Per Tenebras, Lamina.
68 ceived fell upon
a heart
that
them
felt
keenly; but he bared his breast none the less resolutely to the contest because it was not protected
by an armor
of
insen
sibility. But we must bring this long paper to a close.
We
cannot
give to it the interest
which comes from personal recollections. We‘ saw Cooper once, and but once. This was the very year before he died, in his own home, and amid the scenes which his genius has made immortal.
It
was a bright midsummer’s
day,
and
walked together about the village, and around the shores of the lake over which the canoe of Indian John had glided. His own aspect was as sunny as that of the smiling heavens above us; age had not touched him with its para we
lyzing finger: his vigorous frame, elas tic step, and animated glance gave prom ise of twenty years more of energetic life. His sturdy figure, healthy face, and a slight
bluffness
of
one more
of manner
reminded
his original profession
than
of the life and manners of a man letters. He looked like a man who had
of
lived much in the open air,—upon whom the rain had fallen, and against whom the wind had blown. His conversation was hearty, spontaneous, and delightful from its frankness and fulness, but it was not pointed or brilliant; you re
memhered
’
through
ring of the words, We recol
the healthy
but not the words themselves. lect, that, as we were standing
together on
the shores of the lake,—shores which are somewhat
tame, and a lake which can
higher epithet than that of said: “I suppose it would be patriotic to say that this is finer than We Como, but we know that it is not.” found a chord of sympathy in our com mon impressions of the beauty of Sor no
claim
prctty,—he
rento,
about
there,
he spoke
tion.
Who
which, with
and
his
residence
contagious
anima
could have thought that that
rich and abundant life was
so near its Nothing could be more thorough ly satisfying than the impression he left in this brief and solitary interview. His air
close ?
and movement
revealed
the same manly,
man in his books Grateful are we for the privilege of having seen. brave,
that
is
true-hearted,
warm-hearted
imaged
spoken with, and taken author
Pilot”:
by the hand
the
of “ The Pathfinder” and “ The
“ it is a pleasure to have seen a
great man.” Distinctly through the gath cring mists of years do his face and form rise up before the mind’s eye : an image
of of
of frank courage, impulse; a frank friend, an
manly self-reliance, generous
open enemy; a man whom many misun derstood, but whom no one could under stand without honoring and laying.
PER TENEBRAS,
I KNOW how,
[January,
LUMINA.
the golden hours
When summer sunlight floods the deep, The fairest stars of all the heaven Climb up, unseen, the etfulgent steep. Orion girds him with a flame ; And, king-like, from the eastward seas, Comes Aldebaran, with his train Of Hyades and Pleiades.
.
