mortality, kinder than is her custom, had vouchsafed a day whose down
had been untouched,--that to him these plains might enter, and flow
forth in airy song. And you, forests, under whose symmetrical shields of
dark green the colors of the fawns move, like the waters of the river
under its spears,--its cimeters of flag, where, in gleaming circles of
steel, the breasts of the wood-pigeons flash in the playful sunbeam, and
many sounds, many notes of no earthly music, come over the well-relieved
glades,--should not your depth pass into that poet's heart,--in your
depths should he not fuse his own?"

The other letters show the painter's eye, as this the poet's heart.


"Springfield, Illinois, May 20, 1840.

"Yesterday morning I left Griggsville, my knapsack at my back, pursued
my journey all day on foot, and found so new and great delight in this
charming country, that I must needs tell you about it. Do you remember
our saying once, that we never found the trees tall enough, the fields
green enough. Well, the trees are for once tall, and fair to look upon,
and one unvarying carpet of the tenderest green covers these marvellous
fields, that spread out their smooth sod for miles and miles, till they
even reach the horizon. But, to begin my day's journey. Griggsville is
situated on the west side of the Illinois river, on a high prairie;
between it and the river is a long range of bluffs which reaches a
hundred miles north and south, then a wide river bottom, and then the
river. It was a mild, showery morning, and I directed my steps toward
the bluffs. They are covered with forest, not like our forests, tangled
and impassable, but where the trees stand fair and apart from one
another, so that you might ride every where about on horseback, and the