BY THE AUTHOR OF
“ESSAYS FOR SUMMER HOURS.”
(Charles Lanman)
Gentlemen, let not prejudice prepossess you. I confess my discourse is like to prove suitable to my recreation,—calm and quiet.
Izaak Walton.
CRITICAL NOTICES
OF
LANMAN’S “ESSAYS FOR SUMMER HOURS.”
By John Neal, Esq.
“A book of two hundred and fifty pages, containing some twenty essays or thereabouts,—and perhaps more,—upon all sorts of pilgrimages: upon the woods and the city, Morning and Evening, the Dying Year, Literature, Mirth and Sadness, the Early Called, the Painter’s Dream, &c., &c., &c.; written with great simplicity and sweetness,—untainted with affectation, except in two or three slight instances,—original, tender, and at times absolutely touching.”
From the N. Y. Evening Post, Edited by W. C. Bryant.
“The volume, of which we have copied the title, is composed of essays on various subjects, the fruit, as the author tells us, of the leisure of last summer. They are agreeably written, with a vein of poetic embellishment.”
From the Democratic Review.
“‘Essays for Summer Hours,’ is the title of a pleasing little tome, by Charles Lanman, comprising a series of sketches of American scenery, interspersed with poetical allusions to incidents and characters which are very harmoniously blended, and agreeably presented. We hope this work will prove successful, and form the precursor of many other contributions to our elegant literature from the same pen.”
From the Southern Literary Messenger.
“This well printed, and handsome little volume, embraces a series of eighteen essays; the most of them founded in American scenery and associations. Some of the topics are furnished by the West, the native place of the young author; he has certainly done justice to the fresh scenes that are spread out in that interesting portion of the country. The talent of the writer is descriptive; he has painted, with remarkable fidelity and beauty, some of the most striking points of Western life. His language is chaste and well selected; and many of the moral reflections, growing out of the several subjects which he has selected for his essays, are expressed in an exceedingly interesting and even touching manner.”
From the Boston Miscellany.
“This a pleasant little volume of quiet Essays, written by a warm lover of nature, and dealing principally with descriptions of natural scenery, or the development of simple feeling. The author has well characterized them as reading ‘for summer hours.’ They neither furnish deep thought, nor are the parent of it; and yet they conduct the reader through pleasant places, in peaceful and undisturbed meditative shades, without disturbing him with paradoxical statements, or, often, with opinions that his judgment or his taste rejects. The author appears to have read a good deal, with discrimination and sympathy, and,—as it is true that the more we know, the more we learn from what we read of the best written efforts of master-minds,—so the more a writer, especially of this class of essays, has gathered from the already accumulated stores of information and illustration, readier will be his power to impress his own train of thought upon his reader. Mr. Lanman appears to have had a peculiarly apt sympathy and appreciation for his favorite authors, and we consequently find that (which, although artistically a fault, is no loss to the readers of his book,) whenever he comes to the real depth of his subject, or to a marked point either of argument or illustration, he flies to quotation to express himself, and his quotations are in general well selected and classical.”
From the London Literary Gazette.
“This is a second edition, and the matter well deserves to run through many more; for we have met with nothing of the kind in Transatlantic polite literature in which so fresh and pure a spirit prevails. It is far away from the worldly, trading, and money-making go-a-head passion, which rules the multitude both there and here.”
TO THE
HON. GEORGE PERKINS MARSH,
BURLINGTON, VERMONT.
My Dear Sir,
To you, in testimony of my regard for you, as a Statesman, a Scholar, and a Lover of the Fine Arts, do I dedicate this little volume.
Had not my maiden effort in the world of letters been received by the public with such marked favor, I should not venture to publish again. The same motives, however, which prompted the first, have also prompted the present collection of my productions, and I desire no other reward than the one already bestowed upon me in the approving smile of honest and sincere hearts.
As my title-page implies, I am now a professional Landscape Painter, my inclinations having compelled me to relinquish the “cotton trade and sugar line,” and these letters, originally written to a literary friend in New York, are but the offspring of one who claims the only merit of being a lover of Nature and his fellow men. I confess myself to be a creature of impulse, and each paper that I now publish, I would have considered as a mere record of my thoughts and feelings during the hour it may have been indited. Having been a sojourner in various portions of the country during the past summer, in search of the picturesque, you must not be surprised to find yourself one moment scrambling through a mountain gorge, and the next on the margin of the boundless sea. With this preliminary, I lay aside my pen, and return to my palette and pencils.
Your sincere friend,
CHARLES LANMAN.
New York, Autumn of 1844.
