The Pathfinder Or The Inland Sea Original Editionannotated PDF Download

The sublimity connected with vastness is familiar to every eye. The mostabstruse, the most far-reaching, perhaps the most chastened of the poet'sthoughts, crowd on the imagination as he gazes into the depths of the illimitablevoid. The expanse of the ocean is seldom seen by the novice with indifference; andthe mind, even in the obscurity of night, finds a parallel to that grandeur, whichseems inseparable from images that the senses cannot compass. With feelings akinto this admiration and awe-the offspring of sublimity-were the differentcharacters with which the action of this tale must open, gazing on the scene beforethem. Four persons in all, -two of each sex, -they had managed to ascend a pile oftrees, that had been uptorn by a tempest, to catch a view of the objects thatsurrounded them. It is still the practice of the country to call these spots windrows. By letting in the light of heaven upon the dark and damp recesses of thewood, they form a sort of oases in the solemn obscurity of the virgin forests ofAmerica. The particular wind-row of which we are writing lay on the brow of agentle acclivity; and, though small, it had opened the way for an extensive view tothose who might occupy its upper margin, a rare occurrence to the traveller in thewoods. Philosophy has not yet determined the nature of the power that so oftenlays desolate spots of this description; some ascribing it to the whirlwinds whichproduce waterspouts on the ocean, while others again impute it to sudden andviolent passages of streams of the electric fluid; but the effects in the woods arefamiliar to all. On the upper margin of the opening, the viewless influence had piledtree on tree, in such a manner as had not only enabled the two males of the party toascend to an elevation of some thirty feet above the level of the earth, but, with alittle care and encouragement, to induce their more timid companions toaccompany th