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was first stirred beneath this soil? One is tempted to believe that those two points-the tops of Carter and Madison-were lifted up gently from the level land at first, and held off from each other just far enough to let the forests droop in the most gracious folds from them, and meet with trails soft as velvet upon the valley. Can we wonder that the love of elegant dress is a permanent passion in half the human race, when the dumb hills are attired in apparel so shapely, and so richly and variously hued? The ballrooms of Saratoga could not outshine the splendors of color displayed in a season upon Mount Carter. And is human nature to be abased by the gorgeous costumes that counterfeit the most precious satins, cloths, and shawls, which the tilted granite is allowed to wear?

Ah, and what intensity of expression in the ragged crest of Adams, which starts out, it may be, from a melting fog, and overtops the gentler slopes of Madison; and what energy in those far-running southward braces of Washington, engraved perhaps upon a white cloud-background,-each worn to the rocky bone by the torrents of summer, and the slower but more penetrative wrath of winter cold! It is indeed rich music for the eye that is afforded by the quintette of summits seen from Mount Surprise; and one who can detect some dim analogy between tones and forms will find increased delight here in seeing how, in the mountain choir, the sharp soprano of Madison is brought into contrast and balance with the heavy bass of Washington, and how the body of the harmony is filled up by the tenor of Adams, the baritone of Jefferson, and the alto of Clay, whose bulk and lines are merely suggested by their crests that jut into view.

But a sweeter melody still is offered to the eye that turns from the great hills to the Androscoggin intervale. It is the strength that "setteth fast the mountains" which appeals to us on the west; on the east we have the smile of the landscape, the fluent curves of a river moving "like charity among its children dear," the sweet phrases which man has added to the wild natural music, the colors vivid and tender that glow upon winding miles of shorn grass and ripening grain. No mountain so high as Washington can offer, in its

comprehensive pageant, any one passage so lovely as this nearer view from Mount Surprise of the farms that border the Androscoggin. Here the infinite goodness responds by appropriate symbols to the infinite majesty which is represented by the barren hills. The spirit of the eighteenth psalm seems to brood over the torn and desolate ridge where the thunder-clouds crouch; but it is the eloquence of the sixty-fifth that streams from the softer section of the scene below: "Thou visitest the earth, and waterest it: thou greatly enrichest it with the river of God, which is full of water: thou preparest them corn, when thou hast so provided for it. Thou waterest the ridges thereof abundantly: thou settlest the furrows thereof: thou makest it soft with showers: thou blessest the springing thereof. Thou crownest the year with thy goodness; and thy paths drop fatness. They drop upon the pastures of the wilderness; and the little hills rejoice on every side. The pastures are clothed with flocks; the valleys also are covered over with corn; they shout for joy; they also sing."

It is often true, however, so far as the stimulant of the poetic mood is concerned, that a part is greater than the whole. One subordinate feature of a landscape may prove more fruitful of inspiration than the general splendor in which it is inclosed. In the forest of Mount Surprise we meet, here and there, a pine or spruce veiled with drooping moss. The last walk it was our fortune to enjoy through the ascending aisle of the woods, was in company with the writer of the following exquisite poem, to which, however, we must take this exception,—that if its wish were fulfilled, a life would be cancelled from the conscious world, strong in its native stock as the oak, and graceful in its culture as the elm. The author is Rev. Dr. Hedge of Brookline, to whom also we are indebted for the translations from Goethe on pp. 93 and 154.

I would I were yon lock of moss

Upon the tresséd pine,

Free in the buxom air to toss,

And with the breeze to twine.

High over earth my pendent life

From care and sorrow free,

Should reck no more the creature's strife
With time and Deity.

No thought to break my perfect peace,
Born of the perfect whole,

From thought and will a long release,-
A vegetable soul.

Thus would I live my bounded age

Far in the forest lone,

Erased from human nature's page,

Once more the Godhead's own.

And now we must ask the reader's attention to the view from the summit of

MOUNT HAYES,

which is so remarkable that it should by no means be passed by. This is part of the record which the writer once made of his first acquaintance with that view, in company with the artist whose sketches are engraved for this volume.

"Mount Hayes takes its name from the excellent woman whom visitors in Gorham, some three years since, have occasion to remember with gratitude as a hostess of the hotel. It is now her monument. You remember it, doubtless, as the scarred and savage eminence that rises pretty sharply from the eastern bank of the Androscoggin, and directly overlooks the Alpine House. Its height is probably not far from twenty-five hundred feet. Two huge ledges of bare and jagged rock, some two miles apart, that clamp it to the valley, look like the carved paws of a colossal lion in repose. Over it the desolate crest soars like a bald eagle's head and beak; so that it sits a monstrous griffin overlooking the village, and commanding the sweep of the river for twenty miles. The ancient mythology pictures the griffin as the guardian of hidden treasures; and in this sense also the mountain admirably fulfils the symbolism of its form.

"I had heard frequently from some of the old settlers here that the mountain was remarkable for bears, blueberries, and views, and desired to make the ascent of it last year; but no good opportunity offered when a guide could go. The other day, an artist friend of mine here was told that if we could get across the Androscoggin, about a mile above the Alpine House, we should find a sled-path to

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the summit, and could easily reach it in an hour and a half. This determined my friend and myself to start about ten in the hot forenoon, with the hope of bringing back a memory full of beauty to a rather late dinner. The paddling across the hurrying river by a backwoods-Charon, in a boat of quite primitive structure,-being three pieces of rough pine board nailed together, with liberal provision for

leaks,-w -was deciededly intresting, especially for the picture it gave us of Mount Moriah, rising directly from the cool and curving flood, that seems to bend out of its track to meet the stream which pours down from those deep green dells. No excursion could have a more charming commencement.

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"On the other side of the Androscoggin, we found the hint of a path that led us to the first ledge; but there all trace of it ceased. The heat was torrid. Should we return? We had taken no luncheon; we were not sure of finding water; we had no guide ;—before us was a wall of forest, with here and there a patch of ledge protruding through it, from which we might make an observation. So in the hope of a large dividend at the summit, we determined to invest liberally in a scramble, and started on a bee-line' for the crest. My dear editorial friend, a young forest looks poetic in the distance, especially if it is a birch one, and steeps itself every evening in yellow sunset light. But attempt to go through one, where no path has been bushed out, and your admiration will be cut down, as Carlyle would say, some stages.' What with dead trunks that promise foothold, and in which you slump to the knees; chevaux de frise of great charred logs that bristle with sharp black spikes; openings of tall purple fireweed, hiding snags that pierce through your boots; snaky underbrush that trips you; intertangled young limbs that fly back and switch your eyes; rocks half covered with moss that wrench the ankles; slanting sticks that lie in wait for your pantaloons, and force you to deduct a large tare before you get your accurate net benefits from the expedition ;-the poetry of wild forest-clambering turns out pretty serious prose. It is about like fighting a phalanx of porcupines. For nearly three hours of a sultry midday, we were wrestling thus with the wilderness, without water, in order to win the secret of its summit.

"But we were trebly rewarded by the vision that burst upon us, as we stood on the crown of the rocky precipice that plunges from the mountain peak. The rich upland of Randolph, over which the ridges of Madison and Adams heave towards the south, first holds

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