Enchanted place

“ The very order and cleanliness of the place—its decorous, clerical, smooth-shaven air—seem sometimes under a watery sky, and when the winds are moaning and complaining, or thrumming like ghostly fingers on the fine resonant Gothic fret-work, to fill the mind with melancholy. ”

“ Even if her imagination has been somewhat cultivated and deepened, so that she feels that a place must be wild, or at least partly wild, in order to be beautiful, she still chooses nooks 88and ravines, as a rule, to be happy in—places roofed in with gentle, quiet wonder, fenced in with beauty on every side. ”

“ The scene changes like the men and their adventures. Now it is field or morass, plain or bypath, bog or volcano, castle or cottage, sandy scorching desert or cold river; the smoke of the bottomless pit or bright, verdant, delectable mountains and enchanted lands where there are no bishops, no gaols, and no tinkers; where aboundeth grapes, calico, brides, eternal conversation, and trumpets. The great magician's genius forsakes him when he comes to the unknown regions, and he knoweth no more than the rest of us. But while his foot is on the earth he steps like a king among writers. ”

“ He lies in the most sequestered spot in the whole grounds, and the simplicity and beauty of the place was enough to make one in love with it, to be laid so far from the bustle of the world, and in so sweet a place. ”

“ It suited one well to camp for a space in that quaint town, isolate in the heart of an enchanted land, with which one was in turn enchanted, and contemplate soberly the grave issues of Life and Death. ”

“ You have also found this where fresh nature suffers no ravage, amid those bowers of wild-wood, those dream-like, bee-sung, murmuring and musical plains, swimming under their hazy distances, as if there, in that warm and deep back ground, stood the fairy castle of our hopes, with its fountains, its pictures, its many mystical figures in repose. Ever could we rove over those sunny distances, breathing that modulated wind, eyeing those so well-blended, imaginative, yet thoughtful surfaces, and above us wide—wide a horizon effortless and superb as a young divinity. ”

“ But the sea and its colour and the joy of a vast expanse would not have drawn me so often to the castled forelands nor held me so long but for the birds that haunted them, seeing that this visible world is to me but a sad and empty place without wonderful life and the varied forms of life, which are in harmony with it, and give it a meaning, and a grace and beauty and splendour not its own. ”

“ Even the darkest spots are glistening by the surrounding beauty. All appears as an enchanted dream; a glimpse of fairyland, or as a primeval paradise modernized, and rendered suitable in every part to gratify the desires of the mind. ”

“ Written words can give but a feeble idea of the wonders that are found in these enchanted regions of the mind. Here are palaces of splendor beyond imagining, here are temples with sacred shrines, and treasure-chambers full of gold and priceless jewels. ”

“ But everywhere, up and down that magic valley, whether viewed from the gorges that have their bottoms in dark and mystic abysses, or from amazing heights of walls thrust far into the skies, there is wonder piled upon wonder, grandeur overtopping rapture, dumfounded admiration riding at furious pace in the lead of inspiration, glorious realization gilding the visions of imagination. ”

“ The place is quite unique in its surpassing loveliness; and the brilliant phosphoric lights which gleam with every movement of the water, and which are reflected in pale tremulous rays, that seem to trickle from the stalactites and lose themselves among the high arches, give to the whole a weird ghostly effect, quite realising all one's fancies of a spirit-world. ”

“ They say that, deep down below in the water, they catch a glimpse at times of towers and cupolas, hear the bells ring, and occasionally, at enchanted hours, the whole fairy city rises out of the depths, and shows itself to some specially favoured beholders. ”

“ The Oriental story-teller makes the inner world a place of rare beauty—a cavern temple, bestudded with self-luminous gems, in which reside the spiritual beings to whom the direction of the inorganic world is confided. ”

“ If the curious traveller should pause and examine this fragrant wilderness, he will plainly perceive the remains of an ancient garden, and if he be of an imaginative character of mind will readily recall the legend of the Sleeping Beauty in her mouldering palace; for some enchantment still enthralls the spot, so that he who bravely dares the thorns is well rewarded with pensive dreams and, as he lingers a while gathering the flowers or watching their petals flutter to the green shadows beneath, will haply see elusive Beauty hurry past. ”

