Lilian Whiting

“ On endless shelves, this way and that, behold the temples and cathedrals, the castles and fortresses of all time. See vast armies, the armies of the ages, winding up the slopes, and great navies manœuvring in the mirage-like distance. Here, indeed, the giant mind of Dante would have found new worlds to conquer; and Homer would have dreamed new dreams of gods and men, love and war, life and death, heaven and hell."
Hamlin Garland, in one of his prose-poems, has said:
"The clouds and the sunset, the moonrise and the storm, will transform it into a splendor no mountain range can surpass. ”

“ In retrospective glance over a very midsummer night's dream of the ineffable glory and beauty of wanderings from Pike's Peak to the Pacific there stands out to the mental vision one treasured possession whose loveliness exceeds that of all scenic landscape; which is more luminous and crystal clear than the luminous atmosphere of beautiful Colorado or glowing Arizona; which is more enduring in its changelessness than even the Petrified Forests or the mighty precipices of the Grand Cañon ”

“ One day will allow the adventurous tourist to "go down the trail." Still, after doing all these things, the best of all, it may be, is to live into the atmosphere. To draw one's chair out on the broad balcony of the new and beautiful hotel, El Tovar, and sit and dream and gaze and wonder, and wonder and gaze and dream, is, perhaps, the greatest joy one can have in all the time passed here, especially if the solitude can be the solitude à deux. No joy, no interest, is of much consequence until or unless it is sympathetically shared. ”

“ The red sandstone, the brilliant white of the limestone luminous under the setting sun, the green of pine trees or of copper rocks, the gray and ochre tints of gravel and fallen rocks and débris, [Pg 321] the soft, deep purple mist enveloping all as an atmosphere in which all these architectural marvels seemed to swim—the strange, unearthly splendor of it all—holds one under a fascination that can neither be analyzed nor described. This, then, is "El Grande Cañon de la Colorado." One stands speechless, breathless, as if transported to some other planet. ”

“ Five minutes' walking is often all that is required to carry one into, or out of, a severe downpour of rain. The clouds follow the mountain spurs as invariably as a needle follows the magnet and a torrent may fall on the mountains above, flashing down in a hundred improvised raging cataracts and waterfalls, while in the valley below the sun shines out of the bluest of skies. No panoramic pictures of the stage ever equalled the pictorial effects of a thunderstorm in the mountains, when the forked lightning leaps from peak to peak in a blaze, through the air ”

“ An expanse of sixty thousand miles is open to the gaze. To the west rise a thousand towering peaks, snow clad, in a majesty of effect beyond power of portrayal. To the east the vast plateaus stretch into infinite space. Below, the sun shines on floating clouds in all gleams of color. In the steel tower of the new Summit Hotel is a powerful telescope that brings Denver, eighty miles distant, into near and distinct view. In Colorado Springs, fourteen miles "as the crow flies," the telescopic view even reveals the signs on the streets so they may be plainly read. ”

“ Peaks will shift and glow, walls darken, crags take fire, and gray-green mesas, dimly seen, take on the gleam of opalescent lakes of mountain water. The traveller who goes out to the edge and peers into the great abyss sees but one phase out of hundreds. If he is fortunate, it may be one of its most beautiful combinations of color and shadow. But to know it, to feel its majesty, one should camp in the bottom and watch the sunset and the moonrise while the river marches from its lair like an angry lion. ”

“ A summer in Colorado Springs is one that is set in the heart of fascinating attractions. Nor is the Pike's Peak region a summer land alone, for the autumn is even more beautiful, and the winters are all crystal and sunshine and full of exquisite exhilaration and delight in mountain regions that take on new forms of interest. Colorado Springs is not merely—nor even mostly—an excursion city for pleasure-seekers; it is a city of permanent homes, whose residential advantages attract and create its phenomenal growth. ”

“ From mountain tops one looks across greater distances and sees range after range lifting snowy peaks into the blue. The ocean reaches out into boundless space, and the ebb and flow of its waters have the beauty of rhythmic motion and exquisitely varied color. And in the rush of mighty cataracts are power and splendor and majestic peace. Yet for grandeur appalling and unearthly; for ineffable, impossible beauty, the cañon transcends all these. It is as though to the glory of nature were added the glory of art ”

