Ruskin 1875: Fronde Sag Rest Esr

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FRONDES AGRESTES

HEADINGS IN ; MODERN PAINTERS.'


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Printed by Wateon and Hazell, London and Aylesbury.


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FKONDES AGRESTES.

READINGS IN 'MODERN PAINTERS,'

CHOSEN AT HER PLEASURE,BY THE AUTHOR'S FRIEND,

THE YOUNGER LADY OF THE THWAITE,CONISTON.

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. derers along the hardly traceable footpath whichstruggles for existence -beneath the rocks. Andthere the river ripples, and eddie and murmursin an utter solitude. It is passing through athickly peopled country ; but neyer ; was astream so lonely. The feeblest and most faraway torrent among the high hills has its com-panions ; the goats browse beside it ; and thetraveller drinks from it, and passes over it withhis staff; and the peasant* traces a new channelfor it down to his mill-wheel. But this streamhas no companions ; it flows on in an infiniteseclusion, not secret, nor threatening, but aquietness of sweet daylight and open aifa broacL^pace of tender and deep desolateness,drooped into repose out of the midst of humanlabour and life ; the waves plashing lowly, withnone to hear them ; and the wild birds buildingin the boughs, with none to fray them away ;


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POWER AND OFFICE OF IMAGINATION. 27and the soft, fragrant herbs rising and breathingand fading, with no hand to gather them ;andyet all bright and bare to the clouds above,and to the fresh fall of the passing sunshineand pure rain. But above the brows of thesescarped cliffs, all is in an instant changed. Afew step's only beyond the firs that stretch theirbranched angular, and wild, and white, Jikeforks of lightning, into the air of the ravine,and we are in an arable country of the mostperfectj-ichness ; the swathes of its corn glow-ing and burning from field to field ; its prettyhamlets all vivid with fruitful orchards, andflowery gardens, and goodly with steep-roofedstore-house; and barn; its^ well-kept, hard, park-like roads rising and, falling from hillside tohillside, or disappearing among brown banksof moss, and thickets of the wild raspberry androse ; or gleaming through lines of tall trees,half glade, half avenue, where the gate opfens,or the gateless path turns trusted^ aside,unhindered, into the garden of some statelierhouse, surrounded in rural pride with its goldenhives, and carved granaries, and irregular do-main of latticed and espaliered cottages, glad-


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28 FRONDES AGRESTES.dening to look upon in their delicate homelinessdelicate, yet, in some sort, rude ; not like ourEnglish homestrim, laborious, formal, irre-proachable in comfortbut with a peculiarcarelessness and largeness in all their detail,harmonizing with the outlawed loveliness oftheir country. For there is an untamedstrength even in all that soft; and habitableland. It is indeed gilded with corn, and fra-grant with deep grass, but it is not subdued tothe plough or to the scythe. It gives at itsown free will ; it seems to haya nothing wrestedfrom it, nor conquered in it. It is not redeemedfrom desertness, but unrestrained in fruitfulness,a generous land, bright with capricious plenty,and laughing from vale V /ale in fitful fulness,kind and wild. ' Nor this without some sternerelement mingled in the heart of it. For, along9all its ridges stand the da>k masses of- innu-merable pines,* taking no part in its gladness,asserting themselves for ever as fixed shadows,

* Almost the only pleasure I have, myself, in re-reading my old books, is my sense of having at le t tdone justice to the pine. Compare the passage i . *hisbook, No. 47. v n *


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POWER AND OFFICE OF IMAGINATION. 29not to be pierced or banished even in theintensest sunlight ; fallen flakes and fragmentsof the night, stayed in their solemn squaresin the midst of all the rosy bendings of theorchard boughs andkyellow effulgence of the har-vest, and tracing themselves in black net-workand niotionless fringes against the , blanchedblue of the hori^n in its saintly clearness. Andyet they do not sadden the landscape, but seemto have been set there ghiefly to show howbright everything 6lse is round them ; and allthe clouds look of pure silver, and all the airseems filled with a whiter and more livingsunshine, where they me pierced by the sablepc-ints of the pines ; and all the pastures lookof more glowing g -vm where they run upbetween the purple trunks ; and the sweet fieldfootpaths skirt the edges pf the forest for the.Asake of its shade, sloping up^ and down aboutthe slippery roots, and losing themselves everynow and then hopelessly among the violets andground-ivy and brown sheddings of the fibrousleaves, and at last plunging into some openaiole. where the light through the distant stemsshow thi^U there is a chance of coming out


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30 FEONDES AGEESTES.again on the other side ; and coming out indeedin a little while from the scented darknessinto the dazzling air and m^rvello^s landscape,which stretches still farther and farther in newwilfulness of grove and garden, until at last thecraggy mountains of the Simmenthal rise outof it, sharp into the rolling of the southernclouds.

19.* Although there are few districts ofNorthern Europe, however4' apparently dull oftame, in which I cannot find pleasure, thoughthe whole of Northern Trance (except Cham-pagne), dull as it seems to most travellers, is tome a perpetual Paradise ; and, putting Lincoln-shire, Leicestershire, and one^ or two such otherperfectly flat districts aside, there is not ailEnglish county which I should not find enter-tainment in exploring the cross-roads of, foot

* This, and the following passage, have nothing to dowith the general statements in the book. They occurwith reference only to my own idiosyncrasy. I wasmuch surprised when I found first hr-y individual itwas, by a Pre-Raphaelite painter's declaring a^ pieceof unwholesome reedy fen to be more beautiful thanBenvenue.


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.' POWER AND OFFICE OF IMAGINATION. 31by foot,yet all my best enjoyment would beowing \o ths imagination of the hills, colouringwith their far-away memories every lowlandstone and herb. The pleasant French coteau,green in the- sunshine, delights me either bywhat real mountain character it has in itself,(for in extent and succession of promontory,the flanks of the French valleys have quite thesublimity of true mountain distances,) or by itsbroken groYfhd and rugged steps among thevines, and rise of tha leafage above against theblue ~sky, as it, might rise at Vevay or Como.There is not a wave of the Seine, but is asso-ciated in mv mind with the first rise of thesandstones and forest pines of Fontainebleauand with the hope of the Alps, as one leavesParis, with the horses' heads to the south-west, the morning sun flashing on the brightwaves at Charenton. If there be no hopeor , association of this kind, and if I cannotdeceive myself into fancying thats perhaps atthe next rise of the road there may be thefilm of a blufc hill in the gleam of sky at thehorizon, the landscape, however beautiful, pro-duces in me even a kind of sickness and


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32 FRONDES AGRESTES. >pain ; and the whole view from RichmondHill or Windsor Terrace,nay, the gardensof Alcinous, with their perpetual summeror of the Hesperides, (if they were flat, andnot close to Atlas), golden apples^ and all, Iwould give away in an instant, for one mossygranite stone a foot broad, and two leaves oflady fern.

20. I cannot find words to express the intensepleasure I have always in first finding myself,after some prolonged stay in England, at thefoot of the old tower of Calais church. Thelarge neglect, the noble unsightliness of it ; therecord of its years written so visibly, yet f.without sign of weakness or decay ; its sternwasteness and gloom, eaten away by theChannel winds, and overgrown with the bittersea grasses ; its slates and tiles all shaken andrent, and yet not falling ; its desert of brick-work, fulfof bolts, and holes, and ugly fissures,and yet strong, like a bare brown rock ; itscarelessness of what any one thinks or feelsabout it, putting forth no claim, having nobeauty, nor desireableness, pride, nor grace ;


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POWER AND OFFICE OF IMAGINATION. 33yet neither asking for pity ; not, as ruins are,useless and piteous, feebly or fondly garrulousof better days ; but, useful still, going throughits own daily work,as some old fisherman,beaten grey by storm, yet drawing his dailynets, so it stands, with no complaint about itspast youth, in blanched and meagre massivenessand serviceableness, gathering human soulstogether underneath it ; the sound of its bellsfor prayer still rolling through its rents ; andthe grey peak of it seen far across the sea,principal of the three that rise above the wasteof surfy sand and hillocked shore,the light-house for life, and the belfry for labour, andthis,for patience and praise.

I cannot teH the half of the strange plea-sures and thoughts that come about me atthe sight of that old tower ; for, in some sort,it is the epitome of all that makes the con-tinent of Europe interesting, as opposed tonew countries; and, above all, it completelyexpresses that agedness in the midst ofactive life which binds the old and the newinto harmony. We in England have our newstreets, our new innour green shaven lawn,

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34 FKONDES AGKESTES.and our piece of ruin emergent from it, a merespecimen of the middle ages put on a bit ofvelvet carpet, to be shown ; and which, but forits size, might as well be on a museum shelf atonce, under cover :but, on the Continent, thelinks are unbroken between the past and pre-sent ; and, in such use as they can serve for,the grey headed wrecks are suffered to staywith men ; while, in unbroken line, the genera-tions of spared buildings are seen succeeding,each in its place. And thus, in its largeness,in its permitted evidence of slow decline, inits poverty, in its absence of all pretence, of allshow and care for outside aspect, that Calaistower has an infinite of symbolism in it, all themore striking because usually seen in contrastwith English scenes expressive of feelings theexact reverse of these.** My friend won't write out the reverse Our

book is to be all jelly, and no powder, it seems.Well, I'm very thankful she likes the jelly, at anyrate, it makes me sure that it is well made.


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ILLUSTRATIVE : THE SKY. 35

SECTION III.ILLUSTRATIVE : ,THE SKY.

f{ 21. It is a strange thing how little in generalpeople know : about the sky. It is the part ofcreation in which Nature has done more for thesake of pleasing manmore for the sole andevident purpose of talking to him, and teachinghimthan in any other of her works ; and it isjust the part in which we least attend to her.There are not many of her other works in whichsome more material or essential purpose thanthe mere pleasing of man is not answered byevery part .of their organization ; but everyessential purpose of the sky might, so far aswe know, be answered if once in three days,or thereabouts, a great, ugly, black rain-cloudwere brought up over the blue, and everythingwell watered, and so all left blue again till nexttime, with perhaps a film of morning and


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36 FKONDES AGRESTES.evening mist for dewand instead of this,there is not a moment of any day of our lives,when Nature is not producing scene after scene,picture after picture, glory after glory, andworking still upon such exquisite and constantprinciples of the most perfect beauty, that it isquite certain^ it is all done for us, and in-tended for our perpetual pleasure. And everyman, wherever placed, however far from othersources of interest or of beauty, has this doingfor him constantly. The noblest scenes of theearth can be seen and known but by few ; it isnot intended that man should live always in themidst of them ; he injures them by his presence,he ceases to feel them if he is always withthem ; but the sky is for all : bright as it is, itis not too bright nor good

For human nature's daily food ;it is fitted in all its functions for the perpetualcomfort and exalting of the heart,for soothing* At least, I thought so, when I was four-and-

twenty. At five-and-fifty, I fancy that it is just pos-sible there may be other creatures in the universe,to be pleased, or,it may be,displeased, by theweather.


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ILLUSTRATIVE: THE SKY. 3rit, and purifying it from its dross and dust.Sometimes gentle, sometimes capricious, some-times awfulnever the same for two momentstogether ; almost human in its passions, almostspiritual in its tenderness, almost divine in itsinfinity, its appeal to what is immortal in usis as distinct, as its ministry of chastisementor of blessing to what is mortal is essential.And yet we never attend to it, we never makeit a subject of thought, but as it has to do withour animal sensations, we look upon all bywhich it speaks to us more clearly than tobrutes, upon all which bears witness to theintention of the Supreme that we are to receivemore from the covering vault than the lightand the dew which we share with the weed andthe worm, only as a succession of meaninglessand monotonous accident, too common and toovain to be worthy of a moment of watchful-ness, or a glance of admiration. If in ourmoments of utter idleness and insipidity, weturn to the sky as a last resource, which of itsphenomena do we speak of? One says, it hasbeen wet ; and another, it has been windy, andanother, it has been warm. Who among the


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38 FKONDES AGRESTES.whole chattering crowd can tell one of theforms and the precipices of the chain of tallwhite mountains that girded the horizon atnoon yesterday? Who saw the narrow sun-beam that came out of the south, and smoteupon their summits until they melted andmouldered away in a dust of blue rain?Who saw the dance of the dead clouds whenthe sunlight left them last night, and thewest wind blew them before it like witheredleaves? All has passed unregretted as un-seen ; or if the apathy be ever shaken offeven for an instant, it is only by what isgross, or. what is extraordinary. And yet itis not in the broad and fierce manifestationsof the elemental energies, nor in the clash ofthe hail, nor the drift of the whirlwind, thatthe hio-hest characters of the sublime are de-veloped. Grod is not in the earthquake, nor inthe fire, but in the still small voice. They arebut the blunt and the low faculties of ournature, which can only be addressed throughlamp-black and lightning. It is in quiet andunsubdued passages of unobtrusive majesty, thedeep and the calm, and the perpetual ; that


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ILLUSTRATIVE: THE SKY. 39which must be sought ere it is seen, and lovedere it is understood ; things which the angelswork out for us daily, and yet vary eternally ;which are never wanting, and never repeated,which are to be found always, yet each foundbut once ; it is through these that the lesson ofdevotion is chiefly taught, and the blessingof beauty given.

22. We habitually think of the rain-cloudonly as dark and grey ; not knowing thatwe owe to it perhaps the fairest, though notthe most dazzling, of the hues of heaven.Often in our English mornings, the rain-cloudsin the dawn form soft, level fields, which meltimperceptibly into the blue ; or, when of lessextent, gather into apparent bars, crossing thesheets of broader clouds above; and all thesebathed throughout in an unspeakable light ofpure rose-colour, #nd purple, and amber, andblue ; not shining, but misty-soft ; the barredmasses, when seen nearer, composed of clustersor tresses of cloud, like floss silk ; looking asif each knot were a little swathe or sheaf oflighted rain.


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40 FRONDES AGRESTES.23. Aqueous vapour or mist, suspended in the

atmosphere, becomes visible exactly as dust doesin the air of a room. In the shadows, you notonly cannot see the dust itself, because unillu-mined, but you can see other objects throughthe dust, without obscurity ; the air being thusactually rendered more transparent by a de-privation of light. Where a sunbeam enters,every particle of dust becomes visible, and apalpable interruption to the sight ; so that atransverse sunbeam is a real obstacle to thevisionyou cannot see things clearly throughit. In the same way, wherever vapour is illu-minated by transverse rays, there it becomesvisible as a whiteness more or less affecting thepurity of the blue, and destroying it exactly inproportion to the degree of illumination. Butwhere vapour is in shade, it has very littleeffect on the sky, perhaps making it a littledeeper and greyer than it otherwise wouldbe, but not, itself, unless very dense, distin-guishable or felt as mist.

24. Has the reader any distinct idea of whatclouds are ?


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ILLUSTRATIVE: THE SKY. 41* That mist which lies in tlie morning so

softly in the valley, level and white, throughwhich the tops of the trees rise as if throughan inundationwhy is it so heavy, and whydoes it lie so low, being yet so thin and frailthat it will melt away utterly into splendour ofmorning when the sun has shone on it but afew moments more ? Those colossal pyramids,huge and firm, with outlines as of rocks, andstrength to bear the beating of the high sunfull on their fiery flanks,why are 'they solight, their bases high over our heads, high overthe heads of Alps ? Why will these melt away,not as the sun rises, but as he descends, andleave the stars of twilight clear ; while the valleyvapour gains again upon the earth, like ashroud ? Or that ghost of a cloud, which stealsby yonder clump of pines ; nay, which does notsteal by them, but haunts them, wreathing yetround them, and yet,and yet,slowly ; nowfalling in a fair waved line like a woman's veilnow fading, now gone ; we look away for aninstant, and look back, and it is again there, ft

* This is a fifth volume bit, and worth more atten-tion.


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42 FRONDES AGRESTES.What lias it to do with that clump of pines, thatit broods by them, and weaves itself amongtheir branches, to and fro ? Has it hidden acloudy treasure among the moss at their roots,which it watches thus? Or has some strongenchanter charmed it into fond returning, orbound it fast within those bars of bough ? Andyonder filmy crescent, bent like an archer'sbow abo^ the snowy summit, the highest of allthe hillsthat white arch which never forms butover the supreme crest,how it is stayed there,repelled apparently from the snow,nowheretouching it, the clear sky seen between it andthe mountain edge, yet never leaving itpoisedas a w^hite bird hovers over its nest Or thosewar clouds that gather on the horizon, dragon-crested, tongued with fire,how is their barbedstrength bridled? What bits are those theyare champing with their vapourous lips, flingingoff flakes of black foam ? Leagued leviathansof the Sea of Heaven,out of their nostrilsgoeth smoke, and their eyes are like the eyelidsof the morning ; the sword of him that layethat them cannot hold the spear, the dart, nor thehabergeon. Where ride the captains of their


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ILLUSTRATIVE: THE SKY. 43armies ? Where are set the measures of theirmarch? Fierce murmurers, answering eachother from morning until eveningwhat rebukeis this which has awed them into peace ;whathand has reined them back by the way inwhich they came?

I know not if the reader will think at firstthat questions like these are easily answered.So far from it, I rather believe that some ofthe mysteries of the clouds nev^r will beunderstood by us at all. Knowest thou thembalancings of the clouds ? Is the answerever to be one of pride ? The wondrous worksof Him, which is perfect in knowledge? Isour knowledge ever to be so? ... .

For my own part, I enjoy the mystery, andperhaps the reader may. I think he ought.He should not be less grateful for summer rain,or see less beauty in the clouds of morning, be-cause they come to prove him with hard ques-tions ; to which perhaps, if we look close at theheavenly scroll, we may find also a syllable ortwo of answer, illuminated here and there.*

* Compare, in ' Sartor Resartus, ' the boy's watchingfrom the garden wall.


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44 FRONDES AGRESTES.And though the climates of the south and

east may be comparatively clear, they are nomore absolutely clear than our own northernair. Intense clearness, whether, in the north,after or before rain, or in some moments oftwilight in the south, is always, as far as Iam acquainted with natural phenomena, anotable thing. Mist of some sort, or mirage,or confusion of light or of cloud, are thegeneral facts ; the distance may vary in dif-ferent climates at which the effects of mistbegin, but they are always present ; andtherefore, in all probability, it is meant thatwe should enjoy them We surelyneed not wonder that mist and all its phe-nomena have been made delightful to us, sinceour happiness as thinking beings must dependon our being content to accept only partialknowledge even in those matters which chieflyconcern us. If we insist upon perfect intelligi-bility and complete declaration in every moralsubject, we shall instantly fall into misery ofunbelief. Our whole happiness and power ofenergetic action depend upon our being able tobreathe and live in the cloud ; content to see it


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ILLUSTRATIVE: THE SKY/. 45opening here, and closing there ; rejoicing tocatch through the thinnest films of it, glimpsesof stable and substantial things ; but yet per-ceiving a nobleness even in the concealment,and rejoicing that the kindly veil is spreadwhere the untempered light might havescorched us, or the infinite clearness wearied.And I believe that the resentment of thisinterference of the mist is one of the formsof proud error which are too easily mistakenfor virtues. To be content in utter darknessand ignorance is indeed unmanly, and there-fore we think that to love light and findknowledge must always be right. Yet (as inall matters before observed,) wherever pridehas any share in the work, even knowledgeand light may be ill pursued. Knowledge isgood, and light is good ; yet man perishedin seeking knowledge, and moths perish inseeking light ; and if we, who are crushedbefore the moth, will not accept such mysteryas is needful to us, we shall perish in likemanner. But, accepted in humbleness, itinstantly becomes an element of pleasure ; andI think thai every rightly constituted mind


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46 FRONDES AGRESTES.ought to rejoice, not so much in knowinganything clearly, as in feeling that there isinfinitely more which it cannot know. Nonebut proud or weak men would mourn overthis, for we may always know more, if wechoose, by working on ; but the pleasure is,I think, to humble people, in knowing thatthe journey is endless, the treasure inexhaus-tible,watching the cloud still march beforethem with its summitless pillar, and beingsure that, to the end of time, and to the lengthof eternity, the mysteries of its infinity willstill open farther and farther, their dimnessbeing the sign and necessary adjunct oftheir inexhaustibleness. I know there are anevil mystery, and a deathful dimness,themystery of the great Babylonthe dimnessof the sealed eye and soul ; but do not let usconfuse these with the glorious mystery ofthe things which the angels desire to lookinto, or with the dimness which, even beforethe clear eye and open soul, still rests on sealedpages of the eternal volume.

25. On some isolated mountain at day-


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ILLUSTRATIVE : THE SKY. 47break * when the night mists first rise fromoff the plain, watch their white and lake-like fields, as they float in level bays, andwinding gulfs about the islanded summits ofthe lower hills, untouched yet by more thandawn, colder and more quiet than a windlesssea under the moon of midnight ; watch whenthe first sunbeam is sent upon the silver chan-nels, how the foam of their undulating surfaceparts, and passes away, and down under theirdepths the glittering city and green pasture lielike Atlantis, between the white paths of wind-ing rivers; the flakes of light falling everymoment faster and broader among the starryspires, as the wreathed surges break and vanishabove them^ and the confused crests and ridgesof the dark hills shorten their grey shadowsupon the plain. Wait a little longer, and you* I forget now what all this is about. It seems to

be a recollection of the Rigi, with assumption thatthe enthusiastic spectator is to stand for a day andnight in observation

; to suffer the effects of a severethunder-storm, and to get neither breakfast nor dinner.I have seen such a storm on the Rigi, however, andmore than one such sunrise ; and I much doubt if itspresent visitors by rail will see more.


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48 FRONDES AGRESTES.shall see those scattered mists rallying in theravines, and floating up towards you, along thewinding valleys, till they couch in quiet masses,iridescent with the morning light, upon thebroad breasts of the higher hills, whose leaguesof massy undulation will melt back, back intothat robe of material light, until they fade away,and set in its lustre, to appear again above inthe serene heaven like a wild, bright, impossibledream, foundationless, and inaccessible, theirvery bases vanishing in the unsubstantial andmocking blue of the deep lake below. Waityet a little longer, and you shall see those mistsgather themselves into white towers, and standlike fortresses along the promontories, massyand motionless, only piled with every instanthigher and higher into the sky, and castinglonger shadows athwart the rocks ; and out ofthe pale blue of the horizon you will see formingand advancing a troop of narrow, dark, pointedvapours, which will cover the sky, inch by inch,with their grey network, and take the lightoff the landscape with an eclipse which willstop the singing of the birds, and the motionof the leaves, together;and then you will


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ILLUSTEATIVE : THE SKY. 49see horizontal bars of black shadow formingunder them, and lurid wreaths create them-selves, you know not how, among the shouldersof the hills ; you never see them form, but whenyou look back to a place which was clear aninstant ago, there is a cloud on it, hangingby the precipice, as a hawk pauses over hisprey ;and then you will hear the sudden rushof the awakened wind, and you will see thosewatch-towers of vapour swept away from theirfoundations, and waving curtains of opaquerain let down to the valley, swinging from theburdened clouds in black bending fringes, or,pacing in pale columns along the lake level,grazing its surface into foam as they go. Andthen as the sun sinks, you shall see the stormdrift for an instant from off the hills, leavingtheir broad sides smoking and loaded yet withsnow-white, torn, steam-like rags of capriciousvapour, now gone, now gathered again,whilethe smouldering sun, seeming not far away, butburning like a red-hot ball beside you, andas if you could reach it, plunges through therushing wind and rolling cloud with headlongtall, as if it meant to rise no more, dyeing all


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50 FRONDES AGRESTES.the air about it with blood ;and then you shallhear the fainting tempest die in the hollow ofof the night, and you shall see a green halokindling on the summit of the eastern hills,brighter, brighter yet, till the large white circleof The slow moon is lifted up among the barredclouds, step by step, line by line ; star afterstar she quenches with her kindling light,setting in their stead an army of pale, pene-trable, fleecy wreaths in the heaven, to givelight upon the earth, which move together handin hand, company by company, troop by

troop,so measured in their unity of motion that thewhole heaven seems to roll with them, and theearth to reel under them. And then wait yetfor one hour, until the east again becomespurple, and the heaving mountains, rollingagainst it in darkness, like waves of a wild sea,are drowned one by one in the glory of itsburning; watch the white glaciers blaze intheir winding paths about the mountains, like

. mighty serpents with scales of fire : watchthe columnar peaks of solitary snow, kindlingdownwards chasm by chasm, each in itself anew morningtheir long avalanches cast down


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ILLUSTRATIVE: THE SKY. 51in keen streams brighter than the lightning,sending each his tribute of driven snow, likealtar-smoke up to heaven ; the rose-light oftheir silent domes flushing that heaven aboutthem, and above them, piercing with purer lightthrough its purple lines of lifted cloud, castinga new glory on every wreath, as it passes by,until the whole heaven, one scarlet canopy, isinterwoven with a roof of waving flame, andtossing vault beyond vault, as with the driftedwings of many companies of angels : and thenwhen you can look no more for gladness, andwhen you are bowed down with fear and loveof the Maker and Doer of this, tell me who hasbest delivered this His message unto men

26. *The account given of the stages of crea-tion in the first chapter of Genesis is in everyrespect clear and intelligible to the simplestreader, except in the statement of the work ofthe second day. I suppose that this statement

* This passage, to the end of the section, is one ofthe last, and best, which I wrote in the temper of myyouth ; and I can still ratify it, thus far, that thetexts referred to in it must either be received as itexplains them, or neglected altogether.


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52 FRONDES AGRESTES.is passed over by careless readers without anyendeavour to understand it, and contemplatedby simple and faithful readers as a sublimemystery which was not intended to be under-stood. But there is no mystery in any otherpart of the chapter, and it seems to me unjustto conclude that any was intended here. Andthe passage ought to be peculiarly interestingto us, as being the first in the Bible in whichthe Tieavens are named, and the only one inwhich the word Heaven, all important asthat word is to our understanding of the mostprecious promises of Scripture, receives a defi-nite explanation. Let us therefore see whether,by a little careful comparison of the verse withother passages in which the word occurs, wemay not be able to arrive at as clear an under-standing of this portion of the chapter as ofthe rest. In the first place the English word, Firmament itself is obscure and useless ;because we never employ it but as a synonymof heaven, it conveys no other distinct idea tous ; and the verse, though from our familiaritywith it we imagine that it possesses meaning,has in reality no more point nor value than if it


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ILLUSTRATIVE : THE SKY. 53were written, God said, Let there be a some-thing in the midst of the waters, and God calledthe something, Heaven. But the marginalreading, Expansion, has definite value ; andthe statement that God said, Let there be anexpansion in the midst of the waters, and Godcalled the expansion, Heaven, has an appre-hensible meaning. Accepting this expressionas the one intended, we have next to ask whatexpansion there is, between two waters, descri-bable by the term heaven. Milton adopts theterm expanse, but he understands it of thewhole volume of the air which surrounds theearth. Whereas, so far as we can tell, thereis no water beyond the air, in the fields ofspace ; and the whole expression of divisionof waters from waters is thus rendered value-less. Now with respect to this whole chapter,we must remember always that it is intendedfor the instruction of all mankind, not for thelearned reader only ; and that therefore themost simple and natural interpretation is thelikeliest in general to be the true one. Anunscientific reader knows little about themanner in which the volume of the atmo-


