Salmagundi; or, The whim-whams and opinions of Launcelot Langstaff, esq. [pseud.] and others. By William Irving, James Kirke Paulding and Washington Irving. Printed from the original ed., with a preface and notes by Evert A. Duyckinck.

VOICE OF THE STREAM. 405
possessed a sparkling vivacity, and a pungency of flavor, that
deterred the wanderer from repeating his draught.
The youthful Bedouin began to weary with fruitless trials and
repeated disappointments, when his attention was suddenly attracted by a lively brook whose dancing waves glittered in the
sunbeams, and whose prattling current communicated an air of
bewitching gaiety to the surrounding landscape. The heart of
the wayworn traveller beat with expectation; but on regarding
it attentively in its course, he found that it constantly avoided
the embowering shade, loitering with equal fondness, whether
gliding through the rich valley, or over the barren sand; that
the fragrant flower, the fruitful shrub, and the worthless bramble were alike fostered by its waves, and that its current was
often interrupted by unprofitable weeds. With idle ambition it
expanded itself beyond its proper bounds, and spread into a shallow waste of water, destitute of beauty or utility, and babbling
along with uninteresting vivacity and vapid turbulence.
The wandering son of the desert turned away with a sigh of
regret, and pitied a stream which, if content within its natural
limits, might have been the pride of the valley, and the object of
all his wishes. Pensive, musing, and disappointed, he slowly
pursued his now almost hopeless pilgrimage, and had rambled
for some time along the margin of a gentle rivulet, before he
became sensible of its beauties. It was a simple pastoral stream,
which, shunning the noonday glare, pursued its unobtrusive course
through retired and tranquil vales; now dimpling among flowery
banks and tufted shrubbery; now winding among spicy groves,
whose aromatic foliage fondly bent down to meet the limpid
wave. Sometimes, but not often, it would venture from its covert
to stray through a flowery meadow; but quickly, as if fearful of
being seen, stole back again into its more congenial shade, and