,,frondes ,,agrestes4 ,,readings ,,in ',,modern ,,painters4' ,,chosen ,,at ,,her ,,pleasure1 ,,by ,,the ,,author',s ,,friend1 ,,the ,,younger ,,lady ,,of ,,the ,,thwaite1 ,,coniston4 ',spargit agrestes tibi silva frondes4' ,thirty-,eighth ,thousand4 ,london3 ,george ,allen1 #aef1 ,charing ,cross ,road4 #aijb4 ,printed ,by ,ballantyne1 ,hanson ,co4 ,at the ,ballantyne ,press ,,preface4 ,i have been often asked to republish the first book of mine which the public noticed1 and which1 hitherto1 remains their favourite1 in a more easily attainable form than that of its existing editions4 ,i am1 however1 resolved never to republish the book as a whole2 some parts of it being1 by the established fame of ,turner1 rendered unnecessary2 and others having been always useless1 in their praise of excellence which the public will never give the labour necessary to discern4 ,but1 finding lately that one of my dearest friends1 who1 in advanced age1 retains the cheerfulness and easily delighted temper of bright youth1 had written out1 for her own pleasure1 a large number of passages from ',modern ,painters1' it seemed to me certain that what such a person felt to be useful to herself1 could not but be useful also to a class of readers whom ,i much desired to please1 and who would sometimes enjoy1 in my early writings1 what ,i never should myself have offered them4 ,i asked my friend1 therefore1 to add to her own already chosen series1 any other passages she thought likely to be of permanent interest to general readers2 and ,i have printed her selections in absolute submission to her judgment1 merely arranging the pieces she sent me in the order which seemed most convenient for the reciprocal bearing of their fragmentary meanings1 and adding here and there an explanatory note2 or1 it may be1 a deprecatory one1 in cases where my mind had changed4 ,that she did me the grace to write every word with her own hands1 adds1 in my eyes1 and will1 ,i trust1 in the readers' also1 to the possible claims of the little book on their sympathy2 and although ,i hope to publish some of the scientific and technical portions of the original volumes in my own large editions1 the selections here made by my friend under her quiet woods at ,coniston--the ,unter-,walden of ,england--will1 ,i doubt not1 bring within better reach of many readers1 for whom ,i am not now able myself to judge or choose1 such service as the book was ever capable of rendering1 in the illustration of the powers of nature1 and intercession for her now too often despised and broken peace4 ,herne ,hill1 #eth ,december1 #ahgd4 ,,contents4 ,,page ,,preface ,v ,,section ,i4 ,,principles ,,of ,,art #a ,,ii4 ,,power ,,and ,,office ,,of ,,imagination #aj ,,iii4 ,,illustrative3 ,,the ,,sky #ce ,,iv4 ,,streams ,,and ,,sea #fd ,v4 ,,mountains #gd ,,vi4 ,,stones #ajg ,,vii4 ,,plants ,,and ,,flowers #aae ,,viii4 ,,education #adj ,,ix4 ,,moralities #aea ,,frondes ,,agrestes4 ,,section ,i4 ,,principles ,,of ,,art4 #a4 ,perfect taste is the faculty of receiving the greatest possible pleasure from those material sources which are attractive to our moral nature in its purity and perfection2 but why we receive pleasure from some forms and colours1 and not from others1 is no more to be asked or answered than why we like sugar and dislike wormwood4 #b4 ,the temper by which right taste is formed is characteristically patient4 ,it dwells upon what is submitted to it4 ,it does not trample upon it1--lest it should be pearls1 even though it look like husks4 ,it is good ground1 penetrable1 retentive2 it does not send up thorns of unkind thoughts1 to choke the weak seed2 it is hungry and thirsty too1 and drinks all the dew that falls on it4 ,it is an honest and good heart1 that shows no too ready springing before the sun be up1 but fails not afterwards2 it is distrustful of itself1 so as to be ready to believe and to try all things2 and yet so trustful of itself1 that it will neither quit what it has tried1 nor take anything without trying4 ,and the pleasure which it has in things that it finds true and good1 is so great1 that it cannot possibly be led aside by any tricks of fashion1 or diseases of vanity2 it cannot be cramped in its conclusions by partialities and hypocrisies2 its visions and its delights are too penetrating1--too living1--for any whitewashed object or shallow fountain long to endure or supply4 ,it clasps all that it loves so hard that it crushes it if it be hollow4 #c4 ,it is the common consent of men that whatever branch of any pursuit ministers to the bodily comforts1 and regards material uses1 is ignoble1 and whatever part is addressed to the mind only1 is noble2 and that geology does better in reclothing dry bones and revealing lost creations1 than in tracing veins of lead and beds of iron2 astronomy better in opening to us the houses of heaven1 than in teaching navigation2 botany better in displaying structure than in expressing juices2 surgery better in investigating organization than in setting limbs4--,only it is ordained that1 for our encouragement1 every step we make in the more exalted range of science adds something also to its practical applicabilities2 that all the great phenomena of nature1 the knowledge of which is desired by the angels only1 by us partly1 as it reveals to farther vision the being and the glory of ,him in whom they rejoice and we live1 dispense yet such kind influences and so much of material blessing as to be joyfully felt by all inferior creatures1 and to be desired by them with such single desire as the imperfection of their nature may admit2 that the strong torrents1 which1 in their own gladness1 fill the hills with hollow thunder1 and the vales with winding light1 have yet their bounden charge of field to feed1 and barge to bear2 that the fierce flames to which the ,alp owes its upheaval and the volcano its terror1 temper for us the metal vein1 and warm the quickening spring2 and that for our incitement1 ,i say1 not our reward1--for knowledge is its own reward1--herbs have their healing1 stones their preciousness1 and stars their times4 #d4 ,had it been ordained by the ,almighty#a that the highest pleasures of sight should be those of most difficult attainment1 and that to arrive at them it should be necessary to accumulate gilded palaces1 tower over tower1 and pile artificial mountains around insinuated lakes1 there would never have been a direct contradiction between the unselfish duties and the inherent desires of every individual4 ,but no such contradiction exists in the system of ,divine ,providence2 which1 leaving it open to us1 if we will1 as creatures in probation1 to abuse this sense like every other1 and pamper it with selfish and thoughtless vanities1 as we pamper the palate with deadly meats1 until the appetite of tasteful cruelty is lost in its sickened satiety1 incapable of pleasure unless1 ,caligula like1 it concentrates the labour of a million of lives into the sensation of an hour1--leaves it also open to us1 by humble and loving ways1 to make ourselves susceptible of deep delight1 which shall not separate us from our fellows1 nor require the sacrifice of any duty or occupation1 but which shall bind us closer to men and to ,god1 and be with us always1 harmonized with every action1 consistent with every claim1 unchanging and eternal4 #a ,the reader must observe1 that having been thoroughly disciplined in the ,evangelical schools1 ,i supposed myself1 at four-and-twenty1 to know all about the ordinances of the ,almighty4 ,nevertheless1 the practical contents of the sentence are good2 if only they are intelligible1 which ,i doubt4 #e4 ,a great ,idealist never can be egotistic4 ,the whole of his power depends upon his losing sight and feeling of his own existence1 and becoming a mere witness and mirror of truth1 and a scribe of visions1--always passive in sight1 passive in utterance1 lamenting continually that he cannot completely reflect nor clearly utter all he has seen1--not by any means a proud state for a man to be in4 ,but the man who has no invention is always setting things in order1#b and putting the world to rights1 and mending1 and beautifying1 and pluming himself on his doings1 as supreme in all ways4 #b ,i am now a comic illustration of this sentence1 myself4 ,i have not a ray of invention in all my brains2 but am intensely rational and orderly1 and have resolutely begun to set the world to rights4 #f4 ,so far as education does indeed tend to make the senses delicate1 and the perceptions accurate1 and thus enables people to be pleased with quiet instead of gaudy colour1 and with graceful instead of coarse form2 and by long acquaintance with the best things1 to discern quickly what is fine from what is common--so far acquired taste is an honourable faculty1 and it is true praise of anything to say it is in good taste4 ,but1#c so far as this higher education has a tendency to narrow the sympathies and harden the heart1 diminishing the interest of all beautiful things by familiarity1 until even what is best can hardly please1 and what is brightest hardly entertain1--so far as it fosters pride1 and leads men to found the pleasure they take in anything1 not on the worthiness of the thing1 but on the degree in which it indicates some greatness of their own1 7as people build marble porticoes1 and inlay marble floors1 not so much because they like the colours of marble1 or find it pleasant to the foot1 as because such porches and floors are costly1 and separated in all human eyes from plain entrances of stone and timber72--so far as it leads people to prefer gracefulness of dress1 manner1 and aspect1 to value of substance and heart1 liking a well-said thing better than a true thing1 and a well-trained manner better than a sincere one1 and a delicately-formed face better than a good-natured one1--and in all other ways and things setting custom and semblance above everlasting truth2--so far1 finally1 as it induces a sense of inherent distinction between class and class1 and causes everything to be more or less despised which has no social rank1 so that the affection1 pleasure1 and grief of a clown are looked upon as of no interest compared with the affection and grief of a well-bred man2--just so far1 in all these several ways1 the feeling induced by what is called a liberal education is utterly adverse to the understanding of noble art4 #c ,nobody need begin this second volume sentence unless they are breathed like the ,grme3-- ,right up ,ben ,ledi could he press1 ,and not a sob his toil confess4 #g4 ,he who habituates himself in his daily life to seek for the stern facts in whatever he hears or sees1 will have these facts again brought before him by the involuntary imaginative power1 in their noblest associations2 and he who seeks for frivolities and fallacies1 will have frivolities and fallacies again presented to him in his dreams4#d #d ,very good4 ,few people have any idea how much more important the government of the mind is1 than the force of its exertion4 ,nearly all the world flog their horses1 without ever looking where they are going4 #h4 ,all the histories of the ,bible are yet waiting to be painted4 ,moses has never been painted2 ,elijah never2 ,david never 7except as a mere ruddy stripling72 ,deborah never2 ,gideon never2 ,isaiah never4#e ,what single example does the reader remember of painting which suggested so much as the faintest shadow of their deeds8 ,strong men in armour1 or aged men with flowing beards1 he may remember1 who1 when he looked at his ,louvre or ,uffizi catalogue1 he found were intended to stand for ,david1 or ,moses4 ,but does he suppose that1 if these pictures had suggested to him the feeblest image of the presence of such men1 he would have passed on1 as he assuredly did1 to the next picture1 representing1 doubtless1 ,diana and ,acton1 or ,cupid and the ,graces1 or a gambling quarrel in a pothouse--with no sense of pain or surprise8 ,let him meditate over the matter1 and he will find ultimately that what ,i say is true1 and that religious art at once complete and sincere never yet has existed4 #e ,i knew nothing1 when ,i wrote this passage1 of ,luini1 ,filippo ,lippi1 or ,sandro ,botticelli2 and had not capacity to enter into the deeper feelings1 even of the men whom ,i was chiefly studying1--,tintoret and ,fra ,angelico4 ,but the ,british public is at present as little acquainted with the greater ,florentines as ,i was then1 and the passage1 for them1 remains true4 ,,section ,,ii4 ,,power ,,and ,,office ,,of ,,imagination4 #i4 ,what are the legitimate uses of the imagination1--that is to say1 of the power of perceiving1 or conceiving with the mind1 things which cannot be perceived by the senses8 ,its first and noblest use is1#f to enable us to bring sensibly to our sight the things which are recorded as belonging to our future state1 or invisibly surrounding us in this4 ,it is given us1 that we may imagine the cloud of witnesses1 in heaven1 and earth1 and sea1 as if they were now present1--the souls of the righteous waiting for us2 that we may conceive the great army of the inhabitants of heaven1 and discover among them those whom we most desire to be with for ever2 that we may be able to vision forth the ministry of angels beside us1 and see the chariots of fire on the mountains that gird us round2 but1 above all1 to call up the scenes and facts in which we are commanded to believe1 and be present1 as if in the body1 at every recorded event of the history of the ,redeemer4 ,its second and ordinary use is1 to empower us to traverse the scenes of all other history1 and to force the facts to become again visible1 so as to make upon us the same impression which they would have made if we had witnessed them2 and1 in the minor necessities of life1 to enable us1 out of any present good1 to gather the utmost measure of enjoyment1 by investing it with happy associations1 and1 in any present evil1 to lighten it1 by summoning back the images of other hours2 and also to give to all mental truths some visible type1 in allegory1 simile1 or personification1 which shall most deeply enforce them2 and finally1 when the mind is utterly outwearied1 to refresh it with such innocent play as shall be most in harmony with the suggestive voices of natural things1 permitting it to possess living companionship1 instead of silent beauty1 and create for itself fairies in the grass1 and naiads in the wave4 #f ,i should be glad if the reader who is interested in the question here raised1 would read1 as illustrative of the subsequent statement1 the account of ,tintoret's ',paradise1' in the close of my ,oxford lecture on ,michael ,angelo and ,tintoret1 which ,i have printed separately to make it generally accessible4 #aj4 ,yet1 because we thus reverence the power and art of imagination1 let none of us despise the power and art of memory4 ,let the reader consider seriously what he would give at any moment to have the power of arresting the fairest scenes1 those which so often rise before him only to vanish2 to stay the cloud in its fading1 the leaf in its trembling1 and the shadows in their changing2 to bid the fitful foam be fixed upon the river1 and the ripples be everlasting upon the lake2 and then to bear away with him no darkness or feeble sun-stain1 7though even that is beautiful17 but a counterfeit which should seem no counterfeit--the true and perfect image of life indeed4 ,or rather1 7for the full majesty of such a power is not thus sufficiently expressed17 let him consider that it would be in effect nothing less than a capacity of transporting himself at any moment into any scene--a gift as great as can be possessed by a disembodied spirit2 and suppose1 also1 this necromancy embracing not only the present but the past1 and enabling us seemingly to enter into the very bodily presence of men long since gathered to the dust2 to behold them in act as they lived2 but1 with greater privilege than ever was granted to the companions of those transient acts of life1 to see them fastened at our will in the gesture and expression of an instant1 and stayed on the eve of some great deed1 in immortality of burning purpose4--,conceive1 so far as is possible1 such power as this1 and then say whether the art which conferred it is to be spoken lightly of1 or whether we should not rather reverence1 as half-divine1 a gift which would go so far as to raise us into the rank1 and invest us with the felicities1 of angels4#g #g ,passage written in opposition to the vulgar notion that the 'mere imitation' of ,nature is easy1 and useless4 #aa4 ,i believe the first test of a truly great man is his humility4 ,i do not mean by humility1 doubt of his own power1 or hesitation of speaking his opinions2 but a right understanding of the relation between what he can do and say1 and the rest of the world's sayings and doings4 ,all great men not only know their business1 but usually know that they know it2 and are not only right in their main opinions1 but they usually know that they are right in them2 only they do not think much of themselves on that account4 ,arnolfo knows he can build a good dome at ,florence2 ,albert ,durer writes calmly to one who has found fault with his work1--,it cannot be better done2 ,sir ,isaac ,newton knows that he has worked out a problem or two that would have puzzled anybody else2 only they do not expect their fellow-men1 therefore1 to fall down and worship them4 ,they have a curious under-sense of powerlessness1 feeling that the greatness is not in them1 but through them--that they could not do or be anything else than ,god made them2 and they see something divine and ,god-made in every other man they meet1 and are endlessly1 foolishly1 incredibly merciful4 #ab4 ,as far as ,i can observe1 it is a constant law1 that the greatest men1 whether poets or historians1 live entirely in their own age1 and the greatest fruits of their work are gathered out of their own age4 ,dante paints ,italy in the thirteenth century2 ,chaucer1 ,england in the fourteenth2 ,masaccio1 ,florence in the fifteenth2 ,tintoret1 ,venice in the sixteenth2 all of them utterly regardless of anachronism and minor error of every kind1 but getting always vital truth out of the vital present4 ,if it be said that ,shakespeare wrote perfect historical plays on subjects belonging to the preceding centuries1 ,i answer that they are perfect plays1 just because there is no care about centuries in them1 but a life which all men recognise for the human life of all time--and this it is1 not because ,shakespeare sought to give universal truth1 but because painting1 honestly and completely1 from the men about him1 he painted that human nature which is indeed constant enough1--a rogue in the fifteenth century being at heart what a rogue is in the nineteenth1 and was in the twelfth2 and an honest or knightly man being in like manner very similar to other such at any other time4 ,and the work of these great idealists is1 therefore1 always universal2 not because it is not portrait1 but because it is complete portrait1 down to the heart1 which is the same in all ages2 and the work of the mean idealists is not universal1 not because it is portrait1 but because it is half portrait--of the outside1 the manners and the dress1 not of the heart4 ,thus ,tintoret and ,shakespeare paint1 both of them1 simply ,venetian and ,english nature1 as they saw it in their time1 down to the root2 and it does for all time2 but as for any care to cast themselves into the particular ways and tones of thought1 or custom1 of past time in their historical work1 you will find it in neither of them1#h nor in any other perfectly great man that ,i know of4 #h ,what vestige of ,egyptian character is there1 for instance1 in ,cleopatra8--of ,athenian in ,theseus or ,timon8--of old ,english in ,imogen or ,cordelia8--of old ,scottish in ,macbeth8--or even of medival ,italian in ,petruchio1 the ,merchant of ,venice1 or ,desdemona8 ,and the ,roman plays appear definitely ,roman only because the strength of ,rome was the eternal strength of the world1--pure family life1 sustained by agriculture1 and defended by simple and fearless manhood4 #ac4 ,i think it probable that many readers may be surprised at my calling ,scott the great representative of the mind of the age of literature4 ,those who can perceive the intense penetrative depth of ,wordsworth1 and the exquisite finish and melodious power of ,tennyson1 may be offended at my placing in higher rank that poetry of careless glance and reckless rhyme in which ,scott poured out the fancies of his youth2 and those who are familiar with the subtle analysis of the ,french novelists1 or who have in any wise submitted themselves to the influence of ,german philosophy1 may be equally indignant at my ascribing a principality to ,scott among the literary men of ,europe1 in an age which has produced ,de ,balzac1 and ,goethe4#i #i ,i knew nothing of ,goethe when ,i put him with ,balzac2 but the intolerable dulness which encumbers the depth of ,wilhelm ,meister1 and the cruel reserve which conceals from all but the intensest readers the meaning of ,faust1 have made him1 in a great degree1 an evil influence in ,european literature2 and ,evil is always second-rate4 ,but the mass of sentimental literature concerned with the analysis and description of emotion1 headed by the poetry of ,byron1 is altogether of lower rank than the literature which merely describes what it saw4 ,the true seer feels as intensely as any one else2 but he does not much describe his feelings4 ,he tells you whom he met1 and what they said2 leaves you to make out1 from that1 what they feel1 and what he feels1 but goes into little detail4 ,and1 generally speaking1 pathetic writing and careful explanation of passion are quite easy1 compared with this plain recording of what people said1 and did2 or with the right invention of what they are likely to say and do2 for this reason1 that to invent a story1 or admirably and thoroughly tell any part of a story1 it is necessary to grasp the entire mind of every personage concerned in it1 and know precisely how they would be affected by what happens2 which to do1 requires a colossal intellect2 but to describe a separate emotion delicately1 it is only needed that one should feel it oneself2 and thousands of people are capable of feeling this or that noble emotion1 for one who is able to enter into all the feelings of somebody sitting on the other side of the table4 ,even1 therefore1 where this sentimental literature is first rate1 as in passages of ,byron1 ,tennyson1 and ,keats1 it ought not to be ranked so high as the creative2 and though perfection even in narrow fields is perhaps as rare as in the wider1 and it may be as long before we have another ,in ,memoriam as another ,guy ,mannering1 ,i unhesitatingly receive as a greater manifestation of power1 the right invention of a few sentences spoken by ,pleydell and ,mannering across their supper-table1 than the most tender and passionate melodies of the self-examining verse4 #ad4 ,fancy plays like a squirrel in its circular prison1 and is happy2 but ,imagination is a pilgrim on the earth--and her home is in heaven4 ,shut her from the fields of the celestial mountains1 bear her from breathing their lofty1 sun-warmed air2 and we may as well turn upon her the last bolt of the ,tower of ,famine1 and give the keys to the keeping of the wildest surge that washes ,capraja and ,gorgona4#aj #aj ,i leave this passage1 as my friend has chosen it2 but it is unintelligible without the contexts1 which show how all the emotions described in the preceding passages of this section1 are founded on trust in the beneficence and rule of an ,omnipotent ,spirit4 #ae4 ,in the highest poetry1 there is no word so familiar1 but a great man will bring good out of it1 or rather1 it will bring good to him1 and answer some end for which no other word would have done equally well4 ,a common person1 for instance1 would be mightily puzzled to apply the word 'whelp' to anyone1 with a view of flattering him4 ,there is a certain freshness and energy in the term1 which gives it agreeableness1 but it seems difficult1 at first hearing it1 to use it complimentarily4 ,if the person spoken of be a prince1 the difficulty seems increased2 and when farther he is at one and the same moment to be called a 'whelp' and contemplated as a hero1 it seems that a common idealist might well be brought to a pause6 ,but hear ,shakespeare do it3-- ,awake his warlike spirit1 ,and your great uncle's1 ,edward the ,black ,prince1 ,who on the ,french ground played a tragedy1 ,making defeat on the full power of ,france1 ,while his most mighty father on a hill ,stood smiling1 to behold his lion's whelp ,forage in blood of ,french nobility4 #af4 ,although in all lovely nature there is1 first1 an excellent degree of simple beauty1 addressed to the eye alone1 yet often what impresses us most will form but a very small portion of that visible beauty4 ,that beauty may1 for instance1 be composed of lovely flowers1 and glittering streams1 and blue sky and white clouds2 and yet the thing that impresses us most1 and which we should be sorriest to lose1 may be a thin grey film on the extreme horizon1 not so large1 in the space of the scene it occupies1 as a piece