“I thank God I was born on the banks of the Hudson!…
We make a friendship with it, we in a manner ally ourselves to it for life.
It remains an object of our pride and affections, a rallying point,
to call us home again after all our wanderings.”
Washington Irving
“From an opening between the trees he could overlook all the lower country for many a mile of rich woodland. He saw at a distance the lordly Hudson, far, far below him, moving on its silent but majestic course, with the reflection of a purple cloud, or the sail of a lagging bark, here and there sleeping on its glassy bosom, and at last losing itself in the blue highlands.”
RIP VAN WINKLE