ity. It is an
inspiration and yet a riddle to all who are drawn to the mysterious or
who love the sublime. Every view which the breaking clouds vouchsafe
to us is a surprise. It never becomes commonplace, save to the
commonplace.

[Illustration: Ice Terraces on South Tahoma Glacier. These vast steps
are often seen where a glacier moves down a steep and irregular
slope.]

Old Virgil's gibe at mankind's better half--"varium et mutabile semper
femina"--might have been written of this fickle shape of rock and ice
and vapor. One tries vainly, year after year, to define it in his own
mind. The daily, hourly change of distance, size and aspect, tricks
which the Indian's mountain {p.018} god plays with the puny
creatures swarming more and more about his foot; his days of frank
neighborliness, his swift transformations from smiles to anger, his
fits of sullenness and withdrawal, all baffle study. Even though we
live at its base, it is impossible to say we know the Mountain, so
various are the spells the sun casts over this huge dome which it is
slowly chiseling away with its tools of ice, and which, in coming
centuries, it will level with the plain.

[Illustration: Mineral Lake and the Mountain. Distance, eighteen
miles.]

We are lovers of the water as well as the hills, out here in this
northwestern corner of the Republic. We spend many days--and should
spend more--in cruising among the hidden bays and park-like islands
which make Puget Sound the most interesting body of water in America.
We grow a bit boastful about the lakes that cluster around our cities.
Nowhere better than from sea level, or from the lakes raised but
little above it, does one realize the bulk, the dominance, and yet the
grace, of this noble peak. Its impressiveness, indeed, arises in part
from the fact that it is one of the few great volcanic mountains whose
entire height may be seen from tide level. Many of us can recall views
of it from Lake Washington at Seattle, or from American or Spanaway
Lake at Tacoma, or from the Sound, which will always haunt the memory.

[Illustration: Storm King Peak and Mineral Lake, viewed from near
Mineral Lake Inn.]

Early one evening, last summer, I went with a friend to Point
Defiance, Tacoma's fine park at the {p.021} end of the promontory
on which the city is built. We drank in refreshment from the picture
there unrolled of broad channels and evergreen shores. As sunset
approached, we watched the western clouds