 CHAPTER IV Chicago again Chicago had become interesting to me now that I knew it as the portal to so fair a scene. I had become interested in the land, in the people, and looked sorrowfully on the lake on which I must soon embark to leave behind what I had just begun to enjoy. Now was the time to see the lake. The July moon was near its full, and night after night it rose in a cloudless sky above this majestic sea. The heat was excessive so that there was no enjoyment of life except in the night, but then the air was of that delicious temperature worthy of orange groves. However they were not wanted. Nothing was, as that full light fell on the faintly rippling waters which then seemed boundless. A poem received shortly after from a friend in Massachusetts seemed to say that the July moon shone there not less splendid and may claim insertion here. Triformis. So pure her foreheads dazzling white, so swift and clear her radiant eyes, within the treasure of whose light lay undeveloped destinies, of thoughts repressed such hidden store was hinted by each flitting smile, I could but wonder and adore, far off in awe I gazed the while. I gazed at her as at the moon hanging in lustrous twilight skies, whose virgin crescent, sinking soon, peeps through the leaves before it flies, untouched Diana flitting dim, while sings the wood its evening hymn. Two. Again we met. O joyful meeting! Her radiance now was all for me, like kindly airs her kindly greeting, so full, so musical, so free. Within romantic forest aisles, within romantic paths we walked, I bathed me in her sister smiles, I breathed her beauty as we talked. So full-orbed Cynthia walks the skies, filling the earth with melodies, even so she condescends to kiss drowsy endemians, coarse and dull, or fills our waking souls with bliss, making long nights too beautiful. Three. O fair but fickle lady moon, why must thy full form ever wane? O love, o friendship, why so soon must your sweet light recede again? I wake me in the dead of night and start, for though the misty gloom red hekkatee stares, a boating sight, looks in but never fills my room. Thou music of my boyhood's hour, thou shining light on manhood's way, no more does thou fair influence shower to move my soul by night or day. O strange, that while in hall and street, thy hand I touch, thy grace I meet, such miles of polar ice should part the slightest touch of mind and heart, but all thy love has wane, and so I gladly let thy beauty go. Now that I am borrowing, I will also give a letter received at this time, and extracts from others from an earlier traveler, and in a different region of the country from that I saw, which I think in different ways admirably descriptive of the country. And you, too, love the prairies, flying Voyager of a summer hour, but I have only there owned the wild forest, the widespread meadows. There only built my house, and seen the live long day the thoughtful showers of the great clouds color, with al-transcendient browns, the untrampled floor of grass. There has spring pranked the long smooth reaches with those golden flowers, whereby became the fields a sea too golden to or last the heats. Yes, and with many a yellow bell she gilded our unbounded path, that sank in the light swells of the varied surface, skirted the untilled barons, nor shunned the steep banks of rivers darting merrily on. There has the white snow frolic sumily strone itself, till all that vast outstretched distance glittered like a mirror, in which only the heavens were reflected, and among these drifts our steps have been curbed. Ah, many days of precious weather are on the prairies. You have then found, after many a weary hour, when time has locked your temples as in a circle of heated metal, some cool, sweet, swift gliding moments, the iron ring of necessity un-girt, and the fevered pulses at rest. You have also found this, where fresh nature suffers no ravage, amid those bowers of wildwood, those dreamlike, besung, murmuring, and musical planes, swimming under their hazy distances, as if there, in that warm and deep background, stood the fairy castle of our hopes, with its fountains, its pictures, its many mystical figures in repose. Ever could we rove over those sunny distances, breathing that modulated wind, eyeing those so well-blended, imaginative, yet thoughtful surfaces, and above us wide, wide a horizon effortless and superb as a young divinity. I was a prisoner where you glide, the summer's pensioned guest, and my chains were the past and the future, darkness and blowing sand. There, very weary, I received from the distance a sweet emblem of an incorruptible, lofty, and pervasive nature. But was I less weary? I was a prisoner, and you planes were my prison bars. Yet never, O never beautiful planes, had I any feeling for you but profoundest gratitude, for indeed ye are only fair, grand, and majestic, while I had scarcely a right there. Now ye stand in that past day, grateful images of unchattered repose, simple in your tranquility, strong in your self-possession, yet ever musical and springing as the footsteps of a child. Ah, that to some poet, whose leer had never lost a string, to whom mortality, kinder than is her custom, had vouchsafed a day whose down had been untouched, that to him these planes might enter and flow forth in airy song, and you forests, under whose symmetrical shields of dark green the colors of the fawns move, like the waters of the river under its spears, its sine meters of flag, where, in gleaming circles of steel, the breasts of the wood pigeons flash in the playful sunbeam, and many sounds, many notes of no earthly music, come over the well-relieved glades. Should not your depth pass into that poet's heart, in your depths should he not fuse his own?" The other letters show the painter's eye, as this the poet's heart. Springfield, Illinois, May 20, 1840. Yesterday morning I left Griggsville, my knapsack at my back, pursued my journey all day on foot, and found so new and great delight in this charming country that I must needs tell you about it. Do you remember our saying once that we never found the trees tall enough, the fields green enough? Well, the trees are for once tall and fair to look upon, and one unvarying carpet of the tenderest green covers these marvelous fields that spread out their smooth sod for miles and miles till they even reach the horizon. But to begin my day's journey, Griggsville is situated on the west side of the Illinois River on a high prairie. Between it and the river is a long range of bluffs, which reaches a hundred miles north and south, then a wide river bottom, and then the river. It was a mild, showery morning, and I directed my steps toward the bluffs. They are covered with forest, not like our forests, tangled and impassable, but where the trees stand fair and apart from one another, so that you might ride everywhere about on horseback, and the tops of the hills are generally bald and covered with green turf like our pastures. Indeed, the whole country reminds me perpetually of one that has been carefully cultivated by a civilized people, who had been suddenly removed from the earth with all the works of their hands, and the land given again into nature's keeping. The solitudes are not savage. They have not that dreary, stony loneliness that used to affect me in our own country. They never repel. There are no lonely heights, no isolated spots, but all is gentle, mild, inviting. All is accessible. In following this winding, hilly road for four or five miles, I think I counted at least a dozen new kinds of wild flowers. Not timid, retiring little plants like ours, but bold flowers of rich colors, covering the ground in abundance. One very common flower resembles our cardinal flower, though not of so deep a color. Another is very like rocket or flocks, but smaller and of various colors, white, blue, and purple. Beautiful white lupines I find, too, violets white and purple. The vines and parasites are magnificent. I followed on this road till I came to the prairie, which skirts the river. And this, of all the beauties of this region, is the most peculiar and wonderful. Imagine a vast and gently swelling pasture of the brightest green grass, stretching away from you on every side, behind, toward these hills I have