Gala-Days [56]
by the vapors that gather behind it and reveal its low-lying outlines. Every little dimple of the hills has its chalice of mountain wine. The mist stretches above the ridge, a long, low, level causeway, solid as the mountains themselves, which buttress its farther side, a via triumpha, meet highway for the returning chariot of an emperor. It rears itself from the valleys, a dragon rampant and with horrid jaws. It flings itself with smothering caresses about the burly mountains, and stifles them in its close embrace. It trails along the hills, floating in filmy, parting gauze, scattering little flecks of pearl, fringing itself over the hollows, and hustling against a rocky breastwork that bars its onward going. It wreathes upward, curling around the peaks and veiling summits, whose slopes shine white in the unclouded sun. It shuts down gray, dense, sombre, with moody monotone. It opens roguishly one little loop-hole, through which--cloud above, cloud below, cloud on this side and on that--you see a sweet, violet-hued mountain-dome, lying against a background of brilliant blue sky,--just for one heart-beat, and it closes again, gray, sheeted, monotonous.
Leaving the valley, and driving along the Jefferson road, you have the mountains under an entirely new aspect. Before, they stood, as it were, endwise. Now you have them at broadside. Mile after mile you pass under their solid ramparts, but far enough to receive the idea of their height and breadth, their vast material greatness,--far enough to let the broad green levels of the intervale slide between, with here and there a graceful elm, towering and protective, and here and there a brown farm-house. But man's works show puny and mean beside nature, which seems spontaneous as a thought. Man's work is a toil; nature's is a relief. Man labors to attain abundance; nature, to throw off superabundance. The mountain-sides bristle with forests; man drags himself from his valley, and slowly and painfully levels an inch or two for his use; just a little way here and there a green field has crept up into the forest. The mountain-chin has one or two shaven spots; but for the greater part his beard is still unshorn. All along he sends down his boon to men. Everywhere you hear the scurrying feet of little brooks, tumbling pell-mell down the rocks in their frantic haste to reach a goal;--often a pleasant cottage-door, to lighten the burden and cool the brow of toil; often to pour through a hollow log by the wayside,--a never-failing beneficence and joy to the wearied, trusty horses. From the piazza of the Waumbeck House--a quiet, pleasant, home-like little hotel in Jefferson, and the only one, so far as I know, that has had the grace to take to itself one of the old Indian names in which the region abounds, Waumbeck, Waumbeck-Methna, Mountains of Snowy-Foreheads--a very panorama of magnificence unfolds itself. The whole horizon is rimmed with mountain-ranges. The White Mountain chain stands out bold and firm, sending greeting to his peers afar. Franconia answers clear and bright from the south-west; and from beyond the Connecticut the Green hills make response. Loth to leave, we turn away from these grand out-lying bulwarks to front on our return bulwarks as grand and massive, behind whose impregnable walls we seem shut in from the world forever.
A little lyric in the epos may be found in a side-journey to Bethel,--a village which no one ever heard of, at least I never did, till now; but when we did hear, we heard so much and so well that we at once started on a tour of exploration, and found--as Halicarnassus quotes the Queen of Sheba--there was more of it than we expected. The ride down in the train, if you are willing and able to stand on the rear platform of the rear car, is of surpassing beauty. The mountains seem to rise and approach in dumb, reluctant farewell. The river bends and insinuates, spreading out to you all its islands of delight. Molten in its depths, golden in its shallows, it meanders through its meadows, a joy forever. Bethel sits on
Leaving the valley, and driving along the Jefferson road, you have the mountains under an entirely new aspect. Before, they stood, as it were, endwise. Now you have them at broadside. Mile after mile you pass under their solid ramparts, but far enough to receive the idea of their height and breadth, their vast material greatness,--far enough to let the broad green levels of the intervale slide between, with here and there a graceful elm, towering and protective, and here and there a brown farm-house. But man's works show puny and mean beside nature, which seems spontaneous as a thought. Man's work is a toil; nature's is a relief. Man labors to attain abundance; nature, to throw off superabundance. The mountain-sides bristle with forests; man drags himself from his valley, and slowly and painfully levels an inch or two for his use; just a little way here and there a green field has crept up into the forest. The mountain-chin has one or two shaven spots; but for the greater part his beard is still unshorn. All along he sends down his boon to men. Everywhere you hear the scurrying feet of little brooks, tumbling pell-mell down the rocks in their frantic haste to reach a goal;--often a pleasant cottage-door, to lighten the burden and cool the brow of toil; often to pour through a hollow log by the wayside,--a never-failing beneficence and joy to the wearied, trusty horses. From the piazza of the Waumbeck House--a quiet, pleasant, home-like little hotel in Jefferson, and the only one, so far as I know, that has had the grace to take to itself one of the old Indian names in which the region abounds, Waumbeck, Waumbeck-Methna, Mountains of Snowy-Foreheads--a very panorama of magnificence unfolds itself. The whole horizon is rimmed with mountain-ranges. The White Mountain chain stands out bold and firm, sending greeting to his peers afar. Franconia answers clear and bright from the south-west; and from beyond the Connecticut the Green hills make response. Loth to leave, we turn away from these grand out-lying bulwarks to front on our return bulwarks as grand and massive, behind whose impregnable walls we seem shut in from the world forever.
A little lyric in the epos may be found in a side-journey to Bethel,--a village which no one ever heard of, at least I never did, till now; but when we did hear, we heard so much and so well that we at once started on a tour of exploration, and found--as Halicarnassus quotes the Queen of Sheba--there was more of it than we expected. The ride down in the train, if you are willing and able to stand on the rear platform of the rear car, is of surpassing beauty. The mountains seem to rise and approach in dumb, reluctant farewell. The river bends and insinuates, spreading out to you all its islands of delight. Molten in its depths, golden in its shallows, it meanders through its meadows, a joy forever. Bethel sits on