The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1852-09-09
10 Mrs. Stowe sends us another delightful
Letter from Maine-Ed Era
LETTERS FROM MAINE-NO.2
BETHEL. OXFORD COUNTY.

| thought few weeks ago that nothing
could be 30 beautiful Us the sea-shore of Maine
but since have been travelling among these
glorious mountains have. often been led Sc.
riously to question that conclusion. There is a
world of heartiness of broad thought and viva
city of emotion, about the eyer-changing. many
voiced, and many-hued sea but there is also
a grandeur, a STILL solemn, thoughtfuness, about
these everlasting hills" AS you ride on, and
ride on, and one cloudy old giant after another
raises his broad, thoughtful forehead, and looks
serenely over some brother giants shoulder.
till finally their great arms embrace the whole
landscape around you-north, south, east, and
west-it produces in the mind hush of repose
calm, thoughtful stiffness, as if this aerial
band of cloudy brothers had shut one out OF
the great, busy, bustling world, into some re-
gion of peace and simplicity such as one is al
ways longing after and never finding in this
work-a-day world
Suppose yourself, dear sir seated in a little
open wagon, for an afternoons drive among
these hills. All around the horizon, on every
side, your view is shut in by mountains clothed
in every variety of tint, and as you ride along,
every moment shifting their outline and pre-
senting to the eye a dreamy succession OF
changes The nearer ones show the distinct
outlines of trees and crags-the trees dark with
the ripe green of summer In those more dis
tant, the eternal forest looks like soft layer
of mossy velvet of a rich cloudy purplish tint,
and still further rise outlines in pale blue and
lilac, which, stretching off in long circles, min
gle their outlines with the clouds. 1t seems
to me that the sky here has peculiar bril-
liancy the blue is a dense, rich, deep blue, and
there are masses of floating clouds which 90
sailing about hither and thither, lazily folding
their white plumage on the purple top of the
old mountain, as if they felt very tranquil in
deed, and didn't care how long they staid
there. This river that we are coming to- our
conductors tell us, is called Sunday river. "Why
so z" asks one of the company To me it was
quite obvious why. Was it not to express that
quetude and peace of these sheltered valleys,
where beautiful rich intervals of meadow
land and thriving farms, and white spires of
churches, and schoOl-houses, rise in the EN-
brace of these guardian old mountains Was
it not to intimate that this reverent hush of
nature, this Sabbath tranquility of cloud and
mountain and stream, had a religious voice, and
might suggest the beautiful words "As the
mountains are round about jerusalem so the
Lord is round about his people from this time
and forevermore!" Well, that was a very good
derivation of the term Sunday river quite po-
etc and appropriate, only that, like most poetic
things in life, it didn't happen to be the true
account of the matter The name, in fact, was
given by a band of surveyors who first explored
the valley, and who pitched their Sundays
camp upon its banks, and thus christened it,
But these mountain streams, is there on
earth a thing fresher and more beautiful
beautiful in every size and graduation whether
it be your whisking, rafting, frisky, young
brook, that comes whirring and purring and
skipping down the hills, with leap there and
a fling here, and general air of don't care jo-
Vitality, indicative of the inexperience of brook
hood or the broader ripping flow of your
translucent stream which is to the brook what
the graceful maiden is to the dancing child
There is a beautiful amber brown to the wa
tiers, in which are momently dancing thousands
of rings and ripplcs of sunlight and then the
layer of many-colored pebbles that pave the
bottom, and shine up bright and wet through
the Pickering Elusive play of the waters, as if
they might be a bed of precious stones, Some
of as may remainder getting many lapful of
wet little stones raked from the Elusive bed
of the stream, and wondering why they lost
their beauty so instantly when they came above
water-types too significant of things whose
brightness is only the result of the medium
they are seen through, of which there are a
great plenty in this world.
But while we have been writing this Sunday
river has been long past, and our road winds
deeper and deeper among the blue mountains.
There, now, we are fairly shut in; that great
dark fellow in front of us with his wall of
black pines and forest trees towering quite up
to the sky-he is right across our path-no,
here is turn-and on we go, the old noun
IL. 10 IL, .,,I
| Here we come to n little sunny interval again
soft, rich, meadow land, enclosed all round
with solemn walls of mountan-tier above
tier of tree and rock, where in good time our
road will bring up against an impenetrable
wall. Here is a little settlement of tarm-houses.
! Here, by the side of clear stream, and in II
most charming grove of naples, blrches, and
other forest trees, rises the school-hOuse of the
settlement One wonders, going by, whether
these bright-eyed children are impressed and
| educated in love of the beautiful and grand,
by the scenery in which they are brought up.
Do they ever look with wonder and ave. up the
dark inaccessible walls that hang round the
little sunny nook where they are born! Do
they ever lie thoughtfuly under these trees, and
hear the gurgle of the mountain stream, and
watch the bright tieeces of the heavy clouds
that rest on the blue, smoky mountains and
have strange wonderings and yearnngs for
| anything that lies beyond One would think
that the grand solemnites of nature would
stamp their seal on the young heart, and mould
it into something characteristic and peculiar.
Certain it is, that these hooks and holows
among the mountains produce a race of great
intellectual activity
You 90 into plain farm house, where the
furniture and all the appurtenances retain the
| most primitive simplicity-but be not surpris-
ed if you see Latin, Greek and German books
| living on the table You look inquiringly, and
are told perhaps of a certain Mary Ann or
| Maria, who is keeping school up at Umbagog,
| or some other impossible out-of-the-way place
| whose books these are. She has long done
using them-she got them when she first be-
gun now she has left them for Cynthia or
| Louisa or some other fair successor in the
family line, who is equally hardy and onerget-
ic in her attacks upon the tree of knowledge
Ten to one, you get glimpse Of said Cynthia,
who proves a slender blue-eyed girl, trinity
dressed, with II pair of very pretty earrings in
her ears, and an air Of quiet composure and
MUO,r fare which shows you that she is prin-
cess of the blood in her own regions You talk
with her. and find she has mind US sharp and
bright and keen as one of the quartz crystals
among her own mountains. She has been to
the academy in the neighboring town She
has fancy for drawing, and may be shows
you crayon head or a landscape which you
did not expect to see just then-she wishes she
could get somewhere where she could learn
more about it-she has a cousin who paints
in oils--she thinks perhaps, after she has taught
aquarter or two, she will save enough to get to
Portland, and take lessons of master
One is struck with the intellectual activity of
the Maine women, wherever he travels among
them. friend Of mine told me the other day
| that i'm one of the towns where he was VISITING