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. LEvery- 
body notices that many of the mountain species, 
like the diapensia, the rose-bay, the Greenland 
sandwort (called the 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. 
