"The lady must have had plenty of money, and she loved company and show;
I cannot but think, therefore, that she had her design in choosing such a
solitary place: its loveliness would subserve her intent of enthralling
thoroughly heart and soul and brain of the fools she had in her toils. I
doubt, however, if the fools were alive to any beauty but hers, if they
were not dead to the wavings of God's garment about them. Was I ever
truly aware of the presence of those peaks that dwelt alone with their
whiteness in the desert of the sky--awfully alone--of the world, but not
with the world? I think we saw nothing save with our bodily eyes, and
very little with them; for we were blinded by a passion fitter to wander
the halls of Eblis, than the palaces of God.
"The chalet stood in a little valley, high in the mountains, whose
surface was gently undulating, with here and there the rocks breaking
through its rich-flowering meadows. Down the middle of it ran the deep
swift stream, swift with the weight of its fullness, as well as the steep
slope of its descent. It was not more than seven or eight feet across,
but a great body of water went rushing along its deep course. About a
quarter of a mile from the chalet, it reached the first of a series of
falls of moderate height and slope, after which it divided into a number
of channels, mostly shallow, in a wide pebbly torrent-bed.
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