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Constructing Quality
This page intentionally left blank
Constructing Quality
The Classification of Goods in Markets

Edited by
Jens Beckert and Christine Musselin

1
3
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP,
United Kingdom
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.
It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of
Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries
# Oxford University Press 2013
The moral rights of the authors have been asserted
First Edition published in 2013
Impression: 1
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the
prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted
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above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the
address above
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and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
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ISBN 978–0–19–967757–3
Printed in Great Britain by
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Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and
for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials
contained in any third party website referenced in this work.
Contents

Acknowledgments vii
List of Figures viii
List of Tables ix
Notes on Contributors x

1. Introduction 1
Jens Beckert and Christine Musselin

Part I Investing in Quality

2. Realizing Dreams, Proving Thrift: How Product Demonstrations
Qualify Financial Objects and Subjects 31
Zsuzsanna Vargha

3. Quality and Temporality in Timber Markets 58

Patrik Aspers

4. A Good Match: Appraising Worth and Estimating Quality

in School Choice 77
Agnès van Zanten

Part II The Quality of Labor

5. Uncertainties Regarding Applicant Quality: The Anonymous
Resume Put to the Test 103
Emmanuelle Marchal

6. Evaluation Practices in Internal Labor Markets: Constructing

Engineering Managers’ Qualification in French and
German Automotive Firms 126
Philipp Gerlach
Contents

Part III The Quality of Aesthetic Goods

7. Account of the Past: Mechanisms of Quality Construction
in the Market for Antiques 153
Elena Bogdanova

8. Seeing the World through Common Lenses? The Case of French

Contemporary Poetry 174
Sébastien Dubois and Pierre François

Part IV The Morality of Quality

9. Halal and the Moral Construction of Quality: How Religious
Norms Turn a Mass Product into a Singularity 197
Frans van Waarden and Robin van Dalen

10. Qualification under Moral Constraints: The Funeral Purchase

as a Problem of Valuation 223
Dominic Akyel

Part V Consuming Quality

11. From Qualities to Value: Demand Shaping and Market Control
in Mass Consumption Markets 247
Sophie Dubuisson-Quellier

12. Fake Qualities: Assessing the Value of Counterfeit Goods 268

Frank Wehinger

13. Quality Classifications in Competition: Price Formation

in the German Wine Market 288
Jörg Rössel and Jens Beckert

Postscript
14. Vigorous Verbs: Conveying the Action of People
Producing Qualities 319
Wendy Nelson Espeland

Name Index 333

Subject Index 338

vi
Acknowledgments

Questions of the valuation and pricing of goods have become a major strand
of research in economic sociology in recent years. In order to value goods on
markets, actors must assess their quality in absolute terms and in relation to
other products. The fourteen chapters in this volume use empirical studies
covering a wide range of topics to address how actors assess the quality of
goods. The studies focus on the practices of actors and range from school
choice and labor markets to purchases of funeral services, halal food, and
counterfeit goods. How do market suppliers, intermediaries, and customers
solve the problem of assessing product quality? What role do categories and
classifications play in this? Where do trust, networks, mental frames, and
institutions come in?
This book is the result of a long and intensive collaboration between the
Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne and Sciences Po in
Paris. A number of researchers in both institutions have worked in recent years
on questions of the qualification, valuation, and pricing of products as part of
a sociological understanding of the operation of markets. In March 2011, we
organized a workshop in Cologne on this topic, where most of the chapters
assembled in this volume were presented for the first time.
But it was a long way from there to the finished book. We could not have
succeeded without the help of numerous people. Our most sincere thanks go
to Astrid Dünkelmann from the MPIfG in Cologne, who managed the work-
flow until the completed manuscript could be sent to the publisher. During
this time Casey Butterfield did an admirable job editing the manuscripts for
language and style, and Thomas Pott provided invaluable assistance on the
reference lists and the figures. Emma Booth took up the project once it arrived
at Oxford University Press and shepherded it through with care and precision
until it went to print. We are grateful to all of them for their dedication to the
project. Finally, we would like to thank David Musson for his support of the
book, which made publishing with Oxford University Press possible.

Jens Beckert
Christine Musselin
Cologne and Paris, October 2012
List of Figures

2.1 Presentation pad after a standard presentation 41

2.2 Graph of the mortgage combination plan 47
2.3 Demonstration of how the combination plan is more advantageous
than a regular bank mortgage (printout) 49
6.1 Hiring managers’ action regimes 131
7.1 The role of discoveries in the antiques market 158
8.1 The uses of categories 180
8.2 Bonnefoy’s ego networks by (a) Gleize (1992), (b) Orizet (1993),
(c) Mathieu (1998), and (d) Maulpoix (2006) 186
8.3 Heidsieck’s ego networks by (e) Gleize (1992), (f ) Donguy (2001),
(g) Hanna (2001), and (h) Bobillot (2001) 188
10.1 The formation of price preferences in the funeral market 239
List of Tables

3.1a Price paid (SEK) per cubic meter under bark 66

3.1b Correction of sum paid (SEK) per cubic meter under bark for
different diameters, in relation to the “standard length” of 460 cm 66
3.2 Pine grades 67
8.1 Ego network stability index (Sen) 184
9.1 Black, white, and gray areas of halal food standards 203
9.2 Submarkets and their demand and supply of halal certifiers 211
13.1 Reproduction and competition between classifications 305
13.2 Classifications and prices on the wine market 308
14.1 Conditions of qualifying 325
Notes on Contributors

Dominic Akyel is a Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of
Societies in Cologne. His research interests include economic sociology and political
economy, the sociology of culture and religion, and the sociology of death and dying.
His recent publications include articles on morals and markets, societal modernization
and economization, violence in new religious movements, and the detraditionalization
of the funeral.
Patrik Aspers is Professor of Sociology and Chair of the Department of Sociology at
Uppsala University. His research is focused on theory and economic sociology. He has
published several books and articles, including Markets in Fashion: A Phenomenological
Approach (Routledge, 2006), Orderly Fashion: A Sociology of Fashion (Princeton University
Press, 2010), and Markets (Polity, 2011), and is the editor, with Jens Beckert, of
The Worth of Goods: Valuation and Pricing in the Economy (Oxford University Press,
2011). He leads a larger European Research Council project on “Evaluation and
Valuation—Convaluation.”
Jens Beckert is Professor of Sociology and Director at the Max Planck Institute for the
Study of Societies in Cologne. His general research interests include economic
sociology, organizational sociology, the sociology of inheritance, and sociological
theory. Beckert’s current work focuses on the sociology of markets. He is the author
of Beyond the Market: The Social Foundation of Economic Sociology (2002) and Inherited
Wealth (2008), both published by Princeton University Press. Together with Patrik
Aspers, he edited the volume The Worth of Goods: Valuation and Pricing in the Economy,
published by Oxford University Press in 2011.
Elena Bogdanova is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Sociology at
Stockholm University. She completed her PhD at the Max Planck Institute for the
Study of Societies in 2011. Her research interests are in the field of economic
sociology and the sociology of markets, in particular markets for singular objects.
Robin van Dalen is a Trainee in Sales/New Business Development at Philips and also
works with other companies. She completed her undergraduate studies in Utrecht with
a concentration in sociology, economics, and religious studies, and holds an MPhil in
organization studies from the Judge Business School at Cambridge University. She
remains involved with Cambridge and Utrecht University. Her research interests
include public health and hospital safety, religious values in markets, and the
relationship between business and development.
 Notes on Contributors

Sébastien Dubois is Associate Professor at Rouen Business School and an Associate

Researcher at the Center for the Sociology of Organizations, a research unit of Sciences
Po and the CNRS in Paris. His research interests include the sociology of art, economic
sociology, and careers. His most recent articles include work on artistic careers, the
structure of cultural markets, and mechanisms of reputation building, and have been
published in Poetics, the Journal of Cultural Economics, and the Revue Française de
Sociologie.
Sophie Dubuisson-Quellier is Research Professor at the Center for the Sociology of
Organizations, a research unit of Sciences Po and the CNRS in Paris. She has been
working on the sociology of markets, analyzing the role of devices and actors in market
mediation. Her current research investigates governance of consumer behavior by
firms, social movements, and the state.
Wendy Espeland is Professor of Sociology at Northwestern University in Evanston,
Illinois. Her research interests include knowledge production, evaluation, culture, and
organizations. Her recent publications include articles on quantification,
accountability in education and law, and indicators as forms of classifying and
disciplining. She is completing a book with Michael Sauder, Fear of Falling: How
Rankings Changed American Legal Education, on how rankings change education.
Pierre François is Research Professor at the Center for the Sociology of Organizations, a
research unit of Sciences Po and the CNRS in Paris, and Professor at the Ecole
Polytechnique. His main interests are in economic sociology, especially in dealing
with the economic foundations of art worlds and the historical sociology of French
firms. His main publications include Le monde de la musique ancienne (Economica,
2005), Sociologie des marchés (Armand Colin, 2008), and Vie et mort des institutions
marchandes (Presses de Sciences Po, 2011).
Philipp Gerlach is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of
Societies in Cologne. His research interests include economic sociology, organizational
sociology, and labor markets; he is especially interested in the development of
institutional theory. His dissertation investigates the recruitment and selection of
engineers in major automotive firms in France and Germany, with special attention
to how decision-makers use institutional resources to make sense of a candidate’s
qualifications.
Emmanuelle Marchal is a Researcher at the Center for the Sociology of Organizations,
a research unit of Sciences Po and the CNRS in Paris. Her research interests include the
sociology of labor markets and the sociology of valuation. Marchal analyzes how
employers and job-seekers coordinate their expectations and how each evaluates the
other’s qualities: the role of devices, intermediaries, confidence, and hiring and
screening processes. In her most recent publication, she explores a French survey and
presents a typology of 4,052 employers’ judgments on applicants.
Christine Musselin is Director of the Center for the Sociology of Organizations,
a research unit of Sciences Po and the CNRS. She leads comparative studies
on university governance, public policy in higher education and research, state–
university relationships, and academic labor markets. Her recent publications include

