There should be grand
occasions for such as you in a country like this, with its unlimited
future."
They came presently into a region of cultivation, fields which would
be green with grain in the spring, showing here and there, and the
smoke from the chimney of a stout log house rising now and then.
Where a creek broke into a swift white fall stood a grist mill, and
from a wood the sound of axes was heard.
Robert's vivid imagination, which responded to all changes, kindled at
once. He liked the wilderness, and it always made a great impression
upon him, and he also took the keenest interest and delight in
everything that civilization could offer. Now his spirit leaped up to
meet what lay before him.
He found at Mount Johnson comfort and luxury that he had not expected,
an abundance of all that the wilderness furnished, mingled with
importations from Europe. He slept in a fine bed, he looked into more
books, he saw on the walls reproductions of Titian and Watteau, and
also pictures of race horses that had made themselves famous at
Newmarket, he wrote letters to Albany on good paper, he could seal
them with either black or red wax, and there were musical instruments
upon one or two of which he could play.
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