described, in all other directions, to a belt of tall trees, all growing up with noble proportions, from the generous soil. It is an unimagined picture of abundance and peace. Somewhere about you are sure to see a huge herd of cattle, often white and generally brightly marked, grazing. All looks like the work of man's hand, but you see no vestige of man save perhaps an almost imperceptible hut on the edge of the prairie. Reaching the river I ferried myself across, and then crossed over to take the Jacksonville Railroad, but, finding there was no train, passed the night at a farmhouse. And here may find its place this converse between the solitary old man and the young traveller. Solitary. My son, with weariness thou seemest spent, and toiling on the dusty road all day, weary and pale, yet with inconstant step, hither and thither turning, seekest thou to find ought lost, or what dark care pursues thee, if thou art weary, rest, if hungry, eat. Traveller. Oh, rather, Father, let me ask of thee, what is it I do seek, what thing I lack? These many days I've left my father's hall, forthdriven by insatiable desire, that, like the wind, now gently murmuring, enticed me forward with its own sweet voice, through many leaved woods and valleys deep, yet ever flood before me. Then, with sound stronger than hurrying tempest, seizing me, forced me to fly its power. Forward still, bound by enchanted ties, I seek its source. Sometimes it is something I have lost, known long since, before I bent my steps toward this beautiful, broad plain of earth. Sometimes it is a spirit, yet unknown, in whose dim imaged features seem to smile the dear delight of these high-manchined thoughts that sometimes visit me. Like unto mine, her linements appear, but beautiful, as of a sister in a far-off world, waiting to welcome me. And when I think to reach and clasp the figure, it is gone, and some ill-oamened, ghastly vision comes to bid beware, and not too curiously demand the secrets of that distant world, whose shadow haunts me. On the waves below, but now I gazed, warmed with the setting sun, who sent his golden streamers to my feet, it seemed a pathway to a world beyond, and I looked round, if that my spirit beckoned, that I might follow it. Solitary. Dreams all my son, yes, even so I dreamed, and even so was thwarted. You must learn to dream another long and troublous dream, the dream of life, and you shall think you wake, and think the shadow's substance, love and hate, exchange and barter, joy and weep and dance, and this too shall be dream. Traveller. Oh, who can say where lies the boundary? What solid things that daily mock our senses shall dissolve before the might within, whose shadowy forms freeze into stark reality, defying the force and will of man. These forms I see, they may go with me through eternity, and bless or curse with ceaseless company, while yonder man that I met yesterday night, where is he now? He passed before my eyes, he is gone, but these stay with me ever. That night the young man rested with the old, and grave or gay in laughter or in tears, they wore the night in converse. Morning came, the dreamer took his solitary way, and as he pressed the old man's hand he sighed, must this too be a dream? Afterwards of the rolling prairie, quote, there was one of twenty miles in extent, not flat, but high in rolling, so that when you arrived at a high part, by gentle ascents, the view was beyond measure grand. As far as the eye could reach, nothing but the green rolling plain, and at a vast distance, groves, all looking gentle and cultivated, yet all uninhabited. I think it would impress you, as it does me, that these scenes are truly sublime. I have a sensation of vastness which I have sought in vain among high mountains. Mountains crowd one sensation on another, till Allah's excitement, Allah's surprise, wonder, enchantment. Here is neither enchantment nor disappointment, but expectation fully realized. I have always had an attachment for a plain. The Roman Capania is a prairie. Pioria is in a most lovely situation. In fact I am so delighted that I am as full of superlatives as the Italian language. I could, however, find fault enough if you ask what I dislike. But no one did ask. It is not worthwhile where there is so much to admire. Yet the following is a good statement of the shadow side, quote. As to the boasts about the rapid progress here, give me rather the firm fiber of a slow and naughty growth. I could not help thinking as much when I was talking to E. the other day, whom I met on board the boat. He quarreled with Boston for its slowness, said that it was a bad place for a young man. He could not make himself felt, could not see the effects of his exertions as he could hear. To be sure he could not. Here he comes, like a Yankee farmer, with all the knowledge that our hard soil and laborious cultivation could give him. And what wonder if he is surprised at the work of his own hands when he comes to such a soil as this. But he feeds not so many mouths, though he tills more acres. The plants he raises have not so exquisite a form, the vegetables so fine a flavor. His cultivation becomes more negligent, he is not so good a farmer. Is not this a true view? It strikes me continually. The traces of a man's hand in a new country are rarely productive of beauty. It is a cutting down of forest trees to make zigzag fences, end quote. The most picturesque objects to be seen from Chicago on the inland side were the lines of Hoosier wagons. These rude farmers, the large first product of the soil, travel leisurely along, sleeping in their wagons by night, eating only what they bring with them. In the town they observe the same plan, and trouble no luxurious hotel for board and lodging. In the town they look like foreign peasantry, and contrast well with the many Germans, Dutch and Irish. In the country it is pretty to see them prepared to camp out at night, their horses taken out of harness, and they lounging under the trees enjoying the evening meal. On the lakeside it is fine to see the great boats come panting it from their rapid and marvelous journey. Especially at night the motion of their lights is very majestic. When the favorite boats, the Great Western and Illinois, are going out, the town is thronged with people from the south and farther west to go in them. These moonlight nights I could hear the French rippling and fluttering familiarly amid the rude ups and downs of the Hoosier dialect. At the hotel table were daily to be seen new faces and new stories to be learned, and anyone who has a large acquaintance may be pretty sure of meeting some of them here in the course of a few days. Among those whom I met was Mrs. Z, the aunt of an old schoolmate to whom I impatiently hastened as soon as the meal was over to demand news of Mariana. The answer startled me. Mariana, so full of life, was dead. That form, the most rich in energy and coloring of any I had ever seen, had faded from the earth. The circle of youthful associations had given way in the part that seemed the strongest. What I now learned of the story of this life and what was by myself remembered may be bound together in this slight sketch. At the boarding school to which I was too early sent, a fond, a proud, and timid child, I saw among the ranks of the gay and graceful, bright or earnest girls, only one who interested my fancy or touched my young heart, and this was Mariana. She was on the father's side of Spanish Creole blood, but had been sent to the Atlantic coast to receive a school education under the care of her aunt Mrs. Z. This lady had kept her mostly at home with herself, and Mariana had gone from her house to a day school. But the aunt, being absent for a time in Europe, she had now been unfortunately committed for some time to the mercies of a boarding school. A strange bird she proved there, a lonely swallow that could not make for itself a summer. At first her schoolmates were captivated with her ways, her love of wild dances and sudden song, her freaks of passion and of wit. She was always new, always surprising, and for a time charming. But after a while they tired of her. She could never be depended upon to join in their plans, yet she expected them to follow out hers with their whole strength. She was very