232 



RURAL HOURS. 



book j^et n-ritten by wliich a foreigner could 

 become really familiar with the physiognomy 

 of American scenery, and the habits of our 

 country life. Beginning with spring, it car- 

 ries us through the seasoiii? with all the inte- 

 rest and meaning of their changes, and all the 

 features, and most of the events, of sylvan 

 and pastoral life under their influence. And 

 though there is no story, (perhaps one slightly 

 interwoven might have helped the popularity,) 

 there are bits of poetry, philosopliy, and do- 

 mestic economy so charmingly interspersed 

 that one lays the work down with a feeling of 

 absolute and intimate friendship for the author. 



We had marked several passages, but find 

 we have only room for one. It contains a 

 few thoughts, suggested by a view seen from 

 the top of a height, reached in a summer's 

 drive, and may be taken as an average speci- 

 men of the simple earnestness of Miss Coop- 

 er's style: 



" From the most elevated point crossed by the 

 road we looked over two dilFercnt valleys, with 

 their several groups of bioad hills, and many a 

 swelling knoll. Looking down from a command- 

 ing position upon a mountainous country, or look- 

 ing upward at the same objects, leave very dif- 

 ferent impressions on the mind. From below we 

 see a group of mountains as pictures in one as- 

 pect only, but looking abroad over their massive 



forms from an adjoining height, we comprehend 

 them much more justly ; we feel more readily 

 how much they add to the grandeur of the earth 

 we live on, how much they increase her extent, 

 how greatly they vary her character, climates, 

 and productions. Perhaps the noble calm of 

 these mountain piles will be more impressive from 

 below: bur. when we behold them from a higher 

 point, blended with this majestic quiet, traces of 

 past action and movement are observed, and 

 what we now behold seems the repose of power 

 and strength after a great conflict. The most 

 lifeless and sr.erile mountain on earth, with the 

 unbroken sleep of ages brooding over its solitudes, 

 still bears on its silent head the emotion of a 

 mighty passion. It is upon the brow of man that 

 are stamped the lines worn by the care and sor- 

 row of a lifetime; and we behold upon the ancient 

 mountains, with a feeling of awe, the record of 

 earth's stormy history. There are scars and fur- 

 rows upon the giant Alps unsoftened by the beam- 

 ing sunlight of five thousand summers, over which 

 the heavens have wept in vain for ages, which are 

 uncflaced by all the influences at the command of 

 Time. This character of former action adds in- 

 conceivably to the grandeur of the mountains 

 connecting them as it does with the mystery oj 

 the past; upon a plain we are more apt to see thr' 

 present only ; the mental vision seems confined tc 

 the level uniformity about it; we need some an- 

 cient work of man, some dim old histor}', to lead 

 the mind backward; and this is one reason why a 

 monument always strikes us more forcibly upon a 

 plain, or on level ground; in such a position it 

 fills the mind more with itself and its own associa- 

 tions. But without a history, without a monu- 

 ment, there is that upon the face of the moun- 

 tains which, from tiie earliest ages, has led man 

 to hail them as the ' everlastinj: hills.'" 



