The White Mountains are as high as ever, as fine in sharp outline against
the sky, as savage, as tawny; no other mountains in the world of their
height so well keep, on acquaintance, the respect of mankind. There is a
quality of refinement in their granite robustness; their desolate, bare
heights and sky-scraping ridges are rosy in the dawn and violet at
sunset, and their profound green gulfs are still mysterious. Powerful as
man is, and pushing, he cannot wholly vulgarize them. He can reduce the
valleys and the show "freaks" of nature to his own moral level, but the
vast bulks and the summits remain for the most part haughty and pure.
Yet undeniably something of the romance of adventure in a visit to the
White Hills is wanting, now that the railways penetrate every valley, and
all the physical obstacles of the journey are removed. One can never
again feel the thrill that he experienced when, after a weary all-day
jolting in the stage-coach, or plodding hour after hour on foot, he
suddenly came in view of a majestic granite peak. Never again by the new
rail can he have the sensation that he enjoyed in the ascent of Mount
Washington by the old bridlepath from Crawford's, when, climbing out of
the woods and advancing upon that marvelous backbone of rock, the whole
world opened upon his awed vision, and the pyramid of the summit stood up
in majesty against the sky. Nothing, indeed, is valuable that is easily
obtained. This modern experiment of putting us through the world--the
world of literature, experience, and travel--at excursion rates is of
doubtful expediency.
I cannot but think that the White Mountains are cheapened a little by the
facilities of travel and the multiplication of excellent places of
entertainment. If scenery were a sentient thing, it might feel indignant
at being vulgarly stared at, overrun and trampled on, by a horde of
tourists who chiefly value luxurious hotels and easy conveyance. It
would be mortified to hear the talk of the excursionists, which is more
about the quality of the tables and the beds, and the rapidity with which
the "whole thing can be done," than about the beauty and the sublimity of
nature. The mountain, however, was made for man, and not man for the
mountain; and if the majority of travelers only get out of these hills
what they are capable of receiving, it may be some satisfaction to the
hills that they still reserve their glories for the eyes that can
appreciate them. Perhaps nature is not sensitive about being run after
for its freaks and eccentricities. If it were, we could account for the
catastrophe, a few years ago, in the Franconia Notch flume. Everybody
went there to see a bowlder which hung suspended over the stream in the
narrow canon. This curiosity attracted annually thousands of people, who
apparently cared more for this toy than for anything else in the region.
And one day, as if tired of this misdirected adoration, nature organized
a dam on the side of Mount Lafayette, filled it with water, and then
suddenly let loose a flood which tore open the canon, carried the bowlder
away, and spread ruin far and wide. It said as plainly as possible, you
must look at me, and not at my trivial accidents. But man is an
ingenious creature, and nature is no match for him. He now goes, in
increasing number, to see where the bowlder once hung, and spends his
time in hunting for it in the acres of wreck and debris. And in order to
satisfy reasonable human curiosity, the proprietors of the flume have
been obliged to select a bowlder and label it as the one that was
formerly the shrine of pilgrimage.
In his college days King had more than once tramped all over this region,
knapsack on back, lodging at chance farmhouses and second-class hotels,
living on viands that would kill any but a robust climber, and enjoying
the life with a keen zest only felt by those who are abroad at all hours,
and enabled to surprise Nature in all her varied moods. It is the chance
encounters that are most satisfactory; Nature is apt to be whimsical to
him who approaches her of set purpose at fixed hours. He remembered also
the jolting stage-coaches, the scramble for places, the exhilaration of
the drive, the excitement of the arrival at the hotels, the sociability
engendered by this juxtaposition and jostle of travel. It was therefore
with a sense of personal injury that, when he reached Bethlehem junction,
he found a railway to the Profile House, and another to Bethlehem. In
the interval of waiting for his train he visited Bethlehem Street, with
its mile of caravansaries, big boarding-houses, shops, and city veneer,
and although he was delighted, as an American, with the "improvements"
and with the air of refinement, he felt that if he wanted retirement and
rural life, he might as well be with the hordes in the depths of the
Adirondack wilderness. But in his impatience to reach his destination he
was not sorry to avail himself of the railway to the Profile House. And
he admired the ingenuity which had carried this road through nine miles
of shabby firs and balsams, in a way absolutely devoid of interest, in
order to heighten the effect of the surprise at the end in the sudden
arrival at the Franconia Notch. From whichever way this vast white hotel
establishment is approached, it is always a surprise. Midway between
Echo Lake and Profile Lake, standing in the very jaws of the Notch,
overhung on the one side by Cannon Mountain and on the other by a bold
spur of Lafayette, it makes a contrast between the elegance and order of
civilization and the untouched ruggedness and sublimity of nature
scarcely anywhere else to be seen.
