But in full possession of the whole my mind gave out like a rocket that will not go off at the critical moment. I remember, once after finishing a very circumstantial treatise on the nature of heaven, being oppressed with a similar sensation of satiety,—that which hath not entered the heart of man to conceive must not be mapped out,— hence the wisdom of the dim, indefinite imagery of the Scriptures; they give you no hard outline, no definite limit; occasionally they part as do the clouds around these mountains, giving you flashes and gleams of something supernatural and splendid, but never fully unveiling.
But La Flegerc is doubtless the best point for getting a statistically accurate idea of how the Alps lie, of any easily accessible to ladies. This print you may regard more as a chart than as a picture.
Our guide pointed out every feature with praiseworthy accuracy. Midmost is Mont Blanc; on the right the Glacier de Boisson. Two or three little black peaks' in it are the sleeping-place for travellers ascending—the zigzag line shows their path. On the left of the mountain lies Mer de Glâce, with the Arveiron falling from it. The Arve crosses the valley below us; the fall is not indicated in this view. The undulations, which, on near view, are fifty feet high, seem mere ripples. Its purity is much soiled by the dust and debris which are constantly blown upon it, making it look in some places more like mud than ice. Its soiled masses contrast with the dazzling whiteness of the upper regions, just as human virtue exposed to the wind and dust of earth, with the spotless purity of Jesus.
[Illustration: of a long view of mountains with glacial valley in foreground. What follows is a rough ASCII interpretation:
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EXPLANATION OF ILLUSTRATION.
1. Mont Blanc. 2. Deme de Goute. 3. Aiguille de Goute. 4. Grand Plateau. 5. Les Grands Mulets. 6. Glacier de Tacconnaz. 7. Glacier de Boisson. 8. Mer de Glâce. 9. Montauvert.]
These mulets, which at this distance appear like black points, are needle cliffs rising in a desert of snow, thus—
[Illustration: of narrow jagged dark rocks about 70 feet across at the base and rising to about 80 feet from the base.]
Coming down I mentally compared Mont Blanc and Niagara, as one should compare two grand pictures in different styles of the same master. Both are of that class of things which mark eras in a mind's history, and open a new door which no man can shut. Of the two, I think Niagara is the most impressive, perhaps because those aerial elements of foam and spray give that vague and dreamy indefiniteness of outline which seems essential in the sublime. For this reason, while Niagara is equally impressive in the distance, it does not lose on the nearest approach—it is always mysterious, and, therefore, stimulating. Those varying spray wreaths, rising like Ossian's ghosts from its abyss; those shimmering rainbows, through whose veil you look; those dizzying falls of water that seem like clouds poured from the hollow of God's hand; and that mystic undertone of sound that seems to pervade the whole being as the voice of the Almighty,—all these bewilder and enchant the discriminative and prosaic part of us, and bring us into that cloudy region of ecstasy where the soul comes nearest to Him whom no eye hath seen, or can see. I have sometimes asked myself if, in the countless ages of the future, the heirs of God shall ever be endowed by him with a creative power, by which they shall bring into being things like these? In this infancy of his existence, man creates pictures, statues, cathedrals; but when he is made "ruler over many things," will his Father intrust to him the building and adorning of worlds? the ruling of the glorious, dazzling forces of nature?