burnt faces, parched lips, and stringy hair, a solitary horseman might
have been seen just commencing his ascent,--the nicest young man that
ever was,--daintily gloved, patently booted, oily curled, snowily
wristbanded, with a lovely cambric (prima facie) handkerchief bound
about his hyacinthine locks and polished hat. What I wish to know is,
how did he get along? How did his toilette stand the ascent? Did he,
a second Ulysses, tie up all opposing winds in that cambric
pocket-handkerchief? or did Auster and Eurus and Notus and Africus vex
his fastidious soul?

They say--I do not know who, but somebody--that Mount Washington in
past ages towered hundreds of feet above its present summit. Constant
wear and tear of frost and heat have brought it down, and its crumbling
rock testifies to the still progress of decay. The mountain will
therefore one day flat out, and if we live long enough, Halicarnassus
remarks, we may yet see the Tip-top and Summit Houses slowly let down
and standing on a rolling prairie. Those, therefore, who prefer
mountain to meadow should take warning and make their pilgrimage
betimes.

It is likely that you will be the least in the world tired and a good
deal sunburnt when you reach the Glen House; and, in defiance of all
the physiologies, you will eat a hearty supper and go right to bed, and
it won't hurt you in the least. Nothing ever does among the mountains.
The first you will know, you open your eyes and it is morning, and
there is Mount Washington coming right in at your window, bearing down
upon you with his seamed and shadowy massiveness, and you will forget
bow rough and rocky he was yesterday, and will pay homage once more to
his dignity of imperial purple and his solemn royalty.

The moment you are well awake, you find you are twice as good as new,
and after breakfast, if you are sagacious, no one belonging to you will
have any peace until you are striking out into the woods again,--the
green, murmurous woods, tenanted by innumerable hosts of butterflies in
their sunny outskirts, light-winged Psyches hovering in the warm, rich
air, stained and spotted and splashed with every bright hue of yellow
and scarlet and russet, set off against brilliant blacks and whites;
dark, cool woods carpeted with mosses thick, soft, voluptuous with the
silent tribute of ages, and in their luxurious depths your willing feet
are cushioned,--more blessed than feet of Persian princess crushing her
woven li