learnt to distinguish mountain
distances since I have been here. That peak is four miles from us now;
and yet the shadowed cliffs at its foot seem double that distance."

"And look, look," said Valencia, "at the long line of glory with which
the western sun is gilding the edge of the left hand slope, bringing it
nearer and nearer to us every moment, against the deep blue sky!"

"But what a form! Perfect lightness, perfect symmetry!" said Claude.
"Curve sweeping over curve, peak towering over peak, to the highest
point, and then sinking down again as gracefully as they rose. One can
hardly help fancying that the mountain moves; that those dancing lines
are not instinct with life."

"At least," said Headley, "that the mountain is a leaping wave, frozen
just ere it fell."

"Perfect," said Valencia. "That is the very expression! So concise, and
yet so complete."

And Headley, poor fool, felt as happy as if he had found a gold mine.

"To me," said Elsley, "the fancy rises of some great Eastern monarch
sitting in royal state; with ample shoulders sloping right and left, he
lays his purple-mantled arms upon the heads of two of those Titan guards
who stand on either side his footstool."

"While from beneath his throne," said Headley, "as Eastern poets would
say, flow everlasting streams, life-giving, to fertilise broad lands
below."

"I did not know that you, too, were a poet," said Valencia. "Nor I,
madam. But if such scenes as these, and in such company, cannot inspire
the fancy of even a poor country curate to something of exaltation, he
must be dull indeed."

"Why not put some of these thoughts into poetry?"

"What use?" answered he in so low, sad, and meaning a tone, meant only
for her ear, that Valencia looked down at him: but he was gazing
intently upon the glorious scene. Was he hinting at the vanity and
vexation of poor Elsley's versifying? Or did he mean that he had now no
purpose in life,--no prize for which it was worth while to win honour?

She did not answer him: but he answered himself,--perhaps to explain
away his own speech,--

"No, madam! God has written the poetry already; and there it is before
me. My business is not to re-write it clumsily but to read it humbly,
and give Him thanks for it."

More and more had Valencia been attracted by Headley, during the last
few weeks. Accustomed to men who tried to make the greatest possible
show of what small wits they possessed, she was surprised to fi