Robert Eric Teal

“the Englishness of English literature, too, according to Voltaire. Up to now the English have only produced irregular beauties … Their poetical genius resembles a closely grown tree planted by nature, throwing out a thousand branches here and there, and growing lustily and without rules. It dies if you try to force its nature and trim it like the gardens of Marly [a small royal palace on the edges of Paris, with elaborate, geometric gardens].”
― Harry Mount, How England Made the English: From Why We Drive on the Left to Why We Don't Talk to Our Neighbours