The International Monthly, Volume 4, No. 4, November 1, 1851Various
History
The International Monthly, Volume 4, No. 4, November 1, 1851
Various
Art, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- History -- Periodicals
I have "laid" the tiniest ghost of my professional duties. I shook off city
dust twenty hours ago, and my lungs are rejoicing this August morning with
the glorious breezes that sweep from the summits of the "Trimountains" of
Waywayanda lake--that stretches its ten miles expanse before my freshened
vision.
Waywayanda lake?
A Quere. Shall I play geographer to those who are learned in the
nomenclature of snobbism? Who allow innkeepers and railroad guides to
assassinate Aboriginal terms in order that petty pride may exult in petty
fame? No! But if snobbism has a curiosity, I refer it to the first
landscape painter of its vicinage: or the nearest fisherman amateur: or the
Recorder of New-York: or sportsman Herbert and the pages of his "Warwick
Woodlands;" a list of references worthy of the spot.
And as I gaze and breathe I feel as if the waters before me had bubbled
from the fountains of rejuvenescence for which Ponce de Leon so
enthusiastically searched in the everglades of Florida; and as if, too, I
had just emerged from their embraces.
My pocket almanac says that I am living in the dogdays. Perhaps so. But
"Sirius" hath no power around these mountains and primeval solitudes. Were
the fiercest theological controversialist at my elbow, he would be as cool
as an Esquimaux.
I feel at peace with all things. My friend M. says the conscience lieth in
the stomach. Perhaps so; and perhaps I owe my quietude of spirit to the
influence of as comforting a breakfast as ever blessed the palate of a
scientific egg-breaker.
Shall I join forces with the laughing beauties who are handling maces in
the billiard room of the inn hard by? Shall I challenge my "Lady Gay
Spanker" of last night's acquaintance to a game of bowling? Shall I tempt
the unsophisticated pickerel of the lake under the shadow of yonder
frowning precipice, with glittering bait? Shall I clamber the mountain side
and feast my vision with an almost boundless view--rich expanses of farm
land stretching away for miles and miles, and edging themselves in the blue
haze of the horizon where the distant Catskill peaks rise solitary in their
sublimity?
It is very comfortable here. Is there always poetry in motion? How far
distant are the confines of dreamland: that magical kingdom where the tired
soul satiates itself in the intoxications of fancy?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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