At last, the higher snows alone are livid with a last
faint tinge of light, and all beneath is quite white. But the tide
of glory turns. While the west grows momently more pale, the eastern
heavens flush with afterglow, suffuse their spaces with pink and
violet. Daffodil and tenderest emerald intermingle; and these colours
spread until the west again has rose and primrose and sapphire
wonderfully blent, and from the burning skies a light is cast upon the
valley--a phantom light, less real, more like the hues of molten
gems, than were the stationary flames of sunset. Venus and the moon
meanwhile are silvery clear. Then the whole illumination fades like
magic.
All the charms of which I have been writing are combined in a
sledge-drive. With an arrowy gliding motion one passes through the
snow-world as through a dream. In the sunlight the snow surface
sparkles with its myriad stars of crystals. In the shadow it ceases
to glitter, and assumes a blueness scarcely less blue than the sky.
So the journey is like sailing through alternate tracts of light
irradiate heavens, and interstellar spaces of the clearest and most
flawless ether. The air is like the keen air of the highest glaciers.
As we go, the bells keep up a drowsy tinkling at the horse's head.
The whole landscape is transfigured--lifted high up out of
commonplaceness. The little hills are Monte Rosas and Mont Blancs.
Scale is annihilated, and nothing tells but form.
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