Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 2.djvu/861

1858.] the same orderly arrangement, the rocky ridges,—and that, from its height above all other forest-trees, it catches the full force of the prevalent winds, which here are from the west, and consequently leans slightly to the east, much as a person leans in walking. These traits of the tree explained entirely the phenomenon; yet the knowledge of them had not the slightest effect to undeceive my imagination. I was awe-struck, as though the phantoms of some antediluvian race had arisen from the valleys of the Adirondack and were marching in silence to their old fanes on the mountain-tops. I cowered in the boat under an absolute chill of nervous apprehension.—The second phenomenon was, that I heard mentally a voice which said distinctly these words,—"The procession of the Anakim!"—and at the same time I became conscious of some disembodied spiritual being standing near me, as we are sometimes aware of the presence of a friend without having seen him. Every one accustomed to solitary thought has probably recognized this kind of mental action, and speculated on the strange duality of Nature implied in it. The spiritualists call it "impressional communication," and abandon themselves to its vagaries in the belief that it is really the speech of angels; men of thought find in it a mystery of mental organization, and avail themselves of it under the direction of their reason. I at present speculated with the philosophers; but my imagination, siding with the spiritualists, assured me that some one spoke to me, and reason was silenced. I sat still as long as I could endure it, alone, and then crept back, trembling, to the camp,—feeling quiet only when surrounded by the rest of the party.

My attendant dæmon did not leave me, I found; for now I heard the question asked, half-tauntingly,—"Subjective or objective?"

I asked myself, in reply,—"Am I mad or sane?"

"Quite sane, but with your eyes opened to something new!" was the instantaneous reply.

On such expeditions, men get back to the primitive usages and conditions of humanity. We had arisen at daybreak; darkness brought the disposition to rest. We arranged ourselves side by side on the couch of balsam and cedar boughs which the guides had spread on the ground of the camp, our feet to the fire, and all but myself soon slept. I lay a long time, excited, looking out through the open front of the camp at the stars which shone in through the trees, and even they seemed partakers of my new state of existence, and twinkled consciously and confidentially, as to one who shared the secret of their own existence and purposes. The pine-trees overhead had an added tone in their meanings, and indeed everything, as I regarded it, seemed to manifest a new life, to become identified with me: Nature and I had all things in common. I slept, at length,—a strange kind of sleep; for when the guides awoke me, in the full daylight, I was conscious of some one having talked with me through the night.

In broad day, with my companions, and in motion, the influences of the previous evening seemed to withdraw themselves to a remote distance,—yet I was aware of their awaiting me when I should be unoccupied. The day was as brilliant, as tranquil as its predecessor, and the council decided that it should be devoted to a "drive," for we had eaten the last of our venison for breakfast. The party were assigned their places at those points of the lake where the deer would be most likely to take the water, while my guide, Steve M, and myself went up Bog River, to start him. The river, a dark, sluggish stream, about fifty feet wide, the channel by which the Mud Lakes and Little Tupper's Lake, with its connected lakes and ponds, empty into Tupper's Lake, is a favorite feeding-ground with the deer, whose breakfast is made on the leaves of the Nuphar lutea which edge the stream. We surprised one, swimming around amongst the leaves, snatching here and there the choicest of them, and when he turned to go out and rose