“From the first records that we possess of human life, a divine legend or a divine expectation looms before the souls of men, vague as to time, sometimes confused in outline, but ever striking some harmonious chord with their own needs and aspirations, and with the visible world about them.
“See those southern mountain-tops half hidden in a fleet of clouds just sailing over! Even we who know those heights from infancy can scarce be certain what is rock and what is mist in all those outlines. A cliff runs up in shadow, and masses of frowning vapors catch and carry its profile almost to the zenith. There is a rounded mountain where the snow never lingered; and a pile of snowy cumuli has settled on its grayness, and sharpened itself to a fairy pinnacle to mock our ice-peaks, and sifted its w
