ding one of Satan's remark, "All that a man hath
will he give for his life."

Very admirable are the devices by which vegetation maintains itself
against odds. Everybody notices that many of the mountain species, like
the diapensia, the rose-bay, the Greenland sandwort (called the mountain
daisy by the Summit House people, for some inscrutable reason), and the
phyllodoce, have blossoms disproportionately large and handsome; as if
they realized that, in order to attract their indispensable allies, the
insects, to these inhospitable regions, they must offer them some
special inducements. Their case is not unlike that of a certain mountain
hotel which might be named, which happens to be poorly situated, but
which keeps itself full, nevertheless, by the peculiar excellence of its
_cuisine_.

It does not require much imagination to believe that these hardy
vegetable mountaineers love their wild, desolate dwelling-places as
truly as do the human residents of the region. An old man in Bethlehem
told me that sometimes, during the long, cold winter, he felt that
perhaps it would be well for him, now his work was done, to sell his
"place" and go down to Boston to live, near his brother. "But then," he
added, "you know it's dangerous transplanting an old tree; you're likely
as not to kill it." Whatever we have, in this world, we must pay for
with the loss of something else. The bitter must be taken with the
sweet, be we plants, animals, or men. These thoughts recurred to me a
day or two later, as I lay on the summit of Mount Agassiz, in the sun
and out of the wind, gazing down into the Franconia Valley, then in all
its June beauty. Nestled under the lee of the mountain, but farther from
the base, doubtless, than it seemed from my point of view, was a small
dwelling, scarcely better than a shanty. Two or three young children
were playing about the door, and near them was the man of the house
splitting wood. The air was still enough for me to hear every blow,
although it reached me only as the axe was again over the man's head,
ready for the next descent. It was a charming picture,--the broad, green
valley full of sunshine and peace, and the solitary cottage, from whose
doorstep might be seen in one direction the noble Mount Washington
range, and in another the hardly less noble Franconias. How easy to live
simply and well in such a grand seclusion! But soon there came a thought
of Wordsworth's sonnet, addressed to just such a mood