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Margaret Fuller
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CHAPTER II. |
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THE LAKES.
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SCENE, STEAMBOAT — About to leave Buffalo — Baggage coming on board — Passengers bustling for their berths — Little boys persecuting everybody with their newspapers and pamphlets — J., S. and M. huddled up in a forlorn corner, behind a large trunk — A heavy rain falling.
M. Water, water everywhere. After Niagara one would like a dry
strip of existence. And at any rate it is quite enough for me to have it
under foot without having it over head in this way.
J. Ah, do not abuse tile gentle Clement. It is hardly possible to
have too much of it, and indeed, if I were obliged to choose amid the
four, it would be the one in which I could bear confinement best.
S. You would make a pretty Undine, to be sure!
J. Nay, I only offered myself as a Triton, a boisterous Triton of
the sounding shell. You; M. I suppose, would be a salamander, rather.
M. No! that is too equivocal a position, whether
in modern mythology, or Hoffman's tales. I should choose to be a gnome.
J. That choice savors of the pride that apes humility.
M. By no means; the gnomes are the most important of all the
elemental tribes. Is it not they who make the money?
J. And are accordingly a dark, mean, scoffing,—
M. You talk as if you had always lived in that wild unprofitable
element you are so fond of, where all things glitter, and nothing is gold;
all show and no substance. My people work in the secret, and their works
praise them in the open light; they remain in the dark because only there
such marvels could be bred. You call them mean. They do not spend their
energies on their own growth, or their own play, but to feed the veins of
mother earth with permanent splendors, very different from what she shows
on the surface.
Think of passing a life, not merely in heaping together, but making gold.
Of all dreams, that of the alchymist is the most poetical, for he looked
at the finest symbol. Gold, says one of our friends, is the hidden light
of the earth, it crowns the mineral, as wine the vegetable order, being
the fast expression of vital energy.
J. Have you paid for your passage?
M. Yes! and in gold, not in shells or pebbles.
J. No really wise gnome would scoff at the water, the beautiful
water. "The spirit of man is like the water."
S. Yes, and like the air and fire, no less.
J. Yes, but not like the earth, this low-minded creature's chosen
dwelling.
M. The earth is spirit made fruitful, — life. And its
heart-beats are told in gold and wine.
J. Oh! it is shocking to hear such sentiments in these times. I
thought that Bacchic energy of yours was long since repressed.
M. No! I have only learned to mix water with my wine, and stamp
upon my gold the heads of kings, or the hieroglyphics of worship. But
since I have learnt to mix with water, let's hear what you have to say in
praise of your favorite.
J. From water Venus was born, what more would you have? It is the
mother of Beauty, the girdle of earth, and the marriage of nations.
S. Without any of that high-flown poetry, it is enough, I think,
that it is the great artist, turning all objects that approach it to
picture.
J. True, no object that touches it, whether it be the cart that
ploughs the wave for sea-weed, or the boat or plank that rides upon it,
but is brought at once from the demesne of coarse utilities into that of
picture. All trades, all callings, become picturesque by the water's side,
or on the water. The soil, the slovenliness is washed out of every calling
by its touch. All river-crafts, sea-crafts, are picturesque, are poetical.
Their very slang is poetry.
M. The reasons for that are complex.
J. The reason is, that there can be no plodding, groping words
and motions, on my water as there are on your earth. There is no time, no
chance for
them where all moves so rapidly, though so smoothly, everything connected
with water must belike itself, forcible, but clear. That is why sea-slang
is so poetical; there is a word for everything and every act, and a thing
and an act for every word. Seamen must speak quick and bold, but also with
utmost precision. They cannot reef and brace other than in a Homeric
dialect—therefore, — (Steamboat bell rings.) But I must say a
quick good-by.
M. What, going, going back to earth after all this talk upon the
other side. Well, that is nowise Homeric, but truly modern.
J. is borne off without time for any reply, but a laugh — at
himself, of course.
S. and M. retire to their state-rooms to forget the wet, the chill and
steamboat smell in their just-bought new world of novels.
Next day, when we stopped at Cleveland, the storm was just clearing up;
ascending the bluff, we had one of the finest views of the lake that could
have been wished. The varying depths of these lakes give to their surface
a great variety of coloring, and beneath this wild sky and changeful
lights, the waters presented kaleidoscopic varieties of hues, rich, but
mournful. I admire these bluffs of red, crumbling earth. Here land and
water meet under very different auspices from those of the rock-bound
coast to which I have been accustomed. There they meet tenderly to
challenge, and proudly to refuse, though not in fact repel. But here they
meet to mingle, are always rushing together, and changing places; a new
creation takes place beneath the eye.
