THE RESTORATION OF HEART AND BROTHERHOOD.
There are three forms of Nature which especially expand and elevate our souls, release her from her heavy clay and earthy limits, and send her, exulting, to sail amidst the wonders and mysteries of the Infinite.
First; there is the variable Ocean of Air with its glorious banquet of light, its vapors, its twilight, and its shifting phantasmagoria of capricious creatures; coming into existence only to depart on the instant.
Second; there is the fixed Ocean of the earth, its undulating and vast waves as we see them from the tops of "earth o'er gazing mountains," the elevations which testify its antique mobility, and the sublimity of its mightier mountains clad in eternal snows.
Third; there is the Ocean of waters, less mobile than air, less fixed than earth, but docile, in its movements, to the celestial bodies.
These three things form the gamut by which the Infinite speaks to our souls. Nevertheless, let us point out some very notable differences. The air-Ocean is so mobile that we can scarcely examine it. It deceives, it decoys, it diverts; it dissipates and breaks up our chain of thought. For an instant, it is an immense hope, the day of an infinity;—anon, it is not so; all flies from before us, and our hearts are grieved, agitated, and filled with doubt. Why have I been permitted to see for a moment that immense flood of light? The memory of that brief gleaming must ever abide with me, and that memory makes all things here on Earth look dark.
The fixed ocean of the mountains is not thus transient or fugitive; on the contrary, it stops us at every step, and imposes upon us the necessity of a very hard, though wholesome, gymnastic. Contemplation here has to be bought at the price of the most violent action. Nevertheless, the opacity of the Earth, like the transparency of the air, frequently deceives and bewilders us. Who can forget that for ten years Ramon, in vain, sought to reach Mount Perdu, though often within sight of it?