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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Retrospect of Western Travel, Volume II (of
-2), by Harriet Martineau
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
-almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
-
-
-Title: Retrospect of Western Travel, Volume II (of 2)
-
-Author: Harriet Martineau
-
-Release Date: July 19, 2012 [EBook #40281]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RETROSPECT OF WESTERN TRAVEL, VOL II ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Julia Miller, Steven Brown and the Online
-Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
-file was produced from images generously made available
-by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-RETROSPECT
-
-OF
-
-WESTERN TRAVEL.
-
-BY
-
-HARRIET MARTINEAU,
-
-AUTHOR OF "SOCIETY IN AMERICA," "ILLUSTRATIONS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY," ETC.
-
-IN TWO VOLUMES.
-
-VOL. II.
-
-LONDON:
-
-PUBLISHED BY SAUNDERS AND OTLEY
-
-NEW-YORK:
-
-SOLD BY HARPER & BROTHERS.
-
-1838.
-
-
-
-
-CONTENTS
-
-OF
-
-THE SECOND VOLUME.
-
-
-                                                        Page
-  Mississippi Voyage                                      5
-
-  Compromise                                             26
-
-  Cincinnati                                             35
-
-  Probation                                              57
-
-  The Natural Bridge                                     65
-
-  Colonel Burr                                           69
-
-  Villages                                               78
-
-  Cambridge Commencement                                 91
-
-  The White Mountains                                   108
-
-  Channing                                              117
-
-  Mutes and Blind                                       128
-
-  Nahant                                                155
-
-  Signs of the Times in Massachusetts                   159
-
-  Hot and Cold Weather                                  169
-
-  Originals                                             186
-
-  Lake George                                           221
-
-  Cemeteries                                            227
-
-
-
-
-RETROSPECT
-
-OF
-
-WESTERN TRAVEL.
-
-
-MISSISSIPPI VOYAGE.
-
-
-    "That it was full of monsters who devoured canoes as well as men;
-    that the devil stopped its passage, and sunk all those who ventured
-    to approach the place where he stood; and that the river itself at
-    last was swallowed up in the bottomless gulf of a tremendous
-    whirlpool."--_Quarterly Review._
-
-        "Hic ver purpureum: varios hic flumina circum
-        Fundit humus flores: hic candida populus antro
-        Imminet, et lentæ texunt umbracula vites."
-
-                                                                 VIRGIL.
-
-
-About four o'clock in the afternoon of the 6th of May we were convoyed,
-by a large party of friends, to the "Henry Clay," on board of which
-accommodations had been secured for us by great exertion on the part of
-a fellow-voyager. The "Henry Clay" had the highest reputation of any
-boat on the river, having made ninety-six trips without accident; a rare
-feat on this dangerous river. As I was stepping on board, Judge P. said
-he hoped we were each provided with a life-preserver. I concluded he was
-in joke; but he declared himself perfectly serious, adding that we
-should probably find ourselves the only cabin passengers unprovided with
-this means of safety. We should have been informed of this before; it
-was too late now. Mr. E., of our party on board, told me all that this
-inquiry made me anxious to know. He had been accustomed to ascend and
-descend the river annually with his family, and he made his arrangements
-according to his knowledge of the danger of the navigation. It was his
-custom to sit up till near the time of other people's rising, and to
-sleep in the day. There are always companies of gamblers in these boats,
-who, being awake and dressed during the hours of darkness, are able to
-seize the boats on the first alarm of an accident in the night, and are
-apt to leave the rest of the passengers behind. Mr. E. was a friend of
-the captain; he was a man of gigantic bodily strength and cool temper,
-every way fitted to be of use in an emergency; and the captain gave him
-the charge of the boats in case of a night accident. Mr. E. told me
-that, as we were particularly under his charge, his first thought in a
-time of danger would be of us. He had a life-preserver, and was an
-excellent swimmer, so that he had little doubt of being able to save us
-in any case. He only asked us to come the instant we were called, to do
-as we were bid, and to be quiet. As we looked at the stately vessel,
-with her active captain, her two pilots, the crowds of gay passengers,
-and all the provision for safety and comfort, it was scarcely possible
-to realize the idea of danger; but we knew that the perils of this
-extraordinary river, sudden and overwhelming, are not like those of the
-ocean, which can be, in a great measure, guarded against by skill and
-care. The utmost watchfulness cannot here provide against danger from
-squalls, from changes in the channel of the river, and from the _snags_,
-_planters_, and _sawyers_ (trunks of trees brought down from above by
-the current, and fixed in the mud under water) which may at any moment
-pierce the hull of the vessel.
-
-Our New-Orleans friends remained with us upward of an hour, introducing
-us to the captain, and to such of the passengers as they knew. Among
-these were Mr. and Mrs. L., of Boston, Massachusetts. We little imagined
-that afternoon how close an intimacy would grow out of this casual
-meeting; how many weeks we should afterward spend in each other's
-society, with still-increasing esteem and regard. The last thing one of
-my friends said was that he was glad we were going, as there had been
-forty cases of cholera in the city the day before.
-
-After five o'clock the company on deck and in the cabins, who had bidden
-farewell to their friends some time before, began to inquire of one
-another why we were not setting off. We had found the sun too warm on
-deck, and had had enough of mutual staring with the groups on the wharf;
-we turned over the books, and made acquaintance with the prints in the
-ladies' cabin, and then leisurely arranged our staterooms to our
-liking; and still there was no symptom of departure. The captain was
-obviously annoyed. It was the non-arrival of a party of passengers which
-occasioned the delay. A multitude of Kentuckians and other western men
-had almost forced their way on board as deck-passengers; men who had
-come down the river in flatboats with produce, who were to work their
-way up again by carrying wood at the wooding-places, morning and
-evening, to supply the engine fire. These men, like others, prefer a
-well-managed to a perilous boat, and their eagerness to secure a passage
-was excessive. More thronged in after the captain had declared that he
-was full; more were bustling on the wharf, and still the expected party
-did not come. The captain ordered the plank to be taken up which formed
-a communication with the shore. Not till six o'clock was it put down for
-the dilatory passengers, who did not seem to be aware of the
-inconvenience they had occasioned. They were English. A man on the wharf
-took advantage of the plank being put down to come on board in spite of
-prohibition. He went with his bundle to the spot on the second deck
-which he chose for a sleeping-place, and immediately lay down, without
-attracting particular notice from any one.
-
-We braved the heat on the hurricane deck for the sake of obtaining last
-views of New-Orleans. The city soon became an indistinguishable mass of
-buildings lying in the swamp, yet with something of a cheerful air, from
-the brightness of the sun. The lofty Cotton-press, so familiar to the
-eye of every one acquainted with that region, was long visible amid the
-windings of the river, which seemed to bring us quite near the city
-again when we thought we should see it no more.
-
-At seven we were summoned to supper, and obtained a view of the company
-in whose society we were to pass the next ten days. There was a great
-mixture. There was a physician from New-York, with his wife and a friend
-or two; an ultra-exclusive party. There were Mr. and Mrs. B., also from
-New-York, amiable elderly people, with some innocent peculiarities, and
-showing themselves not the less mindful of other people from taking
-great care of each other. There was the party that had kept the captain
-waiting, some of them very agreeable; and the L.'s, whom it would have
-been a privilege to meet anywhere. There were long trains of young men,
-so many as to extinguish all curiosity as to who they were and where
-they came from; and a family party belonging to the West, father,
-mother, grandmother, and six children, who had a singular gift of
-squalling; and their nurses, slaves. These are all that I distinctly
-remember among the multitude that surrounded the almost interminable
-table in the cabin. This table, long as it was, would not hold all the
-company. Many had to wait till seats were vacated, and yet we were to go
-on receiving passengers all the way to Natchez.
-
-We took in more this evening. After supper we hastened again to the
-hurricane deck, where the air was breathing cool, and, to our great joy,
-strong enough to relieve us from moschetoes. The river was lined with
-plantations of cotton and sugar, as it continued to be for two hundred
-miles farther. Almost every turn of the mighty stream disclosed a
-sugarhouse of red brick, with a centre and wings, all much alike. Groups
-of slaves, most of them nearly naked, were chopping wood, or at other
-kinds of toil along the shore. As the twilight melted into the golden
-moonlight of this region, I saw sparkles among the reeds on the margin
-of the stream. It did not occur to me what they were till I saw a horse
-galloping in a meadow, and apparently emitting gleams of fire. I then
-knew that I at length saw fireflies. One presently alighted on the linen
-coat of a gentleman standing beside me, where it spread its gleam over a
-space as large as the palm of my hand, making the finest of the threads
-distinctly visible.
-
-In a dark recess of the shore a large fire suddenly blazed up, and
-disclosed a group of persons standing on the brink of the stream. Our
-boat neared the shore, for this was a signal from a party who had
-secured their passage with us. Night after night I was struck with the
-same singular combination of lights which I now beheld; the moonlight,
-broad and steady; the blazing brands, sometimes on the shore, and
-sometimes on board the flatboats we met; and the glancing fireflies.
-
-When we went down for the night we had our first experience of the
-crying of the little H.'s. They were indefatigable children; when one
-became quiet, another began; and, among them, they kept up the squall
-nearly the twenty-four hours round. Their mother scolded them; their
-nurses humoured them; and, between these two methods of management,
-there was no peace for anybody within hearing. There was a good deal of
-trampling overhead too. Many of the deck passengers had to sleep in the
-open air, on the hurricane deck, from their being no room for them
-below; and, till they had settled themselves, sleep was out of the
-question for those whose staterooms were immediately beneath. At length,
-however, all was quiet but the rumbling of the engine, and we slept.
-
-When I went on deck in the morning, before six, I was privately told by
-a companion that the man who had last forced his way on board had died
-of cholera in the night, and had been laid under a tree at the
-wooding-place a few minutes before. Never was there a lovelier morning
-for a worn wretch to lie down to his long sleep. The captain
-particularly desired that the event should be passed over in entire
-silence, as he was anxious that there should be no alarm about the
-disease on board the boat. The poor man had, as I have mentioned, lain
-down in his place as soon as he came among us. He lay unobserved till
-two in the morning, when he roused the neighbour on each side of him.
-They saw his state at a glance, and lost not a moment in calling down
-the New-York physician; but, before this gentleman could get to him, the
-sick man died. His body was handed over to the people at the
-wooding-place, and buried in the cheerful morning sunshine. We sped away
-from that lonely grave as if we were in a hurry to forget it; and when
-we met at breakfast, there was mirth and conversation, and conventional
-observance, just as if death had not been among us in the night. This
-was no more than a quickening of the process by which man drops out of
-life, and all seems to go on as if he had never been: only seems,
-however. Even in this case, where the departed had been a stranger to us
-all, and had sunk from amid us in eight hours, I believe there were few
-or no hearts untouched, either by sorrow for him or fear for themselves.
-We were none of us as we should have been if this his brief connexion
-with us had never existed.
-
-All the morning we were passing plantations, and there were houses along
-both banks at short intervals; sometimes the mansions of planters,
-sometimes sugarhouses, sometimes groups of slave-dwellings, painted or
-unpainted, standing under the shade of sycamores, magnolias, live oaks,
-or Pride-of-India trees. Many dusky gazing figures of men with the axe,
-and women with the pitcher, would have tempted the pencil of an artist.
-The fields were level and rich-looking, and they were invariably bounded
-by the glorious forest. Towards noon we perceived by the number of
-sailing-boats that we were near some settlement, and soon came upon
-Donaldsonville, a considerable village, with a large unfinished
-Statehouse, where the legislature of Louisiana once sat, which was
-afterward removed to New-Orleans, whence it has never come back. Its
-bayou boasts a steamer, by which planters in the south back-country are
-conveyed to their estates on leaving the Mississippi.
-
-We now felt ourselves sufficiently at home to decide upon the
-arrangement of our day. The weather was too hot to let the fatigues of
-general conversation be endurable for many hours together; and there was
-little in the general society of the vessel to make us regret this. We
-rose at five or a little later, the early morning being delicious.
-Breakfast was ready at seven, and after it I apparently went to my
-stateroom for the morning; but this was not exactly the case. I observed
-that the laundresses hung their counterpanes and sheets to dry in the
-gallery before my window, and that, therefore, nobody came to that
-gallery. It struck me that this must be the coolest part of the boat,
-such an evaporation as was perpetually going on. I therefore stepped out
-of my window, with my book, work, or writing; and, sitting under the
-shade of a counterpane, and in full view of the river and western shore,
-spent in quiet some of the pleasantest mornings I have ever known. I was
-now and then reminded of the poor parson, pitied by Mrs. Barbauld:--
-
-                          "Or crossing lines
-    Shall mar thy musings, as the wet cold sheet
-    Flaps in thy face abrupt;"
-
-and sometimes an unsympathizing laundress would hang up an impenetrable
-veil between me and some object on shore that I was eagerly watching;
-but these little inconveniences were nothing in the way of
-counterbalance to the privilege of retirement. I took no notice of the
-summons to luncheon at eleven, and found that dinner, at half past one,
-came far too soon. We all thought it our duty to be sociable in the
-afternoon, and, therefore, took our seats in the gallery on the other
-side of the boat, where we were daily introduced to members of our
-society who before were strangers, and spent two or three hours in
-conversation or at chess. It was generally very hot, and the
-conversation far from lively, consisting chiefly of complaints of the
-heat or the glare; of the children or of the dulness of the river;
-varied by mutual interrogation about where everybody was going. A remark
-here and there was amusing; as when a lady described Canada as the place
-where people row boats, and sing, "Row, brothers, row," and all that.
-When the heat began to decline, we went to the hurricane deck to watch
-the beauty of evening stealing on; and, as no one but ourselves and our
-most esteemed acquaintance seemed to care for the wider view we here
-obtained, we had the place to ourselves, except that some giddy boys
-pursued their romps here, and kept us in a perpetual panic, lest, in
-their racing, they should run overboard. There is no guard whatever, and
-the leads overhang the water. Mr. E. said he never allowed his boys to
-play here, but gave them the choice of playing below or sitting still on
-the top.
-
-After tea we came up again on fine evenings; walked for an hour or two,
-and watched the glories of the night, till the deck passengers appeared
-with their blankets and compelled us to go down.
-
-Nothing surprised me more than to see that very few of the ladies looked
-out of the boat unless their attention was particularly called. All the
-morning the greater number sat in their own cabin, working collars,
-netting purses, or doing nothing; all the evening they amused themselves
-in the other cabin dancing or talking. And such scenery as we were
-passing! I was in perpetual amazement that, with all that has been said
-of the grandeur of this mighty river, so little testimony has been borne
-to its beauty.
-
-On the evening of our first day on the Mississippi, Mr. E. told me of
-the imminent danger he and his lady had twice been in on board
-steamboats. His stories give an idea of the perils people should make up
-their minds to on such excursions as ours. On their wedding journey, the
-E.'s, accompanied by their relative, Judge H., went down the Alabama
-river. One night, when Mr. E. was just concluding the watch I have
-described him as keeping, the boat ran foul of another, and parted in
-two, beginning instantly to sink. Mr. E. roused his lady from her sleep,
-made her thrust her feet into his boots, threw his cloak over her, and
-carried her up to the deck, not doubting that, from her being the only
-lady on board, she would be the first to be accommodated in the boat.
-But the boat had been seized by some gamblers who were wide awake and
-ready dressed when the accident happened, and they had got clear of the
-steamer. Mr. E. shouted to them to take in the lady, only the lady; he
-promised that neither Judge H. nor himself should enter the boat. They
-might have come back for every one on board with perfect safety; but he
-could not move them. Judge H., meanwhile, had secured a plank, on which
-he hoped to seat Mrs. E., while Mr. E. and himself, both good swimmers,
-might push it before them to the shore if they could escape the eddy
-from the sinking vessel. Mr. E. heard next the voice of an old gentleman
-whom he knew, who was in the boat, and trying to persuade the fellows to
-turn back. Mr. E. shouted to him to shoot the wretches if they would not
-come. The old gentleman took the hint, and held a pistol (which,
-however, was not loaded) at the head of the man who was steering; upon
-which they turned back and took in, not only Mrs. E., her party, and
-their luggage, but everybody else, so that no lives were lost. Mrs. E.
-lost nothing but the clothes she had left by her bedside. She was
-perfectly quiet and obedient to directions the whole time. The vessel
-sank within a quarter of an hour.
-
-A few years after the E.'s went up the Mississippi with their little
-girl. Some fine ladies on board wondered at Mrs. E. for shaking hands
-with a rude farmer with whom she had some acquaintance, and it appears
-probable that the farmer was aware of what passed. When Mr. E. was going
-down to bed, near day, he heard a deck passenger say to another, in a
-tone of alarm, "I say, John, look here!" "What's the matter?" asked Mr.
-E. "Nothing, sir, only the boat's sinking." Mr. E. ran to the spot, and
-found the news too true. The vessel had been pierced by a snag, and the
-water was rushing in by hogsheads. The boat seemed likely to be at the
-bottom in ten minutes. Mr. E. handed the men a pole, and bade them
-thrust their bedding into the breach, which they did with much
-cleverness, till the carpenter was ready with a better plug. The horrid
-words, "the boat's sinking," had, however, been overheard, and the
-screams of the ladies were dreadful. The uproar above and below was
-excessive; but through it all was heard the voice of the rough farmer,
-saying, "Where's E.'s girl? I shall save her first." The boat was run
-safely ashore, and the fright was the greatest damage sustained.
-
-We passed Baton Rouge, on the east Louisiana bank, on the afternoon of
-this day. It stands on the first eminence we had seen on these shores,
-and the barracks have a handsome appearance from the water. A
-summer-house, perched on a rising ground, was full of people, amusing
-themselves with smoking and looking abroad upon the river; and, truly,
-they had an enviable station. A few miles farther on we went ashore at
-the wooding-place, and I had my first walk in the untrodden forest. The
-height of the trees seemed incredible as we stood at their foot and
-looked up. It made us feel suddenly dwarfed. We stood in a crowd of
-locust and cottonwood trees, elm, maple, and live oak; and they were all
-bound together by an inextricable tangle of creepers, which seemed to
-forbid our penetrating many paces into the forest beyond where the
-woodcutters had intruded. I had a great horror of going too far, and was
-not sorry to find it impossible; it would be so easy for the boat to
-leave two or three passengers behind without finding it out, and no fate
-could be conceived more desolate. I looked into the woodcutters'
-dwelling, and hardly knew what to think of the hardihood of any one who
-could embrace such a mode of life for a single week on any
-consideration. Amid the desolation and abominable dirt, I observed a
-moscheto bar--a muslin curtain--suspended over the crib. Without this,
-the dweller in the wood would be stung almost to madness or death before
-morning. This curtain was nearly of a saffron colour; the floor of the
-hut was of damp earth, and the place so small that the wonder was how
-two men could live in it. There was a rude enclosure round it to keep
-off intruders, but the space was grown over with the rankest grass and
-yellow weeds. The ground was swampy all about, up to the wall of
-untouched forest which rendered this spot inaccessible except from the
-river. The beautiful squills-flower grew plentifully, the only relief to
-the eye from the vastness and rankness. Piles of wood were built up on
-the brink of the river, and were now rapidly disappearing under the
-activity of our deck-passengers, who were passing in two lines to and
-from the vessel. The bell from the boat tinkled through the wilderness
-like a foreign sound. We hastened on board, and I watched the
-woodcutters with deep pity as they gazed after us for a minute or two,
-and then turned into their forlorn abode.
-
-We were in hopes of passing the junction of the Red River with the
-Mississippi before dark, but found that we were not to see the Red River
-at all; a channel having been partly found and partly made between an
-island and the eastern shore, which saves a circuit of many miles. In
-this narrow channel the current ran strong against us; and as we
-laboured through it in the evening light, we had opportunity to observe
-every green meadow, every solitary dwelling which presented itself in
-the intervals of the forest. We grew more and more silent as the shades
-fell, till we emerged from the dark channel into the great expanse of
-the main river, glittering in the moonlight. It was like putting out to
-sea.
-
-Just before bedtime we stopped at Sarah Bayou to take in still more
-passengers. The steward complained that he was coming to an end of his
-mattresses, and that there was very little more room for gentlemen to
-lie down, as they were already ranged along the tables, as well as all
-over the floor. So much for the reputation of the "Henry Clay."
-
-The next morning, the 8th, I was up in time to see the scramble for milk
-that was going on at the wooding-place. The moment we drew to the land
-and the plank was put out, the steward leaped on shore, and ran to the
-woodcutters' dwelling, pitcher in hand. The servants of the gentry on
-board followed, hoping to get milk for breakfast; but none succeeded
-except the servant of an exclusive. This family had better have been
-without milk to their coffee than have been tempted by it to such bad
-manners as they displayed at the breakfast-table. Two young ladies who
-had come on board the night before, who suspected nothing of private
-luxuries at a public table, and were not aware of the scarcity of milk,
-asked a waiter to hand them a pitcher which happened to belong to the
-exclusives. The exclusives' servant was instantly sent round to take it
-from them, and not a word of explanation was offered.
-
-The woodcutters' dwelling before us was very different from the one we
-had seen the night before. It was a good-sized dwelling, with a
-cottonwood tree before it, casting a flickering shadow upon the porch,
-and behind it was a well-cleared field. The children were decently
-dressed, and several slaves peeped out from the places where they were
-pursuing their avocations. A passenger brought me a beautiful bunch of
-dwarf-roses which he had gathered over the garden paling. The piles of
-wood prepared for the steamboats were enormous, betokening that there
-were many stout arms in the household.
-
-This morning we seemed to be lost among islands in a waste of waters.
-The vastness of the river now began to bear upon our imaginations. The
-flatboats we met looked as if they were at the mercy of the floods,
-their long oars bending like straws in the current. They are so
-picturesque, however, and there is something so fanciful in the canopy
-of green boughs under which the floating voyagers repose during the heat
-of the day, that some of us proposed building a flatboat on the Ohio,
-and floating down to New-Orleans at our leisure.
-
-Adams Fort, in the state of Mississippi, afforded the most beautiful
-view we had yet seen on the river. The swelling hills, dropped with
-wood, closed in a reach of the waters, and gave them the appearance of a
-lake. White houses nestled in the clumps; goats, black and white,
-browsed on the points of the many hills; and a perfect harmony of
-colouring dissolved the whole into something like a dream. This last
-charm is as striking to us as any in the vast wilderness through which
-the "Father of Waters" takes his way. Even the turbid floods, varying
-their hues with the changes of light and shadow, are a fit element of
-the picture, and no one wishes them other than they are.
-
-In the afternoon we ran over a log; the vessel trembled to her centre;
-the ladies raised their heads from their work; the gentlemen looked
-overboard; and I saw our yawl snagged as she was careering at the stern.
-The sharp end of the log pricked through her bottom as if she had been
-made of brown paper. She was dragged after us, full of water, till we
-stopped at the evening wooding-place, when I ran to the hurricane deck
-to see her pulled up on shore and mended. There I found the wind so high
-that it appeared to me equally impossible to keep my seat and to get
-down; my feather-fan blew away, and I expected to follow it myself--so
-strangling was the gust--one of the puffs which take the voyager by
-surprise amid the windings of this forest-banked river. The yawl was
-patched up in a surprisingly short time. The deck passengers clustered
-round to lend a hand, and the blows of the mallet resounded fitfully
-along the shore as the gust came and passed over.
-
-Every one wished to reach and leave Natchez before dark, and this was
-accomplished. As soon as we came in sight of the bluff on which the
-city is built, we received a hint from the steward to lock our
-staterooms and leave nothing about, as there was no preventing the
-townspeople from coming on board. We went on shore. No place can be more
-beautifully situated; on a bend of the Mississippi, with a low platform
-on which all the ugly traffic of the place can be transacted; bluffs on
-each side; a steep road up to the town; and a noble prospect from
-thence. The streets are sloping, and the drains are remarkably well
-built; but the place is far from healthy, being subject to the yellow
-fever. It is one of the oldest of the southern cities, though with a
-new, that is, a perpetually-shifting population. It has handsome
-buildings, especially the Agricultural Bank, the Courthouse, and two or
-three private dwellings. Main-street commands a fine view from the
-ascent, and is lined with Pride-of-India trees. I believe the
-landing-place at Natchez has not improved its reputation since the
-descriptions which have been given of it by former travellers. When we
-returned to the boat after an hour's walk, we found the captain very
-anxious to clear his vessel of the townspeople and get away. The cabin
-was half full of the intruders, and the heated, wearied appearance of
-our company at tea bore testimony to the fatigues of the afternoon.
-
-In the evening only one firefly was visible; the moon was misty, and
-faint lightning flashed incessantly. Before morning the weather was so
-cold that we shut our windows, and the next day there was a fire in the
-ladies' cabin. Such are the changes of temperature in this region.
-
-The quantity of driftwood that we encountered above Natchez was amazing.
-Some of it was whirling slowly down with the current, but much more was
-entangled in the bays of the islands, and detained in incessant
-accumulation. It can scarcely be any longer necessary to explain that it
-is a mistake to suppose this driftwood to be the foundation of the
-islands of the Mississippi. Having itself no foundation, it could not
-serve any such purpose. The islands are formed by deposites of soil
-brought down from above by the strong force of the waters. The
-accumulation proceeds till it reaches the surface, when the seeds
-contained in the soil, or borne to it by the winds, sprout, and bind the
-soft earth by a network of roots, thus providing a basis for a stronger
-vegetation every year. It is no wonder that superficial observers have
-fallen into this error respecting the origin of the new lands of the
-Mississippi, the rafts of driftwood look so like incipient islands; and
-when one is fixed in a picturesque situation, the gazer longs to heap
-earth upon it, and clothe it with shrubbery.
-
-When we came in sight of Vicksburg the little H.'s made a clamour for
-some new toys. Their mother told them how very silly they were; what a
-waste of money it would be to buy such toys as they would get at
-Vicksburg; that they would suck the paint, &c. Strange to say, none of
-these considerations availed anything. Somebody had told the children
-that toys were to be bought at Vicksburg, and all argument was to them
-worth less than the fact. The contention went on till the boat stopped,
-when the mother yielded, with the worst possible grace, and sent a slave
-nurse on shore to buy toys. An hour after we were again on our way, the
-lady showed me, in the presence of the children, the wrecks of the toys;
-horses' legs, dogs' heads, the broken body of a wagon, &c., all, whether
-green, scarlet, or yellow, sucked into an abominable daub. She
-complained bitterly of the children for their folly, and particularly
-for their waste of her money, as if the money were not her concern, and
-the fun theirs!
-
-We walked through three or four streets of Vicksburg, but the captain
-could not allow us time to mount the hill. It is a raw-looking,
-straggling place, on the side of a steep ascent, the steeple of the
-Courthouse magnificently overlooking a huge expanse of wood and a deep
-bend of the river. It was three months after this time that the
-tremendous Vicksburg massacre took place; a deed at which the whole
-country shuddered, and much of the world beyond. In these disorders
-upward of twenty persons were executed, without trial by jury or
-pretence of justice. Some of the sufferers were gamblers, and men of bad
-character otherwise; some were wholly innocent of any offence whatever;
-and I believe it is now generally admitted that the plot for rousing the
-slaves to insurrection, which was the pretext for the whole proceeding,
-never had any real existence. It was the product of that peculiar
-faculty of imagination which is now monopolized by the slaveholder, as
-of old by imperial tyrants. Among the sufferers in this disturbance was
-a young farmer of Ohio, I think, who was proceeding to New-Orleans on
-business, and was merely resting on the eastern bank of the river on his
-way. I have seldom seen anything more touching than his brief letter to
-his parents, informing them that he was to be executed the next morning.
-Nothing could be quieter in its tone than this letter; and in it he
-desired that his family would not grieve too much for his sudden death,
-for he did not know that he could ever feel more ready for the event
-than then. His old father wrote an affecting appeal to the Governor of
-Mississippi, desiring, not vengeance, for that could be of no avail to a
-bereaved parent, but investigation, for the sake of his son's memory and
-the future security of innocent citizens. The governor did not recognise
-the appeal. The excuse made for him was that he could not; that if the
-citizens of the state preferred Lynch law to regular justice, the
-governor could do nothing against the will of the majority. The effect
-of barbarism like this is not to justify the imputation of its excesses
-to the country at large, but to doom the region in which it prevails to
-be peopled by barbarians. The lovers of justice and order will avoid the
-places where they are set at naught.
-
-Every day reminded us of the superiority of our vessel, for we passed
-every boat going the same way, and saw some so delayed by accidents that
-we wondered what was to become of the passengers; at least, of their
-patience. A disabled boat was seen on the morning of this day, the 9th,
-crowded with Kentuckians, some of whom tried to win their way on board
-the "Henry Clay" by witticisms; but our captain was inexorable,
-declaring that we could hold no more. Then we passed the Ohio steamboat,
-which left New-Orleans three days before us, but was making her way very
-slowly, with cholera on board.
-
-The 10th was Sunday. The children roared as usual; but the black damsels
-were dressed; there was no laundry-work going on, nor fancy-work in the
-cabin; and there was something of a Sunday look about the place. As I
-was sitting by my stateroom window, sometimes reading and sometimes
-looking out upon the sunny river, green woods, and flatboats that keep
-no Sabbath, a black servant entered to say that Mr. E. desired me "to
-come to the preachin'." I thought it unlikely that Mr. E. should be
-concerned in the affair, and knew too well what the service was likely
-to be in such a company, and conducted by such a clergyman as was to
-officiate, to wish to attend. I found afterward that the service had
-been held against the wishes of the captain, Mr. E., and many others;
-and that it had better, on all accounts, have been omitted. Some
-conversation which the young clergyman had thrust upon me had exhibited
-not only his extreme ignorance of the religious feelings and convictions
-of Christians who differed from him, but no little bitterness of
-contempt towards them; and he was, therefore, the last person to conduct
-the worship of a large company whose opinions and sentiments were almost
-as various as their faces. This reminds me that an old lady on board
-asked an acquaintance of mine what my religion was. On being told that I
-was a Unitarian, she exclaimed, "She had better have done with that; she
-won't find it go down with us." It never occurred to me before to
-determine my religion by what would please people on the Mississippi.
-
-Before breakfast one morning, when I was walking on the hurricane deck,
-I was joined by a young man who had been educated at West Point, and who
-struck me as being a fair and creditable specimen of American youth. He
-told me that he was very poor, and described his difficulties from being
-disappointed of the promotion he had expected on leaving West Point. He
-was now turning to the law; and he related by what expedients he meant
-to obtain the advantage of two years' study of law before settling in
-Maine. His land-travelling was done on foot, and there was no pretension
-to more than his resources could command. His manners were not so good
-as those of American youths generally, and he was not, at first, very
-fluent, but expressed himself rather in schoolboy phrase. His
-conversation was, however, of a host of metaphysicians as well as
-lawyers; and I thought he would never have tired of analyzing Bentham,
-from whom he passed on, like every one who talks in America about books
-or authors, to Bulwer, dissecting his philosophy and politics very
-acutely. He gave me clear and sensible accounts of the various operation
-of more than one of the United States institutions, and furnished me
-with some very acceptable information. After our walk and conversation
-had lasted an hour and a half, we were summoned to breakfast, and I
-thought we had earned it.
-
-During the morning I heard a friend of mine, in an earnest but amused
-tone, deprecating a compliment from two slave women who were trying to
-look most persuasive. They were imploring her to cut out a gown for each
-of them like the one she wore. They were so enormously fat and
-slovenly, and the lady's dress fitted so neatly, as to make the idea of
-the pattern being transferred to them most ludicrous. As long as we were
-on board, however, I believe they never doubted my friend's power of
-making them look like herself if she only would; and they continued to
-cast longing glances on the gown.
-
-On the 11th we overtook another disabled steamboat, which had been lying
-forty-eight hours with both her cylinders burst; unable, of course, to
-move a yard. We towed her about two miles to a settlement, and the
-captain agreed to take on board two young ladies who were anxious to
-proceed, and a few deck-passengers.
-
-The scenery was by this time very wild. These hundreds of miles of level
-woods, and turbid, rushing waters, and desert islands, are oppressive to
-the imagination. Very few dwellings were visible. We went ashore in the
-afternoon, just for the sake of having been in Arkansas. We could
-penetrate only a little way through the young cottonwood and the tangled
-forest, and we saw nothing.
-
-In the evening we touched at Helena, and more passengers got on board,
-in defiance of the captain's shouts of refusal. He declared that the
-deck was giving way under the crowd, and that he would not go near the
-shore again, but anchor in the middle of the river, and send his boats
-for provisions.
-
-While I was reading on the morning of the 12th, the report of a rifle
-from the lower deck summoned me to look out. There were frequent
-rifle-shots, and they always betokened our being near shore; generally
-under the bank, where the eye of the sportsman was in the way of
-temptation from some object in the forest. We were close under the
-eastern bank, whence we could peep through the massy beech-trunks into
-the dark recesses of the woods. For two days our eyes had rested on
-scenery of this kind; now it was about to change. We were approaching
-the fine Chickasaw bluffs, below Memphis, in the State of Tennessee. The
-captain expressed a wish that none of the passengers would go on shore
-at Memphis, where the cholera was raging. He intended to stay only a few
-minutes for bread and vegetables, and would not admit a single passenger
-on any consideration. We did not dream of disregarding his wishes, if,
-indeed, the heat had left us any desire to exert ourselves; but Mr. B.
-was so anxious that his lady should mount the bluff, that she yielded
-to his request; though, stout and elderly as she was, the ascent would
-have been a serious undertaking on a cool afternoon and with plenty of
-time. The entire company of passengers was assembled to watch the
-objects on shore; the cotton bales piled on the top of the bluff; the
-gentleman on horseback on the ridge, who was eying us in return; the old
-steamer, fitted up as a store, and moored by the bank, for the chance of
-traffic with voyagers; and, above all, the slaves, ascending and
-descending the steep path, with trays of provisions on their heads, the
-new bread and fresh vegetables with which we were to be cheered. Of
-course, all eyes were fixed upon Mr. and Mrs. B. as they attempted the
-ascent. The husband lent his best assistance, and dragged his poor lady
-about one third of the way up, when she suddenly found that she could
-not go a step forward or back; she stuck, in a most finished attitude of
-panic, with her face to the cliff and her back to us, her husband
-holding her up by one arm, and utterly at a loss what to do next. I hope
-they did not hear the shout of laughter which went up from our vessel. A
-stout boatman ran to their assistance, and enabled the lady to turn
-round, after which she came down without accident. She won everybody's
-esteem by her perfect good-humour on the occasion. Heated and flurried
-as she was, she was perfectly contented with having tried to oblige her
-husband. This was her object, and she gained it; and more, more than she
-was aware of, unless, indeed, she found that her fellow-passengers were
-more eager to give her pleasure after this adventure than before.
-
-The town of Memphis looked bare and hot; and the bluffs, though a relief
-from the level vastness on which we had been gazing for two days, are
-not so beautiful as the eminences four or five hundred miles below.
-
-The air was damp and close this night; the moon dim, the lightning blue,
-and glaring incessantly, and the woodashes from the chimneys very
-annoying. It was not weather for the deck; and, seeing that Mr. E. and
-two other gentlemen wanted to make up a rubber, I joined them. In our
-well-lighted cabin the lightning seemed to pour in in streams, and the
-thunder soon began to crack overhead. Mrs. H. came to us, and rebuked us
-for playing cards while it thundered, which she thought very
-blasphemous. When our rubber was over, and I retired to the ladies'
-cabin, I found that the lady had been doing something which had at
-least as much levity in it. After undressing, she had put on her
-life-preserver, and floundered on the floor to show how she should swim
-if the boat sank. Her slaves had got under the table to laugh. They
-little thought how near we might come to swimming for our lives before
-morning. I believe it was about three hours after midnight when I was
-awakened by a tremendous and unaccountable noise overhead. It was most
-like ploughing through a forest, and crashing all the trees down. The
-lady who shared my stateroom was up, pale and frightened, and lights
-were moving in the ladies' cabin. I did not choose to cause alarm by
-inquiry; but the motion of the boat was so strange, that I thought it
-must waken every one on board. The commotion lasted, I should think,
-about twenty minutes, when I suppose it subsided, for I fell asleep. In
-the morning I was shown the remains of hailstones, which must have been
-of an enormous size, to judge by what was left of them at the end of
-three hours. Mr. E. told me that we had been in the utmost danger for
-above a quarter of an hour, from one of the irresistible squalls to
-which this navigation is liable. Both the pilots had been blown away
-from the helm, and were obliged to leave the vessel to its fate. It was
-impossible to preserve a footing for an instant on the top; and the poor
-passengers who lay there had attempted to come down, bruised with the
-tremendous hail (which caused the noise we could not account for), and
-seeing, with the pilot, no other probability than that the hurricane
-deck would be blown completely away; but there was actually no standing
-room for these men, and they had to remain above and take their chance.
-The vessel drove madly from side to side of the dangerous channel, and
-the pilots expected every moment that she would founder. I find that we
-usually made much more way by night than by day, the balance of the boat
-being kept even while the passengers are equally dispersed and quiet,
-instead of running from side to side, or crowding the one gallery and
-deserting the other.
-
-I was on the lookout for alligators all the way up the river, but could
-never see one. A deck passenger declared that a small specimen slipped
-off a log into the water one day when nobody else was looking; but his
-companions supposed he might be mistaken, as alligators are now rarely
-seen in this region. Terrapins were very numerous, sometimes sunning
-themselves on floating logs, and sometimes swimming, with only their
-pert little heads visible above water. Wood-pigeons might be seen
-flitting in the forest when we were so close under the banks as to pry
-into the shades, and the beautiful blue jay often gleamed before our
-eyes. No object was more striking than the canoes which we frequently
-saw, looking fearfully light and frail amid the strong current. The
-rower used a spoon-shaped paddle, and advanced with amazing swiftness;
-sometimes crossing before our bows, sometimes darting along under the
-bank, sometimes shooting across a track of moonlight. Very often there
-was only one person in the canoe, as in the instance I have elsewhere
-mentioned[1] of a woman who was supposed to be going on a visit twenty
-or thirty miles up the stream. I could hardly have conceived of a
-solitude so intense as this appeared to me, the being alone on that
-rushing sea of waters, shut in by untrodden forests; the slow fishhawk
-wheeling overhead, and perilous masses of driftwood whirling down the
-current; trunks obviously uprooted by the forces of nature, and not laid
-low by the hand of man. What a spectacle must our boat, with its gay
-crowds, have appeared to such a solitary! what a revelation that there
-was a busy world still stirring somewhere; a fact which, I think, I
-should soon discredit if I lived in the depths of this wilderness, for
-life would become tolerable there only by the spirit growing into
-harmony with the scene, wild and solemn as the objects around it.
-
-[Footnote 1: Society in America, vol. ii., p. 101.]
-
-The morning after the storm the landscape looked its wildest. The clouds
-were drifting away, and a sungleam came out as I was peeping into the
-forest at the wooding-place. The vines look beautiful on the black
-trunks of the trees after rain. Scarcely a habitation was to be seen,
-and it was like being set back to the days of creation, we passed so
-many islands in every stage of growth. I spent part of the morning with
-the L.'s, and we were more than once alarmed by a fearful scream,
-followed by a trampling and scuffling in the neighbouring gallery. It
-was only some young ladies, with their work and guitar, who were in a
-state of terror because some green boughs _would_ sweep over when we
-were close under the bank. They could not be reassured by the gentlemen
-who waited upon them, nor would they change their seats; so that we
-were treated with a long series of screams, till the winding of the
-channel carried us across to the opposite bank.
-
-In the afternoon we came in sight of New Madrid, in the State of
-Missouri; a scattered small place, on a green tableland. We sighed to
-think how soon our wonderful voyage would be over, and at every
-settlement we reached repined at being there so soon. While others went
-on shore, I remained on board to see how they looked, dispersed in the
-woods, grouped round the woodpiles, and seated on logs. The clergyman
-urged my going, saying, "It's quite a retreat to go on shore." This
-gentleman is vice-president of an educational establishment for young
-ladies, where there are public exhibitions of their proficiency, and the
-poor ignorant little girls take degrees. Their heads must be so stuffed
-with vainglory that there can be little room for anything else.
-
-There were threatenings of another night of storm. The vessel seemed to
-labour much, and the weather was gusty, with incessant lightnings. The
-pilots said that they were never in such danger on the river as for
-twenty minutes of the preceding night. The captain was, however, very
-thankful for a few hours of cold weather; for his boat was so
-overcrowded as to make him dread, above all things, the appearance of
-disease on board. Some of us went to bed early this night, expecting to
-be called up to see the junction of the Ohio with the Mississippi by
-such light as there might be two hours after midnight. Mr. E. promised
-to have me called, and on the faith of this I went to sleep at the usual
-time. I had impressed him with my earnest desire not to miss this sight,
-as I had seen no junction of large rivers, except that of the Tombigbee
-with the Alabama. Mrs. B. would not trust to being called, but sat up,
-telling her husband that it was now his turn to gratify her, and he must
-come for her in good time to see the spectacle. Both she and I were
-disappointed, however. When I awoke it was five o'clock, and we were
-some miles into the Ohio. Mr. E. had fallen asleep, and awaked just a
-minute too late to make it of any use to rouse me. Mr. B. had put his
-head into his wife's room to tell her that the cabin floor was so
-completely covered with sleepers that she could not possibly make her
-way to the deck, and he shut the door before she could open her lips to
-reply. Her lamentations were sad. "The three great rivers meeting and
-all; and the little place on the point called Trinity and all; and I
-having sat up for it and all! It is a bad thing on some accounts to be
-married. If I had been a single woman, I could have managed it all for
-myself, I know."
-
-However, junctions became frequent now, and we saw two small ones in the
-morning, to make up for having missed the large one in the night. When I
-went up on deck I found the sun shining on the full Ohio, which was now
-as turbid as the Mississippi, from the recent storms. The stream stood
-in among the trees on either bank to a great depth and extent, it was so
-swollen. The most enormous willows I ever saw overhung our deck, and the
-beechen shades beyond, where the turf and unencumbered stems were
-dressed in translucent green, seemed like a palace of the Dryads. How
-some of us fixed our eyes on the shores of free Illinois! After nearly
-five months of sojourn in slaveland, we were now in sight of a free
-state once more. I saw a settler in a wild spot, looking very lonely
-among the tall trees; but I felt that I would rather be that man than
-the wealthiest citizen of the opposite state, who was satisfied to dwell
-there among his slaves.
-
-At eleven o'clock on this the ninth and last day of our voyage we passed
-Paducah, in Kentucky, a small neat settlement on the point of junction
-of the Tennessee and Ohio. Preparations were going on before our eyes
-for our leaving the boat; our luggage and that of the L.'s, who joined
-company with us, was brought out; cold beef and negus were provided for
-us in the ladies' cabin, the final sayings were being said, and we paid
-our fare, fifty dollars each, for our voyage of twelve hundred miles.
-Smithland, at the mouth of the Cumberland river, soon appeared; and, as
-we wished to ascend to Nashville without delay, we were glad to see a
-small steamboat in waiting. We stepped on shore, and stood there, in
-spite of a shower, for some time, watching the "Henry Clay" ploughing up
-the river, and waving our handkerchiefs in answer to signals of farewell
-from several of the multitude who were clustered in every part of the
-noble vessel.
-
-If there be excess of mental luxury in this life, it is surely in a
-voyage up the Mississippi, in the bright and leafy month of May.
-
-
-
-
-COMPROMISE.
-
-
-    "For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind."
-
-                                                     --_Hosea_ viii., 7.
-
-
-The greatest advantage of long life, at least to those who know how and
-wherefore to live, is the opportunity which it gives of seeing moral
-experiments worked out, of being present at the fructification of social
-causes, and of thus gaining a kind of wisdom which in ordinary cases
-seems reserved for a future life. An equivalent for this advantage is
-possessed by such as live in those critical periods of society when
-retribution is hastened, or displayed in clear connexion with the origin
-of its events. The present seems to be such an age. It is an age in
-which the societies of the whole world are daily learning the
-consequences of what their fathers did, the connexion of cause and
-effect being too palpable to be disputed; it is an age when the active
-men of the New World are beholding the results of their own early
-counsels and deeds. It seems, indeed, as if the march of events were
-everywhere accelerated for a time, so as to furnish some who are not
-aged with a few complete pieces of experience. Some dispensation--like
-the political condition of France, for instance--will still be centuries
-in the working out; but in other cases--the influence of eminent men,
-for example--results seem to follow more closely than in the slower and
-quieter past ages of the world. It is known to all how in England, and
-also in America, the men of the greatest intellectual force have sunk
-from a higher to a far lower degree of influence from the want of high
-morals. It seems as if no degree of talent and vigour can long avail to
-keep a man eminent in either politics or literature, unless his morals
-are also above the average. Selfish vanity, double-dealing, supreme
-regard to expediency, are as fatal to the most gifted men in these days,
-and almost as speedily fatal, as intellectual capacity to a pretender.
-Men of far inferior knowledge and power rise over their heads in the
-strength of honesty; and by dint of honesty (positive or comparitive)
-retain the supremacy, even through a display of intellectual weakness
-and error of which the fallen make their sport. This is a cheering sign
-of the times, indicating that the days are past when men were possessed
-by their leaders, and that the time is coming when power will be less
-unfairly distributed, and held on a better tenure than it has been. It
-indicates that traitors and oppressors will not, in future, be permitted
-to work their will and compass their purposes at the expense of others,
-till guilty will and purpose are prostrated on the threshold of
-eternity. It indicates that that glorious and beautiful spectacle of
-judgment may be beheld in this world which religious men have referred
-to another, when the lowly shall be exalted; when, unconscious of their
-dignity, they shall, with amazement, hear themselves greeted as the
-blessed of the Father, and see themselves appointed to a moral
-sovereignty in comparison with whose splendour
-
-                              "Grows dim and dies
-    All that this world is proud of. From their spheres
-    The stars of human glory are cast down;
-    Perish the roses and the flowers of kings,
-    Princes, and emperors, and the crowns and palms
-    Of all the mighty, withered and consumed."
-
-However long it may be before the last shred of tinsel may be cast into
-the fire, and the last chaff of false pretence winnowed away, the
-revolution is good and secure as far as it goes. Moral power has begun
-its long series of conquests over physical force and selfish cunning,
-and the diviner part of man is a guarantee that not one inch of the
-ground gained shall ever be lost. For our encouragement, we are
-presented with a more condensed evidence of retribution than has
-hitherto been afforded to the world. Moral causes seem to be quickened
-as well as strengthened in their operation by the new and more earnest
-heed which is given to them.
-
-In the New World, however long some moral causes may be in exhibiting
-their results, there have been certain deeds done which have produced
-their consequences with extraordinary rapidity and an indisputable
-clearness. May all men open their eyes to see them, and their hearts to
-understand them!
-
-The people of the United States were never under a greater temptation to
-follow temporary expediency in preference to everlasting principle than
-in the case of the admission of Missouri, with slave institutions, into
-the Union. To this temptation they yielded, by a small majority of their
-representatives. The final decision rested, as it happened, in the hands
-of one man, Mr. Clay; but it is to the shame of the North (which had
-abolished slavery) that it did so happen. The decision was made to
-prefer custom and expediency to principle; it was hoped that, if the
-wind were once got under confinement, something would prevent its
-bursting forth as the whirlwind.
-
-The plea of slaveholders, and a plausible one up to the year 1820, was
-that slavery was not an institution of their choice or for which they
-were answerable: it was an inherited institution. Since the year 1820
-this plea has become hypocrisy; for in that year a deliberate vote was
-passed by Congress to perpetuate slavery in the Union by admitting a new
-state whose institutions had this basis. The new states northwest of the
-Ohio were prohibited from introducing slavery by the very act of cession
-of the land; and nothing could have been easier than to procure the
-exclusion of slavery from Missouri by simply refusing to admit any new
-state whose distinguishing institution was one incompatible in principle
-with the principles on which the American Constitution was founded.
-Missouri would undoubtedly have surrendered slavery, been admitted, and
-virtuously flourished, like her neighbour Illinois. But there was
-division of opinion; and, because the political device of the Union
-seemed in danger, the eternal principles of justice were set aside, and
-protection was deliberately pledged to slavery, not only in Missouri,
-but, as a consequence, in Arkansas and Florida. The Constitution and
-Declaration of Rights of Missouri, therefore, exhibit the following
-singular mixture of declarations and provisions. It will be seen
-afterward how they are observed.
-
-"The general assembly shall not have power to pass laws,
-
-"1. For the emancipation of slaves without the consent of the owners; or
-without paying them, before such emancipation, a full equivalent for
-such slaves so emancipated; and,
-
-"2. To prevent _bonâ fide_ emigrants to this state, or actual settlers
-therein, from bringing from any of the United States, or from any of
-their territories, such persons as may there be deemed to be slaves, so
-long as any persons of the same description are allowed to be held as
-slaves by the laws of this state.
-
-"It shall be their duty, as soon as may be, to pass such laws as may be
-necessary,
-
-"1. To prevent free negroes and mulattoes from coming to and settling in
-this state, under any pretext whatsoever."
-
-"Schools and the means of education shall for ever be encouraged in this
-state.
-
-"That the right of trial by jury shall remain inviolate.
-
-"That the accused cannot be deprived of life, liberty, or property, but
-by the judgment of his peers or the law of the land.
-
-"That cruel and unusual punishments shall not be inflicted.
-
-"That the free communication of thoughts and opinions is one of the
-invaluable rights of man, and that every person may freely speak, write,
-and print on any subject, being responsible for the abuse of that
-liberty."
-
-The consequences of the compromise began to show themselves first in the
-difference between the character of the population in Missouri and
-Illinois, the latter of which is two years older than the former. They
-lie opposite each other on the Mississippi, and both are rich in
-advantages of soil, climate, and natural productions. They showed,
-however, social differences from the very beginning of their independent
-career, which are becoming more striking every day. Rapacious
-adventurers, who know that the utmost profit of slaves is made by
-working them hard on a virgin soil, began flocking to Missouri, while
-settlers who preferred smaller gains to holding slaves sat down in
-Illinois. When it was found, as it soon was, that slavery does not
-answer so well in the farming parts of Missouri as on the new
-plantations of the South, a farther difference took place. New settlers
-perceived that, in point of immediate interest merely, the fine lands of
-Missouri were less worth having, with the curse of slavery upon them,
-than those of Illinois without it. In vain has the price of land been
-lowered in Missouri as that in Illinois rose. Settlers go first and look
-at the cheaper land; some remain upon it; but many recross the river and
-settle in the rival state. This enrages the people of Missouri. Their
-soreness and jealousy, combined with other influences of slavery, so
-exasperate their prejudices against the people of colour as to give a
-perfectly diabolical character to their hatred of negroes and the
-friends of negroes. That such is the temper of those who conduct popular
-action in the state is shown by some events which happened in the year
-1836. In the very bottom of the souls of the American statesmen who
-admitted Missouri on unrighteous terms, these events must kindle a
-burning comparison between what the social condition of the frontier
-states of their honourable Union is and what it might have been.
-
-A man of colour in St. Louis was arrested for some offence, and rescued
-by a free man of his own colour, a citizen of Pennsylvania, named
-Mackintosh, who was steward on board a steamboat then at St. Louis.
-Mackintosh was conveyed to jail for rescuing his comrade, whose side of
-the question we have no means of knowing. Mackintosh appears to have
-been a violent man, or, at least, to have been in a state of desperation
-at the time that he was on his way to jail, guarded by two
-peace-officers. He drew a knife from his side (almost every man on the
-western frontier being accustomed to carry arms), killed one of the
-officers, and wounded the other. He was immediately lodged in the
-prison. The wife and children of the murdered officer bewailed him in
-the street, and excited the rage of the people against Mackintosh. Some
-of the citizens acknowledged to me that his colour was the provocation
-which aggravated their rage so far beyond what it had ever been in
-somewhat similar cases of personal violence, and that no one would have
-dreamed of treating any white man as this mulatto was treated. The
-citizens assembled round the jail in the afternoon, demanding the
-prisoner, and the jailer delivered him up. He was led into the woods on
-the outskirts of the city; and, when there, they did not know what to do
-with him. While deliberating they tied him to a tree. This seemed to
-suggest the act which followed. A voice cried out, "Burn him!" Many
-tongues echoed the cry. Brushwood was rooted up, and a heap of green
-wood piled about the man. Who furnished the fire does not seem to be
-known. Between two and three thousand of the citizens of St. Louis were
-present. Two gentlemen of the place assured me that the deed was done by
-the hands of not more than six; but they could give no account of the
-reasons why the two or three thousand stood by in silence to behold the
-act of the six, further than that they were afraid to interfere!
-
-The victim appears to have made no resistance nor entreaty. He was, some
-say twenty minutes, some say half an hour, in dying; during the whole of
-which time he was praying or singing hymns in a firm voice. This fact
-was the ground of an accusation made by magistrates of his being
-"connected with the abolitionists." When his legs were consumed so that
-his body dropped into the fire, and he was no longer seen, a bystander
-observed to another, "There! it is over with him: he does not feel any
-more now." "Yes, I do," observed the man's quiet voice from out of the
-flames.
-
-I saw the first notice which was given of this in the St. Louis
-newspapers. The paragraph briefly related that a ruffian of colour had
-murdered a citizen, had been demanded by the indignant fellow-citizens
-of the murdered man, and burned in the neighbourhood of the city; that
-this unjustifiable act was to be regretted, but that it was hoped that
-the veil of oblivion would be drawn over the deed. Some of the most
-respectable of the citizens were in despair when they found that the
-newspapers of the Union generally were disposed to grant the last
-request; and it is plain that, on the spot, no one dared to speak out
-about the act. The charge of Judge Lawless (his real name) to the grand
-jury is a sufficient commentary upon the state of St. Louis society. He
-told the jury that a bad and lamentable deed had been committed in
-burning a man alive without trial, but that it was quite another
-question whether they were to take any notice of it. If it should be
-proved to be the act of the few, every one of those few ought
-undoubtedly to be indicted and punished; but if it should be proved to
-be the act of the many, incited by that electric and metaphysical
-influence which occasionally carries on a multitude to do deeds above
-and beyond the law, it was no affair for a jury to interfere in. He
-spoke of Mackintosh as connected with the body of abolitionists. Of
-course, the affair was found to be electric and metaphysical, and all
-proceedings were dropped.
-
-All proceedings in favour of law and order; others of an opposite
-character were vigorously instituted by magistrates, in defiance of some
-of those clauses of the constitution which I have quoted above. The
-magistrates of St. Louis prosecuted a domiciliary inquisition into the
-periodical publications of the city, visiting the newspaper offices,
-prying and threatening, and offering rewards for the discovery of any
-probability that the institution of slavery would be spoken against in
-print. In the face of the law, the press was rigidly controlled.
-
-Information was given, while the city was in this excited state, of
-every indication of favour to the coloured people, and of disapprobation
-of slavery; and the savages of St. Louis were on the alert to inflict
-vengeance. In Marion College, Palmyra (Missouri), two students were
-undoubtedly guilty of teaching two coloured boys to read. These boys
-were carried by them to the college for service, the one being employed
-on the farm, and the other in the college, to clean shoes and wait on
-the young men. One afternoon a large number of citizens from St. Louis,
-well mounted, appeared on the Palmyra road, and they made no secret of
-their intention to Lynch the two students who taught their servants to
-read. The venerable Dr. Nelson, who was, I believe, at the head of the
-institution, came out of his house to implore the mob with tears not to
-proceed, and the ladies of his family threw themselves down in the road
-in the way of the horses. The way was forcibly cleared, and the
-persecutors proceeded. The young men came forth as soon as summoned.
-They were conducted to the edge of the forest where it opens upon a
-prairie. There a circle was formed, and they were told that they stood
-in a Lynch court.
-
-The younger one was first set in the midst. He acknowledged the act with
-which he was charged. He was offered the alternative of receiving twenty
-lashes with the horrid cowhide (which was shown him), or of immediately
-leaving the state for ever. He engaged to leave the state for ever, and
-was set across the river into Illinois.
-
-The elder student made his trial a longer one. He acknowledged the act
-of teaching his servant to read, and made himself heard while he
-defended it. He pleaded that he was a citizen of Missouri, being of age,
-and having exercised the suffrage at the last election. He demanded a
-fair trial in a court of law, and pledged himself to meet any accusation
-there. At last it came to their binding him to a tree, and offering him
-the choice of two hundred lashes with the cowhide, or of promising to
-leave the state, and never to return to it. He knew that a sentence of
-two hundred lashes meant death by torture (it is so understood in Lynch
-courts), and he knew that a promise thus extorted was not binding; so he
-promised. He was also set across the river, where he immediately
-published a narrative of the whole transaction, and declared his
-intention of returning to his state, to resume the duties and privileges
-of citizenship, as soon as he could be personally safe.
-
-The St. Louis Lynchers next ordered the heads of Marion College to hold
-a public meeting, and declare their convictions and feelings on the
-subject of slavery. They were obeyed, and they put pretty close
-questions to the professors, especially to Dr. Ely, who was a suspected
-man.
-
-Dr. Ely came from one of the Eastern states, and was considered by the
-abolitionists of his own religious persuasion to be one of their body.
-Some time after he went into Missouri, it appeared incidentally in some
-newspaper communications that he had bought a slave. His friends at the
-East resented the imputation, and were earnest in his vindication; but
-were presently stopped and thrown into amazement by his coming out with
-an acknowledgment and defence of the act. He thought that the way in
-which he could do most good was by purchasing negroes for purposes of
-enlightenment. So he bought his man Abraham, designing to enlighten him
-for nine years, and then set him free, employing the proceeds of his
-nine years' labour in purchasing two other slaves, to be enlightened and
-robbed in the same manner, for the purpose of purchasing four more at
-the expiration of another series of years, and so on. It seems
-astonishing that a clergyman should thus deliberately propose to confer
-his charities through the medium of the grossest injustice: but so it
-was. When, at the enforced meeting, he was questioned by the Lynchers as
-to his principles, he declared himself opposed to the unchristian
-fanaticism of abolitionism; spurned the imputation of being one of the
-body, and, in proof of his sincerity, declared himself to be the master
-of one slave, and to be already contracting for more.
