i cross, each morning, a bridge that spans a river of running water. it is not a wide river, but one populous with boats and teeming with all the mercantile life of a great city. its current is swift, its bottom deep; it carries on its glassy bosom the freight of a thousand—of ten thousand merchants. only the conception of something supernally wonderful haunts me as i cross it, and i gaze at the picture of its boats and barges, its spars and sails, spellbound by their beauty.
the boats on this little river—the harlem—traverse the seven seas. you may stand and see them go by: vessels loaded with brick and stone, with lumber and cement, with coal, iron, lime, oil—a great gamut of serviceable things which the world needs and which is here forever being delivered or carried away. these boats come from the hudson and the chesapeake, from maine, florida, the gulf of mexico, europe, asia, africa and the rest of the world. they tie up to these small docks in friendly rows and nose the banks in silence, while human beings, honored only by being allowed to guide and direct their stately proportions, clamber over them.
the wonder of the water
it is not so much these boats, however, as it is the water which curls under them, which sips and eddies about the docks and posts, and circles away in spinning rings, which takes my fancy. this water, which flows217 here so swiftly, comes from so far. it has been washing about the world, lo, these many centuries—for how long the imagination of man cannot conceive. and here it is running pleasantly at my feet, the light of the morning sun warming it with amethystine beams and giving it a luster which the deeps of the sea cannot have.
this water, as it comes before me now, gives me the impression of having been a hundred and a thousand things, maybe—the torrent from the height, bounding ecstatically downward into the depths of some cavern, rolling in gloom under the immensity of the volume of the sea, or a tiny cloudlet hanging like a little red island in the sky, a dark thundercloud pouring its fury and wrath upon a luckless multitude. it may have been a cup of water, a glass of wine, a tear, a gush of blood—anything in the whole gamut of human experience, or out of it—and yet here for this hour at least it lies darkling and purling, murmuring cheerfully about these docks and piers. when you think of the steam that is made of it by heat, floating over our whole civilization like plumes; the frost of the windowpanes spread in such tropical luxury of a winter morning; the snow, in its forms of stars and flowers; the rich rains of summer, falling with such rhythmic persistence; and then the ice, the fog, the very atmosphere we breathe, infiltrated by this wonderful medium and were ourselves almost entirely composed of it, you see how almost mystic it becomes. we owe all our forms to it; the beauty of the flowers, the stateliness of the trees, the shape and grandeur218 of the mountains, all, in fact—our minds and bodies, so much water and so little substance.
and here it is under our bridge, hurrying away. it may be that it has mind, that in its fluid depths lie all the religions and philosophies of the world. sweep us away, and out of it might rise new shapes and forms, more glorious, more radiant. we may not even guess the alpha of its powers.
i do not know what this green fluid is that runs between green banks and past docks and factories and the habitations of men. it has a life quality, and mayhap a soul quality, which i cannot fathom, but with each turn of its ripples and each gurgle of its tide the heart of me leaps like a voice in song. i can reason no more. it is too colorful, too rhythmic, too silent, not to call forth that which is deemed exaltation by the world, and i stand spellbound, longing for i know not what, nor why.
