Like most shortcuts, it was an ill-chosen route - Washington Irving

He rode with short stirrups, which brought his knees nearly up to the pommel of the saddle; his sharp elbows stuck out like grasshoppers’; he carried his whip perpendicularly in his hand, like a sceptre, and as his horse jogged on, the motion of his arms was not unlike the flapping of a pair of wings.

There is nothing like the silence and loneliness of night to bring dark shadows over the brightest mind.

A pleasing land of drowsy head it was, Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye; And of gay castles in the clouds that pass, Forever flushing round a summer sky. — CASTLE OF INDOLENCE.