look out into the silent sea. I seem to partake its rapid
transformations; the active enchantment reaches my dust, and I
dilate and conspire with the morning wind. Give me health and a
day and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous.

"To the body and mind which have been cramped by anxious work or
company, Nature is medicinal and restores their tone. The
tradesman, the attorney, comes out of the din and craft of the
street and sees the sky and the woods, and is a man again. In
the eternal calm he finds himself. The health of the eye seems
to demand a horizon. We are never tired, so long as we can see
far enough."

--EMERSON.


INTRODUCTION

Scenery, as well as "the prophet," is "not without honor" save
in its own country. Therefore thousands of travellers are in
Europe today, gazing in open mouthed wonder at the Swiss Alps or
floating down the Rhine pretending to be enraptured, who never
gave a passing thought to the Adirondacks, or the incomparable
beauty of the Hudson, which perhaps lie at their very doors.

It is not our purpose to make the reader appreciate European
scenery less but American scenery more. "America first" should
be our slogan, whether in regard to political relations or to
travel. Many Americans do not know how to appreciate their own
natural scenery. Much has been written about the marvelous