her side, the woods stood out in clear
green; and separated from these by the sharpest line, rose this ridge of
enchanted forest. You will incline to think that one might have seen
through this illusion by trying hard enough. But never were the colors
in a paint-pot more definite and determined.

This was but the beginning. I had turned away, and was debating with
myself whether some such color, seen on the Scotch and English hills,
had not given the hint for those uniform browns which Turner in his
youth copied from his earlier masters. When I looked back, the sunshine
had flooded the mountain, and was bathing it all in the purest rose-red.
Bathing it? No, the mountain was solidly converted, transformed to that
hue! The power, the simplicity, the translucent, shining depth of the
color were all that you can imagine, if you make no abatements, and task
your imagination to the utmost. This roseate hue no rose in the garden
of Orient or Occident ever surpassed. Small spaces were seen where the
color became a pure ruby, which could not have been more lustrous and
intense, had it proceeded from a polished ruby gem ten rods in
dimension. Color could go no farther. Yet if the eye lost these for a
moment, it was compelled somewhat to search for them,--so powerful, so
brilliant was the rose setting in which they were embosomed.

One must remember how near at hand all this was,--not more than a mile
or two away. Rock, cavern, cliff, all the details of rounded swell,
rising peak, and long descending slope, could be seen with entire
distinctness. The mountain rose close upon us, broad, massive,
real,--but all in this glorious, this truly ineffable transformation. It
was not distance that lent enchantment here. It was not _lent_; it was
real as rock, as Nature; it confronted, outfaced, overwhelmed you; for,
enchantment so immediate and on such a scale of grandeur and
gorgeousness,--who could stand up before it?

In sailing out of the bay, next day, we saw this and the neighbor
mountain under noon sunshine. (Lat. 55 deg. 20'.) They were the handsomest
we saw, apparently composed in part of some fine mineral, perhaps pure
Labradorite. In the full light of day these spaces shone like polished
silver. My first impression was that they must be patches of snow, but a
glance at real spots of snow corrected me. These last, though more
distinctly white, had not the high, soft, silver shine of the mineral.
Doubtless it was these mountain-g