The
scenery which presented itself on all sides, although scarcely
entitled to be called grand, had about it an indescribable and to me a
delicious aspect of dreary desolation. The solitude seemed
absolutely virgin. I could not help believing that the green sods
and the gray rocks upon which I trod had been trodden never before
by the foot of a human being. So entirely secluded, and in fact
inaccessible, except through a series of accidents, is the entrance of
the ravine, that it is by no means impossible that I was indeed the
first adventurer- the very first and sole adventurer who had ever
penetrated its recesses.
"The thick and peculiar mist, or smoke, which distinguishes the
Indian Summer, and which now hung heavily over all objects, served, no
doubt, to deepen the vague impressions which these objects created. So
dense was this pleasant fog that I could at no time see more than a
dozen yards of the path before me. This path was excessively
sinuous, and as the sun could not be seen, I soon lost all idea of the
direction in which I journeyed. In the meantime the morphine had its
customary effect- that of enduing all the external world with an
intensity of interest. In the quivering of a leaf- in the hue of a
blade of grass- in the shape of a trefoil- in the humming of a bee- in
the gleaming of a dew-drop- in the breathing of the wind- in the faint
odors that came from the forest- there came a whole universe of
suggestion- a gay and motley train of rhapsodical and immethodical
thought.
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