Little Rivers [22]
"good times" which came
to us from almost every point of the compass, we unpacked the
camera, and proceeded to take some pictures.
If you are a photographer, and have anything of the amateur's
passion for your art, you will appreciate my pleasure and my
anxiety. Never before, so far as I knew, had a camera been set up
on Ampersand. I had but eight plates with me. The views were all
very distant and all at a downward angle. The power of the light
at this elevation was an unknown quantity. And the wind was
sweeping vigorously across the open summit of the mountain. I put
in my smallest stop, and prepared for short exposures.
My instrument was a thing called a Tourograph, which differs from
most other cameras in having the plate-holder on top of the box.
The plates are dropped into a groove below, and then moved into
focus, after which the cap is removed and the exposure made.
I set my instrument for Ampersand Pond, sighted the picture through
the ground glass, and measured the focus. Then I waited for a
quiet moment, dropped the plate, moved it carefully forward to the
proper mark, and went around to take off the cap. I found that I
already had it in my hand, and the plate had been exposed for about
thirty seconds with a sliding focus!
I expostulated with myself. I said: "You are excited; you are
stupid; you are unworthy of the name of photographer. Light-
writer! You ought to write with a whitewash-brush!" The reproof
was effectual, and from that moment all went well. The plates
dropped smoothly, the camera was steady, the exposure was correct.
Six good pictures were made, to recall, so far as black and white
could do it, the delights of that day.
It has been my good luck to climb many of the peaks of the
Adirondacks--Dix, the Dial, Hurricane, the Giant of the Valley,
Marcy, and Whiteface--but I do not think the outlook from any of
them is so wonderful and lovely as that from little Ampersand: and
I reckon among my most valuable chattels the plates of glass on
which the sun has traced for me (who cannot draw) the outlines of
that loveliest landscape.
The downward journey was swift. We halted for an hour or two
beside a trickling spring, a few rods below the summit, to eat our
lunch. Then, jumping, running, and sometimes sliding, we made the
descent, passed in safety by the dreaded lair of the hornet, and
reached Bartlett's as the fragrance of the evening pancake was
softly diffused through the twilight. Mark that day, Memory, with
a double star in your catalogue!
1895.
A HANDFUL OF HEATHER
"Scotland is the home of romance because it is the home of Scott,
Burns, Black, Macdonald, Stevenson, and Barrie--and of thousands of
men like that old Highlander in kilts on the tow-path, who loves
what they have written. I would wager he has a copy of Burns in
his sporran, and has quoted him half a dozen times to the grim Celt
who is walking with him. Those old boys don't read for excitement
or knowledge, but because they love their land and their people and
their religion--and their great writers simply express their
emotions for them in words they can understand. You and I come
over here, with thousands of our countrymen, to borrow their
emotions."--ROBERT BRIDGES: Overheard in Arcady.
My friend the Triumphant Democrat, fiercest of radicals and kindest
of men, expresses his scorn for monarchical institutions (and his
invincible love for his native Scotland) by tenanting, summer after
summer, a famous castle among the heathery Highlands. There he
proclaims the most uncompromising Americanism in a speech that
grows more broadly Scotch with every week of his emancipation from
the influence of the clipped, commercial accent of New York, and
casts contempt on feudalism by playing the part of lord of the
manor to such a perfection of high-handed beneficence that the
people of
to us from almost every point of the compass, we unpacked the
camera, and proceeded to take some pictures.
If you are a photographer, and have anything of the amateur's
passion for your art, you will appreciate my pleasure and my
anxiety. Never before, so far as I knew, had a camera been set up
on Ampersand. I had but eight plates with me. The views were all
very distant and all at a downward angle. The power of the light
at this elevation was an unknown quantity. And the wind was
sweeping vigorously across the open summit of the mountain. I put
in my smallest stop, and prepared for short exposures.
My instrument was a thing called a Tourograph, which differs from
most other cameras in having the plate-holder on top of the box.
The plates are dropped into a groove below, and then moved into
focus, after which the cap is removed and the exposure made.
I set my instrument for Ampersand Pond, sighted the picture through
the ground glass, and measured the focus. Then I waited for a
quiet moment, dropped the plate, moved it carefully forward to the
proper mark, and went around to take off the cap. I found that I
already had it in my hand, and the plate had been exposed for about
thirty seconds with a sliding focus!
I expostulated with myself. I said: "You are excited; you are
stupid; you are unworthy of the name of photographer. Light-
writer! You ought to write with a whitewash-brush!" The reproof
was effectual, and from that moment all went well. The plates
dropped smoothly, the camera was steady, the exposure was correct.
Six good pictures were made, to recall, so far as black and white
could do it, the delights of that day.
It has been my good luck to climb many of the peaks of the
Adirondacks--Dix, the Dial, Hurricane, the Giant of the Valley,
Marcy, and Whiteface--but I do not think the outlook from any of
them is so wonderful and lovely as that from little Ampersand: and
I reckon among my most valuable chattels the plates of glass on
which the sun has traced for me (who cannot draw) the outlines of
that loveliest landscape.
The downward journey was swift. We halted for an hour or two
beside a trickling spring, a few rods below the summit, to eat our
lunch. Then, jumping, running, and sometimes sliding, we made the
descent, passed in safety by the dreaded lair of the hornet, and
reached Bartlett's as the fragrance of the evening pancake was
softly diffused through the twilight. Mark that day, Memory, with
a double star in your catalogue!
1895.
A HANDFUL OF HEATHER
"Scotland is the home of romance because it is the home of Scott,
Burns, Black, Macdonald, Stevenson, and Barrie--and of thousands of
men like that old Highlander in kilts on the tow-path, who loves
what they have written. I would wager he has a copy of Burns in
his sporran, and has quoted him half a dozen times to the grim Celt
who is walking with him. Those old boys don't read for excitement
or knowledge, but because they love their land and their people and
their religion--and their great writers simply express their
emotions for them in words they can understand. You and I come
over here, with thousands of our countrymen, to borrow their
emotions."--ROBERT BRIDGES: Overheard in Arcady.
My friend the Triumphant Democrat, fiercest of radicals and kindest
of men, expresses his scorn for monarchical institutions (and his
invincible love for his native Scotland) by tenanting, summer after
summer, a famous castle among the heathery Highlands. There he
proclaims the most uncompromising Americanism in a speech that
grows more broadly Scotch with every week of his emancipation from
the influence of the clipped, commercial accent of New York, and
casts contempt on feudalism by playing the part of lord of the
manor to such a perfection of high-handed beneficence that the
people of