 epigrams for Summer on the Lakes in 1843. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Summer on the Lakes in 1843 by Margaret Fuller. Epigrams. Summer days of busy leisure. Long summer days of dear-bought pleasure. You have done your teaching well, had the scholar means, to tell how grew the vine of bitter sweet, what made the path for a truant feet. Winter nights would quickly pass, gazing on the magic glass, or which the new world shadows pass. But in fault of wizard's spell, moderns their tale, can only tell and dull words with a poor reed, breaking at each time of need. But those to whom the hint suffices, mottos fine for all devices, see the nights behind their shields, through dried grasses, blooming fields. To a friend. Some dried grass tufts from the wide, glowery plain, a mussel shell from the lone fairy shore. Some antlers from tall woods, which never more to the wild deer a safe retreat can yield. An eagle's feather, which adorned a brave. Well, neither last of his despairing band. For such slight gifts will thou extend thy hand when weary hours of brief refreshment crave. I give you what I can, not what I would. My small drinking cup would hold a flood. As Scandinavia sung, those must contain, with which the giants' gods may entertain. In our dwarf day we drain few drops, and soon must thirst again. End of Epigrams Chapter 1 of Summer on the Lakes in 1843 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Summer on the Lakes in 1843 by Margaret Fuller. Chapter 1 Niagara, June 10, 1843 Since you are to share with me such footnotes as may be made on the pages of my life during this summer's wanderings, I should not be quite silent as to do this magnificent prologue to the as yet unknown drama. Yet I, like others, have little to say where the spectacle is for once great enough to fill the whole life, and supersede thought, giving us only its own presence. It is good to be here as the best, as the simplest expression that occurs to the mind. We have been here eight days, and I am quite willing to go away. So great a sight soon satisfies, make us content with itself, and with what is less than itself. Our desires once realized haunt us again less readily. Having lived one day we would depart, and become worthy to live another. We have not been fortunate in weather, for there cannot be too much or too warm sunlight for the scene, and the skies have been lowering with cold, unkind winds. My nerves too much braced up by such an atmosphere do not bear well the continual stress of sight and sound. For here there is no escape from the weight of a perpetual creation. All other forms and motions come and go. The tide rises and recedes. The wind at its mightiest moves and gales and shake us. But here is really an incessant, in indefatigable motion. Awake or asleep there is no escape. Still this rushing round you and through you. It is in this way I have most felt the grandeur, somewhat eternal, if not infinite. At times the secondary music rises. The cataract seems to seize its own rhythm and sing it over again, so that the ear and soul are aroused by a double vibration. There is some effect of the wind causing echoes to the thundering anthem. It is very sublime, giving the effect of a spiritual repetition through all the spheres. When I first came I felt nothing but a quiet satisfaction. The found that drawings, the panoramic, etc., had given me a clear notion of the position and proportions of all objects here. I knew where to look for everything, and everything looked as I thought it would. Long ago I was looking from the hillside with a friend at one of the finest sunsets that ever enriched this world. A little cowboy, trudging along, wondered what we could be gazing at. After spying about some time he found it could only be the sunset. In looking too a moment he said approvingly that sun looks well enough. A speech worthy of Shakespeare's clotin or the infant mercury up to everything from the cradle as you pleased to take it. Even such familiarity worthy of Jonathan, our national hero, in a princess palace or stumping as he boasts to have done up the Vatican stairs into the pope's presence in my old boots. I felt here. It looks really well enough. I felt and was inclined as you suggested to give my approbation as to the one object in the world that would not disappoint. But all great expression which on a superficial survey seems easy as well as so simple furnishes after a while to the faithful observer its own standard by which to appreciate it. Daily these proportions widen and towered more and more upon my sight, and I got at last a proper foreground for these sublime distances. Before coming away I think I really saw the full wonder of the scene. After a while it so drew me into itself as to inspire an undefined dread such as I never knew before, such as maybe felt when death is about to usher us into a new existence. The perpetual trampling of water seized my senses. I felt that no other sound however near could be heard and would start and look behind me for a foe. I realized the identity of that mood of nature in which these waters were poured down with such absorbing force with that in which the Indian was shaped on the same soil. For continually upon my mind came unsought and unwelcome images such as never haunted it before of naked savages stealing behind me with uplifted tomahawks. Again and again this illusion recurred and even after I thought it over and tried to shake it off I could not help starting and looking behind me. As picture the falls can only be seen from the British side. There they are seen in their veils and at sufficient distance to appreciate the magical effects of these and the light and shade. From the boat as you cross the effects and contrasts are more melodramatic. On the road back from the whirlpool we saw them as he reduced picture with the light. But what I liked best was to sit on table rock close to the great fall. Their old power of observing details all separate consciousness was quite lost. Once just as I had seated myself there a man came to take his first look. He walked close up to the fall and after looking at it a moment with an air as if thinking how he could best appropriate it to his own use, he spat into it. This trait seemed wholly worthy of an age whose love of utility such that the Prince Puckler Muskel somehow suggest the probability of men coming to put their bodies of their dead parents in the fields to fertilize them in a country such as Dickens has described. But these will not I hope be seen on the historic page to be truly the age or truly the America. A little leaven is leavening the whole mass for other bread. The whirlpool I like very much. It is seen to advantage over the great falls. It is so sternly solemn. The river cannot look more imbiterbable, almost sullen in its marble green than it does just below the great fall. But the slight circles that mark the hidden vortex seem to whisper mysteries the thundering voice above could not proclaim. Amini is untold as ever. It is fearful too to know as you look that whatever has been swallowed by the cataract is like to rise suddenly to light here, whether uprooted tree or body of man or bird. The rapids enchanted me far beyond what I expected. They are so swift that they cease to seem so. You can think only of their beauty. The fountain beyond the Moss Islands I discovered for myself and thought it for some time an accidental beauty which it would not do to leave, lest I might never see it again. After I found it permanent, I returned many times to watch the play of its crust. In the little waterfall beyond, nature seems as she often does to have made a study for some larger design. She delights in this, the sketch within a sketch, a dream within a dream. Wherever we see it, the lines of the great buttress in the fragment of stone, the hues of the waterfall, copied in the flowers that star as bordering moss as we are delighted. For all the liniments become fluent, and we mold the scene in congenial thought with its genius. People complain of the buildings at Niagara in fear to see it further deformed. I cannot sympathize with such an apprehension. The spectacle is capable to swallow up all such objects. They are not seen in the great hold, more than an earthworm in the wide field. The beautiful wood on Goat Island is full of flowers. Many of the Ferris loved to do homage there. The wake robin in Mayaple are in bloom now. The former white, pink, green, purple, cupping the rainbow of the fall and fit to make a garland for its presiding deity when he walks the land. For they are of imperial size and shape like stones for a diadem. Of the Mayaple