"Up at the crest of the heights, the ridge is sometimes simply forest, broken only by a wide field of stacked lumber, high cones of sawdust, and the bustle of trucks hauling in logs to the sawmill. Here only a line of old oaks and a decaying cemetery marks an old hill town.
"If life has not abandoned the hilltops, clear pastures roll down each side, giving panoramas of the valley far below. The old village centers, their white church, signposts, and geometric green (denoting an earlier era of optimistic town planning) occasionally survive....
"Plain, empty, and silent, these remnants of forgotten hope have an astringent beauty found nowhere else in the world.''
-- From the ending of Mountain New England: Life Past and Present, by William F. Robinson.
