[1]“A Year’s Life”—by James Russell Lowell; 1 vol. C. C. Little & J. Brown, Boston: 1841.
[1]
“A Year’s Life”—by James Russell Lowell; 1 vol. C. C. Little & J. Brown, Boston: 1841.
LIFE IN DEATH.
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BY EDGAR A. POE.
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Egli èvivoe parlerebbe se non osservasse la rigola del silentio.Inscription beneath an Italian picture of St. Bruno.
Egli èvivoe parlerebbe se non osservasse la rigola del silentio.Inscription beneath an Italian picture of St. Bruno.
Egli èvivoe parlerebbe se non osservasse la rigola del silentio.
Inscription beneath an Italian picture of St. Bruno.
My fever had been excessive and of long duration. All the remedies attainable in this wild Appennine region had been exhausted to no purpose. My valet and sole attendant in the lonely chateau, was too nervous and too grossly unskilful to venture upon letting blood—of which indeed I had already lost too much in the affray with the banditti. Neither could I safely permit him to leave me in search of assistance. At length I bethought me of a little pacquet of opium which lay with my tobacco in the hookah-case; for at Constantinople I had acquired the habit of smoking the weed with the drug. Pedro handed me the case. I sought and found the narcotic. But when about to cut off a portion I felt the necessity of hesitation. In smoking it was a matter of little importancehow muchwas employed. Usually, I had half filled the bowl of the hookah with opium and tobacco cut and mingled intimately, half and half. Sometimes when I had used the whole of this mixture I experienced no very peculiar effects; at other times I would not have smoked the pipe more than two-thirds out, when symptoms of mental derangement, which were even alarming, warned me to desist. But the effect proceeded with an easy gradation which deprived the indulgence of all danger. Here, however, the case was different. I had neverswallowedopium before. Laudanum and morphine I had occasionally used, and aboutthemshould have had no reason to hesitate. But the solid drug I had never seen employed. Pedro knew no more respecting the proper quantity to be taken, than myself—and thus, in the sad emergency, I was left altogether to conjecture. Still I felt no especial uneasiness; for I resolved to proceedby degrees. I would take averysmall dose in the first instance. Should this prove impotent, I would repeat it; and so on, until I should find an abatement of the fever, or obtain that sleep which was so pressingly requisite, and with which my reeling senses had not been blessed for now more than a week. No doubt it was this very reeling of my senses—it was the dull delirium which already oppressed me—that prevented me from perceiving the incoherence of my reason—which blinded me to the folly of defining any thing as either large or small where I had no preconceived standard of comparison. I had not, at the moment, the faintest idea that what I conceived to be an exceedingly small dose of solid opium might, in fact, be an excessively large one. On the contrary I well remember that I judged confidently of the quantity to be taken by reference to the entire quantity of the lump in possession. The portion which, in conclusion, I swallowed, and swallowed without fear, was no doubt a very small proportionof the piece which I held in my hand.
The chateau into which Pedro had ventured to make forcible entrance rather than permit me, in my desperately wounded condition, to pass a night in the open air, was one of those fantastic piles of commingled gloom and grandeur which have so long frowned among the Appennines, not less in fact than in the fancy of Mrs. Radcliffe. To all appearance it had been temporarily and very lately abandoned. Day by day we expected the return of the family who tenanted it, when the misadventure which had befallen me would, no doubt, be received as sufficient apology for the intrusion. Meantime, that this intrusion might be taken in better part, we had established ourselves in one of the smallest and least sumptuously furnished apartments. It lay high in a remote turret of the building. Its decorations were rich, yet tattered and antique. Its walls were hung with tapestry and bedecked with manifold and multiform armorial trophies, together with an unusually great number of very spirited modern paintings in frames of rich golden arabesque. In these paintings, which depended from the walls not only in their main surfaces, but in very many nooks which the bizarre architecture of the chateau rendered necessary—in these paintings my incipient delirium, perhaps, had caused me to take deep interest; so that having swallowed the opium, as before told, I bade Pedro to close the heavy shutters of the room—since it was already night—to light the tongues of a tall candelabrum which stood by the head of my bed—and to throw open far and wide the fringed curtains of black velvet which enveloped the bed itself. I wished all this done that I might resign myself, if not to sleep, at least alternately to the contemplation of these pictures, and the perusal of a small volume which had been found upon the pillow, and which purported to criticise and describe them.
Long—long I read—and devoutly, devotedly I gazed. I felt meantime, the voluptuous narcotic stealing its way to my brain. I felt that in its magical influence lay much of the gorgeous richness and variety of the frames—much of the ethereal hue that gleamed from the canvas—and much of the wild interest of the book which I perused. Yet this consciousness rather strengthened than impaired the delight of the illusion, while it weakened the illusion itself. Rapidly and gloriously the hours flew by, and the deep midnight came. The position of the candelabrum displeased me, and outreaching my hand with difficulty, rather than disturb my slumbering valet, I so placed it as to throw its rays more fully upon the book.
But the action produced an effect altogether unanticipated. The rays of the numerous candles (for there were many) now fell within a niche of the room which had hitherto been thrown into deep shade by one of the bed-posts. I thus saw in vivid light a picture all unnoticed before. It was the portrait of a young girl just ripened into womanhood. I glanced at the painting hurriedly, and then closed my eyes. Why I did this was not at first apparent even to my own perception. But while my lids remained thus shut, I ran over in mind my reason for so shutting them. It was an impulsive movement to gain time for thought—to make sure that my vision had not deceived me—to calm and subdue my fancy for a more sober and more certain gaze. In a very few moments I again looked fixedly at the painting.