of gossamer on a near-at-hand bush1 nor in any wise prettier to the eye than the gossamer2 but because the gossamer is known by us for a little bit of spider's work1 and the other grey film is known to mean a mountain ten thousand feet high1 inhabited by a race of noble mountaineers1 we are solemnly impressed by the aspect of it1 and yet all the while the thoughts and knowledge which cause us to receive this impression are so obscure that we are not conscious of them4 #ag4 ,examine the nature of your own emotion1 7if you feel it17 at the sight of the ,alps2 and you find all the brightness of that emotion hanging1 like dew on a gossamer1 on a curious web of subtle fancy and imperfect knowledge4 ,first you have a vague idea of its size1 coupled with wonder at the work of the great ,builder of its walls and foundations2 then an apprehension of its eternity1 a pathetic sense of its perpetualness1 and your own transientness1 as of the grass upon its side2--then1 and in very sadness1 a sense of strange companionship with past generations1 in seeing what they saw4 ,they did not see the clouds that are floating over your head1 nor the cottage wall on the other side of the field1 nor the road by which you are travelling4 ,but they saw that4 ,the wall of granite in the heavens was the same to them as to you4 ,they have ceased to look upon it2 you will soon cease to look also1 and the granite wall will be for others4 ,then1 mingled with these more solemn imaginations1 come the understandings of the gifts and glories of the ,alp2--the fancying forth of all the fountains that well from its rocky walls1 and strong rivers that are born out of its ice1 and of all the pleasant valleys that wind between its cliffs1 and all the chlets that gleam among its clouds1 and happy farmsteads couched upon its pastures2 while1 together with the thoughts of these1 rise strange sympathies with all the unknown of human life1 and happiness1 and death1 signified by that narrow white flame of the everlasting snow1 seen so far in the morning sky4 ,these images1 and far more than these1 lie at the root of the emotion which you feel at the sight of the ,alps4 ,you may not trace them in your heart1 for there is a great deal more in your heart1 both of evil and good1 than you can ever trace2 but they stir you and quicken you for all that4 ,assuredly1 so far as you feel more at beholding the snowy mountain than any other object of the same sweet silvery grey1 these are the kind of images which cause you to do so2 and observe1 these are nothing more than a greater apprehension of the facts of the thing4 ,we call the power ',imagination1' because it imagines or conceives2 but it is only noble imagination1 if it imagines or conceives the truth4 ,and according to the degree of knowledge possessed1 and of sensibility to the pathetic or impressive character of the things known1 will be the degree of this imaginative delight4 #ah4 ,so natural is it to the human heart to fix itself in hope rather than in present possession1 and so subtle is the charm which the imagination casts over what is distant or denied1 that there is often a more touching power in the scenes which contain far-away promises of something greater than themselves1 than in those which exhaust the treasures and powers of nature in an unconquerable and excellent glory1 leaving nothing more to be by fancy pictured or pursued4 ,i do not know that there is a district in the world more calculated to illustrate this power of the expectant imagination than that which surrounds the city of ,fribourg in ,switzerland1 extending from it towards ,berne4 ,it is of grey sandstone1 considerably elevated1 but presenting no object of striking interest to the passing traveller2 so that as it is generally seen in the course of a hasty journey from the ,bernese ,alps to those of ,savoy1 it is rarely regarded with any other sensation than that of weariness1 all the more painful because accompanied with reaction from the high excitement caused by the splendour of the ,bernese ,oberland4 ,the traveller--foot-sore1 feverish1 and satiated with glacier and precipice1--lies back in the corner of the diligence1 perceiving little more than that the road is winding and hilly1 and the country through which it passes1 cultivated and tame4 ,let him1 however1 only do this tame country the justice of staying in it a few days1 until his mind has recovered its tone1 and take one or two long walks through its fields1 and he will have other thoughts of it4 ,it is1 as ,i said1 an undulating district of grey sandstone1 never attaining any considerable height1 but having enough of the mountain spirit to throw itself into continual succession of bold slope and dale2 elevated1 also1 just far enough above the sea to render the pine a frequent forest tree along its irregular ridges4 ,through this elevated tract the river cuts its way in a ravine some five or six hundred feet in depth1 which winds for leagues between the gentle hills1 unthought of until its edge is approached2 and then1 suddenly1 through the boughs of the firs1 the eye perceives1 beneath1 the green and gliding stream1 and the broad walls of sandstone cliff that form its banks2 hollowed out where the river leans against them1 at its turns1 into perilous over-hanging2 and1 on the other shore1 at the same spots1 leaving little breadths of meadow between them and the water1 half overgrown with thicket1 deserted in their sweetness1 inaccessible from above1 and rarely visited by any curious wanderers along the hardly traceable footpath which struggles for existence beneath the rocks4 ,and there the river ripples and eddies and murmurs in an outer solitude4 ,it is passing through a thickly peopled country2 but never was a stream so lonely4 ,the feeblest and most far-away torrent among the high hills has its companions2 the goats browse beside it2 and the traveller drinks from it1 and passes over it with his staff2 and the peasant traces a new channel for it down to his mill-wheel4 ,but this stream has no companions2 it flows on in an infinite seclusion1 not secret1 nor threatening1 but a quietness of sweet daylight and open air--a broad space of tender and deep desolateness1 drooped into repose out of the midst of human labour and life2 the waves plashing lowly1 with none to hear them2 and the wild birds building in the boughs1 with none to fray them away2 and the soft1 fragrant herbs rising and breathing and fading1 with no hand to gather them2--and yet all bright and bare to the clouds above1 and to the fresh fall of the passing sunshine and pure rain4 ,but above the brows of these scarped cliffs1 all is in an instant changed4 ,a few steps only beyond the firs that stretch their branches1 angular1 and wild1 and white1 like forks of lightning1 into the air of the ravine1--and we are in an arable country of the most perfect richness2 the swathes of its corn glowing and burning from field to field3 its pretty hamlets all vivid with fruitful orchards1 and flowery garden1 and goodly with steep-roofed storehouse and barn2 its well-kept1 hard1 park-like roads rising and falling from hillside to hillside1 or disappearing among brown banks of moss1 and thickets of the wild raspberry and rose1 or gleaming through lines of tall trees1 half glade1 half avenue1 where the gate opens1 or the gateless path turns trustedly aside1 unhindered1 into the garden of some statelier house1 surrounded in rural pride with its golden hives1 and carved granaries1 and irregular domain of latticed and espaliered cottages1 gladdening to look upon in their delicate homeliness--delicate1 yet in some sort1 rude2 not like our ,english homes--trim1 laborious1 formal1 irreproachable in comfort--but with a peculiar carelessness and largeness in all their detail1 harmonizing with the outlawed loveliness of their country4 ,for there is an untamed strength even in all that soft and habitable land4 ,it is indeed gilded with corn1 and fragrant with deep grass1 but it is not subdued to the plough or to the scythe4 ,it gives at its own free will2 it seems to have nothing wrested from it1 nor conquered in it4 ,it is not redeemed from desertness1 but unrestrained in fruitfulness1--a generous land1 bright with capricious plenty1 and laughing from vale to vale in fitful fulness1 kind and wild4 ,nor this without some sterner element mingled in the heart of it4 ,for1 along all its ridges stand the dark masses of innumerable pines1#aa taking no part in its gladness2 asserting themselves for ever as fixed shadows1 not to be pierced or banished even in the intensest sunlight2 fallen flakes and fragments of the night1 stayed in their solemn squares in the midst of all the rosy bendings of the orchard boughs and yellow effulgence of the harvest1 and tracing themselves in black network and motionless fringes against the blanched blue of the horizon in its saintly clearness4 ,and yet they do not sadden the landscape1 but seem to have been set there chiefly to show how bright everything else is round them2 and all the clouds look of pure silver1 and all the air seems filled with a whiter and more living sunshine1 where they are pierced by the sable points of the pines2 and all the pastures look of more glowing green where they run up between the purple trunks2 and the sweet field footpaths skirt the edges of the forest for the sake of its shade1 sloping up and down about the slippery roots1 and losing themselves every now and then hopelessly among the violets and ground-ivy and brown sheddings of the fibrous leaves1 and at last plunging into some open aisle1 where the light through the distant stems shows that there is a chance of coming out again on the other side2 and coming out indeed in a little while from the scented darkness into the dazzling air and marvellous landscape1 which stretches still farther and farther in new wilfulness of grove and garden1 until at last the craggy mountains of the ,simmenthal rise out of it1 sharp into the rolling of the southern clouds4 #aa ,almost the only pleasure ,i have1 myself1 in rereading my old books1 is my sense of having at least done justice to the pine4 ,compare the passage in this book1 ,no4 #dg4 #ai4ab ,although there are few districts of ,northern ,europe1 however apparently dull or tame1 in which ,i cannot find pleasure2 though the whole of ,northern ,france 7except ,champagne71 dull as it seems to most travellers1 is to me a perpetual paradise2 and1 putting ,lincolnshire1 ,leicestershire1 and one or two such other perfectly flat districts aside1 there is not an ,english county which ,i should not find entertainment in exploring the cross-roads of1 foot by foot1--yet all my best enjoyment would be owing to the imagination of the hills1 colouring with their far-away memories every lowland stone and herb4 ,the pleasant ,french coteau1 green in the sunshine1 delights me either by what real mountain character it has in itself1 7for in extent and succession of promontory1 the flanks of the ,french valleys have quite the sublimity of true mountain distances17 or by its broken ground and rugged steps among the vines1 and rise of the leafage above against the blue sky1 as it might rise at ,vevay or ,como4 ,there is not a wave of the ,seine1 but is associated in my mind with the first rise of the sandstones and forest pines of ,fontainebleau2 and with the hope of the ,alps1 as one leaves ,paris1 with the horses' heads to the southwest1 the morning sun flashing on the bright waves at ,charenton4 ,if there be no hope or association of this kind1 and if ,i cannot deceive myself into fancying that perhaps at the next rise of the road there may be the film of a blue hill in the gleam of sky at the horizon1 the landscape1 however beautiful1 produces in me even a kind of sickness and pain2 and the whole view from ,richmond ,hill or ,windsor ,terrace1--nay1 the gardens of ,alcinous1 with their perpetual summer--or of the ,hesperides1 7if they were flat1 and not close to ,atlas17 golden apples and all1 ,i would give away in an instant1 for one mossy granite stone a foot broad1 and two leaves of lady fern4 #ab ,this1 and the following passage1 have nothing to do with the general statements in the book4 ,they occur with reference only to my own idiosyncrasy4 ,i was much surprised when ,i found first how individual it was1 by a ,pre-,raphaelite painter's declaring a piece of unwholesome reedy fen to be more beautiful than ,benvenue4 #bj4 ,i cannot find words to express the intense pleasure ,i have always in first finding myself1 after some prolonged stay in ,england1 at the foot of the old tower of ,calais ,church4 ,the large neglect1 the noble unsightliness of it2 the record of its years written so visibly1 yet without sign of weakness or decay2 its stern wasteness and gloom1 eaten away by the ,channel winds1 and overgrown with the bitter sea grasses2 its slates and tiles all shaken and rent1 and yet not falling2 its desert of brickwork1 full of bolts1 and holes1 and ugly fissures1 and yet strong1 like a bare brown rock2 its carelessness of what any one thinks or feels about it1 putting forth no claim1 having no beauty1 nor desirableness1 pride1 nor grace2 yet neither asking for pity2 not1 as ruins are1 useless and piteous1 feebly or fondly garrulous of better days2 but1 useful still1 going through its own daily work1--as some old fisherman1 beaten grey by storm1 yet drawing his daily nets3 so it stands1 with no complaint about its past youth1 in blanched and meagre massiveness and serviceableness1 gathering human souls together underneath it2 the sound of its bells for prayer still rolling through its rents2 and the grey peak of it seen far across the sea1 principal of the three that rise above the waste of surfy sand and hillocked shore1--the lighthouse for life1 and the belfry for labour1 and this--for patience and praise4 ,i cannot tell the half of the strange pleasures and thoughts that come about me at the sight of that old tower2 for1 in some sort1 it is the epitome of all that makes the continent of ,europe interesting1 as opposed to new countries2 and1 above all1 it completely expresses that agedness in the midst of active life which binds the old and the new into harmony4 ,we in ,england have our new streets1 our new inn1 our green shaven lawn1 and our piece of ruin emergent from it--a mere specimen of the ,middle ,ages put on a bit of velvet carpet1 to be shown2 and which1 but for its size1 might as well be on a museum shelf at once1 under cover2--but1 on the ,continent1 the links are unbroken between the past and present2 and1 in such use as they can serve for1 the grey-headed wrecks are suffered to stay with men2 while1 in unbroken line1 the generations of spared buildings are seen succeeding1 each in its place4 ,and thus1 in its largeness1 in its permitted evidence of slow decline1 in its poverty1 in its absence of all pretence1 of all show and care for outside aspect1 that ,calais tower has an infinite of symbolism in it1 all the more striking because usually seen in contrast with ,english scenes expressive of feelings the exact reverse of these4#ac #ac ,my friend won't write out the reverse6 ,our book is to be all jelly1 and no powder1 it seems4 ,well1 ,i'm very thankful she likes the jelly1--at any rate1 it makes me sure that it is well made4 ,,section ,,iii4 ,,illustrative3 ,,the ,,sky4 #ba4 ,it is a strange thing how little in general people know about the sky4 ,it is the part of creation in which ,nature has done more for the sake of pleasing man--more for the sole and evident purpose of talking to him1 and teaching him--than in any other of her works2 and it is just the part in which we least attend to her4 ,there are not many of her other works in which some more material or essential purpose than the mere pleasing of man is not answered by every part of their organization2 but every essential purpose of the sky might1 so far as we know1 be answered if once in three days1 or thereabouts1 a great1 ugly1 black rain-cloud were brought up over the blue1 and everything well watered1 and so all left blue again till next time1 with perhaps a film of morning and evening mist for dew2--and instead of this1 there is not a moment of any day of our lives1 when ,nature is not producing scene after scene1 picture after picture1 glory after glory1 and working still upon such exquisite and constant principles of the most perfect beauty1 that it is quite certain#ad it is all done for us1 and intended for our perpetual pleasure4 ,and every man1 wherever placed1 however far from other sources of interest or of beauty1 has this doing for him constantly4 ,the noblest scenes of the earth can be seen and known but by few2 it is not intended that man should live always in the midst of them2 he injures them by his presence1 he ceases to feel them if he is always with them2 but the sky is for all3 bright as it is1 it is not too bright nor good ,for human nature's daily food2 it is fitted in all its functions for the perpetual comfort and exalting of the heart1--for soothing it1 and purifying it from its dross and dust4 ,sometimes gentle1 sometimes capricious1 sometimes awful--never the same for two moments together2 almost human in its passions1 almost spiritual in its tenderness1 almost divine in its infinity1 its appeal to what is immortal in us is as distinct as its ministry of chastisement or of blessing to what is mortal is essential4 ,and yet we never attend to it1 we never make it a subject of thought1 but as it has to do with our animal sensations2 we look upon all by which it speaks to us more clearly than to brutes1 upon all which bears witness to the intentions of the ,supreme that we are to receive more from the covering vault than the light and the dew which we share with the weed and the worm1 as only a succession of meaningless and monotonous accident1 too common and too vain to be worthy of a moment of watchfulness1 or a glance of admiration4 ,if in our moments of utter idleness and insipidity1 we turn to the sky as a last resource1 which of its phenomena do we speak of8 ,one says1 it has been wet2 and another1 it has been windy2 and another1 it has been warm4 ,who among the whole chattering crowd can tell one of the forms and the precipices of the chain of tall white mountains that girded the horizon at noon yesterday8 ,who saw the narrow sunbeam that came out of the south1 and smote upon their summits until they melted and mouldered away in a dust of blue rain8 ,who saw the dance of the dead clouds when the sunlight left them last night1 and the west wind blew them before it like withered leaves8 ,all has passed unregretted as unseen2 or1 if the apathy be ever shaken off even for an instant1 it is only by what is gross1 or what is extraordinary4 ,and yet it is not in the broad and fierce manifestations of the elemental energies1 not in the clash of the hail1 nor the drift of the whirlwind1 that the highest characters of the sublime are developed4 ,god is not in the earthquake1 nor in the fire1 but in the still1 small voice4 ,they are but the blunt and the low faculties of our nature1 which can only be addressed through lamp-black and lightning4 ,it is in quiet and subdued passages of unobtrusive majesty1 the deep and the calm1 and the perpetual2 that which must be sought ere it is seen1 and loved ere it is understood2 things which the angels work out for us daily1 and yet vary eternally2 which are never wanting1 and never repeated2 which are to be found always1 yet each found but once2--it is through these that the lesson of devotion is chiefly taught1 and the blessing of beauty given4 #ad ,at least1 ,i thought so1 when ,i was four-and-twenty4 ,at five-and-fifty1 ,i fancy that it is just possible there may be other creatures in the universe to be pleased1 or1--it may be1--displeased1 by the weather4 #bb4 ,we habitually think of the rain-cloud only as dark and grey2 not knowing that we owe to it perhaps the fairest1 though not the most dazzling1 of the hues of heaven4 ,often in our ,english mornings1 the rain-clouds in the dawn form soft1 level fields1 which melt imperceptibly into the blue2 or1 when of less extent1 gather into apparent bars1 crossing the sheets of broader cloud above2 and all these bathed throughout in an unspeakable light of pure rose-colour1 and purple1 and amber1 and blue2 not shining1 but misty-soft2 the barred masses1 when seen nearer1 composed of clusters or tresses of cloud1 like floss silk2 looking as if each knot were a little swathe or sheaf of lighted rain4 #bc4 ,aqueous vapour or mist1 suspended in the atmosphere1 becomes visible exactly as dust does in the air of a room4 ,in the shadows1 you not only cannot see the dust itself1 because unillumined1 but you can see other objects through the dust1 without obscurity2 the air being thus actually rendered more transparent by a deprivation of light4 ,where a sunbeam enters1 every particle of dust becomes visible1 and a palpable interruption to the sight2 so that a transverse sunbeam is a real obstacle to the vision--you cannot see things clearly through it4 ,in the same way1 wherever vapour is illuminated by transverse rays1 there it becomes visible as a whiteness more or less affecting the purity of the blue1 and destroying it exactly in proportion to the degree of illumination4 ,but where vapour is in shade1 it has very little effect on the sky1 perhaps making it a little deeper and greyer than it otherwise would be1 but not1 itself1 unless very dense1 distinguishable or felt as mist4 #bd4 ,has the reader any distinct idea of what clouds are8 #ae,that mist which lies in the morning so softly in the valley1 level and white1 through which the tops of the trees rise as if through an inundation--why is it so heavy1 and why does it lie so low1 being yet so thin and frail that it will melt away utterly into splendour of morning when the sun has shone on it but a few moments more8 ,those colossal pyramids1 huge and firm1 with outlines as of rocks1 and strength to bear the beating of the high sun full on their fiery flanks1--why are they so light1 their bases high over our heads1 high over the heads of ,alps8 ,why will these melt away1 not as the sun rises1 but as he descends1 and leave the stars of twilight clear2 while the valley vapour gains again upon the earth1 like a shroud8 ,or that ghost of a cloud1 which steals by yonder clump of pines2 nay1 which does not steal by them1 but haunts them1 wreathing yet round them1 and yet1--and yet1--slowly2 now falling in a fair waved line like a woman's veil2 now fading1 now gone2 we look away for an instant1 and look back1 and it is again there4 ,what has it to do with that clump of pines1 that it broods by them1 and weaves itself among their branches1 to and fro8 ,has it hidden a cloudy treasure among the moss at their roots1 which it watches thus8 ,or has some strong enchanter charmed it into fond returning1 or bound it fast within those bars of bough8 ,and yonder filmy crescent1 bent like an archer's bow above the snowy summit1 the highest of all the hills--that white arch which never forms but over the supreme crest1--how is it stayed there1 repelled apparently from the snow1--nowhere touching it1 the clear sky seen between it and the mountain edge1 yet never leaving it--poised as a white bird hovers over its nest8 ,or those war clouds that gather on the horizon1 dragon-crested1 tongued with fire1--how is their barbed strength bridled8 ,what bits are those they are champing with their vapourous lips1 flinging off flakes of black foam8 ,leagued leviathans of the ,sea of ,heaven1--out of their nostrils goeth smoke1 and their eyes are like the eyelids of the morning2 the sword of him that layeth at them cannot hold the spear1 the dart1 nor the habergeon4 ,where ride the captains of their armies8 ,where are set the measures of their march8 ,fierce murmurers1 answering each other from morning until evening--what rebuke is this which has awed them into peace2--what hand has reined them back by the way in which they came8 #ae ,this is a fifth volume bit1 and worth more attention4 ,i know not if the reader will think at first that questions like these are easily answered4 ,so far from it1 ,i rather believe that some of the mysteries of the clouds never will be understood by us at all4 ,knowest thou the balancings of the clouds8 ,is the answer ever to be one of pride8 ,the wondrous works of ,him1 who is perfect in knowledge8 ,is our knowledge ever to be so8444 ,for my own part1 ,i enjoy the mystery1 and perhaps the reader may4 ,i think he ought4 ,he should not be less grateful for summer rain1 or see less beauty in the clouds of morning1 because they come to prove him with hard questions2 to which perhaps1 if we look close at the heavenly scroll1 we may find also a syllable or two of answer1 illuminated here and there4#af #af ,compare1 in ',sartor ,resartus1' the boy's watching from the garden wall4 ,and though the climates of the south and east may be comparatively clear1 they are no more absolutely clear than our own northern air4 ,intense clearness1 whether1 in the north1 after or before rain1 or in some moments of twilight in the south1 is always1 as far as ,i am acquainted with natural phenomena1 a notable thing4 ,mist of some sort1 or mirage1 or confusion