“ Its authentic and historic past antedates the coming of the Mayflower to the rocky and desolate December shores of Massachusetts, while its future flashes before one like an electric panorama outspeeding wireless telegraphy. It is the Land of Magic and Mystery. The light is a perpetual radiance, as if proceeding from some alchemy of distilled sunshine. While Colorado is the Land of Perpetual Dawn, of an heroic and poetic achievement, Arizona is the region of brooding mystery, of strange surprise. ”

“ So the little trifles and pleasantries of the comédie humaine assert their place in the general life even on the rim of the sublime spectacle of the Carnival of the Gods.
For more than two hundred miles the cañon offers its innumerable panoramas, no one ever duplicating that of another. There are thousands of cañons in it—it is a complicated system of colossal cañons. Every wall is an aggregation of hundreds of walls. Every pinnacle is formed of hundreds of pinnacles. When the sun shines in splendor on the vermilion walls, the glory is almost beyond what man can bear. ”

“ The slopes, thirteen miles away, are visible as gray walls, distinct from the black cliffs, and on the hither side the trees are clear against the snow. No night is absolute in blackness, but as we look it seems as though the cañon was lighted from within. It is an abyss of shadow and mystery. There is a sadness in the cañon, as in all great things of nature, that removes it from human experience. We have seen the utmost of the world's sublimity, and life is fuller from that hour. ”

“ Sometimes the Peak will flaunt itself in glorious apparel and gird itself in strength. With light it will deck itself as with a garment. It surprises a sunrise with the reflection of glory transfigured into unspeakable resplendence. It is the royal monarch to which every inhabitant of the Pike's Peak region, every sojourner in the land, must pay his tribute. The day is fair or foul according as Pike's Peak shall smile or frown. All the cycles of the eternal ages have left on its summit their records,—the silent and [Pg 54] hidden romance of the air. ”

“ Looking out on the Peak from Colorado Springs, three miles from its base, there are hours when it seems to be actually approaching with such swift though stately measure that one involuntarily [Pg 53] shrinks back from the window in irrational alarm lest the grim monster shall bear down upon it, with a force inevitable as Fate; disastrous as a colossal iceberg wandering from Polar seas and sweeping down with irresistible force against the side of a transatlantic liner. In a lightning flash of instantaneous, unreasoning vision, one beholds in imagination the impending destruction of a city. ”

“ Of the silent transformations of the cañon when it "sinks into mysterious purple shadow" he said: "The far Shinumo Altar is tipped with a golden ray, and against a leaden horizon the long line of the Echo Cliffs reflects a soft brilliance of indescribable beauty, a light that, elsewhere, surely never was on sea or land. Then darkness falls," he continues, "and should there be a moon, the scene in part [Pg 333] revives in silver light a thousand spectral forms projected from inscrutable gloom; dreams of mountains, as in their sleep they brood on things eternal." ”

“ There is not a night in the summer when the wind, cool, refreshing, exhilarating, does not blow from the great rampart of the snow-clad, encircling mountains. There is not a morning when the wind does not come again, sending the blood leaping through the veins, while [Pg 46] the sun rides across the heavens in a glory of brilliancy, and the great range rears its white head to the cloudless blue sky.
The Denver Art League is a flourishing association that has under its auspices classes in drawing, water colors, and sculpture. Already many artists of Colorado are winning a name. ”

“ Every tourist in the Pike's Peak region regards the "Short Line" trip as the very crown of the summer's excursions, or, in the local phrase, one whose sublimity of beauty "bankrupts the English language." These forty-five miles not only condense within their limits the grandeur one might reasonably anticipate during a transcontinental journey of three thousand miles, but as an achievement of mountain engineering, railway experts in both Europe and America have pronounced it the most substantially built and the finest equipped mountain railroad in the world. ”

“ In so exceptional a summer of drought and heat as was that of 1901 the advantages of irrigation stand out. Journeying through Kansas, the long day's ride across the state revealed continued devastation from the lack of rain. Corn fields looked almost as if a fire had passed over them, so shrivelled and stunted they were; but in Colorado on every hand there were greenness and luxuriance of vegetation and of crops. The result is simply that, with irrigation, man controls his climate and all the conditions of prosperity. ”

