To JOHN G. WHITTIER:
An illustrious and venerated bard, who shares with you the love and honor of his countrymen, tells us that the poets are the best travelling companions. Like Orlando in the forest of Arden, they “hang odes on hawthorns and elegies on thistles.”
In the spirit of that delightful companionship, so graciously announced, it is to you, who have kindled on our aged summits
“The light that never was on sea or land,
The consecration and the poet’s dream.”
that this volume is affectionately dedicated by
THE AUTHOR.
PREFACE.
THE very flattering reception which the sumptuous holiday edition of “The Heart of the White Mountains” received on its début has decided the Messrs. Harper to re-issue it in a more convenient and less expensive form, with the addition of a Tourist’s Appendix, and an Index farther adapting it for the use of actual travellers. While all the original features remain intact, these additions serve to render the references in the text intelligible to the uninstructed reader, and at the same time help to make a practical working manual. One or two new maps contribute to the same end.
I take the opportunity thus afforded me to say that, when “The Heart of the White Mountains” was originally prepared, I hoped it might go into the hands of those who, making the journey for the first time, feel the need of something different from the conventional guide-book of the day, and for whom it would also be, during the hours of travel or of leisure among the mountains, to some extent an entertaining as well as a useful companion. So far as author and publisher are concerned, that purpose is now realized.
Finally, I wrote the book because I could not help it.