n the blue and giddy expanse, stands the solid
mountain, glittering like a diamond. O God! the bewildered reason pent
up in cities, toils much to prove and penetrate thy being and thy
nature--toils much in vain. Here, I reason not--I see. The Great King
lives--lo there is his throne.

* * * * *

To him who quits the plain for the mountain, how the character of the
cloud alters. That which seemed to belong exclusively to the sky, has
been drawn down and belongs as plainly to the earth. Mount some noble
eminence and look down--you will see the clouds lying _on_ and _about_
the landscape, as if they had fallen on it. You are on the steadfast
earth, and they are underneath you. You look down perhaps on the lake,
and there is a solitary cloud lying settled on it; when the rest of
the fleecy drove had risen from their couch, this idle sleeper had
been left dreaming there.

Or stay below, and see the sun rise in the valley. When all is warm
and clear upon the heights, and the tops of the hills are fervid with
the beams of heaven, there still lies a cold white mass of cloud about
your feet. It is not yet morning in the valley. There the cloud has
been slumbering all night--there it found its home. It also will by
and by receive the beam, and then it will arise, enveloping the hill
as it ascends; the hill will have a second dawn; the cloud will assume
its proud station in the sky; but it will return again to the valley
at night.

I am sailing on the lake of Brienz on a day golden with sunbeams. The
high ridge of its rocky castellated hills is distinct as light can
make it. Yet half-way up, amidst the pine forests, there lies upon the
rich verdure a huge motionless cloud. What does it there? Its place
was surely in the sky. But no; it belongs, like ourselves, to the
earth.

Is nature gaily mocking us, when upon her impregnable hills she builds
these _castles in the air_? But, good heavens! what a military aspect
all on a sudden does this mountain-side put on. Mark that innumerable
host of pine-trees. What regiments of them are marching up the hill in
the hot sun, as if to storm those rocky forts above! What serried
ranks! and yet there are some stragglers--some that have hastened on
in front, some that have lingered in the rear. Look at that tall
gigantic pine breasting the hill alone, like an old grenadier. How
upright against the steep declivity! while his lengthened shadow is
thrown headlo