14000 MILES 



fascinating writings of Hawthorne, transcendental 

 people, "Little Women" and cousins just like other 

 people, are all confused with skirmishes with the 

 English, and the effort to realize it is all true. We 

 have experienced this ecstasy more than once before, and 

 it has faded away naturally as we drove on, but this time 

 the spell was broken suddenly. We stopped at the hotel 

 and found it just like a hundred other country taverns, 

 not a suggestion of anything transcendental, and we felt 

 as if dropped from the heights into the abyss of common- 

 placeness. We tried to rise again by watching from our 

 window the passers-by and selecting those who looked 

 as if they had been to the Summer School of Philosophy, 

 but all in vain, and by the time we were ready to leave in 

 the morning our enthusiasm had sunk to the Kingston 

 level. 



We had ordered our mails reforwarded from Weirs to 

 Fitchburg, and now we were perplexed to know how to 

 get them on our way home, when Leominster comes first. 

 We studied our map and finally asked directions to 

 Littleton again, and this time saw no enticing guideboard. 

 We lunched at Ayer, lost our way trying to go from 

 Shirley to Lunenburg (we rarely take a wrong road 

 except when near home, where we are so sure we know 

 we do not ask), and were ready for our two-hours' rest 

 when we arrived. The dust we shook off there was 

 more than replaced before we reached Fitchburg. So 

 many people were driving it was like a trip through the 

 clouds ; and the heat was so great, with the sun in our 

 faces all the way, we set that little drive apart as the 

 most uncomfortable of our whole journey. We forgot all 



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