of light or of cloud1 are the general facts2 the distance may vary in different climates at which the effects of mist begin1 but they are always present2 and therefore1 in all probability1 it is meant that we should enjoy them4444 ,we surely need not wonder that mist and all its phenomena have been made delightful to us1 since our happiness as thinking beings must depend on our being content to accept only partial knowledge even in those matters which chiefly concern us4 ,if we insist upon perfect intelligibility and complete declaration in every moral subject1 we shall instantly fall into misery of unbelief4 ,our whole happiness and power of energetic action depend upon our being able to breathe and live in the cloud2 content to see it opening here1 and closing there2 rejoicing to catch through the thinnest films of it1 glimpses of stable and substantial things2 but yet perceiving a nobleness even in the concealment1 and rejoicing that the kindly veil is spread where the untempered light might have scorched us1 or the infinite clearness wearied4 ,and ,i believe that the resentment of this interference of the mist is one of the forms of proud error which are too easily mistaken for virtues4 ,to be content in utter darkness and ignorance is indeed unmanly1 and therefore we think that to love light and find knowledge must always be right4 ,yet 7as in all matters before observed17 wherever pride has any share in the work1 even knowledge and light may be ill pursued4 ,knowledge is good1 and light is good3 yet man perished in seeking knowledge1 and moths perish in seeking light2 and if we1 who are crushed before the moth1 will not accept such mystery as is needful to us1 we shall perish in like manner4 ,but1 accepted in humbleness1 it instantly becomes an element of pleasure2 and ,i think that every rightly constituted mind ought to rejoice1 not so much in knowing anything clearly1 as in feeling that there is infinitely more which it cannot know4 ,none but proud or weak men would mourn over this1 for we may always know more1 if we choose1 by working on2 but the pleasure is1 ,i think1 to humble people1 in knowing that the journey is endless1 the treasure inexhaustible1--watching the cloud still march before them with its summitless pillar1 and being sure that1 to the end of time1 and to the length of eternity1 the mysteries of its infinity will still open farther and farther1 their dimness being the sign and necessary adjunct of their inexhaustibleness4 ,i know there are an evil mystery1 and a deathful dimness1--the mystery of the great ,babylon--the dimness of the sealed eye and soul2 but do not let us confuse these with the glorious mystery of the things which the angels desire to look into1 or with the dimness which1 even before the clear eye and open soul1 still rests on sealed pages of the eternal volume4 #be4 ,on some isolated mountain at day-break1#ag when the night mists first rise from off the plain1 watch their white and lakelike fields1 as they float in level bays1 and winding gulfs1 about the islanded summits of the lower hills1 untouched yet by more than dawn1 colder and more quiet than a windless sea under the moon of midnight2 watch when the first sunbeam is sent upon the silver channels1 how the foam of their undulating surface parts1 and passes away1 and down under their depths the glittering city and green pastures lie like ,atlantis1 between the white paths of winding rivers2 the flakes of light falling every moment faster and broader among the starry spires1 as the wreathed surges break and vanish above them1 and the confused crests and ridges of the dark hills shorten their grey shadows upon the plain4 ,wait a little longer1 and you shall see those scattered mists rallying in the ravines1 and floating up towards you1 along the winding valleys1 till they crouch in quiet masses1 iridescent with the morning light1 upon the broad breasts of the higher hills1 whose leagues of massy undulation will melt back1 back into that robe of material light1 until they fade away1 lost in its lustre1 to appear again above in the serene heaven like a wild1 bright1 impossible dream1 foundationless1 and inaccessible1 their very bases vanishing in the unsubstantial and mocking blue of the deep lake below4 ,wait yet a little longer1 and you shall see those mists gather themselves into white towers1 and stand like fortresses along the promontories1 massy and motionless1 only piled1 with every instant1 higher and higher into the sky1 and casting longer shadows athwart the rocks2 and out of the pale blue of the horizon you will see forming and advancing a troop of narrow1 dark1 pointed vapours1 which will cover the sky1 inch by inch1 with their grey network1 and take the light off the landscape with an eclipse which will stop the singing of the birds1 and the motion of the leaves1 together2--and then you will see horizontal bars of black shadow forming under them1 and lurid wreaths create themselves1 you know not how1 among the shoulders of the hills2 you never see them form1 but when you look back to a place which was clear an instant ago1 there is a cloud on it1 hanging by the precipice1 as a hawk pauses over his prey2--and then you will hear the sudden rush of the awakened wind1 and you will see those watch-towers of vapour swept away from their foundations1 and waving curtains of opaque rain1 let down to the valley1 swinging from the burdened clouds in black bending fringes1 or1 pacing in pale columns along the lake level1 grazing its surface into foam as they go4 ,and then1 as the sun sinks1 you shall see the storm drift for an instant from off the hills1 leaving their broad sides smoking and loaded yet with snow-white1 torn1 steam-like rags of capricious vapour1 now gone1 now gathered again1--while the smouldering sun1 seeming not far away1 but burning like a red-hot ball beside you1 and as if you could reach it1 plunges through the rushing wind and rolling cloud with headlong fall1 as if it meant to rise no more1 dyeing all the air about it with blood2--and then you shall hear the fainting tempest die in the hollow of the night1 and you shall see a green halo kindling on the summit of the eastern hills1 brighter1 brighter yet1 till the large white circle of the slow moon is lifted up among the barred clouds1 step by step1 line by line2 star after star she quenches with her kindling light1 setting in their stead an army of pale1 penetrable1 fleecy wreaths in the heaven1 to give light upon the earth1 which move together hand in hand1 company by company1 troop by troop1 so measured in their unity of motion that the whole heaven seems to roll with them1 and the earth to reel under them4 ,and then wait yet for one hour1 until the east again becomes purple1 and the heaving mountains1 rolling against it in darkness1 like waves of a wild sea1 are drowned one by one in the glory of its burning2 watch the white glaciers blaze in their winding paths about the mountains1 like mighty serpents with scales of fire2 watch the columnar peaks of solitary snow1 kindling downwards chasm by chasm1 each in itself a new morning--their long avalanches cast down in keen streams brighter than the lightning1 sending each his tribute of driven snow1 like altar-smoke1 up to heaven2 the rose-light of their silent domes flushing that heaven about them1 and above them1 piercing with purer light through its purple lines of lifted cloud1 casting a new glory on every wreath1 as it passes by1 until the whole heaven1 one scarlet canopy1 is interwoven with a roof of waving flame1 and tossing vault beyond vault1 as with the drifted wings of many companies of angels2 and then1 when you can look no more for gladness1 and when you are bowed down with fear and love of the ,maker and ,doer of this1 tell me who has best delivered this ,his message unto men6 #ag ,i forget now what all this is about4 ,it seems to be a recollection of the ,rigi1 with assumption that the enthusiastic spectator is to stand for a day and night in observation2 to suffer the effects of a severe thunder-storm1 and to get neither breakfast nor dinner4 ,i have seen such a storm on the ,rigi1 however1 and more than one such sunrise2 and ,i much doubt if its present visitors by rail will see more4 #bf4ah ,the account given of the stages of creation in the first chapter of ,genesis is in every respect clear and intelligible to the simplest reader1 except in the statement of the work of the second day4 ,i suppose that this statement is passed over by careless readers without any endeavour to understand it1 and contemplated by simple and faithful readers as a sublime mystery which was not intended to be understood4 ,but there is no mystery in any other part of the chapter1 and it seems to me unjust to conclude that any was intended here4 ,and the passage ought to be peculiarly interesting to us1 as being the first in the ,bible in which the heavens are named1 and the only one in which the word ,heaven1 all-important as that word is to our understanding of the most precious promises of ,scripture1 receives a definite explanation4 ,let us therefore see whether1 by a little careful comparison of the verse with other passages in which the word occurs1 we may not be able to arrive at as clear an understanding of this portion of the chapter as of the rest4 ,in the first place the ,english word1 ,firmament1 itself is obscure and useless2 because we never employ it but as a synonym of heaven1 it conveys no other distinct idea to us2 and the verse1 though from our familiarity with it we imagine that it possesses meaning1 has in reality no more point nor value than if it were written1 ,god said1 ,let there be a something in the midst of the waters1 and ,god called the something1 ,heaven4 ,but the marginal reading1 ,expansion1 has definite value2 and the statement that ,god said1 ,let there be an expansion in the midst of the waters1 and ,god called the expansion1 ,heaven1 has an apprehensible meaning4 ,accepting this expression as the one intended1 we have next to ask what expansion there is1 between two waters1 describable by the term heaven4 ,milton adopts the term expanse1 but he understands it of the whole volume of the air which surrounds the earth4 ,whereas1 so far as we can tell1 there is no water beyond the air1 in the fields of space2 and the whole expression of division of waters from waters is thus rendered valueless4 ,now with respect to this whole chapter1 we must remember always that it is intended for the instruction of all mankind1 not for the learned reader only2 and that therefore the most simple and natural interpretation is the likeliest in general to be the true one4 ,an unscientific reader knows little about the manner in which the volume of the atmosphere surrounds the earth2 but ,i imagine that he could hardly glance at the sky when rain was falling in the distance1 and see the level line of the bases of the clouds from which the shower descended1 without being able to attach an instant and easy meaning to the words1 expansion in the midst of the waters2 and if1 having once seized this idea1 he proceeded to examine it more accurately1 he would perceive at once1 if he had ever noticed anything of the nature of clouds1 that the level line of their bases did indeed most severely and stringently divide waters from waters--that is to say1 divide water in its collective and tangible state1 from water in its arial state2 or the waters which fall1 and flow1 from those which rise1 and float4 ,next1 if we try this interpretation in the theological sense of the word heaven1 and examine whether the clouds are spoken of as ,god's dwelling-place1 we find ,god going before the ,israelites in a pillar of cloud2 revealing ,himself in a cloud on ,sinai2 appearing in a cloud on the mercy-seat2 filling the ,temple of ,solomon with the cloud when its dedication is accepted2 appearing in a great cloud to ,ezekiel2 ascending into a cloud before the eyes of the disciples on ,mount ,olivet2 and in like manner returning to judgment3 ,behold ,he cometh with clouds1 and every eye shall see ,him4 ,then shall they see the ,son of ,man coming in the clouds of heaven1 with power and great glory4 ,while1 further1 the clouds and heavens are used as interchangeable words in those psalms which most distinctly set forth the power of ,god3 ,he bowed the heavens also1 and came down2 ,he made darkness pavilions round about ,him1 dark waters1 and thick clouds of the skies4 ,and again1 ,thy mercy1 ,o ,lord1 is in the heavens1 and ,thy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds4 ,and again1 ,his excellency is over ,israel1 and ,his strength is in the clouds4 ,and again1 ,the clouds poured out water1 the skies sent out a sound1 the voice of ,thy thunder was in the heaven4 ,again1 ,clouds and darkness are round about ,him1 righteousness and judgment are the habitation of ,his throne2 the heavens declare ,his righteousness1 and all the people see ,his glory4 ,in all these passages the meaning is unmistakable if they possess definite meaning at all4 ,we are too apt to take them merely for sublime and vague imagery1 and therefore gradually to lose the apprehension of their life and power4 ,the expression1 ,he bowed the heavens1 for instance1 is1 ,i suppose1 received by most readers as a magnificent hyperbole1 having reference to some peculiar and fearful manifestation of ,god's power to the writer of the psalm in which the words occur4 ,but the expression either has plain meaning1 or it has no meaning4 ,understand by the term heavens the compass of infinite space around the earth1 and the expression bowed the heavens1 however sublime1 is wholly without meaning3 infinite space cannot be bent or bowed4 ,but understand by the heavens the veil of clouds above the earth1 and the expression is neither hyperbolical nor obscure2 it is pure1 plain1 accurate truth1 and it describes ,god1 not as revealing ,himself in any peculiar way to ,david1 but doing what ,he is still doing before our own eyes1 day by day4 ,by accepting the words in their simple sense1 we are thus led to apprehend the immediate presence of the ,deity1 and ,his purpose of manifesting ,himself as near us whenever the storm-cloud stoops upon its course2 while by our vague and inaccurate acceptance of the words1 we remove the idea of ,his presence far from us1 into a region which we can neither see nor know3 and gradually1 from the close realization of a living ,god1 who maketh the clouds ,his chariot1 we define and explain ourselves into dim and distant suspicion of an inactive ,god inhabiting inconceivable places1 and fading into the multitudinous formalisms of the laws of ,nature4 ,all errors of this kind--and in the present day we are in constant and grievous danger of falling into them--arise from the originally mistaken idea that man can1 by searching1 find out ,god--find out the ,almighty to perfection--that is to say1 by help of courses of reasoning and accumulations of science1 apprehend the nature of the ,deity1 in a more exalted and more accurate manner than in a state of comparative ignorance2 whereas it is clearly necessary1 from the beginning to the end of time1 that ,god's way of revealing ,himself to ,his creatures should be a simple way1 which all those creatures may understand4 ,whether taught or untaught1 whether of mean capacity or enlarged1 it is necessary that communion with their ,creator should be possible to all2 and the admission to such communion must be rested1 not on their having a knowledge of astronomy1 but on their having a human soul4 ,in order to render this communion possible1 the ,deity has stooped from ,his throne1 and has1 not only in the person of the ,son1 taken upon ,him the veil of our human flesh1 but1 in the person of the ,father1 taken upon ,him the veil of our human thoughts1 and permitted us1 by ,his own spoken authority1 to conceive ,him simply and clearly as a loving father and friend2 a being to be walked with and reasoned with1 to be moved by our entreaties1 angered by our rebellion1 alienated by our coldness1 pleased by our love1 and glorified by our labour2 and1 finally1 to be beheld in immediate and active presence in all the powers and changes of creation4 ,this conception of ,god1 which is the child's1 is evidently the only one which can be universal1 and1 therefore1 the only one which for us can be true4 ,the moment that1 in our pride of heart1 we refuse to accept the condescension of the ,almighty1 and desire ,him1 instead of stooping to hold our hands1 to rise up before us into ,his glory1 we hoping that1 by standing on a grain of dust or two of human knowledge higher than our fellows1 we may behold the ,creator as ,he rises1--,god takes us at our word4 ,he rises into ,his own invisible and inconceivable majesty2 ,he goes forth upon the ways which are not our ways1 and retires into the thoughts which are not our thoughts2 and we are left alone4 ,and presently we say in our vain hearts1 ,there is no ,god4 #ah ,this passage1 to the end of the section1 is one of the last1 and best1 which ,i wrote in the temper of my youth2 and ,i can still ratify it1 thus far1 that the texts referred to in it must either be received as it explains them1 or neglected altogether4 ,i would desire1 therefore1 to receive ,god's account of ,his own creation as under the ordinary limits of human knowledge and imagination it would be received by a simple-minded man2 and finding that the heavens and the earth are spoken of always as having something like equal relation to each other1 7,thus the heavens and the earth were finished1 and all the host of them17 ,i reject at once all idea of the term heavens being intended to signify the infinity of space inhabited by countless worlds2 for between those infinite heavens and the particle of sand1 which not the earth only1 but the sun itself1 with all the solar system1 is1 in relation to them1 no relation of equality or comparison could be inferred4 ,but ,i suppose the heavens to mean that part of creation which holds equal companionship with our globe2 ,i understand the rolling of these heavens together as a scroll1 to be an equal and relative destruction with the melting of the elements in fervent heat2 and ,i understand the making of the firmament to signify that1 so far as man is concerned1 most magnificent ordinance of the clouds2--the ordinance that1 as the great plain of waters was formed on the face of the earth1 so also a plain of waters should be stretched along the height of air1 and the face of the cloud answer the face of the ocean2 and that this upper and heavenly plain should be of waters1 as it were1 glorified in their nature1 no longer quenching the fire1 but now bearing fire in their own bosoms2 no longer murmuring only when the winds raise them or rocks divide1 but answering each other with their own voices1 from pole to pole2 no longer restrained by established shores1 and guided through unchanging channels1 but going forth at their pleasure like the armies of the angels1 and choosing their encampments upon the heights of the hills2 no longer hurried downwards for ever1 moving but to fall1 nor lost in the lightless accumulation of the abyss1 but covering the east and west with the waving of their wings1 and robing the gloom of the farther infinite with a vesture of diverse colours1 of which the threads are purple and scarlet1 and the embroideries flame4 ,this ,i believe is the ordinance of the firmament2 and it seems to me that in the midst of the material nearness of these heavens1 ,god means us to acknowledge ,his own immediate presence as visiting1 judging1 and blessing us3 ,the earth shook1 the heavens also dropped at the presence of ,god4 ,he doth set ,his bow in the clouds1 and thus renews1 in the sound of every drooping swathe of rain1 ,his promises of everlasting love4 ,in them hath ,he set a tabernacle for the sun2 whose burning ball1 which1 without the firmament1 would be seen but as an intolerable and scorching circle in the blackness of vacuity1 is by that firmament surrounded with gorgeous service1 and tempered by mediatorial ministries3 by the firmament of clouds the temple is built1 for his presence to fill with light at noon2 by the firmament of clouds the purple veil is closed at evening1 round the sanctuary of his rest2 by the mists of the firmament his implacable light is divided1 and its separated fierceness appeased into the soft blue that fills the depth of distance with its bloom1 and the flush with which the mountains burn1 as they drink the overflowing of the dayspring4 ,and in this tabernacling of the unendurable sun with men1 through the shadows of the firmament1 ,god would seem to set forth the stooping of ,his own ,majesty to men1 upon the throne of the firmament4 ,as the ,creator of all the worlds1 and the ,inhabiter of eternity1 we cannot behold ,him2 but as the ,judge of the earth and the ,preserver of men1 those heavens are indeed ,his dwelling-place3 ,swear not1 neither by heaven1 for it is ,god's throne2 nor by the earth1 for it is ,his footstool6 ,and all those passings to and fro of fruitful showers and grateful shade1 and all those visions of silver palaces built about the horizon1 and voices of moaning winds and threatening thunders1 and glories of coloured robe and cloven ray1 are but to deepen in our hearts the acceptance1 and distinctness1 and dearness of the simple words1 ,our ,father1 which art in heaven4 ,,section ,,iv4 ,,illustrative3 ,,streams ,,and ,,sea4 #bg4 ,of all inorganic substances1 acting in their own proper nature1 and without assistance and combination1 water is the most wonderful4 ,if we think of it as the source of all the changefulness and beauty which we have seen in clouds1--then1 as the instrument by which the earth we have contemplated was modelled into symmetry1 and its crags chiselled into grace2--then1 as in the form of snow1 it robes the mountains it has made with that transcendent light which we could not have conceived if we had not seen2--then1 as it exists in the foam of the torrent1 in the iris which spans it1 in the morning mist which rises from it1 in the deep crystalline pools which mirror its hanging shore1 in the broad lake and glancing river2--finally1 in that which is to all human minds the best emblem of unwearied1 unconquerable power the wild1 various1 fantastic1 tameless unity of the sea2--what shall we compare to this mighty1 this universal element1 for glory and beauty8 or how shall we follow its eternal changefulness of feeling8 ,it is like trying to paint a soul6 #bh4 ,the great angel of the sea--rain2 the angel1 observe1--the messenger sent to a special place on a special errand4 ,not the diffused1 perpetual presence of the burden of mist1 but the going and returning of the intermittent cloud4 ,all turns upon that intermittence4 ,soft moss on stone and rock2 cave fern of tangled glen2 wayside well--perennial1 patient1 silent1 clear1 stealing through its square font of rough-hewn stone2 ever thus deep1 no more2--which the winter wreck sullies not1 the summer thirst wastes not1 incapable of stain as of decline2--where the fallen leaf floats undecayed1 and the insect darts undefiling3 cressed brook and ever-eddying river1 lifted even in flood scarcely over its stepping stones1--but through all sweet summer keeping tremulous music with harp-strings of dark water among the silver fingering of the pebbles4 ,far away in the south the strong river gods have all hasted1 and gone down to the sea4 ,wasted and burning1 white furnaces of blasting sand1 their broad beds lie ghastly and bare2 but here in the moss lands1 the soft wings of the sea angel droop still with dew1 and the shadows of their plumes falter on the hills2 strange laughings and glitterings of silver streamlets1 born suddenly1 and twined about the mossy heights in trickling tinsel1 answering to them as they wave4 #bi4 ,stand for half an hour beside the fall of ,schaffhausen1 on the north side1 where the rapids are long1 and watch how the vault of water first bends unbroken1 in pure polished velocity1 over the arching rocks at the brow of the cataract1 covering them with a dome of crystal twenty feet thick1 so swift that its motion is unseen except when a foam globe from above darts over it like a falling star2 and how the trees are lighted above it under all their leaves1#ai at the instant that it breaks into foam2 and how all the hollows of that foam burn with green fire like so much shattering chrysoprase2 and how1 ever and anon startling you with its white flash1 a jet of spray leaps hissing out of the fall1 like a rocket1 bursting in the wind and driven away in dust1 filling the air with light2 and how through the curdling wreaths of the restless crashing abyss below1 the blue of the water1 paled by the foam in its body1 shows purer than the sky through white rain-cloud1 while the shuddering iris stoops in tremulous stillness over all1 fading and flushing alternately through the choking spray and shattered sunshine1 hiding itself at last among the thick golden leaves which toss to and fro in sympathy with the wild water1--their dripping masses lifted at intervals1 like sheaves of loaded corn1 by some stronger gush from the cataract1 and bowed again upon the mossy rocks as its roar dies away1--the