Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

In the march of life don't heed the order of

"right about" when you know you are
about right.
(Holmes.

He that lacks time to mourn lacks time to mend:

Eternity mourns that. 'Tis an ill cure

For life's worst ills, to have no time to feel them. (Shakespeare.

The worst kind of vice is advice. (Coleridge. A self-suspicion of hypocrisy is a good evidence of sincerity. (Hannah More. A page digested is better than a volume hurriedly read. (Macaulay.

I am not one of those who do not believe in love at first sight, but I believe in taking a second look. (Henry Vincent. A man is responsible for how he uses his common sense as well as his moral sense.

(Beecher. When a man has no design but to speak plain truth, he isn't apt to be talkative.

(Prentice. The year passes quick, though the hour tarry, and time bygone is a dream, though we thought it never would go while it was going. (Newman. Good temper, like a sunny day, sheds a brightness over everything. It is the sweetener of toil and the soother of disquietude. (Irving.

A profound conviction raises a man above the feeling of ridicule. (Mill. Our moods are lenses coloring the world

with as many different hues. (Emerson. Men believe that their reason governs their

words, but it often happens that words have power to react on reason. (Bacon. Minds of moderate calibre ordinarily condemn everything which is beyond their range. (La Rochefoucault. Geology gives us a key to the patience of God.

(Holland.

[blocks in formation]
[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][graphic][merged small][merged small]

CHABOD Crane had a soft and foolish heart toward the sex; and it is not to be wondered at, that so tempting a morsel soon found favor in his eyes; more especially after he had visited her in her paternal mansion. Old Baltus Van Tassel was a perfect picture of a thriving, contented, liberal-hearted farmer. He seldom, it is true, sent either his eyes or his thoughts beyond the boundaries of his own farm; but within those everything was snug, happy, and well-conditioned. He was satisfied with his wealth, but not proud of it; and piqued himself upon the hearty abundance, rather than the style in which he lived. His stronghold was situated on the banks of the Hudson, in one of those green, sheltered, fertile nooks, in which the Dutch farmers are so fond of nestling. A great elm-tree spread its branches over it, at the foot of which bubbled up a

50

BALTUS VAN TASSEL'S FARM.

spring of the softest and sweetest water, in a little well formed of a barrel; and then stole sparkling away through the grass, to a neighboring brook, that bubbled along among alders and dwarf willows. Hard by the farmhouse was a vast barn, that might have served for a church; every window and crevice of which seemed bursting forth with the treasures of the farm; the flail was busily resounding within it from morning to night; swallows and martins skimmed twittering about the eaves; and rows of pigeons, some with one eye turned up, as if watching the weather, some with their heads under their wings, or buried in their bosoms, and others swelling, and cooing, and bowing about their dames, were enjoying the sunshine on the roof. Sleek, unwieldy porkers were grunting in the repose and abundance of their pens; whence sallied forth, now and then, troops of sucking pigs, as if to snuff the air. A stately squadron of snowy geese were riding in an adjoining pond, convoying whole fleets of ducks; regiments of turkeys were gobbling through the farmyard, and guinea fowls fretting about it, like ill-tempered housewives, with their peevish, discontented cry. Before the barn door strutted the gallant cock, that pattern of a husband, a warrior, and a fine gentleman, clapping his burnished wings, and crowing in the pride and gladness of his heartsometimes tearing up the earth with his feet, and then generously calling his ever hungry family of wives and children to enjoy the rich morsel which he had discovered.

The pedagogue's mouth watered, as he looked upon this sumptuous promise of winter fare. In his devouring mind's

eye, he pictured to himself every roasting-pig running about with a pudding in his belly, and an apple in his mouth; the pigeons were snugly put to bed in a comfortable pie, and tucked in with a coverlet of crust; the geese were swimming in their own gravy; and the ducks pairing cosily in dishes, like snug married couples, with a decent competency of onion sauce. In the porkers he saw carved out the future sleek side of bacon, and juicy relishing ham; not a turkey but he beheld daintily trussed up, with its gizzard under its wing, and, peradventure, a necklace of savory sausages; and even bright chanticleer himself lay sprawling on his back, in a side-dish, with uplifted claws, as if craving that quarter which his chivalrous spirit disdained to ask while living.

As the enraptured Ichabod fancied all this, and as he rolled his great green eyes over the fat meadow-lands, the rich fields of wheat, of rye, of

[graphic]
[blocks in formation]

buckwheat, and Indian corn, and the orchards burdened with ruddy fruit, which surrounded the warm tenement of Van Tassel, his heart yearned after the damsel, who was to inherit those domains, and his imagination. expanded with the idea, how they might be readily turned into cash, and the money invested in immense tracts of wild land, and shingle palaces in the wilderness. Nay, his busy fancy already realized his hopes, and presented to him the blooming Katrina, with a whole family of children, mounted on the top of a wagon loaded with household trumpery, with pots and kettles dangling beneath; and he beheld himself bestriding a pacing mare, with a colt at her heels, setting out for Kentucky, Tennessee, or the Lord knows where.

[graphic][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

on that wave and sky!

How often, O how often,
I had wished that the ebbing tide
Would bear me away on its bosom
O'er the ocean wild and wide!
For my heart was hot and restless,
my life was full of care,

And

And the burden laid upon me,
Seemed greater than I could bear.

But now it has fallen from me,
It is buried in the sea;
And only the sorrow of others

Throws its shadow over me.

Yet whenever I cross the river

On its bridge with wooden piers, Like the odor of brine from the ocean Comes the thought of other years.

And I think how many thousands
Of care-encumbered men,
Each having his burden of sorrow,
Have crossed the bridge since then.

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

With her own tresses bound and found her Unless, perhaps, white Death had kissed me

[blocks in formation]

Upon her own calm mirror, upon a sleeping She served kind, gentle masters, nor asked for rest or change;

town:

For Bregenz, that quaint city upon the Tyrol Her friends seemed no more new ones, their shore,

Has stood above Lake Constance, a thousand years and more.

Her battlements and towers, upon their rocky steep,

speech seemed no more strange; And when she led her cattle to pasture every day,

She ceased to look and wonder on which side Bregenz lay.

Have cast their trembling shadows of ages She spoke no more of Bregenz, with longing

[blocks in formation]
« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »