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Chapter 14
Thomas Cole - The Artist
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Thomas Cole.-His Early Life.-His first Visit to
the Mountains, and Attachment to them.- Paintings of them.-Cols.
Trumbull, Dunlap, Durand. -Cole's Early Fame. - Bryant.- Sunrise on
the Mountains.-Poetry.-Windham.-Rev. Mr. Stimson.-Trip to Windham.- A
Rude Hotel.A Storm in the Mountains.-The Bewilderment. -Fearful Peril
and Final Escape.-A Dream. -Poetry.-A Trip to the Mountains.-The
Lakes.-Scenery there.- Durand's Painting of Rip Van Winkle.-Excursion
to High Peak.-American and Swiss Scenery compared.-Plattekill Clove.
There is no one whose name, either as author or
artist, is more prominent, in connection with There Catskill
Mountains and the country around, than Thomas Cole, N. A., who has
left behind him, as enduring memorials of his fame, "The Course
of Empire," "The Voyage of Life," and other paintings
of high artistic merit and fame. Mr. Cole was a native of England,
but came to this country, with his father's family, when nineteen
years of age. After enduring the privations of poverty for years, as
an engraver, a traveling portrait painter, and in other callings and
pursuits in life, he, at length, by the force of his talents, genius,
industry, perseverance, and patient and enduring toil and study,
became one of the most eminent and successful landscape painters in
the world. To his warm personal friend, pastor, and biographer, Rev.
Louis L. Noble, formerly of Catskill, we are indebted for a full,
able, and interesting record of the life, labors, personal character,
and success in his profession, of Mr. Cole.
As Cole early visited the Catskill Mountains,
and afterwards, for many years, on to the end of life, had his family
residence and studio near the village of Catskill, in full view of
all the higher summits of the range, he had, from the first, a
peculiar interest in them, and an ardent and enthusiastic attachment
to them. Of his first excursion up the Hudson River, his biographer
thus writes:" From the moment when his eye first caught the
rural beauties clustering round the cliffs of Weehawken, and glanced
up the distance of the Palisades, Cole's heart had been wandering in
the Highlands, and nestling in the bosom of the Catskills. It is
needless to say that he followed its impulses, at his earliest
liberty, in the Autumn ensuing."
"If it be interesting to know what were
his first impressions of the romantic scenery now made familiar to
art by his pencil, it is certain that they were even more lively than
he had himself anticipated. It charmed his eye, and took his soul
captive. What his affections so readily embraced, only became dearer
to him the more he enjoyed it. Wherever he subsequently traveled,
whether among the lakes and hills of England, the Alban heights, or
the Alps, up the sides of the Apennines, or of Etna, along the
seashore, down the Rhone or the Rhine, he always turned to the
Hudson, and the summits that pierce its clouds, and darken its blue
skies, with the strength and tenderness of a first love. It is
questionable whether after this, he ever painted a picture, with the
exception, perhaps, of his European landscapes, which does not bear
witness to some feature peculiar to this land of his heart."
Of the paintings of Cole after his return from
this excursion to the Catskill Mountains, one was "A Lake with
Dead Trees," suggested, perhaps, by one of the lakes near the
Mountain House, with the dead trees around it, many such being found
there, as relics and memorials of the wildly raging fires which, from
time to time, sweep over the mountains; and of which we had a
fearfully sublime example during the dry summer of 1864, when the
flames reached within a few feet of the outbuildings at the Mountain
House, and the costly structure there owed its safety mainly to a fire-engine,
which had been hastily brought there, from the village of Catskill,
twelve miles distant. A view by night, of the mountains, with the
flames rolling along their sides and summits, and shining forth from
the trunks and tops of lofty forest trees, is a scene of exciting and
appalling splendor, well nigh as grand and imposing as an eruption of
Vesuvius or Etna.
Another painting by Cole, after his return from
the Mountains, was "The Falls of the Cauterskill," the last
word being here written as it is commonly pronounced, though the
proper original spelling of the word is Kaaterskill, meaning the
kill, or stream, of the Kaater, or male wildcat, or lynx, an animal
which is still often met with in this region. This picture of the
Falls was purchased by Colonel Trumbull, the celebrated historical
painter, and two others by Dunlap and Durand, celebrated artists, to
whom Cole was thus introduced, and thus, by the aid of these three
distinguished friends, the attention and patronage of the public, far
and wide, was secured by Cole, though at that time but twenty-four
years of age. Trumbull then said to him : "You surprise me, at
your age, to paint like this. You have already done what I, with all
my years and experience, am yet unable to do." Durand said of
him, "His fame spread like fire ;" and Bryant, in his "Funeral
Oration," thus wrote :
"From that time he had a fixed reputation, and was numbered
among the men of whom our country has reason to be proud." Thus
it would seem that the eagle-winged genius of Cole received an early
inspiration, and made its first daring and successful flight from the
summit of the Catskills ; and hence it is not strange that ever after
it should have been the home of his heart's affections, within full
view of which he fixed his life-long abode, and on which he fondly
gazed, as from above and beyond it the setting sun shone, in its
splendor and its beauty, on the closing scenes of life. Thus were
these rude and rugged cliffs to him like the "Delectable
Mountains " to the wayworn Christian Pilgrim, clothed with
attractive grandeur and beauty, while above and beyond them were the
high glories and enduring bliss of the Celestial City, the New
Jerusalem on high.
It was a favorite maxim with Cole, that "To
walk with Nature as a poet is the necessary condition of a perfect
artist." Hence he often, in his wanderings at the close of the
day, wrote in glowing language, in poetry, or prose, or both, of the
impressions made upon his mind by the scenery around him. Of these
sketches I here give one, entitled
"SUNRISE FROM THE CATSKILL MOUNTAINS."
The mists were resting on the vale of the
Hudson like the drifted snow; tops of distant mountains in the cast
were visible-things of another world. The sun rose from bars of
pearly hue ; above these were clouds light and warm, and the clear
sky was of a cool grayish tint. The mist below the mountains began
first to be lighted up, and the trees on the tops of the lower hills
cast their shadows over the misty surface-innumerable streaks. A line
of light on the extreme horizon was very beautiful. Seen through the
breaking mist, the fields were exquisitely fresh and green. Though
dark, the mountainside was sparkling, and the Hudson, where it was
uncovered to the sight, slept in deep shadow.
In a poem of Cole's, entitled "The
Wild," we have a similar description :
"Friends of my heart, lovers of Nature's works,
Let me transport you to those wild blue mountains
That rear their summits near the Hudson's wave.
Though not the loftiest that begirt the land,
They yet sublimely rise, and on their heights
Your souls may have a sweet foretaste of heaven,
And traverse wide the boundless: From this rock,
The nearest to the sky, let us look out
Upon the earth, as the first swell of day
Is bearing back the duskiness of night.
But lo! a sea of mist o'er all beneath;
An ocean shoreless, motionless, and mute.
No rolling swell is there, no sounding surf;
Silent and solemn all; the stormy main
To stillness frozen, while the crested waves
Leaped in the whirlwind, and the loosen'd foam
Flew o'er the angry deep.
The Lord of Day, waking with pearly fire
The dormant depths. See how his glowing breath
The rising surges kindles : lo! they heave
Like golden sands upon Sahara's gales.
Those airy forms disporting from the mass,
Like winged ships sail o'er the wondrous plain.
Beautiful vision! Now the veil is rent,
And the coy earth her virgin bosom bares,
Slowly unfolding to the enraptured gaze
Her thousand charms."
In another place he writes as follows :
"Oh, for an hour
Upon that sacred hill, that I might sleep,
And with poetic fervor wake inspired !
Then would I tell how pleasures spring like flowers
Within the bosom of the wilderness,
And call from crumbling fanes my fellow-men
To kneel in Nature's everlasting dome,
Where not the voice of feeble man doth teach,
But His, who in the rolling thunder speaks,
Or in the silence of the shady night,
Breathes in His power upon the startled ear.
Then would I tell the seasons' change ; how spring
With tears and smiles speeds up the mountain's side,
And summer sips the moisture of her steps ;
Tell how rich autumn, decked in colored robe,
Laughing at thirsty summer, ceaseless shakes
The juicy fruits from her luxurious lap,
And winter, rending, in his angry mood,
With cold, remorseless hand, the mantle bright
His dying sister left him, rudely sweeps
His snowy beard o'er all the beauteous world.
The sun was set in peace. It was the hour
When all things have a tone of sadness,
When the soft cloud moves not in its azure bed,
Left by the purple day to fade and die,
But beautiful and lovely in its death,
As is the virgin who has died of love."
WINDHAM.
This town lies on the western side of the
Catskills, north-west of the Mountain House, and about as high above
the level of the Hudson River as is the region around the Pine
Orchard, where the Mountain House is ; while higher mountain summits
rise between these two points, where, and in the deep ravines along
their sides, bears and other wild animals find a rude and safe
retreat. The view from the road from Cairo to Windham, up the
north-eastern point of the mountains, is one of the most striking and
attractive in all this region, in the fertile, highly-cultivated, and
richly-varied rural scenery of forest and field which meets the eye,
when near the summit of the mountain one looks to the north on the
towns of Durham, Greenville, and the country far and wide around.
