No More Learning

Show me a youth whose
mind is like some Washington city of magnificent distances, prepared
for the most remotely successful and glorious life after all, when
those spaces shall be built over and the idea of the founder be
realized. I trust that every New England boy will begin by laying out
a Keene Street through his head, eight rods wide. I know one such
Washington city of a man, whose lots as yet are only surveyed and
staked out, and, except a cluster of shanties here and there, only the
Capitol stands there for all structures, and any day you may see from
afar his princely idea borne coachwise along the spacious but yet
empty avenues. Keene is built on a remarkably large and level
interval, like the bed of a lake, and the surrounding hills, which are
remote from its street, must afford some good walks. The scenery of
mountain towns is commonly too much crowded. A town which is built on
a plain of some extent, with an open horizon, and surrounded by hills
at a distance, affords the best walks and views.

As we travel northwest up the country, sugar maples, beeches, birches,
hemlocks, spruce, butternuts, and ash trees prevail more and more. To
the rapid traveler the number of elms in a town is the measure of its
civility. One man in the cars has a bottle full of some liquor. The
whole company smile whenever it is exhibited. I find no difficulty in
containing myself. The Westmoreland country looked attractive. I heard
a passenger giving the very obvious derivation of this name,
Westmore-land, as if it were purely American, and he had made a
discovery; but I thought of "my cousin Westmoreland" in England. Every
one will remember the approach to Bellows Falls, under a high cliff
which rises from the Connecticut. I was disappointed in the size of
the river here; it appeared shrunk to a mere mountain-stream.
The
water was evidently very low. The rivers which we had crossed this
forenoon possessed more of the character of mountain-streams than
those in the vicinity of Concord, and I was surprised to see
everywhere traces of recent freshets, which had carried away bridges
and injured the railroad, though I had heard nothing of it. In
Ludlow, Mount Holly, and beyond, there is interesting mountain
scenery, not rugged and stupendous, but such as you could easily
ramble over,--long, narrow, mountain vales through which to see the
horizon. You are in the midst of the Green Mountains. A few more
elevated blue peaks are seen from the neighborhood of Mount Holly;
perhaps Killington Peak is one. Sometimes, as on the Western Railroad,
you are whirled over mountainous embankments, from which the scared
horses in the valleys appear diminished to hounds. All the hills
blush; I think that autumn must be the best season to journey over
even the _Green_ Mountains. You frequently exclaim to yourself, What
_red_ maples! The sugar maple is not so red. You see some of the
latter with rosy spots or cheeks only, blushing on one side like
fruit, while all the rest of the tree is green, proving either some
partiality in the light or frosts or some prematurity in particular
branches. Tall and slender ash trees, whose foliage is turned to a
dark mulberry color, are frequent. The butternut, which is a
remarkably spreading tree, is turned completely yellow, thus proving
its relation to the hickories. I was also struck by the bright yellow
tints of the yellow birch. The sugar maple is remarkable for its clean
ankle. The groves of these trees looked like vast forest sheds, their
branches stopping short at a uniform height, four or five feet from
the ground, like eaves, as if they had been trimmed by art, so that
you could look under and through the whole grove with its leafy
canopy, as under a tent whose curtain is raised.

As you approach Lake Champlain you begin to see the New York
mountains.