230 LAND OF THE LINGERING SNOW. 



less abyss on the farther side. As the sun sank 

 lower and lower, nearer and nearer to Chocorua, 

 it seemed to me that it was marking a crisis in 

 the year, and that when it came again if come 

 it ever did from the abyss behind that wall 

 the tide of life would have changed and begun 

 its slow and certain ebbing. Vegetable and ani- 

 mal life seemed to have gained the point of their 

 greatest beauty and activity. The leaf could be 

 no fairer ; the flower was already falling and the 

 formation of the fruit begun ; the nest was built, 

 the egg laid, in many cases the young bird was 

 already stirring his wings for flight ; and in the 

 secret places of the mountain the young of the 

 bear, the deer, and the fox had long been afoot. 

 The sun reached the edge of rock and passed 

 behind it. In the deep Chocorua Valley the day 

 was over and the song of the hermit was yielding 

 to that of the whip-poor-will, the flight of the swal- 

 low was giving way to that of the bat. Would 

 the life of that valley be any less happy on the 

 opening of the season of ripening than it was at 

 the close of the season of growth ? Surely not, 

 for there is nothing in nature which is apprehen- 

 sive of that period of rest, which for the flower 

 is called winter, and for the butterfly, death. It 

 is man alone who dreads the downward swing of 

 the pendulum, the ebbing of the tide, the pause 

 in the endless rhythm of life. 