I did not raise one green tent without finding a flower beneath. And now farewell Niagara, I have seen thee, and I think all who come here must in some sort see thee. They are not to be got rid of as easily as the stars. I will be here again beneath some flooding July moon and sun. Owing to the absence of light I have seen the rainbow only two or three times by day. The lunar bow not at all. However the imperial presence need not its crown, though illustrated by it. General Porter and Jack Downing were not unsuitable figures here. The former heroically planted the bridge by which we crossed a goat island. And the wake robin crowned genius has punished his temerity with deafness, which must I think have come upon him when he sank the first stone in the rapids. Jack seemed an acute and entertaining representative of Jonathan, come to look at his great water privilege. He told us all about the Americanisms of the spectacle, that is to say the battles that have been fought here. It seems strange that men could fight in such a place, but no temple can still the personal griefs and strife in the breasts of its visitors. No less strange is the fact that in this neighborhood an eagle should be chained for a plaything. When a child I used often to stand at a window from which I could see an eagle chained in the balcony of a museum. The people used to poke at it with sticks, and my childish heart would swell with indignation as I saw their insults, in the mean with which they were born by the monarch bird. Its eye was dull, in its plumage soiled and shabby, yet in its form and attitude, all the king was visible, though sorrowful and dethroned. I never saw another till when passing through the notch of the white mountains, at that moment striding before us in all the panoply of sunset. The driver shouted, look there, and followed with her eyes his upward pointing finger. We saw soaring slow and majestic poise above the highest summit, the bird of Jove. It was a glorious sight, yet I know not that I felt more on seeing the bird in all its natural freedom and royalty than when imprisoned and insulted. He had filled my early thoughts with the bironic, silent rages of misanthropy. Now again I saw him captive and addressed by the vulgar, with the language they seemed to find most appropriate to such occasions, that of thrusts and blows. Silently his head averted. He ignored their existence, as Plotinus or Sophocles might that of a modern reviewer. Probably he listened to the voice of the catara, and felt that congenial powers flowed free, and was consoled, though his own wing was broken. The story of the recluse of Neagra interested me a little. It is wonderful that men do not often or attach their lives to localities of great beauty, that when once deeply penetrated they will let themselves so easily be borne away by the general stream of things, to live anywhere in any how. But there is something ludicrous in being the hermit of a shill place, unlike St. Francis and his mountain bed, where none but the stars and rising sun ever saw him. There is also a guide to the falls, who wears his title labeled on his hat, otherwise indeed one might as soon think of asking for a gentleman usher to point out the moon. Yet why should we wonder at such, either, when we have commentaries on Shakespeare and harmonies of the Gospel? And now you have the little all I have to write. Can it interest you? To one who has enjoyed the full life of any scene or any hour, what thoughts can be recorded about it, seem like the commas and semicolons in the paragraph. Mir stops. Yet I suppose it is not so to the absent. At least I have read things written about Neagra, music, and the like that interested me. Once I was moved by Mr. Greenwood's remark that he could not realize this marvel till opening his eyes the next morning after he had seen it, his doubt as to the possibility of its being still there, taught him what he had experienced. I remember this now with pleasure, though, or because it is exactly the opposite to what I myself felt. For all greatness affects different minds, each in its own particular kind. And the variations of testimony mark the truth of a feeling. I will add a brief narrative of the experience of another here as being much better than anything I could write, because more simple and individual. Now that I have left this earth wonder and the emotions it excited are past, it seems not so much like profanation to analyze my feelings, to recall minutely and accurately the effects of this manifestation of the eternal. But one should go to such a scene prepared to yield entirely to its influences, to forget one's little self and one's little mind, to see a miserable warm creep to the brink of this falling world of waters, and watch the trembling of its own petty bosom, and fancy that this is made alone to act upon him excites derision, no pity. As I rode up to the neighborhood of the falls, a solemn awe imperceptibly stole over me in the deep sound of the ever-hurring rapids, prepared my mind for the lofty emotions to be experienced. When I reached the hotel, I felt a strange indifference about seeing the aspiration of my life's hopes. I lounged about the rooms, read the stage-bills upon the walls, looked over the register, and finding the name of an acquaintance, sent to see if he was still there. What this hesitation arose from, I know not. Perhaps it was a feeling of my unworthiness to enter this temple, which nature has erected to its God. At last, slowly and thoughtfully, I walked down to the bridge, leading to Goat Island. And when I stood upon this frail support, and saw a quarter of a mile of tumbling, rushing rapids, and heard their everlasting roar, my emotions overpowered me. A choking sensation rose to my throat. A thrill rushed through my veins. My blood ran rippling to my finger's ends. This was the climax of the effect which the falls produced upon me. Neither the American nor the British fall moved me, as did these rapids. For the magnificence, the sublimity of the latter, I was prepared by descriptions and by paintings. When I arrived inside of them, I merely felt, ah, yes, here is the fall just as I have seen it in picture. When I arrived at the Terrapin Bridge, I expected to be overwhelmed, to retire trembling from this giddy eminence, engaged with unlimited wonder and awe, upon the immense mass rolling on and on. But somehow or other I thought only of comparing the effect on my mind with what I had read and heard. I looked for a short time, and then with almost a feeling of disappointment, turned to go to the other points of view to see if I was not mistaken in not feeling any surpassing emotion at this site. But from the foot of Biddle stairs, in the middle of the river, and from below the table rock, it was still barren, barren all. And provoked with my stupidity and feeling most moved in the wrong place, I turned away to the hotel, determined to set off for Buffalo that afternoon. But the stage did not go, and after nightfall, as there was a splendid moon, I went down to the bridge and leaned over the parapet where the boiling rapids came down in their might. It was grand and it was also gorgeous. The yellow rays of the moon made the broken waves appear like arbor and tresses twining around the black rocks. But they did not inspire me as before. I felt the foreboding of the mightier emotion to rise up and swallow all others, and I passed on to the Terrapin Bridge. Everything was changed. The misty apparition had taken off its many-colored crown which it had worn by day in a bow of silvery white-spanded summit. The moonlight gave a poetical indefiniteness to the distant parts of the waters. While the rapids were glancing in her beams, the river below the falls was black as night. Safe were the reflection of the sky gave it the appearance of a shield of blued steel. No gaping tourist lawyer dying with her glasses or sketching on cards, the hoary locks of the ancient river-god. All tended to harmonize with the natural grandeur of the scene. I gazed long. I saw how here mutability and unchangeableness were united. I surveyed the conspiring waters rushing against the rocky ledge to overthrow it at one mad plunge till, like toppling ambition, over-leaping themselves, they fall onto other side, expanding into foam ere they reach the deep channel where they creep submissively away. Then arose in my breast a genuine admiration and humble adoration of the being who was the architect of this and all. Happy were the first discoverers of Niagara, those who could come unawares upon this view and upon that, whose feelings were entirely their own. With what gusto does Father Hennepin describe the great downfall of water, this vast and prodigious cadence of water which falls down after a surprising and astonishing manner, in so much that the universe does not afford its parallel. Tis true, Italy and Sweden boast of some such things, but we may well say that they be sorry patterns when compared with this of which we do now speak. End of chapter one. Chapter two of Summer on the Lakes in 1843. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Betsy Walker, Santa Fe, New Mexico. Summer on the Lakes in 1843 by Margaret Fuller. Chapter two. The Lakes. Scene. Steamboat. About to leave Buffalo. Baggage coming on board. Passengers bustling for their births. 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. Read by Betsy Walker. J. Read by Kevin S. S. Read by Tricia G. 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 overhead in this way. J. Read by Tricia G. I do not abuse the gentle element. 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. J. Read by Tricia G. You would make a pretty undean to be sure. J. Read by Tricia G. Nay, I only offer myself as a triton. The boisterous triton of the sounding shell. You, M, I suppose, would be a salamander, rather. J. Read by Tricia G. No. That is too equivocal a position, whether in modern mythology or Hoffman's tales. I should choose to be a gnome. J. Read by Tricia G. That choice savers the pride that apes humility. J. Read by Tricia G. By no means. The gnomes are the most important of all the elemental tribes. Is it not they who make the money? J. Read by Tricia G. And are accordingly a dark, mean scoffing. J. Read by Tricia G. 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 as 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 alchemist 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 last expression of vital energy. Have you paid for your passage? Yes, and in gold, not in shells or pebbles. No really wise gnome would scoff at the water, the beautiful water. The spirit of man is like the water. Yes, unlike the air and fire no less. Yes, but not like the earth, this well-minded creature's chosen dwelling. The earth is spirit made fruitful, life, and its heartbeats are told in gold and wine. Oh, it is shocking to hear such sentiments in these times. I thought that bachic energy of yours was long since repressed. 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 learned to mix with water, let's hear what you have to say in praise of your favorite. From what her Venus was born, what more would you have? It is the mother of beauty, the girdle of earth, and the marriage of nations. 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. True no object that touches it, whether it be the cart that plows the way for seaweed or the boat or plank that rides upon it, but is brought at once from the domain of course utilities into that of picture. All trades, all callings, become picturesque by the water's side or on the water. The soil, the sloughenliness is washed out of every calling by its touch. All river-crafts, sea-crafts, or picturesque are poetical. They're very swangist poetry. The reasons for that are complex. The reason is that there can be no plot and groping words and motions on my water as there are on your earth. There's no time, no chance for them when all moves so rapidly, though so smoothly. Everything connected with water must be like itself, forcible but clear. That is why sea-sling is so poetical. There is a word for everything in every act, anything and an act for every word. Seaman must be quick and bold, but also with utmost precision. They cannot reef and brace other than in a Homeric dialect. Therefore, steamboat bill rings. But I must say a quick goodbye. What? Going? Going back to earth after all this talk upon the other side? Well, that is no wise Homeric, but truly modern. Jay is born off without time for any reply, but a laugh at himself, of course. S and M retired 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, and are always rushing together and changing places. A new creation takes place beneath the eye. 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 of 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 cavill and criticize 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 Peay, a friend of his youthful days. He had loved Peay 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. Peay 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 parlay in the hall, we will dine together, he cried, then we shall have time to tell all our stories. Peay 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. Peay acquiesced with a grave bow, and shortly after they all met in the dining-room. My father was much surprised at the appearance of Mrs. Peay. He had heard that his friend married abroad, but nothing further, and he was not prepared to see the calm, dignified Peay, with a woman on his arm, still handsome indeed, but whose course 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 in place with a 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 Peay 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. Peay 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 contemptuous 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 a vulgar sarcasm, and then upon my mother's defending herself with some surprise and gentle indignity 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 anything that his indignation prompted, turned an appealing look on Peay. 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. Peay sat with his head bent forward and his eyes cast down, pale but calm, with a fixed expression, not merely of patient woe, 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 mean that illustration by contrast, which the penitence of the Magdalene does from the glowing earthliness of her charms. Seeing that he preserved silence while Mrs. Peay 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 Peay 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 Peay 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 the chance which had yoked him to such a woman, 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 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 Peay 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 of the pattern for himself. He met a lady who had been intimate with both himself and Peay 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 Peay 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 connection 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, scarcely 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 a light 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. Goodbye, Fanny, said the elderly woman. The new maid, 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 witness 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 might be done or whoever might 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. Oh 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 that 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 dourger 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 upon her. But he who has gone to sleep and childish ease on her lap, or leaned an aching brow upon her breast, seeking their 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 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 adeptedness 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 Hamidryads had not time to make their planks heard. The shepherd tended his sheep, and did no jobs or chores the while. The idol had a chance to grow up and modulate his otin 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 sun grew from that of the father, as naturally as new joints on a bow. 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 blades. I have come prepared to see all this, to dislike it, but not with stupid narrowness to detrust or defame. On the contrary, while I will not be so obliging as to confound ugliness with beauty, discord with harmony, and law'd 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 new order, a new poetry, is to be evoked from this chaos, and with a curiosity as ardent, but not so selfish, is that of Macbeth, to call up apparitions of future kings from the strange ingredients of the witches cauldron. Thus I will not grieve that all the noble trees are gone already from this island to feed the cauldron, 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 arrowhead or a little parched corn would be 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, 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 Irvaoussi, whose leaves the Indians smoke with the Kinic Kinic, 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 Kinic Kinic, 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 and a half, a rather longer passage than usual at a favorable season of the year, Chicago June 20th. 