"
In regions as lovely as the highlands of New York, you are
reminded many times of that sweet singer who dwelt at Sunnyside,
and wrought the legends of these hills into the most exquisite
forms of beauty.
Out over the hills we beheld one of Nature's poems of twilight.
The vapors seemed to be gathering over the high ridges, but the
western sky was almost clear. It was evident that Nature was
preparing for a magnificent farewell today. Soon the west was
overrun with a golden flush that began to reveal a pink as
delicate as peach bloom and the vapors began to glow with
ineffable splendor.
As we watched the fantastic cloud-wreathed summits whose colors
were altogether indescribable, we noted the intensity of
coloring and rapid kaleidoscopic changes they underwent.
Suddenly a veil of mist would shut out the view for a time, then
grow luminous in the evening light, then fade; revealing new and
more glorious combinations of color until the clear outlines of
the mountains were etched against the sky. Again we asked
ourselves the perplexing question, which mountain scene is
loveliest? Before us rose visions of the airy forms of the Alps,
the beautiful and majestic wall of the Pyranees, the dark,
forbidding masses of the Eifel, and then the various ranges of
the Appalachians.
The answer was that all are beautiful, each possessing its own
peculiar charm.
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