Chapter XXIX: Introduction (3)

After a three days’ march he came to an Indian encampment
Pitched on the edge of a meadow, between the sea and the forest;
Women at work by the tents, and the warriors, horrid with war-paint,
Seated about a fire, and smoking and talking together;
Who, when they saw from afar the sudden approach of the white men,
Saw the flash of the sun on breast-plate and saber and musket,
Straightway leaped to their feet, and two, from among them advancing,
Came to parley with Standish, and offer him furs as a present;
Friendship was in their looks, but in their hearts there was hatred.
Braves of the tribe were these, and brothers gigantic in stature,
Huge as Goliath of Gath, or the terrible Og, king of Bashan;
One was Pecksuot named, and the other was called Wattawamat.
Round their necks were suspended their knives in scabbards of wampum,
Two-edged, trenchant knives, with points as sharp as a needle.
Other arms had they none, for they were cunning and crafty.
“Welcome, English!” they said—these words they had learned from the
traders
Touching at times on the coast, to barter and chaffer for peltries.
Then in their native tongue they began to parley with Standish,
Through his guide and interpreter, Hobomok, friend of the white man,
Begging for blankets and knives, but mostly for muskets and powder,
Kept by the white man, they said, concealed, with the plague, in his
cellars,
Ready to be let loose, and destroy his brother the red man!
But when Standish refused, and said he would give them the Bible,
Suddenly changing their tone, they began to boast and to bluster.
Then Wattawamat advanced with a stride in front of the other,
And, with a lofty demeanor, thus vauntingly spake to the Captain:
“Now Wattawamat can see, by the fiery eyes of the Captain,
Angry is he in his heart; but the heart of the brave Wattawamat
Is not afraid at the sight. He was not born of a woman,
But on a mountain, at night, from an oak-tree riven by lightning,
Forth he sprang at a bound, with all his weapons about him,
Shouting, ‘Who is there here to fight with the brave Wattawamat?’”
Then he unsheathed his knife, and, whetting the blade on his left hand,
Held it aloft and displayed a woman’s face on the handle,
Saying, with bitter expression and look of sinister meaning:
“I have another at home, with the face of a man on the handle;
By and by they shall marry; and there will be plenty of children!”

Then stood Pecksuot forth, self-vaunting, insulting Miles Standish;
While with his fingers he patted the knife that hung at his bosom,
Drawing it half from its sheath, and plunging it back, as he muttered:
“By and by it shall see; it shall eat; ah, ha! but shall speak not!
This is the mighty Captain the white men have sent to destroy us!
He is a little man; let him go and work with the women!”

Meanwhile Standish had noted the faces and figures of Indians
Peeping and creeping about from bush to tree in the forest,
Feigning to look for game, with arrows set on their bow-strings,
Drawing about him still closer and closer the net of their ambush.
But undaunted he stood, and dissembled and treated them smoothly;
So the old chronicles say, that were writ in the days of the fathers.
But when he heard their defiance, the boast, the taunt, and the insult,
All the hot blood of his race, of Sir Hugh and of Thurston de Standish,
Boiled and beat in his heart, and swelled in the veins of his temples.
Headlong he leaped on the boaster, and, snatching his knife from its
scabbard,
Plunged it into his heart, and, reeling backward, the savage
Fell with his face to the sky, and a fiendlike fierceness upon it.
Straight there arose from the forest the awful sound of the war-whoop,
And, like a flurry of snow on the whistling wind of December,
Swift and sudden and keen came a flight of feathery arrows.
Then came a cloud of smoke, and out of the cloud came the lightning,
Out of the lightning thunder; and death unseen ran before it.
Frightened, the savages fled for shelter in swamp and in thicket.
Hotly pursued and beset; but their sachem, the brave Wattawamat,
Fled not; he was dead. Unswerving and swift had a bullet
Passed through his brain, and he fell with both hands clutching the
greensward,
Seeming in death to hold back from his foe the land of his fathers.

There on the flowers of the meadow the warriors lay, and above them,
Silent, with folded arms, stood Hobomok, friend of the white man.
Smiling at length, he exclaimed to the stalwart Captain of Plymouth:
“Pecksuot bragged very loud, of his courage, his strength, and his
stature—
Mocked the great Captain, and called him a little man; but I see now
Big enough have you been to lay him speechless before you!”

Thus the first battle was fought and won by the stalwart Miles
Standish.
When the tidings thereof were brought to the village of Plymouth,
And as a trophy of war the head of the brave Wattawamat
Scowled from the roof of the fort, which at once was a church and a
fortress,
All who beheld it rejoiced, and praised the Lord, and took courage.
Only Priscilla averted her face from this specter of terror.
Thanking God in her heart that she had not married Miles Standish;
Shrinking, fearing almost, lest, coming home from his battles,
He should lay claim to her hand, as the prize and reward of his valor.

THE SPINNING-WHEEL

Month after month passed away, and in autumn the ships of the merchants
Came with kindred and friends, with cattle and corn for the Pilgrims.
All in the village was peace; the men were intent on their labors,
Busy with hewing and building, with garden-plot and with merestead,
Busy with breaking the glebe, and mowing the grass in the meadows,
Searching the sea for its fish, and hunting the deer in the forest.
All in the village was peace; but at times the rumor of warfare
Filled the air with alarm, and the apprehension of danger.
Bravely the stalwart Miles Standish was scouring the land with his
forces,
Waxing valiant in fight and defeating the alien armies,
Till his name had become a sound of fear to the nations.
Anger was still in his heart, but at times the remorse and contrition
Which in all noble natures succeed the passionate outbreak,
Came like a rising tide, that encounters the rush of a river,
Staying its current awhile, but making it bitter and brackish.

