Gerald Bray recently shared this quote from the inimitable P.D. James, and I could not resist posting it here.  P.D. James has written a number of wonderful books, mainly murder mysteries.  Her main protagonist is Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard.  This quote is taken from The Book of Common Prayer, ed. Prudence Dailey (Continuum, 2011):

"We live in an age notable for a kind of fashionable silliness and imbued with a restless desire for change. It sometimes seems that nothing old, nothing well-established, nothing which has evolved through centuries of experience and loving use escapes our urge to diminish, revise or abolish it. Above all every organisation has to be relevant - a very fashionable word - to the needs of modern life, as if human beings in the twenty-first century are somehow fundamentally different in their needs and aspirations from all previous generations. A country which ceases to value and learn from its history, neglects its language and literature, despises its traditions and is unified only by a common frenetic drive for getting and spending and for material wealth, will lose more than its nationhood; it will lose its soul. Let us cherish and use what we still precariously hold. Let us strive to ensure that what has been handed down to us is not lost to generations to come."

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