Leaving the Nashua, we changed our route a little, and arrived at
Stillriver Village, in the western part of Harvard, just as the sun was
setting. From this place, which lies to the northward, upon the western
slope of the same range of hills on which we had spent the noon before,
in the adjacent town, the prospect is beautiful, and the grandeur of
the mountain outlines unsurpassed. There was such a repose and quiet
here at this hour, as if the very hill-sides were enjoying the scene,
and we passed slowly along, looking back over the country we had
traversed, and listening to the evening song of the robin, we could not
help contrasting the equanimity of nature with the bustle and
impatience of man. His words and actions presume always a crisis near
at hand, but she is forever silent and unpretending.
And now that we have returned to the desultory life of the plain, let
us endeavor to import a little of that mountain grandeur into it. We
will remember within what walls we lie, and understand that this level
life too has its summit, and why from the mountain-top the deepest
valleys have a tinge of blue; that there is elevation in every hour, as
no part of the earth is so low that the heavens may not be seen from,
and we have only to stand on the summit of our hour to command an
uninterrupted horizon.
We rested that night at Harvard, and the next morning, while one bent
his steps to the nearer village of Groton, the other took his separate
and solitary way to the peaceful meadows of Concord; but let him not
forget to record the brave hospitality of a farmer and his wife, who
generously entertained him at their board, though the poor wayfarer
could only congratulate the one on the continuance of hayweather, and
silently accept the kindness of the other. Refreshed by this instance
of generosity, no less than by the substantial viands set before him,
he pushed forward with new vigor, and reached the banks of the Concord
before the sun had climbed many degrees into the heavens.
THE LANDLORD.
[1843.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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