ing 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

"charmed 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.

DECEMBER OUT-OF-DOORS.

"December's as pleasant as May."
_Old Hymn._

For a month so almost universally spoken against, November commonly
brings more than its full proportion of fair days; and last year (1888)
this proportion was, I think, even greater than usual. On the 1st and
5th I heard the peeping of hylas; Sunday, the 4th, was enlivened by a
farewell visitation of bluebirds; during the first week, at least four
sorts of butterflies