Cloud and Mist. 235 



the echoes of further hills to make regular reply, and 

 over the eastern sky hung gloomy, bastion-like fringes 

 of rain, while yet trembling bars of sunset glory 

 lingered in the west, pulsating with a redder, bloodier 

 gleam, suddenly to fade and pale and pass, and leave 

 behind a deeper darkness, lit up only by the lightning- 

 flash, and then round all the peaks and scars "rattled 

 the live thunder." But it would need the pen of a 

 Scott to do anything like justice to such scenes and 

 such sounds. 



But one thing may be said, unclouded clearness, of 

 sun and still air burdened with dry heat are not the 

 mediums through which to behold at their best the 

 beauties of Scottish, and more particularly of Highland 

 scenery : the mists that creep at earlier morning or in 

 storm, like mighty serpents, round the bases of the 

 mountains, and rise up and up till the peak alone is 

 hidden, mist-capped, and then gradually pass, to leave, 

 as it were, gems twinkling about it ; so that the 

 looker-on will sometimes wonder whether morning 

 stars do not linger still near the glancing summits of 

 some of our rocky bens. It is all very well to com- 

 plain of cloud and mist, of the dull, low-hanging curtains 

 of rain, and the uncomfortable, penetrating, drizzling 

 falls of wet ; these supply the elements that give colour, 

 life, and grandeur to our Scottish hills and lakes — 

 sunny, tearful, laughing, frowning, clear or misty, sun- 

 lit or darkly shadowed by sudden turns. Without 

 our clouds and mists and rains we should compare 

 but poorly with Southern France, with Italy, or with 

 the Austrian Tyrol. 



Has not De Quincey essayed to prove indeed that 

 our literature — our higher imaginative literature — owes 

 much to mist and cloud, to the effects of sun and rain 