Meanwhile Alden at home had built him a new habitation.
Solid, substantial, of timber roughhewn from the firs of the forest.
Wooden-barred was the door, and the roof was covered with rushes;
Latticed the windows were, and the window-panes were of paper,
Oiled to admit the light, while wind and rain were excluded.
There too he dug a well, and around it planted an orchard;
Still may be seen to this day some trace of the well and the orchard.
Close to the house was the stall, where, safe and secure from annoyance,
Raghorn, the snow-white bull, that had fallen to Alden’s allotment
In the division of cattle, might ruminate in the night-time
Over the pastures he cropped, made fragrant by sweet penny-royal.

Oft when his labor was finished, with eager feet would the dreamer
Follow the pathway that ran through the woods to the house of Priscilla,
Led by illusions romantic and subtle deceptions of fancy,
Pleasure disguised as duty, and love in the semblance of friendship.
Ever of her he thought, when he fashioned the walls of his dwelling;
Ever of her he thought, when he delved in the soil of his garden;
Ever of her he thought, when he read in his Bible on Sunday
Praise of the virtuous woman, as she is described in the Proverbs—
How the heart of her husband doth safely trust in her always,
How all the days of her life she will do him good, and not evil,
How she seeketh the wool and the flax and worketh with gladness,
How she layeth her hand to the spindle and holdeth the distaff,
How she is not afraid of the snow for herself or her household,
Knowing her household are clothed with the scarlet cloth of her weaving!

So as she sat at her wheel one afternoon in the Autumn,
Alden, who opposite sat, and was watching her dexterous fingers,
As if the thread she was spinning were that of his life and his fortune,
After a pause in their talk, thus spake to the sound of the spindle.
“Truly, Priscilla,” he said, “when I see you spinning and spinning,
Never idle a moment, but thrifty and thoughtful of others,
Suddenly you are transformed, are visibly changed in a moment;
You are no longer Priscilla, but Bertha the Beautiful Spinner.”
Here the light foot on the treadle grew swifter and swifter; the spindle
Uttered an angry snarl, and the thread snapped short in her fingers;
While the impetuous speaker, not heeding the mischief, continued:
“You are the beautiful Bertha, the spinner, the queen of Helvetia;
She whose story I read at a stall in the streets of Southampton,
Who, as she rode on her palfrey, o’er valley and meadow and mountain,
Ever was spinning her thread from a distaff fixed to her saddle.
She was so thrifty and good that her name passed into a proverb.
So shall it be with your own, when the spinning-wheel shall no longer
Hum in the house of the farmer, and fill its chambers with music.
Then shall the mothers, reproving, relate how it was in their childhood,
Praising the good old times, and the days of Priscilla the spinner!”
Straight uprose from her wheel the beautiful Puritan maiden,
Pleased with the praise of her thrift from him whose praise was the
sweetest,
Drew from the reel on the table a snowy skein of her spinning,
Thus making answer, meanwhile, to the flattering phrases of Alden:
“Come, you must not be idle; if I am a pattern for housewives,
Show yourself equally worthy of being the model of husbands.
Hold this skein on your hands, while I wind it, ready for knitting;
Then who knows but hereafter, when fashions have changed and the manners,
Fathers may talk to their sons of the good old times of John Alden!”
Thus, with a jest and a laugh, the skein on his hands she adjusted,
He sitting awkwardly there, with his arms extended before him,
She standing graceful, erect, and winding the thread from his fingers,
Sometimes chiding a little his clumsy manner of holding,
Sometimes touching his hands, as she disentangled expertly
Twist or knot in the yarn, unawares—for how could she help it?—
Sending electrical thrills through every nerve in his body.

Lo! in the midst of this scene, a breathless messenger entered,
Bringing in hurry and heat the terrible news from the village.
Yes; Miles Standish was dead!—an Indian had brought them the tidings—
Slain by a poisoned arrow, shot down in the front of the battle,
Into an ambush beguiled, cut off with the whole of his forces;
All the town would be burned, and all the people be murdered!
Such were the tidings of evil that burst on the hearts of the hearers.
Silent and statue-like stood Priscilla, her face looking backward
Still at the face of the speaker, her arms uplifted in horror;
But John Alden, upstarting, as if the barb of the arrow
Piercing the heart of his friend had struck his own, and had sundered
Once and forever the bonds that held him bound as a captive,
Wild with excess of sensation, the awful delight of his freedom,
Mingled with pain and regret, unconscious of what he was doing.
Clasped, almost with a groan, the motionless form of Priscilla,
Pressing her close to his heart, as forever his own, and exclaiming:
“Those whom the Lord hath united, let no man put them asunder!”

Even as rivulets twain, from distant and separate sources,
Seeing each other afar, as they leap from the rocks, and pursuing
Each one its devious path, but drawing nearer and nearer,
Rush together at last, at their trysting-place in the forest;
So these lives that had run thus far in separate channels,
Coming in sight of each other, then swerving and flowing asunder,
Parted by barriers strong, but drawing nearer and nearer,
Rushed together at last, and one was lost in the other.

THE WEDDING DAY

Forth from the curtain of clouds, from the tent of purple and scarlet,
Issued the sun, the great High-Priest, in his garments resplendent,
Holiness unto the Lord, in letters of light, on his forehead,
Round the hem of his robe the golden bells and pomegranates.
Blessing the world he came, and the bars of vapor beneath him
Gleamed like a grate of brass, and the sea at his feet was a laver!

