CIRCUIT OF THE SUMMER HILLS 



fields where I hoed corn or made hay as a boy, I 

 write this and other papers. 



The peace of the hills is about me and upon me, 

 and the leisure of the summer clouds, whose shadows 

 I see slowly drifting across the face of the landscape, 

 is mine. The dissonance and the turbulence and 

 the stenches of cities how far off they seem ! the 

 noise and the dust and the acrimony of politics 

 how completely the hum of the honey-bees and the 

 twitter of swallows blot them all out! 



In the circuit of the hills, the days take form and 

 character as they do not in town, or in a country of 

 low horizons. George Eliot says in one of her letters : 

 "In the country the days have broad open spaces, 

 and the very stillness seems to give a delightful 

 roominess to the hours." This is especially true in a 

 hilly and mountainous country, where the eye has 

 a great depth of perspective opened to it. Take 

 those extra brilliant days that we so often have in 

 the autumn what a vivid sense one gets of their 

 splendor amid the hills! The deep, cradle-like val- 

 leys, and the long flowing mountain lines, make a 

 fit receptacle for the day's beauty; they hold and 

 accumulate it, as it were. I think of Emerson's 

 line : 



" Oh, tenderly the haughty day fills his blue urn with fire." 



The valleys are vast blue urns that hold a generous 

 portion of the lucid hours ! 

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