in their solitude. No
trace of man now visible; unless indeed it were he who fashioned
that little visible link of Highway, here, as would seem, scaling the
inaccessible, to unite Province with Province. But sunwards, lo you! how
it towers sheer up, a world of Mountains, the diadem and centre of the
mountain region! A hundred and a hundred savage peaks, in the last light
of Day; all glowing, of gold and amethyst, like giant spirits of the
wilderness; there in their silence, in their solitude, even as on the
night when Noah's Deluge first dried! Beautiful, nay solemn, was the
sudden aspect to our Wanderer. He gazed over those stupendous masses
with wonder, almost with longing desire; never till this hour had he
known Nature, that she was One, that she was his Mother and divine. And
as the ruddy glow was fading into clearness in the sky, and the Sun had
now departed, a murmur of Eternity and Immensity, of Death and of Life,
stole through his soul; and he felt as if Death and Life were one, as if
the Earth were not dead, as if the Spirit of the Earth had its throne in
that splendor, and his own spirit were therewith holding communion.

"The spell was broken by a sound of carriage-wheels. Emerging from the
hidden Northward, to sink soon into the hidden Southward, came a gay
Barouche-and-four: it was open; servants and postilions wore wedding
favors: that happy pair, then, had found each other, it was their
marriage evening! Few moments brought them near: _Du Himmel_! It was
Herr Towgood and--Blumine! With slight unrecognizing salutation they
passed me; plunged down amid the neighboring thickets, onwards, to
Heaven, and to England; and I, in my friend Richter's words, _I remained
alone, behind them, with the Night_."

Were it not cruel in these circumstances, here might be the place to
insert an observation, gleaned long ago from the great _Clothes-Volume_,
where it stands with quite other intent: "Some time before Small-pox
was extirpated," says the Professor, "there came a new malady of
the spiritual sort on Europe: I mean the epidemic, now endemical, of
View-hunting. Poets of old date, being privileged with Senses, had also
enjoyed external Nature; but chiefly as we enjoy the crystal cup which
holds good or bad liquor for us; that is to say, in silence, or with
slight incidental commentary: never, as I compute, till after the
_Sorrows of Werter_, was there man found who would say: Come let us make
a Description! Having