urning, or bound it fast within
those bars of bough? And yonder filmy crescent, bent like an archer's
bow above the snowy summit, the highest of all the hills--that white
arch which never forms but over the supreme crest,--how is it stayed
there, repelled apparently from the snow,--nowhere touching it, the
clear sky seen between it and the mountain edge, yet never leaving
it--poised as a white bird hovers over its nest? Or those war clouds
that gather on the horizon, dragon-crested, tongued with fire,--how is
their barbed strength bridled? What bits are those they are champing
with their vapourous lips, flinging off flakes of black foam? Leagued
leviathans of the Sea of Heaven,--out of their nostrils goeth smoke,
and their eyes are like the eyelids of the morning; the sword of him
that layeth at them cannot hold the spear, the dart, nor the
habergeon. Where ride the captains of their armies? Where are set the
measures of their march? Fierce murmurers, answering each other from
morning until evening--what rebuke is this which has awed them into
peace;--what hand has reined them back by the way in which they came?

[15] This is a fifth volume bit, and worth more attention.

I know not if the reader will think at first that questions like these
are easily answered. So far from it, I rather believe that some of the
mysteries of the clouds never will be understood by us at all.
"Knowest thou the balancings of the clouds?" Is the answer ever to be
one of pride? The wondrous works of Him, who is perfect in knowledge?
Is _our_ knowledge ever to be so?...

For my own part, I enjoy the mystery, and perhaps the reader may. I
think he ought. He should not be less grateful for summer rain, or see
less beauty in the clouds of morning, because they come to prove him
with hard questions; to which perhaps, if we look close at the
heavenly scroll, we may find also a syllable or two of answer,
illuminated here and there.[16]

[16] Compare, in 'Sartor Resartus,' the boy's watching from the garden
wall.

And though the climates of the south and east may be _comparatively_
clear, they are no more absolutely clear than our own northern air.
Intense clearness, whether, in the north, after or before rain, or in
some moments of twilight in the south, is always, as far as I am
acquainted with natural phenomena, a _notable_ thing. Mist of some
sort, or mirage, or confusion of light or of cloud, are the general
facts; the distance may vary in