se, but for a
moment, in nature it has no truth. Tumultuary movements envelope them;
but they themselves are for ever steadfast and for ever still. Their
power is that of an enduring calm no storms can disturb--and is often
felt to be more majestical, the more furious are the storms. As the
tempest-driven clouds are franticly hurrying to and fro, how serene the
summits in the sky! Or if they be hidden, how peaceful the glimpses of
some great mountain's breast! They disregard the hurricane that goes
crashing through their old woods; the cloud-thunder disturbs not them
any more than that of their own cataracts, and the lightnings play for
their pastime. All minds under any excitation, more or less personify
mountains. When much moved, that natural process affects all our
feelings, as the language of passion awakened by such objects vividly
declares; and then we do assuredly conceive of mountains as endued with
life--however dim and vague the conception may be--and feel their
character in their very names. Utterly strip our ideas of them of all
that is attached to them as impersonations, and their power is gone. But
while we are creatures of imagination as well as of reason, will those
monarchs remain invested with the purple and seated on thrones.

In such imaginative moods as these must every one be, far more
frequently than he is conscious of, and in far higher degrees, who, with
a cultivated mind and a heart open to the influences of nature, finds
himself, it matters not whether for the first or the hundredth time, in
the Highlands. We fancy the Neophyte wandering, all by himself, on the
"Longest Day;" rejoicing to think that the light will not fail him, when
at last the sun must go down, for that a starry gloaming will continue
its gentle reign till morn. He thinks but of what he sees, and that
is--the mountains. All memories of any other world but that which
encloses him with its still sublimities, are not excluded merely, but
obliterated: his whole being is there! And now he stands on table-land,
and with his eyes sweeps the horizon, bewildered for a while, for it
seems chaos all. But soon the mighty masses begin arranging themselves
into order; the confusion insensibly subsides as he comprehends more and
more of their magnificent combinations; he discovers centres round which
are associated altitudes towering afar off; and finally, he feels, and
blesses himself on his felicity, that his good genius has placed him on