14 THE MOUNTAINS 



possible for the mountains to symbolize, 

 for men, eternal stability. They look like 

 something everlasting. Our natural and 

 instant feeling is: "Only the Almighty 

 Creator Himself can move them!" And 

 precisely this feeling is, I judge, the 

 poetic origin of the sublime passage in 

 the book of Habakkuk, where the prophet 

 declares : 



"He stood, and measured the earth ; 

 He beheld, and drove asunder the nations ; 

 And the eternal mountains were scattered ; 

 The everlasting hills did bow ; 

 His goings were as of old. 



THE QUIET OF THE MOUNTAINS 

 This feature is an outcome of the first, 

 but, for the sake of emphasis, it is here 

 considered separately. 



Several times, in my experience on the 

 mountains, there has been a complete 

 superficial quiet. I did not hear a rock 

 slip or a fissure open wider or a cloud rend 

 in the wind or a startled bird rustle in the 

 underbrush. Once, in fact, it was so un- 



