No, No; The
Glorious Sounds Shall Still Float On As Of Yore, And Still Hold
Fast Upon Your Brain With Their Own Dim And Infinite Meaning.
Come! Baalbec is over; I got "rather well" out of that.
The path by which I crossed the Lebanon is like, I think, in its
features to one which you must know, namely, that of the Foorca in
the Bernese Oberland. For a great part of the way I toiled rather
painfully through the dazzling snow, but the labour of ascending
added to the excitement with which I looked for the summit of the
pass. The time came. There was a minute in the which I saw
nothing but the steep, white shoulder of the mountain, and there
was another minute, and that the next, which showed me a nether
heaven of fleecy clouds that floated along far down in the air
beneath me, and showed me beyond the breadth of all Syria west of
the Lebanon. But chiefly I clung with my eyes to the dim,
steadfast line of the sea which closed my utmost view. I had grown
well used of late to the people and the scenes of forlorn Asia -
well used to tombs and ruins, to silent cities and deserted plains,
to tranquil men and women sadly veiled; and now that I saw the even
plain of the sea, I leapt with an easy leap to its yonder shores,
and saw all the kingdoms of the West in that fair path that could
lead me from out of this silent land straight on into shrill
Marseilles, or round by the pillars of Hercules to the crash and
roar of London.
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