18
The weather grew gradually clearer, but not bright; yet we could see the
shore and appreciate the extent of these noble waters.
Coming up the river St. Clair, we saw Indians for the first time. They
were camped out on the bank. It was twilight, and their blanketed forms,
in listless groups or stealing along the bank, with a lounge and a stride
so different in its wildness from the rudeness of the white settler, gave
me the first feeling that I really approached the West.
The people on the boat were almost all New Englanders, seeking their
fortunes. They had brought with them their habits of calculation, their
cautious manners, their love of polemics. It grieved me to hear these
immigrants who were to be the fathers of a new race, all, from the old man
down to the little girl, talking not of what they should do, but of what
they should get in the new scene. It was to them a prospect, not of the
unfolding nobler energies, but of more ease, and larger accumulation. It
wearied me, too, to hear Trinity and Unity discussed in the poor, narrow
doctrinal way on these free waters; but that will soon cease, there is not
time for this clash of opinions in the West, where the clash of material
interests is so noisy. They will need the spirit of religion more than
ever to guide them, but will find less time than before for its doctrine.
This change was to me, who am tired of the war of words on these subjects,
and believe it only sows the wind to reap the whirlwind, refreshing, but I
argue nothing from it; there is nothing real in the freedom of thought at
the West, it is from the position of men's lives, not
the state of their minds. So soon as they have time, unless they grow
better meanwhile, they will cavil and criticise, and judge other men by
their own standard, and outrage the law of love every way, just as they do
with us.
We reached Mackinaw the evening of the third day, but, to my great
disappointment, it was too late and too rainy to go ashore. The beauty of
the island, though seen under the most unfavorable circumstances, did not
disappoint my expectations. But I shall see it to more purpose on my
return.
As the day has passed dully, a cold rain preventing us from keeping out in
the air, my thoughts have been dwelling on a story told when we were off
Detroit, this morning, by a fellow passenger, and whose moral beauty
touched me profoundly.
Some years ago, said Mrs. L., my father and mother stopped to dine at
Detroit. A short time before dinner my father met in the hall Captain P.,
a friend of his youthful days. He had loved P. extremely, as did many who
knew him, and had not been surprised to hear of the distinction and
popular esteem which his wide knowledge, talents, and noble temper
commanded, as he went onward in the world. P. was every way fitted to
succeed; his aims were high, but not too high for his powers, suggested by
an instinct of his own capacities, not by an ideal standard drawn from
culture. Though steadfast in his course, it was not to overrun others, his
wise self-possession was no less for them than himself. He was thoroughly
the gentleman, gentle because manly, and was a striking instance that
where there is strength for sincere courtesy,
there is no need of other adaptation to the character of others, to make
one's way freely and gracefully through the crowd.
My father was delighted to see him, and after a short parley in the
hall—"We will dine together," he cried, "then we shall have time to
tell all our stories."
P. hesitated a moment, then said, "My wife is with me."
"And mine with me," said my father, "that's well; they, too, will have an
opportunity of getting acquainted and can entertain one another, if they
get tired of our college stories."
P. acquiesced, with a grave bow, and shortly after they all tact in the
dining-room. My father was much surprised at the appearance of Mrs. P. He
had heard that his friend married abroad, but nothing further, and he was
not prepared to see the calm, dignified P. With a woman on his arm, still
handsome, indeed, but whose coarse and imperious expression showed as low
habits of mind as her exaggerated dress and gesture did of education. Nor
could there be a greater contrast to my mother, who, though understanding
her claims and place with the certainty of a lady, was soft and retiring
in an uncommon degree.
However, there was no time to wonder or fancy; they sat down, and P.
engaged in conversation, without much vivacity, but with his usual ease.
The first quarter of an hour passed well enough. But soon it was
observable that Mrs. P. was drinking glass after glass of wine, to an
extent few gentlemen did, even then, and soon that she was actually
excited by it.
Before this, her manner had been brusque, if not temptuous towards her new
acquaintance; now it became, towards my mother especially, quite rude.
Presently she took up some slight remark made by my mother, which, though
it did not naturally mean anything of the sort, could be twisted into some
reflection upon England, and made it a handle, first of vulgar sarcasm,
and then, upon my mother's defending herself with some surprise and gentle
dignity, hurled upon her a volley of abuse, beyond Billingsgate.