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54 FRONDES AGRESTES.sphere surrounds the earth : but I imaginethat he could hardly glance at the sky whenrain was falling in the distance, and see thelevel line of the bases of the clouds from whichthe shower descended, without being able toattach an instant and easy meaning to thewords, expansion in the midst of the waters;and if, having once seized this idea, he pro-ceeded to examine it more accurately, he wouldperceive at once, if he had ever noticed any-thing of the nature of clouds, that the levelline of their bases did indeed most severelv andstringently divide waters from waters thatis to say, divide water in its collective andtangible state, from water in its aerial state ;or the waters which fall, and flow, from thosewhich rise, and float. Next, if we try this inter-pretation in the theological sense of the wordheaven, and examine whether the clouds arespoken of as God's dwelling place, we find Godgoing before the Israelites in a pillar of cloud ;revealing Himself in a cloud on Sinai ; appear-ing in a cloud on the mercy-seat, filling theTemple of Solomon with the cloud when itsdedication is accepted ; appearing in a great


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ILLUSTRATIVE: THE SKY. DOcloud to Ezekiel ; ascending into a cloud beforethe eyes of the disciples on Mount Olivet ; andin like manner returning to judgment : Be-hold he cometh with clouds, and every eye shallsee him. Then shall they see the Son of Mancoming in the clouds of heaven, with powerand great glory. While further the cloudsand heavens'* are used as interchangeablewords ill those Psalms which most distinctlyset forth the power of God : He bowed theheavens also, and came down ; he made dark-ness pavilions round about him, dark waters,and thick clouds of the skies. And again, Thy mercy, Lord, is in the heavens, andthy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds.And again, His excellency is over Israel, andhis strength is in the clouds. And again, The clouds poured out water, the skies sentout a sound, the voice of thy thunder was inthe heaven. Again, Clouds and darknessare round about him, righteousness and judg-ment are the habitation of his throne ; theheavens declare his righteousness, and all thepeople see his glory. In all these passages themeaning is unmistakable if they possess definite


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56 FRONDES AGRESTES.meaning at all. We are too apt to take themmerely for sublime and vague imagery, andtherefore gradually to lose the apprehensionof their life and power. The expression, Hebowed the heavens, for instance, is, I sup-pose, received by most readers as a magnificenthyperbole, having reference to some peculiarand fearful manifestation of God's power tothe writer of the psalm in which the wordsoccur. But the expression either has plainmeaning, or it has no meaning. Understandby the term heavens the compass of infinitespace around the earth, and the expression bowed the heavens, however sublime, iswholly without meaning : infinite space cannotbe bent or bowed. But understand by the heavens the veil of clouds above the earth,and the expression is neither hyperbolical norobscure ; it is pure, plain, accurate truth, andit describes God, not as revealing Himself inany peculiar way to David, but doing whatHe is still doing before our own eyes, day byday. By accepting the words in their simplesense, we are thus led to apprehend the imme-diate presence of the Deity, and His purpose of


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ILLUSTRATIVE: THE SKY. 57manifesting Himself as near us whenever thestorm-cloud stoops upon its course ; while byour vague and inaccurate acceptance of thewords, we remove the idea of His presence farfrom us, into a region which we can neither seenor know : and gradually, from the close reali-zation of a living God, who maketh the cloudshis chariot, we define and explain ourselvesinto dim and ,distant suspicion of an inactiveGod inhabiting inconceivable places, and fadinginto the multitudinous formalisms of the lawsof Nature. All errors of this kindand inthe present day we are in constant andgrievous danger of falling into themarisefrom the originally mistaken idea that mancan, by searching, find out Godfind out theAlmighty to perfection that is to say, byhelp of courses of reasoning and accumulationsof science, apprehend the nature of the Deity,in a more exalted and more accurate mannerthan in a state of comparative ignorance ;whereas it is clearly necessary, from the begin-ning to the end of time, that God's way ofrevealing Himself to His creatures should bea simple way, which all those creatures may


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53 FRONDES AGRESTES.understand. Whether taught or untaught,whether of mean capacity or enlarged, it isnecessary that communion with their Creatorshould be possible to all ; and the admission tosuch communion must be rested, not on theirhaving a knowledge of astronomy, but on theirhaving a human soul. In order to render thiscommunion possible, the Deity has stooped fromHis throne, and has, not only in the person ofthe Son, taken upon Him the veil of ourhuman^s/i, but, in the person of the Father,taken upon Him the veil of our human thoughts,and permitted us, by His own spoken authority,to conceive Him simply and clearly as a lovingfather and friend ; a being to be walked withand reasoned with, to be moved by our en-treaties, angered by our rebellion, alienated byour coldness, pleased by our love, and glorifiedby our labour; and, finally, to be beheld inimmediate and active presence in all the powersand changes of creation. This conception ofGod, which is the child's, is evidently the onlyone which can be universal, and, therefore,the only one which for us can be true. Themoment that, in our pride of heart, we refuse to


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ILLUSTRATIVE : THE SKY. 59accept the condescension of the Almighty, anddesire Him, instead of stooping to hold ourhands, to rise up before us into His glory, we,hoping that, by standing on a grain of dustor two of human knowledge higher than ourfellows, we may behold the Creator as He rises,God takes us at our word. He rises, into Hisown invisible and inconceivable majesty ; Hegoes forth upon the ways which are not ourways, and retires into the thoughts which arenot our thoughts ; and we are left alone. Andpresently we say in our vain hearts, There isno God.

I would desire, therefore, to receive Godsaccount of His own creation as under theordinary limits of human knowledge and ima-gination it would be received by a simplyminded man ; and finding that the heavensand the earth are spoken of always as havingsomething like equal relation to each other,(a Thus the heavens and the earth were finished,and all the host of them, ) I reject at once

all idea of the term heavens being intendedto signify the infinity of space inhabited bycountless worlds ; for between those infinite


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60 FRONDES AGRESTES.heavens and the particle of sand, which notthe earth only, but the sun itself, with all thesolar system, is, in relation to them, no relationof equality or comparison could be inferred.But I suppose the heavens to mean that partof creation which holds equal companionshipwith our globe ; I understand the u rolling ofthese heavens together as a scroll, to be anequal and relative destruction with the meltingof the elements in fervent heat ; and I under-stand the making of the firmament to signifythat, so far as man is concerned, most magnifi-cent ordinance of the clouds ;the ordinancethat as the great plain of waters was formed onthe face of the earth, so also a plain of watersshould be stretched along the height of air, andthe face of the cloud answer the face of theocean ; and that this upper and heavenly plainshould be of waters, as it were, glorified intheir nature, no longer quenching the fire, butnow bearing fire in their own bosoms ; nolonger murmuring only when the winds raisethem or rocks divide, but answering each otherwith their own voices, from pole to pole ; nolonger restrained by established shores, and


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ILLUSTRATIVE : THE SKY. 61guided through unchanging channels; but goingforth at their pleasure like the armies of theangels, and choosing their encampments uponthe heights of the hills ; no longer hurrieddownwards for ever, moving but to fall, norlost in the lightless accumulation of the abyss,but covering the east and west with the waving;of their wings, and robing the gloom of thefarther infinite with a vesture of diversecolours, of which the threads are purple andscarlet, and the embroideries flame.

This I believe is the ordinance of thefirmament ; and it seems to me that in themidst of the material nearness of theseheavens, God means us to acknowledge Hisown immediate presence as visiting, judging,and blessing us : The earth shook, theheavens also dropped at the presence of God.He doth set his bow in the clouds, and thus

renews, in the sound of every drooping swatheof rain, His promises of everlasting love. Inthem he hath set a tabernacle for the sun ;'whose burning ball, which, without the fir-mament, would be seen but as an intolerableand scorching circle in the blackness of vacuity,


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62 FRONDES AGRESTES.is by that firmament surrounded with gorgeousservice, and tempered by mediatorial ministries :by the firmament of clouds the temple is built,for his presence to fill with light at noon ; bythe firmament of clouds the purple veil is closedat evening, round the sanctuary of his rest ; bythe mists of the firmament his implacable lightis divided, and its separated fierceness appeasedinto the soft blue that fills the depth of distancewith its bloom, and the flush with which themountains burn, as they drink the overflowingof the dayspring. And in this tabernacling ofthe unendurable sun with men, through the sha-dows of the firmament, God would seem to setforth the stooping of His own Majesty to men,upon the throne of the firmament. As theCreator of all the worlds, and the Inhabiterof eternity, we cannot behold Him; but asthe Judge of the earth and the Preserver ofmen, those heavens are indeed His dwellingplace : Swear not, neither by heaven, for it isGod's throne ; nor by the earth, for it is hisfootstool And all those passings to and froof fruitful showers and grateful shade, andall those visions of silver palaces built about


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ILLUSTRATIVE: THE SKY. 63the horizon, and voices of moaning winds andthreatening thunders, and glories of colouredrobe and cloven ray, are but to deepen in ourhearts the acceptance, and distinctness, anddearness, of the simple words, Our Father,which art in heaven.


