Essays on Life: by Thomas Mitchell, Farmer

Just before the First World War destroyed a generation and divided Europe for almost a century, a farmer in a remote part of Aberdeenshire sat down at the age forty-three to write his thoughts on how to live a good life. Mitchell had a clear, fresh and effective prose style in Standard English, and was well placed to record the values of his time and his individual take on them. His is now a voice from the past that demands our attention, not necessarily to emulate it but to encourage us to...