In the southern part of the pleasant village of
Windham Center is a large, smooth, perpendicular rock, at rightangles
to the street, from ten to twenty feet in height and breadth. In the
year 1785, Henry B. Stimson, then a boy fourteen years of age, came
from Hopkinton, Massachusetts, with his father, who was more than
sixty years of age; and the two built, against the side of that rock,
a, rude cabin of brush and logs, with a roof of bark ; and: there
they lived, among bears, wolves, and panthers, two years, until the
other members of their family removed there. Their nearest neighbors
were at Prattsville, ten miles in one direction, and at Cairo,
sixteen miles in the other ; and they brought their Indian corn, and
other provisions, from the east side of the Hudson River, some thirty
miles distant. This corn they bruised or ground with a stone, on the
top of a large rock. just as the first winter of their sojourn there
commenced, their rude cabin, with everything in it, was burned; and
then they reared another, which was but a poor shelter for them, amid
the deep snows and raging winds of those mountain heights.
At the age of twenty, the son had been at
school but three or four months in all; and yet, by the diligent
reading and study of such books as lie could obtain, much of it at
night, after severe toil by day, lighted by pine-knots stuck in the
back of the chimney of their log-cabin, and lying with his book on
the floor before him, he laid the foundation of a solid, useful
education ; so that, at the age of thirty, with only one year's
schooling abroad, and the aid, to some extent, of clergymen several
miles from him, he became the first pastor of the Presbyterian
Church, founded by him in Windham; and in twenty-two years admitted
between six and seven hundred to its communion, baptized about the
same number of children, and married nearly two hundred couples. His
mountain diocese embraced what are now five or six townships, and he
often attended four or five religious services, several miles distant
from each other, on a single Sabbath. All honor to such hardy and
hard-working pioneers, who laid broad and deep the foundations of
religious truth and order, to enlighten and guide all who should come
after them. Mr. Stimson preached most of his life in the region where
he first came as a pioneer, and in 1852, died, where his family still
live, in the eightieth year of his age, having, for the last eight
years of his life, been deranged.
The biographer of Cole thus writes of
him:-" Attracted by the wild scenery of Windham, he made an
excursion there in the Autumn Of 1826. The following is a description
of an ascent to a mountain summit :-
TRIP TO WINDHAM.
OCTOBER 8th.
At an hour and a half before sunset I had a
steep and lofty mountain before me, heavily wooded, and infested with
wolves and bears; and as I had been informed, with no house for six
miles. But I determined, in spite of all difficulties, and an
indescribable feeling of melancholy, to attain my object: so pressing
my portfolio to my side, I dashed up the dark and woody height. After
climbing some three miles of steep and broken road, I found myself
near the summit of the mountain, with (thanks to some fire of past
times) a wide prospect. Above me, jutted out some bare rocks; to
these I clambered up, and sat upon my mountain throne, the monarch of
the scene. The sun was now nearly setting, and the shadows veiled in
dim obscurity the quiet valley. Here and there a stream faintly
sparkled ; clouds flaming in the last glories of day bung on the
points of the highest peaks, like torches lifted by the earth to
kindle the lamps of heaven. Summit rose above summit, mountain rolled
away beyond mountain. The prospect was sublime. A hasty sketch or
two, and I commenced my descent. After a hurried walk of two or three
miles, I came to a log house, a rude swinging sign pointing it out as
a place of sojourn for the night. I walked in, and it appeared
comfortless enough. I felt as though I should be more comfortable in
the woods. I was relieved, however, when my landlady appeared with
clean and smiling face, and asked me upstairs. A scene of neatness
here presented itself that I had not expected. - After a plain supper
of cheese, rye-bread and butter, I was entertained by an old hunter
with a recital of feats of the chase. Here in this valley he and his
wife had resided more than twenty years, and raised, with the help of
no hands but their own, the first log-house. Those were days of
privation and hardship for the pioneer, but he looks back upon them
as days of happiness. 'There were but few of us, then,' the old
hunter said, 'and we loved and helped one another; but it is not so
now.' I believe all the people in the little settlement flocked
together in the evening to see me-a strange animal, surely; and a
hard-featured, long-bearded, long-legged company they were. My
portfolio was an object of universal curiosity. One wiseacre
pronounced it, in a low voice, 'a grammar.' They took the liberty,
when my back was turned, of opening it, in order to see what so large
a book might contain. What discoveries they made in their own
estimation I hardly know. I simply heard something about maps. I
slept soundly, rose early at a good breakfast, and desired of my kind
host what was to pay.-One shilling. I offered them a bank-note, as I
had no silver; unfortunately they could not change it, and so I gave
my note for one shilling, payable on demand, at ----'s, nine miles
distant. I then took my way back 'Over hills, over dales, through
bush, through briers.'"
The following sketch is also by Cole - |
STORM IN THE CATSKILLS.
In one of my mountain rambles I was overtaken
by a thunderstorm. In the early part of the day the sky was brilliant
and unclouded. As it advanced, huge masses of vapor were seen moving
across the deep blue. Though there was some reason to expect a storm,
I contented myself with the hope that the clouds would pass over the
mountains without unburdening themselves. My hope proved fallacious.
