joy that touched the very sources of life, 

 and made them sweet in every thought and 

 emotion. It was like a new beginning in 

 the old, old story of time; the stains of 

 ancient wrong, the blights of sorrow, the 

 wrecks of hope, were gone; sweet with 

 the untrodden freshness of a new day lay 

 the earth, and looked up to the heavens 

 with a gaze as pure and calm as their own. 

 Somehow all life seemed sublimated in that 

 golden sunshine ; the grosser elements had 

 vanished, the material had become the 

 transparent medium of the spiritual, the 

 discords had blended into harmony, and 

 one would have heard without surprise 

 the faint, far song of the stars. The whole 

 world was one vast articulate poem, and 

 human life added its own strain of pene- 

 trating sweetness. At last, after all these 

 years of struggle and failure, one was 

 really living! 



The road, slowly ascending the long 



wooded slope, wound its way through the 



forest until it brought me to the mountain 



path which climbs, with many a halt and 



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