The Hudson, from the Wilderness to the Sea

It is reached from the public road by a winding carriage-way that passes here through rich pastures and pleasant woodlands, and then along the margin of a dell through which runs a pleasant brook, reminding one of the merry laughter of children as it dances away riverward, and leaps, in beautiful cascades and rapids, into a little bay a few yards from the cottage of Sunnyside. There, more than fifteen years ago, I visited the dear old man whom the world loved so well, and who

34^

THE HUDSON.

so lately was laid beneath the greensward on the margin of Sleepy Hollow, made classic by his genius. )^ Then I made the sketch of Sunnyside here presented to the reader. It was a soft, delicious day in June, when the trees were in full leaf and the birds in full song. I had left the railwaycars a fourth of a mile below where the germ of a village had just appeared, and strolled along the iron road to a stile, over which I climbed.

and ascended the bank by a pleasant path to the shadow of a fine old cedar, not far from the entrance gate. There I rested, and sketched the quaint cottage half shrouded in English ivy. Its master soon appeared in the porch, with a little fair-haired boy whom he led to the river bank in search of daisies and buttercups. It was a pleasant picture, and yet there was a cloud-shadow resting upon it. (jlis best eai'thly affections