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 lifeblood 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, complacent, 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 traveler will not find it profitable to loiter there as I did. Since circumstances made it necessary for me to do so, 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 liniments of the great features of this nature and the races of men that illustrated them. Caitlin's book is far the best. I was afterward 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 other 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 he 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 fortune 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 stones of the Indians been written down exactly as they were received from the lips of the narrators, the collection could not have been surpassed in 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 a fancy that justifies Cooper in such inventions as his Unkas. It is a white man's view of a savage hero who would be far finer in his natural proportions. Still, though 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 second hand 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. McKinney's tour to the lakes is the dullest of books, yet faithful and quiet and give some facts not to be met with elsewhere. I also read a collection of Indian anecdotes and speeches, the worst compiled in a range 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 afterward saw and heard of the Indians. In Chicago I first saw the beautiful prairie flowers. They were in their glory the first 10 days we were there. The golden and flame-like flowers. The flame-like flower I was taught afterwards by an Indian girl to call Wikipedia. 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 jammed and gilt the grass in a sunny afternoon's drive near the Blue Lake between the low oak wood 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 uh 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 anything 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 unexpected 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 in 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 league 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 sunset with that calmness seen only in the prairies and the cattle winding slowly home to their homes in the island groves peacefulest 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 I 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 raining 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 flying flaky clouds of the softest serenity like said s the buddhist tracks 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 Chamonix or the Trufax 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 feastesies loaded with everything 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 Marshall 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 sweep over with their shadows and beneath the surface rolls and fluctuates to the eye dark hollows seem to glide along and chase the sunny ridges 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 quote sweep over with their shadows and beneath the surface rolls and fluctuates to the eye dark hollows seem to glide along and chase the sunny ridges end quote 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 thundershower 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 discrete and seeking to win from life its true values such are much wanted and seemed 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 handy work 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 to home with 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 gentleman found a rich booty of fish next day traveling 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 filled 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 are cut in every direction it is for this new country a large and handsome dwelling but round it are its barns and farmyard 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 Dewey 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 flowers I had before seen and wealth of tall wild roses but the splendid blue spider wart that ornament of our gardens beautiful children strayed there who were soon to leave these civilized regions for some really wild in western place a post in the buffalo country there no less beautiful mother was of Welsh descent and the eldest child bore the name of Gwynthlion perhaps there she will meet with some young descendants of Medoc 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 footbridge 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 violence 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 grieved 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 province rose then in blossom other families we saw had brought with them implanted 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 jacosly portrayed of bed chambers for 12 a milk dish for universal hand basin and expectations that you would use and lend your hanker cheer 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 we might have pronounced altralopian 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 visitors 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 anyone had come in shuttering and listening i know that she was very ill the 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 20 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 we're entertained 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 ay's fish that comes to the net should be painted on the sign at papa grove end of chapter two steamboat bell rings chapter three of summer on the lakes in 1843 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org summer on the lakes in 1843 by Margaret Fuller chapter three in the afternoon of this day we reached the rock river in whose neighborhood we proposed to make some stay and crossed at Dixon's Ferry this beautiful stream flows full and wide over a bed of rocks traversing a distance of near 200 miles to reach the Mississippi great part of the country along its banks is the finest region of Illinois and the scene of some of the latest romance of Indian warfare to these beautiful regions Blackhawk returned with his band to pass the summer when he drew upon himself the warfare in which he was finally vanquished no wonder he could not resist the longing unwise though its indulgence might be to return in summer to this home of beauty of Illinois in general it has often been remarked that it bears the character of country which has been inhabited by a nation skilled like the English in all the ornamental arts of life especially in landscape gardening that the villas and castles seem to have been burnt the enclosures taken down but the velvet lawns the flower gardens the stately parks scattered at graceful intervals by the decorous hand of art the frequent deer and the peaceful herd of cattle that make picture of the plain all suggest more of the masterly mind of man than the prodigal but careless motherly love of nature especially is this true of the rock river country the river flows sometimes through these parks and lawns then betwixt high bluffs whose grassy ridges are covered with fine trees or broken with crumbling stone that easily assumes the forms of buttress arch and clustered columns along the face of such crumbling rocks swallows nests are clustered thick as cities and eagles and deer do not disdain their summits one morning out in the boat along the base of these rocks it was amusing and affecting to to see these swallows put their heads out to look at us there was something very hospitable about it as if man had never shown himself a tyrant near them what a morning that was every side is worth twice as much by the early morning light we borrow something of the spirit of the hour to look upon them the first place where we stopped was one of singular beauty a beauty of soft luxuriant wildness it was on the bend of the river a place chosen by an irish gentleman whose absentee ship seems of the wisest kind since for some that would have been but a drop of water to the thirsty fever of his native land he commands a residence which has all that is desirable in its independence its beautiful retirement and means of benefit to others his park his deer chase he found already prepared he only had to make an avenue through it this brought us by a drive which in the heat of noon seemed long though afterwards in the cool of morning and evening delightful to the house this is for that part of the world