And it appears, after all, that
there was something just in these appreciations. The invalid is now
asked to lodge on wintry Alps; a ruder air shall medicine him; the
demon of cold is no longer to be fled from, but bearded in his den.
For even Winter has his 'dear domestic cave,' and in those places
where he may be said to dwell for ever tempers his austerities.
Any one who has travelled westward by the great transcontinental
railroad of America must remember the joy with which he perceived,
after the tedious prairies of Nebraska and across the vast and dismal
moorlands of Wyoming, a few snowy mountain summits alone, the
southern sky. It is among these mountains in the new State of
Colorado that the sick man may find, not merely an alleviation of his
ailments, but the possibility of an active life and an honest
livelihood. There, no longer as a lounger in a plaid, but as a
working farmer, sweating at his work, he may prolong and begin anew
his life. Instead of the bath-chair, the spade; instead of the
regulated walk, rough journeys in the forest, and the pure, rare air
of the open mountains for the miasma of the sick-room - these are the
changes offered him, with what promise of pleasure and of self-
respect, with what a revolution in all his hopes and terrors, none
but an invalid can know.
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