MORNING ON ECHO LAKE. 1 79 



early morning is more delicious out of doors than in bed. 

 True, it is always a subject of brief argument. When 

 one first wakes he says this is pleasant, to lie here both 

 awake and asleep, but is it not pleasanter to be outside 

 and broad awake ; and I seldom fail to settle the argu- 

 ment before the sun comes up to throw light on it. 



The most lasting memories of scenery appear to me 

 those which one has of early morning views. Sunlight 

 and broad daylight have a sameness that seldom makes 

 an impression. We remember scenes in them, but we 

 do not remember or take much note of the lights on the 

 scenes. Dawn is always beautiful, and one is seldom 

 like the dawn of any other day. This variety in an 

 event which is forever occurring and re-occurring in ev- 

 ery twenty-four hours is something wonderful. Even if 

 each day of a long series be clear and cloudless, there is 

 still something different each morning in the shade of 

 light and in the line of its direction. To-day the first 

 ray will brighten like the northern streamers through 

 yonder gap in the mountain ridge. To-morrow the first 

 silver stream will glide like a dream around the other 

 side of the peak. Now it will come pouring down on 

 the still beauty of Echo Lake from the one side of La- 

 fayette, and another day it will flash suddenly into the 

 valley through the rift near the Eagle Cliffs. Morning 

 after morning you will have watched the mountain-tops 

 to see which one first welcomes the coming light, and 

 you will have made up your mind that there is an old-es- 

 tablished affection between the Dawn and Cannon Mount- 

 ain, when lo ! this morning you will see the dark masses 

 of rock and the wild ruin of forest that lies dead, and 

 terrible in death, on the Artist's Bluff, gloomy, fierce, 

 tangled, looking like the matted hair of a black-browed 



