With such pursuits did I improve the spare hours of my Mount Washington week. I have no thought of boasting. At least I would not seem to do so. It was little enough that I accomplished, or could hope to accomplish, hampered as I was by my ignorance. Probably I shall never have a beetle, much less a moth, named after me; but with that precious black-and-white rarity in mind I feel that even in the way of entomology I have not lived altogether in vain.
Scientific studies apart, the best hours of the week (after some spent along the carriage-road, resting here and there upon a boulder to enjoy the magnificent, ever-shifting prospect, and some—not hours, alas, but minutes—spent in eating the ambrosial, banana-savored, soul-satisfying berries of Vaccinium cæspitosum)—my best hours, I say, were perhaps those of a certain wonderful evening. The air was warm, no breath stirring, the sky clear, and the half world below us, as we walked the hotel platform, lay covered with white clouds, on which the full moon was shining. The stillness, the mildness, the brightness, the sense of elevation, and the bewitching, unearthly scene, all this was like an evening in fairyland. For the time being, it is to be feared, even the rarest of moths would have seemed a matter of secondary importance. Such is the power of beauty. So truly was it born to make other things forgotten.
MOUNTAIN-TOP AND VALLEY
Nothing heightens appreciation like a contrast. After a week at the summit of Mount Washington, where we lived in the clouds and above them, in a world above the world, we returned to the lowlands. The afternoon was sultry, and before the descent was half accomplished—by the train—we wished ourselves back again on the heights. How can men live in such an atmosphere, we asked each other; so stifling, so depressing, so wanting in all the elements of vitality. Our condition seemed like that of fishes out of water, and we began to think of angling as a cruel sport. It grieved us to see the trees growing taller. Even the laughing young Ammonoosuc was looked upon with indifference. “I wish I were back,” said one; and the other responded, “So do I.”
At Fabyan’s the crowd surged about us like a sea. Baggage must be found and checked, our train was waiting, and the baggage-master, true railway “official” that he was, was not to be hastened. His steps were all taken by rule, and every movement of his hands was set to slow music. When he spoke, which was seldom, it was in a muffled voice and with funereal moderation. In the midst of all that bustle he was calm—
“Calm as to suit a calmer grief.”
You might say what you pleased to him, be urgently argumentative, or plaintive even to wheedling, it was all one. Your eloquence was wasted. It was like nudging a graven image, or crying haste in the ear of Death. Not a feature of his countenance altered, not a muscle quickened. Who ever knew the hands of a clock to accelerate their pace in response to human impatience? Time and tide—and a baggage-master—hurry for no man.
“Two trunks for Bethlehem,” you say. No answer. By and by, meekly insistent, and thinking that by this time your turn must surely have come, you repeat the words. No answer. But the man is taking down checks from their peg, and in due time, stepping as to the measure of a dirge, he marches with them down the platform. “These are mine,” you say, keeping an uneasy pace or two in advance and pointing to the trunks on the truck. No answer—not so much as a look. Nor is there need of any. You are silenced. That implacable manner carries all before it. You could not speak again, even to claim your soul. But finally the man himself speaks. You are relieved to know he can. He is addressing you. The minute hand is at twelve and the clock strikes. “These are yours?” he asks. You reply in the affirmative, as best you are able. “For Bethlehem?” he asks, and you answer “Yes.” And then, after one more set of machine-like motions, the mighty work is accomplished. The checks are yours. Fortunately, the train has not yet pulled away, though it is past the time, and at the last moment you see the trunks on board.
Trifles like these would have been as nothing, of course, to ordinary travelers; but to us, innocent Carthusians, fresh from the unearthly quiet of a mountain-top, they were little short of tragical. And how intolerably hot and close the car was! Things were growing worse and worse with us. Should we live to reach Bethlehem, with nothing but this blast out of Nebuchadnezzar’s furnace in our nostrils? Why had we not remained where existence was not a struggle, but a dream of pleasure; where the air had not to be gasped for, but came of itself to be sweetly inhaled? Nevertheless, we survived the passage,—the conductor helping to pass the time by stopping in the aisle to make inquiries touching a little flock of puzzling birds, crossbills, perhaps, lately seen in his apple orchard,—and at Bethlehem the carriage awaited us. This was a welcome change, but even so we still found it difficult to draw breath; and when the horses started, what a dust they set flying! Truly, between the heat and the drought, this lower world was in an evil case. It was a road of sighs all the six miles to Franconia.
Once there, however, and supper eaten, I stepped out upon the piazza and looked westward. Venus was bright just above the near horizon (the near horizon!), and against the sunset sky stood a line of low woods, with detached pine trees towering over the rest. And in that sight I discovered anew, all in a moment, the charm of this valley world. I had seen nothing like this from the mountain-top. Yes, good as the summit prospect was, this was in some respects better. If that was more magnificent, more soul-expanding, this was more home-felt and beautiful. And as I looked and looked, while the light faded out of the sky, I was conscious of a new contentment. Mountain-tops for visits, I said, and may I enjoy them often; but the valley to live in.