-
-The Lynchers returned to St. Louis without having committed murder. They
-had triumphantly broken the laws, and trodden under foot their
-constitution of sixteen years old. If it could be made known at what
-expense they were saved from bloodshed; if it could be revealed what
-violence they offered to conscience, what feelings they lacerated, what
-convictions they stifled, what passions they kindled, what an undying
-worm they fixed at the core of many a heart, at the root of many a life,
-it might have been clear to all eyes that the halter and the cowhide
-would have been mercy in comparison with the tortures with which they
-strewed their way.
-
-I have told enough to show what comes of compromise. There is no need to
-lengthen out my story of persecutions. I will just mention that the last
-news from Missouri that I saw was in the form of an account of the
-proceedings of its legislature, but which yet seems to me incredible. It
-is stated to have been enacted that any person of any complexion, coming
-into or found in the State of Missouri, who shall be proved to have
-spoken, written, or printed a word in disapprobation of slavery or in
-favour of abolition, shall be sold into slavery for the benefit of the
-state. If, in the fury of the moment, such a law should really have been
-passed, it must speedily be repealed. The general expectation is that
-slavery itself will soon be abolished in Missouri, as it is found to be
-unprofitable and perilous, and a serious drawback to the prosperity of
-the region.
-
-What a lesson is meantime afforded as to the results of compromise!
-Missouri might now have been a peaceful and orderly region, inhabited by
-settlers as creditable to their country as those of the neighbouring
-free states, instead of being a nest of vagabond slavedealers, rapacious
-slavedrivers, and ferocious rioters. If the inhabitants think it hard
-that all should be included in a censure which only some have deserved,
-they must bestir themselves to show in their legislature, and by their
-improved social order, that the majority are more respectable than they
-have yet shown themselves to be. At present it seems as if one who might
-have been a prophet preaching in the wilderness had preferred the
-profession of a bandit of the desert. But it should never be forgotten
-whence came the power to inflict injury, by a permission being given
-where there should have been a prohibition. Whatever danger there ever
-was to the Union from difference of opinion on the subject of the
-compromise is now increased. The battle has still to be fought at a
-greater disadvantage than when a bad deed was done to avert it.
-
-
-
-
-CINCINNATI.
-
-
-     "'Sir,' said the custom-house officer at Leghorn, 'your papers are
-     forged! there is no such place in the world! your vessel must be
-     confiscated!' The trembling captain laid before the officer a map
-     of the United States; directed him to the Gulf of Mexico, pointing
-     out the mouth of the Mississippi; led him 1000 miles up it to the
-     mouth of the Ohio, and thence another 1000 to Pittsburg. 'There,
-     sir, is the port whence my vessel cleared out.' The astonished
-     officer, before he saw the map, would as soon have believed that
-     this ship had been navigated from the moon."
-
-                                                    --CLAY'S _Speeches_.
-
-
-We reached Cincinnati by descending the Ohio from Maysville, Kentucky,
-whence we took passage in the first boat going down to the great City of
-the West. It happened to be an inferior boat; but, as we were not to
-spend a night on board, this was of little consequence. We were summoned
-by the bell of the steamer at 9 A.M., but did not set off till past
-noon. The cause of the delay forbade all complaint, though we found our
-station in the sun, and out of any breeze that might be stirring,
-oppressively hot, in the hottest part of a midsummer day. The captain
-had sent nine miles into the country for his mother, whom he was going
-to convey to a place down the river, where her other son was lying sick
-of the cholera. At noon the wagon with the old lady and her packages
-appeared. We were prepared to view her situation with the kindest
-feelings, but our pity scarcely survived the attempts she made to ensure
-it. I suppose the emotions of different minds must always have different
-modes of expression, but I could comprehend nothing of such a case as
-this. While there were apartments on board where the afflicted mother
-might have indulged her feelings in privacy, it was disagreeable to see
-the parade of hartshorn and water, and exclamations and sensibilities,
-in the presence of a company of entire strangers. Her son and a
-kind-hearted stewardess were very attentive to her, and it was much to
-be wished that she had been satisfied with their assiduities.
-
-The scenery was fully equal to my expectations; and when we had put out
-into the middle of the river, we found ourselves in the way of a breeze
-which enabled us to sit outside, and enjoy the luxury of vision to the
-utmost. The sunny and shadowy hills, advancing and retiring, ribbed and
-crested with belts and clumps of gigantic beech; the rich bottoms always
-answering on the one shore to the group of hills on the other, a perfect
-level, smooth, rich, and green, with little settlements sprinkled over
-it; the shady creeks, very frequent between the hills, with sometimes a
-boat and figures under the trees which meet over it; these were the
-spectacles which succeeded each other before our untiring eyes.
-
-We touched at a number of small places on the banks to put out and take
-in passengers. I believe we were almost as impatient as the good captain
-to get to Richmond, where his sick brother was lying, that the family
-might be out of suspense about his fate. A letter was put into the
-captain's hand from the shore which did not tend to raise his spirits.
-It told him of the death, by cholera, of a lady whom he had just brought
-up the river. The captain's brother, however, was better. We were all
-committed to the charge of the clerk of the boat; and as we put out into
-the stream again, we saw the captain helping his mother up the hill, and
-looking a changed man within a few minutes!
-
-The moral plagues consequent on pestilence are an old subject, but one
-ever new to the spectator. The selfishness of survivers, the brutality
-of the well to the sick in a time of plague, have been held up to the
-detestation of the untried from the days of Defoe downward at least; but
-it seems as if the full horror of such a paroxysm of society had been
-left to be exhibited in America. Not that the ravages of the cholera
-were or could be fiercer there than in the plague-seasons of the Old
-World; but that, in a country so much more Christianized in a spirit of
-helpfulness than any other, examples of selfish desertion show a more
-ghastly aspect than elsewhere. The disease was met there, and its
-inflictions sustained in the noblest spirit of charity, courage, and
-wisdom. A thousand-and-one tales might be told of the devotion of the
-clergy to their flocks, of masters to their slaves, of physicians to the
-poor, of neighbours to each other; but, in fearful contrast to these,
-stood out some of the gloomy facts which belong to such a time. In the
-West the disease was particularly fatal, and the panic was not stilled
-when I was there, two years after the most destructive season. In the
-vicinity of Lexington, Kentucky, I saw a large white house, prettily
-placed, and was told of the dismal end of its late occupier, a lady who
-was beloved above everybody in the neighbourhood, and who, on account of
-her benevolent deeds, would have been previously supposed the last
-person likely to want for solace on her dying bed. In this house lived
-Mrs. J., with her sister, Miss A. Miss A. died of cholera at nine in the
-evening, and was buried in the garden during the night by the servants.
-Mrs. J. was taken ill before the next evening, and there was no female
-hand near to tend her. The physician, who knew how much he was wanted in
-the town, felt it right to leave her when the case became entirely
-hopeless. He told the men who were assisting that she could not survive
-the night, and directed them to bury her immediately after her death. As
-soon as the breath was out of her body, these men wrapped her in the
-sheet on which she was lying, put her into a large box, and dug a hole
-in the garden, where they laid her beside her sister. Forty-eight hours
-before, the sisters had been apparently in perfect health, and busy
-providing aid for their sick neighbours. Thus, and thus soon, were they
-huddled into their graves.
-
-From the time of our leaving Richmond the boat went on at good speed. We
-ceased to wear round, to take in casks and deals at the beck of
-everybody on shore. The dinner was remarkably disagreeable: tough beef,
-skinny chickens, gray-looking potatoes, gigantic radishes, sour bread,
-and muddy water in dirty tumblers. The only eatable thing on the table
-was a saucerful of cranberries, and we had a bottle of claret with us.
-It was already certain that we should not reach Cincinnati so as to have
-a daylight view of it: our hopes were bounded to not being obliged to
-sit down to another meal on board.
-
-The western sky faded while we were watching the Hunter pursuing the
-Coquette, two pretty little steamboats that were moving along under the
-shadow of the banks. Some time after dark we came in sight of long rows
-of yellow lights, with a flaring and smoking furnace here and there,
-which seemed to occupy a space of nearly two miles from the wharf where
-we at length stopped. I had little idea how beautiful this flaring
-region would appear in sunshine.
-
-After waiting some time in the boat for the arrival of a hack, we
-proceeded up the steep pavement above the wharf to the Broadway Hotel
-and Boarding-house. There we were requested to register our names, and
-were then presented with the cards of some of the inhabitants who had
-called to inquire for us. We were well and willingly served, and I went
-to rest intensely thankful to be once more out of sight of slavery.
-
-The next morning was bright, and I scarcely remember a pleasanter day
-during all my travels than this 16th of June. We found ourselves in a
-large boarding-house, managed by a singularly zealous and kindly master.
-His care of us was highly amusing during the whole time of our stay. His
-zeal may be judged of by a circumstance which happened one morning. At
-breakfast he appeared heated and confused, and looked as if he had a bad
-headache. He requested us to excuse any forgetfulness that we might
-observe, and mentioned that he had, by mistake, taken a dangerous dose
-of laudanum. We begged he would leave the table, and not trouble himself
-about us, and hoped he had immediately taken measures to relieve himself
-of the dose. He replied that he had had no time to attend to himself
-till a few minutes ago. We found that he had actually put off taking an
-emetic till he had gone to market and sent home all the provisions for
-the day. He had not got over the consequences of the mistake the next
-morning. The ladies at the breakfast-table looked somewhat vulgar; and
-it is undeniable that the mustard was spilled, and that the relics of
-the meal were left in some disorder by the gentlemen who were most in a
-hurry to be off to business. But every one was obliging; and I saw at
-that table a better thing than I saw at any other table in the United
-States, a lady of colour breakfasting in the midst of us!
-
-I looked out from our parlour window, and perceived that we were in a
-wide, well-built street, with broad foot-pavements and handsome houses.
-A house was at the moment going up the street; a rather arduous task, as
-the ascent was pretty steep. There was an admirable apparatus of levers
-and pulleys; and it moved on, almost imperceptibly, for several yards,
-before our visiters began to arrive, and I had to give up watching its
-march. When the long series of callers came to an end, the strolling
-house was out of sight.
-
-The first of our visiters was an English gentleman, who was settled in
-business in Cincinnati. He immediately undertook a commission of
-inquiry, with which I had been charged from England, about a family of
-settlers, and sent me a pile of new books, and tickets for a concert
-which was to be held in Mrs. Trollope's bazar the next evening but one.
-He was followed by a gentleman of whom much will be told in my next
-chapter; and by Dr. Drake, the first physician in the place; and Miss
-Beecher, daughter of the Rev. Dr. Beecher, head of Lane Seminary, near
-Cincinnati, then on his trial for heresy, and justly confident of
-acquittal. Miss Beecher is a lady eminent for learning and talents, and
-for her zeal in the cause of education. These were followed by several
-merchants, with their ladies, sisters, and daughters. The impression
-their visits left on our minds was of high respect for the society of
-Cincinnati, if these were, in manners, dress, and conversation, fair
-specimens. Dr. Drake and his daughter proposed to call for us for an
-afternoon's drive, and take us home to tea with them; a plan to which we
-gladly agreed.
-
-After dinner, we first arranged ourselves in a parlour which was larger
-and better furnished than the one we first occupied, and then walked
-down to the river while waiting for Dr. Drake's carriage. The opposite
-Kentucky shore looked rich and beautiful; and the bustle on the river,
-covered with every kind of craft; the steamboats being moored six or
-more abreast, gave us a highly respectful notion of the commerce of the
-place.
-
-Dr. Drake took us a delightful drive, the pleasure of which was much
-enhanced by his very interesting conversation. He is a complete and
-favourable specimen of a Westerner. He entered Ohio just forty-seven
-years before this time, when there were not above a hundred white
-persons in the state, and they all French, and when the shores were one
-expanse of canebrake, infested by buffalo. He had seen the foundations
-of the great city laid; he had watched its growth till he was now able
-to point out to the stranger, not only the apparatus for the exportation
-of 6,000,000 dollars' worth a year of produce and manufactures, but
-things which he values far more: the ten or twelve edifices erected for
-the use of the common schools, the new church of St. Paul, the two fine
-banking-houses, and the hundred and fifty handsome private dwellings,
-all the creations of the year 1835. He points to the periodicals, the
-respectable monthlies, and the four daily and six weekly papers of the
-city. He looks with a sort of paternal complacency on the 35,000
-inhabitants, scarcely one of whom is without the comforts of life, the
-means of education, and a bright prospect for the future. Though a true
-Westerner, and devoutly believing the _buckeyes_ (natives of Ohio) to be
-superior to all others of God's creatures, he hails every accession of
-intelligent members to his darling society. He observed to me, with his
-calm enthusiasm (the concomitant of a conviction which has grown out of
-experience rather than books), on the good effects of emigration on the
-posterity of emigrants; and told how, with the same apparent means of
-education, they surpass the descendants of natives. They combine the
-influences of two countries. Thus believing, he carries a cheerful face
-into the homes of his Welsh, Irish, English, German, and Yankee
-patients; he bids them welcome, and says, from the bottom of his heart,
-that he is glad to see them. His knowledge of the case of the emigrant
-enables him to alleviate, more or less, with the power which an honest
-and friendly physician carries about with him, an evil which he
-considers the worst that attends emigration. He told me that, unless the
-head of the emigrant family be timely and judiciously warned, the peace
-of the household is broken up by the pining of the wife. The husband
-soon finds interests in his new abode; he becomes a citizen, a man of
-business, a man of consequence, with brightening prospects; while the
-poor wife, surrounded by difficulties or vexed with hardships at home,
-provided with no compensation for what she has left behind, pines away,
-and wonders that her husband can be so happy when she is so miserable.
-When there is an end of congeniality, all is over; and a couple who
-would in their own land have gone through life cheerily, hand in hand,
-become uneasy yoke-fellows in the midst of a much-improved outward
-condition or prospect.
-
-Dr. Drake must be now much older than he looks. He appears vigorous as
-ever, running beside his stout black gig-horse in difficult bits of
-forest road, head uncovered and coat splashed, like any farmer making
-his way to market. His figure is spare and active; his face is
-expressive of shrewdness, humour, and kindliness. His conversation is of
-a high order, though I dare say it never entered his head that
-conversation is ever of any order at all. His sentences take whatever
-form fate may determine; but they bear a rich burden of truth hard won
-by experience, and are illumined by gleams of philosophy which shine up
-from the depths of his own mind. A slight degree of western inflation
-amuses the stranger; but there is something so much more loving than
-vain in the magniloquence, that it is rather winning than displeasing to
-strangers, not to Yankees, who resent it as sectional prejudice, and in
-whose presence it might be as well forborne. The following
-passage, extracted from an address delivered by Dr. Drake before the
-Literary Convention of Kentucky, gives some idea of the spirit of the
-man in one of its aspects, though it has none of the pithy character of
-his conversation:--
-
-"The relations between the upper and lower Mississippi States,
-established by the collective waters of the whole valley, must for ever
-continue unchanged. What the towering oak is to our climbing winter
-grape, the 'Father of Waters' must ever be to the communities along its
-trunk and countless tributary streams; an imperishable support, an
-exhaust-less power of union. What is the composition of its lower coasts
-and alluvial plains, but the soil of all the upper states and
-territories, transported, commingled, and deposited by its waters?
-Within her own limits Louisiana has, indeed, the rich mould of ten
-sister states, which have thus contributed to the fertility of her
-plantations. It might almost be said, that for ages this region has sent
-thither a portion of its soil, where, in a milder climate, it might
-produce the cotton, oranges, and sugar which, through the same channel,
-we receive in exchange for the products of our cornfields, workshops,
-and mines; facts which prepare the way, and invite to perpetual union
-between the West and South.
-
-"The state of Tennessee, separated from Alabama and Mississippi on the
-south and Kentucky on the north by no natural barrier, has its southern
-fields overspread with floating cotton, wafted from the first two by
-every autumnal breeze; while the shade of its northern woods lies for
-half the summer day on the borders of the last. The songs and uproar of
-a Kentucky _husking_ are answered from Tennessee; and the midnight
-racoon-hunt that follows, beginning in one state, is concluded in the
-other. The Cumberland, on whose rocky banks the capital of Tennessee
-rises in beauty, begins and terminates in Kentucky; thus bearing on its
-bosom at the same moment the products of the two states descending to a
-common market. Still farther, the fine river Tennessee drains the
-eastern half of that state, dips into Alabama, recrosses the state in
-which it arose, and traverses Kentucky to reach the Ohio river; thus
-uniting the three into one natural and enduring commercial compact.
-
-"Farther north, the cotton-trees, which fringe the borders of Missouri
-and Illinois, throw their images towards each other in the waters of the
-Mississippi: the toiling emigrant's axe in the depths of the leafless
-woods, and the crash of the falling rail-tree on the frozen earth,
-resound equally among the hills of both states; the clouds of smoke from
-their burning prairies mingle in the air above, and crimson the setting
-sun of Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio.
-
-"The Pecan-tree sheds its fruit at the same moment among the people of
-Indiana and Illinois, and the boys of the two states paddle their canoes
-and fish together in the Wabash, or hail each other from opposite banks.
-Even villages belong equally to Indiana and Ohio, and the children of
-the two commonwealths trundle their hoops together in the same street.
-
-"But the Ohio river forms the most interesting boundary among the
-republics of the West. For a thousand miles its fertile bottoms are
-cultivated by farmers who belong to the different states, while they
-visit each other as friends or neighbours. As the schoolboy trips or
-loiters along its shores, he greets his playmates across the stream, or
-they sport away an idle hour in its summer waters. These are to be among
-the future, perhaps the opposing statesmen of the different
-commonwealths. When, at low water, we examine the rocks of the channel,
-we find them the same on both sides. The plants which grow above drop
-their seeds into the common current, which lodges them indiscriminately
-on either shore. Thus the very trees and flowers emigrate from one
-republic to another. When the bee sends out its swarms, they as often
-seek a habitation beyond the stream as in their native woods. Throughout
-its whole extent, the hills of Western Virginia and Kentucky cast their
-morning shadows on the plains of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri.
-The thunder-cloud pours down its showers on different commonwealths; and
-the rainbow, resting its extremities on two sister states, presents a
-beautiful arch, on which the spirits of peace may pass and repass in
-harmony and love.
-
-"Thus connected by nature in the great valley, we must live in the bonds
-of companionship or imbrue our hands in each other's blood. We have no
-middle destiny. To secure the former to our posterity, we should begin
-while society is still tender and pliable. The saplings of the woods, if
-intertwined, will adapt themselves to each other and grow together; the
-little bird may hang its nest on the twigs of different trees, and the
-dewdrop fall successively on leaves which are nourished by distinct
-trunks. The tornado strikes harmless on such a bower, for the various
-parts sustain each other; but the grown tree, sturdy and set in its way,
-will not bend to its fellow, and, when uprooted by the tempest, is
-dashed in violence against all within its reach.
-
-"Communities, like forests, grow rigid by time. To be properly trained,
-they must be moulded while young. Our duty, then, is quite obvious. All
-who have moral power should exert it in concert. The germes of harmony
-must be nourished, and the roots of present contrariety or future
-discord torn up and cast into the fire. Measures should be taken to
-mould a uniform system of manners and customs out of the diversified
-elements which are scattered over the West. Literary meetings should be
-held in the different states, and occasional conventions in the central
-cities of the great valley be made to bring into friendly consultation
-our enlightened and zealous teachers, professors, lawyers, physicians,
-divines, and men of letters, from its remotest sections. In their
-deliberations the literary and moral wants of the various regions might
-be made known, and the means of supplying them devised. The whole should
-successively lend a helping hand to all the parts on the great subject
-of education, from the primary school to the university. Statistical
-facts bearing on this absorbing interest should be brought forward and
-collected; the systems of common school instruction should be compared,
-and the merits of different schoolbooks, foreign and domestic, freely
-canvassed. Plans of education, adapted to the natural, commercial, and
-social condition of the interior, should be invented; a correspondence
-instituted among all our higher seminaries of learning, and an
-interchange established of all local publications on the subject of
-education. In short, we should foster Western genius, encourage Western
-writers, patronise Western publishers, augment the number of Western
-readers, and create a Western heart.
-
-"When these great objects shall come seriously to occupy our minds, the
-union will be secure, for its centre will be sound, and its attraction
-on the surrounding parts irresistible. Then will our state governments
-emulate each other in works for the common good; the people of remote
-places begin to feel as the members of one family; and our whole
-intelligent and virtuous population unite, heart and hand, in one long,
-concentrated, untiring effort to raise still higher the social
-character, and perpetuate for ever the political harmony of the green
-and growing West."
-
-How strange is the feeling to the traveller in wild regions of having
-his home associations unexpectedly connected with the scene before him!
-Here, in this valley of the Mississippi, to my eye wild and luxuriant in
-beauty as I fancy Ceylon or Juan Fernandez, Dr. Drake pointed out to me
-two handsome dwellings with gardens, built by artisans from Birmingham,
-and he presently alighted to visit a Welsh patient. What a vision of
-brassfounding, teaurns, and dingy streets, and then of beaver hats and
-mob caps, did these incidents call up! And again, when we were buried in
-a beechen wood, where "a sunbeam that had lost its way" streaked the
-stems and lighted up the wild vines, Dr. Drake, in telling me of the
-cholera season in Cincinnati, praised a medical book on cholera which
-happened to be by a brother-in-law of mine. It was an amusing incident.
-The woods of Ohio are about the last place where the author would have
-anticipated that I should hear accidental praises of his book.
-
-The doctor had at present a patient in Dr. Beecher's house, so we
-returned by the Theological Seminary. Dr. Beecher and his daughters were
-not at home. We met them on the road in their cart, the ladies returning
-from their school in the city, and we spent an evening there the next
-week. The seminary (Presbyterian) was then in a depressed condition, in
-consequence of the expulsion of most of the pupils for their refusal to
-avoid discussion of the slavery question. These expelled youths have
-since been founders and supporters of abolition societies; and the good
-cause has gained even more than the seminary has lost by the absurd
-tyranny practised against the students.
-
-From this the Montgomery road there is a view of the city and
-surrounding country which defies description. It was of that melting
-beauty which dims the eyes and fills the heart--that magical combination
-of all elements--of hill, wood, lawn, river, with a picturesque city
-steeped in evening sunshine, the impression of which can never be lost
-nor ever communicated. We ran up a knoll, and stood under a clump of
-beeches to gaze; and went down, and returned again and again, with the
-feeling that, if we lived upon the spot, we could never more see it look
-so beautiful.
-
-We soon entered a somewhat different scene, passing the slaughter-houses
-on Deer Creek, the place where more thousands of hogs in a year than I
-dare to specify are destined to breathe their last. Deer Creek, pretty
-as its name is, is little more than the channel through which their
-blood runs away. The division of labour is brought to as much perfection
-in these slaughter-houses as in the pin-manufactories of Birmingham. So
-I was told. Of course I did not verify the statement by attending the
-process. In my childhood I was permitted, by the carelessness of a
-nursemaid, to see the cutting up of the reeking carcass of an ox, and I
-can bear witness that one such sight is enough for a lifetime. But--to
-tell the story as it was told to me--these slaughter-houses are divided
-into apartments communicating with each other: one man drives into one
-pen or chamber the reluctant hogs, to be knocked on the head by another
-whose mallet is for ever going. A third sticks the throats, after which
-they are conveyed by some clever device to the cutting-up room, and
-thence to the pickling, and thence to the packing and branding, a set of
-agents being employed for every operation. The exportation of pickled
-pork from Cincinnati is enormous. Besides supplying the American navy,
-shiploads are sent to the West India Islands and many other parts of the
-world. Dr. Drake showed me the dwelling and slaughter-house of an
-Englishman who was his servant in 1818, who then turned pork-butcher,
-and was, in a few years, worth ten thousand dollars.
-
-The teatable was set out in the garden at Dr. Drake's. We were waited
-upon, for the first time for many months, by a free servant. The long
-grass grew thick under our feet; fireflies were flitting about us, and I
-doubted whether I had ever heard more sense and eloquence at any Old
-World teatable than we were entertained with as the twilight drew on.
-
-As we walked home through the busy streets, where there was neither the
-apathy of the South nor the disorder consequent on the presence of a
-pauper class, I felt strongly tempted to jump to some hasty conclusions
-about the happiness of citizenship in Cincinnati. I made a virtuous
-determination to suspend every kind of judgment: but I found each day
-as exhilarating as the first, and, when I left the city, my impressions
-were much like what they were after an observation of twenty-four hours.
-
-The greater part of the next morning was occupied with visiters; but we
-found an interval to go out, under the guidance of friends, to see a few
-things which lay near at hand. We visited the Museum, where we found, as
-in all new museums whose rooms want filling up, some trumpery among much
-which is worthy to remain. There was a mermaid not very cleverly
-constructed, and some bad wax figures, posted like sentinels among the
-cases of geological and entomological specimens; but, on the whole, the
-Museum is highly creditable to the zeal of its contributors. There is,
-among other good things, a pretty complete collection of the currency of
-the country, from the earliest colonial days, and some of other
-countries with it. I hope this will be persevered in, and that the
-Cincinnati merchants will make use of the opportunities afforded by
-their commerce of collecting specimens of every kind of currency used in
-the world, from the gilt and stamped leather of the Chinese and
-Siberians to the last of Mr. Biddle's twenty-dollar notes. There is a
-reasonable notion abroad that the Americans are the people who will
-bring the philosophy and practice of exchanges to perfection; and theirs
-are the museums in which should be found a full history of currency, in
-the shape of a complete set of specimens.
-
-We visited Mr. Flash's bookstore, where we saw many good books, some
-very pretty ones, and all cheap. We heard there good accounts of the
-improved and improving literary taste of the place, shown in the
-increasing number of book societies, and the superior character of the
-works supplied to their orders. Mr. Flash and his partner are in favour
-of the protection of foreign literary property, as a matter of interest
-as well as principle.
-
-We next went to the painting-room of a young artist, Mr. Beard, whose
-works pleased me more than those of any other American artist. When I
-heard his story, and saw what he had already achieved, I could not doubt
-that, if he lived, he would run a noble career. The chief doubt was
-about his health, the doubt which hangs over the destiny of almost every
-individual of eminent promise in America. Two years before I saw him
-Beard had been painting portraits at a dollar a head in the interior of
-Ohio; and it was only a year since he suddenly and accidentally struck
-into the line in which he will probably show himself the Flamingo of the
-New World. It was just a year since he had begun to paint children. He
-had then never been out of his native state. He was born in the
-interior, where he began to paint without having ever seen a picture,
-except the daubs of itinerant artists. He married at nineteen, and came
-to Cincinnati, with wife, child, an empty purse, a head full of
-admiration of himself, and a heart full of confidence in this admiration
-being shared by all the inhabitants of the city. He had nothing to show,
-however, which could sanction his high claims, for his portraits were
-very bad. When he was in extreme poverty, he and his family were living,
-or rather starving, in one room, at whose open window he put up some of
-his pictures to attract the notice of passengers. A wealthy merchant,
-Mr. G., and a gentleman with him, stopped and made their remarks to each
-other, Mr. G. observing, "The fellow has talent, after all." Beard was
-sitting behind his pictures, heard the remark, and knew the voice. He
-was enraged. Mr. G. visited him, with a desire to encourage and assist
-him; but the angry artist long resisted all attempts to pacify him. At
-his first attempt to paint a child, soon after, all his genius shone
-forth, to the astonishment of every one but himself. He has proved to be
-one of the privileged order who grow gentle, if not modest, under
-appreciation; he forgave Mr. G., and painted several pictures for him. A
-few wealthy citizens were desirous of sending him to Italy to study. His
-reply to every mention of the subject is, that he means to go to Italy,
-but that he shall work his own way there. In order to see how he liked
-the world, he paid a visit to Boston while I was there, intending to
-stay some time. From a carriage window I saw him in the street, stalking
-along like a chief among inferiors, his broad white collar laid over his
-coat, his throat bare, and his hair parted in the middle of his
-forehead, and waving down the sides of his face. People turned to look
-after him. He stayed only a fortnight, and went back to Ohio expressing
-great contempt for cities. This was the last I heard of him.
-
-I have a vivid remembrance of three of his pictures of children. One of
-a boy trudging through a millstream to school, absolutely American, not
-only in the scenery, but in the air and countenance of the boy, which
-were exquisitely natural and fresh. Another was a boy about to go
-unwillingly to school; his satchel was so slung over his shoulder as to
-show that he had not put it on himself; the great bite in the slice of
-bread and butter intimated that breakfast was going on in the midst of
-the grief; and the face was distorted with the most ludicrous passion.
-Thus far all might have been done by the pencil of the mere
-caricaturist. The triumph of the painter was in the beauty and grace of
-the child shining through the ridiculous circumstances amid which he was
-placed. It was obvious that the character of the face, when undisturbed
-by passion, was that of careless gayety. The third was a picture of
-children and a dog; one beautiful creature astride of the animal, and
-putting his cap upon the head of the dog, who was made to look the sage
-of the party. I saw and liked some of his pictures of another character.
-Any one of his humorous groups might be thought almost worthy of Wilkie;
-but there was repetition in them; two favourite heads especially were
-popped in, in situations too nearly resembling. The most wonderful,
-perhaps, of his achievements was a fine full-length portrait of a
-deceased lady whom he had never seen. It was painted from a miniature,
-and under the direction of the widower, whom it fully satisfied in
-regard to the likeness. It was a breathing picture. He is strongly
-disposed to try his hand on sculpture. I saw a bust of himself which he
-had modelled. It was a perfect likeness, and had much spirit. All this,
-and much more, having been done in a single year by one who had never
-seen a good picture, it seems reasonable to expect great things from
-powers so rapidly and profusely developed. Beard's name was little, if
-at all, known beyond his native state while I was in the country. If he
-lives, it will soon be heard of in Europe.
-
-In the afternoon a large party called on us for an expedition into
-Kentucky. We crossed the river in the ferryboat without leaving the
-carriages, drove through Covington, and mounted slowly through a wood,
-till we reached the foot of a steep hill, where we alighted. We climbed
-the hill, wild with tall grass and shrubs, and obtained the view of
-Cincinnati which is considered the completest. I now perceived that,
-instead of being shut in between two hills, the city stands on a noble
-platform, round which the river turns while the hills rise behind. The
-platform is perfectly ventilated, and the best proof of this is the
-healthiness of the city above all other American cities. A physician who
-had been seven years a resident told me that he had been very delicate
-in health before he came, like many others of the inhabitants; and, like
-many others, he had not had a day's illness since his arrival. The
-average of deaths in the city during the best season was seven per week;
-and, at the worst time of the year, the mortality was less than in any
-city of its size in the republic.
-
-There is ample room on the platform for a city as large as Philadelphia,
-without encroaching at all on the hill-sides. The inhabitants are
-already consulting as to where the Capitol shall stand whenever the
-nation shall decree the removal of the general government beyond the
-mountains. If it were not for the noble building at Washington, this
-removal would probably take place soon, perhaps after the opening of the
-great Southern railroad. It seems rather absurd to call senators and
-representatives to Washington from Missouri and Louisiana, while there
-is a place on the great rivers which would save them half the journey,
-and suit almost everybody else just as well, and many much better. The
-peril to health at Washington in the winter season is great, and the
-mild and equable temperature of Cincinnati is an important circumstance
-in the case.
-
-We hurried home to prepare for an evening party, and tea was brought up
-to us while we dressed. All the parties I was at in Cincinnati were very
-amusing, from the diversity in the company, and in the manners of the
-natives of the East and West. The endeavour seems to be to keep up
-rather than to disuse distinctive observances, and this almost makes the
-stranger fancy that he has travelled a thousand miles between one
-evening and the next. The effect is entertaining enough to the foreign
-guest, but not very salutary to the temper of the residents, to judge by
-the complaints I heard about sectional exclusiveness. It appeared to me
-that the thing chiefly to be wished in this connexion was that the
-Easterners should make large concessions and allowance. It would be well
-for them to remember that it was they who chose the Western city, and
-not the city them; and that, if the elderly inhabitants are rather proud
-of their Western deeds, and ostentatiously attached to their Western
-symbols, this is a circumstance belonging to the place, and deliberately
-encountered, with other circumstances, by new residents; and that,
-moreover, all that they complain of is an indulgence of the feelings of
-a single generation. When the elderly members of the society drop off,
-the children of all residents will wear the buckeye, or forget it alike.
-And it certainly appeared to me that the cool assumption by Easterners
-of the superiority of New-England over all other countries was, whether
-just or not, likely to be quite as offensive to the buckeyes as any
-buckeye exultation could be to the Yankees.
-
-At one evening party the company sat round the drawing-room,
-occasionally changing places or forming groups without much formality.
-They were chiefly Yankees, of various accomplishments, from the learned
-lawyer who talked with enthusiasm about Channing, and with strong sense
-about everything but politics, in which his aristocratic bias drew him
-aside into something like nonsense, to the sentimental young widow, who
-instantly began talking to me of her dear Mr. ----, and who would return
-to the subject as often as I led away from it. Every place was
-remarkable for her dear Mr. ---- having been better or worse there; and
-every event was measured by its having happened so long before or after
-her dear Mr. ---- was buried. The conversation of the society was most
-about books, and society and its leaders at home and abroad. The manners
-of the lady of the house were, though slightly impaired by timidity,
-such as would grace any society of any country. The house, handsomely
-furnished, and adorned with some of the best of Beard's pictures, stood
-on a terrace beautifully surrounded with shrubbery, and commanding a
-fine view of the city.
-
-At another party there was a great variety. An enormous buckeye bowl of
-lemonade, with a ladle of buckeye, stood on the hall table, and
-symbolical sprigs of the same adorned the walls. On entering the
-drawing-room I was presented with a splendid bouquet, sent by a lady by
-the hands of her brother, from a garden and conservatory which are the
-pride of the city. My first introduction was to the Catholic bishop, my
-next to a lady whom I thought then and afterward one of the cleverest
-women I met in the country. There was a slight touch of pedantry to be
-excused, and a degree of tory prejudice against the bulk of the human
-race which could scarcely be exceeded even in England; but there was a
-charming good-humour in the midst of it all, and a power both of
-observation and reasoning which commanded high respect. One Western
-gentleman sidled about in a sort of minuet step, unquestionably a
-gentleman as he was in all essential respects; and one young lady, who
-was, I fancy, taking her first peep at the world, kept her eyes
-earnestly fixed on the guests as they entered, bowing unconsciously in
-sympathy with every gentleman who bowed, and courtesying with every lady
-who courtesied. She must have been well practised in salutation before
-the evening was over, for the party was a large one. All the rest, with
-the exception of a forward Scotchman, were well-bred, and the evening
-passed off very pleasantly amid brisk conversation, mirth, and excellent
-refreshments.
-
-Another party was at the splendid house to which the above-mentioned
-garden and conservatory belong. The proprietor has a passion for
-gardening, and his ruling taste seems likely to be a blessing to the
-city. He employs four gardeners, and toils in his grounds with his own
-hands. His garden is on a terrace which overlooks the canal, and the
-most parklike eminences form the background of the view. Between the
-garden and the hills extend his vineyards, from the produce of which he
-has succeeded in making twelve kinds of wine, some of which are highly
-praised by good judges. Mr. Longworth himself is sanguine as to the
-prospect of making Ohio a wine-growing region, and he has done all that
-an individual can to enhance the probability. In this house is West's
-preposterous picture of Ophelia, the sight of which amazed me after all
-I had heard of it. It is not easy to imagine how it should have obtained
-the reputation of being his best while his Cromwell is in existence. The
-party at this house was the largest and most elegant of any that I
-attended in Cincinnati. Among many other guests, we met one of the
-judges of the Supreme Court, a member of Congress and his lady, two
-Catholic priests, Judge Hall, the popular writer, with divines,
-physicians, lawyers, merchants, and their families. The spirit and
-superiority of the conversation were worthy of the people assembled.
-
-The morning of the 19th shone brightly down on the festival of the day.
-It was the anniversary of the opening of the Common Schools. Some of the
-schools passed our windows in procession, their banners dressed with
-garlands, and the children gay with flowers and ribands. A lady who was
-sitting with me remarked, "this is our populace." I thought of the
-expression months afterward, when _the gentlemen_ of Cincinnati met to
-pass resolutions on the subject of abolitionism, and when one of the
-resolutions recommended mobbing as a retribution for the discussion of
-the subject of slavery; the law affording no punishment for free
-discussion. Among those who moved and seconded these resolutions, and
-formed a deputation to threaten an advocate of free discussion, were
-some of the merchants who form the aristocracy of the place; and the
-secretary of the meeting was the accomplished lawyer whom I mentioned
-above, and who told me that the object of his life is law reform in
-Ohio! The "populace" of whom the lady was justly proud have, in no case
-that I know of, been the law-breakers; and in as far as "the populace"
-means not "the multitude," but the "vulgar," I do not agree with the
-lady that these children were the populace. Some of the patrons and
-prizegivers afterward proved themselves "the vulgar" of the city.
-
-The children were neatly and tastefully dressed. A great improvement has
-taken place in the costume of little boys in England within my
-recollection, but I never saw such graceful children as the little boys
-in America, at least in their summer dress. They are slight, active, and
-free. I remarked that several were barefoot, though in other respects
-well clad; and I found that many put off shoes and stockings from choice
-during the three hot months. Others were barefoot from poverty; children
-of recent settlers, and of the poorest class of the community.
-
-We set out for the church as soon as the procession had passed, and
-arrived before the doors were opened. A platform had been erected below
-the pulpit, and on it were seated the mayor and principal gentlemen of
-the city. The two thousand children then filed in. The report was read,
-and proved very satisfactory. These schools were established by a
-cordial union of various political and religious parties; and nothing
-could be more promising than the prospects of the institution as to
-funds, as to the satisfaction of the class benefited, and as to the
-continued union of their benefactors. Several boys then gave specimens
-of elocution which were highly amusing. They seemed to suffer under no
-false shame, and to have no misgiving about the effect of the vehement
-action they had been taught to employ. I wondered how many of them would
-speak in Congress hereafter. It seems doubtful to me whether the present
-generation of Americans are not out in their calculations about the
-value and influence of popular oratory. They ought certainly to know
-best; but I never saw an oration produce nearly so much effect as books,
-newspapers, and conversation. I suspect that there is a stronger
-association in American minds than the times will justify between
-republicanism and oratory; and that they overlook the facts of the vast
-change introduced by the press, a revolution which has altered men's
-tastes and habits of thought, as well as varied the methods of reaching
-minds. As to the style of oratory itself, reasoning is now found to be
-much more impressive than declamation, certainly in England, and I
-think, also, in the United States; and though, as every American boy is
-more likely than not to act some part in public life, it is desirable
-that all should be enabled to speak their minds clearly and gracefully.
-I am inclined to think it a pernicious mistake to render declamatory
-accomplishment so prominent a part of education as it now is. I trust
-that the next generation will exclude whatever there is of insincere and
-traditional in the practice of popular oratory; discern the real value
-of the accomplishment, and redeem the reproach of bad taste which the
-oratory of the present generation has brought upon the people. While the
-Americans have the glory of every citizen being a reader and having
-books to read, they cannot have, and need not desire, the glory of
-shining in popular oratory, the glory of an age gone by.
-
-Many prizes of books were given by the gentlemen on the platform, and
-the ceremony closed with an address from the pulpit which was true, and,
-in some respects, beautiful, but which did not appear altogether
-judicious to those who are familiar with children's minds. The children
-were exhorted to trust their teachers entirely; to be assured that their
-friends would do by them what was kindest. Now neither children nor
-grown people trust any more than they believe because they are bid.
-Telling them to have confidence is so much breath wasted. If they are
-properly trained, they will unavoidably have this trust and confidence,
-and the less that is said about it the better. If not, the less said the
-better, too; for confidence is then out of the question, and there is
-danger in making it an empty phrase. It would be well if those whose
-office it is to address children were fully aware that exhortation,
-persuasion, and dissuasion are of no use in their case, and that there
-is immeasurable value in the opposite method of appeal. Make truth
-credible, and they will believe it; make goodness lovely, and they will
-love it; make holiness cheerful, and they will be glad in it; but remind
-them of themselves by threat, inducement, or exhortation, and you impair
-(if you do anything) the force of their unconscious affections; try to
-put them upon a task of arbitrary self-management, and your words pass
-over their ears only to be forgotten.
-
-Before eight o'clock in the evening the Cincinnati public was pouring
-into Mrs. Trollope's bazar, to the first concert ever offered to them.
-This bazar is the great deformity of the city. Happily, it is not very
-conspicuous, being squatted down among houses nearly as lofty as the
-summit of its dome. From my window at the boarding-house, however, it
-was only too distinctly visible. It is built of brick, and has Gothic
-windows, Grecian pillars, and a Turkish dome, and it was originally
-ornamented with Egyptian devices, which have, however, all disappeared
-under the brush of the whitewasher. The concert was held in a large
-plain room, where a quiet, well-mannered audience was collected. There
-was something extremely interesting in the spectacle of the first public
-introduction of music into this rising city. One of the best performers
-was an elderly man, clothed from head to foot in gray homespun. He was
-absorbed in his enjoyment; so intent on his violin, that one might watch
-the changes of his pleased countenance the whole performance through
-without fear of disconcerting him. There was a young girl, in a plain
-white frock, with a splendid voice, a good ear, and a love of warbling
-which carried her through very well indeed, though her own taste had
-obviously been her only teacher. If I remember right, there were about
-five-and-twenty instrumental performers, and six or seven vocalists,
-besides a long row for the closing chorus. It was a most promising
-beginning. The thought came across me how far we were from the musical
-regions of the Old World, and how lately this place had been a
-canebrake, echoing with the bellow and growl of wild beast; and here was
-the spirit of Mozart swaying and inspiring a silent crowd as if they
-were assembled in the chapel at Salzburg!
-
-This account of our first three days at Cincinnati will convey a
-sufficient idea of a stranger's impressions of the place. There is no
-need to give a report of its charitable institutions and its commerce;
-the details of the latter are well known to those whom they may concern;
-and in America, wherever men are gathered together, the helpless are
-aided and the suffering relieved. The most threatening evil to
-Cincinnati is from that faithlessness which manifests itself in
-illiberality. The sectional prejudice of the two leading classes of
-inhabitants has been mentioned, and also the ill-principled character of
-the opposition made to abolitionism. The offence against freedom, not
-only of opinion, but of action, was in this case so rank, that the
-citizens of Louisville, on the slaveholding side of the Ohio, taunted
-the citizens of Cincinnati with persecuting men for opinion from
-mercenary interest; with putting down free discussion from fear of
-injury to their commerce. A third direction in which this illiberality
-shows itself is towards the Catholics. The Catholic religion spreads
-rapidly in many or most of the recently-settled parts of the United
-States, and its increase produces an almost insane dread among some
-Protestants, who fail to see that no evils that the Catholic religion
-can produce in the present state of society can be so afflictive and
-dangerous as the bigotry by which it is proposed to put it down. The
-removal to Cincinnati of Dr. Beecher, the ostentatious and virulent foe
-of the Catholics, has much quickened the spirit of alarm in that region.
-It is to be hoped that Dr. Beecher and the people of Cincinnati will
-remember what has been the invariable consequence in America of public
-denunciations of assumed offences which the law does not reach; namely,
-mobbing. It is to be hoped that all parties will remember that Dr.
-Beecher preached in Boston three sermons vituperative of the Catholics
-the Sunday before the burning of the Charlestown convent by a Boston
-mob. Circumstances may also have shown them by this time how any kind of
-faith grows under persecution; and, above all, it may be hoped that the
-richer classes of citizens will become more aware than they have yet
-proved themselves to be of their republican (to say nothing of their
-human) obligation to refrain from encroaching, in the smallest
-particulars, on their brethren's rights of opinion and liberty of
-conscience.
-
-The roads in the interior of Ohio were in so bad a state from recent
-rains that I did not, at this time, attempt to visit the middle or
-northern parts of the state, where may be seen those monuments of an
-extinct race about which much antiquarian inquiry is going forward. One
-of the large mounds, whose uses are yet unexplained, and in which are
-found specimens of the arts of life which are considered to show that
-their artificers were not of Indian race, still remains within the city.
-It was crumbling away when I saw it, being a tempting spot for
-children's play. It is a pity it should not be carefully preserved; for
-the whole history of evidence, particularly the more recent portion of
-it, shows the impossibility of anticipating what revelations may emanate
-from a single object of historical interest.
-
-A volume might presently be filled with descriptions of our drives about
-the environs of Cincinnati. There are innumerable points of view whence
-the city, with its masses of building and its spires, may be seen
-shining through the limpid atmosphere, like a cloud-city in the evening
-sky. There are many spots where it is a relief to lose the river from
-the view, and to be shut in among the brilliant green hills, which are
-more than can be numbered. But there is one drive which I almost wonder
-the inhabitants do not take every summer day, to the Little Miami
-bottoms. We continued eastward along the bank of the river for seven
-miles, the whole scenery of which was beautiful; but the unforgotten
-spot was the level about the mouth of the Little Miami river, the
-richest of plains or level valleys, studded with farmhouses, enlivened
-with clearings, and kept primitive in appearance by the masses of dark
-forest which filled up all the unoccupied spaces. Upon this scene we
-looked down from a great height, a Niphates of the New World. On
-entering a little pass between two grassy hills, crested with wood, we
-were desired to alight. I ran up the ascent to the right, and was
-startled at finding myself on the top of a precipice. Far beneath me ran
-the Little Miami, with a narrow white pebbly strand, arrow-like trees
-springing over from the brink of the precipice, and the long evening
-shadows making the current as black as night, while the green, up to the
-very lips of the ravine, was of the sunniest, in the last flood of
-western light.
-
-For more reasons than one I should prefer Cincinnati as a residence to
-any other large city of the United States. Of these reasons not the last
-would be that the "Queen of the West" is enthroned in a region of
-wonderful and inexhaustible beauty.
-
-
-
-
-PROBATION.
-
-
-     "Small is it that thou canst trample the earth with its injuries
-     under thy feet, as old Greek Zeno trained thee; thou canst love the
-     earth while it injures thee, and even because it injures thee; for
-     this a greater than Zeno was needed, and he, too, was sent. Knowst
-     thou that 'Worship of Sorrow?' The temple thereof, opened some
-     eighteen centuries ago, now lies in ruins, overgrown with jungle,
-     the habitation of doleful creatures. Nevertheless, venture forward;
-     in a low crypt, arched out of falling fragments, thou findest the
-     altar still there, and its sacred lamp perennially burning."
-
-                                                    --_Sartor Resartus._
-
-     "I will tell you, scholar, I have heard a grave divine say that God
-     has two dwellings; one in heaven, and the other in a meek and
-     thankful heart."
-
-                                                         --IZAAK WALTON.
-
-
-Among the strongest of the fresh feelings excited by foreign
-travel--those fresh feelings which are an actual re-enforcement of
-life--is that of welcome surprise at the sympathy the traveller is able
-to yield, as well as privileged to receive. We are all apt to lose faith
-in the general resemblance between human beings when we have remained
-too long amid one set of circumstances; all of us nearly as weakly as
-the schoolgirl who thinks that the girl of another school cannot
-comprehend her feelings; or the statesman who is surprised that the
-lower classes appear sometimes to understand their own interests; or the
-moralist who starts back from the antique page where he meets the
-reflection of his own convictions; or the clergyman who has one kind of
-truth for his study and another for his pulpit. Intellectual sympathy
-comes to the traveller in a distant land like a benignant rebuke of his
-narrowness; and when he meets with moral beauty which is a realization
-of his deep and secret dreams, he finds how true it is that there is no
-nationality in the moral creation, and that, wherever grass grows and
-the sun shines, truth springs up out of the earth and righteousness
-looks down from heaven. Those who bring home a deep, grateful,
-influential conviction of this have become possessed of the best results
-of travel; those who are not more assured than before of the essential
-sympathy of every human being they meet, will be little the worse for
-staying at home all the rest of their lives. I was delighted with an
-observation of a Boston merchant who had made several voyages to China.
-He dropped a remark by his own fireside on the narrowness which causes
-us to conclude, avowedly or silently, that, however well men may use the
-light they have, they must be very pitiable, very far behind us, unless
-they have our philosophy, our Christianity, our ways of knowing the God
-who is the Father of us all, and the Nature which is the home of us all.
-He said that his thoughts often wandered back with vivid pleasure to the
-long conversations he had enjoyed with some of his Chinese friends on
-the deepest themes of philosophy and the highest truths of religion,
-when he found them familiar with the convictions, the emotions, the
-hopes which, in religious New-England, are supposed to be derivable only
-from the Christianity of this region. His observation gave me intense
-pleasure at the time I heard it; and now, though I have no such
-outlandish friends as the Chinese appear to a narrow imagination, I can
-tell him, from a distance of three thousand miles, that his animating
-experience is shared by other minds.
-
-The most extensive agreement that I have ever known to exist between
-three minds is between two friends of mine in America and myself, Dr. F.
-being German, Mrs. F. American, and I English, by birth, education, and
-(at least in one of the three) prejudice. Before any of the three met,
-all had become as fixed as they were ever likely to be in habits of
-thought and feeling; and yet our differences were so slight, our
-agreements so extensive, that our intercourse was like a perpetual
-recognition rather than a gradual revelation. Perhaps a lively
-imagination may conceive something of the charm of imparting to one
-another glimpses of our early life. While our years were passing amid
-scenes and occupations as unlike as possible, our minds were converging
-through foreign regions of circumstance to a common centre of
-conviction. We have sat mutually listening for hours, day after day,
-week after week, to his account of early years spent in the range of a
-royal forester's domain, and of the political struggles of later years;
-to her history of a youthful life nourished by all kinds of American
-influences; and to mine, as unlike both theirs as each was to the other.
-
-The same sort of experience is yielded by every chapter of human history
-which comes under the mind's eye in a foreign country. The indolence of
-the speculatist, however, generally prevents his making this use of any
-but the most extraordinary and eventful sections of this interminable
-history. Such contemplations rouse sympathy, extinguish nationality, and
-enlarge the spirit to admit new kindred by an irresistible assurance of
-the rightfulness of all claims of brotherhood. Every lovetale has this
-effect, for true love is the same all over the wide earth. Most tales of
-wo have the same influence, for the deepest woes spring from causes
-universally prevalent. But, above all, spectacles of moral beauty work
-miracles of reconciliation between foreign minds. The heart warms to
-every act of generosity, and the spirit sends out a fervent greeting to
-every true expression of magnanimity, whether it be meek intrepidity in
-doing or unconscious bravery in suffering.
-
-Many such a heartwarming must the stranger experience in America, where
-the diversities of society are as great as over the European Continent,
-and where all virtues can find the right soil to thrive in. If there are
-in some regions broader exhibitions of vice--of licentiousness and
-violence--than can be seen where slavery is not, in other regions or
-amid different circumstances there are brighter revelations of virtue
-than are often seen out of a primitive state of society. One of these,
-one of many, may, I think, be spoken of without risk of hurting any
-feelings or betraying any confidence, though I must refrain from
-throwing such light and beauty over the story as the letters of the
-parties would afford. I was never so tempted to impart a correspondence;
-and it is not conceivable that any harm could arise from it beyond the
-mischief of violating the sacredness of private correspondence; but this
-is not to be thought of.
-
-At Cincinnati I became acquainted with the Rev. E.P., whom I found to be
-beloved, fervently but rationally, by his flock, some of whom think him
-not a whit inferior, as a preacher, to Dr. Channing. He was from
-New-England; and, till he spoke, he might have been taken for one of the
-old Puritans risen from an early grave to walk the earth for a while. He
-was tall, gaunt, and severe-looking, with rather long black hair and
-very large black eyes. When he spoke all the severity vanished; his
-countenance and voice expressed gentleness, and his quiet fun showed
-that the inward man was no Puritan. His conversation was peculiar. His
-voice was somewhat hollow, and not quite manageable, and he was wont to
-express himself with schoolboy abruptness and awkwardness of phrase,
-letting drop gems of truth and flowers of beauty without being in the
-least aware of the inequality of his conversation, or, perhaps, that he
-was conversing at all. Occasionally, when he had lighted on a subject on
-which he had bestowed much thought, all this inequality vanished, and
-his eloquence was of a very high order. He was a man who fixed the
-attention at once, and could not, after a single interview, be ever
-forgotten. The first time I saw him he told me that his wife and he had
-hoped to have made their house my home in Cincinnati, but that she and
-the child had been obliged to set out on their summer visit to her
-parents in New-England before my arrival. Whenever he spoke of his home
-it was in a tone of the most perfect cheerfulness; so that I should not
-have imagined that any anxieties harboured there but for the fervent
-though calm manner in which he observed in conversation one day, that
-outward evils are evils only as far as we think them so; and that our
-thinking them so may be wonderfully moderated by a full conviction of
-this. This was said in a tone which convinced me that it was not a
-fragment of preaching, but of meditation. I found that he had been about
-two years married to a pretty, lively, accomplished girl from
-New-England. Some of his friends were rather surprised at the match, for
-she had appeared hitherto only as a sprightly belle, amiable, but a
-little frivolous. It was not, however, that he was only proud of her
-beauty and accomplishments, or transiently in love; for his young wife
-had soon occasion to reveal a strength of mind only inferior to his own.
-Her sight began to fail; it failed more and more rapidly, till, after
-the birth of her child, she was obliged to surrender to others all the
-nicer cares of maternal management. Her accomplishments became suddenly
-useless. Her favourite drawing was first given up; then her needle was
-laid aside; then she could neither write nor read, nor bear a strong
-light. In her state of enforced idleness (the greatest trial of all to
-the spirits), her cheerfulness never failed. Her step was as light, her
-voice as gay as ever. She said it was because her husband was as happy
-as ever. He aided her in every conceivable way, by doing all that was
-possible of what she was prevented from doing, and by upholding her
-conviction that the mind is its own place; and he thus proved that he
-did not desire for her or for himself indolent submission, but cheerful
-acquiescence.
-
-As summer came on, the child sickened in teething, and was sent with its
-mother to New-England, in order to escape the greatest heats. They had
-set out, under good guardianship, the week before I arrived at
-Cincinnati. Mr. P. could not leave his church for many weeks, but was to
-follow in August, so as to be in time to deliver a poem before the Phi
-Beta Kappa Society at Cambridge, Massachusetts, in Harvard commencement
-week. I fancied that I saw him meditating this poem more than once
-during our drives through the splendid scenery round Cincinnati. I was
-uneasy about his health, and expressed some apprehensions to one of his
-friends, who, however, made light of what I said. I thought that, made
-for strength as he looked, he had little of it. He seemed incessantly
-struggling against exhaustion, and I was confident that he often joined
-in conversation with his eyes alone, because he was unequal to the
-exertion of talking. I was quite sure of all this, and wondered how
-others could help seeing it too, on the day of the procession of the
-freeschools of Cincinnati, when he was appointed to address the
-children. His evident effort in the pulpit and exhaustion afterward made
-me fear that there were more trials in store for his young wife. During
-their separation she could neither write to him nor read his letters.
-
-When, towards the end of August, I arrived at Cambridge for
-commencement, one of my first inquiries was for the P.s. He had joined
-his wife, his poem was ready, and they were in cheerful spirits, though
-both her sight and the child's health were rather worse than better. I
-did not see them among the assemblage on the great commencement day. On
-the morrow, when the Phi Beta Kappa Society had marched in to music, and
-the oration had been delivered, and we all looked eagerly for Mr. P. and
-his poem, a young clergyman appeared, with a roll of MS. in his hand,
-and with a faltering voice, and a countenance of repressed grief, told
-us that Mr. P. had been seized with a sudden and severe illness, and had
-requested from him, as an office of friendship, that he would read the
-poem which its author was prevented from delivering. The tidings ran in
-a mournful whisper through the assemblage that Mr. P. had broken a
-bloodvessel.
-
-The poem was descriptive, with touches of human interest, many and
-strong. It related the passage of an emigrant family over the
-Alleghanies, and their settlement in the West. It was read with much
-modesty, truth, and grace. At one part the reader's voice failed him, at
-a brief description of the burial of an infant in the woods; it was too
-like a recent scene at which the reader had been present as chief
-mourner.
-
-The P.s were next at a country-house within two miles of another where I
-was spending ten days. Mr. P. was shut up, and condemned to the trial
-which his wife was bearing so well, enforced idleness. His bodily
-weakness made him feel it more, and he found it difficult to bear. He
-had been unused to sickness, and the only failure I ever saw in him was
-in obedience to the necessities of his situation and the orders of his
-physician. He could not write a page of a letter, and reading fatigued
-his head; but he could not help trying to do what he had been accustomed
-to perform with ease; and no dexterity of his visiters could prevent his
-clapping on his hat, and being at the carriage door before them. I
-thought once that I had fairly shut him into his parlour, but he was
-holding my stirrup before I had done my farewell to his wife. I was
-commissioned to carry him grapes and peaches from a friend's hothouse;
-and I would fain have gone every day to read to him, but I found that he
-saw too many people, and I therefore went seldom. Nothing can be
-conceived more touching than the cheerfulness of his wife. Many would
-have inwardly called it cruel that she could now do almost nothing for
-her husband, or what she thought almost nothing. She could neither read
-to him, nor write for him the many passing thoughts, the many
-remembrances to absent friends, that it would have been a relief to his
-now restless mind to have had set down. But their common conviction
-completely sustained them both, and I never saw them otherwise than
-unaffectedly cheerful. The child was sometimes better and sometimes
-worse. I saw him but once, but I should have known him again among a
-thousand. The full, innocent gaze of his bright black eyes, the upright
-carriage, so striking in a well-tended infant, and the attitude of
-repose in which he contemplated from his mother's arms whatever went on
-about him, fixed the image of the child in my memory for ever. In
-another month I heard, at a distance, of the child's death. For a
-fortnight before he had been quite blind, and had suffered grievously.
-In the common phrase, I was told that the parents supported themselves
-wonderfully.
