Mountains

“ The whole day's drive was delightful—mountains behind mountains as far as the eye could reach, in every shade, from darkest to palest Indian-ink cloud colour; an ocean of mountains, with perpetually changing foreground of rocks, sometimes bare as ever they were born, sometimes wooded better than ever the hand of mortal taste clothed a mountain in reality or in picture, with oak, aspen, and the beautiful pendant birch. ”

“ When seen from high altitudes, a mountain appears merely as a part of a vast panorama or a single element in a wild, limitless scene of desolate peaks, which raise their bare, bleak summits among the sea of mountains far up into the cold regions of the atmosphere, where they become white with eternal snow, and bound by rigid glaciers. ”

“ Along the far edge, mountains, bathed in sunlight, rose in barren splendor, their sharp peaks reaching for the sky, while, on each remaining side, the ground dropped sheer away, to reform itself in twisting valleys thousands of feet below. ”

“ These mountains woo you, and there is an anticipated satisfaction in the promise made yourself to stand on every one of the peaks within your range of vision, attaining them by pleasant journeys through ferny, mossy, pathless woods. ”

“ Mountain ones charm by floods of lights and coloring over the heights and ravines, to whose character indeed the sky effects make but a clothing robe, and it is the mountains, or the combination, that speaks. ”

“ I look around, and as far as my eye can stretch up and down the valley are ranges of grand mountains, covered with firs, Alpine roses, and wild rhododendrons, and above these splendid peaks, some covered with snow, almost overhanging us, and standing out in bold relief against the bluest of skies. ”

“ I like mountains that go beyond the clouds, with terrible shadows in the hollows, and belts of snow lying in the gorges where the sun cannot reach, and the snow is blue in the sunshine, or shining till you think it is silver, and the mist so wonderful all about it, changing each moment and drifting up and down, that you cannot tell what name to give the colors. ”

“ Mountains rose to wondrous heights above and on all sides of them, while those directly in front, and barring them from their desired route and destination in sheer contrariety loomed heaven-high, as though they would rend the azure sky with their jagged and snowy peaks. ”

“ Mountains are the rib-bones of the great skeleton of nature, and they hold together the gorgeous outline of river, valley, lake, and savannah that gives the earth all its varied beauty. Beautiful and grand as they are, they are as useful as ornamental, and serve a momentous necessity in mundane affairs. ”

“ The mountains were wonderful to behold the nearer slopes lying in shadow, sombre almost to blackness, while beyond, rendered all the more glorious by that contrast, rose the loveliest sun-smitten summits, basking in the peace of paradise. ”

“ We are apt to be deceived by the formal grandeur of mountains, by the massed colours and contours of upbuilded heights, whether lying solitarily like vast sleeping saurians, or gathered in harmonious, if tumultuous, disarray. There is a beauty that is uniquely of the hills. ”

“ No mountain or mountain-range, however divinely clothed with light, has a more enduring charm than those fleeting mountains of the sky—floating fountains bearing water for every well, the angels of the streams and lakes; brooding in the deep azure, or sweeping softly along the ground over ridge and dome, over meadow, over forest, over garden and grove ”

“ Behold the mountains as they stand upon their broad bases, contemplate them as they rear their snowy tops in awful, majestic grandeur above the clouds, view them as you will, and they ever present the same untiring pleasure to the mind.
Men and women will travel thousands of miles and make the greatest exertion to climb the rugged steeps of mountains, to enjoy for one short hour the charming prospect. ”

“ When we look at the mountains, either closely or from a distance, and see their summits above us at one time glittering in the sunshine, at another enveloped in mist, swept round with strong clouds, or blackened with showers, we are disposed to ascribe it all to the atmosphere, as we can easily with the eye see and discern its movements and changes. ”

“ Grey rocks and green valleys, roaring torrents and placid lakes, sombre mountains and smiling vineyards, snow-clad peaks and sun-seared plains, glaring light and deep shade alternately come and go with a bewildering rapidity in the one country. ”

“ The high valleys lying between the mountain ranges that extend across it like huge dikes are of surpassing loveliness. Romantic woodlands, dells, lakes, canyons, murmuring brooks, rushing rivers, far vistas, plains, mountains, and hills delight the soul. ”

