the gray of early dawn
When first the lake we spied,
And fragments of a cloud were drawn
Half down the mountain side.

Along the shore a heron flew,
And from a speck on high,
That hovered in the deepening blue,
We heard the fish-hawk's cry.

Among the cloud-capt solitudes,
No sound the silence broke,
Save when, in whispers down the woods,
The guardian mountains spoke.

Through tangled brush and dewy brake,
Returning whence we came,
We passed in silence, and the lake
We left without a name.

F. G. Scott

We are not sent into this world to do anything into which we cannot put
our hearts. We have certain work to do for our bread, and that is to be
done strenuously; other work to do for our delight, and that is to be
done heartily; neither is to be done by halves or shifts, but with a
will.

Ruskin

LIFE IN NORMAN ENGLAND

The tall, frowning keep and solid walls of the great stone castles, in
which the Norman barons lived, betokened an age of violence and
suspicion. Beauty gave way to the needs of safety. Girdled with a green
and slimy ditch, round the inner side of which ran a parapeted wall
pierced along the top with shot-holes, stood the buildings, spreading
often over many acres.

If an enemy managed to cross the moat and force the gateway, in spite of
a portcullis crashing from above, and melted lead pouring in burning
streams from the perforated top of the rounded arch, but little of his
work was yet done; for the keep lifted its huge angular block of masonry
within the inner bailey or courtyard, and from the narrow chinks in its
ten-foot wall rained a sharp incessant shower of arrows, sweeping all
approaches to the high and narrow stair, by which alone access could be
had to its interior.

These loopholes were the only windows, except in the topmost story,
where the chieftain, like a vulture in his rocky nest, watched all the
surrounding country. The day of splendid oriels had not yet come in
castle architecture. Thus a baron in his keep could defy, and often did
defy, the king upon his throne. Under his roof, eating daily at his
board, lived a throng of armed retainers; and around his castle lay
farms tilled by martial franklins, who at his call laid aside their
implements of husbandry, took up the sword and spear, which they could
wield with equal skill, and marched beneath his banner to the war.

The fur