Part 45 (1/2)

Our numerous waterfalls and the enchanting beauty of our lakes afford many objects of the most picturesque character; while the inland seas, from Superior to Ontario, and that astounding cataract, whose roar would hardly be increased by the united murmurs of all the cascades of Europe, are calculated to inspire vast and sublime conceptions. The effects, too, of our climate, composed of a Siberian winter and an Italian summer, furnish new and peculiar objects for description. The circ.u.mstances of remote regions are here blended, and strikingly opposite appearances witnessed, in the same spot, at different seasons of the year. In our winters, we have the sun at the same alt.i.tude as in Italy, s.h.i.+ning on an unlimited surface of snow, which can only be found in the higher lat.i.tudes of Europe, where the sun, in the winter, rises little above the horizon. The dazzling brilliancy of a winter's day and a moonlight night, in an atmosphere astonis.h.i.+ngly clear and frosty, when the utmost splendor of the sky is reflected from a surface of spotless white, attended with the most excessive cold, is peculiar to the northern part of the United States. What, too, can surpa.s.s the celestial purity and transparency of the atmosphere in a fine autumnal day, when our vision and our thought seem carried to the third heaven; the gorgeous magnificence of the close, when the sun sinks from our view, surrounded with various ma.s.ses of clouds, fringed with gold and purple, and reflecting, in evanescent tints, all the hues of the rainbow.

LIBERTY HAS A CONTINENT OF HER OWN.

HORACE WALPOLE, fourth Earl of Oxford, a famous English literary gossip, amateur, and wit. Born in London, October, 1717; died, March, 1797.

Liberty has still a continent to exist in.

LOVE OF AMERICA.

DANIEL WEBSTER, the celebrated American statesman, jurist, and orator. Born at Salisbury, N. H., January 18, 1782; died at Marshfield, Ma.s.s., October 24, 1852.

I profess to feel a strong attachment to the liberty of the United States; to the const.i.tution and free inst.i.tutions of the United States; to the honor, and I may say the glory, of this great Government and great country.

I feel every injury inflicted upon this country almost as a personal injury. I blush for every fault which I think I see committed in its public councils as if they were faults or mistakes of my own.

I know that, at this moment, there is no object upon earth so attracting the gaze of the intelligent and civilized nations of the earth as this great Republic. All men look at us, all men examine our course, all good men are anxious for a favorable result to this great experiment of republican liberty. We are on a hill and can not be hid. We can not withdraw ourselves either from the commendation or the reproaches of the civilized world. They see us as that star of empire which, half a century ago, was predicted as making its way westward. I wish they may see it as a mild, placid, though brilliant orb, making its way athwart the whole heavens, to the enlightening and cheering of mankind; and not a meteor of fire and blood, terrifying the nations.

GENIUS OF THE WEST.

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER, the distinguished American poet. Born at Haverhill, Ma.s.s, December 17, 1807. From his poem, ”On receiving an eagle's quill from Lake Superior.” By permission of Messrs.

Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Publishers, Boston.

I hear the tread of pioneers, Of nations yet to be; The first low wash of waves, where soon Shall roll a human sea.

The rudiments of empire here Are plastic yet and warm; The chaos of a mighty world Is rounding into form.

Each rude and jostling fragment soon Its fitting place shall find-- The raw material of a state, Its muscle and its mind.

And, westering still, the star which leads The New World in its train Has tipped with fire the icy spears Of many a mountain chain.

The snowy cones of Oregon Are kindling on its way; And California's golden sands Gleam brighter in its ray.