It is unnecessary to
say that we were on business--our book was on the press--and we went
as if one of the printers' best-known companions was on our trail.
Irving's description of his first voyage up the river brings us more
delicately and gracefully down from these mountains to the Hudson--the
level highway to the sea. "Of all the scenery of the Hudson, the
Kaatskill Mountains had the most witching effect on my boyish
imagination. Never shall I forget the effect upon me of my first view
of them, predominating over a wide extent of country--part wild, woody
and rugged; part softened away into all the graces of cultivation. As
we slowly floated along, I lay on the deck and watched them through a
long summer's day, undergoing a thousand mutations under the magical
effects of atmosphere; sometimes seeming to approach; at other times
to recede; now almost melting into hazy distance, now burnished by the
setting sun, until in the evening they printed themselves against the
glowing sky in the deep purple of an Italian landscape."
* * *
Limned upon the fair horizon,
West from central Hudson's tide,
The fair form of Ontiora
Throughout ages shall abide.
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