Yet undeniably something of the romance of adventure in a visit to the White Hills is wanting, now that the railways penetrate every valley, and all the physical obstacles of the journey are removed.  One can never again feel the thrill that he experienced when, after a weary all-day jolting in the stage-coach, or plodding hour after hour on foot, he suddenly came in view of a majestic granite peak.  Never again by the new rail can he have the sensation that he enjoyed in the ascent of Mount Washington by the old bridlepath from Crawford’s, when, climbing out of the woods and advancing upon that marvelous backbone of rock, the whole world opened upon his awed vision, and the pyramid of the summit stood up in majesty against the sky.  Nothing, indeed, is valuable that is easily obtained.  This modern experiment of putting us through the world—­the world of literature, experience, and travel—­at excursion rates is of doubtful expediency.

I cannot but think that the White Mountains are cheapened a little by the facilities of travel and the multiplication of excellent places of entertainment.  If scenery were a sentient thing, it might feel indignant at being vulgarly stared at, overrun and trampled on, by a horde of tourists who chiefly value luxurious hotels and easy conveyance.  It would be mortified to hear the talk of the excursionists, which is more about the quality of the tables and the beds, and the rapidity with which the “whole thing can be done,” than about the beauty and the sublimity of nature.  The mountain, however, was made for man, and not man for the mountain; and if the majority of travelers only get out of these hills what they are capable of receiving, it may be some satisfaction to the hills that they still reserve their glories for the eyes that can appreciate them.  Perhaps nature is not sensitive about being run after for its freaks and eccentricities.  If it were, we could account for the catastrophe, a few years ago, in the Franconia Notch flume.  Everybody went there to see a bowlder which hung suspended over the stream in the narrow canon.  This curiosity attracted annually thousands of people, who apparently cared more for this toy than for anything else in the region.  And one day, as if tired of this misdirected adoration, nature organized a dam on the side of Mount Lafayette, filled it with water, and then suddenly let loose a flood which tore open the canon, carried the bowlder away, and spread ruin far and wide.  It said as plainly as possible, you must look at me, and not at my trivial accidents.  But man is an ingenious creature, and nature is no match for him.  He now goes, in increasing number, to see where the bowlder once hung, and spends his time in hunting for it in the acres of wreck and debris.  And in order to satisfy reasonable human curiosity, the proprietors of the flume have been obliged to select a bowlder and label it as the one that was formerly the shrine of pilgrimage.