it forth; then with clouds and thick darkness the mountain hides its
face: it is the Sicilian winter.


II

But Etna does not withdraw continuously from its children even in this
season. On the third day, at farthest, I was told it would bring back
the sun; and I was not deceived. Two days it was closely wrapped in
impenetrable gray; but the third morning, as I threw open my casement
and stepped out upon the terrace, I saw it, like my native winter,
expanding its broad flanks under the double radiance of dazzling clouds
spreading from its extreme summit far out and upward, and of the
snow-fields whose long fair drifts shone far down the sides. Villages
and groves were visible, clothing all the lower zone, and between lay
the plain. It seemed near in that air, but it is twelve miles away.
From the sea-dipping base to the white cone the slope measures more than
twenty miles, and as many more conduct the eye downward to the western
fringe--a vast bulk; yet one does not think of its size as he gazes; so
large a tract the eye takes in, but no more realizes than it does the
distance of the stars. High up, forests peer through the ribbed snows,
and extinct craters stud the frozen scene with round hollow mounds
innumerable. A thousand features, but it remains one mighty mountain.
How natural it seems for it to be sublime! It is the peer of the sea and
of the sky. All day it flashed and darkened under the rack, and I
rejoiced in the sight, and knew why Pindar called it the pillar of
heaven; and at night it hooded itself once more with the winter cloud.


III