perish.

Such a mental state cannot endure for more than a few moments, and
passing away, it left me weary and despondent. With dull, joyless eyes I
continued gazing for upwards of an hour on the prospect beneath me; for
I had now given up all hopes of seeing Yoletta, not yet having
encountered a single person since starting for my ride. All about me the
summit was dotted with small lilies of a delicate blue, but at a little
distance the sober green of the grass became absorbed, as it were, in
the brighter flower-tints, and the neighboring summits all appeared of a
pure cerulean hue. Lower down this passed into the purples of the slopes
and the reds of the plains, while the valleys, fringed with scarlet,
were like rivers of crocus-colored fire. Distance, and the light,
autumnal haze, had a subduing and harmonizing effect on the sea of
brilliant color, and further away on the immense horizon it all faded
into the soft universal blue. Over this flowery paradise my eyes
wandered restlessly, for my heart was restless in me, and had lost the
power of pleasure. With a slight bitterness I recalled some of the words
the father had spoken to me that morning. It was all very well, I
thought, for this venerable graybeard to talk about refreshing the soul
with the sight of all this beauty; but he seemed to lose sight of the
important fact that there was a considerable difference in our
respective ages, that the raging hunger of the heart, which he had
doubtless experienced at one time of his life, was, like bodily hunger,
not to be appeased with splendid sunsets, rainbows and rainbow lilies,
however beautiful they might seem to the eye.

Presently, on a second and lower summit of the long mountain I had
ascended, I caught sight of a person on horseback, standing motionless
as a figure of stone. At that distance the horse looked no bigger than a