the good dame to make us a couple of loaves of bread, and in the
evening we went down after them. How elastic and exhilarating the walk
was through the cool, transparent shadows! The sun was gilding the
mountains, and its yellow light seemed to be reflected through all the
woods. At one point we looked through and along a valley of deep shadow
upon a broad sweep of mountain quite near and densely clothed with
woods, flooded from base to summit by the setting sun. It was a wild,
memorable scene. What power and effectiveness in Nature, I thought, and
how rarely an artist catches her touch! Looking down upon or squarely
into a mountain covered with a heavy growth of birch and maple, and
shone upon by the sun, is a sight peculiarly agreeable to me. How
closely the swelling umbrageous heads of the trees fit together, and
how the eye revels in the flowing and easy uniformity, while the mind
feels the ruggedness and terrible power beneath!

As we came back, the light yet lingered on the top of Slide Mountain.

"'The last that parleys with the setting sun,'"

said I, quoting Wordsworth.

"That line is almost Shakespearean," said my companion. "It suggests
that great hand at least, though it has not the grit and virility of
the more primitive bard. What triumph and fresh morning power in
Shakespeare's lines that will occur to us at sunrise to-morrow!--

"'And jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops."

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