You know how it often happens that a word shuttles in and out of many
years, waking all sorts of incongruous associations. I had met Monadnock
on paper in a shameless parody of Emerson's style, before ever style or
verse had interest for me. But the word stuck because of a rhyme, in
which one was
... crowned coeval
With Monadnock's crest,
And my wings extended
Touch the East and West.
Later the same word, pursued on the same principle as that blessed one
Mesopotamia, led me to and through Emerson, up to his poem on the peak
itself - the wise old giant 'busy with his sky affairs,' who makes us
sane and sober and free from little things if we trust him. So Monadnock
came to mean everything that was helpful, healing, and full of quiet,
and when I saw him half across New Hampshire he did not fail. In that
utter stillness a hemlock bough, overweighted with snow, came down a
foot or two with a tired little sigh; the snow slid off and the little
branch flew nodding back to its fellows.
For the honour of Monadnock there was made that afternoon an image of
snow of Gautama Buddha, something too squat and not altogether equal on
both sides, but with an imperial and reposeful waist. He faced towards
the mountain, and presently some men in a wood-sledge came up the road
and faced him.