“ Happy and most blessed art thou, advance to the reward of the crown desirable, and be no longer mortal, but divine.” Then a darkness fell upon me, and lifted again like mist on the hills, and we found ourselves in the most beautiful place that can be conceived, a meadow of that short grass which grows on some shores beside the sea. ”

“ Oh! the first vague charm, the first sunny illusion of some fair city,—when vistas of unknown streets all seem leading to the realization of a hope you dare not even whisper; when even the shadows look beautiful, and strange façades appear to smile good omen through light of gold! ”

“ That, as he analysed, remained the constant explanation: all the sweetness and serenity were created, calculated things. He analysed, however, but in a desultory way and with a positive delight in the residuum of mystery that made for the great artist in the background the innermost shrine of the idol of a temple; there were odd moments for it, mild meditations when, in the broad cloister of peace or some garden-nook where the air was light, a special glimpse of beauty or reminder of felicity seemed, in passing, to hover and linger. ”

“ The beauty of the place seemed unearthly in its excess: the distance we were at from all signs of civilization, the sea at our feet, its murmurs or its roaring for ever in our ears,—all these things led the mind to brood over strange thoughts, and, lifting it from everyday life, caused it to be familiar with the unreal. ”

“ High in mid-air appear and mighty in the mist.
Beneath, the River spreads his glist'ning sheen,
Spanned by not least of master workmanships,
Which sits as conscious daughter of a queen.
And here art thou, my city, and thou dip'st
Thy towers in the mist, whose magic strips
My spirit of the pall Time weaves—in vain;
Nor Time nor Disappointment can eclipse
Days of young bliss—they must and will remain:
Once more a wonder thou, half city of the brain. ”

“ Imagination, and a desire to have a place of beginning in detailed descriptive writing, have given these rugged rock faces peculiar resemblances, and fantastic names. They become faces, bold profiles, fairy castles. ”

“ The light o'er its palaces, gardens, and shrines,
When the water-falls gleam like a quick fall of stars
And the nightingale's hymn from the Isle of Chenars
Is broken by laughs and light echoes of feet
From the cool, shining walks where the young people meet.--
Or at morn when the magic of daylight awakes
A new wonder each minute as slowly it breaks,
Hills, cupolas, fountains, called forth every one
Out of darkness as if but just born of the Sun. ”

“ A halo of romance surrounds this region, and in the many excursions from this point, the lover of the weird and visionary will find his every step accompanied by imaginary maidens of rare grace and beauty, brave knights, crafty priests, wild huntsmen, cruel dragons, super-human heroes, and all the wonderful personages of legendary lore. The town is a thriving, modern looking place of about thirty-five hundred inhabitants, excluding the floating population of tourists who throng the hotels and scatter themselves among the private families. ”

“ The hills and mountains around are built up in more olden and antic forms than those of our Lowland parts, and a wild and strange solemnity is mingled there with much fantastical beauty, as if, according to the minstrelsy of ancient times, sullen wizards and gamesome fairies had joined their arts and spells to make a common dwelling-place. ”

“ The heaven that we have visited is no mere localised spot, but extends throughout infinite space. It possesses no land or water; no mountains and valleys; no rivers, or lakes, or trees, or material objects of any kind; but has picturesque scenery, impalpable and cloudlike, of the most ravishing beauty. It is peopled by myriads of angelic beings and beatified mortals, unsubstantial and etherealised, all of exquisitely symmetrical figures, and with gloriously radiant features, beaming with happiness and smiling with serenity. ”

“ And the scenery would set an artist wild: a sky like a soap-bubble, and high in the dome a buzzard sailing like a speck of dust, a river like a broad, flowing ribbon of old gold, and close to the levees on each side the woods, dense, black, moss-hung and funereal, absorbing so little of the sun’s light that the negroes could hear the call of the night-owls and the voice of the whip-poor-will. ”

“ There the magicians were all sitting together in the dark sea-fog beneath the shelter of the high mountain, and whispering about all manner of secret and hidden things, and blowing spirits into the novices of the black art. ”

