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"It is a wonderfully magnificent sight to see an almost black wave roll against an iceberg, and instantly change in its entire length, hundreds of feet, into that delicate green. Where the swell strikes obliquely, it reaches high, and runs along the face, sweeping like a satellite of loveliness in merry revolutions round its glittering orb. Like cumulous clouds, icebergs are perpetually mimicking the human face. This fine crystal creature, by a change in our position, becomes a gigantic bust of poet or philosopher, leaning back and gazing with a fixed placidity into the skies. In the brilliant noon, portions of it glisten like a glassy waterfall. The cold, dead white, the subtle greens, the blues, shadows of the softest slate, all contrast with the flashing brightness in a way most exquisite to behold." pp. 118, 119.

"We are bearing up under the big berg as closely as we dare. To our delight, what we have been wishing, and watching for, is actually taking place: loud explosions with heavy falls of ice, followed by the cataract-like roar, and the high, thin seas, wheeling away beautifully crested with sparkling foam. If it is possible, imagine the effect upon the beholder. This precipice of ice, with tremendous cracking, is falling toward us with a majestic and awful motion. Down sinks the long water-line into the black deep; down go the porcelain crags, and galleries of glassy sculptures, a speechless and awful baptism. Now it pauses and returns up rise sculptures and crags streaming with the shining, white brine; up comes the great, encircling line, followed by things new and strange, crags, niches, balconies, and caves; up, up it rises, higher and higher still, crossing the very breast of the grand ice, and all bathed with rivulets of gleaming foam. Over goes the summit, ridge, pinnacles, and all, standing off obliquely in the opposite air. Now it pauses in its upward roll: back it comes again, cracking, cracking, cracking, 'groaning out harsh thunder' as it comes, and threatening to burst, like a mighty bomb, into millions of glittering fragments. The spectacle is terrific and magnificent. Emotion is irrepressible, and peals of wild hurra burst forth from all."pp. 125, 126.

What delicate description this is: —

"In these very hollows and depressions is the one feature of which I am speaking. And, after all, what is it? It is simply shadow. Is that all? That is all: only shadow. All the grand façade is one shadow, with a rim of splendor like liquid gold-leaf or yellow flame, but in those depressions is a deeper shadow. Shadow under shadow, dove-colored and blue. Thus there seems to be drifting about, in the hollow lurking-places of the dead white, a colored atmosphere, the warmth, softness, and delicate beauty of which no mind can think of

words to express. So subtle is it and evanescent, that recollection cannot recall it when once gone, but by the help of the heart and the feelings, where the spirit of beauty last dies away. You can feel it, after you have forgotten what its complexion precisely is, and from that emotion you may come to remember it. You would remember nothing more beautiful." 172.

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"The moments for which we have been waiting are now passing, and the berg is immersed in almost supernatural splendors. The white alpine peak rises out of a field of delicate purple, fading out on one edge into pale sky-blue. Every instant changes the quality of the colors. They flit from tint to tint, and dissolve into other hues perpetually, and with a rapidity impossible to describe or paint. I am tempted to look over my shoulder into the north, and see if the 'merry dancers' are not coming, so marvellously do the colors come and go. The blue and the purple pass up into peach-blow and pink. Now it blushes in the last look of the sun-red blushes of beauty-tints of the roseate birds of the south the complexion of the roses of Damascus. In this delicious dye it stands embalmed-only for a minute, though; for now the softest dove-colors steal into the changing glory, and turn it all into light and shade on the whitest satin. The bright green waves are toiling to wash it whiter, as they roll up from the violet sea, and explode in foam along the broad alabaster. . . It hangs before us, with the sea and the sky behind it, like some great robe made in heaven. Where the flowing folds break into marble-like cliffs, on the extreme wings of the berg, an inward green seems to be pricking through a fine straw tint, spangled with gold."—pp. 176, 177.

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"Among the incidents of painting the berg, C some novelty. It was in deep water, but close to the shore, and so nicely poised that it was evidently standing tiptoe-like on some point, and vibrating largely at every discharge of ice. Near by as it was, he could paint from the shore with security, -a rare chance in summer. heavier fall than usual from the part fronting the land was followed by correspondingly large vibrations, leaving the berg, after it had settled to rest, leaning toward the sea with new exposures of ice. Among these was an isolated mass resembling a superbly fashioned vase. Quite apart from the parent berg, and close to the rocks, it first appeared slowly rising out of the sea like some work of enchantment, ascending higher and higher until it stood, in the dark waters before him, some twenty feet in height, — a finely proportioned vase, pure as pearl or alabaster, and shining with the tints of emerald and sapphire throughout its manifold flutings and decorations. It was actually startling. As

it was ascending from the sea, the water in the Titanic vase, an exquisite pale green, spouted in all directions from the corrugated brim, and the waves leaped up and covered its pedestal and stem with a drift of sparkling foam. While in the process of painting this almost magical and beautiful apparition, nearly one half of the bowl burst off with the crack of a rifle, and fell with a heavy plunge into the sea. How much in olden times would have been made of this! In the twilight of truth it is easy to see that there is but a step, an easy and a willing step, from plain facts into wild and fanciful forms of superstition."— pp. 226, 227.