-
-As the cold weather approached, it became necessary for Mr. P. to remove
-southward. It was a weary journey over the Alleghanies into Ohio, but it
-had to be performed. Every arrangement of companionship, and about
-conveyance, resting-places, &c., was made to lessen the fatigue to the
-utmost; but we all dreaded it for him. The party was to touch at
-Providence, Rhode Island, where the steamboat would wait a quarter of an
-hour. I was in Providence, and, of course, went down to the boat to
-greet them. Mr. P. saw me from a distance, and ran ashore, and let down
-the steps of the carriage with an alacrity which filled me with joy and
-hope. He was not nearly so thin as when I last saw him, and his
-countenance was more radiant than ever. "I knew we should see you," said
-he, as he led me on board to his wife. She, too, was smiling. They were
-not in mourning. Like some other persons in America who disapprove of
-wearing mourning, they had the courage to break through the custom. It
-would, indeed, have been inconsistent with the conviction which was
-animating them all this time--the conviction that the whole disposal of
-us is wise, and right, and kind--to have made an external profession
-that anything that befell them was to be lamented. I could not but
-observe the contrast between their countenances and that of their
-maidservant, whose heart was doubtless aching at having to go back
-without the child. The mother's feelings were anything but deadened. The
-cheerfulness and the heart's mourning existed together. Tears trembled
-in her eyes, and her voice faltered more than once; but then came the
-bright smile again, and an intimation, given almost in a spirit of
-gayety, that it was easy to bear anything while _he_ was always so
-strong in spirit and so happy.
-
-This was the last I saw of them. Their travelling companions wrote
-cheerlessly of his want of strength, and of the suffering the long
-journey caused him. They were taken into the house of a kind friend at
-Cincinnati, where there was a room fitted up with green for the sake of
-Mrs. P.'s eyes, and every arrangement made in a similar spirit of
-consideration. But it would not do; there was yet to be no rest for the
-invalid. The excitement of being among his flock, while unable to do
-anything in their service, was injurious to him. He was sent down the
-river to New-Orleans, and his wife was not allowed to accompany him. The
-reasons were sufficient, but the separation at a time when he was nearly
-as anxious about her health as she about his was a dreadful trial. I
-heard of it, and wrote him a long letter to amuse him, desiring him not
-to exert himself to answer it. After a while, however, he did so, and I
-shall never part with that letter. He spoke briefly of himself and his
-affairs, but I saw the whole state of his mind in the little he did say.
-He found himself in no respect better; in many much worse. He often felt
-that he was going down the dark valley, and longed intensely for the
-voices of his home to cheer him on his way. But, still, his happiest
-conviction was the uppermost. He knew that all things were ordered well,
-and he had no cares. He wrote more copiously of other things: of his
-voyage down the great river, of the state of mind and manners amid the
-influences of slavery, which had converted his judgment and his
-sympathies to the abolition cause; and of the generous kindness of his
-people, the full extent of which he might never have known but for his
-present sickness. This letter left me little hope of his recovery; yet
-even here the spirit of cheerfulness, predominant through the whole, was
-irresistible, and it left me less anxious for them than before.
-
-After this I wandered about for some months, out of reach of any of the
-P.'s connexions, and could only procure general accounts of his being
-better. Just before I sailed I received from Mr. P. a letter full of
-good news, as calmly cheerful in its tone as any written in the depths
-of his adversity. He had ascended the river with the first warmth of
-spring; was so much better as to be allowed to preach once on the
-Sunday, and to be about to undertake it twice; and was now writing
-beside the cradle of his newborn daughter, whose mother sent me word
-that they were all well and happy.
-
-The power of a faith like theirs goes forth in various directions to
-work many wonders. It not only fortifies the minds of sufferers, but
-modifies the circumstances themselves from which they suffer, bracing
-the nerves in sickness, and equalizing the emotions in sorrow; it
-practically asserts the supremacy of the real over the apparent, and the
-high over the low; and, among other kindly operations, refreshes the
-spirit of the stranger with a revelation of true kindred in a foreign
-land: for this faith is the fundamental quality in the brotherhood of
-the race.
-
-
-
-
-THE NATURAL BRIDGE.
-
-
-    "Come on, sir; here's the place: stand still. How fearful
-    And dizzy 'tis to cast one's eyes so low!"
-
-                                                             SHAKSPEARE.
-
-                        "Desperate now
-    All farther course; yon beetling brow,
-    In craggy nakedness sublime,
-    What heart or foot shall dare to climb!"
-
-                                                                  SCOTT.
-
-
-The shrewd Yankee driver of the "extra exclusive return stage," which
-contained four out of six of our travelling-party in Virginia, was
-jocose about the approach to the Natural Bridge. Mr. L. and I were on
-horseback, and the driver of the stage called after us when we were
-"going ahead," to warn us that we should get over the bridge without
-knowing it if we went first. We, of course, determined to avoid looking
-so foolish as we should do if we passed the Natural Bridge--the little
-spot deemed important enough to be put in capital letters in maps of the
-American Union--without knowing it. Heads were popped out of the stage
-window to shout the warning after us; and the jokes really seemed so
-extremely insulting, that we were disposed to push on, and get our sight
-of Jefferson's great wonder before our fellow-travellers came up. For
-five miles we kept out of sight of the stage; but at this point there
-was a parting of the roads, and we could see no possible means of
-learning which we were to follow. We were obliged to wait in the shade
-till the distant driver's whip pointed out the right-hand road to us. We
-were now not far from the object of our expectations. We agreed that we
-felt very quiet about it; that we were conscious of little of the
-veneration which the very idea of Niagara inspires. The intensity of
-force, combined with repose, is the charm of Niagara. No form of rock,
-however grand in itself or however beautifully surrounded, can produce
-anything like the same impression. Experience proved that we were right.
-
-At a mile from the bridge the road turns off through a wood. While the
-stage rolled and jolted along the extremely bad road, Mr. L. and I went
-prying about the whole area of the wood, poking our horses' noses into
-every thicket and between any two pieces of rock, that we might be sure
-not to miss our object, the driver smiling after us whenever he could
-spare attention from his own not very easy task of getting his charge
-along. With all my attention I could see no precipice, and was
-concluding to follow the road without more vagaries, when Mr. L., who
-was a little in advance, waved his whip as he stood beside his horse,
-and said, "Here is the bridge!" I then perceived that we were nearly
-over it, the piled rocks on either hand forming a barrier which prevents
-a careless eye from perceiving the ravine which it spans. I turned to
-the side of the road, and rose in my stirrup to look over; but I found
-it would not do. I went on to the inn, deposited my horse, and returned
-on foot to the bridge.
-
-With all my efforts I could not look down steadily into what seemed the
-bottomless abyss of foliage and shadow. From every point of the bridge I
-tried, and all in vain. I was heated and extremely hungry, and much
-vexed at my own weakness. The only way was to go down and look up;
-though where the bottom could be was past my imagining, the view from
-the top seeming to be of foliage below foliage for ever.
-
-The way to the glen is through a field opposite the inn, and down a
-steep, rough, rocky path, which leads under the bridge and a few yards
-beyond it. I think the finest view of all is from this path, just before
-reaching the bridge. The irregular arch of rock, spanning a chasm of 160
-feet in height, and from sixty to ninety in width, is exquisitely tinted
-with every shade of gray and brown; while trees encroach from the sides
-and overhang from the top, between which and the arch there is an
-additional depth of fifty-six feet. It was now early in July; the trees
-were in their brightest and thickest foliage; and the tall beeches under
-the arch contrasted their verdure with the gray rock, and received the
-gilding of the sunshine as it slanted into the ravine, glittering in the
-drip from the arch, and in the splashing and tumbling waters of Cedar
-Creek, which ran by our feet. Swallows were flying about under the arch.
-What others of their tribe can boast of such a home?
-
-We crossed and recrossed the creek on stepping-stones, searching out
-every spot to which any tradition belonged. Under the arch, thirty feet
-from the water, the lower part of the letters G. W. may be seen carved in
-the rock. When Washington was a young man, he climbed up hither, to
-leave this record of his visit. There are other inscriptions of the same
-kind, and above them a board, on which are painted the names of two
-persons, who have thought it worth while thus to immortalize their feat
-of climbing highest. But their glory was but transient after all. They
-have been outstripped by a traveller whose achievement will probably
-never be rivalled, for he would not have accomplished it if he could by
-any means have declined the task. Never was a wonderful deed more
-involuntarily performed. There is no disparagement to the gentleman in
-saying this: it is only absolving him from the charge of foolhardiness.
-
-This young man, named Blacklock, accompanied by two friends, visited the
-Natural Bridge, and, being seized with the ambition appropriate to the
-place, of writing his name highest, climbed the rock opposite to the
-part selected by Washington, and carved his initials. Others had perhaps
-seen what Mr. Blacklock overlooked, that it was a place easy to ascend,
-but from which it is impossible to come down. He was forty feet or more
-from the path; his footing was precarious; he was weary with holding on
-while carving his name, and his head began to swim when he saw the
-impossibility of getting down again. He called to his companions that
-his only chance was to climb up upon the bridge without hesitation or
-delay. They saw this, and with anguish agreed between themselves that
-the chance was a very bare one. They cheered him, and advised him to
-look neither up nor down. On he went, slanting upward from under the
-arch, creeping round a projection on which no foothold is visible from
-below, and then disappearing in a recess filled up with foliage. Long
-and long they waited, watching for motion, and listening for crashing
-among the trees. He must have been now 150 feet above them. At length
-their eyes were so strained that they could see no more, and they had
-almost lost all hope. There was little doubt that he had fallen while
-behind the trees, where his body would never be found. They went up to
-try the chance of looking for him from above. They found him lying
-insensible on the bridge. He could just remember reaching the top, when
-he immediately fainted. One would like to know whether the accident
-left him a coward in respect of climbing, or whether it strengthened his
-confidence in his nerves.
-
-The guide showed us a small cedar, which projected from a shelf of the
-rock about two hundred feet above our heads, and along whose stem a
-young lady climbed several feet, so as to court destruction in a very
-vain and foolish manner. If the support had failed, as might reasonably
-have been expected, her immortality of reputation would not have been of
-an enviable kind.
-
-We remained in the ravine till we were all exhausted with hunger, but we
-had to wait for dinner still another hour after arriving at the inn. By
-way of passing the time, one gentleman of our party fainted, and had to
-be laid along on the floor; which circumstance, I fancy, rather
-accelerated the announcement of our meal. The moment it was over I
-hastened to the bridge, and was pleased to find that, being no longer
-fatigued and hungry, I could look into the abyss with perfect ease. I
-lay down on the rocks, and studied the aspect of the ravine in its
-afternoon lights and shadows from five different points of view. While
-thus engaged I was called to see a handsome copper-headed snake, but it
-had gained its hole before I could reach the spot. We ladies so much
-preferred the view of the bridge from the glen to the view of the glen
-from the bridge, that we went down for another hour before departing. It
-looked most beautiful. The sunshine was slowly withdrawing from under
-the arch, and leaving us in the shadows of evening, while all was
-glowing like noon in the region to which we looked up from our lowly
-seats, the stepping-stones in the midst of the gushing creek.
-
-The Natural Bridge is nearly in the centre of Virginia, and about half
-way between Fincastle and Lexington, which are about thirty-seven miles
-apart. The main central road of Virginia runs over the bridge, so that
-no excuse is left for travellers who neglect to visit this work, framed
-by the strong hand of Nature,
-
-                    "By wondrous art
-    Pontifical, a ridge of pendant rock
-    Over the vex'd abyss,"
-
-vexed, not by the tumults of chaos, but by the screams of caverned
-birds, the battles of snakes with their prey, and the chafing of waters
-against opposing rocks.
-
-
-
-
-COLONEL BURR.
-
-
-     "His extraordinary plans and expectations for himself might be of
-     such a nature as to depend on other persons for their
-     accomplishment, and might, therefore, be as extravagant as if other
-     persons alone had been their object."
-
-                                                    --FOSTER'S _Essays_.
-
-
-The romance of political adventure is generally found to flourish in the
-regions of despotism; and it seems a matter of course that there can be
-no room for conspiracy in a democratic republic, where each man is a
-member of the government, and means are provided for the expression of
-every kind of political opinion and desire. Yet the United States can
-exhibit a case of conspiracy and a political adventurer such as might
-rejoice the souls of the lovers of romance. Scattered notices of Colonel
-Aaron Burr and of his supposed schemes are before the English public,
-but no connected history which might be depended upon appeared during
-his life. He died last year, and has left no relations; so that no
-reason now exists why everything that can be learned about him should
-not be made known.
-
-In 1795, Aaron Burr had attained to eminence at the New-York Bar. He was
-about the same age as Alexander Hamilton, who was born in 1757, and
-their professional reputation and practice were about equal. Hamilton
-was the leader of the federal party. He was, in countenance, eminently
-handsome, in manner engaging, in temper amiable and affectionate, in
-eloquence both persuasive and commanding; and his mind was so
-comprehensive, and his powers of application and execution so great, as
-to cause him to be considered by the federal party the greatest man
-their country has produced. Burr was of democratic politics; he had a
-fiercely ambitious temper, which he hid under a gentle and seductive
-manner. He was usually so quiet and sedate that he might have been
-thought indifferent but for the expression of his piercing black eyes.
-His face was otherwise plain, and his figure and gait were stooping and
-ungraceful. He assumed great authority of manner upon occasion. His
-speaking at the bar was brief and to the purpose. His most remarkable
-characteristic seems to have been his power of concealment. He not only
-carried on a conspiracy before the nation's eyes which they to this day
-cannot more or less understand, but lived long years with the tremendous
-secret in his breast, and has gone down to the grave without affording
-any solution of the mystery. It may be doubted whether, in all the long
-private conversations he had with individuals, he ever committed
-himself, otherwise than apparently, to anybody. He seems to have been
-understood by Hamilton, however, from the beginning, and Hamilton never
-concealed his opinion that Burr was an ambitious and dangerous man.
-
-Jefferson put a generous trust in Burr, and for many years they were
-intimate correspondents. It is very touching to read, after all that has
-since happened, such letters as the following, written shortly after the
-two men had been rival candidates for the presidentship, at a time of
-unexampled party excitement:--
-
-         "TO COLONEL BURR.
-
-                                          "Washington, February 1, 1801.
-
-     "Dear Sir--It was to be expected that the enemy would endeavour to
-     sow tares between us, that they might divide us and our friends.
-     Every consideration satisfies me that you will be on your guard
-     against this, as I assure you I am strongly. I hear of one
-     stratagem so imposing and so base, that it is proper I should
-     notice it to you. Mr. Munford, who is here, says he saw at New-York
-     before he left it an original letter of mine to Judge Breckinridge,
-     in which are sentiments highly injurious to you. He knows my
-     handwriting, and did not doubt that to be genuine. I enclose you a
-     copy, taken from a press copy of the only letter I ever wrote to
-     Judge Breckinridge in my life: the press copy itself has been shown
-     to several of our mutual friends here. Of consequence, the letter
-     seen by Mr. Munford must be a forgery; and, if it contains a
-     sentiment unfriendly or disrespectful to you, I affirm it solemnly
-     to be a forgery, as also if it varies from the copy enclosed. With
-     the common trash of slander I should not think of troubling you;
-     but the forgery of one's handwriting is too imposing to be
-     neglected. A mutual knowledge of each other furnishes us with the
-     best test of the contrivances which will be practised by the
-     enemies of both.
-
-     "Accept assurances of my high respect and esteem.
-
-                                                        "TH. JEFFERSON."
-
-In the presidential election of 1800 there were four candidates,
-Jefferson, Burr, John Adams, and Pinckney. The votes were for Jefferson
-73, for Burr 73, for Adams 65, for Pinckney 64. The numbers for
-Jefferson and Burr being equal, the choice devolved upon the House of
-Representatives, which voted to attend to no other business till the
-election was settled, and not to adjourn till the decision was effected.
-For seven days and nights the ballotting went on, every member being
-present. Some who were ill or infirm were accommodated with beds and
-couches, and one sick member was allowed to be attended by his wife.
-Adams was, as president, on the spot, watching his impending political
-annihilation. Jefferson was at hand, daily presiding in the Senate. Burr
-was in the State of New-York, anxiously expecting tidings. The federal
-party were in despair at having to choose between two republicans (as
-the democratic party was at that day called). It is said that Hamilton
-was consulted by his party, and that his advice was to choose Jefferson
-rather than Burr: a piece of counsel which affected the everlasting
-destinies of the country, and cost the counsellor his life. At the end
-of the seven days Jefferson was elected president and Burr
-vice-president, which office Burr held for a single term, four years.
-
-In the winter of 1804 Burr was proposed at Albany as a candidate for the
-office of Governor of the State of New-York. Hamilton, at a public
-meeting of his party, strongly opposed the nomination, declaring that he
-would never join in supporting such a candidate. About this time Dr.
-Chas. D. Cooper wrote a letter, in which he said "General Hamilton
-and ---- have declared in substance that they looked upon Mr. Burr as a
-dangerous man, and one who ought not to be trusted with the reins of
-government." "I could detail to you a still more despicable opinion
-which General Hamilton has expressed of Mr. Burr." This letter was
-published; and on the 18th of June, 1804, Burr sent a copy of it to
-Hamilton, with a demand that the expressions it contained should be
-acknowledged or denied. The correspondence which ensued is discreditable
-to both parties. To use the expression of a great man, "Hamilton went
-into it like a Capuchin." He knew that it was Burr's determination to
-fix a deadly quarrel upon him; he knew that Burr was an unworthy
-adversary; he disapproved of the practice of duelling, but he feared the
-imputation of want of courage if he refused to meet his foe. He
-therefore explained and corresponded with an amplitude and indecision
-which expose his reputation to more danger from harsh judges than a
-refusal to fight would have done. As for Burr, he was savage in his
-pursuit of his enemy. He enlarged his accusations and demands as he saw
-the irresolution of his victim; and I believe there is no doubt that,
-though he was a good shot before, he employed the interval of twenty
-days which elapsed before the duel took place in firing at a mark,
-making no secret of the purpose of his practising.
-
-This interval was occasioned by Hamilton's refusal to go out till the
-Circuit Court, in the business of which he was engaged, should have
-closed its sittings. The Court rose on Friday, the 6th of July, and Burr
-received notice that General Hamilton would be ready at any time after
-the following Sunday.
-
-On Wednesday morning, the 11th, the parties crossed the Hudson to the
-Jersey shore, arriving on the ground at seven o'clock. Burr was attended
-by Mr. Van Ness and a surgeon; Hamilton by Mr. Pendleton and Dr. Hosack.
-It was Hamilton's intention not to fire; but when his adversary's ball
-struck him on the right side, he raised himself involuntarily on his
-toes, and turned a little to the left, his pistol going off with the
-movement. He observed to his physician, "This is a mortal wound,
-doctor," and then became insensible. He revived, however, in the boat,
-in the course of removal home, and cautioned his attendants about the
-pistol, which he was not aware of having discharged. He lived in great
-agony till two o'clock of the following day.
-
-He left a paper which contained his statement of reasons for meeting
-Burr, notwithstanding his conscientious disapproval of the practice of
-duelling, and his particular desire to avoid an encounter with such an
-adversary, and in such a cause as the present. In this paper he declares
-his resolution to reserve and throw away his first fire, and perhaps his
-second. His reasons for fighting are now, I believe, generally agreed to
-be unsatisfactory. As to the effect of his determination to spare his
-adversary, I never could learn that Colonel Burr expressed the slightest
-regret for the pertinacity with which he hunted such an enemy--merely a
-political foe--to death. Neither did he appear to feel the execration
-with which he was regarded in the region of which Hamilton had been the
-pride and ornament.
-
-To avoid the legal consequences of his deed he wandered into the West,
-and remained so long in retreat that some passing wonder was excited as
-to what he could be doing there. He was ensnaring more victims.
-
-In the Ohio river, a few miles below Marietta, there is a beautiful
-island, finely wooded, but now presenting a dismal picture of ruin. This
-island was purchased, about thirty-five years ago, by an Irish
-gentleman, named Herman Blennerhassett, whose name the island has since
-borne. This gentleman took his beautiful and attached wife to his new
-property, and their united tastes made it such an abode as was never
-before and has never since been seen in the United States. Shrubberies,
-conservatories, and gardens ornamented the island, and within doors
-there was a fine library, philosophical apparatus, and music-room. Burr
-seems to have been introduced to this family by some mutual friends at
-the East, and to have been received as a common acquaintance at first.
-The intimacy grew; and the oftener he went to Blennerhassett's Island,
-and the longer he stayed, the deeper was the gloom which overspread the
-unfortunate family. Blennerhassett himself seems to have withdrawn his
-interest from his children, his books, his pursuits, as Burr obtained
-influence over his mind, and poisoned it with some dishonest ambition.
-The wife's countenance grew sad and her manners constrained. It is not
-known how far she was made acquainted with what was passing between her
-husband and Burr.
-
-The object of Burr's conspiracy remains as much a mystery as ever, while
-there is no doubt whatever of its existence. Some suppose that he
-intended to possess himself of Mexico, an enterprise less absurd than at
-first sight it appears. There was great hatred towards the Mexicans at
-that period, the period of agitation about the acquisition of Louisiana;
-thousands of citizens were ready to march down upon Mexico on any
-pretence; and it is certain that Burr was so amply provided with funds
-from some unknown quarter, that he had active adherents carrying on his
-business from the borders of Maine all down the course of the great
-Western rivers. Another supposition is, that he designed the plunder of
-New-Orleans in the event of a war with Spain. A more probable one is
-that he proposed to found a great Western Empire, with the aid of Spain,
-making himself its emperor, and drawing off the allegiance of all the
-countries west of the Alleghanies; and, finally, that, as a cover to and
-final substitute for other designs, he meant to effect the colonization
-of the banks of the river Washita. Such are the various objects assigned
-as the end of Burr's movements: but all that is known is that he engaged
-a number of men in his service--supposed to be not less than a
-thousand--under an assurance that the service required of them was one
-approved by the government; that he endeavoured to persuade Latrobe, the
-architect, to engage five hundred more labourers on pretext of their
-working on the Ohio canal, in which it turned out that he had no
-interest; that a guard was mounted round Blennerhassett's Island; that
-boats, manned and furnished with arms, set forth from the island on the
-night of the 10th of December, 1806; that they were joined by Burr, with
-a re-enforcement, at the mouth of the Cumberland; and that they all
-proceeded down the Mississippi together.
-
-The government had become aware of secret meetings between Burr, the
-Spanish Yruyo, and Dr. Bollman, one of the liberators of Lafayette; and
-the proper time was seized for putting forth proclamations which
-undeceived the people with regard to Burr's movements, and caused them
-to rise against him wherever he had been acting. Orders to capture him
-and his party, and, if necessary, to destroy his boats, were eagerly
-received. Burr did not venture to New-Orleans. He caused himself to be
-put ashore in the territory of Mississippi, and thence found his way,
-attended by only one person, to the banks of the Tombigbee, which he
-reached on the 19th of February, 1807. At eleven at night the wanderers
-passed a settlement called Washington Courthouse: Burr preceded his
-companion by some yards, and passed on quietly; but his companion
-inquired of a man standing at the door of a public house about the
-dwelling of a Major Hinson, and, on receiving his answer, joined Burr.
-The person inquired of went to Hinson's with the sheriff, and had his
-suspicions so confirmed, that he proceeded to Fort Stoddart, and brought
-back an officer and four soldiers, who took Burr into custody. He was
-lodged, a prisoner, at Richmond, Virginia, by the end of March.
-
-Burr had previously been brought to trial in Kentucky, on an accusation
-of illegal secret practices in that state. He was defended and brought
-off by Mr. Clay and Colonel Allen, who were persuaded of his innocence,
-and refused a fee. Mr. Clay was for long after his advocate in public
-and in private, and asked him, for friendly purposes, for a full
-declaration that he was innocent, which Burr gave unhesitatingly and
-explicitly, and the note is now among Jefferson's papers. When, some
-time subsequently, a letter of Burr's in cipher came to light, Mr. Clay
-found how he had been deceived; but his advocacy was, for the time, of
-great benefit to Burr.
-
-On the 17th of August Burr was brought to trial at Richmond before
-Chief-justice Marshall. He was charged with having excited insurrection,
-rebellion, and war, on the 10th of December, 1806, at Blennerhassett's
-Island, in Virginia. Secondly, the same charge was repeated, with the
-addition of a traitorous intention of taking possession of the city of
-New-Orleans with force and arms. The evidence established everything but
-the precise charge. The presence of Burr in the island was proved, and
-his levies of men and provisions on the banks of the Ohio. The presence
-of armed men in the island and the expedition of the 10th of December
-were also proved, but not any meeting of these men with Burr. The proof
-of the overt act completely failed. He was then tried at the same court
-on an indictment for misdemeanour, and acquitted. He was then ordered to
-be committed to answer an indictment in the State of Ohio. He was
-admitted to bail, and it does not appear that the State of Ohio meddled
-with him at all.
-
-Bollman was one of the witnesses on the side of the prosecution. His
-certificate of pardon was offered to him in court by the counsel for the
-prosecution. He refused to accept it, but was sworn, and his evidence
-received.
-
-It is impossible to suppose any bias on the part of the court in favour
-of the prisoner. His acquittal seems to have arisen from unskilfulness
-in deducing the charges from the evidence, and to the trial having taken
-place before all the requisite evidence could be gathered from distant
-regions.
-
-Blennerhassett and others were tried on the same charges as Burr; but
-what became of them I do not remember, farther than that Blennerhassett
-was utterly ruined and disgraced.
-
-Burr repaired to England. His connexion with Bentham appears wholly
-unaccountable. The story is that he was in a bookseller's shop one day
-when Bentham entered, and fixed his observation; that he wrote a letter
-to Bentham as soon as he was gone, expressive of his high admiration of
-his works; that Bentham admitted him to an interview, invited him to
-stay with him, and urged the prolongation of his visit from time to
-time, till it ended in being a sojourn of two years. It is difficult to
-conceive how an agreeable intercourse could be kept up for so long a
-time between the single-minded philosopher and the crafty yet boastful,
-the vindictive yet smooth political adventurer.
-
-In October, 1808, Jefferson wrote to a friend,
-
-"Burr is in London, and is giving out to his friends that that
-government offers him two millions of dollars the moment he can raise an
-ensign of rebellion as big as a handkerchief. Some of his partisans will
-believe this because they wish it. But those who know him best will not
-believe it the more because he says it."[2] He returned to America in
-1812, being sent away from England on account of his too frequent and
-very suspicious political correspondence with France.
-
-Footnote 2: Jefferson's Correspondence, vol. iv., p. 115.
-
-He settled quietly at New-York, and resumed practice at the bar, which
-he continued as long as his health permitted. He owed such practice as
-he had to his high legal ability, and not to any improved opinion of his
-character. When Mr. Clay arrived in New-York from his English mission,
-he went the round of the public institutions, attended by the principal
-inhabitants. In one of the courts he met Burr, and, of course, after the
-affair of the cipher letter, cut him. Burr made his way to him, declared
-himself anxious to clear up every misapprehension, and requested to be
-allowed half an hour's private conversation. Mr. Clay readily agreed to
-this, and the hour was named. Burr failed to keep his appointment, and
-never afterward appeared in Mr. Clay's presence.
-
-One pure light, one healthy affection, illumined and partially redeemed
-the life of the adventurer. He had an only child, a daughter, whom he
-loved with all the love of which he was capable, and which she fully
-deserved. She was early married to a Mr. Alston, and lived at
-Charleston. I believe she was about five-and-twenty when she fell into
-ill health, and the strong soul of her father was shaken with the terror
-of losing her. He spared no pains or expense to obtain the best opinions
-on her case from Europe; and the earnestness of his appeals to the
-physicians to whom he wrote full statements of her case are very moving.
-While awaiting a decision as to what measures should be taken for her
-restoration, it was decided that she must leave Charleston before the
-summer heats, and he summoned her to his home at New-York. To avoid
-fatigue, she went by sea with her child and the nurse. Her father had
-notice of her departure, and watched hour after hour for her arrival.
-The hours wore away, and days, and weeks, and years. The vessel never
-arrived, nor any tidings of her. She must have foundered, or, far worse,
-fallen into the hands of pirates. A pang went through the heart of every
-one for many years, as often as the thought recurred that Mrs. Alston
-and her child might be living in slavery to pirates in some place
-inaccessible to the inquiries of even her wretched father. When all had
-been done that could be devised, and every one had ceased to hope, Burr
-closed his lips upon the subject. No one of the few who were about him
-ever heard him mention his daughter.
-
-While I was in America a foreign sailor died in a hospital, my memory
-fails me as to where it was. When near death, he made a confession which
-was believed to be true by all whom I heard speak on the subject. He
-confessed himself to have been a pirate, and to have served on board the
-vessel which captured that which was conveying Mrs. Alston. He declared
-that she was shut up below while the captain and crew were being
-murdered on deck. She was then brought up, and was present at the
-decision that it would not be safe to spare her life. She was ordered to
-walk the plank, with her child in her arms; and, finding all quiet
-remonstrance vain, she did it without hesitation or visible tremour. The
-recollection of it was too much for the pirate in his dying moments.
-
-About a year before his death Colonel Burr sanctioned the publication of
-a so-called life of himself; a panegyric which leaves in the reader's
-mind the strongest conviction of the reality of his Western adventures,
-and of the justice of every important charge against him. He died last
-year; and it will probably be soon known with exactness whether he took
-care that his secrets should be buried with him, or whether he made
-arrangements for some light being at length thrown on his eventful and
-mysterious history.
-
-
-
-
-VILLAGES.
-
-
-                            "These ample fields
-    Nourished their harvests: here their herds were fed,
-    When haply by their stalls the bison lowed,
-    And bowed his maned shoulder to the yoke.
-                              From the ground
-    Comes up the laugh of children, the soft voice
-    Of maidens, and the sweet and solemn hymn
-    Of Sabbath worshippers."
-
-                                                                 BRYANT.
-
-
-The villages of New-England are all more or less beautiful, and the most
-beautiful of them all is, I believe, Northampton. They have all the
-graceful weeping elm; wide roads overshadowed with wood; mounds or
-levels of a rich verdure; white churches, and comfortable and
-picturesque frame dwellings. Northampton has these beauties and more. It
-lies in the rich meadows which border the Connecticut, beneath the
-protection of high wooded hills. The habitations of its gentry crown the
-green knolls and terraces on which the village stands, or half buried in
-gay gardens, or hidden under clumps of elm. The celebrated Mount Holyoke
-and Mount Tom are just at hand, and the Sugarloaf is in view; while the
-brimming Connecticut winds about and about in the meadows, as if
-unwilling, like the traveller, to leave such a spot.
-
-The pilgrims were not long in discovering the promise of the rich
-alluvial lands amid which Northampton stands; and their descendants
-established themselves here, as in the midst of a wilderness, long
-before there were any settlements between the spot on which they had sat
-down and the coast. The perils of such an abode were extreme, but so
-were its temptations; and here, for many years, did a handful of whites
-continue to live, surrounded by red neighbours; now trafficking, now
-fighting; sometimes agreeing to render mutual service, but always on the
-watch against mutual injury. So early as 1658 the township of
-Northampton (then called Nonotuc) was purchased at the price set upon it
-by the Indians, viz., for ninety square miles of land the sellers
-demanded one hundred fathom of wampum by tale, and ten coats; and that
-the purchasers should plough for the Indians sixteen acres of land on
-the east side of the river the next summer. The making the purchase was
-the smallest part of the settlers' business; the defending themselves in
-the wilderness, surrounded as they were by numerous tribes of Indians,
-was a far more serious matter. The usual arrangement of a village was
-planned with a regard to safety from plunder and massacre. The surviving
-effect is that of beauty, which the busy settlers cannot be supposed to
-have much regarded at the time. The dwellings were erected in one long
-street, each house within its own enclosure, and, in many cases,
-fortified. The street was bordered with trees, and in the midst stood
-the "meeting-house," often fortified also. This street was, when it was
-possible, built across the neck of a peninsula formed by the windings of
-the river, or from hill to hill in the narrowest part of a valley. The
-cattle which grazed during the day in the peninsula or under the eye of
-the owners were driven at night into the area between the rows of
-houses. Here and there a village was surrounded with palisades. But no
-kind of defence availed for any long period. From time to time disasters
-happened to the most careful and the most valiant. Fire was an agent of
-destruction which could not be always defied. When the village was
-burned its inhabitants were helpless. The women and children were
-carried off into captivity, and the place lay desolate till a new party
-of adventurers arrived to clear away the ruins and commence a fresh
-experiment.
-
-Traditions of the horrors of the Indian wars spring up at every step in
-this valley, and make the stranger speculate on what men and women were
-made of in the days when they could voluntarily fix their abode among
-savage foes, while there were safer places of habitation at their
-command on the coast. The settlers seem, by the testimony of all
-history, to have been possessed of spirit proportioned to their needs.
-We hear of women being employed in the cellars casting bullets, and
-handing them to their husbands during an onset of the savages; and of a
-girl plucking a saddle from under the head of a sleeping Indian,
-saddling a horse, and galloping off, swimming rivers, and penetrating
-forests till she reached her home. The fate of the family of the Rev.
-John Williams, who were living in the valley of the Connecticut at the
-end of the seventeenth century, and were broken up by the Indians in an
-attack on the village of Deerfield, is a fair specimen of the chances to
-which residents in such lodges in the wilderness were exposed.
-
-The enemy came over the snow, which was four feet deep, and hard enough
-to bear them up, and thus were enabled to surmount the palisades. Not
-being expected at that time of year, they met with no opposition. The
-inhabitants had not time to rouse themselves from sleep before they were
-tomahawked or captured. Out of a population of two hundred and eighty,
-forty-seven were killed, and one hundred and twelve made prisoners. Mr.
-Williams was the minister of the settlement. Two of his children were
-killed on the threshold of his own door. His son Eleazer escaped, and
-was left behind. Mrs. Williams was one of the Mathers of Northampton.
-She was marched off, with her husband and several remaining children, in
-the direction of Canada; but they were not allowed to be together and
-comfort each other. It was a weary march for sufferers who carried such
-heavy hearts into so horrible a captivity. Over wastes of snow, through
-thawing brooks, among rugged forest-paths, they were goaded on, not
-permitted to look back, or to loiter, or to stop, except at the pleasure
-of their captors. Mrs. Williams presently fell behind. She was in
-delicate health, and unused to hardship like this. When her husband had
-passed Green River, he looked back and saw her faltering on the bank,
-and then stumbling into the water. He turned to implore the savage who
-guarded him to allow him to go back and help his wife. He was refused,
-and when he looked again she had disappeared. Having fallen into the
-water through weakness, an Indian had buried his tomahawk in her scull,
-stepped over her body, and passed on. Her remains were discovered and
-carried back to Deerfield for interment.
-
-For a few moments the captives had been tantalized with a hope of
-release. The Indians were attacked during their retreat by a small body
-of settlers, and pressed hard. At this moment an Indian runner was
-despatched to the guard, with orders to put all the prisoners to death.
-A ball laid him low while he was on his errand; and the settlers being
-compelled to give way, the order about the prisoners was not renewed.
-
-At night they encamped on the snow, digging away spaces to lie down in,
-and spreading boughs of the spruce-fir for couches. During the first
-night one of the captives escaped; and in the morning Mr. Williams was
-ordered to tell his companions, that if any more made their escape, the
-rest of the prisoners should be burned.
-
-At the close of a day's march, when they had advanced some way on their
-long journey, a maidservant belonging to Mr. Williams's family came to
-the pastor, requested his blessing, and offered her farewell. He
-inquired what she meant. She replied, with great quietness of manner,
-that she perceived that all who lagged in the march were tomahawked;
-that she had kept up with great difficulty through this day; and that
-she felt she should perish thus on the morrow. Mr. Williams examined
-into her state of body, and was convinced that she was nearly exhausted.
-He gave his blessing, and this was all he could do for her. He watched
-her incessantly the next day. He saw her growing more feeble every hour,
-but still calm and gentle. She kept up till late in the afternoon, when
-she lagged behind; being urged, she fell, and was despatched with the
-tomahawk. Two of the prisoners were starved to death on the road, and
-fifteen others were murdered like Mrs. Williams and her servant.
-
-The pastor, with his remaining children, reached Canada, where he
-remained, suffering great hardships, for two years and a half. He was
-ransomed, with sixty-one others, and returned to Boston, where he was
-waited upon by a deputation from his old parish, and requested to resume
-his duties among the remnant of his people. He actually returned, and
-died in peace there twenty-three years afterward. It appears that all
-his captive children but one were redeemed. Two besides Eleazer were
-educated at Harvard College. His little daughter Eunice was six years
-old when she was carried away. She grew up to womanhood among the
-Indians, and married a red man, retaining the name of Williams, and
-adopting the Romish faith. Being brought to Deerfield to see her family,
-she could not be persuaded to remain; nor would she accommodate herself
-to the habits of civilized life, preferring to sleep on the floor on a
-blanket to using a bed. Some half-breed descendants of hers are living
-on the borders of Lake Michigan.
-
-The sufferers seemed to have consoled themselves with turning their
-disasters into verse; sometimes piously, in hymns, and sometimes in a
-lighter ballad strain, like the following:--
-
-    "'Twas nigh unto Pigwacket, on the eighth day of May,
-    They spied a rebel Indian, soon after break of day;
-    He on a bank was walking, upon a neck of land,
-    Which leads into a pond, as we're made to understand.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-    Then up spoke Captain Lovewell, when first the fight began,
-    'Fight on, my valiant heroes! you see they fall like rain.'
-    For as we are inform'd, the Indians were so thick,
-    A man could scarcely fire a gun, and some of them not hit."
-
-Many of the half-breeds who have sprung from the wars between the
-settlers and the natives have been missionaries among the savages. Much
-doubt hangs over the utility of Indian missions: if good has been done,
-it seems to be chiefly owing to the offices of half-breeds, who modify
-the religion to be imparted so as to suit it to the habits of mind and
-life of the new converts. As far as I could learn, the following
-anecdote is no unfair specimen of the way in which missionaries and
-their religion are primarily regarded by the savages to whom they are
-sent.
-
-Mr. K., a missionary among a tribe of northern Indians, was wont to set
-some simple refreshment--fruit and cider--before his converts when they
-came from a distance to see him. An old man, who had no pretensions to
-being a Christian, desired much to be admitted to the refreshments, and
-proposed to some of his converted friends to accompany them on their
-next visit to the missionary. They told him he must be a Christian
-first. What was that? He must know all about the Bible. When the time
-came, he declared himself prepared, and undertook the journey with them.
-When arrived, he seated himself opposite the missionary, wrapped in his
-blanket, and looking exceedingly serious. In answer to an inquiry from
-the missionary, he rolled up his eyes, and solemnly uttered the
-following words, with a pause between each:
-
-"Adam--Eve--Cain--Noah--Jeremiah--Beelzebub--Solomon--"
-
-"What do you mean?" asked the missionary.
-
-"Solomon--Beelzebub--Noah--"
-
-"Stop, stop. What do you mean?"
-
-"I mean--cider."
-
-This is one way in which an unintelligible religion is received by
-savages. Another resembles the mode in which they meet offers of traffic
-from suspicious parties: "the more you say bow and arrows, the more we
-won't make them." Where Christianity is received among them with any
-efficacy, it appears to be exactly in proportion to the skill of the
-missionary in associating the new truth he brings with that which was
-already sanctified in their hearts; in proportion as the new religion is
-made a sequel of the old one, instead of a substitution for it.
-
-The dusky race was in my mind's eye as we followed the windings of the
-river through the rich valley from Springfield to Northampton. The very
-names of the places, the hamlet of Hoccanum, at the foot of Mount
-Holyoke, and that of Pascommuc, lying below Mount Tom, remind the
-traveller how the possessors have been displaced from this fair land,
-and how their descendants must be mourning their lost Quonnecticut. Such
-sympathies soon wither away, however, amid the stir and loveliness of
-the sunny village.
-
-We had letters of introduction to some of the inhabitants of
-Northampton, and knew that our arrival was expected; but we little
-anticipated such eagerness of hospitality as we were met with. The stage
-was stopped by a gentleman who asked for me. It was Mr. Bancroft, the
-historian, then a resident of Northampton. He cordially welcomed us as
-his guests, and ordered the stage up the hill to his house; such a
-house! It stood on a lofty terrace, and its balcony overlooked first the
-garden, then the orchard stretching down the slope, then the delicious
-village, and the river with its meadows, while opposite rose Mount
-Holyoke. Far off in the valley to the left lay Hadley, half hidden among
-trees; and on the hills, still farther to the left, was Amherst, with
-its college buildings conspicuous on the height.
-
-All was in readiness for us, the spacious rooms with their cool
-arrangements (it was the 7th of August), and the ladies of the family
-with their ready merry welcome. It was past noon when we arrived, and
-before the early dinner hour we were as much at home as if we had been
-acquainted for months. The American mirth, common everywhere, was
-particularly hearty in this house; and as for us, we were intoxicated
-with the beauty of the scene. From the balcony we gazed as if it was
-presently to melt before our eyes. This day, I remember, we first tasted
-green corn, one of the most delicious of vegetables, and by some
-preferred to green peas. The greatest drawback is the way in which it is
-necessary to eat it. The cob, eight or ten inches long, is held at both
-ends, and, having been previously sprinkled with salt, is nibbled and
-sucked from end to end till all the grains are got out. It looks awkward
-enough: but what is to be done? Surrendering such a vegetable from
-considerations of grace is not to be thought of.
-
-After dinner we walked in the blooming garden till summoned within doors
-by callers. My host had already discovered my taste for rambling, and
-determined to make me happy during my short visit by driving me about
-the country. He liked nothing better himself. His historical researches
-had stored his memory with all the traditions of the valley, of the
-state, and, I rather think, of the whole of New-England. I find the
-entries in my journal of this and the next two days the most copious of
-any during my travels.
-
-Mr. Bancroft drove me to Amherst this afternoon. He explained to me the
-construction of the bridge we passed, which is of a remarkably cheap,
-simple, and safe kind for a wooden one. He pointed out to me the seats
-and arrangements of the villages we passed through, and amused and
-interested me with many a tale of the old Indian wars. He surprised me
-by the light he threw on the philosophy of society in the United States;
-a light drawn from history, and shed into all the present relations of
-races and parties to each other. I had before been pleased with what I
-knew of the spirit of Mr. Bancroft's History of the United States,
-which, however, had not then extended beyond the first volume. I now
-perceived that he was well qualified, in more ways than one, for his
-arduous task.
-
-We mounted the steep hill on which Amherst stands, and stopped before
-the red brick buildings of the college. When the horse was disposed of,
-Mr. Bancroft left me to look at the glorious view, while he went in
-search of some one who would be our guide about the college. In a minute
-he beckoned me in, with a smile of great delight, and conducted me into
-the lecture-room where Professor Hitchcock was lecturing. In front of
-the lecturer was a large number of students, and on either hand as many
-as forty or fifty girls. These girls were from a neighbouring school,
-and from the houses of the farmers and mechanics of the village. The
-students appeared quite as attentive as if they had had the room to
-themselves. We found that the admission of girls to such lectures as
-they could understand (this was on geology) was a practice of some
-years' standing, and that no evil had been found to result from it. It
-was a gladdening sight, testifying both to the simplicity of manners
-and the eagerness for education. I doubt whether such a spectacle is to
-be seen out of New-England.
-
-The professor showed us the Turkey Tracks, the great curiosity of the
-place; and distinct and gigantic indeed they were, deeply impressed in
-the imbedded stone. Professor Hitchcock's name is well known among
-geologists from his highly-praised work, A Report on the Geology,
-Mineralogy, Botany, and Zoology of Massachusetts. We ascended to the
-observatory, whence we saw a splendid variety of the view I had been
-admiring all day, and we pronounced this college an enviable residence.
-
-It is a Presbyterian college, and is flourishing, as Presbyterian
-colleges of New-England do, under the zeal of professors who are not
-content with delivering courses of lectures, but who work with the
-students, as much like companions as teachers. The institution had been
-at work only ten years, and at this time it contained two hundred and
-forty undergraduates, a greater number than any in the state, except,
-perhaps, Harvard.
-
-The next day was a busy one. We were called away from gazing from the
-balcony after breakfast, the carriage being at the door. Two more
-carriages joined us in the village, and we proceeded in the direction of
-Mount Holyoke. Our road lay through rich unfenced cornfields and meadows
-where the mowers were busy. There was a great contrast between the
-agriculture here and in other parts of the state. Here an annual
-inundation spares much of the toil of the tiller. It seems as if little
-more were necessary than to throw in the seed and reap the produce;
-while, in less-favoured regions, the farmer may be seen ploughing round
-the rocks which protrude from the soil, and bestowing infinite pains on
-his stony fields. The carriages conveyed us a good way up the far-famed
-hill. When it became too steep for the horses, we alighted, and found
-the ascent easy enough. There are rude but convenient ladders, broad and
-strong, at difficult turns of the path, and large stones and roots of
-trees afford a firm footing in the intervals. The most wayward
-imagination could not conjure up the idea of danger, and children may be
-led to the top in perfect safety.
-
-On the summit is a building which affords shelter in case of rain, and
-lemonade and toddy in case of thirst. There is a fine platform of rock
-on which the traveller may rest himself while he looks around over a
-space of sixty miles in almost every direction. The valley is the most
-attractive object, the full river coiling through the meadows, and the
-spires of village churches being clustered at intervals along its banks;
-but smokes rise on the hillsides, from the Green Mountains in the north
-to the fading distance beyond Springfield in the south. To the east the
-view extends nearly to New-Haven (Connecticut), seventy miles off. Mount
-Holyoke is eleven hundred feet above the river.
-
-While I was absorbed in the contemplation of this landscape I was tapped
-on the shoulder. When I turned a shipmate stood smiling behind me. She
-highly enjoyed the odd meeting on this pinnacle, and so did we. The face
-of a pleasant shipmate is welcome everywhere, but particularly in a
-scene which contrasts so strongly with those in which we have lived
-together, as a mountain-top with the cabin of a ship. Some person who
-loves contrast has entered a remarkable set of names in the album on
-Mount Holyoke as having just visited the spot, Hannah More, Lord Byron,
-Martin Luther, &c.
-
-We returned by a shorter, but equally pretty road to dinner; and
-presently after, as we were not at all tired, we set off again for the
-Sugarloaf, ten miles up the valley. We had a warm ride and a laborious
-scramble up the Sugarloaf; but we were rewarded by a view which I think
-finer than the one we saw in the morning, though not so various. It
-commanded the whole valley with its entire circle of hills. White dots
-of buildings on the hillsides spoke of civilization; Amherst, with its
-red buildings, glowed in the sun; and the river below was of a dark
-gray, presenting a perfect reflection of its fringed banks, of the
-ox-team on the margin, and of boys fishing among the reeds. Smokes rose
-where brush was burning, indicating the foundation of new settlements.
-In one of these places which was pointed out to me an accident had
-happened the preceding spring, which affords another hint of what the
-hearts of emigrant mothers have sometimes to bear. A child of two years
-old wandered away one afternoon from its parents' side, and was missing
-when the day's work was done. The family and neighbours were out in the
-woods for hours with torches, but they only lost their own way without
-discovering the little one. In the morning it was found, at a
-considerable distance from home, lying under a bush as if asleep. It was
-dead, however: the cold of the night had seized it, and it was quite
-stiff.
-
-The sun set as we returned homeward with all speed, having to dress for
-an evening party. While the bright glow was still lingering in the
-valley, and the sky was beginning to melt from crimson to the pale
-seagreen of evening, I saw something sailing in the air like a
-glistening golden balloon. I called the attention of my party to it just
-in time. It burst in a broad flash and shower of green fire. It was the
-most splendid meteor I ever saw. We pitied a quiet-looking couple whom
-we met jogging along in a dearborn, and whose backs had, of course, been
-turned to the spectacle. They must have wondered at the staring and
-commotion among our party. I saw an unusual number of falling-stars
-before we reached home.
-
-The parties, on all the three evenings when I was at Northampton, were
-like the village parties throughout New-England. There was an over
-proportion of ladies, almost all of whom were pretty and all well
-dressed. There was a good deal of party spirit among the gentlemen, and
-great complaints of religious bigotry from the ladies. One inhabitant of
-the place, the son of a Unitarian clergyman, was going to leave it,
-chiefly on account, he told me, of the treatment his family received
-from their Calvinistic neighbours. While he was at home they got on
-pretty well; but he had to go from home sometimes, and could not bear to
-leave his wife to such treatment as she met with in his absence. This
-was the worst case I heard of; but instances of a bigotry nearly as
-outrageous reminded me painfully of similar cases of pious cruelty at
-home. The manners towards strangers in these social meetings are
-perfectly courteous, gay, and friendly. I had frequent occasion to
-wonder why a foreign Unitarian was esteemed so much less dangerous a
-person than a native.
-
-There was endless amusement to me in observing village manners and ways
-of thinking. Sometimes I had to wait for explanations of what passed
-before my eyes, finding myself wholly at fault. At other times I was
-charmed with the upright simplicity which villagers not only exhibit at
-home, but carry out with them into the world.
-
-In one Massachusetts village a large party was invited to meet me. At
-teatime I was busily engaged in conversation with a friend, when the
-teatray was brought to me by a young person in a plain white gown.
-After I had helped myself, she still stood just before me for a long
-while, and was perpetually returning. Again and again I refused more
-tea, but she still came. Her pertinacity was afterward explained. It was
-a young lady of the village who wished to see me, and knew that I was
-going away the next day. She had called on the lady of the house in the
-afternoon, and begged permission to come in a plain gown as a waiter.
-She was, of course, invited as a guest, but she would not accept the
-invitation, and she was allowed to follow her own fancy.
-
-In another village I became acquainted with one of its most useful
-residents, the schoolmaster, who has a passion for music, and is
-organist of a church. It was delightful to hear him revelling in his own
-music, pouring his soul out over his organ. He has been to Rome, and
-indulged himself with listening to the Miserere. He told me that two
-monks whom he met in Italy, before reaching Rome, saw him reading his
-Bible, with a Commentary lying before him. In his own words,
-
-"They told me I had better give over that. 'Give over what?' says I.
-'Why, reading your Bible, with that book to help you.' 'Why shouldn't I
-read in my own Bible?' says I. 'Because the pope won't like it,' said
-they. 'In my humble opinion,' says I, 'it is far from plain what the
-pope has to do with my duty and way of improving myself. It's no wish of
-mine, I'm sure, to speak disrespectfully of the pope, or to interfere
-with what he chooses to do in his own sphere; but I must save my own
-soul in the way I think right.' Well, they talked about the Inquisition,
-and would fain have made me believe I was doing what was very unsafe;
-so, after a good deal more argument, I settled with myself what I would
-do. When I got to Rome I put away the Commentary, thinking that that way
-of reading was not necessary, and might be left to another time; but I
-went on reading my Bible as usual.
-
-"Well: when Passion Week came I took care to see all that was going
-forward, and I was in the great square when the pope came out to give
-the blessing. The square was as full as ever it could hold, and I stood
-near the middle of it. I found all the people were about to go down on
-their knees. Now, you know, it is against my principles altogether to go
-down on my knees before the pope or any man; so I began to think what I
-should do. I thought the right principle was to pay the same respect to
-the pope that I would to any sort of chief ruler, but none, in
-particular, on religious grounds; so I settled to do just what I should
-do to the President of the United States. So, when the whole crowd
-dropped on their knees in one moment, there I stood, all alone, in the
-middle of the square. I knew the pope must see me, and the people about
-him; but my hope was that the crowd would be so occupied with their own
-feelings that they would not notice me. Not so, however. One looked at
-me, and then another, and then it spread, till I thought that the whole
-crowd was looking at nothing but me. Meantime I was standing with my
-body bent--about this much--and my hat off, which I held so, above my
-head. It happened the sun was very hot, and I got a bad headache with
-keeping my head uncovered; but that was not worth minding. Well, I was
-glad enough when the people all rose on their feet again. But it was by
-no means over yet. The pope came down, and walked through the midst of
-the people; and, as it happened, he came just my way. I was not sorry at
-the prospect of getting a near view of him, so I just stood still till
-he came by. The people kept dropping on their knees on either side of
-him as he approached. Some of them tugged at me to do the same; but,
-said I, 'Excuse me, I can't.' So, when the old pope came as near to me
-as I am to you, he stopped, and looked full in my face, while I stood
-bent, and my hat raised as before, and thinking within myself, 'Now,
-sir, I am paying you the same respect I would show to the President of
-the United States, and I can't show any more to any one:' so, after a
-good look at me, the old gentleman went on and the people near seemed
-soon to have forgotten all about me. And so I got off."
-
-On the last day of my visit at Northampton I went into the graveyard.
-Some of the inhabitants smiled at Mr. Bancroft for taking me there,
-there being no fine monuments, no gardens and plantations, as in more
-modern cemeteries; but there were things which my host knew I should
-consider more interesting. There were some sunken, worn, mossy stones,
-which bore venerable pilgrims' names and pious inscriptions. Several of
-the original settlers lie here; and their graves, gay with a profusion
-of the golden rod, and waving with long grass, are more interesting to
-the traveller than if their remains reposed in a less primitive mode.
-The stranger is taken by surprise at finding how much stronger are the
-emotions excited among these resting-places of the pilgrims than by the
-institutions in which their spirit still lives. Their spirit lives in
-its faulty as well as its nobler characteristics. I saw here the grave
-of a young girl, who was as much murdered by fanaticism as Mary Dyar,
-who was hanged for her Antinomianism in the early days of the colony.
-The young creature, whose tomb is scarcely yet grass-grown, died of a
-brain fever brought on by a revival.
-
-I happened to be going the round of several Massachusetts villages when
-the marvellous account of Sir John Herschel's discoveries in the moon
-was sent abroad. The sensation it excited was wonderful. As it professed
-to be a republication from the Edinburgh Journal of Science, it was some
-time before many persons, except professors of natural philosophy,
-thought of doubting its truth. The lady of such a professor, on being
-questioned by a company of ladies as to her husband's emotions at the
-prospect of such an enlargement of the field of science, excited a
-strong feeling of displeasure against herself. She could not say that he
-believed it, and would gladly have said nothing about it; but her
-inquisitive companions first cross-examined her, and then were angry at
-her skepticism. A story is going, told by some friends of Sir John
-Herschel (but whether in earnest or in the spirit of the moon story I
-cannot tell), that the astronomer has received at the Cape a letter from
-a large number of Baptist clergymen of the United States, congratulating
-him on his discovery, informing him that it had been the occasion of
-much edifying preaching and of prayer-meetings for the benefit of
-brethren in the newly-explored regions; and beseeching him to inform his
-correspondents whether science affords any prospects of a method of
-conveying the Gospel to residents in the moon. However it may be with
-this story, my experience of the question with regard to the other, "Do
-you not believe it?" was very extensive.
-
-In the midst of our amusement at credulity like this, we must remember
-that the real discoveries of science are likely to be more faithfully
-and more extensively made known in the villages of the United States
-than in any others in the world. The moon hoax, if advantageously put
-forth, would have been believed by a much larger proportion of any
-other nation than it was by the Americans, and they are travelling far
-faster than any other nation beyond the reach of such deception. Their
-common and high schools, their lyceums and cheap colleges, are exciting
-and feeding thousands of minds, which in England would never get beyond
-the loom or the ploughtail. If few are very learned in the villages of
-Massachusetts, still fewer are very ignorant; and all have the power and
-the will to invite the learning of the towns among them, and to
-remunerate its administration of knowledge. The consequence of this is a
-state of village society in which only vice and total ignorance need
-hang the head, while (out of the desolate range of religious bigotry)
-all honourable tastes are as sure of being countenanced and respected as
-all kindly feelings are of being reciprocated. I believe most
-enlightened and virtuous residents in the villages of New-England are
-eager to acknowledge that the lines have fallen to them in pleasant
-places.
-
-
-
-
-CAMBRIDGE COMMENCEMENT.
-
-
-     "A good way to continue their memories, while, having the advantage
-     of plural successions, they could not but act something remarkable
-     in such variety of being, and, enjoying the fame of their passed
-     selves, make accumulation of glory unto their last durations."
-
-                                                    --SIR THOMAS BROWNE.
-
-
-The Pilgrim Fathers early testified to the value of education. "When
-New-England was poor, and they were but few in number, there was a
-spirit to encourage learning." One of their primary requisitions, first
-by custom and then by law, was, "That none of the brethren shall suffer
-so much barbarism in their families as not to teach their children and
-apprentices so much learning as may enable them perfectly to read the
-English tongue." They next ordered, "To the end that learning may not be
-buried in the graves of our forefathers, every township, after the Lord
-hath increased them to the number of fifty householders, shall appoint
-one to teach all children to write and read; and where any town shall
-increase to the number of one hundred families, they shall set up a
-grammar-school, the masters thereof being able to instruct youth so far
-as they may be fitted for the University."
-
-This university was Harvard. In 1636 the General Court had voted a sum
-equal to a year's rate of the whole colony towards the erection of a
-college. Two years afterward, John Harvard, who arrived at the
-settlements only to die, left to the infant institution one half of his
-estate and all his library. The state set apart for the college the rent
-of a ferry. The wealthiest men of the community gave presents which were
-thought profuse at the time, and beside their names in the record stand
-entries of humbler gifts; from each family in the colonies twelvepence,
-or a peck of corn, or an equivalent in wampum-peag; and from individuals
-the sums of five shillings, nine shillings, one pound, and two pounds.
-There were legacies also; from one colonist a flock of sheep; from
-another cotton cloth worth nine shillings; from others a pewter flagon
-worth ten shillings, a fruit-dish, a sugar-spoon, a silver-tipped jug,
-one great salt, one small trencher salt. Afterward the celebrated
-Theophilus Gale bequeathed his library to the college; and in 1731
-Bishop Berkeley, after visiting the institution, presented it with some
-of the Greek and Latin classics.
