The great modern commandment – the eleventh commandment which has wiped out all the others: ‘Thou shalt not lose thy job.’
a Clergyman's Daughterby george Orwell
It was a life that wore you out, used up every ounce of your energy, and kept you profoundly, unquestionably happy. In the literal sense of the word, it stupefied you. The long days in the fields, the coarse food and insufficient sleep, the smell of hops and wood smoke, lulled you into an almost beastlike heaviness. Your wits seemed to thicken, just as your skin did, in the rain and sunshine and perpetual fresh air.
