George Ticknor, Life, letters and journals of George Ticknor
George Hillard, Ed.

On this journey he wrote as follows to his daughters, who had remained with their relatives in Cambridge:—

To his daughters.

Conway, Thursday afternoon, August 28, 1846.

I do not think I can add much, dearest children, to your mother's letters, except an account of herself, which, however, I rather think you will be more glad to receive than anything else. . . . . The mountains, which rather deserve their ancient name of hills, are before our windows, and the pretty meadows of the Saco are all round the thriving, comfortable village in which our inn stands. It is just what I have wanted, and I assure you I enjoy the tranquillity and absence of all intercourse with strangers, except of the slightest kind, very much. Whether the hills are high, or low, is a matter of small moment to me. . . . . We shall both be glad to see you again, and will give you a day or two fair notice of what Dogberry calls our ‘reproach,’—a thing you know little about.

But I only meant to fill up the envelope a little, that nothing might go empty of love to you; and, in good truth, I have nothing else to send.

Always your affectionate father,

G. T.

Franconia, August 30.

I am glad your mother has made the amende honorable to the mountains, my dear darlings; for it is always an awkward thing to do, and she has done it much more gracefully than I could. They really deserve it. It was a beautiful drive up the Saco, with its rich meadows, on Friday, and it was a fine, wild one down the Ammonoosuck—the wild Ammonoosuck, as it is well called—to-day; but this Franconia Notch, by which we go from the waters of the Connecticut to those of the Merrimack, has been a great surprise to me, so beautiful is the pass. Just here, the rude, perpendicular hills are so close together that there is hardly room for the buildings, and when you stand a few feet from the house on either side of it, you see the rocks from the other side frowning over it. The moon went down two or three hours, I think, before its time, and keeps, still, a beautiful twilight over the mountain in front of us, and the reflection of a pale sort of spectral light on the one behind.

The house where we are, like several we have seen, has a look like the hospices in the Alps,—large, long, and standing alone; they