The hotel was still full, and when King entered the great lobby and
office in the evening a very animated scene met his eye. A big fire of
logs was blazing in the ample chimney-place; groups were seated about at
ease, chatting, reading, smoking; couples promenaded up and down; and
from the distant parlor, through the long passage, came the sound of the
band. It was easy to see at a glance that the place had a distinct
character, freedom from conventionality, and an air of reposeful
enjoyment. A large proportion of the assembly being residents for the
summer, there was so much of the family content that the transient
tourists could little disturb it by the introduction of their element of
worry and haste.
King found here many acquaintances, for fashion follows a certain
routine, and there is a hidden law by which the White Mountains break the
transition from the sea-coast to Lenox. He was therefore not surprised
to be greeted by Mrs. Cortlandt, who had arrived the day before with her
usual train.
"At the end of the season," she said, "and alone?"
"I expect to meet friends here."
"So did I; but they have gone, or some of them have."
"But mine are coming tomorrow. Who has gone?"
"Mrs. Pendragon and the Bensons. But I didn't suppose I could tell you
any news about the Bensons."
"I have been out of the way of the newspapers lately. Did you happen to
hear where they have gone?"
"Somewhere around the mountains. You need not look so indifferent; they
are coming back here again. They are doing what I must do; and I wish
you would tell me what to see. I have studied the guide-books till my
mind is a blank. Where shall I go?"
"That depends. If you simply want to enjoy yourselves, stay at this
hotel--there is no better place--sit on the piazza, look at the
mountains, and watch the world as it comes round. If you want the best
panoramic view of the mountains, the Washington and Lafayette ranges
together, go up to the Waumbec House. If you are after the best single
limited view in the mountains, drive up to the top of Mount Willard, near
the Crawford House--a delightful place to stay in a region full of
associations, Willey House, avalanche, and all that. If you would like
to take a walk you will remember forever, go by the carriage road from
the top of Mount Washington to the Glen House, and look into the great
gulfs, and study the tawny sides of the mountains. I don't know anything
more impressive hereabouts than that. Close to, those granite ranges
have the color of the hide of the rhinoceros; when you look up to them
from the Glen House, shouldering up into the sky, and rising to the
cloud-clapped summit of Washington, it is like a purple highway into the
infinite heaven. No, you must not miss either Crawford's or the Glen
House; and as to Mount Washington, that is a duty."
"You might personally conduct us and expound by the way."
King said he would like nothing better. Inquiry failed to give him any
more information of the whereabouts of the Bensons; but the clerk said
they were certain to return to the Profile House. The next day the party
which had been left behind at Alexandria Bay appeared, in high spirits,
and ready for any adventure. Mrs. Farquhar declared at once that she had
no scruples about going up Washington, commonplace as the trip was, for
her sympathies were now all with the common people. Of course Mount
Washington was of no special importance, now that the Black Mountains
were in the Union, but she hadn't a bit of prejudice.
King praised her courage and her patriotism. But perhaps she did not
know how much she risked. He had been talking with some habitue's of the
Profile, who had been coming here for years, and had just now for the
first time been up Mount Washington, and they said that while the trip
was pleasant enough, it did not pay for the exertion. Perhaps Mrs.
Farquhar did not know that mountain-climbing was disapproved of here as
sea-bathing was at Newport. It was hardly the thing one would like to
do, except, of course, as a mere lark, and, don't you know, with a party.