xi
Notes on Contributors

The Market for Academics (Routledge, 2009) and articles on the transformation of
academic careers.
Jörg Rössel is Professor of Sociology at the University of Zurich. His research interests
include sociological theory, consumption research, social inequality, and lifestyles. His
recent publications include articles on sustainable consumption, residential choice,
and the perception of social class membership.
Zsuzsanna Vargha is an LSE Fellow in Accounting at the London School of Economics
and Political Science. Her research interests include economic sociology, the social
studies of finance and accounting, financial regulation, retail banking, consumer
culture, and post-socialist economies. Her most recent papers discuss financial selling,
post-socialist advertising professionals, and the development of sales incentives in
banking.
Frans van Waarden is Professor of Policy and Organization at Utrecht University in the
Netherlands and a Fellow of its International Honors University College. His research
interests are in phenomena at the boundaries between politics, economics, law, and
history, seen through the eyes of a sociologist. Currently his main focus is on the
governance of markets, regulation and its enforcement, comparative legal systems,
and political institutions.
Frank Wehinger is a Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in
Cologne. His research interests are in economic sociology, illegal markets, vocational
training and education, and social policy. He has previously done research on the
legalization of illegal immigrants in Europe and has now widened his focus to illegal
markets. His recent publications include papers on criminal markets on the Internet,
counterfeit consumer markets, and the operation of illegal markets.
Agnès van Zanten is Senior Research Professor at the Observatoire Sociologique du
Changement (Sciences Po-CNRS). Her research interests include the sociology of
education as well as urban, economic, and political sociology. Her work focuses on
social class, educational inequalities, and local and institutional dynamics and policies.
Her recent publications include a book on parental school choice and articles on
educational markets, elite education, and access to higher education.

xii
1

Introduction
Jens Beckert and Christine Musselin1

How can we engage in a market relationship when the quality of the goods we
want to acquire is unknown, invisible, or uncertain? This is the question
addressed in this book. Each chapter focuses on situations where quality is
highly uncertain: such situations provide excellent opportunities to analyze
how quality is the outcome of a construction process involving producers,
consumers, and market intermediaries.
This book is a contribution to the study of the sociology of markets. We are
interested in the role of “quality” for the development of markets. Here
“quality” refers to the explicit and implicit, visible and invisible aspects of a
good, service, or person being valued. Qualities create incentives or disincen-
tives for purchasing decisions on markets. For market exchange to be possible,
purchasers and suppliers of goods must be able to assess the qualities of a
product in relation to other products. This holds true for consumer markets,
labor markets, and investments. “How could we describe, in practice and
theory, the structures of competition within the same market, or between
related markets, if relations of similitude or dissimilitude between the goods
that circulate could not be established?” (Callon, Méadel, and Rabeharisoa
2002: 196). Only by recognizing quality and perceiving differences in quality
can purchasers make nonrandom choices and price differences between goods
in a market be justified.
“Quality” is not something that is naturally given, but the outcome of a
collective process in which products become seen as possessing certain traits
and occupying a specific position in relation to other products in the product
space. Hence goods and services become “qualified.” The authors of this volume

1
We would like to thank Rainer Diaz-Bone, Michèle Lamont, and Catherine Paradeise for their
helpful comments on an earlier version of this introduction.
Constructing Quality

are investigating the processes by which this qualification takes place and
recognized qualities are contested and change over time. Special emphasis is
given to the symbolic dimensions of quality, an aspect particularly important in
contemporary affluent consumer societies. Examination of the construction of
product qualities provides insights into the formation of preferences and value
on markets and thereby contributes to our understanding of growth dynamics
in the economy.
We argue that three processes are central for construction of the quality of
goods. They may occur sequentially or simultaneously, but should be analyt-
ically distinguished, as they draw on different mechanisms. At the same time,
their linkages need to be understood.
The first process is the construction of categories to which goods can be
allocated: in order to sell and buy products called “yogurts,” for example, this
specific category must first be created. It must be identified as a category
distinct from other categories of milk products, and has to become a shared
category among producers and consumers. In the car market, the establish-
ment of a market for minivans presupposed the formation of a category under
which the qualities constituting a minivan could be subsumed and differenti-
ated from other types of vehicles (Rosa et al. 1999). Categories are boxes
within a set of related boxes that form classification systems. Ideal-typically,
categories and classification systems are consistent, unique, and mutually
exclusive (Bowker and Star 2002: 10).
Such rather simple cases like the categories of yogurt and minivans
are frequent in our day-to-day life. They form part of the many institutions
that allow routines and predictable interactions to develop (Berger and Luck-
mann 1966; Douglas and Isherwood 1979). But we are also engaged in more
complex situations, where the definition of categories cannot be taken for
granted but is ambiguous and open to contestation (Zuckerman 1999). In
the present book, Frans van Waarden and Robin van Dalen show that
defining what “halal” means has not been achieved beyond a doubt, but is
contested among Muslims. Different conceptions of “halal” have emerged,
creating significant ambiguity among consumers and producers. Less open
than the definition of halal but nevertheless an example for the contestation
of quality, categorization is the chapter by Jörg Rössel and Jens Beckert,
in which they describe two competing systems of categorization for German
wines. Sébastien Dubois and Pierre François, in their chapter about French
contemporary poetry, reveal another situation of disagreement on categories.
There exist widely diverging classification systems of poetry genres that
find only little consensus among the actors. This lack of robust institutional-
ization leads to ambiguity. The consequence is a high level of uncertainty
in the field. One of the issues to be tackled in this book thus deals with

2
 Introduction

the emergence, the stability, and the renegotiation of categories used for the
classification of goods. Authors are especially interested in how this affects the
definition of the quality of goods and the processes by which actors (re)
construct categories.
But developing categories is not enough: in a second process, the specific
good must be associated with a category; it must be defined as belonging to
this category. As Ezra Zuckerman (1999: 1428–9) has rightly observed, “for a
product to compete in any market, it must be viewed by the relevant buying
public as a player in the product categories in which it seeks to compete.”
Once the yogurt category is established and recognized, the issue for the seller
is to make sure the product on offer is perceived as falling into the categories
defining it as yogurt. Brands, names, physical properties, the location of a
product in proximity to certain other products, and the information on labels
(Callon, Méadel, and Rabeharisoa 2002: 203) all help buyers to determine the
characteristics of the product and to decide whether the milk product is yogurt
or whether the car is indeed a minivan. The same holds true for financial
products (Zuckerman 1999), employees (Eymard-Duvernay and Marchal
1997), or styles of poetry (Dubois and François, this volume).
In many instances, the identity of a product as belonging to a certain
category is uncontested. Most of us will be confident that we are buying yogurt
when we see the word on the packaging of the product we purchase and we will
not even think of controlling for the actual content of the container before
paying for it. In other cases, however, it is difficult to assess whether a good
meets the criteria for belonging to a specific category. In the chapter on halal
products mentioned above, van Waarden and van Dalen observe that, even if
buyers have expected criteria in mind about whether to consider a product
halal, it might be difficult for them to be confident that the products on the
shelves of the supermarket meet these criteria: how can they be sure that the
poultry they want to buy has been killed according to halal rules without being
present when the butcher slaughters the animal? (see also Gourevitch 2011).
The same problem arises when the “actual” quality of the good is invisible:
how can one know about the quality of wood before a timber log is cut (see
Aspers in this volume)? Quality might not be observable for the buyer at all or it
might be revealed only over time and in interaction, as it is the case for
recruitment on the labor market (Eymard-Duvernay and Marchal 1997; Salais
1989). How employers deal with the uncertainty of an employee’s quality,
that is, how they categorize applicants despite this uncertainty, is addressed by
Philipp Gerlach in his chapter on the internal labor market for engineers in the
German and French automobile industry. Emmanuelle Marchal addresses
the issue by investigating the use of anonymous CVs in the recruitment of
employees. To understand the processes of categorization, the authors in
this volume investigate the cognitive processes, technical instruments, and

3
Constructing Quality

judgment devices (Karpik 2010) that serve as tools to construct the quality of
objects in situations characterized by uncertainty. By focusing on the contin-
gent signals for quality and the practical processes of establishing perceptions
of quality, they add to our understanding of the microprocesses and the
cultural as well as social structural underpinnings that constitute the value of
goods traded on markets.
The construction of categories and the attribution of objects to categories
are two crucial processes in the construction of quality in markets. A third
process concerns the establishment of quality differences within a product
category, a process crucial for the attribution of value and the justification of
price differences between goods falling into the same product category. Dif-
ferences in product qualities may lead to the creation of new categories in a
process of product differentiation, but goods may also be directly compared.
Perceived quality differences between goods of the same category are the
outcome of a ranking based on a scale: stocks can be compared according to
their price-earnings ratio; gold can be ranked according to its purity; different
wines are ranked through the use of a point system; the Guide Michelin ranks
gourmet restaurants using a system of stars.
The ranking of goods reduces uncertainty by ordering products along a
scale. The position of the good on the scale influences its perceived value
and may be intertwined with price setting. This holds true especially on
“standard markets” (Aspers 2009), where the scales to measure quality differ-
ences are largely uncontested. An example for this is the market for crude oil,
where qualities are measured according to the chemical composition of the
oil. If no fully legitimate scale can form based on what establishes the quality
differences of a product in relation to other products of the same category,
scales will have a more limited influence on prices. Contradictory perceptions
of the quality of a product in a market can cancel one another out. Stocks, for
instance, can be ranked according to their current price-earnings ratio, but
they can also be ranked according to the expected future profits of the firm.
Each scale will lead to different evaluations of the same stock. An actor will
assign different values to the stock depending on which scale that actor uses.
This is one reason why prices for a product can be considered by different
actors as either high or low. The assessment of the price of a good depends on
the measuring instrument being used. But expectations of future value—as in
the case of stocks—are not the only elements that can serve as a scale to assess
quality. Both Dominic Akyel’s chapter on funerals and the chapter of van
Waarden and van Duyen on halal food provide examples of how morality can
enter into a scale to judge products and can affect the price consumers are
willing or feel obligated to pay. This also connects this volume to the recent
work by Marion Fourcade (2011) on the evaluation of damages from oil spills
in different national contexts and to the work of Viviana Zelizer (1979, 1981)

4
 Introduction

on the economic evaluation of human life and how it has changed through
history.
In this introduction, we will first provide an overview of the evolution of
discussions on categorization, classification, and qualification in sociology
and some heterodox approaches in economics to the three issues of forming
categories, identifying the products that fall within a given category,
and ranking products within a category. The beginnings of these debates in
sociology can be traced back to the early twentieth century and have captured
the interest of sociologists, economists, anthropologists, and organization
researchers increasingly in recent years. The debates are centered in France
and in the United States. However, there is not a lot of dialogue between the
French and American discourses. One goal of this introduction is to show
differences and overlaps between French and American scholarship and
thereby contribute to a closer dialogue between the two. In the second part
of the introduction, we focus on the processes of categorization of goods,
the assessment of different qualities, and the role of intermediaries in the
qualification of goods. In the last section, we discuss the connection between
qualification and the valuation of goods.

Classifying the World

The various types of classification—sorting objects, human beings, or services

into different groups—are crucial processes on markets. They provide “the
categories and understandings that enable us to engage in economic action”
(DiMaggio 1994: 28). Debates on classification, however, are not limited to the
exchange of goods. There is a long tradition of sociological scholarship on
classification processes (Lamont 2012). Sociological investigations into the
construction of the quality of goods in the economy can derive important
insights from these broader debates.
Emile Durkheim’s sociology of religion ([1912] 1965) and his essay on
Primitive Classification (Durkheim and Mauss [1902] 1963) can be considered
the starting point of the sociology of classification (Lamont and Fournier
1992). For Durkheim and Mauss, classifying is not a self-evident activity of
human beings and therefore needs to be studied. In his Elementary Forms of the
Religious Life ([1912] 1965), Durkheim described how totemistic societies
organize their identities and social lives by classifying the world into the
sacred and the profane as two strictly separate spheres. An object attains
radically different qualities according to its categorization as either profane
or sacred, affecting how it can be used and how it is valued. In their essay
on Primitive Classification, Durkheim and Mauss analyzed the emergence of
categories in human societies by looking at primitive forms of classification in

5
Constructing Quality

various tribal societies. They described how categories evolved but also com-
pared them among societies and thus observed that the principles organizing
classifications share similarities with each other. Moreover, they asserted that
primitive classifications share important features with the scientific classifica-
tions used in modern societies: the groupings produced by both primitive and
scientific classifications are hierarchical. Moreover, they are linked with each
other so that they constitute a whole and unify operations of thought. Through
the classification of their totems, the members of tribal societies are able to
prereflexively recognize the differentiation of their society and its unity at the
same time. The sociological insight of Durkheim and Mauss’s investigation is
the recognition of the homology between classification systems and social
structures. Durkheim and Mauss (1963: 48) considered classifications “not to
facilitate action, but to advance understanding, to make intelligible the rela-
tions which exist between things . . . Such classifications are thus intended,
above all, to connect ideas, to unify knowledge.”2 The order-producing role of
classifications was later taken up by Mary Douglas. In her book Purity and Danger
(1966), Douglas interprets religious distinctions between the pure and the
impure as culturally specific understandings of the right order of things. Mixing
them threatens this order and is therefore subject to sanction. In her later book,
How Institutions Think (1986), Douglas interprets classifications as institutions.

The classification of labor

In French postwar sociology, the issue of the qualification and classification of
goods was first discussed in relation to labor (Musselin and Paradeise 2005: 90;
Paradeise 2003). Of great importance in this is the work of the French National
Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE) where during the 1950s
the “catégories socio-professionelles” (CSP) were developed, a system of clas-
sification of professions that began to be used in administrative statistics. The
CSP provide a practical example of a classification system in which categories
serve the linkage and unification of social objects.
The INSEE is a large agency that employs sociologists among its scientists.
This is important to note, since many French sociologists who have made the
qualification of goods a central topic of their work are either employed by or in
close contact with the INSEE during the early phases of their careers. This
holds, for instance, for Pierre Bourdieu, Luc Boltanski, and Laurent Thévenot
(Diaz-Bone 2008).

2
Chauvin (2006) has argued in a recent paper that too much emphasis has been put on this
speculative role that Durkheim and Mauss gave classifications and not enough attention has been
paid to the fact that the two authors also present classifications as the result of practices in which
actors are involved and compete in order to produce hierarchies and frontiers.

6
 Introduction

The classifications of labor refer to the status of workers in the social insur-
ance system, their employment in different sectors in the economy, and their
formal training. Labor was “classified” on scales that ranged from unskilled
workers to skilled workers and professionals. These scales were based on the
educational achievements of workers, measured in years of training and in
degrees certifying certain capabilities. The ranking on the scale positions the
individual worker in relation to other workers with higher or lower qualifica-
tions and thereby “qualifies” him or her.
The catégories socio-professionelles (CSP) in France have increasingly developed
into a kind of statistical basic unit categorizing French society according to
sociodemographic variables (Diaz-Bone 2008: 328). This also demonstrates
the claim made by Durkheim and Mauss that classification systems represent
a whole by establishing the relationships between the parts of a social system.
But contrary to Durkheim and Mauss, existing classification systems do not
simply represent a social order, but also constitute it within the praxis of
classification—a point made especially forcefully by Pierre Bourdieu (Bourdieu
[1972] 1977, 1990).
Once they are established and institutionalized, categories exist as devices
that create order in markets. This holds true not just for the categorization of
labor, but much more generally. As stressed by Bowker and Star (2002), we
evolve in a social world infused by categories resulting from multiple classifi-
catory processes. Most of them are taken for granted, such that we cease to
notice them anymore and are not aware of where they came from or how they
were constructed. Categories bring order to a world filled with an indefinite
number of goods being traded, without the need to reflect upon the categories.
When we buy yogurt or a minivan, we do not need to know how the respec-
tive categories were identified, how they have been defined, or how they
became shared by consumers. Taking categories for granted saves us a lot of
time and reduces possible indecision (Cochoy 2002). At the same time, how-
ever, categories create boundaries (Lamont and Fournier 1992). That “each
standard and each category valorizes some point of view and silences another”
(Bowker and Star 2002: 5) is the reason that categories are contested. But
classifications simultaneously offer us the prospect of regulating conflict.
Once a scale to judge the worth of workers—for instance, according to their
formal qualifications—has been established, it becomes a normative reference
point for all parties to the conflict and thereby helps to reduce disagreement.

Classification and status allocation

Classification processes also construct quality by affecting status allocation, the
distribution of material assets, and enshrining an ethical choice (Bowker and
Star 2002: 5). The classification systems used in official statistics, for instance

7
Constructing Quality

the categorical definitions of unemployment (Salais, Baverez, and Reynaud

1986), determine the social status of actors, their recognition, and their legiti-
mate claims. The categorization “decides” who counts as unemployed and who
has a claim to assistance. Luc Boltanski (1990) showed in a study on the
emergence of the category of cadres in the French statistical system that the
institutionalization of this category was the outcome of a struggle for social
recognition by a group of employees holding management positions in their
firms. Despite the high degree of heterogeneity within their group, the cadres
were able to become a recognized statistical category and benefited within their
firms from the status dedicated to them (distinct from blue-collar workers and
foremen). This category emerged from a rather homogeneous group of engi-
neers who created the expression cadres and constituted a locus of attraction to
other groups that engaged in collective actions, despite the fact that the char-
acteristics of these new groups were distinct from those who had initiated the
term. The unity of this category—that none of its members had an interest in
breaking out—explains its institutionalization and objectification despite its
heterogeneity.
The positioning of actors on the scale of the classification system “qualifies”
them and effectively determines access to positions in occupational hierarch-
ies and justifies inequality in income distribution. This explains why classifi-
cations leading to quality assessments are associated with struggles between
social groups fighting for social recognition (Bourdieu 1984: 479f; Desrosières
and Thévenot 1988; Thévenot 1984). The scales relating individuals to one
another hierarchically are hence the outcome of political decisions, bargain-
ing between employers and employees, and lobbying by groups of employees
(Boltanski 1990).
Struggles about classification are struggles about the worth of goods and of
actors. French and other debates have highlighted this point. Analyses of the
categorization of race in American society show that the categorization of
groups within certain racial boxes, and the consequences this had for their
social status, was also contested (Guglielmo and Salerno 2003; Lamont 2000).
Controversies about “comparable worth” are struggles about equivalences in
the value of labor, charging gender or race discrimination through category
building (Blum 1991).
Debates in sociology on categorization often emphasize the power dimen-
sion of this process. The “labeling approach” (Lemert 1951), for instance,
points to the stigmatization of actor groups through their qualification
according to the criminological classification system. According to Marx
(1867), the commodity form of goods establishes equivalences between
goods according to the amount of “abstract labor” used in their production,
and thereby makes invisible the relations of domination that characterize
the production process. For Pierre Bourdieu, the perception of social order

8
 Introduction

constituted through classification processes reflects the power differences

between actors (Bourdieu 1984: 479). For Michel Foucault (1982, 1991), clas-
sifications are order-producing devices that entail power and suppression,
ordering the world within the confines of bureaucratic discipline. Foucault
argues that categorizations make actors governable by sorting them within a
hierarchical system, leading to their domination. This implies that we should
be aware of underlying power structures when we talk about the qualification
of goods in the economy.

Emergence and Evolution in Classification Systems

Taking classification seriously as part of the process of constructing prod-

uct qualities leads to the study of the processes by which categories are
formed and evolve. One of the principal contributions of this volume is
that it encourages us to pay close attention to the processes of category
formation.
Some of the most intriguing groundwork in identifying general principles
in the formation of categories is by Eviatar Zerubavel (1991, 1996), who is
interested in the cognitive processes that lead to “lumping” different things
together and “splitting” other things as being different. Thus his interest is
in the cognitive continuities and discontinuities created through classifica-
tion. While “lumping” blurs heterogeneity and by doing so reinforces the
cohesion of a category—as has also been shown by Boltanski (1990) for
cadres—“splitting” refers to the opposite process, an example of which
would be the differentiation of the world into the sacred and the profane.
The established “mental clusters” have profound effects on the assessment
of the quality of goods. An example for this is provided in the chapter by
Elena Bogdanova in this volume, who shows that antique objects are per-
ceived fundamentally differently depending on the status of the vendor of
the object.
Zerubavel (1996: 427) has stressed that the categorization of the world has
nothing natural to it, but is wholly based on social conventions. Examples of
this are the distinct categorization of used objects as either junk or antiques
(see the chapter by Elena Bogdanova) or the classification of food as fair-trade,
kosher, or halal (see the chapter by van Waarden and van Dalen). As Viviana
Zelizer (1994) has shown, mental differentiation can even take place regarding
money, an object often considered the epitome of equivalence. This is the case
when actors “value” and spend money differently according to its sources, for
instance, income stemming from an inheritance, from work, from theft, or
from a lottery win.

