‘I believe your exegesis is right. The scene is glorious. Summer in all her loveliness has no dress like this. She has no hues equal to the play of colors on these walls and columns of ice, extending far as the eye can reach down the ravine, and towering in more than colossal grandeur. The water is in treble volume, and force and voice; and as it rolls its white folds of spotless foam down the valley, it reminds one of the great white throne of the Revelations, and this wavy foam the folds of the robe that filled the temple.’
‘It is inexpressibly, oppressively beautiful, Sear Leaf!’
‘Speaking of Revelation, how accurate is the description in Manfred of this scene!’
‘Let me hear it:’
‘It is not noon; the sun-bow’s rays still arch
The torrent with the many hues of heaven,
And roll the sheeted silver’s waving column
O’er the crags headlong perpendicular,
And fling its lines of foaming light along
And to and fro, like the pale courser’s tail,