Mrs. Farquhar said that was just the reason she wanted to go. She was
willing to make any sacrifice; she considered herself just a missionary
of provincialism up North, where people had become so cosmopolitan that
they dared not enjoy anything. She was an enemy of the Boston
philosophy. What is the Boston philosophy? Why, it is not to care about
anything you do care about.
The party that was arranged for this trip included Mrs. Cortlandt and her
bevy of beauty and audacity, Miss Lamont and her uncle, Mrs. Farquhar,
the artist, and the desperate pilgrim of love. Mrs. Farquhar vowed to
Forbes that she had dragged King along at the request of the proprietor
of the hotel, who did not like to send a guest away, but he couldn't have
all the trees at Profile Lake disfigured with his cutting and carving.
People were running to him all the while to know what it meant with "I.
B.," " I. B.," " I. B.," everywhere, like a grove of Baal.
From the junction to Fabyan's they rode in an observation car, all open,
and furnished with movable chairs, where they sat as in a balcony. It
was a picturesque load of passengers. There were the young ladies in
trim traveling-suits, in what is called compact fighting trim; ladies in
mourning; ladies in winter wraps; ladies in Scotch wraps; young men with
shawl-straps and opera-glasses, standing, legs astride, consulting maps
and imparting information; the usual sweet pale girl with a bundle of
cat-tails and a decorative intention; and the nonchalant young man in a
striped English boating cap, who nevertheless spoke American when he said
anything.
As they were swinging slowly along the engine suddenly fell into a panic,
puffing and sending up shrill shrieks of fear in rapid succession. There
was a sedate cow on the track. The engine was agitated, it shrieked more
shrilly, and began backing in visible terror. Everybody jumped and stood
up, and the women clung to the men, all frightened. It was a beautiful
exhibition of the sweet dependence of the sex in the hour of danger. The
cow was more terrible than a lion on the track. The passengers all
trembled like the engine. In fact, the only calm being was the cow,
which, after satisfying her curiosity, walked slowly off, wondering what
it was all about.
The cog-wheel railway is able to transport a large number of
excursionists to the top of the mountain in the course of the morning.
The tourists usually arrive there about the time the mist has crept up
from the valleys and enveloped everything. Our party had the common
experience. The Summit House, the Signal Station, the old Tip-top House,
which is lashed down with cables, and rises ten feet higher than the
highest crag, were all in the clouds. Nothing was to be seen except the
dim outline of these buildings.
"I wonder," said Mrs. Farquhar, as they stumbled along over the slippery
stones, "what people come here for."
"Just what we came for," answered Forbes, "to say they have been on top
of the mountain."
They took refuge in the hotel, but that also was invaded by the damp,
chill atmosphere, wrapped in and pervaded by the clouds. From the
windows nothing more was to be seen than is visible in a Russian steam
bath. But the tourists did not mind. They addressed themselves to the
business in hand. This was registering their names. A daily newspaper
called Among the Clouds is published here, and every person who gets his
name on the register in time can see it in print before the train goes.
When the train descends, every passenger has one of these two-cent
certificates of his exploit. When our party entered, there was a great
run on the register, especially by women, who have a repugnance, as is
well known, to seeing their names in print. In the room was a hot stove,
which was more attractive than the cold clouds, but unable to compete in
interest with the register. The artist, who seemed to be in a sardonic
mood, and could get no chance to enter his name, watched the scene, while
his friends enjoyed the view of the stove. After registering, the
visitors all bought note-paper with a chromo heading, "Among the Clouds,"
and a natural wild-flower stuck on the corner, and then rushed to the
writing-room in order to indite an epistle "from the summit." This is
indispensable.
After that they were ready for the Signal Station. This is a great
attraction. The sergeant in charge looked bored to death, and in the
mood to predict the worst kind of weather. He is all day beset with a
crowd craning their necks to look at him, and bothered with ten thousand
questions. He told King that the tourists made his life miserable; they
were a great deal worse than the blizzards in the winter. And the
government, he said, does not take this into account in his salary.
Occasionally there was an alarm that the mist was getting thin, that the
clouds were about to break, and a rush was made out-of-doors, and the
tourists dispersed about on the rocks. They were all on the qui vine to
see the hotel or the boarding-house they had left in the early morning.
