Theodore Winthrop

“ Cyclops and gnomes, to say nothing of more demoniac craftsmen, would never have capped their domes and pyramids with lightsome snow. But mountains, the most signal of earthly facts, are transfigured from gloom to glory by the gentlest creature of all that float and fall, — the snow-flake. It is not enough that air should lie in clouds, and float in mists, and linger in violet haze in every dell of the lower mountains, but there must be a grander beauty than bare mountains, rich with play of strong color, and softened with shadow, can express. ”

“ A man becomes exalted to a demigod, more nobly divine than any of the Olympians, when he can soar to such a summit as this. An isolated snow-peak is the sublimest of material objects, and worthiest of daring Art, if Art but dare. Here it has dared and done.
This mountain is a type, not a portrait. If the reader insists upon a name, he may call it Cayambe, and fancy he sees the ghost of La Condamine stepping off an arc of the Equator on its shoulders, and blowing his icy fingers as he parts the snow to find the line. ”

“ The sublimity of snow-peaks should underlie all our feeling for the lesser charms of Nature. Yet many people of considerable sentiment still shiver and skulk before these great white thrones of the Almighty. But yet not every one who would, can be a pilgrim to Mecca. Not every one can kneel at the holiest shrines of Nature. Let us be thankful to Mr. Church that he has brought the snowy Andes to us, and dared to demand our worship for their sublimity. ”

“ Below the first sheer slope on the front of the summit is a chasm between the precipice and a bare elbow of rock, — a lovely spot of pearly shadow. Measure that chasm with the eye; — into it you might toss Ossa and see it flounder through the snow and drown; and Pelion upon Ossa would only protrude a patch of its dishevelled poll. Things are done in the large among the Andes.
Clouds close the view on each slope of the Dome; on the left touched with orange, where they reflect the glow of the peak ”

“ If colossal peaks rose, naked rock, against the sky, their gloom would be overpowering. And if fiends had the making of worlds, mountains would be dreadful bulks of black porphyry, the flame-born rock, — monuments and portents of malignity. ”

“ Finally, some uneasy radical rummaged out Aconcagua from modest retirement in the Chilian Andes, and pronounced his ermine to be broadest, unless his brother Tupungato should pretend to rival him. This mountain, dominant at the “Heart of the Andes,” is not then Cayambe or Chimborazo, or any other peak of the equatorial group. It is each and all of them, and more than any. It is the type of the great trachytic domes of the Andes, which stand in such solemn repose beside the fiery vigor of volcanic cones like Cotopaxi, and the terrible ghastly ruin of a gulf of burning craters like Sangay. ”