Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/457

 2ET.43.] TO HARRISON BLAKE. 431

thereabouts unpleasant. The chief of these was the mountain houses. I might have supposed that the main attraction of that region, even to citizens, lay in its wildness and unlikeness to the city, and yet they make it as much like the city as they can afford to. I heard that the Crawford House was lighted with gas, and had a large saloon, with its band of music, for dan cing. But give me a spruce house made in the rain.

An old Concord farmer tells me that he as cended Monadnoc once, and danced on the top. How did that happen ? Why, he being up there, a party of young men and women came up, bring ing boards and a fiddler ; and, having laid down the boards, they made a level floor, on which they danced to the music of the fiddle. I sup pose the tune was &quot; Excelsior.&quot; This reminds me of the fellow who climbed to the top of a very high spire, stood upright on the ball, and hurrahed for what ? Why, for Harrison and Tyler. That s the kind of sound which most ambitious people emit when they culminate. They are wont to be singularly frivolous in the thin atmosphere ; they can t contain themselves, though our comfort and their safety require it ; it takes the pressure of many atmospheres to do this ; and hence they helplessly evaporate there. It would seem that as they ascend, they breathe