A sudden darkness enveloped the scene, which a few moments before was
beaming with sunlight, and thunders muttered in the distance. It was
necessary soon to seek a shelter, which I found beneath an
overhanging rock. Under this massive canopy of stone I took my
station, with the feeling of one who knows himself out of the reach
of peril, while it is all around him. Here, thought I, as I paced the
rocky floor of my temporary castle, I will watch unharmed the battle
of the elements. The storm came on in all its majesty. Like a hoarse
trumpet sounding to the charge, a strong blast roared through the
forest, which stooped in its weakness, and shook off its leaves as
thickly as in October. To this tremendous onset succeeded a
death-like calm. The deep gorge below me grew darker, and the gloom
more awful : terrific clouds gathered in their black wings, upon the
hollow bushed abyss, closer and closer. Expectation hung on every
crag. A single pass of one long blade of lightning through the
silence, followed by a crash as of a cloven mountain with a thousand
echoes, was the signal for the grand conflict. A light troop of
raindrops first swept forward, footing it over the boughs, with a
soft and whispery sound ; then came the tread of the heavy shower :
squadrons of vapor rolled in, shock succeeded shock, thunderbolt fell
on thunderbolt, peal followed peal, waters dashed on every crag from
the full sluices of the sky. I was wrapped in the folds of the
tempest, and blinded to every prospect beyond the rugged doorway of
the cave. Then came up a thousand fancies. I thought myself careering
in a chariot of rock through airy wastes, beyond the reach of
gravitation, with no law but my own will. Now I rose over mountainous
billows of mist, then plunged into the fathomless obscure. Night shot
athwart the darkness, darkness extinguished light: to musical murmurs
succeeded quick explosions. There was no cessation, fixedness, or
rest. The storm kept on, strong and furious ; no fancy could
dissipate the awful reality; no imagery of mind could amuse the fears
that began to throng around my heart! Trees fell with a stifled
crash, cataracts mingled their din with the general uproar. I began
to fear that the rocks would be loosened from the brow of the
mountain above me, and roll down with overwhelming force. The
lightning played round my very tenement, and the thunder burst on my
door-stone. I felt as feeble as a child. Every moment my situation
was becoming more comfortless, as well as romantic. A torrent, to all
appearance parted by the projecting crag which formed the roof of my
shelter, came rushing down on both sides of me, and met again a short
distance below me. Here I was, a captive to the floods, and began to
meditate the possibility of having to spend the night in this dismal
nook. There was the hard rock, a little mat of moss, and the remains
of a mountain dinner in my knapsack. The wind drove the chilly vapor
through my portals ; the big drops gathered on my stone ceiling, and
pattered on my bat and clothes, and the waters began to flow in
little brooks across my floor. My bed of moss became a saturated
sponge. I piled the loose flakes of rock in the cave, and sought
comfort on the rug rugged heap. My only hope was the sudden cessation
of the storm. I knew that the sun was hardly yet setting, although
the darkness had deepened fearfully. But this, to my great joy,
turned out to be the crisis of the tempest.
All at once a blast with the voice and force of
a hurricane swept up through the gulf, and lifted, with magical
swiftness, the whole mass of clouds high into the air. This was the
signal for a general dispersion. A flood of light burst in from the
west, and jeweled with glittering raindrops the whole broad bosom of
the mountain. The birds began to sing, and I saw in a neighboring
dell the blue smoke curling quietly up from a cottage chimney."
Early in the summer Of 1827, Cole was again in
Catskill, where he fitted up a room for painting; and, as usual,
spent much time in the open air, sketching and drawing, and wandering
among the mountains.
The story which follows has a strong flavor of
the fanciful and romantic; and yet to one familiar with the wild
scenery of the mountains, and the imposing and varied force and
grandeur of the raging torrents, which, after a freshet, run down the
deep ravines, scarce anything in the way of description appears
overdrawn or extravagant.
" THE BEWILDERMENT.
"The sun was low in the sky, and seemed to
hasten down with unaccustomed speed, for I was alone and a stranger
in the wilderness. The nearest habitation was on the other side of a
mountain which rose before me, whose tangled woods were the haunt of
wild animals. I had walked far that day, but my path had been through
regions of nature that delight and impress the mind. Excitement had
well nigh carried me above the reach of fatigue, and my feet were not
slow upon the leaf-strewn path. A lone man in the wilderness is
affected by every change of light and shade, of sunshine and of
storm. In the fine morning his spirits are fresh and elastic as the
air he breathes, and he feels as if weariness could never oppress
him. But when evening is dropping her dusky curtains the wind has a
tone of sadness, and the sound of the waterfall steals through the
arches of the forest like the moaning voice of a spirit. Thus was it
with me; joyous as I had been through the splendor of the day, I
could not but feel a tone of melancholy as I threaded the deepening
shadows of the woodlands. The road was steep and difficult, and the
thick boughs on either side shut me in from every distant object. I
reached, at length, the top of the mountain, and had a glorious
prospect. The sun was sinking behind a dark fringe of pines and
rocks, leaving the vales in solemn shadow. Here and there beams of
reflected light shot up from the depths below, from the rapid brook,
or the quiet pool. On every side the mountains bore their burden of
ancient woods : far as sight could reach, through glens and craggy
passes, and up to the mountain line, melting away in misty distance,
all was the old woody wilderness. Here and there, piled on the
overtopping pinnacles, clouds bathed themselves in the last red sun
beams. The chilly air of twilight had come before I could leave this
glorious solitude. Anxious to reach my intended resting-place for the
night, I hastened onward with redoubled speed. My path led steeply
down into a deep valley; the shades thickened at every step, and
rendered its windings more and more obscure. Several times I
hesitated, in doubt as to its course, and at length I lost it
entirely. A tornado had recently passed this way, and laid prostrate
almost every tree in its track of desolation. How long I struggled
through the entangled roots and branches I could not tell, but they
seemed interminable. I went forward and back, to the right hand and
to the left, and at length was so bewildered as to be wholly unable
to decide which way I should go.
