Gala-Days [32]
happy, we glided along, enjoying, not entranced, comfortable, but not sublime, content to drink in the sunny sweetness of the summer day, happy only from the pleasant sense of being, tangling each other in silly talk out of mere wantonness, purling up bubbles of airy nothings in sheer effervescence of animal delight; falling into periodic fits of useful knowledge, under the influence of which we consulted our maps and our watches in a conjoint and clamorous endeavor to locate ourselves, which would no sooner be satisfactorily accomplished than something would turn up and set our calculations and islands adrift, and we would have to begin new. Dome Island we made out by its shape, unquestionably; Whortleberry we hazarded on the strength of its bushes; "Hen and Chicks," by a biggish island brooding half a dozen little ones; Flea Island, from a certain snappishness of aspect; Half-Way Island, by our distance from dinner; Anthony's Nose, by its unlikeness to anything else, certainly not from its resemblance to noses in general, let alone the individual nose of Mark Antony, or Mad Anthony, or any Anthony between. And then we disembarked and posted ourselves on the coach-top for a six-mile ride to Champlain; and Grande said, her face still buried in the map, "Here on the left is 'Trout Brook' running into the lake, and a cross on it, and 'Lt. Howe fell, 1758.' That is worth seeing."
"Yes," I said, "America loved his brother."
"America loved HIM," howled Halicarnassus, thinking to correct me and avenge himself. Now I knew quite well that America loved him, and did not love his brother, but with the mention of his name came into my mind the tender, grieved surprise of that pathetic little appeal, and I just said thought it aloud,-- assuming historic knowledge enough in my listeners to prevent misconception. But to this day Halicarnassus persists in thinking or at least in asserting, that I tripped over Lord Howe. As he does not often get such a chance, I let him comfort himself with it as much as he can; but that is the way with your whippersnapper critics. They put on their "specs," and pounce down upon some microscopic mote, which they think to be ignorance, but which is really the diamond-dust of imagination. "But let us see the place," said Grande. "We must drive within sight of it."
"Yes," I said. "Halicarnassus, ask the driver to he sure to tell us where Lord Howe fell."
"Fell into the brook," said that Oracle, and sat as stiff as a post.
Ticonderoga,--up-hill and down-hill for six miles, white houses and dark, churches and shops, and playing children and loungers, and mills, and rough banks and haggard woods, just like any other somewhat straggling country village. O no! O no! There are few like this. _I_ have seen no other. Churches and shops and all the paraphernalia of busy, bustling common life there may be, but we have no eyes for such. Yonder on the green high plain which we have already entered is a simple guide-post, guiding you, not on to Canada, to New York, to Boston, but back into the dead century that lived so fiercely and lies so still. We stand on ground over-fought by hosts of heroes. Here rise still the breastworks, grass-grown and harmless now, behind which men awaited bravely the shock of furious onset, before which men rushed as bravely to duty and to death. Slowly we wind among the little squares of intrenchments, whose deadliest occupants now are peaceful cows and sheep, slowly among tall trees,--ghouls that thrust out their slimy, cold fingers everywhere, battening on horrid banquets,--nay, sorrowful trees, not so. Your gentle, verdant vigor nourishes no lust of blood. Rather you sprang in pity from the cold ashes at your feet, that every breeze quivering through your mournful leaves may harp a requiem for Polydorus. Alighting at the landing-place we stroll up the hill and among the ruins of the old forts, and breast ourselves the surging battle-tide. For war is not to this generation what it has been. The rust of long disuse has been rubbed off by the iron hand
"Yes," I said, "America loved his brother."
"America loved HIM," howled Halicarnassus, thinking to correct me and avenge himself. Now I knew quite well that America loved him, and did not love his brother, but with the mention of his name came into my mind the tender, grieved surprise of that pathetic little appeal, and I just said thought it aloud,-- assuming historic knowledge enough in my listeners to prevent misconception. But to this day Halicarnassus persists in thinking or at least in asserting, that I tripped over Lord Howe. As he does not often get such a chance, I let him comfort himself with it as much as he can; but that is the way with your whippersnapper critics. They put on their "specs," and pounce down upon some microscopic mote, which they think to be ignorance, but which is really the diamond-dust of imagination. "But let us see the place," said Grande. "We must drive within sight of it."
"Yes," I said. "Halicarnassus, ask the driver to he sure to tell us where Lord Howe fell."
"Fell into the brook," said that Oracle, and sat as stiff as a post.
Ticonderoga,--up-hill and down-hill for six miles, white houses and dark, churches and shops, and playing children and loungers, and mills, and rough banks and haggard woods, just like any other somewhat straggling country village. O no! O no! There are few like this. _I_ have seen no other. Churches and shops and all the paraphernalia of busy, bustling common life there may be, but we have no eyes for such. Yonder on the green high plain which we have already entered is a simple guide-post, guiding you, not on to Canada, to New York, to Boston, but back into the dead century that lived so fiercely and lies so still. We stand on ground over-fought by hosts of heroes. Here rise still the breastworks, grass-grown and harmless now, behind which men awaited bravely the shock of furious onset, before which men rushed as bravely to duty and to death. Slowly we wind among the little squares of intrenchments, whose deadliest occupants now are peaceful cows and sheep, slowly among tall trees,--ghouls that thrust out their slimy, cold fingers everywhere, battening on horrid banquets,--nay, sorrowful trees, not so. Your gentle, verdant vigor nourishes no lust of blood. Rather you sprang in pity from the cold ashes at your feet, that every breeze quivering through your mournful leaves may harp a requiem for Polydorus. Alighting at the landing-place we stroll up the hill and among the ruins of the old forts, and breast ourselves the surging battle-tide. For war is not to this generation what it has been. The rust of long disuse has been rubbed off by the iron hand