And It Is Very Interesting, Finding Out About Things I Know Nothing About.

There Is A Word In Old English Which Belongs Wholly To That Civilization - "dustsceawung," Meaning Contemplation Of Dust. It Is A True Image Of The Anglo-saxon Mind, Or At Least An Echo Of That Consciousness Which Considered Transcience And Loss To Be Part Of The Human Estate; It Was A World In Which Life Was Uncertain And The Principal Diety Was Fate Or Destiny Or "wyrd."

The 16th-century Theatre Witnessed The Particularly English Manifestation Of 'the History Play.' There Can Be No Doubt That Shakespeare's Presentations Of 'henry V' And 'richard Iii' Have Been Incalculably More Influential Than Any More Sober Historical Study.

Thomas More's Birth Was Noted By His Father Upon A Blank Page At The Back Of A Copy Of Geoffrey Of Monmouth's 'historia Regum Britanniae'; For A Lawyer John More Was Remarkably Inexact In His References To That Natal Year, And The Date Has Been Moved From 1477 To 1478 And Back Again.

And The Smell Of The Library Was Always The Same - The Musty Odour Of Old Clothes Mixed With The Keener Scent Of Unwashed Bodies, Creating What The Chief Librarian Had Once Described As 'the Steam Of The Social Soup.'