102 TOFS DAYS ON MOUNT MANSFIELD. 



tain-top to look at warblers and thrushes? 

 I am not careful to justify myself. I love a 

 mountain-top, and go there because I love 

 to be there. It is good, I think, to be lifted 

 above the every -day level, and to enjoy the 

 society and the absence of society which 

 the heights afford. Looking over my notes 

 of this excursion, I come upon the following 

 sentence : "To sit on a stone beside a moun- 

 tain road, with olive-backed thrushes piping 

 on every side, the ear catching now and then 

 the distant tinkle of a winter wren's tune, 

 or the nearer zee, zee, zee of black-poll war- 

 blers, while white-throated sparrows call 

 cheerily out of the spruce forest this is to 

 be in another world." 



This sense of distance and strangeness is 

 not to be obtained, in my case at all events, 

 by a few hours' stay in such a spot. I must 

 pitch my tent there, for at least a night or 

 two. I cannot even see the prospect at first, 

 much less feel the spirit of the place. There 

 must be time for the old life to drop off, as 

 it were, while eye and ear grow wonted to 

 novel sights and sounds. Doubtless I did 

 take note of trivial things, the call of a 

 bird and the fragrance of a flower. It was 



