The Project Gutenberg eBook, Letters from a Landscape Painter, by Charles Lanman

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LETTERS FROM A LANDSCAPE PAINTER.

BY THE AUTHOR OF “ESSAYS FOR SUMMER HOURS.” (Charles Lanman)

Gentlemen, let not prejudice prepossess you. I confess my discourse is like to prove suitable to my recreation,—calm and quiet. Izaak Walton.

BOSTON: JAMES MUNROE AND COMPANY. MDCCCXLV.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1844, by Charles Lanman. in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

BOSTON: PRINTED BY THURSTON, TORRY AND CO. 31 Devonshire Street.

CRITICAL NOTICES OF LANMAN’S “ESSAYS FOR SUMMER HOURS.”

By John Neal, Esq.

“A book of two hundred and fifty pages, containing some twenty essays or thereabouts,—and perhaps more,—upon all sorts of pilgrimages: upon the woods and the city, Morning and Evening, the Dying Year, Literature, Mirth and Sadness, the Early Called, the Painter’s Dream, &c., &c., &c.; written with great simplicity and sweetness,—untainted with affectation, except in two or three slight instances,—original, tender, and at times absolutely touching.”

From the N. Y. Evening Post, Edited by W. C. Bryant.

“The volume, of which we have copied the title, is composed of essays on various subjects, the fruit, as the author tells us, of the leisure of last summer. They are agreeably written, with a vein of poetic embellishment.”

From the Democratic Review.

“‘Essays for Summer Hours,’ is the title of a pleasing little tome, by Charles Lanman, comprising a series of sketches of American scenery, interspersed with poetical allusions to incidents and characters which are very harmoniously blended, and agreeably presented. We hope this work will prove successful, and form the precursor of many other contributions to our elegant literature from the same pen.”

From the Southern Literary Messenger.

“This well printed, and handsome little volume, embraces a series of eighteen essays; the most of them founded in American scenery and associations. Some of the topics are furnished by the West, the native place of the young author; he has certainly done justice to the fresh scenes that are spread out in that interesting portion of the country. The talent of the writer is descriptive; he has painted, with remarkable fidelity and beauty, some of the most striking points of Western life. His language is chaste and well selected; and many of the moral reflections, growing out of the several subjects which he has selected for his essays, are expressed in an exceedingly interesting and even touching manner.”

From the Boston Miscellany.

“This a pleasant little volume of quiet Essays, written by a warm lover of nature, and dealing principally with descriptions of natural scenery, or the development of simple feeling. The author has well characterized them as reading ‘for summer hours.’ They neither furnish deep thought, nor are the parent of it; and yet they conduct the reader through pleasant places, in peaceful and undisturbed meditative shades, without disturbing him with paradoxical statements, or, often, with opinions that his judgment or his taste rejects. The author appears to have read a good deal, with discrimination and sympathy, and,—as it is true that the more we know, the more we learn from what we read of the best written efforts of master-minds,—so the more a writer, especially of this class of essays, has gathered from the already accumulated stores of information and illustration, readier will be his power to impress his own train of thought upon his reader. Mr. Lanman appears to have had a peculiarly apt sympathy and appreciation for his favorite authors, and we consequently find that (which, although artistically a fault, is no loss to the readers of his book,) whenever he comes to the real depth of his subject, or to a marked point either of argument or illustration, he flies to quotation to express himself, and his quotations are in general well selected and classical.”

From the London Literary Gazette.

“This is a second edition, and the matter well deserves to run through many more; for we have met with nothing of the kind in Transatlantic polite literature in which so fresh and pure a spirit prevails. It is far away from the worldly, trading, and money-making go-a-head passion, which rules the multitude both there and here.”

TO THE HON. GEORGE PERKINS MARSH, BURLINGTON, VERMONT.

My Dear Sir,

To you, in testimony of my regard for you, as a Statesman, a Scholar, and a Lover of the Fine Arts, do I dedicate this little volume.

Had not my maiden effort in the world of letters been received by the public with such marked favor, I should not venture to publish again. The same motives, however, which prompted the first, have also prompted the present collection of my productions, and I desire no other reward than the one already bestowed upon me in the approving smile of honest and sincere hearts.

As my title-page implies, I am now a professional Landscape Painter, my inclinations having compelled me to relinquish the “cotton trade and sugar line,” and these letters, originally written to a literary friend in New York, are but the offspring of one who claims the only merit of being a lover of iv Nature and his fellow men. I confess myself to be a creature of impulse, and each paper that I now publish, I would have considered as a mere record of my thoughts and feelings during the hour it may have been indited. Having been a sojourner in various portions of the country during the past summer, in search of the picturesque, you must not be surprised to find yourself one moment scrambling through a mountain gorge, and the next on the margin of the boundless sea. With this preliminary, I lay aside my pen, and return to my palette and pencils. Your sincere friend, CHARLES LANMAN.

New York, Autumn of 1844.

CONTENTS.

TROUTING AMONG THE CATSKILLS

Again am I in the country, where I shall probably remain until the even-tide of the year. The main object, as you know, in my contemplated wanderings, will be to study the “book of nature, opened wide,” with a view of adding to my stock of materials for future use in my profession. The first of those letters, which I promised to write you by way of recreation, I have now commenced, and I wish you to understand, at the very outset, that, as I have nothing in particular to prove, my themes will be as variable as my feelings; but I shall confine myself principally to descriptions of natural scenery and personal adventures.