“ The eye is delighted by the prospect of lofty and rugged mountains, their tops sometimes lost in clouds, their slopes mantled in the verdure of evergreen forests, varied here and there by rich valleys, by grey and lofty cliffs, or by foaming waterfalls tumbling from heights of hundreds of feet and showing like silvery threads against the sombre green of the woods. ”

“ Sometime you will ride through the twilight of deep pine woods growing on the slope of the mountain, a twilight intensified, rendered more sacred to your mood by the external brilliancy of a glimpse of vivid blue sky above dazzling snow mountains far away. ”

“ The view far as we can see into the softening distance is bounded by mountains—their rocky forms cultivated sides, or snowy peaks, rising one behind another, till the dazzled eye can follow them no further. ”

“ Sombre mountains, rugged and clothed with woods, grew and flew under our eyes, followed by other mountains, with their undulations, their ravines, their glades, their points of light from cottages sleeping on the borders of brooks. Mountains ever succeeded mountains. ”

“ Away to the North and East the horizon was filled with mountains, whose summits the foot of man had never trod, but the intervening distance was covered with clouds, out of which rose the snowy domes, like islands in a sea. ”

“ Have we mountains? their peaks must appear over foliage, or through it, the highest and boldest catching the eye conspicuously, yet not seen from base to summit, as if we wanted to measure them. Such a prospect as this is always compatible with as much concealment as we choose. ”

“ Emerging, we obtained a noble view of a snowy mountain, and, climbing again, entered a forest of pines which led us along a high ridge overhanging the river, and afforded at every opening the most enchanting views possible, the mountains being wooded to their summits, and shewing every rich variety of foliage as they swept along in graceful undulations, now in dark shadow, and now glittering in sunshine. ”

“ Behind rose the high mountain and to the left of this, in the far distance, a line of snow-capped mountains which added immensely to the beauty of the view. This open country is very charming—clouds casting their shadows here and there and a horizon always lovely in the pure colour of the mountains or hills which fringe it. ”

“ WE have all of us seen hills, or what we call hills, from the monstrous protuberances of the Andes and the Himalaya to such puny pimples as lie about the edges of your fens. Next to a waterfall, the first natural object (according to my own experience) to impress itself on a child's mind is a hill, some spot from which he can enlarge his horizon. Hills, and still more mountains, attract the human imagination and curiosity. ”

“ The mountains are fountains not only of rivers and fertile soil, but of men. Therefore we are all, in some sense, mountaineers, and going to the mountains is going home. Yet how many are doomed to toil in town shadows while the white mountains beckon all along the horizon! ”

“ He explains, by the power of one Supreme God, why it is that their mountains are so high, their valley so smiling, their rivers and lakes teeming with life, their fountains so fresh and cool, and that sun of theirs so temperate in its warmth, and the moon and stars, lighted with a soft radiance, shimmering over the deep obscurity of their groves. ”

“ With inexpressible delight you wade out into the grassy sun-lake, feeling yourself contained in one of Nature's most sacred chambers, withdrawn from the sterner influences of the mountains, secure from all intrusion, secure from yourself, free in the universal beauty. ”

“ Lovely as the lake is, the eye will rove among the mountains that we have come to see. They, and they alone, are the objects which have enticed us—entice us even now with a charm and mystery that we cannot pretend to explain. We do not wish it explained. We know that we are as free, as light of heart, as the birds that skim the placid surface of the lake, and coquet with their own shadows. The memory of those mountains is like snatches of music that come unbidden and haunt you perpetually. ”

“ After the half-stifled feeling experienced among the great mountains, it is indeed a rare pleasure to once more come forth into full breathing-space, and to inspect at leisure from some friendly shade the grandeur magnified by distance, yet divested of excitements that set the brain whirling by the rapidity of their succession. If the wayfarer chances to see, as I did, the whole noble array of high summits presenting a long, snowy line of unsullied brilliance against a background of pale azure, he will account it one of the crowning enjoyments of his journey. ”

“ True, the mountains did not rise so high, as mountains go, and did not affect one as do the sublimity and grandeur of the snow-clad Alps, yet the warm light falling here and there in streaks and bars on beautiful fern gardens that nodded and swayed in the cool forest depths, where springs gushed forth in crystal clearness, "brought that tone that all mountains have." ”