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64 FRONDES AGRESTES.

SECTION IV.ILLUSTRATIVE : STREAMS AND SEA.

27. Of all inorganic substances, acting in theirown proper nature, and without assistance andcombination, water is the most wonderful. If wethink of it as the source of all the changeful-ness and beauty which we have seen in cloudsthen, as the instrument by which the earth wehave contemplated was modelled into symmetry,and its crags chiselled into grace;then, as inthe form of snow, it robes the mountains it hasmade with that transcendent light which wecould not have conceived if we had not seen;then as it exists in the foam of the torrent,in the iris which spans it, in the morningmist which rises from it, in the deep crystal-line pools which mirror its hanging shore,in the broad lake and glancing riverfinally,in that w7hich is to all human minds the bestemblem of unwearied, unconquerable power,


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ILLUSTKATIVE : STREAMS AND SEA. 65the wild, various, fantastic, tameless unity ofthe sea ;what shall we compare to this mighty,this universal element, for glory and beauty ? orhow shall we follow its eternal changefulness offeeling ? It is like trying to paint a soul

28. The great angel of the searain ; theangel, observe,the messenger sent to a specialplace on a special errand. Not the diffused, per-petual presence of the burden of mist, but thegoing and returning of the intermittent cloud.All turns upon that intermittence. Soft mosson stone and rock ; cave fern of tangled glen ;wayside wellperennial, patient, silent, clear,stealing through its- square font of rough-hewnstone ; ever thus deep, no morewhich thewinter wreck sullies not, the summer thirstwastes not, incapable of stain as of declinewhere the fallen leaf floats undecayed, andthe insect darts undefiling : cressed brook andever eddying river, lifted even in flood scarcelyover its stepping stones,but through all sweetsummer keeping tremulous music with harp-strings of dark water among the silver fingeringof the pebbles. Far away in the south the

5


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66 FRONDES AGRESTES.strong river gods have all hasted, and gonedown to the sea. Wasted and burning, whitefurnaces of blasting sand, their broad beds lieghastly and bare ; but here in the moss lands,the soft wings of the sea angel droop still withdew, and the shadows of their plumes falteron the hills ; strange laughings and glitteringsof silver streamlets, born suddenly, and twinedabout the mossy heights in trickling tinsel,answering to them as they wave.

29. Stand for half an hour beside the fallof Schaffhausen, on the north side, where therapids are long, and watch how the vault ofwater first bends unbroken, in pure polishedvelocity, over the arching rocks at the browof the cataract, covering them with a domeof crystal twenty feet thick, so swift that itsmotion is unseen except when a foam globefrom above darts over it like a falling star ;and how the trees are lighted above it underall their leaves,* at the instant that it breaksinto foam ; and how all the hollows of that

* Well noticed. The drawing of the fall of Schaff-hausen, which I made at the time of writing this


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ILLUSTRATIVE : STREAMS AND SEA. G7foam burn with green fire like so muchshattering chrysoprase ; and how, ever andanon startling you with its white flash, a jetof spray leaps hissing out of the fall, like arocket, bursting in the wind and driven away indust, filling the air with light ; and how throughthe curdling wreaths of the restless crashingabyss below, the blue of the wrater, paled by thefoam in its body, shows purer than the skythrough white rain- cloud, while the shudder-ing iris stoops in tremulous stillness over all,fading and flushing alternately through thechoking spray and shattered sunshine, hidingitself at last among the thick golden leaveswhich toss to and fro in sympathy with thewild water,their dripping masses lifted atintervals, like sheaves of loaded corn, by somestronger gush from the cataract, and bowedagain upon the mossy rocks as its roar diesaway,the dew gushing from their thickbranches through drooping clusters of emeraldherbage, and sparkling in white threads alongstudy, was one of the very few, either by otherdraughtsmen or myself, which I have seen Turnerpause at with serious attention.


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68- FRONDES AGRESTES.the dark rocks of the shore, feeding the lichens,which chase and chequer them with purple andsilver.

30. Close beside the path by which travellersascend the Montanvert from the valley ofChamouni, on the right hand, where it firstbegins to rise among the pines, there descendsa small stream from the foot of the granitepeak known to the guides as the Aiguille Char-moz. It is concealed from the traveller by athicket of alder, and its murmur is hardlyheard, for it is one of the weakest streams ofthe valley. But it is a constant stream, fedby a permanent, though small, glacier ; andcontinuing to flow even to the close of summer,when more copious torrents, depending only onthe melting of the lower snows, have left theirbeds, stony channels in the sun. The longdrought which took place in the autumn of1854, sealing every source of waters exceptthese perpetual ones, left the torrent of which Iam speaking, and such others, in a state pecu-liarly favourable to observance of their leastaction on the mountains from which they des-


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ILLUSTRATIVE : STREAMS AND SEA. 69cend. They were entirely limited to their ownice fountains, and the quantity of powderedrock which they brought down was, of course,at its minimum, being nearly unmingled withany earth derived from the dissolution ofsofter soil, or vegetable mould, by rains. Atthree in the afternoon, on a warm day inSeptember, when the torrent had reached itsaverage maximum strength for the day, I filledan ordinary Bordeaux wine flask with the waterwhere it was least turbid. From this quart ofwater I obtained twenty-four grains of sandand sediment more or less fine. I cannot esti-mate the quantity of water in the stream ; butthe runlet of it at which I filled the flask wasgiving about two hundred bottles a minute,or rather more, carrying down, therefore,about three quarters of a pound of powderedgranite every minute. This would be forty-five pounds an hour ; but allowing for theinferior power of the stream in the coolerperiods of the day, and taking into considera-tion, on the other side, its increased power inrain, we may, I think, estimate its averagehour's work at twenty-eight or thirty pounds,


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70 FRONDES AGRESTES.or a hundredweight every four hours. Bythis insignificant runlet, therefore, rather morethan two tons of the substance of the MontBlanc are displaced and carried down a certaindistance every week ; and, as it is only forthree or four months that the flow of thestream is checked by frost, we may certainlyallow eighty tons for the mass which itannually moves. It is not worth while toenter into any calculation of the relation borneby this runlet to the great torrents whichdescend from the chain of Mont Blanc intothe valley of Chamouni.* I but take thisquantity, eighty tons, as the result of thelabour of a scarcely noticeable runlet at theside of one of them, utterly irrespective ofall sudden falls of stones and of masses ofmountain (a single thunderbolt will some-times leave a scar on the flank of a softrock looking like a trench for a railroad),and we shall then begin to apprehend some-

* I have slightly modified and abridged what fol-lows, being impatient of its prolixity, as well asashamed of what is truly called the ludicrous under-estimate of the mass of the larger streams.


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ILLUSTRATIVE : STREAMS AND SEA. 71thing of the operation of the great laws ofchange which are the conditions of all materialexistence, however apparently enduring. Thehills, which as compared with living beingsseem everlasting/' are in truth as perishingas they; its veins of flowing fountain wearythe mountain heart, as the crimson pulse doesours ; the natural form of the iron crag isabated in its appointed time, like the strengthof the sinews in a human old age ; and it isbut the lapse of the longer years of decaywhich, in the sight of its Creator, distinguishesthe mountain range from the moth and theworm.

31. Few people, comparatively, have ever seenthe effect on the sea of a powerful gale continuedwithout intermission for three or four days andnights : and to those who have not, I believe itmust be unimaginable, not from the mere forceor size of surge, but from the complete anni-hilation of the limit between sea and air. Thewater, from its prolonged agitation, is beaten,not into mere creamy foam, but into massesof accumulated yeast, which hang in ropes


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72 FRONDES AGRESTES.and wreaths from wave to wave ; and whereone curls over to break, form a festoon likea drapery from its edge ; these are taken upby the wind, not in dissipating dust, butbodily, in writhing, hanging, coiling masses,which make the air white, and thick as withsnow, only the flakes are a foot or two longeach ; the surges themselves are full of foamin their very bodies, underneath, making themwhite all through, as the water is under a greatcataract,and their masses being thus halfwater and half air, are torn to pieces by thewind whenever they rise, and carried away inroaring smoke, which chokes and strangles likeactual water. Add to this, that when the airhas been exhausted of its moisture by long rain,the spray of the sea is caught by it as de-scribed above, and covers its surface not merelywith the smoke of finely divided water, butwith boiling mist : imagine also the low rain-clouds brought down to the very level of thesea, as I have often seen them, whirling andflying in rags and fragments from wave towave ; and finally conceive the surges them-selves in their utmost pitch of power, velocity,


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ILLUSTRATIVE: STREAMS AND SKY. 73vastness and madness, lifting themselves inprecipices and peaks furrowed with their whirlof ascent, through all this chaos ; and youwill understand that there is indeed no distinc-tion left between the sea and air ; that noobject, nor horizon, nor any landmark, ornatural evidence of position is left ; that theheaven is all spray, and the ocean all cloud, andthat you can see no further in any directionthan you could see through a cataract.** The whole of this was written merely to show

the meaning of Turner's picture of the steamer indistress, throwing up signals. It is a good study ofwild weather ; but, separate from its aim, utterlyfeeble in comparison to the few words by which anyof the great poets will describe sea, when they havegot to do it. I am rather proud of the short sentencein the ' Harbours of England,' describing a greatbreaker against rock ; One moment, a flint cave,the next, a marble pillar,the next, a fadingcloud. But there is nothing in sea-description, de-tailed, like Dickens' storm at the death of Ham, in' David Copperfield.'


