240 I GO A- FISHING. 



have gone by are nothing. He looks to the rising sun, 

 but stands immovable with back to his setting. He looks 

 always since God made him — before he made man in sim- 

 ilar image — he looks forever to the coming day, to the 

 coming generations, to the coming ages, and as the even- 

 ing purple covers the slopes of Lafayette, he seems to 

 look over the hills for some long-delayed yet ever waited- 

 for appearance. And I never understood that look till I 

 came up here once in May before the snows were gone, 

 and then it seemed to me in the red evening that there 

 was a veritable glory and terror in the old man's face — 

 and I will tell you why it might be so, and why the sunset 

 light might well be awe-full. When the advancing spring 

 melts the snow from the sides of Mount Lafayette, it al- 

 ways leaves a wonderful sign on the western slope of the 

 great hill, which you can not see from the Profile House or 

 from the ravine, but which if you go out of the mountains 

 toward Franconia you will see — or better still if you climb 

 to the rocky forehead of the Old Man, you will see as his 

 stony eyes have seen it in the alternation of the seasons 

 since the hills were reared by the word of the Almighty. 

 There every day in the spring a great white cross, a thou- 

 sand feet in height, five hundred feet from arm to arm, 

 stands on the mountain-side, caused by the snow which 

 lies in deep masses in three ravines. And when the sun 

 goes down, the Old Man sees the cross grow red and 

 purple in the strange weird light, and high over it the 

 summit of the hill gleams like a flaming star as the night 

 hides the splendor of the ruby sign. And the old watcher, 

 taking no note of the days and years and ages that have 

 gone down in the West behind him, looks every spring to 

 the sign of his coming who shall bring back with him all 

 that was worthy in the departed cycles, and every summer 



