Selections from Previous Works: With Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals, and a Psalm of MontrealButler, Samuel
Philosophy
Selections from Previous Works: With Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals, and a Psalm of Montreal
Butler, Samuel
English literature -- 19th century -- Miscellanea; Romanes, George John, 1848-1894. Mental evolution in animals
And as I looked, I saw that this was not dust, but people coming in
crowds from the other side, but so small as to be visible at first only
as dust. And the people became musicians, and the mountainous
amphitheatre a huge orchestra, and the glaciers were two noble armies of
women-singers in white robes, ranged tier above tier behind each other,
and the pines became orchestral players, while the thick dust-like cloud
of chorus-singers kept pouring in through the clefts in the precipices in
inconceivable numbers. When I turned my telescope upon them I saw they
were crowded up to the extreme edge of the mountains, so that I could see
underneath the soles of their boots as their legs dangled in the air. In
the midst of all, a precipice that rose from out of the glaciers shaped
itself suddenly into an organ, and there was one whose face I well knew
sitting at the keyboard, smiling and pluming himself like a bird as he
thundered forth a giant fugue by way of overture. I heard the great
pedal notes in the bass stalk majestically up and down, as the rays of
the Aurora that go about upon the face of the heavens off the coast of
Labrador. Then presently the people rose and sang the chorus "Venus
Laughing from the Skies;" but ere the sound had well died away, I awoke,
and all was changed; a light fleecy cloud had filled the whole basin, but
I still thought I heard a sound of music, and a scampering-off of great
crowds from the part where the precipices should be. After that I heard
no more but a little singing from the chalets, and turned homewards. When
I got to the chapel of S. Carlo, I was in the moonlight again, and when
near the hotel, I passed the man at the mouth of the furnace with the
moon still gleaming upon his back, and the fire upon his face, and he was
very grave and quiet.
S. MICHELE AND MONTE PIRCHIRIANO. (EXTRACTS FROM CHAPTERS VII. AND X. OF
ALPS AND SANCTUARIES.)
The history of the sanctuary of S. Michele is briefly as follows:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account