us relation to the source of all things. "That flame," he
says, "you have put out, but where has it gone?" We could not say,
nor whether it is anything like the spirit of a man which is here for
a little hour, and then vanishes away. Our own philosophy of the
correlation of forces found no sort of favor at that elevation, and
we went to sleep leaving the principle of fire in the apostolic
category of "any other creature."

At daylight we were astir; and, having pressed the principle of fire
into our service to make a pot of tea, we carefully extinguished it
or sent it into another place, and addressed ourselves to the climb
of some thing over two thousand feet. The arduous labor of scaling
an Alpine peak has a compensating glory; but the dead lift of our
bodies up Nipple Top had no stimulus of this sort. It is simply hard
work, for which the strained muscles only get the approbation of the
individual conscience that drives them to the task. The pleasure of
such an ascent is difficult to explain on the spot, and I suspect
consists not so much in positive enjoyment as in the delight the mind
experiences in tyrannizing over the body. I do not object to the
elevation of this mountain, nor to the uncommonly steep grade by
which it attains it, but only to the other obstacles thrown in the
way of the climber. All the slopes of Nipple Top are hirsute and
jagged to the last degree. Granite ledges interpose; granite
bowlders seem to have been dumped over the sides with no more attempt
at arrangement than in a rip-rap wall; the slashes and windfalls of a
century present here and there an almost impenetrable chevalier des
arbres; and the steep sides bristle with a mass of thick balsams,
with dead, protruding spikes, as unyielding as iron stakes. The
mountain has had its own way forever, and is as untamed as a wolf; or
rather the elements, the frightful tempests, the frosts, the heavy
snows, the coaxing sun, and the avalanches have had their way with it
until its surface is in hopeless confusion. We made our way very
slowly; and it was ten o'clock before we reached what appeared to be
the summit, a ridge deeply covered with moss, low balsams, and
blueberry-bushes.

I say, appeared to be; for we stood in thick fog or in the heart of
clouds which limited our dim view to a radius of twenty feet. It was
a warm and cheerful fog, stirred by little wind, but moving,
shifting, and boiling as by its own volatile nature, rolling up black
f