a large and commodious dwelling near it stands the log cabin where its master lived while it was building a very ornamental accessory in front of the house was a lawn adorned by the most graceful trees a few of these had been taken out to give a full view of the river gliding through banks such as I have described on this bend the bank is high and bold so from the house or the lawn the view was very rich and commanding but if you descended a ravine at the side to the water's edge you found there a long walk on the narrow shore with a wall above of the richest hanging wood in which they said the deer lay hid I never saw one but often fancied that I heard them rustling at daybreak by these bright clear waters stretching out in such smiling promise where no sound broke the deep and blissful seclusion unless now and then this rustling or the plash of some fish a little gayer than the others it seemed not necessary to have any better heaven or fuller expression of love and freedom than in the mood of nature here then leaving the bank you would walk far and far through long grassy paths full of the most brilliant also the most delicate flowers the brilliant are more common on the prairie but both kinds loved this place amid the grass of the lawn with a profusion of wild strawberries we greeted also a familiar love the Scottish hair bell the gentlest and most touching form of the flower world the master of the house was absent but with a kindness beyond thanks had offered us a resting place there here we were taken care of by a deputy who would for his youth have been assigned the place of a page in former times but in the young west it seems he was old enough for a steward whatever be called his function he did the honors of the place so much in harmony with it as to leave the guests free to imagine themselves in Elysium and the three days past here were days of unalloyed spotless happiness there was a peculiar charm in coming here where the choice of location and the unobtrusive good taste of all the arrangements showed such intelligent appreciation of the spirit of the scene after seeing so many dwellings of the new settlers which showed plainly that they had no thought beyond satisfying the grossest material wants sometimes they looked attractive the little brown houses the natural architecture of the country in the edge of the timber but almost always when you came near the slovenliness of the dwelling and the rude way in which the objects around it were treated when so little care would have presented a charming hole were very repulsive seeing the traces of the Indians who chose the most beautiful sights for their dwellings and whose habits do not break in on that aspect of nature under which they were born we feel as if they were the rightful lords of a beauty they forebore to deform but most of these settlers do not see it at all it breathes it speaks in vain to those who are rushing into its sphere their progress is gothic not Roman and their mode of cultivation will in the course of 20 perhaps 10 years obliterate the natural expression of the country this is inevitable fatal we must not complain but look forward to a good result still in traveling through this country I could not but be struck with the force of a symbol wherever the hog comes the rattlesnake disappears the omnivorous traveler safe in its stupidity willingly and easily makes a meal of the most dangerous of reptiles and one whom the Indian looks on with a mystic awe even so the white settler pursues the Indian and is victor in the chase but I shall say more upon the subject by and by while we were here we had one grand thunderstorm which added new glory to the scene one beautiful feature was the return of the pigeons every afternoon to their home every afternoon they came sweeping across the lawn positively in clouds and with a swiftness and softness of winged motion more beautiful than anything of the kind I ever knew had I been a musician such as Mendelssohn I felt that I could have improvised a music quite peculiar from the sound they made which should have indicated all the beauty over which their wings bore them I will hear insert a few lines left at this house on parting which feebly indicates some of the features familiar to the childish mind were tales of rockgirt aisles amid a desert sea where unexpected stretch the flowery veils to soothe the shipwrecked sailor's misery fainting he lay upon a sandy shore and fancied that all hope of life was oar but let him patient climb the frowning wall within the orange glows beneath the palm tree tall and all that Eden boasted waits his call almost these tales seemed realized today when the long dullness of the sultry way where independent settlers careless cheer made us indeed feel we were strangers here is cheered by sudden sight of this fair spot on which improvement yet has made no blot but nature all astonished stands to find her plan protected by the human mind blessed be the kindly genius of the scene the river bending in unbroken grace the stately thickets with their pathways green fair lonely trees each in its fittest place those thickets haunted by the deer and fawn those cloud-like flights of birds across the lawn the gentlest breezes here delight to blow and sun and shower and star are emulous to deck the show wondering is Crusoe we survey the land happier than Crusoe we a friendly band blessed be the hand that reared this friendly home the heart and mind of him to whom we owe hours of pure peace such as few mortals know may he find such should he be led to Rome be tended by such ministering sprites enjoy such gaily childish days such hopeful nights and yet amid the goods to mortals given to give those goods again is most like heaven hazelwood rock river june 30th 1843 the only really rustic feature was of the many coups of poultry near the house which I understood it to be one of the chief pleasures of the master to feed leaving this place we proceeded a day's journey along the beautiful stream to a little town named Oregon we called it a cabin from whose door looked out one of those faces which once seen are never forgotten young yet touched with many traces of feeling not only possible but endured spirited to like the gleam of a finely tempered blade it was a face that suggested a history and many histories but whose scene would have been in courts and camps at this moment their circles are dull for want of that life which is waning unexcited in this solitary recess the master of the house proposed to show us a shortcut by which we might to a special advantage pursue our journey this proved to be almost perpendicular down a hill studded with young trees and stumps from these he proposed with hospitality of service worthy and oriental to free our wheels whenever they would get entangled also to be himself the drag to prevent our too rapid descent such generosity deserved trust however we women could not be persuaded to render it we got out and admired from afar the process left by our guide and prop we found ourselves in a wide field where by playful quips and turns an endless creek seemed to divert itself with our attempts to cross it failing in this the next best was to whirl down a steep bank which feet are charioteer performed with an air not unlike that of rhesus had he but been as suitably furnished with chariot and steeds at last after wasting some two or three hours on the shortcut we got out by following an indian trail black hawks how fair the scene through which it led how could they let themselves be conquered with such a country to fight for afterwards in the wide prairie we saw a lively picture of nonchalance to speak in the fashion of dear ireland there in the wide sunny field with neither tree nor umbrella above his head sat a peddler with his pack apparently waiting for customers he was not disappointed we bought what hold in regard to the human world as unmarked as mysterious and as important an existence as the infusoria to the natural to wit pins this incident would have delighted those modern sages who in imitation of the city and philosophers of ancient end prefer silence to speech waiting to going and scornfully smile in answer to the motions of earnest life of itself will nothing come that he must still be seeking however it seemed to me today as formerly on these sublime occasions obvious that nothing would come unless something would go now if we had been as sublimely still as the peddler his pins would have tarried in the pack and his pockets sustained an aching void of pens passing through one of the fine park like woods almost clear from underbrush and carpeted with thick grasses and flowers we met for it was