A Hero of Our Times

I wasa reading a book " A Hero of Our Times". I couldn't help posting this particular para from that book. Felt wonderful reading this.
All was calm in heaven and on earth, calm as


within the heart of a man at the moment of

morning prayer; only at intervals a cool wind

rushed in from the east, lifting the horses' manes

which were covered with hoar-frost. We started

off. The five lean jades dragged our wagons

with difficulty along the tortuous road up Mount

Get. We ourselves walked behind, placing stones

under the wheels whenever the horses were spent.

The road seemed to lead into the sky, for, so far

as the eye could discern, it still mounted up and

up, until finally it was lost in the cloud which,

since early evening, had been resting on the summit

of Mount Get, like a kite awaiting its prey.

The snow crunched under our feet. The atmosphere

grew so rarefied that to breathe was painful;

ever and anon the blood rushed to my head,

but withal a certain rapturous sensation was

diffused throughout my veins and I felt a species

of delight at being so high up above the world.

A childish feeling, I admit, but, when we retire

from the conventions of society and draw close

to nature, we involuntarily become as children:

each attribute acquired by experience falls away

from the soul, which becomes anew such as it was

once and will surely be again. He whose lot it

has been, as mine has been, to wander over the

desolate mountains, long, long to observe their

fantastic shapes, greedily to gulp down the lifegiving

air diffused through their ravines -- he, of

course, will understand my desire to communicate,

to narrate, to sketch those magic pictures.