Volume I Part 2 (2/2)
THE HUDSON.
”Oh, there is not lost One of earth's charms: upon her bosom yet, After the flight of untold centuries, The freshness of her far beginning lies, And yet shall lie.”
BRYANT.
I went three times up the Hudson; and, if I lived at New-York, should be tempted to ascend it three times a week during the summer. Yet the greater number of ladies on board the steamboat remained in the close cabin among the crying babies, even while we were pa.s.sing the finest scenery of the river. They do not share the taste of a gentleman who, when I was there, actually made the steamboat his place of abode during the entire summer season, sleeping on board at Albany and New-York on alternate nights, and gazing at the sh.o.r.es all the day long with apparently undiminis.h.i.+ng delight.
The first time we went up the early part of the morning was foggy, and the mist hung about the ridge of the Palisades, the rocky western barrier of the river. There were cottages perched here and there, and trees were sprinkled in the crevices, and a little yellow strand, just wide enough for the fisherman and his boat, now and then intervened between the waters and the perpendicular rock. In the shadowy recesses of the sh.o.r.e wore sloops moored. Seagulls dipped their wings in the gleams of the river, and the solitary fishhawk sailed slowly over the woods. I saw on the eastern bank a wide flight of steps cut in the turf, leading to an opening in the trees, at the end of which stood a white house, apparently in deep retirement. Farther on the river widened into the Tappan Sea, and then the hills rose higher behind the banks, and wandering gleams lighted up a mountain region here and there. The captain admitted us, as strangers (of course without any hint from us), into the wheel-room, which was shady, breezy, roomy, and commanding the entire view. Hence we were shown Mr. Irvings's cottage, the spot where Andre was captured, and the other interesting points of the scenery.
Then the banks seemed to close, and it was matter for conjecture where the outlet was. The waters were hemmed in by abrupt and dark mountains, but the channel was still broad and smooth enough for all the steamboats in the republic to ride in safety. Ridges of rock plunged into the waters, garnished with trees which seemed to grow without soil; above them were patches of cultivation on the mountain sides, and slopes of cleared land, with white houses upon them. Doves flitted among the nearest trees, and gay rowboats darted from point to point from one island to another.
West Point, beautiful as it is, was always visible too soon. Yet to leave the boat was the only way to remain in sight of the Highlands; and the charms of the place itself are scarcely to be surpa.s.sed. The hotel is always full of good company in the season. Mr. Cozens keeps a table for the officers, and is permitted to add as many guests as his house will hold; but, under such circ.u.mstances, he takes pains to admit only such as are fit company for his permanent boarders. The views from the hotel are so fine, and there is such a provision of comfort and entertainment, that there would be no hards.h.i.+p in sitting within doors for a week; but we made the best use we could of our opportunities, and saw and achieved everything pertaining to the place, except mounting the Crow's Nest; an expedition which the heat of the weather prevented our undertaking.
In some solitary spots of this settlement the stranger cannot help meditating on the vast materials of human happiness which are placed at the disposal of the real administrators of this great country. How great is the apparatus to be yet put to use! Here, where life is swarming all around, how few are the habitations of men! Here are woods climbing above woods to the clouds and stretching to the horizon, in which myriads of creatures are chirping, humming, and sporting; clefts whence the waters gush out; green slopes ready for the plough and the sickle; flat meadows with a few hayc.o.c.ks lying at the foot of mountains as yet untouched. Gra.s.shoppers spring at every step one takes in the rich gra.s.s, and many a blue dragon-fly balances itself on the tips of the strongest blades; b.u.t.terflies, green, black, white, and yellow, dazzle the eye that would follow them; yet how few men are near! A gay group on the steps of the hotel, a company of cadets parading on the green, the ferryman and his fare, and the owners of this, and that, and the other house perched upon the pinnacles of the hills; these are all as yet visible in a region which will hereafter be filled with speech and busy with thought.
On the steep above the landing-place I was introduced to Mr. Irving, with whom I had a few minutes' conversation before he stepped into the ferryboat which was to take him over to the foundry to dinner. Many other persons with whom I was glad to have the opportunity of becoming acquainted were at the hotel. Mr. and Mrs. Morris were our guides to Fort Putnam after dinner; walkers as active and resolute as ourselves.
The beauty from this elevated platform is really oppressive to the sense. One is glad to divert one's attention from its awful radiance by walking in precipitous places, by visiting the cell in which it is said, but doubtfully, that Andre was confined, or even by meditating on the lot of the solitary cow that has the honour of grazing in the midst of the only ruins that adorn American scenery.
A lady in the hotel offered to meet me on the housetop at five o'clock in the morning to see the sun rise. I looked out at three; there was a solitary light twinkling in the academy, and a faint gleam out of a cloudy sky upon the river. At five the sky was so thickly overspread with clouds that the expedition to the housetop had to be abandoned. The morning afterward cleared, and I went alone down to Kosciusko's Garden.
I loved this retreat at an hour when I was likely to have it to myself.
