It: 
 
 4 
 
 \ 
 
 California
 
 r/ 
 
 Lu
 
 THE 
 
 SCENERY-SHOWER, 
 
 WITH 
 
 WORD-PAINTINGS 
 
 THE BEAUTIFUL, THE PICTURESQUE, AND THE 
 GRAND IN NATURE. 
 
 " So my friend, 
 Btniek with deep joy may stand, as I hare stood, 
 Silent with swimming sense ; yea, 
 • • • gaze till all doth seem 
 
 Leas gross than bodily ; a living thing 
 Which acts upon the mind, and with such hues 
 As clothe the All-mighty Spirit when he makes 
 Spirits perceive his presence ! " — Coleridge. 
 
 By warren burton, 
 
 AUTHOR OF " THE DISTRICT SCHOOL AS IT WAS." 
 ♦ 
 
 BOSTON: 
 WILLIAM D . T I C K N O R &^ CO 
 
 M DCCC XI.IV. 
 
 J
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1844, by William 
 D. TicK.voR ANiJ CoMPANr, in tiie Cierii's Otfice of the District 
 Court oi the District of Massachusetts. 
 
 boston: 
 printed by thurston, torry, &. kmerson, 
 
 31 Devonshire Street.
 
 TO 
 
 GEORGE B. EMERSON, ESQ., 
 ^resfdent of t|)e ^metfcan Knstftute of Xnstructfon. 
 
 Dear Sir, 
 
 The g-erm of the present little work was a Lec- 
 ture delivered before the body over which you 
 preside, in the summer of 1841. The favor with 
 which it was generally received, and especially your 
 own warm commendation, in respect to its useful ten- 
 dency toward the end in view, have encouraged me 
 to this enlargement and greater finish. I now beg the 
 honor of dedicating the humble volume, through 
 your name, to self-culturists, to parents, to 
 SCHOOL-TEACHERS, and to those scEXERY-sEERS who 
 can already say, 
 
 " With a pervadiijg vision — Beautiful ! 
 How beautiful is all this visible world ! '" 
 
 With the highest respect, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 WARREX BURTOX. 
 May, 1811. 
 
 2073078
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Chap. 
 
 
 Pas 
 
 I. Introduction, . 
 
 . 
 
 1 
 
 IT. Morning, .... 
 
 . 
 
 15 
 
 III. Verdure, 
 
 . 
 
 19 
 
 IV. Pictures of Nature and of A 
 
 rt, . . 
 
 23 
 
 V. Swimming Fields — Distant 
 lines — Open Roads — Ways 
 Woods, 
 
 Fence- 
 through 
 
 (29 
 
 VI. A Domiciliary Spectacle, . 
 VII. Kocks and Cliffs, . 
 
 
 33 
 
 36 
 
 VIII. Hills and Vales, 
 
 
 42 
 
 IX. Trees, .... 
 
 . 
 
 50 
 
 X. Colors of Vegetation, . 
 
 
 55 
 
 XI. W^aters, .... 
 
 . 
 
 62 
 
 XII. Scenery around Water, 
 
 
 66 
 
 XIII. An Illusion, 
 
 
 69 
 
 XIV. Mountains, 
 
 
 73 
 
 XV. Water-Falls, . 
 
 . 
 
 84 
 
 XVI. Ocean, 
 
 
 89 
 
 XVII. The Skies of Day, . 
 
 , 
 
 94 
 
 XVIII. The Moon, 
 
 
 102 
 
 XIX. The Stars, 
 
 , 
 
 106 
 
 XX. Winter, .... 
 
 
 ill 
 
 XXI. Conclusion, 
 
 . 
 
 117
 
 Page 5, line nine from bottom, for near read new. 
 
 " 6, line eleven from bottom, for crookedness read 
 
 crookednesses. 
 " 12, line six from bottom, for jest read zest. 
 " 26, line eight from lop,. /or portraitures rearf particulars. 
 *' 51, line four from top, for practically read poetically. 
 " 95, line eleven from l)ottom, for worthy read worth'. 
 " 96, first line at top, for alternately read attractively.
 
 THE SCEXERY-SHOWER 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 IXTRODLTTION. 
 
 ''How lovely, how commanding! but though Heaven 
 In every heart hath sown these early seeds 
 Of love and admiration, yet in vain 
 Without fair culture's kind parental aid." 
 
 Ake.vside. 
 
 Scenery is the appearance of things to 
 the eye. The term is here applied to ob- 
 jects on the face of creation, so disposed by 
 form, color, dimension, or arrangement, or 
 by several of these circumstances together, 
 as to afford peculiar enjoyment to the be- 
 holder. 
 
 There are some, predisposed by constitu- 
 tion, or of fortunate early education, who 
 1
 
 THE SCENERY-SHOWER, 
 
 scarcely remember the time when their souls 
 were not pleasurably alive to the beauty, 
 picturesqueness, and grandeur of nature. The 
 perceptions of others are awakened at a later 
 period, and then they never cease to rejoice, 
 as at the opening of anew sense, to a divinely 
 adapted, unalloyed, and sinless gratification. 
 But the majority of people spend life in the 
 midst of a thousand things thus interesting, and 
 seem entirely unconscious of the charm await- 
 ing their reception. An awful thunder cloud, 
 a glorious rainbow, or a magnificent sunset, 
 might be noticed because it is occasional, but 
 many less striking phenomena and nearly all 
 the permanent aspects of nature, might as well 
 not have been as regards fitness to please by 
 their scenic appearance. This inadvertency 
 is not from lack of faculty to admire, or of 
 time to observe, but because attention has 
 never been specifically directed. 
 
 Now, notwithstanding the dormancy of the 
 taste in view, we believe it may be aroused 
 in most, to receive at least satisfactions hap- 
 pening in the way, if not to go with amateur 
 zeal in search of the distant.
 
 WITH WORD-P AI.NTIXGS. O 
 
 The aim of our humble work is to awaken 
 perception and relish by presenting appro- 
 priate objects. It is a Scenery-shower to 
 tliose who have not much contemplated this 
 boundless field of happiness out-spread by 
 skill and beneficence Divine. We would 
 supply a place in reading which has hitherto 
 been nearly or quite vacant. We hope, how- 
 ever, not to be altogether unacceptable to those 
 whose taste has been already developed, and 
 even to a decree far hisiher than our own. The 
 faint word-paintings on our page may serve at 
 least to recalto conception scenery at the time 
 beyond convenient reach ; to aid them to live 
 over again, in mind, unsinning, heaven-like mo- 
 ments, w^hen they stood in admiration, love 
 and joy, to receive into vision its choicest 
 riches. We trust, moreover, that our endea- 
 vor may stimulate such readers to benevolent 
 activity in a similar direction. We now re- 
 spectfully but earnestly enjoin on them to 
 embrace every opportunity to lead others to 
 a good which Providence has before vouch- 
 safed to them, as by especial favor. 
 
 To the less initiated and the entirely unap-
 
 THE SCENERY-SHOWER, 
 
 joreciating we now turn address. With a 
 directness of speech, pardonable from sin- 
 cerity of motive, we entreat them to a dili- 
 gent self-culture in the respect now presented. 
 It is remarkable bow a taste for scenery will 
 grow, with pleasure deepening upon pleasure, 
 if it is only steadily and repeatedly directed. 
 It is with the mouldings and tintings of nature, 
 as with the pencillings of art, the more they 
 are studied the more they win and fasten the 
 attention. The several points of interest, 
 figures, hues, lights, shades, proportions, 
 come into clearer and clearer distinctness ; 
 indeed they seem to move visibly out, as it 
 were, into the nearer presence of the sight, 
 as coveting to be observed and to confer en- 
 joyment. With the ordinary mental endow- 
 ment any one will find valuable reward for 
 such employment of leisure. Those of an 
 organization more particularly predisposing, 
 have only to look, to love to look, till their 
 taste shall grow into a very passion. We 
 beg leave to illustrate by a passage of ex- 
 perience. But first we would take occasion 
 to entreat the candor and kind regard of read-
 
 WITH WORD-r.\I.NTINGS. 5 
 
 ers so far as not lo impute an egotistical 
 obtrusiveness, if they shall find other personal 
 references by way of illustration, or increase 
 of interest. We know that incident infuses 
 life and entertainment into description which 
 otherwise might be too quiet and less readable 
 to some ; and if the incident is personal to 
 the narrator, and modestly presented, it has 
 an air of fresh truthfulness far more absorbing. 
 Then the spirit of the writer thereby, is more 
 present and real to the spirit of the peruser, 
 and they go along together in more sympa- 
 thetic companionship. Having thus humbly 
 deprecated criticism on our self-personalities, 
 we introduce our first instance of the kind. 
 
 Not long ago, after a month's travel in a 
 portion of country near to us, and therefore 
 keeping our perceptions in constant exercise 
 by change of objects, we returned to Boston, 
 and to lodgings in a tame unsightly street. 
 But the prevention of our customary pleasure 
 was quite a discomfort. The city seemed 
 like a very prison. As the nearest remedy 
 we took to the common. It never before 
 seemed so charming, although we had saun- 
 1*
 
 b THE SCENERY-SHOWER, 
 
 tered there a thousand times, rapt with its 
 surpassing lovehness. It was now a perfect 
 paradise in contrast with the stiff, dead wood 
 and brick, from which we had escaped. We 
 were surprised, moreover, to find that our 
 perceptive faculties had remarkably gained in 
 concentration, and particularity of attention. 
 We observed the individual form and altitude 
 of tree, the bend of bough, the circularity or the 
 angular juxtaposition of branches, the fleeces 
 of foliage, the hue and shape of skyey inter- 
 spaces, with a distinctness that was a marvel. 
 There we stood under the great dome of elm 
 at the centre, and gazed up into its leaf-walled 
 labyrinth of crookedness, and conned them 
 this way and that way, all round and all 
 through, as we would the lesson of a book. 
 The very pathways, before rather tiresomely 
 straight, now pleasantly invited the eye by 
 their slight but clearly defined turnings to and 
 fro, and undulations up and down, as if in 
 gentle sportiveness along the verdure. But, 
 O, this verdure, soft as velvet, rich as em- 
 erald, spreading between the brown foot- 
 courses, and lying up along the terraces, how
 
 WITH WORD-PAINTINGS. 7 
 
 it caught the eye into its lovely embrace and 
 held it. 
 
 Our faculties for the picturesque and beauti- 
 ful had been at school with Nature for weeks, 
 and they had not only grown in affection for 
 their mistress, but had been measurably de- 
 veloped, just as the organ of number or tune 
 may be, by practice and reiteration. Indeed 
 we believe that one might learn to live in and 
 be lost in the enchantments of scenery ; the 
 sense swimming as it were in its own bound- 
 less element, drinking in therefrom, unsated, 
 ever growing in strength, widening in capa- 
 city, and perpetually coveting for more. 
 
 To parents and teachers we now turn in par- 
 ticular address. We would allure their eyes 
 to seek and fasten delighted on those scenes 
 in nature now about to be presented through 
 the dim medium of language. Let them be 
 sure to lead to the same contemplation the 
 tender ones under their responsible charge. 
 We beseech them to reflect, what pure, bliss- 
 ful tastes they may call forth from their ready 
 and waiting minds : to consider with solemn 
 conscientiousness, what foul desires, low van-
 
 8 THE SCENF.RY-SHOWEK, 
 
 ities, and unworthy images, they can exclude 
 fronn the immortal capacity by opening it 
 wide to receive the radiant benefactions of 
 the Father of lights. 
 
 We have also a word of injunction for 
 those of mature age who have only themselves 
 particularly to care for. We would ask, 
 ought the training of the young to be a mat- 
 ter separate from even their attention and 
 sympathy. Every child belongs in some 
 sort to every other individual near, inasmuch 
 as he may make or mar the happiness of 
 every other by his character and conduct. 
 Is not moral darkness a lack and discomfort 
 to all beholders ? x\nd does not moral bright- 
 ness shine out pleasingly to all eyes ? Yes, 
 all have a direct interest in the education of 
 the young, not only for their own sakes, but 
 for the special good they may confer. Line 
 upon line, precept upon precept, may be 
 given in instructive conversation. A lecture, 
 from those now addressed, on any useful sub- 
 ject, will be as valuable to a juvenile group, 
 or to a single individual, as it would be from 
 parent or school-teacher. It might be even
 
 WITH WORD-PAINTINGS. 
 
 of more worth, inasmuch as the unexpected- 
 ness of the instruction will make it more 
 impressive and rememberable. We make 
 application of our hints to the topic of our 
 volume. How might they excite observation, 
 and develope a taste for scenery, in almost any 
 youth present to such attraction. How he 
 w^ould ever afterward, delightfully remember 
 them as the first perhaps to make him aware 
 of such pure enjoyment. We know that they 
 can do this, and that children will not be dull 
 or ungrateful listeners. A portion of our own 
 experience shall illustrate. 
 
 In the summer of 1842, on a pleasant after- 
 noon, we had occasion to visit a house situated 
 on what are called Roxbury Highlands. The 
 friend we sought being at the time absent, we 
 wandered out into the neighboring grounds, 
 well known to be charmingly picturesque from 
 their alternate culture and wildness. Our ram- 
 ble brought us to a clump of trees shooting up 
 from a soil-covered clifF. Beneath the leafy 
 covert was a rustic seat convenient to the 
 lounging body and the looking eye. And 
 there commenced an adventure, which we
 
 10 
 
 THE SCENERY-SHOWER, 
 
 now turn to account. Here were two boys, 
 of ten or a dozen years old, one of them the 
 son of our friend. They seemed to have pro- 
 vided for a long afternoon in their shady 
 perch, by a store of bread for luncheon and 
 a book or two for amusement. The sight was 
 gladdening. The future literati of our land 
 they might be, wise enough already to know 
 that fragrant earth and fanning breezes were 
 elements of healthy growth both to body and 
 spirit. They might be two embryo Howitts, 
 who would some time write " Rural Life " 
 in America. At first our new acquaintances 
 were rather shy, seeming to prefer alternate 
 snatches at their bread-feed and book-feed to 
 our conversation. But we knew how to take 
 boyhood, and we quite soon dropped into 
 their companionship, as easily as we might 
 have dropped with them on the greensward. 
 We contrived to get them into our own cur- 
 rent of entertainment, which was scenery- 
 seeing, and they took to it marvellously, 
 entirely forgetting their loaf and literature. 
 If we recollect aright at this distance of time, 
 there was near by a tree of singular appear-
 
 WITH WORD-PAINTINGS. II 
 
 ance. They had before observed it as curi- 
 ous ; and now, with our own interest excited, 
 they descanted on the object with surprising 
 volubility. They were now ready to follow 
 the pointing of our finger or the guidance of 
 our footsteps anywhere. We showed them a 
 narrow field, with a grey fence at one end 
 and a cliff at the other, if we remember, and 
 on each side a grove, walling it up with thick- 
 set trunks all regularly round, and overtowered 
 by interlapj ing foliage. We made them gaze 
 at the spectacle till they thought it beautiful, 
 and seeming almost like a very picture in a 
 book. We then went down to a brook that 
 stole out into view from a bridge-shadow and 
 flowed beside a dusty road, and we gazed 
 down upon its ripples and the stones and peb- 
 bles that spotted, and specked, and roughened 
 the bed beneath. They seemed interested in 
 the sight. x\t any rate they looked, and 
 looking was a discipline that would lead into 
 pleasure. We came back and ranged below 
 a long high cliff overtopped by trees. We 
 tried to make them feel the picturesqueness, 
 although they might not have understood the
 
 12 THE SCENERY-SHOWER, 
 
 word by which we now express the idea. 
 We are certain that they caught the desirable 
 emotions. Indeed the boys grew lively and 
 emphatic in their admiration of the various 
 features of the landscape. We were soon 
 joined in our rambles by a little girl, the sister 
 of one of our companions, and she too caught 
 the spirit of our pastime. They all, with 
 glowing faces and beaming eyes, ran through 
 the groves, scrambled up rocks, getting a peep 
 here and a peep there ; then they mounted up 
 a wooden prospect-tower in one of the grounds 
 for a wider view and still new objects, ex- 
 claiming at the different points, see here, or 
 see there, and isn't this, that, or the other, 
 beautiful, or grand ? Thus we were held till 
 it grew quite toward evening, and we were 
 obliged to leave the most elating companion- 
 ship we had known for many a day. A large 
 portion of the jest might have been the result 
 of mere animal spirits, yet there was withal 
 a kindled and still kindling love for scenery ; 
 we know there was, and in consequence of 
 our success we truly wished that there was 
 such an establishment as a Scenery School,
 
 WITH WORD-PAINTINGS. 13 
 
 and that we were appointed Professor of the 
 charming science of the Picturesque. A few 
 days after our adventure we met our friend in 
 the city, and he gave us one of the most cor- 
 dial looks and greetings that ever gushed from 
 his benevolent aspect. " Come," said he, 
 "and spend a week with us at Roxbury ; the 
 children want to see you." The egotism of 
 recording this commendation is pardonable we 
 trust, as it is necessary to the completion of 
 our narrative, and to point an illustration with 
 the most convincing evidence, — the desire to 
 see us again and for days together. 
 
