[From Marcus Warland (1852)]
Marcus sat beside the Long Moss Spring, the morning sun-beams glancing through the broad leaves of the magnolia and the brilliant foliage of the holly, and playing on his golden hair. He held in his hand a fishing-rod, whose long line floated on the water; and though his eye was fixed on the buoyant cork, there was no hope or excitement in its gaze. His face was pale and wore a severe expression, very different from the usual joyousness and thoughtlessness of childhood. Even when the silvery trout and shining perch, lured by the bait, hung quivering on the hook, and were thrown, fluttering like wounded birds through the air, to fall panting, then pulseless, at his side, he showed no consciousness of success, no elation at the number of his scaly victims. Tears, even, large and slowly gathering tears, rolled gradually and reluctantly down his fair oval cheeks; they were not like the sudden, drenching shower, that leaves the air purer and the sky bluer, but the drops that issue from the wounded bark formed of the life-blood of the tree.
Beautiful was the spot where the boy sat, and beautiful the vernal morning that awakened Nature to the joy and the beauty of youth. The fountain, over whose basin he was leaning, was one of those clear, deep, pellucid springs, that gush up in the green wilds of southern Georgia, forming a feature of such exquisite loveliness in the landscape, that the traveler pauses on the margin, feeling as if he had found one of those enchanted springs of which we read in fairy land, whose waters are too bright, too pure, too serene for earth.
The stone which formed the basin of the fountain was smooth and calcareous, hollowed out by the friction of the waters, and gleaming white and cold through their diaphanous drapery. In the centre of this basin, where the spring gushed in all its depth and strength, it was so dark it looked like an opaque body, impervious to the eye, whence it flowed over the edge of its rocky receptacle in a full, rejoicing current, sweeping over its mossy bed, and bearing its sounding tribute to the Chattahoochee, "rolling rapidly." The mossy bed to which we have alluded was not the verdant velvet that covers with a short, curling nap the ancient rock and the gray old tree, but long, slender, emerald-green plumes, waving under the water, and assuming through its mirror a tinge of deep and irradiant blue. Nothing can be imagined more rich and graceful than this carpet for the fountain's silvery tread, and which seems to bend beneath it, as the light spray rustling in the breeze. The golden water-lily gleamed up through the crystal, and floated along the margin on its long and undulating stems.
[JOHN P. DURBIN]
John Price Durbin, Seventh President of Dickinson College, was born near Paris, Kentucky, October 10, 1800. He was apprenticed to a cabinet-maker in Paris, and the meager wages he received were invested in books. In 1819 Durbin became a Methodist circuit-rider. He afterwards studied at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, and was graduated from Cincinnati College in 1825. In the fall of that year he became professor of languages in Augusta College, Augusta, Kentucky, and he occupied the chair until 1831, when he was elected chaplain of the United States Senate. In the next year Dr. Durbin was elected professor of natural sciences in Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, He remained at Wesleyan but one year, when he was chosen editor of the New York Christian Advocate and Journal. In 1834 Editor Durbin became President Durbin of Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He is regarded as the greatest head the college has ever known. During vacations Dr. Durbin traveled extensively in Europe and the Orient, and these journeys are best preserved in his books. In the 1844 General Conference of the Methodist church he was in the thickest of the great fight over the slavery question; and in the following year he resigned as president of Dickinson, after more than ten years of distinguished success in the management of the ancient college. He now returned to the active pastorate, taking charge of the Union Methodist church in Philadelphia. From 1850 to 1872 Dr. Durbin was secretary of the Methodist Missionary Society, in the interest of which he visited Europe in 1867. He raised many millions of dollars for foreign missions while he was in charge of the society. He was the founder of foreign missions in Bulgaria. Dr. Durbin was an eloquent and persuasive preacher, an able administrator, and during the latter years of his life he wielded a wonderful influence in the Methodist church. He died at New York City, October 17, 1876. His works include Observations in Europe (New York, 1844, 2 vols.); Observations in Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and Asia Minor (New York, 1845, 2 vols.); and he edited the American edition of Wood's Mosaic History of the Creation (New York, 1831). Dr. Durbin was a rather prolific contributor to religious and secular periodicals. His Observations in Europe is the best literary work he did.
Bibliography. History of Kentucky, by R. H. Collins (Covington, Kentucky, 1882); Appletons' Cyclopaedia of American Biography (New York, 1888, v. ii).
IMPRESSIONS OF LONDON