The only depressing time of the year to me is when the swallows go away.

I can't bear to see them wheeling round and preparing to depart.

I want so badly to go with them.

It always brings back to me the feeling I had as a child when people read Hans Andersen to me--the storks in _The Marsh King's Daughter_, talking about the mud in Egypt.

Imagine Priorsford swallows in Egypt!...