 In closing our preface we will just add, 
 that we long to have children led to gaze on, 
 and study, and intensely enjoy, pure, sinless 
 nature, as we did when a boy without a guide, " 
 yea, all alone, amid the scattered farm-spots 
 and rocky and foliaged solitudes of romantic 
 New England. O, that we could ourselves 
 be bodily present to them all, and with finger, 
 and eye, and tone, direct them to whatever is 
 lovely in the less, magnificent in the larger, 
 and grand in the mightier scenes of our mul- 
 tiform land. AVould that we could inspire 
 2
 
 14 
 
 THE SCENERY-SHOWER. 
 
 their souls with an enthusiasm Hke that which 
 gives something hke a portion of paradise to 
 our own. AVe trust, however, that soon there 
 will not be wanting to most, alert scenery- 
 showers, who, by glowing words, in tones of 
 love-melody, and by sweetly eloquent looks, 
 shall convey to their souls these purest of 
 visible gifts from the Invisible Giver.
 
 CHAPTER IT. 
 
 MORMNG. 
 *' Hail holy Light, offspring of Heaven first born !" 
 
 MlLTO.N. 
 
 " The morn is up again, the dewy morn, 
 With breath all incense and with cheek all bloom, 
 Laughing the clouds away." 
 
 '' Most glorious orb that wert a worship, ere 
 The mystery of thy making was rev(;aled ! 
 Thou earliest minister of the All-mighty, 
 And representative of the Unknown — 
 Who chose thee for his shadow ! " 
 
 BVRON. 
 
 First born of the lovely in nature is the 
 light. The most sweetly, winningly fair of 
 the day, is the dawn. The most purely glori- 
 ous of effulgent exhibitions, is the full-kindled 
 morning. We place their pictures, therefore, 
 near the entrance of our gallery, as fittest to 
 greet the visitor to its series of shows. At 
 first, there is but a peep of light, like the gleam
 
 16 THE SCENERY-SHOWER, 
 
 of an eye, answering to your own with tender, 
 cheerful welcome. Now a wider flash. Anon 
 the beaming spectacle runs into streaky length, 
 like a changeable ribbon, hemming the horizon. 
 It brightens up more broadly, and glows and 
 glows, varying its hues almost while you wink. 
 Perhaps tufts and bars, or fleecy curtains of 
 cloud, add a garniture of bewitching tinges. 
 At length the spacious East is one vast court 
 of magnificence. Central amid the pomp, the 
 solar monarch rolls royally up with his chariot 
 of changeful flame. The auroral heralds and 
 all the rainbow retinue gradually retire from 
 ministration at the presence, and the Day- 
 King in solitary potency possesses his realm. 
 Human eyes, dazzled to blindness, must now 
 turn away to pursue their duty by his reflected 
 and softer light. 
 
 In the summer, simultaneous with this 
 spectacle of the sky, is another, which scep- 
 tres with all their power could not command, 
 or wealth with all its monies provide or equal; 
 yet, outspread for millions to enjoy, the poor- 
 est as well as richest, will they but look. It 
 is the all-bespangling and sparkling dews.
 
 •WITH WORD-PAINTINGS 1/ 
 
 They begin to glitter with the first glimpses 
 from the orient. They awaken even with the 
 day-star, and gently acknowledge its tender 
 beams. But as the dawn advances, how the 
 beaded prisms glorify the herbage. Had we 
 microscopic eyes, every drop would appear to 
 reflect the exact morning with all its changes 
 on atmosphere and cloud : aurora beholding 
 herself multiplied to millions, by millions of 
 dewy mirrors. 
 
 Our sketches are dedicated to the soul 
 through the eye. But accompanying this 
 freshest blazon of lights there is a luxury for 
 the ear with which we would enhance the al- 
 lurements of the scene. It is music ; music 
 such as first from living breath greeted and 
 satisfied man in sinless Eden ; the " charm of 
 earliest bird." At the faintest appearance of 
 day a few of the heaven-taught melodists have 
 caught it in their peering sight and are stirring 
 among the branches. Hark ! like prompt 
 choristers, here and there in their leafy cov- 
 erts they are setting the tune for the general 
 orchestra of the morning. A brief pause ; 
 2*
 
 IS THE SCENERr-SHOWER. 
 
 then a great orison goes up from amid the 
 yet twilight-dim trees, seemingly in 
 
 '' His praise who out of darkness called up light." 
 
 Come out then thou into whose eyes not 
 only, but into whose immortal soul-depths the 
 shining may be ! Come out, not only to gaze 
 but to listen. The most ancient and holiest 
 visible temple is re-illumined and specially 
 adorned for this sacrifice. Freshness and 
 fragrance float as the incense, and imbue the 
 breath of life and of vocal expression. On 
 the grand hosanna, as a tuneful chariot, fling 
 thine own grateful worship, to roll upward to 
 Him, who would have from thee a melody of 
 the heart, harmonious with those angels whose 
 kindred thou art, for whose companionship 
 thou art designed, and who, 
 
 '' with songs 
 And choral symphonies, day without night 
 Circle his throne rejoicing."
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 VERDURE. 
 
 " Gay Green ! 
 Thou smiling Nature's universal robe ! 
 United light and shade ! where the sight dwells 
 "With growing strength, and ever new delight." 
 
 Thomson. 
 
 The rich scenery seasons open after the 
 repose of winter with the hue thus described. 
 Of all the family of lights it is the eye's 
 chief favorite. It holds the sense the longest 
 without weariness or satiety. It is the wise 
 fiat of nature that her "universal robe" 
 should perpetually please. Yet a taste for the 
 enjoyment of this color might become more 
 deep and intense than it generally is. We 
 wish that we could somewhat present its at- 
 traction to the less cultivated and careless 
 observer through the medium of language.
 
 THE SCEXFRY-SHOWER, 
 
 We paint as it appears to one loving the ver- 
 dure with a very passion. 
 
 The spring very gradually produces the 
 hue, sprinkling it here and there, as if the 
 uninured sight might be oppressed with its 
 own luxury, were there suddenly presented 
 that boundless bounty at length cast abroad. 
 At first perhaps a verdant line may be dis- 
 covered close under the sunny side of abodes, 
 as if seeking domestic protection from the yet 
 lingering cold. The tender creature may be 
 found also nestling in some warm little hollow, 
 where the eye may leap in like a fondling from 
 the surrounding brownness. That relic of the 
 winter, the snow-drift, softening under the 
 subtle heat, is made to distil into nutriment 
 for this emerald child of the sun, and it em- 
 braces its dying nurse with its tender contrast 
 of beauty. ?S^ow a witching stripe is traced 
 from where the streamlet steals out from its 
 source, and 
 
 '' is faintly seen, 
 A line of silver mid a fringe of green." 
 
 There are also large mats of spreading ver- 
 dure in more sheltered nooks. There are
 
 WITH WORD-PAINTINGS. 21 
 
 fields of more fertile soil and sunnier aspect 
 which soon present one broad unbroken ex- 
 panse of the new herbage. Here the vision 
 can leap into the clear, bright depths, and 
 as it were, swim along bathed and imbued 
 with its best adapted and most delicious ele- 
 ment. 
 
 In the early spring and in the later autumn, 
 when vegetation was just peeping from its root, 
 or was withering back again to its root, we 
 have ourselves often walked to a considerable 
 distance to gaze on the young grass that 
 thickly carpeted a warm hill-side, exposed to 
 the enriching drainage of buildings above. 
 This firstling of the vegetating fields when con- 
 trasted with the adjacent and dusky bareness, 
 was a perfect fascination, a very elysium to 
 the sight. It is some years since we dwelt 
 in the vicinity of this particular spectacle, yet 
 how often has it spread its soft witchery to our 
 conception. It has been a pastime to recol- 
 lection amid the perplexing cares, indeed a 
 very solace amid the troubles of life. 
 
 But we must hasten after the progressive 
 season and finish our vernal painting. The
 
 22 THE SCENERY-SHOWER. 
 
 delicious color widens through the valleys, 
 sheets over the hills, runs up and enfolds shrub, 
 tree, and the whole of the great woods, till all 
 is one wide emerald magnificence. The sight 
 is now satisfied but not cloyed with one con- 
 tinuous color. Indeed it finds a sort of ecstasy 
 in the vastness of its single-hued range. Let 
 it repose near by, or journey all round and 
 afar, it is boundless, beauteous green.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 PICTURES OF NATURE AND OF ART. 
 
 " Beauty — a living presence of the earth, 
 Surpassing the most fair ideal forms 
 Which craft of delicate spirits hath composed 
 From earth's materials — waits upon my steps ; 
 Pilches her tents before me as I move, 
 An hourly neighbor — Paradise and groves 
 Elysian — Fortunate fields — like those of old 
 Sought in the Atlantic main — why should they be 
 A history only of departed things, 
 Or a mere fiction of what never was ? 
 For the discerning intellect of man, 
 When wedded to this goodly universe 
 In love and holy passion, shall find these 
 A simple produce of the common day." 
 
 WORUSWOKTH. 
 
 The eye may be profitably trained to ob- 
 servation by all things visible whatever. And 
 in many of these which are generallv iin-
 
 24 THE SCENERY-SHOWER, 
 
 noticed there may be found a scenic pleasure 
 worth securing. For the sake of discipline, 
 we would carefully notice any little protuber- 
 ance that knobs, or hollow that indents the 
 land, and indeed any distinctive lineament or 
 point on the surface. All colors with their 
 shifting lights and shades, all plants, shrubs 
 and rocks, however lowly and uninviting 
 amid more imposing things, are worth the 
 scanning, if for nothing more at least to gain 
 in minuteness of attention. But even where 
 two or three of these are in juxtaposition, 
 there is a sort of picturesqueness' which may 
 afford an humble pleasure of appreciable 
 value to the studious eye. Wherever we are 
 almost we may be at our discipline and some 
 degree of enjoyment. Suppose we are stand- 
 ing leisurely at a dwelling door. There is 
 perhaps the stone-paved or pebble-strewn walk 
 running down to the gate ; or it may be 
 nothing but a little path foot-worn upon the 
 turf, or into the unsodded soil. There is a 
 real picture-like beauty in this as contrasted 
 with the planted borders or the plain herbage 
 through which it passes. There is moreover
 
 WITH WORD-PAINTINGS. 
 
 25 
 
 the fence around; it matters not if it be a rough, 
 broken stone wall, or of rudest boards or bars, 
 all askant with age and neglect. Their odd 
 shapes, careless positions, patches of moss, 
 and old weather-stains, are worth looking at. 
 Indeed when the likenesses of these are skil- 
 fully portrayed by the pencil, they are con- 
 sidered beauties. Surely the accurate obser- 
 vation of such substances will at least prepare 
 the taste for the artist's imitations. 
 
 We beg leave to detain the reader a little 
 by a kw remarks about such productions of 
 art, together with some practical hints apper- 
 taining to the scenery-shows of nature. 
 
 What an admirable picture ! exclaim the 
 tasteful, contemplating a fine landscape from 
 the artist's skill. Beautiful ! exclaim the 
 less tasteful in view of coarser or the coarsest 
 imitation. How pretty ! cries childhood over 
 almost any thing of the kind. Educated and 
 ignorant, older and younger, find enjoyment in 
 pictures. One reason probably is, that the 
 presentation of a picture is occasional, and it 
 has somewhat the novelty of an incident 
 about it, and therefore seizes en the atten- 
 3
 
 26 THE SCENERY-SHOWER, 
 
 tion with a sudden grasp as things occasional 
 and incidental generally do. Another reason 
 may be, that a picture is a little spectacle sepa- 
 rate from every thing else. It is not amalga- 
 mated with and lost among innumerable other 
 spectacles of a similar kind. The eye easily 
 runs round its limits and dwells on its few 
 portraitures undisturbed by multiplicity. Be- 
 sides, one feels the wonderfulness of imitation 
 and resemblance ; feels, though perhaps not 
 much thinks, what a curious fact it is that the 
 appearance of real substances which stand up 
 from the ground and can be grasped with the 
 hands and climbed upon with the feet, may be 
 put on a surface of unvarying flatness, and 
 be made almost to seem the very things they 
 
 copy- 
 Now, w^e believe, that with the exception 
 of the circumstances of novelty, resemblance 
 and admired skill, all the pleasure found in a 
 picture may be afibrded by original nature. 
 All creation presented to the eye is but a vast 
 painting, a spectacle of colors with lights and 
 shades. Let the illuminations from the hea- 
 vens be shut out by night and clouds, and no
 
 WITEI WORD-PAINTINGS. 27 
 
 artificial one's of earth be instead, and the 
 whole vanishes, never more to exist unless 
 these illuminators again lend their aid. It is 
 the experienced consciousness of substantial 
 matter, having definite size, shape, and other 
 qualities, and also of the different distances 
 of objects, together with the multiplicity and 
 universality of colors, that prevents the mind 
 from the truth that all is but color that the 
 eye beholds, to be gone in a moment bereft 
 of this. 
 
 The commonness of the spectacle, more- 
 over, deprives it of interest ; but if the eye 
 does pause to observe, it is often confused 
 and bewildered in the complexity and various- 
 ness, unless it be disciplined to particular 
 inspection. Again and again therefore we 
 commend any aspect of nature, any little 
 portion of earth with its few objects above, 
 to studious observation. Roll up the hand 
 and look through at the space thus separated 
 from other things, and the attention will be 
 thus concentrated and distinctness acquired, 
 as in a gallery of paintings by the little tubes 
 there provided for visitors.
 
 28 THE SCENERY-SHOWER, 
 
 Gaze, gaze, discipline the perceptions, and 
 with a constantly growing pleasure shall be 
 verified the poet's encouraging thought, that 
 things beautiful are 
 
 " A simple produce of the common day."
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 SWIMMING FIELDS — DISTANT FENCE-LINES — OPEX 
 ROADS — WAYS THROUGH WOODS. 
 
 "A thing of beauty is a joy forever ; 
 
 Its loveliness increases; it will never 
 
 Pass into nothingness, but still will keep 
 
 A bower quiet for us, and a sleep 
 
 Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing; 
 
 Therefore, on every morn are we wreathing 
 
 A flowery band to bind us to the earth." 
 
 Keats. 
 
 We now present a few more ordinary 
 appearances, not without scenic interest if 
 but observed with the spirit felt by the bard, 
 or which by cuhure may spring up in ahnost 
 any one not a bard. 
 
 Most have noticed how a day or two of 
 rain, such as we sometimes have in summer, 
 will drench and saturate the fields with wet- 
 ness, so that the herbage, while it freshens to a 
 livelier green, seems as it were to be buoyed 
 3*
 
 30 THE SCENERY-SHOWER, 
 
 up by the liquid element that fills it. After a 
 parching drought how the thirsty eye drinks 
 and luxuriates in such a spectacle. Rainy- 
 day idleness might here snatch at least a sip 
 of pleasure : and the tasteful traveller would 
 somewhat forget the diizzling clouds in such a 
 refreshment of vision. 
 
 The straight stone w^all dividing green 
 fields is a pleasant object to look at, especially 
 if the roughness be lost in the distance and 
 the fence appear as a dark smooth hne mark- 
 ing the verdure. In the many positions of 
 fences relative to each other and to the grassy 
 level, the standing grain, the rounding hill, or 
 the tall wood, there are various interesting 
 aspects, which to the uninitiated need to be 
 pointed out with the finger as well as described 
 in language. 
 
 There is a picturesque beauty in a simple 
 road, with a strip of herbage for a border and 
 a grey wall for rim, then on either side the 
 expanses of field or pasture verdure between 
 w^hich it runs. We have many a time stopped 
 and gazed with a very desirable pleasure, at a 
 little fragment of road thus circumstanced, rising
 
 WITH W0RD-PAI\TING3. 31 
 
 white out of a valley and curving over a hill 
 and then again lost. Indeed the richest pic- 
 ture in the gallery of art would not tempt us 
 to exchange for its possession the capacity of 
 enjoying the scenic beauty of a dusty high- 
 way, only let it be far enough off to give its 
 best display, and nothing of its dust. 
 
 A word more about roads. Take one 
 stretching straight and far through a wood. 
 As it runs on and on, its vista of whitish bot- 
 tom, verdant walls and skyey roof, seem to 
 narrow and narrow toward a point, the per- 
 spective in the distance diminishing to minia- 
 ture like a picture. 
 
 There is also the winding path through the 
 woods. You turn this way and that, and 
 perhaps undulate up and down. New objects 
 burst continually on the view, and the eye 
 must be busy to catch them. You wonder 
 all the while what will come next, and where 
 you shall come out, like as in the fortunes 
 of a romance. Then when you at length 
 emerge, the brighter light and the broad clear 
 lands seem like the happy conclusion of an un- 
 certain story. By a cultivated relish for ap-
 
 32 THE SCENERY'SHOVTER. 
 
 peaiances of this sort, how might we lighten the 
 tedioLisness of travel. How, catching words 
 already quoted from the poet, we should find 
 beauty waiting on our steps and pitching her 
 tents before us as we move, an hourly neigh- 
 bor.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 A DOMICILIARY SPECTACLE. 
 
 " Me, oft has fancy, ludicrous and wild, 
 Soothed with a waking dream of houses, towers, 
 Trees, churches and strange visages, expressed 
 In the red cinders, while with poring eye 
 I gazed, myself creating what I saw^" 
 
 COWPER. 
 
 We have a poet's warrant for the first 
 scene of this chapter ; and if the reader 
 has perused the observant and graphic Cow- 
 per, the rest will not be without interest, 
 ahhough the dear old bard has not painted 
 it on his page. He loved almost every 
 possible show in nature, and he who has 
 caught the spirit of his muse will require of 
 us no further apology. Twilight, and at the 
 fireside ; no lamp, no book, no work ; need 
 the space be lacking of interest to the solitary 
 sitter ? Let him watch the glow of the in-
 
 34 THE SCENF.RY-SHOWER, 
 
 tensely ignited coals and realize the soothing 
 waking dream. 
 
 As the fire works round and through the fuel, 
 liow the eye, aided a little by fancy, perceives 
 all sorts of fairy shows, a miniature theatre of 
 shifting scenery. But the portraiture of our 
 quotation suffices for this ; so we pass to 
 another. 
 
 Suppose it bright day time, when hue and 
 motion are more distinctly visible, there is the 
 smoke, that accompaniment of flame, not par- 
 ticularly desirable for comfort or cookery, — 
 yet it is not undesirable as a spectacle of 
 color, form and motion, to a child or anybody 
 else. How mysteriously copious the vapor 
 steals out from the apparently solid substance, 
 of a whitish blue, from a green stick, curling 
 and mingling with the darker blue of the drier. 
 With what grace it turns, and twists, and bulges 
 out its fleece after fleece, and then unrolls 
 and shoots more straightly up through the flue. 
 
 There is another smoke- scene from the 
 chimney top w^orth beholding. Take a still 
 autumnal morning, with what stateliness the 
 creature rises into a tall perpendicular column
 
 WITH WORD-PAINTINGS. 35 
 
 as If it stood compact like a tree, yet every 
 particle Is In motion ; then there Is the spread- 
 ing out and folding over at the summit like a 
 canopy, sometimes the whole diversified 
 with noticeable varieties of color in the sun- 
 light. How often, when but a child, have 
 we watched this ordinary exhibition. The 
 eye would be caught by the wreathy wile, and 
 be borne up and up till released by the un- 
 rolling of its fairy-like vehicle, when it would 
 return down and be furled and wafted up 
 again ; then perhaps it would scud away and 
 sport along a bank of the blue vapor piled 
 in the lower air. No possible genius of the 
 pencil could create that combined witchery of 
 form, color and movement, on the canvass ; 
 yet it soars above the poor man's house as 
 well as the rich man's, and might equally amuse 
 the children of both, and be a sweetly re- 
 membered pastime of early years, and withal 
 be pleasantly renewed to a scenic taste ever 
 afterward in life. ■■■
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ROCKS AND CLIFFS. 
 
 " Stop, stop ! Let that rock alone." 
 " It is a little feature on the landscape's face which 
 Gives it expression." 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 Rocks are striking features of landscape, 
 particularly in New England, yet how little are 
 they thought of, except hy a few<) in respect to 
 the interest of scenery. By the grown-up they 
 are mostly regarded as useful materials for 
 walls, or as incumbrances and impediments, 
 wished out of the way ; to children, they are 
 play's ambition-pinnacles, on which to climb 
 high and stand up tall, or from which to leap 
 boldly down in the friskiness of animal spirits, 
 as the lambs do in the pastures. True, rocks 
 are an impediment to tillage, and let them be 
 got out of the way. They are good for fences,
 
 WITH WORD-PAINTINGS. 37 
 
 and let fences be made of them, but this is no 
 reason why their picturesqiieness, their beauty 
 and grandeur, should not be observed and en- 
 joyed. I know sonne rocks that are much in 
 the way, and it might. cost a month, take a hfe 
 through, for the shoes and wheels of business 
 to go round them, and if split up would under- 
 pin a meeting house or a market, yet we would 
 not remove them any more than we would pull 
 a star from the sky, on account of their per- 
 petual blessing to the eye of taste. 
 
 Now let the perception be trained to enjoy 
 these prominences of the ground. For this 
 purpose any rock of the nearest field may af- 
 ford the primary lesson. Let the different and 
 peculiar dimensions, shapes and colors, be no- 
 ticed. There are the little picturings of moss, 
 the stripe caused by some diversity of the or- 
 iginal elements, or the fissure which, though 
 small, allures the eye by a sort of mystery in 
 its depth and shadow. These trifling circum- 
 stances might be made interesting at least to 
 the child whose taste for things of the kind has 
 not been crushed and annihilated by the great 
 and the grand of broader experience. A mi- 
 4
 
 33 THE SCENERY-SHOWER, 
 
 nute observation of these insignificant pecu- 
 liarities will discipline the perceptions to be 
 minutely observant when going out into wide 
 and multiplex nature, where otherwise atten- 
 tion might be confounded and lost in a roving, 
 bewildered gaze. Besides, we apprehend that 
 an observer thus disciplined would be more 
 likely to entertain the feeling of sublimity and 
 wondering romance, at the subsequent specta- 
 cle of mighty gorges, crags and pinnacles, so 
 vastly exceeding the diminutive things to which 
 interest had previously been limited. 
 
 We would form a sort of friendly interest 
 in rocks; let the heart grow to them, as it were, 
 in consequence of pleasant remembrances. 
 An anecdote will somewhat illustrate our mean- 
 ing. A friend informed us that when in Eu- 
 rope, he visited the celebrated Wordsworth. 
 The poet took him round his grounds, show- 
 ing him the points of engaging scenery with 
 poetic rapture and patriotic pride. While 
 walking in the garden some laborers there were 
 about prying up, for removal, a rock in a gras- 
 sy corner — an ordinary rock, which stuck out 
 from its bed with a perpendicular and grey
 
 WITH WORD-PAINTIxNGS. 39 
 
 mossy face. " Stop, stop," cried the owner, 
 " let that rock alone." He then remarked to 
 our friend — " I would not have that rock re- 
 moved on any account. Insignificant as it 
 may appear, it signifies something to me ; my 
 eye has glanced at it and gazed on it for years, 
 it is a little feature on the landscape's face 
 which gives it expression. It shall now have 
 an appropriate inscription on its little grey 
 weather-side, and I will write a sonnet to it." 
 The patriotic poet spoke with a fervor about 
 that old rock, which surprised the American. 
 Now the poet's rock was dear to his heart, 
 simply from long familiarity. To this kind of 
 interest we would join that of peculiar associ- 
 ations. On a first visit to a rock, read passa- 
 ges from some favorite book, peruse perhaps 
 the last new work of pure-minded genius, or 
 be accompanied by an agreeable friend for the 
 sweet of mutual converse or song and sympa- 
 thy of taste. In this way how will memory be 
 starred, as' it were, with softly gleaming points 
 to which the soul shall in the future turn back 
 and find solace from the darkness of trouble, 
 or the chilly and stumbling night of extreme 
 age.
 
 40 THE SCENERY-SHOWER, 
 
 One of the most interesting fragments of 
 scenery the eye scans and perches on, are the 
 chffs in our hill-sides. Many a home in our 
 diversified country is not without one or more 
 of these in vicinity. Perhaps they are set 
 smoothly and perpendicularly into the earthy 
 framework, like a piece of hammered mason- 
 ry, and clad with green and gray moss, as with 
 fanciful tapestry. Or they project roughly and 
 beetle over, impressing the feeling of grandeur. 
 Perhaps shrubs shoot out from crevices, or 
 bristle at the top in fantastic wildness, or trees 
 tower therefrom in waving pride at their pre- 
 eminence. Sometimes the rock-show is of 
 quite a clear whiteness, or has spots or stripes 
 of chalky brilliancy, charmingly contrasting 
 with the grassy carpet beneath and pendant 
 foliage above. Now let observation be partic- 
 ularly directed to such noble features of the 
 landscape. Let us grow romantic about them 
 — it will do no harm. If some interesting in- 
 cident of the past may be found connected 
 with them, or with any other spot of earth, so 
 much the better. We cannot but repeat that 
 on a pleasure-seeking jauni to such spectacles,
 
 WITH WOUD-PAINTINGS. 41 
 
 a choice of company is truly worth the seek- 
 ing. One or two individuals of tender and 
 touching conversation, or the gift of sweeten- 
 ing song, are far preferable to noisy, gamboling 
 numbers. Let all the feelings be spiritual and 
 quiet, rather than animal and frolicsome, espe- 
 cially on a first visit. Thus you will open in 
 the soul a little fountain of sweet and tender 
 recollections, which shall be perennial, and 
 sprinkle its freshness at length it may be on 
 withering age. 
 
 Indeed we w^ould have all sorts of pleasing 
 scenery connected in the mind with the most 
 agreeable remembrances, but most especially, 
 the scenery around dear native home. We 
 would labor sedulously to make the grounds 
 there a sort of Eden-place to the affections. 
 Then in after life, when parents shall be laid 
 in the dust, and brothers and sisters scattered 
 widely away, what a paradise of heart-hallowed 
 beauty, will this native landscape be ! 
 
 4*
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 HILLS AND VALES. 
 
 ♦' The Hills of New England 
 
 How nobly they rise, 
 In beauty or wildness 
 
 To blend with the skies ! 
 Tlieir green slopes, their grey rocks, 
 
 Their plumage of trees, 
 New England, my country, 
 
 I love thee for these ! 
 
 " Th;^ Vales of New England 
 
 That cradle her streams; 
 All greenness and glimmer, 
 
 Like landscapes in dreams; 
 Their rich laps for labor. 
 
 Their bosoms for ease, 
 New England, my country, 
 
 I love thee for these !" 
 
 Old Scrap Book. 
 
 The Hills and Vales ! the very words have 
 a charm, embalmed as they are in the sweet
 
 THE SCENLKY-SHDWER. 43 
 
 essence of rural poetry shed all alon:; tl e 
 course of time. How infinitely diversified 
 their appeara ices; countless, countless shapes, 
 as if the firgers of Nature had played over her 
 continents in sportive invention, configuring the 
 surface. There are broad heaving swells with 
 conforming platters of land between ; long 
 ridges lifting more suddenly, alternating with 
 long gouges below ; and the more precipitous 
 heights of all sorts of figures, looking down in- 
 to dells of novelty equally diverse. The pro- 
 fessed scenery-seer we need not advise, but to 
 those who would seek his rare pleasure, we 
 would say, carefully contemplate all their va- 
 rieties of aspect ; con them like a lesson in a 
 book. It is remarkable how the organ of 
 form will strengthen and sharpen to its ofiice. 
 It will come to detect each one of all the mul- 
 tiplicity of outlines. Figure is its sole sub- 
 ject and enjoyment, and it will feast on the 
 beauty of curves, with the relish of angles. 
 There are sizes, distances and relative posi- 
 tions, for the note of other faculties, giving to 
 each appropriate gratification. 
 
 There is another study in close connection,
 
 44 THE SCENERY-SHOWER, 
 
 it is the conforming sky. From some nether 
 stand among many liills, gaze this way and 
 that, over and around, and how the azure dome 
 is bordered at the base with jagged cuts, an- 
 gled notches, quick-heaving arches, or long 
 narrow scoops according as the earth confi- 
 gures its own contour. Some relations of 
 the land to the horizon, present most exquisite 
 specimens of the picturesque. From one ex- 
 tremity of a long deep valley peer away 
 through to the other. A portion of the heav- 
 en is close down in there, like a sapphire wall, 
 and it seems as if you might go and place your 
 hand against it, or look through the crystal 
 azure into mysteries beyond. 
 
