246 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS 
hint of the almost ethereal lightness with which the 
wild bird projects himself into and through the air. 
As your body rises your spirits also mount. All 
the turmoil of mistaken humanity is down below 
those billowing forests that sweep into bottomless 
blue abysses of which you catch glimpses from some 
clififside. The clean, cool air is filled with tree odors, 
about you the wild denizens of these untroubled 
heights are roaming and, it may be, unseen, are 
watching you and wondering. A crackle of twigs — 
a light crashing noise in the laurel — what is it? 
The shadows among the trees are intensely blue, 
overhead white clouds sail in the boundless heavens, 
down the mossy cliffs streams leap like naiads newly 
escaped from some cavern of eternity. Where the 
view opens, fir-clad summits roll away like high 
green seas, to be transformed in the distance into 
that spirit-like semblance of mountains that seem to 
belong, not on earth, but to the realm of the sky. 
In a high-lying primeval forest one is often stirred 
by what might be called primeval feelings. Out of 
the solitudes come revelations. You look at a tree, 
grand, alone, touching as it were both earth and 
heaven, and it awakens in you strong emotion. 
What is this tree that thus can move you? As you 
stand questioning, a light flashes through your con- 
sciousness. The forest has answered. 
From this gap one gets no extensive outlook; we 
cannot see Clingman Dome, that lacks only about 
fifty feet of being as high as Mount Mitchell, nor 
Mount Guyot, nor any other of the high peaks of 