loving, even infatuated in her own affections, and exacted from those who had professed any love for her the devotion she was willing to bestow. Yet there was a vein of haughty caprice in her character, a love of solitude which made her at times wish to retire entirely, and at these times she would expect to be thoroughly understood and let alone, yet to be welcomed back when she returned. She did not thwart others in their humours, but she never doubted of great indulgence from them. Some singular habits she had which, when new, charmed, but after acquaintance displeased her companions. She had by nature the same habit and power of excitement that is described in the spinning dervishes of the East. Like them she would spin until all around her were giddy, while her own brain, instead of being disturbed, was excited to great action. Pausing she would reclaim verse of others or her own, act many parts with strange catchwords and burdens that seemed to act with mystical power on her own fancy, sometimes stimulating her to convulse the hearer with laughter, sometimes to melt him to tears. When her power began to languish she would spin again till fired to recommend her singular drama into which she wove figures from the scenes of her earlier childhood, her companions and the dignitaries she sometimes saw with fancies unknown to life, unknown to heaven or earth. This excitement, as may be supposed, was not good for her. It oftenest came on in the evening and often spoiled her sleep. She would wake in the night and cheat her restlessness by inventions that teased, while they sometimes diverted her companions. She was also a sleepwalker, and this one trait of her case did somewhat alarm her guardians, who otherwise showed the same profound stupidity as to this peculiar being, usual in the overseers of the young. They consulted a physician who said she would outgrow it and prescribed a milk diet. Meantime the fever of this ardent and too early stimulated nature was constantly increased by the restraints and narrow routine of the boarding school. She was always devising means to break in upon it. She had a taste which would have seemed ludicrous to her mates, if they had not felt some awe of her, from a touch of genius and power that never left her, for costume and fancy dresses, always some sash twisted about her, some drapery, something odd in the arrangement of her hair and dress, so that the methodical perceptress dared not to let her go out without a careful scrutiny and remodeling, whose sobering effects generally disappeared the moment she was in the free air. At last a vent for her was found in private theatricals. Play followed play, and in these and in the rehearsals she found entertainment congenial with her. The principal parts, as a matter of course, fell to her lot. Most of the good suggestions and arrangements came from her, and for a time she ruled masterly and shown triumphant. During these performances the girls had heightened their natural bloom with artificial red. This was delightful to them. It was something so out of the way. But Mariana, after the plays were over, kept her carmine saucer on the dressing table and put on her blushes regularly as the morning. When stared and jeered at, she at first said she did it because she thought it made her look prettier, but after a while she became quite petulant about it, would make no reply to any joke, but merely kept on doing it. This irritated the girls, as all eccentricity does the world in general, more than vice or malignity. They talked it over among themselves till they got wrought up to a desire of punishing, once for all, this sometimes amusing but so often provoking, non-conformist. Having obtained the leave of the mistress, they laid, with great glee, a plan one evening, which was to be carried into execution next day at dinner. Among Mariana's irregularities was a great aversion to the mealtime ceremonial. So long, so tiresome she found it, to be seated at a certain moment, to wait while each one was served at so large a table, and one where there was scarcely any conversation. From day to day it became more heavy to her to sit there or go there at all. Often as possible she excused herself on the ever-convenient plea of headache, and was hardly ever ready when the dinner bell rang. Today it found her on the balcony, lost in gazing on the beautiful prospect. I have heard her say afterwards she had rarely in her life been so happy, and she was one with whom happiness was a still rapture. It was one of the most blessed summer days. The shadows of great white clouds impurpled the distant hills for a few moments, only to leave them more golden. The tall grass of the wide fields waved in the softest breeze. Pure blue were the heavens, and the same hue of pure contentment was in the heart of Mariana. Suddenly on her bright mood jarred the dinner bell. At first rose her usual thought, I will not cannot go, and then the must, which daily life can always enforce even upon the butterflies and birds, came, and she walked reluctantly to her room. She merely changed her dress and never thought of adding the artificial rose to her cheek. When she took her seat in the dining hall and was asked if she would be helped, raising her eyes she saw the person who asked her was deeply rouged, with a bright glaring spot, perfectly round, in either cheek. She looked at the next, same apparition. She then slowly passed her eyes down the whole line, and saw the same with a suppressed smile distorting every countenance. Catching the design at once she deliberately looked along her own side of the table at every schoolmate in turn. Everyone had joined in the trick. The teachers strove to be grave, but she saw they enjoyed the joke. The servants could not suppress a titter. When Warren Hastings stood at the bar of Westminster Hall, when the Methodist preacher walked through a line of men, each of whom greeted him with a brickbat or a rotten egg, they had some preparation for the crisis, and it might not be very difficult to meet it with an impressive brow. Our little girl was quite unprepared to find herself in the midst of a world which despised her and triumphed in her disgrace. She had ruled, like a queen, in the midst of her companions. She had shed her animation through their lives, and loaded them with prodigal favors, nor once suspected that a powerful favorite might not be loved. Now she felt that she had been but a dangerous plaything in the hands of those whose hearts she never had doubted. Yet the occasion found her equal to it, for Mariana had the kind of spirit which, in a better cause, had made the Roman matron truly say of her death wound, it is not painful, Petus. She did not blanche, she did not change countenance, she swallowed her dinner with apparent composure. She made remarks to those near her, as if she had no eyes. The wrath of the foe, of course, rose higher, and the moment they were freed from the restraints of the dining-room, they all ran off, gaily calling and sarcastically laughing, with backward glances, at Mariana left alone. She went alone to her room, locked the door, and threw herself on the floor in strong convulsions. These had sometimes threatened her life as a child, but of later years she had outgrown them. School hours came and she was not there. A little girl sent to her door could get no answer. The teachers became alarmed and broke it open. Bitter was their penitence, and that of her companions, at the state in which they found her. For some hours terrible anxiety was felt, but at last, nature, exhausted, relieved herself by a deep slumber. From this Mariana rose an altered being. She made no reply to the expressions of sorrow from her companions, none to the grave and kind, but undiscerning comments of her teacher. She did not name the source of her anguish, and its poisoned dart sank deeply in. It was this thought which stung her so. What, not one, not a single one, in the hour of trial, to take my part, not one who refused to take part against me. Past words of love and caresses, little heated at the time, rose to her memory, and gave fuel to her distempered thoughts. Beyond the sense of universal perfidy, of burning resentment she could not get, and Mariana, born for love, now hated all the world. The