SEPTEMBER. 253 



Heaven's concentrated lightning, darkness and 

 thunder ; or the sweeter features of living, rush- 

 ing streams, spicy odours of flower and shrub, 

 fresh spirit-elating breezes sounding through 

 the dark pine grove ; the ever-varying lights 

 and shadows, and aerial hues; the wide pro- 

 spects, and, above all, the simple inhabitants ! 



We delight to think of the people of moun- 

 tainous regions ; we please our imaginations 

 with their picturesque and quiet abodes ; with 

 their peaceful secluded lives, striking and un- 

 varying costumes, and primitive manners. We 

 involuntarily give to the mountaineer heroic 

 and elevated qualities. He lives amongst noble 

 objects, and must imbibe some of their nobility; 

 he lives amongst the elements of poetry, and 

 must be poetical; he lives where his fellow- 

 beings are far, far separated from their kind, and 

 surrounded by the sternness and the perils of 

 savage nature ; his social affections must there- 

 fore be proportionably concentrated, his home- 

 ties lively and strong; but, more than all, he 

 lives within the barriers, the strongholds, the 

 very last refuge which Nature herself has rear- 

 ed to preserve alive liberty in the earth, to 

 preserve to man his highest hopes, his noblest 

 emotions, his dearest treasures, his faith, his free- 

 dom, his hearth, and his home. How glorious 

 do those mountain-ridges appear when we look 



