A COMMON EXPERIENCE 



and cover when alive, but cut down 

 worthless even for fuel, have been swept 

 from its margin by the ruthless besom of 

 destruction, as if everything that could 

 beautify the landscape must be blotted 

 out to fulfill the mission of the spoiler. 



Near it, and sucking in frequent 

 draughts from the faint stream, is a 

 thirsty and hungry little sawmill, the 

 most obtrusive and most ignoble feat- 

 ure of the landscape, whose beauty its 

 remorseless fangs have gnawed away. 

 Every foot of the brook below it is foul 

 with its castings, and the fragments of 

 its continual greedy feasting are thickly 

 strewn far and near. Yet it calls to the 

 impoverished hills for more victims ; its 

 shriek arouses discordant echoes where 

 once resounded the music of the brook, 

 the song of birds, the grouse's drum call, 

 and the mellow note of the hound. 



Though sick at heart with the doleful 

 scene, the returned exile descends to his 

 harried domain hoping that he may yet 

 find some vestige of its former wealth, 

 but only more disappointments reward 

 his quest. Not a trout flashes through 

 the shrunken pools. The once limpid 

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