can express. High above the strength of his earth God has set the beauty of his earth; — glory of snow above the might of adamant.
When the observer estimates that the Dome is at least sixty miles from his point of view, he will be able to measure the power of its mass and the proportions of its details. Each sunny dimple thus expands to an abyss. Seeming ripples on the snow-fields become enormous mounds heaped up by the whirlwinds that riot forever among those dry, unfathomable drifts, the accumulation of ages. Below the first sheer slope on the front of the summit is a chasm between the precipice and a bare elbow of rock, — a lovely spot of pearly shadow. Measure that chasm with the eye; — into it you might toss Ossa and see it flounder through the snow and drown; and Pelion upon Ossa would only protrude a patch of its dishevelled poll. Things are done in the large among the Andes.
Clouds close the view on each slope of the Dome; on the left touched with orange, where they reflect the glow of the peak; on the right gray and shadowy. They half disclose and half conceal a mysterious infinite on either side. An isolated silvery aiguille juts out of this obscure, a contrast in its color and keen form to the Dome, and hinting at successions of unseen peaks beyond. A slender stratus cloud comes in with subtle effect across the vapors below the summit, — a quiet level for the eye, where all the lines are curved and tending upward.