This was the wedding morn of Priscilla the Puritan maiden.
Friends were assembled together; the Elder and Magistrate also
Graced the scene with their presence, and stood like the Law and the
Gospel,
One with the sanction of earth and one with the blessing of heaven.
Simple and brief was the wedding, as that of Ruth and of Boaz.
Softly the youth and the maiden repeated the words of betrothal,
Taking each other for husband and wife in the Magistrate’s presence,
After the Puritan way, and the laudable custom of Holland.
Fervently then, and devoutly, the excellent Elder of Plymouth
Prayed for the hearth and the home, that were founded that day in
affection,
Speaking of life and of death, and imploring divine benedictions.

Lo! when the service was ended, a form appeared on the threshold,
Clad in armor of steel, a somber and sorrowful figure!
Why does the bridegroom start and stare at the strange apparition?
Why does the bride turn pale, and hide her face on his shoulder?
Is it a phantom of air—a bodiless spectral illusion?
Is it a ghost from the grave, that has come to forbid the betrothal?
Long had it stood there unseen, a guest uninvited, unwelcomed;
Over its clouded eyes there had passed at times an expression
Softening the gloom and revealing the warm heart hidden beneath them,
As when across the sky the driving rack of the rain-cloud
Grows for a moment thin, and betrays the sun by its brightness.
Once it had lifted its hand, and moved its lips, but was silent,
As if an iron will had mastered the fleeting intention.
But when were ended the troth and the prayer and the last benediction,
Into the room it strode, and the people beheld with amazement
Bodily there in his armor Miles Standish, the Captain of Plymouth!
Grasping the bridegroom’s hand, he said with emotion, “Forgive me!
I have been angry and hurt—too long have I cherished the feeling;
I have been cruel and hard, but now, thank God! it is ended.
Mine is the same hot blood that leaped in the veins of Hugh Standish,
Sensitive, swift to resent, but as swift in atoning for error.
Never so much as now was Miles Standish the friend of John Alden.”
Thereupon answered the bridegroom: “Let all be forgotten between us—
All save the dear old friendship, and that shall grow older and dearer!”
Then the Captain advanced, and, bowing, saluted Priscilla,
Gravely, and after the manner of old-fashioned gentry in England,
Something of camp and of court, of town and of country, commingled,
Wishing her joy of her wedding, and loudly lauding her husband.
Then he said with a smile: “I should have remembered the adage—
If you would be well served, you must serve yourself; and moreover,
No man can gather cherries in Kent at the season of Christmas!”

Great was the people’s amazement, and greater yet their rejoicing,
Thus to behold once more the sunburnt face of their Captain,
Whom they had mourned as dead; and they gathered and crowded about him,
Eager to see him and hear him, forgetful of bride and of bridegroom,
Questioning, answering, laughing, and each interrupting the other,
Till the good Captain declared, being quite overpowered and bewildered,
He had rather by far break into an Indian encampment,
Than come again to a wedding to which he had not been invited.

Meanwhile the bridegroom went forth and stood with the bride at the
doorway,
Breathing the perfumed air of that warm and beautiful morning.
Touched with autumnal tints, but lonely and sad in the sunshine,
Lay extended before them the land of toil and privation;
There were the graves of the dead, and the barren waste of the seashore,
There the familiar fields, the groves of pine, and the meadows;
But to their eyes transfigured, it seemed as the Garden of Eden,
Filled with the presence of God, whose voice was the sound of the ocean.

Soon was their vision disturbed by the noise and stir of departure,
Friends coming forth from the house, and impatient of longer delaying,
Each with his plan for the day, and the work that was left uncompleted.
Then from a stall near at hand, amid exclamations of wonder,
Alden the thoughtful, the careful, so happy, so proud of Priscilla,
Brought out his snow-white bull, obeying the hand of its master,
Led by a cord that was tied to an iron ring in its nostrils,
Covered with crimson cloth, and a cushion placed for a saddle.
She should not walk, he said, through the dust and heat of the noon-day;
Nay, she should ride like a queen, not plod along like a peasant.
Somewhat alarmed at first, but reassured by the others,
Placing her hand on the cushion, her foot in the hand of her husband,
Gayly, with joyous laugh, Priscilla mounted her palfrey.
“Nothing is wanting now,” he said, with a smile, “but the distaff;
Then you would be in truth my queen, my beautiful Bertha!”

Onward the bridal procession now moved to their new habitation,
Happy husband and wife, and friends conversing together.
Pleasantly murmured the brook, as they crossed the ford in the forest,
Pleased with the image that passed, like a dream of love through its
bosom,
Tremulous, floating in air, o’er the depths of the azure abysses.
Down through the golden leaves the sun was pouring his splendors,
Gleaming on purple grapes, that, from branches above them suspended,
Mingled their odorous breath with the balm of the pine and the fir-tree,
Wild and sweet as the clusters that grew in the valley of Eshcol.
Like a picture it seemed of the primitive pastoral ages,
Fresh with the youth of the world, and recalling Rebecca and Isaac,
Old and yet ever new, and simple and beautiful always,
Love immortal and young in the endless succession of lovers.
So through the Plymouth woods passed onward the bridal procession.

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

For Biography, see page 80.

