Leaves from the Diary of an Impressionist: Early Writings - Lafcadio Hearn

Rarely there comes a break in the solid leagues of forest-wall,—a deep space filled with celestial color, a golden green, the green of orange-groves,—making the wilder tints of nature turn spectral by contrast. These indeed are the veritable Gardens of Hesperides, and theirs the bright fruit of Greek legend,—those Apples of Gold the Demigod sought in mythic islands of the Western Sea,—that Hippomenes, hard-pressed in the race of love, cast before the flying feet of Atalanta. For the orange hath its mythology.

Little frogs, metallically bright as the lily-leaves on which they sit, chant in chorus; butterflies flutter on vermilion wing from bank to bank; sometimes the nose of an alligator furrows the river. The palmettos, heretofore rare, begin to multiply; they assemble in troops, in ranks, in legions. And other gracious forms appear,—true palms,—satin-skinned and wonderfully tall. They hold themselves aloof from the cypresses and the oaks; they don no draperies of moss—proudly majestic in the elegance of their naked beauty. They approach the flood, yet shrink from it with feminine timidity; if the treacherous soil yield beneath their feet, still, by some miracle of poise, they save themselves from fall. Then wonderful indeed is the suppleness of their curves; the neck of the ostrich, the body of the serpent, seem less lithely beautiful. Theirs is never the admirable but inflexible stature of the often to lose their strangling hold at last, and fall back in spiral coils.

Then also, to right and left, broad bands of translucent green begin to edge the river surface,—the nations of the water-lilies uprearing their perfumed heads,—some whiter than moon-light, some yellower than gold. All start and tremble at our passing, as though suddenly aroused from slumber; and I long watch them nodding in our wake, more and more drowsily, slowly settling down to dream again.

Little frogs, metallically bright as the lily-leaves on which they sit, chant in chorus; butterflies flutter on vermilion wing from bank to bank; sometimes the nose of an alligator furrows the river. The palmettos, heretofore rare, begin to multiply; they assemble in troops, in ranks, in legions. And other gracious forms appear,—true palms,—satin-skinned and wonderfully tall. They hold themselves aloof from the cypresses and the oaks; they don no draperies of moss—proudly majestic in the elegance of their naked beauty. They approach the flood, yet shrink from it with feminine timidity; if the treacherous soil yield beneath their feet, still, by some miracle of poise, they save themselves from fall. Then wonderful indeed is the suppleness of their curves; the neck of the ostrich, the body of the serpent, seem less lithely beautiful. Theirs is never the admirable but inflexible stature of the pine; the bodies of all are comely with indication; they balance as in a dance; they poise as in a ballet,—a fairy saraband of coryphineæ.

What wonder that the comeliness of the palm should have been by ancient faith deemed divine; that, among all trees of earth, this should have been chosen as the symbol of light, of victory, of riches, of generation! Sacred to the sun, and to the goddess NIKÉ (whose appellation was Dea Palmaris),—emblem of immortality for the Orphic poets,—blessed also by the Christ and by him selected even as the token of salvation,—ancient truly is the right of the palm to reverence as divinest of trees. Yet not less ancient its claim to pre-eminence of beauty. Arab and Greek and Hebrew poets discovered in its shapeliness the most puissant comparison for human grace; the soft name Thamar signifies a palm; the charm of woman has been likened to the pliant symmetry of the tree by the bard of the Odyssey, by the wild authors of the Moallakat, and by the singer of the Song of Songs.

Darkness comes without a moon; and the torch-fires of the Osceola are kindled to light our way through the wilderness. The night-journey becomes an astonishment, a revelation, an Apocalypse.

Under the factitious illumination the banks, the roots, the stems, the creepers, the burdened boughs, the waving mosses, turn white as dead silver against the background of black sky; it is a Doresque landscape, abnormally fantastic and wan. Close to shore the relief is weirdly sharp; beyond, the heights of swamp forest rise dim and gray into the night, like shapes of vapor. There are no greens visible under this unearthly radiance; all is frosty-white or phantom gray; we seem to voyage not through a living forest, but through a world of ghosts. Forms grotesque as fetishes loom up on all sides; the cypresses in their tatters throng whitely to the black the night, while the woods ever display new terrors, new extravaganzas of ghastliness. As a traveler belated, who sings loudly in the darkness to give himself courage, the Osceola opens her iron throat, and shouts with all her voice of steam. And the deep forest laughs in scorn, and hurls back the shout with a thousand mockeries of echo,—a thousand phantom thunders; and the bitter triple cry of anguish follows us still over the sable flood.

But the Fountain of Youth is not now far away; midnight is past; the trees lock arms overhead; and we glide through the Cypress Gates.

Lulled by the monotonous throbbing of the machinery,—the systole and diastole of the steamer's heart,—I sank to sleep and dreamed; but the spectra of the woods filled all my dreams. It seemed to me that I was floating,—lying as in a canoe, and all alone,—down some dark and noiseless current,—between forests endless and vast,—under an unearthly light. White mosses drooped to sweep my face; phantoms of cypress put forth long hands to seize. Again I saw the writhing and the nodding of the palms: they elongated their bodies like serpents; they undulated quiveringly, as cobras before the snake-charmer. And all the moss-hung shapes of fear took life, and moved like living things,—slowly and monstrously, as polyps move. Then the vision changed and magnified; the river broadened Amazonianly; the forests became colossal,—preternatural,—world-shadowing at last,—meeting even over the miles of waters; and the sabals towered to the stars. And still I drifted with the mighty stream, feeling less than an insect in those ever-growing enormities; and a thin Voice like a wind came weirdly questioning: 'Ha! thou dreamer of dreams!—hast ever dreamed aught like unto this?—This is the Architecture of God!'