-
-The year following John Harvard's bequest the Cambridge printing-press
-was set up, the only press in America north of Mexico. The General Court
-appointed licensers of this press, and did not scruple to interfere with
-the licensers themselves when any suspicion of heresy occurred to
-torment the minds of the worthy fathers. Their supervision over other
-departments of management was equally strict. Mrs. Eaton, wife of the
-first president of the college, was examined before the General Court on
-a complaint of short or disagreeable commons urged by the students. "The
-breakfast was two sizings of bread and a cue (or Q, _quartus_) of beer;
-and the evening commons were a pye." What became of Mrs. Eaton, further
-than that the blame of the dissensions rested on her bad housewifery, I
-do not know. Subsequently a law was passed "for reforming the
-extravagancies of commencements," by which it was provided that
-"henceforth no preparation nor provision of either plumb cake, or
-roasted, boyled, or baked meates or pyes of any kind shall be made by
-any commencer;" no such was to have "any distilled lyquours in his
-chamber, or any composition therewith," under the penalty of a
-forfeiture of the good things, and a fine of twenty shillings. There was
-another act passed, "that if any, who now doe or hereafter shall stand
-for their degrees, presume to doe anything contrary to the said act, or
-goe about to evade it by _plain_ cake, they shall forfeit the honours of
-the college." Yet another law was passed to prohibit "the costly habits
-of many of the scholars, their wearing gold or silver lace or brocades,
-silk nightgowns, &c., as tending to discourage persons from giving their
-children a college education, and as inconsistent with the gravity and
-decency proper to be observed in this society."
-
-For a hundred years after its establishment, Harvard College enforced
-the practice, in those days common in Europe, of punishing refractory
-students by corporeal infliction. In Judge Sewell's manuscript diary the
-following entry is found, dated June 15, 1674: "This was his sentence
-(Thos. Sargeant's):--
-
-"That being convicted of speaking blasphemous words concerning the H. G.,
-he should be therefore publickly whipped before all the scholars.
-
-"That he should be suspended as to taking his degree of bachelor. (This
-sentence read before him twice at the president's before the committee,
-and in the library before execution.)
-
-"Sit by himself in the hall uncovered at meals, during the pleasure of
-the president and fellows, and being in all things obedient, doing what
-exercise was appointed him by the president, or else be finally expelled
-the college.
-
-"The first was presently put in execution in the library before the
-scholars. He kneeled down, and the instrument, Goodman Hely, attended
-the president's word as to the performance of his part in the work.
-Prayer was had before and after by the president."
-
-In 1733 a tutor was prosecuted for inflicting this kind of punishment;
-yet, in the revised body of laws made in the next year, we find the
-following: "Notwithstanding the preceding pecuniary mulcts, it shall be
-lawful for the president, tutors, and professors to punish
-undergraduates by boxing, when they shall judge the nature or
-circumstances of the offence call for it."
-
-The times are not a little changed. Of late years the students have
-more than once appeared to have almost come up to the point of boxing
-their tutors.
-
-If Harvard is ever to recover her supremacy, to resume her station in
-usefulness and in the affections of the people, it must be by a
-renovation of her management, and a change in some of the principles
-recognised by her. Every one is eager to acknowledge her past services.
-All American citizens are proud of the array of great men whom she has
-sent forth to serve and grace the country; but, like some other
-universities, she is falling behind the age. Her glory is declining,
-even in its external manifestations; and it must decline as long as the
-choicest youth of the community are no longer sent to study within her
-walls.
-
-The politics of the managers of Harvard University are opposed to those
-of the great body of the American people. She is the aristocratic
-college of the United States. Her pride of antiquity, her vanity of
-pre-eminence and wealth, are likely to prevent her renovating her
-principles and management so as to suit the wants of the period; and she
-will probably receive a sufficient patronage from the aristocracy, for a
-considerable time to come, to encourage her in all her faults. She has a
-great name, and the education she affords is very expensive in
-comparison with all other colleges. The sons of the wealthy will
-therefore flock to her. The attainments usually made within her walls
-are inferior to those achieved elsewhere, her professors (poorly
-salaried, when the expenses of living are considered) being accustomed
-to lecture and examine the students, and do nothing more. The indolent
-and the careless will therefore flock to her. But, meantime, more and
-more new colleges are rising up, and are filled as fast as they rise,
-whose principles and practices are better suited to the wants of the
-time. In them living is cheaper, and the professors are therefore richer
-with the same or smaller salaries; the sons of the yeomanry and mechanic
-classes resort to them; and, where it is the practice of the tutors to
-work with their pupils, as well as lecture to them, a proficiency is
-made which shames the attainments of the Harvard students. The middle
-and lower classes are usually neither Unitarian nor Episcopalian, but
-"orthodox," as their distinctive term is; and these, the strength and
-hope of the nation, avoid Harvard, and fill to overflowing the oldest
-orthodox colleges; and, when these will hold no more, establish new
-ones.
-
-When I was at Boston the state of the University was a subject of great
-mourning among its friends. Attempts had been made to obtain the
-services of three gentlemen of some eminence as professors, but in vain.
-The salaries offered were insufficient to maintain the families of these
-gentlemen in comfort, in such a place as Cambridge; though, at that very
-time, the managers of the affairs of the institution were purchasing
-lands in Maine. The Moral Philosophy chair had been vacant for eight
-years. Two of the professors were at the time laid by in tedious
-illnesses; a third was absent on a long journey; and the young men of
-the senior class were left almost unemployed. The unpopularity of the
-president among the young men was extreme, and the disfavour was not
-confined to them. The students had, at different times within a few
-years, risen against the authorities; and the last disturbances, in
-1834, had been of a very serious character. Every one was questioning
-what was to be done next, and anticipating a further vacating of chairs
-which it would be difficult to fill. I heard one merry lady advise that
-the professors should strike for higher wages, and thus force the
-council and supporters of the university into a thorough and serious
-consideration of its condition and prospects in relation to present and
-future times.
-
-The salary of the president is above 2000 dollars. The salaries of the
-professors vary from 1500 dollars to 500; that is, from 375_l._ to
-125_l._ Upon this sum they are expected to live like gentlemen, and to
-keep up the aristocratic character of the institution. I knew of one
-case where a jealousy was shown when a diligent professor, with a large
-family, made an attempt by a literary venture to increase his means. Yet
-Harvard College is in buildings, library, and apparatus, in its lands
-and money, richer than any other in the Union.
-
-The number of undergraduates in the years 1833-4 was two hundred and
-sixteen. They cannot live at Harvard for less than 200 dollars a year,
-independently of personal expenses. Seventy-five dollars must be
-contributed by each to the current expenses; fuel is dear; fifteen
-dollars are charged for lodging within the college walls, and eighty are
-paid for board by those who use their option of living in the college
-commons. The fact is, I believe, generally acknowledged, that the
-comparative expensiveness of living is a cause of the depression of
-Harvard in comparison with its former standing among other colleges;
-but this leads to a supposition which does not to all appear a just one,
-that if the expenses of poor students could be defrayed by a public
-fund, to be raised for the purpose, the sons of the yeomanry would
-repair once more to Harvard. A friend of the institution writes, with
-regard to this plan,
-
-"It would probably have the immediate effect of bringing back that,
-perhaps, most desirable class of students, the sons of families in the
-middling ranks in respect of property in town and country, who, we fear,
-were driven away in great numbers by the change in the amount of tuition
-fees in or about 1807. They mean to pay to the full extent that others
-around them do for whatever they have. This is what they have been used
-to doing. It is their habit; perhaps it is their point of honour; no
-matter which. But they are obliged strictly to consult economy. And the
-difference of an annual expense of twenty or thirty dollars, which their
-fathers will have to spare from the profits of a farm or a shop, and
-pinch themselves to furnish, is and ought to be, with such, a very
-serious consideration. It is, in fact, a consideration decisive, year by
-year, of the destination of numbers of youth to whom the country owes,
-for its own sake, the best advantages of education it can afford; of
-those who, in moral and intellectual structure, are the bone and sinew
-of the commonwealth, and on all accounts, personal and public, entitled
-to its best training."[3]
-
-Footnote 3: Christian Examiner for September, 1834.
-
-It may be doubted whether, if a gratis education to poor students were
-to be dispensed from Harvard to-morrow, it would rival in real
-respectability and proficiency the orthodox colleges which have already
-surpassed her. Her management and population are too aristocratic, her
-movement too indolent, to attract young men of that class; and young men
-of that class prefer paying for the benefits they receive: they prefer a
-good education, economically provided, so as to be within reach of their
-means, to an equally good education furnished to them at the cost of
-their pride of independence. The best friends of Harvard believe that it
-is not by additional contrivances that her prosperity can be restored;
-but by such a renovation of the whole scheme of her management as shall
-bring her once more into accordance with the wants of the majority, the
-spirit of the country and of the time.
-
-The first commencement was held in August, 1642, only twenty years after
-the landing of the pilgrims. Mr. Peirce, the historian of the
-University, writes: "Upon this novel and auspicious occasion, the
-venerable fathers of the land, the governor, magistrates, and ministers
-from all parts, with others in great numbers, repaired to Cambridge, and
-attended with delight to refined displays of European learning, on a
-spot which but just before was the abode of savages. It was a day which
-on many accounts must have been singularly interesting." In attending
-the commencement of 1835 I felt that I was present at an antique
-ceremonial.
-
-We had so arranged our movements as to arrive at Cambridge just in time
-for the celebration, which always takes place on the last Wednesday in
-August. We were the guests of the Natural Philosophy professor and his
-lady, and we arrived at their house before noon on Monday the 24th. Next
-to the hearty greeting we received came the pleasure of taking
-possession of my apartment, it looked so full of luxury. Besides the
-comfort of complete furniture of the English kind, and a pretty view
-from the windows, there was a table covered with books and flowers, and
-on it a programme of the engagements of the week. On looking at the
-books I found among them a History and some Reports of the University;
-so that it was my own fault if I plunged into the business of the week
-without knowing the whence and the wherefore of its observances.
-
-The aspect of Cambridge is charming. The college buildings have no
-beauty to boast of, it is true; but the professors' houses, dropped
-around, each in its garden, give an aristocratic air to the place, which
-I saw in no other place of the size, and which has the grace of novelty.
-The greensward, the white palings, and the gravel-walks are all well
-kept, and nowhere is the New-England elm more flourishing. The noble old
-elm under which Washington first drew his sword spreads a wide shade
-over the ground.
-
-After refreshing ourselves with lemonade we set out for the Botanic
-Garden, which is very prettily situated and well taken care of. Here I
-saw for the first time red water-lilies. None are so beautiful to my
-eyes as the white; but the red mix in well with these and the yellow in
-a large pond. There were some splendid South American plants; but the
-head gardener seemed more proud of his dahlias than of any other
-individual of his charge. From a small cottage on the terrace at the
-upper end of the garden came forth Mr. Sparks, the editor of
-Washington's Correspondence. While engaged in his great work, he lives
-in this delightful spot. He took me into his study, and showed me his
-parchment-bound collection of Washington's papers, so fearful in amount
-that I almost wondered at the intrepidity of any editor who could
-undertake to go through them. When one looks at the shelf above shelf of
-thick folio volumes, it seems as if Washington could have done nothing
-but write all his life. I believe Mr. Sparks has now finished his
-arduous task, and given to the world the last of his twelve ample
-volumes. It is interesting to know that he received orders for the book
-from the remotest corners of the Union. A friend writes to me, "Two
-hundred copies have recently gone to the Red River; and in Georgia,
-South Carolina, and Alabama, the work is generously patronised. Can the
-dead letter of such a man's mind be scattered through the land without
-carrying with it something of his spirit?"
-
-From the Botanic Garden we proceeded to the College, where we visited a
-student's room or two, the Museum, our host's lecture-room and
-apparatus, and the library.
-
-The Harvard library was, in 1764, destroyed by fire (as everything in
-America seems to be, sooner or later). The immediate occasion of the
-disaster was the General Court having sat in the library, and (it being
-the month of January) had a large fire lighted there. One of the most
-munificent contributors to the lost library was the benevolent Thomas
-Hollis. He afterward assisted to repair the loss, writing, "I am
-preparing and going on with my mite to Harvard College, and lament the
-loss it has suffered exceedingly; but hope a public library will no more
-be turned into a council room." On this occasion there was a great
-mourning. The governor sent a message of condolence to the
-representatives; the newspapers bewailed it as a "ruinous loss;" and the
-mother-country and the colonies were stirred up to repair the mischief.
-Yet now, when the library consists of 40,000 volumes, some of them
-precious treasures, there seems as much carelessness as ever about fire.
-This is vehemently complained of on the spot, one honest reviewer
-declaring that he cannot sleep on windy nights for thinking of the risk
-arising from the library being within six feet of a building where
-thirty fires are burning, day and night, under the care of students
-only, who are required by their avocations to be absent three times a
-day. It is to be wished that the Cambridge scholars would take warning
-by the fate of the statue of Washington by Canova. This statue was the
-property of the State of North Carolina, and was deposited at Raleigh,
-the ornament and glory of that poor state. A citizen expressed his
-uneasiness at such a work of art being housed under a roof of wood, and
-urged that a stone chapel should be built for it. He was only laughed
-at. Not long after the statue was utterly destroyed by fire, and there
-was a general repentance that the citizen's advice had not been attended
-to.
-
-Thomas Hollis was the donor of a fine Polyglott Bible which I saw in the
-library, inscribed with his hand, he describing himself a "citizen of
-the world." With his contributions made before the fire he had taken
-great pains, lavishing his care, first on the selection of the books,
-which were of great value, and next on their bindings. He had
-emblematical devices cut, such as the Caduceus of Mercury, the Wand of
-Æsculapius, the Owl, the Cap of Liberty, &c.; and, when a work was
-patriotic in its character, it had the cap of liberty on the back; when
-the book was of solid wisdom (I suppose on philosophy or morals), there
-was the owl; when on eloquence, the caduceus; when on medicine, the
-Æsculapian wand, and so forth. All this ingenuity is lost except in
-tradition. Five-and-thirty years ago, Fisher Ames observed that Gibbon
-could not have written his history at Cambridge for want of works of
-reference. The library then consisted of less than 20,000 volumes. Seven
-years ago there was no copy of Kepler's Works in the library. Much has
-been done since that time. The most obvious deficiencies have been
-supplied, and the number of volumes has risen to upward of 40,000. There
-is great zeal on the spot for a further enlargement of this treasure;
-and the prevailing opinion is, that whenever a proper building is
-erected, the munificence of individuals will leave nothing to be
-complained of and little to be desired. The names of donors of books are
-painted up in the alcoves of the library, but the books are now assorted
-by their subjects. There are portraits of some of the patrons of the
-institution, two of which, by Copley, are good.
-
-The rest of our first day at Cambridge was spent in society. This was
-the first time of my meeting Professor Norton, who, of all the
-theologians of America, impressed me, as I believe he has impressed the
-Unitarians of England generally, and certain other theologians, with the
-most respect. In reach of mind, in reasoning power, in deep devotional
-feeling, and, according to the universal testimony of better judges than
-myself, in biblical learning, he has no superior among the American
-divines, and, in some of these respects, no peer. He is regarded with
-grateful veneration by the worthiest of his pupils for the invaluable
-guidance he afforded them, while professor, in their biblical studies;
-though they cannot but grieve that his philosophical prejudices, and his
-extreme dread and dislike of opposition to his own opinions, should
-betray him into a tone of arrogance, and excite in him a spirit of
-persecution, which, but for ages of proof to the contrary, would seem to
-be incompatible with so large a knowledge, and so humble and genuine a
-faith as his. His being duly reverenced is the reason of his having been
-hitherto unduly feared. His services to theological science and to
-religion are gratefully appreciated; and, naturally, more weight has, at
-least till lately, been allowed to his opinions of persons and affairs
-than should ever be accorded to those of a man among men. But this is a
-temporary disadvantage. When the friends of free inquiry and the
-champions of equal intellectual rights have gone on a little longer in
-the assertion of their liberty, Professor Norton's peculiarities will
-have lost their power to injure, and his great qualities,
-accomplishments, and services will receive a more ready and unmixed
-homage than ever.
-
-On the Tuesday several friends arrived to breakfast; and we filled up
-the morning with visiting the admirably-conducted Lunatic Asylum at
-Charlestown, and with a drive to Fresh Pond, one of the pretty meres
-which abound in Massachusetts. We dined at the house of another
-professor close at hand. The house was full in every corner with family
-connexions arrived for commencement. I remember there were eleven
-children in the house. We were a cheerful party at the long
-dinner-table, and a host of guests filled the rooms in the evening. The
-ladies sat out on the piazza in the afternoon, and saw the smoke of a
-fire far off. Presently the firebells rang, and the smoke and glow
-increased; and by dark it was a tremendous sight. It was the great
-Charlestown fire which burned sixty houses. Some of us mounted to the
-garrets, whence we could see a whole street burning on both sides,
-stack after stack of chimneys falling into the flames. It is thought
-that the frequency of fires in America is owing partly to the practice
-of carrying woodashes from room to room; perhaps from general
-carelessness about woodashes; and partly to the houses being too hastily
-built, so that cracks ensue, sometimes in the chimneys, and beams are
-exposed.
-
-The important morning rose dark and dull, and soon deepened into rain.
-It was rather vexatious that, in a region where, at this time of year,
-one may, except in the valleys, put by one's umbrella for three or four
-months, this particular morning should be a rainy one. Friend after
-friend drove up to the house, popped in, shook hands, and popped out
-again, till an hour after breakfast, when it was time to be setting out
-for the church. I was fortunate enough to be placed in a projecting seat
-at a corner of the gallery, over a flank of the platform, where I saw
-everything and heard most of the exercises. The church is large, and was
-completely filled. The galleries and half the area were crowded with
-ladies, all gayly dressed; some without either cap or bonnet, which had
-a singular effect. We were sufficiently amused with observing the
-varieties of countenance and costume which are congregated on such
-occasions, and in recognising old acquaintances from distant places till
-ten o'clock, when music was heard, the bar was taken down from the
-centre door of the church, and students and strangers poured in at the
-side-entrances, immediately filling all the unoccupied pews. A student
-from Maryland was marshal, and he ushered in the president, and attended
-him up the middle aisle and the steps of the platform. The governor of
-the state and his aids, the corporation and officers of the college, and
-several distinguished visiters, took their seats on either hand of the
-president. The venerable head of Dr. Bowditch was seen on the one side,
-and Judge Story's animated countenance on the other. The most eminent of
-the Unitarian clergy of Massachusetts were there, and some of its
-leading politicians. Mr. Webster stole in from behind when the
-proceedings were half over, and retired before they were finished. A
-great variety of exercises were gone through by the young men: orations
-were delivered, and poems, and dialogues, and addresses. Some of these
-appeared to me to have a good deal of merit; two or three were delivered
-by students who relied on their reputation at college, with a manner
-mixed up of pomposity and effrontery, which contrasted amusingly with
-the modesty of some of their companions, who did things much more worthy
-of honour. I discovered that many, if not most of the compositions,
-contained allusions to mob-law; of course, reprobating it. This was very
-satisfactory, particularly if the reprobation was accompanied with a
-knowledge of the causes and a recognition of the real perpetrators of
-the recent illegal violences; a knowledge that they have invariably
-sprung out of a conflict of selfish interests with eternal principles;
-and a recognition that their perpetrators have universally been, at
-first or second hand, aristocratic members of American society.
-
-The exercises were relieved by music four times during the morning; and
-then everybody talked, and many changed places, and the intervals were
-made as refreshing as possible. Yet the routine must be wearisome to
-persons who are compelled to attend it every year. From my high seat I
-looked down upon the top of a friend's head--one of the reverend
-professors--and was amused by watching the progress of his _ennui_. It
-would not do for a professor to look wearied or careless; so my friend
-had recourse to an occupation which gave him a sufficiently sage air
-while furnishing him with entertainment. He covered his copy of the
-programme with an infinite number of drawings. I saw stars,
-laurel-sprigs, and a variety of other pretty devices gradually spreading
-over the paper as the hours rolled on. I tried afterward to persuade him
-to give me his handiwork as a memorial of commencement, but he would
-not. At length, a clever valedictory address in Latin, drolly delivered
-by a departing student, caused the large church to re-echo with laughter
-and applause.
-
-The president then got into the antique chair from which the honours of
-the University are dispensed, and delivered their diplomas to the
-students. During this process we departed, at half past four o'clock,
-the business being concluded except the final blessing, given by the
-oldest clerical professor.
-
-At home we assembled, a party of ladies, without any gentlemen. The
-gentlemen were all to dine in the College-hall. Our hostess had happened
-to collect round her table a company of ladies more or less
-distinguished in literature, and all, on the present occasion at least,
-as merry as children; or, which is saying as much, as merry as
-Americans usually are. We had, therefore, a pleasant dining enough,
-during which one of these clever ladies agreed to go with us to the
-White Mountains on our return from Dr. Channing's in Rhode Island. It
-was just the kind of day for planning enterprises.
-
-After dinner several of the gentlemen came in to tell us what had been
-done and said at the hall. Their departure was a signal that it was time
-to be dressing for the president's levee. It was the most tremendous
-squeeze I encountered in America, for it is an indispensable civility to
-the president and the University to be seen at the levee. The band which
-had refreshed us in the morning was playing in the hall, and in the
-drawing-rooms there was a splendid choice of good company. I believe
-almost every eminent person in the state, for official rank or
-scientific and literary accomplishment, was there. I was presented with
-flowers as usual, and was favoured with some delightful introductions,
-so that I much enjoyed the brief hour of our stay. We were home by eight
-o'clock, and felt ourselves quite at rest again in our hostess's cool
-drawing-room, where the family party sat refreshing themselves with
-Champagne and conversation till the fatigues of commencement were
-forgotten. My curiosity had been so roused by the spectacles of this
-showy day, that I could not go to rest till I had run over the history
-of the University which lay on my table. On such occasions I found it
-best to defer till the early morning the making notes of what I had
-seen. Many things which appear confused when looked at so near are, like
-the objects of the external world, bright and distinct at sunrise; but,
-then, the journal should be written before the events of a new day
-begin.
-
-Mr. Sparks breakfasted with us on the morning of the 27th. He brought
-with him the pass given by Arnold to André, and the papers found in
-André's boots. He possesses also the Reports of the West Point
-fortifications in Arnold's undisguised handwriting. The effect is
-singular of going from André's monument in Westminster Abbey to the
-shores of the Hudson, where the treachery was transacted, and to Mr.
-Sparks's study, where the evidence lies clear and complete.
-
-After breakfast we proceeded once more to the church, in which were to
-be performed the rites of the Phi Beta Kappa Society. This society
-consists of the élite of the scholars who owe their education to
-Harvard, and of distinguished professional men. Its general object is to
-keep alive the spirit, and perpetuate the history of scholarship. Every
-member is understood to owe his election to some evidence of distinction
-in letters, though the number of members is so great as to prove that no
-such supposition has become a rule. The society holds an annual
-celebration in Cambridge the day after commencement, when public
-exercises take place in the church, and the members dine together in the
-College-hall.
-
-We saw the society march in to music, and take possession of the
-platform as on the preceding day. They were, on the whole, a
-fine-looking set of men, and interesting to a stranger as being the
-élite of the lettered society of the republic. A traveller could not be
-expected to understand why they were so numerous, nor what were the
-claims of the greater number.
-
-Prayers were said by the chaplain of the society, and then a member
-delivered an address. This address was and is to me a matter of great
-surprise. I do not know what was thought of it by the members generally;
-but if its doctrine and sentiments are at all sanctioned by them, I must
-regard this as another evidence, in addition to many, that the minority
-in America are, with regard to social principles, eminently in the
-wrong. The traveller is met everywhere among the aristocracy of the
-country with what seems to him the error of concluding that letters are
-wisdom, and that scholarship is education. Among a people whose
-profession is social equality, and whose rule of association is
-universal self-government, he is surprised to behold the assumptions of
-a class, and the contempt which the few express for the many, with as
-much assurance as if they lived in Russia or England. Much of this is
-doubtless owing to the minds of the lettered class having been nourished
-upon the literature of the Old World, so that their ideas have grown
-into a conformity with those of the subjects of feudal institutions, and
-the least strong-minded and original indiscriminately adopt, not merely
-the language, but the hopes and apprehensions, the notions of good and
-evil which have been generated amid the antiquated arrangements of
-European society; but, making allowance for this, as quite to be
-expected of all but very strong and original minds, it is still
-surprising that, within the bounds of the republic, the insolence should
-be so very complacent, the contempt of the majority so ludicrously
-decisive as it is. Self-satisfied, oracular ignorance and error are
-always as absurd as they are mournful; but when they are seen in full
-display among a body whose very ground of association is superiority of
-knowledge and of the love of it, the inconsistency affords a most
-striking lesson to the observer. Of course I am not passing a general
-censure on the association now under notice; for I know no more of it
-than what I could learn from the public exercises of this day, and a few
-printed addresses and poems. I am speaking of the tone and doctrine of
-the orator of the day, who might be no faithful organ of the society,
-but whose ways of thinking and expressing himself were but too like
-those of many literary and professional men whom I met in New-England
-society.
-
-The subject of the address was the "Duties of Educated men in a
-Republic;" a noble subject, of which the orator seemed to be aware at
-the beginning of his exercise. He well explained that whereas, in all
-the nominal republics of the Old World, men had still been under
-subjection to arbitrary human will, the new republic was established on
-the principle that men might live in allegiance to truth under the form
-of law. He told that the primary social duty of educated men was to
-enlighten public sentiment as to what truth is, and what law ought,
-therefore, to be. But here he diverged into a set of monstrous
-suppositions, expressed or assumed: that men of letters are the educated
-men of society in regard not only to literature and speculative truth,
-but to morals, politics, and the conduct of all social affairs; that
-power and property were made to go eternally together; that the "masses"
-are ignorant; that the ignorant masses naturally form a party against
-the enlightened few; that the masses desire to wrest power from the
-wealthy few; that, therefore, the masses wage war against property; that
-industry is to be the possession of the many, and property of the few;
-that the masses naturally desire to make the right instead of to find
-it; that they are, consequently, opposed to law; and that a struggle was
-impending in which the whole power of mind must be arrayed against brute
-force. This extraordinary collection of fallacies was not given in the
-form of an array of propositions, but they were all taken for granted
-when not announced. The orator made large reference to recent outrages
-in the country; but, happily for the truth and for the reputation of
-"the masses," the facts of the year supplied as complete a contradiction
-as could be desired to the orator of the hour. The violences were not
-perpetrated by industry against property, but by property against
-principle. The violators of law were, almost without an exception,
-members of the wealthy and "educated" class, while the victorious
-upholders of the law were the "industrious" masses. The rapid series of
-victories since gained by principle over the opposition of property, and
-without injury to property--holy and harmless victories--the failure of
-the law-breakers in all their objects, and their virtual surrender to
-the sense and principle of the majority, are sufficient, one would hope,
-to enlighten the "enlightened;" to indicate to the lettered class of
-American society, that while it is truly their duty to extend all the
-benefits of education which it is in their power to dispense to "the
-masses," it is highly necessary that the benefit should be reciprocated,
-and that the few should be also receiving an education from the many.
-There are a thousand mechanics' shops, a thousand loghouses where
-certain members of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, the orator of the day for
-one, might learn new and useful lessons on morals and politics, on the
-first principles of human relations.
-
-I have had the pleasure of seeing the address delivered before the Phi
-Beta Kappa Society at its last celebration, an address differing most
-honourably from the one I was present at. The address of last August was
-by Mr. R. Waldo Emerson, a name which is a sufficient warrant on the
-spot for the absence from his production of all aristocratic insolence,
-all contempt of man or men, in any form and under any combination. His
-address breathes a truly philosophical reverence for humanity, and
-exhibits an elevated conception of what are the right aims and the
-reasonable discipline of the mind of a scholar and thinker. Whatever the
-reader may conclude as to the philosophical doctrine of the address and
-the mode in which it is conveyed--whether he accuse it of mysticism or
-hail it as insight--he cannot but be touched by the spirit of
-devotedness, and roused by the tone of moral independence which breathe
-through the whole. The society may be considered as having amply atoned,
-by this last address, for the insult rendered by its organ (however
-unconsciously) to republican morals by that of 1835.
-
-The address was followed by the reading of the poem, whose delivery by
-its author I have before mentioned as being prevented by his sudden and
-alarming illness. The whole assembly were deeply moved, and this was the
-most interesting part of the transactions of the day.
-
-The society marched out of the church to music, and, preceded by the
-band, to the college, and up the steps of the hall to dinner, in the
-order of seniority as members.
-
-We hastened home to dress for dinner at the president's, where we met
-the corporation of the University. My seat was between Dr. Bowditch and
-one of the professors; and the entertainment to us strangers was so
-great and so novel, that we were sorry to return home, though it was to
-meet an evening party no less agreeable.
-
-The ceremonial of commencement-week was now over, but not the bustle and
-gayety. The remaining two days were spent in drives to Boston and to
-Bunker Hill, and in dinner and evening visits to Judge Story's, to some
-of the professors, and to Mr. Everett's, since governor of the state.
-
-The view from Bunker Hill is fine, including the city and harbour of
-Boston, the long bridges and the Neck which connect the city with the
-mainland, the village of Medford, where the first American ship was
-built, and the rising grounds which advantageously limit the prospect.
-The British could scarcely have had much leisure to admire the view
-while they were in possession of the hill, for the colonists kept them
-constantly busy. I saw the remains of the work which was the only
-foothold they really possessed. They roamed the hills and marched
-through the villages, but had no opportunity of settling themselves
-anywhere else. Their defeat of the enemy was more fatal to themselves
-than to the vanquished, as they lost more officers than the Americans
-had men engaged.
-
-A monument is in course of erection, but it proceeds very slowly for
-want of funds. It is characteristic of the people that funds should fall
-short for this object, while they abound on all occasions when they are
-required for charitable, religious, or literary uses. The glory of the
-Bunker Hill struggle is immortal in the hearts of the nation, and the
-granite obelisk is not felt to be wanted as an expression. When it will
-be finished no one knows, and few seem to care, while the interest in
-the achievement remains as enthusiastic as ever.
-
-While we were surveying the ground a very old man joined us with his
-plan of the field. It was well worn, almost tattered; but he spread it
-out once more for us on a block of the monumental granite, and related
-once again, for our benefit, the thousand times told tale. He was in the
-battle with his musket, being then fifteen years old. Many were the boys
-who struck some of the first blows in that war; and of those boys one
-here and there still lives, and may be known by the air of serene
-triumph with which he paces the field of his enterprise, once soaked
-with blood, but now the centre of regions where peace and progress have
-followed upon the achievement of freedom.
-
-
-
-
-THE WHITE MOUNTAINS.
-
-
-     "Hast thou entered the storehouses of the snow?"
-
-                                                          _Book of Job._
-
-
-One of the charms of such travelling as that of the English in the
-United States is its variety. The stopping to rest for a month at a
-farmhouse after a few weeks of progress by stage, with irregular hours,
-great fatigues, and indifferent fare, is a luxury which those only can
-understand who have experienced it; and it is no less a luxury to hie
-away from a great city, leaving behind its bustle and formalities, and
-the fatigues of sightseeing and society, to plunge into the deepest
-mountain solitude. I have a vivid recollection of the dance of spirits
-amid which we passed the long bridge at Boston on our way out to
-New-Hampshire, on the bright morning of the 16th of September. Our party
-consisted of four, two Americans and two English. We were to employ
-eight or ten days in visiting the White Mountains of New-Hampshire,
-returning down the valley of the Connecticut. The weather was brilliant
-the whole time, and I well remember how gay the hedges looked this first
-morning, all starred over with purple, lilach, and white asters, and gay
-with golden rod; with which was intermixed, here and there, a late pale
-brier rose. The orchards were cheerful with their apple-cropping. There
-was scarcely one which had not its ladder against a laden tree, its
-array of baskets and troughs beneath, and its company of children
-picking up the fruit from the grass. What a contrast to the scenery we
-were about to enter upon!
-
-Of the earlier part of this trip (our visit to Lake Winnipiseogee and
-the Red Mountain) I gave an account in my former work,[4] little
-supposing that I should ever return to the subject. My narrative must
-now be taken up from the point where I then dropped it.
-
-Footnote 4: Society in America, vol. i., p. 220-225.
-
-From the summit of Red Mountain I had seen what kind of scenery we were
-to pass through on our road to Conway. It was first mountain and wild
-little valleys, and then dark pine scenery; barrens, with some autumnal
-copses, and intervals of lake and stream. Lake Ossippee looked like what
-I fancy the wildest parts of Norway to be; a dark blue expanse, slightly
-ruffled, with pine fringing all its ledges, and promontories, bristling
-with pines, jutting into it; no dwellings, and no sign of life but a
-pair of wildfowl, bobbing and ducking, and a hawk perched on the tiptop
-of a scraggy blighted tree.
-
-In the steamboat on Lake Winnipiseogee there was a party whom we at once
-concluded to be bride, bridegroom, and bridemaid. They were very young,
-and the state of the case might not have occurred to us but for the
-obvious pride of the youth in having a lady to take care of. Our
-conjectures were confirmed by the peculiar tone in which he spoke of "my
-wife" to the people of the inn in giving orders. It had a droll mixture
-of pride and awkwardness; of novelty with an attempt to make the words
-appear quite familiar. For some days we were perpetually meeting this
-party, and this afternoon they introduced themselves to me, on the
-ground of their having expected to see me at Portsmouth on my way to the
-White Mountains. I imagine they would have been too busy with their
-wedding arrangements to have cared much about me if I had gone. I was
-glad we fell in with them, as it added an interest to the trip. We
-looked at the scenery with their eyes, and pleased ourselves with
-imagining what a paradise these landscapes must appear to the young
-people; what a sacred region it will be to them when they look back
-upon it in their old age, and tell the youth of those days what the
-White Mountains were when they towered in the midst of a wilderness.
-
-We all took up our quarters at the inn at Conway; and the next morning
-we met again at breakfast, and improved our acquaintance by sympathizing
-looks about the badness of everything on the table. Eggs were a happy
-resource, for the bread was not eatable. We did not start till ten, our
-party having bespoken a private conveyance, and the horses having to be
-sent for to a distance of eight miles. So the wedding-party had the
-companionship of our luggage instead of ourselves in the stage; and we
-four stepped merrily into our little open carriage, while the skirts of
-the morning mist were drawing off from the hilltops, and the valley was
-glowing in a brilliant autumn sunshine. This was to be the grand day of
-the journey; the day when we were to pass the Notch; and we were
-resolved to have it to ourselves, if we could procure a private
-conveyance from stage to stage.
-
-We struck across the valley, which is intersected by the Saco river.
-Never did valley look more delicious; shut in all round by mountains,
-green as emerald, flat as water, and chumped and fringed with trees
-tinted with the softest autumnal hues. Every reach of the Saco was thus
-belted and shaded. We stopped at Pendexter's, the pretty house well
-known to tourists; having watered the horses, we went on another stage,
-no less beautiful, and then entered upon the wilderness. For seven miles
-we did not see a single dwelling; and a head now and then popped out of
-the stage window, showing that our friends "the weddingers" were making
-sure of our being near, as if the wilderness of the scene made them
-relish the idea of society.
-
-The mountains had opened and closed in every direction all the morning;
-they now completely shut us in, and looked tremendous enough, being
-exceedingly steep and abrupt, bare, and white where they had been seamed
-with slides, and in other parts dark with stunted firs. At the end of
-seven miles of this wilderness we arrived at the elder Crawford's, a
-lone house invested with the grateful recollections of a multitude of
-travellers. The Crawfords, who live twelve miles apart, lead a
-remarkable life, but one which seems to agree well with mind and body.
-They are hale, lively men, of uncommon simplicity of manners, dearly
-loving company, but able to make themselves happy in solitude. Their
-year is passed in alternations of throngs of guests with entire
-loneliness.[5] During the long dreary season of thaw no one comes in
-sight; or, if a chance visiter should approach, it is in a somewhat
-questionable shape, being no other than a hungry bear, the last of his
-clan. During two months, August and September, while the solitaries are
-trying to get some sort of harvest out of the impracticable soil, while
-bringing their grain from a distance, a flock of summer tourists take
-wing through the region. Then the Crawfords lay down beds in every
-corner of their dwellings, and spread their longest tables, and bustle
-from morning till night, the hosts acting as guides to every accessible
-point in the neighbourhood, and the women of the family cooking and
-waiting from sunrise till midnight. After the 1st of October comes a
-pause, dead silence again for three months, till the snow is frozen
-hard, and trains of loaded sleighs appear in the passes. Traders from
-many distant points come down with their goods, while the roads are in a
-state which enables one horse to draw the load of five. This is a season
-of great jollity; and the houses are gay with roaring fires, hot
-provisions, good liquor, loud songs, and romantic travellers' tales;
-tales of pranking wild beasts, bold sleigh-drivers, and hardy woodsmen.
-
-Footnote 5: The region must, however, be less desolate than it was. The
-land in the neighbourhood had been worth only twenty-five cents per
-acre, and was now worth just six times as much.
-
-The elder Crawford has a pet album, in which he almost insists that his
-guests shall write. We found in it some of the choicest nonsense and
-"brag" that can be found in the whole library of albums. We dined well
-on mutton, eggs, and whortleberries with milk. Tea was prepared at
-dinner as regularly as bread throughout this excursion. While the rest
-of the party were finishing their arrangements for departure, I found a
-seat on a stone, on a rising ground opposite, whence I could look some
-way up and down the pass, and wonder at leisure at the intrepidity which
-could choose such an abode.
-
-We proceeded in an open wagon, the road winding amid tall trees, and the
-sunshine already beginning to retreat up the mountain sides. We soon
-entered the secluded valley where stands the dwelling of the Willeys,
-the unfortunate family who were all swept away in one night by a slide
-from the mountain in the rear of the house.[6] No one lives in that
-valley now, and this is not to be wondered at, so desolate is its
-aspect. The platform on which the unharmed house stands is the only
-quiet green spot in the pass. The slides have stripped the mountains of
-their wood, and they stand tempest-beaten, seamed, and furrowed; while
-beneath lies the wreck of what was brought down by the great slide of
-1826, a heap of rock and soil, bristling with pine-trunks and upturned
-roots, half hidden by a rank new vegetation, which will in time turn all
-the chaos into beauty.
-
-Footnote 6: Society in America, vol. i., p. 227.
-
-A dark pine hill at the end of this pass is the signal of the
-traveller's approach to the Notch. We walked up a long ascent, the road
-overhanging a ravine, where rocks were capriciously tumbled together,
-brought down, doubtless, by a winter-torrent. At present, instead of a
-torrent, there were two sparkling waterfalls leaping down the mountain.
-The Notch is, at the narrowest part, only twenty-two feet wide. The
-weather was so still that we were scarcely aware of the perpetual wind,
-which is one characteristic of the pass. There the wind is always north
-or south; and it ordinarily blows so strong as to impair the traveller's
-pleasure in exploring the scene. It merely breathed cool upon us as we
-entered the tremendous gateway formed by a lofty perpendicular rock on
-the right hand and a steep mountain on the left. When we were through
-and had rejoined our wagon, my attention was directed to the Profile, an
-object which explains itself in being named. The sharp rock certainly
-resembles a human face; but what then? There is neither wonder nor
-beauty in it. I turned from it to see the infant Saco bubble forth from
-its spring among stones and bushes, under the shelter of the
-perpendicular rock, and in a semicircular recess of the greenest sward.
-Trees sprang from sharp projections, and wrenched themselves out of
-crevices, giving the last air of caprice to the scene.
-
-We were just in time for the latest yellow light. Twilight stole on, and
-we grew silent. The stars appeared early to us on our shadowy way, and
-birds flitted by to their homes. A light still lingered on the mountain
-stream, when Sirius was tremblingly reflected in it. When the lights of
-Ethan Crawford's dwelling were seen twinkling in the distance, we were
-deep in the mutual recitation of poetry. As we drove up to the open
-door, Mr. D. said, quietly, as he looked up into the heavens, "Shall we
-get out, or spend the evening as we are?" We got out, and then followed
-supper, fiddle, and dancing, as I have elsewhere related.[7]
-
-Footnote 7: Society in America, vol. i., p. 227.
-
-We proposed to ascend Mount Washington the next morning if the weather
-should allow. It is a difficult and laborious ascent for all travellers,
-and few ladies venture upon the enterprise; but the American lady of our
-party was fully disposed to try her strength with me. I rose very early,
-and, seeing that the mountain peak looked sharp and clear, never doubted
-that I ought to prepare myself for the expedition. On coming down,
-however, I was told that there was rather too much wind, and some
-expectation of rain. By noon, sure enough, while we were upon Mount
-Deception (so called from its real being so much greater than its
-apparent height), we saw that there was a tempest of wind and snow about
-the mountain top. This peak is the highest in the Union. It rises 6634
-feet above the level of the sea, 4000 feet of this height being clothed
-with wood, and the rest being called the bald part of the mountain. We
-spent our day delightfully in loitering about Mount Deception, in
-tracking the stream of the valley through its meadows and its thickets
-of alders, and in watching the course and explosion of storms upon the
-mountains. Some gay folks from Boston were at Crawford's, and they were
-not a little shocked at seeing us pack ourselves and our luggage into a
-wagon in the afternoon, for a drive of eighteen miles to Littleton. We
-should be upset; we should break down; we should be drowned in a deluge;
-they should pick us up on the morrow. We were a little doubtful
-ourselves about the prudence of the enterprise; but a trip to Franconia
-Defile was in prospect for the next day, and we wished that our last
-sight of the White Mountains should be when they had the evening sun
-upon them. Our expedition was wholly successful; we had neither storm,
-breakage, nor overturn, and it was not sunset when we reached and walked
-up the long hill which was to afford us the last view of the chain.
-Often did we stand and look back upon the solemn tinted mountains to the
-north, and upon the variegated range behind, sunny in places, as if
-angels were walking there and shedding light from their presence.
-
-We passed the town of Bethlehem, consisting, as far as we could see, of
-one house and two barns. It was no more than six o'clock when we reached
-Littleton; so, when we had chosen our rooms, out of a number equally
-tempting from their cleanliness and air of comfort, we walked out to see
-what the place looked like. Our attention was caught by the endeavours
-of a woman to milk a restless cow, and we inadvertently stood still to
-see how she would manage. When she at last succeeded in making the
-animal stand, she offered us milk. We never refused kindness which might
-lead to acquaintanceship; so we accepted her offer, and followed her
-guidance into her house, to obtain a basin to drink out of. It was a
-good interior. Two pretty girls, nicely dressed, sat, during the dusk,
-by a blazing fire. Their talkative father was delighted to get hold of
-some new listeners. He sat down upon the side of the bed, as if in
-preparation for a long chat, and entered at large into the history of
-his affairs. He told us how he went down to Boston to take service, and
-got money enough to settle himself independently in this place; and how
-much better he liked having a house of his own than working for any
-amount of money in a less independent way. He told us how Littleton
-flourishes by the lumber-trade, wood being cut from the hills around,
-and sent floating down the stream for five miles, till it reaches the
-Connecticut, with whose current it proceeds to Hartford. Twenty years
-ago there was one store and a tavern in the place; now it is a
-wide-spreading village on the side of a large hill, which is stripped of
-its forest. The woods on the other bank of the river are yet untouched.
-Scarcely a field is to be seen under tillage, and the axe seems almost
-the only tool in use.
-
-We were admirably cared for at Gibb's house at Littleton, and we enjoyed
-our comforts exceedingly. It appeared that good manners are much
-regarded in the house, some of the family being as anxious to teach them
-to strangers as to practice them themselves. In the morning, one of my
-American friends and I, being disposed to take our breakfast at
-convenient leisure, sat down to table when all was ready, our companions
-(who could make more haste) not having appeared. A young lady stood at
-the side-table to administer the steaming coffee and tea. After waiting
-some time my companion modestly observed,
-
-"I should like a cup of coffee, if you please."
-
-There was no appearance of the observation having taken effect, so my
-friend spoke again:
-
-"Will you be so good as to give me a cup of coffee?"
-
-No answer. After a third appeal, the young lady burst out with,
-
-"Never saw such manners! To sit down to table before the other folks
-come!"
-
-I hope she was pacified by seeing that our friends, when they at length
-appeared, did not resent our not having waited for them.
-
-We set out early in an open wagon for a day's excursion to Franconia
-Defile, a gorge in the mountains which is too frequently neglected by
-travellers who pass through this region. Before we reached Franconia
-some part of our vehicle gave way. While it was in the hands of the
-blacksmith we visited the large ironworks at Franconia, and sat in a
-boat on the sweet Ammonoosuc, watching the waters as they fell over the
-dam by the ironworks. When we set off again our umbrellas were
-forgotten; and as we entered upon the mountain region, the misty,
-variegated peaks told that storm was coming. The mountain sides were
-more precipitous than any we had seen, and Mount Lafayette towered
-darkly above us to the right of our winding road. We passed some
-beautiful tarns, fringed with trees, and brimming up so close to the
-foot of the precipices as to leave scarcely a footpath on their margin.
-A pelting rain came on, which made us glad to reach the solitary
-dwelling of the pass, called the Lafayette Hotel. This house had been
-growing in the woods thirteen weeks before, and yet we were far from
-being among its first guests. The host, two boys, and a nice-looking,
-obliging girl, wearing a string of gold beads, did their best to make us
-comfortable. They kindled a blazing wood fire, and the girl then
-prepared a dinner of hot bread and butter, broiled ham, custards, and
-good tea. When the shower ceased we went out and made ourselves
-acquainted with the principal features of the pass, sketching, reciting,
-and watching how the mists drove up and around the tremendous peaks,
-smoked out of the fissures, and wreathed about the woods on the ledges.
-The scene could not have been more remarkable, and scarcely more
-beautiful in the brightest sunshine. It was not various; its unity was
-its charm. It consisted of a narrow rocky road, winding between
-mountains which almost overhung the path, except at intervals, where
-there were recesses filled with woods.
-
-After dinner our host brought in the album of the house, for even this
-new house had already its album. When we had given an account of
-ourselves, we set out, in defiance of the clouds, for the Whirlpool,
-four miles at least farther on. On the way we passed a beautiful lake,
-overhung by ash, beech, birch, and pine, with towering heights behind.
-Hereabout the rain came on heavily, and continued for three hours. The
-Whirlpool is the grand object of this pass, and it is a place in which
-to spend many a long summer's day. A full mountain stream, issuing from
-the lake we had left behind, and brawling all along our road, here
-gushes through a crevice into a wide basin, singularly overhung by a
-projecting rock, rounded and smoothed as if by art. Here the eddying
-water, green as the Niagara floods, carries leaves and twigs round and
-round, in perpetual swift motion, a portion of the waters brimming over
-the lower edge of the great basin at each revolution, and the pool being
-replenished from above. I found a shelter under a ledge of rocks, and
-here I could have stood for hours, listening to the splash and hiss, and
-watching the busy whirl. The weather, however, grew worse every moment;
-the driver could not keep the seats of the wagon dry any longer; and
-after finding, to our surprise, that we had stayed half an hour by the
-pool, we jumped into our vehicle and returned without delay. There were
-no more wandering gleams among the mountains; but, just as we descended
-to the plain, we saw the watery sun for a moment, and were cheered by a
-bright amber streak of sky above the western summits. By the time we
-recovered our umbrellas there was no farther need of them.
-
-It soon became totally dark; and, if there had been any choice, the
-driver would have been as glad as ourselves to have stopped. But we were
-wet, and there were no habitations along the road; so we amused
-ourselves with watching one or two fireflies, the last of the season,
-and the driver left the horses to find their own way, as he was unable
-to see a yard in any direction. At last the lights of Littleton
-appeared, the horses put new spirit into their work, and we arrived at
-Gibb's door before eight o'clock. The ladies of the house were kind in
-their assistance to get us dried and warmed, and to provide us with tea.
-
-Our course was subsequently to Montpelier (Vermont), and along the
-White River till we joined the Connecticut, along whose banks we
-travelled to Brattleborough, Deerfield, and Northampton. The scenery of
-New-Hampshire and Vermont is that to which the attention of travellers
-will hereafter be directed, perhaps more emphatically than to the
-renowned beauties of Virginia. I certainly think the Franconia Defile
-the noblest mountain-pass I saw in the United States.
-
-
-
-
-CHANNING.
-
-
-     "And, let me tell you, good company and good discourse are the very
-     sinews of virtue."
-
-                                                         --IZAAK WALTON.
-
-
-There is no task more difficult than that of speaking of one's intimate
-friends in print. It is well that the necessity occurs but seldom, for
-it is a task which it is nearly impossible to do well. Some persons
-think it as dangerous as it is difficult; but I do not feel this. If a
-friendship be not founded on a mutual knowledge so extensive as to leave
-nothing to be learned by each of the opinions of the other regarding
-their relation; and if, moreover, either party, knowing what it is to
-speak to the public--the act of all acts most like answering at the bar
-of eternal judgment--can yet be injuriously moved by so much of the
-character and circumstances being made known as the public has an
-interest in, such a friendship is not worthy of the name; and if it can
-be thus broken up, it had better be so. In the case of a true friendship
-there is no such danger; for it is based upon something very different
-from mutual ignorance, and depends upon something much more stable than
-the ignorance of the world concerning the parties.
-
-Dr. Channing is, of all the public characters of the United States, the
-one in whom the English feel the most interest. After much
-consideration, I have decided that to omit, because the discussion is
-difficult to myself, the subject most interesting to my readers, and one
-on which they have, from Dr. Channing's position, a right to
-information, would be wrong. Accounts have already been given of him;
-one, at least, to his disadvantage. There is no sufficient reason why a
-more friendly one should be withheld, while the account is strictly
-limited to those circumstances and appearances which might meet the
-observation of a stranger or a common acquaintance. All revelations made
-to me through the hospitalities of his family or by virtue of friendship
-will be, of course, carefully suppressed.
-
-Dr. Channing spends seven or eight months of the year in Rhode Island,
-at Oakland, six miles from Newport. There I first saw him, being invited
-by him and Mrs. Channing to spend a week with them. This was in
-September, 1835. I afterward stayed a longer time with them in Boston.
-
-The last ten miles of the journey to Dr. Channing's house from Boston is
-very pretty in fine weather. The road passes through a watery region,
-where the whims of sunshine and cloud are as various and as palpable as
-at sea. The road passes over a long bridge to the island, and affords
-fine glimpses of small islands in the spreading river, and of the
-distant main with its breakers. The stage set me down at the garden-gate
-at Oakland, whither my host came out to receive me. I knew it could be
-no other than Dr. Channing, but his appearance surprised me. He looked
-younger and pleasanter than I had expected. The common engraving of him
-is undeniably very like, but it does not altogether do him justice. A
-bust of him was modelled by Persico the next winter, which is an
-admirable likeness; favourable, but not flattering. Dr. Channing is
-short, and very slightly made. His countenance varies more than its
-first aspect would lead the stranger to suppose it could. In mirth it is
-perfectly changed, and very remarkable. The lower part of other faces is
-the most expressive of mirth; not so with Dr. Channing's, whose muscles
-keep very composed, while his laughter pours out at his eyes. I have
-seen him laugh till it seemed doubtful where the matter would end, and I
-could not but wish that the expression of face could be dashed into the
-canvass at the moment. His voice is, however, the great charm. I do not
-mean in the pulpit: of what it is there I am not qualified to speak, for
-I could not hear a tone of his preaching; but in conversation his voice
-becomes delightful after one is familiarized with it. At first his tones
-partake of the unfortunate dryness of his manner; but, by use, they
-grow, or seem to grow, more and more genial, till, at last, the ear
-waits and watches for them. Of the "repulsiveness" of his manners on a
-first acquaintance he is himself aware; though not, I think, of all the
-evil it causes, in compelling mere strangers to carry away a wrong idea
-of him, and in deterring even familiar acquaintances from opening their
-minds, and letting their speech run on as freely to him as he earnestly
-desires that it should.
-
-It might not be difficult to account for this manner, but this is not
-the place in which we have to do with any but the facts of the case. The
-natural but erroneous conclusion of most strangers is, that the dryness
-proceeds from spiritual pride; and all the more from there being an
-appearance of this in Dr. Channing's writings--in the shape of rather
-formal declarations of ways of thinking as his own, and of accounts of
-his own views and states of mind--still as his own. Any stranger thus
-impressed will very shortly be struck, be struck speechless, by
-evidences of humility, of generous truth, and meek charity, at such
-variance with the manner in which other things have been said as to
-overthrow all hasty conclusions. It was thus with me, and I know that it
-has been so with others. Those superficial observers of Dr. Channing
-who, carrying in their own minds the idea of his being a great man,
-suppose that the same idea is in his, and even kindly account for his
-faults of manner on this ground, do him great injustice, whatever may be
-his share of the blame of it. No children consulting about their plays
-were ever farther from the idea of speaking like an oracle than Dr.
-Channing; and the notion of condescending--of his being in a higher,
-while others are in a lower spiritual state--would be dismissed from his
-mind, if it ever got in, with the abhorrence with which the good chase
-away the shadows of evil from their souls. I say this confidently, the
-tone of his writings notwithstanding; and I say it, not as a friend, but
-from such being the result of a very few hours' study of him. Whenever
-his conversation is not earnest--and it is not always earnest--it is for
-the sake of drawing out the person he is talking with, and getting at
-his views. The method of conversation is not to be defended--even on the
-ground of expediency--for a person's real views are not to be got at in
-this way, no one liking to be managed; but Dr. Channing's own part in
-this kind of conversation is not played in the spirit of condescension,
-but of inquiry. One proof of this is the use he makes of the views of
-the persons with whom he converses. Nothing is lost upon him. He lays
-up what he obtains for meditation; and it reappears, sooner or later,
-amplified, enriched, and made perfectly his own. I believe that he is,
-to a singular degree, unconscious of both processes, and unaware of his
-part in them, both the drawing out of information and the subsequent
-assimilation; but both are very evident to the observation of even
-strangers.
-
-One of the most remarkable instances of all this is in the case of Mr.
-Abdy's visit to Dr. Channing and its results. Mr. Abdy has thought fit
-to publish the conversation he had with Dr. Channing, and had an
-undoubted right to do so, as he gave fair warning on the spot that he
-visited Dr. Channing as a public character, and should feel himself at
-liberty to report the circumstances of his visit. It is not necessary to
-repeat the substance of the conversation as it stands in Mr. Abdy's
-book; but it is necessary to explain that Mr. Abdy was not aware of his
-host's peculiarities of manner and conversation, and that he
-misunderstood him; and that, on the other hand, no stranger could be
-expected to make allowance for the unconsciousness which Dr. Channing
-expressed of the condition of the free coloured population of America.
-Some mutual friends of the two gentlemen tried to persuade Mr. Abdy not
-to publish the conversation he had with Dr. Channing till he knew him
-better; and Mr. Abdy, very reasonably, thought that what was said was
-said, and might, honourable warning having been given, be printed.
-
-Immediately after Mr. Abdy's departure, Dr. Channing took measures to
-inform himself of the real state of the case of the blacks; and, within
-the next month, preached a thorough-going abolition sermon. He laid so
-firm a grasp on the fundamental principles of the case as to satisfy the
-farsighted and practised abolitionists themselves who were among his
-audience. The subject was never again out of his mind; and during my
-visit the next autumn, our conversation was more upon that topic than
-any other. Early in the winter after he published his book on slavery.
-This has since been followed by his Letter to Birney, and by his noble
-Letter to Clay on the subject of Texas, of all his works the one by
-which his most attached friends and admirers would have him judged and
-remembered.
-
-No one out of the United States can have an idea of the merit of taking
-the part which Dr. Channing has adopted on this question. Abroad,
-whatever may be thought of the merits of the productions, the act of
-producing them does not seem great. It appears a simple affair enough
-for an influential clergyman to declare his detestation of outrageous
-injustice and cruelty, and to point out the duty of his fellow-citizens
-to do it away. But it is not a very easy or simple matter on the spot.
-Dr. Channing lives surrounded by the aristocracy of Boston, and by the
-most eminent of the clergy of his own denomination, whose lips are
-rarely opened on the question except to blame or to ridicule the
-abolitionists. The whole matter was, at that time, considered "a low
-subject," and one not likely, therefore, to reach his ears. He dislikes
-associations for moral objects; he dislikes bustle and ostentation; he
-dislikes personal notoriety; and, of course, he likes no better than
-other people to be the object of censure, of popular dislike. He broke
-through all these temptations to silence the moment his convictions were
-settled; I mean not his convictions of the guilt and evil of slavery,
-but of its being his duty to utter his voice against it. From his
-peaceful and honoured retirement he came out into the storm, which
-might, and probably would, be fatal to his reputation, his influence,
-his repose, and, perhaps, to more blessings than even these. Thus the
-case appears to the eye of a passing traveller.
-
-These bad consequences have only partially followed, but he could not
-anticipate that. As it has turned out, Dr. Channing's reputation and
-influence have risen at home and abroad precisely in proportion to his
-own progress on the great question; to the measure of justice which he
-learned by degrees to deal out to the abolitionists, till, in his latest
-work, he reached the highest point of all. His influence is impaired
-only among those to whom it does not seem to have done good; among those
-who were vain of him as a pastor and a fellow-citizen, but who have not
-strength and light to follow his guidance in a really difficult and
-obviously perilous path. He has been wondered at and sighed over in
-private houses, rebuked and abused in Congress, and foamed at in the
-South; but his reputation and influence are far higher than ever before;
-and by his act of self-devotion he has been, on the whole, a great
-gainer, though not, of course, holding a position so enviable (though it
-may look more so) as that of some who moved earlier, and have risked and
-suffered more in the same cause.