“ But there is charm in the very solitude. There is charm in the dark heath and in the golden furze—in the play of the cloud-shadows that each moment change the tones of brown and green and grey. There is charm in the sweet breath of the gorse, and above all, in the bright, fresh air of the open moorland. And however bare and voiceless these sombre slopes, each hollow that wanders away into the hills is filled to overflowing with a sea of mingled foliage, all astir with life and movement.
The path that leads down from the highland to the hollow looks upon a different world. ”

“ And beauty clasp me in her magic zone.
Fair landscapes shall arise,
O’er which a sky of tenderest blue shall bend,
Where forest, hill, and vale, and stream shall blend
In beauty like a dream of Paradise. ”

“ In the long, starry nights, or the moonlight, or in the magic brilliancy of the aurora-borealis, the splendor of the scene,—dark avenues and parks of sleeping water, the silent glittering of mimic palaces and temples, sparkling minarets and towers, is almost supernatural. ”

“ A stranger not knowing the antecedents of the little sanctuary would discern no form nor comeliness in it. It was an hour when one could think of but two things, one was home, and one was heaven. These earthly objects have a comeliness, a simple dignity, and nattiness which are beyond the reach of art. How it elevates the spirit to stand, thrilled by a beautiful romance and find that it is not romance at all but unspeakably sacred reality. ”

“ THE SPIRIT OF HIDDEN PLACES. [1]
Over the mountain's shoulder, round the unweathered cape,
In lands beyond the sky-line, there hides a nameless shape,—
Whether of fiend or goddess no mortal well may know;
But when she speaks—with flushing cheeks, they one by one must go.
To men in far old cities, scanning the curious chart,
Her voice would sound at midnight, like music in the heart;
Across the wrinkled parchment a glory seemed to fall,
And pageants pass like shapes in glass along the pictured wall. ”

“ These gods, like men, require an abode. In the later stages of culture this abode is a Paradise on some more or less imaginary mountain-top, or effectually cut off from men by the magical tempests of the immeasurable main, or by the supreme and silent heights of heaven. But this exaltation of ideas took long to reach. At first a strange rock, a fountain, the recesses of a cavern, or the mysterious depths of the forest, enshrouded the divinity. ”

“ Even the memories of past pain are beautiful; and past delights, though beheld only through clefts in the grey clouds of sorrow, are lovely as Fairy Land. But how have I wandered into the deeper fairyland of the soul, while as yet I only float towards the fairy palace of Fairy Land! The moon, which is the lovelier memory or reflex of the down-gone sun, the joyous day seen in the faint mirror of the brooding night, had rapt me away. ”

“ If the view from the top be painful and intolerable, that from below is delightful in an equal extreme. It is impossible for the emotions arising from the sublime, to be felt beyond what they are here: so beautiful an arch, so elevated, so light, and springing as it were up to heaven! ”

“ It was like getting into the Sea-king’s palace under the sea to spend an hour at Salviati’s; every lovely freak and fancy of sun and water, from the brooding sapphire of secret caves to the last bubble of spray on a curling wave, it was all there, caught and crystallized for mortals to love and handle. ”

“ If you wish to live for a time in the fairy realm, where there are buried treasure chests or magic lamps and rings, or if you would like to make a journey to far-off lands where are many wonders, you have only to look in this magic glass, and in a twinkling you are whisked away. You find yourself in a strange country where men and women wear curious, flowing garments of many colors, where trees and animals are unfamiliar, and where queer buildings with many towers attract your delighted eyes. ”

“ While abounding in separate points of beauty, each a source of distinct and peculiar pleasure,—as the outline of her temples, the white line that parted her night-black hair, the bend of her wrists, the moulding of her finger-tips,—yet these details were lost in the overwhelming gracefulness of her presence, and the atmosphere of charm which she diffused over all human life. ”

“ The traveller's curiosity is roused, and he prepares to make a nearer approach, when that curiosity is put upon the rack, by his being assured that, if he advances, certain genii, who govern the place, by virtue of their supernatural arts and necromancy will strip it of all its beauties, and by enchantment transform the magic walls. ”