CHAPTER IV-NATURE-LANDSCAPE

LESSON XLVI.

I. Memorize:-FROM "MICHAEL."
If from the public way you turn your steps
Up the tumultuous brook of Green-head Ghyll,'
You will suppose that with an upright path
Your feet must struggle; in such bold ascent
The pastoral mountains front you, face to face.
But, courage! for around that boisterous brook
The mountains have all opened out themselves,
And made a hidden valley of their own.
No habitation can be seen; but they

Who journey thither find themselves alone

With a few sheep, with rocks and stones, and kites
That overhead are sailing in the sky.

It is in truth an utter solitude.

-William Wordsworth.

1 Narrow mountain gully.

II. Theme:-THE CATSKILLS.

Whoever has made a voyage up the Hudson, must remember the Kaatskill mountains. They are a dismembered branch of the great Appalachian family, and are seen away to the west of the river, swelling up to a noble height, and lording it over the surrounding country. Every change of season, every change of weather, indeed every hour of the day, produces some change in the magical hues and shapes of these mountains; and they are regarded by all the good wives, far and near, as perfect barometers. When the weather

is fair and settled, they are clothed with blue and purple and print their bold outlines in the clear evening sky; but sometimes, when the rest of the landscape is cloudless, they will gather a hood of gray vapors about their summits, which, in the last rays of the setting sun, will glow and light up like a crown of glory.

At the foot of these fairy mountains, the voyager may have descried the light smoke curling up from a village, whose shingle roofs gleam among the trees, just where the blue tints of the upland melt away into the fresh green of the nearer landscape.

-Washington Irving. From "The Sketch-Book.” III. Principles-Description.—1. Draw up a plan of the preceding description.

2. Point out in this description what is plain, scientific detail and what is embellished.

Point of View.-In the description of "The House of the Seven Gables," p. 205, Hawthorne chose his point of view outside the house, and described his scene from one fixed point of view. He introduced no detail that was not visible to him from that one point. In Irving's description of the Catskills we have a hint of a device of writers for describing various parts of a scene not visible from any one point. A building cannot be thoroughly described without seeing it from several points of view-at a distance, near at hand, inside from hall to room, etc. A river can be thoroughly presented only by noting its characteristic features at various points (see " Rapids on Winnipeg River,” p. 186). A road is an ever-changing panorama. A village yields its picture only as we go from home to home and street

to street. How can all the details of a scene, not fully visible at one point of view, be presented? Irving here shows us. He imagines himself a traveller-he sees the mountains at a distance, then drawing near he distinguishes the details of the little village-smoke, shingle roofs, etc. This shifting point of view by which the details develop as we pass from point to point is called the traveller's point of view. It is a great aid to clearness, for it enables the writer to group the large general features of the scene from a distance, the particular details near at hand. It adds, too, a certain narrative interest to the description. It is indispensable when we wish, as in the case of a road or river, etc., to give a panoramic view.

IV. Composition.-1. Describe the Catskills, as if writing a brief article for a geography.

2. (i) Draw a map showing the situation of any range of hills or mountains with which you are familiar. (ii) State plainly and accurately the facts concerning your subjects-situation, height, extent, character of trees, minerals, farms, importance as water-shed, etc. (iii) Describe some aspect of natural beauty of the range in the spirit of Irving's description.

3. Describe a valley such as is pictured here:

There lies a vale in Ida, lovelier

Than all the valleys of Ionian hills.

The swimming vapor slopes athwart the glen,
Puts forth an arm and creeps from pine to pine,
And loiters, slowly drawn. On either hand
The lawns and meadow-ledges midway down
Hang rich in flowers, and far below them roars
The long brook falling through the cloven ravine
In cataract after cataract to the sea.

4. Choose some fixed point of view as here, and describe what you can see in a View from a Barn Door:—

Through the ample open door of the peaceful country barn,
A sunlit pasture field with cattle and horses feeding,
And haze and vista, and the far horizon fading away.

Or, View from my Window, View from a Tower or Church Steeple or Mountain, View on the Prairie, View from Brooklyn Bridge.

5. Describe the scene in the picture here.

6. (1) The Adirondacks. (2) The Tennessee Mountains. (3) The Yosemite Valley. (4) The Rocky Mountains. (5) A Canyon in the Rockies. (6) The Cumberland Valley. (7) The Thousand Islands. (8) The Pictured Rocks of Lake Superior.

It is essential in this composition to write from knowledge-from actual observation of the thing to be described.

LESSON XLVII.

I. Memorize:-FROM "THE MILLER'S DAUGHTER."

Or from the bridge I lean'd to hear

The mill-dam rushing down with noise,
And see the minnows everywhere

In crystal eddies glance and poise,
The tall flag-flowers when they sprung
Below the range of stepping-stones,
Or those three chestnuts near, that hung
In masses thick with milky cones.

I loved the brimming wave that swam
Thro' quiet meadows round the mill,
The sleepy pool above the dam,
The pool beneath it never still,
The meal-sacks on the whiten'd floor,
The dark round of the dripping wheel,
The very air about the door

Made misty with the floating meal.

-Alfred Tennyson.

II. Theme:-RAPIDS ON WINNIPEG RIVER.

Many a dangerous rapid did we run in this way, but there was one that I shall never forget, the longest day I live; it scared us all, and was indeed enough to frighten the oldest voyageur (vwah yah zher'). Coming on to it from above we could not see what we were rushing into, but followed the lead of the Colonel's canoe, and before we knew where we were, we were in the middle of it. Imagine an enormous volume of water hurled headlong down a steep incline of smooth slippery rock against a cluster of massive boulders, over which it dashed madly with a roar like thunder, foaming along until it reached