We have seen but the fair--weather side of each
other, Thomas, without considering that all men have their deep
feelings, that lie far, far down in the hold of their hearts, were they
but stirred up. Ay, you smile at my figures, but I repeat it--in the
deep hold of their hearts; and may I not follow out the image with
verity and modesty, and say that those feelings, often too deep for
tears, are the ballast that keeps the whole ship in trim, and without
which we should be every hour of our existence liable to be driven out
of our heavenward course, yea, to broach--to and founder, and sink for
ever, under one of the many squalls in this world of storms? And here,
in this most beautiful spot, with the deep, dark, crystal--clear pool at
our feet, fringed with the velvet grass, and the green quivering leaf
above flickering between us and the bright blue cloudless sky, and the
everlasting rocks, with those diamond--like tears trickling down their
rugged cheeks, impending over us,--and those gigantic gnarled trees,
with their tracery of black withes fantastically tangled, whose naked
roots twist and twine amongst the fissures, like serpents trying to
shelter themselves from the scorching rays of the vertical sun, and
those feather--like bamboos high arching overhead, and screening us
under their noble canopy,--and the cool plantains, their broad ragged
leaves bending under the weight of dew--spangles, and the half--opened
wild--flowers,--yea, even here, the ardent noontide sleeping on the
hill, when even the quickeyed lizard lies still, and no longer rustles
through the dry grass, and there is not a breath of air strong enough
out of heaven to stir the gossamer that floats before us, or to wave
that wild flower on its hair like stem, or to ruffle the fairy plumage
of the humming--bird, that, against the custom of its kind, is now
quietly perched thereon; and while the bills of the chattering
paroquets, that are peering at us from the branches above, are closed,
and the woodpecker interrupts his tapping to look down upon us, and the
only sound we hear is the moaning of the wood--pigeon, and the lulling
buzz of myriads of happy insects booming on the ear, loud as the rushing
of a distant waterfall--(Confound these musquittoes, though!)--Even
here, on this:"
'So sweet a spot of earth, you might, I ween,
Have guessed some congregation of the elves,
To sport by summer moons, had shaped it for themselves.
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