This rambling propensity strengthened with my years. Books of
voyages and travels became my passion, and in devouring their
contents, I neglected the regular exercises of the school. How
wistfully would I wander about the pier-heads in fine weather,
and watch the parting ships, bound to distant climes; with what
longing eyes would I gaze after their lessening sails, and waft
myself in imagination to the ends of the earth!
Further reading and thinking, though they brought this vague
inclination into more reasonable bounds, only served to make it
more decided. I visited various parts of my own country; and had
I been merely a lover of fine scenery, I should have felt little
desire to seek elsewhere its gratification, for on no country had
the charms of nature been more prodigally lavished. Her mighty
lakes, her oceans of liquid silver; her mountains, with their
bright aerial tints; her valleys, teeming with wild fertility;
her tremendous cataracts, thundering in their solitudes; her
boundless plains, waving with spontaneous verdure; her broad,
deep rivers, rolling in solemn silence to the ocean; her
trackless forests, where vegetation puts forth all its
magnificence; her skies, kindling with the magic of summer clouds
and glorious sunshine;--no, never need an American ok beyond his
own country for the sublime and beautiful of natural scenery.
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