Wilkie Collins: "Rambles beyond Railways"
Saw the OK series The Woman in White with my wife. Had heard of Wilkie Collins before (I believe C. S. Lewis mentioned him?) but, not being a mystery fan (and never talking to anyone who'd read him), I didn't look till now. And that's also certainly why I chose the sidebar of Rambles beyond Railways (it's about his "walking trip" in Cornwall in 1850). * Leaving Pistol Meadow, after gathering a few of the wild herbs growing fragrant and plentiful over the graves of the dead, we turned our steps towards the Lizard Lighthouse. As we passed before the front of the large and massive building, our progress was suddenly and startlingly checked by a hideous chasm in the cliff, sunk to a perpendicular depth of seventy feet, and measuring more than a hundred in circumference. Nothing prepares the stranger for this great gulf; no railing is placed about it; it lies hidden by rising land, and the earth all around is treacherously smooth. The first moment when you s...