I wished, also, to say something of sundry minor enjoyments: of the cinnamon roses, for example, with the fragrance of which we were continually greeted, and which have left such a sweetness in the memory that I would have called this essay "June in the Valley of Cinnamon Roses," had I not despaired of holding myself up to so poetic a title. And with the roses the [wild strawberries] present themselves. [Roses] and strawberries! It is the very poetry of science that these should be classified together. The berries, like the flowers, are of a generous turn (it is a family trait, I think), loving no place better than the roadside, as if they would fain be of refreshment to beings less happy than themselves, who cannot be still and blossom and bear fruit, but are driven by the Fates to go trudging up and down in dusty highways. For myself, if I were a dweller in this vale, I am sure my finger-tips would never be of their natural color so long as the season of strawberries lasted. On one of my solitary rambles I found a retired sunny field, full of them. To judge from appearances, not a soul had been near it. But I noticed that, while the almost ripe fruit was abundant, there was scarce any that had taken on the final tinge and flavor. Then I began to be aware of faint, sibilant noises about me, and, glancing up, I saw that the ground was already "preëmpted" by a company of [cedar-birds], who, naturally enough, were not a little indignant at my poaching thus on their preserves. They showed so much concern (and had gathered the ripest of the berries so thoroughly) that I actually came away the sooner on their account. I began to feel ashamed of myself, and for once in my life was literally hissed off the stage.
Even on my last page I must be permitted a word in praise of [Mount Cannon], of which I made three ascents. It has nothing like the celebrity of Mount Willard, with which, from its position, it is natural to compare it; but to my thinking it is little, if at all, less worthy. Its outlook upon Mount Lafayette is certainly grander than anything Mount Willard can offer, while the prospect of the Pemigewasset Valley, fading away to the horizon, if less striking than that of the White Mountain Notch, has some elements of beauty which must of necessity be lacking in any more narrowly circumscribed scene, no matter how romantic.
In venturing upon a comparison of this kind, however, one is bound always to allow for differences of mood. When I am in tune for such things, I can be happier on an ordinary Massachusetts hilltop than at another time I should be on any New Hampshire mountain, though it were Moosilauke itself. And, truly, Fortune did smile upon our first visit to Mount Cannon. Weather conditions, outward and inward, were right. We had come mainly to look at Lafayette from this point of vantage; but, while we suffered no disappointment in that direction, we found ourselves still more taken with the valley prospect. We lay upon the rocks by the hour, gazing at it. Scattered clouds dappled the whole vast landscape with shadows; the river, winding down the middle of the scene, drew the whole into harmony, as it were, making it in some nobly literal sense picturesque; while the distance was of such an exquisite blue as I think I never saw before.
How good life is at its best! And in such
"charmëd days, When the genius of God doth flow,"
what care we for science or the objects of science,—for grosbeak or crossbill (may the birds forgive me!), or the latest novelty in willows? I am often where fine music is played, and never without being interested; as men say, I am pleased. But at the twentieth time, it may be, something touches my ears, and I hear the music within the music; and, for the hour, I am at heaven's gate. So it is with our appreciation of natural beauty. We are always in its presence, but only on rare occasions are our eyes anointed to see it. Such ecstasies, it seems, are not for every day. Sometimes I fear they grow less frequent as we grow older.
We will hope for better things; but, should the gloomy prognostication fall true, we will but betake ourselves the more assiduously to lesser pleasures,—to warblers and willows, roses and strawberries. Science will never fail us. If worse comes to worst, we will not despise the moths.