New England Diary

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'Here is best'

Looking north from the French King Bridge at the Erving-Gill town line in western Massachusetts.

“Where the heart is, there the muses, there the gods sojourn, and not in any geography of fame. Massachusetts, Connecticut River, and Boston Bay, you think paltry places, and the ear loves names of foreign and classic topography. But here we are; and, if we tarry a little, we may come to learn that here is best. See to it, only, that thyself is here; and art and nature, hope and fate, friends, angels, and the Supreme Being, shall not absent from the chamber where thou sittest.’’

— Ralph Waldo Emerson