9
Constructing Quality

Statistics and the role of the state

Cognition is not the only mechanism involved in the emergence of categories.
There is also a close relationship between classification processes, statistics,
and the state. This is not by chance: establishing measures of equivalence is
the basis for statistical analysis and is largely influenced by state agencies.
As for the relationship between classification and statistics, classifications
indeed have the purpose of making qualitatively different objects comparable
by establishing equivalence with regard to specific aspects of an object. This
allows for abstraction from many of the qualities of an object and thereby
maintains a level of generalization that makes exchange possible. In a well-
known article, Wendy Espeland and Mitchell Stevens (1998) have defined this
process as “commensuration.” Two objects are commensurable if they can be
compared based on a common measurement scale; commensuration is the
“transformation of different qualities into a common metric” (Espeland and
Stevens 1998: 314). This common metric is the category under which the object
or activity is judged, abstracting from the other qualities it has and in effect
turning qualitative differences between objects into differences in magnitude
that can be easily compared. Thus, commensuration “creates relations among
things that seem fundamentally different” (Espeland and Stevens 1998: 316) by
abstracting and reducing information, leading to how we assess the quality of
an object and how we “sort” the world. A good example of this is the work of
rating agencies, which make bonds commensurable by assessing their “quality”
in three letters, communicating to market actors their presumed risk level and
abstracting from all specifics of the debtor (Carruthers 2012, forthcoming).
When it comes to the role of the state, Pierre Bourdieu (1984) is a sociologist
in whose work such commensuration processes take center stage and who at
the same time pays close attention to the role of the state in the formation of
classifications systems. During his early career in Algeria, Bourdieu collabor-
ated closely with the INSEE. He claimed that the scientific character of socio-
logical research demands reference to statistical evidence and at the same time
that statistical tools need to be used reflexively, meaning that the historical
emergence of classificatory systems, their logic of construction, and the con-
text of their application must be part of the sociological analysis (Desrosières
2003: 2010). The central role of the INSEE in the development of statistical
categories, for instance, shows the influence of the interests of the state in
classification processes. Classification is a political and bureaucratic process.

The role of practices in the change of classification systems

While Bourdieu stresses that the points of view are different from one field to
another and that fields compete with one another, he barely considers why

10
 Introduction

and how the classification schemes specific to a field evolve. As long as the
fundamental structures of society are stable and remain the same, the
principle organizing practices and representations of agents within a certain
field do not change because they are reproduced by the habitus that is itself
produced by these structures (Bourdieu [1972] 1977). The classification
schemes common to all agents of the same field are the logic by which these
agents comply or oppose, agree or disagree. These logics may produce different
results but they themselves remain the same. For instance, dominant cultural
practices may change over time, but the logic of distinction leading to the
emergence of dominant practices remains stable (Bourdieu [1979] 2010).
What is missing in Bourdieu is the non-reductionist inclusion of social prac-
tices that can explain the construction of qualities in fields through classifica-
tion. Quality, according to Bourdieu, emerges from field positions and habitus
without taking into account the reflexive (read: interpretative and contingent)
ways in which actors configure the qualities of objects during the action
situation (Diaz-Bone 2007: 493).
The limited attention to the emergence and evolution of classification
systems is also common to the early adherents of the neo-institutionalist
perspective developed in American sociology. Sociological institutionalism
builds on the concept of fields developed by Bourdieu, describing “insti-
tutional environments,” “organizational fields” (DiMaggio and Powell
1983), and “strategic fields” (Fligstein 2001) as arenas of interaction struc-
tured by specific logics and principles that, as in Bourdieu, play a central role
in allocating status, power, resources, and capital, not least through pro-
cesses of categorization. Categories become formally or informally diffused
as cognitive models that become imitated (Meyer and Rowen 1977), leading
to institutional isomorphism. When institutionalized, categories reduce
uncertainty and are therefore a powerful tool in the coordination of social
interaction.
While the early publications of this school primarily stressed the stability
of institutional fields and the prevalence of structures over agency, the
question of change became a focus later on. Paul DiMaggio (1988) intro-
duced “institutional entrepreneurs” into the debate as the agents able to
modify the “institutional logics” (Friedland and Alford 1991; Thornton,
Ocasio, and Lounsbury 2012) specific to a field and thus to modify the
composition, cognitive frameworks, and dominant principles of evaluation,
as well as the legitimate practices in a field. Today the transformation of
institutional logics and the mechanisms and actors through which new
logics and categories arise have become central to this intellectual approach
(Battilana, Leca, and Boxenbaum 2009; Beckert 1999; Khaire and Wadh-
wani 2010; Lounsbury 2007; Navis and Glynn 2010; Schneiberg and Berk
2010).

11
Constructing Quality

Categories from controversies

As stressed by Michèle Lamont (2012), the notion of institutional logics in
organizational theory resembles the notion of “cités” (orders of worth) intro-
duced by Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot ([1991] 2006). Boltanski and
Thévenot use this concept to refer to the systems of equivalences that allow
actors engaged in interactions to interpret and qualify the situation they are in
and to coordinate their activities based on a common appraisal. An example is
the common appraisal of the qualities of a good. The orders of worth are
conventions that serve as a “collectively recognized reference” ( Jagd 2007: 79)
of qualifying objects and actors; by anchoring expectations in shared
knowledge, they allow for the coordination of action (Diaz-Bone 2011: 47).
Thévenot (1984) has characterized orders of worth and classifications in gen-
eral as “investments in forms,” which facilitate coordination by stabilizing
expectations and regulating exchange relations.3 According to the system of
equivalence shared by actors, some practices will be more legitimate or will be
attributed more worth.
But orders of worth in the new sociological institutionalism differ from
institutional logics in several ways. First, for Boltanski and Thévenot, there
are many numbers of orders of worth and they may vary. They first distin-
guished six orders of worth (creative, reputation-based, domestic, civic,
market-based, industrial)—each related to a specific philosophical perspective.
Later they added new ones (e.g., the project-based order of worth described by
Boltanski and Chiapello [2005]). Second, while sociological institutionalists,
at least in the early formulations of the approach, saw a specific institutional
field as dominated by one institutional logic, Boltanski and Thévenot and their
followers point at the coexistence of different orders of worth within a single
field and focus on the tensions and conflicts that arise among them when
actors engaged in different orders of worth have to cooperate and find an
agreement about the system of equivalences that will prevail.4 As a conse-
quence, the classification of human beings, things, or practices pertaining to a
specific order of worth may be redefined when another order of worth has
become dominant. Controversies and requalifications are thus frequent in

3
For discussions of product quality from the perspective of the economics of convention,
see also De Munck (2011) and Minard (2011).
4
Boltanski and Thévenot, though building on the French school of the economics of
conventions, mainly consider conventions that are related to cognitive and evaluative activities.
By contrast, conventionalists such as François Eymard-Duvernay and Robert Salais adopt a wider
definition of conventions. They are not limited to cognitive and evaluative activities, but include
rules, norms, or routines as conventions used in the qualification of goods or services. Such
conventions entail all kinds of explicit or implicit and formal or informal agreements allowing
coordination among actors, including agreements on categories. The orders of worth proposed by
Boltanski and Thévenot are one type of convention, but others can be identified to define the
quality of goods (Eymard-Duvernay 1989).

12
 Introduction

this perspective, and categorizations evolve constantly. The fact that the
quality of a product can be interpreted very differently creates conflicts and
the need to find agreement in the situation. Hence Boltanski and Thévenot
(1983) put much more emphasis on the practices of classification, that is,
the processes by which actors interpret categories, deciding which conven-
tions are appropriate and changing them in the process. By emphasizing
the practices of qualification, Boltanski and Thévenot also break with the
structuralist premises of Bourdieu’s theory. Their reference point is American
pragmatism, emphasizing the role of agency and the processual character of
social order.
This pragmatic understanding of classification has also been taken up by
David Stark (2009), whose understanding of entrepreneurship focuses on
actors’ ability to keep different evaluative schemes in play simultaneously. This
connects on the one hand to Boltanski’s and Thévenot’s notion of conflicting
orders of worth and on the other hand to the pragmatist understanding of
action. Stark sees quality as defined through cognitive models, for instance
those that traders on financial markets use to define their trading strategies.
He thus connects the notions of qualification, valuation, and classification to
the social studies of science that focus on the impact of models, theories, and
epistemic cultures in the development of markets, often based on the concept
of performativity (Knorr-Cetina 1999; MacKenzie 2006; MacKenzie, Muniesa,
and Siu 2007). The basic assumption of performativity theory, put simply, is
that theories define the qualities of goods by categorizing them.
Following Boltanski and Thévenot, classification systems like the French
“catégories socio-professionelles” (CSP) can be investigated under the ques-
tion of which order of worth shapes their structure and to what extent
compromises between different orders of worth are institutionalized (Diaz-
Bone 2008: 347). Like all institutions, however, categories are not in themselves
strong and efficient, but gain in strength and efficiency as actors conform to
them (François 2011: 231). Following this focus on actors, the contributions in
this book are primarily concerned with identifying which processes actors
use to engage in the construction of categories, how they use them, how
they contest existing categories, and how agreements on categories evolve—
or not.
While in France the issue of the classification and qualification of goods is
mostly debated in sociology and in the economics of convention, manage-
ment scholars are frequently the ones who are interested in the topic in
America.5 The classic article by Rosa et al. (1999) argues that markets evolve

5
Other studies that investigate classification processes on markets are Kennedy (2011), Fiss and
Kennedy (2007), Beunza and Garud (2006), and Hatherly, Leung, and MacKenzie (2008). See also
the contributions in Hsu, Negro, and Koçak (2010).

