LETTERS FROM AN OREGON RANCH
Such a blaze of beauty so near the sky seems passing strange to me coming from a level country, seems alien to this world, and I half believe it to be a celestial landslide. I look, and look, and am thrilled through every fibre of my being. I feel such excitement, buoyancy, exultation, I want to absorb it all, to catch the luminous picture with its wavering lights, its tremulous shadows, and fold it away in memory as a sort of sacred amulet, a charm to be brought from its hiding-place when the dull days come, as come they must in every human life.
“Katharine! Oh, Katharine!”
That’s Bert’s voice. “I’m coming!” I answered, as, clambering down, I turned for one last lingering look at those banners of scarlet and gold floating across that field of green, like the passing of some royal old-time cavalcade, and I thought that if I should hear the blast of a trumpet or the notes of a bugle, see prancing steeds with gay trappings, and catch a glimpse of the plumed heads of lords and ladies, followed by glittering knights with shining shields and lances, I should feel no surprise, but think it fitting pageantry for this “land o’ glamour,” where—
“The splendor falls on castle walls
And snowy summits old in story;
The long light shakes across the lakes,
And the wild cataract leaps in glory.”
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