Excursionists continually swarmed in by rail or by carriage road. The
artist, who had one of his moods for wanting to see nature, said there
were too many women; he wanted to know why there were always so many
women on excursions. "You can see nothing but excursionists; whichever
way you look, you see their backs." These backs, looming out of the
mist, or discovered in a rift, seemed to enrage him.
At length something actually happened. The curtain of cloud slowly
lifted, exactly as in a theatre; for a moment there was a magnificent
view of peaks, forests, valleys, a burst of sunshine on the lost world,
and then the curtain dropped, amid a storm of "Ohs!" and "Ahs!" and
intense excitement. Three or four times, as if in response to the call
of the spectators, this was repeated, the curtain lifting every time on a
different scene, and then it was all over, and the heavy mist shut down
on the registered and the unregistered alike. But everybody declared
that they preferred it this way; it was so much better to have these
wonderful glimpses than a full view. They would go down and brag over
their good-fortune.
The excursionists by-and-by went away out of the clouds, gliding
breathlessly down the rails. When snow covers this track, descent is
sometimes made on a toboggan, but it is such a dangerous venture that all
except the operatives are now forbidden to try it. The velocity attained
of three and a half miles in three minutes may seem nothing to a
locomotive engineer who is making up time; it might seem slow to a lover
whose sweetheart was at the foot of the slide; to ordinary mortals a mile
a minute is quite enough on such an incline.
Our party, who would have been much surprised if any one had called them
an excursion, went away on foot down the carriage road to the Glen House.
A descent of a few rods took them into the world of light and sun, and
they were soon beyond the little piles of stones which mark the spots
where tourists have sunk down bewildered in the mist and died of
exhaustion and cold. These little mounds help to give Mount Washington
its savage and implacable character. It is not subdued by all the roads
and rails and scientific forces. For days it may lie basking and smiling
in the sun, but at any hour it is liable to become inhospitable and
pitiless, and for a good part of the year the summit is the area of
elemental passion.
How delightful it was to saunter down the winding road into a region of
peace and calm; to see from the safe highway the great giants in all
their majesty; to come to vegetation, to the company of familiar trees,
and the haunts of men! As they reached the Glen House all the line of
rugged mountain-peaks was violet in the reflected rays. There were
people on the porch who were looking at this spectacle. Among them the
eager eyes of King recognized Irene.
"Yes, there she is," cried Mrs. Farquhar; "and there--oh, what a
treacherous North----is Mr. Meigs also."
It was true. There was Mr. Meigs, apparently domiciled with the Benson
family. There might have been a scene, but fortunately the porch was
full of loungers looking at the sunset, and other pedestrians in couples
and groups were returning from afternoon strolls. It might be the crisis
of two lives, but to the spectator nothing more was seen than the
everyday meeting of friends and acquaintances. A couple say good-night
at the door of a drawing-room. Nothing has happened--nothing except a
look, nothing except the want of pressure of the hand. The man lounges
off to the smoking-room, cool and indifferent; the woman, in her chamber,
falls into a passion of tears, and at the end of a wakeful night comes
into a new world, hard and cold and uninteresting. Or the reverse
happens. It is the girl who tosses the thing off with a smile, perhaps
with a sigh, as the incident of a season, while the man, wounded and
bitter, loses a degree of respect for woman, and pitches his life
henceforth on a lower plane.
In the space of ten steps King passed through an age of emotions, but the
strongest one steadied him. There was a general movement, exclamations,
greetings, introductions. King was detained a moment by Mr. and Mrs.
Benson; he even shook hands with Mr. Meigs, who had the tact to turn
immediately from the group and talk with somebody else; while Mrs.
Farquhar and Miss Lamont and Mrs. Cortlandt precipitated themselves upon
Irene in a little tempest of cries and caresses and delightful feminine
fluttering. Truth to say, Irene was so overcome by these greetings that
she had not the strength to take a step forward when King at length
approached her. She stood with one hand grasping the back of the chair.
