196 THROUGH GLADE AND MEAD. 
There seems to be something in the nature of 
summer which incites the mind to linger over such pic- 
tures. The bright warm sunlight is in sympathy with 
the dolce far niente spirit in man. Everything about 
him is growing for him, and why should he not rest and 
enjoy the fair vision? A stern necessity admonishes 
him that the hard fates have ordained otherwise. Propt 
on beds of amaranth and moly in the land of the Lotos, 
he wearies of the sea, wearies of the oar, merely dreams 
of fatherland, of wife and child, ceases to think of re- 
turning home, until some sage Ulysses leads him back 
weeping to the hollow ships, and bids to make speed 
away from the enchanted shore. 
But if all the long summer days cannot be given 
to rest, a part of them can be and ought to be, so that 
we may see and appreciate the beauty that lies at our 
feet or before our doors. I have seen from Bethlehem, 
New Hampshire, the sun sink behind the distant hills, 
painting the western sky in gorgeous colors and flood- 
ing the valley of the Ammonoosuc with purple light; 
and I have seen from Worcester the sun sink behind 
Tetaessit Hill in a sky of ineffable beauty, while all the 
hillside and the valley between were wrapped in richest 
purple. I have looked down from Mount Washington 
upon half of New Hampshire spread below, and from 
Mount Wachusett upon half of Worcester County; the 
former surpasses in rugged grandeur, but the latter in 