change, however, which these feelings made in her conduct and appearance, bore no such construction to the careless observer. Her gay freaks were quite gone, her wildness, her invention. Her dress was uniform, her manner much subdued. Her chief interests seemed now to lie in her studies and in music. Her companions she never sought, but they, partly from uneasy remorseful feelings, partly that they really liked her much better now that she did not oppress and puzzle them, sought her continually. And here the black shadow comes upon her life, the only stain upon the history of Mariana. They talked to her, as girls having few topics naturally do of one another, and the demon rose within her, and spontaneously, without design, generally without words of positive falsehood, she became a genius of discord among them. She fanned those flames of envy and jealousy, which a wise, true word from a third will often quench forever. By a glance or a seemingly light reply, she planted the seeds of dissension, till there was scarce a peaceful affection or sincere intimacy in the circle where she lived, and could not but rule, for she was one whose nature was to that of the others as fire to clay. It was at this time that I came to the school and first saw Mariana. Me, she charmed at once, for I was a sentimental child, who, in my early ill health, had been indulged in reading novels, till I had no eyes for the common greens and browns of life. The heroine of one of these, the Bandit's Bride, I immediately saw in Mariana. Truly the Bandit's Bride had just such hair, and such strange, lively ways, and such a sudden flash of the eye. The Bandit's Bride, too, was born to be misunderstood by all but her lover. But Mariana, I was determined, should be more fortunate, for, until her lover appeared, I myself would be the wise and delicate being who could understand her. It was not, however, easy to approach her for this purpose. Did I offer to run and fetch her handkerchief? She was obliged to go to her room and would rather do it herself. She did not like to have people turn over for her the leaves of the music-book as she played. Did I approach my stool to her feet? She moved away as if to give me room. The bunch of wild flowers which I timidly laid beside her plate was left there. After some weeks my desire to attract her notice really preyed upon me, and one day meeting her alone in the entry, I fell upon my knees and kissing her hand cried, Oh Mariana, do let me love you and try to love me a little! But my idol snatched away her hand, and, laughing more wildly than the Bandit's Bride was ever described to have done, ran into her room. After that day her manner to me was not only cold but repulsive. I felt myself scorned and became very unhappy. Perhaps four months had passed thus, when, one afternoon, it became obvious that something more than common was brewing. Dismay and mystery were written in many faces of the older girls. Much whispering was going on in corners. In the evening, after prayers, the principal bet us stay, and in a grave, sad voice, summoned forth Mariana to answer charges to be made against her. Mariana came forward and leaned against the chimney-piece. Eight of the older girls came forward and preferred against her charges alas, too well-founded, of calamity and falsehood. My heart sank within me, as one after the other brought up their proofs, and I saw they were too strong to be resisted. I could not bear the thought of this second disgrace of my shining favorite. The first had been whispered to me, though the girls did not like to talk about it. I must confess, such is the charm of strength to softer natures, that neither of these crises could deprive Mariana of hers in my eyes. At first she defended herself with self-possession and eloquence, but when she found she could no more resist the truth, she suddenly threw herself down, dashing her head with all her force against the iron hearth, on which a fire was burning, and was taken up senseless. The affright of those present was great. Now that they had perhaps killed her, they reflected it would have been as well if they had taken warning from the former occasion, and approached very carefully a nature so capable of any extreme. After a while she revived with a faint groan amid the sobs of her companions. I was on my knees by the bed and held her cold hand. One of those most aggrieved took it from me to beg her pardon and say it was impossible not to love her. She made no reply. Neither that night nor for several days could a word be obtained from her, nor would she touch food. But when it was presented to her or any one drew near for any cause, she merely turned away her head and gave no sign. The teacher saw that some terrible nervous affection had fallen upon her, that she grew more and more feverish. She knew not what to do. Meanwhile a new revolution had taken place in the mind of the passionate, but nobly tempered, child. All these months nothing but the sense of injury had rankled in her heart. She had gone on in one mood, doing what the demon prompted, without scruple and without fear. But at the moment of detection the tide ebbed, and the bottom of her soul lay revealed to her eye, how black, how stained and sad, strange, strange, that she had not seen before the baseness and cruelty of falsehood, the loveliness of truth. Now amid the wreck up rose the moral nature which never before had attained the ascendant. But, she thought, too late, sin is revealed to me in all its deformity, and sin defiled I will not cannot live, the mainspring of life is broken. And thus passed slowly by her hours in that black despair of which only youth is capable. In older years men suffer more dull pain as each sorrow that comes drops its leaden weight into the past, and familiar features of character bringing similar results draws up a heavy burden buried in those depths. But only youth has energy, with fixed unwinking gaze, to contemplate grief to hold it in the arms and to the heart like a child which makes it wretched, yet it is undoubtedly its own. The lady who took charge of this sad child had never well understood her before, but had always looked on her with great tenderness, and now love seemed, when all around were in great distress, fearing to call in medical aid, fearing to do without it, to teach her where the only balm was to be found that could have healed this wounded spirit. One night she came in, bringing a calming draft. Mariana was sitting, as usual, her hair loose, her dress, the same robe they had put on her at first, her eyes fixed vacantly upon the whiteed wall. To the proffers and entreaties of her nurse she made no reply. The lady burst into tears, but Mariana did not seem even to observe it. The lady then said, Oh, my child, do not despair, do not think that one great fault can mar a whole life? Let me trust you, let me tell you the griefs of my sad life. I will tell to you, Mariana, what I never expected to impart to any one. And so she told her tale. It was one of pain, of shame, born not for herself, but for one near and dear as herself. Mariana knew the lady, knew the pride and reserve of her nature. She had often admired to see how the cheek, lovely but no longer young, mantled with the deepest blush of youth, and the blue eyes were cast down at any little emotion. She had understood the proud sensibility of the character. She fixed her eyes on those now raised to hers, bright with fast-falling tears. She heard the story to the end, and then, without saying a word, stretched out her hand for the cup. She returned to life, but it was as one who has passed through the valley of death. The heart of stone was quite broken in her. The fiery life fallen from flame to coal. When her strength was a little restored, she had all her companions summoned, and said to them, I deserved to die, but a generous trust has called me back to life. I will be worthy of it, nor ever betray the truth, nor resent injury more. Can you forgive the past? And they not only forgave, but, with love and earnest tears, clasped in their arms the returning sister. They vied with one another in offices of humble love to the humbled one, and let it be recorded as an instance of the pure honor of which young hearts are capable, that