My mother, confounded, feeling scenes and ideas presented to her mind
equally new and painful, sat trembling; she knew not what to do, tears
rushed into her eyes. My father, no less distressed, yet unwilling to
outrage the feelings of his friend by doing or saying what his indignation
prompted, turned an appealing look on P.
Never, as he often said, was the painful expression of that sight effaced
from his mind. It haunted his dreams and disturbed his waking thoughts. P.
sat with his head bent forward, and his eyes cast down, pale, but calm,
with a fixed expression, not merely of patient wo, but of patient shame,
which it would not have been thought possible for that noble countenance
to wear, "yet," said my father, "it became him. At other times he was
handsome, but then beautiful, though of a beauty saddened and abashed. For
a spiritual light borrowed from the worldly perfection of his mien that
illustration by contrast, which the penitence of the Magdalen does from
the glowing earthliness of her charms."
Seeing that he preserved silence, while Mrs. P. grew still more
exasperated, my father rose and led his wife to her own room. Half an hour
had passed, in painful and wondering surmises, When a gentle knock was
heard at the door, and P. entered equipped for a journey. "We are just
going," he said, and holding out his hand, but without looking at them,
"Forgive."
They each took his hand, and silently pressed it, then he went without a
word more.
Some time passed and they heard now and then of P., as he passed from one
army station to another, with his uncongenial companion, who became, it
was said, constantly more degraded. Whoever mentioned having seen them,
wondered at the chance which had yoked him to such a woman, but yet more
at the silent fortitude with which he bore it. Many blamed him for
enduring it, apparently without efforts to check her; others answered that
he had probably made such at an earlier period, and finding them
unavailing, had resigned himself to despair, and was too delicate to meet
the scandal that, with such a resistance as such a woman could offer, must
attend a formal separation.
But my father, who was not in such haste to come to conclusions, and
substitute some plausible explanation for the truth, found something in
the look of P. at that trying moment to which none of these explanations
offered a key. There was in it, he felt, a fortitude, but not the
fortitude of the hero, a religious submission, above the penitent, if not
enkindled with the enthusiasm of the martyr.
I have said that my father was not one of those who are ready to
substitute specious explanations for truth, and those who are thus
abstinent rarely lay their hand on a thread without making it a clue. Such
an one, like the dexterous weaver, lets not one color go, till he finds
that Which matches it in the pattern; he keeps on weaving, but chooses his
shades, and my father found at last what he wanted to make out the pattern
for himself. He met a lady who had been intimate with both himself and P.
in early days, and finding she had seen the latter abroad, asked if she
knew the circumstances of the marriage. "The circumstances of the act I
know," she said, "which sealed the misery of our friend, though as much in
the dark as any one about the motives that led to it."
We were quite intimate with P. in London, and he was our most delightful
companion. He was then in the full flower of the varied accomplishments,
which set off his fine manners and dignified character, joined, towards
those he loved, with a certain soft willingness which gives the desirable
chivalry to a man. None was more clear of choice where his personal
affections were not touched, but where they were, it cost him pain to say
no, on the slightest occasion. I have thought this must have had some
connexion with the mystery of his misfortunes.
One day he called on me, and, without any preface, asked if I would be
present next day at his marriage. I was so surprised, and so unpleasantly
surprised, that I did not at first answer a word. We had been on terms so
familiar, that I thought I knew all about him, yet had never dreamed of
his having an attachment,
and, though I had never inquired on the subject, yet this reserve, where
perfect openness had been supposed, and really, on my side, existed,
seemed to me a kind of treachery. Then it is never pleasant to know that a
heart, on which we have some claim, is to be given to another. We cannot
tell how it will affect our own relations with a person; it may strengthen
or it may swallow up other affections; the crisis is hazardous, and our
first thought, on such an occasion, is too often for ourselves, at least,
mine was. Seeing me silent, he repeated his question.
To whom, said I, are you to be married?
That, he replied, I cannot tell you. He was a moment silent, then
continued with an impassive look of cold self-possession, that affected me
with strange sadness.
"The name of the person you will hear, of course, at the time, but more I
cannot tell you. I need, however, the presence, not only of legal, but of
respectable and friendly witnesses. I have hoped you and your husband
would do me this kindness. Will you?"
Something in his manner made it impossible to refuse. I answered before I
knew I was going to speak, "We will," and he left me.
