THE MYSTIC TONIC 39 



appears, the old superiority to natural 

 emotion disappears. Life once more is 

 fresh and vital and immense. 



No man can long fellowship with the 

 mountains and not become at heart a child 

 again, with a world of wonder all about 

 him, and shy beauties at every turn like 

 Trailing Arbutus in the mountain-woods. 



2. MORAL LIFE 



At once, it should be strongly affirmed, 

 against a certain trend more or less notice- 

 able in mountain-literature, that the 

 mountains do not create, do not even tend 

 to create, moral concern. But when a 

 man is moral centrally, when he really 

 means righteously, then the mountains 

 may gradually adorn his moral life with 

 finer integrities and larger simplicities of 

 conduct. 



Mountain-people are, as I have usually 

 found them, truthful, frank, and courage- 

 ous; and never are they artificial. They 



