THE PAGE OF NATURE. 125 



Their dishevelled tresses toss wildly in the foamy rapids 

 of the waterfall, whose misty spray rises to freshen all 

 the scenery around, and whose " sound of many waters " 

 fills the mind with a feeling of animated delight and 

 bounding vivacity. They float in long, graceful wreaths 

 in the streamlet, wherever it clothes a jutting mass of 

 rock with gemmed and sparkling folds of liquid drapery. 

 They lie like motionless clouds in the blue depths of the 

 tranquil linn, that just ripples for pleasure, as it murmurs 

 to itself a sinless secret hidden for ever in its heart. 

 They fringe the pebbly sides of the river, whose deep 

 bulging fulness flows on unceasingly, ever diffusing fresh- 

 ness through the green pastures which it gladdens, and 

 beneath the drooping willows and alders that gratefully 

 murmur over it. They luxuriate in the cold clear springs 

 which form a feature of the most exquisite beauty in the 

 bleak Alpine scenery, gushing up in exposed and rocky 

 spots, and gurgling down the sides of the hills through 

 beds of the softest and most beautiful moss ; not the 

 verdant velvet which covers with a short curling nap the 

 ancient rock and the grey old tree, but long slender 

 plumes waving under the water, and assuming through 

 its mirror a tinge of the brightest golden green. In 

 gathering or admiring these humble plants in such 

 romantic situations, a sense of the beauty of the Greek 

 mythology is awakened in the heart, more vivid and real 

 than is experienced in other circumstances. It seems 

 easy to believe, in quiet far-off scenes where a solitary 

 coot sailing on the water is a considerable interruption 

 to the solitude, and where the link that binds us to the 

 common busy earth is broken and dropped, that the 