It is a nook scooped, as it were, out of the rocky bank of the river, and reached by descending several flights of steps from the platform behind the hotel and academy. Besides the piled rocks and the vegetation with which they are clothed, there is nothing but a clear spring, which wells up in a stone basin inscribed with the hero's name. This was his favourite retreat; and here he sat for many hours in a day with his book and his thoughts. After fancying for some time that I was alone, and playing with the fountain and the leaves of the red beech and the maple, now turning into its autumnal scarlet, I found, on looking up, that one of the cadets was stretched at length on a high projection of rock, and that another was coming down the steps. The latter accosted me, offering to point out to me the objects of interest about the place. We had a long conversation about his academical life.
The students apply themselves to mathematics during the first and second years; during the third, to mathematics, chymistry, and natural philosophy; and during the fourth, to engineering. There is less literary pursuit than they or their friends would like; but they have not time for everything. Their work is from seven in the morning till four in the afternoon, with the exception of two hours for meals. Then come drill and recreation, and then the evening parade. During six weeks (I think) of the summer they camp out, which some of the youths enjoy, while others like it so much less than living under a roof, that they take this time to be absent on furlough. The friends of others come to see them while the pretty spectacle of a camp is added to the attractions of the place. Every care is used that the proficiency should be maintained at the highest point that it can be made to reach. The cla.s.ses consist of not less than one hundred and forty, of whom only forty graduate. Some find the work too hard; some dislike the routine; others are postponed; and by this careful weeding out the choicest are kept for the public service. This process may go some way towards accounting for the present unpopularity of the inst.i.tution, and the consequent danger of its downfall. The number of disappointed youths, whose connexions will naturally bear a grudge against the establishment, must be great. There is a belief abroad that its principle and administration are both anti-republican; and in answer to an irresistible popular demand, a committee of Congress has been engaged in investigating both the philosophy and practice of this national military academy; for some time previous to which there was difficulty in obtaining the annual appropriation for its support. I have not seen the report of this committee, but I was told that the evidence on which it is founded is very unfavourable to the conduct of the establishment in a political point of view. The advantages of such an inst.i.tution in securing a uniformity of military conduct in case of war, from the young soldiers of all the states having received a common education; in affording one meeting point where sectional prejudice may be dissolved; and in concentrating the attention of the whole union upon maintaining a high degree of proficiency in science, are so great, that it is no wonder that an indignant and honest cry is raised against those who would abolish it on account of its aristocratical tendencies. I rather think it is a case in which both parties are more than commonly right; that it is an inst.i.tution which can scarcely be dispensed with, but which requires to be watched with the closest jealousy, that there may be no abuse of patronage, and no such combination as could lead to the foundation of a military aristocracy.
I saw the well-selected library, consisting of several thousand volumes, the s.p.a.cious lecture-rooms, and students' apartments. I often wonder whether students are at all aware of the wistful longing, the envy, with which those who are precluded from academical life view the arrangements of colleges. No library in a private house conveys any idea of the power of devotion to study which is suggested by the sight of a student's apartment in a college. The sight of the snug solitary room, the bookshelves, the single desk and armchair, the larum, and even the flowerpot or two in the window, and the portrait of some favourite philosophical worthy; these things send a thrill of envy through the heart of the thoughtful politician, or man of business, or woman, who cannot command such facilities for study. I know that the fallacy of attributing too much to external arrangements enters here; that many study to as much advantage under difficulties as any academical member in his retirement; I know, too, that the student shares the human weakness of finding evil in his lot, and supposing that he should be better in some other circ.u.mstances; I know this by a revelation once made to me by a college student, for whose facilities I had been intensely thankful, a revelation of his deep and incessant trouble because he was living to himself, selfishly studying, and obliged to wait four or five years before he could bestir himself for his race; yet, in spite of all this knowledge that the common equality of pleasures and pains subsists here, I never see the interior of a college without longing to impress upon its inmates how envied and enviable they are. It is difficult to remember that the stillness of the cell is of no avail without the intentness of the mind, and that there is no efficacious solitude in the deepest retirement if the spirit is roving abroad after schemes of pleasure or ambition, or even of piety and benevolence, which are not the appointed duty of the time. But I have wandered from my new acquaintance in Kosciusko's Garden.
I was surprised to learn the extraordinary high average of health the place can boast of. The young men enter at the age of from fourteen to twenty, stay three or four years, and number about three hundred at a time. The mortality in the seventeen years preceding my visit was only five. For eight years before the winter of 1834 there had been no death.
Within a few months after, the superintendent's wife, a servant, and a cadet died; and this was, of course, considered an extraordinary mortality. I rather wondered at this account, for the young men look anything but robust, and the use of tobacco among them is very free indeed. It is prohibited, but not the less indulged in on that account, nor from the absence of evil example in their superintendents. My new acquaintance made very frank confessions on this subject. He told me that he believed the free use of tobacco had extensively and irreparably injured his health, and that he bitterly mourned his first indulgence in it.
”Do not you mean to leave it off?” said I.
”No.”
”Do you think you could not?”
”I could; but it would take three weeks to cure myself; and during that time I could do nothing; and I cannot afford that. I could not learn my lessons without it, and the loss of three weeks would injure all my prospects in life.”
”Hardly so fatally as the ruin of your health, I should think. Is your case a common one here?”
”Too common. But I a.s.sure you I do all I can to prevent the bad consequences of my own example. I warn my juniors, as they come in, very seriously.”
”Do you find your warnings of much use?”
”I am afraid not much.”
”They have the usual fate of mere precept, I suppose?”
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