Belloc's Benevolent Monster, and Word of the Day: "farradiddles"

It so happened that one day I was riding my horse Monster in the Berkshire Hills right up above that White Horse which was dug they say by this man and by that man, but no one knows by whom; for I was seeing England, a delightful pastime, but a somewhat anxious one if one is riding a horse. For if one is alone one can sleep where one chooses and walk at one's ease, and eat what God sends one and spend what one has; but when one is responsible for any other being (especially a horse) there come in a thousand farradiddles, for of everything that walks on earth, man (not woman--I use the word in the restricted sense) is the freest and the most unhappy.

- Hilaire Belloc from "On a Winged Horse and the Exile Who Rode Him" published in On Nothing & Kindred Subjects