That I now saw aright I could not and would not doubt; for the first flashing of the candles upon that canvas had seemed to dissipate the dreamy stupor which was stealing over my senses, and to startle me into waking life as if with the shock of a galvanic battery.
The portrait, I have already said, was that of a young girl. It was a mere head and shoulders, done in what is technically termed avignettemanner; much in the style of the favorite heads of Sully. The arms, the bosom and even the ends of the radiant hair, melted imperceptibly into the vague yet deep shadow which formed the back-ground of the whole. The frame was oval, richly, yet fantastically gilded and filagreed. As a work of art nothing could be more admirable than the painting itself. The loveliness of the face surpassed that of the fabulous Houri. But it could have been neither the execution of the work, nor the immortal beauty of the countenance, which had so suddenly and so vehemently moved me. Least of all could it have been that my fancy, shaken from its half-slumber, had mistaken the head for that of a living person. I saw at once that the peculiarities of the design, of thevignettingand of the frame must have instantly dispelled such idea—must have prevented even its momentary entertainment. Thinking earnestly upon these points, I remained, for some hours perhaps, half sitting, half reclining, with my vision riveted upon the portrait. At length, satisfied of the true secret of its effect, I fell back within the bed. I had found the spell of the picture in a perfectlife-likelinessof expression, which at first startling, finally confounded, subdued and appalled me. I could no longer support the sad meaning smile of the half-parted lips, nor the too real lustre of the wild eye. With a deep and reverent awe I replaced the candelabrum in its former position. The cause of my deep agitation being thus shut from view, I sought eagerly the volume which discussed the paintings and their histories. Turning to the number which designated the oval portrait, I there read the vague and quaint words which follow:
“She was a maiden of rarest beauty, and not more lovely than full of glee. And evil was the hour when she saw, and loved, and wedded the painter. He, passionate, studious, austere, and having already a bride in his Art: she a maiden of rarest beauty and not more lovely than full of glee: all light and smiles and frolicksome as the young fawn: loving and cherishing all things: hating only the Art which was her rival: dreading only the pallet and brushes and other untoward instruments which deprived her of the countenance of her lover. It was thus a terrible thing for this lady to hear the painter speak of his desire to portray even his young bride. But she was humble and obedient and sat meekly for many weeks in the dark high turret-chamber where the light dripped upon the pale canvas only from overhead. But he, the painter, took glory in his work, which went on from hour to hour and from day to day. And he was a passionate, and wild and moody man, who became lost in reveries; so that hewouldnot see that the light which fell so ghastily in that lone turret withered the health and the spirits of his bride, who pined visibly to all but him. Yet she smiled on and still on, uncomplainingly, because she saw that the painter, (who had high renown,) took a fervid and burning pleasure in his task, and wrought day and night to depict her who so loved him, yet who grew daily more dispirited and weak. And in sooth some who beheld the portrait spoke of its resemblance in low words, as of a mighty marvel and a proof not less of the power of the painter than of his deep love for her whom he depicted so surpassingly well. But at length, as the labor drew nearer to its conclusion, there were admitted none into the turret; for the painter had grown wild with the ardor of his work, and turned his visage from the canvas rarely, even to regard the countenance of his wife. And hewouldnot see that the tints which he spread upon the canvas were drawn from the cheeks of her who sate beside him. And when many weeks had passed, and but little remained to do, save one brush upon the mouth and one tint upon the eye, the spirit of the lady again flickered up as the flame within the socket of the lamp. And then the brush was given, and then the tint was placed; and, for one moment, the painter stood entranced before the work which he had wrought; but in the next, while yet he gazed, he grew tremulous and very pallid, and aghast, and crying with a loud voice ‘This is indeedLifeitself!’ turned himself suddenly round to his beloved—who was dead. The painter then added—‘But is this indeed Death?’ ”
THE MINER’S FATE.
FROM THE PORT-FOLIO OF A RAMBLING ARTIST.
A bright fresh May morning smiled upon one of the loveliest landscapes in nature, and revealed to the eye of a wandering young artist a picture of such exceeding beauty, that he found it impossible to confine his attention to his canvas sufficiently long to produce the faintest semblance of the loveliness which reigned and revelled around him.
“What a grand effect is produced on that magnificent amphitheatre of hills by the sunrise purpling their rising mist as it ascends and imperceptibly mingles with the rose-colored clouds—while its base is wrapped in the cold blue tint which the stronger rays of the sun will presently disperse. If I could catch the hue of that many-tinted mist, and throw over it the soft dreamy haze which clothes the atmosphere, I should more than rival the mighty master, Claude Lorraine—one more trial; such a scene must inspire the humblest artist.”
He re-arranged a small easel as he spoke, and proceeded to cover his pallet with the choicest and most exquisite colors; but the glories ofoutre mêrand carmine seemed so pale and faded before the inexpressible radiance of earth and ether, that long before he had finished laying on the dead coloring of his picture, he threw it aside in despair.
“I must complete it,” he said, “at some other time when the majesty of nature may not mock my humble efforts.” He then arose, and re-packing his paint-box, deposited it safely among the mossy rocks, and sauntered slowly onward, to enjoy at least, if he could not imitate, the enchantments of nature. And truly he might well give up his heart to the passionate love of beauty which pervaded it; for the loveliness of that quiet valley was well calculated to gratify the intense desires of a mind thirsting for images of perfection. Not only did the mountain tops and mist gleam with the golden sunlight, but every flower at his feet, every blade of grass displayed each its wealth of gem-like dew glittering with unrivalled colors.
“The plumed insects swift and free,Like golden boats on a sunny sea,”
“The plumed insects swift and free,Like golden boats on a sunny sea,”
“The plumed insects swift and free,Like golden boats on a sunny sea,”
“The plumed insects swift and free,Like golden boats on a sunny sea,”
“The plumed insects swift and free,
Like golden boats on a sunny sea,”
filled the scented air, and shed their “music of many murmurings” upon his path; and he was inclined to fancy that no new feature could add beauty to the landscape around, when a sudden turn in the winding path convinced him of his error.
He had turned his back on the semi-circular range of hills, and emerged into a tract of country much more extensive, though still very broken. Huge masses of rock salt, covered with crystals whose prismatic forms lent them a startling brilliancy, gleamed upon his sight, and the green sweep of land between was diversified by many small cottages built of the gray rock which abounded throughout the country. The narrow path bordered with vines and wild roses lured him on, until the sweet accents of a female voice broke upon his ear, and he found that his path would lead him to trespass upon the enclosure of a cottage which appeared to be one of the neatest and best arranged among them. The painter paused, and his eye, (that morning destined to agreeable surprises,) readily discovered a group without the door, which immediately called out his pencil and pocket port-folio. A very bright-eyed child had thrown his chubby little arms around his father’s neck, and seemed resolved upon detaining him from his day’s labor; while the young wife, with eyes and lips scarcely less bright than those of the child, vainly endeavored to attract the infant with the most enticing toys. At length the father succeeded in unclasping the dimpled hands, and placing the baby on the floor; but the child still endeavored to detain him by holding the skirts of his coat.
“Philip seems determined that you shall not go to-day,” said the young woman; “perhaps there is a meaning in his warning.”
“If I listened to all your signs and warnings, I should very seldom leave you,” replied the husband. “I must go and that quickly, in spite of my persevering little pet.”
“But you will come back very soon?”
“I cannot even promise that,” replied the miner; for the husband was a laborer in the extensive salt mines, whose crystallizations produce so beautiful an effect in the distance. “We have a tremendous piece of work before us to-day, and there is no telling when it will be finished.”
“Would to God it were safely over.”
“Don’t look so pale and frightened, Mary; worse jobs are done every day—but they will call me sluggard if I loiter here—so good-bye, good-bye, darlings.”
“Heaven preserve you,” responded the wife; and she turned with feelings half of dread and half of hope to the cottage door.
“Just such a morning,” muttered an old woman who sat crouching in the chimney corner—“just such a morning, bright as this,—and a black night followed the bright day—a black, black night.”
“Now the saints save us!” exclaimed the young woman: “who ever heard Dame Ursula talking away at such a rate before? As sure as fate something unusual will happen. What is it you were saying grand-dame?” she added in a louder tone, approaching the thin, withered old hag who had crept slowly toward the door-step, and seating herself there, continued to mutter and mumble half indistinct words.
“Storms follow the sunshine—storms and tempests and thick darkness.”
The anxious wife followed and sat down beside her.
“Is there any evil hanging over us? for mercy sake tell me if you know,” she asked.
“Evil, did I say Evil! I spoke of the past, not the future—I spoke of the days of youth and hope and beauty.” Then as her wandering memory gradually linked together the chain of by-gone associations, her countenance brightened, and she poured into the ear of her astonished auditor the narrative of events which had taken place nearly a century before, and were generally forgotten,—treasured only in the heart of that desolate, and decrepid old creature.
“Youth and beauty, and love I said, and you marvelled at hearing such words from my lips; no wonder, for many a year has passed since these things have been aught to me save idle dreams. But the time has been, when I too was young—loving and loved—blessing and blessed. My brother, your grandfather, and myself were left, you know, in early life as orphans in the hands of strangers; and although we had no claim on them except that of helplessness, and could only repay their kindness by our exertions, we had no reason ever to complain of harshness or ill-treatment among our kind and simple people. I was older than my brother, and as I grew up to be a tall handsome lass, the young men of the village strove which could make themselves most agreeable to the light hearted and beautiful Ursula. I know it is folly in me to talk so now, and you can scarcely believe it, but eighty years hence, if you should live so long, your cheek may be wrinkled and your eye bleared like mine, so that your laughing boy will scarcely credit the tale of your former beauty.”
“Heaven forbid.”
“And if not,” resumed the crone, “the change may be far more fearful—but where was I? Oh—a merry romping lass of eighteen, with blue eyes, fair curling locks and red ripe lips—admired by all the village—but above all the favored choice of young Albert Wessenbery. The handsomest, bravest, noblest being! I wish you could have seen him, Mary, in all his pride of vast strength, and perfection of manly beauty. Words cannot express the love with which I loved him. A lifelong loneliness has proved it. Well, as I told you, I was his choice, and consequently the envy of all my acquaintances, for no one thought of denying that Albert Wessenbery was the pride of the village. So powerful, so stately, so devoted to me,—well, well! our wedding day was fixed, and the bridesmaids appointed. A week before—yes, just seven days before our wedding was to have taken place, I bade farewell to Albert for a day only, I believed. Just such a day as this, it was—and perhaps that is the reason why the soft clear sunshine, and the sweet sounds in the air have called up all these old memories so freshly. He pressed me in his arms and bade me farewell till evening. I dreaded his going out to work that day, for there was dangerous duty to be done; but he went in spite of my entreaties, and from that hour to this, I have never seen him return. I remember but dimly what followed. A stunning shock as if an avalanche had overwhelmed me. Death to him was worse than death to me. They told me he had perished in the mine. I know not whether they spoke truly. I have known nothing clearly since that time. I remember only that the light was removed from my path, and that the blackness of madness gathered round me for a while. How long this lasted I know not—when I arose from my bed of sickness, my heart and my flesh failed me, and I was as useless and decrepid as if years had passed over my head. Since that time I have struggled on through a long life of darkness and misery, dragging on a useless and tedious existence.”
“Oh say not useless my good friend; have you not while you had strength, given to others the happiness which fate denied you?”
“My brother gave me a home in his chimney corner, and here have I lived more years than I can count, and for what? God knows—perhaps I may yet live to see Albert return. I cannot fancy him altered as I am. I cannot help hoping to see him once more as he was of old. Vain as the hope may seem to you—that hope has been the only happiness I have known since he left me—the only hope. Of what other use am I in the world? why should I live? what other use? what other hope?” So speaking and shaking her palsied head, she relapsed into her former half unconscious state, occasionally muttering words to which her young companion listened with strained attention; but she could hear no more, neither did she succeed in again arousing the old woman from her apathy.
The Artist sauntered idly onward until he reached the mines; here finding that the reflection of the noon-tide brilliancy from the crystals was painful to the eyesight, he descended into one of the deepest excavations, where he found his acquaintance of the morning, and a fellow labourer at work. The day’s work was a heavy one, for they were opening a communication between the mines, and in heaving up the massive rocks there was great danger of being buried alive beneath their crumbling weight. Such things had often happened.
“Here is a mass which requires more strength than we can furnish,” said Philip, and he shouted for help. The desired assistance arrived, and after an hour’s severe labor, the huge rock was heaved upwards. This removal disclosed a solid stratum of the salt for which they were toiling; but the attainment of the object of their labor called forth no expression of pleasure from the beholders, for the attention of every one was riveted upon a strange and unlooked for apparition. Extended upon this singular couch, lay the form of a young man, apparently not more than twenty years of age; his limbs were exquisitely moulded, and he looked as if but yesterday he had been hushed in the deep sleep of death. It was evident to the minds of all, that many years must have elapsed since the being they had thus disinterred, had been overwhelmed with destruction in attempting to move that massive weight; for many years had passed since that portion of the mine had been worked upon. But was his destruction instantaneous? or did he linger on, day after day, in vain hope for the help which came not? how long had that crystalized rock been his mausoleum? who was he? where were his kindred? Here was a wide field for conjecture. Could no one remember that form which might have passed for a sculptured image of Antinous? But stranger than all this, the body seemed utterly untouched by the hand of time. The very pliability of the flesh remained! Destruction had passed harmlessly by that glorious form, and decomposition had not come near it. There he lay—he, whose existence none could remember—life-like, and beautiful—embalmed as it were in the solid rock. The sinewy, and rounded limbs told of the strength and beauty which had once been theirs, and the long black hair curled wildly over the clay cold face, and nerveless shoulders. He was in his ordinary mining dress, and by his spade and pickaxe beside him, gave evidence of his final and fatal occupation. The body was removed, and laid upon the thick green sward for further inspection, and perhaps recognition. The news spread rapidly, and the inhabitants quickly crowded around. None recollected him, although some of the oldest among them told stories of such an accident which had happened when they were little children; but none could remember the circumstances. After awhile a universal murmur broke from the crowd, for they beheld their oldest villager, Dame Ursula, approach with tottering and unsteady steps, leaning on the arm of a handsome young female. Not the exhumation of the life-like corpse itself, produced greater sensation among them, than the appearance of the living spectre—for such the old woman appeared, having never left her home for more than twenty years.
“Jesu, Maria—the Saints save us,” were echoed around her as the crowd respectfully made room for her to advance. She passed on slowly, and with difficulty, until she reached the stiff white figure of the dead miner. Then throwing herself upon the grass beside him, she passed her withered long fingers through his hair, and pressed it back from the pale brow.
“It is he, it is he—Albert Wessenbery,” she murmured; “and it was for this I have been spared through long years of loneliness, and wretchedness—long, long years—I knew not why I lived. It was for this, for this: that I might see him once more, once more in all his unearthly beauty, in his unmatched perfection: that I might see, and know that time has not marred, nor decay changed, nor the worm defiled the being I have idolized for nearly a century. Spared too to rejoice that my own Albert cannot behold the change which time, and life have wrought in a form he once loved so well. To him these withered arms and lips are welcome as if they yet retained all their former loveliness. He will not reject his early love for her age, and sickness, and unsightlessness. To him therefore I devote the remainder of my existence. Here will I fulfil the vows of love and constancy plighted in the spring time of life.”