Again am I in the country, where I shall probably remain until the even-tide of the year. The main object, as you know, in my contemplated wanderings, will be to study the “book of nature, opened wide,” with a view of adding to my stock of materials for future use in my profession. The first of those letters, which I promised to write you by way of recreation, I have now commenced, and I wish you to understand, at the very outset, that, as I have nothing in particular to prove, my themes will be as variable as my feelings; but I shall confine myself principally to descriptions of natural scenery and personal adventures.
My present stopping place is at an old Dutch farm-house near Plauterkill Clove, under the shadow of the Catskill mountains. Since my arrival here the weather has been rather chilly for the season, so that I have not had much opportunity to use the pencil, but I have already noted some noble views, which I shall attempt to portray in their summer garb. The consequence is—independent of the fact that May is the angler’s favorite month—I have been practising my hand at trouting, in which art you have reason to know I am somewhat of an adept. How truly hath it been written by good old Walton;—
Of recreation, there is none
So free as fishing is alone.
All other pastimes do no less,
Than mind and body both possess;
My hands alone my work can do,
So I can fish and study too.
Never, more deeply than now, have I felt the wisdom of this thought, and never before have I enjoyed this sport to such perfection, whether you consider my success or the scenery I have witnessed. My first excursion was performed along the margin of a stream, which rises about two miles off, out of a little lake on the mountains. My guide and companion was a notorious hunter of these parts, named Peter Hummel, whose services I have engaged for all my future rambles among the mountains. He is, without exception, the wildest and rarest character I have ever known, and would be a great acquisition to a menagerie. He was born in a little hut at the foot of South Peak, is twenty-seven years of age, and has never been to school a day in his life, or in his travels further away from home than fifteen miles. He was educated for a bark-gatherer, his father and several brothers being engaged in the business; but Peter is averse to commonplace labor, to anything, in fact, that will bring money. When a mere boy of five years, he had an inkling for the mountains, and once had wandered so far, that he was found by his father in the den of an old bear, playing with her cubs. To tramp among the mountains, with gun and dog, is Peter’s chief and only happiness. He is probably one of the most perfect specimens of a hunter now living; and very few, I imagine, could have survived the dangers to which he has exposed himself. He seems to be one of those iron mortals that cannot die with age and infirmity,—or be killed by man, rock, or water; he must be shivered by a stroke of lightning. Although one of the wildest of God’s creatures, Peter Hummel is as amiable and kind-hearted a man as ever lived. He is an original wit withal, and shrewd and very laughable are many of his speeches, and his stories are the cream of romance and genuine mountain poetry.
But to return. We started on our tramp at an early hour, he with a trout-basket in his hand, containing our dinner, and I with my sketch-book and a “pilgrim staff.” After a tiresome ascent of three hours at the almost perpendicular side of a mountain, over ledges and through gloomy ravines, we at last reached the wished-for brook. All the day long were we cheered by its happy song, as we descended, now leaping from one deep pool to another, and now scrambling over green-coated rocks, under and around fallen trees, and along the damp, slippery sides of the mountain, until we reached its mouth on a plain, watered by a charming river, and sprinkled with the rustic residences of a sturdy Dutch yeomanry. We were at home by sunset, having walked the distance of twenty miles, and captured one hundred and fifty trout, the most of which I distributed among the farm-houses in my way, on my return.
On another occasion, I had taken my sketch-book and some fishing tackle, and gone up a mountain road, when, after having outlined a few giant trees, whose bare arms were extended upwards, as if they were praying to be reclothed in their summer garniture, I found myself on the banks of Schoharie Creek. In the very first hole into which I peered, I discovered a large trout, lying near the bottom, just above a little bed of white sand, whence rose the bubbles of a spring. It must have been some thirty minutes, I think, that I stood there against a tree, watching him with a “yearning tenderness.” “He is so happy,” thought I, “I will let him live.” Presently, however, a beautiful fly lighted on the water, which the greedy hermit swallowed in a minute, and returned to his cool bed, with his conscience, as I fancied, not one whit troubled by what he had done. Involuntarily I began to unwind my line, and having cut a pole, and repeated to myself something about “diamond cut diamond,” I baited my hook, and threw it in. The rogue of a trout, however, saw me, and scorned for a while to heed my bait. But I coaxed and coaxed, until at last he darted for it, apparently out of mere spite. Something, then, like a miniature water-spout arose, and the monarch of the brook was in a fair way of sharing the same fate which had befallen the innocent fly. I learned a salutary lesson from this incident, and as I had yielded to the temptation of the brook, I shouldered my sketch-book, and descended the stream. At noon I reached a farm-house, where I craved something to eat. A first-rate dinner was given me, which was seasoned by many questions, and some information, concerning trout. That afternoon, in company with a little boy, I visited a neighboring stream, called the Roaring Kill, where I caught one hundred and sixty fish. I then returned to the farm-house, and spent the evening in conversation with my new acquaintances. After breakfast, on the following morning, I set out for home, and got there about noon, having made two additions to my sketches. Long shall I remember the evening spent with this family, and their hospitality towards an entire stranger. A good husband, a good wife, and two good daughters, have been added to my list of friends.
