Page:The heart of Monadnock (IA heartofmonadnock00timl).pdf/143

 for conquest—flung remorselessly back, down into their black crevasses, ever yawning for victims, or buried them deep in their cruel white blankets, as relentlessly as Eastern deities sacrifice their worshippers.

The Mountain-Lover felt their strange enchantment, but it was only this "Great little mountain" that with its inexplicable personal quality, that drew and held his heart.

"Joy-giver and enjoyer," said Thoreau, looking deeply into Monadnock. The Mountain-Lover as he lay full length upon his water-worn cradle of rock, put his hand caressingly on its garnet-flecked sides, fancying that the now purpling masses above him—how the lights quivered and changed every moment!—delighted in the wooing sunlight that crept along its crest and that it loved the dappled shadows that played endearingly with its crannies and recesses. He fancied as Wordsworth imagined of the moon, that with delight the deserted summit must look around it "when the heavens are bare" and that in some mystic way it