st his
left leg to do him further service unaided; but it was morning still,
the sun was hot, the air was cool; just the tempering opposition to
render existence pleasant as a piece of vegetation, especially when
there has been a question of your ceasing to exist; and the view was of
a sustaining sublimity of desolateness: crag and snow overhead; a gloomy
vale below; no life either of bird or herd; a voiceless region where
there had once been roars at the bowling of a hill from a mountain
to the deep, and the third flank of the mountain spoke of it in the
silence.

He would have enjoyed the scene unremittingly, like the philosopher he
pretended to be, in a disdain of civilization and the ambitions of men,
had not a contest with earth been forced on him from time to time
to keep the heel of his right foot, dug in shallow shale, fixed and
supporting. As long as it held he was happy and maintained the attitude
of a guitar-player, thrumming the calf of the useless leg to accompany
tuneful thoughts, but the inevitable lapse and slide of the foot
recurred, and the philosopher was exhibited as an infant learning to
crawl. The seat, moreover, not having been fashioned for him or for any
soft purpose, resisted his pressure and became a thing of violence, that
required to be humiliatingly coaxed. His last resource to propitiate
it was counselled by nature turned mathematician: tenacious extension
solved the problem; he lay back at his length, and with his hat over
his eyes consented to see nothing for the sake of comfort. Thus he
was perfectly rational, though when others beheld him he appeared the
insanest of mortals.

A girl's voice gave out the mountain carol ringingly above. His heart
and all his fancies were in motion at the sound. He leaned on an elbow
to listen; the slide threatened him, and he resumed his full stretch,
determined to take her for a dream. He was of the class of youths who,
in apprehension that their bright season may not be permanent, choose
to fortify it by a systematic contempt of material realities unless
they come in the fairest of shapes, and as he was quite sincere in
this feeling and election of the right way to live, disappointment and
sullenness overcame him on hearing men's shouts and steps; despite his
helpless condition he refused to stir, for they had jarred on his dream.
Perhaps his temper, unknown to himself, had been a little injured by
his mishap, and he would not have been sorry to char