Another of my trouting pilgrimages was to a famous place called Stony Clove, among the mountains of Shindaken, which are a continuation of the Catskills, leading westward. It is a deep perpendicular cut or gorge between two mountains, from twenty to an hundred feet in width, three thousand in depth, and completely lined from base to summit by the most luxuriant vegetation. It is watered by a narrow but deep brook, which is so full of trout, that some seven hundred were captured by myself and two others in a single day. When I tell you that this spot is only one hundred miles from New York, you will be surprised to hear that in its immediate vicinity we saw no less than two bears, a doe with two fawns, and a host of other less important game. In some parts of it the sunshine never enters, and cart loads of the purest ice may be found there throughout the year. It is the loneliest and most awful corner of the world that I have ever seen,—none other I fancy could make a man feel more utterly desolate. It is a type of the valley of the shadow of death; in single file did we have to pass through it, and in single file must we pass into the grave. To spend one day there, we had to encamp two nights, and how we generally manage that affair I will tell you presently. In returning from Stony Clove, we took a circuitous route and visited the Mountain House. We approached it by the way of the celebrated Catskill Fall, which I will describe to you in the graphic language of Cooper, as you may not remember the passage in his Pioneer. “Why there’s a fall in the hills, where the water of two little ponds, that lie near each other, breaks out of their bounds, and runs over the rocks into the valley. The stream is, may be, such a one as would turn a mill, if so useless a thing was wanted in the wilderness. But the Hand that made that ‘Leap’ never made a mill! There the water comes croaking and winding among the rocks, first so slow that a trout might swim in it, and then starting and running, just like any creature that wanted to make a fair spring, till it gets to where the mountain divides, like the cleft foot of a deer, leaving a deep hollow for the brook to tumble into. The first pitch is nigh two hundred feet, and the water looks like flakes of snow afore it touches the bottom, and then gathers itself together again for a new start, and, may be, flutters over fifty feet of flat rock, before it falls for another hundred, where it jumps from shelf to shelf, first turning this way and that way, striving to get out of the hollow, till it finally comes to the plain.”
Our party on this occasion consisted of three,—Peter Hummel, a bark-gatherer, and myself. I had chosen these fellows for the expedition, because of their friendship for me and their willingness to go, and I now resolved to give them a treat at the “Grand Hotel,” which the wild fellows in their ignorance had ever looked upon as a kind of paradise. You are aware, I suppose, that the Mountain House is an establishment vieing in its style of accommodations with the best hotels of the city. Between it and the Hudson there is, during the summer, an hourly line of stages, and it is the transient resort of thousands, who go there for the novelty of the scenery. The edifice itself stands on a cliff, within a few feet of the edge, and commands a most magnificent prospect, extending from Long Island Sound to the Green and White mountains. The first time I was there, I spent half the night at my bedroom window, watching the fantastic performances of a thunder-storm far below me, which made the building tremble like a leaf, and reminded me of Milton’s description of hell; while the sky above was cloudless, and studded with stars. Between this spot and South Peak, “there’s the High Peak and the Round Top, which lay back, like a father and mother among their children, seeing they are far above all the other hills.”
But to proceed. Coarsely and comically dressed as we were, we made a very unique appearance as we paraded into the office of the hotel. I met a few acquaintances there, to whom I introduced my comrades, and in a short time each one of them was spinning a mountain legend to a crowd of astonished and delighted listeners. In due time I ushered them into the dining-room, where was enacted a scene which can be better imagined than described. A Chinese in Victoria’s drawing-room, would not be more completely out of his element, or be the cause of heartier laughter, than were these men among the soup, ice-creams, and silver forks of the “Yankee Palace,” as the house has been christened by the Dutch under the mountains.
About the middle of the afternoon we commenced descending the beautiful mountain road, and a jolly time we had of it, I assure you. A little while before there had been a heavy shower, and a thousand happy rills attended us with a song. A delightful nook on this road is pointed out as the identical spot where Rip Van Winkle slept away a score of his life. I reached home in time to spend the twilight hour in my room, musing upon the solemn and much loved mountains. I had but one companion, and that was a sweet whip-poor-will, which nightly comes to my window sill, to tell me a tale of its love or of the woods and solitary wilderness.
