JUNE IN FRANCONIA. 21 



have been able to see the invisible. "In 

 the mountains," says Wordsworth, "did he 

 feel his faith." But the poet was speaking 

 then of a very old-fashioned young fellow, 

 who, even when he grew up, made nothing 

 but a peddler. Had he lived in our day, 

 he would have felt not his faith, but his own 

 importance; especially if he had put him- 

 self out of breath, as most likely he would 

 have done, in accomplishing in an hour and 

 forty minutes what, according to the guide- 

 book, should have taken a full hour and 

 three quarters. The modern excursionist 

 (how Wordsworth would have loved that 

 word !) has learned wisdom of a certain wise 

 fowl who once taught St. Peter a lesson, and 

 who never finds himself in a high place with- 

 out an impulse to flap his wings and crow. 



For my own part, though I spent nearly 

 three hours on the less than four miles of 

 mountain path, as I have already acknow- 

 ledged, I was nevertheless somewhat short- 

 winded at the end. So long as I was in the 

 woods, it was easy enough to loiter ; but no 

 sooner did I leave the last low spruces be- 

 hind me than I was seized with an importu- 

 nate desire to stand upon the peak, so near 