dew gushing from their thick branches through drooping clusters of emerald herbage1 and sparkling in white threads along the dark rocks of the shore1 feeding the lichens1 which chase and chequer them with purple and silver4 #ai ,well noticed4 ,the drawing of the fall of ,schaffhausen1 which ,i made at the time of writing this study1 was one of the very few1 either by other draughtsmen or myself1 which ,i have seen ,turner pause at with serious attention4 #cj4 ,close beside the path by which travellers ascend the ,montanvert from the valley of ,chamouni1 on the right hand1 where it first begins to rise among the pines1 there descends a small stream from the foot of the granite peak known to the guides as the ,aiguille ,charmoz4 ,it is concealed from the traveller by a thicket of alder1 and its murmur is hardly heard1 for it is one of the weakest streams of the valley4 ,but it is a constant stream1 fed by a permanent1 though small1 glacier2 and continuing to flow even to the close of summer1 when more copious torrents1 depending only on the melting of the lower snows1 have left their beds1--stony channels in the sun4 ,the long drought which took place in the autumn of #ahed1 sealing every source of waters except these perpetual ones1 left the torrent of which ,i am speaking1 and such others1 in a state peculiarly favourable to observance of their least action on the mountains from which they descend4 ,they were entirely limited to their own ice fountains1 and the quantity of powdered rock which they brought down was1 of course1 at its minimum1 being nearly unmingled with any earth derived from the dissolution of softer soil1 or vegetable mould1 by rains4 ,at three in the afternoon1 on a warm day in ,september1 when the torrent had reached its average maximum strength for the day1 ,i filled an ordinary ,bordeaux wine flask with the water where it was least turbid4 ,from this quart of water ,i obtained twenty-four grains of sand and sediment more or less fine4 ,i cannot estimate the quantity of water in the stream2 but the runlet of it at which ,i filled the flask was giving about two hundred bottles a minute1 or rather more1 carrying down1 therefore1 about three quarters of a pound of powdered granite every minute4 ,this would be forty-five pounds an hour2 but allowing for the inferior power of the stream in the cooler periods of the day1 and taking into consideration1 on the other side1 its increased power in rain1 we may1 ,i think1 estimate its average hour's work at twenty-eight or thirty pounds1 or a hundredweight every four hours4 ,by this insignificant runlet1 therefore1 rather more than two tons of the substance of the ,mont ,blanc are displaced and carried down a certain distance every week2 and as it is only for three or four months that the flow of the stream is checked by frost1 we may certainly allow eighty tons for the mass which it annually moves4 ,it is not worth while to enter into any calculation of the relation borne by this runlet to the great torrents which descend from the chain of ,mont ,blanc into the valley of ,chamouni4#bj ,i but take this quantity1 eighty tons1 as the result of the labour of a scarcely noticeable runlet at the side of one of them1 utterly irrespective of all sudden falls of stones and of masses of mountain 7a single thunderbolt will sometimes leave a scar on the flank of a soft rock looking like a trench for a railroad71 and we shall then begin to apprehend something of the operation of the great laws of change which are the conditions of all material existence1 however apparently enduring4 ,the hills1 which1 as compared with living beings1 seem everlasting1 are in truth as perishing as they2 its veins of flowing fountain weary the mountain heart1 as the crimson pulse does ours2 the natural force of the iron crag is abated in its appointed time1 like the strength of the sinews in a human old age2 and it is but the lapse of the longer years of decay which1 in the sight of its ,creator1 distinguishes the mountain range from the moth and the worm4 #bj ,i have slightly modified and abridged what follows1 being impatient of its prolixity1 as well as ashamed of what is truly called the ludicrous under-estimate of the mass of the larger streams4 #ca4 ,few people1 comparatively1 have ever seen the effect on the sea of a powerful gale continued without intermission for three or four days and nights2 and to those who have not1 ,i believe it must be unimaginable1 not from the mere force or size of surge1 but from the complete annihilation of the limit between sea and air4 ,the water1 from its prolonged agitation1 is beaten1 not into mere creamy foam1 but into masses of accumulated yeast1 which hang in ropes and wreaths from wave to wave2 and where one curls over to break1 form a festoon like a drapery from its edge2 these are taken up by the wind1 not in dissipating dust1 but bodily1 in writhing1 hanging1 coiling masses1 which make the air white1 and thick as with snow1 only the flakes are a foot or two long each2 the surges themselves are full of foam in their very bodies1 underneath1 making them white all through1 as the water is under a great cataract1--and their masses1 being thus half water and half air1 are torn to pieces by the wind whenever they rise1 and carried away in roaring smoke1 which chokes and strangles like actual water4 ,add to this1 that when the air has been exhausted of its moisture by long rain1 the spray of the sea is caught by it as described above1 and covers its surface not merely with the smoke of finely divided water1 but with boiling mist3 imagine also the low rain-clouds brought down to the very level of the sea1 as ,i have often seen them1 whirling and flying in rags and fragments from wave to wave2 and finally conceive the surges themselves in their utmost pitch of power1 velocity1 vastness1 and madness1 lifting themselves in precipices and peaks furrowed with their whirl of ascent1 through all this chaos2 and you will understand that there is indeed no distinction left between the sea and air2 that no object1 nor horizon1 nor any landmark1 or natural evidence of position is left2 that the heaven is all spray1 and the ocean all cloud1 and that you can see no farther in any direction than you could see through a cataract4#ba #ba ,the whole of this was written merely to show the meaning of ,turner's picture of the steamer in distress1 throwing up signals4 ,it is a good study of wild weather2 but1 separate from its aim1 utterly feeble in comparison to the few words by which any of the great poets will describe sea1 when they have got to do it4 ,i am rather proud of the short sentence in the ',harbours of ,england1' describing a great breaker against rock3--,one moment1 a flint cave1--the next1 a marble pillar1--the next1 a fading cloud4 ,but there is nothing in sea-description1 detailed1 like ,dickens' storm at the death of ,ham1 in ',david ,copperfield4' ,,section ,v4 ,,illustrative3 ,,mountains4 #cb4 ,the words which marked for us the purpose of the clouds are followed immediately by those notable ones1--,and ,god said1 ,let the waters which are under the heavens be gathered together into one place1 and let the dry land appear4 ,we do not1 perhaps1 often enough consider the deep signification of this sentence4 ,we are too apt to receive it as the description of an event vaster only in its extent1 not in its nature1 than the compelling of the ,red ,sea to draw back that ,israel might pass by4 ,we imagine the ,deity in like manner rolling the waves of the greater ocean together on an heap1 and setting bars and doors to them eternally4 ,but there is a far deeper meaning than this in the solemn words of ,genesis1 and in the correspondent verse of the ,psalm1 ,his hands prepared the dry land4 ,up to that moment the earth had been void2 for1 it had been without form4 ,the command that the waters should be gathered1 was the command that the earth should be sculptured4 ,the sea was not driven to its place in suddenly restrained rebellion1 but withdrawn to its place in perfect and patient obedience4 ,the dry land appeared1 not in level sands forsaken by the surges1 which those surges might again claim for their own2 but in range beyond range of swelling hill and iron rock1 for ever to claim kindred with the firmament1 and be companioned by the clouds of heaven4 ,what space of time was in reality occupied by the day of ,genesis1 is not at present of any importance for us to consider4 ,by what furnaces of fire the adamant was melted1 and by what wheels of earthquake it was torn1 and by what teeth of glacier and weight of sea-waves it was engraven and finished into its perfect form1 we may1 perhaps1 hereafter endeavour to conjecture2 but here1 as in few words the work is summed by the historian1 so in few broad thoughts it should be comprehended by us2 and1 as we read the mighty sentence1 ,let the dry land appear1 we should try to follow the finger of ,god as it engraved upon the stone tables of the earth the letters and the law of its everlasting form1 as gulf by gulf the channels of the deep were ploughed2 and cape by cape the lines were traced with ,divine foreknowledge of the shores that were to limit the nations2 and chain by chain the mountain walls were lengthened forth1 and their foundations fastened for ever2 and the compass was set upon the face of the depth1 and the fields and the highest part of the dust of the world were made2 and the right hand of ,christ first strewed the snow on ,lebanon1 and smoothed the slopes of ,calvary4 ,it is not1 ,i repeat1 always needful1 in many respects it is not possible1 to conjecture the manner or the time in which this work was done2 but it is deeply necessary for all men to consider the magnificence of the accomplished purpose1 and the depth of the wisdom and love which are manifested in the ordinances of the hills4 ,for observe1 in order to bring the world into the form which it now bears1 it was not mere sculpture that was needed2 the mountains could not stand for a day unless they were formed of materials altogether different from those which constitute the lower hills1 and the surfaces of the valleys4 ,a harder substance had to be prepared for every mountain chain1 yet not so hard but that it might be capable of crumbling down into earth fit to nourish the ,alpine forest1 and the ,alpine flower2 not so hard but that in the midst of the utmost majesty of its enthroned strength there should be seen on it the seal of death1 and the writing of the same sentence that had gone forth against the human frame1 ,dust thou art1 and unto dust shalt thou return4 ,and with this perishable substance the most majestic forms were to be framed that were consistent with the safety of man2 and the peak was to be lifted and the cliff rent1 as high and as steeply as was possible1 in order yet to permit the shepherd to feed his flocks upon the slopes1 and the cottage to nestle beneath their shadow4 ,and observe1 two distinct ends were to be accomplished in doing this4 ,it was1 indeed1 absolutely necessary that such eminences should be created1 in order to fit the earth in any wise for human habitation2 for without mountains the air could not be purified1 nor the flowing of the rivers sustained1 and the earth must have become for the most part plain1 or stagnant marsh4 ,but the feeding of the rivers and the purifying of the winds1 are the least of the services appointed to the hills4 ,to fill the thirst of the human heart for the beauty of ,god's working--to startle its lethargy with the deep and pure agitation of astonishment1--are their higher missions4 ,they are as a great and noble architecture1 first giving shelter1 comfort1 and rest2 and covered also with mighty sculpture and painted legend4 ,it is impossible to examine1 in their connected system1 the features of even the most ordinary mountain scenery1 without concluding that it has been prepared in order to unite as far as possible1 and in the closest compass1 every means of delighting and sanctifying the heart of man3 as far as possible1--that is1 as far as is consistent with the fulfilment of the sentence of condemnation on the whole earth4 ,death must be upon the hills2 and the cruelty of the tempests smite them1 and the briar and thorn spring up upon them2 but they so smite as to bring their rocks into the fairest forms1 and so spring as to make the very desert blossom as the rose4 ,even among our own hills of ,scotland and ,cumberland1 though often too barren to be perfectly beautiful1 and always too low to be perfectly sublime1 it is strange how many deep sources of delight are gathered into the compass of their glens and vales2 and how1 down to the most secret cluster of their far-away flowers1 and the idlest leap of their straying streamlets1 the whole heart of ,nature seems thirsting to give1 and still to give1 shedding forth her everlasting beneficence with a profusion so patient1 so passionate1 that our utmost observance and thankfulness are but1 at last1 neglects of her nobleness1 and apathy to her love4 ,but among the true mountains of the greater orders1 the ,divine purpose of appeal at once to all the faculties of the human spirit becomes still more manifest4 ,inferior hills ordinarily interrupt1 in some degree1 the richness of the valleys at their feet2 the grey downs of southern ,england and treeless coteaux of central ,france1 and grey swells of ,scottish moor1 whatever peculiar charm they may possess in themselves1 are at least destitute of those which belong to the woods and fields of the lowlands4 ,but the great mountains lift the lowlands on their sides4 ,let the reader imagine first the appearance of the most varied plain of some richly cultivated country2 let him imagine it dark with graceful woods1 and soft with deepest pastures2 let him fill the space of it1 to the utmost horizon1 with innumerable and changeful incidents of scenery and life2 leading pleasant streamlets through its meadows1 strewing clusters of cottages beside their banks1 tracing sweet footpaths through its avenues1 and animating its fields with happy flocks1 and slow wandering spots of cattle2 and when he has wearied himself with endless imagining1 and left no space without some loveliness of its own1 let him conceive all this great plain1 with its infinite treasures of natural beauty1 and happy human life1 gathered up in ,god's hands from one edge of the horizon to the other1 like a woven garment1 and shaken into deep falling folds1 as the robes droop from a king's shoulders2 all its bright rivers leaping into cataracts along the hollows of its fall1 and all its forests rearing themselves aslant against its slopes1 as a rider rears himself back when his horse plunges1 and all its villages nestling themselves into the new windings of its glens1 and all its pastures thrown into steep waves of greensward1 dashed with dew along the edges of their folds1 and sweeping down into endless slopes1 with a cloud here and there lying quietly1 half on the grass1 half in the air1--and he will have as yet1 in all this lifted world1 only the foundation of one of the great ,alps4 ,and whatever is lovely in the lowland scenery1 becomes lovelier in this change2 the trees which grew heavily and stiffly from the level line of plain1 assume strange curves of strength and grace as they bend themselves against the mountain side2 they breathe more freely and toss their branches more carelessly as each climbs higher1 looking to the clear light above the topmost leaves of its brother tree2 the flowers which on the arable plain fall before the plough1 now find out for themselves unapproachable places where year by year they gather into happier fellowship1 and fear no evil2 and the streams which in the level land crept in dark eddies by unwholesome banks1 now move in showers of silver1 and are clothed with rainbows1 and bring health and life wherever the glance of their waves can reach4444 ,it may not1 therefore1 be altogether profitless or unnecessary to review briefly the nature of the three great offices which mountain ranges are appointed to fulfil1 in order to preserve the health and increase the happiness of mankind4 ,their first use is1 of course1 to give motion to water4 ,every fountain and river1 from the inch-deep streamlet that crosses the village lane in trembling clearness1 to the massy and silent march of the everlasting multitude of waters in ,amazon or ,ganges1 owe their play1 and purity1 and power1 to the ordained elevations of the earth4 ,gentle or steep1 extended or abrupt1 some determined slope of the earth's surface is of course necessary before any wave can so much as overtake one sedge in its pilgrimage2 and how seldom do we enough consider1 as we walk beside the margins of our pleasant brooks1 how beautiful and wonderful is that ordinance1 of which every blade of grass that waves in their clear water is a perpetual sign--that the dew and rain fallen on the face of the earth shall find no resting-place2 shall find1 on the contrary1 fixed channels traced for them from the ravines of the central crests down which they roar1 in sudden ranks of foam1 to the dark hollows beneath the banks of lowland pasture1 round which they must circle slowly among the stems and beneath the leaves of the lilies2 paths prepared for them by which1 at some appointed rate of journey1 they must evermore descend1 sometimes slow1 and sometimes swift1 but never pausing2 the daily portion of the earth they have to glide over marked for them at each successive sunrise1 the place which has known them knowing them no more1 and the gateways of guarding mountains opened for them in cleft and chasm1 none letting them in their pilgrimage2 and1 from afar off1 the great heart of the sea calling them to itself6 ,deep calleth unto deep4 ,i know not which of the two is the more wonderful1--that calm1 gradated1 invisible slope of the champaign land1 which gives motion to the stream2 or that passage cloven for it through the ranks of hill1 which1 necessary for the health of the land immediately around them1 would yet1 unless so supernaturally divided1 have fatally intercepted the flow of the waters from far-off countries4 ,when did the great spirit of the river first knock at these adamantine gates8 ,when did the porter open to it1 and cast his keys away for ever1 lapped in whirling sand8 ,i am not satisfied--no one should be satisfied--with that vague answer1 ,the river cut its way4 ,not so4 ,the river found its way4 #bb;,i do not see that rivers in their own strength can do much in cutting their way2 they are nearly as apt to choke their channels up as to carve them out4 ,only give a river some little sudden power in a valley1 and see how it will use it4 ,cut itself a bed8 ,not so1 by any means1 but fill up its bed2 and look for another in a wild1 dissatisfied1 inconsistent manner1--any way rather than the old one will better please it2 and even if it is banked up and forced to keep to the old one1 it will not deepen1 but do all it can to raise it1 and leap out of it4 ,and although wherever water has a steep fall it will swiftly cut itself a bed deep into the rock or ground1 it will not1 when the rock is hard1 cut a wider channel than it actually needs2 so that if the existing river beds1 through ranges of mountains1 had in reality been cut by the streams1 they would be found1 wherever the rocks are hard1 only in the form of narrow and profound ravines1 like the well-known channel of the ,niagara1 below the fall2 not in that of extended valleys4 ,and the actual work of true mountain rivers1 though often much greater in proportion to their body of water than that of the ,niagara1 is quite insignificant when compared with the area and depth of the valleys through which they flow2 so that1 although in many cases it appears that those larger valleys have been excavated at earlier periods by more powerful streams1 or by the existing stream in a more powerful condition1 still the great fact remains always equally plain1 and equally admirable1 that1 whatever the nature and duration of the agencies employed1 the earth was so shaped at first as to direct the currents of its rivers in the manner most healthy and convenient for man4 ,the valley of the ,rhone may have been in great part excavated1 in early times1 by torrents a thousand times larger than the ,rhone2 but it could not have been excavated at all1 unless the mountains had been thrown at first into two chains1 by which the torrents were set to work in a given direction4 ,and it is easy to conceive how1 under any less beneficent dispositions of their masses of hill1 the continents of the earth might either have been covered with enormous lakes1 as parts of ,north ,america actually are covered2 or have become wildernesses of pestiferous marsh2 or lifeless plains1 upon which the water would have dried as it fell1 leaving them for great part of the year desert4 ,such districts do exist1 and exist in vastness2 the whole earth is not prepared for the habitation of man2 only certain small portions are prepared for him1--the houses1 as it were1 of the human race1 from which they are to look abroad upon the rest of the world2 not to wonder or complain that it is not all house1 but to be grateful for the kindness of the admirable building1 in the house itself1 as compared with the rest4 ,it would be as absurd to think it an evil that all the world is not fit for us to inhabit1 as to think it an evil that the globe is no larger than it is4 ,as much as we shall ever need is evidently assigned to us for our dwelling-place2 the rest1 covered with rolling waves or drifting sands1 fretted with ice or crested with fire1 is set before us for contemplation in an uninhabitable magnificence4 ,and that part which we are enabled to inhabit owes its fitness for human life chiefly to its mountain ranges1 which1 throwing the superfluous rain off as it falls1 collect it in streams or lakes1 and guide it into given places1 and in given directions2 so that men can build their cities in the midst of fields which they know will be always fertile1 and establish the lines of their commerce upon streams which will not fail4 #bb ,i attach great importance to the remaining contents of this passage1 and have had occasion to insist on them at great length in recent lectures at ,oxford4 ,nor is this giving of motion to water to be considered as confined only to the surface of the earth4 ,a no less important function of the hills is in directing the flow of the fountains and springs from subterranean reservoirs4 ,there is no miraculous springing up of water out of the ground at our feet2 but every fountain and well is supplied from reservoirs among the hills1 so placed as to involve some slight fall or pressure enough to secure the constant flowing of the stream2 and the incalculable blessing of the power given to us1 in most valleys1 of reaching by excavation some point whence the water will rise to the surface of the ground in perennial flow1 is entirely owing to the concave dispositions of the beds of clay or rock raised from beneath the bosom of the valley into ranks of enclosing hills4 ,the second great use of mountains is to maintain a constant change in the currents and nature of the air4 ,such change would1 of course1 have been partly caused by difference in soil and vegetation1 even if the earth had been level2 but to a far less extent than it is now by the chains of hills which--exposing on one side their masses of rock to the full heat of the sun1 7increased by the angle at which the rays strike on the slope17 and on the other casting a soft shadow for leagues over the plains at their feet--divide the earth not only into districts1 but into climates2 and cause perpetual currents of air to traverse their passes in a thousand different states2 moistening it with the spray of their waterfalls1 sucking it down and beating it hither and thither in the pools of their torrents1 closing it within clefts and caves1 where the sunbeams never reach1 till it is as cold as ,november mists2 then sending it forth again to breathe lightly across the slopes of velvet fields1 or to be scorched among sunburnt shales and grassless crags2 then drawing it back in moaning swirls through clefts of ice1 and up into dewy wreaths above the snow-fields2 then piercing it with strange electric darts and flashes of mountain fire1 and tossing it high in fantastic storm-cloud1 as the dried grass is tossed by the mower1 only suffering it to depart at last1 when chastened and pure1 to refresh the faded air of the far-off plains4 ,the third great use of mountains is to cause perpetual change in the soils of the earth4 ,without such provision the ground under cultivation would in a series of years become exhausted1 and require to be upturned laboriously by the hand of man4 ,but the elevations of the earth's surface provide for it a perpetual renovation4 ,the higher mountains suffer their summits to be broken into fragments1 and to be cast down in sheets of massy rock1 full1 as we shall see presently1 of every substance necessary for the nourishment of plants2 these fallen fragments are again broken by frost1 and ground by torrents1 into various conditions of sand and clay--materials which are distributed perpetually by the streams farther and farther from the mountain's base4 ,every shower that swells the rivulet enables their waters to carry certain portions of earth into new positions1 and exposes new banks of ground to be mined in their turn4 ,that turbid foaming of the angry water1--that tearing down of bank and rock along the flanks of its fury1--are no disturbances of the kind course of nature2 they are beneficent operations of laws necessary to the existence of man1 and to the beauty of the earth4 ,the process is continued more gently1 but not less effectively1 over all the surface of the lower undulating country2 and each filtering thread of summer rain which trickles through the short turf of the uplands is bearing its own appointed burden of earth to be thrown down on some new natural garden in the dingles beneath4 ,i have not spoken of the local and peculiar utilities of mountains4 ,i do not count the benefit of the supply of summer streams from the moors of the higher ranges1--of the various medicinal plants which are nested among their rocks1--of the delicate pasturage which they furnish for cattle1--of the forests in which they bear timber for shipping1--the stones they supply for building1 or the ores of metal which they collect into spots open to discovery1 and easy for working4 ,all these benefits are of a secondary or a limited nature4 ,but the three great functions which ,i have just described1 those of giving motion and change to water1 air1 and earth1 are indispensable to human existence2 they are operations to be regarded with as full a depth of gratitude as the laws which bid the tree bear fruit1 or the seed multiply itself in the earth4 ,and thus those desolate and threatening ranges of dark mountain1 which in nearly all ages of the world men have looked upon with aversion1 or with terror1 and shrunk back from as if they were haunted by perpetual images of death1 are in reality sources of life and happiness far fuller and more beneficent than all the bright fruitfulness of the plain4 ,the valleys only feed2 the mountains feed1 and guard1 and strengthen us4 ,we take our idea of fearlessness and sublimity alternately from the mountains and the sea2 but we associate them unjustly4 ,the sea-wave1 with all its beneficence1 is yet devouring and terrible2 but the silent wave of the blue mountain is lifted towards heaven in a stillness of perpetual mercy2 and the one surge1 unfathomable in its darkness1 the other unshaken in its faithfulness1 for ever bear the seal of their appointed symbolism3-- ,thy righteousness is like the great mountains2 ,thy judgments are a great deep4 #cc4 ,mountains are to the rest of the body of the earth1 what violent muscular action is to the body of man4 ,the muscles and tendons of its anatomy are1 in the mountain1 brought out with force and convulsive energy1 full of expression1 passion1 and strength2 the plains and the lower hills are the repose and the effortless motion of the frame1 when its muscles lie dormant and concealed beneath the lines of its beauty1--yet ruling those lines in their every undulation4 ,this then is the first grand principle of the truth of the earth4 ,the spirit of the hills is action1 that of the lowlands repose2 and between these there is to be found every variety of motion and rest1 from the inactive plain1 sleeping like the firmament1 with cities for stars1 to the fiery peaks1 which1 with heaving bosoms and exulting limbs1 with the clouds drifting like hair from their bright foreheads1 lift up their ,titan heads to ,heaven1 saying1 ,i live for ever4 #cd4 ,where they are1#bc they seem to form the world2 no mere bank of a river here1 or of a lane there1 peeping out among the hedges or forests1 but from the lowest valley to the highest clouds1 all is theirs1--one adamantine dominion and rigid authority of rock4 ,we yield ourselves to the impression of their eternal unconquerable stubbornness of strength2 their mass seems the least yielding1 least to be softened1 or in anywise dealt with by external force1 of all earthly substance4 ,and behold1 as we look further into it1 it is all touched and troubled1 like waves by a summer breeze2 rippled far more delicately than seas or lakes are rippled2 they only undulate along their surfaces--this rock trembles through its every fibre1 like the chords of an ,eolian harp1 like the stillest air of spring1 with the echoes of a child's voice4 ,into the heart of all those great mountains1 through every tossing of their boundless crests1 and deep beneath all their unfathomable defiles1 flows that strange quivering of their substance4 ,other and weaker things seem to express their subjection to an ,infinite ,power only by momentary terrors3 as the weeds bow down before the feverish wind1 and the sound of the going in the tops of the taller trees passes on before the clouds1 and the fitful opening of pale spaces on the dark water1 as if some invisible hand were casting dust abroad upon it1 gives warning of the anger that is to come1 we may well imagine that there is a fear passing upon the grass1 and leaves1 and waters1 at the presence of some great spirit commissioned to let the tempest loose2 but the terror passes1 and their sweet rest is perpetually restored to the pastures and the waves4 ,not so to the mountains4 ,they1 which at first seem strengthened beyond the dread of any violence or change1 are yet also ordained to bear upon them the symbol of a perpetual fear4 ,the tremor which fades from the soft lake and gliding river is sealed to all eternity upon the rock2 and while things that pass visibly from birth to death may sometimes forget their feebleness1 the mountains are made to possess a perpetual memorial of their infancy--that infancy which the prophet saw in his vision1#bd--;,i beheld the earth1 and lo1 it was without form1 and void2 and the heavens1 and they had no light4 ,i beheld the mountains1 and lo1 they trembled1 and all the hills moved lightly4 #bc ,passage written after ,i had got by some years cooler and wiser than when ,i wrote ,no4 #cc1 describing however the undulation of the gneiss rocks1 which1 'where they are1 seem1 to form the world1' in terms more fanciful than ,i now like4 #bd ,utter misinterpretation of the passage4 ,it is the old age1 not the childhood of earth1 which ,jeremiah describes in this passage4 ,see its true interpretation in ',fors ,clavigera1' ,letter ,,xlvi4 #ce4 ,the longer ,i stayed among the ,alps1 and the more closely ,i examined them1 the more ,i was struck by the one broad fact of there being a vast ,alpine plateau1 or mass of elevated land1 upon which nearly all the highest peaks stood like children set upon a table1 removed1 in most cases1 far back from the edge of the plateau1--as if for fear of their falling2 while the most majestic scenes in the ,alps are produced1 not so much by any violation of this law1 as by one of the great peaks having apparently walked to the edge of the table to look over1 and thus showing itself suddenly above the valley in its full height4 ,this is the case with the ,wetterhorn and ,eiger at ,grindelwald1 and with the ,grande ,jorasse above the ,col de ,ferret4 ,but the raised bank or table is always intelligibly in existence1 even in these apparently exceptional cases2 and for the most part1 the great peaks are not allowed to come to the edge of it1 but remain like the keeps of castles far withdrawn1 surrounded1 league beyond league1 by comparatively level fields of mountain1 over which the lapping sheets of glacier writhe and flow1 foaming about the feet of the dark central crests like the surf of an enormous sea-breaker hurled over a rounded rock1 and islanding some fragment of it in the midst4 ,and the result of this arrangement is a kind of division of the whole of ,switzerland into an upper and lower mountain world1--the lower world consisting of rich valleys1 bordered by steep1 but easily accessible1 wooded banks of mountain1 more or less divided by ravines1 through which glimpses are caught of the higher ,alps2 the upper world1 reached after the first banks of #c1jjj or #d1jjj feet in height have been surmounted1 consisting of comparatively level but most desolate tracts of moor and rock1 half covered by glacier1 and stretching to the feet of the true pinnacles of the chain4 ,it can hardly be necessary to point out the perfect wisdom and kindness of this arrangement1 as a provision for the safety of the inhabitants of the high mountain regions4 ,if the great peaks rose at once from the deepest valleys1 every stone which was struck from their pinnacles1 and every snow-wreath which slipped from their ledges1 would descend at once upon the inhabitable ground1 over which no year would pass without recording some calamity of earth-slip or avalanche2 while in the course of their fall both the stones and the snow would strip the woods from the hillsides1 leaving only naked channels of destruction where there are now the sloping meadow and the chestnut glade4 ,besides this1 the masses of snow1 cast down at once into the warmer air1 would all melt rapidly in the spring1 causing furious inundation of every great river for a month or six weeks4 ,the snow being then all thawed1 except what lay upon the highest peaks in regions of nearly perpetual frost1 the rivers would be supplied during the summer only by fountains1 and the feeble tricklings on sunny days from the high snows4 ,the ,rhone1 under such circumstances1 would hardly be larger1 in summer1 than the ,severn1 and many ,swiss valleys would be left almost without moisture4 ,all these calamities are prevented by the peculiar ,alpine structure which has been described4 ,the broken rocks and the sliding snow of the high peaks1 instead of being dashed at once to the vales1 are caught upon the desolate shelves1 or shoulders1 which everywhere surround the central crests4 ,the soft banks which terminate these shelves1 traversed by no falling fragments1 clothe themselves with richest wood1 while the masses of snow heaped upon the ledge above them1 in a climate neither so warm as to thaw them quickly in the spring1 nor so cold as to protect them from all the power of the summer sun1 either form themselves into glaciers1 or remain in slowly wasting fields even to the close of the year1--in either case supplying constant1 abundant1 and regular streams to the villages and pastures beneath1 and to the rest of ,europe1 noble and navigable rivers4 ,now1 that such a structure is the best and wisest possible1#be is indeed sufficient reason for its existence1 and to many people it may seem useless to question farther respecting its origin4 ,but ,i can hardly conceive any one standing face to face with one of these towers of central rock1 and yet not also asking himself1 ,is this indeed the actual first work of the ,divine ,master1 on which ,i gaze8 ,was the great precipice shaped by ,his finger1 as ,adam was shaped out of the dust8 ,were its clefts and ledges carved upon it by its ,creator1 as the letters were on the tables of the law1 and was it thus left to bear its eternal testimony to ,his beneficence among these clouds of ,heaven8 ,or is it the descendant of a long race of mountains1 existing under appointed laws of birth and endurance1 death and decrepitude8 ,there can be no doubt as to the answer4 ,the rock itself answers audibly by the murmur of some falling stone or rending pinnacle4 ,it is not as it was once4 ,those waste leagues around its feet are loaded with the wrecks of what it was4 ,on these perhaps1 of all mountains1 the characters of decay are written most clearly2 around these are spread most gloomily the memorials of their pride1 and the signs of their humiliation4 #be ,of course ,i had seen every other tried before giving this favourable judgment4 ,what then were they once8 ,the only answer is yet again--,behold the cloud6 #cf4 ,there are many spots among the inferior ridges of the ,alps1 such as the ,col de ,ferret1 the ,col d',anterne1 and the associated ranges of the ,buet1 which1 though commanding prospects of great nobleness1 are themselves very nearly types of all that is most painful to the human mind4 ,vast wastes of mountain ground1#bf covered here and there with dull grey grass or moss1 but breaking continually into black banks of shattered slate1 all glistening and sodden with slow tricklings of clogged1 incapable streams2 the snow-water oozing through them in a cold sweat1 and spreading itself in creeping stains among their dust2 ever and anon a shaking here and there1 and a handful or two of their particles or flakes trembling down1 one sees not why1 into more total dissolution1 leaving a few jagged teeth1 like the edges of knives eaten away by vinegar1 projecting1 through the half-dislodged mass1 from the inner rock2 keen enough to cut the hand or foot that rests on them1 yet crumbling as they wound1 and soon sinking again into the smooth1 slippery1 glutinous heap2 looking like a beach of black scales of dead fish cast ashore from a poisonous sea1 and sloping away into foul ravines1 branched down immeasurable slopes of barrenness1 where the winds howl and wander continually1 and the snow lies in wasted and sorrowful fields covered with sooty dust1 that collects in streaks and stains at the bottom of all its thawing ripples4 #bf ,this is a fourth volume passage1--and ,i will venture to say of it1 as ,albert ,drer1 when he was pleased with his work--that for what it has to do1 it cannot be much better done4 ,it is a study on the ,col de ,bon ,homme4 ,i know of no other scenes so appalling as these in storm1 or so woful in sunshine4 ,where1 however1 these same rocks exist in more favourable positions--that is to say1 in gentler banks and at lower elevations--they form a ground for the most luxuriant vegetation2 and the valleys of ,savoy owe to them some of their loveliest solitudes--exquisitely rich pastures1 interspersed with arable and orchard land1 and shaded by groves of walnut and cherry4 ,scenes of this kind1 and of that just described1 so singularly opposed1 and apparently brought together as foils to each other1 are however peculiar to certain beds of the slaty coherents1 which are both vast in elevation1 and easy of destruction4 ,in ,wales and ,scotland the same groups of rocks possess far greater hardness1 while they attain less elevation2 and the result is a totally different aspect of scenery4 ,the severity of the climate1 and the comparative durableness of the rock1 forbid the rich vegetation2 but the exposed summits1 though barren1 are not subject to laws of destruction so rapid and fearful as in ,switzerland1 and the natural colour of the rock is oftener developed in the purples and greys which1 mingled with the heather1 form the principal elements of the deep and beautiful distant blue of the ,british hills4 ,their gentler mountain streams also permit the beds of rock to remain in firm1 though fantastic1 forms along their banks1 and the gradual action of the cascades and eddies upon the slaty cleavage produces many pieces of foreground scenery to which higher hills can present no parallel4 #cg4 ,unlike ,chamouni ,aiguilles1 there is no aspect of destruction about the ,matterhorn cliffs4 ,they are not torn remnants of separating spires1 yielding1 flake by flake1 and band by band1 to the continual process of decay4 ,they are1 on the contrary1 an unaltered monument1 seemingly sculptured long ago1 the huge walls retaining yet the forms into which they were first engraven1 and standing like an ,egyptian temple2--delicately fronted1 softly coloured1 the suns of uncounted ages rising and falling upon it continually1 but still casting the same line of shadows from east to west2 still1 century after century1 touching the same purple stains on the lotus pillars2 while the desert sand ebbs and flows about their feet1 as those autumn leaves of rock lie heaped and weak about the base of the ,cervin4 ,is not this a strange type in the very heart and height of these mysterious ,alps--these wrinkled hills in their snowy1 cold1 grey-haired old age1 at first so silent1 then1 as we keep quiet at their feet1 muttering and whispering to us garrulously in broken and dreaming fits1 as it were1 about their childhood1--is it not a strange type of the things which out of weakness are made strong8 ,if one of these little flakes of mica sand1 hurried in tremulous spangling along the bottom of the ancient river1 too light to sink1 too faint to float1 almost too small for sight1 could have had a mind given to it as it was at last borne down with its kindred dust into the abysses of the stream1 and laid1 7might it not have been thought87 for a hopeless eternity1 in the dark ooze1 the most despised1 forgotten1 and feeble of all earth's atoms2 incapable of any use or change2 not fit1 down there in the diluvial darkness1 so much as to help an earth wasp to build its nest1 or feed the first fibre of a lichen2 what would it have thought1 had it been told that one day1 knitted into a strength as of imperishable iron1 rustless by the air1 infusible by the flame1 out of the substance of it1 with its fellows1 the axe of ,god should hew that ,alpine tower8--that against it--poor1 helpless mica flake6--the wild north winds should rage in vain2 beneath it--low-fallen mica flake6--the snowy hills should lie bowed like flocks of sheep1 and the kingdoms of the earth fade away in unregarded blue2 and around it--weak1 wave-drifted mica flake6--the great war of the firmament should burst in thunder and yet stir it not2 and the fiery arrows and angry meteors of the night fall blunted back from it into the air2 and all the stars in the clear heaven should light1 one by one as they rose1 new cressets upon the points of snow that fringed its abiding-place on the imperishable spire8 ,,section ,,vi4 ,,illustrative3 ,,stones4 #ch4 ,there are no natural objects out of which more can be learned than out of stones4 ,they seem to have been created especially to reward a patient observer4 ,nearly all other objects in nature can be seen to some extent without patience1 and are pleasant even in being half seen4 ,trees1 clouds1 and rivers are enjoyable even by the careless2 but the stone under his foot has1 for carelessness1 nothing in it but stumbling2 no pleasure is languidly to be had out of it1 nor food1 nor good of any kind2 nothing but symbolism of the hard heart1 and the unfatherly gift4 ,and yet1 do but give it some reverence and watchfulness1 and there is bread of thought in it1 more than in any other lowly feature of all the landscape4 ,for a stone1 when it is examined1 will be found a mountain in miniature4 ,the fineness of ,nature's work is so great1 that into a single block1 a foot or two in diameter1 she can compress as many changes of form and structure1 on a small scale1 as she needs for her mountains on a large one2 and taking moss for forests1 and grains of crystal for crags1 the surface of a stone in by far the plurality of instances is more interesting than the surface of an ordinary hill2 more fantastic in form1 and incomparably richer in colour4 #ci4 ,on a ,highland hillside are multitudinous clusters of fern and heather2 on an ,alpine one1 multitudinous groves of chestnut and pine4 ,the number of the things may be the same1 but the sense of infinity is in the latter case far greater1 because the number is of nobler things4 ,indeed1 so far as mere magnitude of space occupied on the field of the horizon is the measure of objects1 a bank of earth ten feet high may1 if we stoop to the foot of it1 be made to occupy just as much of the sky as that bank of mountain at ,villeneuve2 nay1 in many respects1 its little ravines and escarpments1 watched with some help of imagination1 may become very sufficiently representative to us of those of the great mountain2 and in classing all water-worn mountain ground under the general and humble term of ,banks1 ,i mean to imply this relationship of structure between the smallest eminences and the highest4 ,but in this matter of superimposed quantity1 the distinctions of rank are at once fixed4 ,the heap of earth bears its few tufts of moss1 or knots of grass2 the ,highland or ,cumberland mountain1 its honeyed heathers or scented ferns2 but the mass of the bank at ,martigny or ,villeneuve has a vineyard in every cranny of its rocks1 and a chestnut grove on every crest of them4444 ,the minute mounds and furrows scattered up the side of that great promontory1 when they are actually approached after three or four hours' climbing1 turn into independent hills1 with true parks of lovely pasture-land enclosed among them1 and avenue after avenue of chestnuts1 walnuts1 and pines bending round their bases2 while in the deeper dingles1 populous villages1 literally bound down to the rock by enormous trunks of vine1 which1 first trained lightly over the loose stone roofs1 have in process of years cast their fruitful net over the whole village1 and fastened it to the ground under their purple weight and wayward coils as securely as ever human heart was fastened to earth by the net of the ,flatterer4 #dj4 ,when a rock of any kind has lain for some time exposed to the weather1 ,nature finishes it in her own way4 ,first she takes wonderful pains about its forms1 sculpturing it into exquisite variety of dent and dimple1 and rounding or hollowing it into contours which for fineness no human hand can follow2 then she colours it2 and every one of her touches of colour1 instead of being a powder mixed with oil1 is a minute forest of living trees1 glorious in strength and beauty1 and concealing wonders of structure4 #da4 ,on the broken rocks in the foreground in the crystalline groups1 the mosses seem to set themselves consentfully and deliberately to the task of producing the most exquisite harmonies of colour in their power4 ,they will not conceal the form of the rock1 but will gather over it in little brown bosses1 like small cushions of velvet1 made of mixed threads of dark ruby silk and gold1 rounded over more subdued films of white and grey1 with lightly crisped and curled edges like hoar frost on fallen leaves1 and minute clusters of upright orange stalks with pointed caps1 and fibres of deep green1 and gold1 and faint purple passing into black1 all woven together1 and following with unimaginable fineness of gentle growth the undulation of the stone they cherish1 until it is charged with colour so that it can receive no more2 and instead of looking rugged1 or cold1 or stern1 or anything that a rock is held to be at heart1 it seems to be clothed with a soft dark leopard's skin1 embroidered with arabesque of purple and silver4 #db4 ,the colour of the white varieties of marble is of exquisite delicacy1 owing to the partial translucency of the pure rock2 and it has always appeared to me a most wonderful ordinance--one of the most marked pieces of purpose in the creation--that all the variegated kinds should be comparatively opaque1 so as to set off the colour on the surface1 while the white1 which1 if it had been opaque1 would have looked somewhat coarse1 7as for instance common chalk does17 is rendered just translucent enough to give an impression of extreme purity1 but not so translucent as to interfere in the least with the distinctness of any forms into which it is wrought4 ,the colours of variegated marbles are also for the most part very beautiful1 especially those composed of purple1 amber1 and green1 with white2 and there seems something notably attractive to the human mind in the vague and veined labyrinths of their arrangements4 #dc4 ,i have often had occasion to allude to the apparent connection of brilliancy of colour with vigour of life or purity of substance4 ,this is pre-eminently the case in the mineral kingdom4 ,the perfection with which the particles of any substance unite in crystallization1 corresponds in that kingdom to the vital power in organic nature2 and it is a universal law1 that according to the purity of any substance1 and according to the energy of its crystallization1 is its beauty or brightness4 ,pure earths are white when in powder2 and the same earths1 which are the constituents of clay and sand1 form1 when crystallized1 the emerald1 ruby1 sapphire1 amethyst1 and opal4 #dd4 ,as we pass between the hills which have been shaken by earthquake and torn by convulsion1 we find that periods of perfect repose succeed those of destruction4 ,the pools of calm water lie clear beneath their fallen rocks1 the water-lilies gleam1 and the reeds whisper among their shadows2 the village rises again over the forgotten graves1 and its church tower1 white through the storm-light1 proclaims a renewed appeal to ,his protection in whose hand are all the corners of the earth1 and the strength of the hills is ,his also4 ,there is no loveliness of ,alpine valley that does not teach the same lesson4 ,it is just where the mountain falling cometh to nought1 and the rock is removed out of his place1 that in process of years the fairest meadows bloom between the fragments1 the clearest rivulets murmur from between their crevices among the flowers1 and the clustered cottages1 each sheltered beneath some strength of mossy stone1 now to be removed no more1 and with their pastured flocks around them1 safe from the eagle's stoop and the wolf's ravin1 have written