"The truth at last crept over me. I was
lost -- lost past finding out or being found, at least for that
night. Fatigued, dripping with perspiration, disheartened, hungry,
and vexed, I sat down among the briers, with the resolution to wait
there until the break of day. But the air grew chilly, wild clouds
hurried across the sky, and the wind sounded hollow and forebodingly
through the forest. Inaction I could endure no longer. Again I tried
to extricate myself from the windfall, with a desperate energy. I
climbed and stooped, scrambled, crawled, and dodged. Now a limb
struck me in the face, and I fell backwards among the brambles ; then
I made a misstep, or a rotten bough broke beneath my foot, and I
plunged forward with a crash. I was every moment in danger of
breaking my limbs, and putting out my eyes. At length, to my
unspeakable delight, I struck into open ground, and advanced a few
yards with as much spirit as if the difficulty was all over, and the
end of my efforts was attained. This again was of short duration. The
ground was pitch black, and I could see no more of its surface than a
blind man. One moment I fancied it was smooth where it was rough, or
started back as if from a hollow, where the surface was actually
rising. It was dark: as Egypt, and I stood still. The next few
moments were among the most strange and critical in my life ; yet I
was without the least sense of danger, listening to the rapid beating
of my heart, when the sod gave way beneath my feet and I shot down an
almost perpendicular bank of earth, with a force and swiftness that
outstripped the loose earth and stones that came down after me.
	" In vain did I throw out my arms with the hope of
grasping rock, root, or shrub ; everything I seized gave way
instantly, and joined in the general plunge. How long was the earthy
steep, or how high was the rock over which, at last, I dashed
headlong, I could not tell: -- deep water received me in its cold
embrace. How I managed to escape instant drowning, as I could never
swim, I do not know. An involuntary struggle brought me to the
surface, and clinched my hands to a rock which rose above the water.
Upon this rock I climbed, and lay for awhile motionless and
exhausted. Soon, however, I was able to sit up and look around. Save
a small spot of blue sky, far, far overhead, with a single star, all
was dark as Erebus itself. My first thought was to sit out the night,
but my hands and feet began to ache with cold, and my whole frame to
shiver. The lone star was gone, and the wind began to howl in the
forest above me, in token of coming rain. The trees moaned sullenly,
and chafed each other, and a large raindrop fell upon my face. A
heavy rain I knew would quickly swell the brooks to raging torrents,
and sweep me from the rock. Something must soon be done to relieve me
from danger.
"Taking firm hold of the rock, I carefully
lowered myself into the water, and found it beyond my depth. With the
greatest difficulty I regained my former situation. I then tried the
other side of the rock, and could touch the bottom. Quitting my
stronghold, I waded, breast deep, in the water, until putting forth
my hands, I laid them on a wet solid wall of perpendicular rock,
extending as far as I could reach. My heart sank within me. My blood
ran with a chilly tingling through my veins, a cold sweat stood upon
my forehead. I was imprisoned in a dungeon of precipices, and the
rain was falling in sheets. The sickness of despair seized upon me.
'Here, then,' I exclaimed aloud, 'I shall perish; ' my friends will
never know what has become of me. I shouted, but to no purpose; my
voice was instantly smothered by the roar of the wind and the rain.
Desperation seized upon me, and I determined to rescue myself at
every hazard. I first held my hand in the water to learn the
direction of the current, in order to find some outlet, but the water
was in perfect repose. I then began to wade round the pool, with one
hand upon the rock. So deep was the water that my progress was slow,
and the pool seemed of great extent. At length a rumbling murmur, as
of a stream running in a cavern, fell distinctly on my ears, in a
momentary lull of the storm. Soon I was near the outlet of the
dungeon lake, but what was my terror when I found the water tumbling
into the mouth of a cavern, the arch of which I could feel with my
hands as I stood in the current. But my fear was quickly gone, and I
made my way down among the crags and foam. I worked with the energy
of desperation, and found that the rapid was more turbulent than
deep, until I reached a smooth rocky floor, over which the water
flowed silently. Whither the stream led, was a question which greatly
excited me, but there was no return, and no delay. The dash of my
footsteps, as I waded forward, rang strangely through the hollow
cave, and I felt a wild and vivid pleasure as I advanced. I shouted,
sang, whistled, for the very horror of the thing, and strode on
courageously and strong. All at once the floor declined, and the
water deepened. I paused a moment, turned back, and struck my head
against the limb of a small dry tree lodged by a freshet, on a
projecting crag of the cavern.