-
-Dr. Charming bore admirably the wrath he drew upon himself by breaking
-silence on the slavery question. Popular hatred and the censure of men
-whom he respected were a totally new experience to one who had lived in
-the midst of something like worship; and, though they reached him only
-from a distance, they must have made him feel that the new path he had
-at his years struck into was a thorny one. He was not careless of
-censure, though he took it quietly. He read the remarks made in Congress
-on his book, re-examined the grounds of what he had said that was
-questioned about the morals of the South, with the intention of
-retracting anything which he might have stated too strongly. Finding
-that he had, in his assertions, kept within the truth, he appeared
-satisfied. But he could feel for others who were exposed in the same
-cause. When I was staying in his house at the end of the winter, I was
-one morning sealing up my papers in his presence, in order to their
-being put in a place of safety, news having reached us the night before
-of a design to Lynch me in the West, where I had been about to take a
-journey. While I was sealing, Dr. Channing told me that he hoped I
-should, on my return to England, boldly expose the fact that I was not
-allowed the liberty of going where I would in the United States. I told
-him I should not, while there was the far stronger fact that the natives
-of the country were not allowed to use this their constitutional
-liberty. Dr. Channing could not, at that time, have set his foot within
-the boundaries of half the states without danger to his life; but he
-appeared more moved at my case than I ever saw him about his own. No
-doubt we both felt ashamed to be concerned about ourselves while others
-were suffering to the extremity, to the loss of fortune, liberty, and
-life. Still, to Dr. Channing, the change in the temper of a large
-portion of the nation towards him must have been no light trial.
-
-He loves the country retirement in which I first saw him, for his habit
-of mind is not one which renders him indifferent to the objects about
-him. He never sits in his study for hours together, occupied with books
-and thoughts, but, even when most deeply engaged in composition, walks
-out into his garden so frequently, that the wonder to persons who use
-different methods is how, amid so many interruptions, he keeps up any
-continuity of thought or accomplishes any amount of composition at all.
-He rarely has his pen in his hand for more than an hour at a time, and
-does not, therefore, enter into the enjoyments of writers who find the
-second hour twice as productive and pleasurable as the first, and the
-third as the second, and who grudge moving under five or six hours.
-Instead of the delight of this continuous labour, Dr. Channing enjoys
-the refreshment of a change of objects. In his last publication, as in
-some former ones, he affords an indication of this habit of his, which,
-to those who know him, serves as a picture of himself in his garden,
-sauntering alone in his gray morning-gown, or chatting with any of his
-family whom he may meet in the walks. "I have prepared this letter," he
-says, "not amid the goadings, irritations, and feverish tumults of a
-crowded city, but in the stillness of retirement, amid scenes of peace
-and beauty. Hardly an hour has passed in which I have not sought relief
-from the exhaustion of writing by walking abroad amid God's works, which
-seldom fail to breathe tranquillity, and which, by their harmony and
-beneficence, continually cheer me, as emblems and prophecies of a more
-harmonious and blessed state of human affairs than has yet been known."
-He has frequently referred in conversation, even to strangers, and once
-at least in print, to the influence on his mind of having passed his
-boyhood on the seashore; and to this shore he lost no time in taking me.
-He liked that we should be abroad almost all day. In the morning we met
-early in the garden; at noon he drove me, or we went in the carriage, to
-some point of the shore; and in the afternoon we walked to the glen,
-where, truly, any one might be thankful to go every summer evening and
-autumn afternoon. The way was through a field, an orchard, a narrow
-glen, shadowy with rocks and trees, down to the shore, where the sea
-runs in between the island and the mainland. The little coves of clear
-blue water, the boats moving in the sunlight, the long distant bridge on
-the left hand, and the main opening and spreading on the right, made up
-a delicious scene, the favourite haunt of Dr. Channing's family. To the
-more distant shore of the ocean itself he drove me in his gig, even to
-Purgatory.[8] By-the-way, he showed me Berkeley's house, of gray stone,
-rather sunk among trees, built by the bishop in a rather unpromising
-spot, selected on account of the fine view of Newport, the downs, the
-beach, and the sea, which is obtained from the ridge of the hill over
-which he must pass on his way to and from the town. The only beauty
-which the scene lacked when I saw it was a brighter verdure. It was the
-end of summer, and the downs were not green. They were sprinkled over
-with dwellings and clumps of trees; rocks jutted out for the waves to
-break upon, the spray dashing to a great height; on the interval of
-smooth sand the silver waves spread noiselessly abroad and retired,
-while flocks of running snipes and a solitary seagull were the only
-living things visible. This interval of smooth beach is bounded inland
-by the pile of rocks which was Berkeley's favourite resort, and where
-the conversations in the Minute Philosopher are supposed to have taken
-place. They are not a lofty, but a shelvy, shadowy pile, full of
-recesses, where the thinker may sit sheltered from the heat, and of
-platforms, where he may lie basking in the sun.
-
-Footnote 8: "Purgatories. I know not what fancied resemblances have
-applied this whimsical name to several extensive fissures in the rocks
-of New-England."
-
-     --_Professor_ HITCHCOCK'S _Geology, &c., of Massachusetts_, p. 114.
-
-Purgatory is a deep and narrow fissure in the rock where the sea flows
-in; one of those fissures which, as Dr. Channing told me, are a puzzle
-to geologists. The surfaces of the severed rocks are as smooth as
-marble, though the split has taken place through the middle of very
-large stones. These rocks are considered remarkable specimens of
-pudding-stone. After fearfully looking down into the dark floods of
-Purgatory, we wandered about long among the piles of rocks, the spray
-dashing all around us. Birds and spiders have thought fit to make their
-homes amid all the noise and commotion of these recesses. Webs were
-trembling under the shelves above the breakers, and swallows' nests hung
-in the crevices. These are the spots in which Dr. Channing passed his
-boyhood, and here were the everlasting voices which revealed to him the
-unseen things for which he is living.
-
-The one remarkable thing about him is his spirituality; and this is
-shown in a way which must strike the most careless observer, but of
-which he is himself unconscious. He is not generally unconscious; his
-manner, indeed, betokens a remarkable self-consciousness; but he is not
-aware of what is highest in himself, though painfully so of some other
-things. Every one who converses with him is struck with his natural,
-supreme regard to the true and the right; with the absence of all
-suspicion that anything can stand in competition with these. In this
-there is an exemption from all professional narrowness, from all
-priestly prejudice. He is not a man of the world: anxious as he is to
-inform himself of matters of fact and of the present condition of
-affairs everywhere, he does not succeed well; and this deficiency, and a
-considerable amount of prejudice on philosophical subjects, are the
-cause of his being extensively supposed to be more than ordinarily
-professional in his views, judgments, and conduct. But in this I do not
-agree, nor does any one, I believe, who knows him. No one sees more
-clearly than he the necessity of proving and exercising principles by
-hourly action in all kinds of worldly business. No one is more free from
-attachment to forms, or more practically convinced that rules and
-institutions are mere means to an end. He showed this, in one instance
-out of a thousand, by proposing to his congregation some time ago that
-they should not always depend on their pastors for the guidance of their
-worship, but that any members who had anything to say should offer to do
-so. As might have been foreseen, every one shrank from being concerned
-in so new an administration of religion; but Dr. Channing was
-disappointed that the effort was not made. No one, again, is more free
-from all pride of virtue. His charity towards frailty is as singular as
-his reprobation of spiritual vices is indignant. The genial side of his
-nature is turned to the weak, and the sorely tempted and the fallen best
-know the real softness and meekness of his character. He is a high
-example of the natural union of lofty spirituality with the tenderest
-sympathy with those who are the least able to attain it. If the fallen
-need the help of one into whose face they would look without fear, Dr.
-Channing is that one, even though he may be felt to be "repulsive" by
-those who have no particular claim upon his kindness; and as for
-spiritual pride, when it has once passed his credulity, and got within
-the observation of his shrewdness, it had better be gone out of the
-reach of his rebuke.
-
-It may be seen that I feel the prevalent fear of him to be ill-grounded.
-There is little gratification to one's self-complacency to be expected
-in his presence. He never flatters, and he is more ready to blame than
-to praise; but his blame, like every other man's, should go for what it
-is worth; should be welcome in as far as it is deserved, and should pass
-for nothing where it is not. But there is no assumption and no
-bitterness in his blame; it is merely the expression of an opinion, and
-it leaves no sting. All intercourse with him proceeds on the supposition
-that the parties are not caring about their petty selves, but about
-truth and good, and that all are equal while engaged in this pursuit.
-There is no room for mutual fear in such a case. He one day asked an
-intimate friend, a woman of great simplicity and honesty, some question
-about a sermon he had just delivered. She replied that she could not
-satisfy him, because she had not been able to attend to the sermon after
-the first sentence or two; and he was far better pleased with the answer
-than with the flatteries which are sometimes addressed to him about his
-preaching. This lady's method is that in which Dr. Channing's intimate
-friends speak to him, and not as to a man who is to be feared.
-
-I have mentioned prejudice on philosophical subjects to be a drawback on
-his liberality. This might have been the remark of a perfect stranger,
-as long as his celebrated note on Priestley remains unretracted in
-public, whatever he may say about it in private. His attachment to the
-poetry of philosophy--the mysticism prevalent among the divines of
-New-England who study philosophy at all--and his having taken no means
-to review his early decisions against the philosophers of another
-school, are the cause of a prejudice as to the grounds, and an
-illiberality as to the tendencies of any other mental philosophy than
-his own, the results of which are exhibited in that note. This is not
-the only instance in Dr. Channing's life, as in the lives of other
-cautious men, where undue caution has led to rashness. His reason for
-writing that note was a fear lest, the American Unitarians being already
-too cold, they should be made colder by philosophical sympathy with the
-Unitarians of England. This fear led to the rashness of concluding the
-English Unitarians to be generally disciples of Priestley; of
-attributing to Priestley's philosophy the coldness of the English
-Unitarians; and of concluding Priestley to be the perfect exponent of
-the philosophy which the American divines of Dr. Channing's way of
-thinking declare to be opposed to spiritualism.
-
-Disposed as Dr. Channing is to an excess of caution both by constitution
-and by education, he appears to be continually outgrowing the tendency.
-He has shown what his moral courage is by proofs which will long outlast
-his indications of slowness in admitting the full merits of the
-abolitionists. Here, again, his caution led him into rashness; into the
-rashness of giving his sanction to charges and prejudices against them,
-the grounds of which he had the means of investigating. This is all over
-now, however; and it was always a trifle in comparison with the great
-services he was at the same time rendering to a cause which the
-abolitionists cared for far more than for what the whole world, or any
-part of it, thought of their characters. He is now completely identified
-with them in the view of all who regard them as the vanguard in the
-field of human liberties.
-
-When I left his door at the close of my first visit to him, and heard
-him talked of by the passengers in the stage, I was startled by the
-circumstance into a speculation on the varieties of methods and degrees
-in which eminent authors are revealed to their fellow-men. There is, to
-be sure, the old rule, "by their fruits ye shall know them;" but the
-whole harvest of fruits is in some cases so long in coming in, that the
-knowledge remains for the present very imperfect. As a general rule,
-earnest writers show their best selves in their books; in the series of
-calm thoughts which they record in the passionless though genial
-stillness of their retirement, whence the things of the world are seen
-to range themselves in their right proportions, in their justest aspect;
-and where the glow of piety and benevolence is not damped by, but rather
-consumes fears and cares which relate to self, and discouragement
-arising from the faults of others. In such cases a close inspection of
-the life impairs, more or less, the impression produced by the writings.
-In other cases there is a pretty exact agreement between the two modes
-of action, by living and writing. This is a rarer case than the other;
-and it happens either when the principles of action are so thoroughly
-fixed and familiarized as to rule the whole being, or when the faults of
-the mind are so intimately connected with its powers as to be kept in
-action by the exercise of those powers in solitude, as they are by
-temptations in the world.
-
-There is another case rarer still; when an earnest writer, gifted and
-popular, still falls below himself, conveying an impression of faults
-which he has not, or not in the degree in which they seem to appear. In
-such an instance a casual acquaintance may leave the impression what it
-was, while a closer inspection cannot but be most grateful to the
-observer. In my opinion, this is Dr. Channing's case. His writings are
-powerful and popular abroad and at home, and have caused him to be
-revered wherever they are known; but revered as an exalted personage, a
-clerical teacher, conscious of his high station, and endeavouring to do
-the duties of it. A slight acquaintance with him must alter this
-impression, without, perhaps, improving it. When he becomes a companion,
-the change is remarkable and exhilarating. He drops glorious thoughts as
-richly as in his pages, while humble and gentle feelings shine out, and
-eclipse the idea of teaching and preaching. The ear listens for his
-steps and his voice, and the eye watches for the appearance of more of
-his writings, not as for a sermon or a lesson, but as a new hint of the
-direction which that intellect and those affections are taking which are
-primarily employed in watching over the rights and tendencies, and
-ameliorating the experience of those who occupy his daily regards.
-
-
-
-
-MUTES AND BLIND.
-
-
-    "Another noble response to the battle-cry of the Prince of Peace,
-    summoning his hosts to the conquest of suffering and the rescue of
-    humanity."
-                                     --_Rationale of Religious Inquiry._
-
-        "Vicaria linguae manus."
-
-    "Protected, say enlightened, by the ear."
-
-                                                             WORDSWORTH.
-
-
-Some weeping philosophers of the present day are fond of complaining of
-the mercenary spirit of the age, and insist that men are valued (and
-treated accordingly), not as men, but as producers of wealth; that the
-age is so mechanical, that individuals who cannot act as parts of a
-machine for creating material comforts and luxuries are cast aside to be
-out of the way of the rest. What do such complainers make of the lot of
-the helpless in these days? How do they contrive to overlook or evade
-the fact that misery is recognised as a claim to protection and solace,
-not only in individual cases, which strike upon the sympathies of a
-single mind, but by wholesale; unfortunates, as a class, being cared
-for on the ground of their misfortunes? Are deformed and deficient
-children now cast out into the wastes to perish? Is any one found in
-this age who is of Aristotle's opinion, that the deaf and dumb must
-remain wholly brutish? Does any one approve the clause of the code of
-Justinian by which deaf-mutes are deprived of their civil rights? Will
-any one now agree with Condillac, that the deaf and dumb have no memory,
-and, consequently, are without reasoning power? If every one living is
-wiser than to believe these things, he owes his wisdom to the benevolent
-investigation which has been made into the condition of these isolated
-and helpless beings; an investigation purely benevolent, as it proceeded
-on the supposition that they were irremediably deficient. The testimony
-of their best benefactors goes to prove this. The Abbé de l'Epée,
-Sicard, Guyot of Groningen, Eschke of Berlin, Cæsar of Leipsic, all
-began their labours in behalf of the deaf and dumb with the lowest
-notion of the capabilities of the objects of their care, and the
-humblest expectations as to what could be done for them. Sicard
-acknowledged a change of views when his experience had become enlarged.
-He says, "It will be observed that I have somewhat exaggerated the sad
-condition of the deaf and dumb in their primitive state, when I assert
-that virtue and vice are to them without reality. I was conducted to
-these assertions by the fact that I had not yet possessed the means of
-interrogating them upon the ideas which they had before their education;
-or that they were not sufficiently instructed to understand and reply to
-my questions."[9] It should be remembered, to Sicard's honour, and that
-of other benefactors of the deaf and dumb, that their labours were
-undertaken more in pity than in hope, in benevolence which did not look
-for, though it found reward. None were more astonished than they at the
-revelation which took place of the minds of the dumb when the power of
-expression was given them; when, for instance, one of them, Peter
-Desloges, declared, with regard to his deaf and dumb acquaintance,
-"There passes no event at Paris, in France, or in the four quarters of
-the globe, which does not afford matter of ordinary conversation among
-them." The deaf and dumb are prone to hyperbolical expression, of which
-the above sentence may be taken as an instance; but it is founded in
-fact.
-
-Footnote 9: "Théorie des Signes, pour servir d'introduction à l'étude
-des langues." Avertissement.
-
-The benevolence which undertook the care of this class of unfortunates,
-when their condition was esteemed hopeless, has, in many cases, through
-a very natural delight at its own success, passed over into a new and
-opposite error, particularly in America, where the popular philosophy of
-mind comes in aid of the delusion. From fearing that the deaf and dumb
-had hardly any capacities, too many of their friends have come to
-believe them a sort of sacred, favoured class, gifted with a keener
-apprehension, a more subtile reason, and a purer spirituality than
-others, and shut out from little but what would defile and harden their
-minds. Such a belief may not be expressed in propositions or allowed on
-a full statement; but much of the conversation on the condition of the
-class proceeds on such an idea; and, in my own opinion, the education of
-deaf-mutes is and will be materially impaired by it. Not only does it
-give rise to mistakes in their treatment, but there is reason to fear
-bad effects from the disappointment which must sooner or later be
-occasioned. If this disappointment should act as a damper upon the
-exertions made in behalf of the deaf and dumb, it will be sad, for only
-a very small number are yet educated at all in any country, and they are
-far more numerous than is generally supposed. In 1830, the total number
-of deaf and dumb of all ages in the United States was 6106. Of a
-teachable age the number was 2000, of whom 466 were in course of
-education. The number of deaf-mutes in Europe at the same time was
-140,000. It is of great importance that the case of so large a class of
-society should be completely understood, and rescued from one extreme of
-exaggeration as it has been from the other.
-
-When at New-York I paid a visit one morning, in company with a
-clergyman, to the mother of a young lady who was deaf and dumb, and for
-whose education whatever advantages were obtainable by money and pains
-had been procured. My clerical friend shared, I believe, the popular
-notions about the privileged condition of the class the young lady
-belonged to. Occasion arose for my protesting against these notions, and
-declaring what I had reason to think the utmost that could be done for
-deaf-mutes in the present state of our knowledge. The clergyman looked
-amazed at my speaking thus in the presence of the mother; but I knew
-that experience had taught her to agree with me, and that her tenderness
-made her desire that her daughter's situation should be fully
-understood, that she might receive due allowance and assistance from
-those who surrounded her. The mother laid her hand on mine, and thanked
-me for pleading the cause of the depressed against those who expected
-too much from them. She said that, after all that could be done, the
-knowledge of deaf-mutes was generally confined and superficial; their
-tastes frivolous; their tempers wilful and hasty; their whole mental
-state puerile; and she added that, as long as all this was not allowed,
-they would be placed in positions to which they were unequal, and which
-they did not understand, and would not be so amply provided as they
-might be with enjoyments suited to their condition.
-
-This is not the place in which to enter upon the interesting inquiry
-into the principles of the education of the deaf and dumb; a deep and
-wide subject, involving matters important to multitudes besides the
-class under notice. Degerando observed that the art of instructing
-deaf-mutes, if traced back to its principles, terminates in the sciences
-of psychology and general grammar. A very superficial view of the case
-of the class shows something of what the privation really is, and,
-consequently, furnishes hints as to the treatment by which it may be in
-part supplied. Many kindhearted people in America, and not a few in
-Europe, cry out, "They are only deprived of one sense and one means of
-expression. They have the infinite human spirit within them, active and
-irrepressible, with infinite objects in its view. They lose the
-pleasures of the ear; they lose one great opportunity of spiritual
-action, both on the world of matter and on human minds; but this is
-compensated for by the activity of the soul in other regions of thought
-and emotion; and their contemplation of their own objects is
-undisturbed, in comparison with what it would be if they were subject to
-the vulgar associations with which we have to contend."
-
-It is true that the deaf from birth are deficient in one sense only,
-while they are possessed of four; but the one in which they are
-deficient is, beyond all estimate, the most valuable in the formation of
-mind. The eye conveys, perhaps, more immediate and vivid pleasures of
-sense, and is more requisite to external and independent activity; so
-that, in the case of the loss of a sense after the period of education,
-the privation of sight is a severer misfortune, generally speaking,
-than the loss of hearing. But, in the case of deficiency from birth, the
-deaf are far more unfortunate than the blind, from the important power
-of abstraction being in them very feeble in its exercise, and sadly
-restricted in the material on which it has to work. The primary
-abstractions of the blind from birth will be less perfect than those of
-other children, the great class of elements from visual objects being
-deficient; but when they come to the second and more important class of
-abstractions; when from general qualities of material objects they pass
-on to the ideas compounded from these, their disadvantages disappear at
-each remove; till, when intellectual and moral subjects open before
-them, they may be considered almost on equal terms with the generality
-of mankind. These intellectual and moral ideas, formed gradually out of
-lower abstractions, are continually corrected, modified, and enlarged by
-intercourse with the common run of minds, alternating with
-self-communion. This intercourse is peculiarly prized by the blind, from
-their being precluded from solitary employments and amusements; and the
-same preclusion impels them to an unusual degree of self-communion; so
-that the blind from birth are found to be, when well educated, disposed
-to be abstract in their modes of thought, literal in their methods of
-expression, and earnest and industrious in the pursuit of their objects.
-Their deficiencies are in general activity, in cheerfulness, and in
-individual attachments.
-
-The case of the deaf from birth is as precisely opposite as can be
-imagined, and much less favourable. They labour under an equal privation
-of elementary experience; and, in addition, under an almost total
-absence of the means of forming correct abstractions of the most
-important kinds. Children in general learn far less of the most
-essential things by express teaching than by what comes to them in the
-course of daily life. Their wrong ideas are corrected, their partial
-abstractions are rectified and enriched by the incessant unconscious
-action of other minds upon theirs. Of this kind of discipline the
-deaf-mute is deprived, and the privation seems to be fatal to a healthy
-intellectual and moral growth. He is taught expressly what he knows of
-intellectual and moral growth. He is taught expressly what he knows of
-intellectual and moral affairs; of memory, imagination, science, and
-sagacity; of justice, fortitude, emotion, and conscience. And this
-through imperfect means of expression. Children, in general, learn these
-things unconsciously better than they learn anything by the most
-complete express teaching. So that we find that the deaf-mute is ready
-at defining what he little understands, while the ordinary child
-feelingly understands what he cannot define. This power of definition
-comes of express teaching, but by no means implies full understanding.
-Its ample use by the deaf and dumb has led to much of the error which
-exists respecting their degree of enlightenment. They are naturally
-imitative, from everything being conveyed to them by action passing
-before the eye; and those who observe them can scarcely avoid the
-deception of concluding that the imitative action, when spontaneous,
-arises from the same state of mind which prompted the original action.
-It is surprising how long this delusion may continue. The most watchful
-person may live in the same house with a deaf-mute for weeks and months,
-conversing on a plain subject from time to time, with every conviction
-of understanding and being understood, and find at length a blank
-ignorance, or an astounding amount of mistake existing in the mind of
-his dumb companion, while the language had been fluent and correct, and
-every appearance of doubt and hesitation excluded. There need be no
-conceit and no hypocrisy all this time in the mind of the deaf-mute. He
-believes himself in the same state of mind with those who say the same
-thing, and has no comprehension that that which is to him literal is to
-them a symbol. While nothing can be easier than to conduct the religious
-education of the blind, since all the attributes of Deity are exercised
-towards them, in inferior degrees, by human invisible beings, it is
-difficult to ascertain what is gained by deaf-mutes under a process of
-instruction in religion. No instance has been known, I understand, of a
-deaf-mute having an idea of God prior to instruction. For a long time,
-at least, the conception is low, the idea pictorial; and, if it ceases
-to be so, the teacher cannot confidently pronounce upon it; the common
-language of religion being as easily accommodated by superficial minds
-to their own conceptions, as adopted by minds which mean by it something
-far higher and deeper. A pupil at Paris, who was considered to have been
-effectually instructed in the first principles of religion, was
-discovered, after a lapse of years, to have understood that God was a
-venerable old man living in the clouds; that the Holy Spirit was a dove
-surrounded with light; and that the devil was a monster dwelling in a
-deep place. Life, with its truths conveyed under appearances, is to them
-what German and other allegorical stories are to little children. They
-perceive and talk glibly about the pictorial part, innocently supposing
-it the whole; while they are as innocently supposed, by unpractised
-observers, to perceive the philosophical truth conveyed in the picture.
-
-It is often said that, if the blind have the advantage of communication
-with other minds by conversation, the deaf have it by books. This is
-true; but, alas! to books must be brought the power of understanding
-them. The grand disadvantage of the deaf is sustained antecedently to
-the use of books; and, though they gain much knowledge of facts and
-other advantages by reading, books have no power to remedy the original
-faulty generalization by which the minds of deaf-mutes are kept narrow
-and superficial. If a remedy be ever found, it seems as if it must be by
-rendering their intercourse by the finger-alphabet and writing much more
-early than it is, and as nearly as possible general. If it could be
-general, and take place as early as speech usually does, they would
-still be deprived, not only of all inarticulate sounds and the
-instruction which they bring, but of the immense amount of teaching
-which comes through the niceties of spoken language, and of all that is
-obtained by hearing conversation between others; but, still, the change
-from almost total exclusion, or from intercourse with no minds but those
-suffering under the same privation, and those of three or four teachers,
-to communion with a variety of the common run of persons, would be so
-beneficial that it is scarcely possible to anticipate its results. But
-the finger-alphabet is not yet practised, or likely to be practised
-beyond the sufferers themselves and their teachers and families; and
-before a deaf and dumb child can be taught reading and writing, the
-mischief to his mind is done.
-
-As for the general intellectual and moral characteristics of deaf-mutes,
-they are precisely what good reasoners would anticipate. The wisest of
-the class have some originality of thought, and most have much
-originality of combination. They are active, ingenious, ardent,
-impressible, and strongly affectionate towards individuals; but they are
-superficial, capricious, passionate, selfish, and vain. They are like a
-coterie of children, somewhat spoiled by self-importance, and
-prejudiced and jealous with regard to the world in whose intercourses
-they do not share. So far from their feeling ashamed of their
-singularity, generally speaking, they look down upon people who are not
-of their coterie. It is well known that deaf and dumb parents sometimes
-show sorrow that their children can hear and speak, not so much from a
-selfish fear of alienation, as from an idea that they themselves are
-somehow a privileged class. The delight of mutes in a school is to
-establish a sign-language which their teachers cannot understand, and
-they keep up a strong _esprit de corps_. This is maintained, among other
-means, by a copious indulgence in ridicule. Their very designations of
-individuals are derived from personal peculiarities, the remembrance of
-which is never lost. If any visiter folds his arms, sneezes, wears a
-wig, has lost a tooth, or, as in the case of Spurzheim, puts his hand up
-for a moment to shade his eyes from the sun, the mark becomes his
-designation for ever.
-
-Much has been said and written about whether people always think in
-words. Travellers in a foreign country are surprised to find how soon
-and constantly they detect themselves thinking in the language of that
-country. Degerando took pains to ascertain how deaf-mutes think. The
-uninstructed can, of course, know nothing of words. It seems that their
-thoughts are few, and that they consist of the images of visual objects
-passing merely in the order of memory, _i. e._, in the order in which
-they are presented. As soon as the pupils become acquainted with
-language, and with manual signs of abstract ideas, they use these signs
-as we do words. Degerando clearly ascertained that they use
-gesticulation in their private meditations; a remarkable fact.
-
-The first efforts towards erecting an institution for the education of
-the deaf and dumb in America were made in 1815, at Hartford,
-Connecticut. This institution, called the American Asylum, from its
-having been aided by the general government, has always enjoyed a high
-reputation. I lament that I was prevented seeing it by being kept from
-Hartford by bad weather. The Pennsylvania Institution followed in 1821;
-and the New-York Asylum, opened in 1818, began to answer the hopes of
-its founders only in 1830. These two I visited. There are two or three
-smaller schools in different parts of the Union, and there must yet be
-many more before the benevolent solicitude of society will be
-satisfied.
-
-The number of deaf-mutes in Pennsylvania was, at the period of the last
-census, seven hundred and thirty; six hundred and ninety-four being
-whites, and thirty-six persons of colour. As usual, it is discovered on
-inquiry that, in a large majority of cases, the hearing was lost in
-childhood, and not deficient from birth; so that it is to the medical
-profession that we must look for a diminution of this class of
-unfortunates. The number of pupils in the Institution in 1833 was
-seventy-four, thirty-seven of each sex; and of deaf-mute assistants six.
-The buildings, gardens, and arrangements are admirable, and the pupils
-look lively and healthy.
-
-They went through some of their school exercises in the ordinary manner
-for our benefit. Many of them were unintelligible to us, of course; but
-when they turned to their large slates, we could understand what they
-were about. A teacher told a class of them, by signs, a story of a
-Chinese who had fish in his pond, and who summoned the fish by ringing a
-bell, and then fed them by scattering rice. All told it differently as
-regarded the minor particulars, and it was evident that they did not
-understand the connexion of the bell with the story. One wrote that the
-fishes came at the _trembling_ of the bell; but the main circumstances
-were otherwise correct. They all understood that the fishes got the
-rice. When they were called upon to write what _smooth_ meant, and to
-describe what things were smooth, they instanced marble, the sky, the
-ocean, and _eloquence_. This was not satisfactory; the generalization
-was imperfect, and the word eloquence meaningless to them. Nor did they
-succeed much better in introducing certain phrases, such as "on account
-of," "at the head of," into sentences; but one showed that he knew that
-the president was at the head of the United States. Then the word
-"glorious" was given, and their bits of chalk began to work with great
-rapidity. One youth thought that a woman governing the United States
-would be glorious; and others declared Lord Brougham to be glorious. The
-word "cow" was given; and out of a great number of exercises, there was
-not one which mentioned milk. Milk seemed almost the only idea which a
-cow did not call up. The ideas appeared so arbitrarily connected as to
-put all our associations at fault. One exercise was very copious. The
-writer imagined a cow amid woods and a river, and a barn, whence the
-thought, by some imperceptible link, fastened upon Queen Elizabeth's
-dress, which was glorious, as was her wisdom; and this, of course,
-brought in Lord Brougham again. He is the favourite hero of this
-institution. Prior to our visit, a youth of sixteen, who had been under
-instruction less than four years, was desired to prepare a composition,
-when he presented the following
-
-
-FABLE.
-
-"Lord Chancellor Brougham remains in the city of London. He is the most
-honourable man in England, for his mind is very strong, excellent, and
-sharp. I am aware that I am beneath Brougham in great wisdom and
-influence. It afforded me great pleasure to receive a letter from
-Brougham, and I read in it that he wanted me to pay a visit to him with
-astonishment. Soon after I came to the conclusion that I would go to
-London and visit Brougham. I prepared all my neat clothes and some other
-things in my large trunk. After my preparation I shook hands with all my
-relations and friends living in the town of C., and they looked much
-distressed, for they thought that I would be shipwrecked and eaten by a
-large and strong fish. But I said to them, I hoped that I should reach
-London safely, and that I should return to the United States safely.
-They said yes with great willingness, and they told me that I must go
-and see them again whenever I should return from London to the United
-States. I sailed in a large ship and saw many passengers, with whom I
-talked with much pleasure, that I might get much advantage of
-improvement. I slept in the comfortable cabin, and it was agreeable to
-me to stay in it. I saw the waves very white with great wonder, and I
-was astonished at the great noise of the storm, which was so gloomy that
-I could not endure the tempest of it. I perceived the country of
-England, and I hoped I would reach there in great safety. Many
-passengers were much pleased to arrive at the country. I met Brougham
-unexpectedly in the street, and he went with me to his beautiful house,
-and I talked with him for a long time. He asked me to tarry with him
-several months, because he wished to converse with me about the affairs
-of the Institution, and the pupils, and teachers. He said that he loved
-all the pupils, because he pitied those who were deaf and dumb, so that
-he wished that all of the pupils could go to his house and be at the
-large feast. I walked with Brougham through the different streets of
-London, and I saw many interesting curiosities and excellent houses. I
-had the pleasure of seeing William IV. in the palace by the favour of
-Brougham, and he was delighted to talk with me for a long time. At
-length Brougham parted with me with great regret. I reached the United
-States, and I found myself very healthy. I went to my relations and
-friends again, and they were much pleased to talk with me about my
-adventures, the matter of London, and the character of Lord Chancellor
-Henry Brougham. I was struck with vast wonder at the city of London. I
-have made my composition of the fable of Brougham."
-
-A pretty little girl told the pupils a humorous story by signs; and her
-action was so eloquent that, with little help from the teacher, we were
-able to make it all out. It was a story of a sailor and his bargain of
-caps; and the child showed a knowledge of what goes on on board a ship
-which we should scarcely have expected from her. Her imitation of
-heaving the lead, of climbing the rigging, and of exchanging jokes upon
-deck, was capital. It was an interesting thing to see the eyes of all
-her companions fixed on her, and the bursts of laughter with which they
-greeted the points of the story.
-
-The apparatus-room is full of pretty things, and the diversity of the
-appeals to the eye is wonderful. A paper sail is enclosed in the
-receiver, from which the air is exhausted in the view of the pupils. As
-they cannot hear the air rushing back, the fluttering of this paper sail
-is made use of to convey the fact to them. The natural sciences afford a
-fine field of study for them, as far as they occasion the recognition of
-particular facts. The present limited power of generalization of the
-learners, of course, prevents their climbing to the heights of any
-science; but an immense range of facts is laid open to them by studies
-of this nature, in which they usually show a strong interest. The
-Philadelphia pupils are lectured to by a deaf and dumb teacher, who
-passes a happy life in the apparatus-room. He showed us several
-mechanical contrivances of his own; among the rest, a beautiful little
-locomotive engine, which ran on a tiny railroad round two large rooms.
-The maker testified infinite glee at the wonder and interest of a child
-who was with us, who raced after the engine, round and round the rooms,
-with a grave countenance, for as long as we could stay.
-
-In the girls' workroom there were rows of knitters, straw-platters, and
-needle-women. The ingenuity they put into their work is great. The
-nicety of the platting of dolls' straw-bonnets cannot be surpassed; and
-I am in possession of a pair of worsted gloves, double knitted, of the
-size of my thumb-nail, of which every finger is perfect in its
-proportions. Perhaps this may be the class of American society destined
-to carry on the ingenuity of handiworks to perfection, as the Shakers
-seem to be appointed to show how far neatness can go. One little girl
-who was knitting in the workroom is distinguished from the rest by being
-able to speak. So the poor little thing understands the case. She can
-speak two words, "George" and "brother," having become deaf when she had
-learned this much of language. She likes being asked to speak, and gives
-the two words in a plaintive tone, much like the inarticulate cry of a
-young animal.
-
-I visited the New-York Institution in company with several ladies, two
-of whom were deaf and dumb, and had been pupils in the school. One of
-these had married a teacher, and had been left a widow, with three
-children, the year before. She was a most vivacious personage, and
-evidently a favourite among the pupils. The asylum is a large building,
-standing on high ground, and with great advantages of space about it. It
-contains 140 out of the 1066 deaf-mutes existing in the State of
-New-York. The pupils are received up to the age of 25 years; and there
-was one of 27 from North Carolina, who was making great progress. The
-girls' dormitory, containing 80 beds, was light, airy, and beautifully
-neat; the small philosophical apparatus, museum, and library were in
-fine order, and a general air of cheerfulness pervaded the institution.
-
-I had had frequent doubts whether nearly all the pupils in these asylums
-were perfectly deaf: on this occasion I caused my trumpet to be tried on
-several, and found that some could hear, and some imitate the sounds
-conveyed through it. The teachers rather discouraged the trial, and put
-away all suggestions about the use of these means of getting at the
-minds of their pupils. They were quite sure that the manual methods of
-teaching were the only ones by which their charge can profit. It is
-natural that, wedded as they are to the methods which to a certain
-extent succeed in the asylum, they should not like any interference with
-these; but surely the guardians of these institutions should see that,
-while so few out of the large number of deaf-mutes can be provided with
-education, those few should be of a class to whom no other means are
-open. The totally deaf should be first served, in all reason and
-humanity; and those who have any hearing at all should have the full
-advantage of the remains of the sense. The most meager instruction by
-oral language is worth far more than the fullest that can be given by
-signs and the finger alphabet. In their case the two should be united
-where it is possible; but especially the ear should be made use of as
-long as there are any instruments by which it may be reached. My own
-belief is that there are, in these institutions and out of them, many
-who have been condemned to the condition of mutes who have hearing
-enough to furnish them with speech, imperfect to the listener, perhaps,
-but inestimable as an instrument of communication, and of accuracy and
-enlargement of thought. I would strongly urge upon the benevolent under
-whose notice the cases of deaf young children may come, that they should
-try experiments with every eartrumpet that has been invented before they
-conclude that the children are perfectly deaf, and must, therefore, be
-dumb.
-
-I may mention here that I some time ago discovered, by the merest
-accident, that I could perfectly hear the softest notes of a musical
-snuffbox by putting it on my head. The effect was tremendous, at first
-intolerably delicious. It immediately struck me that this might be a
-resource in the case of deaf-mutes. If the deafness of any was of a kind
-which would admit of the establishment of means of hearing anything,
-there was no saying how far the discovery might be improved. The causes
-and kinds of deafness vary almost as the subjects; and there might be no
-few who could hear as I did, and with whom some kind of audible
-communication might be established. I wrote to New-York, and begged two
-of my friends to go out to the asylum with musical boxes, and try the
-effect. Their report was that they believed none of the pupils could
-hear at all by this method. But I am not yet fully satisfied. So few of
-them have the slightest idea of what hearing is, they show that their
-notion is so wide of the mark, and they are so inexpert at giving an
-account of their feelings, that I have not given up the matter yet. At
-any rate, no harm can be done by offering the suggestion to any who may
-be disposed to take it up. We went to the New-York asylum without
-notice, and walked immediately into one of the classrooms, where the
-pupils were at a historical lesson, each standing before a slate as tall
-as himself. In a minute, while the five ladies of our party were taking
-their seats, an archlooking lad wrote down in the middle of his lesson
-about Richard I. and John, that I was there, describing me as the one
-next the lady in green, and giving a short account of me for the
-edification of his companions. It was almost instantly rubbed out,
-before it was supposed we had seen it. We could not make out by what
-means he knew me.
-
-The lessons here were no more satisfactory than elsewhere as to any
-enlargement or accuracy of thought in the pupils. I doubt whether the
-means of reaching their wants have yet been discovered, for nothing can
-exceed the diligence and zeal with which the means in use are applied.
-Their repetition of what they had been taught was so far superior to
-what they could bring out of their own minds, as to convince us that the
-reproduction was little more than an act of memory. They told us the
-history of Richard I. and John with tolerable accuracy; but they gave us
-the strangest accounts of the seasons of the year that ever were seen. A
-just idea occurred, however, here and there. A boy mentioned swimming as
-a seasonable pleasure; and others fruits; and one girl instanced
-"convenience of studying" as an advantage of cool weather. In geography,
-but little if any progress had been made; and the arithmetic was not
-much more promising. Everything that can be done is zealously done, but
-that all is very little. The teachers declare that the greatest
-difficulty is with the tempers of their pupils. They are suspicious and
-jealous; and when they once get a wrong idea, and go into a passion upon
-it, there is no removing it; no possibility of explanation remains. They
-are strongly affectionate, however, towards individuals, and, as we
-could bear witness, very sudden in their attachments. We doubtless owed
-much to having two deaf and dumb ladies in our party; but, when we went
-away, they crowded round us to shake hands again and again, and waved
-their hats and kissed their hands from the windows and doors as long as
-we remained in sight.
-
-Among the exercises in composition which are selected for the annual
-report of this institution, there is one which is no mere recollection
-of something read or told, but an actual account of a piece of personal
-experience; and so far superior to what one usually sees from the pens
-of deaf-mutes, that I am tempted to give a portion of it. It is an
-account, by a lad of fifteen, of a journey to Niagara Falls.
-
-"And soon we went into the steamboat. The steamboat stayed on the shore
-for a long time. Soon the boat left it and sailed away over the Lake
-Ontario. We were happy to view the lake, and we stayed in the boat all
-night. The next morning we arrived at Lewistown, and after breakfast we
-entered one of the stages for Niagara Falls. About 12 o'clock we arrived
-at Niagara Falls and entered Mr. B.'s uncle's house. I was soon
-introduced to Mr. B.'s uncle, aunt, and cousins by himself. After dinner
-we left the house of his uncle for the purpose of visiting the falls,
-which belong to his uncles, Judge and General Porter, and we crossed the
-rapids; but we stopped at a part of the bridge and viewed the rapids
-with a feeling of interest and curiosity. The rapids appeared to us
-beautiful, and violent, and quarrelsome. Soon we left it, and went to
-one of the islands to see the falls. When we arrived in a portion
-situated near the falls, we felt admiration and interest, and went near
-the river and saw the falls. We felt much wonder. The falls seemed to us
-angry and beautiful. We stayed in the part near the falls for a long
-time, and felt amazement. We went into the staircase and descended, and
-we were very tired of descending in it, and we went to the rock to view
-the falls. The falls are about one hundred and sixty feet in height. We
-saw the beautiful rainbow of red, green, blue, and yellow colours. One
-day we went to the river and crossed it by means of a ferryboat, and
-left it. We went to the Canada side, and arrived at Table Rock. Mr. B.
-dressed himself in some old coarse clothes, and then he descended and
-went under the sheet of the falls. I felt earnest and anxious to go into
-it. In a few minutes he returned to me, and soon we went back to the
-river, and crossed the river, and came home, and soon sat down and
-dined. We went to the island and found some plant whose name I did not
-know. I had never seen it. When we were on the United States side we
-could see Canada. One day we again went to the ferry to cross the river,
-and went to Table Rock. We dressed ourselves in some old clothes, and
-entered under the falls with curiosity and wonder. We stayed at Niagara
-Falls a week. I wonder how the water of the Niagara River never is
-exhausted."
-
-That so much power of expression as this can be attained is, to those
-who reflect what grammar is, and what a variety of operations is
-required in putting it to use at all, a great encouragement to persevere
-in investigating the minds of the deaf and dumb, and in teaching them,
-in the hope that means may at length be found of so enlarging their
-intercourses at an early age as to create more to be expressed, as well
-as to improve the mode of expression. Those who may aid in such a
-conquest over difficulty will be great benefactors to mankind. Greater
-still will be the physicians who shall succeed in guarding the organ of
-hearing from early accident and decay. It should not be forgotten by
-physicians or parents that, in the great majority of cases, the
-infirmity of deaf-mutes is not from birth.
-
-The education of the blind is a far more cheering subject than that of
-the deaf and dumb. The experiments which have been made in regard to it
-are so splendid, and their success so complete, that it almost seems as
-if little improvement remained to be achieved. It appears doubtful
-whether the education of the blind has ever been carried on so far as at
-present in the United States; and there is one set of particulars, at
-least, in which we should do well to learn from the new country.
-
-I am grieved to find in England, among some who ought to inform
-themselves fully on the subject, a strong prejudice against the
-discovery by which the blind are enabled to read, for their own
-instruction and amusement. The method of printing for the blind, with
-raised and sharp types, on paper thicker and more wetted than in the
-ordinary process of printing, is put to full and successful use at the
-fine institution at Boston. Having seen the printing and the books,
-heard the public readings, and watched the private studies of the blind,
-all the objections brought to the plan by those who have not seen its
-operation appear to me more trifling than I can express.
-
-The pupils do the greater part of the printing; the laying on the
-sheets, working off the impressions, &c. By means of recent
-improvements, the bulk of the books (one great objection) has been
-diminished two thirds; the type remaining so palpable that new pupils
-learn to read with ease in a few weeks. Of course, the expense is
-lessened with the bulk; and a further reduction may be looked for as
-improvement advances and the demand increases. Even now the expense is
-not great enough to be an objection in the way of materially aiding so
-small a class as the blind.
-
-I have in my possession the alphabet, the Lord's prayer, some hymns, and
-a volume on grammar, printed for the use of the blind; and six sets of
-all that has been printed at the Boston press, with the exception of the
-Testament, are on the way to me.[10] It is my wish to disperse this
-precious literature where it may have the fairest trial; and I shall be
-happy to receive any aid in the distribution which the active friends of
-the blind may be disposed to afford.
-
-Footnote 10: I have just received the following works, printed at the
-Boston press for the use of the blind. I shall be thankful for
-assistance in getting them into use, in securing a fair trial of them by
-blind pupils:--
-
-    Six copies of the Book of Psalms.
-    ----------------- Pilgrim's Progress.
-    ----------------- Dairyman's Daughter.
-    ----------------- Life of Philip Melancthon.
-    An Atlas of the United States.
-
-The common letters are used, and not any abbreviated language. I think
-this is wise; for thus the large class of persons who become blind after
-having been able to read are suited at once; and it seems desirable to
-make as little difference as possible in the instrument of communication
-used by the blind and the seeing. It appears probable that, before any
-very long time, all valuable literature may be put into the hands of the
-blind; and the preparation will take place with much more ease if the
-common alphabet be used, than if works have to be translated into a set
-of arbitrary signs. It is easy for a blind person, previously able to
-read, to learn the use of the raised printing. Even adults, whose
-fingers' ends are none of the most promising, soon achieve the
-accomplishment. An experiment has been made on a poor washerwoman with
-the specimens I brought over. She had lost her sight eight years; but
-she now reads, and is daily looking for a new supply of literature from
-Boston, which a kind friend has ordered for her.
-
-It will scarcely be believed that the objection to this exercise which
-is most strongly insisted on is, that it is far better for the blind to
-be read to than that they should read to themselves. It seems to me that
-this might just as well be said about persons who see; that it would
-save time for one member only of a family to read, while the others
-might thus be saved the trouble of learning their letters. Let the
-blind be read to as much as any benevolent person pleases; but why
-should they not also be allowed the privilege of private study? Private
-reading is of far more value and interest to them than to persons who
-have more diversified occupations in their power. None could start this
-objection who had seen, as I have, the blind at their private studies.
-Instead of poring over a book held in the hand, as others do, they lay
-their volume on the desk before them, lightly touch the lines with one
-finger of the right hand, followed by one finger of the left, and, with
-face upturned to the ceiling, show in their varying countenances the
-emotions stirred up by what they are reading. A frequent passing smile,
-an occasional laugh, or an animated expression of grave interest passes
-over the face, while the touch is exploring the meaning which it was
-till lately thought could enter only through the eye or the ear. They
-may be seen going back to the beginning of a passage which interests
-them, reading it three or four times over, dwelling upon it as we do
-upon the beauties of our favourite authors, and thus deriving a benefit
-which cannot be communicated by public reading.
-
-One simple question seems to set this matter in its true light. If we
-were to become blind to-morrow, should we prefer depending on being read
-to, or having, in addition to this privilege, a library which we could
-read for ourselves?
-
-As to the speed with which the blind become able to read, those whom I
-heard read aloud about as fast as the better sort of readers in a
-Lancasterian school; with, perhaps, the interval of a second between the
-longer words, and perfect readiness about the commonest little words.
-
-Alphabetical printing is far from being the only use the Boston press is
-put to. The arithmetical, geometrical, and musical signs are as easily
-prepared; and there is an atlas which far surpasses any illustrations of
-geography previously devised. The maps made in Europe are very
-expensive, and exceedingly troublesome to prepare, the boundaries of sea
-and land being represented by strings glued on to the lines of a common
-map, pasted on a board. The American maps are embossed; the land being
-raised, and the water depressed; one species of raised mark being used
-for mountains, another for towns, another for boundaries; the degrees
-being marked by figures in the margin, and the most important names in
-the same print with their books. These maps are really elegant in
-appearance, and seem to serve all purposes.
-
-"Do you think," said I, to a little boy in the Blind School at
-Philadelphia, "that you could show me on this large map where I have
-been travelling in the United States?"
-
-"I could, if you'd tell me where you have been," replied he.
-
-"Well, I will tell you my whole journey, and you shall show my friends
-here where I have been."
-
-The little fellow did not make a single mistake. Up rivers, over
-mountains, across boundaries, round cataracts, along lakes, straight up
-to towns went his delicate fingers, as unerringly as our eyes. This _is_
-a triumph. It brings out the love of the blind pupils for geography; and
-with this, the proof that there are classes of ideas which we are
-ignorant or heedless of, and which yield a benefit and enjoyment which
-we can little understand, to those to whom they serve instead of visual
-ideas. What is our notion of a map and of the study of geography,
-putting visual ideas out of the question? The inquiry reminds one of
-Saunderson's reply from his deathbed to the conversation of a clergyman
-who was plying the blind philosopher with the common arguments in
-Natural Theology: "You would fain have me allow the force of your
-arguments, drawn from the wonders of the visible creation; but may it
-not be that they only seem to you wonderful? for you and other men have
-always been wondering how I could accomplish many things which seem to
-me perfectly simple."
-
-The best friends and most experienced teachers of the blind lay down, as
-their first principle in the education of their charge, that the blind
-are to be treated in all possible respects like other people; and these
-respects are far more numerous than the inexperienced would suppose. One
-of the hardest circumstances in the lot of a blind child is that his
-spirits are needlessly depressed, and his habits made needlessly
-dependant. From his birth, or from the period of his loss of sight, he
-never finds himself addressed in the every-day human voice. He hears
-words of pity from strangers, uttered in tones of hesitating compassion;
-and there is a something in the voices of his parents when they speak to
-him which is different from their tone towards their other children.
-Everything is done for him. He is dressed, he is fed, he is guided. If
-he attempts to walk alone, some one removes every impediment which lies
-in his way. A worse evil than even helplessness arises out of this
-method of treatment. The spirits and temper are injured. The child is
-depressed when some one is not amusing him, and sinks into apathy when
-left to himself. If there is the slightest intermission or abatement of
-tenderness in the tone in which he is addressed, he is hurt. If he
-thinks himself neglected for a moment, he broods over the fancied
-injury, and in his darkness and silence nourishes bad passions. The
-experienced students of the case of the blind hint at worse consequences
-still arising from this pernicious indulgence of the blind at home.
-Unless the mind be fully and independently exercised, and unless the
-blind be drawn off from the contemplation of himself as an isolated and
-unfortunate, if not injured being, the animal nature becomes too strong
-for control, and some species of sensual vice finishes the destruction
-which ill-judged indulgence began.
-
-In the New-England Institution at Boston, the pupils are treated, from
-the time of their entrance, like human beings who come to be educated.
-All there are on an equality, except a very few of the people about the
-house. The teachers are blind, and so all have to live on together on
-the same terms. It is a community of persons with four senses. It is
-here seen at once how inexpressibly absurd it is to be spending time and
-wasting energy in bemoaning the absence of a fifth power, while there
-are four existing to made use of. The universe is around them to be
-studied, and life is before them to be conquered; and here they may be
-set vigorously on their way. At first the pupils bitterly feel the want
-of the caressing and pampering they have been used to at home. Some few,
-who have come in too late, are found to have been irretrievably
-incapacitated by it; but almost all revive in a surprisingly short time,
-and experience so much enjoyment from their newly-acquired independence,
-their sense of safety, their power of occupation, the cessation of all
-pity and repining, and the novel feeling of equality with those about
-them, that they declare themselves to have entered upon a new life. Many
-drop expressions resembling that of one of the pupils, who declared that
-she never thought before that it was a happy thing to live.
-
-Their zeal about their occupations appears remarkable to those who do
-not reflect that holyday is no pleasure to the blind, and idleness a
-real punishment, as it is the one thing of which they have had too much
-all their lives. They are eager to be busy from morning till night; and
-the care of their teachers is to change their employments frequently,
-as there is but little suspension of work. They have a playground, with
-swings and other means of exercise; but one of the greatest difficulties
-in the management is to cause these to be made a proper use of. The
-blind are commonly indisposed to exercise; and in the New-England
-Institution little is done in this way, though the pupils are shut out
-into the open air once, and even twice a day in summer, the house doors
-actually closed against them. They sit down in groups and talk, or bask
-in some sunny corner of the grounds, hurrying back at the first signal
-to their books, their music, their mat and basket making, sewing, and
-travels on the map.
-
-Another great difficulty is to teach them a good carriage and manners.
-Blind children usually fall into a set of disagreeable habits while
-other children are learning to look about them. They wag their heads,
-roll their eyes, twitch their elbows, and keep their bodies in a
-perpetual seesaw as often as they are left to themselves; and it is
-surprising how much time and vigilance are required to make them sit,
-stand, and walk like other people. As all directions to this purpose
-must appear to them purely arbitrary, their faith in their instructers
-has to be drawn upon to secure their obedience in these particulars, and
-the work to be done is to break the habits of a life; so that it really
-seems easier to them to learn a science or a language than to hold up
-their heads and sit still on their chairs. The manners of the blind
-usually show a great bashfulness on the surface of a prodigious vanity.
-This is chiefly the fault of the seeing with whom they have intercourse.
-If their compassionate visiters would suppress all tears and sighs, make
-an effort to forget all about the sense that is absent, and treat them,
-on the ground of the other four, as they would treat all other pupils in
-any other school, the demeanour of the blind would nearly cease to be
-peculiar. Their manners are rectified easily enough by the only method
-which can ever avail for the cure of bad manners; by cultivating their
-kindly feelings and their self-respect, and by accustoming them to good
-society.
-
-The studies at the institution at Boston are appointed according to the
-principles laid down in the valuable report of the gentleman, Dr. Howe,
-who studied the case of the blind in Europe, and who is now at the head
-of the establishment under our notice. Among other principles is this,
-"that the blind can attain as much excellence in mathematical,
-geographical, astronomical, and other sciences, as many seeing persons;
-and that he can become as good a teacher of music, language,
-mathematics, and other sciences; all this and yet more can he do." The
-ambition, from the very beginning of the enterprise, was far higher than
-that of rescuing a few hundreds of blind persons from pauperism and
-dependant habits; it was proposed to try how noble a company of beings
-the blind might be made, and thus to do justice to the individuals under
-treatment, and to lift up the whole class of the sightless out of a
-state of depression into one of high honour, activity, and cheerfulness.
-The story, besides being a pleasant one, is a fair illustration of
-American charity in its principles and in its methods, and I will
-therefore give it in brief. I do not believe there exists in American
-literature any work breathing a more exhilarating spirit of hopefulness,
-a finer tone of meek triumph, than the Reports of the New-England
-Institution for the Education of the Blind.
-
-It appears to be only about five-and-forty years since the education of
-the blind was first undertaken; and it is much more recently that any
-just idea has been formed by anybody of the actual number of the blind.
-Even now few are aware how numerous they are. The born-blind are far
-fewer than those who lose their sight in infancy. Taken together, the
-numbers are now declared to be, in Egypt, one blind to every three
-hundred; in Middle Europe, one to every eight hundred; in North Europe,
-one in a thousand. In the United States, the number of blind is supposed
-to be eight thousand at the very least.
-
-The announcement of this fact caused a great sensation in New-England.
-The good folks there who had been accustomed to bestow their kindness
-each on some sightless old man or woman, or some petted blind child in
-his own village, had not thought of comparing notes to ascertain how
-many such cases there were, and were quite unaware of the numbers who in
-towns sit wearing their cheerless lives away by their relations'
-firesides; no immediate stimulus of want sending them forth into the
-notice of the rich and the philanthropic.
-
-The first step was the passing of an act by the legislature of
-Massachusetts, incorporating trustees of the New-England Asylum for the
-Blind. These trustees sent Dr. Howe to Europe to study the similar
-institutions there, and bring back the necessary teachers and apparatus.
-Dr. Howe's report on his return is extremely interesting. He brought
-over a blind teacher from Paris, who, besides being skilled in the art
-of communicating knowledge, is learned in the classics, history, and
-mathematics. With him came a blind mechanic from Edinburgh, who
-instructs the pupils in the different kinds of manufacture, on which
-many of them depend for a subsistence.
-
-Six young persons were taken at random from different parts of the State
-of Massachusetts, and put under tuition. They were between the ages of
-six and twenty years. At the end of five months all these six could read
-correctly by the touch; had proceeded farther in arithmetic than seeing
-children usually do in the same time; knew more of geography; had made
-considerable attainment in music; and offered for sale moccasins and
-doormats of as good quality and appearance as any sold in the shops of
-Boston. The legislature testified its satisfaction by voting an annual
-appropriation of six thousand dollars to the institution, on condition
-of its boarding and educating, free of cost, twenty poor blind persons
-from the State of Massachusetts.
-
-The public was no less delighted. Every one began to inquire what he
-could do. Money was given, objects were sought out; but some
-rallying-point for all the effort excited was wanted. This was soon
-supplied. A wealthy citizen of Boston, Colonel Perkins, offered his
-mansion and outbuildings in Pearl-street as a residence for the pupils,
-if, within a given time, funds were raised to support the establishment.
-This act of munificence fully answered the purposes of the generous
-citizen who performed it. Within one month upward of fifty thousand
-dollars were contributed and placed to the credit of the institution.
-The legislatures of three other New-England states have made
-appropriations for the object; an estate joining Colonel Perkins's has
-been purchased and thrown into a playground; the establishment contains
-five officers and about fifty pupils, and it is in contemplation to
-increase the accommodations so as to admit more. The funds are ample,
-and the means of instruction of a very superior kind.
-
-The business of the house is carried on by the pupils as far as
-possible, and mechanical arts are taught with care and diligence; but
-the rule of the establishment is to improve the mental resources of the
-pupils to the utmost. Those who cannot do better are enabled to earn
-their livelihood by the making of mats, baskets, and mattresses; but a
-higher destination is prepared for all who show ability to become
-organists of churches, and teachers of languages and science. I saw some
-of the pupils writing, some sewing, some practising music, some reading.
-I was struck with an expression of sadness in many of their faces, and
-with a listlessness of manner in some; but I am aware that, owing to the
-illness of the director and some other circumstances, I saw the
-establishment to great disadvantage. I believe, however, that not a few
-of its best friends, among whom may perchance be included some of its
-managers themselves, would like to see more mirthful exercises and
-readings introduced in the place of some of the exclusively religious
-contemplations offered to the pupils. The best homage which the
-guardians of the blind could offer to Him whose blessing they invoke is
-in the thoroughly exercised minds of their charge; minds strong in
-power, gay in innocence, and joyous in gratitude.
-
-The institution which I had the best means of observing, and which
-interested me more than any charitable establishment in America, was the
-Philadelphia Asylum for the Blind. It was humble in its arrangements and
-numbers when I first went, but before I left the country it seemed in a
-fair way to flourish. It is impossible to overrate the merits of Mr.
-Friedlander, its principal, in regard to it. The difficulties with which
-he had to struggle, from confined space, deficient apparatus, and other
-inconveniences resulting from narrow means, would have deterred almost
-any one else from undertaking anything till better aid could be
-provided. But he was cheered by the light which beamed out daily more
-brightly from the faces of his little flock of pupils, and supported by
-the intellectual power which they manifested from period to period of
-their course. Of the eleven he found, to his delight, that no fewer than
-"six were endowed with remarkable intellectual faculties, and three with
-good ones; while, with regard to the remaining two, the development of
-their minds might still be expected." A larger dwelling was next
-engaged; the legislature showed an interest in the institution, and I
-have no doubt it is by this time flourishing.