I will not weary you with telling how I harassed myself and my husband,
who was, however, scarce less interested, with doubts and conjectures.
Suffice it that, next morning, P. came and took us in a carriage to a
distant church. We had just entered the porch when a cart, such as fruit
and vegetables are brought to market in, drove up, containing an elderly
woman and a Young girl. P. assisted them to alight, and advanced with the
girl to the altar.
The girl was neatly dressed and quite handsome, yet, something in her
expression displeased me the moment I looked upon her. Meanwhile the
ceremony was going on, and, at its close, P. introduced us to the bride,
and we all went to the door.
Good-by, Fanny, said the elderly woman. The new-made Mrs. P. replied
without any token of affection or emotion. The woman got into the cart and
drove away.
From that time I saw but little of P. or his wife. I took our mutual
friends to see her, and they were civil to her for his sake. Curiosity was
very much excited, but entirely baffled; no one, of course, dared speak to
P. on the subject, and no other means could be found of solving the
riddle.
He treated his wife with grave and kind politeness, but it was always
obvious that they had nothing in Common between them. Her manners and
tastes were not at that time gross, but her Character showed itself hard
and material. She was fond of riding, and spent much time so. Her style in
this, and in dress, seemed the opposite of P.'s; but he indulged all her
wishes, while, for himself, he plunged into his own pursuits.
For a time he seemed, if not happy, not positively unhappy; but, after a
few years, Mrs. P. fell into the habit of drinking, and then such scenes
as you witnessed grew frequent. I have often heard of them, and always
that P. sat, as you describe him, his head bowed down and perfectly silent
all through, whatever
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might be done or whoever be present, and always his aspect has inspired
such sympathy that no person has questioned him or resented her insults,
but merely got out of the way, so soon as possible.
Hard and long penance, said my father, after some minutes musing, for an
hour of passion, probably for his only error.
Is that your explanation? said the lady. O, improbable. P. might err, but
not be led beyond himself.
I know his cool gray eye and calm complexion seemed to say so, but a
different story is told by the lip that could tremble, and showed what
flashes might pierce those deep blue heavens; and when these over
intellectual beings do swerve aside, it is to fall down a precipice, for
their narrow path lies over such. But he was not one to sin without making
a brave atonement, and that it had become a holy one, was written on that
downcast brow.
The fourth day on these waters, the weather was milder and brighter, so
that we could now see them to some purpose. At night was clear moon, and,
for the first time, from the upper deck, I saw one of the great steamboats
come majestically up. It was glowing with lights, looking many-eyed and
sagacious; in its heavy motion it seemed a dowager queen, and this motion,
with its solemn pulse, and determined sweep, becomes these smooth waters,
especially at night, as much as the dip of the sail-ship the long billows
of the ocean.
But it was not so soon that I learned to appreciate the lake scenery; it
was only after a daily and careless
familiarity that I entered into its beauty, for nature always refuses to
be seen by being stared at. Like Bonaparte, she discharges her face of all
expression when she catches the eye of impertinent curiosity fixed on her.
But he who has gone to sleep in childish ease on her lap, or leaned an
aching brow upon her breast, seeking there comfort with full trust as from
a mother, will see all a mother's beauty in the look she bends upon him.
Later, I felt that I had really seen these regions, and shall speak of
them again.
In the afternoon we went on shore at the Manitou islands, where the boat
stops to wood. No one lives here except woodcutters for the steamboats. I
had thought of such a position, from its mixture of profound solitude with
service to the great world, as possessing an ideal beauty. I think so
still, after seeing the woodcutters and their slovenly huts.
In times of slower growth, man did not enter a situation without a certain
preparation or adaptedness to it. He drew from it, if not to the poetical
extent, at least, in some proportion, its moral and its meaning. The
woodcutter did not cut down so many trees a day, that the hamadryads had
not time to make their plaints heard; the shepherd tended his sheep, and
did no jobs or chores the while; the idyl had a chance to grow up, and
modulate his oaten pipe. But now the poet must be at the whole expense of
the poetry in describing one of these positions; the worker is a true
Midas to the gold he makes. The poet must describe, as the painter
sketches Irish peasant girls and Danish fishwives, adding the beauty, and
leaving out the dirt.
