This last and long-enduring passion for Mrs Thrale was, however, composed equally perhaps of cupboard-love, Platonic love, and vanity tickled and gratified from morn to night by incessant homage.

Let's be no stoics, nor no stocks.

And the bright air o’er every shape did weave / Intenser hues, so that the herbless stone, / The leafless bough among the leaves alone, / Had being clearer than its own could be […]

At the dressing sheds the slate-dresser saws the blocks into various sizes and then splits the smaller units into sheets.