"I rolled off the dry fragment of the tree
into the water, and pushed it on before me until the water was too
deep for wading, and then mounting it, committed myself to the mercy
of the current. At length the motion of my odd bark was evident, and
I heard the low murmur of falling water. The stream became swift and
whirling and I felt that the crisis of my fate was fast approaching.
The murmur had now increased to the dashing of a cascade, and the
stillness of the atmosphere was broken by gusts of misty wind. I
floated on smoothly and swiftly ; there was a sudden lighting up of
the darkness, and my bark struck. I sprang into the shallow rapid,
and was indeed on the verge of a waterfall, but to my great joy I
found myself in the open air. A few steps brought me to a sand bank,
where I sat down in a state of mingled excitement and gratitude, and
rested till my stiff and chilly limbs warned me to make some efforts
to find a dwelling.
"The tempest had passed over; the moon,
rising above a distant peak, sent her soft light through the
shattered clouds; a faint blush in the east announced the dawn of
day, and the barking of a dog gave me delightful intelligence of a
house. Wet and weary I picked my way through the brushwood, and soon
came to a path which led to the log-cabin of which the do, had given
me the signal. A warm fire, and venison steak came in quick
succession, with many wonders and guesses by mine host, a rough, but
hospitable woodman. Among the most remarkable was the wonder how I
came to get into the 'pot,' as he called the gulf where I had spend
part of the night."
COLE'S DIARY AND LETTERS.
After Cole's return from his first visit to
Europe, we find in his Diary allusions to the mountains, of which the
following has a not unnatural connection with the narrative above :
" November 6, 1834.-Last night I dreamed
that I was descending a steep mountain, and had to cling to roots and
shrubs to aid me in the descent. One shrub, towards which I had
stretched my hand, attracted my admiration by its beauty. I paused to
gaze at it. As I gazed, I perceived, to my horror, that it was a
serpent, coiled in an attitude to spring upon me. How is this dream
like many of the realities of life! Objects the most beautiful, and
which we desire to clasp, are often fraught with poison." [The
poison (in the case of human objects of desire) of avarice, ambition,
passion, pride, or discontent.]
February 25-Speaking of storms, he thus writes :
I sigh not for a stormless clime,
Where drowsy quiet ever dwells,
Where crystal brooks with endless chime
Flow winding through perennial dells.
"For storms bring beauty in their train:
The hills below the howling blast,
The woods all weeping in their rain,
How glorious when the storm is past!
So storms of ill, when pass'd away,
Leave in the soul serene delight;
The gloom of the tempestuous day
But makes the following calm more bright."
"May 24-Spring has come at last. We have
had a few days truly delightful: the softest temperature, the purest
air, sunshine without burning, and breezes without chilliness ; soft
and cloudless skies. The mountains have taken their pearly hue, and
the streams leap and glitter as though some crystal mountain was
thawing beneath the sun. The swelling hills, with their white and
rosy blossoms, blush in the light of day, and the air is full of
fragrance and music. Oh, that this could endure, and no poison of the
mind mingle in the cup."
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RIP VAN WINKLE'S DELL, THE MOUNTAIN HOUSE, AND
THE LAKES.
"July 6, 1835.-1 have just returned from
the mountain, where I spent two of the happiest days I remember. Upon
the evening of the third of July, with a friend, I determined to
spend our 'Fourth' among the mountains. Having waited in vain for a
stage until nine in the evening, we set out to walk. The night was
fine, and the moon gave a pleasant light, until it sank behind the
piney ridge of the North Mountain. Being thirsty, and finding no
spring at Lawrence's, where they were soundly asleep, we walked three
miles further, to Rip Van Winkle's Hollow. The long mile from the toll-gate
to Rip's is very steep. Thirst, however, gave wings to our feet, and
we reached there with parched mouths and wet skins. It was midnight
when we sat down by the stream which comes leaping from the grand
amphitheatre of wooded mountains. There was a tin cup glittering by
the rill, placed there for the use of travelers, by some generous
soul, and we drank from it again and again, of the pure, cold water,
and the draughts were even more delicious than those of Rip from the
famous keg. It was a solemn scene. Dark forests, rug ed rocks,
towering mountains were around us, and the breeze brought to our ears
the sound of waving trees, falling waters, and the clear chant of the
whip-poor-will. We did not, like old Rip, sleep twenty years after
our drinking, but reached the Mountain House at one o'clock.