=Discussion.= 1. Read the history of the Pilgrims’ settlement
at Plymouth. 2. Describe the Plymouth of the first year of the
settlement. 3. How long had the Pilgrims been in their new home at
the time this story opens? 4. What tells you this? 5. Find lines
that tell how hard the first winter had been. 6. What tells you that
the Captain had read his Cæsar many times? 7. What principle of
conduct did he learn from Cæsar’s victories? 8. When did he entirely
disregard this principle? 9. What excuse did he give for not acting
upon it? 10. Read the words in which John Alden tells why he will
undertake the Captain’s errand. 11. What ideal of friendship had
he? 12. What do you think of Alden’s description of his friend’s
character? 13. Read the lines in which Priscilla shows her love of
truth and loyalty. 14. When does Miles Standish show himself most
noble? 15. Who is the real hero of this poem? 16. Commit to memory
lines which seem to you to express the moral truths and the high
ideals which the poem puts before us. 17. Make a brief outline of
the story. 18. Pronounce the following: athletic; sinews; memoirs;
taciturn; aerial; impious; capacious; stalwart; subtle; hearth.

=Phrases=

corselet of steel, 427, 8
mystical Arabic sentence, 427, 9
Spanish arcabucero, 428, 7
Flemish morasses, 428, 9
brazen howitzer, 428, 25
irresistible logic, 428, 27
belligerent Christians, 429, 27
Iberian village, 430, 23
grounding his musket, 431, 19
culling his phrases, 431, 27
taciturn stripling, 432, 23
mask his dismay, 432, 25
aerial cities, 433, 25
misty phantoms, 434, 8
swift retribution, 434, 14
ravenous spindle, 435, 6
embellish the theme, 437, 10
dilated with wonder, 437, 14
apocalyptical splendors, 439, 9
fields of dulse, 439, 16
mutable sands, 439, 21
importunate pleadings, 439, 24
rattle of cordage, 440, 11
bondage of error, 440, 18
congenial gloom, 441, 3
sacked and demolished, 441, 13
sound of sinister omen, 441, 22
hand-grenade, 441, 24
implacable hatred, 442, 7
hostile incursions, 442, 12
choleric Captain, 442, 22
sinuous way, 444, 7
serried billows, 444, 20
dangers that menaced, 445, 1
lose the tide, 446, 22
on the thwarts, 447, 2
divined his intention, 447, 8
wall adamantine, 447, 14
grasping a tiller, 448, 5
heaving the windlass round, 448, 14
yards were braced, 448, 15
irresistible impulse, 450, 3
subterranean rivers, 450, 15
a more ethereal level, 451; 3
sacred professions, 451, 16
urged by importunate zeal, 452, 24
withheld by remorseful misgivings, 453, 3
to be flouted, 453, 11
scabbards of wampum, 454, 11
trenchant knives, 454, 12
chaffer for peltries, 454, 15
sinister meaning, 455, 5
breaking the glebe, 457, 5
apprehension of danger, 457, 8
timber roughhewn, 457, 17
Alden’s allotment, 457, 24
led by illusions, 458, 5
subtle deceptions of fancy, 458, 5
into an ambush beguiled, 460, 7
trysting-place, 460, 23
sanction of earth, 461, 9
a bodiless spectral illusion, 461, 21
driving rack, 461, 26
atoning for error, 462, 10
azure abysses, 464, 9

AMERICAN SCENES AND LEGENDS

MY VISIT TO NIAGARA

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

Never did a pilgrim approach Niagara with deeper enthusiasm than mine. I had lingered away from it, and wandered to other scenes, because my treasury of anticipated enjoyments, comprising all the wonders of the world, had nothing else so magnificent, and I was loath to exchange the pleasures of hope for those of memory so soon. At length the day came. The stage-coach, with a Frenchman and myself on the back seat, had already left Lewiston, and in less than an hour would set us down in Manchester. I began to listen for the roar of the cataract, and trembled with a sensation like dread, as the moment drew nigh, when its voice of ages must roll, for the first time, on my ear. The French gentleman stretched himself from the window, and expressed loud admiration, while, by a sudden impulse, I threw myself back and closed my eyes. When the scene shut in, I was glad to think, that for me the whole burst of Niagara was yet in futurity. We rolled on, and entered the village of Manchester, bordering on the falls.

I am quite ashamed of myself here. Not that I ran like a madman to the falls, and plunged into the thickest of the spray—never stopping to breathe, till breathing was impossible; not that I committed this, or any other suitable extravagance. On the contrary, I alighted with perfect decency and composure, gave my cloak to the black waiter, pointed out my baggage, and inquired, not the nearest way to the cataract, but about the dinner-hour. The interval was spent in arranging my dress. Within the last fifteen minutes, my mind had grown strangely benumbed, and my spirits apathetic, with a slight depression, not decided enough to be termed sadness. My enthusiasm was in a deathlike slumber. Without aspiring to immortality, as he did, I could have imitated that English traveler who turned back from the point where he first heard the thunder of Niagara, after crossing the ocean to behold it. Many a Western trader, by the by, has performed a similar act of heroism with more heroic simplicity, deeming it no such wonderful feat to dine at the hotel and resume his route to Buffalo or Lewiston, while the cataract was roaring unseen.

Such has often been my apathy, when objects, long sought, and earnestly desired, were placed within my reach. After dinner—at which an unwonted and perverse epicurism detained me longer than usual—I lighted a cigar and paced the piazza, minutely attentive to the aspect and business of a very ordinary village. Finally, with reluctant step, and the feeling of an intruder, I walked toward Goat Island. At the toll-house, there were further excuses for delaying the inevitable moment. My signature was required in a huge ledger, containing similar records innumerable, many of which I read. The skin of a great sturgeon, and other fishes, beasts, and reptiles; a collection of minerals, such as lie in heaps near the falls; some Indian moccasins, and other trifles, made of deer-skin and embroidered with beads; several newspapers, from Montreal, New York, and Boston—all attracted me in turn. Out of a number of twisted sticks, the manufacture of a Tuscarora Indian, I selected one of curled maple, curiously convoluted, and adorned with the carved images of a snake and a fish. Using this as my pilgrim’s staff, I crossed the bridge. Above and below me were the rapids, a river of impetuous snow, with here and there a dark rock amid its whiteness, resisting all the physical fury, as any cold spirit did the moral influences of the scene. On reaching Goat Island, which separates the two great segments of the falls, I chose the right-hand path, and followed it to the edge of the American cascade. There, while the falling sheet was yet invisible, I saw the vapor that never vanishes, and the Eternal Rainbow of Niagara.