Sunday a little congregation just returning from their service which had been performed in a rude house in its midst it had a sweet and peaceful air as if such words and thoughts were very dear to them the parents had with them all their little children but we saw no old people that charm was wanting which exists in scenes in older settlements of seeing the silver bent in reverence beside the flaxen head at Oregon the beauty of the scene was of even a more sumptuous character than in our former stopping place here swelled the river in its boldest course interspersed by Halcyon Isles on which nature had lavished all her prodigality in tree vine and flower banked by noble bluffs three hundred feet high their sharp ridges as exquisitely definite as the edge of a shell their summits adorned with those same beautiful trees and with buttresses of rich rock crested with old hemlocks which were a touching and antique grace amid the softer and more luxuriant vegetation lofty natural mounds rose amidst the rest with the same lovely and sweeping outline showing everywhere the plastic power of water water mother of beauty which by its sweet and eager flow had left such liniments as human genius never dreamt of not far from the river was a high crag called the pine rock which looks out as our guide observed like a helmet above the brow of the country it seems as if the water left here and there a vestige of forms and materials that preceded its course just to set off its new and richer designs the aspect of this country was to me enchanting beyond any I have ever seen from its fullness of expression its bold and impassioned sweetness here the flood of emotion is passed over and marked everywhere its course by a smile the fragments of rock touch it with a wildness and liberality which give just the needed relief I should never be tired here though I have elsewhere seen country of more secret and alluring charms better calculated to stimulate and suggest here the eye and heart are filled how happy the Indians must have been here it is not long since they were driven away and the ground above and below is full of their traces the earth is full of men you have only to turn up the sod to find arrowheads in Indian pottery on an island belonging to our host and nearly opposite his house they love to stay and no doubt enjoyed its lavish beauty as much as the myriad wild pigeons that now haunt its flower-filled shades here are still the marks of their tomahawks the troughs in which they prepared their corn their caches a little way down the river is the side of an ancient Indian village with its regularly arranged mounds as usual they had chosen with the finest taste it was one of those soft shadowy afternoons when we went there when nature seems ready to weep not from grief but from an over-full heart two prattling lovely little girls and an African boy with glittering eye and ready grin made our party gay but all were still as we entered their little inlet and trod those flowery paths they made black in Indian life as they will talk of its dirt its brutality I will ever believe that the men who chose that dwelling place were able to feel emotions of noble happiness as they returned to it and so were the women that receive them neither were the children sad or dull who lived so familiarly with the deer and the birds and swam that clear wave in the shadow of the seven sisters the whole scene suggested to me a Greek splendor a Greek sweetness and I can believe that an Indian brave accustomed to ramble in such paths and be bathed by such sunbeams might be mistaken for Apollo as Apollo was for him by west two of the boldest bluffs are called the deer's walk not because deer do not walk there and the eagle's nest the latter I visited one glorious morning it was that of the fourth of july and certainly I think I had never felt so happy that I was born in America woe to all country folks that never saw this spot never swept an enraptured gaze over the prospect that stretched beneath I do believe Rome and Florence are suburbs compared to this capital of nature's art the bluff was decked with great bunches of a scarlet variety of the milkweed like cut coral and all starred with a mysterious looking dark flower whose cup rose lonely on a tall stem this had for two or three days disputed the ground with the Lupin and Flock's my companions disliked I liked it here I thought of or rather saw what the Greek expresses under the form of jove's darling Ganymede and the following stanzas took form Ganymede to his eagle suggested by a work of Thorolsons composed on the height called the eagle's nest Oregon Rock River july 4th 1843 upon the rocky mountain stood the boy a goblet of pure water in his hand his face and form spoke him one made for joy a willing servant to sweet love's command but a strange pain was written on his brow and thrilled throughout his silver accents now my bird he cries my destined brother friend oh wither fleets today thy wayward flight has thou forgotten that I here attend from the full noon until this sad twilight a hundred times at least from the clear spring since the full noon or hill and valley glowed I filled the vase which our Olympian king upon my care for thy sole use bestowed that at the moment when thou should'st descend a pure refreshment might thy thirst attend has thou forgotten earth forgotten me thy fellow bondsmen in a royal cause who from the sadness of infinity only with thee can know that peaceful pause in which we catch the flowing strain of love which binds our dim fates to the throne of jove before I saw thee I was like the may longing for summer that must mar its bloom or like the morning star that calls the day whose glories to its promise of the tomb and as the eager fountain rises higher to throw itself more strongly back to earth still as more sweet and full rose my desire more fondly it reverted to its birth for what the rosebud seeks tells not the rose the meaning foretold by the boy the man cannot disclose I was all spring for in my being dwelt eternal youth where flowers are the fruit full feeling was the thought of what was felt its music was the meaning of the loot but heaven and earth such life will still deny for earth divorced from heaven still asks the question why upon the highest mountains my young feet ached that no pinions from their lightness grew my star like eyes the stars would fondly greet yet when no greeting from the circling blue fair self subsistent each in its own sphere they had no care that there was none for me alike to them that I was far or near alike to them time and eternity but from the violet of lower air sometimes an answer to my wishing came those lightning births my nature seemed to share they told the secrets of its fiery frame the sudden messengers of hate and love the thunderbolts that arm the hand of jove and strike sometimes the sacred spire and strike the sacred grove come in a moment in a moment gone they answered me then left me still more alone they told me that the thought which ruled the world as yet no sale upon its course had furled that the creation was but just begun new leaves still leaving from the primal one but spoke not of the goal to which my rapid wheels would run still still my eyes though tearfully I strained to the far future which my heart contained and no dull doubt my proper hope profaned at last oh bliss thy loving form I spied then a mere speck upon a distant sky yet my keen glance discerned its noble pride and the full answer of that sun-filled eye I knew it was the wing that must up bear my earthlier form into the realms of air thou knowest how we gained that beautyous height where dwells the monarch of the sons of light thou knowest he declared us two to be the chosen servants of his ministry thou was his messenger a sacred sign of conquest or with omen more benign to give its due weight to the righteous cause to express the verdict of olympian laws an eye to wait upon the lonely spring which shakes the thirst of bards to whom tis given the destined dues of hopes divine to sing and weave the needed chain to bind to heaven only from such could be obtained a draft for him who in his early home from jove's own cup has quaffed to wait to wait but not to wait too long till heavy grows the birthing of a song oh bird too long has thou been gone today my feet are weary of their frequent way the spell that hopes the spring my tongue no more can say if soon thou comes not night will fall around my head with a sad slumber will be bound and the pure draft be spilt upon the ground remember that i am not yet divine long years of service to the fatal nine are yet to make a delphian vigor mine oh