The Crayon Papers | Page 5

further. I leaned against a window-frame,
and in a few minutes was completely lost in the story. How long I stood
there reading I know not, but I believe for nearly two hours. Suddenly I
heard my sisters on the stairs, when I thrust the book into my bosom,
and the two other volumes which lay near into my pockets, and hurried
out of the house to my beloved woods. Here I remained all day beneath

the trees, bewildered, bewitched, devouring the contents of these
delicious volumes, and only returned to the house when it was too dark
to peruse their pages.
This novel finished, I replaced it in my sisters' apartment, and looked
for others. Their stock was ample, for they had brought home all that
were current in the city; but my appetite demanded an immense supply.
All this course of reading was carried on clandestinely, for I was a little
ashamed of it, and fearful that my wisdom might be called in question;
but this very privacy gave it additional zest. It was "bread eaten in
secret"; it had the charm of a private amour.
But think what must have been the effect of such a course of reading on
a youth of my temperament and turn of mind; indulged, too, amid
romantic scenery and in the romantic season of the year. It seemed as if
I had entered upon a new scene of existence. A train of combustible
feelings were lighted up in me, and my soul was all tenderness and
passion. Never was youth more completely love-sick, though as yet it
was a mere general sentiment, and wanted a definite object.
Unfortunately, our neighborhood was particularly deficient in female
society, and I languished in vain for some divinity to whom I might
offer up this most uneasy burden of affections. I was at one time
seriously enamored of a lady whom I saw occasionally in my rides,
reading at the window of a country-seat; and actually serenaded her
with my flute; when, to my confusion, I discovered that she was old
enough to be my mother. It was a sad damper to my romance;
especially as my father heard of it, and made it the subject of one of
those household jokes which he was apt to serve up at every meal-time.
I soon recovered from this check, however, but it was only to relapse
into a state of amorous excitement. I passed whole days in the fields,
and along the brooks; for there is something in the tender passion that
makes us alive to the beauties of nature. A soft sunshiny morning
infused a sort of rapture into my breast. I flung open my arms, like the
Grecian youth in Ovid, as if I would take in and embrace the balmy
atmosphere. [Footnote: Ovid's Metamorphoses, Book vii] The song of
the birds melted me to tenderness. I would lie by the side of some

rivulet for hours, and form garlands of the flowers on its banks, and
muse on ideal beauties, and sigh from the crowd of undefined emotions
that swelled my bosom.
In this state of amorous delirium, I was strolling one morning along a
beautiful wild brook, which I had discovered in a glen. There was one
place where a small waterfall, leaping from among rocks into a natural
basin, made a scene such as a poet might have chosen as the haunt of
some shy Naiad. It was here I usually retired to banquet on my novels.
In visiting the place this morning I traced distinctly, on the margin of
the basin, which was of fine clear sand, the prints of a female foot of
the most slender and delicate proportions. This was sufficient for an
imagination like mine. Robinson Crusoe himself, when he discovered
the print of a savage foot on the beach of his lonely island, could not
have been more suddenly assailed with thick-coming fancies.
I endeavored to track the steps, but they only passed for a few paces
along the fine sand, and then were lost among the herbage. I remained
gazing in reverie upon this passing trace of loveliness. It evidently was
not made by any of my sisters, for they knew nothing of this haunt;
besides, the foot was smaller than theirs; it was remarkable for its
beautiful delicacy.
My eye accidentally caught two or three half-withered wild flowers
lying on the ground. The unknown nymph had doubtless dropped them
from her bosom! Here was a new document of taste and sentiment. I
treasured them up as invaluable relics. The place, too, where I found
them, was remarkably picturesque, and the most beautiful part of the
brook. It was overhung with a fine elm, entwined with grapevines. She
who could select such a spot, who could delight