shadow in the water. What cloud, piled massive on the horizon,
could cast an image so sharp in outline, so full of vigorous
detail of surface? No cloud, but a cloud compeller. It was a
giant mountain dome of snow, swelling and seeming to fill the
aerial spheres, as its image displaced the blue deeps of tranquil
water. Only its splendid snows were visible, high in the
unearthly regions of clear blue noonday sky.

Kingly and alone stood this majesty, without any visible consort,
though far to the north and the south its brethren and sisters
dominated their realms. Of all the peaks from California to
{p.103} Frazer's River, this one before me was royalest. Mount
Regnier[5] Christians have dubbed it, in stupid nomenclature
perpetuating the name of somebody or nobody. More melodiously the
Siwashes call it Tacoma,--a generic term also applied to all snow
peaks. Tacoma, under its ermine, is a crushed volcanic dome, or
an ancient volcano fallen in, and perhaps not yet wholly
lifeless. The domes of snow are stateliest. There may be more of
feminine beauty in the cones, and more of masculine force and
hardihood in the rough pyramids, but the great domes are calmer
and more divine.

[Footnote 5: Winthrop's error was a common one at that
time and has remained current till to-day. The admiral's
grandfather, the Huguenot exile, was "Regnier," but his
descendants anglicized the patronymic into "Rainier."]

No foot of man had ever trampled those pure snows. It was a
virginal mountain, distant from human inquisitiveness as a marble
goddess is from human loves. Yet there was nothing unsympathetic
in its isolation, or despotic in its distant majesty. Only the
thought of eternal peace arose from this heaven-upbearing
monument like incense, and, overflowing, filled the world with
deep and holy calm.

Our lives demand visual images that can be symbols to us of the
grandeur or the sweetness of repose. The noble works of nature,
and mountains most of all,

"have power to make
Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the eternal silence."

And, studying the light and the majesty of Tacoma, there passed
from it and entered into my being a thought and image of solemn
beauty, which I could the