The morning was misty, and the clouds were driven low athwart the mountains, forming, as Alice well said, pedestals on which their lofty heads were upreared. No wonder that people in mountainous and misty regions become imaginative, even superstitious. These forms, falling, rising, floating, over the eternal hills, susceptible of heavenly brightness, and deepening into the gloomiest of earth's shadows, spur on fancy and fear to act at will.
I shall not attempt, my friend, to describe this loveliest of all five-mile drives, from the Profile House to the Flume under the Eagle's Cliff, and old 'Prospero,' and beside his lake, and the Emerald Bowl, and then finished by the most curious, perhaps the most beautiful passage we have yet seen in the mountains--'The Flume'--thus called, probably, from a homely association with the race-way of a mill. The ravine is scarcely more than a fissure, probably made by the gradual wearing of the stream. I am told the place resembles the Bath of Pfeffers, in Switzerland. That world's wonder can scarcely be more romantically beautiful than our Flume.
The small stream, which is now reduced to a mere rill by the prolonged droughts, forces its way between walls of rock, upheaved in huge blocks like regular mason-work. Where you enter the passage, it may be some hundred yards wide, but it gradually contracts till you may almost touch either side with your outstretched arms. I only measured the height of the rock-walls with my eye--and a woman's measure is not very accurate--it may be one hundred or one hundred and fifty feet. Tall trees at the summits interlace, and where they have fallen, bridge the passage from one side to the other. Rich, velvety mosses cover the rocks like a royal garment, and wild vines, almost glittering in their autumnal brightness, lay on them like rich embroidery, so that we might say, as truly as was said of the magnificence of oriental nature, that 'Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these.'
But how, dear Susan, am I to show the picture to you--the sun glancing on the brilliant forest above us, and the indescribable beauty of the shrubs--golden, and crimson, and fine purple--that shot out of the crevices of the rocks? It is idle to write or talk about it; but only let me impress on you that this enchanting coloring is limited to the first days of October. I am afraid it may be said of scenery as has been said of lover's _tête-à-tête_ talks, that it resembles those delicate fruits which are exquisite where they are plucked, but incapable of transmission. As my father can never enjoy any thing selfishly, he was particularly pleased with the nice little foot-path won from the mountain-side, and the frequent foot-bridges that indicate the numbers that have taken this wild walk before us. My father fancies he enjoys our security from the summer swarms, but the social principle born in him masters his theories.