these facts, known to forty persons, never, so far as I know, transpired beyond those walls. It was not long after this that Mariana was summoned home. She went thither a wonderfully instructed being, though in ways those who had sent her forth to learn little dreamed of. Never was forgotten the vow of the returning prodigal. Mariana could not resent, could not play falls. The terrible crisis, which she so early passed through, probably prevented the world from hearing much of her. A wild fire was tamed in that hour of penitence at the boarding school, such as has oftentimes wrapped court and camp in its destructive glow. But great were the perils she had yet to undergo, for she was one of those barks which easily get beyond soundings, and ride not lightly on the plunging billow. Her return to her native climate seconded the effects of inward revolutions. The cool airs of the north had exasperated nerves too susceptible for their tension. Those of the south restored her to a more soft and indolent state. Energy gave place to feeling, turbulence to intensity of character. At this time love was the natural guest, and he came to her under a form that might have diluted one less ready for delusion. Sylvain was a person well proportioned to her lot in years, family, and fortune. His personal beauty was not great but of a noble character. Repose marked his slow gesture and the steady gaze of his large brown eye, but it was a repose that would give way to a blaze of energy when the occasion called. In his stature, expression, and heavy coloring, he might not unfairly be represented by the great magnolias that inhabit the forests of that climate. His voice, like everything about him, was rich and soft, rather than sweet or delicate. Mariana no sooner knew him than she loved, and her love, lovely as it was, soon excited his. But, oh, it is a curse to woman to love first or most. In so doing she reverses the natural relations, and her heart can never, never be satisfied with what ensues. Mariana loved first and loved most, for she had most force and variety to love with. Sylvain seemed at first to take her to himself as the deep southern night might have some fair star, but it proved not so. Mariana was a very intellectual being, and she needed companionship. This she could only have with Sylvain in the paths of passion and action. Thoughts he had none, and little delicacy of sentiment. The gifts she loved to prepare of such for him he took with a sweet but indolent smile. He held them lightly, and soon they fell from his grasp. He loved to have her near him to feel the glow and fragrance of her nature, but cared not to explore the little secret paths whence that fragrance was collected. Mariana knew not this for a long time. Loving so much she imagined all the rest, and, where she felt a blank, always hoped that further communion would fill it up. When she found this could never be, that there was absolutely a whole province of her being to which nothing in his answered, she was too deeply in love to leave him. Often after passing hours together beneath the southern moon, when, amid the sweet intoxication of mutual love, she still felt the desolation of solitude and a repression of her finer powers, she asked herself, Can I give him up? But the heart always passionately answered, No, I may be miserable with him, but I cannot live without him. And the last miserable feeling of these conflicts was, that if the lover, soon to be the bosom friend, could have dreamed of those conflicts, he would have laughed, or else been angry, even enough to give her up. Ah, weakness of the strong, of these strong only where strength is weakness. Like others she had the decisions of life to make before she had light by which to make them. Let none condemn her. Those who have not erred as fatally should thank the guardian angel who gave them more time to prepare for judgment, but blame no children who thought at arm's length to find the moon. Mariana, with a heart capable of highest eros, gave it to one who knew love only as a flower or plaything, and bound her heart strings to one who parted his as lightly as the ripe fruit leaves the bow. The sequel could not fail. Many console themselves for the one great mistake with their children, with the world. This was not possible to Mariana. A few months of domestic life she was still almost happy. But Sylvain then grew tired. He wanted business and the world. Of these she had no knowledge, for them no faculties. He wanted in her the head of his house, she to make her heart his home. No compromise was possible between natures of such unequal poise, and which had met only on one or two points. Through all its stages she felt the agonizing sense of seeing love from passion melt into indifference. The fearful shame that, day by day, burns onward still to burn, to have thrown her precious heart away and met this black return, till death at last closed the scene. Not that she died of one downright blow on the heart, that is not the way such cases proceed. I cannot detail all the symptoms, for I was not there to watch them, and Aunt Z was neither so faithful an observer or narrator as I have shown myself in the school-day passages. But generally they were as follows. Sylvain wanted to go into the world or let it into his house. Mariana consented, but with an unsatisfied heart and no lightness of character, she played her part ill there. The sort of talent and facility she had displayed in early days were not the least like what is called out in the social world by the desire to please and to shine. Her excitement had been muse-like, that of the improvisa trees, whose kindling fancy seeks to create an atmosphere round it and makes the chain through which to set free its electric sparks. That had been a time of wild and exuberant life. After her character became more tender and concentrated, strong affection or a pure enthusiasm might still have called out beautiful talents in her. But in the first she was utterly disappointed. The second was not roused within her thought. She did not expand into various life and remained unequal. Sometimes too passive, sometimes too ardent, and not sufficiently occupied with what occupied those around her to come on the same level with them and embellish their hours. Thus she lost ground daily with her husband, who, comparing her with the careless shining dames of society, wondered why he had found her so charming in solitude. At intervals, when they were left alone, Mariana wanted to open her heart to tell the thoughts of her mind. She was so conscious of secret riches within herself that sometimes it seemed could she but reveal a glimpse of them to the eye of Sylvain. He would be attracted near her again and take a path where they could walk hand in hand. Sylvain, in these intervals, wanted an indolent repose. His home was his castle. He wanted no scenes too exciting there. Light jousts and plays were well enough but no grave encounters. He liked to lounge, to sing, to read, to sleep. In fine Sylvain became the kind but preoccupied husband, Mariana the solitary and wretched wife. He was off continually with his male companions on excursions or affairs of pleasure. At home Mariana found that neither her books nor music would console her. She was of too strong a nature to yield without a struggle to so dull a fiend as despair. She looked into other hearts, seeking whether she could there find such home as an orphan asylum may afford. This she did rather because the chance came to her and it seemed unfit not to seize the proffered plank, than in hope, for she was not one to double her stakes, but rather with Cassandra power to discern early the sure course of the game. And Cassandra whispered that she was one of those whom men love not but not regret. And so it proved. Just as in her childish days, though in a different form, it happened betwixt her and these companions. She could not be content to receive them quietly, but was stimulated to throw herself too much into the tie, into the hour, till she filled it too full for them. Like Fortunio, who sought to do homage to his friends by building a fire of cinnamon, not knowing that its perfume would be too strong for their endurance, so did Mariana. What she wanted to tell they did not wish