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FRONDES AGRESTES.

SECTION V.ILLUSTRATIVE : MOUNTAINS.

32. The words which marked for us the pur-pose of the clouds are followed immediately bythose notable ones,And God said, Let thewaters which are under the heavens be gatheredtogether into one place, and let the dry landappear. We do not, perhaps, often enoughconsider the deep signification of this sentence.We are too apt to receive it as the descriptionof an event vaster only in its extent, not in itsnature, than the compelling of the Red Seato draw back that Israel might pass by. Weimagine the Deity in like manner rolling thewaves of the greater ocean together on an heap,and setting bars and doors to them eternally.But there is a far deeper meaning than this inthe solemn words of Genesis, and in the corres-pondent verse of the Psalm, His hands pre-pared the dry land. Up to that moment the


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ILLUSTRATIVE : MOUNTAINS. 75earth had been void; for, it had been withoutform. The command that the waters shouldbe gathered, was the command that the earthshould be sculptured. The sea was not drivento its place in suddenly restrained rebellion, butwithdrawn to its place in perfect and patientobedience. The dry land appeared, not in levelsands forsaken by the surges, which thosesurges might again claim for their own ; butin range beyond range of swelling hills andiron rocks, for ever to claim kindred with thefirmament, and be companioned by the cloudsof heaven.What space of time was in reality occupied

by the day of Genesis, is not at presentof any importance for us to consider. Bywhat furnaces of fire the adamant was melted,and by what wheels of earthquake it wastorn, and by what teeth of glacier and weightof sea-waves it was engraven and finished intoits perfect form, we may, perhaps, hereafterendeavour to conjecture; but here, as in fewwords the work is summed by the Historian,so in few broad thoughts it should be compre-hended by us ; and, as we read the mighty sen-


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76 FRONDES AGRESTES.tence, Let the dryland appear/' we should tryto follow the finger of God as it engraved uponthe stone tables of the earth the letters and thelaw of its everlasting form, as gulf by gulf thechannels of the deep were ploughed ; and capeby cape the lines were traced with Divine fore-knowledge of the shores that were to limit thenations ; and chain by chain the mountain wallswere lengthened forth, and their foundationsfastened for ever; and the compass was set uponthe face of the depth, and the fields and the high-est part of the dust of the world were made; andthe right hand of Christ first strewed the snow onLebanon, and smoothed the slopes of Calvary.

It is not, I repeat, always needful, in manyrespects it is not possible, to conjecture themanner or the time in which this work wasdone ; but it is deeply necessary for all men toconsider the magnificence of the accomplishedpurpose, and the depth of the wisdom and lovewhich are manifested in the ordinances of thehills. For observe, in order to bring the worldinto the form which it now bears, it was notmere sculpture that was needed ; the moun-tains could not stand for a day unless they


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ILLUSTRATIVE: MOUNTAINS. 77were formed of materials altogether differentfrom those which constitute the lower hills, andthe surfaces of the valleys. A harder sub-stance had to be prepared for every mountainchain, yet not so hard but that it might becapable of crumbling down into earth fit tonourish the Alpine forest, and the Alpineflower ; not so hard but that in the midst ofthe utmost majesty of its enthroned strengththere should be seen on it the seal of death, andthe writing of the same sentence that had goneforth against the human frame, Dust thou art,and unto dust shalt thou return. And withthis perishable substance the most majesticforms were to be framed that were consistentwith the safety of man; and the peak was to belifted and the cliff rent, as high and as steeplyas was possible, in order yet to permit theshepherd to feed his flocks upon the slopes, andthe cottage to nestle beneath their shadow.And observe, two distinct ends were to beaccomplished in doing this. It was indeed ab-solutely necessary that such eminences shouldbe created, in order to fit the earth in any wisefor human habitation, for without mountains


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78 FKONDES AGKESTES.the air could not be purified, nor the flowingof the rivers sustained, and the earth musthave become for the most part plain, or stag-nant marsh. But the feeding of the rivers andthe purifying of the winds, are the least of theservices appointed to the hills. To fill the thirstof the human heart for the beauty of God'sworkingto startle its lethargy with the deepand pure agitation of astonishment,are theirhigher missions. They are as a great and noblearchitecture, first giving shelter, comfort, andrest ; and covered also with mighty sculptureand painted legend. It is impossible to exa-mine in their connected system, the featuresof even the most ordinary mountain scenery,without concluding that it has been preparedin order to unite as far as possible, and in theclosest compass, every means of delighting andsanctifying the heart of man, as far as pos-sible ; that is, as far as is consistent with thefulfilment of the sentence of condemnation onthe whole earth. Death must be upon the hills;and the cruelty of the tempests smite them, andthe briar and thorn spring up upon them ; butthey so smite as to bring their rocks into the


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ILLUSTRATIVE: MOUNTAINS. 79fairest forms, and so spring as to make the verydesert blossom as the rose. Even amonor ourown hills of Scotland and Cumberland, thoughoften too barren to be perfectly beautiful, andalways too low to be perfectly sublime, it isstrange how many deep sources of delight aregathered into the compass of their glens andvales; and how, down to the most secret clusterof their far-away flowers, and the idlest leapof their straying streamlets, the whole heart ofnature seems thirsting to give, and still to give,shedding forth her everlasting beneficencewith a profusion so patient, so passionate,that our utmost observance and thankfulnessare but, at last, neglects of her nobleness,and apathy to her love. But among the truemountains of the greater orders, the Divinepurpose of appeal at once to all the faculties ofthe human spirit becomes still more manifest.Inferior hills ordinarily interrupt, in somedegree, the richness of the valleys at theirfeet; the grey downs of southern Englandand treeless coteaux of Central France, andgrey swells of Scottish moor, whatever peculiarcharm they may possess in themselves, are at


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80 FRONDES AGRESTES.least destitute of those which belong to thewoods and fields of the lowlands. But the greatmountains lift the lowlands on their sides.Let the reader imagine first the appearanceof the most varied plain of some richly culti-vated country ; let him imagine it dark withgraceful woods, and soft with deepest pastures

;

let him fill the space of it, to the utmost hori-zon, with innumerable and changeful incidentsof scenery and life ; leading pleasant stream-lets through its meadows, strewing clustersof cottages beside their banks, tracing sweetfootpaths through its avenues, and animatingits fields with happy flocks, and slow wanderingspots of cattle ; and when he has wearied him-self with endless imagining, and left no spacewithout some loveliness of its own, let himconceive all this great plain, with its infinitetreasures of natural beauty, and happy humanlife, gathered up in God's hands from one edgeof the horizon to the other, like a woven gar-ment, and shaken into deep falling folds, as therobes droop from a king's shoulders ; all itsbright rivers leaping into cataracts along thehollows of its fall, and all its forests rearing


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ILLUSTRATIVE: MOUNTAINS. 81themselves aslant against its slopes, as a riderrears himself back when his horse plunges, andall its villages nestling themselves into the newwindings of its'glens, and all its pastures throwninto steep waves of greensward, dashed withdew along the edges of their folds, and sweepingdown into endless slopes, with a cloud her andthere lying quietly, half on the grass, half in theair,and he will have as yet in all this liftedworld, only the foundation of one of the greatAlps. And whatever is lovely in the lowlandscenery, becomes lovelier in this change ; thetrees which grew heavily and stiffly from thelevel line of plain, assume strange curves ofstrength and grace as they bend themselvesagainst the mountain side ; they breathe morefreely and toss their branches more carelesslyas each climbs higher, looking to the clear lightabove the topmost leaves of its brother tree ;the flowers which on the arable plains fall be-fore the plough, now find out for themselvesunapproachable places, where year by yearthey gather into happier fellowship, and fearno evil ; and the streams which in the levelland crept in dark eddies by unwholesome

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82 FRONDES AGRESTES.banks, now move in showers of silver, and areclothed with rainbows, and bring health andlife wherever the glance of their waves canreach. . . .

