"It was while feeling sad to think that I was only walking on the edge of the vast wood, that I caught sight of the first palmetto in a grassy place, standing almost alone.  A few magnolias were near it, and bald cypresses, but it was not shaded by them.  they tell us that plants are perishable, soulless creatures, that only man is immortal, etc.; but this, I think is something that we know very nearly nothing about.  Anyhow, this palm was indescribably impressive and told me grander things than I ever got from human priest."

The True Monster Revealed:

It was nearly noon when I arrived at the top of the ascent. For some time I sat upon the rock that overlooks the sea of ice.  A mist covered both that and the surrounding mountains.  Presently a breeze dissipated the cloud, and I descended upon the glacier.  The surface is very uneven, rising like the waves of a troubled sea, descending low, and interspersed by rifts that sink deep.  The field of ice is almost a league [three miles] in width, but I spent nearly two hours in crossing it.  The opposite mountain is a bare perpendicular rock.

The Feet Keep Moving, and So Does the Mind

[Dickens'] favorite mode of exercise was walking; and when in America, scarcely a day passed, no matter what the weather, that he did not accomplish his eight or ten miles.  It was on these expeditions that he liked to recount to the companion of his rambles stories and incidents of his early life; and when he was in the mood, his fun and humor knew no bounds.  He would then frequently discuss the numerous characters in his delightful books, and would act out, on the road, dramatic situations, where Nickleby or Copperfield or Swiveller would play distinguished parts.  I remember he said, on one of these occasions, that during the composition of his first stories he could never entirely dismiss the characters about whom he happened to be writing; that while The Old Curiosity Shop was in process of composition Little Nell followed him about everywhere; that while he was writing Oliver Twist Fagin the Jew would never let him rest, even in his most retired moments; that at midnight and in the morning, on the sea and on the land, Tiny Tim and Little Bob Cratchit were ever tugging at his coatsleeve, as if impatient for him to get back to his desk and continue the story of their lives. . . .

Waterfall in the Alps

Downwards we hurried fast,

And, with the half-shaped road which we had missed,

Entered a narrow chasm.  The brook and road