to hear. A little had pleased, so much overpowered, and they preferred the free air of the street even to the cinnamon perfume of her palace. However, this did not signify. Had they stayed, it would not have availed her. It was a nobler road, a higher aim she needed now. This did not become clear to her. She lost her appetite, she fell sick, had fever. Sylvaine was alarmed, nursed her tenderly. She grew better. Then his care ceased. He saw not the mind's disease, but left her to rise into health and recover the tone of her spirits as she might. More solitary than ever, she tried to raise herself, but she knew not yet enough. The weight laid upon her young life was a little too heavy for it. One long day she passed alone and the thoughts and presages came too thick for her strength. She knew not what to do with them, relapsed into fever and died. Notwithstanding this weakness, I must ever think of her as a fine sample of womanhood, born to shed light and life on some palace home. Had she known more of God in the universe, she would not have given way where so many have conquered. But peace be with her. She now, perhaps, has entered into a larger freedom, which is knowledge. With her died a great interest in life to me. Since her I have never seen a bandit's bride. She, indeed, turned out to be only a merchant. Sylvaine is married again to a fair and laughing girl who will not die probably till their marriage grows a golden marriage. Aunt Z had with her some papers of Marianas, which faintly shadow forth the thoughts that engaged her in the last days. One of these seems to have been written when some faint gleam had been thrown across the path, only to make its darkness more visible. It seems to have been suggested by remembrance of the beautiful ballad, Helen of Kirkan Ali, which once she loved to recite and in tones that would not have sent a chill to the heart from which it came. Death opens her sweet white arms and whispers, Peace, come say thy sorrows in this bosom. This will never close against thee, and my heart, though cold, cannot be colder much than man's. I wish I were where Helen lies, a lover in the times of old thus vents his grief in lonely size and hot tears from a bosom cold. But, mourner for thy martyred love, couldst thou but know what hearts must feel, where no sweet recollections move whose tears a desert fount reveal? When, in thy arms, bird Helen fell, she died, said man, she died for thee, nor could the films of death dispel her loving eyes, sweet radiancy. Thou wert be loved, and she had loved, till death alone the whole could tell. Death every shade of doubt removed and steeped the star in its cold well. On some fond breast the parting soul relies, earth has no more to give, who holy loves has known the whole, the holy loved doth truly live. But some, sad outcasts from this prize, wither down to a lonely grave, all hearts their hidden love despise, and leave them to the well-ming wave. They, heart to heart, have never pressed, nor hands in holy pledge have given, by father's love were nere caressed, nor in a mother's eyes saw heaven. A flowerless and fruitless tree, a dried up stream, a mateless bird, they live, yet never living be, they die, their music all unheard. I wish I were where Helen lies, for there I could not be alone, but now, when this dull body dies, the spirit still will make its moan. Love passed me by, nor touched my brow, love would not yield one perfect boon, and all too late it calls me now, oh, all too late, and all too soon. If thou couldst the dark riddle read, which leaves this dart within my breast, then might I think thou lovest indeed, then were the whole to thee confessed. Father, they will not take me home, to the poor child no heart is free, in sleet and snow all night I roam. Father, was this decreed by thee? I will not try another door, to seek what I have never found. Now, till the very last is o'er, upon the earth I'll wander round. I will not hear the treacherous call that bids me stay and rest a while, for I have found that, one and all, they seek me for a prey and spoil. They are not bad, I know it well, I know they know not what they do. They are the tools of the dread spell, which the lost lover must pursue. In temples sometimes she may rest, in lonely groves away from men, there bend the head, by heat's distressed, nor be by blows awoke again. Nature is kind, and God is kind, and if she had not had a heart, only that great discerning mind she might have acted well her part. But, oh, this thirst that none can still, save those unfound in waters free, the angel of my life should fill and soothe me to eternity. It marks the defect in the position of woman, that one like Marianna should have found reason to write thus. To a man of equal power, equal sincerity, no more. Many resources would have presented themselves. He would not have needed to seek. He would have been called by life and not permitted to be quite wrecked through the affections only. But such women as Marianna are often lost, unless they meet some man of sufficiently great soul to prize them. Van Arteveld's Elena, though in her individual nature unlike my Marianna, is like her in a mind whose large impulses are disproportioned to the persons and occasions she meets, and which carry her beyond those reserves which mark the appointed lot of woman. But when she met Van Arteveld, he was too great not to revere her rare nature, without disregard to the stains and errors of its past history, great enough to receive her entirely and make a new life for her, man enough to be a lover. But as such men come not so often as once an age, their presence should not be absolutely needed to sustain life. At Chicago I read again Philip Van Arteveld, and certain passages in it will always be in my mind associated with the deep sound of the lake as heard in the night. I used to read a short time at night and then open the blind to look out. The moon would be full upon the lake, and the calm breath, pure light, and the deep voice harmonized well with the thought of the Flemish hero. When will this country have such a man? It is what she needs, no thin idealist, no coarse realist, but a man whose eye reads the heavens while his feet step firmly on the ground, and his hands are strong and dexterous for the use of human implements, a man religious, virtuous, and sagacious, a man of universal sympathies but self-possessed, a man who knows the region of emotion, though he is not its slave, a man to whom this world is no mere spectacle or fleeting shadow, but a great solemn game to be played with good heed, for its stakes are of eternal value, yet who, if his own play be true, heed not what he loses by the falsehood of others. A man who hives from the past yet knows that its honey can but moderately avail him, whose comprehensive eye scans the present, neither infatuated by its golden lures nor chilled by its many ventures, who possesses prescience as the wise man must, but not so far as to be driven mad to-day by the gift which discerns tomorrow. When there is such a man for America, the thought which urges her on will be expressed. Now that I am about to leave Illinois, feelings of regret and admiration come over me, as in parting with a friend whom we have not had the good sense to prize and study, while hours of association, never perhaps to return, were granted. I have fixed my attention almost exclusively on the picturesque beauty of this region. It was so new, so inspiring, but I ought to have been more interested in the housekeeping of this magnificent state, in the education she is giving her children, in their prospects. Illinois is, at present, a byword of reproach among the nations, for the careless prodigal course by which, in early youth, she has endangered her honor. But you cannot look about you there without seeing that there are resources abundant to retrieve, and soon to retrieve, far greater errors if they are only directed with wisdom. Might the simple maxim that honesty is the best policy be laid to heart? Might a sense of the true aims of life elevate the tone of politics and trade, till public and private honor become identical? Might the Western man in that crowded and exciting life which develops his faculties so fully for today? Not forget that better