James Fenimore Cooper

Homeward Bound James Fenimore Cooper

The coast of England, though infinitely finer than our own, is more remarkable for its verdure, andfor a general appearance of civilisation, than for its natural beauties. The chalky cliffs may seem boldand noble to the American, though compared to the granite piles that buttress the Mediterraneanthey are but mole-hills; and the travelled eye seeks beauties instead, in the retiring vales, the leafyhedges, and the clustering towns that dot the teeming island. Neither is Portsmouth a veryfavourable specimen of a British port, considered solely in reference to the picturesque. A townsituated on a humble point, and fortified after the manner of the Low Countries, with an excellenthaven, suggests more images of the useful than of the pleasing; while a background of modestreceding hills offers little beyond the verdant swales of the country. In this respect England itself hasthe fresh beauty of youth, rather than the mellowed hues of a more advanced period of life; or itmight be better to say, it has the young freshness and retiring sweetness that distinguish her females, as compared with the warmer tints of Spain and Italy, and which, women and landscape alike, needthe near view to be appreciated. Some such thoughts as these passed through the mind of the traveller who stood on the deck of thepacket Montauk, resting an elbow on the quarter-deck rail, as he contemplated the view of the coastthat stretched before him east and west for leagues. The manner in which this gentleman, whosetemples were sprinkled with grey hairs, regarded the scene, denoted more of the thoughtfulness ofexperience, and of tastes improved by observation, than it is usual to meet amid the bustling andcommon-place characters that compose the majority in almost every situation of life. The calmnessof his exterior, an air removed equally from the admiration of the novice and the superciliousness ofthe tyro, had, indeed, so strongly distinguished him from the moment he embarked in London to 3that in which he was now seen in the position mentioned, that several of the seamen swore he was aman-of-war's-man in disguise. The fair-haired, lovely, blue-eyed girl at his side, too seemed asoftened reflection of all his sentiment, intelligence, knowledge, tastes, and cultivation, united to theartlessness and simplicity that became her sex and years