University of Virginia Library

PROLOGUE.

Through the deep shadows into the gay sunlight—
through the trees, whose grand old trunks arise around us,
whose mingling leaves wave in light and perfume above
us—through the wild-wood paths, where the moss grows,
and the flowers bloom—through the rocks that darken on
either side, venerable with their ten thousand ages, beautiful
with the vines that float along their hoary brows—
through this dim old forest, where your foot falls without a
sound, where your soul feels the presence of its God, and
your whispered word is flung back by an hundred echoes—
we will wander, on this calm summer eve.

It is the Third of July, 1776.

It is that serene evening hour, when the moss beneath
your feet is varied with long belts of black and gold. It is
the time when the deep quiet of nature—the distant sound
of leaves and streams—the glow of the sun, shining his last,
over cloud and sky, melts the heart, and steals it away, by
gentle steps, to God.

Then if we have never prayed, we will fall down and
worship. Then if we have never felt the presence of God,
in the awful cathedral aisle, where the smoke of the incense
winds in snowy wreaths about the brow of the Blessed One,
or encircles, with a veil of misty loveliness, the sad, sweet
face of Mary our Mother, we will here feel our knees bend,
our voices falter in prayer, our hearts go up to Heaven, even
as the last ray of the setting sun melts gently up the sky.

For this wild wood is the cathedral of Nature, where
every tree that towers, every flower that bends to the sod,
as though sleepy with voluptuous perfume, every ripple of
the stream, every leaf of the bough, says, as it floats or
shines, or blooms, or waves, “There is a God, and he is
good, and all men are his children!”

You may smile at this—cold hearts of the world—who
never rise from counting your pennies; you may sneer,
grave crities, who never felt a heart-throb, or owned one
thought of beauty, or suffered one word of feeling to flow
from your pen and make men's hearts beat quicker; but even
you, in the calm evening hour, would kneel and worship
God.

For it is the Wissahikon.

I will not bewilder your hearts with memories of the
past, nor tell you that every old tree has its story, every
foot of mossy earth its legend; nor point back into the brooding
shadows of a thousand years, when that huge rock was
an altar, that beautiful stream, winding in light and shadow,
the baptismal font of a forgotten religion, while here, among
these shadowy ravines, grouped the maidens, their bosoms
beating beneath vestments of snowy white, the priests, arrayed
in midnight hues, the sacrificial knife gleaming over
their heads; the warriors, whose strange costume, and dark
physiognomy, and weapons of battle, have long since passed
from the memory of man.

But I will ask you—

Did you ever; on a winter night, when the snow was on
the ground, and the light of the hearthside fire upon your
face, lean gently back in your cushioned chair, and, with
half-shut eyes, dream a voluptuous dream of a summer evening,
with the lazy sunshine bathing great masses of leaves,
while a supernatural stream wound softly along, among
rocks, and flowers, and trees?

Your dream is here!

Then, on that winter night, while the wind howled without,
half-closing your eyes, you saw a winding path, leading
far down the dell, with sunshine gushing from below, and
the boughs bending toward the ground until they touched the
cups of the wild flowers?

Your dream is here!

Or, did you behold a cool, shady place in the midst of
great forest trees, where the wild vines formed a circle of
undulating leaves, and every leaf was kissing a flower;—
where the moss, forming a carpet for your feet, seemed glad,
as the occasional sunbeams stole over its surface, while a
rugged limb, interlacing with slight branches, all woven
together with flowers, formed the roof of this perfumed
forest home?

Your dream is here!

Or, did you, with your face still glowing in that hearthside
light, wish to escape the beams of the July sun, and
wandering from the beaten track, until the trees gathering
more thickly, made a shadow like night, come to a place
where the leaves, descending to the very ground, formed an
impenetrable barrier across your path—a wall of foliage and
perfume? Impenetrable, and yet you pushed that wall
aside, and stood in the shadow of an overhanging rock, from
whose dark surface trickled a thousand little streams, uniting
below, where the rock formed a basin, in a spring of cool,
clear water, that lay like a mirror at your feet? Then,
making a cup, with the broad leaf of the chesnut tree, you
bent down, and drank the wine of the living rocks, this clear,
cold water, fresh from the caverns of mother earth.

Still, your dream is here!

Or, wandering in the chambers of a mansion, that seemed
deserted for ages—the ceiling veiled in cobwebs, the floors
dark with dust, the tapestry eaten by moths—feel your heart
grow cold, as your solitary footfall came back in a thousand
echoes, and upstarting from some dark corner, a strange
woman stood before you, her beautiful form clad in black
velvet, her eyes darting their deep light into your soul?

Still, here in the Wissahikon, you will find your dream!

Or, once more,—you seemed loitering along the shades of
the forest-path; you heard a voice, of vivid melody, thrilling
like any forest-bird, its virgin song; and following the sweet
sound, you suddenly beheld an angel form, stepping from the
shelter of the trees, beautiful as Eve, before she fell, and
gliding inch by inch, into the clear waves, her long hair
floating over the ripples which dashed against her snow-white
arms?

Upon my word, your dream is here!

But suddenly, this vision of a winter night became wildly
changed. Blasts of organ-like music made by the winds
howling through caverns broke awfully on your soul. Then
the gust of a summer rain swept your cheek, every drop
fragrant with perfume. You beheld the angel form of the
young girl walk beside the dark woman, who led her to the
verge of an awful cliff, smiling all the while, as she pushed
the virgin toward the abyss. Flowers and skulls, perfumes
and horrors, blasts from the grave, and breezes of May, were
mingled in a strange—a grotesque panorama. And the last
thing that you beheld, was a fair young face, sinking slowly

into the waters of a fathomless abyss, her mild eye upraised,
her soft voice whispering in prayer.

With a cry of horror, you awoke, wondering—as the
damps of fear started from your flesh—whether, in all the
world, there had ever happened any history, so full of strong
contrasts, so much light, so much blackness, as this, your
dream of a winter night?

Believe me, you will find the dream living bodily, and
throbbing tumultuously, here in the Wissahikon!

Come with me into its shadows?

Leaving the dusty road, we behold the dark grey walls of
an ancient mill, with a world of leaves behind it. Drowsily
turns the heavy wheel, scattering drops of light from its
gloomy timbers; sleepily trickles the water over beds of
rocks; beautifully upon the mill and the rocks, the waters
that are rushing there, and the leaves that accumulate yonder,
glows the last smile of the setting sun.

The mill is passed: behold a narrow path, leading away
into the trees, its brown sand contrasted with the grass on
either side. Yonder glooms a huge rock; we reach its foot,
we see the trees towering far above us, clusters of foliage
rising on clusters, until but a glimpse of the blue sky is
seen.

The walk is passed;—is it a dream that breaks upon us?

Far, far away, extends a track of golden light, that shines
until it fades. Look closer, and in that track of light, you
discover the Wissahikon, sunken deep, between two walls
of leaves and rocks that start upright from its very shores
into the sky. And it flows silently on, receiving on its
bosom that last gush of light, which pours above these
heights from the western sky.

Yonder, the leaves descend to its waters, and embrace it,
as though they would bury it from the light, in a veil of
foliage. The vines bend over it, and scatter their blossoms
upon its waves. The very path seems to love it, for descending
from these rugged steeps, it leads along the shore,
only separated by a line of sand and flowers from its waters.

The stream narrows, the trees almost meet from opposite
sides, when suddenly this wild enchantress, the Indian maid,
called Wissahikon, opens to us a prospect as strange as it
is wildly beautiful.

Stand with me, on this clump of green and shrubs, and
behold it! Yonder, on the left, a wall of rocks rises, in
gloomy grandeur into the sky. The waters gush upon their
feet, the pines—see them far overhead—crown their brows.
Black and dismal, rocks heaped on rocks, cliff starting over
cliff, this wall towers above us, its dark surface, here and
there, relieved by vines, or shadowed by trees, that grow
between the clefts, their green branches shooting into light
from every pile of granite.

To the left, the woods ascend, in a rolling outline, like a
wave of the ocean; only for ripples, you have leaves; for
cheerless water, delicious foliage, wreathed with flowers.

Directly in front, the narrow path leads up a steep hill.
On the summit of that hill, a house of gray stone, encircled
by a garden, a spring of cold water, gushing into an oaken
trough, one solitary tree, bending over the steep roof, and
rising, alone—a pyramid of leaves—into the evening sky.

The last ray of the sun is trembling on the top of that
tree!

Between the hill covered by the house of dark stone, and
this gloomy wall of cliffs, comes the Wissahikon, chafed
into a rage by the rocks spread in her way, and writhing,
on every wave, into a white foam, that looks like spring
blossoms agitated by the wind.

She came leaping over the rocks, filling the wild dell with
voice of her agony; but the moment these rocks are past,
she is calm again—she subsides into a gentle lake—she
lovingly kisses the feet of the cliff, whispers in those
caverns, and ripples her blessing to the flowers on yonder
isle!

