Algernon Blackwood

“ There is a touch of genuine awe in the impression produced by those slow-moving chains of Mist Mountains, strewn through half the circle of the sky shedding islands and promontories as they go, furrowed, cleft and peaked, their towered bulk forever changing. The imagination comes back tired and panting ”

“ The wind currents that forever suck through the deep valleys marshal the details with even more bewildering effects; the black depths, suddenly revealed and as suddenly closed again, the awful chasms, opened and shut so swiftly, throw the imagination into a state of disorder that adds enormously to the confusing grandeur of the spectacle. ”

“ But, with the exception of these, and of the great buzzards that occasionally plunge up out of the soft foamy mist into momentary sunlight, to disappear a few seconds later below the surface, there is nothing to remind one of the known world that lies hidden below the thick fleece that looks soft as cotton-wool, and of incredible depth. ”

“ Even in the lower mountains the effect is one of singular charm, and from the summits of the Jura, for instance, especially in the winter months, it may frequently be witnessed with striking success. From the rocky ledges of La Tourne, which rises only some 5,000ft. above the sea (where the Paris railway runs between Pontarlier and Neuchâtel) , it is no uncommon thing in December or January to stand with the mist level to one’s feet, and the entire surface of the lower world blotted out beneath a sea of cloud that has no single break. Overhead the sky is speckless ”

“ There are natures of the mystical, contemplative order who seek instinctively to correlate their scenery with some mood or aspiration of their inner life⁠—who are not satisfied till they have linked it on somewhere intelligibly with their deepest being. ”