, will reveal to him the true nature of his life, the true
field for his energies, and the true relations between him and his
Maker.

[29] I forget, now, what I meant by 'liberty' in this passage; but I
often used the word in my first writings, in a good sense, thinking of
Scott's moorland rambles and the like. It is very wonderful to me, now,
to see what hopes I had once: but Turner was alive, then; and the sun
used to shine, and rivers to sparkle.

64. To any person who has all his senses about him, a quiet walk, over
not more than ten or twelve miles of road a day, is the most amusing
of all travelling; and all travelling becomes dull in exact proportion
to its rapidity.

Going by railroad I do not consider as travelling at all; it is merely
"being sent" to a place, and very little different from becoming a
parcel.

65. I believe an immense gain in the bodily health and happiness of
the upper classes would follow on their steadily endeavouring, however
clumsily, to make the physical exertion they now necessarily exert in
amusements, definitely serviceable. It would be far better, for
instance, that a gentleman should mow his own fields, than ride over
other people's.

66. In order to define what is fairest, you must delight in what is
fair; and I know not how few or how many there may be who take such
delight. Once I could speak joyfully about beautiful things, thinking
to be understood; now I cannot, any more, for it seems to me that no
one regards them. Wherever I look or travel, in England or abroad, I
see that men, wherever they can reach, destroy all beauty. They seem
to have no other desire or hope but to have large houses, and be able
to move fast. Every perfect and lovely spot which they can touch, they
defile. Thus the railroad bridge over the fall of Schaffhausen, and
that round the Clarens shore of the lake of Geneva, have destroyed the
power of two pieces of scenery of which nothing can ever supply the
place, in appeal to the higher ranks of European mind.

67. The first thing which I remember as an event in life, was being
taken by my nurse to the brow of Friar's Crag on Derwentwater. The
intense joy, mingled with awe, that I had in looking through the
hollows in the mossy roots, over the crag into the dark lake, has
associated itself more or less with all twining roots of trees ever
since. Two other things I remember as, in a sort, beginnings of
life;--crossing Shap-fells, being let out