I recollect lying on the floor. I recollect the people of the house, who
had been awoke by my shriek and my fall, rushing in and calling to me. I
could not rise or answer. I recollect a doctor; and talk about brain fever
and delirium. It was true. I was in a raging fever. And my fancy, long
pent-up and crushed by circumstances, burst out in uncontrollable wildness,
and swept my other faculties with it helpless away over all heaven and
earth, presenting to me, as in a vast kaleidoscope, fantastic symbols of
all I had ever thought, or read, or felt.
That fancy of the mountain returned; but I had climbed it now. I was
wandering along the lower ridge of the Himalaya. On my right the line of
snow peaks showed like a rosy saw against the clear blue morning sky.
Raspberries and cyclamens were peeping through the snow around me. As I
looked down the abysses, I could see far below, through the thin veils of
blue mist that wandered in the glens, the silver spires of giant deodars,
and huge rhododendrons glowing like trees of flame. The longing of my
life to behold that cradle of mankind was satisfied.
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