The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. I., No. 4, December, 1834Various
History
The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. I., No. 4, December, 1834
Various
American literature -- 19th century -- Periodicals
On the margin of this village, is a curious agricultural exhibition. It
is a large tract of flat land upon Connecticut river, of great
fertility and value (one hundred and fifty or two hundred dollars an
acre,) containing altogether several thousand acres. With one or two
trifling exceptions, it has no houses or dividing fences upon it,
though partitioned among perhaps two hundred proprietors. Hardly an
opulent, or _middling_ wealthy man in Northampton, but owns a lot of
five, ten, twenty, or fifty acres, in this teeming expanse. The lots
are all in crops, of one kind or other; and being mostly of regular
shapes (oblongs, or other four sided figures,) the various aspects they
present, accordingly as the crop happens to be deep green, light green,
or yellow--mown, or unmown--afford a singular and rich treat, to an eye
that can at once survey the whole. Most opportunely, Mount Holyoke (the
great lion of western Massachusetts, to scenery-hunters,) furnishes the
very stand, whence not only this lovely plain is seen, but the river,
its valley, and the adjacent country, for twenty or thirty miles
around. Nearly a thousand feet below you, and not quite a mile from the
foot of the mountain, the low ground, fantastically chequered into lots
so variously sized and colored--dwindling too, by the distance, into
miniatures of themselves--reminds you of a gay bed-quilt. A lady of our
party (we ascended the mountain this afternoon, and staid till after
sunset,) aptly compared it to a Yankee _comfort_; the elms and fruit
trees dotted over the surface, and shrunk and softened in the distance,
representing the tufts of wool which besprinkle that appropriately
named article of furniture. The whole landscape, seen from Mount
Holyoke, it would be presumptuous in me to try to describe. I have
said, twenty or thirty miles around: but in one direction, we see, in
clear weather, the East and West Rocks, near New Haven--about seventy
miles off. Fourteen villages are within view. The whole scene is
panoramic: it is as vivid and distinct as reality; but rich, soft and
mellow, as a picture. We descended; and as we recrossed the river by
twilight, the red gleams from the western sky, reflected in long lines
from the dimpling water, forced upon more than one mind that fine
passage in a late work of fiction, where the remark, that "no man can
judge of the happiness of another," is illustrated by the reflection of
moon-beams from a lake. But I am growing lack-a-daisical: and must
conclude.
I set off in the stage for Albany, at two o'clock in the morning. Good
night.
We copy the following production of Mrs. Sigourney from the "_American
Annuals of Education and Instruction_," a periodical published in
Boston. It is difficult to decide whether the prose or poetry of this
distinguished lady is entitled to preference. Her noble efforts in
behalf of her own sex deserve their gratitude and our admiration.
ON THE POLICY OF ELEVATING THE STANDARD OF FEMALE EDUCATION.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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