 Color will of course mingle with and array 
 the charms of form and proportion, but as we 
 treat of it otherwhere, we omit it in this con- 
 nection. As this outline of the hills and vales 
 meets the eye of the reader, his fancy will nat- 
 urally clothe them in all their necessary varie- 
 ty of hues. 
 
 We spoke of the growth and pleasure of 
 the mere perceptive faculties amid such inter- 
 esting presentments of their specific objects.
 
 WITH WORD-PAINTINGS. 45 
 
 But there is above, and reigning over these, 
 another power to which these are the hand- 
 maids. Ideahty, or tlie intense feeling of the 
 beautiful, and the exulting glow at its posses- 
 sion. How does it open and open, amid such 
 scenes, for streams of beauty to glide in, as 
 from many fountains tended by its servitors at 
 the eye. But over all these there is another 
 sentin.ent, Religion, to which Ideality in duty 
 should minister, sending up its joys thereto, 
 beautifying holiness. He who worships not 
 from this fane of hill and vale, receives not 
 their charm into his highest, happiest sense, 
 and he knows not what influence descends from 
 the Worshipped and All-beautiful, to invest 
 and sanctify the scene with a still richer love- 
 liness. 
 
 We would now call attention to a few par- 
 ticular localities. There is a peculiar beauty 
 about some of the hills of INew England, 
 which we Tea; aie by many of its in!i;ibi- 
 tants hardly noticed. We refer to their 
 oval forms. Plow gracefully they round 
 up and curve i.ito the sky. Tuere are 
 a hundred, or indeed a thcusand eminences
 
 46 THE SCENERY-SHOWER, 
 
 of this shape, in the neighborhoods of the 
 Monadnock and the Wachusett Mountains. 
 We will try to paint a scene embracing 
 the latter. The Wachusett at twilight, and 
 at other times in certain states of weather, is a 
 very queen of mountain beauty, rearing its 
 round, dark, blue summit against the peculiar 
 sky. As the trav^eller crinkles among the hills 
 below, it exhibits various charming aspects, 
 and indeed seems alive and in motion, dancing 
 as it were, to exhibit its graces, "^riiere is one 
 playful illusion with which we have been often 
 amused when in that part of the country. In 
 ascending a hill in an angular direction, we 
 would catch a first glimpse of the mountain, 
 just a blue rim projecting beyond the green of 
 the intervening hill. Rising higher the rim 
 would broaden, or rather the body of the 
 round mountain would seem to roll out more 
 and more into sight ; the hill apparently wheel- 
 in2; one way and the mountain another, as if 
 
 'to 
 
 turning on an axis like machinery, by some in- 
 visible agency. It seemed to fancy that earth 
 below were mimicking the dance of the 
 spheres above, with a soft music unheard by
 
 WITH WORD-PAINTINGS. 47 
 
 mortal ears. Would not childhood, would not 
 any one find recreation in this spectacle, en- 
 joying and sympathizing with the sportiveness 
 of Nature. 
 
 We never travel the old winding roads in 
 the vicinity of Boston without the ever renew- 
 ed pleasure of gazing upon the oval hills. We 
 owe a tribute to these and all the scenery 
 around. It has been our study and enchant- 
 ment for years. 
 
 What vallies too, what water sheets ! What 
 diverse sprinkles and clusters and lines of ar- 
 chitecture, peeping from amid gardens or 
 gleaming under tree-rows ! Altogether, it is 
 a show that the arid South, and even the mag- 
 nificent W^est, might come over, just to see. It 
 is the very poetry of landscape, and in spite 
 of us its spirit and imagery will, but O how 
 faintly, run verse-like along our page. 
 
 Kind City ! Can thy travelled son tell where 
 Lie sweeter scenes than thy environs are ? 
 Does e'er his soul so leap from self away 
 As when they greet him homeward from thy bay ? 
 The oval hills, the wandering vales between, 
 Groves, cliffs and ways, with glimpse of watery sheen, 
 And cultures carpet, rich as wealth can weave, 
 Tinged with all dyes that shower and sun-beam leave;
 
 48 THE SCENERY-SHOWER, 
 
 Elysian landscapes round thy thousands flung, 
 
 Which, Albion ov/ning, Genius would have sung. 
 
 Let Fashion forth then, Toil full ofi depart 
 
 To stvdy these, yea, get them all by heart. 
 
 'Tis Nature's Jiihen(Bum, full and free, 
 
 Its walls the hills, the nneeting sky and sea. 
 
 At morn the Zephyr, Ocean breeze at even, 
 
 Brush o'er and air these penciilings of Heaven. 
 
 Should seraph Beauty beckon thetn to roam, 
 
 God's stronger servant, Health, shall bear them home. 
 
 Remembrance copies; Taste, for aye, shall find 
 
 Those distant scenes hung round the halls of mind. 
 
 Send forth thy yoor^ of charities thou Queen I 
 
 And grace their souls as they have never been. 
 
 Thy teachers with them — learned of their Lord, 
 
 To show it) nature lines of sacred Word. 
 
 Command thy merchant princes, large to give, 
 
 That lowly life may really come to live, 
 
 O, not " by bread alone," want's wrested good, 
 
 But all the spirit's growth can ask for food ; 
 
 Live in all beauty, eye or thought can find; 
 
 Live conscious man, mid lordliest mankind; 
 
 But more than all, live in sweet, grateful love 
 
 To those who lifted them, themselves above ; 
 
 To Him, who clad and sent with golden wing 
 
 Men, angel-like, " these litile ones " to bring, 
 
 And fold them in their pinions at His feet 
 
 Where rich and poor should all together meet. 
 
 Do thus, dear City— noblest of the North — 
 
 Of all the land, e en now, for life's best worth ! 
 
 Do thus, and then, thy populous robe all white, 
 
 With virtues gemmed, God's glory for the light.
 
 WITH WORD-PAINTINGS, 49 
 
 Thy presence o'er a continent shall sliine, 
 
 Yea, charm the poor, proud South to seek thy shrine, 
 
 In wisdom's meekness then to liaste away, 
 
 To raise her darkened realms to brighter day; 
 
 Convinced of equal freedom's worth— the good 
 
 Of other chains — soft links of brotherhood — 
 
 Of wealth from toil at thought; of whipless awe, 
 
 Enrobed in love, but throned upon the law. 
 
 Erst Queen of Learning! take a loftier name, 
 
 The Era calls with its new tongue of flame ; 
 
 A country's Prophet — lift thy baptized brow, 
 
 Thy mission prove, and do the migiity — now !
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 TREES. 
 
 " Bravely tliy old arms fling 
 Their countless pennons to the fields of air, 
 
 And like a sylvan king 
 Their panoply of green still proudly wear. 
 
 When at the twilight hour 
 Plays through the tressil crown the sun's last gleam, 
 
 Under thy ancient bower 
 The school-boy comes to sport, the bard to dream." 
 
 H. T. TUCKERMAN. 
 
 We now pay admiring regard to the lofty 
 naonarchs of the vegetable realm. Indeed 
 they not only reign over the humble herbage 
 and bush at their feet, but they hold a sort of 
 lordship over the whole scenic earth. They 
 stand above the water, sheltering its repose, 
 or hold it in review as with purling music it 
 moves on its train. They protect the mea-
 
 THE SCEXERY-SHOWER. 51 
 
 dows ; tliey hold court in the valhes ; they 
 display upon the hills ; they throne themselves 
 on the [nountains; and look down on the sub- 
 ject lands. We have spoken indeed practi- 
 cally, yet without a figure we can almost say 
 that we ourselves do a real homage to the 
 trees. 
 
 But we must portray them more particularly 
 as they appear in their princely bearing and 
 attire. Each species has characteristic traits 
 of appearance, and if we may so speak, 
 costume, features, and complexion of its own. 
 Wliat gracefulness of the locust and willow ; 
 what column-like symmetry and stateliness of 
 the maple ; what nobleness of the strong 
 armed oak ; what arching grandeur of the 
 elm ; then what varied magnificence of the 
 great continuous forest. 
 
 How many different hues the practised 
 eye may detect in the common mantle of ver- 
 dure. Here is the deep evergreen, fir or 
 hemlock, set in among the beech, maple, or 
 birch, or among several of the kinds together. 
 How tastefully the darker and the lighter 
 greens internotch, rapturing the eye with their
 
 52 THE SCENERY-SHOWER, 
 
 thickly intermingling, yet clearly contrasted 
 hues. Take your stand on a height and gaze 
 down into some bosomed valley, thickly stud- 
 ded with trees ; maples for instance. Each 
 one rounds up its top with a separate sw^eJl. 
 The eye is allured ; and leaping down, it swims 
 as it were in a sea of verdurous billows. 
 
 Another appearance of a wood is the shade 
 it casts upon a bordering field or pasture, 
 richly deepening its green. Stand outside, 
 in the clear open ligbt, and gaze upon the 
 darksomeness that lies away under the um- 
 brageous arches, and you might fancy a body 
 of night left there to slumber, guarded by a 
 file of out-skirting trees to protect from the 
 incursions of the surrounding day. 
 
 A pleasant spectacle in the country is the 
 fruit orchard, with its carpet of herbage be- 
 neath. At least we know of one who in very 
 childhood gazed with ever fresh delight on so 
 ordinary a scene. 'I'here were the rows of 
 apple trees, wi.h branches so long, and foliage 
 so thick, as to cast the intervening grass al- 
 most entirely into shade. The eye from the 
 house-window would run along from this end
 
 WITH WORD-PAINTINGS. 
 
 to that of one of the vistas, and back again, 
 iben rest upon the leaf-shadowed verdure, 
 anon start to and fro again, as if at a sort of 
 gambol witb its favorite hue. 
 
 It may be that the reader will not sympa- 
 thize with us in the pleasure afforded by these 
 common aspects of nature. If so, we would 
 enquire if they would not please even him 
 when laid in accurate picture by a genius of 
 the pencil ? Why then shall the Infinite 
 Artist paint bis perfect originals and the 
 eye not see, the taste not admire ? 
 
 But we have one more instance of tree- 
 scenery which cannot but attract the dullest 
 vision, the tamest taste, when once made 
 known. We have never seen it mentioned in 
 print, or scarcely alluded to in conversation, 
 and yet it is a spectacle as fascinating as im- 
 agination herself could invent or desire. 
 
 We refer to the peculiar aspect of the tree, 
 standing between the eye and the morning, or 
 more especially the evening twilight. With- 
 draw all consciousness from other objects, and 
 fasten the gaze intently on the tree displayed 
 against the golden, the purple, or the crimson 
 5*
 
 54 THE SCENERY -SHOWER. 
 
 of the sky. Mark how distinctly you per- 
 ceive the trunk, and every bough, branch, 
 twig and leaf — a perfect pencil drawing seem- 
 ingly upon the glowing, changing canvass of 
 evening. Or let the fancy take another turn. 
 The object, particularly as the twilight fades, 
 has a sort of semi-spiritual or spectre-like ap- 
 pearance, as if Nature were at a pantomime 
 of arboreous apparitions for the entertainment 
 of Romance at her most favorite hour. We 
 deem ourselves peculiarly fortunate, when in 
 an evening walk we can find a row of locusts, 
 elms, or maples, or any kind or arrangement 
 of trees, to disport the eye and fancy with, 
 without hindering the needed exercise. There 
 are few spectacles that keep us away from the 
 topics of the study, and relieve the thought- 
 worn brain more efFeciiially, than this daily-re- 
 newing illusion of the twilight.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 COLORS OF VEGETATION. 
 
 " Resplendent hues are ihine I 
 
 Triumphant beauty — glorious as brief! 
 Burdening with lioly love the heart's pure shrine, 
 
 Till tears afford relief. 
 When my last hours are come, 
 
 Great God ! ere yet life's span shall all be filled, 
 And these warm lips in death be ever dumb, 
 
 This beating heart be stilled, 
 Batlie Thou in hues as blessed — 
 
 Let gleams of heaven about my spirit play ! 
 So shall my soul to its eternal rest 
 
 In glory pass away !" 
 
 Wm. J. Pabodie. 
 
 Why has the Creator painted our world 
 with such infinite diversity, why so exquisitely 
 spun the nerves of perception, if the one was 
 not intended to run along the other with an 
 infinite diversity of visual pleasure to the 
 soul ?
 
 56 THE SCENERY-SHOWER, 
 
 We apprehend that immeasurably more 
 might be enjoyed from the changing colors of 
 vegetative nature were there due discipline. 
 Let us briefly present a few lessons for prac- 
 tice. 
 
 How many distinct hues of verdure in ver- 
 nal vegetation. What numerous tints of the 
 same color not only, but numberless different 
 dyes, the various species of vegetables assume, 
 in all their changes from their first tender 
 green of spring to the last prevailing brown- 
 ness of autumn. Now let children be trained, 
 let others train themselves, curiously to ob- 
 serve all these variegations from the shifting 
 year. Discriminate each separate kind of 
 grain by its hue. Notice also the alterations 
 as the crop advances toward the harvest. 
 Had we space we might point out noticeable 
 traits in each species. As a single illustration, 
 embracing form as well as color, does one to 
 a thousand observe the peculiar early beauty 
 and later magnificence of that common spec- 
 tacle, a field of Indian corn ? There are the 
 leaves at their broadest expansion toward the 
 stalk, tapering off to their utmost elongation ;
 
 WITH WORD-PAINTl.NGS. 57 
 
 and these all waving and fluttering in the 
 breeze like so many verdant and pointed 
 streamers. Then it lifts in tasselled stateli- 
 ness, as if in plumy pride at the golden riches 
 beneath. 
 
 There are the fields of the smaller grains. 
 How graceful the nodding in the gentle breeze, 
 in color, form and motion, minutely, muliitudi- 
 nously picturesque. While yet retaining their 
 greenness, and in a bright day under a stronger 
 wind, they seem to flow away in waves of sil- 
 vered emerald. But in full and heavier ripe- 
 ness, they roll magnificently along in billowy 
 gold. The most enchanting view, for variety, 
 richness, and spacious expanses of vegetable 
 coloring, is a well cultured farm just before 
 the earliest reaping. It would seem that the 
 sun had mustered his hues to a gorgeous gala, 
 in welcome to the gatherers commencing their 
 long train of harvests. Come out, ye stived 
 inhabitants of the hot city, for rural walk or 
 ride ; especially, ascend some neighboring 
 eminence, and be enchanted. Pause travel- 
 lers on the uplands overlooking the Connecti- 
 cut river meadows. The sight will leap down
 
 5S 
 
 THE SCENERY-SHOWER, 
 
 upon those diverse, alternating stripes of lux- 
 uriance, and acknowledge the richest paradise 
 it can find between the bloomy beautiful- 
 ness of Spring and the foliage glories of 
 Autumn. 
 
 The honors just mentioned as belonging to 
 the tw^o opposite seasons we scarce dare 
 describe. Many geniuses have painted their 
 perfections with an appropriate perfectness 
 of language, which needs must forestall 
 what w'ould be here but a poor dappling of 
 words. 
 