She knew that that moment would decide her life. Nothing is more
admirable in woman, nothing so shows her strength, as her ability to face
in public such a moment. It was the critical moment for King--how
critical the instant was, luckily, he did not then know. If there had
been in his eyes any doubt, any wavering, any timidity, his cause would
have been lost. But there was not. There was infinite love and
tenderness, but there was also resolution, confidence, possession,
mastery. There was that that would neither be denied nor turned aside,
nor accept any subterfuge. If King had ridden up on a fiery steed,
felled Meigs with his "mailed hand," and borne away the fainting girl on
his saddle pommel, there could have been no more doubt of his resolute
intention. In that look all the mists of doubt that her judgment had
raised in Irene's mind to obscure love vanished. Her heart within her
gave a great leap of exultation that her lover was a man strong enough to
compel, strong enough to defend. At that instant she knew that she could
trust him against the world. In that moment, while he still held her
hand, she experienced the greatest joy that woman ever knows--the bliss
of absolute surrender.
"I have come," he said, "in answer to your letter. And this is my
answer."
She had it in his presence, and read it in his eyes. With the delicious
sense thrilling her that she was no longer her own master there came a
new timidity. She had imagined that if ever she should meet Mr. King
again, she should defend her course, and perhaps appear in his eyes in a
very heroic attitude. Now she only said, falteringly, and looking down,
"I--I hoped you would come."
That evening there was a little dinner given in a private parlor by Mr.
Benson in honor of the engagement of his daughter. It was great larks
for the young ladies whom Mrs. Cortlandt was chaperoning, who behaved
with an elaboration of restraint and propriety that kept Irene in a
flutter of uneasiness. Mr. Benson, in mentioning the reason for the
"little spread," told the story of Abraham Lincoln's sole response to
Lord Lyons, the bachelor minister of her majesty, when he came officially
to announce the marriage of the Prince of Wales--"Lord Lyons, go thou and
do likewise;" and he looked at Forbes when he told it, which made Miss
Lamont blush, and appear what the artist had described her to King--the
sweetest thing in life. Mrs. Benson beamed with motherly content, and
was quite as tearful as ungrammatical, but her mind was practical and
forecasting. "There'll have to be," she confided to Miss Lamont, "more
curtains in the parlor, and I don't know but new paper." Mr. Meigs was
not present. Mrs. Farquhar noticed this, and Mrs. Benson remembered that
he had said something about going down to North Conway, which gave King
an opportunity to say to Mrs. Farquhar that she ought not to despair, for
Mr. Meigs evidently moved in a circle, and was certain to cross her path
again. "I trust so," she replied. "I've been his only friend through
all this miserable business." The dinner was not a great success. There
was too much self-consciousness all round, and nobody was witty and
brilliant.
The next morning King took Irene to the Crystal Cascade. When he used to
frequent this pretty spot as a college boy, it had seemed to him the
ideal place for a love scene-much better than the steps of a hotel. He
said as much when they were seated at the foot of the fall. It is a
charming cascade fed by the water that comes down Tuckerman's Ravine. But
more beautiful than the fall is the stream itself, foaming down through
the bowlders, or lying in deep limpid pools which reflect the sky and the
forest. The water is as cold as ice and as clear as cut glass; few
mountain streams in the world, probably, are so absolutely without color.
"I followed it up once," King was saying, by way of filling in the pauses
with personal revelations, "to the source. The woods on the side are
dense and impenetrable, and the only way was to keep in the stream and
climb over the bowlders. There are innumerable slides and cascades and
pretty falls, and a thousand beauties and surprises. I finally came to a
marsh, a thicket of alders, and around this the mountain closed in an
amphitheatre of naked perpendicular rock a thousand feet high. I made my
way along the stream through the thicket till I came to a great bank and
arch of snow--it was the last of July--from under which the stream
flowed. Water dripped in many little rivulets down the face of the
precipices--after a rain there are said to be a thousand cascades there.
I determined to climb to the summit, and go back by the Tip-top House.
