Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 8.djvu/178

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

158

��The White atid Francotua Mountains.

��with the single spire-like summit of Chocorua far beyond, piercing the Ijlue vault of heaven.

Sitting on the cheerful piazzas of any of the many hotels, one can breath the mountain air as freely as if they sat un- der the tower of P'abyan's or the French roof of the Twin Mountain House, but much of the grandeur of course is missed. The mountains do not seem to frown down upon you ; they smile rather, and seem to beckon and wave as if desiring to gain your closer ac- quaintance. To know the mountains you must visit them, press their scarred rocky sides, feel their cool breezes on your forehead, then you will love them, reverence them. And this privilege is free to every one. Great railroads pen- etrate into the very heart of the hilly region, and the cost of travel is re- duced to such a minimum that the poorest man can once in a while take

��his family for a pleasant sojourn among the mountains. One can start from Boston in the morning, take a dinner at the Pemigewasset House, Plymouth, and at night eat his supper at Fabyan's. And even a short visit is so refreshing, so invigorating to mind and body, that it repays when even the sight is not a novel one.

Glorious, grand, old mountain, lifting thy brow among the eternal snows ; thou needst not the presence of Jove, nor the voice of a Homer to conse- crate thee ; and although Greeks and Trojans have never battled at thy base, still to us art thou dearer than Ida's wooded height where the gods sat en- throned to witness that divinely-recorded combat. Thy hoary peaks bear the names of chiefs and heroes who are not myths, and in the hearts of the peo- ple they are an everlasting memory.

���WHITE MOUNTAIN NOTCH.

�� �