make them not too hard thou bird of jove answer the stripling's hope confirm his love receive the service in which he delights and hear him often to the serene heights where hands that were so prompt in serving thee shall be allowed the highest ministry and rapture live with bright fidelity the afternoon was spent in a very different manner the family whose guests we were possessed a gay and graceful hospitality that gave zest to each moment they possessed that rare politeness which while fertile and pleasant expedience to vary the enjoyment of a friend leaves him perfectly free the moment he wishes to be so with such hosts pleasure may be combined with repose they lived on the bank opposite the town and as their house was full we slept in the town and passed three days with them passing to and fro morning and evening in their boats to one of these called the fairy in which a sweet little daughter of the house moved about lighter than any scotch ellen ever sung i should indict a poem if i had not been guilty of rhyme on the very last page at morning this was very pleasant at evening i confess i was generally too tired with the excitement of the day to think it so their house a double log cabin was to my eye the model of a western villa nature had laid out before it grounds which could not be improved within female taste had veiled every rudeness availed itself of every sylvan grace in this charming abode what laughter what sweet thoughts what pleasing fancies did we not enjoy may such never desert those who reared it and made us so kindly welcome to all its pleasures fragments of city life were dexterously crumbled into the dish prepared for general entertainment ice creams followed the dinner drawn by the gentleman from the river and music and fireworks wound up the evening of days spent on the eagle's nest now they had prepared a little fleet to pass over to the fourth of july celebration which some queer drumming and fifene from the opposite bank had announced to be on hand we found the free and independent citizens there collected beneath the trees among whom many a round irish visage dimpled at the usual puffs of americae the orator was a new englander and the speech smacked loudly of boston but was received with much applause and followed by a plentiful dinner provided by and for the sovereign people to which hail columbia served as grace returning the gay flotilla hailed the little flag which the children had raised from a log cabin prettier than any president ever saw and drank the health of their country in all mankind with a clear conscience dance and song wound up the day i know not when the mere local habitation has seemed to me to afford so fair a chance of happiness as this to a person of unspoiled tastes the beauty alone would afford stimulus enough but with it would be naturally associated all kinds of wild sports experiments and the studies of natural history in these regards the poet the sportsman the naturalist would alike rejoice in this wide range of untouched loveliness then with a very little money a ducal estate may be purchased and by a very little more and with moderate labor a family be maintained upon it with rain meant food and shelter the luxurious and minute comforts of a city life are not yet to be had without effort disproportionate to their value but where there is so great a counterpoise cannot these be given up once for all if the houses are imperfectly built they can afford immense fires and plenty of covering if they are small who cares with such fields to roam in in the winter it may be born in the summer is of no consequence with plenty of fish and game and wheat can they not dispense with a baker to bring muffins hot every morning to the door for their breakfast here a man need not take a small slice from the landscape and fence it in from the obtrusions of an uncongenial neighbor and there cut down his fancies to miniature improvements which a chicken could run over in ten minutes he may have water and wood and land enough to dread no incursions on his prospect from some chance vandal that may enter his neighborhood he need not painfully economize and manage how he may use it all he can afford to leave some of it wild and to carry out his own plans without obliterating those of nature here whole families might live together if they would the sons might return from their pilgrimages to settle near the parent hearth the daughters might find room near their mother those painful separations which already desecrate and desolate the Atlantic coast are not enforced here by the stern need of seeking bread and where they are voluntary it is no matter to me to use to the feelings which haunt a society of struggling men it was delightful to look upon a scene where nature still wore her motherly smile and seem to promise room not only for those favored or cursed with the qualities best adapting for the stripes of competition but for the delicate the thoughtful even the indolent or eccentric she did not say fight or starve or even work or cease to exist but merely showing that the apple was a finer fruit than the wild crab gave both room to grow in the garden a pleasant society is formed of the families who live along the banks of this stream upon farms they are from various parts of the world and have much to communicate to one another many have cultivated minds and refined manners all of varied experience while they have in common the interests of a new country and a new life they must traverse some space to get at one another but the journey is through scenes that make it a separate pleasure they must bear inconveniences to stay in one another's houses but these to the well-disposed are only a source of amusement and adventure the great drawback upon the lives of these settlers at present is the unfitness of the women for their new lot it has generally been the choice of the men and the women follow as women will doing their best for affection's sake but too often in heart sickness and weariness beside it frequently not being a choice or conviction of their own minds that it is best to be here their part is the hardest and they are least fitted for it the men can find assistance in field labor and recreation with the gun and fishing rod their bodily strength is greater and enables them to bear and enjoy both these forms of life the women can rarely find any aid in domestic labor all its various and careful tasks must often be performed sick or well by the mother and daughter to whom a city education has imparted neither the strength nor skill now demanded the wives of the poorer settlers having more hard work to do than before very frequently become slatterns but the ladies accustomed to a refined neatness feel that they cannot degrade themselves by its absence and struggle under every disadvantage to keep up the necessary routine of small arrangements with all these disadvantages for work their resources for pleasure are fewer when they can leave the housework they have not learnt to ride to drive to row alone their culture has to generally been that given to women to make them the ornaments of society they can dance but not draw talk french but know nothing of the language of flowers neither in childhood were allowed to cultivate them less they should tan their complexions accustomed to the pavement of broadway they dare not tread the wildwood paths for fear of rattlesnakes seeing much of this joylessness and in aptitude both of body and mind for a lot which would be full of blessings for those prepared for it we could not but look with deep interest on the little girls and hope that they would grow up with the strength of body dexterity simple tastes and resources that would fit them to enjoy and refine the western farmers life but they have a great deal to war with in the habits of thought acquired by their mothers from their own early life everywhere the fatal spirit of imitation of reference to european standards penetrates and threatens to blight whatever of original growth might adorn the soil if the little girls grow up strong resolute able to exert their faculties their mothers mourn over their want of fashionable delicacy are they gay enterprising ready to fly about in the various ways that teach them so much these ladies lament that they cannot go to school where they might learn to be quiet they lament the want of education for their daughters as if the thousand needs which call out their young energies and the language of nature around yielded no education their grand ambition for their children is to send them to school in some eastern city the measure most likely to make them useless and unhappy at home i earnestly hope