But the most unique and interesting of my fishing adventures, remains to be described. I have heard a great deal about a certain lake among the mountains, (the same alluded to above,) and I desired to visit it, and spend a night upon its shore. Having again spoken to Peter Hummel, and invited a neighbor to accompany us, whom they call White Yankee, the noon-tide hour of last Thursday found us on our winding way. And such a grotesque appearance as we made, would have caused you to laugh most heartily, I am sure. The group was mostly animated, when climbing the steep and rocky ravines which we were compelled to pass through. There was Peter, “long, lank, and lean,” and wild in his attire and countenance as an eagle of the wilderness, with an axe in his hand, and a huge knapsack on his back, containing our provisions and utensils for cooking. Next to him followed White Yankee, with three blankets lashed upon his back, a slouched white hat on his head, and a half pound of tobacco in his mouth. Crooked legged withal, and somewhat sickly was this individual, and being wholly unaccustomed to this kind of business, he went along groaning, grunting, and sweating, as if he was “sent for, and didn’t want to come.” In the rear trotted along your humble friend, with a gun upon his shoulder, a powder-horn and shot-pouch at his side, cowhide boots on his feet, and a cap on his head—his beard half an inch long, and his long hair streaming in the wind.
We reached our place of destination about five o’clock, and halted under a large impending rock, which was to be our sleeping place. We were emphatically under the “shadow of a rock, in a weary land.” Our first business was to build a fire, which we did with about one cord of green and dry wood. Eighty poles were then cut, to which we fastened our lines. The old canoe in the lake was bailed out, and, having baited our hooks with the small fish which we brought with us, we arranged the poles around the lake, in about seven feet water. We then prepared and ate our supper, and awaited the coming on of night. During this interval, I learned from Peter the following particulars concerning the lake. It was originally discovered by a hunter named Shew, after whom it has always been called. It was estimated to cover about fifty acres, and, in some places, to be more than two hundred feet in depth. For my part, however, I should have said that it did not contain five acres, but the mountains, which lower above it on every side, are calculated to deceive the eye; but, as to its depth, I could fancy it to be bottomless, for the water is apparently as black as ink. To the number of trout in it there seems to be no end. It is supposed they reach it, when small, through the brook already mentioned, when they increase in size, and multiply. Peter says he caught one there once which weighed a little over five pounds, and a speckled, common trout, too. It also abounds in green and scarlet lizards, which would be a serious drawback to the pleasures of the fastidious. I asked Peter many questions concerning his adventures about this lake, and he told me that the number of “harmless murders” which he had committed here were two or three hundred. In one day, he shot three deer; at another time, a dozen turkeys; at another, twenty ducks; one night, an old bear; and again, half a dozen coons; and, on one occasion, annihilated a den of thirty-seven rattlesnakes. This will give you some idea of the stories which I hear from this man; but you cannot conceive the peculiar enjoyment they afford me: it is because they are associated with my “boyhood’s home,”—my wilderness home, in my much-loved Michigan.
At nine o’clock, we lighted a torch and went to examine our lines; and it was my peculiarly good fortune to haul out not less than forty-one trout, weighing from one to two pounds a-piece. Now, if this wasn’t sport, I should like to know what is? These we put into a spring of the coldest water I ever tasted, and then “laid down in our loneliness,” as Coleridge would have said on the occasion. Branches of hemlock constituted our couch, and my station was between Peter and White Yankee. Little did I dream, when I first saw these two bipeds, that I should ever have them for my bedfellows. But who, alas! can always have the bedfellow he desires? Think you that we could not sleep soundly in that lap of the forest, between the sheltering rock and the roaring fire? Yea, my friends were in the land of Nod in less than a dozen minutes; but it was hard for me to go to sleep, tired as I was, in the midst of such a scene. There I lay, flat upon my back, a stone and my cap for a pillow, wrapt up in my blanket, with nothing but my nose and eyes exposed to the chilly night air. Oh! what pictures did my fancy conjure up, as I looked upon the army of trunks around me, glistening in the fire-light. One moment they were a troop of Indians from the spirit-land, come to revisit again the hunting-grounds of their fathers, and weeping that the white man had desecrated their soil; and again, I fancied them to be a congress of wild animals, assembled together to try, execute, and devour us, for the depredations our fellows had committed upon their kind for the last one hundred years. By and by, a star peered upon me from between the branches of a tree, and my thoughts ascended heavenward. And now, my eyes twinkled and blinked in sympathy with the star, and I was a dreamer.