 Suffice it to say of the blossomed Spring, 
 it is the queenly infancy of the year at the 
 utmost exuberance of joyousness and gala. 
 Soils, heats, waters, airs, lights, have all 
 conspired in preparation, and still tend around 
 for nurture, attire and embellishment. Odors 
 minister incense, breezes fan freshness ; the 
 heavenly canopy varies with shadowy blue and 
 the clearest deeps of azure ; or it is decora- 
 led with lustrous banner- folds of cloud, which 
 unfurling, shake down gems that perchance 
 drop through rainbows, and then melt for the 
 bathing of the favorite. The brooding pa-
 
 WITH WORD-PAINTINGS. 59 
 
 rentage of feathered life carols gratulation. 
 The streams purl, the foliage whispers in 
 symphony. Human infancy laughs and claps 
 its hands, and leans in embrace on the flowery 
 bosom of its own sweet, tenderly-beautiful 
 emblem. The heart of maturer man glows, 
 his face brightens in sympathy. The pa- 
 geant passes, and the year stands up in the 
 youthful staiellness of summer. 
 
 The grander pomp of the later season, fin- 
 ishing into perfect ripeness, or resting from its 
 fruitful energies and rejoicing over its abun- 
 dance, we cannot indeed portray. We will 
 just dare an outline and lift away our inade- 
 quate pen. There is serene September, 
 after reviving rains spreading a carpet of fresh- 
 ened green. It is as if there had fallen from 
 the skies a carpet of summer verdure on 
 which Autumn might drop its fruitage from its 
 own yet green foliage. In these orchard- 
 gifts, what richness, what variety of hues. 
 It would seem that the tints of Spring had 
 arisen from the perished blooms, and climbed 
 into the branches and stolen over the pro-
 
 60 THE SCENERY-SHOWER, 
 
 ducts, anticipating the gust of palate by a feast 
 to the eye. 
 
 But now comes the great, final display of 
 orchard, grove, and forest pride. Go out now 
 into nature and let the vision run wild. Go 
 up miles from the duller sea-lands among the 
 hills. Here are the nobler maple-woods in 
 great congregation with their kindred kings of 
 vegetation, but outvying all. The purple, 
 crimson, orange, and gold of the morning ; the 
 bright, the deepening, and darkening changes 
 of evening seem broken into fragments, together 
 with rainbows unravelled, and all flung abroad 
 in dazzling vestures, and these laced and 
 spangled with the silver glitter of waters. 
 Glance through the vallies, gaze up the hill- 
 sides ; stand upon the highest eminences and 
 cast the sight down, spread it far away wide ; 
 beauty, magnificence, glory ! the eye's largest 
 and most ecstatic range in the luxury of 
 colors. Turn upward in adoring gratitude 
 to him who holds in his hand the pencilling 
 sun, and paints this and all scenes for thee ; 
 who also transfers his pictures to the vast halls
 
 WITH WORD-PAINTINGS. 61 
 
 of thy memory to be fresh for recurrence 
 through immortal ages. O lose thyself 
 
 '* in Him in Liglit Ineffable ! 
 Come then, expressive silence, muse his praise ! "
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 WATERS. 
 
 " From deep mysterious wanderings, your springs 
 Break bubbling into beauty; where they lie 
 In infant Jielplessness awhile, but soon 
 Gathering in liny brooks, they gambol down 
 The steep sides of the mountains, laughing, shouting, 
 Teasing the wild flowers, and at every turn 
 Meeting new playmates still to swell their ranks; 
 Which with the rich increase resistless grown, 
 Shed foam and thunder, that the echoing wood 
 Rings with the boisterous glee ; while o'er their heads, 
 Catching their spirit blithe, young rainbows sport, 
 The frolic children of the wanton sun." 
 
 Thomas Wakd. 
 
 Water makes a large portion of the world's 
 scenery. In its various aspects of repose and 
 motion it is beautiful or magnificent. In its 
 figured courses amid the diversities of land, 
 it is the animate picturesque, running away
 
 THE SCENERY-SHOWER. 63 
 
 with the eye, delightfully lost in wandering 
 captivity. 
 
 We will begin with the most insignificant 
 water-traits. They will be of use to the 
 teacher, training the child to profitable obser- 
 vation. And why shall not the adult self- 
 cuhurist also educate himself in these primary 
 lessons of lovely minutiae. Let evey one 
 gaze on the rill, the brook, or the river, 
 till he shall be familiar with every character- 
 istic, and learn to love the gamesome runner, 
 as if it were a living acquaintance and had a 
 responding spirit. Observe every short turn 
 or larger graceful sweep. Pause over the 
 little eddy or whirl produced by projecting 
 bank or intervening rock, and look steadily till 
 the eye gets lost in the little maze of ripples. 
 A considerable water-fall is always an attrac- 
 tion. But even in the tiny rill we would 
 notice the little tumult of waters sfursilins; over 
 the rocks, it is at least a discipline to the 
 sight. Perhaps there is a slight cascade 
 caused by a trifling stone. Or a chance-lodged 
 chip or leaf may form a brief space of sheeted 
 water, smooth and transparent as glass, and
 
 64 THE SCENERY-SHOWER, 
 
 a very crystal, with the marvel of all its parti- 
 cles in motion. 
 
 Then there is the bason into which a pre- 
 cipitous rivulet may fall and stilly linger. 
 Here the eye gazes down into the dusky 
 depth until stopped by an impenetrable black- 
 ness, into the mystery of which it would pen- 
 etrate if it could. Or there may be a bright 
 sandy bottom, so invitingly clear that it would 
 almost seem pleasant to leap in and lie as in a 
 bed beneath the glassy sheet. Sometimes 
 such grot of the stream is so underlaid and 
 margined with moss, fringed with herbage 
 and overhung with tree-foliage, that the whole 
 water is a deep delicious green. A poet 
 might fancy the silvery strips, drops and 
 sprinkles of the broken mass above, had been 
 fused together again and transmuted into em- 
 erald by alchymy of haunting Naiad. There 
 is a spectacle of the sort in the Franconia 
 Notch at the White Mountains, with which 
 the author of Childe Harold, had he seen, 
 would have gemmed his lay, attracting the 
 travelling world to linger over its then classic 
 loveliness.
 
 WITH WORD-PAINTINGS. 05 
 
 The figure of a stream, as it adjusts itself 
 to the obstacles of its course, has a peculiar 
 charm. It seems to feel its way along with a 
 cunning policy, combining convenience to it- 
 self and attractiveness to the beholder, as it 
 
 " Now glitters in the sun and now retires 
 As bashful, yet impatient to be seen." 
 
 What grace, what majesty in the larger river, 
 as from the narrow of the hills it comes 
 widening out again, sweeping its shining train 
 far round the meadow^, then marching through 
 the w^ood, or wheeling round the promontory, 
 till fancy alone can follow the stately proces- 
 sion. 
 
 Then there are the thousand ponds, or 
 lakes, as called in Europe, embosomed in our 
 country. Holding the vision to an expan- 
 sive unity of spectacle, silvering their blue 
 under the sunshine, or darkening it under the 
 cloud, they are the watery magnificent. The 
 eye of taste owns them all. They are the 
 fee simple of all the eyes in the nation, if they 
 will but grasp and hold them with a loving 
 sight. 
 
 6*
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 SCENERY AROUND WATER. 
 
 "The visible scene 
 Would enter unawares into his mind 
 With all its solemn imagery, its rocks, 
 Its woods, and that uncertain heaven received 
 Into the bosom of the steady lake." 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 The scenery around water, though before 
 indirectly included, now claims more particu- 
 lar mention. It is a sort of costume to the 
 liquid, changeable, and more life-like spectacle, 
 imparting adornment and receiving interest, 
 and as it were life in return. 
 
 There are the grassy declivity and pebbly 
 margin ; the jutting rocks, or long smooth 
 side of a cliff. There are the trees and
 
 THE SCENERY-SHOWER, 67 
 
 shrubs leaning against or standing upon these 
 varieties of shore, concealing and revealing 
 ihem by turns, and contrasting their green 
 umbrage with the shaded blue of the water. 
 These gazed at from the opposite side of a 
 considerable expanse, form a picture which 
 leisure might travel quite a distance to see 
 and be made oblivious of care. 
 
 How charming, viewed at a little distance, 
 are some of the capes which thrust themselves 
 into the inland pond or some of our ocean 
 bays and creeks. How softly the eye slips 
 from the fresher green of the moister points 
 and meets the water that sleeps, or the wave- 
 lets that waken and glitter upon the margin. 
 Then in another place is seen the white beach 
 rounding in under the grassy or bushy shore, 
 like a bright rim curiously inlaid between the 
 azure water and the verdant land. 
 
 Circumadjacent objects reflected in the 
 crystal element below are an absolute en- 
 chantment. They seem an earthly embroi- 
 dery to another firmanent, which hollows its 
 vast concave down, down to nethermost gran-
 
 THE SCENERY-SHOWER. 
 
 deiir. A Parnassian ancient might have 
 fancied it a cerulean theatre, where his water- 
 nymphs could game in chariots of cloud 
 around the golden goal of a sun.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 AN ILLUSION. 
 
 " Gentle Nature plays her part 
 
 T^ itli ever-varying wiles, 
 And transient feignings with plain truth. 
 
 So well she reconciles, 
 That those fond idlers most are pleased 
 
 Whom oftenest she beguiles." 
 
 WORDSWOKTH. 
 
 There is a spectacle with which one may 
 always be amused in travelling, and in which 
 childhood certainly might find curious sport to 
 its frolicsome eye. As we have never seen it 
 even mentioned, we will enliven our page 
 by its description. It is the apparent motion 
 of objects on the wayside as one passes rap- 
 idly along. Here is combined the graceful- 
 ness of motion with picturesque beauty. In- 
 deed it seems as if inanimate nature were im-
 
 70 THE SCENERY-SHOWER, 
 
 bued with life and acting the picturesque and 
 beautiful as on a theatre. 
 
 Any mode of travelling creates the scene, 
 but that by steam-car makes it the most perfect 
 from the velocity. We cannot better illustrate 
 than by describing the spectacle to be witness- 
 ed on the rail-road between Boston and Salem. 
 Suppose yourself seated at the window on the 
 right hand side and going Eastward. The 
 grounds, fences, and trees nearest, seem to 
 run past as if they had life like animals, or 
 soul of fire and breath of vapor, as the train has, 
 and are speeding to the city you have left. 
 The 'hills and banks along the bay-shore ap- 
 pear to stand still, or to have a vacillating 
 movement, as if doubtful which way to go, or 
 whether they shall go or stay. But the ob- 
 jects at a still greater distance, the round, 
 heaving islands, and the towering vessels in 
 sail-swelled pomp, are proceeding with you, 
 not apparently at the same rapid rate, but with 
 a stately glide, such as might befit things of 
 their magnitude. Now and then these distant 
 travellers will be hidden from view by an in- 
 tervening high ground, anon they slide grace-
 
 WITH WORD-PAINTINGri. 71 
 
 fully out from behind, keeping opposite to your 
 elbow, as if they had agreed to companion- 
 ship and were bound to keep on. 
 
 On approaching Salem you shoot in among 
 romantic cliffs, soft meadow-plats, gleaming 
 water-sheets, scatterings of shrubbery, and no- 
 ble tree clumps ; here you have wildness and 
 beauty in grotesquest sport, as if they had 
 caught the olden witchery, and were harmless- 
 ly playing it out for the amusement of passen- 
 gers. 
 
 Returning to Boston, there is a somewhat 
 ludicrous spectacle on the northern side. The 
 dark cliffs back of Lynn add to their pictur- 
 esque charm by taking up their march in long 
 procession. It may be that a marsh is thickly 
 peopled with hay-stacks ; [these set to danc- 
 ing, as it were, round a centre in a sort of ellip- 
 tical orbit, apparently with as much regularity 
 of time and interspaces as if they had been 
 trained by a master and were governed by a 
 lively music. The eye is quite mazed at 
 such strange " poetry of motion," and the or- 
 gan of mirtlifulness catches a brief ])astime from 
 this jigging of the hay-giants on the lawn of 
 their homestead.
 
 72 THE SCENERY-SHOWER. 
 
 Further on, the Chelsea Iiills shoot by each 
 other with beautiful effect from their ellpitical 
 shape and the peeping of houses between. It 
 seems as if they were on rail-roads too ; yet 
 with all this mighty travel making no noise. 
 
 At length the Charlestown church-steeples 
 walk off as on a visit to the neighboring spires 
 of the city. And the monarch of Anierican 
 monuments puts off his steady sobriety for the 
 frolic, and not to be alone in his grandeur ; or 
 as fancy might say, he leaves his hero-hallow- 
 ed throne, and takes Boston-ward to thank the 
 patriotic ladies that he was not left a dumpy 
 dwarf through lack of provision for growth.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 MOUNTAINS. 
 
 '* I live not in myself, but I become 
 Portion of that around me ; and to me 
 High mountains are a feeling." 
 
 BvRox. 
 
 We owe an especial tribule to the Moun- 
 tains, and with the poet's Alp-begotten thought 
 we begin our homage. We sympathize en- 
 tirely with his lofty enthusiasm. Of all earth's 
 scenery they have been by us most sought, 
 most loved. In their changefulness of aspect 
 they were the playmates of our youthful fancy. 
 For us they skirled themselves with the fantas- 
 tic mist, and wore a wreath of it for a crown. 
 For us they caught each crimson dawn, and 
 told of its beauty. For us they lifted a foot- 
 stool of grandeur for the throne of the setting 
 sun. Then they purpled in the twilight that
 
 "^4 THE SCENERY-SHOWER^ 
 
 our vision might have wider and more varied 
 range for its evening pastime of liues. 
 
 With what grand command they crowned 
 the chmax of scenery that educed our taste 
 and charmed our spirit at native home ; the 
 even meadow, the winding brook, the. maple 
 groves, the oval hills, the over-looking moun- 
 tains. There they now stand, far-seen friend- 
 ly indicators of all that subjacent loveliness. 
 Mighty talismans of memory ! when discern- 
 ed from any lofty distance, how we live over 
 again sunrises and sunsets, and many a blessed 
 day between ; many rambles alone, and some 
 in sweet companionship ; alternate labor and 
 literature, dreamy musings and keen inquisitive 
 thought. How reappear the long reaching 
 prospects of confiding hope, and the glittering 
 ascents of bold aspiration. How our heart 
 lifts itself and thrills with this magic renewal 
 of the past ! But anon it bends in serene, sub- 
 missive gratitude to One who from above 
 these heights climbed by sight or sought by the 
 soul, put forth a providential hand, and held 
 back and bore forward, and carried to and fro 
 in devious course, ever displaying the varied
 
 WITH WORD-PAIXTINGS. 
 
 pictures of his pencil, and maturing the deh- 
 cious, innocent taste which is here permitted 
 an humble expression. 
 
 Pardon, benevolent Reader, the reference 
 to dear landscapes, and a personal experience, 
 without which these word-paintings might not 
 have been. The name of our topic has been 
 a magic, let us now together feel the spell. 
 
 We would have the soul as early as possible 
 stamped with the impressiveness of mountains. 
 In the first place, their forms are a study. 
 There is the variety of surface shaping their 
 bases ; then therefrom their ascent, gradual and 
 smooth with pasture or thickset wood, or more 
 diverse in outline with round protuberance of 
 hill or huge projection of bluff. 
 
