A VIEW OF TIDEWATER DUTCHESS Henry Noble MacCracken*
The story of the Hudson is a twice-told tale, though to others it is the latest sensation, the subject of debate in our houses of legislature, the tug of war between industry and landscape. My apology for bringing the subject up once more is that it was at your request that I set down the substance of my talk to you. Since then, I have had five months of pretty complete leisure, in which to consider what I should say; and you will forgive me, I am sure, if your memory of what I said so long ago does not quite agree with the words of this text. I want to go a little deeper into the subject, deeper even than the circle of ancient rocks that rim our river basin, all the way from the Old Appalachian with its most ancient rocks, through the Ramapos and Shawangunks of the Younger Appalachian, on to the great Appalachian Plateau, of which our Catskills are the tassels of its fringe. I want to go beyond the shadows of an autumn afternoon a century ago that provided the scene for the Extraordinary Case by Henry James, for my journey is rather to the Hudson of the memory and of the mind. You may notice that I have called this talk "A View of Tidewater Dutchess," and since I am going to be over on the philosophical side for a bit, I must clear the way in the matter of the word view, even though I should seem a little pedantic. What indeed is a "view?" The dictionaries make it out to be a triple substance. It is something, in the first place, that a viewer does, an inspection; a considered and deliberate measure of something; not just a conceit, a vision or a look. It takes a little work. It culminates in a conviction. It implies, of course, a viewer, and as no two viewers are the same, so no two views can be the same. The view itself may be either the physical observation, the outward glance, or it may be what I shall take it to be, the inward impression and the opinion, even the decision, to which that opinion may drive. A superficial view, of course, would be one of quiet and ease, and I have no quarrel with that. Such a Hudson was viewed from the Dutchess shore by the painters of the Hudson River School, Paulding's novels, The Dutchman's Fireside or The Old Continental, perhaps even the transplanted legends from the Harz Mountains to the Catskills * Dr. MaeCracken, President Emeritus of Vassar College, former president and presently a trustee of the Dutchess County Historical Society, has written out the substance of an address made before the society at its annual meeting, May 22, 1965.
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