Surrounding

“ To us the Common or forest looks indeed crowded with people, but to them the feeling is one of sufficient space, free air, green grass, and colour, with a life without which they might think the place dull. ”

“ The beauty of the place seemed unearthly in its excess: the distance we were at from all signs of civilization, the sea at our feet, its murmurs or its roaring for ever in our ears,—all these things led the mind to brood over strange thoughts, and, lifting it from everyday life, caused it to be familiar with the unreal. ”

“ Outward nature, inner life and passion, town and country, all the features of human nature, as exhibited in every grade of life—from the cottage to the throne—are in him expressed with a truth and a natural strength, that awake in us precisely the same sensations as nature itself. ”

“ I have often pleased myself with the fancy that the outer aspects of life are patterned after the inner, so that in the map of the spirit are to be found city and country, wood, desert, and sea, so that we know these outer worlds through having travelled the worlds within. Though I stay behind, my eyes can follow you from this night's landmark along the stretch, on to the city avenues, up the highways, tracing the twists of the bypaths, clambering untrod trails of wilderness and mountain, on, on, till out upon the sea. ”

“ From the sacred region of the soul’s Profound;
Then gaze upon the world; how strange! how new!
The earth and heaven are one,
The horizon-line is gone,
The sky how green! the land how fair and blue! ”

“ Wherever snow falls or water flows or birds fly, wherever day and night meet in twilight, wherever the blue heaven is hung by clouds or sown with stars, wherever are forms with transparent boundaries, wherever are outlets into celestial space, wherever is danger, and awe, and love,—there is Beauty, plenteous as rain, shed for thee, and though thou shouldst walk the world over, thou shalt not be able to find a condition inopportune or ignoble. ”

“ Sometimes I sit for a long time before I see anything, and sometimes, after a lengthy sitting, I see nothing at all; but when a tableau does come, it is always with the most startling vividness. When I want to be initiated into what is happening to certain of my friends, I concentrate my whole mind on those friends—I think of nothing but them—their faces, forms, mannerisms, and surroundings—and then, suddenly, I see them in the crystal! ”

“ What is the odd power that earth holds over men? When one walks through the quietude of country roads, of forest and stream, of field and meadow-land, one is stirred by strange emotions. The trivialities of life seem of slight importance. ”

“ Tolerant plains that suffer the sea and the rains and the sun, Ye spread and span, like the catholic man who hath mightily won God out of knowledge, and good out of infinite pain, And sight out of blindness, and purity out of a stain. ”

“ The change that falls upon the dreary region, and on the whole mountain, as its red light fades, and the night comes on—and the unutterable solemnity and dreariness that reign around, who that has witnessed it, can ever forget! ”

“ My takings of nature increased tenfold, a hundredfold, and I came to a new acquaintance with my own garden, my own hills, and all the roads and fields around about—and even the town took on strange new meanings for me. ”

“ When our life is most commonplace, when we are ill or weary in city streets, we can remember the clouds upon the mountains we have seen, the sound of innumerable waterfalls, and the scent of countless flowers. ”

“ A fervid nature, a vivid imagination, and, above all, the matchless and magnificent scenery, the strangely silent people, the half-pathetic stillness of the forests, all conspired to lift me up into an atmosphere where the soul laughs at doubt and never dreams of failure. ”

“ Child, shall I tell thee where nature [Pg 360] is most blest and fair? It is where those we love abide. Though that space be small, ample is it above kingdoms; though it be a desert, through it runs the river of paradise, and there are the enchanted bowers. ”

“ We exaggerate the praises of local scenery. In every landscape, the point of astonishment is the meeting of the sky and the earth, and that is seen from the first hillock as well as from the top of the Alleghanies. ”

“ We have since, with much attention, noticed the lines of nature, when most beautiful,—have watched the clouds, how they have arched valleys, and promoted a correspondence of sentiment,—and how, in woods, the receding and approaching lines of circles have made the meetings and the hollows, which both make space, and are agreeable. We are not setting forth our line of beauty. ”

“ The scenery is wild and savage and primeval, being the stock of which beautiful landscapes are made, rather than the culture that gentler airs and more temperate winds bring upon the face of the earth nearer the sea and the equator. ”

“ Like a spring issuing from an elevated spot and diffusing its waters, according to the height, from ledge to ledge, until it finally reaches the low ground, so does the tendency of mind or of soul in a people, due to race, epoch, or environment, diffuse itself in different proportions, and by regular descent, over the different series of facts which compose its civilization. ”

“ While you watch them, the clouds change in the sky, the sunset wanes, and the forest covers the bared hills. Nature, fickle mistress of our destinies, spreads a never-ending panorama before our eyes that we may recognize the one great law of her being,—the law of progression. ”

“ A land where far vistas and wide horizons, bounded by green hills, brought visions from the inner self, with joyous abundance through lusty life, and glorious passionate being—a land sweet and fruitful, and never-ending in its beauty and its means of happiness! ”