She bent her head as she spoke and imprinted with bloodless lips a kiss upon his; her white hair streamed down, and mingled with his raven tresses, her long skinny fingers warm with life, pressed the cold marble hand of the dead! Strange union of youth and age—beauty and deformity—life and death! Seven days afterwards they were buried in the same grave, the superannuated woman, and her youthful lover. The constancy of a lifetime was rewarded, for she was permitted to rest her aged and hoary head, upon the manly, and unaltered breast of him she had loved so long and so well. Turf and flowers sprung up as greenly and freely above their grave as if they had been always young, and beautiful, and happy. Many a garland of young flowers, and the more lasting wreaths of the amaranth were hung upon that grave; and the names of Ursula and Albert, rudely sculptured on the grey stone which covered them, formed their only obituary, save the memory which survives in the hearts of the villagers.
BIRTH OF FREEDOM.
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BY WM. WALLACE, AUTHOR OF “JERUSALEM,” “STAR LYRA,” ETC.
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Yes, Freedom! Tyrants date thy splendid birthWith those uprisings in the bloody Past,When all the lion-hearted of the earthUnfurl’d their rebel-banners to the blast,And from their limbs the dungeon-fetter cast;But thou, Oh, idol of the brave! was’t born,In full-grown majesty, upon that mornWhen all the stars together sang, and formsOf wondrous beauty, suns of dazzling lightFlamed from the bosom of those primal stormsWhich lashed the rivers of chaotic night:And some would drive thee from our gloomy sod;Vainly they war with such blasphemous might;Thy birth-place, Freedom! was the heart of God.
Yes, Freedom! Tyrants date thy splendid birthWith those uprisings in the bloody Past,When all the lion-hearted of the earthUnfurl’d their rebel-banners to the blast,And from their limbs the dungeon-fetter cast;But thou, Oh, idol of the brave! was’t born,In full-grown majesty, upon that mornWhen all the stars together sang, and formsOf wondrous beauty, suns of dazzling lightFlamed from the bosom of those primal stormsWhich lashed the rivers of chaotic night:And some would drive thee from our gloomy sod;Vainly they war with such blasphemous might;Thy birth-place, Freedom! was the heart of God.
Yes, Freedom! Tyrants date thy splendid birthWith those uprisings in the bloody Past,When all the lion-hearted of the earthUnfurl’d their rebel-banners to the blast,And from their limbs the dungeon-fetter cast;But thou, Oh, idol of the brave! was’t born,In full-grown majesty, upon that mornWhen all the stars together sang, and formsOf wondrous beauty, suns of dazzling lightFlamed from the bosom of those primal stormsWhich lashed the rivers of chaotic night:And some would drive thee from our gloomy sod;Vainly they war with such blasphemous might;Thy birth-place, Freedom! was the heart of God.
Yes, Freedom! Tyrants date thy splendid birth
With those uprisings in the bloody Past,
When all the lion-hearted of the earth
Unfurl’d their rebel-banners to the blast,
And from their limbs the dungeon-fetter cast;
But thou, Oh, idol of the brave! was’t born,
In full-grown majesty, upon that morn
When all the stars together sang, and forms
Of wondrous beauty, suns of dazzling light
Flamed from the bosom of those primal storms
Which lashed the rivers of chaotic night:
And some would drive thee from our gloomy sod;
Vainly they war with such blasphemous might;
Thy birth-place, Freedom! was the heart of God.
RECOLLECTIONS OF WEST POINT.
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BY MISS LESLIE.
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Among the numerous strangers that stop at West Point, in ascending or in coming down the Hudson, there are comparatively few who allow themselves sufficient time to become acquainted with even the half that is worthy of note, in that extraordinary place—giving but one day, or perhaps only a few hours, to a visit which ought at least to comprise a whole week. A large proportion of these travellers, after they have hurried through the rooms of the academy, walked round the camp, witnessed the parade, heard the band, or perhaps accomplished a hasty survey of the ruins of Fort Putnam, seem to believe that they are consequently familiar with all that both nature and art have done for one of the most beautiful and interesting spots on the American continent.
And beautiful indeed it is, from its romantic situation in the midst of the highlands, looking directly down on one of the finest rivers in the world—and from its picturesque combinations of mountain, valley and plain; woodland, rock, and water—scenery to which no painter has ever yet done justice. And how intensely interesting are its associations with the history of our revolutionary contest—when West Point commanded the passes of the highlands—at once opposing a barrier to the descent of the enemy from the lake country and to their ascent from the ocean. Also amid these hills lay the army of Washington, at the time it was so providentially saved by the discovery of Arnold’s treason.
And now, “when the storm of war is gone,” and the Gibraltar of America finds no farther occasion for its mountain fortresses, it has become the nucleus from whence the military science of our country radiates to its utmost boundaries; the nursery of a body of officers whose cultivated minds, polished manners, and high tone of moral feeling, have rendered them deservedly popular with their compatriots—also eliciting a favourable testimony even from the British tourists.
It is a common and, in most instances, a true remark, that first impressions are lasting: at least with regard to external objects. My own first impressions of West Point were received on a lovely summer evening that succeeded a stormy day. I had left the city of New York with my brother, at nine o’clock in the morning, in the slow and unpopular Richmond; the only boat that went up the river on that day, and the worst of the three steam-vessels which at that time comprised the establishment of what is now termed the old North River Company.
I need not say that it was during the period of the charter they had obtained for the exclusive steam-navigation of the Hudson. In those days, a voyage from New York to Albany frequently consumed twenty-four hours, and the fare was ten dollars.