It may not, therefore, be altogether profitlessor unnecessary to review briefly the nature ofthe three great offices which mountain rangesare appointed to fulfil, in order to preserve thehealth and increase the happiness of mankind.Their first use is, of course, to give motion towater. Every fountain and river, from theinch-deep streamlet that crosses the village lanein trembling clearness, to the massy and silentmarch of the everlasting; multitude of waters inAmazon or Ganges, owe their play, and purity,and power, to the ordained elevations of theearth. Gentle or steep, extended or abrupt,some determined slope of the earth's surface isof course necessary before any wave can somuch as overtake one sedge in its pilgrimageand how seldom do we enough consider, as wewalk beside the margins of our pleasant brooks,how beautiful and wonderful is that ordinance,of which every blade of grass that waves in theirclear waters is a perpetual signthat the dew


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ILLUSTRATIVE : MOUNTAINS. 83and rain fallen on the face of the earth shallfind no resting place ; shall find, on the con-trary, fixed channels traced for them from theravines of the central crests down which thevroar, in sudden ranks of foam, to the darkhollows beneath the banks of lowland pasture,round which they must circle slowly among thestems and beneath the leaves of the lilies ; pathsprepared for them by which, at some appointedrate of journey, they must evermore descend,sometimes slow, and sometimes swift, but neverpausing ; the daily portion of the earth theyhave to glide over marked for them at eachsuccessive sunrise, the place which has knownthem knowing them no more, and the gate-ways of guarding mountains opened for themin cleft and chasm, none letting them in theirpilgrimage ; and, from afar off, the greatheart of the sea calling them to itself u Deepcalleth unto deep. I know not which ofthe two is the more wonderful,that calm, gra-dated, invisible slope of the champaign land,wiiich gives motion to the stream ; or thatpassage cloven for it through the 'ranks of hill,which, necessary for the health of the land


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84 FRONDES AGRESTES.immediately around them, would yet, unless sosupernaturally divided, have fatally interceptedthe flow of the waters from far off countries.When did the great spirit of the river firstknock at these adamantine gates ? When didthe porter open to it, and cast his keys awayfor ever, lapped in whirling sand ? I am notsatisfiedno one should be satisfied withthat vague answer, The river cut its way.Not so. The river found its way. **I donot see that rivers in their own strength cando much in cutting their way ; they arenearly as apt to choke their channels up asto carve them out. Only give a river somelittle sudden power in a valley, and see howit will use it. Cut itself a bed? Not so, byany means, but fill up its bed ; and look foranother in a wild, dissatisfied, inconsistentmanner,any way rather than the old onewill better please it; and even if it is bankedup and forced to keep to the old one, it will notdeepen, but do all it can to raise it, and leap

* I attach great importance to the remaining con-tents of this passage, and have had occasion to insiston them at great length in recent lectures at Oxford.


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ILLUSTRATIVE: MOUNTAINS. 85out of it. And although wherever water hasa steep fall it will swiftly cut itself a bed deepinto the rock or ground, it will not, when therock is hard, cut a wider channel than itactually needs ; so that if the existing riverbeds, through ranges of mountain, had inreality been cut by the streams, they wrould befound, wherever the rocks are hard, only in theform of narrow and profound ravines, like thewTell-known channel of the Niagara below thefall ; not in that of extended valleys. And theactual work of true mountain rivers, thoughoften much greater in proportion to their bodyof water than that of the Niagara, is quite in-significant when compared with the area anddepth of the valleys through which they flow ;so that, although in many cases it appears thatthose ^larger valleys have been excavated atearlier periods by more powerful streams, or bythe existing stream in a more powerful condi-tion, still the grea fact remains always equallyplain, and equally admirable, that, whatever thenature and duration of the agencies employed,the earth was so shaped at first as to directthe currents of its rivers in the manner most


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86 FRONDES AGRESTES.healthy and convenient for man. The valleyof the Rhone may have been in great partexcavated, in early times, by torrents athousand times larger than the Rhone ; butit could not have been excavated at all,unless the mountains had been thrown atfirst into two chains, by which the torrentswere set to work in a given direction. Andit is easy to conceive how, under any lessbeneficent dispositions of their masses of hill,the continents of the earth might either havebeen covered with enormous lakes, as parts ofNorth America actually are covered; or havebecome wildernesses of pestiferous marsh ; orlifeless plains, upon which the water wouldhave dried as it fell, leaving them for greatpart of the year desert. Such districts doexist, and exist in vastness ; the whole earth isnot prepared for the habitation of man ; onlycertain small portions are prepared for him,the houses, as it were, of the human race, fromwhich they are to look abroad upon the restof the world ; not to wonder or complain thatit is not all house, but to be grateful for thekindness of the admirable building, in the house


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ILLUSTRATIVE : MOUNTAINS. 87itself, as compared with the rest. It would beas absurd to think it an evil that all the worldis not fit for us to inhabit, as to think it an evilthat the globe is no larger than it is. As muchlis we shall ever need is evidently assigned totis for our dwelling place ; the rest, coveredVvith rolling waves or drifting sands, frettedwith ice or crested with fire, is set before usfor contemplation in an uninhabitable magni-ficence. And that part which we are enabled toinhabit owes its fitness for human life chiefly toits mountain ranges, which, throwing the super-fluous rain off as it falls, collect it in streamsor lakes, and guide it into given places, and ingiven directions ; so that men can build theircities in the midst of fields which they knowwill be always fertile, and establish the lines oftheir commerce upon streams which will notfail.Nor is this giving of motion to wrater to be

considered as confined only to the surface ofthe earth. A no less important function of thehills is in directing the flow of the fountains andsprings from subterranean reservoirs. Thereis no miraculous springing up of water out of


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88 FRONDES AGRESTES.the ground at our feet ; but every fountainand well is supplied from reservoir among thehills, so placed as to involve some slight fall orpressure enough to secure the constant flowingof the stream ; and the incalculable blessingof the power given to us, in most valleys, ofreaching by excavation . some point whence thewater will rise to the surface of the ground inperennial flow, is entirely owing to the concavedispositions of the beds of clay or rock raisedfrom beneath the bosom of the valley into ranksof enclosing hills.The second great use of mountains is to

maintain a constant change in the currentsand nature of the air. Such change would, ofcourse, have been partly caused by differencein soils and vegetation, even if the earth hadbeen level; but to a far less extent than it isnow by the chains of hills whichexposing onone side their masses of rock to the full heat ofthe sun (increased by the angle at which therays strike on the slope), and on the othercasting a soft shadow for leagues over theplains at their feetdivide the earth not onlyinto districts, but into climates ; and cause per-


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ILLUSTRATIVE: MOUNTAINS. 89petual currents of air to traverse their passes ina thousand different states ; moistening it withthe spray of their waterfalls, sucking it downand beating it hither and thither in the pools oftheir torrents, closing it within clefts and caves,where the sunbeams never reach, till it is ascold as November mists $ then sending it forthagain to breathe lightly across the slopes ofvelvet fields, or to be scorched among sunburntshales and grassiest crags ; then drawing it backin moaning swirls through clefts of ice, andup into dewy wreaths above the snow-fields ;then piercing it with strange electric darts andflashes of mountain fire, and tossing it highin fantastic storm-cloud, as the dried grass istossed by the*mower, only suffering it to departat last, when chastened and pure, to refresh thefaded air of the far off plains.

The third great use of mountains is to causeperpetual change in the soils of the earth.Without such provision the ground under cul-tivation , would in a series of years becomeexhausted, and require to be upturned labo-riously by the hand of man. But the elevationsof the earth's surface provide for it a perpetual


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90 FRONDES AGRESTES.renovation. The higher mountains suffer theirsummits to be broken into fragments, and tobe cast down in sheets of massy rock, fall,as we shall see presently, of every substancenecessary for the nourishment of plants ; thesefallen fragments are again broken by frost, andground by torrents, into various conditions ofsand and claymaterials which are distributedperpetually by the streams farther and fartherfrom the mountain's base. Every shower thatswells the rivulets enables their waters to carrycertain portions of earth into new positions, andexposes new banks of ground to be mined intheir turn. That turbid foaming of the angrywater,that tearing down of bank and rockalong the flanks of its fury,are no disturb-ances of the kind course of nature ; they arebeneficent operations of laws necessary to theexistence of man, and to the beauty of theearth. The process is continued more gently,but not less effectively, over all the surface ofthe lower undulating country ; and each filteringthread of summer rain which trickles throughthe short turf of the uplands is bearing its ownappointed burden of earth to be thrown down


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ILLUSTRATIVE: MOUNTAINS. 91on some new natural garden in the dinglesbeneath.

I have not spoken of the local and pecu-liar utilities of mountains. I do not countthe benefit of the supply of summer streamsfrom the moors of the higher ranges,of thevarious medicinal plants which are nestedamong their rocks,of the delicate pasturagewhich they furnish for cattle,of the forestsin which they bear timber for shipping,thestones they supply for building, or the ores ofmetal which they collect into spots open todiscovery, and easy for working. All thesebenefits are of a secondary or a limited nature.But the three great functions which I havejust described,those of giving motion andchange to water, air, and earth, are indispen-sable to human existence ; they are operationsto be regarded with as full a depth of gratitudeas the laws which bid the tree bear fruit, orthe seed multiply itself in the earth. And thusthose desolate and threatening ranges of darkmountain, which in nearly all ages of the worldmen have looked upon with aversion, or withterror, and shrunk back from as if they were


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92 FRONDES AGRESTES.haunted by perpetual images of death, are inreality sources of life and happiness far fullerand more beneficent than all the bright fruit-fulness of the plain. The valleys only feed ; themountains feed, and guard, and strengthen us.We take our idea of fearlessness and sublimityalternately from the mountains and the sea ;but we associate them unjustly. The sea-wave,with all its beneficence, is yet devouringand terrible ; but the silent wave of the bluemountain is lifted towards heaven in a stillnessof perpetual mercy ; and the one surge, un-fathomable in its darkness, the other unshakenin its faithfulness, for ever bear the seal of theirappointed symbolism :Thy righteousness is like the great moun-

tains ; Thy judgments are a great deep.

