MARK TWAIN
quisitcncsscs, which have not yet been revealed to i
and he will by and by come to realize that such am
tain is a sublime mystery which is full-charged withbeaa-
tiful secrets, which only a lifetime of daily observation
can enable him to exhaust. Every slight drifting of fa
sun exposes to view for a moment a detail not discov-
ered before—the next moment it is invisible again and
may remain so for a year, possibly—until sun and at-
mosphere are exactly right for it once more. It may he a
shepherd's hut, high perched among the breezy heights-
it glows like a spark for an instant, and perhaps you miglt
watch that spot for a year and never see it again. Every
slight change of the  ceaselessly  changing atmosphere
washes the mountain with new distributions of light and
shade, new dreams of enchanting color.
In time the stranger to mountains finds the mastiih
Pilatus is a new mountain every day, and may be gloated
over with a new passion and a new delight every day and
all the days, forever; that it is always beautiful; that its
beauty is never twice the same, and never stales; that S
he could sit in its benignant presence all his life his wor-
ship would be as deep and strong at the last as it^™ at
the first; and the peace and healing it brought to his spirit
in the beginning would abide with him to the end.
I can't tell our land from other people's when I prowl
absent-mindedly around, so every now and then I step
over the line and get warned off. A survival of the holy
past. A thousand years ago when a man went poking
through a wood, he had to blow his horn every^ few
minutes as a protection. If he went silently he would be
suspected of being a thief and shot.
They feed us lavishly. How do they manage it at the
price? The languages used are German and French-
mainly German.
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