The things we do!

However, I have recalled the fervid pen of
Chateaubriand, not as that of a faunal or floral naturalist, but to have
it rewrite these sentences: "Nothing is more surprising and magnificent
than this movement and this distribution of the central waters of North
America" (whence flows the Mississippi), "a river which the French first
descended; a river which flowed under their power, and the rich valley of
which," as the translator has rendered it, "still regrets their genius,"
but, as Chateaubriand doubtless meant it, and as it is better translated,
"still grieves for their spirit," their "familiar" ("et dont la riche
vallee regrette encore leur genie"). [Footnote: "Travels in America and
Italy," 1:72, 73, London, 1828.]
I think that Chateaubriand had accurate instinct in divining the river's
grieving for the spirit that (with all the practical genius which now
inhabits the valley) is still needed to give an appreciation of that in
the valley which lies beyond the counting of statistics or even the
glowing rhetoric of the orators of liberty.


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