landscape that touch of pastoral life which 

 unites us with Nature in the oldest and 

 most homelike relations. Here, on still 

 summer afternoons, one seems to have 

 come upon a sleeping world ; a world over 

 whose slumber the clouds are passing like 

 peaceful dreams. In such an hour the 

 limpid water of the spring seems to rise 

 out of the very heart of the earth, and to 

 bring with it an unfailing refreshment of 

 spirit. The white sand through which it 

 finds its way makes its transparent clearness 

 more apparent, and the great stone seems 

 to hold back the woods from an approach 

 that would overshadow it. It rises so 

 silently into the visible world from the 

 unseen depths that one cannot but feel 

 some illusion of sentiment thrown over it, 

 some disclosure of truth escaping with it 

 from the darkness beneath. Whence does 

 it flow, and what has its journey been? 

 Did some remote mountain range gather 

 its waters from the clouds and send them 

 down through long and winding channels 

 deep in its heart? Is there far below an 

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