the natural and moral sublime

UPDATE: Transcribed from the St Louis Beacon, the first known printing of A Tale of the Rocky Mountains.

Below, the beginning of "A Tale of the Rocky Mountains" by "BORDERER," as first printed in the St. Louis Beacon, January 13, 1831. 

Late in the afternoon of a spring day, and many years ago, a solitary Indian might have been seen threading the dangerous intricacies of the ascent of one of the Rocky Mountains.  He followed the deep worn chasm of the mountain brook; for a moment he stood where often the flood of waters bore in awful confusion, rocks, earth, and trees; at the next, with the activity of a chamois hunter, he cleared a dreadful space; a moment's contemplation of the void below bounded by peaks of jutting rock, must have reeled the brain of the most hardy.  That rock has stood the monument of ages and man's passing race; and it threatens his destruction at every step.

But, no!  to the mind that can grasp the comparison of the natural and moral sublime, he appears an object of more grandeur than earth in its most imposing attitudes; that small form containing a soul that soars to comprehend the mechanism of a system of worlds, and places the precipice that threatens his animal life in the low places of its sphere. 

Reprinted, with significant revisions in the
Military and Naval Magazine of the United States 6 (September 1835):

A TALE OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS.

Late in the afternoon of a spring day, and many years ago, a solitary Indian might have been seen toiling at the dangerous ascent of one of the Rocky Mountains.  He followed the deep-worn chasm of the mountain torrent, where often the flood of waters bore in awful confusion, earth, rocks, and trees.  Now, with the nerve of a chamois hunter, he cleared a fearful space: a moment's contemplation of the void below, bounded by the naked jutting rocks, must have reeled the brain of the most hardy.  And now he traces the projecting ledge of the mountain precipice, ('twas never meant for a path;) below him is death; a look must cost his life; above him vertical granite; not a vine or twig to help him to life; his fingers grow to the rocks! his eagle gaze, if a moment averted, were dimmed; that step may save him! it is made! he is safe.

And later interpolated as the romance of "SHA-WAH-NOW" in the magazine series, "Scenes and Adventures in the Army: Sketches of Indians, and Life Beyond the Border" Southern Literary Messenger 8 (July 1842).

Finally incorporated with most of the Southern Literary Messenger material in the military memoir of Philip St George Cooke, Scenes and Adventures in the Army (Philadelphia: Linday & Blakiston, 1857).

Notice among other revisions the deletion of any reference to "the natural and moral sublime."  The theme possibly reveals the origins of the tale in a grammar school composition.  Harriet Beecher Stowe recalled writing her first school composition at the age of nine, on the assigned topic, "The Difference between the Natural and Moral Sublime." 

The deleted reference to "the natural and moral sublime" shows that "Borderer" in 1831 was still employing schoolboy (and schoolgirl) themes and modes of expression.