Thomas Hardy notes the thrush's "full-hearted evensong of joy illimited", Gilbert White observes how swallows sweep through the air but swifts "dash round in circles" and Rachel Carson watches sanderlings at the ocean's edge, scurrying "across the be...

"Make your mark in New York and you are a made man" wrote Mark Twain, encapsulating both the naked ambition of its citizens and the opportunities up for grabs in the Big Apple. Others take a more cynical approach: it's "an aviary over-stocked with ja...

Over the centuries, Paris has intrigued, revolted, scandalized and most of all captured the heart of many a visitor. For Dickens it is the "most extraordinary place in the world", for Hazlitt, "a beast of a city", and for French writers, the essence...

"To keep children clean is something that should never be attempted. It cannot be done". "The mere provision of the vegetable is not sufficient; it must be actually eaten". "If there is room enough for somersaults, the child can be satisfied". Man...

"When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford", said Samuel Johnson in 1777. Since then the capital has been characterised variously as a "riddle", a "cesspool" and a "modern Babylon", and both L...