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.
"That's the Gineral and his coachman a-having a training," answered my
driver.