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A SHORT CAMPAIGN ON THE HUDSON.
The campaigner marched out of a lawyer's office in Nassau Street, New York.
"Shyster," said our old man, as he called me into his own den, or rather lair,—(for den, I take it, is the private residence of a beast of prey, and lair his place of business. I do not think that this definition is mine, but I forget to whom it belongs,)—"I suppose you would not dislike a trip into the country? Very well. These papers must be explained to General Van Bummel, and signed by him. He lives at Thunderkill, on the Hudson. Take the ten-o'clock train, and get back as soon as you can. Charge your expenses to the office."
"What luck!" thought I, as I dashed down-stairs into the street,—determined to obey his last injunction to the letter, whatever course I might think fit to adopt about the one preceding it. No one who has not been an attorney's clerk at three dollars a week, copying declarations and answers from nine A.M. to six P.M., in a dusty, inky, uncarpeted room, with windows unwashed since the last lease expired, can form a correct notion of the exhilaration of my mind when I took my seat in the railroad-car. The great Van Bnmmel himself never felt bigger nor better.
It was in that loveliest season of the year, the Indian summer,—a week or ten days of atmospheric perfection which the clerk of the weather allows us as a compensation for our biting winter and rheumatic spring. The veiled rays of the sun and the soft shadows produce the effect of a golden moonlight, and make even Nature's shabbiest corners attractive. To be out-of-doors with nothing to do, and nothing to think of but the mere pleasure of existence, is happiness enough at such times. But I was looking at a river panorama which is one of Nature's best efforts, I have heard; and on that morning it seemed to me impossible that the world could show anything grander.
It was very calm. The broad glittering surface of the river showed here and there a slight ripple, when some breath of air touched it for a moment; but wind there was none,—only a few idle breezes lounging about, waiting for orders to join old Boreas in his next autumnal effort to crack his cheeks. The bright-colored trees glowed on the mountain-sides like beds of living coals.
"How the deuse," thought I, as I stared at them, "can a discerning public be satisfied with Cole's pictures of 'American Scenery in the Fall of the Year'? You see on his canvas, to be sure, red, green, orange, and so on, the peculiar tints of the leaves; but Nature does more (and Cole does not): she blends the variegated hues into one bright mass of bewitching color by the magic of this soft, golden, hazy sunshine. I wish, too, that the great company of story-tellers would let scenery rest in peace. The charm of a landscape is entireness, unity; it strikes the eye at once and as a whole. Examination of the component parts is quite a different thing. Who ean build up a view in his mind by piling up details like bricks upon one another? Most people, I suspect, will find, as I do, that, no matter what author they may be reading, the same picture always presents itself. A vague outline of some view they have seen arises in the memory,—like the forest scene in a scantily furnished theatre, which comes on for every play. The naked woods, trees, rocks, lake, river, mountain, would have done the business just as well, and saved a deal of writing and of printing. The most successful artist in this line I know of is Michael Scott, whose tropical sketches in 'Tom Cringle's Log' are unequalled by any landscape-painter, past or present, who uses pen and ink instead of canvas and colors."
My trance was broken by the voice of the brakeman shouting, "Thunderkill," into the car, as the train drew up at a wooden station-house. Jumping out, I asked the way to General Van Bummel's. A man with a whip in his hand offered his services as guide and common carrier. I determined to experience a new sensation,—for once in my life to anathematize expenditure, and charge it to the office. So, climbing into a kind of leathern tent upon wheels, I was soon on my way to the leaguer of the General. A drive of a mile brought us to two stout stone gateposts, surmounted each by a cannon-ball, which marked Van Bummel's boundary. We turned into a lane shut in by trees. While busily taking an inventory of the General's landed possessions for future use, my attention was drawn off by loud shouts, the sound of the gallop of horses and the rattling of wheels. Imagining at once that the General's family-pair must be running away with his family-coach, I eagerly urged my driver to push on; but the cold-hearted wretch only laughed and said he "guessed there was nothing particular the matter." At last, we debouched (excuse the word; I have not yet got the military taste out of my mouth) upon a lawn, across which a pair of large bay horses, ridden postilion-fashion by one man, were dragging a brass six-pounder, upon which sat another in full uniform.
"What the Devil is that?" said I.