I come to the west prepared for the distaste I must experience at its
mushroom growth. I know that where "go ahead" is the only motto, the
village cannot grow into the gentle proportions that successive lives, and
the gradations of experience involuntarily give. In older countries the
house of the son grew from that of the father, as naturally as new joints
on a bough. And the cathedral crowned the whole as naturally as the leafy
summit the tree. This cannot be here. The march of peaceful is scarce less
wanton than that of warlike invasion. The old landmarks are broken down,
and the land, for a season, bears none, except of the rudeness of conquest
and the needs of the day, whose bivouac fires blacken the sweetest forest
glades. I have come prepared to see all this, to dislike it, but not with
stupid narrowness to distrust or defame. On the contrary, while I will not
be so obliging as to confound ugliness with beauty, discord with harmony,
and laud and be contented with all I meet, when it conflicts with my best
desires and tastes, I trust by reverent faith to woo the mighty meaning of
the scene, perhaps to foresee the law by which a new order, a new poetry
is to be evoked from this chaos, and with a curiosity as ardent, but not
so selfish as that of Macbeth, to call up the apparitions of future kings
from the strange ingredients of the witch's caldron. Thus, I will not
grieve that all the noble trees are gone already from this island to feed
this caldron, but believe it will have Medea's virtue, and reproduce them
in the form of new intellectual growths, since centuries cannot again
adorn the land with such.
On this most beautiful beach of smooth white pebbles, interspersed with
agates and cornelians, for those who know how to find them, we stepped,
not like the Indian, with some humble offering, which, if no better than
an arrow-head or a little parched corn, would, he judged, please the
Manitou, who looks only at the spirit in which it is offered. Our visit
was so far for a religious purpose that one of our party went to inquire
the fate of some Unitarian tracts left among the woodcutters a year or two
before. But the old Manitou, though, daunted like his children by the
approach of the fire-ships which he probably considered demons of a new
dynasty, he had suffered his woods to be felled to feed their pride, had
been less patient of an encroachment, which did not to him seem so
authorized by the law of the strongest, and had scattered those leaves as
carelessly as the others of that year.
But S. and I, like other emigrants, went not to give, but to get, to rifle
the wood of flowers for the service of the fire-ship. We returned with a
rich booty, among which was the uva ursi, whose leaves the Indians smoke,
with the kinnick-kinnick, and which had then just put forth its
highly-finished little blossoms, as pretty as those of the blueberry.
Passing along still further, I thought it would be well if the crowds
assembled to stare from the various landings were still confined to the
kinnick-kinnick, for almost all had tobacco written on their faces, their
cheeks rounded with plugs, their eyes dull with its fumes. We reached
Chicago on the evening of the sixth day, having been out five days
30
and a half, a rather longer passage than usual at a favorable season of
the year.
Chicago, June 20.
There can be no two places in the world more completely thoroughfares than
this place and Buffalo. They are the two correspondent valves that open
and shut all the time, as the life-blood rushes from east to west, and
back again from west to east.
Since it is their office thus to be the doors, and let in and out, it
would be unfair to expect from them much character of their own. To make
the best provisions for the transmission of produce is their office, and
the people who live there are such as are suited for this; active,
complaisant, inventive, business people. There are no provisions for the
student or idler; to know what the place can give, you should be at work
with the rest, the mere traveller will not find it profitable to loiter
there as I did.
Since circumstances made it necessary for me so to do, I read all the
books I could find about the new region, which now began to become real to
me. All the books about the Indians, a paltry collection, truly, yet which
furnished material for many thoughts; The most narrow-minded and awkward
recital still bears some lineaments of the great features of this nature,
and the races of men that illustrated them. Catlin's book is far the
best. I was afterwards assured by those acquainted with the regions he
describes, that he is not to be depended on for the accuracy of his facts,
and, indeed, it is obvious; without
the aid of such assertions, that he sometimes yields to the temptation of
making out a story. They admitted, however, what from my feelings I was
sure of, that he is true to the spirit of the scene, and that a far better
view can be got from him than from any source at present existing, of the
Indian tribes of the far west, and of the country where their inheritance
lay.
Murray's travels I read, and was charmed by their accuracy and clear broad
tone. He is the only Englishman that seems to have traversed these
regions, as man, simply, not as John Bull. He deserves to belong to an
aristocracy, for he showed his title to it more when left without a guide
in the wilderness, than he can at the court of Victoria. He has, himself,
no poetic force at description, but it is easy to make images from his
hints. Yet we believe the indian cannot be looked at truly except by a
poetic eye. The Pawnees, no doubt, are such as he describes them, filthy
in their habits, and treacherous in their character, but some would have
seen; and seen truly, more beauty and dignity than he does with all his
manliness and fairness of mind. However, his one fine old man is enough to
redeem the rest, and is perhaps the relic of a better day, a Phocion among
the Pawnees.