“ As you approach the mountains, it seems that the clouds begin already to arrange themselves in bolder and more fantastic shapes. They have a fellowship here. They built their mountains upon mountains—their mountains which are as light as air—huge structures built at the giddy suggestion of the passing breeze. ”

“ There are great and desolate mountains amidst which we should seem no more than little people, there are remote and deserted valleys, there are hidden lakes and snow-girdled uplands untrodden by the feet of men. ”

“ The rugged mountains, rising in some places almost perpendicular to the road, the stupendous rocks above jutting out from their bases, seeming to threaten destruction to all below, and the mountain streams pouring over rock and crag, with ceaseless noise, added to the grandeur of the entire scene. ”

“ Before me were long and wide plains, meadows of grass, smoothly-sloping hills, and a range of mountains beyond, which, parting in one particular spot, formed, as it were, a natural gateway, that might almost lead, in fancy, to some fairy land beyond. ”

“ Strong in lowliness, they neither blanch in heat nor pine in frost. To them, slow-fingered, constant-hearted, is entrusted the weaving of the dark, eternal tapestries of the hills; to them, slow-pencilled, iris-dyed, the tender framing of their endless imagery. Sharing the stillness of the unimpassioned rock, they share also its endurance; and while the winds of departing spring scatter the white hawthorn blossom like drifted snow, and summer dims on the parched meadow the drooping of its cowslip,—gold far above, among the mountains, the silver lichen-spots rest, star-like, on the stone ”

“ Good work and happy work for the merry mountain raindrops, each one of them a brave fall in itself, rushing from the cliffs and hollows of the clouds into the cliffs and hollows of the mountains; away from the thunder of the sky into the thunder of the roaring rivers. ”

“ The great beauty of the scenery in these mountains lies in the grand expanse of the valleys that open out sheer at your feet, under precipices of from 300 to 500 feet and in the curious formation of rock that generally surrounds them, standing out into their midst in jagged masses or formations that take the shape of something human. ”

“ Along late in the night you awaken to find your nose as cold as a dog's. You open one eye. A few coals mark where the fire has been. The mist mountains have drawn nearer, they seem to bend over you in silent contemplation. ”

“ And often, academically, perhaps a little wistfully, as one talks of something to be dreamed of but never enjoyed, we spoke of how fine it would be to ride down into that land of mystery and enchantment, to penetrate one after another the cañons dimly outlined in the shadows cast by the westering sun, to cross the mountains lying outspread in easy grasp of the eye, to gain the distant blue Ridge, and see with our own eyes what lay beyond. ”

“ I don't know when it is most beautiful up here,—in the morning, when the heat lies along the valley in delicate mists, and the folded mountains, one behind the other, grow dimmer and dimmer beyond sight, swooning away through tender gradations of violets and greys, or at night when I look over the edge of the terrace and see the lights in the valley shimmering as though they were reflected in water. ”

“ The shadows of the mountains, particularly on the west, floating slowly over the bosom of the lake, and then softly ascending that of the mountains on the east, presented to us, in a wide expanse, the uncommon and most pleasing image of one vast range of mountains slowly moving up the ascent of another. ”

“ There is nothing of the grandeur of snow, or glaciers, or deep forests, to excite curiosity or adventure; no trace of gardens or waterfalls. From base to summit all seems gray, barren, silent--dead, bleached bones of mountains, overgrown with scrubby bushes, like gray moss. ”

“ The dying splendours of the sun slowly sinking and entering the "gates of the West" may well serve as a fitting emblem of the mountains in their beautiful old age, awaiting in silent and calm dignity the time when they also must be brought low, and sink in the waters of the ocean, as the sun appears daily to do. ”

“ But the higher ranges, untrodden by the foot of man, were gazed at, not with admiration, but with religious awe; for men looked upon mountains as the abode of the gods. They dwelt in the rich plain, which they cultivated, and beside the sweet waters of some river; for food and drink are the first necessities of life. But they left the high hills alone, and in fancy peopled them with the "Immortals" who ruled their destiny,—controlling also the winds and the lightning, the rain and the clouds, which seem to have their home among the mountains. ”