13
Constructing Quality

from a process of “category stabilization” that takes place through the inter-
actions between producers and consumers. Lounsbury and Rao (2004) have
revealed in a study on category changes in the American mutual funds indus-
try the importance of power for the continuation of established structures of
categories in an industry. A crucial finding of this literature is that markets
penalize products that do not fall clearly into one category, by attributing
lower prices to them (Zuckerman 1999). Management studies uses many
of the theoretical frameworks discussed here. Sociological institutionalism
(DiMaggio and Powell 1991) is invoked frequently, but so are theories of
sensemaking in organizations (Weick 1995), which are applied along with
social movement theories (Snow and Benford 1992) and network analysis.
The economics of convention, however, has so far played only a limited
role in American management studies on the topic of classification and
qualification.

Constructing Quality by Allocating Goods to Categories

Constructing categories is only one side of the coin. Many of the contribu-
tions in this book show that even when categories are more stabilized and
institutionalized, the quality of a good remains ambiguous. There are two
possible reasons for this. First, actors may not be able to decide which category
a specific good belongs to. This happens when the properties of a good are
invisible, will be revealed only after the transaction has occurred, or are too
ambiguous to measure. Second, actors may not be able to assess the quality
differences of the products within a category. This is especially the case when
products are very similar or if there is little consensus on what constitutes the
quality of a product. One can observe the similarity issue in the case of
different yogurts on the supermarket shelf, and a lack of consensus can be
found in judgments of wines or contemporary art. In such situations, actors
nevertheless need to make judgments on quality in order to make choices they
can define as informed ones. We will discuss both of these questions at the
same time, starting with two scholarly approaches to this issue and identifying
how this book contributes to those approaches.

Judgment devices as producers of quality and singularities

In a paper published in 1996, the French sociologist Lucien Karpik introduced
the concept of “judgment devices,” the term he uses to refer to the techniques,
instruments, and processes available to actors to reduce their uncertainty
about the quality of goods they wish to acquire. Karpik (1996) distinguishes
between devices based on personal trust and devices based on impersonal

14
 Introduction

trust. Typical examples of the former are the networks of friends we might ask
for film recommendations, or the network of relatives we might consult if we
needed to find a lawyer. Relying on the good scientific reputation of the
supervisor of a PhD candidate to assess the quality of this candidate is also a
form of judgment based on personal trust. By contrast, impersonal trust is
involved when we rely on guides, labels, or certificates to assess the quality of a
good. Choosing a restaurant or a hotel with the help of the Guide Michelin, or
selecting a candidate for a position in academia because that candidate has
published in journals with a high impact factor are typical examples of judg-
ment devices based on impersonal trust.
Karpik (2010: 95) holds these judgment devices to be the central mechanisms
in the qualification of goods. Through them products are singled out, defined as
belonging to a certain category, and positioned in relation to the qualities of
other products in the same category. One example of this is the ranking system
in the wine market that was introduced through the point system created by
Robert Parker. This system commensurates wines that fall into various catego-
ries (e.g., red and white wine; wine from Bordeaux and wine from Napa Valley)
by giving it a numerical value on an ordinal scale. A wine awarded 92 points is
“better” than a wine that has obtained only 86 points.6 It is through judgment
devices that we assess the quality of goods that would otherwise remain opaque
to us. Imagine yourself in a wine store, having to choose a bottle of wine
without knowing anything about wine and without any available judgment
device to use. Your choice would have to be random.
Many contributions in this book build upon Karpik’s perspective. Philipp
Gerlach, for instance, investigates the impersonal and personal judgment
devices used in the German and French automobile industry to promote
engineers into management positions. He shows that the judgment devices
that firms in the two countries use sometimes differ and that—despite
the strong normative principle of meritocracy—preferences emerging from
personal networks play a major role in the recruitment process. By investi-
gating different national styles in the assessment of quality, Gerlach connects
his work to the field of comparative cultural sociology, whose interest focuses
on the question of how processes of evaluation and valuation depend on
national cultural repertoires (Fourcade 2011; Lamont 1992; Lamont and Thé-
venot 2000).
But the authors in this book also expand and interrogate the perspective
developed by Karpik, in several ways. First, some of the chapters stress the

6
Judgment devices, Karpik (2010) shows, need not be unidimensional, reducing all qualities to
one metric. Restaurant guides, for example, provide the reader with several criteria to judge the
quality of a restaurant, thus opening to consumers the possibility of weighting the criteria
according to their own preferences.

15
Constructing Quality

problems that arise from the multiplication of devices competing with one
another and the complications for the coordination of market relations caused
by the need to decide between competing devices. Dubois and François show
in their chapter that a plethora of classifications exist in the field of French
poetry, indicating a lack of any consensus on genres or on the relationship of
authors to genres and between genres. The chapter by Patrik Aspers also
demonstrates this phenomenon: in the Swedish market for timber, several
judgment devices for the assessment of the quality of a tract of standing
timber compete with one another. Tradition, power, trust, and strategic con-
siderations all play into actors’ decisions about which judgment device they
will actually use in a transaction.
Second, some authors follow the more recent publication from Karpik
(2010) and show the weight of cognitive competences and cultural capital
on judgments. Rössel and Beckert, for instance, argue that implementing the
terroir classification for German wines presupposes sophisticated knowledge
about wines, socialization with a specific language, and the ability of abstrac-
tion. They thus stress the cognitive competences involved in the qualification
of goods and the skills as well as the cultural and social capital that may be
needed for actors to use judgment devices.
Third, benchmarks and analogies are sometimes used as judgment devices
based on the impersonal trust produced by intermediaries. Benchmarks and
analogies are also cognitive mechanisms that buyers use to assess the quality
of a good or to compare the product they intend to acquire to other goods of
the same kind. As shown by Agnès van Zanten in this book, parents looking
for the most suitable school for their children try to assess whether the pupils
attending a certain school are “like” their own child. When the qualities of a
good are too difficult to assess or to measure, the judgments of other “buyers”
of the product may complement the existing judgment devices in the task of
reducing uncertainty.

Attachment and singularities

Michel Callon and his co-authors (Callon 1998; Callon, Méadel, and Rabehar-
isoa 2002) have proposed another perspective to deal with ambiguity in the
quality of goods even in cases when categories are already stable. It differs
from Karpik’s in two points. Karpik considers the economics of quality to be
relevant only in markets where the main operator between demand and
supply is quality. According to Karpik, such markets are distinct from the
markets studied by economists where price is the main operator. This distinc-
tion is not relevant for Callon (2005) because he sees all markets as character-
ized by quality uncertainty. In addition, Callon emphasizes more strongly the

16
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
One of the delights of our wanderings is to stop at a strange post
office, and have a whole handful of letters respond to our call.
Chester responded very generously, for here the truant letters, which
were each time a little behind, and had been forwarded and
reforwarded, met the ever prompt ones and waited our arrival. A few
miles from Chester we found lovely maidenhair ferns by the
roadside, and were gathering and pressing them, when an old man,
in a long farm wagon, stopped and asked if we were picking
raspberries. We told him it was rather late for raspberries, but we
had found pretty ferns. To our surprise this interested him, and he
talked enthusiastically of ferns and flowers, saying he had one
hundred varieties in his garden, and asking if we ever saw a certain
agricultural journal which was a treasure-house of knowledge to him.
Still he was not a florist, but a vegetable gardener, and we learned
ever so much about the business, and for a while could talk glibly of
Angel of Midnight corn and Blue-eyed (?) pease and so on. He gave
quite a discourse, too, on the advantages of co-operation and
exchange of ideas. He told us how much he enjoyed a fair at the
New England Institute Building, and was interested to know that we
saw it when in flames. Our pleasant chat was brought to a sudden
stop, just as he was telling us of his ambitious daughter and other
family details, by other travelers, for whom we had to clear the road.
We spent a night pleasantly at Saxton’s River, and received the
courtesies of friends, then on through Bellows Falls and Keene
towards Monadnock. We wanted to go to the Mountain House for the
night, but it was several miles out of our way, and we were tired as
well as Charlie, with thirty miles’ driving in the heat, so contented
ourselves with recollections of two delightful visits there, and stopped
at Marlboro, five miles from Keene.
When we were packing up in the phaeton, the next morning, a lady
brought us three little bouquets, the third and largest for Charlie, we
fancy. It was a very pleasant attention to receive when among
strangers and gave us a good send-off for our last day’s drive. Forty
miles is a long drive at the end of a long journey, but Charlie seemed
fully equal to it, and all went well as we journeyed along the familiar
route through Troy, Fitzwilliam, Winchendon, Ashburnham and
Fitchburg. We dined at Winchendon and visited the friends in
Fitchburg from whom we have a standing invitation for our last tea
out. The five miles from Fitchburg to Leominster Charlie never
counts. He knows his own stall awaits him. Our last day, which
began so pleasantly with a floral testimony from a stranger, ended
with a night-blooming cereus reception in our own home.
“Did you take Summer Gleanings,” do I hear some friend ask? Oh
yes, we took it, but not one sketch did we add to it. The fever for
sketching ran high last year and spent itself, but every day of the
July pages is radiant with pressed flowers and ferns. One more trip
and the book will be full, “a thing of beauty,” which will be “a joy
forever.”
 CHAPTER VIII.
NARRAGANSETT PIER AND MANOMET POINT.
“Think on thy friends when thou haply seest
Some rare, noteworthy object in thy travels;
Wish them partakers of thy happiness.”
We thought of omitting our annual letter to the Transcript, believing
that vacations in everything are good; but, even before the journey
existed, except in mind, a report of it was assumed as a matter of
course, as the part belonging to our friends, who have not found
opportunity to travel in our gypsy fashion. Then, too, we remembered
the lines above, quoted by Andrew Carnegie, as we journeyed with
him in his “Four in Hand through Britain,” and still more delightful
“Round the World,” all in a hammock in those scorching July days,
without a touch of fatigue or sea-sickness. Even a carriage journey
on paper has some advantages, no dust, no discomfort of any kind;
but we prefer the real thing, and enjoyed it so much we will change
our mind and tell you a little about it. The places are all so familiar,
and so near the “Hub” of the universe, that when you get to the end
you may feel, as we did, as if you had not been anywhere after all.
We did, however, drive four hundred miles, and had a very delightful
time.
Before we really start, we must introduce to you the new member of
our party. With deep regret and many tender memories we tell you
we parted with our Charlie last spring, and a big, strong Jerry came
to take his place. A friend in cultured Boston said, “Why, how will
Jerry look in the Transcript?”
We did not go until September, and, like every one else, you may
wonder why we waited so late, when we have often started as soon
as the “crackers” were fired off. Well, Jerry had not become used to
our climate, although July was hot enough for any Southerner. Then
the company season came, and various things made it advisable to
wait until September. We were quite reconciled, because you know
all those “conjunctions” of the planets were to culminate in August,
and it seemed likely the world was to be turned upside down. We
thought it would be so much pleasanter to be swallowed up by the
same earthquake, or blown away by the same cyclone as our home
friends.
Jerry waxed in strength, the world still stood, the last summer guest
had departed, and on the afternoon of Sept. 8, we started for Stow.
“What on earth are you going there for?” and similar comments
reveal the impressions of our friends; but we knew why, and do not
mind telling you. We were going to Boston to begin our journey, and
we could not go beyond Stow that afternoon, without going farther
than we liked to drive Jerry the first day, for he is young and we were
determined to be very considerate of him. We knew we should be
comfortable at the little, weather-beaten hotel, and that Jerry would
have the best of care.
How lovely that afternoon drive! It was the day after those terrific
storms and gales, the final “conjunction,” probably, and there was an
untold charm in everything. As we drove leisurely along, gathering
flowers to press for “Summer Gleanings,” we thought of our friends
who were speeding their way back to New York just at the time when
the country is loveliest, and knew they were envying us. Still,
somehow it did not seem as if we were traveling, but only going to
drive as we had been doing all summer. Perhaps we missed the July
heat and dust!
“Still as Sunday” gives no idea of the quiet of Stow. It seemed as if
one might live forever there, and perhaps one could, if permitted, for
just as we were leaving the hotel for a little stroll, our landlady was
saying to some “patent medicine man,” “We don’t have any
rheumatism here, nobody ever dies, but when they get old they are
shot.”
We had not walked far before we came to a cemetery, and,
remembering the landlady’s remark, we went in to read the
inscriptions. No allusion was made to shooting, but if it was a familiar
custom the omission is not strange. We noted a few epitaphs which
interested us:
“When I pass by, with grief I see
My loving mate was taken from me.
Taken by him who hath a right
To call for me when he sees fit.”

