THE NORTH RIDING PROJECT

The real blessing is the idle man, he who lights his pipe and saunters out in the soft sunshine, and seeks a mossy parapet not quite breast high, on which he can spread his arms, and muse and watch the bubbles drifting, and the foamy water leaping, leaping up the buttresses; he who finds excitement in the troubles of some fisherman casting his line in a brown eddy higher up, his creel and landing net safe propped upon a jut of rock, or in the flight of the swallows skimming so low that they seem to dip their white bosoms in the fall, while the sun lights up their backs with every shade of royal blue, or yet more indolent, is content to watch the swift water coursing over the golden shallows, happy only to be alive where all nature is so musical, so animated, and so full of colour.

Norway/Highways, 1899