MOUNT RAINIER 



No foot of man had ever trampled those pure 

 snows. It was a virginal mountain, distant from 

 the possibility of human approach and human in- 

 quisitiveness as a marble goddess is from human 

 love. 



Yet there was nothing unsympathetic in its isola- 

 tion, or despotic in its distant majesty. But this 

 serene loftiness was no home for any deity of those 

 that men create. Only the thought of eternal peace 

 arose from this heaven-upbearing monument like 

 incense, and, overflowing, filled the world with deep 

 and holy calm. 



Wherever the mountain turned its cheek toward 

 the sun, many fair and smiling dimples appeared, and 

 along soft curves of snow, lines of shadow drew tracery 

 fair as the blue veins on a child's temple. Without 

 the infinite sweetness and charm of this kindly change- 

 fulness of form and color, there might have been oppres- 

 sive awe in the presence of this transcendent glory 

 against the solemn blue of noon. Grace played over 

 the surface of majesty, as a drift of rose-leaves wavers 

 in the air before a summer shower, or as a wreath of 

 rosy mist flits before the grandeur of a storm. Love- 

 liness was sprinkled like a boon of blossoms upon sub- 

 limity. 



Our lives forever demand and need visual images 

 that can be symbols to us of the grandeur or the sweet- 

 ness of repose. There are some faces that arise dreamy 

 in our memories, and look us into calmness in our 

 frantic moods. Fair and happy is a life that need 

 not call upon its vague memorial dreams for such 

 attuning influence, but can turn to a present reality, 

 and ask tranquillity at the shrine of a household god- 

 dess. The noble works of nature, and mountains most 

 of all, 



"have power to make 



Our noisy years seem moments in the being 

 Of the eternal silence." 

 38 



