“When I recovered from my stupor, my guide was filling my mouth with kirschenwasser, and the stranger was standing at my feet. His face was still colorless; a face of ineffable pride. But as I rose wonderingly, he took off his hat and said in a sweet voice a few simple thanks for the service I had rendered him. In my terror, I had not noticed that, as the plaid-fringe began to give way, my guide had gotten his rope loose and had thrown it to the stranger.
“It was thus that he was saved; and it was thus that an acquaintance began between us, which soon ripened into an earnest friendship. They are scraps from his experience that you will find here.
“This is all the preface which I have to offer. If you like it—Well! If you like it not—Well! Peace be with you! and may your lives be as long and as tough as that of our ‘last relic of the Revolution’ who has died eleven times a month, ever since I was born, and continues to renew the phenomenon weekly, up to date. Hail, and farewell!”
A fair estimate may be formed of the quaint and peculiar blending of something nearly approaching to sublimity and pathos with queer characteristic drollery, which is one of our author’s peculiarities, from
“The Impressions of Hugh Pynnshurst.—Nature.
“He had very few impressions.
“The feeling of immensity so much talked about came not to him; the waves never looked like mountains, nor their intervals like abysses.
“One storm they had, but it impressed him nothing like a storm in one of the grand, old forests on the shore; the wind was too free to act as it pleased; the ship only creaked; the cordage merely whistled, and there were gay, noisy songs from the sailors, and loud, rough bellowings from the officers, which added nothing to the dignity of the scene.
“Not like the mystic stillness that falls upon the land, when the horizon begins to darken the first frown of the storm. When the birds are hushed in the forest, and the aspen leaf ceases to quiver, and the pall of the tempest spreads slowly over all.
“And then the shiver, as the first breath sweeps along the sky, and the low, far sound of the thunder gives warning of its approach; and the fierce excitement as the tempest comes sounding on, marshaling the armies of the clouds, increasing fast and loud the roars of their artillery; then the first shudder of the forest as the blast of the strong wind strikes it, and the mighty trees bow down, and rise again, and toss their huge arms, battling with the blast.