An hour after the witching time of night, I was startled from my sleep by a bellowing halloo from Peter, who said it was time to examine the lines again. Had you heard the echoes which were then awakened, far and near, you would have thought yourself in enchanted land. But there were living answers to that shout, for a frightened fox began to bark; an owl commenced its horrible hootings; a partridge its drumming; and a wolf its howl. There was not a breeze stirring, and
“Nought was seen, in the vault on high,
But the moon, and the stars, and a cloudless sky,
And a river of white in the welkin blue.”
Peter and Yankee went out to haul in the trout, but I remained on shore, to attempt a drawing, by moonlight, of the lake before me. The opposite side of the mountain, with its dark tangled forest, was perfectly mirrored in the waters below, the whole seeming as solid and variegated as a tablet of Egyptian marble. The canoe with its inmates noiselessly pursued its way, making the stillness more profound. In the water at my feet I distinctly saw lizards sporting about, and I could not but wonder why such creatures were created. I thought, with the Ancient Mariner,
“A thousand slimy things lived on,
And so did I.”
Again we retired to rest, and slept till day-break. We visited our hooks once more, and took them up, and found that we had one hundred and two trout, averaging more than a pound a-piece. We then partook of a substantial breakfast of this delicious fish, which were cooked by me as well as anybody could do it, and, having gathered up our plunder, started for home.
The accidents we met with during the night were harmless, though they might have proved serious. A paper of Locofoco matches, which Peter carried in his breeches pocket, took fire, and gave him such a scorching that he bellowed lustily. White Yankee, in his restless slumber, rolled so near our watch-fire, that he barely escaped with one corner of his blanket, the remainder having been consumed. As for me, I only got pitched into the water up to my middle, while endeavoring to reach the end of a log which extended into the lake. In descending the mountain, I shot three partridges, and confoundedly frightened a fox, and by noon was in my snug studio, commencing a picture from one of my last sketches.
But lo! my candle is flickering in the socket, and I must say, Good night!
May is near its close, and I am still at work in the valley of the Hudson. Spring is indeed come again, and this, for the present year, has been its day of triumph. The moment I awoke, at dawn, this morning, I knew by intuition that it would be so, and I bounded from my couch like a startled deer, impatient for the cool delicious air. Spring is upon the earth once more, and a new life is given me of enjoyment and hope. The year is in its childhood, and my heart clings to it with a sympathy, that I feel must be immortal and divine. What I have done to-day, I cannot tell: I only know that my body has been tremulous with feeling, and my eyes almost blinded with seeing. Every hour has been fraught with a new emotion of delight, and presented to my vision numberless pictures of surpassing beauty. I have held communion with the sky, the mountains, the streams, the woods, and the fields: and these, if you please, shall be themes of my present letter.
The sky! It has been of as deep an azure, and as serene, as ever canopied the world. It seemed as if you could look through it, into the illimitable home of the angels—could almost behold the glory which surrounds the Invisible. Three clouds alone have attracted my attention. One was the offspring of the dawn, and encircled by a rim of gold; the next was the daughter of noon, and white as a pearl; and the last, of evening, and robed in deepest crimson. Wayward and coquettish creatures were these clouds! Their chief ambition seemed to be to display their charms to the best advantage, as if conscious of their loveliness; and, at sunset, when the light lay pillowed on the mountains, it was a joyous sight to see them, side by side, like three sweet sisters, as they were, going home. Each one was anxious to favor the world with its own last smile, so that, by their changing places so often, you would have thought they were all unwilling to depart. But they were the ministers of the Sun, and he would not tarry for them; and, while he beckoned them to follow on, the Evening Star took his station in the sky, and bade them depart: and when I looked again, they were gone. Never more, thought I, will those clouds be a source of joy to a human heart. And in this respect, also, they seemed to me to be the emblems of those beautiful but thoughtless maidens, who spend the flower of youth trifling with the affections of all whom they have the power to fascinate.
The mountains! In honor of the season which has just clothed them in the richest green, they have displayed every one of their varied and interesting charms. At noon, as I lay under the shadow of a tree, watching them “with a look made of all sweet accord,” my face was freshened by a breeze. It seemed to come from the summit of South Peak, and to be the voice of the Catskills. I listened, and these were the words which echoed through my ear.
“Of all the seasons, oh, Spring! thou art the most beloved, and to us, always the most welcome. Joy and gladness ever attend thy coming, for we know that the ‘winter is past, the rains are over and gone, the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.’ And we know, too, that from thy hands flow unnumbered blessings. Thou