I have settled onto lonely Alpine peaks. The earthly realm sinks precipitously right before my feet, so that no object is left within my reach to excite the organs of my sense of touch. The task of reporting is left to the eye alone, and it has many and varied things to report. To start with, grassy waves of earth bulge with colorful dappled flowers, begat by one season to disappear with the next. At the boundary of this meadow, far below, is a wood of dark spruces with countless upwardly striving points. But a light like a puff of air shimmers right atop it, for it is early summer; and new impulses break out powerfully to multiply daily the cubic content of the forest. At the edge of the wood, cows pasture. I know well that they do not hold still for even an instant, but for now their existence is announced only by tiny white points. When I lift my gaze to the cliff across, it first meets the waterfall, which sprays down over walls the size of houses and whose furious thunder drowns out every sound. While I saw and heard it recently from up close, and felt diffident awe before its monstrous force, now it seems but a soothing bright silver band through the dark, rugged wilderness. When the eye finally dives into the green bottom of the valley, it encounters a hut with shimmering white walls and a little cloud of smoke floating beside it, witness to the bustle of those living within.

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