Schoolcraft's Algic Researches is a valuable book, though a worse use
could hardly have been made of such fine material. Had the mythological or
hunting stories of the Indians been written down exactly. as they were
received from the lips of the narrators, the collection could not have
been surpassed interest,
both for the wild charm they carry with them, and the light they throw on
a peculiar modification of life and mind. As it is, though the incidents
have an air of originality and pertinence to the occasion, that gives us
confidence that they have not been altered, the phraseology in which they
were expressed has been entirely set aside, and the flimsy graces, common
to the style of annuals and souvenirs, substituted for the Spartan brevity
and sinewy grasp of Indian speech. We can just guess what might have been
there, as we can detect the fine proportions of the Brave whom the bad
taste of some white patron has arranged in frock-coat, hat, and
pantaloons.
The few stories Mrs. Jameson wrote out, though to these also a sentimental
air has been given, offend much less in that way than is common in this
book. What would we give for a completely faithful version of some among
them. Yet with all these drawbacks we cannot doubt from internal evidence
that they truly ascribe to the Indian a delicacy of sentiment and of fancy
that justifies Cooper in such inventions as his Uncas. It is a white man's
view of a savage hero, who would be far finer in his natural proportions;
still, through a masquerade figure, it implies the truth.
Irving's books I also read, some for the first, some for the second time,
with increased interest, now that I was to meet such people as he received
his materials from. Though the books are pleasing from their grace and
luminous arrangement, yet, with the exception of the Tour to the Prairies,
they
have a stereotype; secondhand air. They lack the breath, the glow, the
charming minute traits of living presence. His scenery is only fit to be
glanced at from dioramic distance; his Indians are academic figures only.
He would have made the best of pictures, if he could have used his own
eyes for studies and sketches; as it is, his success is wonderful, but
inadequate.
McKenney's Tour to the Lakes is the dullest of books, yet faithful and
quiet, and gives some facts not to be met with elsewhere.
I also read a collection of Indian anecdotes and speeches, the worst
compiled and arranged book possible, yet not without clues of some value.
All these books I read in anticipation of a canoe-voyage on Lake Superior
as far as the Pictured Rocks, and, though I was afterwards compelled to
give up this project, they aided me in judging of what I afterwards saw
and heard of the Indians.
In Chicago I first saw the beautiful prairie flowers. They were in their
glory the first ten days we were there—
"The golden and the flame-like flowers."
The flame-like flower I was taught afterwards, by an Indian girl, to call
"Wickapee;" and she told me, too, that its splendors had a useful side,
for it was used by the Indians as a remedy for an illness to which they
were subject.
Beside these brilliant flowers, which gemmed and gilt the grass in a sunny
afternoon's drive near the blue lake, between the low oakwood and the
narrow
beach, stimulated, whether sensuously by the optic nerve, unused to so
much gold and crimson with such tender green, or symbolically through some
meaning dimly seen in the flowers, I enjoyed a sort of fairyland
exultation never felt before, and the first drive amid the flowers gave me
anticipation of the beauty of the prairies.
At first, the prairie seemed to speak of the very desolation of dullness.
After sweeping over the vast monotony of the lakes to come to this
monotony of land, with all around a limitless horizon,—to walk, and
walk, and run, but never climb, oh! it was too dreary for any but a
Hollander to bear. How the eye greeted the approach of a sail, or the
smoke of a steamboat; it seemed that any thing so animated must come from
a better land, where mountains gave religion to the scene.
The only thing I liked at first to do, was to trace with slow and
unexpecting step the narrow margin of the lake. Sometimes a heavy swell
gave it expression; at others, only its varied coloring, which I found
more admirable every day, and which gave it an air of mirage instead of
the vastness of ocean. Then there was a grandeur in the feeling that I
might continue that walk, if I had any seven-leagued mode of conveyance to
save fatigue, for hundreds of miles without an obstacle and without a
change.
But after I had rode out, and seen the flowers and seen the sun set with
that calmness seen only in the prairies, and the cattle winding slowly
home to their homes in the "island groves"—peacefullest of
sights—I began to love because I began to know
the scene, and shrank no longer from "the encircling vastness."
