Not far from here I turned up, on foot now, a very steep, stony road to
the right, which leads over the Buttertubs Pass into Wensleydale, the
day being very warm and bright, with large clouds that looked like
lakes of molten silver giving off grey fumes in their centre, casting
moody shadows over the swardy dale, which below Thwaite expands, showing
Muker two miles off, the largest village of Upper Swaledale. Soon,
climbing, I could look down upon miles of Swaledale and the hills
beyond, a rustic panorama of glens and grass, river and cloudshadow, and
there was something of lightness in my step that fair day, for I had
left all my maps and things, except one, at Reeth, to which I meant to
return, and the earth, which is very good, was--mine. The ascent was
rough, and also long: but if I paused and looked behind--I saw, I saw.
Man's notion of a Heaven, a Paradise, reserved for the spirits of the
good, clearly arose from impressions which the earth made upon his mind:
for no Paradise can be fairer than this; just as his notion of a Hell
arose from the squalid mess into which his own foolish habits of thought
and action turned this Paradise.
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