Part 3 (2/2)
”Oh, she's too pretty!” And too pretty she ith her foam-white and rainbow dress, and her downfalls, and fountainlike uprising A bewitching young person we found her all that summer afternoon
This sylph-like person had little in common with a monstrous lady whose adventures in the wilderness Phelps was fond of relating She was built so on the plan of the mountains, and her ambition to explore was equal to her size Phelps and the other guides once succeeded in raising her to the top of Marcy; but the feat of getting a hogshead of ive us an idea of her ht, as we sat in the forest camp, Phelps hesitated a moment, while he cast his eye around the woods: ”Waal, there ain't no tree!”
It is only by recalling fragmentary remarks and incidents that I can put the reader in possession of the peculiarities of s out of their natural order and continuity, and introducing them abruptly, an abruptness illustrated by the remark of ”Old Man Hoskins” (which Phelps liked to quote), when one day he suddenly slipped down a bank into a thicket, and seated himself in a wasps' nest: ”I hain't no business here; but here I be!”
The first time ent into camp on the Upper Au Sable Pond, which has been justly celebrated as the ion, ere disposed to build our shanty on the south side, so that we could have in full view the Gothics and that loveliest of mountain contours To our surprise, Old Phelps, whose sentimental weakness for these round was on the north side,--a pretty site in itself, but with no special view
In order to enjoy the lovely ed to row out into the lake: anted them always before our eyes,--at sunrise and sunset, and in the blaze of noon With deliberate speech, as if weighing our argu of them, he replied, ”Waal, now, the down!”
It was on quiet Sundays in the woods, or in talks by the camp-fire, that Phelps caht of his observations Unfortunate eneral, were, on one occasion, the subject of discussion; and a good deal of darkness had been cast on it by various speakers; when Phelps suddenly piped up, fro where he had sat silent, almost invisible, in the shadow and smoke, ”Waal, nohen you've said all there is to be said, e is mostly for discipline”
Discipline, certainly, the old man had, in one way or another; and years of solitary coiven hiht into spiritual concerns Whether he had formulated any creed or what faith he had, I never knew Keene Valley had a reputation of not ripening Christians anyshort; and on our first visit it was said to contain but one Bible Christian, though I think an accurate census disclosed three Old Phelps, who so situations, was not included in this census; but he was the disciple of supernaturalis his inhts to a lady, one Sunday, after a noble sermon of Robertson's had been read in the cathedral stillness of the forest His experience was entirely first-hand, and related with unconsciousness that it was not co of the mystic or the sentimentalist, only a vivid realism, in that nearness of God of which he spoke,--”as near some-times as those trees,”--and of the holy voice, that, in a tile, had see, ”Poor soul, I am the way”
In later years there was a ”revival” in Keene Valley, the result of which was a nuard as a veteran ht raw recruits, and to have his doubts what sort of soldiers they would make
”Waal, Jiood fire with light wood That's e do of a dark night in the woods, you know but we do it just so as we can look around and find the solid wood: so now put on your solid wood”
In the Sunday Bible classes of the period Phelps was a perpetual anxiety to the others, who followed closely the printed lessons, and beheld with alarht His re part of the exercises, but were outside of the safe path into which the others thought it necessary to win him from his ”speckerlations” The class were one day on the verses concerning ”God's word” being ”written on the heart,” and were keeping close to the shore, under the guidance of ”Barnes's Notes,” when Old Phelps ht a good deal about the expression, 'God's ritten on the heart,'
and had been asking himself how that was to be done; and suddenly it occurred to hi the work of a photographer) that, when a photograph is going to be taken, all that has to be done is to put the object in position, and the sun ot to do was to put our hearts in place, and God would do the writin'”
Phelps's theology, like his science, is first-hand In the woods, one day, talk ran on the Trinity as being nowhere asserted as a doctrine in the Bible, and soreat and fluent mysteries into one word must always be more or less unsatisfactory ”Ye-es,” droned Phelps: ”I never could see much speckerlation in that expression the Trinity Why, they'd a good deal better say Legion”
