Gala-Days [57]
its banks, loveliest of rural villages, and gently unfolds its beauties to your longing eyes. The Bethel House,--a large old-fashioned country-house, with one of those broad, social second-story piazzas, and a well bubbling up in the middle of the dining-room--think of that, Master Brooke!--a hotel whose landlord welcomes you with lemonade and roses (perhaps he wouldn't YOU!),--a hotel terrible to evil-doers, but a praise to them that do well, inasmuch as it is conducted on the millennial principle of quietly frightening away disagreeable people with high rates, and fascinating amiable people with reasonable ones, so that, of course, you have the wheat without the chaff,--a hotel where people go to rest and enjoy, and wear morning-dresses all day, and are fine only when they choose-- indeed, you can do that anywhere, if you only think so. The idea that you must lug all your best clothes through the wilderness is absurd. A good travelling-dress, admissible of bisection, a muslin spencer for warm evenings, and a velvet bodice when you design to be gorgeous, will take you through with all the honors of war. Besides, there are always sure to be plenty of people in every drawing-room who will be sumptuously attired, and you can feast your eyes luxuriously on them, and gratefully feel that the work is so well done as to need no co-operation of yours, and that you can be comfortable with an easy conscience. Where was I? O, on the top, of Paradise Hill, I believe, surveying Paradise, a little indistinct and quavering in the sheen of a summer noon, but clear enough to reveal its Pison, its Gilton, its Hiddekel, and Euphrates, compassing the whole land of Havilah; or perhaps I was on Sparrowhawk, beholding Paradise from another point, dotted with homes and church-spires, rich and fertile, fair still, with compassing river and tranquil lake; or, more probable than either, I was driving along the highland that skirts the golden meadows through which the river purls, ruddy in the setting sun, and rejoicing in the beauty amid which he lives and moves and has his being. Lovely Bethel, fairest ornament of the sturdy mountain-land, tender and smiling as if no storm had ever swept, no sin ever marred,--in Arcadia that no one would ever leave but for the magic of the drive back to Gorham through piny woods, under frowning mountains, circled with all the glories of sky and river,--a drive so enticing, that, when you reach Gorham, straight back again you will go to Bethel, and so forever oscillate, unless some stronger magnet interpose.
A rainy day among the mountains is generally considered rather dismal, but I find that I like it. Apart from the fact that you wish, or ought to wish, to see Nature in all her aspects, it is a very beneficent arrangement of Providence, that, when eyes and brain and heart are weary with looking and receiving, an impenetrable barrier is noiselessly let down, and you are forced to rest. Besides, there are many things which it is not absolutely essential to see, but which, nevertheless, are very interesting in the sight. You would not think of turning away from a mountain or a waterfall to visit them, but when you are forcibly shut out from both, you condescend to homelier sights. For instance, I wonder how many frequenters of the Alpine house ever saw or know that there is a dairy in its Plutonian regions. A rainy day discovered it to us, and, with many an injunction touching possible dust, we were bidden into those mysterious precincts. A carpet, laid loose over the steps, forestalled every atom of defilement, and, descending cautiously and fearfully through portals and outer courts, we trod presently the adytum. It was a dark, cool, silent place. The floors were white, spotless, and actually fragrant with cleanliness. The sides of the room were lined with shelves, the shelves begemmed with bright pans, and the bright pans filled with milk,--I don't know how many pans there were, but I should think about a million,--and there was a mound of pails piled up to be washed, and cosy little colonies
A rainy day among the mountains is generally considered rather dismal, but I find that I like it. Apart from the fact that you wish, or ought to wish, to see Nature in all her aspects, it is a very beneficent arrangement of Providence, that, when eyes and brain and heart are weary with looking and receiving, an impenetrable barrier is noiselessly let down, and you are forced to rest. Besides, there are many things which it is not absolutely essential to see, but which, nevertheless, are very interesting in the sight. You would not think of turning away from a mountain or a waterfall to visit them, but when you are forcibly shut out from both, you condescend to homelier sights. For instance, I wonder how many frequenters of the Alpine house ever saw or know that there is a dairy in its Plutonian regions. A rainy day discovered it to us, and, with many an injunction touching possible dust, we were bidden into those mysterious precincts. A carpet, laid loose over the steps, forestalled every atom of defilement, and, descending cautiously and fearfully through portals and outer courts, we trod presently the adytum. It was a dark, cool, silent place. The floors were white, spotless, and actually fragrant with cleanliness. The sides of the room were lined with shelves, the shelves begemmed with bright pans, and the bright pans filled with milk,--I don't know how many pans there were, but I should think about a million,--and there was a mound of pails piled up to be washed, and cosy little colonies