It does not look so from a little distance, but there is a rough, zigzag
sort of path on one side of the amphitheatre, and I found this, and
scrambled up. When I reached the top the sun was shining, and although
there was nothing around me but piles of granite rocks, without any sign
of a path, I knew that I had my bearings so that I could either reach the
house or a path leading to it. I stretched myself out to rest a few
moments, and suddenly the scene was completely shut in by a fog. [Irene
put out her hand and touched King's.] I couldn't tell where the sun was,
or in what direction the hut lay, and the danger was that I would wander
off on a spur, as the lost usually do. But I knew where the ravine was,
for I was still on the edge of it."
"Why," asked Irene, trembling at the thought of that danger so long ago
--"why didn't you go back down the ravine?"
"Because," and King took up the willing little hand and pressed it to his
lips, and looked steadily in her eyes--"because that is not my way. It
was nothing. I made what I thought was a very safe calculation, starting
from the ravine as a base, to strike the Crawford bridle-path at least a
quarter of a mile west of the house. I hit it--but it shows how little
one can tell of his course in a fog--I struck it within a rod of the
house! It was lucky for me that I did not go two rods further east."
Ah me! how real and still present the peril seemed to the girl! "You
will solemnly promise me, solemnly, will you not, Stanhope, never to go
there again--never--without me?"
The promise was given. "I have a note," said King, after the promise was
recorded and sealed, "to show you. It came this morning. It is from
Mrs. Bartlett Glow."
"Perhaps I'd rather not see it," said Irene, a little stiffly.
"Oh, there is a message to you. I'll read it."
It was dated at Newport.
"MY DEAR STANHOPE,--The weather has changed. I hope it is more
congenial where you are. It is horrid here. I am in a bad humor,
chiefly about the cook. Don't think I'm going to inflict a letter
on you. You don't deserve it besides. But I should like to know
Miss Benson's address. We shall be at home in October, late, and I
want her to come and make me a little visit. If you happen to see
her, give her my love, and believe me your affectionate cousin,
PENELOPE."
The next day they explored the wonders of the Notch, and the next were
back in the serene atmosphere of the Profile House. How lovely it all
was; how idyllic; what a bloom there was on the hills; how amiable
everybody seemed; how easy it was to be kind and considerate! King
wished he could meet a beggar at every turn. I know he made a great
impression on some elderly maiden ladies at the hotel, who thought him
the most gentlemanly and good young man they had ever seen. Ah! if one
could always be in love and always young!
They went one day by invitation, Irene and Marion and King and the
artist--as if it made any difference where they went--to Lonesome Lake, a
private pond and fishing-lodge on the mountain-top, under the ledge of
Cannon. There, set in a rim of forest and crags, lies a charming little
lake--which the mountain holds like a mirror for the sky and the clouds
and the sailing hawks--full of speckled trout, which have had to be
educated by skillful sportsmen to take the fly. From this lake one sees
the whole upper range of Lafayette, gray and purple against the sky. On
the bank is a log cabin touched with color, with great chimneys, and as
luxuriously comfortable as it is picturesque.
While dinner was preparing, the whole party were on the lake in boats,
equipped with fishing apparatus, and if the trout had been in half as
willing humor as the fisher, it would have been a bad day for them. But
perhaps they apprehended that it was merely a bridal party, and they were
leaping all over the lake, flipping their tails in the sun, and scorning
all the visible wiles. Fish, they seemed to say, are not so easily
caught as men.
There appeared to be a good deal of excitement in the boat that carried
the artist and Miss Lamont. It was fly-fishing under extreme
difficulties. The artist, who kept his flies a good deal of the time out
of the boat, frankly confessed that he would prefer an honest worm and
hook, or a net, or even a grappling-iron. Miss Lamont, with a great deal
of energy, kept her line whirling about, and at length, on a successful
cast, landed the artist's hat among the water-lilies. There was nothing
discouraging in this, and they both resumed operations with cheerfulness
and enthusiasm. But the result of every other cast was entanglement of
each other's lines, and King noticed that they spent most of their time
together in the middle of the boat, getting out of snarls. And at last,
drifting away down to the outlet, they seemed to have given up fishing
for the more interesting occupation. The clouds drifted on; the fish
leaped; the butcher-bird called from the shore; the sun was purpling
Lafayette. There were kinks in the leader that would not come out, the
lines were inextricably tangled. The cook made the signals for dinner,
and sent his voice echoing over the lake time and again before these
devoted anglers heard or heeded. At last they turned the prow to the
landing, Forbes rowing, and Marion dragging her hand in the water, and
looking as if she had never cast a line. King was ready to pull the boat
on to the float, and Irene stood by the landing expectant. In the bottom
of the boat was one poor little trout, his tail curled up and his spots
faded.