upon their fronts1 in simple words1 the mountaineer's faith in the ancient promise1--,neither shalt thou be afraid of destruction1 when it cometh2 for thou shalt be in league with the stones of the field1 and the beasts of the field shall be at peace with thee4 ,,section ,,vii4 ,,illustrative3 ,,plants ,,and ,,flowers4 #de4 ,wonderful1 in universal adaptation to man's need1 desire1 and discipline1 ,god's daily preparation of the earth for him1 with beautiful means of life4 ,first1 a carpet1 to make it soft for him2 then a coloured fantasy of embroidery thereon2 then1 tall spreading of foliage to shade him from sun-heat1 and shade also the fallen rain1 that it may not dry quickly back into the clouds1 but stay to nourish the springs among the moss4 ,stout wood to bear this leafage2 easily to be cut1 yet tough and light1 to make houses for him1 or instruments 7lance-shaft1 or plough-handle1 according to his temper72 useless it had been if harder2 useless if less fibrous2 useless if less elastic4 ,winter comes1 and the shade of leafage falls away1 to let the sun warm the earth2 the strong boughs remain1 breaking the strength of winter winds4 ,the seeds which are to prolong the race1 innumerable according to the need1 are made beautiful and palatable1 varied into infinitude of appeal to the fancy of man1 or provision for his service2 cold juice1 or flowing spice1 or balm1 or incense1 softening oil1 preserving resin1 medicine of styptic1 febrifuge1 or lulling charm2 and all these presented in forms of endless change4 ,fragility or force1 softness and strength1 in all degrees and aspects2 unerring uprightness1 as of temple pillars1 or unguided wandering of feeble tendrils on the ground2 mighty resistances of rigid arm and limb to the storms of ages1 or wavings to and fro with faintest pulse of summer streamlet2 roots cleaving the strength of rock1 or binding the transience of the sand2 crests basking in sunshine of the desert1 or hiding by dripping spring and lightless cave2 foliage far tossing in entangled fields beneath every wave of ocean--clothing with variegated1 everlasting films the peaks of the trackless mountains1 or ministering1 at cottage doors1 to every gentlest passion and simplest joy of humanity4 #df4 ,if ever in autumn a pensiveness falls upon us1 as the leaves drift by in their fading1 may we not wisely look up in hope to their mighty monuments8 ,behold how fair1 how far prolonged in arch and aisle1 the avenues of the valleys1 the fringes of the hills6 so stately1--so eternal2 the joy of man1 the comfort of all living creatures1 the glory of the earth1--they are but the monuments of those poor leaves that flit faintly past us to die4 ,let them not pass1 without our understanding their last counsel and example3 that we also1 careless of monument by the grave1 may build it in the world--monument by which men may be taught to remember1 not where we died1 but where we lived4 #dg4 ,the ,pine4 ,magnificent6 nay1 sometimes almost terrible4 ,other trees1 tufting crag or hill1 yield to the form and sway of the ground1 clothe it with soft compliance1 are partly its subjects1 partly its flatterers1 partly its comforters4 ,but the pine rises in serene resistance1 self-contained2 nor can ,i ever without awe stay long under a great ,alpine cliff1 far from all house or work of men1 looking up to its companies of pines1 as they stand on the inaccessible juts and perilous ledges of the enormous wall1 in quiet multitudes1 each like the shadow of the one beside it--upright1 fixed1 spectral1 as troops of ghosts standing on the walls of ,hades1 not knowing each other1 dumb for ever4 ,you cannot reach them1 cannot cry to them3 those trees never heard human voice2 they are far above all sound but of the winds4 ,no foot ever stirred fallen leaf of theirs3 all comfortless they stand1 between the two eternities of the ,vacancy and the ,rock2 yet with such iron will1 that the rock itself looks bent and shattered beside them1--fragile1 weak1 inconsistent1 compared to their dark energy of delicate life1 and monotony of enchanted pride--unnumbered1 unconquerable4 ,then note farther their perfectness4 ,the impression on most people's minds must have been received more from pictures than reality1 so far as ,i can judge1 so ragged they think the pine2 whereas its chief character in health is green and full roundness4 ,it stands compact1 like one of its own cones1 slightly curved on its sides1 finished and quaint as a carved tree in some ,elizabethan garden2 and instead of being wild in expression1 forms the softest of all forest scenery1 for other trees show their trunks and twisting boughs2 but the pine1 growing either in luxuriant mass1 or in happy isolation1 allows no branch to be seen4 ,summit behind summit rise its pyramidal ranges1 or down to the very grass sweep the circlets of its boughs2 so that there is nothing but green cone1 and green carpet4 ,nor is it only softer1 but in one sense more cheerful than other foliage1 for it casts only a pyramidal shadow4 ,lowland forest arches overhead1 and chequers the ground with darkness2 but the pine1 growing in scattered groups1 leaves the glades between emerald-bright4 ,its gloom is all its own2 narrowing into the sky1 it lets the sunshine strike down to the dew4 ,and if ever a superstitious feeling comes over me among the pine glades1 it is never tainted with the old ,german forest fear1 but it is only a more solemn tone of the fairy enchantment that haunts our ,english meadows2 so that ,i have always called the prettiest pine-glade in ,chamouni1 ,fairies' ,hollow4 ,it is in the glen beneath the steep ascent above ,pont ,pelissier1 and may be reached by a little winding path which goes down from the top of the hill#bg--;being indeed not truly a glen1 but a broad ledge of moss and turf1 leaning in a formidable precipice 7which1 however1 the gentle branches hide7 over the ,arve4 ,an almost isolated rock promontory1 many coloured1 rises at the end of it4 ,on the other sides it is bordered by cliffs1 from which a little cascade falls1 literally1 down among the pines1 for it is so light1 shaking itself into mere showers of seed pearl in the sun1 that the pines don't know it from mist1 and grow through it without minding4 ,underneath1 there is only the mossy silence2 and above1 for ever1 the snow of the nameless ,aiguille4 #bg ,the new road to ,chamouni has been carried right through it4 ,a cascade on the right1 as you ascend1 marks the place spoken of in the text1--once as lonely as ,corrie-nan-shian4 ,other trees rise against the sky in dots and knots1 but this1 in fringes4 ,you never see the edges of it1 so subtle are they2 and for this reason1--it alone of trees1 so far as ,i know1 is capable of the fiery change which has been noticed by ,shakespeare4 ,when the sun rises behind a ridge crested with pine1 provided the ridge be at a distance of about two miles1 and seen clear1 all the trees1 for about three or four degrees on each side of the sun1 become trees of light1 seen in clear flame against the darker sky1 and dazzling as the sun itself4 ,i thought at first this was owing to the actual lustre of the leaves2 but ,i believe now it is caused by the cloud-dew upon them--every minutest leaf carrying its diamond4 ,it seems as if these trees1 living always among the clouds1 had caught part of their glory from them2 and themselves1 the darkest of vegetation1 could yet add splendour to the sun itself4 #dh4 ,the ,swiss have certainly no feelings respecting their mountains in anywise correspondent with ours4 ,it was rather as fortresses of defence1 than as spectacles of splendour1 that the cliffs of the ,rothslock bare rule over the destinies of those who dwelt at their feet2 and the training for which the mountain children had to thank the slopes of the ,muotta-,thal1 was in soundness of breath1 and steadiness of limb1 far more than in elevation of idea4 ,but the point which ,i desire the reader to note is1 that the character of the scene which1 if any1 appears to have been impressive to the inhabitant1 is not that which we ourselves feel when we enter the district4 ,it was not from their lakes1 nor their cliffs1 nor their glaciers--though these were all peculiarly their possessions--that the three venerable cantons received their name4 ,they were not called the ,states of the ,rock1 nor the ,states of the ,lake1 but the ,states of the ,forest4 ,and the one of the three which contains the most touching record of the spiritual power of ,swiss religion1 in the name of the convent of the ',hill of ,angels1' has1 for its own1 none but the sweet childish name of ',under the ,woods4' ,and indeed you may pass under them if1 leaving the most sacred spot in ,swiss history1 the ,meadow of the ,three ,fountains1 you bid the boatman row southward a little way by the shore of the ,bay of ,uri4 ,steepest there on its western side1 the walls of its rocks ascend to heaven4 ,far in the blue of evening1 like a great cathedral pavement1 lies the lake in its darkness2 and you may hear the whisper of innumerable falling waters return from the hollows of the cliff1 like the voices of a multitude praying under their breath4 ,from time to time the beat of a wave1 slow lifted where the rocks lean over the black depth1 dies heavily as the last note of a requiem4 ,opposite1 green with steep grass1 and set with chlet villages1 the ,fron-,alp rises in one solemn glow of pastoral light and peace2 and above1 against the clouds of twilight1 ghostly on the gray precipice1 stand1 myriad by myriad1 the shadowy armies of the ,unterwalden pine4 #di4 ,it had been wild weather when ,i left ,rome1 and all across the ,campagna the clouds were sweeping in sulphurous blue1 with a clap of thunder or two1 and breaking gleams of sun along the ,claudian aqueduct1 lighting up the infinity of its arches1 like the bridge of ,chaos4 ,but as ,i climbed the long slope of the ,alban ,mount1 the storm swept finally to the north1 and the noble outline of the domes of ,albano1 and graceful darkness of its ilex grove1 rose against pure streaks of alternate blue and amber1 the upper sky gradually flushing through the last fragments of rain-cloud in deep palpitating azure1 half ther and half dew4 ,the noonday sun came slanting down the rocky slopes of ,la ,riccia1 and their masses of entangled and tall foliage1 whose autumnal tints were mixed with the wet verdure of a thousand evergreens1 were penetrated with it1 as with rain4 ,i cannot call it colour1--it was conflagration4 ,purple1 and crimson1 and scarlet1 like the curtains of ,god's ,tabernacle1 the rejoicing trees sank into the valley in showers of light1 every separate leaf quivering with buoyant and burning life2 each1 as it turned to reflect1 or to transmit the sunbeam1 first a torch and then an emerald4 ,far up into the recesses of the valley the green vistas arched like the hollows of mighty waves of some crystalline sea1 with the arbutus flowers dashed along their banks for foam1 and silver flakes of orange spray tossed into the air around them1 breaking over the grey walls of rock into a thousand separate stars1 fading and kindling alternately as the weak wind lifted and let them fall4 ,every glade of grass burned like the golden floor of heaven1 opening in sudden gleams as the foliage broke1 and closed above it1 as sheet-lightning opens in a cloud at sunset2 the motionless masses of dark rock1 dark though flushed with scarlet lichen1 casting their quiet shadows across its restless radiance1 the fountain underneath them filling its marble hollow with blue mist and fitful sound2 and1 over all1 the multitudinous bars of amber and rose--the sacred clouds that have no darkness1 and only exist to illumine--were seen in fathomless intervals between the solemn and orbed repose of the stone pines1 passing to lose themselves in the last1 white1 blinding lustre of the measureless line where the ,campagna melted into the blaze of the sea4 #ej4 ,flowers seem intended for the solace of ordinary humanity3 children love them2 quiet1 contented1 ordinary people love them as they grow2 luxurious and disorderly people rejoice in them gathered2 they are the cottager's treasure2 and in the crowded town1 mark1 as with a little broken fragment of rainbow1 the windows of the workers in whose hearts rests the covenant of peace4 #ea4 ,yet few people really care about flowers4 ,many1 indeed1 are fond of finding a new shape of blossom1 caring for it as a child cares about a kaleidoscope4 ,many1 also1 like a fair service of flowers in the greenhouse1 as a fair service of plate on the table4 ,many are scientifically interested in them1 though even these in the nomenclature1 rather than the flowers2 and a few enjoy their gardens4444 ,but1 the blossoming time of the year being principally spring1 ,i perceive it to be the mind of most people1 during that period1 to stay in towns4 ,a year or two ago a keen-sighted and eccentrically-minded friend of mine1 having taken it into his head to violate this national custom1 and go to the ,tyrol in spring1 was passing through a valley near ,landech with several similarly headstrong companions4 ,a strange mountain appeared in the distance1 belted about its breast with a zone of blue1 like our ,english ,queen4 ,was it a blue cloud1 a blue horizontal bar of the air that ,titian breathed in youth1 seen now far away1 which mortal might never breathe again8 ,was it a mirage--a meteor8 ,would it stay to be approached8--7ten miles of winding road yet between them and the foot of the mountain7--such questioning had they concerning it4 ,my keen-sighted friend1 alone1 maintained it to be substantial2--whatever it might be1 it was not air1 and would not vanish4 ,the ten miles of road were overpast1 the carriage left1 the mountain climbed4 ,it stayed patiently1 expanding still into richer breath and heavenlier glow--a belt of gentians4 ,such things may verily be seen among the ,alps in spring1 and in spring only2 which being so1 ,i observe most people prefer going in autumn4 #eb4 ,perhaps few people have ever asked themselves why they admire a rose so much more than all other flowers4 ,if they consider1 they will find1 first1 that red is1 in a delicately gradated state1 the loveliest of all pure colours2 and1 secondly1 that in the rose there is no shadow1 except what is composed of colour4 ,all its shadows are fuller in colour than its lights1 owing to the translucency and reflective power of the leaves4 #ec4 ,has the reader ever considered the relations of commonest forms of volatile substance8 ,the invisible particles which cause the scent of a rose-leaf1 how minute1 how multitudinous1 passing richly away into the air continually6 #ed4 ,in the range of inorganic nature ,i doubt if any object can be found more perfectly beautiful1 than a fresh1 deep snow-drift1 seen under warm light4 ,its curves are of inconceivable perfection and changefulness2 its surface and transparency alike exquisite2 its light and shade of inexhaustible variety and inimitable finish1--the shadows sharp1 pale1 and of heavenly colour1 the reflected lights intense and multitudinous1 and mingled with the sweet occurrences of transmitted light4444 ,if1 passing to the edge of a sheet of it upon the lower ,alps1 early in ,may1 we find1 as we are nearly sure to find1 two or three little round openings pierced in it2 and through these1 emergent1 a slender1 pensive1 fragile flower1#bh whose small1 dark1 purple-fringed bell hangs down and shudders over the icy cleft that it has cloven1 as if partly wondering at its own recent grave1 and partly dying of very fatigue after its hard-won victory2 we shall be1 or we ought to be1 moved by a totally different impression of loveliness from that which we receive among the dead ice and the idle clouds3 there is now uttered to us a call for sympathy1 now offered to us an image of moral purpose and achievement1 which1 however unconscious or senseless the creature may indeed be that so seems to call1 cannot be heard without affection1 nor contemplated without worship1 by any of us whose heart is rightly turned1 or whose mind is clearly and surely sighted4 #bh ,soldanella ,alpina4 ,i think it is the only ,alpine flower which actually pierces snow1 though ,i have seen gentians filling thawed hoof-prints4 ,crocuses are languid till they have had sun for a day or two4 ,but the soldanella enjoys its snow1 at first1 and afterwards its fields4 ,i have seen it make a pasture look like a large lilac silk gown4 #ee4 ,it has been well shown by ,dr4 ,herbert1 that many plants are found alone on a certain soil or sub-soil in a wild state1 not because such soil is favourable to them1 but because they alone are capable of existing on it1 and because all dangerous rivals are by its inhospitality removed4 ,now if we withdraw the plant from this position1 which it hardly endures1 and supply it with the earth and maintain about it the temperature that it delights in2 withdrawing from it1 at the same time1 all rivals1 which in such conditions ,nature would have thrust upon it1 we shall indeed obtain a magnificently developed example of the plant1 colossal in size1 and splendid in organization2 but we shall utterly lose in it that moral ideal which is dependent on its right fulfilment of its appointed functions4 ,it was intended and created by the ,deity for the covering of those lonely spots where no other plant could live4 ,it has been thereto endowed with courage and strength1 and capacities of endurance2 its character and glory are not therefore in the gluttonous and idle feeding of its own over luxuriance1 at the expense of other creatures utterly destroyed and rooted out for its good alone2 but in its right doing of its hard duty1 and forward climbing into those spots of forlorn hope where it alone can bear witness to the kindness and presence of the ,spirit that cutteth out rivers among the rocks1 as ,he covers the valleys with corn2 and there1 in its vanward place1 and only there1 where nothing is withdrawn for it1 nor hurt by it1 and where nothing can take part of its honour1 nor usurp its throne1 are its strength and fairness1 and price1 and goodness in the sight of ,god to be truly esteemed4 ,the first time ,i saw the ,soldanella ,alpina1 before spoken of1 it was growing of magnificent size on a sunny ,alpine pasture1 among bleating of sheep1 and lowing of cattle1 associated with a profusion of ,geum ,montanum1 and ,ranunculus ,pyrenus4 ,i noticed it only because new to me--nor perceived any peculiar beauty in its cloven flower4 ,some days after1 ,i found it alone1 among the rack of the higher clouds1 and howling of glacier winds2 and1 as ,i described it1 piercing through an edge of avalanche which in its retiring had left the new ground brown and lifeless1 and as if burnt by recent fire4 ,the plant was poor and feeble1 and seemingly exhausted with its efforts1--but it was then that ,i comprehended its ideal character1 and saw its noble function and order of glory among the constellations of the earth4 #ef4 ,,grasses4--,minute1 granular1 feathery1 or downy seed-vessels1 mingling quaint brown punctuation1 and dusty tremors of dancing grain1 with the bloom of the nearer fields2 and casting a gossamered grayness and softness of plumy mist along their surfaces far away2 mysterious evermore1 not only with dew in the morning1 or mirage at noon1 but with the shaking threads of fine arborescence1 each a little belfry of grainbells1 all a-chime4 #eg4 ,gather a single blade of grass1 and examine for a minute quietly its narrow sword-shaped strip of fluted green4 ,nothing1 as it seems1 there of notable goodness or beauty4 ,a very little strength and a very little tallness1 and a few delicate long lines meeting in a point1--not a perfect point neither1 but blunt and unfinished1 by no means a creditable or apparently much-cared-for example of ,nature's workmanship1 made1 only to be trodden on to-day1 and to-morrow to be cast into the oven1--and a little pale and hollow stalk1 feeble and flaccid1 leading down to the dull brown fibres of roots4 ,and yet1 think of it well1 and judge whether1 of all the gorgeous flowers that beam in summer air1 and of all strong and goodly trees1 pleasant to the eyes1 or good for food1--stately palm and pine1 strong ash and oak1 scented citron1 burdened vine--there be any by man so deeply loved1 by ,god so highly graced1 as that narrow point of feeble green4 ,and well does it fulfil its mission4 ,consider what we owe merely to the meadow grass1 to the covering of the dark ground by that glorious enamel1 by the companies of those soft1 and countless1 and peaceful spears4 ,the fields6 ,follow forth but for a little time the thoughts of all that we ought to recognise in these words4 ,all spring and summer is in them--the walks by silent1 scented paths--the rests in noonday heat1--the joy of herds and flocks1--the power of all shepherd life and meditation1--the life of sunlight upon the world falling in emerald streaks1 and falling in soft blue shadows where else it would have struck upon the dark mould1 or scorching dust4 ,pastures beside the pacing brooks1 soft banks and knolls of lowly hills1 thymy slopes of down1 overlooked by the blue line of lifted sea1 crisp lawns1 all dim with early dew1 or smooth in evening warmth of barred sunshine1 dinted by happy feet1 and softening in their fall the sound of loving voices1--all these are summed in those simple words2 and these are not all4 ,we may not measure to the full the depth of this heavenly gift in our own land1 though still as we think of it longer1 the infinite of that meadow sweetness1 ,shakespeare's peculiar joy1 would open on us more and more2 yet we have it but in part4 ,go out in the springtime among the meadows that slope from the shores of the ,swiss lakes to the roots of their lower mountains4 ,there1 mingled with the taller gentians1 and the white narcissus1 the grass grows deep and free2 and as you follow the winding mountain path1 beneath arching boughs1 all veiled with blossom--paths that for ever droop and rise over the green banks and mounds sweeping down in scented undulation steep to the blue water1 studded here and there with new-mown heaps filling all the air with fainter sweetness1--look up towards the higher hills1 where the waves of everlasting green roll silently into their long inlets among the shadows of the pines2 and we may perhaps at last know the meaning of those quiet words of the #adgth ,psalm1 ,he maketh grass to grow upon the mountains4 ,assembling the images we have traced1 and adding the simplest of all1 from ,isaiah xl4 #f1 we find the grass and flowers are types1 in their passing1 of the passing of human life1 and in their excellence1 of the excellence of human life2 and this in twofold way3 first by their beneficence1 and then by their endurance--the grass of the earth1 in giving the seed of corn1 and in its beauty under tread of foot and stroke of scythe2 and the grass of the waters1 in giving its freshness for our rest1 and in its bending before the wave4 ,but1 understood in the broad human and ,divine sense1 the herb yielding seed--7as opposed to the fruit tree yielding fruit7--includes a third family of plants1 and fulfils a third office to the human race4 ,it includes the great family of the lints and flaxes1 and fulfils thus the three offices of giving food1 raiment1 and rest4 ,follow out this fulfilment2 consider the association of the linen garment and the linen embroidery with the priestly office and the furniture of the tabernacle1 and consider how the rush has been to all time the first natural carpet thrown under the human foot4 ,then next observe the three virtues definitely set forth by the three families of plants--not arbitrarily or fancifully associated with them1 but in all the three cases marked for us by ,scriptural words3 #ast4 ,cheerfulness1 or joyful serenity2 in the grass for food and beauty--,consider the lilies of the field1 how they grow2 they toil not1 neither do they spin4 #bnd4 ,humility2 in the grass for rest--,a bruised reed shall he not break4 #crd4 ,love2 in the grass for clothing1 7because of its swift kindling17--,the smoking flax shall he not quench4 ,and then finally observe the confirmation of these last two images in1 ,i suppose1 the most important prophecy1 relating to the future state of the ,christian ,church1 which occurs in the ,old ,testament1 namely that contained in the closing chapters of ,ezekiel4 ,the measures of the ,temple of ,god are to be taken2 and because it is only by charity and humility that those measures ever can be taken1 the angel has a line of flax in his hand1 and a measuring reed4 ,the use of the line was to measure the land1 and of the reed to take the dimensions of the buildings2 so the buildings of the church1 or its labours1 are to be measured by humility2 and its territory1 or land1 by love4 #eh4 ,,leaves motionless4 ,the strong pines wave above them1 and the weak grasses tremble beside them2 but the blue stars rest upon the earth with a peace as of heaven2 and far along the ridges of iron rock1 moveless as they1 the rubied crests of ,alpine rose flush in the low rays of morning4 #ei4 ,,mosses4--,meek creatures6 the first mercy of the earth1 veiling with hushed softness its dintless rocks2 creatures