Mt. Moosilauke (1896) - Night on Moosilauke
A Sketch Charcoaled in Prose
". . . Out on the dark, bald summit, alone, gazing; the wind roaring, thundering, unintermittent and cold as snow. Out there by the lonely, cabled house, on the piles of rocks, my feet clinging where they can, my fingers numb; my eyes filling, my hat brim fluttering like a ship's angry sail. So far above the plain. I feel but half attached to the earth. I gaze far out into space (how vast is space from a mountain! How we are charmed by the distance!) Far to the south-east, beyond countless ranges, peaks, gulfs, abysses, near the dim sky-line, too far to seem real, Lake Winnipesaukee - a long, silvery path of light - plainly visible under the cold light of the moon. (The whole earth greenish in the moonlight like a ghastly daguerreotype.)"
From "Night on Moosilauke" by Milo Benedict, Granite Monthly, 1896.
