Havens

“ But when he pledged a discreet vestryman to confidence, and told him he sought to buy the old parsonage for the son of its former occupant, the Reverend Hugh Landless, and for his wife, the ways were smoothed at once. ”

“ The transformation of the two great wooded ridges beyond the dwelling-line into well-graded drives, art vying with nature to please the eye and win the soul to beauty, completes the impression sometimes expressed, that New Haven is an immense village encircled by gardens. ”

“ It was indeed a glorious morning, and to ride through the streets of New Haven at sunrise is like dashing through the gravel walks of a garden, for there is scarcely a dwelling which is not surrounded by a little wilderness of trees and shrubbery. ”

“ Benson, that the sun and moon and the eleven stars, to say nothing of the sheaves, will make obeisance to us. And then, as we grow older the visions fade. The eleven stars seem unaware of our existence and we are content if, in a quiet corner, a single sheaf gives us a nod of recognition. ”

“ In this cool sunlight, Fair Haven Hill shows to advantage. Every rock and shrub and protuberance has justice done it, the sun shining at an angle on the hills and giving each a shadow. The hills have a hard and distinct outline, and I see into their very texture. On Fair Haven I see the sunlit light green grass in the hollows where the snow makes pools of water sometimes, and the sunlit russet slopes. Cut three white-pine boughs opposite Fair Haven, and set them up in the bow of our boat for a sail. ”

“ The area occupied by the town of New Haven is estimated to be six times as great as that of a European town with the same number of inhabitants. It was originally laid out in parallelograms, and the houses are built upon the outer sides of the squares, with large gardens meeting in the centre. Almost every house stands separate, and surrounded by shrubbery and verdure; and it is the great peculiarity of the town, that all its streets are planted with rows of elms, grown at this day to remarkable size and luxuriance. ”

“ We are indebted to a gossiping and ever most welcome New Haven friend for the following anecdote of one of the men who, clothed in a little brief authority, 'go about 'restin' people:'
Our village we consider one of the most pleasant in the country; our boys full of life and activity, and our officers men of energy and perseverance, and men who understand their importance. ”

“ I now propose to give a brief description of New Haven and its inhabitants in the words of a business man who loves the town. New Haven, is to-day a city of more than forty thousand inhabitants, remarkable as the New Englanders generally are for their ingenuity, industry, shrewd practical good sense, and their large aggregate wealth; and with forty thousand such people it is not strange that New Haven is now growing like a city in the west. ”

“ Fair Haven Pond is now open, and there is no snow. It is a beautiful, almost Indian-summer, afternoon, though the air is more pure and glassy. The shrub oak fire burns briskly as seen from the Cliffs. The evergreens are greener than ever. I notice the row of dwarf willows advanced into the water in Fair Haven, three or four rods from the dry land, just at the lowest water-mark. You can get no disease but cold in such an atmosphere. ”

“ New Haven is considered to be the most beautiful town in America, and it is marvellously beautiful. The elm is a very fine tree on this continent. It is of a peculiar kind, rising to a great height [Pg 95] before any branches shoot out, thus producing large overhanging branches like a candelabrum. It is common in all American towns, but this is called by pre-eminence the City of Elms. There are broad avenues in every direction, the branches of the trees meeting across and forming shady walks on the hottest day. ”

“ The gloom of early evening, the glow of the firelight, the smell of the sea, the full-rigged ship on a rude wall-bracket, and the moaning wind outside were memories of after years. At the moment, wrapped in a blanket, Phyllis was conscious only of security and warmth. She smiled up at the big fisherman who had rescued her, and made friendly advances to the cluster of ragged little ones who gathered around her, with scared faces and brown, bare legs and feet. When the fisherman's wife tucked her into a warm bed, she inquired sleepily for her mamma. ”

“ The college buildings of New Haven are more remarkable for their utility than for the beauty of their architecture; but, buried in trees, and standing on the ridge of a sloping green, they have altogether a beautiful effect, and an air of elegant and studious repose. Few strangers ever pass through New Haven without expressing a wish to take up their abode, and pass their days, among its picturesque avenues and gardens. ”

