allel, but by perspective radiating,
catch the sunshine above, at a height of from fifteen to twenty
thousand feet; but the storm on the mountains gathers itself into a
full mile's depth of massy cloud, every fold of it involved with
thunder, but every form of it, every action, every color,
magnificent:--doing its mighty work in its own hour and its own
dominion, nor snatching from you for an instant, nor defiling with
a stain, the abiding blue of the transcendent sky, or the fretted
silver of its passionless clouds.

We so rarely now see cumulus cloud of this grand kind, that I will
yet delay you by reading the description of its nearer aspect, in
the 'Eagle's Nest.'

"The rain which flooded our fields the Sunday before last, was
followed, as you will remember, by bright days, of which Tuesday
the 20th (February, 1872) was, in London, notable for the splendor,
towards the afternoon, of its white cumulus clouds. There has been
so much black east wind lately, and so much fog and artificial
gloom, besides, that I find it is actually some two years since I
last saw a noble cumulus cloud under full light. I chanced to be
standing under the Victoria Tower at Westminster, when the largest
mass of them floated past, that day, from the northwest; and I was
more impressed than ever yet by the awfulness of the cloud-form,
and its unaccountableness, in the present state of our knowledge.
The Victoria Tower, seen against it, had no magnitude: it was like
looking at Mont Blanc over a lamp-post. The domes of cloud-snow
were heaped as definitely: their broken flanks were as gray and
firm as rocks, and the whole mountain, of a compass and height in
heaven which only became more and more inconceivable as the eye
strove to ascend it, was passing behind the tower with a steady
march, whose swiftness must in reality have been that of a tempest:
yet, along all the ravines of vapor, precipice kept pace with
precipice, and not one thrust another.

"What is it that hews them out? Why is the blue sky pure
there,--the cloud solid here; and edged like marble: and why does
the state of the blue sky pass into the state of cloud, in that
calm advance?

"It is true that you can more or less imitate the forms of cloud
with explosive vapor or steam; but the steam melts instantly, and
the explosive vapor dissipates itself. The cloud, of perfect form,
proceeds unchanged. It is not an explosion, but an enduring and
advancing presence. The more you