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Little Journeys to the Homes of American Authors
Little Journeys to the Homes of American Authors Author:Unknown Author Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: SIMMS. BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. THE country residence of William Gilmore Simms is on the plantation of his father-in-law, Mr. Roach, in Barnwell District,... more » South Carolina, near Midway, a railway station at just half the distance between Charleston and Augusta. Here he passes half the year, the most agreeable half in that climate,—its pleasant winter, and portions of its spring and autumn—in a thinly settled country divided into large plantations, principally yielding cotton, with smaller fields of maize, sweet potatoes, pea-nuts, and other productions of the region, to which sugar-cane has lately been added. Written in 1853 for Putnam '8 Homes of A mert- can Authors. Forests of oak, and of the majestic long-leaved pine, surround the dwelling, interspersed with broad openings, and stretch far away on all sides. In the edge of one of these are the habitations of the negroes by whom the plantation is cultivated, who are indulgently treated and lead an easy life. The bridle-roads through these noble forests, over the hard white sand, from which rise the lofty stems of the pines, are very beautiful. Sometimes they wind by the borders of swamps, green in mid-winter with the holly, the red bay, and other trees that wear their leaves throughout the year, among which the yellow jessamine twines itself and forms dense arbors, perfuming the air in March to a great distance with the delicate odor of its blossoms. In the midst of these swamps rises the tall Virginia cypress, with its roots in the dark water, the summer haunt of the alligator, who sleeps away the winter in holes made under the bank. Mr. Simms, both in his poetry and prose, has made large and striking use of the imagery supplied by the peculiar scenery of this region. The house is a spacious country dwelling, wit...« less