Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 2.djvu/866

858 a very quaint form, and lies in a circlet of lakes, three of which in a chain are named from the mountain. The way by which the mountain is reached is through these lakes, and their outlet, which empties into Raquette Lake. I had determined to remain in the woods some weeks, and now concluded to return, as soon as I had seen the rest of the party on their way home, and take up quarters on Raquette Lake for the rest of my stay.

That night we camped at the foot of Forked Lake, and not one of the party will ever forget the thunder-storm that burst on us in our woods-encampment among the tall pines, two of which, near us, were struck by the lightning. I tried in vain, when we were quiet for the night, to get some information on the subject of my attraction to the Blue Mountain. My dæmon appeared remote and made no responses. It seemed as if, knowing my resolution to stay alone there, it had resolved to be silent until I was without any cause for interruption of our colloquies. Save the consciousness of its remote attendance, I felt no recurrence of my past experience, until, having seen my friends on the road to civilization again, I left Martin's with Steve and Carlo for my quarters on the Raquette. We hurried back up the river as fast as four strong arms could propel our light boat, and resting, the second night, at Wilbur's, on Raquette Lake, I the next morning selected a site for a camp, where we built a neat little bark-house, proof against all discomforts of an elemental character, and that night I rested under my own roof, squatter though I was. The dæmon seemed in no haste to renew our former intimate intercourse,—for what reason I could not divine; but a few days after my settling, days spent in exploring and planning, it resumed suddenly its functions. It came to me out on the lake, where I had paddled to enjoy the starlight in the delicious evening, when the sky was filled with luminous vapor, through which the stars struggled dimly, and in which the landscape was almost as clearly visible as by moonlight.

"Well!" said I, familiarly, as I felt it take its place by my side, "you have come back."

"Come back!" it replied; "will you never get beyond your miserable ideas of space, and learn that there is no separation but that of feeling, no nearness but that of sympathy? If you had cared enough for us, we should have been with you constantly."

I was anxious to get to the subject of present interest, and did not stop to discuss a point which, in one, and the highest sense, I admitted.

"What," I asked, "was that impulse which urged me to go to the Blue Mountain? Shall I find there anything supernatural?"

"Anything supernatural? What is there above Nature, or outside of it?"

"But nothing is without cause; and for an emotion so strong as I experienced, on the sight of those mountains, there must have been one."

"Very likely! if you go after it, you will find it. You probably expect to find some beautiful enchantress keeping her court on the mountain-top, and a suite of fairies."

I started, for, absurd as it may seem, that very idea, half-formed, undeveloped from very shame at my superstition, had rested in my mind.

"And," said I, at a loss what to say, "are there no such things possible?"

"All things are possible to the imagination."

"To create?"

"Most certainly! Is not creation the act of bringing into existence? and does not your Hamlet exist as immortally as your Shakspeare? The only true existence, is it not that of the Idea? Have you not seen the pines transfigured?"

"And if I imagined a race of fairies inhabiting the Blue Mountain, should I find them?"

"If you imagined them, yes! But the imagination is not voluntary; it works to supply a necessity; its function is creation, and creation is needed only to fill a vacuum. The wild Arab, feeling his