The hymns of birds, too, have no moral counterpart in the retreat
to the roost, or the flight to the nest, and these invariably accompany
the advent of the day, until the appearance of the sun itself -
"Bathes in deep joy, the land and sea."
All this, however, Hutter and Hurry witnessed without experiencing
any of that calm delight which the spectacle is wont to bring, when
the thoughts are just and the aspirations pure. They not only
witnessed it, but they witnessed it under circumstances that had a
tendency to increase its power, and to heighten its charms. Only
one solitary object became visible in the returning light that had
received its form or uses from human taste or human desires, which
as often deform as beautify a landscape. This was the castle,
all the rest being native, and fresh from the hand of God. That
singular residence, too, was in keeping with the natural objects
of the view, starting out from the gloom, quaint, picturesque and
ornamental. Nevertheless the whole was lost on the observers, who
knew no feeling of poetry, had lost their sense of natural devotion
in lives of obdurate and narrow selfishness, and had little other
sympathy with nature, than that which originated with her lowest
wants.
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