Isabella Lucy Bird > Quotes

“I have found a dream of beauty at which one might look all one's life and sigh.”
― Isabella Bird, Adventures in the Rocky Mountains

“Truly a good horse, good ground to gallop on, and sunshine, make up the sum of enjoyable travelling.”
― Isabella L. Bird, Unbeaten Tracks in Japan

“Everything suggests a beyond.”
― Isabella L. Bird, A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains

“I sat down and knitted for some time - my usual resource under discouraging circumstances.”
― Isabella L. Bird, A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains

“I still vote civilization a nuisance, society a humbug and all conventionality a crime.”
― Isabella Bird

“There is also a dog, but he does not understand English,”
― Isabella L. Bird, The Hawaiian Archipelago

“people live more happily than any that I have seen elsewhere.  It is very cheerful to live among people whose faces are not soured by the east wind, or wrinkled by the worrying effort to “keep up appearances,” which deceive nobody;”
― Isabella L. Bird, The Hawaiian Archipelago

“Yet, after all, they were not bad souls; and though he failed so grotesquely, he did his incompetent best.”
― Isabella L. Bird, A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains

“The scarcely audible whisper of soft airs through the trees morning and evening, rain drops falling gently, and the murmur of drowsy surges far below, alone break the stillness. ”
― Isabella L. Bird, The Hawaiian Archipelago

“Oh! To be beyond the pale once more, out of civilization into savagery? I abhor civilization!”
― Isabella Bird

“It is a strange life up here on the mountain side, but I like it, and never yearn after civilization. ”
― Isabella L. Bird, The Hawaiian Archipelago

“In traveling, there is nothing like dissecting people's statements, which are usually colored by their estimate of the powers or likings of the person spoken to, making all reasonable inquiries, and then pertinaciously but quietly carrying out one's own plans.”
― Isabella L. Bird, A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains

“I dreamt of bears so vividly that I woke with a furry death hug at my throat, but feeling quite refreshed.”
― Isabella L. Bird, A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains

“Young Lyman talked in a "hifalutin" style, but with some truth in it, of the influence of a woman's presence, how "low, mean, vulgar talk" had died out on my return, how they had "all pulled themselves up," and how Mr. Kavan and Mr. Buchan had said they would like always to be as quiet and gentlemanly as when a lady was with them.”
― Isabella Lucy Bird, A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains

“The silence of the forest was so solemn, that, remembering the last of the Mohicans, we should not have been the least surprised if an Indian war- whoop had burst upon our startled ears.”
― Isabella Lucy Bird, The Englishwoman in America

“For the benefit of other lady travelers, I wish to explain that my "Hawaiian riding dress" is the "American Lady's Mountain Dress," a half-fitting jacket, a skirt reaching to the ankles, and full Turkish trousers gathered into frills falling over the boots,—a thoroughly serviceable and feminine costume for mountaineering and other rough traveling, as in the Alps or any other part of the world. I. L. B. (Author's note to the second edition, November 27, 1879.) Once”
― Isabella L. Bird, A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains

“A little longer, and I too should say, like all who have made their homes here under the deep banana shade,--            “We will return no more,     . . . . our island home     Is far beyond the wave, we will no longer roam.”
― Isabella L. Bird, The Hawaiian Archipelago

“he "fyked" unreasonably about me, the mare, and the crossing generally,”
― Isabella Lucy Bird, A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains

“Although our feelings are not particularly fraternal, we give the people inhabiting this continent the national cognomen of "Brother Jonathan," while we name individuals "Yankees." We know that they are famous for smoking, spitting, "gouging," and bowie-knives—for monster hotels, steamboat explosions, railway collisions, and repudiated debts.”
― Isabella Lucy Bird, The Englishwoman in America

“It was then 11:30 P.M., and I had not had a meal since 6 A.M.; but when I asked hopefully for a hot supper, with tea, I was told that no supper could be got at that hour; but in half an hour the same man returned with a small cup of cold, weak tea, and a small slice of bread, which looked as if it had been much handled.”
― Isabella Lucy Bird, A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains

“At Lachalang, at a height of over 15,000 feet, I noted a solar temperature of 152 degrees, only 35 degrees below the boiling point of water in the same region, which is about 187 degrees. To make up for this, the mercury falls below the freezing point every night of the year, even in August the difference of temperature in twelve hours often exceeding 120 degrees! The Rupchu nomads, however,”
― Isabella Bird, The Complete Works of Isabella Bird

“It is the election day for the Territory, and men were galloping over the prairie to register their votes. The three in the wagon talked politics the whole time. They spoke openly and shamelessly of the prices given for votes; and apparently there was not a politician on either side who was not accused of degrading corruption.”
― Isabella Lucy Bird, Bird:A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountai

“The tea was not tempting to an English palate; it was stewed, and sweetened with molasses.”
― Isabella Lucy Bird, The Englishwoman in America

“These new settlements are altogether revolting, entirely utilitarian, given up to talk of dollars as well as to making them, with coarse speech, coarse food, coarse everything, nothing wherewith to satisfy the higher cravings if they exist, nothing on which the eye can rest with pleasure. The lower floor of this inn swarms with locusts in addition to thousands of black flies. The latter cover the ground and rise buzzing from it as you walk.”
― Isabella Lucy Bird, A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains

“The telegraph costs about 20_l._ per mile,”
― Isabella Lucy Bird, The Englishwoman in America

“cups of a strong stimulant made of Burroughes and Wellcome's vigorous 'valoid' tincture of ginger and hot water, revived the men all round.”
― Isabella Bird, The Complete Works of Isabella Bird

“broken only by the note of the distant bull-frog; meteors fell in streams of fire, the crescent”
― Isabella Lucy Bird, The Englishwoman in America

“Birdie amuses every one with her funny ways. She always follows me closely, and to-day got quite into a house and pushed the parlor door open. She walks after me with her head laid on my shoulder, licking my face and teasing me for sugar, and sometimes, when any one else takes hold of her, she rears and kicks, and the vicious bronco soul comes into her eyes.”
― Isabella Lucy Bird, A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains

“Family life presents some curious features. In the disposal in marriage of a girl, her eldest brother has more 'say' than the parents. The eldest son brings home the bride to his father's house, but at a given age the old people are 'shelved,' i.e. they retire to a small house, which may be termed a 'jointure house,' and the eldest son assumes the patrimony and the rule of affairs.”
― Isabella Bird, The Complete Works of Isabella Bird

“week, yet it all goes somehow. He has a most industrious wife, a girl of seventeen, and four younger children, all musical, but the wife has to work like a slave; and though he is a kind husband, her lot, as compared with her lord's, is like that of a squaw.”
― Isabella Lucy Bird, A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains