Now that the railroad has been built up the Sacramento, everybody with
money may go to Mount Shasta, the weak as well as the strong,
fine-grained, succulent people, whose legs have never ripened, as well
as sinewy mountaineers seasoned long in the weather. This, surely, is
not the best way of going to the mountains, yet it is better than
staying below. Many still small voices will not be heard in the noisy
rush and din, suggestive of going to the sky in a chariot of fire or a
whirlwind, as one is shot to the Shasta mark in a booming palace-car
cartridge; up the rocky canyon, skimming the foaming river, above the
level reaches, above the dashing spray--fine exhilarating translation,
yet a pity to go so fast in a blur, where so much might be seen and
enjoyed.

The mountains are fountains not only of rivers and fertile soil, but
of men. Therefore we are all, in some sense, mountaineers, and going
to the mountains is going home. Yet how many are doomed to toil in
town shadows while the white mountains beckon all along the horizon!
Up the canyon to Shasta would be a cure for all care. But many on
arrival seem at a loss to know what to do with themselves, and seek
shelter in the hotel, as if that were the Shasta they had come for.
Others never leave the rail, content with the window views, and cling
to the comforts of the sleeping car like blind mice to their mothers.
Many are sick and have been dragged to the healing wilderness
unwillingly for body-good alone. Were the parts of the human machine
detachable like Yankee inventions, how strange would be the gatherings
on the mountains of pieces of people out of repair!

How sadly unlike the whole-hearted ongoing of the seeker after gold is
this partial, compulsory mountaineering!--as if the mountain
treasuries contained nothing better than gold! Up the mountains they