at this little idiosyncracy of mine might answer
to fill here and there a gap. For what generous person does not rejoice
to feel that even in his absence he may be doing something for the
comfort and well-being of his brothers and sisters? As Seneca said, "Man
is born for mutual assistance."

According to Osgood's "New England," the summit of Owl's Head is 2,743
feet above the level of the lake, and the path to it is a mile and a
half and thirty rods in length. It may seem niggardly not to throw off
the last petty fraction; and indeed we might well enough let it pass if
it were at the beginning of the route,--if the path, that is, were
thirty rods and a mile and a half long. But this, it will be observed,
is not the case; and it is a fact perfectly well attested, though
perhaps not yet scientifically accounted for (many things are known to
be true which for the present cannot be mathematically demonstrated),
that near the top of a mountain thirty rods are equivalent to a good
deal more than four hundred and ninety-five feet. Let the guide-book's
specification stand, therefore, in all its surveyor-like exactness.
After making the climb four times in the course of eight days, I am not
disposed to abate so much as a jot from the official figures. Rather
than do that I would pin my faith to an unprofessional-looking
sign-board in the rear of the hotel, on which the legend runs, "Summit
of Owl's Head 2-1/4 miles." For aught I know, indeed (in such a world as
this, uncertainty is a principal mark of intelligence),--for aught I
know, both measurements may be correct; which fact, if once it were
established, would easily and naturally explain how it came to pass that
I myself found the distance so much greater on some days than on others;
although, for that matter, which of the two would be actually longer, a
path which should rise 2,743 feet in a mile and a half, or one that
should cover two miles and a quarter in reaching the same elevation, is
a question to which different pedestrians would likely enough return
contradictory answers.[25]

Yet let me not be thought to magnify so small a feat as the ascent of
Owl's Head, a mountain which the ladies of the Appalachian Club may be
presumed to look upon as hardly better than a hillock. The guide-book's
"thirty rods" have betrayed me into saying more than I intended. It
would have been enough had I mentioned that the way is in many places
steep, while at the time of my visit the