Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1859-09-22
The Mountains.

There is nothing SO simple and apparently
as are mountains. And yet there
is no variety in tree, in plain, in river or
lake, that can be compared to mountain vari-
ations. Upon nothing else does the atmos-
phere work such wonderful effects. We do
not refer to those vast heights whose snow
and ice.clad SUBMITS play with such witching
effects with light and color but to our lower
and home-bred mountains. This one, behind
us, not two thousand feet high, is solemn
necromancer, forever putting forth new fam
cies.
Itwears one face in the morning; it chan
ges its countenance at noon it surprises you
with still another at night. 1t has one face
for heat, and one for cold. 1t shags and
boards Itself with mists, looking down upon
you venerable as hoary seer. Then it
drives away every vestige of cloud, and re-
veals to the eye each line, every depression,
every crease and crevice, with such plainness
that it changes the whole mountain express
sion, and you doubt whether you have ever
before seen it. A new picture stands before
you every day, and yet its identity is pre-
served, !so that it maintains its old associa-
tions with new sites of beauty. Not cloud
can come near without paying some tribute.
Sometimes you shall see vast range of white,
glistening clouds, piled up in banks and
brilliant bouders, one upon another silently
rising up behind the green mountain, that
thus appears but foreground figured upon
this magnificent range Of air-mountains.
A. other times, fleets of clouds are seen
plotting their way quietly through the air,
and letting down their shadows upon the
mountain side, as if to anchor there. But
both cloud-ship and cloud-anchor move on,
dark below and white above! 1t would seem
as if the smile of the cloud was the ilown OF
the mountain.
| But all these are mere fancies, compared
with the grandeur of mountains when storms
make them their walking-ground. After long
heat and dryness, the mountains seem to
shrink back, lose distinctness, and become al
most insignificant. The summer, which
shrivcls vegetation with long drouths, seems
to parch and shrink the very rocks. But,
suddenly, from the South there come up the
tokens of thunderstorm. Storms especial
ly love mountain highways, and walk upon
their SUBMITS with a majesty unknown in
lowlands Upon such theatre, the specta-
Gle, lifted up above you, exhibits itself with
a grandeur that recalls the noble old concep-
ton, that God rides upon storms, and taber-
naces himself in clouds upon mountain tops.
Indeed, we never see that haf-sacred motion
of cloud-tolds rolling out from the interior,
as if there were an inner presence which
drove forth the terrified mists, and justified
their fear by headloug thunder bolts and fierce
lightning-Aashes, without an irresistible inn
preston of a real living agency at work
within the storm; and that clouds arc but
the hiding of the Divine Presence!
Nor is the Imagination lessened when the
murky splendor passes on, and the mountain
lifts up its cleansed head and sides with such
vivid green, and in such clearness and exquis-
lite beauty, that you feel as if they had been
in communion with superior influence, and
had received baptism from on high. This
never seemed more striking than yesterday
While in church, in the morning, there came
came on sudden dash of rain and hail. We
rode home with the mountains before us wear
ing robes of clouds, and grand with flying
storm. 10 look at these tops, and recall all
the passages Of the Old Testament which
speak divnely of mountains, would be SER
mon more impressive than any from the living
voice.--Reu. Heny Ward Beecher.