Our driver, though he didn't know his own
powers, knew all about Phoebus, and had read Virgil and Ovid by the
light of a pine-knot in his father's kitchen. This rude culture is the
commonest fact among our mountaineers.
We "stopped over" one day in Hartford, to see the deaf-mutes. Their
bright, concentrated, eager looks haunted me long after. I should like
to know who would stop anywhere now to see anything! One might as well
be put into a gun and fired off to New York as go there now by
steam-cars. Line a gun with red plush, and it is not unlike a "resonant
steam-eagle." And you would see as much in one as in the other.
But travelling in 1830 enlarged your mind. A journey then was one as
_was_ a journey. You saw people, you made their acquaintance, you
entered their hearts and took lodgings,--sometimes for life.
Then the country! You saw that, too,--not the poorest part of it,
scooting round wherever it is most level, till you pronounce the whole
way flat, and are glad to shut your eyes and listen to the engine,
rather than have them ache with seeing everything you would never wish
to look at!
All these days were full of great, beautiful pictures.
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