All are ours to enjoy as long as we behold their
outlines; yes, longer, for no one can erase them from our
memory. Each is loveliest for the place it occupies. The
Catskills could not well change places with the White mountains
or the Berkshire hills with the Blue ridge, for the Creator has
fashioned woodland, valley, and river to harmonize. Why choose
between the melody of the hermit and woodthrush? Both are gifted
singers whose notes, rising serene in far mountain haunts, touch
our spirits like a prayer. The melody of the woodthrush is not
so wild, so ethereal and so far away as the hermit's, but when
he rings his vesper bell in his divine contralto voice, no other
sound in Nature can excel it. We have heard many nightingales
and skylarks singing, but their songs do not attain that depth
of soul-thrilling harmony found alone in the song of the thrush.
So, too, here in the lovely Catskill region, you will see a kind
of beauty that nowhere else can be obtained.
The hostess told us how on a mild March morning, she had
witnessed the funeral procession escorting the mortal remains of
John Burroughs over this scenic highway. She said she saw Thomas
A. Edison and Henry Ford gazing out over the lovely hills their
dear departed friend loved so well. It was not with sadness we
listened to her words, for we know this gentle lover of Nature
had only wandered a little farther to lovelier hills and fairer
scenes.
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