Gala-Days [60]
as going up the mountain on the ice in midwinter, or coasting down on a hand-sled. But I have no inclination in that direction. I am willing to encounter risks, if there is no other way of attaining objects. But risks in and of themselves are a nuisance. If there is no more excellent way, of course you must clamber along steep, rugged stairways of bridle-paths, where a single misstep will send you plunging upon a cruel and bloody death; but so far as choice goes, one would much more wisely ride over a civilized road, where he can have his whole mind for the mountain, and not be continually hampered with fears and watchfulness for his own personal safety. It is a great mistake to suppose that discomfort is necessarily heroism. Besides, to have opened a carriage-way up the mountain is to have brought the mountain with all its possessions down to the cradle of the young and the crutch of the old,--almost to the couch of the invalid. I saw recorded against one name in the books of the Tip-top House the significant item, "aged eight months." Probably the youngster was not directly much benefited by his excursion, but you are to remember that perhaps his mother could not have come without him, and therein lay the benefit. The day before our ascent, a lady over seventy years old ascended without extreme fatigue or any injury. Several days after, a lady with apparently but a few weeks of earth before her, made the ascent to satisfy the longings of her heart, and gaze upon the expanses of this, before the radiance of another world should burst upon her view. If people insist upon encountering danger, they can find a swift river and ford it, or pile up a heap of stones and climb them, or volunteer to serve their country in the army: meanwhile, let us rejoice that thousands who have been shut away from the feast may now sit down to the table of the Lord.
This road, we were told, was begun about eight years ago, but by disastrous circumstances its completion was delayed until within a year or two. Looking at the country through which it lies, the only wonder is that it ever reached completion. As it is, I believe its proprietors do not consider it quite finished, and are continually working upon its improvement. Good or bad, it seems to me to be much the best road anywhere in the region. The pitches and holes that would fain make coaching on the common roads so precarious are entirely left out here. The ascent is continuous. Not a step but leads upward. The rise was directed never to exceed one foot in six, and it does not; the average is one foot in eight. Of course, to accomplish this there must be a great deal of winding and turning. In one place you can look down upon what seem to he three roads running nearly parallel along a ridge, but what is really the one road twisting to its ascent. Some idea of the skill and science required to engineer it may be gathered by looking into the tangled wilderness and rocky roughness that lie still each side the way. Through such a gnarled, knotted, interlaced jungle of big trees and little trees, and all manner of tangled twining undergrowths, lining the sides of precipices, or hanging with bare roots over them, concealing dangers till the shuddering soul almost plunges into them, the road-men carefully and painfully sought and fought their way. Up on rocky heights it was comparatively easy, for, as one very expressively phrased it, every stone which they pried up left a hole and made a hole. The stone wrenched from above rolled below, and go lowered the height and raised the depth, and constantly tended to levelness. Besides, there were no huge tree-trunks to be extracted from the unwilling jaws of the mountain by forest-dentists, with much sweat and toil and pain of dentist if not of jaws. Since, also, the rise of one foot in six was considered as great as was compatible with the well-being and well-doing of horses, whenever the way came upon a knob or a breastwork that refused to be brought down within the orthodox dimensions, it must turn. If the knob would
This road, we were told, was begun about eight years ago, but by disastrous circumstances its completion was delayed until within a year or two. Looking at the country through which it lies, the only wonder is that it ever reached completion. As it is, I believe its proprietors do not consider it quite finished, and are continually working upon its improvement. Good or bad, it seems to me to be much the best road anywhere in the region. The pitches and holes that would fain make coaching on the common roads so precarious are entirely left out here. The ascent is continuous. Not a step but leads upward. The rise was directed never to exceed one foot in six, and it does not; the average is one foot in eight. Of course, to accomplish this there must be a great deal of winding and turning. In one place you can look down upon what seem to he three roads running nearly parallel along a ridge, but what is really the one road twisting to its ascent. Some idea of the skill and science required to engineer it may be gathered by looking into the tangled wilderness and rocky roughness that lie still each side the way. Through such a gnarled, knotted, interlaced jungle of big trees and little trees, and all manner of tangled twining undergrowths, lining the sides of precipices, or hanging with bare roots over them, concealing dangers till the shuddering soul almost plunges into them, the road-men carefully and painfully sought and fought their way. Up on rocky heights it was comparatively easy, for, as one very expressively phrased it, every stone which they pried up left a hole and made a hole. The stone wrenched from above rolled below, and go lowered the height and raised the depth, and constantly tended to levelness. Besides, there were no huge tree-trunks to be extracted from the unwilling jaws of the mountain by forest-dentists, with much sweat and toil and pain of dentist if not of jaws. Since, also, the rise of one foot in six was considered as great as was compatible with the well-being and well-doing of horses, whenever the way came upon a knob or a breastwork that refused to be brought down within the orthodox dimensions, it must turn. If the knob would