Every rock seems to glow with life. Some lean
back in majestic repose; others, absolutely
sheer, or nearly so, for thousands of feet,
advance their brows in thoughtful attitudes
beyond their companions, giving welcome to
storms and calms alike, seemingly conscious yet
heedless of everything going on about them,
awful in stern majesty, types of permanence, yet
associated with beauty of the frailest and most
fleeting forms; their feet set in pine-groves
and gay emerald meadows, their brows in the sky;
bathed in light, bathed in floods of singing
water while snow-clouds, avalanches, and the
winds shine and surge and wreathe about them as
the years go by, as if into these mountain
mansions Nature had taken pains to gather her
choicest treasures to draw her lovers into close
and confiding communion with her.