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1Author:  Cooper James Fenimore 1789-1851Add
 Title:  The Heidenmauer, Or, the Benedictines  
 Published:  1997 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: The reader must imagine a narrow and secluded valley, for the opening scene of this tale. The time was that in which the day loses its power, casting a light on objects most exposed, that resembles colors seen through glass slightly stained; a peculiarity of the atmosphere, which, though almost of daily occurrence in summer and autumn, is the source of constant enjoyment to the real lover of nature. The hue meant is not a sickly yellow, but rather a soft and melancholy glory, that lends to the hill-side and copse, to tree and tower, to stream and lawn, those tinges of surpassing loveliness that impart to the close of day its proverbial and soothing charm. The setting sun touched with oblique rays a bit of shaven meadow, that lay in a dell so deep as to owe this parting smile of nature to an accidental formation of the neighboring eminences, a distant mountain crest, that a flock had cropped and fertilized, a rippling current that glided in the bottom, a narrow beaten path, more worn by hoof than wheel, and a vast range of forest, that swelled and receded from the view, covering leagues of a hill-chase, that even tradition had never peopled. The spot was seemingly as retired as if it had been chosen in one of our own solitudes of the wilderness; while it was, in fact, near the centre of Europe, and in the sixteenth century. But, notwithstanding the absence of dwellings, and all the other signs of the immediate presence of man, together with the wooded character of the scene, an American eye would not have been slow to detect its distinguishing features, from those which mark the wilds of this country. The trees, though preserved with care, and flourishing, wanted the moss of ages, the high and rocking summit, the variety and natural wildness of the western forest. No mouldering trunk lay where it had fallen, no branch had been twisted by the gale and forgotten, nor did any upturned root betray the indifference of man to the decay of this important part of vegetation. Here and there, a species of broom, such as is seen occasionally on the mast-heads of ships, was erected above some tall member of the woods that stood on an elevated point; land-marks which divided the rights of those who were entitled to cut and clip; the certain evidence that man had long before extended his sway over these sombre hills, and that, retired as they seemed, they were actually subject to all the divisions, and restraints, and vexations, which, in peopled regions, accompany the rights of property.
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