90 AQUILA CHRYSAETUS. 



threw a glistening path of light over the waters, and 

 tinged the ocean haze with purple. Suddenly there 

 arose over the Atlantic a mass of light thin vapour, 

 which approached with a gentle breeze, rolling and 

 spreading around, and exhibiting the most beautiful 

 changes of tint. When I had gazed until the fading 

 light reminded me that my home for the night was 

 four miles distant, I approached the edge of the preci- 

 pice, and bent over it, when, from the distance of a few 

 yards beneath, a Golden Eagle launched forth into the 

 air. The scene, already sublime, was by the flight of 

 the eagle rendered still more so, and, as I gazed upon 

 the huge bird sailing steadily away beneath my feet, 

 while the now dense masses of cloud rolled majestically 

 over head, I exclaimed aloud " Beautiful !" The great 

 God of heaven and earth, myself, his perverse but ador- 

 ing subject, and the eagle, his beautiful but unenduring 

 creature, were all in the universe of my imagination. 

 Scenes like these might soften the obdurate, elevate the 

 grovelling, convince the self-willed and unbelieving, and 

 blend with universal nature the spirits that had breath- 

 ed the chilling atmosphere of selfishness. Verily, it is 

 good for one to ascend a lofty mountain ; but he must 

 go alone ; and if he be there in the solemn stillness of 

 midnight, as I have been, he will descend a better and 

 a wiser man. Beautiful truly it is, to see the eagle 

 sweeping aloft the hill side, sailing from one mountain 

 to another, or soaring aloft in its circling flight until 

 it seems to float in the regions of the thin white cirri, 

 like the inhabitant of another world looking down upon 

 our rebel earth, as if desirous to visit it, but afraid to 

 come within its contaminating influence. 



