Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 9.pdf/79

68 Per Tenebras, Lamina.

68 ceived fell upon

a heart

that

them

felt

keenly; but he bared his breast none the less resolutely to the contest because it was not protected

by an armor

of

insen

sibility. But we must bring this long paper to a close.

We

cannot

give to it the interest

which comes from personal recollections. We‘ saw Cooper once, and but once. This was the very year before he died, in his own home, and amid the scenes which his genius has made immortal.

It

was a bright midsummer’s

day,

and

walked together about the village, and around the shores of the lake over which the canoe of Indian John had glided. His own aspect was as sunny as that of the smiling heavens above us; age had not touched him with its para we

lyzing ﬁnger: his vigorous frame, elas tic step, and animated glance gave prom ise of twenty years more of energetic life. His sturdy ﬁgure, healthy face, and a slight

bluffness

of

one more

of manner

reminded

his original profession

than

of the life and manners of a man letters. He looked like a man who had

of

lived much in the open air,—upon whom the rain had fallen, and against whom the wind had blown. His conversation was hearty, spontaneous, and delightful from its frankness and fulness, but it was not pointed or brilliant; you re

memhered

’

through

ring of the words, We recol

the healthy

but not the words themselves. lect, that, as we were standing

together on

the shores of the lake,—shores which are somewhat

tame, and a lake which can

higher epithet than that of said: “I suppose it would be patriotic to say that this is ﬁner than We Como, but we know that it is not.” found a chord of sympathy in our com mon impressions of the beauty of Sor no

claim

prctty,—he

rento,

about

there,

he spoke

tion.

Who

which, with

and

his

residence

contagious

anima

could have thought that that

rich and abundant life was

so near its Nothing could be more thorough ly satisfying than the impression he left in this brief and solitary interview. His air

close ?

and movement

revealed

the same manly,

man in his books Grateful are we for the privilege of having seen. brave,

that

is

true-hearted,

warm-hearted

imaged

spoken with, and taken author

Pilot”:

by the hand

the

of “ The Pathﬁnder” and “ The

“ it is a pleasure to have seen a

great man.” Distinctly through the gath cring mists of years do his face and form rise up before the mind’s eye : an image

of of

of frank courage, impulse; a frank friend, an

manly self-reliance, generous

open enemy; a man whom many misun derstood, but whom no one could under stand without honoring and laying.

PER TENEBRAS,

I KNOW how,

[January,

LUMINA.

the golden hours

When summer sunlight ﬂoods the deep, The fairest stars of all the heaven Climb up, unseen, the etfulgent steep. Orion girds him with a ﬂame ; And, king-like, from the eastward seas, Comes Aldebaran, with his train Of Hyades and Pleiades.

.