part, which could not be taken from him. Might the Western woman take that interest and acquire that light for the education of the children for which she alone has leisure? This is indeed the great problem of the place and time. If the next generation be well prepared for their work, ambitious of good, and skillful to achieve it, the children of the present settlers may be leaven enough for the mass constantly increasing by emigration. And how much is this needed, where those rude foreigners can so little understand the best interests of the land they seek for bread and shelter? It would be a happiness to aid in this good work, and interweave the white and golden threads into the fate of Illinois. It would be a work worthy the devotion of any mind. In the little that I saw was a large proportion of intelligence, activity, and kind feeling, but if there was much serious laying to heart of the true purposes of life it did not appear in the tone of conversation. Having before me the Illinois guidebook, I find there mentioned, as a visionary, one of the men I should think of as able to be a truly valuable settler in a new and great country, Morris Birkbeck of England. Since my return I have read his journey to and letters from Illinois. I see nothing promised there that will not surely belong to the man who knows how to seek for it. Mr. Birkbeck was an enlightened philanthropist, the rather that he did not wish to sacrifice himself to his fellow men, but to benefit them with all he had and was and wished. He thought all the creatures of a divine love ought to be happy and not to be good, and that his own soul and his own life were not less precious than those of others. Indeed, that to keep these healthy was his only means of a healthy influence. But his aims were altogether generous—freedom, the liberty of law, not license, not indolence, work for himself and children and all men, but under genial and poetic influences. These were his aims. How different from those of the new settlers in general. And into his mind so long ago shone steadily the two thoughts now prevalent in thinking and aspiring minds, of resist not evil and every man his own priest and the heart the only true church. He has lost credit for sagacity from accidental circumstances. It does not appear that his position was ill-chosen or his means disproportioned to his ends, had he been sustained by funds from England as he had a right to expect. But through the profligacy of a near-relative commissioned to collect these dues, he was disappointed of them, and his paper protested and credit destroyed in our cities before he became aware of his danger. Still, though more slowly and with more difficulty, he might have succeeded in his designs. The English farmer might have made the English settlement a model for good methods and good aims to all that region had not death prematurely cut short his plans. I have wished to say these few words, because the veneration with which I have been inspired for his character by those who knew him well, makes me impatient of this careless blame being passed from mouth to mouth and book to book. Success is no test of a man's endeavour, and Illinois will yet, I hope, regard this man who knew so well what ought to be, as one of her true patriarchs, the Abraham of a Promised Land. He was won too much before his time to be soon valued, but the time is growing up to him, and will understand his mild philanthropy and clear, large views. I subjoined the account of his death, given me by a friend, as expressing, in fair picture, the character of the man. Mr. Birkbeck was returning from the seat of government, whether he had been on public business, and was accompanied by his son Bradford, a youth of sixteen or eighteen. It was necessary to cross a ford which was rendered difficult by the swelling of the stream. Mr. B's horse was unwilling to plunge into the water, so his son offered to go first, and he followed. Bradford's horse had just gained footing on the opposite shore, when he looked back and perceived his father was dismounted, struggling in the water, and carried down by the current. Mr. Birkbeck could not swim, Bradford could, so he dismounted and plunged into the stream to save his father. He got to him before he sank, held him up above water, and told him to take hold of his collar, and he would swim ashore with him. Mr. B did so, and Bradford exerted all his strength to stem the current and reach the shore at a point where they could land. But, encumbered by his own clothing and his father's weight, he made no progress. And when Mr. B perceived this, he, with his characteristic calmness and resolution, gave up his hold of his son, and, motioning to him to save himself, resigned himself to his fate. His son reached the shore, but was too much overwhelmed by his loss to leave it. He was found by some travellers many hours after, seated on the margin of the stream, with his head in his hands stupefied with grief. The body was found, and on the countenance was the sweetest smile, and Bradford said, just so he smiled upon me when he let go and pushed me away from him. Many men can choose the right and best on a great occasion, but not many can, with such ready and serene decision, lay aside even life when it is right and best. This little narrative touched my imagination in very early youth, and often has come up, in lonely vision, that face serenely smiling above the current, which bore him away to another realm of being. Chapter 5 Part 1 of Summer on the Lakes in 1843. This is a LibriVox recording, while 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 5 Wisconsin A territory, not yet a state, still nearer the acorn than we were. It was very pleasant coming up. These large and elegant boats are so well arranged that every excursion may be a party of pleasure. There are many fair shows to see on the lake and its shores, almost always new and agreeable persons on board, pretty children playing about, ladies saying, and if not very well, there is room to keep out of the way. You may see a great deal here of life in the London sense, if you know a few people, or if you do not and have the tact to look about you without seeming to stare. We came to Milwaukee where we were to pass a fortnight or more. This place is most beautifully situated. A little river with romantic banks passes up through the town. The bank of the lake is here a bold bluff, 80 feet in height. From its summit you enjoyed a noble outlook on the lake, a little narrow path wound around the edge of the lake below. I like this walk much. Above me this high wall of rich earth, garlanded on its crest with trees, the long ripples of the lake coming up to my feet. Here standing in the shadow I could appreciate better its magnificent changes of color which are the cheap beauties of the lake waters, but these are indescribable. It was fine to ascend into the lighthouse above this bluff and watch from them the thunderclouds which so frequently rose over the lake, for the great boats coming in. Approaching the Milwaukee pier they made a bend and seemed to do obeisance in the heavy style of some dowager duchess entering a circle she wishes to treat with a special respect. These boats come in and out every day and still afford a cause for general excitement. The people swarmed down to greet them, to receive and send away their packages and letters. To me they seemed such mighty messengers to give by their noble motion, such an idea of the power and fullness of life that they were worthy to carry dispatches from king to king. It must be very pleasant for those who have an active share in caring on the affairs of this great and growing world to see them come in. It must be very pleasant to those who have dearly loved friends at the next station. To those who have neither business nor friends it sometimes gives a desolating sense of insignificance. The town promises to be some time a fine one as it is so well situated and they have good building material, a yellow brick very pleasing to the eye. It seems to grow before you and has indeed but just emerged from the thickets of oak and wild roses. A few steps will take you into the thickets and certainly I never saw so many wild roses or so beautiful a red. Of such a color were the first red