full of pity1 covering with strange and tender honour the scarred disgrace of ruin1 laying quiet finger on the trembling stones to teach them rest4 ,no words1 that ,i know of1 will say what these mosses are4 ,none are delicate enough1 none perfect enough1 none rich enough4 ,how is one to tell of the rounded bosses of furred and beaming green1--the starred divisions of rubied bloom1 fine-filmed1 as if the rock spirits could spin porphyry as we do glass1--the traceries of intricate silver1 and fringes of amber1 lustrous1 arborescent1 burnished through every fibre into fitful brightness and glossy traverses of silken change1 yet all subdued and pensive1 and framed for simplest1 sweetest offices of grace8 ,they will not be gathered1 like the flowers1 for chaplet1 or love-token2 but of these the wild bird will make its nest1 and the wearied child his pillow4 ,and as the earth's first mercy1 so they are its last gift to us3 when all other service is vain1 from plant and tree1 the soft mosses and gray lichen take up their watch by the headstone4 ,the woods1 the blossoms1 the gift-bearing grasses1 have done their parts for a time2 but these do service for ever4 ,trees for the builder's yard1 flowers for the bride's chamber1 corn for the granary1 moss for the grave4 #fj4 ,,lichens4--,as in one sense the humblest1 in another they are the most honoured of the earth-children4 ,unfading as motionless1 the worm frets them not1 and the autumn wastes not4 ,strong in loveliness1 they neither blanch in heat1 nor pine in frost4 ,to them1 slow-fingered1 constant-hearted1 is entrusted the weaving of the dark1 eternal tapestries of the hills2 to them1 slow-pencilled1 iris-dyed1 the tender framing of their endless imagery4 ,sharing the stillness of the unimpassioned rock1 they share also its endurance2 and while the winds of departing spring scatter the white hawthorn blossom like drifted snow1 and summer dims on the parched meadow the drooping of its cowslip gold1--far above1 among the mountains1 the silver lichen spots rest1 star-like1 on the stone3 and the gathering orange stain1 upon the edge of yonder western peak1 reflects the sunsets of a thousand years4 ,,section ,,viii4 ,,education4 #fa4 ,the most helpful and sacred work which can at present be done for humanity1 is to teach people 7chiefly by example1 as all best teaching must be done7 not how to better themselves1 but how to satisfy themselves4 ,it is the curse of every evil nature and evil creature to eat and not be satisfied4 ,the words of blessing are1 that they shall eat and be satisfied2 and as there is only one kind of water which quenches all thirst1 so there is only one kind of bread which satisfies all hunger--the bread of justice or righteousness2 which hungering after1 men shall always be filled1 that being the bread of ,heaven2 but hungering after the bread or wages of unrighteousness1 shall not be filled1 that being the bread of ,sodom4 ,and in order to teach men how to be satisfied1 it is necessary fully to understand the art of joy and humble life--this1 at present1 of all arts or sciences1 being the one most needing study4 ,humble life2 that is to say1 proposing to itself no future exaltation1 but only a sweet continuance3 not excluding the idea of foresight1 but wholly of fore-sorrow1 and taking no troublous thought for coming days2 so also not excluding the idea of providence or provision1 but wholly of accumulation2--the life of domestic affection and domestic peace1 full of sensitiveness to all elements of costless and kind pleasure2--therefore chiefly to the loveliness of the natural world4 #fb4 ,we shall find that the love of nature1 wherever it has existed1 has been a faithful and sacred element of feeling2 that is to say1 supposing all the circumstances otherwise the same with respect to two individuals1 the one who loves nature most will be always found to have more capacity for faith in ,god than the other4 ,nature-worship will be found to bring with it such a sense of the presence and power of a ,great ,spirit as no mere reasoning can either induce or controvert2 and where that nature-worship is innocently pursued--i4e41 with due respect to other claims on time1 feeling1 and exertion1 and associated with the higher principles of religion1--it becomes the channel of certain sacred truths1 which by no other means can be conveyed4 #fc4 ,instead of supposing the love of nature necessarily connected with the faithlessness of the age1 ,i believe it is connected properly with the benevolence and liberty#bi of the age2 that it is precisely the most healthy element which distinctively belongs to us2 and that out of it1 cultivated no longer in levity or ignorance1 but in earnestness and as a duty1 results will spring of an importance at present inconceivable2 and lights arise1 which1 for the first time in man's history1 will reveal to him the true nature of his life1 the true field for his energies1 and the true relations between him and his ,maker4 #bi ,i forget1 now1 what ,i meant by 'liberty' in this passage2 but ,i often used the word in my first writings1 in a good sense1 thinking of ,scott's moorland rambles and the like4 ,it is very wonderful to me1 now1 to see what hopes ,i had once3 but ,turner was alive1 then2 and the sun used to shine1 and rivers to sparkle4 #fd4 ,to any person who has all his senses about him1 a quiet walk1 over not more than ten or twelve miles of road a day1 is the most amusing of all travelling2 and all travelling becomes dull in exact proportion to its rapidity4 ,going by railroad ,i do not consider as travelling at all2 it is merely being sent to a place1 and very little different from becoming a parcel4 #fe4 ,i believe an immense gain in the bodily health and happiness of the upper classes would follow on their steadily endeavouring1 however clumsily1 to make the physical exertion they now necessarily exert in amusements1 definitely serviceable4 ,it would be far better1 for instance1 that a gentleman should mow his own fields1 than ride over other people's4 #ff4 ,in order to define what is fairest1 you must delight in what is fair2 and ,i know not how few or how many there may be who take such delight4 ,once ,i could speak joyfully about beautiful things1 thinking to be understood2 now ,i cannot1 any more1 for it seems to me that no one regards them4 ,wherever ,i look or travel1 in ,england or abroad1 ,i see that men1 wherever they can reach1 destroy all beauty4 ,they seem to have no other desire or hope but to have large houses1 and be able to move fast4 ,every perfect and lovely spot which they can touch1 they defile4 ,thus the railroad bridge over the fall of ,schaffhausen1 and that round the ,clarens shore of the lake of ,geneva1 have destroyed the power of two pieces of scenery of which nothing can ever supply the place1 in appeal to the higher ranks of ,european mind4 #fg4 ,the first thing which ,i remember as an event in life1 was being taken by my nurse to the brow of ,friar's ,crag on ,derwentwater4 ,the intense joy1 mingled with awe1 that ,i had in looking through the hollows in the mossy roots1 over the crag into the dark lake1 has associated itself more or less with all twining roots of trees ever since4 ,two other things ,i remember as1 in a sort1 beginnings of life2--crossing ,shap-fells1 being let out of the chaise to run up the hills2 and going through ,glenfarg1 near ,kinross1 on a winter's morning1 when the rocks were hung with icicles2 these being culminating points in an early life of more travelling than is usually indulged to a child4 ,in such journeyings1 whenever they brought me near hills1 and in all mountain ground and scenery1 ,i had a pleasure1 as early as ,i can remember1 and continuing till ,i was eighteen or twenty1 infinitely greater than any which has been since possible to me in anything4 #fh4 ,a fool always wants to shorten space and time2 a wise man wants to lengthen both4 ,a fool wants to kill space and time2 a wise man1 first to gain them1 then to animate them4 #fi4 ,i suspect that system-makers in general are not of much more use1 each in his own domain1 than1 in that of ,pomona1 the old women who tie cherries upon sticks1 for the more portableness of the same4 ,to cultivate well1 and choose well1 your cherries1 is of some importance2 but if they can be had in their own wild way of clustering about their crabbed stalks1 it is a better connection for them than any others2 and if they cannot1 then so that they be not bruised1 it makes to a boy of practical disposition not much difference whether he gets them by handfuls1 or in beaded symmetry on the exalting stick4 #gj4 ,every great man is always being helped by everybody1 for his gift is to get good out of all things and all persons4 #ga4 ,god appoints to every one of ,his creatures a separate mission1 and if they discharge it honourably1 if they quit themselves like men1 and faithfully follow the light which is in them1 withdrawing from it all cold and quenching influence1 there will assuredly come of it such burning as1 in its appointed mode and measure1 shall shine before men1 and be of service constant and holy4 ,degrees infinite of lustre there must always be1 but the weakest among us has a gift1 however seemingly trivial1 which is peculiar to him1 and which1 worthily used1 will be a gift also to his race for ever4 #gb4 ,there is not any matter1 nor any spirit1 nor any creature1 but it is capable of a unity of some kind with other creatures2 and in that unity is its perfection and theirs1 and a pleasure also for the beholding of all other creatures that can behold4 ,so the unity of spirits is partly in their sympathy1 and partly in their giving and taking1 and always in their love2 and these are their delight and their strength2 for their strength is in their co-working and army fellowship1 and their delight is in their giving and receiving of alternate and perpetual good2 their inseparable dependency on each other's being1 and their essential and perfect depending on their ,creator's4 ,and so the unity of earthly creatures is their power1 and their peace2 not like the dead and cold peace of undisturbed stones and solitary mountains1 but the living peace of trust1 and the living power of support2 of hands that hold each other and are still4#cj #cj ,a long1 affected1 and obscure second volume sentence1 written in imitation of ,hooker4 ,one short sentence from ,ecclesiastes is the sum of it3 ,how can one be warm alone8 #gc4 ,it is good to read of that kindness and humbleness of ,st4 ,francis of ,assisi1 who spoke never to bird1 nor to cicada1 nor even to wolf and beasts of prey1 but as his brother2--and so we find are moved the minds of all good and mighty men1 as in the lesson that we have from the ',mariner' of ,coleridge1 and yet more truly and rightly taught in the ',hartleap ,well'-- ,never to blend our pleasure or our pride ,with sorrow of the meanest thing that feels1-- and again in the ',white ,doe' of ,rylstone1 with the added teaching1 that anguish of our own ,is tempered and allayed by sympathies ,aloft ascending1 and descending deep1 ,even to the inferior kinds2-- so that ,i know not of anything more destructive of the whole theoretic faculty1 not to say of the ,christian character and human intellect1#ca than those accursed sports in which man makes of himself cat1 tiger1 leopard1 and alligator in one2 and gathers into one continuance of cruelty1 for his amusement1 all the devices that brutes sparingly and at intervals use against each other for their necessities4 #ca ,i am more and more grieved1 as ,i re-read this and other portions of the most affected and weak of all my books1 7written in a moulting time of my life17--the second volume of ',modern ,painters1'--at its morbid violence of passion and narrowness of thought4 ,yet1 at heart1 the book was1 like my others1 honest2 and in substance it is mostly good2 but all boiled to rags4 #gd4 ,he who loves not ,god1 nor his brother1 cannot love the grass beneath his feet1 nor the creatures which live not for his uses1 filling those spaces in the universe which he needs not3 while1 on the other hand1 none can love ,god1 nor his human brother1 without loving all things which his ,father loves2 nor without looking upon them every one as in that respect his brethren also1 and perhaps worthier than he1 if1 in the under concords they have to fill1 their part is touched more truly4#cb #cb ,morbidly ,franciscan1 again6 and ,i am really compelled to leave out one little bit my friend liked1--as all kindly and hopeful women would1--about everything turning out right1 and being to some good end4 ,for we have no business whatever with the ends of things1 but with their beings2 and their beings are often entirely bad4 #ge4 ,things may always be seen truly by candid people1 though never completely4 ,no human capacity ever yet saw the whole of a thing2 but we may see more and more of it the longer we look4 ,every individual temper will see something different in it2 but supposing the tempers honest1 all the differences are there4 ,every advance in our acuteness of perception will show us something new2 but the old and first-discerned thing will still be there1 not falsified1 only modified and enriched by the new perceptions1 becoming continually more beautiful in its harmony with them1 and more approved as a part of the infinite truth4 ,,section ,,ix4 ,,moralities4 #gf4 ,when people read1 ,the law came by ,moses1 but grace and truth by ,christ1 do they suppose it means that the law was ungracious and untrue8 ,the law was given for a foundation2 the grace 7or mercy7 and truth for fulfilment2--the whole forming one glorious ,trinity of judgment1 mercy1 and truth4#cc ,and if people would but read the text of their ,bibles with heartier purpose of understanding it1 instead of superstitiously1 they would see that throughout the parts which they are intended to make most personally their own1 7the ,psalms17 it is always the ,law which is spoken of with chief joy4 ,the ,psalms respecting mercy are often sorrowful1 as in thought of what it cost2 but those respecting the ,law are always full of delight4 ,david cannot contain himself for joy in thinking of it1--he is never weary of its praise3 ,how love ,i ,thy law6 it is my meditation all the day4 ,thy testimonies are my delight and my counsellors2 sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb4 #cc ,a great deal of the presumption and narrowness caused by my having been bred in the ,evangelical schools1 and which now fill me with shame and distress in re-reading ',modern ,painters1' is1 to my present mind1 atoned for by the accurate thinking by which ,i broke my way through to the great truth expressed in this passage1 which all my later writings1 without exception1 have been directed to maintain and illustrate4 #gg4 ,i suppose there is no event in the whole life of ,christ to which1 in hours of doubt or fear1 men turn with more anxious thirst to know the close facts of it1 or with more earnest and passionate dwelling upon every syllable of its recorded narrative1 than ,christ's showing ,himself to ,his disciples at the ,lake of ,galilee4 ,there is something pre-eminently open1 natural1 full fronting our disbelief1 in this manifestation4 ,the others1 recorded after the resurrection1 were sudden1 phantom-like1 occurring to men in profound sorrow and wearied agitation of heart2 not1 it might seem1 safe judges of what they saw4 ,but the agitation was now over4 ,they had gone back to their daily work1 thinking still their business lay net-wards1 unmeshed from the literal rope and drag4 ,simon ,peter saith unto them1 ,i go a-fishing4 ,they say unto him1 ,we also go with thee4 ,true words enough1 and having far echo beyond those ,galilean hills4 ,that night they caught nothing2 but when the morning came1 in the clear light of it1 behold6 a figure stood on the shore4 ,they were not thinking of anything but their fruitless hauls4 ,they had no guess who it was4 ,it asked them simply if they had caught anything4 ,they say1 ,no1 and it tells them to cast again4 ,and ,john shades his eyes from the morning sun with his hand to look who it is2 and though the glistening of the sea1 too1 dazzles him1 he makes out who it is at last2 and poor ,simon1 not to be outrun this time1 tightens his fisher's coat about him1 and dashes in over the nets4 ,one would have liked to see him swim those hundred yards1 and stagger to his knees upon the beach4 ,well1 the others get to the beach1 too1 in time1 in such slow way as men in general do get in this world to its true shore1 much impeded by that wonderful dragging the net with fishes2 but they get there--seven of them in all2 first the ,denier1 and then the slowest believer1 and then the quickest believer1 and then the two throne-seekers1 and two more1 we know not who4 ,they sit down on the shore1 face to face with ,him1 and eat their broiled fish as ,he bids4 ,and then to ,peter1 all dripping still1 shivering1 and amazed1 staring at ,christ in the sun1 on the other side of the coal-fire1--thinking a little perhaps of what happened by another coal-fire1 when it was colder1 and having had no word changed with him by his ,master1 since that look of ,his1--to him so amazed1 comes the question1 ,simon1 lovest thou ,me8 ,try to feel that a little2 and think of it till it is true to you3 and then take up that infinite monstrosity and hypocrisy1--,raphael's cartoon of the charge to ,peter4 ,note first the bold fallacy--the putting all the ,apostles there1 a mere lie to serve the ,papal heresy of the ,petric supremacy1 by putting them all in the background while ,peter receives the charge1 and making them all witnesses to it4 ,note the handsomely curled hair and neatly tied sandals of the men who had been out all night in the sea-mists1 and on the slimy decks2 note their convenient dresses for going a-fishing1 with trains that lie a yard along the ground1 and goodly fringes--all made to match2--an apostolic fishing costume4 ,note how ,peter especially1 7whose chief glory was in his wet coat girt about him1 and naked limbs17 is enveloped in folds and fringes1 so as to kneel and hold his keys with grace4 ,no fire of coals at all1 nor lonely mountain shore1 but a pleasant ,italian landscape1 full of villas and churches1 and a flock of sheep to be pointed at2 and the whole group of ,apostles1 not round ,christ1 as they would have been naturally1 but straggling away in a line1 that they may be shown4 ,the simple truth is1 that the moment we look at the picture we feel our belief of the whole thing taken away4 ,there is visibly no possibility of that group even having existed1 in any place1 or on any occasion4 ,it is all a mere mythic absurdity1 and faded concoction of fringes1 muscular arms1 and curly heads of ,greek philosophers4 #gh4 ,among the children of ,god1 there is always that fearful and bowed apprehension of ,his majesty1 and that sacred dread of all offence to ,him which is called the ,fear of ,god2 yet of real and essential fear there is not any1 but clinging of confidence to ,him as their ,rock1 ,fortress1 and ,deliverer2 and perfect love1 and casting out of fear2 so that it is not possible that1 while the mind is rightly bent on ,him1 there should be dread of anything earthly or supernatural2 and the more dreadful seems the height of ,his majesty1 the less fear they feel that dwell in the shadow of it4 ,of whom shall ,i be afraid8 #gi4 ,if for every rebuke that we utter of men's vices1 we put forth a claim upon their hearts2 if for every assertion of ,god's demands from them1 we could substitute a display of ,his kindness to them2 if side by side with every warning of death1 we could exhibit proofs and promises of immortality2 if1 in fine1 instead of assuming the being of an awful ,deity1 which men1 though they cannot1 and dare not deny1 are always unwilling1 sometimes unable to conceive1 we were to show them a near1 visible1 inevitable1 but all beneficent ,deity1 whose presence makes the earth itself a heaven1 ,i think there would be fewer deaf children sitting in the market-place4 #hj4 ,if not by sympathy discovered1 it is not in words explicable with what divine lines and light the exercise of godliness and charity will mould and gild the hardest and coldest countenance1 neither to what darkness their departure will consign the loveliest4 ,for there is not any virtue the exercise of which1 even momentarily1 will not impress a new fairness upon the features4 #ha4 ,the love of the human race is increased by their individual differences1 and the unity of the creature1 made perfect by each having something to bestow and to receive1 bound to the rest by a thousand various necessities and various gratitudes2 humility in each rejoicing to admire in his fellow that which he finds not in himself1 and each being in some respect the complement of his race4 #hb4 ,they who are as the angels of ,god in heaven1 yet cannot be conceived as so assimilated that their different experiences and affections upon earth shall then be forgotten and effectless3 the child1 taken early to his place1 cannot be imagined to wear there such a body1 nor to have such thoughts1 as the glorified apostle who had finished his course and kept the faith on earth4 ,and so1 whatever perfections and likeness of love we may attribute to either the tried or the crowned creatures1 there is the difference of the stars in glory among them yet2 differences of original gifts1 though not of occupying till their ,lord come2 different dispensations of trial and of trust1 of sorrows and support1 both in their own inward1 variable hearts1 and in their positions of exposure or of peace2 of the gourd shadow and the smiting sun1 of calling at heat of day1 or eleventh hour1 of the house unroofed by faith1 or the clouds opened by revelation2 differences in warning1 in mercies1 in sickness1 in signs1 in time of calling to account2 alike only they all are by that which is not of them1 but the gift of ,god's unchangeable mercy3 ,i will give unto this last even as unto thee4 #hc4 ,the desire of rest planted in the heart is no sensual1 no unworthy one2 but a longing for renovation1 and for escape from a state whose every phase is mere preparation for another equally transitory1 to one in which permanence shall have become possible through perfection4 ,hence the great call of ,christ to men1 that call on which ,st4 ,augustine fixed as the essential expression of ,christian hope1 is accompanied by the promise of rest2 and the death bequest of ,christ to men1 is peace4 #hd4 ,he who has once stood beside the grave1 to look back upon the companionship which has been for ever closed1 feeling how impotent1 there1 are the wild love1 and the keen sorrow1 to give one instant's pleasure to the pulseless heart1 or atone in the lowest measure to the departed spirit1 for the hour of unkindness1 will scarcely for the future incur that debt to the heart1 which can only be discharged to the dust4 ,but the lessons which men receive as individuals1 they do not learn as nations4 ,again and again they have seen their noblest descend into the grave1 and have thought it enough to garland the tombstone when they had not crowned the brow1 and to pay the honour to the ashes1 which they had denied to the spirit4 ,let it not displease them that they are bidden1 amidst the tumult and the dazzle of their busy life1 to listen for the few voices1 and watch for the few lamps1 which ,god has toned and lighted to charm and to guide them1 that they may not learn their sweetness by their silence1 nor their light by their decay4 #he4 ,in the ,cathedral of ,lucca1 near the entrance door of the north transept1 there is a monument by ,jacopo della ,quercia to ,ilaria di ,caretto1 the wife of ,paolo ,guinigi4 ,i name it not as more beautiful or perfect than other examples of the same period2 but as furnishing an instance of the exact and right mean between the rigidity and rudeness of the earlier monumental effigies1 and the morbid imitation of life1 sleep1 or death1 of which the fashion has taken place in modern times4 ,she is lying on a simple couch1 with a hound at her feet2 not on the side1 but with the head laid straight and simply on the hard pillow1 in which1 let it be observed1 there is no effort at deceptive imitation of pressure4--,it is understood as a pillow1 but not mistaken for one4 ,the hair is bound in a flat braid over the fair brow1 the sweet and arched eyes are closed1 the tenderness of the loving lips is set and quiet2 there is that about them which forbids breath2 something which is not death nor sleep1 but the pure image of both4 ,the hands are not lifted in prayer1 neither folded1 but the arms are laid at length upon the body1 and the hands cross as they fall4 ,the feet are hidden by the drapery1 and the form of the limbs concealed1 but not their tenderness4 #hf4 ,i do not know any district possessing a more pure or uninterrupted fulness of mountain character1 7and that of the highest order17 or which appears to have been less disturbed by foreign agencies1 than that which borders the course of the ,trient between ,valorsine and ,martigny4 ,the paths which lead to it out of the valley of the ,rhone1 rising at first in steep circles among the walnut trees1 like winding