No More Learning

The blueberries which the mountain afforded, added to the milk we had
brought, made our frugal supper, while for entertainment the even-song
of the wood thrush rang along the ridge. Our eyes rested on no painted
ceiling nor carpeted hall, but on skies of Nature's painting, and
hills and forests of her embroidery. Before sunset, we rambled along
the ridge to the north, while a hawk soared still above us. It was a
place where gods might wander, so solemn and solitary, and removed
from all contagion with the plain. As the evening came on, the haze
was condensed in vapor, and the landscape became more distinctly
visible, and numerous sheets of water were brought to light.

"Et jam summa procul villarum culmina fumant,
Majoresque cadunt altis de montibus umbrae. "

And now the tops of the villas smoke afar off,
And the shadows fall longer from the high mountains.

As we stood on the stone tower while the sun was setting, we saw the
shades of night creep gradually over the valleys of the east; and the
inhabitants went into their houses, and shut their doors, while the
moon silently rose up, and took possession of that part. And then the
same scene was repeated on the west side, as far as the Connecticut
and the Green Mountains, and the sun's rays fell on us two alone, of
all New England men.

It was the night but one before the full of the moon, so bright that
we could see to read distinctly by moonlight, and in the evening
strolled over the summit without danger. There was, by chance, a fire
blazing on Monadnock that night, which lighted up the whole western
horizon, and, by making us aware of a community of mountains, made our
position seem less solitary. But at length the wind drove us to the
shelter of our tent, and we closed its door for the night, and fell
asleep.

It was thrilling to hear the wind roar over the rocks, at intervals
when we waked, for it had grown quite cold and windy. The night was,
in its elements, simple even to majesty in that bleak place,--a bright
moonlight and a piercing wind. It was at no time darker than twilight
within the tent, and we could easily see the moon through its
transparent roof as we lay; for there was the moon still above us,
with Jupiter and Saturn on either hand, looking down on Wachusett, and
it was a satisfaction to know that they were our fellow-travelers
still, as high and out of our reach as our own destiny.
Truly the
stars were given for a consolation to man. We should not know but our
life were fated to be always groveling, but it is permitted to behold
them, and surely they are deserving of a fair destiny. We see laws
which never fail, of whose failure we never conceived; and their lamps
burn all the night, too, as well as all day,--so rich and lavish is
that nature which can afford this superfluity of light.

The morning twilight began as soon as the moon had set, and we arose
and kindled our fire, whose blaze might have been seen for thirty
miles around. As the daylight increased, it was remarkable how rapidly
the wind went down. There was no dew on the summit, but coldness
supplied its place. When the dawn had reached its prime, we enjoyed
the view of a distinct horizon line, and could fancy ourselves at sea,
and the distant hills the waves in the horizon, as seen from the deck
of a vessel. The cherry-birds flitted around us, the nuthatch and
flicker were heard among the bushes, the titmouse perched within a few
feet, and the song of the wood thrush again rang along the ridge. At
length we saw the run rise up out of the sea, and shine on
Massachusetts; and from this moment the atmosphere grew more and more
transparent till the time of our departure, and we began to realize
the extent of the view, and how the earth, in some degree, answered to
the heavens in breadth, the white villages to the constellations in
the sky. There was little of the sublimity and grandeur which belong
to mountain scenery, but an immense landscape to ponder on a summer's
day. We could see how ample and roomy is nature. As far as the eye
could reach there was little life in the landscape; the few birds
that flitted past did not crowd. The travelers on the remote highways,
which intersect the country on every side, had no fellow-travelers for
miles, before or behind. On every side, the eye ranged over successive
circles of towns, rising one above another, like the terraces of a
vineyard, till they were lost in the horizon. Wachusett is, in fact,
the observatory of the State. There lay Massachusetts, spread out
before us in its length and breadth, like a map.