graceful Wachuset, or, farther and mistier, Moriadnoc, the lofty
outpost of New Hampshire hills. Level scenery is not tame. The ocean,
the prairie, the desert, are not tame, although of monotonous surface.
The gentle undulations which mark certain scenes--a rippling
landscape, in which all sense of space, of breadth, and of height is
lost--that is tame. It may be made beautiful by exquisite cultivation,
as it often is in England and on parts of the Hudson shores, but it
is, at best, rather pleasing than inspiring. For a permanent view the
eye craves large and simple forms, as the body requires plain food for
its best nourishment.

The town of Concord is built mainly upon one side of the river. In its
centre is a large open square, shaded by fine elms. A white wooden
church, in the most classical style of Yankee-Greek, stands upon the
square. The Court-house is upon one of the corners. In the old
Courthouse, in the days when I knew Concord, many conventions were
held for humane as well as merely political objects. One summer day I
especially remember, when I did not envy Athens its forum, for Emerson
and William Henry Channing spoke. In the speech of both burned the
sacred fire of eloquence, but in Emerson it was light, and in Channing
heat.

From this square diverge four roads, like highways from a forum. One
leads by the Courthouse and under stately sycamores to the Old Manse
and the battle-ground, another goes directly to the river, and a third
is the main avenue of the town. After passing the shops this third
divides, and one branch forms a fair and noble street, spaciously and
loftily arched with elms, the houses standing liberally apart, each
with its garden-plot in front. The fourth avenue is the old Boston
road, also dividing, at the edge of the village, into the direct route