Influenced by the scene, they pass on in silence along the path which leads round the foot of the cone-like hill toward the cottage by the higher Falls, whose deep roar now breaks upon the ear, and rolls through the motionless forest. Thus then the Lady to Sear Leaf:
‘Has God any other temple like this?’
‘Never a one, reared by any hand save His!’
‘What organ ever rolled so deep a bass through arches so grand! See how the sunlight glances amid the gnarled branches of the roof, and here and there falls through on the floor below; making those low icy forms look like the shrubs of the valley of diamonds in the eastern story. Just so it is that the light of truth struggles through entangled and dark mazes of human error, and here and there illuminate some humble mind with its pure ray; while others, tall and strong and haughty, like those old trees, are left darkened.’
‘You have a noble nature, and should be nobly mated. But here we are upon the brow of the hill which leads to the cottage. The snow is deeper here: gently, now; a slide down this bank might check even your enthusiasm. Take my arm; there—so; safe at the bottom! Let us go forward upon the platform of the cottage over the Falls. No bench? Well, sit upon my cloak.’
‘No, I won’t.’
‘You must. There; be pleased to sit and rest. What a gorgeous display of frost-work and flashing light on fantastic forms of ice! How the spray rises and waves and changes its hues in the sun! And the trees, how delicately each sprig of the evergreens is covered with a dress so white and shining ‘as no fuller on earth could whiten them.’’
‘Even so, Sear Leaf; And I love to think that the same one who wove the glorious dress to which you refer, to gladden Peter, made this dazzling drapery, and gave us eyes to look upon it. It recalls to my mind the song of the Seraphim: ‘The whole earth is full of thy glory!’’
‘Did they not, Lady, sing of a moral glory?’
‘No; decidedly no. There was no moral glory in the earth when they sang that song. Even the chosen people of God are then and there denounced as having abandoned Him. No; it was the glory of the works of His hands, such as we look upon this day, which elicited their praise.’