"After breakfast, we strolled down to the
small lake, a few hundred yards from the house. It has beautiful as
well as grand features-rich forests and mountains. The lower lake is
much larger and more beautiful than the other. I pointed out a view
which I once painted, which was, I think, the first picture ever
painted of the lake, which will hereafter be the subject of a
thousand pencils. Several years since I explored its shores for some
distance, but thick woods and swampy grounds impeded me. I enriched
my sketch-book with studies of the fine dead trees, which stand like
spectres on the shores. As we made our way to an opening through the
woods, which disclosed the lake in a charming manner, we perceived a
rude boat among the bushes, which was exactly what we wanted. We
pushed off and leaped into it, as if the genius of the deep had
placed it there for our special use. Before us spread the virgin
waters which the prow of the sketcher had never yet curled, enfolded
by the green woods, whose venerable masses had never yet figured in
annuals, and overlooked by the stern mountain peaks never beheld by
Claude or Salvator, nor subjected to the canvas by the innumerable
dabblers in paint of all past time. The painter of American scenery
has indeed privileges superior to any other. All nature is here new
to art. No Tivolis, Ternis, Mount Blanes, Plinlimmons, hackneyed and
worn by the pencils of hundreds, but primeval forests, virgin lakes
and waterfalls, feasting his eye with new delights, and filling his
portfolio with their features of beauty and magnificence, hallowed to
his soul by their freshness from the creation, for his own favored pencil.
"A little promontory, forming a fine
foreground to a charming view down the lake, invited us. We had some
fine perspective lines of forest on our right, with many dead trees
standing near the shore, as if stripped for the elements. These dead
trees are a striking feature in the scenery of this lake, and
exceedingly picturesque. Their pale forms rise from the margin of the
lake, stretching out their contorted branches, and looking like so
many genii set to protect their sacred waters. On the left was
another reach of forest of various hues, and in the center of the
picture rose the distant Round Top, blue and well defined, and cast
its reflection on the lake, out to the point where our boat swung
like a thing in air. The headland was picturesque in the extreme.
Apart from the dense wood, a few birches and pines were grouped
together in a rich mass, and one giant pine rose far above the rest.
On the extreme cape a few bushes of light green grew directly from
the water. In the midst of their sparkling foliage stood two of the
bare spectral trees, with limbs decorated with moss of silvery hue,
and waving like gray locks in the wind. We remained here long enough
to finish a sketch, and returned to our harbor to refit.
"After dinner we again launched our vessel
for a longer voyage of discovery. We now crossed the lake, paddling,
after the manner of Indians. Our boat glided beautifully over the
tranquil waters, and swept aside the yellow water-lilies. In a strait
between the mainland and a low islet, where the water was very still,
the woods were reflected beautifully. I never saw such depth and
brilliancy in the reflections. The dead trees on the margin added by
their silvery tints to the harmony of color, and their images in the
waters, which had a gentle undulation, appeared like immense
glittering serpents playing in the deep. At every stroke of the oar
some fresh object of beauty would break upon us. We made several
sketches, and about sunset turned our prow. As we returned we struck
up the 'Canadian Boat Song,' and though our music was rude, the woods
answered in melodious echoes. What a place for music by moonlight! It
would be romance itself! This may be, and I may enjoy it."
AUTUMNAL SCENERY.
"October 7.-At this season, when nature
puts on a garb of splendor, when the days are brilliant and the
Sunsets full of glory, there are moods of mind when I feel that
things are ill-timed and out of harmony. It is the saddest season of
the year. Blight is on all the vegetable world. The woods are glowing
with strange beauty, but it is the hectic flush, that sure precursor
of death. But there are days when I feel no such incongruity; those
days of clouds without rain, when shadow subdues the pomp of the
earth, and the air crystalline, the woods repose in sombre stillness,
and the waters take the hills upon their bosom, and veil them with
transparent loveliness.
"October 30-The weather, for a month, has
been truly delightful, but this day above all. A pure, crystal-like
atmosphere has floated over the landscape, and the brown of the
leafless woods has been tinged with the purest ultramarine. The sky
is clear and cloudless, the air is still but fresh. Oh, Nature ! to
the loving eye, thou art seldom without smiles."
SUMMER SCENE.
"Aug August 1, 1, 1 1836.-This morning is
as beautiful to me as ever fell upon the earth. The air is cool and
transparent, the mountains clear and blue, the woods dense with juicy
foliage, and every leaf is glittering with the gem-like dew. A robin
is singing in the grove his never-closed song, and a, little wren in
the cedar near the window is warbling with all its might. I took a
walk last evening up the valley of the Catskill, once my favorite
walk. It is still lovely. Man cannot remove its craggy hills, nor
well destroy its rock-rooted trees. The rapid stream will also have
its course."
DURAND'S PAINTING OF RIP VAN WINKLE.