“A wife so true there are but few,

And difficult to find,
A wife more just and true to trust,
There is not left behind.”

“A while these frail machines endure,

The fabric of a day,
Then know their vital powers no more,
But moulder back to clay.”
“Friends and physicians could not save

My mortal body from the grave.”

There were six stones in close proximity bearing these familiar lines
—
“Stop, traveler, as you pass by,
As you are now, so once was I.
As I am now, so you must be.
Prepare for death and follow me.”
All that night was lost, for we never woke once. Was it the stillness?
or was it that cosy, bright room, with its very simple, but effective,
“homey” touches? Be that as it may, we were fresh as the morning,
and ready to enjoy every mile of the drive to Boston, gladdening our
hearts with the sight of friends as we tarried now and then. We in
Boston and our Boston friends in the country was something new,
but a room at the B. Y. W. C. A. is next to home, and we heartily
recommend it to homeless ladies traveling as we were, or on
shopping expeditions. The night, with the unceasing din of the horse
cars, and the thousand and one noises peculiar to the city, was a
marvelous contrast to Stow, but in time we became adjusted to our
environments, and were lost in sleep.
How delightful to be in Boston, and know that there were only two
things in the whole city we wanted—a Buddhist catechism and a
horn hairpin. These procured, we went for Jerry and began the day,
which was to be devoted to making calls. We went spinning along
over the smoothly paved Columbus avenue on our way to the
Highlands, and rattled back on cobble-paved Shawmut avenue.
Dinner over, off we started for Allston, Somerville and Cambridge,
and as it was not yet five o’clock when we came back over the Mill-
dam, we could not resist turning off West Chester Park, and hunting
up some friends in Dorchester, returning in early evening. Jerry
seemed perfectly at home; perhaps he has been used to city life in
Kentucky. The day was long and full of pleasant things, but the diary
record was brief; for just this once we will confess we were tired.
Secured the catechism and hairpin, and oh! we forgot, a bit of
embroidery we got at Whitney’s, and mailed to a friend who asked us
to do so if we “happened to be near there,” drove eighteen miles and
made twelve calls, that was all.
During the day we decided to stay over Sunday, as a cousin we
wanted to see was coming. Jerry rested all day, and we did, except
the writing of many letters, dining with a friend, and attending service
at the only church we saw lighted on the Back Bay in the evening.
We thought of many things to do and places to go to, and wondered
how we should like to take a carriage journey and spend all the
nights in Boston. There would be no lack of pleasant driving, and if
we missed the variety in hotels, we could easily remedy that by
going from one to another. Boston would supply that need for a
while, and we are sure Jerry would be more than glad to find himself
at Nims’s in Mason street, day or night. But we had other things in
view for this journey, and, the cousin’s whereabouts being wrapped
in mystery, we left Boston early Monday morning.
Now, we will take you by transit, hardly excelled in rapidity by the
feats of occultism, to Narragansett Pier, and while you are taking
breath in our charming room in that vine-covered hotel at the
jumping-off place, with the surf rolling up almost under the windows,
we will just tell you a bit about the journey as we had it; driving all
day in the rain on Monday and enjoying it, making hasty doorstep
calls, spending the night at Lake Massapoag House in Sharon, and
on through the Attleboros to Pawtucket the next day, dining
Wednesday with friends in Providence, then on to East Greenwich
for the night. A drive of twenty-one miles Thursday morning, and we
are with you again at the Pier, where our first exclamation was, “Oh!
let’s stay here!” We like the mountains, but the ocean is quite
satisfying if we can have enough of it, and as our host said, here
there is nothing between us and Europe, Asia and Africa. We wrote
letters all the afternoon, with one eye on the surf, and the next
morning we drove to Point Judith, where we investigated the wrecks,
went to the top of the light-house, and were much interested in
hearing all about the work at the life-saving station. We took a long
walk, and visited the Casino in the afternoon.
We were still enthusiastic about the Pier, but the next morning was
so beautiful it seemed wise to enjoy it in Newport. The captain could
not take our horse across from the Pier, and we drove twelve miles
back to Wickford to take the ferryboat. It was quite cool, but with
warm wraps it was just right for a brisk drive. We had time for dinner
before going to the boat. The hour’s sail was very delightful, and at
half after two we were in Newport, with nothing to do but drive about
the city until dark. We saw all there was to be seen, even to the
hydrangea star described in the Transcript by “M. H.” We did not
know which was Vanderbilt’s and which Oak Glen, but that mattered
little to us, for to all intents and purposes they all belonged to us that
bright afternoon, and are still ours in memory. We fell into the grand
procession of fine turnouts on the prescribed ocean drive, but the
people generally did not look as if they were having a good time.
They had a sort of “prescribed” look, except one young lady we met
several times, perched in a high cart, with a bright-looking pug for
company; she really looked as if she was enjoying herself.
The charm of Newport fled when we were inside the hotel. The
fountain in the park below our window was very pretty, but it could
not compete with our ocean view at the Pier, and we had to sit on the
footboard of the bed, too, in order to see to read by the aspiring
gaslight.
We walked around the Old Mill and went into the Channing Church
and then left Newport for Fall River. There we called on several
friends, then inquired for some place to spend a night, on our way to
Plymouth, and were directed to Assonet. We had never heard of
Assonet before, but we did not mind our ignorance when the widow,
who “puts up” people, told us the school committee man where her
daughter had gone to teach had never heard of it. Our good woman
thought at first she could not take us, as she had been washing and
was tired, but as there was no other place for us to go, she
consented. When she saw our books, she asked if we were traveling
for business or pleasure, and as F—— drove off to the stable she
remarked on her ability; she thought a woman was pretty smart if
she could “turn round.” We had a very cosy time. People who always
plan to have a first-class hotel lose many of the novel experiences
which make a pleasant variety in a journey It is interesting
occasionally to hear the family particulars and be introduced to the
pet dogs and cats, and walk round the kitchen and backyard, where
the sunflowers and hollyhocks grow from old-time habit, and not
because of a fashion.
The Samoset House at Plymouth seemed all the more luxurious
after the modest comforts at Assonet. We “did” Plymouth once more,
this time taking in the new monument, and having plenty of time, we
drove down to Manomet Point for a night. The Point is quite a resort
for artists, but as we have given up sketching, we did not delay
there, but returned to Plymouth and on to Duxbury. We did not ask
Jerry to travel the extra miles off the main route to take in Brant Rock
and Daniel Webster’s old home, as this was our second drive in this
vicinity, and rather than drive two miles to a hotel possibly open, we
took up with the chances near by. We found oats at a grocery store,
but it was too cold to camp; indeed, we did not have one of our
wayside camps during the entire journey. There was no hotel, no
stable, no “put-up” place or available barn, but the grocer,
appreciating our dilemma, said he could easily clear a stall back of
his store, and while he was helping us unharness, we saw a large
house perched on a high bluff not far away. Although it was a private
boarding-house we made bold to cross the fields, mount the many
flights of steps and ask for dinner, which was willingly granted.
You will surmise we are bound for Boston again, and will not be
surprised to find us with friends on the Jerusalem Road, after
enjoying the beauties of this road from Cohasset to Hingham, where
we went for a handful of letters only equalled by that parcel at
Providence.
Oh, how cold it was the next day! The thought of Nantasket Beach
made us shiver, and preferring to think of it as in “other days,” we
turned our faces inland and drove a pretty back way to South
Hingham. Of course we could have driven right into Boston, but it
was Saturday, and we thought we would have a quiet Sunday
somewhere and go into the city Monday. After protracted
consultation we agreed on a place, but when we got there there was
no room for us, as a minstrel troupe had taken possession. Hotels
four, eight and nine miles distant were suggested. In consideration of
Jerry we chose the four miles’ drive. We will not tell you the name of
the town, suffice it to say we left immediately after breakfast. It was a
beautiful morning—far too lovely to be spoiled by uncongenial
surroundings. We intended to drive to the next town, where we had
been told there was a hotel. We found none, however, but were
assured there was one in the next. So we went on, like one in pursuit
of the end of the rainbow, until the last man said he thought there
was no hotel nearer than the Norfolk House!
Here we were almost in Boston, Sunday, after all the miles we had
driven to avoid it. “All’s well that ends well,” however, and a little visit
