avage wastes, sunny plains and frigid plateaux. There were the most
rugged forms and the most graceful outlines, bold perpendicular cliffs
and gentle undulating slopes; rocky mountains and snowy mountains,
sombre and solemn, or glittering and white, with walls, turrets,
pinnacles, pyramids, domes, cones, and spires! There was every
combination that the world can give, and every contrast that the heart
could desire."

These were summer scenes, but the Autumn and Winter again have a
grandeur and beauty of their own.

"Autumn is dark on the mountains; grey mist rests on the hills. The
whirlwind is heard on the heath. Dark rolls the river through the narrow
plain. The leaves twirl round with the wind, and strew the grave of the
dead."[40]

Even bad weather often but enhances the beauty and grandeur of
mountains. When the lower parts are hidden, and the peaks stand out
above the clouds, they look much loftier than if the whole mountain
side is visible. The gloom lends a weirdness and mystery to the scene,
while the flying clouds give it additional variety.

Rain, moreover, adds vividness to the colouring. The leaves and grass
become a brighter green, "every sunburnt rock glows into an agate," and
when fine weather returns the new snow gives intense brilliance, and
invests the woods especially with the beauty of Fairyland. How often in
alpine districts does one long "for the wings of a dove," more
thoroughly to enjoy and more completely to explore, the mysteries and
recesses of the mountains. The mind, however, can go, even if the body
must remain behind.

Each hour of the day has a beauty of its own. The mornings and evenings
again glow with different and even richer tints.

In mountain districts the cloud effects are brighter and more varied
than in flatter regions. The morning and evening tints are seen to the
greatest advantage, and clouds floating high in the heavens sometimes
glitter with the most exquisite iridescent hues

that blush and glow
Like angels' wings.[41]

On low ground one may be in the clouds, but not above them. But as we
look down from mountains and see the clouds floating far below us, we
almost seem as if we were looking down on earth from one of the heavenly
bodies.

Not even in the Alps is there anything more beautiful than the "after
glow" which lights up the snow and ice with a rosy tint for some time
after the sun has set. Long after the lower slopes are already in the
s