Church has dashed his magical sunshine in among them everywhere, in every glade and cleft, making the whole scope one far glimmer of tremulous scintillating leafage and burning blossoms. It is, as we feel, a countless grove, with many masses of thicket and careless tangles of drapery, such as we see on the left-hand foreground, and vistas of ambrosial gloom, such as open down the ferny dell on the right.
By the skirts of this forest we come to the village. A city of citizens we should feel to be out of place here. Volcanoes may be suitable companions for the turbulent abodes of men, as men now are. A melodramatic little Vesuvius, threatening when it is not outraging, always discontented, and often an insurgent malecontent, grumbling and bellowing, “full of sound and fury,” a demoniac and revengeful being, — this is a fit emblem, of a modern capital. But the solemn peaks of snow must stand among the giant solitudes. And yet, that we may not be quite deserted of human sympathy, the Artist has placed here a quiet hamlet grouped about its humble sanctuary. This is memorial enough of humanity, — we need not stand here bewildered as if we were its first discoverers. We have no uneasy sense of loneliness and exile. Brother men have lived and loved in this paradise. We do not require a crowd of minor associations such as help to glorify tame scenes of every-day life. Petty histories and romances are wanted to kindle fervors
