awe, and out of the forest-gloom arise images of beauty
that come and go, gliding as on wings, or, statue-like, stand in the
glades, like the sylvan deities to whom of old belonged, by birthright,
all the regions of the woods. On--on--on!--further into the Forest!--and
let the awe of imagination be still further tempered by the delight
breathed even from any one of the lovely names sweet-sounding through
the famous fables of antiquity. Dryad, Hamadryad! Faunus!
Sylvanus!--Now, alas! ye are but names, and no more! Great Pan himself
is dead, or here he would set up his reign. But what right has such a
dreamer to dream of the dethroned deities of Greece? The language they
spoke is not his language; yet the words of the great poets who sang of
gods and demigods, are beautiful in their silent meanings as they meet
his adoring eyes; and, mighty Lyrists! has he not often floated down the
temple-crowned and altar-shaded rivers of your great Choral Odes?

On--on--on!--further into the Forest!--unless, indeed, thou dreadest
that the limbs that bear on thy fleshy tabernacle may fail, and the
body, left to itself, sink down and die. Ha! such fears thou laughest to
scorn; for from youth upwards thou hast dallied with the wild and
perilous: and what but the chill delight in which thou hast so often
shivered in threatening solitude brought thee here! These dens are not
dungeons, nor are we a thrall. Yet if dungeons they must be called--and
they are deep, and dark, and grim--ten thousand gates hath this great
prison-house, and wide open are they all. So on--on--on!--further into
the Forest! But who shall ascend to its summit? Eagles and dreams. Round
its base we go, rejoicing in the new-found day, and once more cheered
and charmed with the music of birds. Say whence came, ye scientific
world-makers, these vast blocks of granite? Was it fire or water, think
ye, that hung in air the semblance of yon Gothic cathedral, without
nave, or chancel, or aisle--a mass of solid rock? Yet it looks like the
abode of Echoes; and haply when there is thunder, rolls out its
lengthening shadow of sound to the ear of the solitary shepherd afar off
on Cairngorm.

On--on--on!--further into the Forest! Now on all sides leagues of
ancient trees surround us, and we are safe as in the grave from the
persecuting love or hatred of friends or foes. The sun shall not find us
by day, nor the moon by night. Were our life forfeited to what are
called the laws, how c