MOUNTAINS. 121 



at home by its own fireside. Our healthier age 

 demands by choice a more o^ jn-air existence, — at 

 least when possible, — and makes light of labors 

 wliich to the lazy limbs of our inactive ancestors 

 would have seemed but little if at all preferable 

 to three weeks on the prison treadmill. The love 

 for hill-climbing is one of the best features of our 

 own time, and it is a love that is gradually spread- 

 ing among all classes of our population. And since 

 the bell of the bicycle has been heard in the land, 

 the taste for hilly scenery has gone down to thou- 

 sands and thousands of our young men to whom 

 even the light fares of the cheap excursion-trains 

 were before fixed at practically prohibitive prices. 

 Anything that so brings large bodies of our popu- 

 lation into closer intercourse with all that is grand- 

 est and loveliest in nature is in itself an immense 

 boon to the whole of humanity; and in nothing 

 has the increased ease of locomotion been more 

 productive of good than in thus enabling us all 

 individually to see in mountains, no longer a mere 

 barrier to be surmounted, but a source of health 

 and strength and aesthetic pleasure, a thing of 

 beauty and a joy forever. 



