repose beside the fiery vigor of volcanic cones like Cotopaxi, and the terrible ghastly ruin of a gulf of burning craters like Sangay.
And now, let us dally no more with questions, but look and wonder before the supreme object of the picture, — this miracle of vastness, and peace, and beauty, not merely white snow against blue sky, but Light against Heaven. No poetry of words can fitly paint its symmetry, its stateliness, the power of its rising slowly and strongly, from chasm and cloud, up with pearly shadows and coruscating lights, up with golden sunshine upon its crown, up into the empyrean. The poetry is before our eyes. A look can read it. For this is what great Art alone can do, and triumphs in doing. It gives a vision of glory, and every one who beholds it is a poet.
But we can study the architecture of this firm fabric. Consider on what a base it stands, — what buttresses it has. No threatening crag is this that may be sapped. Here toppling ruin will never befall. We are safe in our Paradise at the Heart of the Andes.
Observe the method of its growth. First, across and closing the purple glen to the left, rises a rosy purple mountain, as it were an experiment of form toward the grander edifice. A few spots of snow rest among its tyro domes and pinnacles. It is not, then, a petty structure. The snow tells us that, if it stood where stands the shadowy mountain of the middle background, it would rise far above that cloud-compelling height.
