And Though I Am Compelled, By Way Of
Illustration, To Give This Incident, No Bribery Or Torture Shall Ever
Extract From Me A Statement Of The Contents Of That Hair Trunk.
We were now passing Nahant, and we should have seen Longfellow's
cottage and the waves beating on the rocks before it, if we had been
near enough.
As it was, we could only faintly distinguish the
headland and note the white beach of Lynn. The fact is, that in
travel one is almost as much dependent upon imagination and memory as
he is at home. Somehow, we seldom get near enough to anything. The
interest of all this coast which we had come to inspect was mainly
literary and historical. And no country is of much interest until
legends and poetry have draped it in hues that mere nature cannot
produce. We looked at Nahant for Longfellow's sake; we strained our
eyes to make out Marblehead on account of Whittier's ballad; we
scrutinized the entrance to Salem Harbor because a genius once sat in
its decaying custom-house and made of it a throne of the imagination.
Upon this low shore line, which lies blinking in the midday sun, the
waves of history have beaten for two centuries and a half, and
romance has had time to grow there. Out of any of these coves might
have sailed Sir Patrick Spens "to Noroway, to Noroway,"
"They hadna sailed upon the sea
A day but barely three,
Till loud and boisterous grew the wind,
And gurly grew the sea."
The sea was anything but gurly now; it lay idle and shining in an
August holiday.
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