"Whose trout is that?" asked Irene.
"It belongs to both of us," said Forbes, who seemed to have some
difficulty in adjusting his oars.
"But who caught it?"
"Both of us," said Marion, stepping out of the boat; "we really did."
There was a heightened color in her face and a little excitement in her
manner as she put her arm round Irene's waist and they walked up to the
cabin. "Yes, it is true, but you are not to say anything about it yet,
dear, for Mr. Forbes has to make his way, you know."
When they walked down the mountain the sun was setting. Half-way down,
at a sharp turn in the path, the trees are cut away just enough to make a
frame, in which Lafayette appears like an idealized picture of a
mountain. The sun was still on the heights, which were calm, strong,
peaceful. They stood gazing at this heavenly vision till the rose had
deepened into violet, and then with slow steps descended through the
fragrant woods.
In October no region in the North has a monopoly of beauty, but there is
a certain refinement, or it may be a repose, in the Berkshire Hills which
is in a manner typical of a distinct phase of American fashion. There is
here a note of country life, of retirement, suggestive of the
old-fashioned "country-seat." It is differentiated from the caravansary
or the cottage life in the great watering-places. Perhaps it expresses
in a sincerer way an innate love of rural existence. Perhaps it is only
a whim of fashion. Whatever it may be, there is here a moment of pause,
a pensive air of the closing scene. The estates are ample, farms in
fact, with a sort of villa and park character, woods, pastures, meadows.
When the leaves turn crimson and brown and yellow, and the frequent lakes
reflect the tender sky and the glory of the autumn foliage, there is much
driving over the hills from country place to country place; there are
lawn-tennis parties on the high lawns, whence the players in the pauses
of the game can look over vast areas of lovely country; there are
open-air fetes, chance meetings at the clubhouse, chats on the highway,
walking excursions, leisurely dinners. In this atmosphere one is on the
lookout for an engagement, and a wedding here has a certain eclat. When
one speaks of Great Barrington or Stockbridge or Lenox in the autumn, a
certain idea of social position is conveyed.
Did Their Pilgrimage end on these autumn heights? To one of them, I
know, the colored landscape, the dreamy atmosphere, the unique glory that
comes in October days, were only ecstatic suggestions of the life that
opened before her. Love is victorious over any mood of nature, even when
exquisite beauty is used to heighten the pathos of decay. Irene raved
about the scenery. There is no place in the world beautiful enough to
have justified her enthusiasm, and there is none ugly enough to have
killed it.
I do not say that Irene's letters to Mr. King were entirely taken up with
descriptions of the beauty of Lenox. That young gentleman had gone on
business to Georgia. Mr. and Mrs. Benson were in Cyrusville. Irene was
staying with Mrs. Farquhar at the house of a friend. These letters had a
great deal of Lovers' Latin in them--enough to have admitted the writer
into Yale College if this were a qualification. The letters she received
were equally learned, and the fragments Mrs. Farquhar was permitted to
hear were so interrupted by these cabalistic expressions that she finally
begged to be excused. She said she did not doubt that to be in love was
a liberal education, but pedantry was uninteresting. Latin might be
convenient at this stage; but later on, for little tiffs and
reconciliations, French would be much more useful.
One of these letters southward described a wedding. The principals in it
were unknown to King, but in the minute detail of the letter there was a
personal flavor which charmed him. He would have been still more charmed
could he have seen the girl's radiant face as she dashed it off. Mrs.
Farquhar watched her with a pensive interest awhile, went behind her
chair, and, leaning over, kissed her forehead, and then with slow step
and sad eyes passed out to the piazza, and stood with her face to the
valley and the purple hills. But it was a faded landscape she saw.