 Lastly their summits : these lift into long ridge 
 with more or less discernible prominences, like 
 an enormous rampart, with bastions builded 
 against the storms. They otherwise swell 
 gently into curve, moulding the attractive beau- 
 ty of an arch out of the horizon. Again they 
 heave boldly into peak, or shoot wildly into 
 pinnacle, as it were, notching in and splitting 
 open the sky.
 
 ib THE SCENERY-SHOWER, 
 
 When several of these abrupt heights hap- 
 pen quite closely together in cluster or range, 
 a curious spectacle is presented by the sky to 
 the distant observer, fancy assisting the view. 
 A belt of the great firmament, bending majes- 
 tically over from the zenith, finishes its descent 
 earthward with inverted mountain-shapes, of 
 cloudy grey or azure brigiit ; these confront- 
 ing the dark blue earth-giants in grandeur- 
 making competition. 
 
 In travelling in the vicinity of a mountain it 
 is entertainingly noticeable how it will vary its 
 appearance, as the beholder shifts his relative 
 position. One can hardly believe sometimes, 
 that it is the same object, it is so unaccounta- 
 bly altered. It seems a sort of Protean pan- 
 tomime playing pranks of transformation. 
 
 Again, it is a matter of interest, how the 
 hue of mountains changes, ever imparting nov- 
 el interest, from the first peep of morning to 
 the final shading-ofi' at evening twilight. 
 
 How the thick cloudiness of some days will 
 shed down upon them its sombreness. How 
 will the dark overhanging thunder cloud deep- 
 en their blue to the very verge of blackness,
 
 WITH W0RD-PAlXriNG3. 77 
 
 impressing the solemn sublime, as cloud and 
 mountain seem almost joined and blended to- 
 gether in one dark expanse. We say, let the 
 lesson of the school-room be left, let domes- 
 tic labor pause, where no necessity hurries, to 
 place the mind under such enlivening, or soul- 
 subduing aspects. 
 
 No scenery probably tends more to awaken 
 and ennoble the sentiment of patriotism than 
 mountains. 
 
 Seas make their magnificence common to 
 the separate lands they expand between. The 
 all-encompassing ocean gives its sublimity of 
 waters to a world. But mountains — solid 
 earth's uttermost grandeur — are a nation's own. 
 They are fastened upon a country's form like 
 a vast member — the device and creation of 
 God. They bear upon their sides and hold 
 beneath their surfaces its cities and villages, 
 yet to be built, together with implements and 
 ornaments yet to be wrought. With perpetu- 
 al industry they spin forth the 
 
 '' Streams that tie her realms with silver bands." 
 
 They are not only individualized, each by its 
 own peculiar aspect, but consecrated by a par- 
 
 7*
 
 78 THE SCENERY-SHOWER, 
 
 ticLilar name. They are clad with local associa- 
 tions, and mantled all over and beautified to the 
 heart by a national interest. When a neigh- 
 boring inhabitant journeys away, his last back- 
 ward look, his first returning glance, are to 
 them. They indicate his home. Ah ! just 
 down there beneath, are his best loves, and his 
 bosom thrills again. The mariner or other 
 traveller across the ocean holds them in his 
 last aching gaze as long as he can ; and 
 thitherward his heart aims its last adieu. On 
 his return, how he labors for the earliest 
 glimpse at their summits. They seem as soar- 
 ing heralds from home — angels of the great 
 patriotic presence, coming to meet him, cry- 
 ing " Hitherward — O, welcome !" 
 
 Mountains are the final citadel of national 
 freedom, founded when the land was prepared 
 above the seas, as if freedom should be es- 
 teemed as dear as life. Here is the last 
 refuge of the patriot (ew. And if these should 
 be captured, the heaven-built battlements still 
 abide to await their return. War w^ill not dig 
 them down or dismantle them of their ridged 
 walls and caverned embrasures. Here the
 
 WITH WORD-PAINTINGS. /U 
 
 Genius of Liberty dwells ever fast, still sound- 
 ing her trumps of echo, and waving to and fro 
 her signal banners of cloud. She never dies. 
 The Eternal spirit is her hfe. He keeps her 
 high toward his All-mighty presence, that when 
 the exiles shall return, or a nation shall break 
 its chains, or arise regenerate from its vices, 
 or when a youthful people shall nobly aspire, 
 they may all know whither to turn for encour- 
 agement and blessing. 
 
 Such are the mountains to the patriotic, at 
 least to the classically poetic mind. Go then, 
 fellow countrymen, and gaze. Stand with 
 your children around you and teach them to 
 look up to these ''everlasting hills" with a 
 reverent love. If the blue ridges and peaks 
 stretch and tower not within view of home, 
 let an hour or hours be spent in resorting to 
 spots, where may be seen those piles and 
 points that so impress with grandeur, and a 
 grandeur too, so romantically connected with 
 the cherished idea of native land. Yea, go up 
 into their very midst, — Fathers with your fam- 
 ilies — Teachers with your schools, and hold 
 intimate communion. But let all voices be
 
 80 THE SCENERY-SHOWER, 
 
 hushed, except to fitting language — that of 
 meditative, ennobling thought. There study 
 every aspect and catch its picture upon the 
 memory ; gorge, glen, cavern, and crevice — 
 veiled in shadow or hidden in deeper darkness ; 
 shivered crag, rocky acclivity, or wooded brow, 
 and far bold summit. Be still and hearken 
 also — the sigh of trees, the dash of waters, the 
 roar of winds, the resoundings of echo — it is 
 from the ancient orchestra of the solitudes, 
 ever awaiting the sublime syinphonies of the 
 living heart ! 
 
 Thus far the scenes, the sounds, the influ- 
 ences below. But rest not contented with 
 these. One whom the mountain 3Iuse and the 
 genius of Freedom inspired in very childhood 
 thus admonishes, and would bear you up on 
 the pinions of his verse, — 
 
 Thou who wouldst see the lovely and the wild, 
 Mingled in harmony on Nature's face. 
 Ascend our rocky mountains. Let thy foot 
 Fail not with weariness, for on their tops 
 The beauty and the mnjesty of earth, 
 Spread wide beneath, shall make thee to forget 
 The sleep and toilsome way.
 
 WITH WORD-PAINTINGS. 81 
 
 We would have all our countrymen, if pos- 
 sible, visit those groups of grandeur in the 
 North, which are still more aggrandized by the 
 names of illustrious statesmen. At least let 
 not any talk wishfully of the Alps, and yearn 
 to catch the stormy spirit of Byron from their 
 avalanches, tempests and peaks, till they have 
 held exalted communion with them. 
 
 Suppose a clear day in summer, and one is 
 on such ennobling, exciting pilgrimage. His 
 first vision of the mountains is at a far distance. 
 How gracefully they run their smooth, blue 
 pinnacles sharp into the light azure sky. On 
 nearer approach, they enlarge round about, 
 they lift themselves up into grandeur. Fi- 
 nally, stand beneath their mightiest presence, 
 and to pious fancy they seem a manifold throne 
 to which the All-mighty Maker bows the heav- 
 ens and comes down to receive the awed 
 scene-pilgrim's profoundest homage. 
 
 But let this spectacle and its emotions pass. 
 First, now those mountain appurtenances, the 
 two long, deep defiles, where the beautiful, the 
 wild, the grotesque and the grand, in continu- 
 ous and mingled arrangement break and alter-
 
 82 
 
 THE SCENERY-SHOWER. 
 
 nate upon the eye, like the ever novel passages 
 of a romance. One might fancy the well- 
 wrought varying way, with the lofty cliff-sides 
 and forest garniture, and the silver inlay of 
 stream, to be the courtly avenue to the august 
 Royalty of the mountains. 
 
 Now ascend. How the thousand objects 
 below, rocks, trees, edi6ces become belittled. 
 Bold surfaces — the very hills flatten into same- 
 ness, and are lost. You stand on Mount 
 Washington ! Lo ! the wide, wide country, 
 deep below, and far, far around ; settled 
 towns, intervening v/oods, streams, and ponds, 
 the wild stretch of forests, darkly green, 
 and lakes just gleaming upon the horizon. 
 Inferior but higli mountains, run away into 
 distance, like a vast ridge of billows that had 
 been stopped and hardened into everlasting 
 stability. Away on the western horizon, the 
 Vermont heights range themselves, but their 
 loftiest peaks in lov\ly deference. Hither- 
 ward, the Connecticut sends up its vapory 
 garlands. Oiher summits do reverence in blue 
 distinctness, or misty dimness. A peaked 
 family of eminences stand close around as in
 
 WITH WORD-PAINTINGS. 83 
 
 courtly waiting. Overhanging all, is the great 
 domed heaven. Centred amid all, — the be- 
 holder. What his emotions ? There comes 
 up from below, there flows in from around, 
 there descends from above, the grandeur of 
 expanse, the sublimity of vastness. 
 
 It is at ]\rount Washington, the loftiest of 
 our Atlantic country, and grand with its great- 
 est name. Let the occasion be consecrated 
 and holy. Now sing the songs of Freedom. 
 Now quote the immortal poets ; add to the 
 mightiness of nature, the living mightiness of 
 genius. Let Romance and Patriotism grow 
 religious, and in still, small, and solemn tones, 
 find expression through sacred hymn, or Holi- 
 est writ. Then the soul shall be high, and lifted 
 up to the uttermost, till adoringly lost in that 
 ^Nlost High, who was before the mountains 
 were brought forth, or the earth and the woilds 
 had been formed, and who is from everlasting 
 to everlasting. 
 
 So do, and it is a life's one occasion of 
 blessedness — Patriotism and Piety in a mo- 
 mentary perfection.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 WATER-FALLS. 
 
 ■ " Now that I have communed with the vast — 
 
 Seen the veil rent from Nature's stormy shrine, 
 Heard her wild lessons of magnificence 
 In cataract voices, 'mid tiie echoing rocks, 
 
 I feel a louder call upon my soul 
 
 A trumpet sound ; — and as a soldier girds 
 Himself for war, so will I gird my thoughts 
 For conquest o'er the world ! " 
 
 Mrs. Caroline Gilmax. 
 
 There are many admirable poetic tributes 
 to the scenery now in view, but we have 
 quoted this fragment because it is crowned 
 with so admirable a moral. It may be com- 
 pared to the rain-bow cloud of the cataract — 
 a glorious spirit-like being born out of tumult 
 and irresistibly going heavenward. Read the 
 " Poetry of travelling," and especially that
 
 THE SCENERY-SHOWER. 85 
 
 intermingling of the beautiful and grand — the 
 lines on Trenton Falls, and who would not 
 visit such scenery, and also catch the mighty 
 inspiration ? 
 
 But we must enter into prosaic detail. 
 First, there are the wild rocks — some round, 
 some jagged, some sharply pointed, jutting 
 out. shooting up, with cracks and hollows, or 
 deeper caverns beneath, and gravelly banks, or 
 rude cliffs, and shrubs or trees darkening the 
 sky above — then the waters, wilder still with 
 their swiftness and tumult. First the calmer 
 stream pours to the precipice, then the tor- 
 rent tumbles this way and dashes that, with 
 foam and spray, and perhaps rainbow, and 
 finally rushes into the deep still pool as to a 
 bed of rest to its tired energies. It may be 
 that some long, high rock may form a cascade, 
 exhibiting here a straightened crystal ribbon 
 of fluid, and there the most delicate threads, 
 and in certain positions of the sun, all glitter- 
 ing with the fascination of prismatic col- 
 oring. 
 
 Scenes somewhat like these may be found 
 in the vicinity of every town, at least in many- 
 8
 
 86 
 
 THE SCENERY-SHOWER, 
 
 hilled and many-watered New England. Let 
 such scenes be sought out and become the re- 
 sort of families and schools as a delicious 
 pastime. With judicious teaching, what a 
 spirit of patriotism, and of religion, might 
 steal forth from the spectacle into the shrine 
 of the young heart. 
 
 We would have every x\merican, at least 
 once in his hfe, visit Niagaia. If from the 
 East, let him take the minor falls in his way. 
 Tiiere is the Trenton, the bold and beautiful, 
 arrayed in the most fantastic costume of rock 
 and wood. If this shall be the first considera- 
 ble spectacle of the kind he has seen, can 
 he but exclaim with her aheady quoted — 
 
 " My God, 
 1 lliank thee for this wondrous birth of joy, 
 Unfelt, and unimagined till this hour ! " 
 
 Then let him pause at the Genesee, until 
 its one long cascade shall impress its sober 
 magnificence. But let him stop and abide as 
 long as he can at Niagara. He has been pre- 
 pared to go up to the world's wonder, by 
 successive grades of romantic and religious
 
 WITH WOIID PAINTINGS. 87 
 
 emotion. He now stands amazed before the 
 power and majesty and glory of waters ; and 
 his spirit bows down with intensest awe before 
 Him who spake, and the cataract was, who 
 wills, and it continues. 
 
 Here might Patriotism swell whh its loftiest 
 aspirations. Ye energies of enterprise ! tear 
 down the hills, fill up the valleys, bore through 
 the mountains, chequer the whole land with 
 smooth steamways, until every son and daugh- 
 ter of our country shall be able once in life to 
 behold Niagara ! be able to come where the 
 northwestern seas do congregate, and with 
 one stupendous voice of benediction bless the 
 shore of freedom, and lift Nature's sublimest 
 anthem to Freedom's God, before they de- 
 part our country's line and lose their nationality 
 in earth's common deep. 
 
 We close our chapter with a portion of 
 Mrs. Sigourney's sublime apostrophe to Nia- 
 gara. It should be read by all who have not 
 beheld and listened to this mi^htv minister of 
 the All-mighty, to induce them to its presence. 
 Jt should be perused as often as possible by 
 those who have gazed and heard, that the aw-
 
 83 THE SCENERY-SHOWER. 
 
 ful lesson may not be forgotten ; and also be 
 more deeply impressed by hand-maid genius. 
 We may somewhat add to the chances of 
 perusal. — 
 
 " Flow on forever in thy glorious robe 
 Of terror and of beauty. Yea, flow on 
 Unfathom.ed and resistless. God bath set 
 His rainbow on tl)y forehead ; and the cloud 
 Mantled around thy feet. And He doth give 
 Thy voice of thunder, power to speak of Him 
 Eternally — bidding the lip of man 
 Keep silence — and upon thy rocky altar pour 
 Incense of awe-struck praise. 
 
 Thou dost make the soul 
 A wondering witness of thy majesty, 
 But as it presses with delirious joy 
 To pierce thy vestibule, dost chain its step 
 And tame its rapture, with the humbling view 
 Of its own nothingness, bidding it stand 
 In the dread presence of the Invisible, 
 As if to answer to its God through thee."
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 OCEAN. 
 
 '• Great beauteous PeingI in whose breath and smile 
 My lieart beats calmer, and ray very mind 
 Inhales salubrious thoughts. 
 The Spirit of the Universe in thee 
 Is visible; thou hast in thee the life, 
 The eternal, graceful and majestic life — 
 Of nature, and the natural human heart 
 Is therefore bound to thee with holy love" 
 
 Camtbei-L. 
 
