.

He passed a group of terrified peasants; they were cowering under a
tree. The oldest hid his head and shuddered; but the youngest looked
steadily at the lightning which played at fitful intervals over the
mountain stream that rushed rapidly by their feet. Falkland stood beside
them unnoticed and silent, with folded arms and a scornful lip. To
him, nature, heaven, earth had nothing for fear, and everything for
reflection. In youth, thought he (as he contrasted the fear felt at
one period of life with the indifference at another), there are so many
objects to divide and distract life, that we are scarcely sensible of
the collected conviction that we live. We lose the sense of what is by
thinking rather of what is to be. But the old, who have no future to
expect, are more vividly alive to the present, and they feel death more,
because they have a more settled and perfect impression of existence.

He left the group, and went on alone by the margin of the winding and
swelling stream. "It is (said a certain philosopher) in the conflicts
of Nature that man most feels his littleness." Like all general maxims,
this is only partially true. The mind, which takes its first ideas from
perception, must take also its tone from the character of the objects
perceived. In mingling our spirits with the great elements, we partake
of their sublimity; we awaken thought from the secret depths where it
had lain concealed; our feelings are too excited to remain riveted to
ourselves; they blend with the mighty powers which are abroad; and as,
in the agitations of men, the individual arouses from himself to become
a part of the crowd, so in the convulsions of nature we are equally
awakened from the littleness of self, to be lost in the grandeur of the
conflict by which we are surrounded.

Falkland still continued to track the stream: it wound its way through
Mandeville's grounds, and broadened at last into the lake which was
so consecrated to his recollections. He paused at that spot for some
moments, looking carelessly over the wide expanse of waters, now dark
as night, and now flashing into one mighty plain of fire beneath the
coruscations of the lightning. The clouds swept on in massy columns,
dark and aspiring-veiling, while they rolled up to, the great heavens,
like the shadows of human doubt. Oh! weak, weak was that dogma of the
philosopher! There is a pride in the storm which, according to his
doctrine, would debase us; a stirring mus