A pearl from heaven had burst, flinging its heart of fire into this chasm.

A stream of opal flowed out of the sun, to touch each peak, mesa, dome, parapet, temple and tower, cliff and cleft into the new-born life of another day.
I sat there for a long time and knew that every second the scene changed, yet I could not tell how.

I knew I sat high over a hole of broken, splintered, barren mountains; I knew I could see a hundred miles of the length of it, and eighteen miles of the width of it, and a mile of the depth of it, and the shafts and rays of rose light on a million glancing, many-hued surfaces at once; but that knowledge was no help to me.

I repeated a lot of meaningless superlatives to myself, and I found words inadequate and superfluous.

The spectacle was too elusive and too great.