nstitute the mind
itself, more, perhaps, than any other faculty, can set them so brightly
before me, as if they were painted on a dark midnight sky with brushes
dipped in the essence of living light. To appreciate thoroughly the
grandeur of the mountain solitudes, it is necessary to have dwelt among
the scenes, and to have looked upon them at every season of the
ever-changing year. They are fresh with solemn beauty, when bathed in
the deep dews of a summer morning; or in autumn, if you have attained to
the border of the mystery which has overhung your path, and therefore to
a station high enough for the survey, all that meets the eye shall be as
a dream of poetry itself. The deep folds of white vapour fill up glen
and hollow, till the summit of the mountains, near and far away--far as
sight itself can penetrate--are only seen tinged with the early radiance
of the sun, the whole so combined as to appear a limitless plain of
variegated marble, peaceful as heaven, and solemnly serene as eternity.
What Winter writes with his frozen finger I need not state. When the
venerable old man, Gladstanes, perished among the stormy blasts of these
wilds, I was one of about threescore of men who for three days traversed
them in search of the dead. Then was the scenery of the mountains
impressive, much beyond what can well be spoken. The bridal that loses
the bride through some wayward freak of the fair may be sad enough; so
also the train, in its dark array, that conveys the familiar friend to
the chamber where the light of nature cannot come. But in this latter
case, the hearts that still beat, necessarily know that their part is
resignation, and suspense and anxiety mingle not in the mood of the
living, as it relates to the dead; but otherwise is it with those who
seem already constituting the funeral train of one who should have
been--yet who is not there to be buried.

"'The feeling is nameless that makes us unglad,
And a strange, wild dismayment it brings;
Which yet hath no match in the solemn and sad
Desolation of men and of things.

* * * * *

"'The hill-foxes howl'd round the wanderer's way,
When his aim and his pathway were lost;
And effort has then oft too much of dismay
To pay well the toil it may cost.
If fate has its privilege, death has its power,
And is fearful where'er it may fall,
But worse it may seem 'mong the blasts of the moor