In a letter to his friend Durand, the
celebrated painter, under date of January 4, 1838, Cole thus writes
of the painting of old Rip Van Winkle, by that artist:
"So Rip has toiled up the mountain with
the liquor. I should like to see the old Morpheus ; and though I may
not be blessed with a taste of the somnific cordial, I hope to enjoy
the sight of the flagon, when I may, perhaps, exclaim, like the old
woman in the fable, who, putting her nose to the bunghole of an empty
wine-cask, cried, 'Oh if thou art so delightful now, what must thou
have been when fall!' But your flagon shall be enjoyed not by nose,
but eyes."
It would seem from the above that Durand was
then painting the picture referred to, and had reported progress to
Cole by letter. February 12, Cole thus writes: "So Rip is about
finished. I long to see him."
Where is this painting ? It should be at the
Mountain House, with a copy of it in that of my friend and
parishioner, Mr. S---, at the foot of the ravine up which Rip Van
Winkle passed to his long resting-place, on the airy mound above.
EXCURSION TO HIGH PEAK.
Under date October 9, 1838, Cole describes the
excursion made by himself, with two gentlemen and several ladies:
"The day was such an one as we would have
chosen one of our heavenly autumnal days, when the sun shines blandly
through a clear and cloudless sky, and the crystal atmosphere casts a
veil of beauty over the landscape, rich with the loveliest tints.
Sundry baskets, with good things provided by the ladies, assured us
that we should not die of famine among the mountains. It was resolved
that we should sleep the next night on High Peak. The party was in
the highest spirits. We entered the Clove, the fine pass where, on
both sides, the mountains rise thousands of feet. The sun shone with
golden splendor, and the huge precipices above the village of
Palensville frowned over the valley like towers and battlements of
cyclopean structure.
"At the village our party got out to walk
up the steep road. Scattered in groups, we went loitering along,
sometimes stopping to pick a flower or a pebble, and to gaze upon the
precipices above us, or into the gulf below, where flows the
Cauterskill, with many a rush and bound, as if it were making merry
with its native rocks before it left them for the quiet windings of
the lower country. We crossed a bridge which spans the stream under
impending cliffs, This is a scene truly picturesque but we could not
linger to gaze upon it. We were hungry, and dined at a charming
waterfall near by. We ascended the next day, and traversed some
beautiful regions of moss, where the sun, shining in gleams through
the tall, dark, spruce forest, upon the green velvety carpet, was
extremely fine. It reminded me of the interior of some vast Gothic
pile, where the sun comes through narrow windows in slender streams,
and lights whatever it strikes with a refulgence almost supernatural,
amid the gloomy shadows around. There was some hard clambering before
we reached the summit, but the ladies did bravely. We remained all
night comfortably, and descended the next morning, in health and spirits."
AMERICAN AND FOREIGN SCENERY.
In the autumn of 1841, during his second visit
to Europe, Cole thus writes :
"October 16.-We have just arrived at
Neufchatel, and were pursuing our way down the pass, the stream
dashing impetuously along a thousand feet below, when a view of Lake
Neufchatel, and the distant Alps rising beyond, opened upon us. This
was our first sight of the Alps, and a grand one it was. Upon the
highest summits clouds were resting, while the level country was
smiling in sunshine. The scene of the lake and the distant mountains
resembled one from the upper part of the Plattekill Clove, where you
see the Hudson and the New England hills beyond."
The Plattekill Clove is several miles south of
the Cauterskill Clove, in the Catskill Mountains, with a wild stream
running through it, far below the road.
Again, in October, Cole writes as follows:
"I have seen no picture that represented the Alps truly, and
words cannot describe them. The imagination searches in vain for
comparisons. They are unearthly things, of the texture of the moon as
seen through a fine telescope, beaming with a sort of liquid, silvery
light-folds of heaven's drapery fallen to the earth. After a short
stay at Neufchatel we proceeded towards Berne, the Jura mountains
still about us. How much they reminded me of our own Catskills --
their forms and forests. Scenes all American sometimes burst upon us.
"You may fear, perhaps, that the wonderful
scenery of Switzerland will destroy my relish for our own. This will
not be the case. I know that when I return I shall yet find beauty.
Our scenery has its own peculiar charms, and it is so connected with
my affection that it will never lose its power."
After reaching home Cole thus wrote to G. W.
Greene, Esq., United States Consul at Rome:
"Must I tell you that neither the Alps,
nor the Apennines, no, nor Etna itself, have dimmed in my eyes the
beauty of our own Catskills. It seems to me that I look on American
scenery, if it were possible, with increased pleasure. It has its own
peculiar charm-a something not found elsewhere. I am content with
nature, would that I were with art. I wish I could transport you here
for a few days, to enjoy with me these magnificent mountains. I know
you would be willing to repay me in kind, and take me out of Porta
Pia to get a sight of Mont Albano."
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