The Savannah morning news., 1903-09-13

Asheville, N. c., Sept. 11.-Golden rods
now make gorgeous the road sides in
the mountains and the wild sunhower
Haunt their heads in every direction.
White daisies add their yellow hearts
to the symphony in saffron. Valley
meadows are white with clover, ripe
for harvest, and scattered between the
boulders, and hugging the roots of
trees, the simple fiower-children of the
wilds thrust forth their heads, white
and pink and purple, unconscious of
the admiration they evoke. Time-worn
fences that in the early springtime were
barbarous in their naked ugliness are
now buried in running verdure. The
scars left by the woodman's axe have
in many instances, been obliterated by
the loving hand of mother nature,
who, left to herself and scorning the
crude ruthlessness of devastating man,
has gently EMBODIED the trunks of fall
len monarchs in masses of honeysuckle
In the little gardens before the
mountaineer's huts there is a profus-
ion of blooms that puts to shame the
boasts of lower semi-tropdc lands
ana marigolds, coXcomb and cannas,
giant daisies and petite starry petalled
flowers of unknown names, have con-
Verted the small spaces of clay into
living, thriving bouquets rich enough
to charm the eye of an artist reveling
in gorgeous colorings. Near Wayne
Vile found such spots, fronting rude
board homes of the humblest type,
which seemed as though nature had
split all her colorings on a mammoth
palette and allowed them to flow
freely into superb MOSAIC. Small
wonder that one overlooked the sor-
did home in the contemplation of it's
surroundings, and that the bare power
~ and narrow bounds of the lives
of the fiower-planters were forgotten.
Somewhere Charles Kingsley has
said that life in the mountains touches
| deeper springs of reflection in mans
| soul, that surrounded by the outward
and majestic evidences of the power
and presence of omnipotence he rea-
Lies his own frailty and dependence,
his inner consciousness is stirred and
life taken on more sombre, more
serious and more retrospective aspect.
1t may be that the man of culture, ac-
! quired or inherited, is so Influenced by
| such awe-inspiring surroundings, but
one can hardly feel that the magne-
! t1Sm of Tryon, Caesars Head Nit
chell. Pisgah, Junaluska and their
! many brothers of North Carolina has
! so affected the careers of the primi-
/ tive men one sees in their homes in
the valleys and on their slopes and
heights. That the spirit of freedom
runs riot in their veins one can readily
concede, but beyond that one fears to
venture far from first impressions.
The magic finger of fall has as vet
barely touched the leaves of the prim-
eval forest. All the shades of green
are there, with occasional forerunners
of the coming change where some
! tree, leader of arboreal fashions. has
thrown out charming hints of what
is to be in yellow and crimson tips,
suggestive of the possibilities that
/ await the tourist a month hence In
! fancy one can see this world of en-
| erald converted as in a twinkling into
/ world Vieing with the rainbow in
the multiplicity of its combinations and
! defying with kingly disdain, mans
feeble efforts to duplicate them on can
Vass with oils aud colors of his own
make. The alchemistry of nature sur
| passes reproduction. Beautiful though
! they now are, stamping on the retina
| indelible panoramas that will tena-
| ciously draw one back to the noun
tains again and again a willing slave
! to their mysterious power, IL is not
| hard TO believe that grander pictures
than those September presents are just
| ahead. Old mountaineers tell me there
! is no scene quite so strikingly pictur-
/ esque as that on a cold, crisp winter
morn when one awakens and looking
/ out upon the eternal hills where all
! had been dark and gloomy the night
] before, finds vista OF spirituelle
| whiteness. Every rock and bush and
| tree. every mound and hill and noun
| tain every valley and precipice. has
/ upon ~ the peacefulness OF the grave
| II seems as though God had touched
/ the world and put n 90 sleep under
robe OF purity concealing an ~ de-.
formities, 20 10 await the resurrection
morn. But grand though that may
/ be-. and strongly 49, a. may stir me
/ higher Impulses of man, 1 cannot but
I feel that the glOrles ~ tho mountains
] in oci0bsF. with iis richly yaried tiRtG