Up here,
midway in air, is a green nook, with undulating dells, and shadowy,
breezy nests, where are the cottages of the haymakers. The Delectable
Mountains had no scene more lovely. Each house has its roof heavily
loaded with stones. "What is that for?" I ask. "The whirlwinds," says
my guide, with a significant turn of his hands. "This is the school
house," he adds, as we pass a building larger than the rest.
Now the path turns and slopes down a steep bank, covered with
haycocks, to a little nook below, likewise covered with new hay. If my
horse is going to throw me any where, I wish it may be here: it is not
so bad a thing to roll down into that hay. But now we mount higher;
the breezy dells, enamelled with flowers and grass, become fewer; the
great black pines take their place. Right before us, in the purest
white, as a bride adorned for her husband, rises the beautiful
Jungfrau, wearing on her forehead the Silver Horn, and the Snow Horn.
The Silver Horn is a peak, dazzlingly bright, of snow; and its crest
is now seen in relief against a sky of the deepest blue. See, also,
how those dark pines of the foreground contrast with it, like the
stern, mournful realities of life seen against the dazzling hopes of
heaven.
There is something celestial in these mountains. You might think such
a vision as that to be a bright footstool of Heaven, from which the
next step would be into an unknown world.
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