It is always thus with the new form of life; we must learn to look at it
by its own standard. At first, no doubt my accustomed eye kept saying, if
the mind did not, What! no distant mountains? what, no valleys? But after
a while I would ascend the roof of the house where we lived, and pass many
hours, needing no sight but the moon reigning in the heavens, or starlight
falling upon the lake, till all the lights were out in the island grove of
men beneath my feet, and felt nearer heaven that there was nothing but
this lovely, still reception on the earth; no towering mountains, no deep
tree-shadows, nothing but plain earth and water bathed in light.
Sunset, as seen from that place, presented most generally, low-lying,
flaky clouds, of the softest serenity, "like," said S., "the Buddhist
tracts."
One night a star shot madly from its sphere, and it had a fair chance to
be seen, but that serenity could not be astonished.
Yes! it was a peculiar beauty of those sunsets and moonlights on the
levels of Chicago which Chamouny or the Trosachs could not make me forget.
Notwithstanding all the attractions I thus found out by degrees on the
flat shores of the lake, I was delighted when I found myself really on my
way into the country for an excursion of two or three weeks. We set forth
in a strong wagon, almost as large, and with the look of those used
elsewhere for transporting caravans of wild beasteses, loaded with every
thing we might want, in case nobody would give it
to us—for buying and selling were no longer to be counted
on—with a pair of strong horses, able and willing to force, their way
through mud holes and amid stumps, and a guide, equally admirable as
marshal and companion, who knew-by heart the country and its history, both
natural and artificial, and whose clear hunter's eye needed neither road
nor goal to guide it to all the spots where beauty best loves to dwell.
Add to this the finest weather, and such country as I had never seen, even
in my dreams, although these dreams had been haunted by wishes for just
such an one, and you may judge whether years of dullness might not, by
these bright days, be redeemed, and a sweetness be shed over all thoughts
of the West.
The first day brought us through woods rich in the moccasin flower and
lupine, and plains whose soft. expanse was continually touched with
expression by the slow moving clouds which
to the banks of the Fox river, a sweet and graceful stream. We reached
Geneva just in time to escape being drenched by a violent thunder shower,
whose rise and disappearance threw expression into all the features of the
scene.
Geneva reminds me of a New England village, as indeed there, and in the
neighborhood, are many New
Englanders of an excellent stamp, generous, intelligent, discreet, and
seeking to win from life its true values. Such are much wanted, and seem
like points of light among the swarms of settlers, whose aims are sordid,
whose habits thoughtless and slovenly.
With great pleasure we heard, with his attentive and affectionate
congregation, the Unitarian clergyman, Mr. Conant, and afterward visited
him in his house, where almost everything bore traces of his own handywork
or that of his father. He is just such a teacher as is wanted in this
region, familiar enough with the habits of those he addresses to come home
to their experience and their wants; earnest and enlightened enough to
draw the important inferences from the life of every day.
A day or two we remained here, and passed some happy hours in the woods
that fringe the stream, where the gentlemen found a rich booty of fish.
Next day, travelling along the river's banks, was an uninterrupted
pleasure. We closed our drive in the afternoon at the house of an English
gentleman, who has gratified, as few men do, the common wish to pass the
evening of an active day amid the quiet influences of country life. He
showed us a bookcase tilted with books about this country; these he had
Collected for years, and become so familiar with the localities that, on
coming here at last, he sought and found, at once, the very spot he
wanted, and where he is as content as he hoped to be, thus realizing
Wordsworth's description of the wise man, who "sees what he foresaw."
A wood surrounds the house, through which paths
38
are cut in every direction. It is, for this new country, a large and
handsome dwelling; but round it are its barns and farm yard, with cattle
and poultry. These, however, in the framework of wood, have a very
picturesque and pleasing effect. There is that mixture of culture and
rudeness in the aspect of things as gives a feeling of freedom, not of
confusion.
I wish it were possible to give some idea of this scene as viewed by the
earliest freshness of dewy dawn. This habitation of man seemed like a nest
in the grass, so thoroughly were the buildings and all the objects of
human care harmonized with what was natural. The tall trees bent and
whispered all around, as if to hail with sheltering love the men who had
come to dwell among them.
The young ladies were musicians, and spoke French fluently, having been
educated in a convent. Here in the prairie, they had learned to take care
of the milk-room, and kill the rattlesnakes that assailed their poultry
yard. Beneath the shade of heavy curtains you looked out from the high and
large windows to see Norwegian peasants at work in their national dress.
