Publisher's Synopsis
A short time ago, I was favored with a flying visit from my young friend Eustace Bright, whom Ihad not before met with since quitting the breezy mountains of Berkshire. It being the wintervacation at his college, Eustace was allowing himself a little relaxation, in the hope, he told me, ofrepairing the inroads which severe application to study had made upon his health; and I was happyto conclude, from the excellent physical condition in which I saw him, that the remedy had alreadybeen attended with very desirable success. He had now run up from Boston by the noon train, partlyimpelled by the friendly regard with which he is pleased to honor me, and partly, as I soon found, ona matter of literary business.It delighted me to receive Mr. Bright, for the first time, under a roof, though a very humble one, which I could really call my own. Nor did I fail (as is the custom of landed proprietors all about theworld) to parade the poor fellow up and down over my half a dozen acres; secretly rejoicing, nevertheless, that the disarray of the inclement season, and particularly the six inches of snow thenupon the ground, prevented him from observing the ragged neglect of soil and shrubbery into whichthe place had lapsed. It was idle, however, to imagine that an airy guest from Monument Mountain, Bald Summit, and old Graylock, shaggy with primeval forests, could see anything to admire in mypoor little hillside, with its growth of frail and insect-eaten locust trees. Eustace very frankly calledthe view from my hill top tame; and so, no doubt, it was, after rough, broken, rugged, headlongBerkshire, and especially the northern parts of the county, with which his college residence hadmade him familiar. But to me there is a peculiar, quiet charm in these broad meadows and gentleeminences. They are better than mountains, because they do not stamp and stereotype themselvesinto the brain, and thus grow wearisome with the same strong impression, repeated day after day. Afew summer weeks among mountains, a lifetime among green meadows and placid slopes, withoutlines forever new, because continually fading out of the memory-such would be my soberchoice.I doubt whether Eustace did not internally pronounce the whole thing a bore, until I led him tomy predecessor's little ruined, rustic summer house, midway on the hillside. It is a mere skeleton ofslender, decaying tree trunks, with neither walls nor a roof; nothing but a tracery of branches andtwigs, which the next wintry blast will be very likely to scatter in fragments along the terrace. Itlooks, and is, as evanescent as a dream; and yet, in its rustic network of boughs, it has somehowenclosed a hint of spiritual beauty, and has become a true emblem of the subtile and ethereal mindthat planned it. I made Eustace Bright sit down on a snow bank, which had heaped itself over themossy seat, and gazing through the arched windows opposite, he acknowledged that the scene atonce grew picturesque."Simple as it looks," said he, "this little edifice seems to be the work of magic. It is full ofsuggestiveness, and, in its way, is as good as a cathedral. Ah, it would be just the spot for one to sitin, of a summer afternoon, and tell the children some more of those wild stories from the classicmyths!""It would, indeed," answered