-
-Mr. Friedlander and the matron, Miss Nicholls, had succeeded in
-rectifying the carriage and manners of nearly all their pupils. As to
-their studies, the aim is as high as in the New-England Institution, and
-will, no doubt, be equally successful. The music was admirable, except
-for the pronunciation of words in the singing. It was a great pleasure
-to me to go and hear their musical exercises, they formed so good a band
-of instrumentalists, and sang so well. There were horns, flutes,
-violins, and the piano. As for humbler matters, besides the ornamental
-works of the girls, the fringes, braids, lampstands, &c., I saw a frock
-made by one of them during the leisure hours of one week. The work was
-excellent, the gathers of the skirt being stocked into the waistband as
-evenly and regularly as by a common mantuamaker. The girls' hair was
-dressed like that of other young ladies, only scarcely a hair was out of
-its place; and each blind girl dresses her own hair. They peel potatoes
-with the utmost accuracy, and as quickly as others. But, with all this
-care, their cultivation of mind is most attended to. The girls stand as
-good an examination as the boys in mental arithmetic, geography, and
-reading aloud.
-
-Before I left Philadelphia the annual meeting of the public in the Music
-Hall, to see the progress of Mr. Friedlander's pupils, took place. I was
-requested to write the address to be delivered by one of the blind in
-the name of the rest; and now I found what the difficulty is to an
-inexperienced person, of throwing one's self into the mind of a being in
-such different circumstances, and uttering only what he might say with
-truth. I now saw that the common run of hymns and other compositions put
-into the mouths of the blind become no less cant when uttered by them,
-than the generality of the so-called religious tracts which are written
-for the poor. The blind do not know what they miss in not receiving the
-light of the sun; and they would never spontaneously lament about it,
-nor would they naturally try to be submissive and resigned about
-privations which they are only by inference aware of. Their resignation
-should be about evils whose pressure they actually feel. To a blind
-child it is a greater pain to have a thorn in its foot than not to have
-eyes; to a blind man it is a greater sorrow not to have got his temper
-under control than to be shut out from the face of nature. The joy of
-the sightless should, in the same manner, be for the positive powers
-they hold and the achievements they grasp, and not for what others call
-compensations for what they do not miss. To bear all this in mind, and
-to conceive one's thoughts accordingly; to root out of the expression of
-thought every visual image, and substitute such, derived from other
-senses, as may arise naturally from the state of mind of the blind, is
-no easy task, as any one may find who tries. It led me into a
-speculation on the vast amount of empty words which the blind must
-swallow while seeking from books their intellectual food. We are all apt
-in reading to take in, as true and understood, a great deal more than we
-verify and comprehend; but, in the intercourses of the blind, what a
-tremendous proportion does the unreal bear to the real which is offered
-them!
-
-I saw at the Deaf and Dumb Asylum at Boston one of those unhappy beings,
-the bare mention of whose case excites painful feelings of compassion. I
-was told that a young man who was deaf, dumb, and blind was on the
-premises, and he was brought to us. Impossible as it was to hold
-communication with him, we were all glad when, after standing and
-wandering awkwardly about, he turned from us and made his way out. He is
-not quite blind. He can distinguish light from darkness, but cannot be
-taught by any of the signs which are used with his deaf-mute companions.
-His temper is violent, and there seems to be no way of increasing his
-enjoyments. His favourite occupation is piling wood, and we saw him
-doing this with some activity, mounted on the woodpile.
-
-It is now feared that the cases of this tremendous degree of privation
-are not so few as has been hitherto supposed. In a Memorial of the Genoa
-Deaf and Dumb Institution, it is stated that there are seven such cases
-in the Sardinian States on the mainland of Italy; and the probability is
-that about the same proportion as in other kinds of infirmity exists
-among other nations. Copious accounts have been given of three sufferers
-of this class; and a fourth, Hannah Lamb, who was accidentally burned to
-death in London at the age of nine years, has been mentioned in print.
-The three of whom we have been favoured with copious accounts are James
-Mitchell, who is described to us by Dugald Stewart; Victoria Morisseau,
-at Paris, by M. Bébian; and Julia Brace, at Hartford (Connecticut), by
-Mrs. Sigourney. All these have given evidence of some degree of
-intellectual activity, and feeling of right and wrong; enough to
-constitute a most affecting appeal to those who are too late to aid
-them, but who may possibly be the means of saving others from falling
-into their state. The obligation lies chiefly on the medical profession.
-Every enlightened member of that profession laments that little is known
-about the diseases of the ear and their treatment. Whenever this organ,
-with its liabilities, becomes as well understood as that of sight, the
-number of deaf-mutes will doubtless be much reduced, and such cases as
-that of poor Julia Brace will probably disappear; at least the chances
-of the occurrence of such will be incalculably lessened.
-
-The generosity of American society, already so active and extensive,
-will continue to be exerted in behalf of sufferers from the privation of
-the senses, till all who need it will be comprehended in its care. No
-one doubts that the charity will be done. The fear is lest the
-philosophy which should enlighten and guide the charity should be
-wanting. Such sufferers are apt to allure the observer, by means of his
-tenderest sympathies, into the imaginative regions of philosophy.
-Science and generosity equally demand that the allurement should be
-resisted. If observers will put away all mere imaginations respecting
-their charge; if they will cease to approach them as superior beings in
-disguise, and look upon them as a peculiar class of children more than
-ordinarily ignorant, and ignorant in a remarkable direction, facts may
-be learned relative to the formation of mind and the exercise of
-intellect which may give cause to the race of ordinary men to look upon
-their infirm brethren with gratitude and love, as the medium through
-which new and great blessings have been conferred. By a union of
-inquirers and experimenters, by the speculative and practical cordially
-joining to work out the cases of human beings with four senses, the
-number might perhaps be speedily lessened of those who, seeing, see not,
-and who, hearing, hear not nor understand.
-
-
-
-
-NAHANT.
-
-
-    "A breath of our free heaven and noble sires."
-
-                                                                 HEMANS.
-
-
-The whole coast of Massachusetts Bay is well worth the study of the
-traveller. Nothing can be more unlike than the aspect of the northern
-and southern extremities of the bay. Of Cape Ann, the northern point,
-with its bold shores and inexhaustible granite quarries, I have given
-some account in another book.[11] Not a ledge of rock is to be seen near
-Cape Cod, the southern extremity; but, instead of it, a sand so deep
-that travellers who have the choice of reaching it by horse or carriage
-prefer going over the last twenty miles on horseback; but then the
-sandhills are of so dazzling a whiteness as to distress the eyes. The
-inhabitants are a private race of fishermen and saltmen, dwelling in
-ground-floor houses, which are set down among the sand ridges without
-plan or order. Some communication is kept up between them and a yet more
-secluded race of citizens, the inhabitants of Nantucket and Martha's
-Vineyard, two islands which lie south of the southern peninsula of the
-bay. I much regretted that I had no opportunity of visiting these
-islands. Some stories that are abroad about the simplicity of the
-natives are enough to kindle the stranger's curiosity to see so fresh a
-specimen of human nature. In Nantucket there is not a tree, and scarcely
-a shrub. It is said that a fisherman's son, on accompanying his father
-for the first time to the mainland, saw a scrubby apple-tree. In great
-emotion, he cried, "Oh father! look there! what a beautiful tree! and
-what are those beautiful things on it? Are they lemons?" It was not my
-fortune to see any citizen of the United States who did not know an
-apple-tree at sight. It must be highly instructive to take a trip from
-this remarkable place across the bay to Nahant, in the month of August.
-
-Footnote 11: Society in America, vol. i., page 281.
-
-It was October when I visited Nahant, and all the gay birds of the
-summer had flown. I was not sorry for this, for fine people may be seen
-just as well in places where they are less in the way than on this rock.
-Nahant is a promontory which stretches out into the bay a few miles
-north of Boston; or it might rather be called two islands, connected
-with each other and with the mainland by ridges of sand and pebbles. The
-outermost of the islands is the larger, and it measures rather above a
-mile and a half in circumference. The whole promontory was bought, in
-the seventeenth century, by a certain farmer Dexter, of an Indian chief,
-Black Willy, for a suit of clothes. Probably the one party was as far as
-the other from foreseeing what use the place would be put to in the
-coming days. Nahant is now the resort of the Boston gentry in the hot
-months. Several of them have cottages on the promontory; and for those
-who are brought by the indefatigable steamboat, there is a stupendous
-hotel, the proportion of which to the place it is built on is as a
-man-of-war would be riding in one of the lovely Massachusetts ponds.
-Some middle-aged gentlemen remember the time when there was only one
-house on Nahant; and now there are balls in this hotel, where the
-extreme of dress and other luxury is seen, while the beach which
-connects the rock with the mainland is gay with hundreds of carriages
-and equestrians on bright summer mornings.
-
-This beach consists of gray sand, beaten so hard by the action of the
-waves from the harbour on one side and the bay on the other, that the
-wheels of carriages make no impression, and the feet of horses resound
-as on the hardest road. It is the most delightful place for a drive or a
-gallop that can be imagined, except to the timorous, who may chance to
-find their horses frightened when the waves are boisterous on either
-hand at once. We entered upon it when the water was nearly at its
-height, and the passage was narrow. We had passed through the busy town
-of Lynn, and left its many hundreds of shoemaking families at their work
-behind us. We had passed many a field where the shoemaker, turned farmer
-for the season, was manuring his land with fishheads and offal; and now
-we burst into a region where no sounds of labour were heard, few signs
-of vegetation seen. We were alone with our own voices and the dashing of
-the sea, which seemed likely to take us off our feet.
-
-When we reached Great Nahant, several picturesque cottages of the
-gentry came into view. All had piazzas, and several were adorned with
-bright creeping plants. No inhabitants were visible. Some rows of
-miserable young trees looked as if they were set up in order to be blown
-down. Many attempts have been made to raise forest-trees, but hitherto
-in vain. Some large willows grow in a partially sheltered spot, and
-under these are the boarding-houses of the place. The verdure is scanty,
-of course, and this is not the kind of beauty to be looked for in
-Nahant. The charms of the place are in the distant views, and among the
-picturesque and intricate rocks.
-
-The variety contained within the circuit of a mile and a half is fully
-known only to the summer residents; but we saw something of it. At one
-moment we were prying into the recesses of the Swallows' Cave, listening
-to the rumbling of the waves within it, making discoveries of birds'
-nests, and looking up through its dark chasms to the sky. At the next we
-caught a view, between two rising grounds, of Boston, East Boston, and
-Chelsea, sitting afar off upon the sunny waters. Here and there was a
-quiet strip of beach, where we sat watching the rich crop of weed swayed
-to and fro by the spreading and retreating of the translucent waters;
-and then at intervals we came to where the waves boil among the caverns,
-making a busy roar in the stillest hour of the stillest day. Here all
-was so chill and shadowy that the open sea, with its sunny sail and
-canopy of pearly clouds, looked as if it were quite another region,
-brought into view by some magic, but really lying on the other side of
-the world.
-
-There is a luxurious bathing-place for ladies, a little beach so shut in
-by rocks, along the top of which runs a high fence, that the retirement
-is complete. Near it is the Spouting Horn, where we sat an unmeasured
-time, watching the rising tide spouting more magnificently every moment
-from the recess called The Horn. Every wave rushed in and splashed out
-again with a roar, the fragments of seaweed flying off like shot. A
-clever little boy belonging to our party was meantime abroad among the
-boarding-houses, managing to get us a dinner. He saved us all the
-trouble, and came to summon us, and show us the way. His father could
-not have managed better than he did.
-
-We rambled about in the afternoon till we could no longer conceal from
-ourselves that the sun was getting low. We intended to describe a
-circuit in returning, so as to make as much of our road as possible lie
-along the beach. Never was the world bathed in a lovelier atmosphere
-than this evening. The rocks, particularly the island called Egg Rock,
-were of that soft lilach hue which harmonizes with the green sea on
-sunny evenings. While this light was brightest, we suddenly came upon a
-busy and remarkable scene--the hamlet of Swampscot, on the beach--the
-place where novel-readers go to look for Mucklebacket's cottage, so much
-does it resemble the beach scenes in the Antiquary. Boats were drawn up
-on the shore, the smallest boats, really for use, that I ever saw. They
-are flatbottomed, and are tenanted by one man, or, at most, two, when
-going out for cod. The men are much cramped in these tiny boats, and
-need exercise when they come to shore, and we saw a company playing at
-quoits at the close of their working-day. Many children were at play,
-their little figures seen in black relief against the sea, or trailing
-long shadows over the washed and glistening sands. Women were coming
-homeward with their milkpans or taking in their linen from the lines.
-All were busy, and all looked joyous. While my companions were
-bargaining for fish I had time to watch the singular scene; and when it
-was necessary to be gone, and we turned up into the darkening lanes away
-from the sea, we looked back to the last moment upon this busy reach of
-the bright shore.
-
-The scenery of Massachusetts Bay is a treasure which Boston possesses
-over and above what is enjoyed by her sister cities of the East.
-New-York has a host of beauties about her, it is true; the North River,
-Hoboken, and Staten Island; but there is something in the singularity of
-Nahant and the wild beauty of Cape Ann more captivating than the
-crowded, fully-appropriated beauties round New-York. Philadelphia,
-Baltimore, and Washington have no environs which can compare with either
-of the Northern cities. The islands which lie off Charleston, and where
-the less opulent citizens repair for health in the hot months, are
-praised more for their freshness and fertility than for any romantic
-beauty; and the coasts of the South are flat and shoaly. The South has
-the advantage in the winter, when none but the hardiest fishermen can be
-abroad to watch the march of the wintry storms over the Northern sea and
-sky; but in summer and autumn, when the Southerners who cannot afford
-to travel are panting and sickening in the glare among sands and swamps,
-the poorest of the citizens of Massachusetts may refresh himself amid
-the seabreezes on the bright promontories or cool caverns of his native
-shore.
-
-
-
-
-SIGNS OF THE TIMES IN MASSACHUSETTS.
-
-
-     "II ne faut pas une bien grande force d'esprit pour comprendre que
-     ni les richesses ni le pouvoir ne rendent heureux. Assez de gens
-     sentent cette vérité. Mais de ceux qui la connoissent pleinement et
-     se conduisent en conséquence, le nombre en est si petit qu'il
-     semble que ce soit là l'effort le plus rare de la raison humaine."
-
-                                                   --PAUL LOUIS COURIER.
-
-
-Some few years hence it will be difficult to believe what the state of
-the times was in some parts of the United States, and even in the
-maritime cities, in 1835. The system of terrorism seems now to be over.
-It did not answer its purpose, and is dropped; but in 1835 it was new
-and dreadful. One of the most hideous features of the times was the
-ignorance and unconcern of a large portion of society about what was
-being done and suffered by other divisions of its members. I suppose,
-while Luther was toiling and thundering, German ladies and gentlemen
-were supping and dancing as usual; and while the Lollards were burning,
-perhaps little was known or cared about it in warehouses and upon farms.
-So it was in America. The gentry with whom I chiefly associated in
-New-York knew little of the troubles of the abolitionists in that city,
-and nothing about the state of the anti-slavery question in their own
-region. In Boston I heard very striking facts which had taken place in
-broad daylight vehemently and honestly denied by many who happened to be
-ignorant of what had been done in their very streets. Not a few persons
-applied to me, a stranger, for information about the grand revolution of
-the time which was being transacted, not only on their own soil, but in
-the very city of their residence. A brief sketch of what I saw and
-experienced in Boston during the autumn of 1835 will afford some little
-information as to what the state of society actually was.
-
-At the end of August a grand meeting was held at Faneuil Hall in Boston.
-The hall was completely filled with the gentry of the city, and some of
-the leading citizens took the responsibility and conducted the
-proceedings of the day. The object of the meeting was to sooth the
-South, by directing public indignation upon the abolitionists. The
-pretext of the assembly was, that the Union was in danger; and though
-the preamble to the resolutions declared disapprobation of the
-institution of slavery, the resolutions themselves were all inspired by
-fear of or sympathy with slaveholders. They reprobated all agitation of
-the question, and held out assurances to the South that every
-consideration should be made subordinate to the grand one of preserving
-the Union. The speeches were a disgrace to the constituents of a
-democratic republic, pointed as they were against those rights of free
-discussion and association at the time acted upon by fellow-citizens,
-and imbued with deference for the South. In the crowded assembly no
-voice was raised in disapprobation except when a speaker pointed to the
-portrait of Washington as "that slaveholder;" and even then the murmur
-soon died into silence. The gentlemen went home, trusting that they had
-put down the abolitionists and conciliated the South. In how short a
-time did the new legislature of the State pass, in that very city, a
-series of thorough-going abolition resolutions, sixteen constituting the
-minority! while the South had already been long despising the
-half-and-half doctrine of the Faneuil Hall meeting!
-
-Meantime, the immediate result of the proceeding was the mob of which I
-have elsewhere given an account.[12] After that mob the regular meetings
-of the abolitionists were suspended for want of a place to meet in.
-Incessant attempts were made to hire any kind of public building, but no
-one would take the risk of having his property destroyed by letting it
-to so obnoxious a set of people. For six weeks exertions were made in
-vain. At last a Boston merchant, who had built a pleasant house for
-himself and his family, said, that while he had a roof over his head,
-his neighbours should not want a place in which to hold a legal meeting
-for honest objects; and he sent an offer of his house to the ladies of
-the Anti-slavery Society. They appointed their meeting for three o'clock
-in the afternoon of Wednesday, November 18. They were obliged to make
-known their intentions as they best could, for no newspaper would admit
-their advertisements, and the clergy rarely ventured to give out their
-notices, among others, from the pulpit.
-
-Footnote 12: Society in America, vol. i., p. 169-176.
-
-I was at this time slightly acquainted with three or four abolitionists,
-and I was distrusted by most or all of the body who took any interest in
-me at all. My feelings were very different from theirs about the
-slaveholders of the South; naturally enough, as these Southern
-slaveholders were nothing else in the eyes of abolitionists, while to me
-they were, in some cases, personal friends, and, in more, hospitable
-entertainers. It was known, however, that I had declared my intention of
-attending an abolition meeting. This was no new resolution. From the
-outset of my inquiry into the question, I had declared that, having
-attended colonization meetings, and heard all that the slaveholders had
-to say for themselves and against abolitionists, I felt myself bound to
-listen to the other side of the question. I always professed my
-intention of seeking acquaintance with the abolitionists, though I then
-fully and involuntarily believed two or three charges against them which
-I found to be wholly groundless. The time was now come for discharging
-this duty.
-
-On the Monday, two friends, then only new acquaintances, called on me at
-the house of a clergyman where I was staying, three miles from Boston. A
-late riot at Salem was talked over, a riot in which the family of Mr.
-Thompson had been driven from one house to another three times in one
-night, the children being snatched from their beds, carried abroad in
-the cold, and injuriously terrified. It was mentioned that the ladies of
-the Anti-slavery Society were going to attempt a meeting on the next
-Wednesday, and I was asked whether I was in earnest in saying that I
-would attend one of their meetings. Would I go to this one if I should
-be invited? I replied that it depended entirely on the nature of the
-meeting. If it was merely a meeting for the settlement of accounts and
-the despatch of business, where I should not learn what I wanted, I
-should wait for a less perilous time; if it was a _bonâ fide_ public
-meeting, a true reflection of the spirit and circumstances of the time
-and the cause, I would go. The matter was presently decided by the
-arrival of a regular official invitation to me to attend the meeting,
-and to carry with me the friend who was my travelling companion, and
-any one else who might be disposed to accompany me.
-
-Trifling as these circumstances may now appear, they were no trifles at
-the time; and many considerations were involved in the smallest movement
-a stranger made on the question. The two first things I had to take care
-of were to avoid involving my host in any trouble I might get into, and
-to afford opportunity to my companion to judge for herself what she
-would do. My host had been reviled in the newspapers already for having
-read a notice (among several others) of an anti-slavery meeting from Dr.
-Channing's pulpit, where he was accidentally preaching. My object was to
-prevent his giving an opinion on anything that I should do, that he
-might not be made more or less responsible for my proceedings. I handed
-the invitation to my companion, with a hint not to speak of it. We
-separately made up our minds to go, and announced our determination to
-our host and hostess. Between joke and earnest, they told us we should
-be mobbed; and the same thing was repeated by many who were not in joke
-at all.
-
-At two o'clock on the Wednesday we arrived at the house of a gentleman
-where we were to meet a few of the leading abolitionists, and dine,
-previous to the meeting. Our host was miserably ill that day, unfit to
-be out of his chamber; but he exerted himself to the utmost, being
-resolved to escort his wife to the meeting. During dinner, the
-conversation was all about the Southern gentry, in whose favour I said
-all I could, and much more than the party could readily receive; which
-was natural enough, considering that they and I looked at the people of
-the South from different points of view. Before we issued forth on our
-expedition I was warned once more that exertions had been made to get up
-a mob, and that it was possible we might be dispersed by violence. When
-we turned into the street where the house of meeting stood, there were
-about a dozen boys hooting before the door, as they saw ladies of colour
-entering. We were admitted without having to wait an instant on the
-steps, and the door was secured behind us.
-
-The ladies assembled in two drawing-rooms, thrown into one by the
-folding-doors being opened. The total number was a hundred and thirty.
-The president sat at a small table by the folding-doors, and before her
-was a large Bible, paper, pens, and ink, and the secretary's papers.
-There were only three gentlemen in the house, its inhabitant, the
-gentleman who escorted us, and a clergyman who had dined with us. They
-remained in the hall, keeping the front door fastened, and the back way
-clear for our retreat, if retreat should be necessary. But the number of
-hooters in the streets at no time exceeded thirty, and they treated us
-to nothing worse than a few yells.
-
-A lady who sat next me amused me by inquiring, with kindness, whether it
-revolted my feelings to meet thus in assembly with people of colour. She
-was as much surprised as pleased with my English deficiency of all
-feeling on the subject. My next neighbour on the other hand was Mrs.
-Thompson, the wife of the anti-slavery lecturer, who had just effected
-his escape, and was then on the sea. The proceedings began with the
-reading of a few texts of Scripture by the president. My first
-impression was that the selection of these texts gave out a little
-vainglory about the endurance of persecution; but when I remembered that
-this was the reunion of persons who had been dispersed by a mob, and
-when I afterward became aware how cruelly many of the members had been
-wounded in their moral sense, their domestic affections, and their
-prospects in life, I was quite ready to yield my too nice criticism. A
-prayer then followed, the spirit of which appeared to me perfect in
-hopefulness, meekness, and gentleness. While the secretary was afterward
-reading her report, a note was handed to me, the contents of which sunk
-my spirits fathom deep for the hour. It was a short pencil note from one
-of the gentlemen in the hall; and it asked me whether I had any
-objection to give a word of sympathy to the meeting, fellow-labourers as
-we had long been in behalf of the principles in whose defence they were
-met. The case was clear as daylight to my conscience. If I had been a
-mere stranger, attending with a mere stranger's interest to the
-proceedings of a party of natives, I might and ought to have declined
-mixing myself up with their proceedings. But I had long before published
-against slavery, and always declared my conviction that this was a
-question of humanity, not of country or race; a moral, not a merely
-political question; a general affair, and not one of city, state, party,
-or nation. Having thus declared on the safe side of the Atlantic, I was
-bound to act up to my declaration on the unsafe side, if called upon. I
-thought it a pity that the call had been made, though I am now very
-glad that it was, as it was the means of teaching me more of the temper
-and affairs of the times than I could have known by any other means, and
-as it ripened the regard which subsisted between myself and the writer
-of the note into a substantial, profitable, and delightful friendship;
-but, at the moment, I foresaw none of these good consequences, but a
-formidable array of very unpleasant ones. I foresaw that almost every
-house in Boston, except those of the abolitionists, would be shut
-against me; that my relation to the country would be completely changed,
-as I should be suddenly transformed from being a guest and an observer
-to being considered a missionary or a spy; and results even more serious
-than this might reasonably be anticipated. During the few minutes I had
-for consideration, the wife of the writer of the note came to me, and
-asked what I thought of it, begging me to feel quite at liberty to
-attend to it or not, as I liked. I felt that I had no such liberty. I
-was presently introduced to the meeting, when I offered the note as my
-reason for breaking the silence of a stranger, and made the same
-declarations of my abhorrence of slavery and my agreement in the
-principles of the abolitionists which I had expressed throughout the
-whole of my travels through the South.
-
-Of the consequences of this simple affair it is not my intention to give
-any account, chiefly because it would be impossible to convey to my
-English readers my conviction of the smallness of the portion of
-American society which was concerned in the treatment inflicted upon me.
-The hubbub was so great, and the modes of insult were so various, as to
-justify distant observers in concluding that the whole nation had risen
-against me. I soon found how few can make a great noise, while the many
-are careless or ignorant of what is going on about a person or a party
-with whom they have nothing to do; and while not a few are rendered more
-hearty in their regard and more generous in their hospitality by the
-disgraces of the individual who is under the oppression of public
-censure. All that I anticipated at the moment of reading the note came
-to pass, but only for a time. Eventually, nothing remained which in the
-slightest degree modified my opinions or impaired my hopes of the
-society I was investigating.
-
-The secretary's report was drawn up with remarkable ability, and some
-animating and beautiful letters were read from distant members of the
-association. The business which had been interrupted by violence was put
-in train again; and, when the meeting broke up, a strong feeling of
-satisfaction visibly pervaded it. The right of meeting was vindicated;
-righteous pertinacity had conquered violence, and no immediate check to
-the efforts of the society was to be apprehended.
-
-The trials of the abolitionists of Boston were, however, not yet over.
-Two months before, the attorney-general of the state had advocated in
-council the expected demand of the South, that abolitionists should be
-delivered up to the Slave States for trial and punishment under Southern
-laws. This fact is credible to those, and, perhaps, to those only, who
-have seen the pamphlet in reply to Dr. Channing's work on Slavery
-attributed to this gentleman. The South was not long in making the
-demand. Letters arrived from the governors of Southern States to the new
-governor of Massachusetts, demanding the passing of laws against
-abolitionism in all its forms. The governor, as was his business, laid
-these letters before the legislature of his state. This was the only
-thing he could do on this occasion. Just before, at his entrance upon
-his office, he had aimed his blow at the abolitionists in the following
-passages of his address. The same delusion (if it be mere delusion) is
-visible here that is shared by all persons in power, who cannot deny
-that an evil exists, but have not courage to remove it; a vague hope
-that "fate, or Providence, or something," will do the work which men are
-created to perform; men of principle and men of peace, like the
-abolitionists; victims, not perpetrators of violence. "As the genius of
-our institutions and the character of our people are entirely repugnant
-to laws impairing the liberty of speech and of the press, even for the
-sake of repressing its abuses, the patriotism of all classes of citizens
-must be invoked to abstain from a discussion which, by exasperating the
-master, can have no other effect than to render more oppressive the
-condition of the slave; and which, if not abandoned, there is great
-reason to fear will prove the rock on which the Union will split." ...
-"A conciliatory forbearance," he proceeds to say, "would leave this
-whole painful subject where the Constitution leaves it, with the states
-where it exists, and in the hands of an all-wise Providence, who in his
-own good time is able to cause it to disappear, like the slavery of the
-ancient world, under the gradual operation of the gentle spirit of
-Christianity." The time is at hand. The "gradual operation of the gentle
-spirit of Christianity" had already educated the minds and hearts of the
-abolitionists for the work they are doing, but which the governor would
-fain have put off. It thus appears that they had the governor and
-attorney-general of the state against them, and the wealth, learning,
-and power of their city. It will be seen how their legislature was
-affected towards them.
-
-As soon as they were aware of the demands of the Southern governors,
-they petitioned their legislature for a hearing, according to the
-invariable practice of persons who believe that they may be injured by
-the passing of any proposed law. The hearing was granted, as a matter of
-course; and a committee of five members of the legislature was appointed
-to hear what the abolitionists had to say. The place and time appointed
-were the Senate Chamber, on the afternoon of Friday, the 4th of March.
-
-The expectation had been that few or none but the parties immediately
-concerned would be present at the discussion of such "a low subject;"
-but the event proved that more curiosity was abroad than had been
-supposed. I went just before the appointed hour, and took my seat with
-my party, in the empty gallery of the Senate Chamber. The abolitionists
-dropped in one by one; Garrison, May, Goodell, Follen, E. G. Loring, and
-others. The committee treated them with ostentatious neglect, dawdling
-away the time, and keeping them waiting a full hour beyond the appointed
-time. The gallery filled rapidly, and more and more citizens entered the
-room below. To our great delight, Dr. Channing made his appearance
-there. At length it was manifest that the Senate Chamber was not large
-enough; and we adjourned to the Hall of Representatives, which was soon
-about two thirds filled.
-
-I could not have conceived that such conduct could have been ventured
-upon as that of the chairman of the committee. It was so insulting as to
-disgust the citizens present, whatever might be their way of thinking on
-the question which brought them together. The chairman and another of
-the five were evidently predetermined. They spared no pains in showing
-it, twisting the meaning of expressions employed by the pleaders, noting
-down any disjointed phrase which could be made to tell against those who
-used it, conveying sarcasms in their questions and insult in their
-remarks. Two others evidenced a desire to fulfil their function, to hear
-what the abolitionists had to say. Dr. Channing took his seat behind the
-pleaders; and I saw with pleasure that he was handing them notes, acting
-on their side as decisively, and almost as publicly as if he had spoken.
-After several unanswerable defences against charges had been made, and
-Mr. Loring had extorted the respect of the committee by a speech in
-which he showed that a legislative censure is more injurious than penal
-laws, it was Dr. Follen's turn to speak. He was presently stopped by the
-chairman, with a command that he should be respectful to the committee;
-with an intimation that the gentlemen were heard only as a matter of
-favour. They protested against this, their hearing having been demanded
-as a matter of right; they refused to proceed, and broke up the
-conference.
-
-Much good was done by this afternoon's proceedings. The feeling of the
-bystanders was, on the whole, decidedly in favour of the pleaders, and
-the issue of the affair was watched with much interest. The next day the
-abolitionists demanded a hearing as a matter of right; and it was
-granted likewise as an affair of course. The second hearing was
-appointed for Tuesday the 8th, at the same place and hour.
-
-Some well-meaning friends of the abolitionists had in the interval
-advised that the most accomplished, popular, and gentlemanly of the
-abolitionists should conduct the business of the second day; that the
-speeches should be made by Dr. Follen, Messrs. Loring and Sewall, and
-one or two more; and that Garrison and Goodell, the homely, primitive,
-and eminently suffering men of the apostleship, should be induced to
-remain in the background. The advice was righteously rejected; and, as
-it happened, theirs were the speeches that went farthest in winning over
-the feeling of the audience to their side. I shall never forget the
-swimming eye and tremulous voice with which a noble lady of the
-persecuted party answered such a suggestion as I have mentioned. "Oh,"
-said she, "above all things, we must be just and faithful to Garrison.
-You do not know what we know; that, unless we put him, on every
-occasion, into the midst of the _gentlemen_ of the party, he will be
-torn to pieces. Nothing can save him but his being made one with those
-whom his enemies will not dare to touch." As for Mr. Goodell, he had
-been frequently stoned. "He was used to it." They appeared in the midst
-of the professional gentlemen of the association, and did the most
-eminent service of the day.
-
-The hall was crowded, and shouts of applause broke forth as the pleaders
-demolished an accusation or successfully rebutted the insolence of the
-chairman. Dr. Follen was again stopped, as he was showing that mobs had
-been the invariable consequence of censures of abolitionism passed by
-public meetings in the absence of gag-laws. He was desired to hold his
-tongue, or to be respectful to the committee; to which he replied, in
-his gentlest and most musical voice, "Am I, then, to understand that, in
-speaking ill of mobs, I am disrespectful to the committee?" The chairman
-looked foolish enough during the applauses which followed this question.
-Dr. Follen fought his ground inch by inch, and got out all he had to
-say. The conduct of the chairman became at last so insufferable, that
-several spectators attempted a remonstrance. A merchant was silenced; a
-physician was listened to, his speech being seasoned with wit so
-irresistible as to put all parties into good-humour.
-
-The loudly-expressed opinion of the spectators as they dispersed was,
-that the chairman had ruined his political career, and, probably, filled
-the chair of a committee of the legislature for the last time. The
-result of the affair was that the report of the committee "spoke
-disrespectfully" of the exertions of the abolitionists, but rejected the
-suggestion of penal laws being passed to control their operations. The
-letters from the South therefore remained unanswered.
-
-The abolitionists held a consultation whether they should complain to
-the legislature of the treatment their statements had received, and of
-the impediments thrown in the way of their self-justification. They
-decided to let the matter rest, trusting that there were witnesses
-enough of their case to enlighten the public mind on their position. A
-member of the legislature declared in his place what he had seen of the
-treatment of the appellants by the chairman, and proposed that the
-committee should be censured. As the aggrieved persons made no formal
-complaint, however, the matter was dropped. But the faith of the
-abolitionists was justified. The people were enlightened as to their
-position; and in the next election they returned a set of
-representatives, one of whose earliest acts was to pass a series of
-anti-slavery resolutions by a majority of 378 to 16.
-
-These were a few of the signs of the times in Massachusetts when I was
-there. They proved that, while the aristocracy of the great cities were
-not to be trusted to maintain the great principles on which their
-society was based, the body of the people were sound.
-
-
-
-
-HOT AND COLD WEATHER.
-
-
-    "Weigh me the fire; or canst thou find
-    A way to measure out the wind;
-    Show me that world of stars, and whence
-    They noiseless spill their influence!
-    This if thou canst."
-
-                                                                HERRICK.
-
-        "Sic vita."
-
-
-I believe no one attempts to praise the climate of New-England. The very
-low average of health there, the prevalence of consumption and of decay
-of the teeth, are evidences of an unwholesome climate which I believe
-are universally received as such. The mortality among children
-throughout the whole country is a dark feature of life in the United
-States. I do not know whether any investigation has been made into the
-numbers who die in infancy; but there can be no mistake in assuming that
-it is much greater than among the classes in Europe who are in a
-situation of equal external comfort. It was afflicting to meet with
-cases of bereavement which seem to leave few hopes or objects in life;
-it is afflicting to review them now, as they rise up before my mind. One
-acquaintance of mine had lost four out of six children; another five out
-of seven; another six out of seven; another thirteen out of sixteen; and
-one mourner tells me that a fatality seems to attend the females of his
-family, for, out of eighteen, only one little granddaughter survives;
-and most of this family died very young, and of different kinds of
-disease. Never did I see so many wo-worn mothers as in America. Wherever
-we went in the North, we heard of "the lung fever" as of a common
-complaint, and children seemed to be as liable to it as grown persons.
-The climate is doubtless chiefly to blame for all this, and I do not
-see how any degree of care could obviate much of the evil. The children
-must be kept warm within doors; and the only way of affording them the
-range of the house is by warming the whole, from the cellar to the
-garret, by means of a furnace in the hall. This makes all comfortable
-within; but, then, the risk of going out is very great. There is far
-less fog and damp than in England, and the perfectly calm, sunny days of
-midwinter are endurable; but the least breath of wind seems to chill
-one's very life. I had no idea what the suffering from extreme cold
-amounted to till one day, in Boston, I walked the length of the city and
-back again in a wind, with the thermometer seven degrees and a half
-below zero. I had been warned of the cold, but was anxious to keep an
-appointment to attend a meeting. We put on all the merinoes and furs we
-could muster; but we were insensible of them from the moment the wind
-reached us. My muff seemed to be made of ice; I almost fancied I should
-have been warmer without it. We managed getting to the meeting pretty
-well, the stock of warmth we had brought out with us lasting till then.
-But we set out cold on our return; and, by the time I got home, I did
-not very well know where I was and what I was about. The stupefaction
-from cold is particularly disagreeable, the sense of pain remaining
-through it; and I determined not to expose myself to it again. All this
-must be dangerous to children; and if, to avoid it, they are shut up
-during the winter, there remains the danger of encountering the ungenial
-spring.
-
-It is a wretched climate. The old lines would run in my head,
-
-            "And feel, by turns, the bitter change
-    Of fierce extremes, extremes by change more fierce:
-    From beds of raging fire to starve in ice
-    Their soft ethereal warmth, and there to pine
-    Immoveable, infixed, and frozen round,
-    Periods of time, thence hurried back to fire."
-
-
-The fiery part of the trial, however, I did not much mind; for, after
-the first week of languor, I enjoyed the heat, except for the perpetual
-evidence that was before us of the mischief or fatality of its effects
-to persons who could not sit in the shade, and take it quietly, as we
-could. There were frequent instances of death in the streets, and the
-working-people suffer cruelly in the hot months. But the cold is a real
-evil to all classes, and, I think, much the most serious of the two. I
-found the second winter more trying than the first, and I hardly know
-how I should have sustained a third.
-
-Every season, however, has its peculiar pleasures; and in the retrospect
-these shine out brightly, while the evils disappear.
-
-On a December morning you are awakened by the domestic scraping at your
-hearth. Your anthracite fire has been in all night; and now the ashes
-are carried away, more coal is put on, and the blower hides the kindly
-red from you for a time. In half an hour the fire is intense, though, at
-the other end of the room, everything you touch seems to blister your
-fingers with cold. If you happen to turn up a corner of the carpet with
-your foot, it gives out a flash; and your hair crackles as you brush it.
-Breakfast is always hot, be the weather what it may. The coffee is
-scalding, and the buckwheat cakes steam when the cover is taken off.
-Your host's little boy asks whether he may go coasting to-day, and his
-sisters tell you what day the schools will all go sleighing. You may see
-boys coasting on Boston Common all the winter day through; and too many
-in the streets, where it is not so safe. To coast is to ride on a board
-down a frozen slope; and many children do this in the steep streets
-which lead down to the Common, as well as on the snowy slopes within the
-enclosure where no carriages go. Some sit on their heels on the board,
-some on their crossed legs. Some strike their legs out, put their arms
-a-kimbo, and so assume an air of defiance amid their velocity. Others
-prefer lying on their stomachs, and so going headforemost; an attitude
-whose comfort I never could enter into. Coasting is a wholesome exercise
-for hardy boys. Of course they have to walk up the ascent, carrying
-their boards between every feat of coasting; and this affords them more
-exercise than they are at all aware of taking.
-
-As for the sleighing, I heard much more than I experienced of its
-charms. No doubt early association has something to do with the American
-fondness for this mode of locomotion; and much of the affection which is
-borne to music, dancing, supping, and all kinds of frolic, is
-transferred to the vehicle in which the frolicking parties are
-transported. It must be so, I think, or no one would be found to prefer
-a carriage on runners to a carriage on wheels, except on an untrodden
-expanse of snow. On a perfectly level and crisp surface I can fancy the
-smooth rapid motion to be exceedingly pleasant; but such surfaces are
-rare in the neighbourhood of populous cities. The uncertain, rough
-motion in streets hillocky with snow, or on roads consisting for the
-season of a ridge of snow with holes in it, is disagreeable, and
-provocative of headache. I am no rule for others as to liking the bells;
-but to me their incessant jangle was a great annoyance. Add to this the
-sitting, without exercise, in a wind caused by the rapidity of the
-motion, and the list of _désagrémens_ is complete. I do not know the
-author of a description of sleighing which was quoted to me, but I
-admire it for its fidelity. "Do you want to know what sleighing is like?
-You can soon try. Set your chair on a springboard out in the porch on
-Christmas day; put your feet in a pailful of powdered ice; have somebody
-to jingle a bell in one ear, and somebody else to blow into the other
-with the bellows, and you will have an exact idea of sleighing."
-
-I was surprised to find that young people whose health is too delicate
-to allow them to do many simple things, are not too delicate to go out
-sleighing in an open sleigh. They put hot bricks under their feet, and
-wrap up in furs; but the face remains exposed, and the breathing the
-frosty air of a winter's night, after dancing, may be easily conceived
-to be the cause of much of the "lung fever" of which the stranger hears.
-The gayest sleighing that I saw was on the day when all the schools in
-Boston have a holyday, and the pupils go abroad in a long procession of
-sleighs. The multitude of happy young faces, though pinched with cold,
-was a pretty sight.
-
-If the morning be fine, you have calls to make, or shopping to do, or
-some meeting to attend. If the streets be coated with ice, you put on
-your India-rubber shoes--unsoled--to guard you from slipping. If not,
-you are pretty sure to measure your length on the pavement before your
-own door. Some of the handsomest houses in Boston, those which boast the
-finest flights of steps, have planks laid on the steps during the season
-of frost, the wood being less slippery than stone. If, as sometimes
-happens, a warm wind should be suddenly breathing over the snow, you go
-back to change your shoes, India-rubbers being as slippery in wet as
-leather soles are on ice. Nothing is seen in England like the streets of
-Boston and New-York at the end of the season while the thaw is
-proceeding. The area of the street had been so raised that passengers
-could look over the blinds of your ground-floor rooms; when the
-sidewalks become full of holes and puddles, they are cleared, and the
-passengers are reduced to their proper level; but the middle of the
-street remains exalted, and the carriages drive along a ridge. Of
-course, this soon becomes too dangerous, and for a season ladies and
-gentlemen walk; carts tumble, slip, and slide, and get on as they can;
-while the mass, now dirty, not only with thaw, but with quantities of
-refuse vegetables, sweepings of the poor people's houses, and other
-rubbish which it was difficult to know what to do with while every place
-was frozen up, daily sinks and dissolves into a composite mud. It was in
-New-York and some of the inferior streets of Boston that I saw this
-process in its completeness.
-
-If the morning drives are extended beyond the city, there is much to
-delight the eye. The trees are cased in ice; and when the sun shines out
-suddenly, the whole scene looks like one diffused rainbow, dressed in a
-brilliancy which can hardly be conceived of in England. On days less
-bright, the blue harbour spreads in strong contrast with the sheeted
-snow which extends to its very brink.
-
-The winter evenings begin joyously with the festival of Thanksgiving
-Day, which is, if I remember rightly, held on the first Thursday of
-December. The festival is ordered by proclamation of the governor of the
-state, which proclamation is read in all the churches. The Boston
-friends with whom we had ascended the Mississippi, and travelled in
-Tennessee and Kentucky, did not forget that we were strangers in the
-land; and many weeks before Thanksgiving Day they invited us to join
-their family gathering on that great annual festival. We went to church
-in the morning, and listened to the thanksgiving for the mercies of the
-year, and to an exemplification of the truth that national prosperity is
-of value only as it is sanctified to individual progression; an
-important doctrine, well enforced. This is the occasion chosen by the
-boldest of the clergy to say what they think of the faults of the
-nation, and particularly to reprobate apathy on the slavery question.
-There are few who dare do this, though it seems to be understood that
-this is an occasion on which "particular preaching" may go a greater
-length than on common Sundays. Yet a circumstance happened in New-York
-on this very day which shows that the clergy have, at least in some
-places, a very short tether, even on Thanksgiving Day. An Episcopalian
-clergyman from England, named Pyne, who had been some years settled in
-America, preached a thanksgiving sermon, in which he made a brief and
-moderate, even commonplace allusion to the toleration of slavery among
-other national sins. For some weeks he heard only the distant mutterings
-of the storm which was about to burst upon him; but within three months
-he was not only dismissed from his office, but compelled to leave the
-country, though he had settled his family from England beside him. He
-was anxious to obey the wishes of his friends, and print verbatim the
-sermon which had caused his ruin; but no printer would print, and no
-publisher would agree to sell his sermon. At length he found a printer
-who promised to print it on condition of his name being kept secret; and
-the sermon was dispersed without the aid of a publisher. Mr. Pyne sailed
-for England on the following 1st of April; as it happened, in the same
-ship with Mr. Breckinridge, the Presbyterian clergyman who put himself
-into unsuccessful opposition to Mr. Thompson, at a public discussion at
-Glasgow last year. The voyage was not a pleasant one, as might be
-supposed, to either clergyman. Nothing could be more mal-à-propos than
-that one who came over with a defence in his mouth of the conduct of the
-American clergy on the slavery question should be shut up for three
-weeks with a clergyman banished for opening his lips on the subject.
-
-After service Dr. Channing took us to Persico's studio, where the new
-bust of Dr. Channing stood; and one, scarcely less excellent, of
-Governor Everett. We then spent an hour at Dr. Channing's, and he gave
-me his book on slavery, which was to be published two days afterward. I
-was obliged to leave it unread till the festivities of the day were
-over; but that night and two succeeding ones I read it completely
-through before I slept. It is impossible to communicate an idea of the
-importance and interest of that book at the time it was published. I
-heard soon afterward that there was difficulty in procuring it at
-Washington, partly from the timidity of the booksellers, it having been
-called in Congress "an incendiary book." It was let out at a high price
-per hour. Of course, as soon as this was understood at Boston, supplies
-were sent otherwise than through the booksellers, so that members of
-Congress were no longer obliged to quote the book merely from the
-extracts contained in the miserable reply to it which was extensively
-circulated in the metropolis.
-
-This book was in my head all the rest of the day, from whose observances
-all dark subjects seemed banished. At three o'clock a family party of
-about thirty were assembled round two wellspread tables. There was only
-one drawback, that five of the children were absent, being ill of the
-measles. There was much merriment among us grown people at the
-long-table; but the bursts of laughter from the children's side-table,
-where a kind aunt presided, were incessant. After dinner we played
-hunt-the-slipper with the children, while the gentlemen were at their
-wine; and then went to spend an hour with a poor boy in the measles, who
-was within hearing of the mirth, but unable to leave his easy-chair.
-When we had made him laugh as much as was good for him with some of our
-most ludicrous English Christmas games, we went down to communicate more
-of this curious kind of learning in the drawing-rooms. There we
-introduced a set of games quite new to the company; and it was
-delightful to see with what spirit and wit they were entered into and
-carried on. Dumb Crambo was made to yield its ultimate rhymes, and the
-storytelling in Old Coach was of the richest. When we were all quite
-tired with laughing, the children began to go away; some fresh visiters
-dropped in from other houses, and music and supper followed. We got home
-by eleven o'clock, very favourably impressed with the institution of
-Thanksgiving Day. I love to dwell upon it now, for a new interest hangs
-over that festival. The friend by whose thoughtfulness we were admitted
-to this family gathering, and in whose companionship we went--the
-beloved of every heart there, the sweetest, the sprightliest of the
-party--will be among them no more.
-
-Christmas evening was very differently passed, but in a way to me even
-more interesting. We were in a country village, Hingham, near the shores
-of Massachusetts Bay, and were staying in the house of the pastor, our
-clerical shipmate. The weather was bad, in the early part of the day
-extremely so; and the attendance at the church was therefore not large,
-and no one came to dinner. The church was dressed up with evergreens in
-great quantity, and arranged with much taste. The organist had composed
-a new anthem, which was well sung by the young men and women of the
-congregation. At home the rooms were prettily dressed with green, and
-an ample supply of lights was provided against the evening. Soon after
-dinner some little girls arrived to play with the children of the house,
-and we resumed the teaching of English Christmas games. The little
-things were tired, and went away early enough to leave us a quiet hour
-before the doors were thrown open to "the parish," whose custom it is to
-flock to the pastor's house, to exchange greetings with him on Christmas
-night. What I saw makes me think this a delightful custom. There is no
-expensive or laborious preparation for their reception. The rooms are
-well lighted, and cake and lemonade are provided, and this is all.
-
-The pastor and his wife received their guests as they came in, and then
-all moved on to offer the greetings of the season to me. Many remained
-to talk with me, to my great delight. There was the schoolmaster, with
-his daughters. There was Farmer B., who has a hobby. This place was
-colonized by English from Hingham in Norfolk, and Farmer B.'s ancestors
-were among them. He has a passion for hearing about Old Hingham, and, by
-dint of questioning every stranger, and making use of all kinds of
-opportunity, he has learned far more than I ever knew about the old
-place. His hopes rose high when he found I was a native of Norfolk; but
-I was obliged to depress them again by confessing how little I could
-tell of the old place, within a few miles of which my early years were
-spent. I was able to give him some trifling fact, however, about the
-direction in which the road winds, and for this he expressed fervent
-gratitude. I was afterward told that he is apt to drive his oxen into
-the ditch, and to lose a sheep or two when his head is running on "the
-old place." I have not yet succeeded in my attempts to obtain a sketch
-of Old Hingham to send over to Farmer B.; but I wish I could, for I
-believe it would please him more than the bequest of a fortune.
-
-Then came Captain L. with his five fine daughters. He looked too old to
-be their father, and well he might. When master of a vessel he was set
-ashore by pirates, with his crew, on a desert island, where he was
-thirty-six days without food. Almost all his crew were dead, and he just
-dying, when help arrived, by means of freemasonry. Among the pirates was
-a Scotchman, a mason, as was Captain L. The two exchanged signs. The
-Scotchman could not give aid at the moment; but, after many days of
-fruitless and anxious attempts, he contrived to sail back, at the risk
-of his life, and landed on the desert island on the thirty-sixth day
-from his leaving it. He had no expectation of finding any of the party
-alive; but, to take the chance and lose no time, he jumped ashore with a
-kettleful of wine in his hand. He poured wine down the throats of the
-few whom he found still breathing, and treated them so judiciously that
-they recovered. At least it was called recovery; but Captain L.'s looks
-are very haggard and nervous still. He took the Scotchman home, and
-cherished him to the day of his death.
-
-Then there was an excellent woman, the general benefactress of the
-village, who is always ready to nurse the sick and help the afflicted,
-and to be of eminent service in another way to her young neighbours. She
-assembles them in the evenings once or twice a week, and reads with them
-and to them; and thus the young women of the village are obtaining a
-knowledge of Italian and French, as well as English literature, which
-would have been unattainable without her help. The daughters of the
-fishermen, bucket and netmakers, and farmers of Hingham, are far more
-accomplished than many a highbred young lady in England and New-York.
-Such a village population is one of the true glories of America. Many
-such girls were at their pastor's this evening, dressed in silk gowns of
-the latest make, with rich French pelerines, and their well-arranged
-hair bound with coloured riband; as pretty a set of girls as could be
-collected anywhere.
-
-When it appeared that the rooms were beginning to thin, the organist
-called the young people round him, and they sang the new Christmas
-anthem extremely well. Finally, a Christmas hymn was sung by all to the
-tune of Old Hundred; the pastor and his people exchanged the blessing of
-the season, and in a few minutes the house was cleared.
-
-About this scene also hangs a tender and mournful interest. Our hostess
-was evidently unwell at this time; I feared seriously so; and I was not
-mistaken. She was one of the noblest women I have ever known, with a
-mind large in its reach, rich in its cultivation, and strong in its
-independence; yet never was there a spirit more yearning in its
-tenderness, more gay in its innocence. Just a year after this time she
-wrote me tidings of her approaching death, cheerfully intimating the
-probability that she might live to hear from me once more. My letter
-arrived just as she was laid in her coffin. Her interest in the great
-objects of humanity, to which she had dedicated her best days, never
-failed. Her mind was active about them to the last. She was never
-deceived, as the victims of consumption usually are, about her state of
-health and chance of life, but saw her case as others saw it, only with
-far more contentment and cheerfulness. She left bright messages of love
-for all of us who knew what was in her mind, with an animating bidding
-to go on with our several works. Nothing could be more simple than the
-state of her mind and the expression of it, proving that she so knew how
-to live as to find nothing strange in dying.
-
-I was present at the introduction into the new country of the spectacle
-of the German Christmas-tree. My little friend Charley and three
-companions had been long preparing for this pretty show. The cook had
-broken her eggs carefully in the middle for some weeks past, that
-Charley might have the shells for cups; and these cups were gilded and
-coloured very prettily. I rather think it was, generally speaking, a
-secret out of the house; but I knew what to expect. It was a Newyear's
-tree, however; for I could not go on Christmas-eve, and it was kindly
-settled that Newyear's-eve would do as well. We were sent for before
-dinner, and we took up two round-faced boys by the way. Early as it was,
-we were all so busy that we could scarcely spare a respectful attention
-to our plum-pudding. It was desirable that our preparations should be
-completed before the little folks should begin to arrive; and we were
-all engaged in sticking on the last of the seven dozen of wax-tapers,
-and in filling the gilded egg-cups and gay paper cornucopiæ with
-comfits, lozenges, and barley-sugar. The tree was the top of a young
-fir, planted in a tub, which was ornamented with moss. Smart dolls and
-other whimsies glittered in the evergreen, and there was not a twig
-which had not something sparkling upon it. When the sound of wheels was
-heard, we had just finished; and we shut up the tree by itself in the
-front drawing-room, while we went into the other, trying to look as if
-nothing was going to happen. Charley looked a good deal like himself,
-only now and then twisting himself about in an unaccountable fit of
-giggling. It was a very large party; for, besides the tribes of
-children, there were papas and mammas, uncles, aunts, and elder
-sisters. When all were come we shut out the cold; the great fire burned
-clearly; the tea and coffee were as hot as possible, and the cheeks of
-the little ones grew rosier and their eyes brighter every moment. It had
-been settled that, in order to cover our designs, I was to resume my
-vocation of teaching Christmas games after tea, while Charley's mother
-and her maids went to light up the front room. So all found seats, many
-of the children on the floor, for Old Coach. It was difficult to divide
-even an American stagecoach into parts enough for every member of such a
-party to represent one; but we managed it without allowing any of the
-elderly folks to sit out. The grand fun of all was to make the clergyman
-and an aunt or two get up and spin round. When they were fairly
-practised in the game, I turned over my story to a neighbour, and got
-away to help to light up the tree.
-
-It really looked beautiful; the room seemed in a blaze, and the
-ornaments were so well hung on that no accident happened, except that
-one doll's petticoat caught fire. There was a sponge tied to the end of
-a stick to put out any supernumerary blaze, and no harm ensued. I
-mounted the steps behind the tree to see the effect of opening the
-doors. It was delightful. The children poured in, but in a moment every
-voice was hushed. Their faces were upturned to the blaze, all eyes wide
-open, all lips parted, all steps arrested. Nobody spoke, only Charley
-leaped for joy. The first symptom of recovery was the children's
-wandering round the tree. At last a quick pair of eyes discovered that
-it bore something eatable, and from that moment the babble began again.
-They were told that they might get what they could without burning
-themselves; and we tall people kept watch, and helped them with good
-things from the higher branches. When all had had enough, we returned to
-the larger room, and finished the evening with dancing. By ten o'clock
-all were well warmed for the ride home with steaming mulled wine, and
-the prosperous evening closed with shouts of mirth. By a little after
-eleven Charley's father and mother and I were left by ourselves to sit
-in the Newyear. I have little doubt the Christmas-tree will become one
-of the most flourishing exotics of New-England.
-
-The skysights of the colder regions of the United States are resplendent
-in winter. I saw more of the aurora borealis, more falling stars and
-other meteors during my stay in New-England than in the whole course of
-my life before. Every one knows that splendid and mysterious exhibitions
-have taken place in all the Novembers of the last four years, furnishing
-interest and business to the astronomical world. The most remarkable
-exhibitions were in the Novembers of 1833 and 1835, the last of which I
-saw.
-
-The persons who saw the falling stars of the 14th of November, 1833,
-were few; but the sight was described to me by more than one. It was
-seen chiefly by masters of steamboats, watchmen, and sick nurses. The
-little children of a friend of mine, who happened to sleep with their
-heads near a window, surprised their father in the morning with the
-question what all those sparks were that had been flying about in the
-night. Several country people, on their way to early market, saw the
-last of the shower. It is said that some left their carts and kneeled in
-the road, thinking that the end of the world was come; a very natural
-persuasion, for the spectacle must have been much like the heavens
-falling to pieces. About nine o'clock in the evening several persons
-observed that there was an unusual number of falling stars, and went
-home thinking no more about it. Others were surprised at the increase by
-eleven, but went to rest notwithstanding. Those who were up at four saw
-the grandest sight. There were then three kinds of lights in the heaven
-besides the usual array of stars. There were shooting points of light,
-all directed from one centre to the circuit of the horizon, much
-resembling a thick shower of luminous snow. There were luminous bodies
-which hung dimly in the air; and there were falling fireballs, some of
-which burst, while others went out of sight. These were the meteors
-which were taken by the ignorant for the real stars falling from the
-sky. One was seen apparently larger than the full moon, and they shed so
-bright a light that the smallest objects became distinctly visible. One
-luminous body was like a serpent coiling itself up; another "like a
-square table;" another like a pruning-hook. Those which burst left
-trains of light behind them, some tinged with the prismatic colours. The
-preceding day had been uncommonly warm for the season; but, before
-morning, the frost was of an intensity very rare for the month of
-November. The temperature of the whole season was unusual. Throughout
-November and December it was so warm about the northern lakes that the
-Indians were making maple sugar at Mackinaw, while the orange-trees were
-cut off by the frost in Louisiana. A tremendous succession of gales at
-the same time set in along the eastern coast. Those may explain these
-mysteries who can.
-
-It is exceedingly easy to laugh at men who, created to look before and
-after, walking erect, with form "express and admirable" under the broad
-canopy of heaven, yet contrive to miss the sights which are hung out in
-the sky; but which of us does not deserve to be thus laughed at? How
-many nights in the year do we look up into the heavens? How many
-individuals of a civilized country see the stars on any one night of the
-year? Some of my friends and I had a lesson on this during the last
-April I spent in America. I was staying at a house in the upper part of
-New-York. My host and hostess had three guests at dinner that day--three
-persons sufficiently remarkable for knowing how to use their eyes--Miss
-Sedgwick, Mr. Bryant, and the author of the Palmyra Letters. During
-dinner we amused ourselves with pitying some persons who had actually
-walked abroad on the night of the last 17th of November without seeing
-the display. Our three friends walked homeward together, two miles down
-Broadway, and did exactly the same thing; failed to look up while an
-aurora borealis, worthy of November, was illuminating the heavens. We at
-home failed to look out, and missed it too. The next time we all met we
-agreed to laugh at ourselves before we bestowed any more of our pity
-upon others.
