The Wall

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“What a dear old wall that is that runs along by the river there! I never pass it without feeling better for the sight of it. Such a mellow, bright, sweet old wall; what a charming picture it would make, with the lichen creeping here, and the moss growing there, a shy young vine peeping over the top at this spot, to see what is going on upon the busy river, and the sober old ivy clustering a little farther down! There are fifty shades and tints and hues in every ten yards of that old wall. . . . It looks so peaceful and so quiet, and it is such a dear old place to ramble round in the early morning before many people are about.” Jerome K. Jerome, “Three Men In A Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog)” Ch. 6 (1889)

An Earthquake Within Us

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"Repentance is but a kind of table-talk, till we see so much of the deformity of our inward nature as to be in some degree frighted and terrified at the sight of it. There must be some kind of an earthquake within us, something that must rend and shake us to the bottom, before we can be enough sensible either of the state of death we are in or enough desirous of that Savior who alone can raise us from it." (William Law, 1686-1761)

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