Would you have strength and rude might? The oak is, yonder, battered by a thousand storms, and covered with the rings of forgotten centuries. Splendor? The mountain banners of the crimson dogwood, red maple, yellow hickory and chestnut flout the sky—as though all the nations of the world had met in one great federation underneath the azure dome not built with hands, and clashed together there the variegated banners which once led them to war—now beckoning in with waving silken folds the thousand years of peace! Would you have beauty, and a tender delicacy of outline and fine coloring? Here is that too; for over all,—over the splendid emperors and humble princes, and the red, and blue, and gold, of oak, and hickory, and maple, droops that magical veil whereof we spoke—that delicate witchery, which lies upon the gorgeous picture like a spell, melting the headlands into distant figures, beckoning and smiling, making the colors of the leaves more delicate and tender—turning the autumn mountains into a fairy land of unimagined splendor and delight!
Extravagance is moderation looking upon such a picture.
Such a picture was unrolled before the four individuals who now took their way toward the fine hill to the west of the Bower of Nature, and they enjoyed its beauty, and felt fresher and purer for the sight.
"Isn't it splendid!" cried Fanny.
"Oh, yes!" Redbud said, gazing delightedly at the trees and the sky.
"Talk about the lowland," said Ralph, with patriotic scorn; "I tell you, my heart's delight, that there is nothing, anywhere below, to compare with this."
"Not at Richmond?—but permit me first to ask if your observation was addressed to me, sir?" said Miss Fanny, stopping.
"Certainly it was, my own,"
"I am not your own."
"Aren't you?"