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Nature, in her most dazzling aspects or stupendous parts, is but the background and theatre of the tragedy of man. We may find a secondary proof of this in the fewness of those fine descriptive strokes and subtle indirect touches of colour or sound which arise with incessant spontaneity, where a mastering passion for nature steeps the mind in vigilant, accurate, yet half-unconscious, observation.
On all sides were indented horizons of trees, among which a few, of more dominant height, projected their sharp outlines against the sky; in the distance were rocky steeps, with here and there a clump of brambles, down which trickled slender rivulets; still farther, like little islands, half submerged in a sea of foliage, were pastures of tender green dotted with juniper bushes, almost black in their density, and fields of rye struggling painfully through the stony soil the entire scene presenting a picture of mingled wildness and cultivation, aridity and luxuriant freshness.
It saw thee, the smoke, On the horned height It saw thee, and broke With a leap into light; Where roam Corycian nymphs the glorious mountain, And all melodious flows the old Castalian fountain Vocal with echoes wildly glad, The Nysian steeps with ivy clad, And shores with vineyards greenly blooming, Proclaiming, steep to shore, That Bacchus evermore Is guardian of the race, Where he holds his dwelling-place With her , beneath the breath Of the thunder's glowing death, In the glare of her glory consuming.
A broken stonewall overgrown with brambles enclosed the old church-yard, where a few fallen and mouldering gravestones, half sunk among the dead leaves, still remained. All around the church, on the bottom of the dell, and up the sides of the steeps, were thickly clustered forest-trees, now glowing refulgent in their gorgeous autumn livery of crimson and gold, scarlet and purple.
All around the rocky slopes and wooded steeps were roaring back the sounds like monsters awakened from peaceful slumber and enraged at being thus disturbed. All this had been brought about by the shot fired by Red Ben. That small concussion had started rolling a single pebble that was the keystone. Recent rains had loosened that pebble.
It was Christmas Eve on Lonesome. But nobody on Lonesome knew that it was Christmas Eve, although a child of the outer world could have guessed it, even out in those wilds where Lonesome slipped from one lone log cabin high up the steeps, down through a stretch of jungled darkness to another lone cabin at the mouth of the stream.
The sun was just rising from behind a waste of waters; it revealed nothing but a waste of waters. All around the brig, as far as the eye could reach, the Pacific was one vast tumble of huge blue-gray, mottled masses, breaking incessantly in long, curling ridges, or lofty, tossing steeps of foam.
He lifted his arched neck as he sprang about with undiminished activity, vainly seeking to ascend the almost sheer precipice. Daylight, however, was essential for his rescue. The effort now on these icy steeps might cost either man or beast a broken limb, if no more.
"But not ef the chair war ter be steadied by a guy-rope from say from that thar old pine tree over thar," Kennedy insisted, indicating the long bole of a partially uprooted and inverted tree on the steeps. "The chair would swing cl'ar of the bluff then." "But, Jube, it is onpossible ter git a guy-rope over ter that tree, more than a man's life is wuth ter try it."
Our fathers were brothers, and our grandfather was one and the same person. It is well known to you that our respected grand-sire was an individual who had to plod his way along through the very steeps of poverty, and procure a little bread for his family by humble employments.
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