It was an afternoon of glorious sunshine, without a cloud, save those of the cataracts. I gained an insulated rock, and beheld a broad sheet of brilliant and unbroken foam, not shooting in a curved line from the top of the precipice, but falling headlong down from height to depth. A narrow stream diverged from the main branch, and hurried over the crag by a channel of its own, leaving a little pine-clad island and a streak of precipice between itself and the larger sheet. Below arose the mist, on which was painted a dazzling sunbow with two concentric shadows—one, almost as perfect as the original brightness; and the other, drawn faintly round the broken edge of the cloud.

Still I had not half seen Niagara. Following the verge of the island, the path led me to the Horseshoe, where the real, broad St. Lawrence, rushing along on a level with its banks, pours its whole breadth over a concave line of precipice, and thence pursues its course between lofty crags toward Ontario. A sort of bridge, two or three feet wide, stretches out along the edge of the descending sheet, and hangs upon the rising mist, as if that were the foundation of the frail structure. Here I stationed myself in the blast of wind, which the rushing river bore along with it. The bridge was tremulous beneath me, and marked the tremor of the solid earth. I looked along the whitening rapids, and endeavored to distinguish a mass of water far above the falls, to follow it to their verge, and go down with it, in fancy, to the abyss of clouds and storm. Casting my eyes across the river, and every side, I took in the whole scene at a glance, and tried to comprehend it in one vast idea. After an hour thus spent, I left the bridge, and by a stair-case, winding almost interminably round a post, descended to the base of the precipice. From that point, my path lay over slippery stones, and among great fragments of the cliff, to the edge of the cataract, where the wind at once enveloped me in spray, and perhaps dashed the rainbow round me. Were my long desires fulfilled? And had I seen Niagara?

Oh, that I had never heard of Niagara till I beheld it! Blessed were the wanderers of old, who heard its deep roar, sounding through the woods, as the summons to an unknown wonder, and approached its awful brink, in all the freshness of native feeling. Had its own mysterious voice been the first to warn me of its existence, then, indeed, I might have knelt down and worshiped. But I had come thither, haunted with a vision of foam and fury, and dizzy cliffs, and an ocean tumbling down out of the sky—a scene, in short, which nature had too much good taste and calm simplicity to realize. My mind had struggled to adapt these false conceptions to the reality, and finding the effort vain, a wretched sense of disappointment weighed me down. I climbed the precipice, and threw myself on the earth, feeling that I was unworthy to look at the Great Falls, and careless about beholding them again.

All that night, as there has been and will be for ages past and to come, a rushing sound was heard, as if a great tempest were sweeping through the air. It mingled with my dreams, and made them full of storm and whirlwind. Whenever I awoke, and heard this dread sound in the air, and the windows rattling as with a mighty blast, I could not rest again, till looking forth, I saw how bright the stars were, and that every leaf in the garden was motionless. Never was a summer night more calm to the eye, nor a gale of autumn louder to the ear. The rushing sound proceeds from the rapids, and the rattling of the casements is but an effect of the vibration of the whole house, shaken by the jar of the cataract. The noise of the rapids draws the attention from the true voice of Niagara, which is a dull, muffled thunder, resounding between the cliffs. I spent a wakeful hour at midnight, in distinguishing its reverberations, and rejoiced to find that my former awe and enthusiasm were reviving.

Gradually, and after much contemplation, I came to know, by my own feelings, that Niagara is indeed a wonder of the world, and not the less wonderful, because time and thought must be employed in comprehending it. Casting aside all preconceived notions, and preparation to be dire-struck or delighted, the beholder must stand beside it in the simplicity of his heart, suffering the mighty scene to work its own impression. Night after night I dreamed of it, and was gladdened every morning by the consciousness of a growing capacity to enjoy it. Yet I will not pretend to the all-absorbing enthusiasm of some more fortunate spectators, nor deny that very trifling causes would draw my eyes and thoughts from the cataract.

The last day that I was to spend at Niagara, before my departure for the Far West, I sat upon the Table Rock. This celebrated station did not now, as of old, project fifty feet beyond the line of the precipice, but was shattered by the fall of an immense fragment, which lay distant on the shore below. Still, on the utmost verge of the rock, with my feet hanging over it, I felt as if suspended in the open air. Never before had my mind been in such perfect unison with the scene. There were intervals when I was conscious of nothing but the great river, rolling calmly into the abyss, rather descending than precipitating itself, and acquiring tenfold majesty from its unhurried motion. It came like the march of Destiny. It was not taken by surprise, but seemed to have anticipated, in all its course through the broad lakes, that it must pour their collected waters down this height. The perfect foam of the river, after its descent, and the ever-varying shapes of mist, rising up, to become clouds in the sky, would be the very picture of confusion, were it merely transient, like the rage of a tempest. But when the beholder has stood awhile, and perceives no lull in the storm, and considers that the vapor and the foam are as everlasting as the rocks which produce them, all this turmoil assumes a sort of calmness. It soothes, while it awes the mind.