33. Mountains are to the rest of the body ofthe earth, what violent muscular action is tothe body of man. The muscles and tendons ofits anatomy are, in the mountain, brought outwith force and convulsive energy, full ofexpression; passion, and strength ; the plains


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ILLUSTRATIVE : MOUNTAINS. 93and the lower hills are the repose and theeffortless motion of the frame, when its muscleslie dormant and concealed beneath the linesof its beauty,yet ruling those lines in theirevery undulation. This then is the first grandprinciple of the truth of the earth. The spiritof the hills is action, that of the lowlandsrepose ; and between these there is to be foundevery variety r of motion and of rest, from theinactive plain, sleeping like the firmament,with cities for stars, to the fiery peaks, whichwith heaving bosoms and exulting limbs, withthe clouds drifting like hair from their brightforeheads, lift up their Titan heads to Heaven,saying, I live for ever.

34. 'Where they are,* they seem to form theworld ; no mere bank of a river here, or ofa lane there, peeping out among the hedgesor forests, but from the lowest valley to* Passage written after I had got by some years

cooler and wiser than when I wrote No. 33, describinghowever the undulation of the gneiss rocks, which,'where they are, seem to form the world/ in termsmore fanciful than I now like.


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94 FRONDES AGRESTES.the highest clouds, all is theirs,one ada-mantine dominion and rigid authority of rock.We yield ourselves to the impression oftheir eternal unconquerable stubbornness ofstrength ; their mass seems the least yielding,least to be softened, or in anywise dealt with byexternal force, of all earthly substance. Andbehold, as we look further into it, it is alltouched and troubled, like waves by a summerbreeze ; rippled far more delicately than seas orlakes are rippled ; they only undulate alongtheir surfacesthis rock trembles through itsevery fibre, like the chords of an. Eolian harp,like the stillest air of spring, wTith the echoesof a child's voice. Into the heart of all thosegreat mountains, through every tossing of theirboundless crests, and deep beneath all theirunfathomable defiles, flows that strange quiver-ing of their substance. Other and weakerthings seem to express their subjection to anInfinite Power only by momentary terrors ; asthe weeds bow down before the feverish wind,and the sound of the going in the tops of thetaller trees passes on before the clouds, and thefitful opening of pale spaces on the dark water,


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ILLUSTRATIVE: MOUNTAINS. 95as if some invisible hand were casting dustabroad upon it, gives warning of the anger thatis to come, we may well imagine that there isa fear passing upon the grass, and leaves, andwaters, at the presence of some great spiritcommissioned to let the tempest loose ; but theterror passes, and their sweet rest is perpetuallyrestored to the pastures and the waves. Not soto the mountains. They, which at first seemstrengthened beyond the dread of any violenceor change, are yet also ordained to bear uponthem the symbol of a perpetual fear. Thetremor which fades from the soft lake andgliding river is sealed to all eternity upon therock ; and while things that pass visibly frombirth to death may sometimes forget theirfeebleness, the mountains are made to possessa perpetual memorial of their infancythatinfancy which the prophet saw in his vision,* I beheld the earth, and lo, it was withoutform, and void, and the heavens, and they had

* Utter misinterpretation of the passage. It is theold age, not the childhood of earth, which Jeremiahdescribes in this passage. See its true interpretationin ' Fors Clavigera/ Letter 46.


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96 FRONDES AGRESTES.no light. I beheld the mountains, and lo theytrembled , and all the hills moved lightly

35. The longer I stayed among the Alps, andthe more closely I examined them, the more Iwas struck by the one broad fact of there being avast Alpine plateau, or mass of elevated land,upon which nearly all the highest peaks stoodlike children set upon a table, removed, in mostcases, far back from the edge of the plateau,as if for fear of their falling ; while the mostmajestic scenes in the Alps are produced, not somuch by any violation of this law, as by oneof the great peaks having apparently walkedto the edge of the table to look over, and thusshowing itself suddenly above the valley in itsfull height. This is the case with the Wetter-horn and Eiger at Grindelwald, and with theGrande Jorasse above the Col de Ferret. Butthe raised bank or table is always intelligiblyin existence, even in these apparently exceptionalcases ; and for the most part, the great peaksare not allowed to come to the edge of it, butremain like the keeps of castles far withdrawn,surrounded, league beyond league, by compara-


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ILLUSTRATIVE: MOUNTAINS. 97tively level fields of mountain, over which thelapping sheets of glacier writhe and flow, foam-ing about the feet of the dark central crests likethe surf of an enormous sea-breaker hurled overa rounded rock, and islanding some fragment ofit in the midst. And the result of this arrange-ment is a kind of division of the whole ofSwitzerland into an upper and lower mountainworld,the lower world consisting of richvalleys, bordered by steep, but easily accessible,wooded banks of mountain, more or less dividedby ravines, through which glimpses are caughtof the higher Alps ; the upper world, reachedafter the first banks of 3,000 or 4,000 feet inheight have been surmounted, consisting ofcomparatively level, but most desolate tracts ofmoor and rock, half covered by glacier, andstretching to the feet of the true pinnacles ofthe chain. It can hardly be necessary to pointout the perfect wisdom and kindness of thisarrangement, as a provision for the safety ofthe inhabitants of the high mountain regions.If the great peaks rose at once from the deepestvalleys, every stone which was struck fromtheir pinnacles, and every snow-wreath which

7


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98 FRONDES AGRESTES.slipped from their ledges, would descend atonce upon the inhabitable ground, over whichno year would pass without recording somecalamity of earth-slip or avalanche ; while inthe course of their fall both the stones and thesnow would strip the woods from the hill-sides,leaving only naked channels of destructionwhere there are now the sloping meadow andthe chestnut glade. Besides this, the masses ofsnow, cast down at once into the warmer air,would all melt rapidly in the spring, causingfurious inundation of every great river for amonth or six weeks. The snow being then allthawed, except what lay upon the highest peaksin regions of nearly perpetual frost, the riverswould be supplied during the summer only byfountains, and the feeble tricklings on sunnydays from the high snows. The Rhone, undersuch circumstances, would hardly be larger,in summer, than the Severn, and many Swissvalleys would be left almost without mois-ture. All these calamities are prevented bythe peculiar Alpine structure which has beendescribed. The broken rocks and the slidingsnow of the high peaks, instead of being dashed


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ILLUSTRATIVE: MOUNTAINS. 99at once to the vales, are caught upon the deso-late shelves, or shoulders, which everywheresurround the central crests. The soft bankswhich terminate these shelves, traversed by nofalling fragments, clothe themselves with richestwood, while the masses of snow heaped uponthe ledge above them, in a climate neither sowarm as to thaw them quickly in the spring,nor so cold as to protect them from all thepower of the summer sun, either form them-selves into glaciers, or remain in slowly wastingfields even to the close of the year,in eithercase supplying constant, abundant, and regularstreams to the villages and pastures beneath,and to the rest of Europe, noble and navigablerivers.Now, that such a structure is the best and

wisest possible,* is indeed sufficient reasonfor its existence, and to many people it mayseem useless to question farther respecting itsorigin. But I can hardly conceive any onestanding face to face with one of these towersof central rock, and yet not also asking himself,* Of course, I had seen every other tried before

giving this favourable judgment.


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100 FRONDES AGRESTES.Ts this indeed the actual first work of theDivine Master, on which I gaze? Was thegreat precipice shaped by His finger, as Adamwas shaped out of the dust ? Were its clefts andledges carved upon it by its Creator, as theletters were on the tables of the law, and was itthus left to bear its eternal testimony to Hisbeneficence among these clouds of Heaven?Or is it the descendant of a long race ofmountains, existing under appointed laws ofbirth and endurance, death and decrepitude?There can be no doubt as to the answer. Therock itself answers audibly by the murmurof some falling stone or rending pinnacle. Itis not as it was once. Those waste leaguesaround its feet are loaded with the wrecks ofwhat it was. On these perhaps, of all moun-tains, the characters of decay are written mostclearly ; around these are spread most gloomilythe memorials of their pride, and the signs oftheir humiliation.What then were they once ? The only answer

is yet again Behold the cloud 36. There are many spots among the inferior


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ILLUSTRATIVE : MOUNTAINS. 101ridges of the Alps, such as the Col de Ferret,the Col d'Anterne, and the associated ranges ofthe Buet, which, though commanding prospectsof great nobleness, are themselves very nearlytypes of all that is most painful to the humanmind. Vast wastes of mountain ground,*covered here and there with dull grey grassor moss, but breaking continuall

Ruskin 1875: Fronde Sag Rest Esr

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