"If you would look upon the perfectly white and pure, see an iceberg between you and the day's last red heavens. To all appearance it will burn and scintillate like a crown of costly gems. In all its notched, zigzag, and flowing outline, it palpitates and glitters as if it were bordered with the very lightning."- pp. 232, 233.

"Icebergs, to the imaginative soul, have a kind of individuality and life. They startle, frighten, awe; they astonish, excite, amuse, delight, and fascinate; clouds, mountains and structures, angels, demons, animals and men spring to the view of the beholder. They are a favorite playground of the lines, surfaces, and shapes of the whole world, the heavens above, the earth and the waters under: of their sounds, motions, and colors also. These are the poet's and the painter's fields, more than they are the fields of the mere naturalist, much as they are his." pp. 244, 245.

The book gives a pleasant impression of Church as companion and artist; persevering, enthusiastic, and light-hearted,charming away his friend's sea-sickness with laughter from the recital of his own misfortunes in travel; running wild risks and working patiently in cold and danger to finish a sketch, and then throwing down pencil and sketch-book to make gingerbread in the cabin, boil salmon, and stir raisins into the rice to entertain their guests withal.

"Pricking above the horizon, the peak of a berg sparkles in the glowing daylight of the west like a silvery star. C has painted with great effect, notwithstanding the difficulty of lines and touches from the motion of the vessel. If one is curious about the troubles of painting on a little coaster, lightly ballasted, dashing forward frequently under a press of sail, with a short sea, I would recommend him to a good, stout swing. While in the enjoyment of his smooth and sickening vibrations, let him spread his palette, arrange his canvas, and paint a pair of colts at their gambols in some adjacent field."

p. 127.

The friends both have an appreciation for the gastronomic and the droll, as well as the beautiful; the goodly salmon which they find, and the shoals of glistening little capulin, would inspire an epicure with rapture; while we do not often read a pleasanter bit of fun than that word-painting of the cabin in a storm. Indeed, after quoting to such audacious length, we have but given glimpses of the charm hid in this little volume. To comfort critics, also, it has a few faults; too much is said of sea-sickness, and the style is sometimes too colloquial.

But why criticise such a live book? We would as soon complain that pine-trees have pitch on their bark, which may, if we reach after it, defile us. We turn from book and picture both, not wearied as from the drop-curtain of a theatre, but with minds cheered, freshened, charmed; - turn with such regret as lures us to look back at sunset woods about a lake, our whole heart lingering there behind.

Give us the picture,
Give us the book, we
Give us the picture
Find more such

At morning, in the freshness of his joy, our author exclaims, "Give me the sea, I say, now that I am on the sea. Give me the mountains, I say, when I am on the mountains! Henceforth when I am weary with the task of life, I will cry, Give me the mountains and the sea." we say, as we stand in the Athenæum. say, as reluctantly we close its covers. and the book; but by all means the book. friends as Theodore Winthrop and Noble, Mr. Church; write more such books as "After Icebergs with a Painter," Mr. Noble: go to Terra Del Fuego, go to the Caribbees or Mountains of the Moon; - everywhere shall float before you the gleaming wings of beauty;-go then, and report to us lagging mortals of the fine radiance which they shed!

ART. V.PUBLIC PRAYER.

1. Prayers. By THEODORE PARKER. Boston: Walker, Wise, & Co. 1862.

2. North American Review, January, 1862, Article IX.

WE presume that few people, outside of the regular attendance upon the services at the Music Hall and the narrow circle of personal acquaintance, ever imagined Theodore Parker to be a man of prayer, whose utterances were of a nature to be remembered and embodied in the printed page for the edification and comfort of those who have a taste for devotional literature. The character by which he was generally known to the community was that of a reformer, doing battle with real or imaginary superstition in the realm of theology and the Church, and exposing the abuses of morality and religion in social life. But his efforts in this relation did not denote him truly; certainly did not reveal the best part of his strength and his influence. It was not by his preaching and his speeches alone that he attracted admirers and won personal friends and confidants. Highly as we valued him as a scholar and a thinker, we could not always assent to his method, nor follow him to the result of his investigations; and his strictures upon men and manners carried with them an air of extravagance which dulled the edge of their application, while the tone of his sarcasm awakened a feeling of personal animosity towards himself amongst those whose spirit and principles he boldly rebuked. It was his method of dealing with what he esteemed great public errors, that afforded the chief attraction to those who were not members of his society, but were infrequent attendants at the Music Hall as opportunity allowed. There were many of this class, — many who, coming to the city for purposes of business or pleasure, availed themselves of the privilege, when they would hardly be willing to acknowledge that they had been there.

But we apprehend very many of this class were more deeply moved while there by the offerings of the priest than by the words of the preacher. When with reverence and simplicity he invoked an entrance into the Divine presence for that wait

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