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Show 86 Early Western Travels \ V6L 26 bath- bell of New- England, pealing out in " angels' music " " on the clear mountain- air, to usher in the hours of holy time, and to summon the soul of man to communion with its Maker; will this be heard amid the forest solitude? and all that quiet [ 56] intermingling of heart with heart which divests grief of half its bitterness by taking from it all its loneliness? And the hour of sickness, and of death, and of gushing tears, as they come to all, may not be absent here; and where are the soothing consolations of religious solemnity, and the sympathies of kindred souls, and the unobtrusive condolence of those who alone may enter the inner temple of the breast, where the stranger intermed-dleth not? Yes, it must be - notwithstanding the golden anticipations indulged by every humble emigrant to this El Dorado of promise - it must be that there will arise in his bosom, when he finds himself for the first time amid these vast forest solitudes, attended only by his wife and children, a feeling of unutterable loneliness and desertion. Until this moment he has been sustained by the buoyancy of anticipated success, the excitement of change, the enlivening influences of new and beautiful scenes; and the effect of strange faces and strange customs has been to divert the attention, while the farewell pressure of affection yet has warmly lingered. All this is over now, and his spirit, left to its own resources, sinks within him. The sacred spot of his nativity is far, far away towards the morning sun; and there is the village church and the village graveyard, hallowed by many a holy remembrance; there, too, are the playmates and the scenes of his boyhood- days; the tryst-ing- place of youthful love and of youthful friendship, spots around which are twined full many a tendril of his heart; and he has turned from them all for ever. Henceforth he is a wanderer, and a distant soil must [ 57] claim his ashes. " Herbert.- FLAOG. |