neighbors; but it has been indulged in no inconsiderable part of his
life. Rising after a time, he said, "Now I want you to go with me
and see my golden city I've talked so much about." He led the way to
a hill-outlook, when suddenly, emerging from the forest, the
spectators saw revealed the winding valley and its stream. He said
quietly, "There is my golden city." Far below, at their feet, they
saw that vast assemblage of birches and "popples," yellow as gold in
the brooding noonday, and slender spires rising out of the glowing
mass. Without another word, Phelps sat a long time in silent
content: it was to him, as Bunyan says, "a place desirous to be in."

Is this philosopher contented with what life has brought him?
Speaking of money one day, when we had asked him if he should do
differently if he had his life to live over again, he said, "Yes, but
not about money. To have had hours such as I have had in these
mountains, and with such men as Dr. Bushnell and Dr. Shaw and Mr.
Twichell, and others I could name, is worth all the money the world
could give." He read character very well, and took in accurately the
boy nature. "Tom" (an irrepressible, rather overdone specimen),--"
Tom's a nice kind of a boy; but he's got to come up against a
snubbin'-post one of these days."--"Boys!" he once said: "you can't
git boys to take any kinder notice of scenery. I never yet saw a boy
that would look a second time at a sunset. Now, a girl will some
times; but even then it's instantaneous,--comes an goes like the
sunset. As for me," still speaking of scenery, "these mountains
about here, that I see every day, are no more to me, in one sense,
than a man's farm is to him. What mostly interests me now is when I
see some new freak or shape in the face of Nature."

In literature it may be said that Old Phelps prefers the best in the