midday
Sun and sky do their work of beauty upon earth , without heeding the ungracious return which she may make ; and a rich warm sunset flung over the hills and woods a delicious atmosphere of beauty , burnishing the dull heights and the gloomy pines with golden hues , far more bright , if for less highly valued by men , than the metallic treasures which lay beneath their masses . Invested by the lavish bounties of the sun , so soft , yet bright , so mild , yet beautiful , the waste put on an appearance of sweetness , if it did not rise into the picturesque . The very uninviting and unlovely character of the landscape , rendered the sudden effect of the sunset doubly effective , though , in a colder moment , the spectator might rebuke his own admiration with question of that lavish and indiscriminate waste which could clothe , with such glorious hues , a region so little worthy of such bounty ; even as we revolt at sight of rich jewels about the brows and neck of age and ugliness . The solitary group of pines , that , here and there , shot up suddenly like illuminated spires ; -- the harsh and repulsive hills , that caught , in differing gradations , a glow and glory from the same bright fountain of light and beauty ; -- even the low copse , uniform of height , and of dull hues , not yet quite caparisoned for spring , yet sprinkled with gleaming eyes , and limned in pencilling beams and streaks of fire ; these , all , appeared suddenly to be subdued in mood , and appealed , with a freshening interest , to the eye of the traveller whom at midday their aspects discouraged only . And there is a traveller -- a single horseman -- who emerges suddenly from the thicket , and presses forward , not rapidly , nor yet with the manner of one disposed to linger , yet whose eyes take in gratefully the softening influences of that evening sunlight . In that region , he who travelled at all , at the time of which we write , must do so on horseback . It were a doubtful progress which any vehicle would make over the blind and broken paths of that uncultivated realm .