THE CIRCUMVENTION OF GREYLOCK. 



SOME folks think that the only respectful way to 

 treat a mountain is to climb it. They feel in 

 duty bound to scale every accessible height. 

 They regard the failure to do this as a disregard of 

 the challenge which the mountain tacitly implies to 

 every able-bodied person in the bulk it rears before 

 his eyes. The Alpine Club has done much to foster 

 this idea in Europe. The Appalachian Mountain 

 Club has cultivated it in this country. But the theory 

 ignores one great fact in history. The greatest re- 

 sults in human progress have been achieved, not by 

 climbing mountains but by going around them. 

 Empires progress, civilisation advances, not by sur- 

 mounting the great ranges but by circumventing 

 them. The world moves, not by way of the peaks 

 but by way of the passes. 



This is not the reason why the two of us went 

 around Greylock. We really were not caring much 

 about civilisation anyway. We were out for a good 

 run on our wheels, and we had been told that there 

 was plenty to interest in the north end of the county. 

 I had skirmished in advance in an earlier trip ; and 

 now The Lady was going with me. We took the 



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