“ A few fishermen's cottages, a homely inn and a handful of lodging-houses clambering up the rearwar [Pg 118] d hill, form the sum total of this most diminutive of watering-places.
Low Tide at Little Haven.
Seawards the hamlet is begirt by ruddy sandstone cliffs of moderate height, the rocky strata being twisted into the most curious contortions, and pierced with caverns and crannies frequented by bathers and picnic parties. The firm dry sands, exposed at low tide, afford a pleasant seaside stroll to the more spacious shores of Broad Haven. ”

“ In New Haven, on the last Thursday of May, toward five in the afternoon, one becomes aware that the sea of boys which ripples always over the little city has condensed into a river flowing into the campus. ”

“ New Haven is situated at the head of a fine bay, four miles from Long Island Sound, and seventy-six miles from New York, on the direct line of Rail-road, and great thoroughfare between that city and Boston, and can be reached in three hours by Rail-road and about five by water from New York. New Haven has long been known as the city of Elms, and it far surpasses any other city in America in the number and beauty of these noble elm trees which shade and adorn its streets and public squares. ”

“ John hesitated. Sir Peter rustled "The Times" uneasily. Phyllis sat perfectly still, waiting.
"My father taught me more than I learned at Magdalene, and he gave me my ideals. Perhaps they are unusual, but I believe they are true. They may be told in a few words,—to face life fearlessly, live it cleanly and fully, and use it to what end one's conscience and one's talents direct without too much regard for the careless opinion of the world. I haven't anything behind me that I am ashamed of. ”

“ For I am only a poor poet, with nothing but faith in myself and love for you to offer. I know you have everything; a beautiful home, and beautiful clothes, and beautiful jewels, probably, though I haven't seen them. Every wish of yours is answered almost before you know it is yours. Life's promise to you is the earth and the fullness thereof; and I offer you only love. But in the end I shall win, Phyllis, I am perfectly certain of that. I shall never, never be rich; possibly never even well-to-do; but I love you, Phyllis ”

“ Thence we turned and travelled northwardly and eastwardly for Cape Haven, [3] a mountain island at the eastern extreme of Williams's Peninsula. [4] Cape Haven was the place of my first encampment on this trip, and distant by sledge route from George Henry Harbour fifteen miles. On ascending its heights I found the view that it commanded to be very extensive.
On the following day I held over at the place of my first encampment till 11 a.m. hoping the sun would make its appearance from behind the clouds, so that I might make observations for time, latitude, and solar bearings. ”

“ There are tastefully adorned suburbs surrounding New Haven, where the hills afford charming prospects. The two great attractions, however, are the 110 bold and impressive promontories known as the East and West Rocks, which are high buttresses of trap rock, lifting themselves from the plain on each side of the town in magnificent opposition, and rising four hundred feet. ”

“ Snug Haven, with gray-shingled walls, with massive chimney stacks projecting from its weather-beaten, gambreled roof, seemed to epitomize rest after labor, peace after strife.
From its broad piazza, with morning-glory-covered pillars, a splendid view opened of sea and shore and foam-ringed islets in the harbor of South Endicutt—a view commanding kelp-strewn foreshore, rock-buttressed headlands, sun-spangled cobalt of the bay; and then the white, far tower of Truxbury Light, and then the hazed and brooding mystery of open Atlantic. ”

“ When I am walking on such evenings as we have had this week past, and amidst such scenery as New Haven presents, chastened and softened in its beauty by the pure and quiet light of the moon, I have an elevation of thought and sentiment which I cannot drown in sleep without reluctance. ”

“ The style of domestic architecture in New Haven favours the rural character of the town. Built, as was remarked before, in the midst of a garden, each house looks like what would be termed in England a cottage, or, in streets where a more ambitious style prevails, like the sort of white villa common at watering places. ”

