The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1852-08-05
LETTER FROM MAINE.-NO. /

10 the Editor Of The National Era
The fashionable complaint of neuralgia ha
kept back from your paper many thoughts
motions and revolutions " Of the brain, which
could they have printed themselves on paper
would have found their way towards you
Don't you suppose in the marvellous progress
OF this iast-living age, the time will ever come
when. by some metaphysical daguerreotypt
process, the thoughts and images of the brain
shall print themselves on paper, without the in
PREVENTION of pen and inkl Then, how many
brilances, now lost and forgotten before one
gets time to put them through the slow process
of writing, shall fash upon us! Our poets
will sit in luxurious ease, with quire of paper
in their pockets, and have nothing to do but
lean back in their chairs, and 60 off in an &C.
stacy and 10! they will find it all written out,
commas and all, ready for the printer What
relief too, to multitudes of gentle hearts,
whose friends in this busy age are too hurried
to find much time for writing. Your mer-
chant puts sheet of paper inside of his vest
over his heart, of course--and in the interval
between selling goods and pricing stocks,
thinkswarm thoughts towards his wife or lady
love--and at night draws forth long letter,
all directed, ready for the post. How convent
ent Would that some friend of humanity
would offer premium for the discovery
The spiritual rapping fraternity who are
az fat in all that relates to mans capabilities,
and who are now speaking er cdthedru Of all
things celestial and terrestrial, past present
and to come, can perhaps immediately settle
the minutia of such an arrangement. One thing
is quite certain: that if every man wore sheet
of paper in his bosom, on which there should
be a true and literal version OF all his thoughts
even for one day, in great many cases he
would be astounded on reading it over Are
there not many who would there see in plain
unvarnished English what their patriotism,
disinterestedness generosity friendship, reli-
gon, actually amounts to Let us fancy some
of our extra patriotic public men comparing
such sheet with their speeches. We have
been amused, sometimes, at the look of blank
establishment with which men look for the first
time on their own daguerreotype. Is that me
Do look so! Perhaps this inner daguerreo-
type might prove more surprising still What,
think that? ] purpose so-and sOl What
troublesome ugly machine III have moth
ing to do with ito
But to drop that subject, and start another.
Ii seems to us quite wonderful that in all the
ecstacies that have been lavished on American
scenery, this beautiful State of Maine should
have been so much neglected for nothing is
or can be more wildly, peculiarly beautiful
particularly the scenery OF the sea-coast A
glance at the map will show one the peculiar
ity of these shores. II is a complicated net
work and labyrinth of islands--the sea inter
penetrating the land in every iancifal form,
through a belt Of coast from fifteen to twenty
miles wide. The effect Of this, rs it lies on the
map, and AZ it lives and CLOVIS in reality is as
different as the difference between the poetry
of life and its dead matter of fact
But supposing yourself almost anywhere in
Maine, within fifteen miles of the shore and
you start for a ride to the sea side, you will
then be in q fair way TO realize it, The sea,
living, beautiful, and life giving. seems, as you
ride, to be everywhere about you---behind be-
fore, around Now il rises like lake, gemmed
with islands, and embosomed by rich swells of
woodland. Now, you catch a peep OF it on
your right hand, among tufts Of oak and ma
pie, and anon 1t spreads on your left TO ma
Jestic sheet OF silver, among rocky shores
hung with dark pines, hemlocks, and spruces
The sea shores Of Connecticut and Massa-
chusetts have a kind OF badness and baroness
which you never see here. As you approach
the ocean there the trees seem to becOme stunt
ed and few in number, but here the ses luxu-
rates, swells, and falls, in the very lap Of the
primesal forest, The tide water washes the
dropping branches of the oak and maple, and
dashes itself up into whole hedges Of luxuriant
arbOr Vita.
No language can be too enthusiastic to
paint the beauty Of the eyergreens in these
forests The lordly spruce, 80 straight, 70
tall 70 perfectly defined in its outline, with