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diff --git a/old/haw7310.txt b/old/haw7310.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..476f85b --- /dev/null +++ b/old/haw7310.txt @@ -0,0 +1,615 @@ +Project Gutenberg EBook, Sketches From Memory, by Nathaniel Hawthorne +From "The Doliver Romance and Other Pieces: Tales and Sketches" +#73 in our series by Nathaniel Hawthorne + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**EBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers***** + + + +Title: Sketches From Memory + (From: "The Doliver Romance and Other Pieces: Tales and Sketches") + +Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne + +Release Date: Nov, 2005 [EBook #9246] +[This file was first posted on September 25, 2003] +[Last updated on February 6, 2007] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + + + + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, SKETCHES FROM MEMORY *** + + + + +This eBook was produced by David Widger + + + + + + THE DOLIVER ROMANCE AND OTHER PIECES + + TALES AND SKETCHES + + By Nathaniel Hawthorne + + + SKETCHES FROM MEMORY + + + + +CONTENTS: + I. The Inland Port. + II. Rochester. + III. A Night Scene. + + + +I. THE INLAND PORT. + +It was a bright forenoon, when I set foot on the beach at Burlington, +and took leave of the two boatmen in whose little skiff I had voyaged +since daylight from Peru. Not that we had come that morning from South +America, but only from the New York shore of Lake Champlain. The +highlands of the coast behind us stretched north and south, in a double +range of bold, blue peaks, gazing over each other's shoulders at the +Green Mountains of Vermont. + +The latter are far the loftiest, and, from the opposite side of the +lake, had displayed a more striking outline. We were now almost at +their feet, and could see only a sandy beach sweeping beneath a woody +bank, around the semicircular Bay of Burlington. + +The painted lighthouse on a small green island, the wharves and +warehouses, with sloops and schooners moored alongside, or at anchor, +or spreading their canvas to the wind, and boats rowing from point to +point, reminded me of some fishing-town on the sea-coast. + +But I had no need of tasting the water to convince myself that Lake +Champlain was not all arm of the sea; its quality was evident, both by +its silvery surface, when unruffled, and a faint but unpleasant and +sickly smell, forever steaming up in the sunshine. One breeze of the +Atlantic with its briny fragrance would be worth more to these inland +people than all the perfumes of Arabia. On closer inspection the +vessels at the wharves looked hardly seaworthy,--there being a great +lack of tar about the seams and rigging, and perhaps other deficiencies, +quite as much to the purpose. + +I observed not a single sailor in the port. There were men, indeed, in +blue jackets and trousers, but not of the true nautical fashion, such as +dangle before slopshops; others wore tight pantaloons and coats +preponderously long-tailed,--cutting very queer figures at the masthead; +and, in short, these fresh-water fellows had about the same analogy to +the real "old salt" with his tarpaulin, pea-jacket, and sailor-cloth +trousers, as a lake fish to a Newfoundland cod. + +Nothing struck me more in Burlington, than the great number of Irish +emigrants. They have filled the British Provinces to the brim, and +still continue to ascend the St. Lawrence in infinite tribes overflowing +by every outlet into the States. At Burlington, they swarm in huts and +mean dwellings near the lake, lounge about the wharves, and elbow the +native citizens entirely out of competition in their own line. Every +species of mere bodily labor is the prerogative of these Irish. Such is +their multitude in comparison with any possible demand for their +services, that it is difficult to conceive how a third part of them +should earn even a daily glass of whiskey, which is doubtless their +first necessary of life,--daily bread being only the second. + +Some were angling in the lake, but had caught only a few perch, which +little fishes, without a miracle, would be nothing among so many. A +miracle there certainly must have been, and a daily one, for the +subsistence of these wandering hordes. The men exhibit a lazy strength +and careless merriment, as if they had fed well hitherto, and meant to +feed better hereafter; the women strode about, uncovered in the open +air, with far plumper waists and brawnier limbs as well as bolder faces, +than our shy and slender females; and their progeny, which was +innumerable, had the reddest and the roundest cheeks of any children in +America. + +While we stood at the wharf, the bell of a steamboat