The sentiment of the man about nature, or his poetic sensibility, was frequently not to be distinguished froed with the devoutness of Wordsworth's verse Cli slowly one day up the Balcony,--he was ile flower in the crevice of a rock, in a very lonely spot
”It seems as if,” he said, or rather drea just to look at himself”
To a lady whom he had taken to Chapel Pond (a retired but rather uninteresting spot), and who expressed a little disappoint, of this ”Why, Mr Phelps, the principal charm of this place seeentle and lingering tones, and its nativeness ”It lies here just where it was born”
Rest and quiet had infinite attractions for hi in the woods was a ”cal in, a circular rainbow He stood on Indian Head, overlooking the Lower Lake, so that he saw the whole bow in the sky and the lake, and seemed to be in the midst of it; ”only at one place there was an indentation in it, where it rested on the lake, just enough to keep it froive hi in October, so a short pipe
He gave no sign of recognition except a twinkle of the eye, being evidently quite in harmony with the peaceful day They stood there a full minute before he opened his mouth: then he did not rise, but slowly took his pipe fro towards the brook,--
”Do you see that tree?” indicating a ar that tree all theThere hain't been a breath of wind: but for hours the leaves have been falling, falling, just as you see them now; and at last it's pretty much bare” And after a pause, pensively: ”Waal, I suppose its hour had come”
This contemplative habit of Old Phelps is wholly unappreciated by his neighbors; but it has been indulged in no inconsiderable part of his life Rising after a tiolden city I've talked so much about” He led the way to a hill-outlook, when suddenly, e fro valley and its streaolden city” Far below, at their feet, they saw that vast asseold in the brooding noonday, and slender spires rising out of the glowingtime in silent content: it was to him, as Bunyan says, ”a place desirous to be in”
Is this philosopher contented hat life has brought hi of money one day, e had asked him if he should do differently if he had his life to live over again, he said, ”Yes, but not about money
To have had hours such as I have had in these mountains, and with such men as Dr Bushnell and Dr Shaw and Mr Twichell, and others I could naive” He read character very well, and took in accurately the boy nature ”Tom” (an irrepressible, rather overdone speciainst a snubbin'-post one of these days”--”Boys!” he once said: ”you can't git boys to take any kinder notice of scenery I never yet saw a boy that would look a second tiirl will sooes like the sunset As forof scenery, ”these mountains about here, that I see every day, are no more to me, in one sense, than a man's farm is to him What mostly interests me nohen I see some new freak or shape in the face of Nature”
In literature it may be said that Old Phelps prefers the best in the very lie that has been open to hi poets an affinity explained by the fact that they are both lotos-eaters Speaking of a lecture-room talk of Mr Beecher's which he had read, he said, ”It filled ood deal of truth in it, and soot to have the spice, you know” He admired, for different reasons, a lecture by Greeley that he once heard, into which so e of various kinds was crowded that he said he ”obble of it” He was not without discri when nothing better offered
Of one seran way back at the creation, and just preached right along down; and he didn't say nothing, after all It just seeit up a kind of a fix-up”
Old Phelps used words so one do duty for a season together for all occasions
”Speckerlation” and ”callerlation” and ”fix-up” are specimens of words that were prolific in expression An unusual expression, or an unusual article, would be charactcrized as a ”kind of a scientific literary git-up”
”What is the program for to up the callerlation they callerlate on, we'll go to the Boreas” Starting out for a day's tra'lar walk, or a randoe into the pathless forest When he was on such an expedition, and becaled in dense brush, and maybe a network of ”slash” and swamp, he was like an old wizard, as he looked here and there, seeking a way, peering into the tangle, or withdrawing fro to himself, ”There ain't no speckerlation there”
And when the way beca'lar randomarole” As some one remarked, ”The dictionary in his hands is like clay in the hands of the potter” ”A petrifaction was a kind of a hard-wood cheit-up”