Then the Camden ferry. What exhilaration, change, people, business, by
day. What soothing, silent, wondrous hours, at night, crossing on the
boat, most all to myself--pacing the deck, alone, forward or aft. What
communion with the waters, the air, the exquisite _chiaroscuro_--the
sky and stars, that speak no word, nothing to the intellect, yet so
eloquent, so communicative to the soul. And the ferry men--little they
know how much they have been to me, day and night--how many spells of
listlessness, ennui, debility, they and their hardy ways have dispell'd.
And the pilots--captains Hand, Walton, and Giberson by day, and captain
Olive at night; Eugene Crosby, with his strong young arm so often
supporting, circling, convoying me over the gaps of the bridge, through
impediments, safely aboard. Indeed all my ferry friends--captain Frazee
the superintendent, Lindell, Hiskey, Fred Rauch, Price, Watson, and
a dozen more. And the ferry itself, with its queer scenes--sometimes
children suddenly born in the waiting-houses (an actual fact--and more
than once)--sometimes a masquerade party, going over at night, with a
band of music, dancing and whirling like mad on the broad deck, in their
fantastic dresses; sometimes the astronomer, Mr. Whitall, (who posts
me up in points about the stars by a living lesson there and then, and
answering every question)--sometimes a prolific family group, eight,
nine, ten, even twelve! (Yesterday, as I cross'd, a mother, father, and
eight children, waiting in the ferry-house, bound westward somewhere.)
I have mention'd the crows. I always watch them from the boats. They
play quite a part in the winter scenes on the river, by day. Their black
splatches are seen in relief against the snow and ice everywhere at that
season--sometimes flying and flapping--sometimes on little or larger
cakes, sailing up or down the stream. One day the river was mostly
clear--only a single long ridge of broken ice making a narrow stripe by
itself, running along down the current for over a mile, quite rapidly.
On this white stripe the crows were congregated, hundreds of them--a
funny procession--("half mourning" was the comment of some one.)
Then the reception room, for passengers waiting--life illustrated
thoroughly. Take a March picture I jotted there two or three weeks
since. Afternoon, about 3-1/2 o'clock, it begins to snow. There has been
a matinee performance at the theater--from 4-1/2 to 5 comes a stream
of homeward bound ladies. I never knew the spacious room to present a
gayer, more lively scene--handsome, well-drest Jersey women and girls,
scores of them, streaming in for nearly an hour--the bright eyes and
glowing faces, coming in from the air--a sprinkling of snow on bonnets
or dresses as they enter--the five or ten minutes' waiting--the chatting
and laughing--(women can have capital times among themselves, with
plenty of wit, lunches, jovial abandon)--Lizzie, the pleasant-manner'd
waiting-room woman--for sound, the bell-taps and steam-signals of the
departing boats with their rhythmic break and undertone--the
domestic pictures, mothers with bevies of daughters, (a charming
sight)--children, countrymen--the railroad men in their blue clothes
and caps--all the various characters of city and country represented
or suggested. Then outside some belated passenger frantically running,
jumping after the boat. Towards six o' clock the human stream
gradually thickening--now a pressure of vehicles, drays, piled railroad
crates--now a drove of cattle, making quite an excitement, the drovers
with heavy sticks, belaboring the steaming sides of the frighten'd
brutes. Inside the reception room, business bargains, flirting,
love-making, _eclaircissements_, proposals--pleasant, sober-faced Phil
coming in with his burden of afternoon papers--or Jo, or Charley (who
jump'd in the dock last week, and saved a stout lady from drowning,) to
replenish the stove, and clearing it with long crow-bar poker.
Besides all this "comedy human," the river affords nutriment of a
higher order. Here are some of my memoranda of the past winter, just as
pencill'd down on the spot.
_A January Night_.--Fine trips across the wide Delaware to-night. Tide
pretty high, and a strong ebb. River, a little after 8, full of ice,
mostly broken, but some large cakes making our strong-timber'd steamboat
hum and quiver as she strikes them. In the clear moonlight they spread,
strange, unearthly, silvery, faintly glistening, as far as I can see.
Bumping, trembling, sometimes hissing like a thousand snakes, the
tide-procession, as we wend with or through it, affording a grand
undertone, in keeping with the scene. Overhead, the splendor
indescribable; yet something haughty, almost supercilious, in the night.
