Now once I had mastered the language of this water and had come to know each trifling characteristic that bordered the good river as familiarly as I knew the letters of the alphabet, I had made a helpful acquisition. However I had misplaced one thing, too. I had misplaced one thing which might by no means be restored to me whereas I lived. All of the grace, the sweetness, the poetry had gone out of the majestic river! I nonetheless take note a sure great sundown which I witnessed when steamboating was new to me.
A broad expanse of the river was turned to blood; within the center distance the purple hue brightened into gold, via which a solitary log got here floating, black and conspicuous; in a single place a lengthy, slanting mark lay glowing upon the water; in one other the floor was damaged by boiling, tumbling rings, that had been as many-tinted as an opal; the place the ruddy flush was faintest, was a easy spot that was coated with swish circles and radiating traces, ever so delicately traced; the shore on our left was densely wooded, and the sombre shadow that fell from this forest was damaged in a single place by a lengthy, ruffled path that shone like silver; and excessive above the forest wall a clean-stemmed lifeless tree waved a single leafy bough that glowed like a flame within the unobstructed splendor that was flowing from the solar.
There have been swish curves, mirrored photographs, woody heights, mushy distances; and over the entire scene, far and close to, the dissolving lights drifted steadily, enriching it, each passing second, with new marvels of coloring. 2 I stood like one bewitched. I drank it in, in a speechless rapture. The world was new to me, and I had by no means seen something like this at house. However as I’ve stated, a day got here once I started to stop from noting the glories and the charms which the moon and the solar and the twilight wrought upon the river’s face; one other day got here once I ceased altogether to notice them.
Then, if that sundown scene had been repeated, I ought to have appeared upon it with out rapture, and will have commented upon it, inwardly, on this vogue: “This solar implies that we’re going to have wind to-morrow; that floating log implies that the river is rising, small because of it; that slanting mark on the water refers to a bluff reef which goes to kill any individual’s steamboat one of these nights, if it retains on stretching out like that; these tumbling ‘boils’ present a dissolving bar and a altering channel there; the traces and circles within the slick water over yonder are a warning that that troublesome place is shoaling up dangerously; that silver streak within the shadow of the forest is the ‘break’ from a new snag, and he has positioned himself in the perfect place he might have discovered to fish for steamboats; that tall lifeless tree, with a single dwelling department, shouldn’t be going to final lengthy, after which how is a physique ever going to get via this blind place at evening with out the pleasant previous landmark? ” three No, the romance and the sweetness had been all gone from the river.
All the worth any characteristic of it had for me now was the quantity of usefulness it might furnish towards compassing the secure piloting of a steamboat. Since these days, I’ve pitied docs from my coronary heart. What does the stunning flush in a magnificence’s cheek imply to a physician however a “break” that ripples above some lethal illness? Usually are not all her seen charms sown thick with what are to him the indicators and symbols of hidden decay? Does he ever see her magnificence in any respect, or does not he merely view her professionally, and remark upon her unwholesome situation all to himself? And does not he generally wonder if he has gained most or misplaced most by studying his commerce?
