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Page 196:-
[in]volving their summits, resting on their sides, or descending
to their base, and rolling among the vallies, as in a vast
furnace.- When the winds are high, they roar among the cliffs and
caverns, like a peal of thunder; then too the clouds are seen in
vast bodies, sweeping along the hills in gloomy greatness, while
the lake joins the tumult and tosses like a sea. But in calm
weather, the whole scene becomes new; the lake is a perfect
mirror; and the landscape in all its beauty, islands, fields,
woods, rocks, and mountains, is seen inverted and floating on its
surface.- I will now carry you to the top of a cliff, where if
you dare approach the ridge, a new scene of astonishment presents
itself, where the valley, lake, and islands seem lying at your
feet, where this expanse of water appears diminished to a little
pool, amidst the vast immeasurable objects that surround it: for
here the summits of more distant hills appear beyond those you
had already seen; and rising behind each other in successive
ranges, and azure groups of craggy and broken steeps, form an
immense and awful picture, which can only be expressed by the
image of a tempestuous sea of mountains.- Let me now conduct you
down again, to the valley, and conclude with one circumstance
more, which is, that a walk by still moonlight (at which time the
distant water-falls are heard in all their variety of sound)
among these enchanting dales, opens a scene of such delicate
beauty, repose, and solemnity, as exceeds all description.
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