Leaning over the cliff, I saw the guide conducting two adventurers behind the falls. It was pleasant, from that high seat in the sunshine, to observe them struggling against the eternal storm of the lower regions, with heads bent down, now faltering, now pressing forward, and finally swallowed up in their victory. After their disappearance, a blast rushed out with an old hat, which it had swept from one of their heads. The rock, to which they were directing their unseen course, is marked, at a fearful distance on the exterior of the sheet, by a jet of foam. The attempt to reach it appears both poetical and perilous to a looker-on, but may be accomplished without much more difficulty or hazard than in stemming a violent northeaster. In a few moments, forth came the children of the mist. Dripping and breathless, they crept along the base of the cliff, ascended to the guide’s cottage, and received, I presume, a certificate of their achievement, with three verses of sublime poetry on the back.

My contemplations were often interrupted by strangers who came down from Forsyth’s to take their first view of the falls. A short, ruddy, middle-aged gentleman, fresh from Old England, peeped over the rock, and evinced his approbation by a broad grin. His spouse, a very robust lady, afforded a sweet example of maternal solicitude, being so intent on the safety of her little boy that she did not even glance at Niagara. As for the child, he gave himself wholly to the enjoyment of a stick of candy. Another traveler, a native American, and no rare character among us, produced a volume of Captain Hall’s tour, and labored earnestly to adjust Niagara to the captain’s description, departing, at last, without one new idea or sensation of his own. The next comer was provided, not with a printed book, but with a blank sheet of foolscap, from top to bottom of which, by means of an ever-pointed pencil, the cataract was made to thunder. In a little talk which we had together, he awarded his approbation to the general view, but censured the position of Goat Island, observing that it should have been thrown farther to the right, so as to widen the American falls, and contract those of the Horseshoe. Next appeared two traders of Michigan, who declared, that, upon the whole, the sight was worth looking at; there certainly was an immense water-power here; but that, after all, they would go twice as far to see the noble stone-works of Lockport, where the Grand Canal is locked down a descent of sixty feet. They were succeeded by a young fellow, in a homespun cotton dress, with a staff in his hand, and a pack over his shoulders. He advanced close to the edge of the rock, where his attention, at first wavering among the different components of the scene, finally became fixed in the angle of the Horseshoe falls, which is indeed the central point of interest. His whole soul seemed to go forth and be transported thither, till the staff slipped from his relaxed grasp, and falling down—down—down—struck upon the fragment of the Table Rock.

In this manner I spent some hours, watching the varied impression made by the cataract on those who disturbed me, and returning to unwearied contemplation, when left alone. At length my time came to depart. There is a grassy footpath through the woods, along the summit of the bank, to a point whence a cause-way, hewn in the side of the precipice, goes winding down to the Ferry, about half a mile below the Table Rock. The sun was near setting, when I emerged from the shadow of the trees, and began the descent. The indirectness of my downward road continually changed the point of view, and showed me, in rich and repeated succession, now, the whitening rapids and majestic leap of the main river, which appeared more deeply massive as the light departed; now, the lovelier picture, yet still sublime, of Goat Island, with its rocks and grove, and the lesser falls, tumbling over the right bank of the St. Lawrence, like a tributary stream; now, the long vista of the river, as it eddied and whirled between the cliffs, to pass through Ontario toward the sea, and everywhere to be wondered at, for this one unrivaled scene. The golden sunshine tinged the sheet of the American cascade, and painted on its heaving spray the broken semi-circle of a rainbow, heaven’s own beauty crowning earth’s sublimity. My steps were slow, and I paused long at every turn of the descent, as one lingers and pauses who discerns a brighter and brightening excellence in what he must soon behold no more. The solitude of the old wilderness now reigned over the whole vicinity of the falls. My enjoyment became the more rapturous, because no poet shared it, nor wretch devoid of poetry profaned it; but the spot so famous through the world was all my own!

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

For Biography, see page 348.

=Discussion.= 1. Why was Hawthorne at first disappointed in Niagara?
2. How did he finally come to know that it is one of the world’s
wonders? 3. What feelings did Niagara produce in Hawthorne? 4. What
effect on the reader did he seek to produce? 5. What does Hawthorne
say is necessary in order to appreciate nature? 6. Account for
the fact that Niagara grew on Hawthorne. 7. What comments of other
observers does Hawthorne give? 8. What do you think determines the
kind of response an observer gives to a wonderful scene in nature,
such as Niagara? 9. Pronounce the following: loath; heroism; route;
unwonted; minutely; reptiles; tremor; abyss; tour; idea.

=Phrases=

anticipated enjoyments, 466, 3
suitable extravagance, 467, 1
perverse epicurism, 467, 18
impetuous snow, 467, 34
Eternal Rainbow, 468, 3
insulated rock, 468, 6
abyss of clouds, 468, 28
native feeling, 469, 4
tributary stream, 472, 21
eddied and whirled, 472, 22
unrivaled scene, 472, 23
brightening excellence, 472, 25

FROM MORN TILL NIGHT ON A FLORIDA RIVER

SIDNEY LANIER

For a perfect journey God gave us a perfect day. The little Ocklawaha steamboat Marion had started on her voyage some hours before daylight. She had taken on her passengers the night previous. By seven o’clock on such a May morning as no words could describe we had made twenty-five miles up the St. Johns. At this point the Ocklawaha flows into the St. Johns, one hundred miles above Jacksonville.

Presently we abandoned the broad highway of the St. Johns, and turned off to the right into the narrow lane of the Ocklawaha. This is the sweetest water-lane in the world, a lane which runs for more than one hundred and fifty miles of pure delight betwixt hedge-rows of oaks and cypresses and palms and magnolias and mosses and vines; a lane clean to travel, for there is never a speck of dust in it save the blue dust and gold dust which the wind blows out of the flags and lilies.