“ The scenery is wholly arctic. Fair Haven Pond is a Baffin's Bay. Man must have ascertained the limits of the winter before he ventured to withstand it, and not migrate with the birds. No cultivated field, no house, no candle. All is as dreary as the shores of the frozen ocean. I can tell where there is wood and where open land for many miles in the horizon by the darkness of the former and whiteness of the latter. . . . It looks as if the snow and ice of the arctic world, traveling like a glacier, had crept down southward and overwhelmed New England. ”

“ On a particular afternoon in June, Sir Peter, with his cigar, and John, in flannels, writing, at a table under the trees, both looked up to see Phyllis coming toward them, from the house, with her baby in her arms.
The garden was full of the perfume of roses. They blossomed everywhere. There was a pink bud in John's buttonhole, and a red one in Sir Peter's. Phyllis had a great bunch of white roses at her waist. Her gown was white, too: soft and lacy and clinging. That would have been John's description of it; and he is a poet. ”

“ Before us lay our native town, extending from the foot of the hill to the harbor, level as a chess board, embraced by two arms of the sea, and filling the whole peninsula with a close assemblage of wooden roofs, overtopped by many a spire, and intermixed with frequent heaps of verdure, where trees threw up their shade from unseen trunks. Beyond was the bay and its islands, almost the only objects, in a country unmarked by strong natural features, on which time and human toil had produced no change. ”

“ The distant lamps in the farmhouse look like fires. The trees and clouds are seen at a distance reflected in the river as by day. I see Fair Haven Pond from the Cliffs, as it were through a slight mist. It is the wildest scenery imaginable,—a Lake of the Woods. I just remembered the wildness of St. Anne’s. That’s the Ultima Thule of wildness to me.
What an entertainment for the traveller, this incessant motion apparently of the moon traversing the clouds! Whether you sit or stand, it is always preparing new developments for you. It is event enough for simple minds. ”

“ But by the time one has gone through miles and miles of such scenery, the towns become monotonous, each succeeding field of grain waves just as the one before it did, the woods, miniature forests, are just alike, and, leaning back in the corner of the compartment, the time is spent in dozing until eleven o’clock, when the train rushes into the station at New Haven, and we struggle through the dimly lighted passages to the dock, where lies the steamer that is to take us across that bugbear of all tourists, the English Channel. ”

“ He must have known you a long, long time to intrude a particular book upon your notice; and then with the air of consulting a connoisseur rather than suggesting a purchase. Yet he is a shrewd dealer. Not for Samuel Rowlandson is the fairly marked price on the fly-leaf; nor even hieroglyphics representing cost. A book is worth what it will fetch; and every customer's purchasing power is appraised with discrimination, concealed, indeed, but most effective.
The shop grows larger as your eyes become accustomed to the gloom of its remoter part. ”

“ Through the midst of the village comes tumbling and rumbling a mountain streamlet, rushing through a deep, rocky dell, gliding under an old stone inch, and turning, when occasion calls, the great block of a water-mill. This is the only very striking feature of the village,—the stream taking its rough pathway to the lake as it used to do before the poets had made this region fashionable.
In the evening, just before eight o'clock, I took a walk alone, by a road which goes up the hill, back of our hotel, and which I supposed might be the road to the town of Windermere. ”

“ And the graveyard in New Haven, with its tall poplar trees, was an epitome of the lives of men and women who had made their impress, not only on that community, but on the world. Our school was situated on Hillhouse avenue, and our walks were mostly confined to that quiet, shady street and "Powder House lane," in order that we might avoid meeting the "students," of whom our teacher seemed to have a great dread, a fear from which her pupils were entirely free. ”

“ Passing high up the spur above Hawn Branch, he could see his grandfather's house. A horse was hitched to the fence and a man was walking toward the porch and the lad wondered if that stranger, too, could be on his trail. On upward he went until just below him he could see the old circuit rider's cabin under a snow-laden pine, and all up and down the Hawn Creek were signs of activity from the outside world. ”