with the “Shaybacks” at home, not “in camp,” could not have been on
Monday, and before we reached the Norfolk House we were taken
possession of for the night by a whole household of hospitable
friends.
Monday morning we drove into the city proper, and hovered in its
vicinity several days, calling on friends we did not see before and
driving here and there, among other places to Middlesex Fells, so
often spoken of. We ended our journey as we began it, searching for
our clerical cousin, but all in vain. We did see so many of our friends
of the profession, however, from first to last, that privately we call it
our “ministerial” journey.
Everything must have an end, but we did wish we could go right on
for another month. The foliage was gorgeous and the yellowish haze
only made everything more dreamy and fascinating. We prolonged
our pleasure by taking two days to drive home, straying a little from
the old turnpike, and driving through Weston, spending the night in
Framingham, and then on through Southboro to Northboro, Clinton
and Lancaster to Leominster. The country was beautiful in contrast
with flat, sandy Rhode Island. We gathered leaves and sumacs until
our writing tablet and every available book and newspaper was
packed, and then we put a great mass of sumacs in the “boot.”
Finally our enthusiasm over the beauties along the way reached
such a height that we spread our map and traced out a glorious trip
among the New Hampshire hills, and home over the Green
Mountains, for next year.
“Summer Gleanings” is now complete, and the last pages are fairly
aglow with the autumn souvenirs of our sixteenth annual drive.
 CHAPTER IX.
BOSTON, WHITE MOUNTAINS AND VERMONT.—A SIX
HUNDRED MILE DRIVE.
In self-defence we must tell you something of our seventeenth
annual “drive,” for no one will believe we could have had a good
time, “on account of the weather;” and really it was one of our finest
trips. We regret the sympathy, and pity even, that was wasted on us,
and rejoice that now and then one declared, “Well, I will not worry
about them, for somehow they always do have a good time, if it does
rain.”
If two friends, with a comfortable phaeton and a good horse,
exploring the country at will, gladly welcomed and served at hotels
hungry for guests, with not a care beyond writing to one’s friends,
and free to read to one’s heart’s content, cannot have a good time,
whatever the weather may be, what hope is there for them?
Why has no one ever written up the bright side of dull weather? The
sun gets all the glory, and yet the moment he sends down his
longed-for smiles, even after days of rain, over go the people to the
other side of the car, the brakeman rushes to draw your shutter, the
blinds in the parlor are closed, and the winking, blinking travelers on
the highway sigh, “Oh, dear, that sun is blinding,” and look eagerly
for a cloud. Then, if the sun does shine many days without rain, just
think of the discomfort and the perpetual fretting. Clouds of dust
choke you, everything looks dry and worthless, the little brooks are
moping along, or there is only a dry stony path that tells they once
lived, and the roadsides look like dusty millers. Now, fancy a drive
without the sunshine to blind your eyes, no dust (surely not, when
the mud fairly clogs the wheels), every tree and shrub glistening and
all the little mountain streams awakened to life and tearing along,
crossing and recrossing your path like playful children; indeed, all
Nature’s face looking like that of a beautiful child just washed. Really,
there is no comparison.
Perhaps you are thinking that is a dull day drive. Now, how about a
drive when it pours. Oh, that is lovely—so cosy! A waterproof and
veil protect you, and the boot covers up all the bags and traps, and
there is a real fascination in splashing recklessly through the mud,
knowing you have only to say the word and you will come out spick
and span in the morning.
We have purposely put all the weather in one spot, like “Lord”
Timothy Dexter’s punctuation marks, and now you can sprinkle it in
according to your recollection of the September days, and go on with
us, ignoring the rain, as we did, excepting casual comments.
Our journey was the fulfilment of the longing we felt for the
mountains, when we were driving home from our Narragansett Pier
and Newport trip one year ago. Perhaps you remember those hazy,
soft-tinted days, the very last of September. The air was like
summer, as we drove along through Framingham to Southboro,
gathering those gorgeous sumacs by the wayside, and wishing we
could go straight north for two weeks.
The morning of Sept. 6th, 1888, was very bright, just the morning to
start “straight north,” but with our usual aversion to direct routes we
turned our faces towards Boston. We could not stop at Stow this
time, for the old hotel, where we slept so sweetly our first night one
year ago, is gone, and only ashes mark the spot. Waltham had a
place for us, however. A cold wave came on during the night, and we
shivered all the way from Waltham to Hull, except when we were
near the warm hearts of our friends on the way.
The ocean looked cold, but nothing could mar that quiet drive of five
miles on Nantasket Beach just before sunset. We were lifted far
above physical conditions. We were just in season to join in the last
supper at The Pemberton, and share in the closing up. We were
about the last of the lingering guests to take leave in the morning,
after dreaming of driving through snowdrifts ten feet deep, and
wondering if we should enjoy the mountains as well as we had
fancied. The weather, however, changed greatly before noon, and it
was very sultry by the time we reached Boston. Prudence prompted
us, nevertheless, to add to our outfit, against another cold wave. We
found all we wanted except wristers. Asking for them that sultry
afternoon produced such an effect that we casually remarked, to
prove our sanity, that we did not wish them to wear that day.
Night found us at Lexington, pleading for shelter at the
Massachusetts House. Darkness, rain and importunity touched the
heart of the proprietor, and he took us into the great hall, which
serves for parlor as well, saying all the time he did not know what he
should do with us. We wanted to stay there, because we do not often
have a chance to stay in a house that has traveled. The signs are
over the doors just as when it stood on the Centennial grounds, and
many things seem quite natural, although we did not chance to be
among the distinguished guests entertained under its roof when in
Philadelphia.
Our stay there was made very pleasant by a lady who gave us
interesting accounts of her journeys by carriage with “Gail Hamilton”
and her sister.
Here ended our one hundred miles preliminary, and bright and early
Monday morning we were off for the mountains. The day was just
right for a wayside camp, and just at the right time we came to a
pretty pine grove, with seats under the trees. We asked a bright
young woman in the yard opposite if we could camp there, and were
given full liberty. She said Jerry might as well be put into the barn,
then helped unharness and gave him some hay. Jerry was happy.
He does not have hay—which is his “soup,” I suppose—when he
camps. We went to the grove with our little pail filled with delicious
milk, and a comfortable seat supplied by our hospitable hostess.
When we went to pay our bill, everything was refused but our thanks.
We said then, “If you ever come to Leominster you must let us do
something for you.”
“Oh, do you live in Leominster? Do you know ——?”
“Oh, yes, she is in our Sunday-school class.”
This is only one of the many pleasant incidents of our wanderings.
We spent that night at Haverhill and had one more camp, our last for
the trip, this time on the warm side of a deserted barn.
Two and a half days’ driving up hill and down to Dover, and over a
good road through Rochester and Farmington, brought us to Alton
Bay, where we all went on board the Mt. Washington for the sail of
thirty miles to Centre Harbor. Jerry was tied in the bow, and as we
got under way the wind was so strong we should have had to wrap
him up in our shawls and waterproofs if the captain had not invited
him inside. We braved it on deck, for Lake Winnipiseogee is too
pretty to lose.
We “did” Centre Harbor some years ago, so drove on directly we
landed. At Moultonboro we stopped to make some inquiries, and
while waiting, the clouds grew very mysterious, looking as if a
cyclone or something was at hand, and we decided to spend the
night there. The people were looking anxiously at the angry sky; and
the Cleveland flag was hastily taken down; but no sooner were we
and the flag under cover than the sun came out bright, dispelling the
blackness. We wished we had gone on as we intended, and looked
enviously on the Harrison flag, which waved triumphantly, not afraid
of a little cloud.
We saw a large trunk by the roadside as we drove through the
woods next morning. We gave all sorts of explanations for a good-
looking trunk being left in such an out-of-the-way place, but, not
being “reporters,” we did not “investigate” or “interview,” but
dismissed the matter with, “Why, probably it was left there for the
stage.” We do not feel quite satisfied yet, for why any one should
carry a trunk half a mile to take a stage when we had no reason to
think there was any stage to take, is still a mystery.
We got all over our disappointment at stopping early for the cloud,
for the drive, which was so lovely that bright morning, would have
been cold and cheerless the night before. It seemed as if we went on
all sides of Chocorua, with its white peak and pretty lake at the base.
Why has somebody said—
“Tired Chocorua, looking down wistfully into
 A land in which it seemed always afternoon.”