In the wood grew, not only the flowers I had before seen, and wealth of
tall, wild roses; but the splendid blue spiderwort, that ornament of our
gardens. Beautiful children strayed there, who were soon to leave these
civilized regions for some really wild and western place, a post in the
buffalo country. Their no less beautiful mother was of Welsh descent, and
the eldest child bore the name of Gwynthleon. Perhaps there she will meet
with some young descendants of Madoc, to
be her friends; at any rate, her looks may retain that sweet, wild beauty,
that is soon made to vanish from eyes which look too much on shops and
streets, and the vulgarities of city "parties."
Next day we crossed the river. We ladies crossed on a little foot-bridge,
from which we could look down the stream, and see the wagon pass over at
the ford. A black thunder cloud was coming up. The sky and waters heavy
with expectation. The motion of the wagon, with its white cover, and the
laboring horses, gave just the due interest to the picture, because it
seemed as if they would not have time to cross before the storm came on.
However, they did get across, and we were a mile or two on our way before
the violent shower obliged us to take refuge in a solitary house upon the
prairie. In this country it is as pleasant to stop as to go on, to lose
your way as to find it, for the variety in the population gives you a
chance for fresh entertainment in every hut, and the luxuriant beauty
makes every path attractive. In this house we found a family "quite above
the common," but, I grieve to say, not above false pride, for the father,
ashamed of being caught barefoot, told us a story of a man, one of the
richest men, he said, in one of the eastern cities, who went barefoot,
from choice and taste.
Near the door grew a Provence rose, then in blossom. Other families we saw
had brought with them and planted the locust. It was pleasant to see their
old home loves, brought into connection with their new splendors. Wherever
there were traces of this tenderness of feeling, only too rare among
Americans,
other things bore signs also of prosperity and intelligence, as if the
ordering mind of man had some idea of home beyond a mere shelter, beneath
which to eat and sleep.
No heaven need wear a lovelier aspect than earth did this afternoon, after
the clearing up of the shower. We traversed the blooming plain, unmarked
by any road, only the friendly track of wheels which tracked, not broke
the grass. Our stations were not from town to town, but from grove to
grove. These groves first floated like blue islands in the distance. As we
drew nearer, they seemed fair parks, and the little log houses on the
edge, with their curling smokes, harmonized beautifully with them.
One of these groves, Ross's grove, we reached just at sunset. It was of
the noblest trees I saw during this journey, for the trees generally were
not large. or lofty, but only of fair proportions. Here they were large
enough to form with their clear stems pillars for grand cathedral aisles.
There was space enough for crimson light to stream through upon the floor
of water which the shower had left. As we slowly plashed through, I
thought I was never in a better place for vespers.
That night we rested, or rather tarried at a grove some miles beyond, and
there partook of the miseries so often jocosely portrayed, of bedchambers
for twelve, a milk dish for universal handbasin, and expectations that you
would use and lend your "hankercher" for a towel. But this was the only
night, thanks to the hospitality of private families, that we
passed thus, and it was well that we had this bit of experience, else
might we have pronounced all Trollopian records of the kind to be
inventions of pure malice.
With us was a young lady who showed herself to have been bathed in the
Britannic fluid, wittily described by a late French writer, by the
impossibility she experienced of accommodating herself to the indecorums
of the scene. We ladies were to sleep in the bar-room, from which its
drinking visiters could be ejected only at a late hour. The outer door had
no fastening to prevent their return. However, our host kindly requested
we would call him, if they did, as he had "conquered them for us," and
would do so again. We had also rather hard couches; (mine was the supper
table,) but we yankees, born to rove, were altogether too much fatigued to
stand upon trifles, and slept as sweetly as we would in the "bigly bower"
of any baroness. But I think England sat up all night, wrapped in her
blanket shawl, and with a neat lace cap upon her head; so that she would
have looked perfectly the lady, if any one had come in; shuddering and
listening. I know that she was very ill next day, in requital. She
watched, as her parent country watches the seas, that nobody may do wrong
in any case, and deserved to have met some interruption, she was so well
prepared. However, there was none, other than from the nearness of some
twenty sets of powerful lungs, which would not leave the night to a deadly
stillness. In this house we had, if not good beds, yet good tea, good
bread, and wild strawberries, and were entertained
42 with most free communications of opinion and history from our hosts. Neither shall any of us have a right to say again that we cannot find any who may be willing to hear all we may have to say. "A's fish that comes to the net," should be painted on the sign at Papaw grove. |
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