We ascend the hill, and lingering on its summit, taste the
waters of the spring, as we gaze for the last time upon the
setting sun.

Then, into the shadows, along the wood that darkens,
until we stand upon the rock, with the Wissahikon far beneath
our feet.

Look down!

Rushing from the north, her course is stayed by this dense
mass of earth and trees and rocks. With a sudden movement,
she wheels directly to the west, and hurries smilingly
on. Look down! How calm, how like the sinless sleep
of Eve in Paradise, that water smiles as it rests in the embrace
of its beloved trees!

Here the bank is steep and precipitous; yonder the woods

shelve down into a level point of land, which projects into
the clear waves. So dense is the shade cast by the overhanging
trees upon the dark, rich earth, that but a few scattered
clumps of grass and flowers overspread its surface.—
Look down! Around that point, beneath the trees that
stretch out their arms as if they loved it, the Wissahikon
ripples, smiles, and glides on without a sound.

Look down, but do not let your gaze wander too long upon
the clear deep waters. For there is a strange fascination in
those waves that wiles you to their embrace, and makes you
wish to bury life and its troubles among their ripples.

To yonder rock, where the dark waters spread into a limpid
sheet, not deeper than your ankle, at dead of night, when
the moon shone out over the trees, there came a young girl,
who silently bared her form, and laid herself to rest, upon
the pebbled bed, with the cool waters dashing over her
bosom. The night passed, and she slept on. The morning
came, and they found her there, with her head rising and
falling with the gentle motion of the stream, her brown hair
floating in the ripples, her white bosom now covered by the
waves, now laid bare to the light. She slept well, upon the
pebbled bed, rocked by the waters. No stain was on her
name, no grief upon her heart. The aged man, her father,
who lifted the corse from its watery cradle, could not impute
to her one guilty thought.

Her attire was found upon yon rock; her Bible and prayer
book on the grass beside the stream.

She had toiled three weary miles to die upon the bosom
of the stream she loved so well.

And when the old man laid her on the bank, there was a
sad, sweet smile upon her face, as though some good angel had
kissed her in her closing hour, and left a blessing on her lips.

Along the northern path, with the stream roaring below
us, we will hurry on.

A beautiful picture! That cluster of old cottages and
barns, grouped beside the mill, with rocks frowning above,
and a sea of foliage, swelling into the sky. In that cottage,
Rittenhouse, the Philosopher was born; between yonder
rock and the buttonwood tree lies the space of earth which
witnessed one of the darkest tragedies that ever froze the
blood but to hear told again.[1] The blood of a father poured
forth by the son, moistened that grassy sod.

Beside the mill, a mass of rocks chokes the course of Wissahikon.
Above the wall of rocks, extending from the
mill-wheel to the opposite shore, how calmly it glides on,
its bosom shadowed by the trees that meet above its waveless
waters! Below how it darkens, and boils, and foams,
filling the air with its shout!

Let us enter the light canoe, and while the oar makes low
music to the ripples, glide softly on! Behind us pass the
trees, still there are new groups ahead! Behind us bloom
the flowers, still new blossoms greet us as we go! Behind
us flashes the ripples, still before our canoe the stream extends,
with foliage rising to the sky on either side.

At last emerging from the thick shadow, we beheld a
mound-like hill, covered by a strange edifice, built of stone,
with steep roofs and many windows, and a garden blooming
far down into the glen.

That is the Monastery, in which the Monks of Wissahikon,
long ago, worshipped their God, without a creed.

In this space, between the mill which we have left and
the Monastery which rises before us, on the eastern banks
of Wissahikon, behold a quiet cottage, smiling from among
the forest trees. It is built in the space between two colossal
rocks; above it, far, far into the sky towers that wall of
leaves; from its narrow door to the water's edge, a plot of
level earth extends, green with moss and blooming with
flowers.

Even as an altar, on which the dearest hopes and fondest
memories blossom, so from the forest out upon the waters,
looks that Cottage Home of Wissahikon.

This was on the third of July, 1776.

Now, the rocks are clad with wild vines; the garden is a
waste. Yet, searching among those vines, you may still
discover the traces of a wall, the scattered stones and broken
roof tile of that forest home!

And the story of that home, the strange Legend of the
wild Rose that bloomed there, which leads us into scenes of
absorbing interest, now unveiling to our gaze, the Hall of Independence,
crowded with the shadows of the past, now
treading these shades and dells of Wissahikon, shall be inscribed
with a name worthy of the purest page that ever
kindled a generous emotion in the heart, or raised the soul
with words of holy truth—