Cumbrian Quotes

Here, if nowhere else in the land, the sense of satiety is unknown; and it is to this mental tonic, even more than to the bracing air of the heights, that we owe the unwearied spirit which nerves us to walk more leagues upon the mountains than we could walk miles upon the plain. For in the lowlands we walk with the body only; in the highlands we walk with the mind

This was, however, no straightforward stone circle of the Cumbrian sort, but a collection of trilithons, chambers, altars and monoliths intended to represent the elements and the signs of the zodiac; as if Stonehenge had mated with a Neolithic passage grave and produced offspring.

Hidden there—hidden even from himself—had lain inert for months a mighty passion such as only a great heart

Some offered such rude comfort as their sympathetic hearts but not too fecund intellects could devise,

I send thee, love, this upland flower I found While wandering lonely with o'erclouded heart, Hid in a grey recess of rocky ground Among the misty mountains far apart; And then I heard the wild wind's luring sound Which whoso trusts, is healed of earthborn care, And watched the lofty ridges loom around, Yet yearned in vain their secret faith to share. When lo! the sudden sunlight, sparkling keen, Poured full upon the vales this glorious day, And bared the abiding mountain-tops serene, And swept the shifting vapour-wreaths away: Then with the hills' true heart my heart beat true, Heavens opened, cloud-thoughts vanished, and I knew.

One cannot walk in such regions, consciously without enlargement of thought. There are heights and valleys which, to those who seek them in a sympathetic spirit, are better " seats of learning " than any school or university in the land ; there are days when the climber seems to rise into a rarer mental as well as visual atmosphere, and to leave far below him the crass cares and prejudices of commonplace life.

when one dies, those who survive ask what he has left behind; the angel who bends above him asks what he has sent before.

leave such mistakes for time to set right. And when the truth comes in such a case it comes to some purpose.

Ah! how true it was that conscience was a thousand swords.

It's ill-luck to serve a bad man,

But of what avail was the innocence of the accused in days when an indictment was equal to a conviction!