(Some time ago, for
an hour, in a huge old country barn, watching these birds flying,
recall'd the 22d book of the Odyssey, where Ulysses slays the suitors,
bringing things to _eclaircissement_, and Minerva, swallow-bodied,
darts up through the spaces of the hall, sits high on a beam, looks
complacently on the show of slaughter, and feels in her element,
exulting, joyous.)
BEGIN A LONG JAUNT WEST
The following three or four months (Sept. to Dec. '79) I made quite a
western journey, fetching up at Denver, Colorado, and penetrating the
Rocky Mountain region enough to get a good notion of it all. Left West
Philadelphia after 9 o'clock one night, middle of September, in a
comfortable sleeper. Oblivious of the two or three hundred miles
across Pennsylvania; at Pittsburgh in the morning to breakfast.
Pretty good view of the city and Birmingham--fog and damp, smoke,
coke-furnaces, flames, discolor'd wooden houses, and vast collections
of coal-barges. Presently a bit of fine region, West Virginia, the
Panhandle, and crossing the river, the Ohio. By day through the latter
State--then Indiana--and so rock'd to slumber for a second night,
flying like lightning through Illinois.
IN THE SLEEPER
What a fierce weird pleasure to lie in my berth at night in the
luxurious palace-car, drawn by the mighty Baldwin--embodying, and
filling me, too, full of the swiftest motion, and most resistless
strength! It is late, perhaps midnight or after--distances join'd like
magic--as we speed through Harrisburg, Columbus, Indianapolis.
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