United States or Rwanda ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Here speaks the true panoramic man, the man whose mind attains to fulness of expression on mountain-tops from which the whole landscape of life may be contemplated. And yet he notes the "ominous configuration of Mount Pilatus" and its terrible form, and writes of adjoining mountains as "these hump-backed, goitred giants crouching around me in the darkness."
Now, at this evening hour, at the period of repose and refection, methinks all hearts breathe one hymn of love and thanksgiving, and we, like priests of old on the mountain-tops, give a voice to their sentiment. "Assuredly a most benignant power built up the majestic fabric we inhabit, and framed the laws by which it endures.
By-and-bye we grew conscious of a faint, gradual revealing of the mountain-tops, which for a time had been black, jagged pieces cut out from the spangled fabric of a starry sky. A ripple of pearly light wavered over them, like the reflection of the unseen river mirrored for the Lady of Shalott.
They lacked the breadth of vision enjoyed by the regenerators who sat upon mountain-tops. They were fain to toil on in their own way. Perhaps, however, the future might show as large results from their work as from the schemes of those who were to begin the humiliation of the Austrian house by converting its ancient rebels into tranquil subjects.
Love lay on the mountain-tops beyond the valley-land of reason. It was a sublimates condition of existence, the topmost peak of living, and it came rarely.
Splendor had departed; the world in our neighborhood had fallen into the unillumined dumps. An ominous mournfulness, far sadder than the pensiveness of twilight, drew over the sky. Clouds, that donned brilliancy for the fond parting of mountain-tops and the sun, now grew cheerless and gray; their gay robes were taken from them, and with bended heads they fled away from the sorrowful wind.
The big, lumbering forms crowded so closely round us in the twilight shadows, that now and then, to force a passage, Joseph was obliged to pull a slowly whisking tail, resembling almost exactly an old-fashioned bell-rope. Presently we had made our way past the herd, which was shut from our sight by the curtain of evening, though up on the mountain-tops it was still golden day.
It and its squad of eighteen men, under command of Lieutenant Alger and Sergeant Davis, had been sent up to us a few days before from the Gap. The comfortless gray dawn was crawling sluggishly over the mountain-tops, as if numb as the animal and vegetable life which had been shrinking all the long hours under the fierce chill.
The first day was lowering and overcast, favoring us greatly, because we wanted to be concealed from Bragg, whose position on the mountain-tops completely overlooked us and our movements. The second day was beautifully clear, and many a time, in the midst of its carnage and noise, I could not help stopping to look across that vast field of battle, to admire its sublimity.
We were seated on the fender or' cow-catcher, watching the majestic marshaling of the thunder-clouds over the mountain-tops, and enjoying to the full the excitement of the moment, when suddenly the wind blew a terrific gust, filling the air with dust and dry leaves, and threatening to carry us individually over the precipice.
Word Of The Day