The Western man, on the contrary,
looks upon life as a reality. He employs no imaginary genie to work miracles for him, but depends upon the strength of his muscle and the ingenuity of his brains for his support. Reason and intuition are the lights which he follows, and, guided by them, he grapples with life as with a real entity—a something that can be realized.
M.
NIGHT ON THE PLAINS OF THE NEW WORLD.
[From the French of Chateaubriand.]
One evening I was wandering in the forests at some distance from the Falls of Niagara. Soon I saw the day fade out around me, and I experienced, in all its solitude, the beautiful spectacle of a night on the plains of the New World. An hour after the setting of the sun, the moon showed herself above the trees. In the opposite horizon, a perfumed breeze, which conducted her from the east, seemed to preceed her as a fresh breath among the forests. Little by little the queen of night majestically mounted the heavens, now following peaceably her azure course, now reposing on a group of clouds which resembled the tops of high mountains crowned with snow. These clouds, furling and unfurling their sails, rolled around in transparent zones of white satin, dispersed themselves in light, foamy flakes, or formed themselves into gigantic banks of dazzling aspect, so agreeable to the eye that one
seemed to feel their softness and elasticity.
The scene upon the earth was not less charming. The blue and velvety light of the moon descended at intervals among the trees, and cast islands of light into the blackness of darkness. The river, which flowed at my feet, now lost itself in the shadow of the woods, now re-appeared all brilliant with the constellations of night which it reflected on its bosom. Upon the vast prairie on the opposite side of the river, the light of the moon slept immovably on the turf. Some birch-trees, dispersed here and there in the savannah, agitated by the breeze, formed isles of floating shadows upon an immovable sea of light. Near, all was silence and repose, except the falling of some leaves, the brusque passage of a sudden wind, or the rare and interrupted hooting of an owl; but at a distance was heard, at intervals, the solemn roaring of the cataract of Niagara, which, in the calm of the night, prolonged itself from plain to plain, and expired in traversing the solitary forests.
The grandeur, the wondrous melancholy of the picture, could not be expressed in human language; the most beautiful night in Europe cannot give an idea. In vain, in our cultivated countries, the imagination seeks to extend itself; it meets everywhere the habitation of man; but in those desert countries the soul delights to sink into