Page:Literary pilgrimages of a naturalist (IA literarypilgrima00packrich).pdf/149

 as an exclamation of astonishment. As an offset for this I might cite the small boy who, having been shown the stone which marks the grave of Louisa Alcott, gave it shyly a little loving hug and a pat before he went away. In the highest group of Concord immortals it is not customary to include the talented daughter of the transcendentalist, yet of the worshipers who pass not a few lay their fondest offering on the turf that covers her.

For a few hours out of the twenty-four, visitors to Sleepy Hollow come and go. Except for that the hollow indeed sleeps, steeped in the gentle peace of all nature which seems to well up out of it and encompass all the region round about in its golden haze. Surely the lotos grows where the Assabet and the Sudbury join to make the Concord, that sleeps on so gently that one may hardly know that it is on its way. The lotos grows there and the land has eaten of it, for the bustle of the world passes over it but does not change nor wake it. The very farms of Revolutionary time linger on, and if they are tilled now as they were then I do not know, but the