After this general view,
mark how sharply the dark snowless ribs and buttresses and summits of
the peaks are defined, excepting the portions veiled by the banners, and
how delicately their sides are streaked with snow, where it has come to
rest in narrow flutings and gorges. Mark, too, how grandly the banners
wave as the wind is deflected against their sides, and how trimly each
is attached to the very summit of its peak, like a streamer at a
masthead; how smooth and silky they are in texture, and how finely their
fading fringes are penciled on the azure sky. See how dense and opaque
they are at the point of attachment, and how filmy and translucent
toward the end, so that the peaks back of them are seen dimly, as though
you were looking through ground glass. Yet again observe how some of the
longest, belonging to the loftiest summits, stream perfectly free all
the way across intervening notches and passes from peak to peak, while
others overlap and partly hide each other. And consider how keenly every
particle of this wondrous cloth of snow is flashing out jets of light.
These are the main features of the beautiful and terrible picture as
seen from the forest window; and it would still be surpassingly glorious
were the fore- and middle-grounds obliterated altogether, leaving only
the black peaks, the white banners, and the blue sky.
Pages:
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64