I had anticipated the most extatic delight from my first view of the grand and romantic scenery of this noble river. But very soon after we left the city a heavy rain came on, and seemed to have set in for the whole day. I had recently recovered from a long illness, and could not venture to remain on the wet deck, even under the screen of an umbrella. The canvass awning was so perforated with holes from the chimney-sparks, that it afforded about as much shelter as a large sieve. There was no upper cabin, and I reluctantly compelled myself to quit admiring the Palisade Rocks and descend to the apartment appropriated to the ladies. It was very crowded and perfectly close. The berths were all occupied by females lying down in their clothes, and trying to sleep away the tedious hours. The numerous children were uncomfortable, fretful, and troublesome, as most children are when they are “cabin’d, crib’d, confin’d.” Seats were so scarce (when were they otherwise in a summer steam-boat) that many of us were glad to place ourselves on the wooden edges of the lower berths. In this extreme I could not agree with the old adage that “it is as cheap sitting as standing:” for if cheapness means convenience or agreeableness, as is generally supposed, I found it quite as convenient, and rather more agreeable, to stand leaning against something, than to sit on the perpendicular edge of a board. We had not even the pleasure of regaling our eyes with the handsome fittings-up that now when there is no monopoly and great rivalry, are deemed indispensable to the reputation of an American steam-boat. The old Richmond was furnished very plainly, alias meanly. Her cabins had common ingrain carpets of the ugliest possible patterns, pine tables painted red, and curtains of coarse dark calico. By the by, reader, never go to a boarding-house that professes aplaintable; you will be almost sure to find it a mean one. Also, never engage aplaincook—you will be almost sure to find her no cook at all.
We were nearly all day in the boat, and it rained incessantly. It was very tantalizing on this, my first voyage up the Hudson, to obtain only an occasional glimpse of its beautiful shores through the small cabin windows, which windows were always monopolized by nurse-maids, seated on the transom with their babies; the babies taking no interest in the scenery, and their nurses still less.
When we came into the highlands, the storm had increased, and my first view of them was caught by ever-interrupted glances through a few inches of window-pane, and by peeping over the head of a girl whose eyes were all the time wandering among the people in the interior of the cabin. These sublime mountains loomed green and dimly through the rain-mist that veiled their rocky sides, and their towering heads were lost in the volumes of fantastic clouds that rolled around them. But it proved what is called the clearing up shower; and just as we were rounding that low projection of bare rock that runs far out into the river, and forms the extreme point of West Point, the clouds began to part in the zenith, and the blue sky appeared between them, and the sun suddenly broke out lighting up the western sides of the hills and pouring his full effulgence on the river. We landed just as the evening parade was about to commence, and I saw it from the front windows of an apartment that commanded a full view. It was a beautiful scene; on this spacious and level plain, elevated about a hundred and sixty feet above the river, which bounds it on the north and east, while on the south and west it is hemmed in by the mountains that rise directly from it. The numerous windows of the barracks were sparkling and burnishing in the setting sun that was beaming out below the retiring clouds, throwing a rosy tint on the white tents of the camp, and glittering on the bayonets of the long line of cadets drawn up for the exercise that, at a military post always concludes the day. The band was playing delightfully, and the effect of the whole was very striking at the moment when the drums rolled, the evening gun went off, the flag came down, and the officers all drew their swords and advanced to the front.
Many circumstances contributed to render my first visit to West Point peculiarly pleasant. I had never in my life spent three weeks so agreeably. Subsequently, I resided there nearly two years in the family of my brother. I have enjoyed the grand and lovely scenery of West Point under all the various aspects of the seasons. I have been there when the late, but rapid spring, with its balmy breathings, and its soft sun-light, suddenly awakens the long-slumbering vegetation of these high and northerly regions, when you can almostseethe forming of the buds and their bursting into leaf; while patches of the last snow yet linger here and there about the cavities of the rocks, and in the hollows that lie among the roots of the trees, “on their cold and winter-shaded side.” At the same time, in the warmer recesses of the forests, the early flowers of the hepatica and the violet are finding their way up amid the dead leaves which the wild blasts of November have strewed thickly over the ground.
These mountains are wooded from the base to the summit, (except where a block of granite looks out from amid the trees,) and in the month of May they are variegated with all those countless and exquisite shades of green, that can only emanate from the hand of that Great Painter that colored the Universe. While some of these inimitable tints are dark almost to blackness, and some are of the richest olive, others present in endless variety, the numerous gradations of deep-green, blue-green, grass-green, apple-green, pea-green, and yellow-green; the catalpa and the locust, with their clusters of pencilled blossoms, and the dogwood with its milk-white flowers, supplying the bright lights of the picture. Then, in looking up the river, the long perspective is closed at the utmost verge of the horizon by the far-off Taghcanoke mountains: the snows that still rest on their cold and lonely summits extending in streaks of whiteness half-way down their dim blue sides.
To a stranger at West Point the commencement of a summer’s day has many circumstances of novelty and excitement that are almost lost upon those to whom custom has rendered them familiar. With the earliest blush of dawn, and at the third tap of the drum, the morning gun goes off, and when the wind is in a certain direction, I have heard its loud booming sound five times repeated by the mountain echoes, “fainter and fainter still”—but always distinctly audible. At the same moment the flag is run up, and flings out to the early breeze its waving folds of stars and stripes denoting that the place is United States’ ground, a military post, and under martial law. These ceremonies are immediately succeeded by the drums and fifes commencing the delightful réveillée, clear, sweet and exhilarating—the first notes of which seem so distinctly to express the words,
“The lark is up, the morn is gay,The drums now beat the réveillée.”
