Blackened stubs rose all
around as if they were huge exclamation points or pointing
fingers of accusation at the carelessness and thoughtlessness of
one individual.
Carelessness! How that word rang in our ears as we journeyed
through this lonely region, with all its grandeur and beauty
gone! Here we realized the kindly and beneficent influence of
streams and trees upon mountain scenery. True, mountains may be
grand without forests, but it is the grandeur of death we behold
in the vast untrodden fields of the show-clad Alps. Forests and
streams give life, fragrance, and beauty to those rough forms as
a pure soul adds beauty to the countenance of man. Only heated
waves of air rose from the fiery rocks and road around us, whose
shimmering lines made a fit perspective to such a scene. No
mossy rock where one could sit and listen to the singing birds;
no ancient trees through which the fragrant west wind could sing
its songs of rest and contentment; no purifying river where it
was once so pleasant for man to linger before going back to the
heat and smoke of the city; all because of one man's
carelessness. How much of sorrow and crime is in that word; what
failures, what wrecks of humanity stranded along the steep
precipice of that mountain.
Who would even want to climb those blackened summits? The
elevation would only make the view more terrible.
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