A BED OF BOUGHS 157 



One day I went down to the house of a settler a 

 mile below, and engaged the good dame to make us 

 a couple of loaves of bread, and in the evening we 

 went down after them. How elastic and exhilara- 

 ting the walk was through the cool, transparent 

 shadows ! The sun was gilding the mountains, and 

 its yellow light seemed to be reflected through all 

 the woods. At one point we looked through and 

 along a valley of deep shadow upon a broad sweep of 

 mountain quite near and densely clothed with woods, 

 flooded from base to summit by the setting sun. It 

 was a wild, memorable scene. What power and 

 effectiveness in Nature, I thought, and how rarely 

 an artist catches her touch ! Looking down upon or 

 squarely into a mountain covered with a heavy 

 growth of birch and maple, and shone upon by the 

 sun, is a sight peculiarly agreeable to me. How 

 closely the swelling umbrageous heads of the trees 

 fit together, and how the eye revels in the flowing 

 and easy uniformity, while the mind feels the rug- 

 gedness and terrible power beneath! 



As we came back the light yet lingered on the 

 top of Slide Mountain. 



" The last that parlej r s with the setting sun," 

 said I, quoting Wordsworth. 



"That line is almost Shakespearean," said my 

 companion. "It suggests that great hand at least, 

 though it has riot the grit and virility of the more 

 primitive bard. What triumph and fresh morning 

 power in Shakespeare's lines that will occur to us 

 at sunrise to-morrow ! 



