"the ground beneath her hands"

Setting aside a slight chronology puzzle  -- When exactly was Ada married to Inman? Before her father died and before she received the letter from her solicitor?   If so, why did she consider going back to Charleston as a spinster in search of a husband? -- I'll confine this entry to my thoughts on books and windows.

Since the window in this chapter is next to Ada's "reading spot," I'll start with this passage:

At first, all she liked about the reading spot was the comfortable chair and the good light, but over the months she came to appreciate that the window's view offered some relief against the strain of such bleak stories [she's been reading Hawthorne], for when she looked up from the page, her eyes swept across the fields and rose on waves of foggy ridges to the blue bulk of Cold Mountain. The prospect from the reading chair confronted her with all the major shapes and colors of her current position. . . . the words this canted landscape spoke were less hushed, harsher [than a comparable view of the city of Charleston].

Ada's view out this window begs to be compared to Inman's view from his hospital window.  The view from the hospital window incites Inman to "travel" back to his home, even though we suspect his journey will not be as pleasant as the one described in William Bartram's book.  The view from Ada's window doesn't suggest travel; instead it "confronts" her with her "current position."

What we have in the juxtaposition of Ada's reading spot and the view she has outside the nearby window is a contrast between a world of ideas and the world of nature, of reality.  When grieving over her father, Ada thinks that "nature has a preference for a particular order: parents die, then children die. But it was a harsh design . . ."

Later in the chapter Ada will fall asleep in "the upper pasture" of her land after reading a novel. This view of nature is different: "Ada thought it the most peaceful place she had ever known." She will spend the night there, unharmed, and return to her house, having decided what she will do.

From any direction she came at it, the only conclusion that left her any hope of self-content was this: what she could see around her was all that she could count on. The mountains and the desire to find if she could make a satisfactory life of common things here -- together they seemed to offer the promise of a more content and expansive life.

She then remembers one of her father's sayings: "the path to contentment was to abide by one's own nature." Yet there is a catch: "But even if one had not the slightest hint toward finding what one's nature was, then even stepping out on the path [as her husband had done in the first chapter] became a snaggy matter."

Now it's time to bring in the other, Chinese Cold Mountain, the poet Han -Shan. The quote at the beginning of Frazier's novel is:

Men ask the way to Cold Mountain / Cold Mountain: there's no through trail.

The translation is by Gary Snyder [as proof of its reality, here's an illustration of the cover of my copy]. In his introduction Snyder says, "When he [Han-shan] talks about Cold Mountain he means himself, his home, his state of mind."

We now have a frame of reference (a window frame, perhaps?).  When looking out their respective windows, both Ada and Inman are confronting themselves, their true home, their state of mind.

Oh, by the way, Frazier doesn't quote the whole poem. But I'll save that for another day.