172 



clouds, and from different strata, and with different in- 

 tensities. It is, of all other lights, that which gives the 

 utmost distinctness in contrast with the most perfect 

 obscurity. The nearest point to you will be black with 

 purple darkness, and swell up unfamiliarly into a 

 grandeur which effaces all your familiarity with it. 

 Whether the mountain is a cloud, or the cloud a 

 mountain whether there is a change going on, and 

 the rocky top is melting away and mistily exhaling, 

 you cannot tell. But right out against this obscure 

 stands another section, so astonishingly revealed that 

 you can trace its anatomy almost to the minutest 

 line. Every swell or scoop all the ribs and bones 

 the petty ridges and hollows the whole waving 

 surface of a long slope is as distinct as the wrinkles 

 on one's own hands. Between these extremes, there 

 is every possible gradation. Never long alike in 

 any feature, but changing with the ever-changing 

 cloud, you cannot but feel there is some mysterious 

 connection between cloud mountains and earth and 

 rock mountains. One's imagination sometimes seems 

 to run wild on the subject; and we cannot help asking 

 ourselves, if these airy hills are the spirit-forms which 

 come into visible communion with their yet earth- 

 bound brethren? Do these things symbolise the 

 communion of spirits embodied with spirits disembo- 

 died? And are these evanescent hues these strange 

 effects of light these systems of opal- shadows 

 analagous to all those openings and shuttings of the 

 human heart, those lights and darknesses of imagina- 

 tion, which come upon us in the experiences of life ? 



