ce, or a sigh: and the want of passion is perhaps the truest death,
or 'unmaking' of everything;--even of stones. By the way, you were all
reading about that ascent of the Aiguille Verte, the other day?

SIBYL. Because you had told us it was so difficult, you thought it could
not be ascended.

L. Yes; I believed the Aiguille Verte would have held its own. But do
you recollect what one of the climbers exclaimed, when he first felt
sure of reaching the summit?

SIBYL. Yes, it was, 'Oh, Aiguille Verte, vous etes morte, vous etes
morte!'

L. That was true instinct. Real philosophic joy. Now can you at all
fancy the difference between that feeling of triumph in a mountain's
death; and the exultation of your beloved poet, in its life--

'Quantus Athos, aut quantus Eryx, aut ipse coruscis
Quum fremit ilicibus quantus, gandetque nivali
Vertice, se attollens pater Apenninus ad auras.'

DORA. You must translate for us mere house-keepers, please,--whatever
the cave-keepers may know about it.

MARY. Will Dryden do?

L. No. Dryden is a far way worse than nothing, and nobody will 'do.' You
can't translate it. But this is all you need know, that the lines are
full of a passionate sense of the Apennines' fatherhood, or protecting
power over Italy; and of sympathy with their joy in their snowy strength
in heaven; and with the same joy, shuddering through all the leaves of
their forests.

MARY. Yes, that is a difference indeed! but then, you know, one can't
help feeling that it is fanciful. It is very delightful to imagine the
mountains to be alive; but then,--_are_ they alive?

L. It seems to me, on the whole, Mary, that the feelings of the purest
and most mightily passioned human souls are likely to be the truest.
Not, indeed, if they do not desire to know the truth, or blind
themselves to it that they may please themselves with passion; for then
they are no longer pure: but if, continually seeking and accepting the
truth as far as it is discernible, they trust their Maker for the
integrity of the instincts He has gifted them with, and rest in the
sense of a higher truth which they cannot demonstrate, I think they will
be most in the right, so.

DORA _and_ JESSIE (_clapping their hands_). Then we really may believe
that the mountains are living?

L. You may at least earnestly believe, that the presence of the spirit
which culminates in your own life, shows itself in dawning, wherever the
dust of the earth be