-
-On the 17th of November in question, that of 1835, I was staying in the
-house of one of the professors of Harvard University at Cambridge. The
-professor and his son John came in from a lecture at nine o'clock, and
-told us that it was nearly as light as day, though there was no moon.
-The sky presented as yet no remarkable appearance, but the fact set us
-telling stories of skysights. A venerable professor told us of a
-blood-red heaven which shone down on a night of the year 1789, when an
-old lady interpreted the whole French revolution from what she saw. None
-of us had any call to prophesying this night. John looked out from time
-to time while we were about the piano, but our singing had come to a
-conclusion before he brought us news of a very strange sky. It was now
-near eleven. We put cloaks and shawls over our heads, and hurried into
-the garden. It was a mild night, and about as light as with half a
-moon. There was a beautiful rose-coloured flush across the entire
-heaven, from southeast to northwest. This was every moment brightening,
-contracting in length, and dilating in breadth. My host ran off without
-his hat to call the Natural Philosophy professor. On the way he passed a
-gentleman who was trudging along, pondering the ground. "A remarkable
-night, sir," cried my host. "Sir! how, sir?" replied the pedestrian.
-"Why, look above your head!" The startled walker ran back to the house
-he had left to make everybody gaze. There was some debate about ringing
-the college-bell, but it was agreed that it would cause too much alarm.
-
-The Natural Philosophy professor came forth in curious trim, and his
-household and ours joined in the road. One lady was in her nightcap;
-another with a handkerchief tied over her head, while we were cowled in
-cloaks. The sky was now resplendent. It was like a blood-red dome, a
-good deal pointed. Streams of a greenish white light radiated from the
-centre in all directions. The colours were so deep, especially the red,
-as to give an opaque appearance to the canopy; and as Orion and the
-Pleiades, and many more stars could be distinctly seen, the whole looked
-like a vast dome inlaid with constellations. These skysights make one
-shiver, so new are they, so splendid, so mysterious. We saw the heavens
-grow pale, and before midnight believed that the mighty show was over;
-but we had the mortification of hearing afterward, that at one o'clock
-it was brighter than ever, and as light as day.
-
-Such are some of the wintry characteristics of New-England.
-
-If I lived in Massachusetts, my residence during the hot months should
-be beside one of its ponds. These ponds are a peculiarity in New-England
-scenery very striking to the traveller. Geologists tell of the time when
-the valleys were chains of lakes; and in many parts the eye of the
-observer would detect this without the aid of science. There are many
-fields and clusters of fields of remarkable fertility, lying in basins,
-the sides of which have much the appearance of the greener and smoother
-of the dikes of Holland. These suggest the idea of their having been
-ponds at the first glance. Many remain filled with clear water, the
-prettiest meres in the world. A cottage on Jamaica Pond, for instance,
-within an easy ride of Boston, is a luxurious summer abode. I know of
-one unequalled in its attractions, with its flower-garden, its lawn,
-with banks shelving down to the mere; banks dark with rustling pines,
-from under whose shade the bright track of the moon may be seen, lying
-cool on the rippling waters. A boat is moored in the cove at hand. The
-cottage itself is built for coolness, and its broad piazza is draperied
-with vines, which keep out the sun from the shaded parlours.
-
-The way to make the most of a summer's day in a place like this is to
-rise at four, mount your horse, and ride through the lanes for two
-hours, finding breakfast ready on your return. If you do not ride, you
-slip down to the bathing-house on the creek; and, once having closed the
-door, have the shallow water completely to yourself, carefully avoiding
-going beyond the deep water-mark, where no one knows how deep the mere
-may be. After breakfast you should dress your flowers, before those you
-gather have quite lost the morning dew. The business of the day, be it
-what it may, housekeeping, study, teaching, authorship, or charity, will
-occupy you till dinner at two. You have your dessert carried into the
-piazza, where, catching glimpses of the mere through the wood on the
-banks, your watermelon tastes cooler than within, and you have a better
-chance of a visit from a pair of humming-birds. You retire to your room,
-all shaded with green blinds, lie down with a book in your hand, and
-sleep soundly for two hours at least. When you wake and look out, the
-shadows are lengthening on the lawn, and the hot haze has melted away.
-You hear a carriage behind the fence, and conclude that friends from the
-city are coming to spend the evening with you. They sit within till
-after tea, telling you that you are living in the sweetest place in the
-world. When the sun sets you all walk out, dispersing in the shrubbery
-or on the banks. When the moon shows herself above the opposite woods,
-the merry voices of the young people are heard from the cove, where the
-boys are getting out the boat. You stand, with a companion or two, under
-the pines, watching the progress of the skiff, and the receding splash
-of the oars. If you have any one, as I had, to sing German popular songs
-to you, the enchantment is all the greater. You are capriciously lighted
-home by fireflies, and there is your table covered with fruit and iced
-lemonade. When your friends have left you you would fain forget it is
-time to rest; and your last act before you sleep is to look out once
-more from your balcony upon the silvery mere and moonlit lawn.
-
-The only times when I felt disposed to quarrel with the inexhaustible
-American mirth was on the hottest days of summer. I liked it as well as
-ever; but European strength will not stand more than an hour or two of
-laughter in such seasons. I remember one day when the American part of
-the company was as much exhausted as the English. We had gone, a party
-of six, to spend a long day with a merry household in a country village;
-and, to avoid the heat, had performed the journey of sixteen miles
-before ten o'clock. For three hours after our arrival the wit was in
-full flow; by which time we were all begging for mercy, for we could
-laugh no longer with any safety. Still, a little more fun was dropped
-all round, till we found that the only way was to separate, and we all
-turned out of doors. I cannot conceive how it is that so little has been
-heard in England of the mirth of the Americans; for certainly nothing in
-their manners struck and pleased me more. One of the rarest characters
-among them, and a great treasure to all his sportive neighbours, is a
-man who cannot take a joke.
-
-The prettiest playthings of summer are the humming-birds. I call them
-playthings because they are easily tamed, and are not very difficult to
-take care of for a time. It is impossible to attend to book, work, or
-conversation while there is a humming-bird in sight, its exercises and
-vagaries are so rapid and beautiful. Its prettiest attitude is vibrating
-before a blossom which is tossed in the wind. Its long beak is inserted
-in the flower, and the bird rises and falls with it, quivering its
-burnished wings with dazzling rapidity. My friend E. told me how she had
-succeeded in taming a pair. One flew into the parlour where she was
-sitting, and perched. E.'s sister stepped out for a branch of
-honeysuckle, which she stuck up over the mirror. The other bird
-followed, and the pair alighted on the branch, flew off, and returned to
-it. E. procured another branch, and held it on the top of her head; and
-hither also the little creatures came without fear. She next held it in
-her hand, and still they hovered and settled. They bore being shut in
-for the night, a nest of cotton-wool being provided. Of course it was
-impossible to furnish them with honeysuckles enough for food; and sugar
-and water was tried, which they seemed to relish very well. One day,
-however, when E. was out of the room, one of the little creatures was
-too greedy in the saucer; and, when E. returned, she found it lying on
-its side, with its wings stuck to its body, and its whole little person
-clammy with sugar. E. tried a sponge and warm water; it was too harsh:
-she tried old linen, but it was not soft enough: it then occurred to her
-that the softest of all substances is the human tongue. In her love for
-her little companion, she thus cleansed it, and succeeded perfectly, so
-far as the outward bird was concerned. But though it attempted to fly a
-little, it never recovered, but soon died of its surfeit. Its mate was,
-of course, allowed to fly away.
-
-Some Boston friends of mine, a clergyman and his wife, told me of a
-pleasant summer adventure which they had, quite against their will. The
-lady had been duly inoculated or vaccinated (I forget which) in her
-childhood, but nevertheless had the smallpox in a way after her
-marriage. She was slightly feverish, and a single spot appeared on her
-hand. The physician declared "that is _it_," and, as good citizens are
-bound to do, they gave information of this fearful smallpox to the
-authorities. The lady and her husband were ordered into quarantine; the
-city coach came for them, and they were transported to the wharf, and
-then to the little quarantine island in the harbour, where they spent a
-particularly pleasant week. My friend was getting well when she went,
-and she was quite able to enjoy the charms of her new residence. Her
-husband read to her in the piazza as she worked; he bathed, and was
-spared a Sunday's preaching; she looked abroad over the sea, and laughed
-as often as she imagined what their friends supposed their situation to
-be. They had the establishment all to themselves, except that there was
-a tidy Scotchwoman to wait on them. Was ever quarantine so performed
-before?
-
-The reader may think, at the end of this chapter, that there is
-something far more pleasant than worthy of complaint in the extremes of
-the seasons in the United States. It would be so if health were not
-endangered by them; but the incessant regard to the physical welfare
-which prudence requires is a great drawback to ease and pleasure; and
-the failure of health, which is pretty sure to come, sooner or later, is
-a much worse. In my own opinion, the dullest climate and scenery may be
-turned to more pleasurable account by vigour of body and mind, than all
-the privileges of American variety and beauty by languid powers. All
-that the people of New-England can do is to make the best of their case.
-Those who are blessed with health should use every reasonable endeavour
-to keep it; and it may be hoped that an improved settlement and
-cultivation of the country will carry on that amelioration of its
-climate which many of its inhabitants are assured has already begun.
-
-
-
-
-ORIGINALS.
-
-
-     "The ideal is in thyself; thy condition is but the stuff thou art
-     to shape that same ideal out of. What matters whether such stuff be
-     of this sort or of that, so the form thou give it be heroic, be
-     poetic."
-
-                                                    --_Sartor Resartus._
-
-
-Every state of society has, happily, its originals; men and women who,
-in more or fewer respects, think, speak, and act, naturally and
-unconsciously, in a different way from the generality of men. There are
-several causes from which this originality may arise, particularly in a
-young community less gregarious than those of the civilized countries of
-the Old World.
-
-The commonest of these causes in a society like that of the United
-States is, perhaps, the absence of influences to which almost all other
-persons are subject. The common pressure being absent in some one
-direction, the being grows out in that direction, and the mind and
-character exhibit more or less deformity to the eyes of all but the
-individual most concerned. The back States afford a full harvest of
-originals of this class; while in England, where it is scarcely possible
-to live out of society, such are rarely to be found.
-
-Social and professional eccentricity comes next. When local and
-professional influences are inadequately balanced by general ones, a
-singularity of character is produced, which is not so agreeable as it is
-striking and amusing. Of this class of characters few examples are to be
-seen at home; but, instead of them, something much worse, which is
-equally rare in America. In England we have confessors to tastes and
-pursuits, and martyrs to passions and vices, which arise out of a highly
-artificial state of society. In England we have a smaller proportion of
-grave, innocent, professional buffoons; but in America there are few or
-no fashionable ingrained profligates, few or no misers.
-
-In its possession of a third higher class, it is reasonable and
-delightful to hope that there is no superiority in the society of any
-one civilized country over that of any other. Of men and women who have
-intellectual power to modify the general influences to which, like
-others, they are subject, every nation has its share. In every country
-there have been beings who have put forth more or less of the godlike
-power involved in their humanity, whereby they can stem the current of
-circumstance, deliberately form the purpose of their life, and prosecute
-it, happen what may. The number is not large anywhere, but the species
-is nowhere unknown.
-
-A yet smaller class of yet nobler originals remains; those who, with the
-independent power of the last mentioned, are stimulated by strong
-pressure of circumstance to put forth their whole force, and form and
-achieve purposes in which not only their own life, but the destiny of
-others, is included. Such, being the prophets and redeemers of their age
-and country, rise up when and where they are wanted. The deed being ripe
-for the doing, the doer appears. The field being white for harvest, the
-reaper shows himself at the gate, whether the song of fellow-reapers
-cheers his heart, or lions are growling in his solitary path.
-
-Many English persons have made up their minds that there is very little
-originality in America, except in regions where such men as David
-Crockett grow up. In the wilds of Tennessee and Kentucky twenty years
-ago, and now in Arkansas and Missouri, where bear-hunting and the
-buffalo chase are still in full career, it is acknowledged that a man's
-natural bent may be seen to advantage, and his original force must be
-fully tested. But it is asked, with regard to America, whether there is
-not much less than the average amount of originality of character to be
-found in the places where men operate upon one another. It is certain
-that there is an intense curiosity in Americans about English oddities;
-and a prevailing belief among themselves that England is far richer in
-humorists than the United States. It is also true that the fickleness
-and impressibleness of the Americans (particularly of the
-New-Englanders) about systems of science, philosophy, and morals, exceed
-anything ever seen or heard of in the sober old country; but all this
-can prove only that the nation and its large divisions are not original
-in character, and not that individuals of that character are wanting.
-
-It should be remembered that one great use of a metropolis, if not the
-greatest, is to test everything for the benefit of the whole of the rest
-of the country. The country may, according to circumstances, be more or
-less ready to avail itself of the benefit; but the benefit exists and
-waits for acceptance. Now the Americans have no metropolis. Their cities
-are all provincial towns. It may be, in their circumstances, politically
-good that they should have the smallest possible amount of
-centralization; but the want of this centralization is injurious to
-their scientific and philosophical progress and dignity, and, therefore,
-to their national originality. A conjurer's trip through the English
-counties is very like the progress of a lecturer or newly-imported
-philosopher through the American cities. The wonder, the excitement, the
-unbounded credulity are much alike in the two cases; but in the English
-village there may be an old man under the elm smiling good-naturedly at
-the show without following after it; or a sage young man who could tell
-how the puppets are moved as well as if he saw the wires. And so it is
-in the American cities. The crowd is large, but everybody is not in it;
-the believers are many, but there are some who foresee how soon the
-belief will take a new turn.
-
-When Spurzheim was in America, the great mass of society became
-phrenologists in a day, wherever he appeared; and ever since itinerant
-lecturers have been reproducing the same sensation in a milder way, by
-retailing Spurzheimism, much deteriorated, in places where the
-philosopher had not been. Meantime the light is always going out behind
-as fast as it blazes up round the steps of the lecturer. While the world
-of Richmond and Charleston is working at a multiplication of the fifteen
-casts (the same fifteen or so) which every lecturer carries about, and
-all caps and wigs are pulled off, and all fair tresses dishevelled in
-the search after organization, Boston has gone completely round to the
-opposite philosophy, and is raving about spiritualism to an excess which
-can scarcely be credited by any who have not heard the Unknown Tongues.
-If a phrenological lecturer from Paris, London, or Edinburgh should go
-to Boston, the superficial, visible portion of the public would wheel
-round once more, so rapidly and with so clamorous a welcome on their
-tongues, that the transported lecturer would bless his stars which had
-guided him over to a country whose inhabitants are so candid, so
-enlightened, so ravenous for truth. Before five years are out, however,
-the lecturer will find himself superseded by some professor of animal
-magnetism, some preacher of homoeopathy, some teacher who will
-undertake to analyze children, prove to them that their spirits made
-their bodies, and elicit from them truths fresh from heaven. All this is
-very childish, very village-like; and it proves anything rather than
-originality in the persons concerned. But it does not prove that there
-is not originality in the bosom of a society whose superficial movement
-is of this kind; and it does not prove that national originality may not
-arise out of the very tendencies which indicate that it does not at
-present exist.
-
-The Americans appear to me an eminently imaginative people. The
-unprejudiced traveller can hardly spend a week among them without being
-struck with this every day. At a distance it is seen clearly enough that
-they do not put their imaginative power to use in literature and the
-arts; and it does certainly appear perverse enough to observers from the
-Old World that they should be imitative in fictions (whether of the pen,
-the pencil, stone, or marble), and imaginative in their science and
-philosophy, applying their sober good sense to details, but being
-sparing of it in regard to principles. This arbitrary direction of their
-imaginative powers, or, rather, its restriction to particular
-departments, is, I believe and trust, only temporary. As their numbers
-increase and their society becomes more delicately organized; when,
-consequently, the pursuit of literature, philosophy, and art shall
-become as definitely the business of some men as politics and commerce
-now are of others, I cannot doubt that the restraints of imitation will
-be burst through, and that a plenitude of power will be shed into these
-departments as striking as that which has made the organization of
-American commerce (notwithstanding some defects) the admiration of the
-world, and vindicated the originality of American politics in theory and
-practice.
-
-However this may be, it is certain that there are individuals existing
-everywhere, in the very heart of Boston itself, as original as Sam
-Weller and David Crockett, or any other self-complacent mortal who
-finds scope for his humours amid the kindly intricacies of London or the
-canebrakes of Tennessee.
-
-Some of the most extraordinary instances I met with of persons growing
-mentally awry were among the scholars who are thinly sprinkled through
-the Southern and Western settlements. When these gentlemen first carried
-their accomplishments into the wilderness, they were probably wiser than
-any living and breathing being they encountered. The impression of their
-own wisdom was deep from the beginning, and it continues to be deepened
-by every accident of intercourse with persons who are not of their way
-of thinking; for to differ from them is to be wrong. At the same time
-their ways of thinking are such as are not at all likely to accord with
-other people's; so that their case of delusion is complete. I saw a
-charming pair of professors in a remote state most blessed in their
-opinions of themselves. They were able men, or would have been so amid
-the discipline of equal society; but their self-esteem had sprouted out
-so luxuriantly as to threaten to exhaust all the better part of them.
-One of the most remarkable circumstances in the case was that they
-seemed aware of their self-complacency, and were as complacent about it
-as about anything else. One speaking of the other, says, "A. has been
-examining my cranium. He says I am the most conceited man in the States,
-except himself."
-
-The exception was a fair one. When I saw B., I thought that I had seen
-the topmost wonder of the world for self-complacency; but upon this Alp
-another was to arise, as I found when I knew A. The only point of
-inferiority in A. is that he is not quite immoveably happy in himself.
-His feet are far from handsome, and no bootmaker at the West End could
-make them look so. This is the bitter drop in A.'s cup. This is the
-vulnerable point in his peace. His pupils have found it out, and have
-obtained a hold over him by it. They have but to fix their eyes upon his
-feet to throw him into disturbance; but, if they have gone too far, and
-desire to grow into favour again, they need only compliment his head,
-and all is well again. He lectures to them on Phrenology; and, when on
-the topic of Galen's scull, declares that there is but one head known
-which can compare with Galen's in its most important characteristics.
-The students all raise their eyes to the professor's bald crown, and
-the professor bows. He exhibits a cast of Burke's head, mentioning that
-it combines in the most perfect manner conceivable all grand
-intellectual and moral characteristics; and adding that only one head
-has been known perfectly to resemble it. Again the students fix their
-gaze on the summit of the professor, and he congratulates them on their
-scientific discernment.
-
-This gentleman patronises Mrs. Somerville's scientific reputation. He
-told me one morning, in the presence of several persons whom he wished
-to impress with the highest respect for Mrs. Somerville, the particulars
-of a call he once made upon her during a visit to England. It was a long
-story; but the substance of it was, that he found her a most
-extraordinary person, for that she knew more than he did. He had always
-thought himself a pretty good mathematician, but she had actually gone
-further. He had prided himself upon being a tolerable chymist, but he
-found she could teach him something there. He had reason to think
-himself a good mineralogist; but, when he saw her cabinet, he found that
-it was possible to get beyond him. On entering her drawing-room he was
-struck by some paintings which he ascertained to be done by her hand,
-while he could not pretend to be able to paint at all. He acknowledged
-that he had, for once, met his superior. Two days after, among a yet
-larger party, he told me the whole story over again. I fell into an
-absent fit in planning how I could escape from the rest of his string of
-stories, to talk with some one on the opposite side of the room. When he
-finally declared, "In short, I actually found that Mrs. Somerville knows
-more than I do," I mechanically answered, "I have no doubt of it." A
-burst of laughter from the whole party roused me to a sense of what I
-had done in taking the professor at his word. His look of mortification
-was pitiable.
-
-It was amusing to see him with the greatest statesman in the country,
-holding him by the button for an hour together, while lecturing in the
-style of a master to a hopeful schoolboy. The pompous air of the
-professor and the patient snufftaking of the statesman under instruction
-made a capital caricature subject. One of the professor's most serious
-declarations to me was, that the time had long been past when he
-believed he might be mistaken. He had once thought that he might be in
-the wrong like other people, but experience had taught him that he never
-erred. As, therefore, he and I did not agree on the point we were
-conversing about, I must be mistaken. I might rely upon him that it was
-so.
-
-It is not to be expected that women should resist dangers of position
-which men, with their wider intercourses, cannot withstand. The really
-learned and able women of the United States are as modest and simple as
-people of sound learning and ability are; but the pedantry of a few
-bookish women in retired country situations exceeds anything I ever saw
-out of novels and farces.
-
-In a certain region of the United States there are two sisters, living
-at a considerable distance from each other, but united (in addition to
-their undoubted sisterly regard) by their common belief that they are
-conspicuous ornaments of their country. It became necessary for me to
-make a call on one of these ladies. She knew when I was going, and had
-made preparation for my reception. I was accompanied by three ladies,
-one of whom was an avowed authoress; a second was a deep and
-thoroughly-exercised scholar, and happened to have published, which the
-pedantic lady did not know. The third was also a stranger to her, but a
-very clever woman. We were treated with ludicrous precision, according
-to our supposed merits; the third-mentioned lady being just honoured
-with a passing notice, and the fourth totally neglected. There was such
-an unblushing insolence in the manner in which the blue-stocking set
-people who had written books above all the rest of the world, that I
-could not let it pass unrebuked; and I treated her to my opinion that
-they are not usually the cleverest women who write; and that far more
-general power and wisdom are required to conduct life, and especially to
-educate a family of children well, than to write any book or number of
-books. As soon as there was a pause in the conversation, I rose to go.
-Some weeks afterward, when I was on a journey, a lady drove up from a
-distance of two miles to make an afternoon call upon me. It was the
-sister. She told me that she came to carry me home with her for the
-night, "in order," said she, "that you may see how we who scribble can
-keep house." As I had never had any doubt of the compatibility of the
-two things, it was of little consequence that I could not go. She
-informed me that she lectured on Mental and Moral Philosophy to young
-ladies. She talked with much admiration of Mr. Brown as a metaphysician.
-I concluded this gentleman to be some American worthy with whom I had
-to become acquainted; but it came out to be Dr. Thomas Brown whom she
-was praising. She appeared not to know even the names of metaphysicians
-out of the Scotch school; and if the ghosts of the Scotch schoolmen were
-present, they might well question whether she understood much of them.
-She told me that she had a great favour to ask of me: she wanted
-permission to print, in a note to the second edition of her Lectures on
-Mental and Moral Philosophy, a striking observation of mine made to her
-sister, which her sister had transmitted to her by the next post. I
-immediately assured her that she might print anything that I had said to
-her sister. She then explained that the observation was that they are
-not usually the cleverest women who write. I recommended her to make
-sure of the novelty of the remark before she printed it; for I was
-afraid that Shakspeare or somebody had had it first. What was the fate
-of the opinion I do not know; but it may be of use to the sisters
-themselves if it suggests that they may be mistaken in looking down upon
-all their sex who do not "scribble."
-
-I think it must have been a pupil of theirs who wrote me a letter which
-I threw into the fire in a fit of disgust the moment I had read it. A
-young lady, who described herself as "an ambitious girl," sent me some
-poetry in a magazine, and an explanation in writing of her own powers
-and aspirations. No one likes aspiration better than I, if only there be
-any degree of rational self-estimate connected with it. This young lady
-aspired to enter the hallowed precincts of the temple where Edgeworth,
-More, and others were immortalized. As for how she was to do it, her
-case seemed to be similar to that of a West Indian lady, who once
-complained to me that, while she was destined by her innate love of the
-sublime and the beautiful to be distinguished, Providence would not let
-her. The American young lady, however, hoped that a friendship with me
-might persuade the world to recognise her powers; and she informed me
-that she had come to town from a distance, and procured an invitation to
-a house where I was to spend the evening, that we might begin our
-friendship. The rooms happened to be so tremendously crowded that I was
-not obliged to see any more persons than those immediately about me. I
-was told that the "ambitious girl" was making herself very conspicuous
-by standing on tiptoe, beaming and fluttering; but I did not look that
-way, and never saw her. I hope she may yet read her own poetry again
-with new eyes, and learn that the best "ambition" does not write about
-itself, and that the strongest "powers" are the least conscious of their
-own operation.
-
-In two of the eastern cities I met with two ladies who had got a twist
-in opposite directions. It has been represented in England that a
-jealousy of English superiority, even in natural advantages, is very
-prevalent in the United States. I do not think so; and I am by no means
-sure that it is not nearly as rare as the opposite extreme. One instance
-of each kind of prejudice came under my notice, and I am not aware of
-more. At a party at Philadelphia, a lady asked me if I had not crossed
-the Alleghanies, and whether I did not think them stupendous mountains.
-I admired the views they presented, and said all I could for the
-Alleghanies; but it was impossible to agree that they were stupendous
-mountains. The lady was so evidently mortified, that I began to call the
-rivers stupendous, which I could honestly do; but this was not the same
-thing. She said, in a complaining tone,
-
-"Well, I cannot think how you can say there are no high mountains in the
-United States."
-
-"You mistake me," I said. "I have not seen the White Mountains yet; and
-I hear they are very grand."
-
-"You English boast so of the things you have got at home!" said she.
-"Why, I have seen your river Avon, that you make so much of. I stood by
-the Avon, under Warwick Castle, and I said to my husband that it was a
-mighty small thing to be talked of at such a distance. Why, if I had
-been ten years younger, I could almost have jumped over it."
-
-I told her that I believed the Avon was not so celebrated for the
-quantity of water in it as on some other accounts.
-
-The lady who went on the opposite tack is not very old, and I suppose,
-therefore, that her loyalty to the crown of England is hereditary. She
-made great efforts to see me, that she might enjoy my British
-sympathies. With a grieved countenance she asked me whether the folly
-and conceit of her countrymen in separating themselves from the crown
-were not lamentable. She had hoped that, before this, they would have
-become convinced of the guilt and silliness of their rebellion, and have
-sought to be taken back; but she hoped it was not yet too late. I fear
-she considered me a traitor to my country in not condemning hers. I was
-sorry to deprive her of her last hope of sympathy; but what could one do
-in such a case?
-
-There must be many local and professional oddities in a country like
-America, where individuals fill a larger space in society, and are less
-pressed upon by influences, other than local and professional, than in
-Old World communities. A judge in the West is often a remarkable
-personage to European eyes. I know one who unites all the odd
-characteristics of the order so as to be worth a close study. Before I
-left home, a friend desired me to bring her something, she did not care
-what, that should be exclusively American; something which could not be
-procurable anywhere else. When I saw this judge I longed to pack him up,
-and direct him, per next packet from New-York, to my friend; for he was
-the first article I met with that could not by possibility have been
-picked up anywhere out of the United States. He was about six feet high,
-lank as a flail, and seeming to be held together only by the long-tailed
-drab greatcoat into which he was put. He had a quid in his cheek
-whenever I saw him, and squirted tobacco-juice into the fireplace or
-elsewhere at intervals of about twenty seconds. His face was long and
-solemn, his voice monotonous, his manner dogmatical to a most amusing
-degree. He was a dogged republican, with an uncompromising hatred of the
-blacks, and with an indifferent sort of pity for all foreigners. This
-last feeling probably induced him to instruct me on various matters. He
-fixed his eyes on the fire, and talked on for my edification, but
-without taking express notice of the presence of any one, so that his
-lecture had the droll appearance of being a formal soliloquy. In the
-same speech he declared that no man was made by God to run wild through
-a forest who was not able to comprehend Christianity at sight; missions
-to the heathen being therefore sanctioned from heaven itself; and that
-men with a dark skin cannot, in three years, learn the name of a rope or
-a point of the compass, and that they are therefore meant to be slaves.
-It seemed to me that he was bound to suspend the operation of the law
-against all coloured persons on the ground of their incapacity, their
-lack of understanding of the common affairs of life. But the ground of
-their punishment in this life seemed to be that they might be as wise as
-they pleased about the affairs of the next. He proceeded with his
-enunciations, however, without vouchsafing an explanation of these
-mysteries. It must be an awkward thing to be either a heathen or a negro
-under his jurisdiction, if he acts upon his own doctrines.
-
-Country doctors are not unlike wild country judges. Being obliged to
-call in the aid of a village doctor to a companion, I found we had
-fallen in with a fine specimen of the class. I was glad of this
-afterward, but much annoyed at the time by the impossibility of
-extracting from him the slightest information as to my friend's state
-and prospects in regard to her health. I detained him in conversation
-day after day to no purpose, and varied my questions with as much
-American ingenuity as I could command; but all in vain. He would neither
-tell me what was the matter with her, nor whether her illness was
-serious or trifling, or whether it was likely to be long or short. He
-would give me no hint which could enable me to form my plans, or to give
-my distant friends an idea whether or when they might expect to see us.
-All that he would say was, "Hope your friend will be better;" "hope she
-will enjoy better health;" "will make her better if we can;" "must try
-to improve her health;" and so on. I was informed that this was all that
-I should extract if the illness were to last a twelvemonth. He took a
-blue paper with some white powder in it out of one pocket, and a white
-paper with some other powder out of another pocket; spilled some at
-random into smaller papers, and gave directions when they should be
-taken, and my friend speedily and entirely recovered. I never was so
-completely in the dark about the nature of any illness I saw, and I am
-completely in the dark still. I fancy I hear now the short, sharp,
-conceited tones of the doctor, doggedly using his power of exasperating
-my anxiety. Such was not his purpose, however. The country doctors
-themselves and their patients believe that they cure with far more
-certainty than any other doctors; the profession are probably convinced
-that they owe much to the implicit faith of their charge, and are
-resolved to keep up this faith by being impenetrable, allowing no part
-of their practice to be made a subject of discussion which can possibly
-be rendered mysterious. The chief reason of the success of country
-doctors is, doubtless, that they have to treat chiefly diseases of local
-prevalence, about which they employ long experience and practised
-sagacity, without having much account to give of their method of
-proceeding.
-
-A country physician of higher pretensions than the one who tormented me
-while curing my friend, told me that Yankee inquisitiveness is the
-plague of the life of a country doctor. The querists seem to forget that
-families may object to have domestic sickness made the talk of the
-village or hamlet, and that the doctor must dislike to be the originator
-of news of this kind. They stop him on his rounds to ask whom he is
-visiting in this direction, and whom in that, and who could be sick on
-the road in which he was seen going yesterday morning; and what such a
-one's complaint is called, and how it is going to be cured, &c. The
-physician told me that he was driven to invent modes of escape. If he
-was riding, he appeared to see some acquaintance at a distance, clapped
-spurs to his horse, and was off; if he was walking, he gave a name of
-six syllables to the disease talked about, and one of seven syllables to
-the remedy, thus defying repetition. If our doctor took me to be one of
-this class of querists, I could easily forgive his reserve.
-
-I was told a story of an American physician which is characteristic (if
-it be true), showing how patriotic regards may enter into the practice
-of medicine. But I give it only as an _on dit_. It is well known that
-Adams and Jefferson died on the 4th of July of one year, and Monroe of
-another. Mr. Madison died on the 28th of June last year. It is said that
-the physician who attended Mr. Monroe expressed regret that he had not
-the charge of Mr. Madison, suspecting that he might have found means to
-keep him alive (as he died of old age) till the 4th of July. The
-practice in Mr. Monroe's case is said to have been this: When he was
-sinking, some one observed what a remarkable thing it would be if he
-should die on the anniversary, like Adams and Jefferson. The physician
-determined he would give his patient the chance of its ending so. He
-poured down brandy and other stimulants, and omitted no means to keep
-life in the failing body. On the 3d of July, the patient was sinking so
-rapidly that there seemed little chance of his surviving the day. The
-physician's exertions were redoubled; and the consequence was, that, on
-the morning of the 4th, there seemed every probability of the patient's
-living to the 5th, which was not exactly desired. He died (just as if
-he wished to oblige his friends to the last) late in the afternoon of
-the 4th. So the story runs.
-
-It is astonishing what may be done by original genius, in availing
-itself of republican sentiment for professional purposes. The drollery
-infused into the puffing system in America would command the admiration
-of Puff himself. It may be doubted whether he would have been up to the
-invention of a recommendation of a certain oil for the hair which I saw
-at Washington, and which threw us into such a convulsion of laughter
-that the druggist behind the counter had to stand waiting some time
-before we could explain our business to him. A regiment of persons were
-represented walking up to a perfumer's counter with bald sculls of all
-degrees of ugliness, and walking away from it graced with flowing
-tresses of every hue, which they were showing off with gestures of
-delight. This was an ingenious device, but not perfectly wise, as it
-contained no appeal to patriotic feelings. I saw one at an optician's at
-Baltimore of a decidedly more elevated character. There were miniature
-busts in the window of Franklin, Washington, and Lafayette, each adorned
-with a tiny pair of spectacles, which made the busts appear as sage as
-life. Washington's spectacles were white, Franklin's green, and
-Lafayette's neutral tint.
-
-I acknowledge myself indebted for a new professional idea to an original
-in the bookselling line in a large American city. I am not sure that his
-originality extended beyond the frankness of his professional discourse;
-but that was infinitely striking. He told me that he wanted to publish
-for me, and would offer as good terms as anybody. I thanked him, but
-objected that I had nothing to publish. He was sure I must have a book
-written about America. I had not, and did not know that I ever should
-have. His answer, given with a patronising air of suggestion, was, "Why,
-surely, madam, you need not be at a loss about that. You must have got
-incident plenty by this time; and then you can Trollopize a bit, and so
-make a readable book."
-
-In the West we were thrown into the society of a girl about whom we were
-completely puzzled. Our New-England friends could only conclude, with
-us, that she had been trained amid the usages of some retired district
-to a freedom which is certainly very unusual in the country. In a stage
-which took up our party at a country hotel, near the Mammoth Cave, in
-Kentucky, was a girl of about two-and-twenty, oddly dressed. She got
-out and breakfasted with the other passengers, looking perfectly at her
-ease. We concluded that she belonged to one of two gentlemen in the
-stage, and we rather wondered that any gentleman should like to travel
-with a companion so untidily dressed as she was. She had a good black
-silk gown, but over it was pinned a square net handkerchief, unhemmed,
-and therefore looking ragged. She had black stockings, but shabby shoes
-of some dark-coloured leather, not black; and they were tied on with
-twine where the strings had given way. Her straw bonnet was shabby. She
-had nothing with her but a basket which she carried on her knees. She
-joined freely and pleasantly in conversation, and showed none of the
-common troublesome timidity amid the disasters of the day and of the
-ensuing night. It was very sultry weather. One of the horses fell from
-heat in the midst of the Barrens, and we all had to walk up the hills,
-and no short distance in the forest. The roads were so bad that the
-driver tried his utmost to alarm the passengers, in order to induce some
-to lighten his vehicle by remaining behind; but the girl seemed not in
-the least daunted. In the course of the night we were overturned, and
-had no light but what was afforded by the gentlemen walking before the
-stage, holding tallow candles which they had bought by the roadside; but
-nothing disconcerted the young lady. She was a girl of nerve and of
-patience, it was clear. She refused to sit down to the first meal we had
-on the road, and the reason of her abstinence appeared before the day
-was over. When we changed coaches, and it was necessary to pay on
-striking into a new route, she coolly inquired if any gentleman would
-ask a free passage for her till she could send the money out of Indiana,
-where she was going. It was now evident that she was alone, every
-passenger having supposed that she was of the party of somebody else.
-She gave no further explanation than that she had "come off in a hurry,"
-no one knowing of it but two of the slaves, and that she should send the
-money out of Indiana. There was not the slightest confusion in her
-manner, nor any apparent consciousness that she was behaving strangely.
-One of the gentlemen made himself answerable for her fare, and she
-proceeded with us.
-
-At Elizabethtown the next morning she refused breakfast with the utmost
-cheerfulness; but our friend Mr. L. invited her to sit down with us,
-which she did with a good grace. At seven in the evening we arrived at
-Louisville, and alighted at the great hotel; one of the largest,
-handsomest, and most luxurious in the United States, and, of course,
-expensive. We chose apartments while Mr. L. ordered supper in a private
-room for our party. Almost before my companion and I could turn
-ourselves round in our chamber, the lone girl, who had followed us about
-like a ghost, was taking her hair down at my dressing-table. Mrs. L.
-hastened to inform her that this room was engaged; but, pointing out
-that there were three beds, she said she should like to lodge here. Of
-course this could not be allowed; and, as soon as she found that we
-wished to be alone, she went away. When we descended with Mrs. L. to her
-room, we found the poor girl dressing there. Mrs. L. now took upon her
-to advise. She observed to the young person that she would probably be
-more comfortable in a less expensive hotel, to which she agreed. The
-same elderly gentleman who answered for her fare took her to a
-respectable hotel near at hand, and commended her to the care of the
-landlady, who promised to see her off for Indiana in the morning. We
-left Louisville at dawn, and heard no more of the lone girl, of whom we
-have often since thought and spoken. The odd circumstances of the case
-were her freedom from all embarrassment, and her cheerfulness on the
-road and while fasting, from want of money. There was not a trace of
-insanity in her manners, though her dress at first suggested the idea;
-and we could perceive no symptoms of the fear of pursuit or hurry of
-spirits which would have been natural consequences of a clandestine
-flight. Yet, by her own account, she must have done something of the
-kind.
-
-Though the freedom of travelling is not such as to admit of young ladies
-making their way about quite alone, in a way so unceremonious as this,
-the liberty of intercourse on the road is very great, and highly amusing
-to a stranger. One day in Virginia, on entering our parlour at a hotel
-where we were merely stopping to dine, I was amused to see our lawyer
-companion, Mr. S., in grave consultation with the hostess, while Mrs.
-S., her silk bonnet on her knee, and a large pair of scissors in hand,
-was busy cutting, slashing, and rending a newspaper on which the bonnet
-peak was spread. There was evidently so much more show than use in what
-she was doing, that I could not understand her proceedings. "What _are_
-you about?" asked I. Mrs. S. pointed to the landlady, and, trying to
-help laughing, told me that the hostess had requested the pattern of her
-bonnet. While this pretence of a pattern was in course of preparation by
-the lady, the hostess was getting a legal opinion out of the gentleman
-about a sum of eight hundred dollars which was owing to her. If we had
-only stayed to tea, I doubt not our landlady would have found some
-employment for every one of us, and have favoured us, in return, with
-all the rest of her private affairs.
-
-Originals who are so in common circumstances, through their own force of
-soul, ruling events as well as being guided by them, yield something far
-better than amusement to the observer. Some of these, out of almost
-every class, I saw in America, from the divine and statesman down to the
-slave. I saw a very old lady whom I consider to be one, not on account
-of her extraordinary amiability and sympathy with all ages (which cause
-her to be called grandmamma by all who know her), but because this
-temper of mind is the result of something higher than an easy
-disposition and prosperous circumstances. It is the accomplishment of a
-long-settled purpose. When Grandmamma J. was eight years old, she was in
-company with an old lady who was jealous, exacting, and peevish. On
-returning home, the child ran to her mother and said, "If I am ever an
-old lady, I will be a good-tempered old lady." This was not said and
-forgotten, like many childish resolutions formed under the smart of
-elderly people's faults. It was a real purpose. She knew that, in order
-not to be cross when old, it is necessary to be meek, patient, and
-cheerful when young. She was so; and the consequence is, that Grandmamma
-J.'s popularity is unbounded. She is cherished by the whole community to
-whom she is known. The children want to have her at their dances, and
-the youths and maidens are always happiest where she is. She looks as if
-no shadow of care had been cast over her bright spirit for many a long
-year, and as if she might yet have many sunny years to come. She is
-preacher, prophet, and dispenser of amiability, all in one.
-
-The venerable Noah Worcester is an original. I am thankful to have seen
-this aged apostle, for so he should be considered, having had a mission,
-and honourably discharged it. He is the founder of Peace Societies in
-America. Noah Worcester was a minister of the Gospel, of orthodox
-opinions. By the time he was surrounded by a family of young children,
-he had changed his opinions, and found himself a Unitarian. He avowed
-the change, resigned his parish, and went forth with his family, without
-a farthing in the world, or any prospect of being able to obtain a
-subsistence. He wrote diligently, but on subjects which were next his
-heart, and on which he would have written in like manner if he had been
-the wealthiest of American citizens. He set up the "Christian Disciple,"
-a publication which has done honour to its supporters both under its
-original title and its present one of "The Christian Examiner." He
-devoted his powers to the promotion of Peace principles and the
-establishment of Peace Societies. Whatever may be thought of the
-practical effects, in a narrow view, of such societies, they seem to
-have well answered a prodigious purpose in turning men's contemplations
-full on the subject of true and false honour, and in inducing a
-multitude of glorious experiments of living strictly according to a
-principle which happens to be troublesome in its application. The number
-of peacemen, practisers of nonresistance, out of the Quaker body, is
-considerable in America, and their great living apostle is Noah
-Worcester. The leaders of the abolition movement are for the most part
-peacemen; an inestimable circumstance, as it takes out the sting from
-the worst of the slanders of their enemies, and gives increased effect
-to their moral warfare. Human nature cannot withstand the grandeur of
-the spectacle of men who have all the moral power on their side, and who
-abide unresistingly all that the physical power of the other side can
-inflict The boldest spirits tremble, hearts the most hardened in
-prejudice melt, when once they come into full view of this warfare; and
-the victory rests with the men of peace, who all love the name of Noah
-Worcester. Nearly twenty years ago he was encompassed with distresses
-for a time. Indeed, his life has been one of great poverty till lately.
-He is not one of the men made to be rich, or to spend his thoughts on
-whether he was happy or not. He was sent into the world for a very
-different purpose, with which and with its attendant enjoyments poverty
-could but little interfere. But in the midst of his deep poverty came
-sickness. His two daughters were at once prostrated by fever, and a
-severe struggle it was before they got through. Two friends of mine
-nursed them; and in the discharge of their task learned lessons of faith
-which they will be for ever thankful for, and of those graces which
-accompany the faith of the heart, cheerfulness of spirits, and quietude
-and simplicity of manner. My friends were not, at the beginning, fully
-aware of the condition of the household. They were invited to table at
-the early dinner hour. On the table stood a single brown loaf and a
-pitcher of water. Grace was said, and they were invited to partake with
-the utmost ease and cheerfulness, and not a word passed in reference to
-the restriction of the fare. This was what God had been pleased to
-provide, and it was thankfully accepted and hospitably shared. The
-father went from the one sick room to the other, willing to receive what
-tidings might await him, but tender to his daughters, as they have since
-been to him. On one evening when all looked threatening, he asked the
-friendly nurse whether the voice of prayer would be injurious to his
-sick children; finding that they desired to hear him, he set open the
-doors of their chambers, kneeled in the passage between, and prayed, so
-calmly, so thankfully, that the effect was to compose the spirits of the
-invalids. One now lives with him and cherishes him. She has changed her
-religious opinions and become orthodox, but she has not changed towards
-him. They are as blessed in their relation as ever.
-
-Noah Worcester was seventy-six when I saw him in the autumn of 1835. He
-was very tall, dressed in a gray gown, and with long white hair
-descending to his shoulders. His eye is clear and bright, his manner
-serious but cheerful. His evening meal was on the table, and he invited
-us to partake with the same grace with which he offered his harder fare
-to the guests of former years. He lives at Brighton, a short distance
-from Boston, where his daughter manages the postoffice, by which their
-humble wants are supplied. He had lately published, and he now presented
-me with his "Last Thoughts" on some religious subjects which had long
-engaged his meditations. I hope his serene old age may yet be prolonged,
-gladsome to himself and eloquent to the world.
-
-There is a remarkable man in the United States, without knowing whom it
-is not too much to say that the United States cannot be fully known. I
-mean by this, not only that he has powers and worth which constitute him
-an element in the estimate to be formed of his country, but that his
-intellect and his character are the opposite of those which the
-influences of his country and his time are supposed almost necessarily
-to form. I speak of the author of the oration which I have already
-mentioned as being delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society last
-August, Mr. Emerson. He is yet in the prime of life. Great things are
-expected from him, and great things, it seems, he cannot but do, if he
-have life and health to prosecute his course. He is a thinker and a
-scholar. He has modestly and silently withdrawn himself from the
-perturbations and conflicts of the crowd of men, without declining any
-of the business of life, or repressing any of his human sympathies. He
-is a thinker without being solitary, abstracted, and unfitted for the
-time. He is a scholar without being narrow, bookish, and prone to occupy
-himself only with other men's thoughts. He is remarkable for the
-steadiness and fortitude with which he makes those objects which are
-frequently considered the highest in their own department subordinate to
-something higher still, whose connexion with their department he has
-clearly discovered. There are not a few men, I hope, in America, who
-decline the pursuit of wealth; not a few who refrain from ambition; and
-some few who devote themselves to thought and study from a pure love of
-an intellectual life. But the case before us is a higher one than this.
-The intellectual life is nourished from a love of the diviner life of
-which it is an element. Consequently, the thinker is ever present to the
-duty, and the scholar to the active business of the hour; and his home
-is the scene of his greatest acts. He is ready at every call to action.
-He lectures to the factory people at Lowell when they ask it. He
-preaches when the opportunity is presented. He is known at every house
-along the road he travels to and from home, by the words he has dropped
-and the deeds he has done. The little boy who carries wood for his
-household has been enlightened by him; and his most transient guests owe
-to him their experience of what the highest grace of domestic manners
-may be. He neglects no political duty, and is unmindful of nothing in
-the march of events which can affect the virtue and peace of men. While
-he is far above fretting himself because of evil-doers, he has ever
-ready his verdict for the right, and his right hand for its champions.
-While apart from the passions of all controversies, he is ever present
-with their principles, declaring himself and taking his stand, while
-appearing to be incapable of contempt of persons, however uncompromising
-may be his indignation against whatever is dishonest and harsh. Earnest
-as is the tone of his mind, and placidly strenuous as is his life, an
-exquisite spirit of humour pervades his intercourse. A quiet gayety
-breathes out of his conversation; and his observation, as keen as it is
-benevolent, furnishes him with perpetual material for the exercise of
-his humour. In such a man it is difficult to point out any one
-characteristic; but if, out of such a harmony, one leading quality is to
-be distinguished, it is in him modest independence. A more entire and
-modest independence I am not aware of having ever witnessed, though in
-America I saw two or three approaches to it. It is an independence
-equally of thought, of speech, of demeanour, of occupation, and of
-objects in life; yet without a trace of contempt in its temper, or of
-encroachment in its action. I could give anecdotes; but I have been his
-guest, and I restrain myself. I have spoken of him in his relation to
-society, and have said only what may be and is known to common
-observers.
-
-Such a course of life could not have been entered upon but through
-discipline. It has been a discipline of calamity as well as of toil. As
-for the prospect, it is to all appearance very bright. Few persons are
-apparently placed so favourably for working out such purposes in life.
-The condition seems hard to find fault with; and as to the spirit which
-is to work upon it--though I differ from some of the views of the
-thinker, and do not sympathize with all of those tastes of the scholar
-which I am capable of entering into--I own that I see no defect, and
-anticipate nothing short of triumph in the struggle of life.
-
-Something may be learned of this thinker and his aims from a few
-passages of his address; though this is the last purpose, I doubt not,
-that he dreamed of his work being used for. He describes the nature of
-the occasion. "Our holyday has been simply a friendly sign of the
-survival of the love of letters among a people too busy to give to
-letters any more." His topic is the American scholar, and he describes
-the influences which contribute to form or modify him: the influence of
-Nature, the mind of the past, and action in life. He concludes with a
-consideration of the duty of the scholar.
-
-"There goes in the world a notion that the scholar should be a recluse,
-a valetudinarian, as unfit for any handiwork or public labour as a
-penknife for an axe. The so-called 'practical men' sneer at speculative
-men as if, because they speculate or _see_, they could do nothing. I
-have heard it said that the clergy--who are always, more universally
-than any other class, the scholars of their day--are addressed as women;
-that the rough spontaneous conversation of men they do not hear, but
-only a mincing and diluted speech. They are often virtually
-disfranchised; and, indeed, there are advocates for their celibacy. As
-far as this is true of the studious classes, it is not just and wise.
-Action is with the scholar subordinate, but it is essential. Without it
-he is not yet man. Without it thought can never ripen into truth. While
-the world hangs before the eye as a cloud of beauty, we cannot even see
-its beauty. Inaction is cowardice; but there can be no scholar without
-the heroic mind. The preamble of thought, the transition through which
-it passes from the unconscious to the conscious, is action. Only so much
-do I know as I have lived."
-
-... "The mind now thinks, now acts, and each fit reproduces the other.
-When the artist has exhausted his materials, when the fancy no longer
-paints, when thoughts are no longer apprehended, and books are a
-weariness, he has always the resource to live. Character is higher than
-intellect. Thinking is the function. Living is the functionary.
-
-"The stream retreats to its source. A great soul will be strong to live
-as well as strong to think. Does he lack organ or medium to impart his
-truths? He can still fall back on this elemental force of living them.
-This is a total act. Thinking is a partial act. Let the grandeur of
-justice shine in his affairs. Let the beauty of affection cheer his
-lowly roof. Those 'far from fame' who dwell and act with him will feel
-the force of his constitution in the doings and passages of the day
-better than it can be measured by any public and designed display. Time
-shall teach him that the scholar loses no hour which the man lives.
-Herein he unfolds the sacred germe of his instinct screened from
-influence. What is lost in seemliness is gained in strength. Not out of
-those on whom systems of education have exhausted their culture comes
-the helpful giant to destroy the old or to build the new, but out of
-unhandselled savage nature, out of terrible Druids and Bersirkirs come
-at last Alfred and Shakspeare. I hear, therefore, with joy whatever is
-beginning to be said of the dignity and necessity of labour to every
-citizen. There is virtue yet in the hoe and the spade for learned as
-well as for unlearned hands. And labour is everywhere welcome; always we
-are invited to work; only be this limitation observed, that a man shall
-not, for the sake of wider activity, sacrifice any opinion to the
-popular judgments and modes of action."
-
-... "They (the duties of the scholar) are such as become man thinking.
-They may all be comprised in self-trust. The office of the scholar is to
-cheer, to raise, and to guide men by showing them facts amid
-appearances. He plies the slow, unhonoured, and unpaid task of
-observation. Flamstead and Herschel, in their glazed observatory, may
-catalogue the stars with the praise of all men, and, the results being
-splendid and useful, honour is sure. But he, in his private observatory,
-cataloguing obscure and nebulous stars of the human mind, which as yet
-no man has thought of as such; watching days and months, sometimes, for
-a few facts; correcting still his old records; must relinquish display
-and immediate fame. In the long period of his preparation he must betray
-often an ignorance and shiftlessness in popular arts, incurring the
-disdain of the able who shoulder him aside. Long he must stammer in his
-speech, often forego the living for the dead. Worse yet, he must accept,
-how often! poverty and solitude. For the ease and pleasure of treading
-the old road, accepting the fashions, the education, the religion of
-society, he takes the cross of making his own, and, of course, the
-self-accusation, the faint heart, the frequent uncertainty, and loss of
-time which are the nettles and tangling vines in the way of the
-self-relying and self-directed; and the state of virtual hostility in
-which he seems to stand to society, and especially to educated society.
-For all this loss and scorn, what offset? He is to find consolation in
-exercising the highest functions of human nature. He is one who raises
-himself from private considerations, and breathes and lives on public
-and illustrious thoughts. He is the world's eye. He is the world's
-heart. He is to resist the vulgar prosperity that retrogrades ever to
-barbarism, by preserving and communicating heroic sentiments, noble
-biographies, melodious verse, and the conclusions of history. Whatsoever
-oracles the human heart in all emergencies, in all solemn hours has
-uttered as its commentary on the world of actions, these he shall
-receive and impart. And whatsoever new verdict Reason from her
-inviolable seat pronounces on the passing men and events of to-day, this
-he shall hear and promulgate. These being his functions, it becomes him
-to feel all confidence in himself, and to defer never to the popular
-cry. He, and he only, knows the world. The world of any moment is the
-merest appearance. Some great decorum, some fetish of a government, some
-ephemeral trade, or war, or man, is cried up by half mankind and cried
-down by the other half, as if all depended on this particular up or
-down. The odds are that the whole question is not worth the poorest
-thought which the scholar has lost in listening to the controversy. Let
-him not quit his belief that a popgun is a popgun, though the ancient
-and honourable of the earth affirm it to be the crack of doom. In
-silence, in steadiness, in severe abstraction, let him hold by himself;
-add observation to observation; patient of neglect, patient of reproach,
-and bide his own time, happy enough if he can satisfy himself alone that
-this day he has seen something truly."
-
-... "I read with joy some of the auspicious signs of the coming days as
-they glimmer already through poetry and art, through philosophy and
-science, through church and state. One of these signs is the fact that
-the same movement which effected the elevation of what was called the
-lowest class in the state, assumed in literature a very marked and as
-benign an aspect. Instead of the sublime and beautiful, the near, the
-low, the common was explored and poetized. That which had been
-negligently trodden under foot by those who were harnessing and
-provisioning themselves for long journeys into far countries, is
-suddenly found to be richer than all foreign parts. The literature of
-the poor, the feelings of the child, the philosophy of the street, the
-meaning of household life, are the topics of the time. It is a great
-stride. It is a sign--is it not?--of new vigour, when the extremities
-are made active, when currents of warm life run into the hands and feet.
-I ask not for the great, the remote, the romantic; what is doing in
-Italy and Arabia; what is Greek art or Provencal minstrelsy; I embrace
-the common, I explore and sit at the feet of the familiar, the low. Give
-me insight into to-day, and you may have the antique and future worlds.
-What would we really know the meaning of? The meal in the firkin; the
-milk in the pan; the ballad in the street; the news of the boat; the
-glance of the eye; the form and the gait of the body; show me the
-ultimate reason of these matters; show me the sublime presence of the
-highest spiritual cause lurking, as always it does lurk, in these
-suburbs and extremities of nature; let me see every trifle bristling
-with the polarity that ranges it instantly on an eternal law; and the
-shop, the plough, and the leger referred to the like cause by which
-light undulates and poets sing; and the world lies no longer a dull
-miscellany and lumber-room, but has form and order; there is no trifle,
-there is no puzzle, but one design unites and animates the farthest
-pinnacle and the lowest trench."
-
-... "Another sign of our times, also marked by an analogous political
-movement, is the new importance given to the single person. Everything
-that tends to insulate the individual--to surround him with barriers of
-natural respect, so that each man shall feel the world is his, and man
-shall treat with man as a sovereign state with a sovereign state--tends
-to true union as well as greatness. 'I learned,' said the melancholy
-Pestalozzi, 'that no man in God's wide earth is either willing or able
-to help any other man.' Help must come from the bosom alone. The scholar
-is that man who must take up into himself all the ability of the time,
-all the contributions of the past, all the hopes of the future. He must
-be a university of knowledges. If there be one lesson more than another
-which should pierce his ear, it is, The world is nothing; the man is
-all; in yourself is the law of all nature, and you know not yet how a
-globule of sap ascends; in yourself slumbers the whole of Reason; it is
-for you to know all; it is for you to dare all. Mr. President and
-gentlemen, this confidence in the unsearched might of man belongs by all
-motives, by all prophecy, by all preparation, to the American scholar.
-We have listened too long to the courtly muses of Europe. The spirit of
-the American freeman is already suspected to be timid, imitative, tame.
-Public and private avarice make the air we breathe thick and fat. The
-scholar is decent, indolent, complaisant. See already the tragic
-consequence. The mind of this country, taught to aim at low objects,
-eats upon itself. There is no work for any but the decorous and the
-complaisant. Young men of the fairest promise, who begin life upon our
-shores, inflated by the mountain winds, shined upon by all the stars of
-God, find the earth below not in unison with these; but are hindered
-from action by the disgust which the principles on which business is
-managed inspire, and turn drudges or die of disgust, some of them
-suicides. What is the remedy? They did not yet see, and thousands of
-young men as hopeful now crowding to the barriers for the career do not
-yet see, that if the single man plant himself indomitably on his
-instincts, and there abide, the huge world will come round to him.
-Patience, patience; with the shades of all the good and great for
-company; and for solace, the perspective of your own infinite life; and
-for work, the study and the communication of principles, the making
-those instincts prevalent, the conversion of the world. Is it not the
-chief disgrace in the world not to be a unit; not to be reckoned one
-character; not to yield that peculiar fruit which each man was created
-to bear, but to be reckoned in the gross, in the hundred, or the
-thousand of the party, the section to which we belong; and our opinion
-predicted geographically, as the North or the South? Not so, brothers
-and friends; please God, ours shall not be so. We will walk on our own
-feet; we will work with our own hands; we will speak our own minds."
-
-Of the last class of originals--those who are not only strong to form a
-purpose in life and fulfil it, but who are driven by pressure of
-circumstance to put forth their whole force for the control of other
-destinies than their own--there is no more conspicuous example than
-Father Taylor, as he is called. In America there is no need to explain
-who Father Taylor is. He is known in England, but not extensively.
-Father Taylor is the seamen's apostle. He was a sailor-boy himself, and
-at twenty years old was unable to read. He rose in his calling, and at
-length became full of some religious convictions which he longed to
-express. He has found a mode of expression, and is happy. He is one of
-the busiest and most cheerful of men; and, of all preachers living,
-probably the most eloquent to those whom his preaching suits. So it
-would appear from events. I heard him called a second homely Jeremy
-Taylor; and I certainly doubt whether Jeremy Taylor himself could more
-absolutely sway the minds and hearts of the learned and pious of his day
-than the seamen's friend does those of his flock. He has a great
-advantage over other preachers in being able to speak to his hearers
-from the ground of their common experience; in being able to appeal to
-his own sealife. He can say, "You have lodged with me in the forecastle;
-did you ever know me profane?" "You have seen me land from a long
-voyage. Where did I betake myself? Am not I a proof that a sealife need
-not be soiled with vice on land?" All this gives him some power; but it
-would be little without the prodigious force which he carries in his
-magnificent intellect and earnest heart.
