68 LITERARY PILGRIMAGES 



the wood with its feet among the close-set stones. 

 Always before thoroughwort has seemed to me 

 coarse and unattractive. Here it seems to belong 

 and to give and take a certain beauty of virility 

 and appropriateness. Perhaps it is because with 

 it came so often the fond fragrance of the white 

 alders and the soft, rose-pink beauty of the ge- 

 rardia bells. In many places the stones of the 

 beach are set so close together and have so little 

 soil beneath them that nothing can grow, yet in 

 others the plucky, bright- faced hedge hyssop has 

 crept into the interstices among them and made 

 a carpet pattern of soft green that is all flecked 

 with the golden yellow of their blooms. And all 

 behind these rise the woods, oak and chestnut, 

 maple and scattered pines, whose plumed tops 

 seem like the war-bonnets of Indian chiefs, stand- 

 ing guard over the homely, beautiful, simple, 

 mysterious little pond which seems to excite love 

 and reverence in the hearts of all who remain 

 long on its banks. 



The hills climb abruptly from the brink of 

 Walden on all sides. The woods climb the 

 hills and top their summits with half -century- 