“ Look at the beautiful open space in the center. The faint light which the stars afford seems concentrated in this spot; the woods which surround it seem, with their barriers, to form its natural limits. ”

“ The scenery amid which the youth now strayed was such as arrays itself in the imagination when we read the beautiful old myths, and fancy a brighter sky, a softer turf, a more picturesque arrangement of venerable trees, than we find in the rude and untrained landscapes of the Western world. ”

“ True, Sir, but we are much indebted to the pencil for introducing rural scenes and scenery into our crowded cities, by which we are told, through the medium of the eye, that there are living beauties in nature which we may see. ”

“ As fast as your foot carries you, you pass from scene to scene, each vigorously painted in the colours of the sun, each endeared by that hereditary spell of forests on the mind of man who still remembers and salutes the ancient refuge of his race. ”

“ But who can count the countless hosts, that fled to and lay dead and unnoticed in every part of the wide earth and sea, on the fields and plains, in forests and woods, on land and water, on mountains and dales, on shores and coasts and on the hills and cliffs. ”

“ They saw, in vision, that a little nucleus here in the mountains would arise, and that the mountain of the Lord's house would be established above the hills, and that all nations should flock to the standard, as doves to their windows. ”

“ The whole length of this land in sight was the very symbol of distortion. Pendent from an even line that stretches along the heavens was a ridge of mountains. 'Life hangs upon a little thread,' but what think you of mountains hanging upon a thread? ”

“ I will reply by an illustration from nature. When one is familiar with a landscape that is marked by bold mountains, prominent headlands, or rushing torrents, it is not difficult to describe such scenery so that it is at once recognized. ”

“ IV For who amongst men and women lives without the secret vision of some spot, either known or merely conjectural, whether of red moors or sheltered meadows, mirrored coasts or battlemented mountains? ”

“ The sudden change from the soft, low, and comparatively tame, to the bold, stern, and high, serves admirably to show how much the character of a landscape may depend on the formation which composes it. ”

“ Every quality of landscape that has a name would then be visible in her at once—all that is delicate or graceful, all that is quiet, or wild, or romantic, or desolate, or cheerful, or luxuriant, or fresh. ”

“ Look beyond the toilsome way to those grand mountains, whose spurs are already stretching forward to meet us. Who knows what pleasant surprises await us amid their steep declivities? I, for my part, expect to find water, fresh grass, trees, and a lovely resting-place. ”

“ Once outside the Compound, you find yourself in the jostle and crowd, the shouts and disorder of the streets, and as a cart or horseman passes, a cloud is raised that obscures everything for the moment ”

“ On the other hand, ordinary scenery, of familiar mountains, of calm streams of water, and of dwellings just before our eyes, may be sketched with an irregularity so charming, and with such excellent skill, as almost to rival Nature. ”

“ It follows therefore from this, first, that these rocks, hills, and mountains, must present themselves to view in stages rising above each other, the mountains clustering together towards the central point; and next, that an observer familiar with the several vales, must, from their various position in relation to the sun, have had before his eyes every possible embellishment of beauty, dignity, and splendour, which light and shadow can bestow upon objects so diversified. ”

“ The ideas of obscurity, danger, and infinity, all powerful and acknowledged sources of the sublime, are excited at the view of a range of frozen summits, cold, fixed, and everlasting as the imaginary nature of those destinies, with whom a noble bard has peopled them ”

“ His knowledge of rustic life within his own borders is beautifully sympathetic and profound. His impression of the landscape in the midst of which this life displays itself is broad and noble and alive. ”

“ In the earlier stages of society, the isolated rock—the mountain, cloud-encircled—the river, rolling to its ocean-home—the very stars themselves—were endued with sympathies, and constituted the first, as they will be the last, witnesses and records of our human destinies and feelings. ”

“ But what are the deep forests, or the thundering waters, or the richest landscapes that bounteous nature ever spread, to charm the eyes, and captivate the senses of man, compared with the recollection of the old scenes of his early youth? ”

“ And though the ground beneath was hard, and the sky overhead far and boundless, and the hillside lonely and companionless, yet somewhere within the visible and beyond these the outer surface of creation, there might be a home for her ”

“ Often have I travelled eagerly to the summit of some neighbouring hill, where the clouds seemed to mark the limits of the world I lived in, my mind filled with an indescribable expectation that I would there meet with something to realise my wild ideas, some enchanted scene or other ”

“ The world—the small round world! what a vast mysterious place it must seem to baby eyes! What a trackless continent the back garden appears! What marvelous explorations they make in the cellar under the stairs! With what awe they gaze down the long street, wondering, like us bigger babies when we gaze up at the stars, where it all ends! ”

“ But the sight, though it awes us, does not depress us or deter us. We are keyed up by high anticipation when we arrive on the threshold of this secluded region, and a fierce joy seizes us as we first set eyes on these mountains. ”