THERE is a bench near the verge of the Platform where, when you sit at evening, the hollow-sounding air comes up from the vast vale below, like the restless murmurs of the ocean. Anchor yourself here for a while, reader, with me. It being the evening of the national anniversary, a few patriotic individuals are extremely busy in piling up a huge pyramid of dried pine branches, barrels covered with tar, and kegs of spirits, to a height of some fifteen or twenty feet--perhaps higher. A bonfire is premeditated. You shall see anon, how the flames will rise. The preparations are completed; the fire is applied. Hear how it crackles and hisses! Slowly but spitefully it mounts from limb to limb, and from one combustible to another, until the whole welkin is a-blaze, and shaking as with thunder! It is a beautiful sight. The gush of unwonted radiance rolls in effulgent surges adown the vale. How the owl hoots with surprise at the interrupting light! Bird of wisdom, it is the Fourth! and you may well add your voice to swell the choral honors of the time. How the tall old pines, withered by the biting scathe of Eld, rise to the view, afar and near--white shafts, bottomed in darkness, and standing like the serried spears of an innumerable army! The groups around the beacon are gathered together, but are forced to enlarge the circle of their acquaintance, by the growing intensity of the increasing blaze. Some of them, being ladies, their white robes waving in the mountain breeze, and the light shining full upon them, present, you observe, a beautiful appearance. The pale pillars of the portico flash fitfully into view, now seen and gone, like columns of mist. The swarthy African who kindled the fire regards it with perspiring face and grinning ivories; and lo! the man who hath mastered the quintupled glass of metamorphosed _eau-de-vie_, standing by the towering pile of flame, and, reaching his hand on high, he smiteth therewith his sinister pap, with a most hollow sound--the knell, as it were, of his departing reason. In short, he is making an oration! Listen to those voiceful currents of air, traversing the vast profound below the Platform! What a mighty circumference do they sweep! Over how many towns, and dwellings, and streams, and incommunicable woods! Murmurs of the dark, sources and awakeners of sublime imagination, swell from afar. You have thoughts of eternity and power here, which shall haunt you evermore. But we must be early stirrers in the morning. Let us to bed. * * * * *