{"product_id":"2940012281388","title":"THE DEERSLAYER","description":"Chapter I.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,\u003cbr\u003e    There is a rapture on the lonely shore.\u003cbr\u003e    There is society where none intrudes,\u003cbr\u003e    By the deep sea, and music in its roar:\u003cbr\u003e    I love not man the less, but nature more,\u003cbr\u003e    From these our interviews, in which I steal\u003cbr\u003e    From all I may be, or have been before,\u003cbr\u003e    To mingle with the universe, and feel\u003cbr\u003e    What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Childe Harold.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn the human imagination events produce the effects of time. Thus, he\u003cbr\u003ewho has travelled far and seen much is apt to fancy that he has lived\u003cbr\u003elong; and the history that most abounds in important incidents soonest\u003cbr\u003eassumes the aspect of antiquity. In no other way can we account for the\u003cbr\u003evenerable air that is already gathering around American annals. When the\u003cbr\u003emind reverts to the earliest days of colonial history, the period seems\u003cbr\u003eremote and obscure, the thousand changes that thicken along the links\u003cbr\u003eof recollections, throwing back the origin of the nation to a day so\u003cbr\u003edistant as seemingly to reach the mists of time; and yet four lives of\u003cbr\u003eordinary duration would suffice to transmit, from mouth to mouth, in the\u003cbr\u003eform of tradition, all that civilized man has achieved within the\u003cbr\u003elimits of the republic. Although New York alone possesses a population\u003cbr\u003ematerially exceeding that of either of the four smallest kingdoms of\u003cbr\u003eEurope, or materially exceeding that of the entire Swiss Confederation,\u003cbr\u003eit is little more than two centuries since the Dutch commenced their\u003cbr\u003esettlement, rescuing the region from the savage state. Thus, what seems\u003cbr\u003evenerable by an accumulation of changes is reduced to familiarity when\u003cbr\u003ewe come seriously to consider it solely in connection with time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis glance into the perspective of the past will prepare the reader to\u003cbr\u003elook at the pictures we are about to sketch, with less surprise than he\u003cbr\u003emight otherwise feel; and a few additional explanations may carry him\u003cbr\u003eback in imagination to the precise condition of society that we desire\u003cbr\u003eto delineate. It is matter of history that the settlements on the\u003cbr\u003eeastern shores of the Hudson, such as Claverack, Kinderhook, and even\u003cbr\u003ePoughkeepsie, were not regarded as safe from Indian incursions a century\u003cbr\u003esince; and there is still standing on the banks of the same river, and\u003cbr\u003ewithin musket-shot of the wharves of Albany, a residence of a younger\u003cbr\u003ebranch of the Van Rensselaers, that has loopholes constructed for\u003cbr\u003edefence against the same crafty enemy, although it dates from a period\u003cbr\u003escarcely so distant. Other similar memorials of the infancy of the\u003cbr\u003ecountry are to be found, scattered through what is now deemed the very\u003cbr\u003ecentre of American civilization, affording the plainest proofs that all\u003cbr\u003ewe possess of security from invasion and hostile violence is the growth\u003cbr\u003eof but little more than the time that is frequently fulfilled by a\u003cbr\u003esingle human life.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe incidents of this tale occurred between the years 1740 and 1745,\u003cbr\u003ewhen the settled portions of the colony of New York were confined to\u003cbr\u003ethe four Atlantic counties, a narrow belt of country on each side of the\u003cbr\u003eHudson, extending from its mouth to the falls near its head, and to\u003cbr\u003ea few advanced \"neighborhoods\" on the Mohawk and the Schoharie. Broad\u003cbr\u003ebelts of the virgin wilderness not only reached the shores of the first\u003cbr\u003eriver, but they even crossed it, stretching away into New England, and\u003cbr\u003eaffording forest covers to the noiseless moccasin of the native warrior,\u003cbr\u003eas he trod the secret and bloody war-path. A bird's-eye view of the\u003cbr\u003ewhole region east of the Mississippi must then have offered one\u003cbr\u003evast expanse of woods, relieved by a comparatively narrow fringe of\u003cbr\u003ecultivation along the sea, dotted by the glittering surfaces of lakes,\u003cbr\u003eand intersected by the waving lines of river. In such a vast picture of\u003cbr\u003esolemn solitude, the district of country we design to paint sinks into\u003cbr\u003einsignificance, though we feel encouraged to proceed by the conviction\u003cbr\u003ethat, with slight and immaterial distinctions, he who succeeds in giving\u003cbr\u003ean accurate idea of any portion of this wild region must necessarily\u003cbr\u003econvey a tolerably correct notion of the whole.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhatever may be the changes produced by man, the eternal round of the\u003cbr\u003eseasons is unbroken. Summer and winter, seed-time and harvest, return in\u003cbr\u003etheir stated order with a sublime precision, affording to man one of the\u003cbr\u003enoblest of all the occasions he enjoys of proving the high powers of\u003cbr\u003ehis far-reaching mind, in compassing the laws that control their exact\u003cbr\u003euniformity, and in calculating their never-ending revolutions.","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47145402663152,"sku":"2940012281388","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940012281388_p0.jpg?v=1763554557","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940012281388","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}