And where, in sublimer grandeur, snowclad, upreared against the nearer sun, are seen the towering Andes; to the poet's eye, the Cordillera lies no huge backbone of earth; but lives, a Rhœtus or Enceladus of the West, and
"over earth, air, wave,
Glares with his Titan eye."
This is but the calm, the dignified, the measured march of poetical conception. No wonder, when superstition steps in to prick on imagination, that all should vividly team with spirit life. Or that on Walpurgis' night, bush and streamlet and hill bustle and hurry, with unequal pace, towards the haunted Brocken: the heavy ones lag, indeed, a little, and are out of breath—
"The giant-snouted crags, ho! ho!
How they snort and how they blow!"
No wonder that to the dreamer's eye, in tranquil scenes of sylvan solitude the fawn of yore skipped in the forest dell, the dryad peeped from behind the shadowy oak, the fay tripped lightly over the moonlit sward.
But enough, and too much, of "your philosophy." Yet there are those still who may be the wiser for it. Let me sketch you a believer in the creed it would dispel.
He was a Spanish West-Indian—in his active years had been an extensive planter and slave-owner in Porto Rico. His manners were grave and dignified, as due to himself; courteous, as not denying equal or superior worth in others. He had seen the world, and spoke of it habitually with a fine irony. We had many a walk together. He was nervous about his health. One day, as our path lay along the banks of the Rhine, his conversation took this turn:—
"Do you believe in spirits?" he asked me; and upon my intimating the polite but qualified assent which suited the tone in which the question was put—"It may be superstition," he continued, "but I am often inclined to think that the pucks and goblins, which, as they say, once haunted these scenes, are not entirely visionary beings. You may smile—but this has happened, nay, often, happens, to me in my walks. I see a big clod before me in the path, and form the intention of avoiding it; when close to it, I step to one side, when pr-r-rt, my toe strikes against it."
I edged slightly away from my companion with the disagreeable impression that he was gone mad.
He went on;—"When I lived in the West Indies, the children of the slaves, about my house, were treated with great kindness and indulgence. They would come about my table at dessert, and often had little presents given them. So they grew into objects of affection. But, out of several, some, of course, took ill and died. I cannot tell you what grief it caused me. Then this has happened several times, after the death of one or other of my little favourites:—a bird has flown into the hall, and into my sitting-room, and has hovered near me, and, after a while, has flown away. For a few days it has regularly returned, and then finally disappeared. I thought it was tenanted by the spirit of my lost favourite, which had come to bid me farewell."