But why should I style them dreams? There are many valid reasons. To the writer, the past is all a dream! But of this the world knows nothing, nor would it care to know. The scenes described are distant, and distance itself is dreamy! What can be more like the color of a dream than yon long range of mountains fading into the sky behind its veil of mist! Let us ascend this lofty peak! ’Tis sunset! Cast your glance westward, where “——Parting day Dies like the Dolphin——.” The sun slowly retires behind the far off hills. Inch after inch, the shadows climb the summit where you stand. He is gone!—yet you are not in darkness! His beams, which reach you not, still gild the motionless clouds, and these emblems of obscurity reflect on you the memory of his glory:—and, oh! how exquisitely pencilled in the clear obscure stands forth yon range, clad with towering trees, where each particular branch, and almost every leaf, seems separately portrayed against the paling sky,—_miraculously near_! This is a vision of the _past_. Its strength is owing to the depth of shade,—not to the intensity of light:—for, when the sun at noon-day, poured its full tide of rays upon the scene, the sky was brighter, and rock and river glinted back the flashing beams until the eye was pained:—but where were then those lines of beauty? The details were distinct. Then you might gaze on the forest in its reality, and could almost penetrate its secret paths, despite their dark green canopy!—but where were the broad effect, the bold, sweeping outlines that now give unity and grandeur to the fading scene? The _soul_ of creation is before you—more palpable than _its mere_ corporeal elements are hid from sight. It resembles the master-piece of some great artist whose pencil portrays, in simple light and shade, a noble picture. All there is _life_! Those countenances!—those various attitudes are _speaking_! The shrubbery waves in the wind, and over the tremulous waters of that lovely lake, the very song of yonder mountain maid seems floating _upon the canvass_. Do you not hear the music? ’Tis but a dream of boyhood! Approach the painting! There is no _real_ outline there! The brush has been rudely dashed athwart the piece surcharged with heavy colors. Masses of many hues roughen the surface, and all is meaningless confusion. Stand back a-pace! Again the cottage, lake and mountain start from the surface, _truer than truth itself_. Panting with sighs and toil, man reaches by painful steps, the mid-land height of life, as we have climbed this summit, and when fainting by the way, it has been _his_ resource, as _ours_, to cast himself upon the bosom of his “mother,” earth[2]—look back and _dream_! We have no other mother now! But when you nestled to a parent’s breast, and felt the present impress of her love, knew you its breadth and depth as this vision shows it?