Little happier seems to be his next flight: into the wilds of Nature; as
if in her mother-bosom he would seek healing. So at least we incline
to interpret the following Notice, separated from the former by some
considerable space, wherein, however, is nothing noteworthy:--

"Mountains were not new to him; but rarely are Mountains seen in such
combined majesty and grace as here. The rocks are of that sort called
Primitive by the mineralogists, which always arrange themselves in
masses of a rugged, gigantic character; which ruggedness, however,
is here tempered by a singular airiness of form, and softness of
environment: in a climate favorable to vegetation, the gray cliff,
itself covered with lichens, shoots up through a garment of foliage
or verdure; and white, bright cottages, tree-shaded, cluster round
the everlasting granite. In fine vicissitude, Beauty alternates with
Grandeur: you ride through stony hollows, along strait passes, traversed
by torrents, overhung by high walls of rock; now winding amid broken
shaggy chasms, and huge fragments; now suddenly emerging into some
emerald valley, where the streamlet collects itself into a Lake, and
man has again found a fair dwelling, and it seems as if Peace had
established herself in the bosom of Strength.

"To Peace, however, in this vortex of existence, can the Son of Time
not pretend: still less if some Spectre haunt him from the Past; and the
Future is wholly a Stygian Darkness, spectre-bearing. Reasonably might
the Wanderer exclaim to himself: Are not the gates of this world's
happiness inexorably shut against thee; hast thou a hope that is not
mad? Nevertheless, one may still murmur audibly, or in the original
Greek if that suit thee better: 'Whoso can look on Death will start at
no shadows.'

"From such meditations is the Wanderer's attention called outwards; for
now the Valley closes in abruptly, intersected by a huge mountain
mass, the stony water-worn ascent of which is not to be accomplished on
horseback. Arrived aloft, he finds himself again lifted into the evening
sunset light; and cannot but pause, and gaze round him, some moments
there. An upland irregular expanse of wold, where valleys in complex
branchings are suddenly or slowly arranging their descent towards every
quarter of the sky. The mountain-ranges are beneath your feet, and
folded together: only the loftier summits look down here and there as on
a second plain; lakes also lie clear and earnest