But as this opens a new era in the fortunes of New
Amsterdam I will here put an end to this second book
of my history, and will treat of the maternal policy
of the mother country in my next.
BOOK III.
IN WHICH IS RECORDED THE GOLDEN REIGN OF WOUTER VAN
TWILLER.
Grievous and very much to be commiserated is the task
of the feeling historian who writes the history of
his native land. If it fell to his lot to be
the recorder of calamity or crime, the mournful page
is watered with his tears—nor can he recall
the most prosperous and blissful era without a melancholy
sigh at the reflection that it has passed away for
ever! I know not whether it be owing to an immoderate
love for the simplicity of former times, or to that
certain tenderness of heart incident to all sentimental
historians, but I candidly confess that I cannot look
back on the happier days of our city, which I now
describe, without great dejection of spirits.
With faltering hand do I withdraw the curtain of oblivion
that veils the modest merit of our venerable ancestors,
and as their figures rise to my mental vision, humble
myself before their mighty shades.
Such are my feelings when I revisit the family mansion
of the Knickerbockers, and spend a lonely hour in
the chamber where hang the portraits of my forefathers,
shrouded in dust like the forms they represent.
With pious reverence do I gaze on the countenances
of those renowned burghers who have preceded me in
the steady march of existence—whose sober
and temperate blood now meanders through my veins,
flowing slower and slower in its feeble conduits, until
its current shall soon be stopped for ever!
These I say to myself are but frail memorials of the
mighty men who flourished in the days of the patriarchs:
but who, alas! have long since smouldered in that
tomb towards which my steps are insensibly and irresistibly
hastening. As I pace the darkened chamber, and
lose myself in melancholy musings, the shadowy images
around me almost seem to steal once more into existence,
their countenances to assume the animation of life—their
eyes to pursue me in every movement! Carried away
by the delusions of fancy, I almost imagine myself
surrounded by the shades of the departed, and holding
sweet converse with the worthies of antiquity!
Ah, hapless Diedrich! born in a degenerate age, abandoned
to the buffetings of fortune—a stranger
and weary pilgrim in thy native land—blest
with no weeping wife, nor family of helpless children;
but doomed to wander neglected through those crowded
streets, and elbowed by foreign upstarts from those
fair abodes where once thine ancestors held sovereign
empire!
Let me not, however, lose the historian in the man,
nor suffer the doting recollections of age to overcome
me, while dwelling with fond garrulity on the virtuous
days of the patriarchs—on those sweet days
of simplicity and ease, which never more will dawn
on the lovely island of Manna-hata.