 The Ocean ! What spectacles of the 
 most various, of loveliest beauty, of pic- 
 turesque interest, of deep, impressive gran- 
 deur, does it afford to him who will but pause 
 from his play, or stop from his labor to look. 
 Note on the shore, the milky beaches, the 
 shooting capes, grey with ledge or green with 
 herbage, the ragged rocks, the towering cliffs, 
 the deep fearful gorges, around which the eter- 
 nal tides flap and dash and overwhelm. Then 
 its waters of varying hues of green, as they 
 6*
 
 90 THE SCENERY-SHOWER, 
 
 lie close under the eye or recede therefrom, 
 but of dark-blue, as they stretch toward their 
 shoreless infinitude, beneath the blue of the 
 infinite sky. What changing aspects does the 
 sea-surface present beneath cloud or sunbeam, 
 or as the mist hovers in folds or lies in strips 
 just above. Then the vessel that 
 
 " Walks the water like a thing of life : " 
 
 what can be more fascinating to the vision 
 than this, as it careers on its course in full 
 view from the shore. How graceful its mo- 
 tion ; how as with sudden magic its form and 
 even color shift, as it tacks this way and that, 
 and presents prow or stern or broadside to 
 the eye. Then what a difference between 
 the shaded and the sunny side of the sail. 
 Let the object be a great ship of a clear 
 afternoon, with all its canvass swelled to the 
 utmost, rounding out like the rolls of a thun- 
 der cloud, and all this reflecting the slanted 
 but bright beams of the descending sun, and 
 we cannot better express ourselves than to 
 say that it is glorious, glorious ! 
 
 We would have all the youth in our country,
 
 WITH WORD-PAINTINGS. 91 
 
 from the sides of the remotest mountains, for 
 once, if possible, visit the seaside, to behold 
 and wonder at the marvels of God around 
 and upon the great deep. If they could not 
 tarry to gaze on the tremendousness of a 
 storm, they might at least treasure in remem- 
 brance the glory of a sunrise from the sea. 
 For the sake of illustration may we be per- 
 mitted to present a scene beheld from the 
 window of our chamber, at a friend's house 
 on a high ground in Marshfield, the descrip- 
 tion being penned directly afterward on the 
 spot. 
 
 The eastern sky was all purple and gold, 
 and the smooth ocean beneath all purple and 
 gold from reflection. There seemed a dou- 
 ble aurora, for so perfect was the correspon- 
 dence between the original and the reflected 
 light, that we could scarely define the line of 
 the horizon that parted sky and water. They 
 were fused together, as it were, into one 
 changefully efililgent expanse. Just at the 
 point in the horizon, to which the sun was 
 approaching, there soon appeared a little cen- 
 tre from which radiant hues streamed not only
 
 92 THE SCENERY-SHOWER, 
 
 upward but apparently downward, with a most 
 magical effect. Shortly there was a glimpse of 
 reddish gold. Tiiis elongated into size, then 
 rounded, as it came up and up, till there 
 seemed, as it were, an upheaving hill of 
 flame, till half the luminary was above the 
 water, when it gradually sliaped itself into a 
 glowing but clearly defined and mighty globe, 
 as ready, apparently, to roll in its magnificent 
 plenitude round the horizon, as to glide and 
 shrink into the sky. To enhance the delight 
 of the scene, the house seemed to be sur- 
 rounded by birds, pouring out their first gush 
 of mingling melodies, as it were in praise of 
 the Founder of the seas and the Father of 
 lights. 
 
 Now were such a spectacle to be presented 
 in nature but once in a hundred years, and the 
 exact moment of it could be calculated, how 
 would men and women and children throng 
 from city and village and the far hills, in won- 
 der to behold it ! 
 
 But now, who thinks of travelling a mile, 
 on purpose for the cheap yet intense and 
 exalted pleasure of beholding the glories of 
 sunrise at sea.
 
 WITH WORD-rAINTIXGS. 
 
 93 
 
 But ye leisure summer visitors of the Atlan- 
 tic coast, is it possible that you forego the 
 spectacle, for the sake of late-sitting frivolity 
 at night, and late-lying insensibility or indo- 
 lence in the morning ? Awake, up ! The 
 clarion of Genius calls, — let the soul now 
 listen to its exulting strains ! 
 
 " With thee beneath my windows, pleasant Sea, 
 I long not to o'erioolv earth's fairest glades 
 And green savannahs. Earth has not a plain 
 So boundless or so beautiful as thine. 
 
 Nor on the stage 
 Of rural landscape are there lights and shades 
 Of more harmonious dance and play than thine. 
 
 There's love 
 In all thy change, and constant sympathy 
 With yonder sky, thy mistress; from lier brow 
 Thou tak'st thy moods, and wear'st her colors on 
 Thy faithful bosom. 
 
 And all thy balmier hours, fair Element, 
 Have such divine complexion, crisped smiles, 
 Luxuriant iieavings, and sweet whisperings, 
 That little is the wonder Love's own Queen 
 From thee of old was fabled to have sprung." 
 
 Campbell.
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 • THE SKIES OF DAY. 
 
 •' The sky bent round, 
 The awful dome of a most mighty temple, 
 Built by omnipotent hands for nothing less 
 Than infinite worship." — Peucival. 
 
 How infinitely diversified and varied is the 
 scenery of the common sky, yet the million 
 regard it mostly as the source of fair weather 
 and foul. 
 
 First, the form. The curve, of all fig- 
 ures, is the most charming to the sight. In 
 the sky we have this in the highest possible 
 perfection. The lines of utmost beauty 
 woven into one all-surrounding curve. The 
 centre is directly above every beholder. 
 The zenith ever moves with him and pauses 
 above him whenever he stops. From this 
 point down to the whole circle of the horizon 
 is dimension, the largest within the ability of
 
 THE SCENERY-SHOWER. 95 
 
 sense. Then the color wlien entirely clear, 
 serenest azure, next to green, the vision's 
 dearest love. We cannot briefly better de- 
 scribe ihe spectacle than to say, beautiful 
 vastness. When the atmosphere is at the 
 purest, there is an intense pleasure in a fixed 
 gaze just at the one heavenly hue. It would 
 seem as if intervening space were annihilated, 
 and the azure flowed into the very eye ; or 
 rather, perhaps, as if the sense plunged in and 
 were lost in cerulean luxury. 
 
 Next we have the occasional and flitting 
 garniture of the sky. There are forms, and 
 often hues in the flying or pausing cloud 
 worthy detaining the eye for a new emotion of 
 beamy. But let us first trace these fabrics 
 from their source, so beautiful are their begin- 
 nings. There is the vapor as it smokes up 
 from the waters. Perhaps it lies heavily for 
 a lime like a light grey wall over tlie distant 
 stream. Sometimes it rises high into air 
 at once, and qiiiie compactly with a parted 
 and flighty edge, or in broken masses, each 
 with little strips above, as preceding pointers 
 to the direction ; or it may be, in wreaihs with
 
 96 THE SCENERY-SHOWER, 
 
 a sort of spiral ascent alternately graceful in 
 form and movement. How cunningly it 
 creeps or fantastically curls up a mountain 
 side, then, it may be, infolding its crown and 
 matting itself into a cap. In certain posi- 
 tions of the morning sun its glances at the 
 mist are reflected in the most delicate tinges, 
 as of floating changeable gauze. 
 
 Clouds in the sky ; — a scenery infinitely di- 
 verse and ever diversifying anew. Let us con- 
 template and analyze. There is the separate 
 lonely mass, its singleness giving interest. 
 There is the scolloped circumference, the 
 inner foldings, the middle plainness ; these 
 shaded down from sunny brightness to the 
 dusk of the smooth centre. It rests like the 
 car of a reposing demigod on the serene ceru- 
 lean. It may be borne along gently by the 
 breeze. Here the graphic and tasteful genius 
 of Bryant shall lend description. He makes 
 such an one the chariot of his Muse, taking 
 his fancy on a world-tour. 
 
 " Beautiful cloud with folds so soft and fair, 
 Swimming in the pure and quiet air! 
 Thy fleeces bathed in sun-light, while below
 
 WITH WORD-PAINTINGS. 97 
 
 Thy shadow o'er the vale moves slow j 
 Where midst their Jabor pause the reaper train 
 As cool it comes along the grain." 
 
 Sometimes the sky is all crowded with 
 clouds of this character, a multitudinous, mul- 
 tiform host. It is the noblest grandeur of 
 cloudy numbers and diversities. 
 
 A more quiet spectacle is the vapor lying 
 farther up and fastened against the sky in 
 lengthy bars over-lapping each other, or with 
 seams of clear or shaded blue between. Or it 
 may be, there is the appearance of innumerable 
 little hassocs threading out from a thicker cen- 
 tre into the clear interspaces. It is enlivening 
 again to observe light thin clouds, lower down, 
 brushing frolicsomely by this stable ceiling, 
 with their gauzy wings. 
 
 There is one scene for which the coming of 
 summer always makes us glad ; and if pre- 
 senting it less frequently, we feel a privation. 
 It is when the thunder chariots are rolling in 
 their tardy majesty and draw together and 
 interlock each other, as if in thick gathering 
 at some magnificent tournament. See their 
 dark bodies, grey borders, and brassy rims. 
 9
 
 98 THE SCENERY-SHOWER, 
 
 What grand involutions, like as wheel upon 
 wheel. Or perhaps their edges point out like 
 awning pinnacles under the sunbeams. But 
 these disappear as if drawn behind a thick dark 
 curtain to hide the display from mortal eyes. 
 Through this the lightnings flash or dart along 
 in momentary crinkles, terrificially beautiful. 
 Hearken also ! it is the thunder rolling deep and 
 solemn in the distance, or bursting near with 
 a sudden crash, with echo upon echo, rever- 
 berating around the arena of the storm. We 
 have indulged in rather a classical and roman- 
 tic view of the scene. It is better, however, 
 to seek religious aspects. It is the Almighty 
 who buildeth pavilions there and inhabiteth them 
 with his thunders, and beareth them along on 
 the wings of his winds. He openeth their 
 folds with his hand of lightning, and sweepeth 
 it in swift benefaction, touching the air with 
 healing, freshness and balm. 
 
 Why should not a whole school go forth 
 from their uneasy benches and sultry confine- 
 ment, and watch in still seriousness such a 
 spectacle. In the emotions of beauty, grand- 
 deur and sublimity, called forth by the teach- 
 er's aid, the terrors usually felt would subside.
 
 WITH WORD-PAINTINGS. 99 
 
 It is on such occasions that religion should be 
 made to take its mightier hold, and the heart 
 be bowed down to its most solemn worship ; 
 and all this without an abasing shuddering fear 
 of the Invisible Spirit of the scene. With 
 love and filial trust, as well as with adoring 
 awe, they might contemplate him who makeih 
 the clouds his chariot, and thundereih marvel- 
 lously with his voice. 
 
 Then after a shower there is the out- 
 breaking sun, the glorious rainbow, the glit- 
 tering waterdrops on herb and tree, and the 
 renewed and most gladsome minstrelsy of 
 birds. But poetry from the earliest ages has 
 been so lavishly rich in its descriptions of 
 these, that any language of ours would be tame 
 and altogether useless. There is one little 
 piece of literature to which we cannot now 
 but refer. It is ihe '' Scene after a Summer 
 Shower," by Andrews Norton. Although 
 read by thousands a hundred times over in Pier- 
 pont's Class-book, it will bear perusal a life 
 through, as often as Nature shall renew her 
 original. It should be comn)itted to memoiy 
 by every child in the land. Thus, the splen- 
 dor, the joy, the jubilant religiousness of the
 
 100 THE SCENERY-SHOWER, 
 
 spectacle, when recurring, shall be more 
 truly received, felt and reflected by his mir- 
 roring soul. 
 
 We have already portrayed the Morning in 
 some faint manner. We did so because some 
 of our readers, we fear, have not much ac- 
 quaintance with the healthy, lovely, fascinating 
 aspect. We wished to excite some curi- 
 osity, and if possible kindle a love. But the 
 Evening — the evening sky, all see this, and 
 who of the very least taste does not admire. A 
 thousand writers have revelled too in the de- 
 scription. Their word-paintings of sunsets 
 and twilights would make a volume of them- 
 selves. There is, however, one concomitant 
 of the evening glories of which we would just 
 give a hint. It is their reflection from a still 
 sheet of water. The scene is worth walking 
 a mile for at every leisure close of a day. 
 
 What a superb reality above, yet a more 
 transcendant illusion beneath. The eff'ulgent 
 segments of two heavenly hemispheres, rim 
 to rim, fastened by a narrow hoop of earth. 
 The sun is going, and goes down ; another 
 sun, a luminary twin, face to face, feature to
 
 WITH WORD-PAINTINGS. 101 
 
 feature, comes round up to meet him in 
 affectionate greeting. They gaze upon each 
 other's radiant countenances, and retire to- 
 gether, as it were to hide their fraternal em- 
 brace behind the curtains of twilight. Now 
 how hue answers to hue, shade to shade, 
 in all the varying, deepening changes. Of 
 the two, the inverted water-scene is tlie 
 most enchanting, fiom the novehy of position 
 and the more delicate softness of the ra- 
 diance. The almost spiritual light seems 
 here spiritualized perfectly. The circles of 
 splendor continue to glide down and to glide 
 up, meeting together and narrowing as they 
 pass away, till they are but glimpses, and are 
 gone. Meanwhile two vast nights have been 
 mutually approaching, marching round in thou- 
 sand-gemmed majesty. Now they lay to- 
 gether their star-girt brows in embracing 
 repose. 
 
 9*
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE MOON. 
 
 " When, as the gairish day is done, 
 Heaven burns with the descended sun, 
 
 'Tis passing sweet to mark, 
 Amid that flash of crimson ligiit, 
 The new moon's modest bow grow bright 
 As earth and sky grow dark." 
 
 Bryant. 
 
 It is said somewhere in Walter Scott's 
 writings, if we remember rightly, that most 
 youth advance not beyond sixteen without get- 
 ting as far as " O thou," in a sonnet to the 
 moon. We have never even till now so far 
 sought favor of the lovely planet. That she 
 may not now deem us neglectful in our skyey 
 Sudatories, our sublunary friends will pardon 
 us for devoting here a httle plain prose in her 
 honor.
 
 THE SCENERY-SHOWER. 103 
 
 The new moon is always a welcome sight. 
 There has been a season of darkness. Per- 
 chance the clouds have hid the stars, making 
 a stumbling night. How then like a smiling 
 lip on a glowing face appears the delicate 
 curve on the roseate twilight. Well may it 
 be fancied that an oracle of the next month's 
 fortunes is uttered therefrom. How many 
 glad voices answer back from the earth — 
 '' There is the new moon — there is the new 
 moon ! " To change our figure, placed as it 
 is on the rear of the day, it may be regarded 
 as a little bow of sweet promise that every 
 well spent day shall be crowned by a conscious 
 peace. 
 
 Then there is the later, rounder, and finally 
 the full orbed queen of night. With what 
 serene dignity she rises in a clear east, sweep- 
 ing the stars with her silvery veil. She daz- 
 zles not the eyes away like the day-king, com- 
 manding man to useful industry ; but his labor 
 over, she invites his regards, and then smiles 
 him away to repose. 
 
