In these essays the reader meets Belloc in all his diversity of mood and subject. They range from boyish exuberance to solemn meditation; from that irrepressible gaiety which leaves the impression of a man with a richly stored mind thinking aloud, to the majestic prose in which he sets to music his response to a profound emotion. Here is the poet's eye for a landscape, the easily kindled imagination which could bring the dead past to life, the wit and wisdom of one who lived ardently and knew the bitterness as well as the joys of this world.