Little Rivers [16]
call: "Hallo, my boy! What luck?
Time to go home!" But there is a river in the country where you
have gone, is there not?--a river with trees growing all along it--
evergreen trees; and somewhere by those shady banks, within sound
of clear running waters, I think you will be dreaming and waiting
for your boy, if he follows the trail that you have shown him even
to the end.
1895.
AMPERSAND
It is not the walking merely, it is keeping yourself in tune for a
walk, in the spiritual and bodily condition in which you can find
entertainment and exhilaration in so simple and natural a pastime.
You are eligible to any good fortune when you are in a condition to
enjoy a walk. When the air and water taste sweet to you, how much
else will taste sweet! When the exercise of your limbs affords you
pleasure, and the play of your senses upon the various objects and
shows of Nature quickens and stimulates your spirit, your relation
to the world and to yourself is what it should be,--simple, and
direct, and wholesome."--JOHN BURROUGHS: Pepacton.
The right to the name of Ampersand, like the territory of Gaul in
those Commentaries which Julius Caesar wrote for the punishment of
schoolboys, is divided into three parts. It belongs to a mountain,
and a lake, and a little river.
The mountain stands in the heart of the Adirondack country, just
near enough to the thoroughfare of travel for thousands of people
to see it every year, and just far enough from the beaten track to
be unvisited except by a very few of the wise ones, who love to
turn aside. Behind the mountain is the lake, which no lazy man has
ever seen. Out of the lake flows the stream, winding down a long,
untrodden forest valley, to join the Stony Creek waters and empty
into the Raquette River.
Which of the three Ampersands has the prior claim to the name, I
cannot tell. Philosophically speaking, the mountain ought to be
regarded as the head of the family, because it was undoubtedly
there before the others. And the lake was probably the next on the
ground, because the stream is its child. But man is not strictly
just in his nomenclature; and I conjecture that the little river,
the last-born of the three, was the first to be christened
Ampersand, and then gave its name to its parent and grand-parent.
It is such a crooked stream, so bent and curved and twisted upon
itself, so fond of turning around unexpected corners and sweeping
away in great circles from its direct course, that its first
explorers christened it after the eccentric supernumerary of the
alphabet which appears in the old spelling-books as &--and per se,
and.
But in spite of this apparent subordination to the stream in the
matter of a name, the mountain clearly asserts its natural
authority. It stands up boldly; and not only its own lake, but at
least three others, the Lower Saranac, Round Lake, and Lonesome
Pond, lie at its foot and acknowledge its lordship. When the cloud
is on its brow, they are dark. When the sunlight strikes it, they
smile.
Wherever you may go over the waters of these lakes you shall see
Mount Ampersand looking down at you, and saying quietly, "This is
my domain."
I never look at a mountain which asserts itself in this fashion
without desiring to stand on the top of it. If one can reach the
summit, one becomes a sharer in the dominion. The difficulties in
the way only add to the zest of the victory. Every mountain is,
rightly considered, an invitation to climb. And as I was resting
for a month one summer at Bartlett's, Ampersand challenged me
daily.
Did you know Bartlett's in its palmy time? It was the homeliest,
quaintest, coziest place in the Adirondacks. Away back in the
ante-bellum days Virgil Bartlett had come into the woods, and built
his house on the bank of the Saranac River, between the Upper
Saranac and Round Lake. It was then
Time to go home!" But there is a river in the country where you
have gone, is there not?--a river with trees growing all along it--
evergreen trees; and somewhere by those shady banks, within sound
of clear running waters, I think you will be dreaming and waiting
for your boy, if he follows the trail that you have shown him even
to the end.
1895.
AMPERSAND
It is not the walking merely, it is keeping yourself in tune for a
walk, in the spiritual and bodily condition in which you can find
entertainment and exhilaration in so simple and natural a pastime.
You are eligible to any good fortune when you are in a condition to
enjoy a walk. When the air and water taste sweet to you, how much
else will taste sweet! When the exercise of your limbs affords you
pleasure, and the play of your senses upon the various objects and
shows of Nature quickens and stimulates your spirit, your relation
to the world and to yourself is what it should be,--simple, and
direct, and wholesome."--JOHN BURROUGHS: Pepacton.
The right to the name of Ampersand, like the territory of Gaul in
those Commentaries which Julius Caesar wrote for the punishment of
schoolboys, is divided into three parts. It belongs to a mountain,
and a lake, and a little river.
The mountain stands in the heart of the Adirondack country, just
near enough to the thoroughfare of travel for thousands of people
to see it every year, and just far enough from the beaten track to
be unvisited except by a very few of the wise ones, who love to
turn aside. Behind the mountain is the lake, which no lazy man has
ever seen. Out of the lake flows the stream, winding down a long,
untrodden forest valley, to join the Stony Creek waters and empty
into the Raquette River.
Which of the three Ampersands has the prior claim to the name, I
cannot tell. Philosophically speaking, the mountain ought to be
regarded as the head of the family, because it was undoubtedly
there before the others. And the lake was probably the next on the
ground, because the stream is its child. But man is not strictly
just in his nomenclature; and I conjecture that the little river,
the last-born of the three, was the first to be christened
Ampersand, and then gave its name to its parent and grand-parent.
It is such a crooked stream, so bent and curved and twisted upon
itself, so fond of turning around unexpected corners and sweeping
away in great circles from its direct course, that its first
explorers christened it after the eccentric supernumerary of the
alphabet which appears in the old spelling-books as &--and per se,
and.
But in spite of this apparent subordination to the stream in the
matter of a name, the mountain clearly asserts its natural
authority. It stands up boldly; and not only its own lake, but at
least three others, the Lower Saranac, Round Lake, and Lonesome
Pond, lie at its foot and acknowledge its lordship. When the cloud
is on its brow, they are dark. When the sunlight strikes it, they
smile.
Wherever you may go over the waters of these lakes you shall see
Mount Ampersand looking down at you, and saying quietly, "This is
my domain."
I never look at a mountain which asserts itself in this fashion
without desiring to stand on the top of it. If one can reach the
summit, one becomes a sharer in the dominion. The difficulties in
the way only add to the zest of the victory. Every mountain is,
rightly considered, an invitation to climb. And as I was resting
for a month one summer at Bartlett's, Ampersand challenged me
daily.
Did you know Bartlett's in its palmy time? It was the homeliest,
quaintest, coziest place in the Adirondacks. Away back in the
ante-bellum days Virgil Bartlett had come into the woods, and built
his house on the bank of the Saranac River, between the Upper
Saranac and Round Lake. It was then