“ The Petrified Forests are quarries rather than forests; the great fallen logs, branches, and chips, lying prostrate on the ground, are seen glowing and gleaming like jewels. So far as the eye can reach there is not a human habitation. Over the infinite stretch of sand and rocks bends the bluest of skies, and here and there are prehistoric Indian mines, and one ledge of cliffs on which are strange and as yet undeciphered hieroglyphics. The graves of the prehistoric inhabitants of this region are numerous, each containing rare and choice specimens of pottery which are dug out intact. ”

“ A dam site was discovered sixty-two miles from a railroad, and they proceeded to connect it with civilization by a marvellous road which winds its way for forty miles through deep cañons, along the face of frowning precipices, over foaming cataracts, and across broad areas of treeless desert. It opens up to the transcontinental traveller a new region of compelling interest and of splendid scenery. Better than that, it provides an easy thoroughfare for the transportation of heavy machinery of all kinds and the supplies for the new community which sprang into life almost at a word. ”

“ The gods have, indeed, kept high carnival in Arizona. Every aspect of nature is on a scale of Titanic magnificence. The cañon systems of its mountain ranges; the indescribable grandeur which reaches its supreme majesty in the Grand Cañon; the wonders of extinct volcanic action; the colossal channels cut by rushing waters; the unearthly splendor of the atmospheric effects, and the coloring of the skies,—all combine to render Arizona an expression of magical wonder. ”

“ These exceptional variations to the established order, however,—these wonderful peaks and cañons and forests and gardens of gods,—all these enchanted things lie, naturally, within the Land of Enchantment, within this vast territorial expanse replete with many other attractions. From La Junta let the traveller journey into Colorado with its splendor of resources, and in gazing upon the stately, solemn impressiveness of the Snowy Range he cannot but feel that Nature has predestined Colorado for the theatre of noble life and realize the influence as all-pervading. ”

“ In winter all Southern Arizona is a paradise of loveliness. At this season the towns of Florence, Phœnix, Tucson, Yuma, and other points invite one to the balmy air, the luminous brilliant skies, and the nights, which are a glory of starry illumination. Northern Arizona has a perfection of summer climate, and the Grand Cañon is destined in the near future to become one of the great summer resorts of the world. With the splendid facilities for comfort offered by the arrangements, the traveller finds all his accustomed conveniences, and the cañon has literally all seasons for its own. ”

“ But the dusky porter allows the tourist no such margin for reflection, and one finds himself standing in some wonderful place spellbound by the witchery of the desert, and the long train vanishing in the distance, almost before he knows whether he has exchanged the land of dreams for the land of day and daylight realities,—for this weird and mystic panorama of the infinite desert, with the bluest of turquoise skies already lighted by the blazing splendor of the June sunrise, and the grotesque, uncanny buttes scattered at intervals all over that vast plain. ”

“ A graduate of Berkeley College in California, and the constant companion of her father in his wanderings, Miss Muir is indeed an ideal guide, and under her hand one June morning the two horses sped along over the rough, stony ground at a pace to set every fibre tingling. One of the features of the Arizona desert is the arroyo, a dry stream, a ready-made river, so to speak, minus the water. ”

“ Darwin, who regarded "climate and the affections" as the only absolute necessities of terrestrial existence, should have lived in Denver, for of all the beautiful climates is that in which revels the capital of Colorado. The air is all liquid gold from sunrise till sunset; the mountains swim in a sea of azure blue; the ground is bare and dry in winter, affording the best of walking, and there are few cities where the general municipal management exceeds or is, perhaps, even as good as that of Denver. ”

“ The Spanish Peaks cut the sky far away on the horizon, and the beautiful range of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains offers a view of wonderful beauty. The road passes Duffields, Summit, Rosemont, and Cathedral Park, at each of which stations a house or two, or a few tents, may be seen,—the homes of workmen or of summer dwellers who find the most romantic and picturesque corners of the universe none too good in which to set up their household gods for the midsummer days. Nothing is more feasible than to live high up in the mountains along the "Short Line." ”

“ Peter's Dome,—a huge mass of granite towering eleven thousand feet into the air, around which the steel track winds in terraces, glory after glory of view repeating itself from the ascending vistas as the train climbs the dizzy height,—the engineering problem that is here at once presented and solved, has attracted scientific attention all over the world as the most extraordinary achievement in mountain transportation. ”