In proud cities you will weary for the
sight of a mountain trail; in great cathedrals you will think of the long,
arching aisles of the woodland: and in the noisy solitude of crowded
streets you will hone after the friendly forest.
--Henry Van Dyke: _The Blue Flower_.
(Copyright, 1902, Charles Scribner's Sons.)
Running your eye across the map of the State, you see two slowly
converging lines of railroad writhing out between the hills to the
sea-coast. Three other lines come down from north to south by the river
valleys and the jagged shore. Along these, huddled in the corners of the
hills and the sea line, lie the cities and the larger towns. A great
majority of mankind, swarming in these little spots, or scuttling to and
fro along the valleys on those slender lines, fondly dream they are
acquainted with the land in which they live. But beyond and around all
this rises the wide, bare face of the country, which they will never know--
the great patches of second-growth woods, the mountain pastures sown
thick with stones, the barren acres of the hillside farmer--a desolate
land, latticed with gray New England roads, dotted with commonplace or
neglected houses, and pitted with the staring cellars of the abandoned
homes of disheartened and defeated men.
Out here in this semi-obscurity, where the regulating forces of society
grow tardy and weak, strange and dangerous beings move to and fro,
avoiding the apprehension of the law.
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