Year: 1865

Cottage homes essential feature III
California life, that the following, from one of
Ruskins late volumes, will be appreciated


do not know any district possessing more
pure and uninterrupted fullness Of mountain
character land that of the highest order), or
which appears to have been less disturbed by
foreign agencies than that which borders the
course of the Tricnt between Nalorsne and Mar
tigny. The paths which lead to it out of the
valley of the Rhone, rising at first in steep CIR
cles among the walnut trees, like winding stairs
among the pillars of a Gothic tower, retire over
the shoulders of the hills into valley almost
unknown but thickly inhabited by an industri-
Gus and patient population. Along the ridges OF
the rocks smoothcd by old glaciers into long,
dark billowy swellings. like the banks OF Plung-
ing dolphins, the peasant watches the slow col
orng of the tufts OF moss and roots OF heroS
which, little by little, gather feeble soil over
the iron substance then, supporting the narrow
strip of clnging ground with few stones, he
subdues it to the spade and in year or two a
little crust of corn is waving upon the rocky
casoue The irregular meadows run in and out
like inlets of lakes among these harvested rocks,
sweet with perpetual streamlets, that seem al
wavs to have chosen the steepest places to come
down. for the sake of the leaps, scattering their
handfuls of crystal this way and that, as the
wind takes them, with all the grace, but with
none of the Journalism, Of fountains dividing
into fanciful charge of dash and spring, yet with
the seal of their granite channels upon them, as
the lightest play Ct human speech may bear the
seal Of past toll, and closing back out OF their
spray to have the rigid angles, and brighten with
silver fringes and CLASSY films each lower and
lower step of sable stone until at last, gathered
altogether again-except, perhaps, some chance
drops caught on the apple blossoms, where it has
budded little nearer the cascade than it did last
Spring-they find their way down to the turf,
and lose themselves in that, silently with quiet
depth of clear water furrowing among the grass
blades, and looking only like their shadow, but
presently emerging again in little startled CUISINES
and laughing hurries, as if they had remembered
suddenly that the day was too short for them to
get down the hill.


Greep, field and glowing rock, and glancing
streamlek. all slope together in the sunshine tow
ards the brows of the rayines, where the pines
take up their own dominion of saddened shade :;
and with everlasting roar in the twilight, the
stronger torrents thunder down pale from the
glaciers filling all their chasms with enchanted
cold beating themselves to pieces against the
rocks that they have themselves cast down, and
forcing fierce way beneath their ghastly poise.


The mountain paths stoop to these glens in
forky zigzags, leading to some gray and narrow
arch all fringed under its shuddering curve with
the ferns that fear the light a cross of rough



dark against tie lurid fury of the foam. Far up
the glen as we pause beside the cross, the sky
is seen through the openings in the pines, thin
with excess of light and in its clear, consuming
fame of white space, the SUBMITS of the rocky
mountains are gathered into solemn crowns and
circets. all flushed in that strange, faint silence
of possession BY the sunshine which has in it so
deep melancholy full of power, yet as frail as
shadows: lifeless, like the veil of some sea
spirit. that lives and dies as the foam flashes
fixed on perpetual throne, stern against all
strength; lifted above all sorrow, and yet eiaced
and melted utterly into the air by the last sun
beam that has crossed to them from between the
two golden clouds.


High above all sorrow yes but not unwit-
Messing to it. The traveller on his happy jour
ney, as his foot springs from the deep turf and
strikes the pebbles gaiy over the edge of the
clusters of nut-brown cottages that nestle among
those sloping orchards, and glow beneath the
boughs of the pines. Here, it may well seem to
him, if there be sometimes hardship, there must
be at least innocence and peace, and fellowship
of the human soul with nature. II is not so.
The wild goats that leap along those rocks have
as much passion of JOY in all that fair work OF
God as the men that toll among them Perhaps
more. Enter the street of one of those villages,
and you will find it foul with that gloomy foul
ness that is suffered only by torpor or by anguish
OF SOUL Here, it is torpor-not absolute suffer
ing-not starvation or disease, but darkness OF
calm enduring the Spring known only as the
time OF the scythe, and the Autumn as the tinie
of the sickle, and the only as a warmth, 'ne
wind as a chill, and the mountains as a uanse
They do net understand so much as the nam ~
beauty or of knowledge. They understand di'h''