It Is The Village Of The
Adirondack Iron-Works, Where The Streets Of Gaunt Houses Are Falling
To Pieces, Tenantless;
The factory-wheels have stopped; the furnaces
are in ruins; the iron and wooden machinery is strewn about in
helpless
Detachment; and heaps of charcoal, ore, and slag proclaim an
arrested industry. Beside this deserted village, even Calamity Pond,
shallow, sedgy, with its ragged shores of stunted firs, and its
melancholy shaft that marks the spot where the proprietor of the
iron-works accidentally shot himself, is cheerful.
The instinct of barbarism that leads people periodically to throw
aside the habits of civilization, and seek the freedom and discomfort
of the woods, is explicable enough; but it is not so easy to
understand why this passion should be strongest in those who are most
refined, and most trained in intellectual and social fastidiousness.
Philistinism and shoddy do not like the woods, unless it becomes
fashionable to do so; and then, as speedily as possible, they
introduce their artificial luxuries, and reduce the life in the
wilderness to the vulgarity of a well-fed picnic. It is they who
have strewn the Adirondacks with paper collars and tin cans. The
real enjoyment of camping and tramping in the woods lies in a return
to primitive conditions of lodging, dress, and food, in as total an
escape as may be from the requirements of civilization. And it
remains to be explained why this is enjoyed most by those who are
most highly civilized.
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