Prev | Current Page 762 | Next

Cooper, James Fenimore, 1789-1851

"Oak Openings"

On the present occasion, we flew over the space in less than
three hours, and dined in a town of some fifteen thousand souls.
We reached Buffalo, at the foot of Lake Erie, in about twenty hours
after we had entered the cars. This journey would have been the
labor of more than a week, at the time in which the scene of this
tale occurred. Now, the whole of the beautiful region, teeming with
its towns and villages, and rich with the fruits of a bountiful
season, was almost brought into a single landscape by the rapidity
of our passage.
At Buffalo, we turned aside to visit the cataract. Thither, too, we
went on rails. Thirty-eight years had passed away since we had laid
eyes on this wonderful fall of water. In the intervening time we had
travelled much, and had visited many of the renowned falls of the
old world, to say nothing of the great number which are to be found
in other parts of our own land. Did this visit, then, produce
disappointment?
Did time, and advancing years, and feelings that had become deadened
by experience, contribute to render the view less striking, less
grand, in any way less pleasing than we had hoped to find it? So far
from this, all our expectations were much more than realized.


Pages:
750 751 752 753 754 755 756 757 758 759 760 761 762 763 764 765 766 767 768 769 770 771 772 773 774