“You must get over these fancies,” said the guide, “for I have brought you here that you might have the best possible view of the scene of that event I mentioned-and to tell you the whole story with the spot just under your eye.” “We are now,” he continued, in that particularizing manner which distinguished him-“we are now close upon the Norwegian coast-in the sixty-eighth degree of latitude-in the great province of Nordland-and in the dreary district of Lofoden. It was long before I could reason myself into sufficient courage to sit up and look out into the distance. In truth so deeply was I excited by the perilous position of my companion, that I fell at full length upon the ground, clung to the shrubs around me, and dared not even glance upward at the sky-while I struggled in vain to divest myself of the idea that the very foundations of the mountain were in danger from the fury of the winds. Nothing would have tempted me to within half a dozen yards of its brink. The “little cliff,” upon whose edge he had so carelessly thrown himself down to rest that the weightier portion of his body hung over it, while he was only kept from falling by the tenure of his elbow on its extreme and slippery edge-this “little cliff” arose, a sheer unobstructed precipice of black shining rock, some fifteen or sixteen hundred feet from the world of crags beneath us. Do you know I can scarcely look over this little cliff without getting giddy?” It took less than a single day to change these hairs from a jetty black to white, to weaken my limbs, and to unstring my nerves, so that I tremble at the least exertion, and am frightened at a shadow. You suppose me a very old man-but I am not. “Not long ago,” said he at length, “and I could have guided you on this route as well as the youngest of my sons but, about three years past, there happened to me an event such as never happened to mortal man-or at least such as no man ever survived to tell of-and the six hours of deadly terror which I then endured have broken me up body and soul. For some minutes the old man seemed too much exhausted to speak. We had now reached the summit of the loftiest crag. The ways of God in Nature, as in Providence, are not as our ways nor are the models that we frame any way commensurate to the vastness, profundity, and unsearchableness of His works, which have a depth in them greater than the well of Democritus. You should visit Browse Happy and update your internet browser today! The embedded audio player requires a modern internet browser.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |