Look! the drapery of my couch is flooded with moonlight,—affording my bodily and mortal vision a most exquisite pleasure. And why? Because I feel that I am not utterly unloved. Surely, the blessed Queen of Night would not thus make my heart glad, if I were doomed to be forever a brother to the desolate and unknown!
Dear, dear girl, a thousand blessings rest upon thee for that pressure of thy soft hand upon my throbbing temples! It has soothed my pain, and hushed the wild tumult of my heart. Come near, come near, thou heavenly messenger, and let me press thy lips with a holy kiss, and then I will lie down again and be at peace. There!—’twas but a vision, and again my agony returns. O, my brain is on fire—see! see! the moon is veiled in blood, all the stars are falling, the air is beginning to simmer, the earth is swelling, and yet,—I am calmly going to pillow my head on a soft brown clod in the silent city of forgetfulness, the same which men call a grave-yard. Where can the body find a more untroubled home?
Love! It is not this that weighs my spirit down. I never loved a woman, and wherefore should I repine? I loved, but it was an ideal creature, a being of the mind. Such, we know, are never false,—I am once more happy. A light from heaven is beaming upon my soul, and, thanks to the breaking day, my sleepless night is ended.
COLE’S IMAGINATIVE PAINTINGS.
According to my promise, and to commemorate my visit to his place of residence, I herewith send you my mite of information concerning the productions of that man whom we delight to honor, as unquestionably the most gifted landscape painter of the present age. In my own opinion, none superior to him have ever existed, when we consider, in connection with his felicity of artistic execution, the poetic genius which his productions display. Having for years been a student of his art, and a warm lover of his pictures, I will describe some of the imaginative works of this Poet-Painter. First, however, a few words about the man himself.
Thomas Cole was born in England, but brought to this country in childhood. As his parents, before his birth, had resided in the United States, it is with the fullest propriety that he is called an American painter. At any rate, his attachment to this country is so strong, that he has been heard to remark: “I would give my left arm, could I but identify myself with America, by saying that I was born here.” The incidents of his youth and manhood, as recorded in “Dunlap’s History of the Arts of Design,” are among the most interesting things of the kind, and it is with reluctance that I refrain from inserting them in this place. Let it suffice, however, to state, that the genius which was born with him, was fostered by intimate and long continued acquaintance with the scenery of the Western States, when as yet they were a comparative wilderness. While toiling for a reputation, he resided for a few years at a time in Philadelphia, Pittsburg, Chillicothe, Steubenville, and New York city; and, having visited Europe a number of times, established his reputation, and married a wife, he retired to the beautiful town of Catskill, on the Hudson, where he now resides, one of the most amiable of men, the best of husbands and fathers, and the most talented of living landscape painters.
The number of his imaginative paintings is about twenty, and his actual views somewhere between fifty and a hundred. Out of the former, I intend to select my especial favorites, of which I shall attempt to convey the best idea in my power for your benefit, namely, The Course of Empire, The Departure and Return, Dream of Arcadia, Past and Present, and The Voyage of Life. On these alone am I willing to base my previous assertion, that no landscape painter superior to Cole has ever lived. Of his other productions I shall say nothing, only giving the names of those which I have seen, by way of making you acquainted with the character of his subjects. They are as follows: The Architect’s Dream, Paradise, Scene from Manfred, Expulsion from Eden, Angels appearing to the Shepherds, Heroic Composition, Notch of the White Mountains, Italian Scenery, View of Florence, View in Rome, Schroon Mountain, Tornado in an American Forest, Mount Holyoke after a Storm, A Roman Aqueduct, Niagara, Mount Ætna, Lake George, New England Scenery, Distant View of the Catskill Mountains, and a number of smaller views among the mountains.