Page:The heart of Monadnock (IA heartofmonadnock00timl).pdf/141

 Carolina ranges tossing in their careless wilderness; the Rockies in their magnificence; the young, sharp-edged peaks of the Alps. He loved them all with a broad, impersonal affection, but no one of them ever took hold of his very heart as did this intimate and personal Monadnock. This alone, in an inexplicable way, was like his

"Life's ornament, "To mix itself with each event."

There was an extraordinary graciousness about the mountain with all its strength and ruggedness; a friendliness, as if glad to let its garnered richness of wisdom flow out like healing balm on all who stretched out longing hands for its renewing. It had that graciousness of a great soul, that going through the Valley of Baca, had made of it a well, and not a draught of poison bitterness A great soul in which centres the harvest of ripe experience and leadership; whose musings have delved deep into the unknowable, bringing back as from a treasure-house things beyond speech but which