beautiful; the weather very fine; and for many miles the Kaatskill
mountains, where Rip Van Winkle and the ghostly Dutchmen played at
ninepins one memorable gusty afternoon, towered in the blue
distance, like stately clouds. At one point, as we ascended a
steep hill, athwart whose base a railroad, yet constructing, took
its course, we came upon an Irish colony. With means at hand of
building decent cabins, it was wonderful to see how clumsy, rough,
and wretched, its hovels were. The best were poor protection from
the weather the worst let in the wind and rain through wide
breaches in the roofs of sodden grass, and in the walls of mud;
some had neither door nor window; some had nearly fallen down, and
were imperfectly propped up by stakes and poles; all were ruinous
and filthy. Hideously ugly old women and very buxom young ones,
pigs, dogs, men, children, babies, pots, kettles, dung-hills, vile
refuse, rank straw, and standing water, all wallowing together in
an inseparable heap, composed the furniture of every dark and dirty
hut.
Between nine and ten o’clock at night, we arrived at Lebanon which
is renowned for its warm baths, and for a great hotel, well
adapted, I have no doubt, to the gregarious taste of those seekers
after health or pleasure who repair here, but inexpressibly
comfortless to me. We were shown into an immense apartment,
lighted by two dim candles, called the drawing-room: from which
there was a descent by a flight of steps, to another vast desert,
called the dining-room: our bed-chambers were among certain long
rows of little white-washed cells, which opened from either side of
a dreary passage; and were so like rooms in a prison that I half
expected to be locked up when I went to bed, and listened
involuntarily for the turning of the key on the outside. There
need be baths somewhere in the neighbourhood, for the other washing
arrangements were on as limited a scale as I ever saw, even in
America: indeed, these bedrooms were so very bare of even such
common luxuries as chairs, that I should say they were not provided
with enough of anything, but that I bethink myself of our having
been most bountifully bitten all night.
The house is very pleasantly situated, however, and we had a good
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breakfast. That done, we went to visit our place of destination,
which was some two miles off, and the way to which was soon
indicated by a finger-post, whereon was painted, ‘To the Shaker
Village.’
As we rode along, we passed a party of Shakers, who were at work
upon the road; who wore the broadest of all broad-brimmed hats; and
were in all visible respects such very wooden men, that I felt
about as much sympathy for them, and as much interest in them, as
if they had been so many figure-heads of ships. Presently we came
to the beginning of the village, and alighting at the door of a
house where the Shaker manufactures are sold, and which is the
headquarters of the elders, requested permission to see the Shaker
worship.
Pending the conveyance of this request to some person in authority,
we walked into a grim room, where several grim hats were hanging on
grim pegs, and the time was grimly told by a grim clock which
uttered every tick with a kind of struggle, as if it broke the grim
silence reluctantly, and under protest. Ranged against the wall
were six or eight stiff, high-backed chairs, and they partook so
strongly of the general grimness that one would much rather have
sat on the floor than incurred the smallest obligation to any of
them.
Presently, there stalked into this apartment, a grim old Shaker,
with eyes as hard, and dull, and cold, as the great round metal
buttons on his coat and waistcoat; a sort of calm goblin. Being
informed of our desire, he produced a newspaper wherein the body of
elders, whereof he was a member, had advertised but a few days
before, that in consequence of certain unseemly interruptions which
their worship had received from strangers, their chapel was closed