gave two +preliminary peals, and she dashed away for Plattsburgh, leaving a trail +of smoky breath behind, and breaking the glassy surface of the lake +before her. Our next movement brought us into a handsome and busy +square, the sides of which were filled up with white houses, brick +stores, a church, a court-house, and a bank. Some of these edifices had +roofs of tin, in the fashion of Montreal, and glittered in the sun with +cheerful splendor, imparting a lively effect to the whole square. One +brick building, designated in large letters as the custom-house, +reminded us that this inland village is a port of entry, largely +concerned in foreign trade and holding daily intercourse with the +British empire. In this border country the Canadian bank-notes +circulate as freely as our own, and British and American coin are +jumbled into the same pocket, the effigies of the King of England being +made to kiss those of the Goddess of Liberty. + +Perhaps there was an emblem in the involuntary contact. There was a +pleasant mixture of people in the square of Burlington, such as cannot +be seen elsewhere, at one view; merchants from Montreal, British +officers from the frontier garrisons, French Canadians, wandering Irish, +Scotchmen of a better class, gentlemen of the South on a pleasure tour, +country squires on business; and a great throng of Green Mountain boys, +with their horse-wagons and ox-teams, true Yankees in aspect, and +looking more superlatively so, by contrast with such a variety of +foreigners. + + + +II. ROCHESTER + +The gray but transparent evening rather shaded than obscured the scene, +leaving its stronger features visible, and even improved by the medium +through which I beheld them. The volume of water is not very great, nor +the roar deep enough to be termed grand, though such praise might have +been appropriate before the good people of Rochester had abstracted a +part of the unprofitable sublimity of the cascade. The Genesee has +contributed so bountifully to their canals and mill-dams, that it +approaches the precipice with diminished pomp, and rushes over it in +foamy streams of various width, leaving a broad face of the rock +insulated and unwashed, between the two main branches of the falling +river. Still it was an impressive sight, to one who had not seen +Niagara. I confess, however, that my chief interest arose from a +legend, connected with these falls, which will become poetical in the +lapse of years, and was already so to me as I pictured the catastrophe +out of dusk and solitude. It was from a platform, raised over the naked +island of the cliff, in the middle of the cataract that Sam Patch took +his last leap, and alighted in the other world. Strange as it may +appear,--that any uncertainty should rest upon his fate which was +consummated in the sight of thousands,--many will tell you that the +illustrious Patch concealed himself in a cave under the falls, and has +continued to enjoy posthumous renown, without foregoing the comforts of +this present life. But the poor fellow prized the shout of the +multitude too much not to have claimed it at the instant, had he +survived. He will not be seen again, unless his ghost, in such a +twilight as when I was there, should emerge from the foam, and vanish +among the shadows that fall from cliff to cliff. + +How stern a moral may be drawn from the story of poor Sam Patch! Why do +we call him a madman or a fool, when he has left his memory around the +falls of the Genesee, more permanently than if the letters of his name +had been hewn into the forehead of the precipice? + +Was the leaper of cataracts more mad or foolish than other men who throw +away life, or misspend it in pursuit of empty fame, and seldom so +triumphantly as he? That which he won is as invaluable as any except +the unsought glory, spreading like the rich perfume of richer fruit from +various and useful deeds. + +Thus musing, wise in theory, but practically as great a fool as Sam, I +lifted my eyes and beheld the spires, warehouses, and dwellings of +Rochester, half a mile distant on both sides of the river, indistinctly +cheerful, with the twinkling of many lights amid the fall of the evening. + +The town had sprung up like a mushroom, but no presage of decay could be +drawn from its hasty growth. Its edifices are of dusky brick, and of +stone that will not be grayer in a hundred years than now; its churches +are Gothic; it is impossible to look at its worn pavements and conceive +how lately the forest leaves have been swept away. The most ancient +town in Massachusetts appears quite like an affair of yesterday, +compared with Rochester. Its attributes of youth are the activity and +eager life with which it is