It was partly the raven colour of the pine-woods; but partly also an indescribable atmosphere almost described in Scott’s great tragedy; the smell of something that died in the eighteenth century; the smell of dank gardens and broken urns, of wrongs that will never now be righted; of something that is none the less incurably sad because it is strangely unreal.

‚“It makes one feel,“ said the philosopher slowly, „such a dammed fool.“

„I know,“ assented the other, „but one often has to choose between feeling a damned fool and being one.“

G. K. CHESTERTON, THE WISDOM OF FATHER BROWN: THE STRANGE CRIME OF JOHN BOULNOIS, BLOOMSBURY BOOKS LONDON