Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 24, 2025
The idea of it must have originated in the Alpine glow, an effect of the rising or setting sun on the icy peaks of a mountain, which looks at a distance like a burning coal; an appearance only visible in the White Mountains during the winter, and there is no reason why Hawthorne should not have seen it at that season from Lake Sebago.
I understood him to mean that it was a reservoir of water which did not run away, the river coming in on one side and passing out again near the same place, leaving a permanent bay. Another Indian said, that it meant Large-Bay Lake, and that Sebago and Sebec, the names of other lakes, were kindred words, meaning large open water. Joe said that Seboois meant Little River.
These were delightful days.... I would skate all alone on Sebago Lake, with the deep shadows of the icy hills on either hand. When I found myself far from home, and weary with the exhaustion of skating, I would sometimes take refuge in a log cabin where half a tree would be burning on the broad hearth.
Horatio Bridge, his classmate, and throughout life a more confidential friend than Pierce, was brought up on his father's estate at Bridgton, north of Sebago Lake; and Franklin Pierce, in the class above him, his only other frequent companion, was a native of the New Hampshire hill-lands.
His good uncle supplied him with a boat and a gun, and he enjoyed the small shooting, fishing, sailing and skating that the place afforded; but in later years he wrote to Bridge, "It was at Sebago that I learned my cursed habit of solitude," and this pursued him through life like an evil genius, placing him continually at a disadvantage with his fellow-men.
He writes to his Uncle Robert to look out for the shot-gun which he left in a closet at Sebago, and which has a rather heavy charge of powder in it. He appears to have found as little companionship in Salem as he did in that wilderness, the natural effect of such a life. He may have been acquainted with half the boys in Salem, but he did not make any warm friends among them.
Lake Sebago served as an excellent gymnasium for young Hawthorne, and may have helped to develop his sense of the beautiful, but he found few companions there, and those not of the most suitable kind. He was exceedingly fond of skating so much so that when the ice was smooth he sometimes remained on the lake far into the night. This we can envy him, for skating is the poetry of motion.
If we compare this introductory chapter with such earlier sketches as "The Vision at the Fountain" and "The Toll-Gatherer's Day," we recognize the progress that Hawthorne has made since the first volume of "Twice Told Tales." We are no longer reminded of the plain unpainted house on Lake Sebago.
"I suffered much in moving with him to the Sebago Lake, owing to my wound," he replied; "but the chief did all in his power to give me comfort, and he often shared with me his scant fare, choosing rather to endure hunger himself, than to see his son, as he called me, in want of food.
Chevalier Howe outlived Sumner just one year, and Wilson followed him not long after. Sebago is one of the most beautiful of the New England lakes, and has been celebrated in Longfellow's verse for its curiously winding river between the upper and the lower portion, as well as for the Indian traditions connected with it.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking