IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 99 



fish, the humblebees, the birds, and a mouse 

 which scampered away to its hole amid the 

 rocks, — all these might have found better liv- 

 ing elsewhere. But Nature will have her world 

 full. Stunted life is better than none, she 

 thinks. So she plants her forests of spruces, 

 and keeps them growing, where, with all their 

 efforts, they cannot get above the height of a 

 man's knee. There is no beauty about them, 

 no grace. They sacrifice symmetry and every- 

 thing else for the sake of bare existence, re- 

 minding one of Satan's remark, " All that a 

 man hath will he give for his life." 



Very admirable are the devices by which veg- 

 etation maintains itself against odds. Every- 

 body notices that many of the mountain species, 

 like the diapensia, the rose-bay, the Greenland 

 sandwort (called tlie mountain daisy by the 

 Summit House people, for some inscrutable 

 reason), and the phyllodoce, have blossoms dis- 

 proportionately large and handsome ; as if they 

 realized that, in order to attract their indispen- 

 sable allies, the insects, to these inhospitable 

 regions, they must offer them some special in- 

 ducements. Their case is not unlike that of a 

 certain mountain hotel which might be named, 

 which happens to be poorly situated, but which 

 keeps itself full, nevertheless, by the peculiar 

 excellence of its cuisine. 