redundant. The whole street, sidewalks and +centre, was crowded with pedestrians, horsemen, stage-coaches, gigs, +light wagons, and heavy ox-teams, all hurrying, trotting, rattling, and +rumbling, in a throng that passed continually, but never passed away. +Here, a country wife was selecting a churn from several gayly painted +ones on the sunny sidewalk; there, a farmer was bartering his produce; +and, in two or three places, a crowd of people were showering bids on a +vociferous auctioneer. I saw a great wagon and an ox-chain knocked off +to a very pretty woman. Numerous were the lottery offices,--those true +temples of Mammon,--where red and yellow bills offered splendid fortunes +to the world at large, and banners of painted cloth gave notice that the +"lottery draws next Wednesday." At the ringing of a bell, judges, +jurymen, lawyers, and clients, elbowed each other to the court-house, to +busy themselves with cases that would doubtless illustrate the state of +society, had I the means of reporting them. The number of public houses +benefited the flow of temporary population; some were farmer's taverns, +--cheap, homely, and comfortable; others were magnificent hotels, with +negro waiters, gentlemanly landlords in black broad-cloth, and foppish +bar-keepers in Broadway coats, with chased gold watches in their +waistcoat-pockets. I caught one of these fellows quizzing me through an +eye-glass. The porters were lumbering up the steps with baggage from +the packet boats, while waiters plied the brush on dusty travellers, +who, meanwhile, glanced over the innumerable advertisements in the daily +papers. + +In short, everybody seemed to be there, and all had something to do, and +were doing it with all their might, except a party of drunken recruits +for the Western military posts, principally Irish and Scotch, though +they wore Uncle Sam's gray jacket and trousers. I noticed one other +idle man. He carried a rifle on his shoulder and a powder-horn across +his breast, and appeared to stare about him with confused wonder, as if, +while he was listening to the wind among the forest boughs, the hum and +bustle of an instantaneous city had surrounded him. + + + +III. + +A NIGHT SCENE + +The steamboat in which I was passenger for Detroit had put into the +mouth of a small river, where the greater part of the night would be +spent in repairing some damages of the machinery. + +As the evening was warm, though cloudy and very dark, I stood on deck, +watching a scene that would not have attracted a second glance in the +daytime, but became picturesque by the magic of strong light and deep +shade. + +Some wild Irishmen were replenishing our stock of wood, and had kindled +a great fire on the bank to illuminate their labors. It was composed of +large logs and dry brushwood, heaped together with careless profusion, +blazing fiercely, spouting showers of sparks into the darkness, and +gleaming wide over Lake Erie,--a beacon for perplexed voyagers leagues +from land. + +All around and above the furnace, there was total obscurity. No trees +or other objects caught and reflected any portion of the brightness, +which thus wasted itself in the immense void of night, as if it quivered +from the expiring embers of the world, after the final conflagration. +But the Irishmen were continually emerging from the dense gloom, passing +through the lurid glow, and vanishing into the gloom on the other side. +Sometimes a whole figure would be made visible, by the shirtsleeves and +light-colored dress; others were but half seen, like imperfect +creatures; many flitted, shadow-like, along the skirts of darkness, +tempting fancy to a vain pursuit; and often, a face alone was reddened +by the fire, and stared strangely distinct, with no traces of a body. +In short these wild Irish, distorted and exaggerated by the blaze, now +lost in deep shadow, now bursting into sudden splendor, and now +struggling between light and darkness, formed a picture which might have +been transferred, almost unaltered, to a tale of the supernatural. As +they all carried lanterns of wood, and often flung sticks upon the fire, +the least imaginative spectator would at once compare them to devils +condemned to keep alive the flames of their own torments. + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, SKETCHES FROM MEMORY*** +By Nathaniel Hawthorne + +***** This file should be named haw7310.txt or haw7310.zip **** + +Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, haw7311.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, haw7310a.txt + +This eBook was produced by David Widger [widger@cecomet.net] + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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