Never did I realize more latent sentiment, almost _passion_, in those
silent interminable stars up there. One can understand, such a night,
why, from the days of the Pharaohs or Job, the dome of heaven, sprinkled
with planets, has supplied the subtlest, deepest criticism on human
pride, glory, ambition.
_Another Winter Night_.--I don't know anything more _filling_ than to be
on the wide firm deck of a powerful boat, a clear, cool, extra-moonlight
night, crushing proudly and resistlessly through this thick, marbly,
glistening ice. The whole river is now spread with it--some immense
cakes. There is such weirdness about the scene--partly the quality of
the light, with its tinge of blue, the lunar twilight--only the large
stars holding their own in the radiance of the moon. Temperature sharp,
comfortable for motion, dry, full of oxygen. But the sense of power--the
steady, scornful, imperious urge of our strong new engine, as she
ploughs her way through the big and little cakes.
_Another_.--For two hours I cross'd and recross'd, merely for
pleasure--for a still excitement. Both sky and river went through
several changes. The first for awhile held two vast fan-shaped echelons
of light clouds, through which the moon waded, now radiating, carrying
with her an aureole of tawny transparent brown, and now flooding the
whole vast with clear vapory light-green, through which, as through an
illuminated veil, she moved with measur'd womanly motion. Then, another
trip, the heavens would be absolutely clear, and Luna in all her
effulgence. The big Dipper in the north, with the double star in the
handle much plainer than common. Then the sheeny track of light in the
water, dancing and rippling. Such transformations; such pictures and
poems, inimitable.
_Another_.--I am studying the stars, under advantages, as I cross
tonight. (It is late in February, and again extra clear.) High toward
the west, the Pleiades, tremulous with delicate sparkle, in the soft
heavens,--Aldebaran, leading the V-shaped Hyades--and overhead Capella
and her kids. Most majestic of all, in full display in the high south,
Orion, vast-spread, roomy, chief historian of the stage, with his shiny
yellow rosette on his shoulder, and his three kings--and a little to
the east, Sirius, calmly arrogant, most wondrous single star. Going late
ashore, (I couldn't give up the beauty, and soothingness of the night,)
as I staid around, or slowly wander'd I heard the echoing calls of
the railroad men in the West Jersey depot yard, shifting and switching
trains, engines, etc.; amid the general silence otherways, and something
in the acoustic quality of the air, musical, emotional effects, never
thought of before. I linger'd long and long, listening to them.
_Night of March 18, '79_.--One of the calm, pleasantly cool, exquisitely
clear and cloudless, early spring nights--the atmosphere again that rare
vitreous blue-black, welcom'd by astronomers. Just at 8, evening, the
scene overhead of certainly solemnest beauty, never surpass'd. Venus
nearly down in the west, of a size and lustre as if trying to outshow
herself, before departing. Teeming, maternal orb--I take you again to
myself. I am reminded of that spring preceding Abraham Lincoln's murder,
when I, restlessly haunting the Potomac banks, around Washington city,
watch'd you, off there, aloof, moody as myself:
As we walk'd up and down in the dark blue so mystic,
As we walk'd in silence the transparent shadowy night,
As I saw you had something to tell, as you bent to me night after
night,
As you droop from the sky low down, as if to my side, (while the
other stars all look'd on,)
As we wander'd together the solemn night.
With departing Venus, large to the last, and shining even to the edge
of the horizon, the vast dome presents at this moment, such a spectacle!
Mercury was visible just after sunset--a rare sight. Arcturus is now
risen, just north of east. In calm glory all the stars of Orion hold the
place of honor, in meridian, to the south,--with the Dog-star a little
to the left. And now, just rising, Spica, late, low, and slightly
veil'd. Castor, Regulus and the rest, all shining unusually clear, (no
Mars or Jupiter or moon till morning.) On the edge of the river, many
lamps twinkling--with two or three huge chimneys, a couple of miles up,
belching forth molten, steady flames, volcano-like, illuminating all
around--and sometimes an electric or calcium, its Dante-Inferno
gleams, in far shafts, terrible, ghastly-powerful. Of later May nights,
crossing, I like to watch the fishermen's little buoy-lights--so pretty,
so dreamy--like corpse candles--undulating delicate and lonesome on the
surface of the shadowy waters, floating with the current.