CHAPTER III.
SUNSHINE AND STORM ON THE MOUNTAINS.
I would entreat your company
To see the wonders of the world.
Two Gentlemen of Verona.
"The spirit of the hills is action, that of the lowlands repose."[9] The plains, with their peaceful meadows and meandering streams, might almost be said to be asleep; but the mountains are wide awake. They are emphatically scenes of violent or rapid action. The wind blows more fiercely among the mountain-peaks than over the plains below; heat and cold are more extreme; and every process of change or decay seems quickened.
Avalanches, falls of rock, earthquakes, storms, and floods exhibit the more terrible aspects of the hills. Yet they have their gentler moods: witness the brightness of the starry sky overhead, and its intense blue by day, the wonderful sunrises and sunsets, the lovely effects of light and shade, of cloud and mist, the stillness and silence of the eternal snows in summer, and the beauty of the Alpine flower.
Let us see what those who know mountains best have to say about the wonderful things they have seen there. To begin with sunset and sunrise. Professor Bonney remarks,—
"Not the least interesting peculiarity of an Alpine sunset is the frequency with which its most beautiful effects are revealed quite unexpectedly. Often at the close of a rainy afternoon, the clouds, just before the sun goes down, break, roll up, sometimes disperse as if by magic, in the glory of those crimson rays that come darting upon them and piercing every rift. Many a time have I watched the vapours around a mountain-peak curling lightly upwards, and melting away into the sky, till at last the unclouded summit glowed with flushes of orange and rose, ere it grew pale and dead in its shroud of fresh-fallen snow."[10]
Here is a description by Professor Tyndall of a sunset witnessed in the neighbourhood of the Weisshorn:—
"As the day approached its end, the scene assumed the most sublime aspect. All the lower portions of the mountains were deeply shaded, while the loftiest peaks, ranged upon a semicircle, were fully exposed to the sinking sun. They seemed pyramids of solid fire; while here and there long stretches of crimson light drawn over the higher snowfields linked the glorified summits together. An intensely illuminated geranium flower seems to swim in its own colour, which apparently surrounds the petals like a layer, and defeats by its lustre any attempt of the eye to seize upon the sharp outline of the leaves. A similar effect has been observed upon the mountains; the glory did not seem to come from them alone, but seemed also effluent from the air around them. This gave them a certain buoyancy which suggested entire detachment from the earth. They swam in splendour which intoxicated the soul; and I will not now repeat in my moments of soberness the extravagant analogies which ran through my brain. As the evening advanced, the eastern heavens low down assumed a deep purple hue, above which, and blended with it by infinitesimal gradations, was a belt of red, and over this again zones of orange and violet. I walked round the corner of the mountain at sunset, and found the western sky glowing with a more transparent crimson than that which overspread the east. The crown of the Weisshorn was embedded in this magnificent light. After sunset the purple of the east changed to a deep neutral tint; and against the faded red which spread above it, the sun-forsaken mountains laid their cold and ghostly heads. The ruddy colour vanished more and more; the stars strengthened in lustre, until finally the moon and they held undisputed possession of the blue-grey sky."[11]