-
-A set of institutions is connected with the Boston Port Society, whose
-agent Mr. Taylor is. There is the Seamen's Bethel, in North Square,
-where Mr. Taylor preaches; a Reading-room, and a Nautical School; a
-Temperance Society, and the Bethel Union, the last being an association
-of seamen and masters of vessels for the purpose chiefly of settling
-disputes without litigation and scandal, promoting the just and kind
-treatment of seamen, and watching over their rights. There is also a
-Clothing Society, the object of which is economy rather than charity;
-and a Savings' Bank for seamen, the merits of which are sufficiently
-indicated by the title.
-
-Father Taylor is the life and soul of all this. Some help him liberally
-with the purse, and many with head and hands; but he is the animating
-spirit of the whole. His chapel is filled, from year's end to year's
-end, with sailors. He has no salary, and will not hear of one. He takes
-charge of all the poor connected with his chapel. To many this must look
-like an act of insanity. No class is more exposed to casualties than
-that of seamen; and, when a life is lost, an entire helpless family
-comes upon the charity of society. Father Taylor speaks of his ten
-thousand children, and all the woes and faults of a multitude are
-accumulated upon his hands; and yet he retains the charge of all his
-poor, though he has no fixed income whatever. He does it by putting his
-charge in the way of helping each other and themselves. He encourages
-sobriety and economy in all their habits, and enforces them with a power
-which it would be vain to attempt to give an idea of. He uses the utmost
-openness about his plans, and thereby obtains valuable co-operation. He
-has a collection of money made twice every Sunday in his church. The
-sums are given by the seamen almost exclusively, and are in very small
-coin; but the amount has gone on increasing, from first to last, except
-during intervals when Father Taylor was absent for his health. Between
-the years 1828 and 1835, the annual sum thus contributed rose from 98 to
-1079 dollars.
-
-Boston owes to Mr. Taylor and to Dr. Tuckerman its convictions of the
-pernicious operation of some of the old methods of charity by
-almsgiving; and the names of these gentlemen ought ever to be held in
-honour for having saved the young community in which they dwell from the
-curse of such pauperism in kind (the degree could never have become very
-formidable) as has afflicted the kingdoms of the Old World. Mr. Taylor
-owns that he little foresaw what he was undertaking in assuming the
-charge of all his poor, under such liabilities as those who follow the
-seaman's calling are exposed to: but he does it. The funds are, as it
-has been seen, provided by the class to be benefited; and they have
-proved hitherto sufficient, under the wise administration of the pastor
-and his wife, and under the animating influence of his glowing spirit,
-breathed forth from the pulpit and amid their dwellings. It seems as if
-his power was resorted to in difficult and desperate cases, like that of
-a superior being; such surprising facts was I told of his influence over
-his flock. He was requested to visit an insane man, who believed himself
-to be in heaven, and therefore to have no need of food and sleep. The
-case had become desperate, so long had the fasting and restlessness
-continued. Father Taylor prevailed at once; the patient was presently
-partaking of "the feast of the blessed" with Father Taylor, and enjoying
-the "saints' rest on a heavenly couch." From carrying a single point
-like this to redeeming a whole class from much of the vice and wo which
-had hitherto afflicted it, the pastor's power seems universally to
-prevail.
-
-I have not mentioned all this time what Father Taylor's religion is, or,
-rather, what sect he belongs to. This is one of the last considerations
-which, in his case, occurs to an observer. All the essentials of his
-faith must be so right to produce such results, that the separate
-articles of belief do not present themselves for inquiry. He is
-"orthodox" (Presbyterian), but so liberal as to be in some sort disowned
-by the rigid of his sect. He opens his pulpit to ministers of any
-Protestant denomination; and Dr. Beecher and other bigots of his own
-sect refused to preach thence after Unitarians. When this opposition of
-theirs diminished the contributions of his people during his absence,
-they twitted him with it, and insultingly asked whether he cheated the
-Unitarians, or they him? to which he replied, that they understood one
-another, and left all unfair proceedings to a third party.
-
-Mr. Taylor has a remarkable person. He is stoutly built, and looks more
-like a skipper than a preacher. His face is hard and weather-beaten, but
-with an expression of sensibility, as well as acuteness, which it is
-wonderful that features apparently so immoveable can convey. He uses a
-profusion of action. His wife told me that she thought his health was
-promoted by his taking so much exercise in the shape of action, in
-conversation as well as in the pulpit. He is very loud and prodigiously
-rapid. His splendid thoughts come faster than he can speak them; and, at
-times, he would be totally overwhelmed by them, if, in the midst of his
-most rapid utterance of them, a burst of tears, of which he is wholly
-unconscious, did not aid in his relief. I have seen them streaming,
-bathing his face, when his words breathed the very spirit of joy, and
-every tone of his voice was full of exhilaration. His pathos, shed in
-thoughts and tones so fleeting as to be gone like lightning, is the most
-awful of his powers. I have seen a single clause of a short sentence
-call up an instantaneous flush on the hundreds of hard faces turned to
-the preacher; and it is no wonder to me that the widow and orphan are
-cherished by those who hear his prayers for them. The tone of his
-petitions is importunate, even passionate; and his sailor hearers may be
-forgiven for their faith, that Father Taylor's prayers cannot be
-refused. Never, however, was anything stranger than some particulars of
-his prayers. I have told elsewhere[13] how importunately he prayed for
-rain in fear of conflagration, and, as it happened, the Sunday before
-the great New-York fire. With such petitions, urged with every beauty of
-expression, he mixes up whatever may have struck his fancy during the
-week, whether mythology, politics, housewifery, or anything else. He
-prayed one day, when dwelling on the moral perils of seamen, "that
-Bacchus and Venus might be driven to the end of the earth, and off it."
-I heard him pray that the members of Congress might be preserved from
-buffoonery. Thence he passes to supplication, offered in a spirit of
-sympathy which may appear bold at another moment, but which is true to
-the emotion of the hour. "Father! look upon us! _We are a widow._"
-"Father! the mother's heart thou knowest; the mother's bleeding heart
-thou pitiest. Sanctify to us the removal of this lamb!"
-
-Footnote 13: Society in America, vol. ii., p. 264.
-
-The eloquence of his sermons was somewhat the less amazing to me from my
-feeling that, if there be inspiration in the world, it arises from being
-so listened to. It was not like the preaching of Whitfield, for all was
-quiet in Father Taylor's church. There were no groans, few tears, and
-those unconsciously shed, rolling down the upturned face, which never
-for a moment looked away from the preacher. His voice was the only
-sound; now tremendously loud and rapid, overpowering the senses; now
-melting into a tenderness like that of a mother's wooings of her infant.
-The most striking discourse I heard from him was on the text, "That we,
-through the comfort of the Scriptures, might have hope." A crew from
-among his hearers were going to sail in the course of the week. He gave
-me a totally new view of the great trial of the seaman's life, the
-pining for rest. Never, among the poets of the earth, was there finer
-discourse of the necessity of hope to man, and never a more tremendous
-picture of the state of the hopeless. Father Taylor is no reader except
-of his Bible, and probably never heard of any poem on the subject on
-which he was speaking; and he therefore went unhesitatingly into a
-picture of what hope is to the mariner in his midnight watches and amid
-the tossing of the storm; and, if Campbell had been there, he would have
-joyfully owned himself outdone. But then the preacher went off into one
-of his strange descriptions of what people resort to when longing for a
-home for their spirits, and not finding the right one. "Some get into
-the stomach, and think they can make a good home of that; but the
-stomach is no home for the spirit;" and then followed some particular
-reasons why. Others nestle down into people's good opinion, and think,
-if they can get praise enough, they shall be at peace. "But opinion is
-sometimes an easy tradewind, and sometimes a contrary hurricane." Some
-wait and wait upon change; but the affairs of Providence go on while
-such are standing still, "and God's chronometer loses no time." After a
-long series of pictures of forlornness and pinings for home, he burst
-forth suddenly upon the promise, "I will give you rest." He was for the
-moment the wanderer finding rest; his flood of tears and of gratitude,
-his rapturous account of the change from pining to hope and rest were
-real to himself and to us for the time. The address to the departing
-seamen was tender and cheerful; with a fitting mention of the chances of
-mortality, but nothing which could be ever construed by the most
-superstitious of them, in the most comfortless of their watches, into a
-foreboding.
-
-Such preaching exerts prodigious power over an occasional hearer, and it
-is an exquisite pleasure to listen to it; but it does not, for a
-continuance, meet the religious wants of any but those to whom it is
-expressly addressed. The preacher shares the mental and moral
-characteristics, as well as the experience in life of his nautical
-hearers; their imaginative cast of mind, their superstition, their
-strong capacity for friendship and love, their ease about the future,
-called recklessness in some, and faith in others. This is so unlike the
-common mind of landsmen, that the same expression of worship will not
-suit them both. So Father Taylor will continue to be the seaman's
-apostle; and, however admired and beloved by the landsman, not his
-priest. This is as it should be, and as the good man desires. His field
-of labour is wide enough for him. No one is more sensible than he of its
-extent. He told me what he tells seamen themselves, that they are the
-eyes and tongues of the world; the seed carriers of the world; the
-winged seeds from which good or evil must spring up on the wildest
-shores of God's earth. His spirit is so possessed with this just idea of
-the importance of his work, that praise and even immediate sympathy are
-not necessary; though the last is, of course, pleasant to him. One
-Christmas day there was a misunderstanding as to whether the chapel
-would be open, and not above twenty people were present; but never did
-Father Taylor preach more splendidly.
-
-There is one great drawback in the religious services of his chapel.
-There is a gallery just under the roof for the people of colour; and
-"the seed carriers of the world" are thus countenanced by Father Taylor
-in making a root of bitterness spring up beside their homes, which,
-under his care, a better spirit should sanctify. I think there can be no
-doubt that an influence so strong as his would avail to abolish this
-unchristian distinction of races within the walls of his own church; and
-it would elevate the character of his influence if the attempt were
-made.
-
-No one doubts Garrison's being an original. None who know him can wonder
-that the coloured race of Americans look upon him as raised up to be
-their deliverer, as manifestly as Moses to lead the Israelites out of
-bondage.
-
-William Lloyd Garrison was, not many years ago, a printer's boy. The
-time will come when those who worked by his side will laboriously recall
-the incidents of the printing-office in those days, to make out whether
-the poor boy dropped expressions or shot glances which indicated what a
-spirit was working within him, or prophesied of the work which awaited
-him. By some accident his attention was turned to the condition of the
-coloured race, and to colonization as a means of rescue. Like all the
-leading abolitionists, Garrison was a colonizationist first; but, before
-his clear mind, enlightened by a close attachment to principles, and
-balanced by his being of a strong practical turn, the case soon appeared
-in its true aspect.
-
-Garrison, then a student in some country college, I believe, engaged to
-deliver a lecture on colonization; and, in order to prepare himself, he
-went down to Baltimore to master the details of the scheme on the spot
-where it was in actual operation. His studies soon convinced him of the
-fallacies and iniquities involved in the plan, and he saw that nothing
-short of the abolition of the slave system would redeem the coloured
-race from their social depression. A visitation of persecution came at
-this time in aid of his convictions. A merchant of Newburyport,
-Massachusetts, gave permission to the master of a vessel of which he was
-the owner to freight the ship with slaves at Baltimore, and carry them
-down to the New-Orleans market. Garrison commented upon this transaction
-in a newspaper in the terms which it deserved, but which were libellous,
-and he was, in consequence, brought to a civil and criminal trial,
-thrown into prison, and fined 1000 dollars, which he had not the
-remotest prospect of being able to pay. When he had been imprisoned
-three months, he was released by the fine being paid by Arthur Tappan,
-of New-York; a gentleman who was an entire stranger to Garrison, and who
-did this act (the first of a long series of munificent deeds) for the
-sake of the principle involved in the case.
-
-Of this gentleman a few words before we proceed. He is one of the few
-wealthy original abolitionists, and his money has been poured out freely
-in the cause. He has been one of the most persecuted, and his nerves
-have never appeared to be shaken. He has been a mark for insult from the
-whole body of his countrymen (except a handful of abolitionists) for a
-series of years; and he has never, on this account, altered his
-countenance towards man or woman. His house was attacked in New-York,
-and his family driven from the city; he quietly took up his abode on
-Long Island. His lady and children are stared at like wild beasts on
-board a steamboat; he tranquilly observes on the scenery. His partners
-early remonstrated with him on the injury he was doing to his trade by
-publicly opposing slavery, and supported one another in declaring to him
-that he must give up his connexion with the abolitionists. He heard them
-to an end; said, "I will be hanged first," and walked off. When I was in
-America, immense rewards for the head, and even for the ears of Mr.
-Tappan, were offered from the South, through advertisements in the
-newspapers and handbills. Whether these rewards were really offered by
-any committee of vigilance or not was the same thing to Mr. Tappan; he
-was, in either case, in equal danger from wretches who would do the deed
-for money. But it cannot be thought improbable that a committee of
-vigilance should commit an act of any degree of eccentricity at a time
-of such panic that a meeting was called in a new settlement in Alabama
-for the purpose of voting Mr. O'Connell a nuisance. Mr. Tappan's house
-on Long Island is in an exposed situation; but he hired no guard, and
-lost not an hour's sleep. When some one showed him one of these
-handbills, he glanced from the sum promised to the signatures. "Are
-these good names?" said he. A cause involving a broad principle, and
-supported to the point of martyrdom by men of this make, is victorious
-from the beginning. Its complete triumph is merely a question of time.
-
-Garrison lectured in New-York in favour of the abolition of slavery, and
-in exposure of the colonization scheme, and was warmly encouraged by a
-few choice spirits. He went to Boston for the same purpose; but in the
-enlightened and religious city of Boston, every place in which he could
-lecture was shut against him. He declared his intention of lecturing on
-the Common if he could get no door opened to him, and this threat
-procured for him what he wanted. At his first lecture he fired the souls
-of some of his hearers; among others, of Mr. May, the first Unitarian
-clergyman who embraced the cause. On the next Sunday Mr. May, in
-pursuance of the custom of praying for all distressed persons, prayed
-for the slaves; and was asked, on descending from the pulpit, whether he
-was mad.
-
-Garrison and his fellow-workman, both in the printing-office and the
-cause--his friend Knapp--set up the Liberator, in its first days a
-little sheet of shabby paper, printed with old types, and now a handsome
-and flourishing newspaper. These two heroes, in order to publish their
-paper, lived for a series of years in one room on bread and water, "with
-sometimes," when the paper sold unusually well, "the luxury of a bowl of
-milk." In course of time twelve men formed themselves into an abolition
-society at Boston, and the cause was fairly afoot.
-
-It was undergoing its worst persecutions just before I entered Boston
-for the winter. I had resolved some time before, that, having heard
-every species of abuse of Garrison, I ought in fairness to see him. The
-relation of the above particulars quickened my purpose, and I mentioned
-my wish to the relator, who engaged that we should meet, mentioning that
-he supposed I was aware what I should encounter by acknowledging a wish
-to see Garrison. I was staying at the house of a clergyman in Boston,
-when a note was brought in which told me that Mr. Garrison was in town,
-and would meet me at any hour, at any friend's house, the next day. My
-host arrived at a knowledge of the contents of the note quite against my
-will, and kindly insisted that Mr. Garrison should call on me at home.
-At ten o'clock he came, accompanied by his introducer. His aspect put to
-flight in an instant what prejudices his slanderers had raised in me. I
-was wholly taken by surprise. It was a countenance glowing with health,
-and wholly expressive of purity, animation, and gentleness. I did not
-now wonder at the citizen who, seeing a print of Garrison at a shop
-window without a name to it, went in and bought it, and framed it as the
-most saintlike of countenances. The end of the story is, that when the
-citizen found whose portrait he had been hanging up in his parlour, he
-took the print out of the frame and huddled it away. Garrison has a good
-deal of a Quaker air; and his speech is deliberate like a Quaker's, but
-gentle as a woman's. The only thing that I did not like was his
-excessive agitation when he came in, and his thanks to me for desiring
-to meet one "so odious" as himself. I was, however, as I told him,
-nearly as odious as himself at that time; so it was fit that we should
-be acquainted. On mentioning afterward to his introducer my impression
-of something like a want of manliness in Garrison's agitation, he
-replied that I could not know what it was to be an object of insult and
-hatred to the whole of society for a series of years; that Garrison
-could bear what he met with from street to street, and from town to
-town; but that a kind look and shake of the hand from a stranger
-unmanned him for the moment. How little did the great man know our
-feelings towards him on our meeting; how we, who had done next to
-nothing, were looking up to him who is achieving the work of an age,
-and, as a stimulus, that of a nation!
-
-His conversation was more about peace principles than the great subject.
-It was of the most practical cast. Every conversation I had with him
-confirmed my opinion that sagacity is the most striking attribute of his
-conversation. It has none of the severity, the harshness, the bad taste
-of his writing; it is as gladsome as his countenance, and as gentle as
-his voice. Through the whole of his deportment breathes the evidence of
-a heart at ease; and this it is, I think, more than all his distinct
-claims, which attaches his personal friends to him with an almost
-idolatrous affection.
-
-I do not pretend to like or to approve the tone of Garrison's printed
-censures. I could not use such language myself towards any class of
-offenders, nor can I sympathize in its use by others. But it is only
-fair to mention that Garrison adopts it warily; and that I am persuaded
-that he is elevated above passion, and has no unrighteous anger to vent
-in harsh expressions. He considers his task to be the exposure of
-fallacy, the denunciation of hypocrisy, and the rebuke of selfish
-timidity. He is looked upon by those who defend him in this particular
-as holding the branding-iron; and it seems true enough that no one
-branded by Garrison ever recovers it. He gives his reasons for his
-severity with a calmness, meekness, and softness which contrast strongly
-with the subject of the discourse, and which convince the objector that
-there is principle at the bottom of the practice. One day, when he was
-expressing his pleasure at Dr. Channing having shaken hands with him the
-preceding day, he spoke with affectionate respect of Dr. Channing. I
-asked him who would have supposed he felt thus towards Dr. Channing,
-after the language which had been used about him and his book in the
-Liberator of the last week. His gentle reply was,
-
-"The most difficult duty of an office like mine is to find fault with
-those whom I love and honour most. I have been obliged to do it
-about ---- ----, who is one of my best friends. He is clearly wrong in a
-matter important to the cause, and I must expose it. In the same way,
-Dr. Channing, while aiding our cause, has thought fit to say that the
-abolitionists are fanatical; in other words, that we set up our wayward
-wills in opposition to the will we profess to obey. I cannot suffer the
-cause to be injured by letting this pass; but I do not the less value
-Dr. Channing for the things he has done."
-
-I was not yet satisfied of the necessity of so much severity as had been
-used. Garrison bore with me with a meekness too touching to be ever
-forgotten.
-
-He never speaks of himself or his persecutions unless compelled, and his
-child will never learn at home what a distinguished father he has. He
-will know him as the tenderest of parents before he becomes aware that
-he is a great hero. I found myself growing into a forgetfulness of the
-deliverer of a race in the friend of the fireside. One day, in Michigan,
-two friends (who happened to be abolitionists) and I were taking a drive
-with the governor of the state, who was talking of some recent commotion
-on the slavery question. "What is Garrison like?" said he. "Ask Miss
-M.," said one smiling friend: "Ask Miss M.," said the other. I was asked
-accordingly; and my answer was, that I thought Garrison the most
-bewitching personage I had met in the United States. The impression
-cannot but be strengthened by his being made such a bugbear as he is;
-but the testimony of his personal friends, the closest watchers of his
-life, may safely be appealed to as to the charms of his domestic
-manners.
-
-Garrison gayly promised me that he would come over whenever his work is
-done in the United States, that we may keep jubilee in London. I believe
-it would be safe to promise him a hundred thousand welcomes as warm as
-mine.
-
-
-
-
-LAKE GEORGE.
-
-
-    "Those now by me as they have been,
-    Shall never more be heard or seen;
-    But what I once enjoy'd in them,
-    Shall seem hereafter as a dream."
-
-                                                              G. WITHER.
-
-
-Everybody who has heard of American scenery has heard of Lake George. At
-one time I was afraid I should have to leave the States without having
-visited the lake which, of all others, I most desired to see, so many
-hinderances had fallen in the way of my plans. A few weeks before I left
-the country, however, I was fortunate enough to be included in a party
-of four who made a trip to the Springs and the lake. It was not in the
-fashionable season, and for this I was not sorry. I had seen the
-Virginia Springs and Rock-away in the plenitude of their fashionable
-glory, and two such exhibitions are enough for one continent.
-
-It was about noon on the 12th of May when we alighted shivering from the
-railcar at Saratoga. We hastened to the Adelphi, and there found the
-author of Major Jack Downing's Letters and two other gentlemen reading
-the newspapers round a stove. We had but little time to spare; and, as
-soon as we had warmed ourselves and ascertained the dinner hour, we set
-forth to view the place and taste the Congress water. There is nothing
-to be seen but large white frame houses, with handsome piazzas,
-festooned with creepers (at this time only the sapless remains of the
-garlands of the last season). These houses and the wooden temple over
-the principal spring are all that is to be seen, at least by the bodily
-eye. The imagination may amuse itself with conjuring up the place as it
-was less than half a century ago, when these springs bubbled up amid the
-brush of the forest, their qualities being discovered by the path
-through the woods worn by the deer in their resort to it. In those days
-the only edifices were a single loghut and a bearpound; a space enclosed
-with four high walls, with an extremely narrow entrance, where it was
-hoped that bears might get in during the dark hours, and be unable to
-find their way out again. Times are much changed now. There are no bears
-at Saratoga but a two-legged species from Europe, dropping in, one or
-two in a season, among the gentry at the Springs.
-
-The process of bottling the Congress water was in full activity when we
-took our first draught of it. Though the utmost celerity is used, the
-water loses much of its virtue and briskness by bottling. The man and
-boy whom we saw filling and corking the bottles with a dexterity which
-only practice can give, are able to despatch a hundred dozen per day.
-There are several other springs, shedding waters of various medicinal
-virtues; but the Congress fountain is the only one from which the
-stranger would drink as a matter of taste.
-
-The waterworks are just at hand, looking like a giant's shower-bath. At
-the top of the eminence close by there is a pleasure railroad; a
-circular track, on which elderly children may take a ride round and
-round in a self-moving chair; an amusement a step above the old
-merry-go-round in gravity and scientific pretension. But for its
-vicinity to some tracts of beautiful scenery, Saratoga must be a very
-dull place to persons shaken out of their domestic habits, and deprived
-of their usual occupations; and the beauties of the scenery must be
-sought, Saratoga Lake lying three miles, Glen's Falls eighteen, and Lake
-George twenty-seven miles from the Springs.
-
-At dinner Mr. R., the gentleman of our party, announced to us that he
-had been able to engage a pretty double gig, with a pair of brisk
-ponies, for ourselves, and a light cart for our luggage. The day was
-very cold for an open carriage; but it was not improbable that, before
-twenty-four hours were over, we might be panting with heat; and it was
-well to be provided with a carriage in which we might most easily
-explore the lake scenery if we should be favoured with fine weather.
-
-The cart preceded us. On the road, a large white snake made a prodigious
-spring from the grass at the driver, who, being thus challenged, was not
-slow in entering into combat with the creature. He jumped down and
-stoned it for some time with much diligence before it would lie down so
-that he might drive over it. As we proceeded the country became richer,
-and we had fine views of the heights which cluster round the infant
-Hudson, and of the Green Mountains of Vermont.
-
-We were all astonished at the splendour of Glen's Falls. The full though
-narrow Hudson rushes along amid enormous masses of rock, and leaps sixty
-feet down the chasms and precipices which occur in the passage, sweeping
-between dark banks of shelving rocks below, its current speckled with
-foam. The noise is so tremendous that I cannot conceive how people can
-fix their dwellings in the immediate neighbourhood. There is a long
-bridge over the roaring floods which vibrates incessantly, and clusters
-of sawmills deform the scene. There is stonecutting as well as planking
-done at these mills. The fine black marble of the place is cut into
-slabs, and sent down to New-York to be polished. It was the busiest
-scene that I saw near any water-power in America.
-
-Lake George lies nine miles beyond Glen's Falls. We saw the lake while
-we were yet two miles from Caldwell, the pretty village at its southern
-extremity. It stretched blue among the mountains in the softening light;
-and we anticipated what our pleasures were to be as we looked upon the
-framework of mountains in which this gem is set. We had just emerged
-from a long and severe winter. We had been walking streets in every
-stage of thaw; and it was many months since we had loitered about in the
-full enjoyment of open air and bright verdure, as we hoped to do here.
-This trip was to be a foretaste of a long summer and autumn of outdoor
-delights.
-
-The people at the inn were busy cleaning, in preparation for summer
-company; but they gave us a welcome, and lodged and tended us well. Our
-windows and piazza commanded a fine view of the lake (here just a mile
-broad), of the opposite mountains, and of the white beach which sweeps
-round the southern extremity of the sheet of waters, as transparent as
-the sea about the Bermudas.
-
-As we had hoped, the next morning was sunny and warm. We employed it in
-exploring the ground about Fort William Henry, which stands on an
-eminence a little way back from the water, and is now merely an
-insignificant heap of ruins. The French and Indians used to pour down
-upon the settlements in the plains by the passes of the Lakes Champlain
-and George, and near these passes were fought some of the severest
-battles recorded in American history. The mountain opposite our windows
-at the Lake House is called French Mountain, from its being the point
-where the French showed themselves on the bloody 8th of September, 1755,
-when three battles were fought in the neighbourhood on the same day. It
-was two years later when the Marquis of Montcalm conducted an army of
-10,000 men to invest Fort William Henry. Colonel Monroe, who held it for
-the British, was obliged, after a gallant defence, to capitulate. He
-marched out with 3000 men, and many women and children. The Indians
-attached to the French army committed outrages which it is thought the
-marquis might have prevented. But it is probable that, when the guilt of
-taking savages for allies in offensive warfare is once incurred, any
-amount of mischief may ensue which no efforts of the commander can
-control. Every one knows the horrible story of Miss McCrea, the young
-lady who was on the way to be married to her lover in the British army,
-and who was tomahawked and scalped by the Indians in whose charge she
-was travelling. During the recrimination between the commanders on this
-occasion, General Burgoyne explained his inability to control the
-movements of passionate savages; and it must be supposed that Montcalm
-had no more power over the Indians who plundered and then murdered
-almost the whole number of the British who evacuated Fort William Henry.
-It was a horrible scene of butchery. We went over the ground, now waste
-and still, tangled with bushes, and inhabited only by birds and
-reptiles.
-
-After wandering for some hours on the beach, and breaking our way
-through the thick groves which skirt it, dwelling upon the exquisite
-scene of the blue lake, with its tufted islands shut in by mountains, we
-wished to find some place where we might obtain an equally good distant
-view, and yet enjoy the delights of the margin of the water. By climbing
-a fence we got to a green bank, whence we could reach a log in the
-water; and here we basked, like a party of terrapins, till dinnertime.
-The foliage of the opposite woods, on French Mountain, seemed to make
-great progress under the summer warmth of this day; and by the next
-morning the soft green tinge was perceptible on them, which, after the
-dry hardness of winter, is almost as beautiful as the full leaf.
-
-After dinner we took a drive along the western bank of the lake. The
-road wound in and out, up and down on the mountainous barrier of the
-waters, for there was no beach or other level. One of the beauties of
-Lake George is that the mountains slope down to its very margin. Our
-stout ponies dragged us up the steep ascents, and rattled us down on the
-other side in charming style; and we were so enchanted with the
-succession of views of new promontories and islands, and new aspects of
-the opposite mountains, that we should have liked to proceed while any
-light was left, and to have taken our chance for getting back safely.
-But Mr. R. pointed to the sinking sun, and reminded us that it was
-Saturday evening. If the people at the inn were Yankees, they would make
-a point of all the work of the establishment ceasing at sunset,
-according to the Sabbath customs of New-England; and we must allow the
-hostler a quarter of an hour to put up the ponies. So we unwillingly
-turned, and reached Caldwell just as the shutters of the stores were in
-course of being put up, and the last rays of the sun were gushing out on
-either side the mountain in the rear of the village. At the Lake House
-the painters were putting away their brushes, and the scrubbers emptying
-their pails; and, by the time twilight drew on, the place was in a state
-of Sunday quietness. We had descried a church standing under the trees
-close by, and the girl who waited on us was asked what services there
-would be the next day. She told us that there was regular service during
-the summer season when the place was full, but not at present; she
-added, "We have no regular preacher just now, but we have a man who can
-make a very smart prayer."
-
-The next day was spent in exploring the eastern side of the lake for
-some distance on foot, and in sitting on a steep grassy bank under the
-pines, with our feet overhanging the clear waters glancing in the sun.
-Here we read and talked for some hours of a delicious summer Sunday. I
-spent part of the afternoon alone at the fort, amid a scene of the
-profoundest stillness. I could trace my companions as they wound their
-way at a great distance along the little white beaches and through the
-pine groves; the boat in the cove swayed at the end of its tether when
-the wind sent a ripple across its bows; the shadows stole up the
-mountain sides; and an aged labourer sauntered along the beach, with his
-axe on his shoulder, crossed the wooden bridge over a brook which flows
-into the lake, and disappeared in the pine grove to the left. All else
-was still as midnight. My companions did not know where I was, and were
-not likely to look in the direction where I was sitting; so, when they
-came within hail--that is, when from mites they began to look as big as
-children--I sang as loud as possible to catch their attention. I saw
-them speak to each other, stop, and gaze over the lake. They thought it
-was the singing of fishermen, and it was rather a disappointment when
-they found it was only one of ourselves.
-
-On the Monday we saw the lake to the best advantage by going upon it. We
-took boat directly after breakfast, having a boy to row us; a stout boy
-he must be, for he can row twenty-eight miles on the hottest summer's
-day. The length of the lake is thirty-six miles; a long pull for a
-rower; but accomplished by some who are accustomed to the effort. First
-we went to Tea Island. I wish it had a better name, for it is a
-delicious spot, just big enough for a very lazy hermit to live in. There
-is a teahouse to look out from, and, far better, a few little reposing
-places on the margin; recesses of rock and dry roots of trees, made to
-hide one's self in for thought or dreaming. We dispersed; and one of us
-might have been seen, by any one who rowed round the island, perched in
-every nook. The breezy side was cool and musical with the waves. The
-other side was warm as July, and the waters so still that the cypress
-twigs we threw in seemed as if they did not mean to float away. Our
-boatman laid himself down to sleep, as a matter of course, thus bearing
-testimony to the charms of the island; for he evidently took for granted
-that we should stay some time. We allowed him a long nap, and then
-steered our course to Diamond Island. This gay handful of earth is not
-so beautiful as Tea Island, not being so well tufted with wood; but it
-is literally carpeted with forget-me-not. You tread upon it as upon
-clover in a clover-field.
-
-We coasted the eastern shore as we returned, winning our way in the
-still sunshine under walls of rock overhung by projecting trees, and
-round promontories, across little bays, peeping into the glades of the
-shore, where not a dwelling is to be seen, and where the human foot
-seems never to have trod. What a wealth of beauty is there here for
-future residents yet unborn! The transparency of the waters of this lake
-is its great peculiarity. It abounds with fish, especially fine red
-trout. It is the practice of the fishermen to select the prime fish from
-a shoal, and they always get the one they want. I can easily believe
-this, for I could see all that was going on in the deep water under our
-keel when we were out of the wind; every ridge of pebbles, every tuft of
-weed, every whim of each fish's tail, I could mark from my seat. The
-bottom seemed to be all pebbles where it was not too deep to be clearly
-seen. In some parts the lake is of unmeasured depth.
-
-It was three o'clock before we returned; and, as it is not usual for
-visiters to spend six or seven hours of a morning on the lake, the good
-people at the Lake House had been for some time assuring one another
-that we must have been cast away. The kind-hearted landlady herself had
-twice been out on the top of the house to look abroad for our boat. I
-hope the other members of my party will be spared to visit this scene
-often again. I can hardly hope to do so; but they may be sure that I
-shall be with them in spirit, for the time will never come when my
-memory will not be occasionally treated with some flitting image of Lake
-George.
-
-
-
-
-CEMETERIES.
-
-
-    "Diis manibus."
-
-                                                  _Ancient Inscription._
-
-
-As might have been predicted, one of the first directions in which the
-Americans have indulged their taste and indicated their refinement is in
-the preparation and care of their burial-places. This might have been
-predicted by any one who meditates upon the influences under which the
-mind of America is growing. The pilgrim origin of the New-England
-population, whose fathers seemed to think that they lived only in order
-to die, is in favour of all thoughts connected with death filling a
-large space in the people's minds. Then, in addition to the moving power
-of common human affections, the Americans are subject to being more
-incessantly reminded than others how small a section of the creation is
-occupied by the living in comparison with that engrossed by the dead. In
-the busy, crowded empires of the Old World, the invisible are liable to
-be forgotten in the stirring presence of visible beings, who inhabit
-every corner, and throng the whole surface on which men walk. In the New
-World it is not so. Living men are comparatively scarce, and the general
-mind dwells more on the past and the future (of both which worlds death
-is the atmosphere) than on the present. By various influences, death is
-made to constitute a larger element in their estimate of collective
-human experience, a more conspicuous object in their contemplation of
-the plan of Providence, than it is to, perhaps, any other people. As a
-natural consequence, all arrangements connected with death occupy much
-of their attention, and engage a large share of popular sentiment.
-
-I have mentioned that family graveyards are conspicuous objects in
-country abodes in America. In the valley of the Mohawk, on the heights
-of the Alleghanies, in the centre of the northwestern prairie, wherever
-there is a solitary dwelling there is a domestic burying-place,
-generally fenced with neat white palings, and delicately kept, however
-full the settler's hands may be, and whatever may be the aspect of the
-abode of the living. The new burial-places which are laid out near the
-towns may already be known from a distance by the air of finish and
-taste about their plantations; and I believe it is allowed that Mount
-Auburn is the most beautiful cemetery in the world.
-
-Before visiting Mount Auburn I had seen the Catholic cemetery at
-New-Orleans, and the contrast was remarkable enough. I never saw a city
-churchyard, however damp and neglected, so dreary as the New-Orleans
-cemetery. It lies in the swamp, glaring with its plastered monuments in
-the sun, with no shade but from the tombs. Being necessarily drained, it
-is intersected by ditches of weedy stagnant water, alive with frogs,
-dragon-flies, and moscheto-hawks. Irish, French, and Spanish are all
-crowded together, as if the ground could scarcely be opened fast enough
-for those whom the fever lays low; an impression confirmed by a glance
-at the dates. The tombs of the Irish have inscriptions which provoke a
-kind of smile, which is no pleasure in such a place. Those of nuns bear
-no inscription but the monastic name--Agathe, Seraphine, Thérèse--and
-the date of death. Wooden crosses, warped in the sun or rotting with the
-damp, are in some places standing at the heads of graves, in others are
-leaning or fallen. Glass boxes, containing artificial flowers and tied
-with faded ribands, stand at the foot of some of these crosses.
-Elsewhere we saw pitchers with bouquets of natural flowers, the water
-dried up and the blossoms withered. One enclosure surrounding a monument
-was adorned with cypress, arbour vitæ, roses, and honeysuckles, and this
-was a relief to the eye while the feet were treading the hot dusty walks
-or the parched grass. The first principle of a cemetery was here
-violated, necessarily, no doubt, but by a sad necessity. The first
-principle of a cemetery--beyond the obligation of its being made safe
-and wholesome--is that it should be cheerful in its aspect. For the sake
-of the dead, this is right, that their memories may be as welcome as
-possible to survivers; for the sake of the living, that superstition may
-be obviated, and that death may be brought into the most familiar
-connexion with life that the religion and philosophy of the times will
-allow; that, at least, no hinderance to this may be interposed by the
-outward preparations for death.
-
-It has sometimes occurred to me to wonder where a certain class of
-persons find sympathy in their feelings about their dead friends, or
-whether they have to do without it; those, and they are not a few, who
-are entirely doubtful about a life beyond the grave. There are not a few
-Christians, I believe, and certainly many who are Christians only
-nominally or not at all, who are not satisfied about whether conscious
-life ends here, or under what circumstances it will be continued or
-resumed if this life be but a stage of being. Such persons can meet
-nothing congenial with their emotions in any cemeteries that I know of;
-and they must feel doubly desolate when, as bereaved mourners, they walk
-through rows of inscriptions which all breathe more than hope, certainty
-of renewed life and intercourse, under circumstances which seem to be
-reckoned on as ascertained. How strange it must be to such to read of
-the trumpet and the clouds, of the tribunal and the choirs of the
-saints, as literal realities, expected like the next morning's sunrise,
-and awaited as undoubtedly as the stroke of death, while they are
-sending their thoughts abroad meekly, anxiously, imploringly, through
-the universe, and diving into the deepest abysses of their own spirits
-to find a resting-place for their timid hopes! For such there is little
-sympathy anywhere, and something very like mockery in the language of
-the tombs.
-
-Evidences of the two extremes of feeling on this matter are found, I am
-told, in Père la Chaise and Mount Auburn. In Père la Chaise every
-expression of mourning is to be found; few or none of hope. The desolate
-mother, the bereaved brother, the forlorn child, the despairing husband,
-all breathe their complaint, with more or less of selfishness or of
-tenderness; but there is no light from the future shining over the
-place. In Mount Auburn, on the contrary, there is nothing else. A
-visiter from a strange planet, ignorant of mortality, would take this
-place to be the sanctum of creation. Every step teems with the promise
-of life. Beauty is about to "spring up out of ashes, and life out of the
-dust;" and Humanity seems to be waiting, with acclamations ready on its
-lips, for the new birth. That there has been any past is little more
-than matter of inference. All the woes of bereavement are veiled; all
-sighs hushed; all tears hidden or wiped away, and thanksgiving and joy
-abound instead. Between these two states of mind, the seriously,
-innocently doubtful stand alone and most desolate. They are speechless,
-for none question them or care to know their solicitudes, for they are
-an unsupposed class in a Christian community. In no consecrated ground
-are there tombs bearing an expression of doubt or fear; yet, with the
-mind's eye, I always see such while treading the paths of a cemetery. It
-cannot be but that, among the diversity of minds diversely trained,
-there must be some less easily satisfied than others, some skeptical in
-proportion to the intensity of their affection for the departed; and it
-is to these that the sympathies of the happier should be given. If the
-rich should be mindful of the poor, if those who are ashore during the
-storm cannot but look out for the tempest-driven bark, those who part
-with their friends in sure and certain hope of a joyful resurrection
-should bear in mind with all tenderness such as have to part with their
-friends without the solace of that hope. Not that anything can be done
-for them beyond recognising them as fellow-mourners laid under a deeper
-burden of grief, and needing, therefore, a larger liberty of expression
-than themselves.
-
-While rambling about in the cheerful glades of Mount Auburn, such
-thoughts occurred to me, as I hope they often do to others. To us, in
-whom education, reason, the prophecies of natural religion, and the
-promises of the gospel unite their influence to generate a perfect
-belief in a life beyond the grave, it is scarcely possible to conceive
-how these scenes must appear to one whose prospects are different or
-doubtful. But it is good for our human sympathies and for our mutual
-reverence to make the attempt. The conclusion would probably be, with
-others as with me, that the consecration of this place to hope and
-triumph would make it too sad for the hesitating and hopeless; and that
-such probably turn away from the spot where all is too bright and lovely
-for the desolate of heart.
-
-It is, indeed, a place for the living to delight in while watching the
-sleep of the dead. There is no gloom about it to any but those who look
-abroad through the gloom of their own minds. It is a mazy paradise,
-where every forest tree of the western continent grows, and every bird
-to which the climate is congenial builds its nest. The birds seem to
-have found out that within that enclosure they are to be unmolested, and
-there is a twittering in every tree. The clearings are few: the woods
-preside, with here and there a sunny hillside and a shady dell, and a
-gleaming pond catching the eye at intervals. From the summit of the
-eminence, the view abroad over the woods is wonderfully beautiful: of
-the city of Boston on an opposite hill; of Fresh Pond on another side;
-of the University; and of the green country, studded with dwellings, and
-terminating in cloudlike uplands. Every aspect of busy life seems to be
-brought full into the view of the gazer from this "place of sleep." If
-he looks immediately below him, he sees here and there a monument
-shining among the trees; and he can hide himself in a moment in the
-shades where, as the breeze passes, the birch twinkles among the solemn
-pines.
-
-As the burial lots have to be described with reference to different
-portions of the enclosure, every hill, every avenue, footpath, and dell
-must have its name. This naming might have spoiled all if it had been
-mismanaged; but this has been skilfully guarded against. The avenues and
-hills are called after forest trees, the footpaths after shrubs and
-flowers. Beech, Cypress, and Poplar Avenues; Hazel, Vine, and Jasmine
-Paths; and so on. The monuments must, of course, be ordered by the taste
-of the holders of lots; and the consequence necessarily is occasional
-incongruity.
-
-This place arose out of a happy union between two societies; one which
-had long wished to provide a private rural cemetery, and the
-Massachusetts Horticultural Society. It occurred to some of the members
-of the latter that the objects of the two associations might be
-advantageously united; and upon a tract of ground, fit for the purpose,
-being offered, no time was lost in carrying the scheme into execution.
-This was seven years ago. The tract of ground lay at a distance of four
-miles from Boston, and consisted of seventy-two acres. The protection of
-the legislature was secured at its session in 1831. A large number of
-lots was immediately taken, and a day was fixed for the consecration of
-the ground by a public religious service. The day fixed was the 24th of
-September, 1831. The weather was delicious, and the day one which will
-never be forgotten by those who assisted in its services.
-
-A deep dell, almost circular, was fitted up with seats. The speakers
-stood at the bottom, with a pine wood behind them, and at their feet a
-pond shining with water-lilies. From the form of the place, every tone
-of the speakers' voices was heard by the topmost row of persons on the
-verge of the dell. After instrumental music by the Boston band, there
-was a prayer by a venerable professor of the University; and a hymn,
-written for the occasion, was sung by all the persons present to the
-tune of Old Hundred. Judge Story delivered the address; a beautiful
-composition, full of the feelings natural to one who was about to
-deposite here a rich heart's treasure, and who remembered that here he
-and all who heard him were probably to lie down to their rest.
-
-Judge Story had made me promise at Washington that I would not go to
-Mount Auburn till he could take me there. The time arrived the next
-August, and early on a warm afternoon we set forth. Several carriages
-were at the gate, for the place is a favourite resort on other accounts
-besides its being "a place of sleep." The gate at the entrance is of
-imitation granite, for which it is to be hoped the real stone will soon
-be substituted. The structure is Egyptian, as are the emblems, the
-winged globe, the serpent, and the lotus. It is rather strange that the
-inscription should be taken from the Old Testament, even from
-Ecclesiastes: "Then shall the dust return to the earth, and the spirit
-unto God who gave it."
-
-One of the most conspicuous monuments is Spurzheim's, visible almost
-immediately on entering the place. It is a fac-simile of Scipio's tomb!
-I could not understand its idea, nor did I meet with any one else who
-did; nor is it easy to conceive how anything appropriate to Scipio could
-suit Spurzheim. I was informed that the fact was that the monument
-happened to arrive just at the time of Spurzheim's death; and that the
-committee appointed to dispense his funeral honours saved themselves
-trouble by purchasing the marble. It stands well, on a green mound, on
-the left-hand side of the avenue. Mrs. Hannah Adams, the historian of
-the Jews, had the honour of being the first to be interred in this
-cemetery. The white obelisk is frequent, and looks well in a place so
-thickly wooded. Under one of these lie five children of Judge Story,
-removed from another place of sepulture to this beautiful spot. The
-Connecticut freestone is much in use, and its reddish hue harmonizes
-well with what surrounds it. It is particularly fit for the Egyptian
-fronts to vaults hollowed out of the hillsides. The objection to it for
-tombs which have to receive an inscription is that it will bear none but
-gold letters. The granite fronts of Egyptian tombs look well. I thought
-them the most beautiful burial-places I ever saw, the grass growing
-thick on the hillside above and on either hand; and, in some instances,
-a little blooming garden smiling in front. I saw many lots of ground
-well tended, and wearing the air of luxuriant gardens; some surrounded
-with palings, some with posts and chains, and others with hedges of
-cypress or belts of acacia. Many separate graves were studded with
-flowers, the narrowest and gayest of gardens. Of all the inscriptions,
-the one which pleased me most was on a monument erected by an only
-surviving sister to her brother: "Jesus saith unto her, 'Thy brother
-shall rise again.'"
-
-While writing I have been struck by the strong resemblance between the
-retrospect of travel from home and that of life from the cemetery. In
-each contemplation the hosts of human beings who have been seen acting,
-suffering, and meditating, rise up before the mind's eye as in a kind of
-judgment scene, except that they rise up, not to be judged, but to
-instruct. The profit of travel is realized at home in the solitude of
-the study, and the true meaning of human life (as far as its meaning can
-become known to us here) is best made out from its place of rest. While
-busy among strangers, one is carried away by sympathy and by prejudice
-from the point whence foreign society can be viewed with anything like
-impartiality; one cannot but hear the mutual criminations of parties;
-one cannot but be perplexed by the mutual misrepresentations of
-fellow-citizens; one cannot but sympathize largely with all in turn,
-since there is a large mixture of truth in all views about which people
-are strongly persuaded. It is only after sitting down alone at home that
-the traveller can separate the universal truth from the partial error
-with which he has sympathized, and can make some approximation towards
-assurance as to what he has learned and what he believes. So it is in
-the turmoil of life. While engaged in it, we are ignorantly persuaded,
-and liable, therefore, to be shaken from our certainty; we are
-disproportionately moved, and we sympathize with incompatibilities, so
-as to be sure of disappointment and humiliation inflicted through our
-best sensibilities. In the place of retrospect we may find our repose
-again in contemplating our ignorance and weakness, and ascertaining the
-conviction and strength which they have wrought out for us.
-
-What is gained by living and travelling?
-
-One of the most striking and even amusing results is the perception of
-the transient nature of troubles. The thoughtful traveller feels
-something like wonder and amusement at himself for being so depressed by
-evils as he finds himself in the midst of long-idealized objects. He is
-surprised at his own sufferings from hunger, cold, heat, and weariness;
-and at his being only prevented by shame from passing some great object
-unseen, if he has to rouse himself from sleep to look at it, or to
-forego a meal for its sake. The next time he is refreshed, he wonders
-how his troubles could ever so affect him; and, when at home, he looks
-through the picture-gallery of his memory, the afflictions of past hours
-would have vanished, their very occurrence would be denied but for the
-record in the journal. The contemptible entries about cold, hunger, and
-sleepiness stand, ludicrously enough, among notices of cataracts and
-mountains, and of moral conflicts in the senates of nations. And so with
-life. We look back upon our pangs about objects of desire, as if it were
-the object and not the temper of pursuit which was of importance. We
-look back on our sufferings from disease, from disappointment, from
-suspense, in times when the great moral events of our lives, or even of
-the age, were impending, and we disregarded them. We were mourning over
-some petty loss or injury while a new region of the moral universe was
-about to be disclosed to us; or fretting about our "roast chicken and
-our little game at cards," while the liberties of an empire were being
-lost or won.
-
-Worse than our own little troubles, probably, has been the fear and
-sorrow of hurting others. One of the greatest of a traveller's hardships
-is the being aware that he must be perpetually treading on somebody's
-toes. Passing from city to city, from one group of families to another,
-where the divisions of party and of sect, the contrariety of interests,
-and the world of domestic circumstance are all unknown to him, he can
-hardly open his lips without wounding somebody; and it makes him all the
-more anxious if, through the generosity of his entertainers, he never
-hears of it. No care of his own can save him from his function of
-torturer. He cannot speak of religion, morals, and politics; he cannot
-speak of insanity, intemperance, or gaming, or even of health, riches,
-fair fame, and good children, without danger of rousing feelings of
-personal remorse or family shame in some, or the bitter sense of
-bereavement in others. Little or nothing has been said of this as one of
-the woes of travelling; but, in my own opinion, this is the direction in
-which the fortitude of the traveller is the most severely tried. Yet, in
-the retrospect, it seems even good that we should have been obliged thus
-to call the generosity and forbearance of our hosts into exercise. They
-are, doubtless, benefited by the effort; and we may perhaps be gainers,
-the direct operation of forbearance and forgiveness being to enhance
-affection. The regard of those whom we have wounded may perhaps be
-warmer than if we had never hurt them. It is much the same with men's
-mutual inflictions in life. None of us, especially none who are frank
-and honest, can speak what we think, and act according to what we
-believe, without giving pain in many directions. It is very painful, but
-quite unavoidable. In the retrospect, however, we are able to smile on
-the necessity, and to conclude that, as we have been willing to bear our
-share of the wounding from others, and should, perhaps, have been sorry
-if it had not happened, it is probable that others may have regarded us
-and our inflictions in the same way.
-
-Nothing is more conspicuous in the traveller's retrospect than the fact
-how little external possession has to do with happiness. As he wanders
-back over city and village, plantation and prairie, he sees again care
-on the brow of the merchant and mirth in the eyes of the labourer; the
-soulless faces of the rich Shakers rise up before him, side by side with
-the gladsome countenance of the ruined abolitionist. Each class kindly
-pities the one below it in power and wealth; the traveller pities none
-but those who are wasting their energies in the exclusive pursuit of
-either. Generally speaking, they have all an equal endowment of the
-things from which happiness is really derived. They have, in pretty
-equal distribution, health, senses, and their pleasures, homes,
-children, pursuits, and successes. With all these things in common, the
-one point of difference in their respective amounts of possession of
-more than they can at present eat, use, and enjoy, seems to him quite
-unworthy of all the compassion excited by it; though the compassion,
-having something amiable in it, is of a kindly use as far as it goes. In
-a cemetery, the thoughtless are startled into the same perception. How
-destitute are the dead in their graves! How naked is the spirit gone
-from its warm housings and environs of luxuries! This is the first
-thought. The next is, was it ever otherwise? Had these luxuries ever
-anything to do with the peace of the spirit, except as affording a
-pursuit for the employment of its energies? Is not as vigorous and
-gladsome a mind to be found abroad in the fields, or singing at the
-mill, as doing the honours of the drawing-room? and, if it were not so,
-what words could we find strong enough for the cruelty of the decree
-under which every human being is compelled to enter his grave solitary
-and destitute? In the retrospect of the recent traveller in America, the
-happiest class is clearly that small one of the original abolitionists;
-men and women wholly devoted to a lofty pursuit, and surrendering for it
-much that others most prize: and, in the retrospect of the traveller
-through life, the most eminently blessed come forth from among all ranks
-and orders of men, some being rich and others poor; some illustrious and
-others obscure; but all having one point of resemblance, that they have
-not staked their peace on anything so unreal as money or fame.
-
-As for the worth of praise, a traveller cannot have gone far without
-finding it out. He has been praised and blamed at every turn; and he
-soon sees that what people think of him matters to themselves and not to
-him. He applies this to himself, and finds confirmation. It is ludicrous
-to suppose that what he thinks of this man and that, whose motives and
-circumstances he can never completely understand, should be of lasting
-importance to the subjects of his observation, while he feels it to be
-very important to his own peace and state of temper that he should
-admire as much and despise as little as reason will allow. That this is
-not more felt and acted upon is owing to the confined intercourses of
-the majority of men. If, like the traveller, they were for a long time
-exposed to a contrariety of opinions respecting themselves, they would
-arrive at the conviction which rises "by natural exhalation" from the
-field of graves, that men's mutual judgments are almost insignificant to
-the objects of them, while immeasurably important to those who form
-them. When we look about us upon this obelisk and that urn, what matter
-the applauses and censures of the neighbours of the departed, in the
-presence of the awful facts here declared, that he has lived and is
-gone? In this mighty transaction between himself and his Maker, how
-insignificant to him are the comments of beings between whom and himself
-there could exist no complete understanding in this life! But there is
-no overrating the consequences to himself of having lived with high or
-low models before his eyes; in a spirit of love or a spirit of contempt;
-in a process of generous or disparaging interpretation of human actions.
-His whole future condition and progress may be affected by it.
-
-Out of this matter of mutual opinion arises a cheering emotion, both to
-the retrospective traveller and to the thinker among the tombs. Each
-foreign companion of the one, and each who lies buried about the path of
-the other, has had his hero, and even succession of heroes, among the
-living. I know not what those who despise their kind can make of this
-fact, that every human being whom we know has found in every stage of
-his conception of moral beauty some living exemplification which
-satisfied him for the time. The satisfaction is only temporary, it is
-true, and the admiration fades when the satisfaction is impaired; but
-this only shows the vigour of the moral nature and its capacity of
-progress. The fact that every man is able to make idols, though he must
-"find them clay," is a proof of the vast amount of good which human
-character presents to every observer. The reality of this is very
-striking in the existence of villagers, who find so much excellence
-round about them that they cannot believe any other part of God's world
-is so good as their village; but the effect to the traveller of going
-from village to village, from city to city, during his wanderings of ten
-thousand miles, and finding the same worship, the same prejudice, born
-of mutual reverence and love, wherever he goes, is exhilarating to his
-heart of hearts. The testimony at the same time to the love and
-existence of goodness is so overpowering, that it must subdue
-misanthropy itself, if only misanthropy could be brought into the
-presence of a large number of the human race; which, it may be
-suspected, has never been done. When we extend our view from the field
-of travel to the world of the dead, and remember that every one of the
-host has had his succession of heroes and demigods, and, probably, of
-worshippers also, what words can express the greatness of the homage
-rendered to goodness? It drowns all the praises practically offered to
-the powers of evil, from the first hour of sin and sorrow till now.
-
-The mysterious pain of partings presses upon the returned traveller and
-the surviver with nearly equal force. I do not know whether this wo is
-usually taken into the estimate of travellers when they are counting the
-cost of their scheme before setting out; but I know that it deserves to
-be. I believe that many would not go if they could anticipate the misery
-of such partings as those which must be encountered in a foreign
-country, in long dreary succession, and without more hope than in
-parting with the dying. The chances of meeting again are small. For a
-time grief sooths itself by correspondence; but this cannot last, as one
-family group after another opens its arms to the stranger, and gives him
-a home only that he must vacate it for another. The correspondence
-slackens, fails, and the parties are to one another as if they were
-dead, with the sad difference that there is somewhat less faith in each
-other than if they were in circumstances in which it is physically
-impossible that they could communicate. To the surviver of intercourse,
-in either place of meditation, there remains the heartsoreness from the
-anguish of parting; that pain which, like physical pain, takes us by
-surprise with its bitterness at each return, and disposes us, at length,
-to either cowardice or recklessness; and each of these survivers may be
-conscious of some visitations of jealousy, jealousy lest the absent
-should be learning to forget the past in new interests and connexions.
-
-The strongest point of resemblance in the two contemplations of the
-life which lies behind, is this; that a scene is closed and another is
-opening. The term of existence in a foreign land, and the somewhat
-longer term spent on this planetary island, are viewed as over; and the
-fatigues, enjoyments, and perplexities of each result in an amount of
-calm experience. The dead, it is hoped, are entering on a new region, in
-which they are to act with fresh powers and a wiser activity. The
-refreshed traveller has the same ambition. I have surveyed my
-experience, and told my tale; and, though often visiting America in
-thought, can act no more with reference to my sojourn there, but must
-pass over into a new department of inquiry and endeavour. Friendships
-are the grand gain of travel over a continent or through life; and these
-may be carried forward into new regions of existence here, as we hope
-they may be into the unexplored hereafter, to give strength and delight
-to new exertions, and to unite the various scenes of our being by the
-strongest ties we know.
-
-    THE END.
-
-
-
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-The Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner.
-With a Biographical Account of De Foe. Illustrated with fifty
-characteristic Engravings by Adams. 12mo.
-
-Poems by William Cullen Bryant. New Edition enlarged. 12mo. With a
-Vignette.
-
-The same Work, fancy muslin, gilt edges.
-
-The same Work, bound in silk, gilt edges.
-
-Sallust's Jugurthine War and Conspiracy of Catiline, with an English
-Commentary, and Geographical and Historical Indexes. By Charles Anthon,
-LL.D. Sixth Edition, corrected and enlarged. 12mo. With a Portrait.
-
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- |                                                                     |
- | Transcriber's notes  Latin-1                                        |
- |                                                                     |
- | Footnotes have been moved to directly under the paragraph they refer|
- | to in the text version.                                             |
- |                                                                     |
- | Text printed in italics in the original is represented here between |
- | underscores, as in _text_.                                          |
- |                                                                     |
- | Text printed in small capitals in the original work has been        |
- | changed to ALL CAPITALS.                                            |
- |                                                                     |
- | Spelling has been made consistent throughout but kept to author's   |
- | original format except where noted below.                           |
- |                                                                     |
- | Page 7 nonarrival of a party changed to non-arrival                 |
- | Page 23 . added to neighbouring gallery.                            |
- | Page 43 typo litle bird changed to little bird                      |
- | Page 49 hill-sides changed to hillsides                             |
- | Page 50 splendid boquet changed to splendid bouquet                 |
- | Page 65 . added to Shakspeare.                                      |
- | Page 83 Hount Holyoke changed to Mount Holyoke                      |
- | Page 85 under-graduates changed to undergraduates                   |
- | Page 88 down on my kness changed to go down on my knees             |
- | Page 95 1833, 4 changed to 1833 - 4                                 |
- | Page 100 saw the of smoke changed to saw the smoke of               |
- | Page 108 typo New-Hamphire changed to New-Hampshire                 |
- | Page 114 sidetable changed to side-table                            |
- | Page 121 injustice and cruely changed to cruelty                    |
- | Page 131 kindhearted changed to kind-hearted                        |
- | Page 155 groundfloor changed to ground-floor                        |
- | Page 157 The vendure changed to The verdure                         |
- | Page 174 Glascow changed to Glasgow                                 |
- | Page 200 , added to busy cutting                                    |
- | Page 225 sorrow of hurling changed to sorrow of hurting             |
- | Page 230 Pere changed to Père                                       |
- | Page 244 Testaments By the changed to Testaments. By the            |
- |                                                                     |
- +=====================================================================+
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