One might spend a whole summer amid the charming surroundings

of North Conway, but we had only a night to spare. There were many
transient people about, as is usual in the autumn. The summer
guests had departed, and now some of the stayers-at-home were
having a respite. We wished all the tired people could try the
experience of an old lady there, who said she “could not make it
seem right to be just going to her meals and doing nothing about it.”
Oh, how lovely that morning at North Conway! This was the day we
were to drive up Crawford Notch; and what about all the prophecies
of our seashore friends? Where were the snowdrifts we dreamed of?
The air was so soft we put aside all wraps, and, as we leisurely
drove along the bright, woodsy road, I wonder how many times we
exclaimed, “This is heavenly!” We fairly drank in the sunshine, and
fortunately, for it was the last we had for a full week.
We dined at the hotel in Bartlett, and strolled about the railway
station near by, so tempting to travelers, having a pretty waiting-
room like a summer parlor, with its straw matting and wicker
furniture. We took our time so leisurely that we found we could not
get to the Crawford House in season to walk up Mt. Willard, as we
had planned, so stopped at the old Willey House, this side. It was
quite too lovely to stay indoors, and, after we had taken possession
of the house, being the only guests, we took the horn our landlady
used to call the man to take care of Jerry, and went down the road to
try the echo, as she directed us. It was very distinct, and after we got
used to making such a big noise in the presence of those majestic
mountains, we rather liked it. We gathered a few tiny ferns for our
diaries, and took quite a walk towards the Notch, then came “home,”
for so it seemed. We had chosen a corner room in full view of Mt.
Webster, Willey Mountain, and the road over which we had driven,
and where the moon would shine in at night, and the sun ought to
look in upon us in the morning. The moon was faithful, but the sun
forgot us and the mountains were veiled in mists.
Will there ever be another Sunday so long, and that we could wish
many times longer? We had the warm parlor to ourselves and just
reveled in a feast of reading, watching the fluffy bits of mist playing
about Mt. Webster, between the lines. Just fancy reading “Robert
Elsmere” four hours on a stretch, without fatigue, so peaceful was it
away from the world among the mountains. After dinner we drove to
the Crawford to mail a letter and back to the Willey, having enjoyed
once more in the short one hour and a half one of the grandest
points of the whole mountain region, the White Mountain Notch. We
were now fresh for another long session with Robert and Catherine.
It was raining again, and steadily increased through the night until it
seemed as if there would not be a bridge left of the many we had
crossed the day before.
We were interested in the fate of the little bridges, for we were to
retrace our steps, seventeen or eighteen miles, to Glen station. We
had driven up through the Notch because—we wanted to; and we
were going back all this distance because we wanted to go on the
Glen side of the mountains; for with all our driving, we had never
been there. What a change from the drive up on Saturday! How
lively the streams; and the little cascades were almost endless in
number.
The foliage looked brighter, too. The roads were washed, but the
bridges all stood. We dined once more at Bartlett, then on to
Jackson via Glen Station. We had not thought of Jackson as so
cosily tucked in among the mountains.
Again we were the only guests at the hotel, and the stillness here
was so overpowering, that it required more courage to speak above
a whisper in the great empty dining-room than it did to “toot” the horn
in Willey Notch.
We usually order our horse at nine, but when it pours, as it did at
Jackson, we frequently dine early and take the whole drive in the
afternoon. These rainy stop-overs are among the pleasant features
of our journeys. Who cannot appreciate a long morning to read or
write, with conscience clear, however busy people may be about
you, having literally “nothing else to do”? It does not seem to trouble
us as it did the old lady at North Conway. It was cool in our room,
and we took our books down stairs, casually remarking to the clerk,
who apparently had nothing to do but wait upon us, that we had
been looking for the cheery open fire we saw in the reception room
the evening before. He took our modest hint, and very soon came to
the parlor, saying we would find it more comfortable in the other
room, where there was a fire.
Early in the afternoon we were off, full of anticipation of a new drive,
and by many the drive from Jackson to Gorham through Pinkham
Notch and by the Glen House is considered the finest of all. The
foliage was certainly the brightest and the mud the deepest of the
whole trip, and we enjoyed every inch of the twenty miles. We fully
absorbed all the beauty of the misty phases of the mountains, and
did not reject anything, thinking instead how we would some time
reverse things and drive from Gorham to Jackson on a pleasant day.
Another famed drive is the one from Gorham to Jefferson. Part of
this was new to us, too, and we must confess that the “misty phases”
were too much for our pleasure that time. Not a glimpse of the peaks
of the Presidential range was to be had all that morning. Even the
Randolph Hills were partly shrouded in mists. We dined at
Crawford’s at Jefferson Highlands, and one of the guests said Mr.
Crawford had promised a clear sunset, but what his promise was
based on we could not imagine.
It does not seem as if anything could entirely spoil the drive from the
Highlands to the Waumbek at Jefferson, and from Jefferson to
Lancaster the views are wonderfully beautiful. The clouds relented a
little as we slowly climbed the hills, and just as we reached the
highest point we turned back once more for a last look at the entire
White Mountain range, and we had a glimpse of the peak of Mt.
Washington for the first time since the morning we left North
Conway.
A moment more, and the Summit House glistened in sunlight, a stray
ray from behind a cloud. As we began to descend, what a change of
scene! Sun-glinted Washington was out of sight behind the hill, and
before us were threatening clouds, black as midnight, and the
mountains of northern New Hampshire looked almost purple. The
sky foreboded a tempest rather than Mr. Crawford’s promised
sunset, but while we were thinking of it there was a marvelous
change. Color mingled with the blackness, and as we were going
down the last steep hill into Lancaster, there was one of the most
gorgeous sunset views we ever witnessed. We drove slowly through
the broad, level streets to the outer limit of the town, and then turned
back, but did not go to the hotel until his majesty dropped in full glory
below the horizon.
The sun set that night for the rest of the week, and the clouds were
on hand again in the morning. We went to Lancaster just for a look
towards Dixville, but we made this our turning-point. The drive to
Whitefield is very like the one just described, only reversed. There
were no sun-glints this time, but memory could furnish all the clouds
refused to reveal, for that ride was indelibly photographed on our
minds.
From Whitefield we drove to Franconia, and as we went through
Bethlehem street we thought it seemed pleasanter than ever before.
The gray shades were becoming, somehow.
Having driven through Franconia Notch five times and seen the
“boulder” before and after its fall, we did not fret about what the
weather might be this time. We had been through in rain and
sunshine, in perfect, gray, and yellow days, and never failed to find it
charming. This time it poured in torrents. We dined at the Flume
House, and watched those who were “doing” the Notch for the first
time, and almost envied them as they gayly donned their waterproofs
and were off for the Pool and Flume. One party declared they had
laughed more than if it had been pleasant, and all in spite of that
ruined Derby, too, which the gentleman of the party said he had just
got new in Boston, and intended to wear all winter. They had passed
us in the Notch in an open wagon, with the rain pelting their heads.
The drive to Campton that afternoon was one of those “cosy” drives.
It never rained faster, and the roads were like rivers. Memory was
busy, for it is one of the loveliest drives in the mountains. It was dark
when we reached Sanborn’s, at West Campton, but it is always
cheery there, and the house looked as lively as in summer.
One might think we had had enough of mountains and mists by this
time, but we were not yet satisfied, and having plenty of time, we
turned north again, just before reaching Plymouth, with Moosilauke
and the Green Mountains in mind. A happy thought prompted us to
ask for dinner at Daisy Cottage in Quincy, and unexpectedly we met
there one of the party who braved Franconia Notch in winter a few
years ago, and who told the tale of their joys and sorrows in the
Transcript. We mailed our cards to the friends whose house was
closed, and then on to Warren, near Moosilauke. We experienced
just a shade of depression here, perhaps because the hotel, which
had been full of guests all summer, was now empty and cold, or
possibly the sunshine we absorbed at North Conway—“canned”
sunshine, Mr. Shayback calls it—was giving out. Be that as it may,
our enthusiasm was not up to the point of climbing a mountain to see
what we had seen for eight successive days,—peaks shrouded in
white clouds. The sun did shine in the early morning; but it takes
time to clear the mountains, and the wind blew such a gale we
actually feared we might be blown off the “ridge” on Moosilauke if we
did go up. We waited and watched the weather, finished “Robert
Elsmere,” and began for a second reading, and after dinner gave up
the ascent. By night we were reconciled, for we had the most
charming drive of twenty miles to Bradford, Vt., crossing the
Connecticut at Haverhill, and saying good-by to New Hampshire and
its misty mountains.
A new kind of weather was on hand next morning, strangely like that
we have become accustomed to, but not so hopeless.
These dense fogs along the Connecticut in September are the
salvation of vegetation from frosts, we were told, but they are fatal to
views. We drove above and away from the fog, however, on our way
over the hills to West Fairlee, but it rested in the valley until nearly
noon. It was encouraging to learn that fair weather always followed.
A “bridge up” sent us a little way round, but we reached West Fairlee
just at dinner time, and while Jerry was at the blacksmith’s we
strolled about the village with friends. The afternoon drive to Norwich
on the Connecticut—a pretty, old university town—was very
pleasant. We were directed to the hotel, but when a lady answered
the door bell, we thought we must have made a mistake, and were
asking hospitality at a private mansion. There was no sign; the yard
was full of flowers, and the big square parlor, with the fire crackling
under the high old mantel, the fan-decorated music-room through the
portieres—everything, in fact, betokened a home. And such in truth it
was, only, having been a hotel, transients were still accommodated
there, as there was no other place in Norwich. When the very gallant
colored boy ushered us into a room the size of the parlor below, with
all the homey touches, we felt really like company. The delicious
supper, well served from the daintiest of dishes, confirmed the
company feeling.
We started out in the densest of fogs from our luxurious quarters in
Norwich, but soon left it behind, and the drive along White River was
very lovely. We had to dine at a “putting-up” place, with another
fellow-traveler, in a kitchen alive with flies; and at Bridgewater, where
we went for the night, we were received by a woman with mop and
pail in hand—a little “come down” after our fine appointments. We
must not forget our pleasant hour in Woodstock that afternoon. We
drove through its pretty streets, called on friends, and took a look at
the fair grounds, for everybody was “going to the fair.”
Fine appointments are not essential to comfort, and when we were
all fixed in our little room, with a good book, waiting once more for it
to simply rain, not pour, we were just as happy as at Norwich. After
dinner we challenged the weather, and set forth for Ludlow. We
overtook the little Italian pedler, with what looked like a feather bed
on his back, who had sat at table with us, and was now ploughing his
way through the mud. His face was wreathed in the most
extravagant smiles in response to our greeting. The rain had spent
itself, and we enjoyed walking down the mountain as we went
through Plymouth. It seemed an unusual mountain, for there was no
“up” to it, but the “down” was decidedly perceptible.
Ludlow was as homelike as ever, and the Notch drive on the way to
Chester as interesting. The foliage, usually so brilliant at that season,