h eternity.--The
grim noon of Saturday, after a moaning morning, and one silent
intermediate lour of grave-like stillness, begins to gleam fitfully with
lightning like a maniac's eye; and is not that

"The sound
Of thunder heard remote?"

On earth wind there is none--not so much as a breath. But there is a
strong wind in heaven--for see how that huge cloud-city, a night within
a day, comes moving on along the hidden mountain-tops, and hangs over
the loch all at once black as pitch, except that here and there a sort
of sullen purple heaves upon the long slow swell, and here and there
along the shores--how caused we know not--are seen, but heard not, the
white melancholy breakers! Is no one smitten blind? No! Thank God! But
ere the thanksgiving has been worded, an airquake has split asunder the
cloud-city, the night within the day, and all its towers and temples are
disordered along the firmament, to a sound that might waken the dead.
Where are ye, ye echo-hunters, that grudge not to purchase gunpowder
explosions on Lowood bowling-green at four shillings the blast? See!
there are our artillerymen stalking from battery to battery--all hung up
aloft facing the west--or "each standing by his gun" with lighted match,
moving or motionless, Shadow-figures, and all clothed in black-blue
uniform, with blood-red facings portentously glancing in the sun, as he
strives to struggle into heaven. The Generalissimo of all the forces,
who is he but--Spring?--Hand in hand with Spring, Sabbath descends from
heaven unto earth; and are not their feet beautiful on the mountains?
Small as is the voice of that tinkling bell from that humble spire,
overtopped by its coeval trees, yet is it heard in the heart of
infinitude. So is the bleating of these silly sheep on the braes--and
so is that voice of psalms, all at once rising so spirit-like, as if the
very kirk were animated, and singing a joyous song in the wilderness to
the ear of the Most High. For all things are under his care--those that,
as we dream, have no life--the flowers, and the herbs, and the
trees--those that some dim scripture seems to say, when they die,
utterly perish--and those that all bright scripture, whether written in
the book of God, or the book of Nature, declares will live for ever!

If such be the character and conduct of Spring during one week, wilt
thou not forget and forgive--with us--much occasional conduct on his
part that appears not on