New London High School - Whaler Yearbook (New London, CT)

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BULKELEY NEWS VOL. XI. FEBRUARY, 1915 No. 2 A Parable A certain man made his way up a rugged mountain path. Below him lay a broad valley green with the bursting richness of returning summer. Glistening in the sunshine there wound through the plain a silver ribbon of water near whose quiet banks peaceful cattle grazed in calm content. Sequestered farm houses here and there rose through the leafy branches of oaks and elms. The man had left this quietude for the broader view the mountain top might give. He turned from the road and made his way through a sloping field of wide-open daisies. How bracing the air! How far away and small the valley ! How tiny the houses and the river ! How broad and magnificent the view ! The mountain was indeed repaying the climber for his upward toil and his renunciation of the charms of the lowly plain. There on the mountain, high above the sounds and scenes of earthly toil, the man felt an exhilaration that the valley had never given. Far away he saw- mountain range after mountain range—huge gray billows of e a r t h , seemingly rolling toward him. ‘ ‘What a wonderful earth this is !” he mused. Through the shade of a grove of trees he pressed on. The sunshine checquering his path made him look up through the towering branches. Glimpses of a blue, cloudless sky cheered him forward. He emerged from the shade, strode upward toward the summit of promise. There were fewer and fewer trees, less and less green herbage, more and more open spaces—a broader and broader view. At last the man reached the barren summit. Beneath him lay the world stretched out in indistinct greens and grays and browns. Over his head hung the endless blue of the sky. What a wonderful, inspiring view ! this view of the world, God’s world. But as he contemplated its grandeur the view seemed to change. The chill mountain breeze made the man shudder. Suddenly he became conscious of the barrenness of the mountain top. No grass, no flowers, no trees, no living creatures save himself were there. “Yet this is the broader, higher view,” he said with a tone of disappointment. “How lonely, how solitary.” He thought of the valley with its meandering stream, its b r o a d pastures, its cattle, its inhabited farm houses.