42 THE POWER OF EARLY IMPRESSIONS. 



formed to enable me to estimate the difference be- 

 tween the azure tints of the sky and the emerald 

 hue of the bright foliage, I felt that an intimacy 

 with them, not consisting of friendship merely, 

 but bordering on frenzy, must accompany my 

 steps through life ; and now, more than ever, I am 

 persuaded of the power of those early impressions. 

 They laid such hold upon me that, when removed 

 from the woods, the prairies, and the brooks, or shut 

 up from the view of the wide Atlantic, I experienced 

 none of those pleasures most congenial to my mind. 

 None but aerial companions suited my fancy. No 

 roof seemed so secure to me as that formed of 

 the dense foliage under which the feathered tribes 

 were seen to resort, or the caves and fissures of the 

 massy rocks to which the dark-winged cormorant 

 and the curlew retired to rest, or to protect them- 

 selves from the fury of the tempest. ... A vivid 

 pleasure shone on those days of my early youth, 

 attended with a calmness of feeling, that seldom 

 failed to rivet my attention for hours, while I gazed 

 in ecstasy upon the pearly and shining eggs, as they 

 lay embedded in the softest down, or among dried 

 leaves and twigs, or were exposed upon the burning 

 sand or weather-beaten rocks of our Atlantic shores. 

 I was taught to look upon them as flowers yet in 

 the bud. I watched their opening to see how 

 nature had provided each different species with 



