We owe a
deep debt of gratitude to everything which enables us to rise above
depressing and enslaving circumstances, which brings us nearer in some
way or other to what is eternal in the universe, and which makes us
know that, whether we live or die, suffer or enjoy, life and gladness
are still strong in the world. On this account, the proper attitude
of the soul among the Alps is one of silence. It is almost impossible
without a kind of impiety to frame in words the feelings they inspire.
Yet there are some sayings, hallowed by long usage, which throng
the mind through a whole summer's day, and seem in harmony with its
emotions--some portions of the Psalms or lines of greatest poets,
inarticulate hymns of Beethoven and Mendelssohn, waifs and strays not
always apposite, but linked by strong and subtle chains of feeling
with the grandeur of the mountains. This reverential feeling for
the Alps is connected with the Pantheistic form of our religious
sentiments to which I have before alluded. It is a trite remark, that
even devout men of the present generation prefer temples _not_
made with hands to churches, and worship God in the fields more
contentedly than in their pews. What Mr. Ruskin calls 'the instinctive
sense of the divine presence not formed into distinct belief' lies at
the root of our profound veneration for the nobler aspects of mountain
scenery. This instinctive sense has been very variously expressed by
Goethe in Faust's celebrated confession of faith, by Shelley in the
stanzas of 'Adonais,' which begin 'He is made one with nature,' by
Wordsworth in the lines on Tintern Abbey, and lately by Mr.
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