As we advanced up the stream our wee craft seemed to emit her steam in leisurely whiffs, as one puffs one’s cigar in a contemplative walk through the forest. Dick, the pole-man, lay asleep on the guards, in great peril of rolling into the river over the three inches between his length and the edge; the people of the boat moved not, and spoke not; the white crane, the curlew, the heron, the water-turkey, were scarcely disturbed in their quiet avocations as we passed, and quickly succeeded in persuading themselves after each momentary excitement of our gliding by, that we were really no monster, but only some day-dream of a monster.

“Look at that snake in the water!” said a gentleman, as we sat on deck with the engineer, just come up from his watch.

The engineer smiled. “Sir, it is a water-turkey,” he said, gently.

The water-turkey is the most preposterous bird within the range of ornithology. He is not a bird; he is a neck with such subordinate rights, members, belongings, and heirlooms as seem necessary to that end. He has just enough stomach to arrange nourishment for his neck, just enough wings to fly painfully along with his neck, and just big enough legs to keep his neck from dragging on the ground; and his neck is light-colored, while the rest of him is black. When he saw us he jumped up on a limb and stared. Then suddenly he dropped into the water, sank like a leaden ball out of sight, and made us think he was drowned. Presently the tip of his beak appeared, then the length of his neck lay along the surface of the water. In this position, with his body submerged, he shot out his neck, drew it back, wriggled it, twisted it, twiddled it, and poked it spirally into the east, the west, the north, and the south, round and round with a violence and energy that made one think in the same breath of corkscrews and of lightnings. But what nonsense! All that labor and perilous contortion for a beggarly sprat or a couple of inches of water-snake.

Some twenty miles from the mouth of the Ocklawaha, at the right-hand edge of the stream, is the handsomest residence in America. It belongs to a certain alligator of my acquaintance, a very honest and worthy reptile of good repute. A little cove of water, dark-green under the overhanging leaves, placid and clear, curves round at the river edge into the flags and lilies, with a curve just heart-breaking for its pure beauty. This house of the alligator is divided into apartments, little bays which are scalloped out by the lily-pads, according to the winding fancies of their growth. My reptile, when he desires to sleep, has but to lie down anywhere; he will find marvelous mosses for his mattress beneath him; his sheets will be white lily-petals; and the green disks of the lily-pads will straightway embroider themselves together above him for his coverlet. He never quarrels with his cook, he is not the slave of a kitchen, and his one house-maid—the stream—forever sweeps his chambers clean. His conservatories there under the glass of that water are ever, without labor, filled with the enchantments of under-water growths.

His parks and his pleasure-grounds are larger than any king’s. Upon my saurian’s house the winds have no power, the rains are only a new delight to him, and the snows he will never see. Regarding fire, as he does not use it as a slave, so he does not fear it as a tyrant.

Thus all the elements are the friends of my alligator’s house. While he sleeps he is being bathed. What glory to awake sweetened and freshened by the sole, careless act of sleep!

Lastly, my saurian has unnumbered mansions, and can change his dwelling as no human house-holder may; it is but a flip of his tail, and lo! he is established in another place as good as the last, ready furnished to his liking.

On and on up the river! We find it a river without banks. The swift, deep current meanders between tall lines of trees; beyond these, on either side, there is water also—a thousand shallow rivulets lapsing past the bases of a multitude of trees.

Along the edges of the stream every tree-trunk, sapling, and stump is wrapped about with a close-growing vine. The edges of the stream are also defined by flowers and water-leaves. The tall blue flags, the lilies sitting on their round lily-pads like white queens on green thrones, the tiny stars and long ribbons of the water-grasses—all these border the river in an infinite variety of adornment.

And now, after this day of glory, came a night of glory. Deep down in these shaded lanes it was dark indeed as the night drew on. The stream which had been all day a girdle of beauty, blue or green, now became a black band of mystery.

But presently a brilliant flame flares out overhead: They have lighted the pine-knots on top of the pilot-house. The fire advances up these dark windings like a brilliant god.

The startled birds suddenly flutter into the light and after an instant of illuminated flight melt into the darkness. From the perfect silence of these short flights one derives a certain sense of awe.

Now there is a mighty crack and crash: limbs and leaves scrape and scrub along the deck; a little bell tinkles; we stop. In turning a short curve, the boat has run her nose smack into the right bank, and a projecting stump has thrust itself sheer through the starboard side. Out, Dick! Out, Henry! Dick and Henry shuffle forward to the bow, thrust forth their long white pole against a tree-trunk, strain and push and bend to the deck as if they were salaaming the god of night and adversity. Our bow slowly rounds into the stream, the wheel turns and we puff quietly along.

And now it is bed-time. Let me tell you how to sleep on an Ocklawaha steamer in May. With a small bribe persuade Jim, the steward, to take the mattress out of your berth and lay it slanting just along the railing that encloses the lower part of the deck in front and to the left of the pilot-house. Lie flat on your back down on the mattress, draw your blanket over you, put your cap on your head, on account of the night air, fold your arms, say some little prayer or other, and fall asleep with a star looking right down on your eye. When you wake in the morning you will feel as new as Adam.

