A sort of gambling

A modernised and abridged version of Coleridge’s account of descending Broad Stand. You can find the full version courtesy of Lancaster University at bit.ly/broadstand ‘There is one sort of gambling to which I am much addicted. When I find it convenient to descend from a mountain, I am too confident and too indolent to look round until I find a track or other symptom of safety; but I wander on, and where it is first possible to descend, there I go, relying upon fortune for how far down this possibility will continue.

[Descending Scafell] I came to a smooth rock about seven feet high. I put my hands on the ledge and dropped down. In a few yards came another. I dropped that too and yet another. Looking down, I saw but a succession of these little precipices.

I began to suspect that I ought not to go on, but though I could with ease drop down a smooth rock seven feet high, I could not climb it, so go on I must.

The next was twice my height and the ledge at the bottom so exceedingly narrow that if I dropped down upon it I must of necessity have fallen backwards and killed myself.

I lay upon my back to rest, and was beginning to laugh at myself for a madman, when the sight of the crags above overawed me.

I lay in a state of almost prophetic trance and delight and blessed God aloud for the powers of Reason and the Will, which remaining, no danger can overpower us. O God, I exclaimed, how calm, how blessed am I?

I arose, and continued.’