quote · Legacy record
Were any of us really disappointed or melancholy in a hayfield? Did we ever lie fairly back on a haycock and look up into the blue sky, and listen to the merry sounds, the whetting of scythes and the laughing prattle of women and children, and think evil thoughts of the world or our brethren? Not we! Or, if we have so done we ought to be ashamed of ourselves, and deserve never again to be out of town during hay-harvest.
Were any of us really disappointed or melancholy in a hayfield? Did we ever lie fairly back on a haycock and look up into the blue sky, and listen to the merry sounds, the whetting of scythes and the laughing prattle of women and children, and think evil thoughts of the world or our brethren? Not we! Or, if we have so done we ought to be ashamed of ourselves, and deserve never again to be out of town during hay-harvest.
Approximate author period: c. 1859 AD · industrial
Meaning not yet available
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Begin with source-checked readings and explanations ↗Attribution & collection notes
- Author or tradition
- Thomas Hughes
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
A country attribution does not establish the earliest origin. - Historical period
- Approximate author period: c. 1859 AD · industrial
Approximate period for the recorded attribution to Thomas Hughes, based on documented lifetime 1822 to 1896. Source: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q332580 (checked 2026-10-08). This is not a quotation composition date or independent authentication of its attribution. Source: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q332580 (accessed 2026-10-08).
An author lifetime, approximate period or collection date is not necessarily the date when these words were first written or spoken. - Recorded source
- The Optimist’s Good Morning (1911) (1911 AD)
Complete signed selection 220; printed byline: Thomas Hughes; Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1911; printed copyright 1907
A collection's publication date can be later than the words it records.