The noble Hudson is one of the most admired of American rivers. It
does not possess the vine-clad slopes and ruined castles and quaint
old towns of the Rhine, but it is a greater river in its breadth and
volume and the commerce it carries. It has scenery fully as attractive
in the Palisades and Highlands, the Helderbergs and Catskills, and on
a scale of far more grandeur, while the infinite variety of its shores
and villas and the many flourishing river towns are to most observers
more pleasing. A journey along the Hudson presents ever varying
pictures of rural beauty, in mountain, landscape, field and village;
at times almost indescribably grand, and again entrancing in the
autumn's gorgeous coloring of the forest-clad slopes, and the
brilliant picture under our clear American skies. George William
Curtis, voicing the opinion of most of our countrymen, is
enthusiastic about the Hudson, saying: "The Danube has in part
glimpses of such grandeur, the Elbe sometimes has such delicately
pencilled effects, but no European river is so lordly in its bearing,
none flows in such state to the sea. Of all our rivers that I know,
the Hudson with this grandeur has the most exquisite episodes. Its
morning and evening reaches are like the lakes of a dream." The Hudson
may not have as many weird and elfish legends as so many historic
centuries and the mythical preceding era have gathered upon the annals
of the Rhine, but its beauties, tragedies and folklore have been a
favorite theme, and the romantic and poetic fancies of Irving, Drake
and Cooper, with many others, have given it plenty of fascinating
literature and picturesque incident. Oliver Wendell Holmes thus sings
the praises of the Hudson:
"I wandered afar from the land of my birth,
I saw the old rivers renowned upon Earth;
But fancy still painted that wide-flowing stream,
With the many-hued pencil of infancy's dream.
"I saw the green banks of the castle-crowned Rhine,
Where the grapes drink the moonlight and change into wine,
I stood by the Avon, whose waves, as they glide,
Still whisper his glory who sleeps by their side.
"But my heart would still yearn for the sound of the waves,
That sing as they flow by my forefathers' graves;
If manhood yet honors my cheek with a tear,
I care not who sees it--nor blush for it here.
"In love to the deep-bosomed stream of the West,
I fling this loose blossom to float on its breast;
Nor let the dear love of its children grow cold,
Till the channel is dry where its waters have rolled."