 With the costume of parting clouds, she 
 magnifies her beauty to the majestic, and our
 
 104 THT! SCENERY-SHOWER, 
 
 soft admiration grows intense ; we do roman- 
 tic homage. Behold her now at loftier walk 
 amid the stars. Fleecy clouds perhaps are 
 trooping past, now shading her beams, then let- 
 ting them through folds, or flinging them from 
 silvered edges as they leave the unspecked, 
 brightened azure. When the scuds are rapid 
 on the breeze, how sportive the scene. It is 
 as if the queen had put aside her majesty, and 
 were at pastime with cloud and star. Our 
 own spirits dance in harmony. We almost 
 wish for wings or power of disembodied transi- 
 tion to soar up thither and mingle in the magic, 
 joyous maze. 
 
 The autumnal full moon is the perfection of 
 lunar majesty. It seems as if she was con- 
 scious of the golden lustre of the harvests, and 
 the eftulgence of leaf-hues ; and conscious, 
 too, that in the absence of solar favor, without 
 her, their glory would be looked for in vain — 
 all dead and shrouded in the pall of dark- 
 ness — the far star-gleams, able only to dis- 
 close how great the fading away had been. 
 
 The going down of the moon in the deep 
 night horizon has a pleasing beauty. At the
 
 WITH WOUD-PAINTINGS. 105 
 
 older phases there Is an accompanying pen- 
 siveness, as being after midnight, the observer 
 may be left in a darkened, sleeping solitude, 
 indeed to feel alone. 
 
 We have thus done our first public devoir 
 to the gentle luminary. To our readers there 
 was no need, as hundreds before have held uj) 
 a far better medium of admiration. We might 
 have quoted from the poets, but we would in- 
 dividualize our offering, though it were through 
 the faint sheen of our own language.
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE STARS. 
 
 •' The faded West looks deep, as if its blue 
 Were searchable, and even as I look, 
 The tvviligi)t hath stole over it, and made 
 Its liquid eye apparent, and above 
 To the far-stretching zenitli and around, 
 As if they wailed on her like a queen, 
 Have stole out the innumerable stars 
 To twinkle like intelligence in heaven. 
 Is it not beautiful ? 
 
 Fit for the young affections to come out 
 And bathe in like an element ! " 
 
 Willis. 
 
 To the informed understanding the stars are 
 greater singly, than the earth's nearer satellite, 
 however charming in lier friendly lustre ; to- 
 gether, they are the mightiness of hosts in the 
 suhlimity of magnitude and distance. But we 
 must now view them simply as scenery, the
 
 THE SCENEUV-SIUnVEIl. 107 
 
 vision's "poetry of heaven." Of all that die 
 sky presents there is perhaps no one object so 
 bevvitchingly beautiful as the evening star at 
 its largest phasis. It would seem that the 
 light of the retiring sun, now disparted into 
 manifold splendors and hues, had passed into 
 golden unity again, and were inurned in that 
 star, and thence streamed down in liquid, yet 
 softest glory. No wonder it has been named 
 from the goddess of love ; for if the seraphic 
 effulgence does not directly exite, it certainly 
 predisposes to the tender emotion in more 
 melting temperaments. The greater leisure, 
 and the play of more delicate sensibilities at 
 the close of the day, and the twilight's train 
 of charms, all conspire, probably, to open the 
 heart more widely to this flow of magic. No 
 wonder the poets of all time have raved of 
 the " Star of eve." They have found full 
 response, at least from the earlier and more 
 romantic heart. Our youthful readers will 
 not be displeased, we trust, at whatever por- 
 tion of the " dewy radiance " we may have 
 caught on our prosaic page. 
 
 We now turn to the general heavens.
 
 108 THE SCENERY-SHOWER, 
 
 There is a singular aspect of them worthy of 
 the lifted eye, which we will first describe. 
 It is when they are all dotted over with small 
 cloud-fleeces, and equally marked with azure 
 openings ; through these appear the stars — 
 perhaps a single star to a spot. How the eye 
 runs bewildered over the alternating variety of 
 the vault ; reposing here and there on the pil- 
 lows of cloud, and leaning over to the star- 
 beams from those cerulean founts. At length 
 some single luminary fixes the gaze. It is of 
 larger dimension, or some deeper emotion is 
 called up in the soul by its peculiar radiance. 
 It almost might be fancied that the spirit of 
 some departed friend had taken abode in the 
 fair orb, and were distilling from its cherished 
 affections, sweet, pure influences into our an- 
 swering hearts. Indeed all the stars have a 
 sort of spiritual aspect to him who has a refined 
 fancy, and aspires after the beautiful in its least 
 sensual forms. When the day toil is over, its 
 bustle done, and tranquillity falls as it were 
 from the great calm heaven on all abroad, 
 how the soul is charmed away to the stars, as 
 to abodes where labor does not weary, and
 
 WITH WORD-PAINTINGS. 109 
 
 the weary of this world may at length find rest. 
 At least we are prepared by such contempla- 
 tion to turn away and shut the outward sense 
 to sleep with the inward consciousness that 
 there is spread abroad within this resplendent 
 garniture of stars another universe of purer 
 and more enrapturing loveliness and glory, to 
 the revelations of which we shall at length be 
 received. 
 
 A clear winter night is the season to feel 
 the great '' poetry of heaven " to the utmost. 
 The air is in its best elemental purity. Let 
 the earth be mantled with the unstained snow. 
 The prismatic atoms of the surface reflect the 
 star-beams, and spread a darkling magnificence, 
 as a carpet fit for the tread of upright man, 
 with his face toward heaven, and more than 
 ever reahzing the honor and glory with which 
 he has been divinely crowned. Now lift the 
 eye — lo, a vast canopy of blazing gems. 
 Stand and gaze straight upward — it holds its 
 central height directly over the head ; walk — 
 the cerulean apex proceeds with you as if 
 borne by invisible servitors above the apparent 
 lord of the scene; one spacious white brilliancy 
 10
 
 110 THE SCENERY-SHOWER. 
 
 of foot-Stool, one vast environage of stars — 
 all owned by him who solitarily stands amidst. 
 For^ him the "beautiful vastness " is in 
 jewels — a royal diadem, or rather a courtly 
 roof of woven diadems, lifted high and spread 
 abroad that kingly man might keep the glory 
 of the emblem over his head, yet be free from 
 the weight of its richness. 
 
 Thus far we have regarded the heavens as 
 a scenic expanse ; but the picture retains the 
 eye and fills the fancy an illusive moment only. 
 Religion and philosophy speak, and the spell 
 is done. The crowns are broken, the dome 
 vanishes, the gems grow to suns, and the be- 
 holder is at present but a poor vital atom amid 
 the glorious infinitude of another's realm ; he 
 is told that his duty is perfect obedience to 
 this sovereignty; his honor, that he is an immor- 
 tal and ever-growing intelligence ; his glory, 
 that he is the offspring of God, who has 
 prepared a crown for him surpassing the stars, 
 and laid up, to be put on by the pure in higher, 
 holier heavens.
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 WINTER. 
 
 ** Come see the North wind's masonry — 
 The frolic architecture of the snow." 
 
 R. W. Emersox, 
 
 Winter also has its scenery, and that 
 of a more peculiar and striking interest, inas- 
 much as the infinitely profuse and varied spec- 
 tacles of the open portions of the year are 
 almost_!entirely withdrawn. 
 
 What delicate adornments, what magnifi- 
 cent shows, what exhibitions of the grand 
 has winter. Take the last of November or 
 the beginning of December, when the eye 
 has begun to be quite tired and sick of the all- 
 spreading brown and barrenness, and who does 
 not remember and feel the scene we will 
 briefly describe.
 
 112 THE SCENERY-SHOWER, 
 
 The clouds gather and thicken and darken at 
 length into one unvaried hue all over the sky, 
 lowering down, capping the mountains, and 
 almost touching the hills. There is no wind, 
 the air is heavy and stilled into perfect dead- 
 ness. There are guesses that it will rain. 
 But no. The cloud at the distant horizon is 
 shedding its contents, and there of a hue nov- 
 elly light. The heights are hidden, as by a 
 loose curtain of mist. At length they drop 
 from right above the head. It is the first snow 
 upon the prepared and waiting ground. Its 
 damp feathery dabs come down quite perpen- 
 dicularly in the motionless air. You can al- 
 most count a hundred of them before they 
 stop, they are so bulky and slow. Look up, 
 and how curiously the white, but slightly shad- 
 owed millions appear. Look down, and how 
 they pat, pat, countlessly and all without sound, 
 except it be the gentlest whisper of greeting 
 to the welcoming earth. 
 
 For a few moments how singularly beauti- 
 ful the spectacle of the bright crystalled 
 flecks, sprinkled all over the dusky ground, 
 roofs and fences. Soon, a universal white
 
 WITH WORD-PAINTINGS. 113 
 
 prevails, and finally it is noticeable and inter- 
 esting, with what distinctness the foot shapes 
 of the household, the cattle, and even the do- 
 mestic fowls are imprinted on the thin snow, 
 as on the smooth plate of an engraver. Such 
 occasionally is the first picture in the exliibi- 
 tions of winter. Is it not worth asking out- 
 door boyhood to pause before, and leading 
 more sedentary girlhood to the window, to look 
 at.? 
 
 But let me present picture second. We 
 will suppose it the ensuing day. Fair weather 
 has come — a clear blue sky, a beaming sun, 
 and a still atmosphere. Now, how delightful 
 the contrast with the melancholy dun of yes- 
 terday morning. The pure white carpet, 
 spreading all round to the whole circle of the 
 horizon to meet the pure azure canopy. Let 
 the eye be so placed as to rove across a plain, 
 then over hill above hill, and finally up to lofty 
 mountains piercing heaven's bluest depths with 
 their whitest pinnacles, and you have an ex- 
 pansive magnificence, and a towering grandeur, 
 such as the stern simplicity of winter alone 
 can present. 
 
 10*
 
 114 THE SCENERY-SHOWER, 
 
 The break of day over such a scene is 
 worth taking a journey for. The mountain 
 height faintly reddens in the ghmpse of the 
 morning, then glows more distinctly, then glit- 
 ters with the richest radiance. The delicate 
 rose-color seems to run from this point as from 
 a centre, down the mountain, and over the 
 hill-sides, and thence to the plains, till the 
 whole face of the snow is in blush, as delicate 
 and lovely as the cheek of young and healthy 
 innocence. 
 
 Again, there is a grandeur in the fierce 
 snow storm, which it is better to feel and en- 
 joy, than to cower over a fire, thinking noth- 
 ing about it but safety from its violence. How 
 the element drives through the air, whirls 
 round the edifice, whips against its sides, ob- 
 scuring with its flaky mists, the objects near, 
 and altogether hiding those at a distance. It 
 is romance, it is rapture to let one's own spir- 
 its loose also, to mingle with the wild career, 
 and become, as it were, a very portion of the 
 harmless tempest. 
 
 Then comes the clear cold next day. The 
 furious wind whistles from the north-west
 
 WITH WORD-PAINTINGS. 115 
 
 over the. loaded earth. How the loose snow 
 scuds before the blast, down the hill, through 
 the valley or across the plain, and up the hills 
 again, then wheeling into the enormous drift, 
 or capering over its ridgy summit, all as if the 
 snow streaks were alive and mad with frolic, 
 like a thousand white haired coursers, loosen- 
 ed from the rein. Were such a scene of ele- 
 mental sport to be seen but once in a lifetime, 
 what family would not rush to the doors, what 
 school would not leave study and play to enjoy. 
 But now in its very commonness, not one in a 
 thousand particularly minds it. Yet here, 
 what power, what swiftness, and withal what 
 grace ! 
 
 Would that all the rustics of our country, 
 shut up by snow-drifts, or shivering along 
 highways and wood- paths, could be aware of 
 these solacing charms which come with the 
 winter's cold. 
 
 The magnificence of ice-clad trees is ar- 
 resting to the dullest eye, and withal has been 
 so often portrayed by writers, and so entirely 
 above our equalling, that our poor pen need 
 not describe ; and indeed it would be dazzled 
 away should it make the attempt.
 
 116 THE SCENERY-SHOWER. 
 
 One scene more — the wintry-vernal, if we 
 may so call it. We have the longer warmer 
 days of the earliest spring. Now the melting 
 of snows, the trickling of the drops, the 
 gathering of the streams, the gush and rush of 
 many waters — there is a wild life about this, 
 which bewitches the spirit into it somewhat 
 as the snow storm did from whose brooding 
 repose this water-tempest is born. Bryant 
 has thus stirringly sent it through the channels 
 of his verse : — 
 
 '* Then sing aloud the gushing rills 
 
 And the full spring, from frost set free, 
 That, brightly leaping down the hills, 
 Are just set out to meet the sea."
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 '* His spirit drank 
 The spectacle ; sensation, soul, and form, 
 All melted into hirn ; they swallowed up 
 His animal being ; in thera did he live, 
 And by ihem did he live; they were his life." 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 These lines express the enjoyment to be 
 found in nature by thousands and tens of 
 thousands who are now without it, simply 
 from want of cultivation. We have but 
 poorly executed our work, but we trust that 
 it may be of some use in leading to self-cul- 
 ture, and inciting parents and school teachers 
 to inspire a taste for scenery in the young. 
 Why shall the sketches of painters be so 
 much sought, and the originals of the Infinite 
 artist so much neglected .'' It should not be 
 so ; we feel that it should not be so. Walk 
 into a city gallery of a pleasant day, and you
 
 118 THE SCENERY-SHOWER, 
 
 hear a few envied people of leisure criticising 
 and admiring the tints, lights and shades of 
 the mimic landscape, when the surpassing, per- 
 fected picturings of God lie in exhaustless 
 profusion every where, to be discriminated 
 and admired by millions, without price, and 
 even without slackening the hand of gainful 
 toil ; but alas ! now they are as a blank, ex- 
 cepting to a comparative (ew. 
 
 O. what pastimes of body and spirit teachers 
 and schools will have, in the air, in the beauty, 
 the glory of nature abroad ; yea what ecstasy, 
 when they shall duly estimate the differ- 
 ence between man's mean school-house of 
 timber and masonry, and this not made by 
 hands, the unwalled, ever-aired, and healthy 
 school-room of creation. 
 
 Finally, thus let our country's men and 
 women be trained from childhood up, and 
 how would early, rural home, be all sur- 
 rounded by pictures, dear to taste, to imagina- 
 tion, to heart, and to memory ; pictures to 
 which those once resident there might turn 
 with vernal thrilllngs, from the coldest, darkest 
 wintriness of prolonged life. Country, more-
 
 WITH WORD-PAINTINGS. 119 
 
 over, would be sprinkled with innumerable 
 spots to which the heart of patriotism would 
 fasten ; yea, into which it would grow, if we 
 may so speak, as into a warm living bosom. 
 How could such fail to glow with most effec- 
 tual aspirations to improve, and bless, and 
 glorify the land of nativity, and the heritage 
 of freedom. 
 
 And lastly, but most especially, let the idea 
 of the holy, parental Creator be ever con- 
 nected as the all-pervading and upholding 
 spirit, and how would religion be radiant from 
 each tint of loveliness ; how would it envel- 
 ope the forms of beauty, and the masses of 
 grandeur, and overlay the mysterious expanses 
 of the sublime ! How" would Religion, going 
 forth from this inner temple of the soul, 
 fill with its holy, enhancing presence, the 
 great outward temple of God, from the ver- 
 dure and flowers around the altar of prayer, to 
 the azure and stars of the dome. 
 
 THE END.
 
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