irst-comers were already busy with surveys, profile sketches and
photographs. As we looked at Cardigan looming up grandly in the
northwest, we were proud of our work of the day before. The view from
the two mountains, only twenty miles apart, is of course much the same.
Kearsarge is in exact line with Wauchusct, the Pack Monadnocks and
Moosilauke. These, except the first, could be plainly seen. Mount
Washington, seventy miles distant, Lafayette, Chocorua, Tridyranid,
the Twin Mountains, and Franconia Notch formed a sharp, clear picture
against the northern sky, and were flanked by scores of smaller
mountains. The green rolling country, flecked by numerous ponds and
rivers, stretched away for miles at our feet, to a line of blue, hazy
mountains. The Black-water hills, Sunapee and dozens of other well-known
mountains seemed from our standpoint hardly more than good-sized
haystacks. So, perhaps, will our greatest earthly achievements look,
when viewed from the heights of eternity.

By noon a blue haze had crept over the horizon and was spreading over
the whole landscape. But we had scored a victory over it by coming
early.

"To have the great poetic heart,
Is more than all the climber's art."

In some sense, we each felt the meaning of the lines, as we turned from
Kearsarge top and made the gradual descent. There is a precipitous
bridle-path which shortens the distance in proportion as it increases
fatigue. The majority of us were unwilling to tempt fate by adopting it,
and took the easier way. As we stopped occasionally in a shady nook to
rest, we severally confessed that scraps of Lowell's matchless poem had
been floating nebulously in the brain ever since the clouds had
disappeared the day before. Two such days as we had been blessed with
are rare, even in June. Up there in the forest primeval, in the happy
shining weather, we were constantly proving that there was

"Not a leaf or a blade too mean
To be some happy creature's palace."

If we waxed sentimental, something must be forgiven the lavish summer.

At the hotel, the bountiful dinner was garnished with the best of all
sauces. Then, reluctantly indeed after our two days' tramping, we
started for Boston, arriving there a little past seven the same evening.
We had had unprecedented weather, and a well-planned and perfectly
executed trip. Never was there a pleasanter excursion or a more
successful outing. If the path up the hill of life were no