Acadia | Page 9

one can get an idea of the calm
and the tranquil--especially after a celebration. It has been said:
"Halifax is the only place that is finished." One can readily believe it.
The population has been twenty-five thousand for the last twenty-five
years, and a new house is beyond the memory of the oldest inhabitant.
The fog cleared up. And one of those inexpressibly balmy days
followed. June in Halifax represents our early May. The trees are all in
bud; the peas in the garden-beds are just marking the lines of drills with
faint stripes of green. Here and there a solitary bird whets his bill on the
bare bark of a forked bough. The chilly air has departed, and in its
place is a sense of freshness, of dewiness, of fragrance and delight. A
sense of these only, an instinctive feeling, that anticipates the odor of
the rose before the rose is blown. On such a morning we went forth to
visit Chezzetcook, and here, gentle reader, beginneth the Evangeliad.
The intuitive perception of genius is its most striking element. I was
told by a traveller and an artist, who had been for nearly twenty years

on the northwest coast, that he had read Irving's "Astoria" as a mere
romance, in early life, but when he visited the place itself, he found that
he was reading the book over again; that Irving's descriptions were so
minute and perfect, that he was at home in Astoria, and familiar, not
only with the country, but with individuals residing there; "for," said he,
"although many of the old explorers, trappers, and adventurers
described in the book were dead and gone, yet I found the descendants
of those pioneers had the peculiar characteristics of their fathers; and
the daughter of Concomly, whom I met, was as interesting a historical
personage at home as Queen Elizabeth would have been in
Westminster Abbey. At Vancouver's Island," said the traveller, "I found
an old dingy copy of the book itself, embroidered and seamed with
interlineations and marginal notes of hundreds of pens, in every style of
chirography, yet all attesting the faithfulness of the narrative. I would
have given anything for that copy, but I do not believe I could have
purchased it with the price of the whole island."
What but that wonderful clement of genius, intuitive perception, could
have produced such a book? Irving was never on the Columbia River,
never saw the northwest coast. "The materials were furnished him from
the log-books and journals of the explorers themselves," says Dr.
Dryasdust. True, my learned friend, but suppose I furnish you with
pallet and colors, with canvas and brushes, the materials of art, will you
paint me as I sit here, and make a living, breathing picture, that will
survive my ashes for centuries? "I have not the genius of the artist,"
replies Dr. Dryasdust. Then, my dear Doctor, we will put the materials
aside for the present, and venture a little farther with our theory of
"intuitive perception."
Longfellow never saw the Acadian Land, and yet thus his pastoral
begins:
"This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks."
This is the opening line of the poem: this is the striking feature of Nova
Scotia scenery. The shores welcome us with waving masses of foliage,
but not the foliage of familiar woods. As we travel on this hilly road to
the Acadian settlement, we look up and say, "This is the forest

primeval," but it is the forest of the poem, not that of our childhood.
There is not, in all this vast greenwood, an oak, an elm, a chestnut, a
beech, a cedar or maple. For miles and miles, we see nothing against
the clear blue sky but the spiry tops of evergreens; or perhaps, a
gigantic skeleton, "a rampike," pine or hemlock, scathed and spectral,
stretches its gaunt outline above its fellows. Spruces and firs, such as
adorn our gardens, cluster in never-ending profusion; and aromatic and
unwonted odor pervades the air--the spicy breath of resinous balsams.
Sometimes the sense is touched with a new fragrance, and presently we
see a buckthorn, white with a thousand blossoms. These, however, only
meet us at times. The distinct and characteristic feature of the forest is
conveyed in that one line of the poet.
And yet another feature of the forest primeval presents itself, not less
striking and unfamiliar. From the dead branches of those skeleton pines
and hemlocks, these rampikes, hang masses of white moss, snow-white,
amid the dark verdure. An actor might wear such a beard in the play of
King Lear. Acadian children wore such to imitate "grandpère,"
centuries ago; Cowley's trees are "Patricians," these are Patriarchs.
----"The murmuring pines and the hemlocks, Bearded with moss, and in
garments green, indistinct in