This has nothing to do with China or publishing or social media, but I was reading Framley Parsonage, published in 1861, on the plane today and found a passage that perfectly describes the beauties of May, “that delicious period of the year when summer has just burst forth from the growth of spring; when the summer is yet but three days old, and all the various shades of green which nature can put forth are still in their unsoiled purity of freshness. The apple blossoms were on the trees, and the hedges were sweet with May. The cuckoo at five o’clock was still sounding his soft summer call with unabated energy, and even the common grasses of the hedgerows were sweet with the fragrance of their new growth. The foliage of the oaks was complete, so that every bough and twig was clothed; but the leaves did not yet hang heavy in masses, and the bend of every bough and the tapering curve of every twig were visible through light green covering. There is no time of the year equal in beauty to the first week of summer: and no colour which nature gives, not even the gorgeous hues of autumn, which can equal the verdure produced by the first warm suns of May.”  I’m reading an old Oxford edition, but it’s also online here. Two wonderful romances and much comedy – surely one of Trollope’s best novels.