The Author's Account of Himself
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 pierheads
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 have the charms of nature
been more prodigally lavished.
Her mighty lakes, like 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 look beyond his own country
for the sublime and beautiful of natural scenery.