stairs among the pillars of a ,gothic tower1 retire over the shoulders of the hills into a valley almost unknown1 but thickly inhabited by an industrious and patient population4 ,along the ridges of the rocks1 smoothed by old glaciers into long1 dark1 billowy swellings1 like the backs of plunging dolphins1 the peasant watches the slow colouring of the tufts of moss and roots of herb1 which little by little gather a feeble soil over the iron substance2 then1 supporting the narrow slip of clinging ground with a few stones1 he subdues it to the spade2 and in a year or two a little crest of corn is seen waving upon the rocky casque4 ,the irregular meadows run in and out like inlets of lake among these harvested rocks1 sweet with perpetual streamlets that seem always to have chosen the steepest places to come down for the sake of the leaps1 scattering their handfuls of crystal this way and that1 as the wind takes them with all the grace1 but with none of the formalism1 of fountains2 dividing into fanciful change of dash and spring1 yet with the seal of their granite channels upon them1 as the lightest play of human speech may bear the seal of past toil1 and closing back out of their spray to lave the rigid angles1 and brighten with silver fringes and glassy films each lower and lower step of sable stone2 until at last1 gathered altogether again1--except perhaps some chance drops caught on the apple blossom1 where it has budded a little nearer the cascade than it did last spring1--they find their way down to the turf1 and lose themselves in that1 silently2 with quiet depth of clear water furrowing among the grass-blades1 and looking only like their shadows but presently emerging again in little startled gushes and laughing hurries1 as if they had remembered suddenly that the day was too short for them to get down the hill4 ,green field1 and glowing rock1 and glancing streamlet1 all slope together in the sunshine towards the brows of ravines1 where the pines take up their own dominion of saddened shade2 and with everlasting roar1 in the twilight1 the stronger torrents thunder down1 pale from the glaciers1 filling all the chasms with enchanted cold1 beating themselves to pieces against the great rocks that they have themselves cast down1 and forcing fierce way beneath their ghastly poise4 ,the mountain paths stoop to those glens in forky zigzags1 leading to some grey and narrow arch1 all fringed under its shuddering curve with the ferns that fear the light2 a cross of rough-hewn pine1 iron-bound to its parapet1 standing dark against the lurid fury of the foam4 ,far up the glen1 as we pause beside the cross1 the sky is seen through the openings in the pines thin with excess of light2 and1 in its clear consuming flame of white space1 the summits of the rocky mountains are gathered into solemn crowns and circlets1 all flushed in that strange faint silence of possession by the sunshine1 which has in it so deep a melancholy1 full of power1 yet as frail as shadows2 lifeless1 like the walls of a sepulchre1 yet beautiful in tender fall of crimson folds1 like the veil of some sea spirit1 that lives and dies as the foam flashes2 fixed on a perpetual throne1 stern against all strength1 lifted above all sorrows1 and yet effaced and melted utterly into the air by that last sunbeam that has crossed to them from between the two golden clouds4 ,high above all sorrow8 ,yes2 but not unwitnessing to it4 ,the traveller on his happy journey1 as his foot springs from the deep turf1 and strikes the pebbles gaily over the edge of the mountain road1 sees with a glance of delight the clusters of nut-brown cottages that nestle along those sloping orchards1 and glow beneath the boughs of the pines4 ,here1 it may well seem to him1 if there be sometimes hardship1 there must be at least innocence and peace1 and fellowship of the human soul with nature4 ,it is not so4 ,the wild goats that leap along those rocks have as much passion of joy in all that fair work of ,god as the men that toil among them1--perhaps more4 ,enter the street of one of those villages1 and you will find it foul with that gloomy foulness that is suffered only by torpor1 or by anguish of soul4 ,here1 it is torpor--not absolute suffering--not starvation or disease2 but darkness of calm enduring3 the spring1 known only as the time of the scythe1 and the autumn as the time of the sickle1 and the sun only as a warmth1 the wind as a chill1 and the mountains as a danger4 ,they do not understand so much as the name of beauty1 or of knowledge4 ,they understand dimly that of virtue4 ,love1 patience1 hospitality1 faith--these things they know4 ,to glean their meadows side by side1 so happier2 to bear the burden up the breathless mountain flank unmurmuringly2 to bid the stranger drink from their vessel of milk2 to see at the foot of their low death-beds a pale figure upon a cross1 dying1 also patiently2--in this they are different from the cattle and from the stones2 but1 in all this1 unrewarded1 as far as concerns the present life4 ,for them1 there is neither hope nor passion of spirit2 for them1 neither advance nor exultation4 ,black bread1 rude roof1 dark night1 laborious day1 weary arm at sunset2 and life ebbs away4 ,no books1 no thoughts1 no attainments1 no rest1--except only sometimes a little sitting in the sun under the church wall1 as the bell tolls thin and far in the mountain air2 a pattering of a few prayers1 not understood1 by the altar-rails of the dimly gilded chapel1--and so1 back to the sombre home1 with the cloud upon them still unbroken--that cloud of rocky gloom1 born out of the wild torrents and ruinous stones1 and unlightened even in their religion1 except by the vague promise of some better thing unknown1 mingled with threatening1 and obscured by an unspeakable horror--a smoke1 as it were1 of martyrdom1 coiling up with the incense2 and amidst the images of tortured bodies and lamenting spirits in hurtling flames1 the very cross1 for them1 dashed more deeply than for others with gouts of blood4 #hg4 ,a ,highland scene is beyond doubt pleasant enough in its own way2 but1 looked close at1 has its shadows4#cd ,here1 for instance1 is the very fact of one--as pretty as ,i can remember1--having seen many4 ,it is a little valley of soft turf1 enclosed in its narrow oval by jutting rocks1 and broad flakes of nodding fern4 ,from one side of it to the other winds1 serpentine1 a clear brown stream1 drooping into quicker ripple as it reaches the end of the oval field1 and then1 first islanding a purple and white rock with an amber pool1 it dashes away into a narrow fall of foam under a thicket of mountain ash and alder4 ,the autumn sun1 low1 but clear1 shines on the scarlet ash-berries and on the golden birch-leaves1 which1 fallen here and there1 when the breeze has not caught them1 rest quiet in the crannies of the purple rock4 ,beside the rock1 in the hollow under the thicket1 the carcase of a ewe1 drowned in the last flood1 lies nearly bare to the bone1 its white ribs protruding through the skin1 raven-torn2 and the rags of its wool still flickering from the branches that first stayed it as the stream swept it down4 ,a little lower1 the current plunges1 roaring1 into a circular chasm like a well1 surrounded on three sides by a chimney-like hollowness of polished rock1 down which the foam slips in detached snow-flakes4 ,round the edges of the pool beneath1 the water circles slowly like black oil2 a little butterfly lies on its back1 the wings glued to one of the eddies1 its limbs feebly quivering2 a fish arises1 and it is gone4 ,lower down the stream1 ,i can see over a knoll the green and damp turf roofs of four or five hovels1 built at the edge of a morass1 which is trodden by the cattle into a black ,slough of ,despond at their doors1 and traversed by a few ill-set stepping stones1 with here and there a flat slab on the tops1 where they have sunk out of sight2--and at the turn of the brook ,i see a man fishing1 with a boy and a dog--a picturesque and pretty group enough certainly1 if they had not been there all day starving4 ,i know them1 and ,i know the dog's ribs also1 which are nearly as bare as the dead ewe's2 and the child's wasted shoulders1 cutting his old tartan jacket through1 so sharp are they4 #cd ,passage written to be opposed to an exuberant description1 by an amiable ,scottish pastor1 of everything flattering to ,scotchmen in the ,highlands4 ,i have put next to it1 a little study of the sadness of ,italy4 #hh4 ,perhaps there is no more impressive scene on earth than the solitary extent of the ,campagna of ,rome under evening light4 ,let the reader imagine himself for a moment withdrawn from the sounds and motion of the living world1 and sent forth alone into this wild and wasted plain4 ,the earth yields and crumbles beneath his foot1 tread he never so lightly1 for its substance is white1 hollow1 and carious1 like the dusty wreck of the bones of men4 ,the long knotted grass waves and tosses feebly in the evening wind1 and the shadows of its motion shake feverishly along the banks of ruin that lift themselves to the sunlight4 ,hillocks of mouldering earth heave around him1 as if the dead beneath were struggling in their sleep4 ,scattered blocks of black stone1 four-square remnants of mighty edifices1 not one left upon another1 lie upon them to keep them down4 ,a dull purple poisonous haze stretches level along the desert1 veiling its spectral wrecks of massy ruins1 on whose rents the red light rests1 like dying fire on defiled altars2 the blue ridge of the ,alban ,mount lifts itself against a solemn space of green1 clear1 quiet sky4 ,watch-towers of dark clouds stand steadfastly along the promontories of the ,apennines4 ,from the plain to the mountains1 the shattered aqueducts1 pier beyond pier1 melt into the darkness1 like shadowy and countless troops of funeral mourners1 passing from a nation's grave4 #hi4 ,i was coming down one evening from the ,rochers de ,naye1 above ,montreux1 having been at work among the limestone rocks1 where ,i could get no water1 and both weary and thirsty4 ,coming to a spring at the turn of the path1 conducted1 as usual1 by the herdsmen1 into a hollowed pine trunk1 ,i stooped to it1 and drank deeply4 ,as ,i raised my head1 drawing breath heavily1 some one behind me said1 ,celui qui boira de cette eau-ci1 aura encore soif4 ,i turned1 not understanding for a moment what was meant1 and saw one of the hill peasants1 probably returning to his chlet from the market place at ,vevay or ,villeneuve4 ,as ,i looked at him with an uncomprehending expression1 he went on with the verse3 ,mais celui qui boira de l'eau que je lui donnerai1 n'aura jamais soif4 #ij4 ,it may perhaps be permitted me#ce to mark the significance of the earliest mention of mountains in the ,mosaic books2 at least of those in which some ,divine appointment or command is stated respecting them4 ,they are first brought before us as refuges for ,god's people from the two judgments of water and fire4 ,the ,ark rests upon the mountains of ,ararat2 and man1 having passed through the great ,baptism unto death1 kneels upon the earth first where it is nearest heaven1 and mingles with the mountain clouds the smoke of his sacrifice of thanksgiving4 ,again2 from the midst of the first judgment by fire1 the command of the ,deity to ,his servant is1 ,escape to the mountain2 and the morbid fear of the hills1 which fills any human mind after long stay in places of luxury and sin1 is strangely marked in ,lot's complaining reply1 ,i cannot escape to the mountain1 lest some evil take me4 ,the third mention1 in way of ordinance1 is a far more solemn one3 ,abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place afar off4 ,the ,place1 the mountain of myrrh1 or of bitterness1 chosen to fulfil to all the seed of ,abraham1 far off and near1 the inner meaning of promise regarded in that vow3 ,i will lift up mine eyes unto the hills1 from whence cometh mine help4 ,and the fourth is the delivery of the law on ,sinai4 ,it seemed then to the monks that the mountains were appointed by their ,maker to be to man refuges from judgment1 signs of redemption1 and altars of sanctification and obedience2 and they saw them afterwards connected1 in the manner the most touching and gracious1 with the death1 after his task had been accomplished1 of the first anointed ,priest2 the death1 in like manner1 of the first inspired ,lawgiver2 and lastly1 with the assumption of ,his office1 by the ,eternal ,priest1 ,lawgiver1 and ,saviour4 #ce ,with reference to the choice of mountain dwellings by the greater monastic orders4 ,observe the connection of these three events4 ,although the time of the deaths of ,aaron and ,moses was hastened by ,god's displeasure1 we have not1 it seems to me1 the slightest warrant for concluding that the manner of their deaths was intended to be grievous or dishonourable to them4 ,far from this1 it cannot1 ,i think1 be doubted that in the denial of the permission to enter the ,promised ,land1 the whole punishment of their sin was included2 and that1 as far as regarded the manner of their deaths1 it must have been appointed for them by their ,master1 in all tenderness and love1 and with the full purpose of ennobling the close of their service upon the earth4 ,it might have seemed to us more honourable that both should have been permitted to die beneath the shadow of the ,tabernacle1 the congregation of ,israel watching by their side2 and all whom they loved gathered together to receive the last message from the lips of the meek lawgiver1 and the last blessing from the prayer of the anointed priest4 ,but it was not thus they were permitted to die4 ,try to realize that going forth of ,aaron from the midst of the congregation4 ,he who had so often done sacrifice for their sin1 going forth now to offer up his own spirit4 ,he who had stood among them between the dead and the living1 and had seen the eyes of all that great multitude turned to him1 that by his intercession their breath might yet be drawn a moment more1 going forth now to meet the angel of death face to face1 and deliver himself into his hand4 ,try if you cannot walk in thought with those two brothers1 and the son1 as they passed the outmost tents of ,israel1 and turned1 while yet the dew lay round about the camp1 towards the slopes of ,mount ,hor2 talking together for the last time1 as step by step they felt the steeper rising of the rocks1 and hour after hour1 beneath the ascending sun1 the horizon grew broader as they climbed1 and all the folded hills of ,idumea1 one by one subdued1 showed1 amidst their hollows in the haze of noon1 the windings of that long desert journey1 now at last to close4 ,but who shall enter into the thoughts of the ,high ,priest as his eye followed those paths of ancient pilgrimage2 and through the silence of the arid and endless hills1 stretching even to the dim peak of ,sinai1 the whole history of those forty years was unfolded before him1 and the mystery of his own ministries revealed to him2 and that other ,holy of ,holies1 of which the mountain peaks were the altars1 and the mountain clouds the veil1 the firmament of his ,father's dwelling1 opened to him still more brightly and infinitely as he drew nearer his death8--until at last1 on the shadeless summit1 from him on whom sin was to be laid no more1 from him on whose heart the names of sinful nations were to press their graven fire no longer1 the brother and the son took breastplate and ephod1 and left him to his rest4 ,there is indeed a secretness in this calm faith1 and deep restraint of sorrow1 into which it is difficult for us to enter2 but the death of ,moses himself is more easily to be conceived1 and had in it circumstances still more touching as regards the influence of the external scene4 ,for forty years ,moses had not been alone4 ,the care and burden of all the people1 the weight of their woe1 and guilt1 and death1 had been upon him continually4 ,the multitude had been laid upon him as if he had conceived them2 their tears had been his meat night and day1 until he had felt as if ,god had withdrawn ,his favour from him1 and he had prayed that he might be slain1 and not see his wretchedness4 ,and now at last the command came1 ,get thee up into this mountain4 ,the weary hands1 that had been so long stayed up against the enemies of ,israel1 might lean again upon the shepherd's staff1 and fold themselves for the shepherd's prayer--for the shepherd's slumber4 ,not strange to his feet1 though forty years unknown1 the roughness of the bare mountain path1 as he climbed from ledge to ledge of ,abarim2 not strange to his aged eyes the scattered clusters of the mountain herbage1 and the broken shadows of the cliffs1 indented far across the silence of uninhabited ravines2 scenes such as those among which1 as now1 with none beside him but ,god1 he had led his flocks so often2 and which he had left1 how painfully6 taking upon him the appointed power to make of the fenced city a wilderness1 and to fill the desert with songs of deliverance4 ,it was not to embitter the last hours of his life that ,god restored to him for a day the beloved solitudes he had lost1 and breathed the peace of the perpetual hills around him1 and cast the world in which he had laboured1 and sinned1 far beneath his feet in that mist of dying blue2--all sin1 all wandering1 soon to be forgotten for ever4 ,the ,dead ,sea--a type of ,god's anger understood by him1 of all men1 most clearly1 who had seen the earth open her mouth1 and the sea his depth1 to overwhelm the companies of those who contended with his ,master--laid waveless beneath him2 and beyond it the fair hills of ,judah1 and the soft plains and banks of ,jordan1 purple in the evening light as with the blood of redemption1 and fading in their distant fulness into mysteries of promise and of love4 ,there1 with his unabated strength1 his undimmed glance1 lying down upon the utmost rocks1 with angels waiting near to contend for the spoils of his spirit1 he put off his earthly armour4 ,we do deep reverence to his companion prophet1 for whom the chariot of fire came down from heaven2 but was his death less noble whom his ,lord ,himself buried in the vales of ,moab1 keeping1 in the secrets of the eternal counsels1 the knowledge of a sepulchre1 from which he was to be called in the fulness of time1 to talk with that ,lord upon ,hermon of the death that ,he should accomplish at ,jerusalem8 ,and lastly1 let us turn our thoughts for a few moments to the cause of the resurrection of these two prophets4 ,we are all of us too much in the habit of passing it by1 as a thing mystical and inconceivable1 taking place in the life of ,christ for some purpose not by us to be understood1 or1 at the best1 merely as a manifestation of ,his divinity by brightness of heavenly light1 and the ministering of the spirits of the dead1 intended to strengthen the faith of ,his three chosen apostles4 ,and in this1 as in many other events recorded by the ,evangelists1 we lose half the meaning1 and evade the practical power upon ourselves1 by never accepting in its fulness the idea that our ,lord was perfect man1--tempted in all things like as we are4 ,our preachers are continually trying1 in all manner of subtle ways1 to explain the union of the ,divinity with the ,manhood--an explanation which certainly involves first their being able to describe the nature of ,deity itself1 or1 in plain words1 to comprehend ,god4 ,they never can explain1 in any one particular1 the union of the natures2 they only succeed in weakening the faith of their hearers as to the entireness of either4 ,the thing they have to do is precisely the contrary of this--to insist upon the entireness of both4 ,we never think of ,christ enough as ,god1 never enough as ,man2 the instinctive habit of our minds being always to miss of the ,divinity1 and the reasoning and enforced habit to miss of the humanity4 ,we are afraid to harbour in our own hearts1 or to utter in the hearing of others1 any thought of our ,lord as hungering1 tired1 sorrowful1 having a human soul1 a human will1 and affected by events of human life1 as a finite creature is3 and yet one half of the efficiency of ,his atonement1 and the whole of the efficiency of ,his example1 depend on ,his having been this to the full4 ,consider1 therefore1 the ,transfiguration as it relates to the human feelings of our ,lord4 ,it was the first definite preparation for ,his death4 ,he had foretold it to ,his disciples six days before2 then takes with ,him the three chosen ones into an high mountain apart4 ,from an exceeding high mountain1 at the first taking on ,him the ministry of life1 ,he had beheld and rejected the kingdoms of the earth1 and their glory3 now1 on a high mountain1 ,he takes upon ,him the ministry of death4 ,peter and they that were with ,him1 as in ,gethsemane1 were heavy with sleep4 ,christ's work had to be done alone4 ,the tradition is that the ,mount of ,transfiguration was the summit of ,tabor2 but ,tabor is neither a high mountain1 nor was it in any sense a mountain apart1 being in those years both1 inhabited and fortified4 ,all the immediately preceding ministries of ,christ had been at ,cesarea ,philippi4 ,there is no mention of travel southward in the six days that intervened between the warning given to ,his disciples and the going up into the hill4 ,what other hill could it be than the southward slope of that goodly mountain1 ,hermon1 which is indeed the centre of all the ,promised ,land1 from the entering in of ,hamath unto the river of ,egypt2 the mount of fruitfulness1 from which the springs of ,jordan descended to the valleys of ,israel8 ,along its mighty forest avenues1 until the grass grew fair with the mountain lilies1 ,his feet dashed in the dew of ,hermon1 ,he must have gone to pray ,his first recorded prayer about death2 and from the steep of it1 before ,he knelt1 could see to the south all the dwellings of the people that had sat in darkness1 and seen the great light1 the land of ,zabulon and of ,naphtali1 ,galilee of the nations1--could see1 even with ,his human sight1 the gleam of that lake by ,capernaum and ,chorazin1 and many a place loved by ,him1 and vainly ministered to1 whose house was now left unto them desolate2 and chief of all1 far in the utmost blue1 the hills above ,nazareth1 sloping down to ,his old home2 hills on which yet the stones lay loose that had been taken up to cast at ,him when ,he left them for ever4 ,and as ,he prayed1 two men stood by ,him4 ,among the many ways in which we miss the help and hold of ,scripture1 none is more subtle than our habit of supposing that1 even as man1 ,christ was free from the fear of death4 ,how could ,he then have been tempted as we are8--since among all the trials of the earth1 none spring from the dust more terrible than that fear4 ,it had to be borne by ,him1 indeed1 in a unity which we can never comprehend1 with the foreknowledge of victory1--as ,his sorrow for ,lazarus with the consciousness of ,his power to restore him2 but it had to be borne1 and that in its full earthly terror2 and the presence of it is surely marked for us enough by the rising of those two at ,his side4 ,when1 in the desert1 ,he was girding ,himself for the work of life1 angels of life came and ministered to ,him2 now in the fair world1 when ,he is girding ,himself for the work of death1 the ministrants come to ,him from the grave4 ,but1 from the grave1 conquered4 ,one from that tomb under ,abarim1 which ,his own hand had sealed long ago2 the other1 from the rest into which he had entered without seeing corruption4 ,there stood by ,him ,moses and ,elias1 and spake of ,his decease4 ,then1 when the prayer is ended1 the task accepted1 first1 since the star paused over ,him at ,bethlehem1 the full glory falls upon ,him from heaven1 and the testimony is borne to ,his everlasting ,sonship and power4 ,hear ye ,him4 ,if1 in their remembrance of these things1 and in their endeavour to follow in the footsteps of their ,master1 religious men of bygone days1 closing themselves in the hill solitudes1 forgot sometimes1 and sometimes feared1 the duties they owed to the active world1 we may perhaps pardon them more easily than we ought to pardon ourselves1 if we neither seek any influence for good1 nor submit to it unsought1 in scenes to which thus all the men whose writings we receive as inspired1 together with their ,lord1 retired whenever they had any task or trial laid upon them needing more than their usual strength of spirit4 ,nor perhaps should we have unprofitably entered into the mind of the earlier ages1 if among our other thoughts1 as we watch the chains of the snowy mountains rise on the horizon1 we should sometimes admit the memory of the hour in which their ,creator1 among their solitudes1 entered on ,his travail for the salvation of our race2 and indulge the dream1 that as the flaming and trembling mountains of the earth seem to be the monuments of the manifesting of ,his terror on ,sinai1 these pure and white hills1 near to the heaven1 and sources of all good to the earth1 are the appointed memorials of that light of ,his mercy1 that fell1 snowlike1 on the ,mount of ,transfiguration4 ,,finis4 ,printed by ,,ballantyne1 ,,hanson ,,co4 ,edinburgh ,london