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. Retaining these portions of the
scene, and also the peaceful glory and tender gloom of the declining sun,
we threw, in imagination, a veil of deep forest over the land, and
pictured a few scattered villages, and this old town itself a village, as
when the prince of hell bore sway there. The idea thus gained of its
former aspect, its quaint edifices standing far apart, with peaked roofs
and projecting stories, and its single meeting-house pointing up a tall
spire in the midst; the vision, in short, of the town in 1692, served to
introduce a wondrous tale of those old times.
I had brought the manuscript in my pocket. It was one of a series
written years ago, when my pen, now sluggish and perhaps feeble, because
I have not munch to hope or fear, was driven by stronger external motives
and a more passionate impulse within, than I am fated to feel again.
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