that air long the existence of good schools near themselves planned by persons of sufficient thought to meet the wants of the place and time instead of copying new york or boston will correct this mania instruction the children want to enable them to profit by the great natural advantages of their position but methods copied from the education of some english lady augusta are as ill suited to the daughter of an illinois farmer has sat in shoes to climb the indian mounds an elegance she would diffuse around her if her mind were open to appreciate elegance it might be of a kind new original enchanting as different from that of the city bell as that of the prairie torch flower from the shop or an article that touches the cheek of that lady within her bonnet to a girl really skilled to make home beautiful and comfortable with bodily strength to enjoy plenty of exercise the woods the streams a few studies music and the sincere and familiar intercourse far more easily to be met here than elsewhere would afford happiness enough her eyes would not grow dim nor her cheeks sunken in the absence of parties morning visits and milliner shops as to music i wish i could see in such places the guitar rather than the piano and good vocal more than instrumental music the piano many carry with them because it is the fashionable instrument in the eastern cities even there it is so merely from the habit of imitating europe for not one in a thousand is willing to give the labor requisite to ensure any valuable use of the instrument but out here where the ladies have so much less leisure it is still less desirable add to this they never know how to tune their own instruments and as persons seldom visit them who can do so these pianos are constantly out of tune and would spoil the ear of one who began by having any the guitar or some portable instrument which requires less practice and could be kept in tune by themselves would be far more desirable for most of these ladies it would give all they want is a household companion to fill up the gaps of life with a pleasant stimulus or solace and be sufficient accompaniment to the voice in social meetings singing in parts is the most delightful family amusement and those who are constantly together can learn to sing in perfect accord all the practice it needs after some good elementary instruction is such as meetings by summer twilight and evening firelight naturally suggest and as music is in universal language we cannot but think a fine italian duet would be as much at home in the log cabin as one of mrs. gore's novels the sixth july we left this beautiful place it was one of those rich days of bright sunlight varied by the purple shadows of large sweeping clouds many a backward look we cast and left the heart behind our journey today was no less delightful than before still all new boundless limitless kinmont says that limits are sacred that the greeks were in the right to worship a god of limits i say that what is limitless is alone divine that there was neither wall nor road in eden that those who walked there lost and found their way just as we did and that all the gain from the fall was that we had a wagon to ride in i do not think either that even the horses doubted whether this last was any advantage everywhere the rattlesnake weed grows in perfusion the antidote survives the bane soon the coarser plantain the white man's footstep shall take its place we saw also the compass plant and the western tea plant of some of the brightest flowers an indian girl afterwards told me the medicinal virtues i doubt not those students of the soil knew a use to every fair emblem on which we could only look to admire its hues and shape afternoon we were ferried by a girl unfortunately not of the most picturesque appearance across the kishwaki the most graceful stream and on whose bosom rested many full-blown water lilies twice as large as any of ours i was told that on revanche they were scentless but i still regret that i could not get at one of them to try query did the lily fragrance which in the miraculous times accompanied visions of saints and angels proceed from water or garden lilies kishwaki is according to tradition the scene of a famous battle and its many grassy mounds contain the bones of the valiant on these waved thickly the mysterious purple flower of which i've spoken before i think it springs from the blood of the indians as the hyacinth did from that of apollo's darling the ladies of our host's family at oregon when they first went there after all the pains and plagues of building and settling found their first pastime in opening one of these mounds in which they found i think three of the departed seated in the indian fashion one of these same ladies as she was making bread one winter morning saw from the window a deer directly before the house she ran out with her hands covered with dough calling the others and they caught him bodily before he had time to escape here at kishwaki we received a visit from a ragged and barefoot but bright eyed gentleman who seemed to be the intellectual loafer the walking will's coffee house of the place he told us many charming snake stories among others of himself having seen seventeen young ones re enter the mother snake on the intrusion of a visitor this night we reached belvedere a flourishing town in boon county where was the tomb now despoiled of big thunder in this later day we felt happy to find a really good hotel from this place by two days of very leisurely and devious journey we reached chicago and thus ended a journey which one at least of the party might have wished unending i have not been particularly anxious to give the geography of the scene in as much as it seemed to me no route nor series of stations but a garden interspersed with cottages groves and flowery lawns through which a stately river ran i had no guidebook kept no diary do not know how many miles we traveled each day nor how many and all what i got from the journey with the poetic impression of the country at large it is all i have aimed to communicate the narrative might have been made much more interesting as life was at the time by many piquant anecdotes and tales drawn from private life but here courtesy restrains the pen for i know those who receive the stranger with such frank kindness would feel ill-requited by its becoming the means of fixing many spyglasses even though the scrutiny might be one of admiring interest upon their private homes for many of these two i was indebted to a friend whose property they more lawfully are this friend was one of those rare beings who are equally at home in nature and with man he knew a tale of all that ran and swam and flew or only grew possessing that extensive familiarity with things which shows equal sweetness of sympathy and playful penetration most refreshing to me was his unstudied lore the unwritten poetry which common life presents to a strong and gentle mind it was a great contrast to the subtleties of analysis the philosophic strainings of which i had seen too much but i will not attempt to transplant it may it profit others as it did me in the region where it was born where it belongs the evening of our return to chicago the sunset was of a splendor and calmness beyond any we saw at the west the twilight that succeeded was equally beautiful soft pathetic but just so calm when afterwards i learned that this was the evening of alston's death it seemed to me as if this glorious pageant was not without connection with that event at least it inspired similar emotions a heavenly gate closing a path with shows well worthy paradise farewell ye soft and sumptuous solitudes ye fairy distances ye lordly woods haunted by paths like those that pusan knew when after his all gazer's eyes he drew i go and if i never more may steep an eager heart in your enchantments deep yet ever to itself that heart may say be not exacting thou hast lived one day hast looked on that which matches with thy mood impassioned sweetness of full beans flood where nothing checked the bold yet gentle wave were not repelled the lavish love that gave a tender blessing lingers or the scene like some young mother's thought fond yet serene and through its life new born our lives have been once more farewell a sad sweet farewell and if i never must behold you more in other worlds i will not cease to tell the rosary i hear have numbered or and bright haired hope will lend a glad and ear and love will free him from the grasp of fear and gorgon critics while the tale they hear shall do their stony glances with a tear if i but catch one echo from your spell and so farewell a grateful sad farewell end of chapter three