The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. I., No. 13, September, 1835Various
History
The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. I., No. 13, September, 1835
Various
American literature -- 19th century -- Periodicals
Feeling so doubly lone, Tim would again seek a partner to sympathize
in his sorrows, and to whom could he go? to man--cold calculating man?
What is man worth in sorrow? Has he the tender sensibility, the warm
hearted sympathy that is ever alive in a female's bosom? If you tell
him your love sick tale, he will laugh you to scorn, he will frown you
down for a puling blockhead; but woman will listen to your griefs,
will alleviate your pain, assuage your sorrow, and if she but smiles,
Tim would exclaim,
"How she smiled, and I could not but love."
With feelings such as these, Tim _accidentally_ became acquainted with
"the lass with the auburn curls." These accidents occur sometimes, so
happily and apropos, that we are tempted to believe them not merely
the result of casualty; my own opinion is, that they are all devised,
planned and executed by that wily urchin cupid, to bring those
together, upon whom to sport his strange fantastic freaks.
One autumn's eve, when the sun was low, Catherine and her Cousin Tony
issued forth, to ramble along the winding banks of the James River
Canal. They were admiring the beauty of the scenery, and occasionally
turning to view the dazzling brilliancy of many of the windows in the
city, caused by the reflection of the setting sun, producing the
effect of an illumination shifting from house to house as they changed
their position.
They had progressed along the canal as far as the first water-fall,
the situation of which, many of my readers will no doubt remember; not
as it is at present, but as it existed a few years ago, before the
polishing hand of art had shorn it of half its beauties. There is an
arch turned there, spanning the ravine, over which the canal passes at
its usual level, and is thus raised, some thirty feet perhaps, above
the base of the ravine. Under this arch a pellucid rivulet gently
ripples, till reaching the brink of the acclivity below, it leaps and
bounds towards the river. Above the sides of this arch, the waste
water from the canal rushed headlong, mingling with the clear waters
of the rivulet, and dashing foamingly along, or eddying and bubbling
among a rugged bed of granite. On the east side of this fall, there
was once a rock, raised high above the rest, by the side of which a
little cedar grew, over and around whose boughs the wild grape and
sweet brier intertwined their branches until they hung a verdant
canopy above. This place, adorned as it was with its native drapery,
had obtained the name of "Cupid's Cavern,"--for here, many a loving
couple, after an evening's walk, would rest, feasting upon the
beauties of the surrounding scenery. And here, many a tale of love had
been told, which the roar of the water-fall deafened to all, but the
ears into which they had been whispered. On the rock just mentioned,
by the side of the cavern, Tony and Kate at length seated themselves,
and will you believe it, Tony was actually endeavoring to persuade his
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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