Tintern Abbey

Here sinking spaces with dark boughs o'ergrown,

And there the naked quarries look a town,

At length our pilgrimages home appears,

Tintern her venerable fabric rears,

While the sun, mildly glancing in decline,

With its last gilding beautifies the shrine:

(A voyage to Tintern Abbey. Rev Dr Syned Davies. 1789)

A more pleasing retreat could not easily be found. The woods and glades intermixed: the variety of the ground; the splendid ruin, contrasted with the objects of nature; and elegant the line formed by the summits of the hills, which included the whole; making all together a very inchanting piece of scenery.

(William Gilpin 1782)

Avebury

And this stupendous fabric, which for some thousand years, had brav'd the continual assaults of weather, and by the nature of it, when left to itself, like the pyramids of Egypt, would have lasted as long as the globe, [has] fallen a sacrifice to the wretched ignorance and avarice of a little village unluckily plac'd within it.

(William Stukeley. Arbury)

The great stones were then in their wild state, so to speak. Some were half-covered by the grass, others stood up in cornfields or were entangled and overgrown in the copses, some were buried under turf. But they were wonderful and disquieting, and as I saw them then, I shall always remember them.

(Paul Nash)

Marlborough Downs

Happy the man whose wish and care

a few paternal acres bound,

content to breath his natures air

in his contented ground.

(The Quiet Life. Alexander Pope)

"Rays from the sunrise drew forth the buds and stretched them into long stalks, lifted up sap in noiseless streams, opened petals, and sucked out scents in invisible jets and breathings".

(Tess of the d'Urbervilles. Thomas Hardy)

Paris

The last time I saw Paris

Her heart was warm and gay

I heard the laughter of her heart in every street cafe.

(Oscar Hammerstein II)

When good Englishmen die they always go to Paris. But you can spend a week there long before-provided you have £25, two good pair of comfortable shoes, and a good map of the city.

(Willa Petschek. The Guardian. 1961)

Paris

Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones

Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones

Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones

Now hear the word of the Lord.

(Spiritual song, James Weldon Johnson)

When I found the skull in the woods, the first thing I did was call the police, but then I got curious about it. I picked it up, and started wondering who this person was, and why he had deer horns.

(Jack Handy. Deep Thoughts)

Hartington

Do not fail as you go on to draw something every day, for no matter how little it is, it will be well worthwhile, and it will do you a world of good.

(Cennino Cennini)

Drawing is the artist's most direct and spontaneous expression, a species of writing: it reveals, better than does painting, his true personality.

(Edgar Degas)

Tuscany

"Maybe the only thing that matters is to make our lives last as long as they do. You know, to make life last until it ends, to make all the parts come out even, like when you rub the last piece of bread in the last drop of olive oil on your plate and eat it with the last sip of wine in your glass".

(Marlena de Blasi. A thousand days in Tuscany. A bitter sweet adventure)

I shall remember that, as I sat in the garden, and, looking up from my book, saw through a gap in the shrubbery the red house-tiles against the deep blue sky and the grey underside of the ilex-leaves turned up by the Mediterranean breeze, it was all still quiet Tuscany, if Tuscany in a minor key.

(Henry James. Italian Hours)

Tuscany

With wine in hand, one reaches the happy state-where men are wise,women beautiful; and even ones children look promising.

(Unknown)

Everything you see I owe to pasta.

(Sophia Loren)