FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 227 



break the line of the horizon or otherwise 

 destroy the unity and beauty of the scene. 

 I wonder if Jeremiah was considered a 

 common scold. I think that the avocation 

 of a common scold must be classed among 

 the most praiseworthy. That is, if it be 

 possible by any means to awaken the aes 

 thetic sense in a people given over to a 

 crass barbarism. This morning I walked 

 for a mile or so along the highway, from 

 which almost anywhere, excepting where 

 recent grading had shut it in between high 

 banks, an outlook could be had upon scenes 

 beautiful enough to shame any but the 

 most callous. Along the way, sometimes 

 together and sometimes opposed to each 

 other, ran two lines of telegraph poles, 

 rough, bare, crooked trunks, carrying nu 

 merous wires, and to these has been added 

 another row for the trolley system, carry 

 ing two great cables in addition to the 

 bright copper conducting wire. The incon 

 gruity with the landscape was shocking, 

 the disfigurement atrocious. And the road 

 itself had a bed formed of imperfect or dis 

 integrating red sandstone, a sort of hard- 

 pan, rough and yet dusty, with irregularly 

 gashed banks, and no footway on either 

 side. Is this worthy of a civilized people ? 



