2 LITERARY PILGRIMAGES 



the boundaries of Plymouth and chose his home 

 here. No wonder Daniel Webster, New Eng- 

 land's most vivid great man, wandering south- 

 ward over the hills in search of a country home 

 two centuries later, fixed upon the spot just below 

 Black Mount, looking down upon Green Harbor 

 marshes and the sea, and chose this for his 

 abiding-place. 



The statesman and orator, whose words still 

 ring across the years to us, with the trumpet 

 sounding in them even from the printed page, 

 may well have breathed inspiration for them 

 from the winds that come from seaward across 

 the aromatic marshes. There is cool truthfulness 

 in these winds, and understanding of the depths, 

 and the salty, wild flavor of the untamed marsh 

 gives them a tang of primal vitality. Breasting 

 them at mid-day from under the wilt of summer 

 heat you seem to drink air rather than to breathe 

 it, and find intoxication in the draught. I never 

 heard a robin sing in mid-flight, soaring upward: 

 like a skylark, till I came to this bit of sweet New 

 England country. The east wind drifted in to him, 

 as he sat on a treetop caroling, and he spread, his 



