iful in
the reflected shadows, invested with one universal peace. The momentary
evanescence of all that imagery at a breath touches us with the thought
that all it represents, steadfast as seems its endurance, will as
utterly pass away. Such visions, when gazed on in that wondrous depth
and purity on a still slow-moving day, always inspire some such feeling
as this; and we sigh to think how transitory must be all things, when
the setting sun is seen to sink behind the mountain, and all the golden
pomp at the same instant to evanish from the Loch.

Evening is preparing to let fall her shades--and Nature, cool, fresh,
and unwearied, is laying herself down for a few hours' sleep. There had
been a long strong summer drought, and a week ago you would have
pitied--absolutely pitied the poor Highlands. You missed the
cottage-girl with her pitcher at the well in the brae, for the spring
scarcely trickled, and the water-cresses were yellow before their time.
Many a dancing hill-stream was dead--only here and there one stronger
than her sisters attempted a _pas-seul_ over the shelving rocks; but all
choral movements and melodies forsook the mountains, still and silent as
so much painted canvass. Waterfalls first tamed their thunder, then
listened alarmed to their own echoes, wailed themselves away into
diminutive murmurs, gasped for life, died, and were buried at the feet
of the green slippery precipices. Tarns sank into moors; and there was
the voice of weeping heard and low lament among the water-lilies. Ay,
millions of pretty flowerets died in their infancy, even on their
mother's breast; the bee fainted in the desert for want of the
honey-dew, and the ground-cells of industry were hushed below the
heather. Cattle lay lean on the brownness of a hundred hills, and the
hoof of the red-deer lost its fleetness. Along the shores of lochs great
stones appeared, within what for centuries had been the lowest
water-mark; and whole bays, once bright and beautiful with reed-pointed
wavelets, became swamps, cracked and seamed, or rustling in the aridity
with a useless crop, to the sugh of the passing wind. On the shore of
the sea alone you beheld no change. The tides ebbed and flowed as
before--the small billows racing over the silver sands to the same goal
of shells, or climbing up to the same wildflowers that bathe the
foundation of some old castle belonging to the ocean.

But the windows of heaven were opened,--and, like giants refres