“The great advantage of visiting inspiring scenery or talking with strong men is not what you get out of them, but what they draw out of you – the same thing, of course, but put in a more comforting light. If you are keenly alive all men will interest and no scene will bore. There is no commonplace of scenery. The dreariest desert flows with color, and the drought-driest pasture, silken with spider-webs at certain lights or musical with small life, can be a wonderful delight.

But it does pay to hunt up the great. For, when the marvel is at last come upon, when you at last are struck to the very core of your being by the Bridal Veil Falls, by the Rapids of Niagara, or even by the October glories on this Wall of Manitou, your spirit overflows with an intenser life. You swim, for a moment at least, in the greatness about you, just as one who had talked with Lincoln would have to be more generous or more kind. The nobler the sight the nobler you are, for the time being. And this is the supreme worth of travel.”

--- The Catskills, T. Morris Longstreth.