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

=Biography.= Sidney Lanier (1842-1881) was a native of Georgia. When
a mere lad, just out of college, he entered the Confederate army
and faithfully devoted the most precious years of his life to that
service. While in a military prison he contracted the dread “White
Plague,” and during his few remaining years he struggled constantly
with disease and poverty. He was a talented musician and often found
it necessary to supplement the earnings of his pen by playing in an
orchestra. His thorough knowledge and fine sense of music also appear
in his masterly treatise on the “Science of English Verse.” During
his last years he held a lectureship on English Literature in Johns
Hopkins University, at Baltimore. He has often been compared with Poe
in the exquisite melody of his verse, while in unaffected simplicity
and in truthfulness to nature he is not surpassed by Bryant or
Whittier. His prose as well as his poetry breathes the very spirit of
his sunny southland. In the “Song of the Chattahoochee”, “The Marshes
of Glynn,” and “On a Florida River,” one scents the balsam of the
Georgia pines among which he lived, and the odor of magnolia groves,
jessamine, and wild honey-suckle.

=Discussion.= 1. From this selection what do you think of the
author’s power of description? 2. Mention instances in which he makes
use of humor to add to his descriptive power. 3. Quote his words
describing the Ocklawaha. 4. What does the author mean by saying,
“We find it a river without banks”? 5. In your own words, give a
description of the alligator’s home. 6. Make a list of things Lanier
saw on this trip that he would not see on a trip down a river in
New England. 7. What gives melody to this piece of prose? 8. What
comparison do you find in lines 31 and 32, page 475? 9. Point out
some examples of alliteration; for what purpose does the author use
alliteration? 10. Pronounce the following: palms; leisurely; infinite.

=Phrases=

quiet avocations, 474, 5
day-dream of a monster, 474, 8
subordinate rights, 474, 15
perilous contortion, 474, 29
reptile of good repute, 474, 34
infinite variety, 475, 32
girdle of beauty, 475, 36
band of mystery, 475, 37
brilliant flame flares, 476, 1
sense of awe, 476, 6

I SIGH FOR THE LAND OF THE CYPRESS AND PINE

SAMUEL HENRY DICKSON

I sigh for the land of the cypress and pine;
Where the jessamine blooms, and the gay woodbine;
Where the moss droops low from the green oak tree—
Oh, that sun-bright land is the land for me!

The snowy flower of the orange there
Sheds its sweet fragrance through the air;
And the Indian rose delights to twine
Its branches with the laughing vine.

There the deer leaps light through the open glade,
Or hides him far in the forest shade,
When the woods resound in the dewy morn
With the clang of the merry hunter’s horn.

There the humming-bird, of rainbow plume,
Hangs over the scarlet creeper’s bloom;
While ’midst the leaves his varying dyes
Sparkle like half-seen fairy eyes.

There the echoes ring through the livelong day
With the mock-bird’s changeful roundelay;
And at night, when the scene is calm and still,
With the moan of the plaintive whip-poor-will.

Oh! I sigh for the land of the cypress and pine,
Of the laurel, the rose, and the gay woodbine,
Where the long, gray moss decks the rugged oak tree,—
That sun-bright land is the land for me.

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

=Biography.= Samuel Henry Dickson (1798-1872) was born in
Charleston, South Carolina. He was graduated at Yale College in
1814, and afterward took a course in medicine at the University of
Pennsylvania. Dr. Dickson was professor of medicine successively
at the medical school at Charleston, at the University of the City
of New York, and at Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia. He
wrote several books on medicine. His love for his native sun-bright
southland is beautifully expressed, in this poem.

=Discussion.= 1. What part of the country does the poet mean when he
refers to the “land of Cyprus and pine”? 2. Mention the beautiful
things named in the first stanza which characterize this land. 3.
Have you ever seen the moss “which droops low from the green oak
tree”? Where? 4. What birds does the poet mention in this selection?
5. Do you think these birds would be found in the woods of Maine
or Wisconsin? 6. Note the changes of the time of day throughout
the poem. In which stanza is the “morn” spoken of? The “livelong
day”? The night? 7. Have you ever heard “the moan of the plaintive
whip-poor-will”? 8. Do you think the poet was right in calling its
note a “moan”? Do you know how this bird got its name? 9. Does the
poet convince you that this is a land worth sighing for?

THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW

WASHINGTON IRVING

A pleasing land of drowsy head it was,
Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye;
And of gay castles in the clouds that pass,
Forever flushing round a summer sky.

—CASTLE OF INDOLENCE.

THE VALLEY AND ITS SUPERSTITIONS

In the bosom of one of those spacious coves which indent the eastern shore of the Hudson, at that broad expansion of the river denominated by the ancient Dutch navigators the Tappan Zee, and where they always prudently shortened sail, and implored the protection of St. Nicholas when they crossed, there lies a small market-town or rural port, which by some is called Greensburgh, but which is more generally and properly known by the name of Tarry Town. This name was given, we are told, in former days, by the good housewives of the adjacent country, from the inveterate propensity of their husbands to linger about the village tavern on market days. Be that as it may, I do not vouch for the fact, but merely advert to it, for the sake of being precise and authentic. Not far from this village, perhaps about two miles, there is a little valley, or rather lap of land, among high hills, which is one of the quietest places in the whole world. A small brook glides through it, with just murmur enough to lull one to repose; and the occasional whistle of a quail, or tapping of a woodpecker, is almost the only sound that ever breaks in upon the uniform tranquillity.

I recollect that, when a stripling, my first exploit in squirrel-shooting was in a grove of tall walnut trees that shades one side of the valley. I had wandered into it at noon time, when all nature is peculiarly quiet, and was startled by the roar of my own gun, as it broke the Sabbath stillness around, and was prolonged and reverberated by the angry echoes. If ever I should wish for a retreat, whither I might steal from the world and its distractions, and dream quietly away the remnant of a troubled life, I know of none more promising than this little valley.