34 JUNE IN FRANCONIA. 
in any more narrowly circumscribed scene, 
no matter how romantic. 
In venturing upon a comparison of this 
kind, however, one is bound always to allow 
for differences of mood. When I am in 
tune for such things, I can be happier on an 
ordinary Massachusetts hilltop than at an- 
other time I should be on any New Hamp- 
shire mountain, though it were Moosilauke 
itself. And, truly, Fortune did smile upon 
our first visit to Mount Cannon. Weather 
conditions, outward and inward, were right. 
We had come mainly to look at Lafayette 
from this point of vantage; but, while we 
suffered no disappointment in that direc- 
tion, we found ourselves still more taken 
with the valley prospect. We lay upon the 
rocks by the hour, gazing at it. Scattered 
clouds dappled the whole vast landscape with 
shadows; the river, winding down the mid- 
dle of the scene, drew the whole into har- 
mony, as it were, making it in some nobly 
literal sense picturesque; while the distance 
was of such an exquisite blue as I think I 
never saw before. 
How good life is at its best! And in 
such 
