It Is A Cloudy Day; And Heavy Volumes Of Vapor Are Wreathing And
Unwreathing Themselves Around The Gaunt Forms Of The Everlasting
Rocks, Like Human Reasonings, Desires, And Hopes Around The Ghastly
Realities Of Life And Death; Graceful, Undulating, And Sometimes
Gleaming Out In Silver Or Rosy Wreaths.
Still, they are nothing but
mist; the dread realities are just where they were before.
It is odd,
though, to look at these cloud caperings; quite as interesting, in its
way, as to read new systems of transcendental philosophy, and perhaps
quite as profitable. Yonder is a great, whiteheaded cloud, slowly
unrolling himself in the bosom of a black pine forest. Across the
other side of the road a huge granite cliff has picked up a bit of
gauzy silver, which he is winding round his scraggy neck. And now,
here comes a cascade right over our heads; a cascade, not of water,
but of cloud; for the poor little brook that makes it faints away
before it gets down to us; it falls like a shimmer of moonlight, or a
shower of powdered silver, while a tremulous rainbow appears at
uncertain intervals, like a half-seen spirit.
[Illustration: _of waterfalls._]
The cascade here, as in mountains generally, is a never-failing source
of life and variety. Water, joyous, buoyant son of Nature, is calling
to you, leaping, sparkling, mocking at you between bushes, and singing
as he goes down the dells. A thousand little pictures he makes among
the rocks as he goes; like the little sketch which I send you.
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