“The lark is up, the morn is gay,The drums now beat the réveillée.”
“The lark is up, the morn is gay,The drums now beat the réveillée.”
“The lark is up, the morn is gay,The drums now beat the réveillée.”
“The lark is up, the morn is gay,
The drums now beat the réveillée.”
followed by a medley of popular airs, each one concluding like a rondo, with—“The lark is up,” &c.
It is beautiful on a soft summer morning to look out upon these forest-cinctured mountains, when there has been a rain during the night, and to see the misty clouds veiling their summits and rolling off from their sides; breaking, as the sun ascends, into thin white wreaths that creep slowly about the glens, and gradually losing all distinctness of form and blending with the blue of ether. More beautiful still is the broad expanse of the Hudson, glittering with the golden sun-light, and reflecting the clear cerulean of the sky; while the white-sailed sloops seem to slumber on the calm surface of the water, as each “floats double,sloopand shadow,” and near the shore the dark mountains and the rocky precipices cast their deep masses of shade upon the liquid mirror below.
I was once at West Point when the dawn of our national anniversary was ushered in by the roar of artillery from amid the ruins of Fort Putnam, the guns having been previously conveyed up the mountain for that purpose. There is a history belonging to these guns. They were originally French; and are engraved with the name of the foundry at which they were cast; bearing also the threefleur de lisof theancien regime, the cypher of Louis the Fourteenth, (who at that time, filled the throne of France) and the celebrated motto which he ordered to be inscribed on all his cannon—“Ultimo ratio regum.” The guns in question were sent to Quebec, and were taken by the English on the heights of Abraham, in that eventful battle, when both commanders fell in the same hour that transferred the dominion of Canada from France to England. Belonging afterwards to the army of Burgoyne, they became the property of America on the surrender at Saratoga, and finally were presented by Congress to the Military Academy. At the cadets annual ball I have seen these guns decorated with wreaths of laurel, and arranged as ornaments along a covered promenade, lighted up with lamps in front of the ball-room.
To the dwellers on the plain below, the effect on the aforesaid fourth of July was indescribably fine; the guns thundering and echoing in a region so far above us, their gleams of fire flashing out amid the clouds of white smoke that rolled their eddying volumes round the old dismantled ramparts. The salute was followed by a full burst of martial harmony from the band, who had also gone up into the ruins; all playing so admirably and in such perfect unison, that the whole of their various instruments sounded like one alone—but like one whose grand and exquisite tones seemed scarcely to belong to earth. The band had their fourth of July dinner within the dilapidated recesses of the moss-grown fortress, and frequently during the day, we heard their music. Sometimes the soft sweet warblings of the octave flute rose alone upon the air; then the clear melodious tones of Willis’s bugle seemed to “lap the soul in Elysium;” then came the clarionets deepened by the trombone; and finally the loud and thrilling notes of the bass-drum struck grandly in, and swelled the full tide of sound till the rocks seemed to tremble with its reverberations. Music, like painting, has its lights and shadows.
Nothing can be more lovely than the scenery about West Point when lighted up by the beams of the summer moon. While there, I was once on a water party, in a delightful evening towards the close of the “leafy month of June.” The gentlemen attached to the military academy had made arrangements for taking the ladies on a moonlight voyage through the highlands, in the boats belonging to the post. Of these boats I think there were eight. The first and largest was appropriated to the band—in the others followed the professors connected with the institution, the officers, and the ladies—with soldiers as oarsmen. We were rowed to the upper extremity of the highlands, beyond Butter Hill which, notwithstanding its homely name, is a magnificent mountain with a gradual slope on the land-side, but presenting to the water a perpendicular precipice in height sixteen hundred feet. In the clefts of this lofty rock tradition has asserted that the pirate Blackbeard deposited portions of his treasure more than a century ago. It is not many years since a gentleman who believed the story, was killed by losing his hold, and falling down backwards upon the stones below, in a desperate attempt to scale the precipice in quest of the rover’s gold.
As we embarked on our aquatic excursion “the moon arose curtained in clouds which her beams gradually dispelled.” When she climbed above them, as they “turned forth their silver linings to the night,” and her rays touched the top of the eastern hills, while their dark sides reposed in shadow, I thought of a song in the Carnival of Venice.
“And while the moon shines on the stream,And while soft music breathes around,The feathering oar returns the gleamAnd dips in concert to the sound.”
“And while the moon shines on the stream,And while soft music breathes around,The feathering oar returns the gleamAnd dips in concert to the sound.”
“And while the moon shines on the stream,And while soft music breathes around,The feathering oar returns the gleamAnd dips in concert to the sound.”
“And while the moon shines on the stream,And while soft music breathes around,The feathering oar returns the gleamAnd dips in concert to the sound.”
“And while the moon shines on the stream,
And while soft music breathes around,
The feathering oar returns the gleam
And dips in concert to the sound.”
Having ascended beyond the inner highlands, our boats were put about. The men resting on their oars we floated down with the tide nearly as far as the Dunderberg, and never did this picturesque and romantic region look more lovely.
