A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains Quotes

“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

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

“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

“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

“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 Lucy Bird, [A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains] (By: Isabella L. Bird) [published: July, 2002]

“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

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

“In all this wild West the influence of woman is second only in its benefits to the influence of religion, and where the last unhappily does not exist the first continually exerts its restraining”
― Isabella Lucy 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

“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

“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

“nolens volens, dragged me along with a patience”
― Isabella Lucy Bird, A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains

“One of the most painful things in the Western States and Territories is the extinction of childhood. I have never seen any children, only debased imitations of men and women, cankered by greed and selfishness, and asserting and gaining complete independence of their parents at ten years old.”
― Isabella Lucy Bird, A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains

“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

“for the Indians are raiding in all directions, maddened by the reckless and useless slaughter of the buffalo, which is their chief subsistence.”
― Isabella Lucy Bird, A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains

“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

“Americans specially love superlatives. The phrases "biggest in the world", "finest in the world", are on all lips. Unless president Hayes is a strong manthey will soon come to boast that their government is composed of the "biggest scoundrels" in the world.”
― Isabella Lucy Bird, A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains

“By sunlight or moonlight, its splintered grey crest is the one object which, in spire of wapitu and bighorn, skunk and grizzli, unfailingly arrests the eyes. From it come all storms of snow and wind, and the forked lightnings play around its head like a glory. It is one of he noblest of mountains, but in one's imagination it grows to be much more than a mountain. It becomes invested with a personality.”
― Isabella Lucy Bird, A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains

“No more hunters' tales told while the pine knots crack and blaze; no more thrilling narratives of adventures with Indians and bears; and never again shall I hear that strange talk of Nature and her doings which is the speech of those who live with her and her alone. Already the dismalness of a level land comes over me.”
― Isabella Lucy Bird, A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains

“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