Beautiful New England

WE

E are giad to introduce a second series of Mr. Ramsey's beautiful photographs of the district loved and haunted by the spirit of Thoreau, or where, to speak more truly, Thoreau experimented with principles -as Sam Staples, the Concord village collector, said of Alcott's refusal to pay his taxes: "I vum, I believe it was nothing but principle, for I never heerd a man talk honester." As Mr. Sanborn says: "It was the era of communities; and Thoreau preferred a community of one." We might add, with ample boundaries and some indifference as to proprietary rights. But I wonder if we have even yet come to appreciate at its true value the purity of his accomplishment. The dip of his paddle in Walden Pond is still audible, and is the unalloyed gold of poetry.

There are in New England many more beautiful scenes than those about Concord, but to this alone have we the incomparable guide.