The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 08, No. 45, July, 1861: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and PoliticsVarious
General
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 08, No. 45, July, 1861: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
But the reader must remember that this trip gives him only a glimpse of
a few scenes selected out of our gallery of a thousand. To visit them
all, as tourists visit the realities, and report what we saw, with the
usual explanations and historical illustrations, would make a formidable
book of travels.
Before we set out, we must know something of the sights of our own
country. At least we must see Niagara. The great fall shows infinitely
best on glass. Thomson's "Point View, 28," would be a perfect picture of
the Falls in summer, if a lady in the foreground had not moved her shawl
while the pictures were taking, or in the interval between taking the
two. His winter view, "Terrapin Tower, 37," is perfection itself. Both
he and Evans have taken fine views of the rapids, _instantaneous_,
catching the spray as it leaped and the clouds overhead. Of Blondin on
his rope there are numerous views; standing on one foot, on his head,
carrying a man on his back, and one frightful picture, where he hangs by
one leg, head downward, over the abyss. The best we have seen is Evans's
No. 5, a front view, where every muscle stands out in perfect relief,
and the symmetry of the most unimpressible of mortals is finely shown.
It literally makes the head swim to fix the eyes on some of these
pictures. It is a relief to get away from such fearful sights and look
up at the Old Man of the Mountain. There stands the face, without any
humanizing help from the hand of an artist. Mr. Bierstadt has given it
to us very well. Rather an imbecile old gentleman, one would say,
with his mouth open; a face such as one may see hanging about
railway-stations, and, what is curious, a New-England style of
countenance. Let us flit again, and just take a look at the level sheets
of water and broken falls of Trenton,--at the oblong, almost squared
arch of the Natural Bridge,--at the ruins of the Pemberton Mills, still
smoking,--and so come to Mr. Barnum's "Historical Series." Clark's
Island, with the great rock by which the Pilgrims "rested, according to
the commandment," on the first Sunday, or Sabbath, as they loved to call
it, which they passed in the harbor of Plymouth, is the most interesting
of them all to us. But here are many scenes of historical interest
connected with the great names and events of our past. The Washington
Elm, at Cambridge, (through the branches of which we saw the first
sunset we ever looked upon, from this planet, at least,) is here in all
its magnificent drapery of hanging foliage. Mr. Soule has given another
beautiful view of it, when stripped of its leaves, equally remarkable
for the delicacy of its pendent, hair-like spray.
We should keep the reader half an hour looking through this series,
if we did not tear ourselves abruptly away from it. We are bound for
Europe, and are to leave _via_ New York immediately.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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