In the course of our little voyage several steam-boats passed us: and all of them slackened their steam awhile, for the purpose of remaining longer in our vicinity that the passengers might enjoy the music. One of these boats, in stopping to hear us, lay directly on the broad line of moonlight that was dancing and glittering on the water, the red glare of her lanterns strangely mingling with the golden radiance beneath. Our band was just then playing the Hunter’s Chorus, that ever-charming composition which justly merits its universal popularity in every part of the world where music is known, and which would alone have been sufficient to entitle Weber to his tomb in Westminster Abbey.
Nothing can be finer than the atmospheric phenomena of these elevated regions. I remember one afternoon, when the sun was breaking out on the close of a summer shower, we seemed to find ourselves in the midst of an immense rain-bow which appeared to have descended upon the plain. The camp, the south barracks, the trees, and the eastern hills beyond the river were all brightly colored with its varied and beautiful tints, and looked as if seen through an immense prism.
A thunder storm in these mountains is sublime beyond all that imagination can conceive. In looking up the river, while the sun is yet shining brightly, and the sky is blue above our heads, we see a dark cloud far off in the direction of Newburgh, whose white houses stand out in strong relief against the deep gloom that has gathered beyond; the coming vapor rises and spreads till it appears behind the Crow’s Nest, casting its deep shade upon the tops of the mountains, while on their sides still linger the last gleams of sunshine. As the clouds accumulate, and unite their forces, the darkness descends upon the river, whose blackening surface is seen ruffled with spots of white foam; the zig-zag lightning begins to quiver up from the gloom behind the hills; and then is heard the low murmur of the distant thunder; every flash becoming brighter, every peal sounding louder and nearer. At length, the wind rises, and the whole tempest rushes rapidly on. The trees writhe and bend to their roots, and are soon covered with the circling dust of the whirl-wind. The lightning glares out in one vast sheet, “flashing intolerable day” upon the night-like darkness that shrouds the river and its shores. At the same instant, the loud crash of the thunder rattles directly over head, and it continues throughout the storm its long and incessant roll, the echoes of one peal not subsiding before those of another have commenced. The lightning glances on the bayonets of the centinels that “walk their lonely rounds” on the skirts of the camp; and frequently the tents are blown over by the violence of the gust, and lie prostrate on the wet grass. These terrific thunder-claps seem to shake the everlasting hills; the firm-set granite buildings of the institution trembling to their foundations. Often the tremendous power delegated to “the volleying bolt of heaven” is attested by a riven and blasted tree, split in a moment from its topmost spray down to its roots in the earth; while, at the same instant, every leaf of its green and flourishing foliage becomes dead and yellow, the birds that built their nests among its branches lying lifeless at its foot.
I recommend to all visiters at the West Point hotel not to neglect ascending to the belvidere or skylight room on the top of that building. The view from thence is so vast and so magnificent that it rarely fails to call forth exclamations of delighted astonishment; particularly when autumn has colored the woods with its glowing and varied tints of scarlet, crimson, and purple, and with every shade of brown and yellow from the richest to the palest—such tints as, at this season, are to be found only in the foliage of America, and are most beautiful when seen through the gauzy haze of the Indian summer—that farewell smile of the departing year. Then the dilated disk of the sun looks round and red through its thin misty veil; the calm and slumbering river reflects a sky of the mildest blue; and near the shores its waters glow with the inverted beauties of the many-colored woods and hills. If viewed at evening, the splendor of the picture is increased by the glories of an autumnal sunset, when the clouds (such as are only seen in mountainous regions) assume the grandest forms and the most gorgeous hues.
Often after the last lingering beam has faded in the west, and all the stars have come out in the deep blue heaven, a dark mist appears behind the hills in the north, and from its dun recesses arise the ever-changing corruscations of the mysterious aurora borealis. Sometimes, its broad rays extend upwards nearly to the zenith, and diffuse a cold strange light upon the river and its western banks, rendering perfectly distinct the sloops on the water, and the trees and rocks on the shore. In the houses on the bank, the front-rooms are at times so well lighted by this incomprehensible phenomenon, that a newspaper may be read after the lamps or candles have been removed from the apartment. Then, perhaps in a few minutes, “the north’s dancing streamers relinquished their fire,” and faded dimly away into darkness. Suddenly they would again revive, darting upwards in renewed brightness their far-spreading rays, tinted with crimson and purple, and sometimes even with green and blue.
In a chamber that I once occupied at West Point there was a small knot-hole in the upper part of one of the shutters, by means of which, in cold weather, when the windows were closed fast, and the room consequently darkened, I frequently at early morning saw as in a camera obscura, a landscape depicted on the white wall above the mantel-piece. So that before I was up myself, I could observe the first gleams of the dawnlight, and the changing colors of the clouds as they brightened upon the blue sky, lending their glories to the hills beyond the river: and the first rays of the sun, when they “fired the proud tops of the eastern pines.” In this way, without opening the shutters to look out, I could always tell whether the morning was clear or cloudy.
The winter at West Point is long and cold; and (before the days of rail roads,) when the river was once closed, the ice fast, and the boats laid up for the season, the inhabitants of this insulated spot seemed nearly shut out from all communication with the rest of the world; and it may easily be guessed what interest was attached to the mails, after the difficulties of transportation caused them to arrive irregularly. We were very soon convinced of the fact that