ones the world ever saw when, since the legend, Venus flying to the assistance of Adonis, the rose bushes kept catching her to make her stay. In the drops of blood the thorns drew from her feet as she tore herself away, fell on the white roses and turned them this beautiful red. I will here insert, though with no excuse, except that it came to memory at the time this description of Titian's Venus and Adonis. This picture as that perfect balance of lines and forms that it would, as was said of all Raphaels, seen at any distance have the air of an ornamental design. It also tells its story at the first glance, though like all beautiful works it gains by study. On one side slumbers the little god of love as an emblem, I suppose. That only the love of man is worth embodying, for surely Sitheraeus is awake enough. The quiver of cupid suspended to a tree gives sportive grace to the scene which softens the tragedy of a breaking tie. The dogs of Adonis pull upon his hand. He can scarce forebear to burst from the detaining arms of beauty herself, yet he waits a moment to coax her to make an unmeaning promise. A moment, a moment, my love, and I will return, a moment only. Adonis is not beautiful, except in the expression of eager youth. The queen of beauty does not choose Apollo. Venus herself is very beautiful, especially the body as lovely as can be. In the soft imploring look gives a conjugal delicacy to the face which purifies the whole picture. This Venus is not as fresh as moving and breathing as Shakespeare's, yet lovelier to the mind if not to the sense. It is difficult to look at this picture without indignation, because it is, in one respect, so true. Why must women always try to detain and restrain what they love? Foolish beauty, let him go, it is thy tenoriness that has spoiled him. Be less lovely, less feminine, abandon thy fancy for giving thyself holy. Cease to love so well that any Hercules will spin among thy maids if thou wilt. But let him go this time, thou canst not keep him. Sit there by thyself on that bank, and instead of thinking how soon he will come back, think how thou mayest love him no better than he does thee for the time has come. It was soon after this moment that the poor queen hearing the frightened hounds apprehended the rash huntsman's danger, and flying through the woods gave their hue to the red roses. To return from the Grecian Isles to Milwaukee, one day, walking along the river's bank in search of a waterfall to be seen from one ravine, we heard tones from the band of music, and saw a gay troop shooting at a mark on the opposite bank. Between every shot the band played, the effect was very pretty. On this walk we found two of the oldest and most gnarled hemlocks that ever afforded study for a painter. They were the only ones we saw, they seemed the veterans of a former race. At Milwaukee, as at Chicago, are many pleasant people drawn together from all parts of the world. A resident here would find great pickancy in the associations, those he met having such dissimilar histories and topics. In several persons I saw evidently transplanted from the most refined circles to be met in this country. There are lures enough in the West for people of all kinds, the enthusiast and the cunning man, the naturalist and the lover who needs to be rich for the sake of her he loves. The torrent of emigration swells very strongly towards this place. During the fine weather the poor refugees arrive daily in their national dresses while travel soiled and worn. The night they pass and rude shanties in a particular quarter of the town, then walk off into the country. The mothers carry their infants. The fathers leading the little children by the hand seeking a home where their hands may maintain them. One morning we set off in their track and traveled a day's journey into this country, fair yet not in that part which I saw comparable in my eyes to the Rock River region. It alternates rich fields proper for grain with oak openings as they are called. Bold, various and beautiful were the features of the scene. But I saw not those majestic sweeps, those boundless distances, those heavenly fields, was not the same world. Neither did we travel in the same delightful manner. We were now in a nice carriage which must not go off the road for fear of breakage with a regular coachman whose chief care was not to tire his horses, and who had no taste for entering fields in pursuit of wildflowers or attempting some strange woodpath in search of whatever might befall. It was pleasant but almost as tame as New England. But Charming indeed was the place where we stopped. It was in the vicinity of a chain of lakes and on the bank of the loveliest little stream called the Bark River which flowed in rapid amber brightness through fields and dels and stately knolls of the most idyllic beauty. The little log cabin where we slept with its flower garden in front disturbed the scene no more than a stray lock on a fair cheek. The hospitality of that house I may well call princely. It was the boundless hospitality of the heart which, if it has no Aladdin's lamp to create a palace for the guest, does him still hire service by the freedom of its bounty up to the very last drop of its powers. Sweet were the sunsets seen in the valley of this stream though here, and I grieve to say no less near the Rock River, the fiend who is ever liberty to tempt the happy in this world, appeared in the shape of mosquitoes and allowed us no bodily to enjoy our mental peace. One day we ladies gave under the guidance of our hosts to visiting all the beauties of the adjacent lakes. Nabhaban, silver and pine lakes on the shores of Nabhaban had formerly been one of the finest Indian villages. Our host said that one day as he was lying there beneath the bank he saw a tall Indian standing at gaze on the knoll. He lay a long time curious to see how long the figure would maintain its statue-like absorption. But at last his patience yielded, and in moving he made his flight noise. The Indian saw him, gave a wild snorting sound of indignation and pain, and strode away. What feelings must consume their heart at such moments. I scarcely see how they can forebear to shoot the white man where he stands. But the power of fate is with the white man, and the Indian feels it. The same generation told of his travelling through the wilderness with an Indian guide. He had with him a bottle of spirit which he meant to give him in small quantities. But the Indian, once excited, wanded the hole at once. I would not, said Mr. Blank, give it to him, for I thought if he got really drunk there was an end to his services as a guide. But he persisted, and at last tried to take it from me. I was not armed, he was, and twice as strong as I. But I knew an Indian could not resist the look of a white man, and I fixed my eyes steadily on his. He bore it for a moment, and then as I fell he let go of the bottle. I took his gun and threw it to a distance. After a few moments' pause I told him to go and fetch it, and left it in his hands. From that moment he was quite obedient, even servile, all the rest of the way. This gentleman, though, in other respects of most kindly and liberal heart, showed the aversion that the white man soon learns to feel for the Indian on whom he encroaches, the aversion of the injurer for him he has degraded. After telling the anecdote of his seeing the Indian gazing at the seat of his former home, and which one would think would have awakened soft compassion almost remorse, in the present owner of that fair hill which contained for the exile the bones of his dead, the ashes of his hopes, he observed they cannot be prevented from straggling back here to their old haunts. I wish they could, they ought not to be permitted to drive away our game. Our game, just heavens. This same gentleman showed on a slight occasion the true spirit of the sportsman, or perhaps I might say of man, when engaged in any kind of chase. Showing us some antlers he said, this one belonged to a majestic creature, but this other was the beauty. I had been lying a long time at watch, when at last I heard them come crackling along. I lifted my head cautiously as they burst through the trees. The first was a magnificent fellow, but then I saw coming one, the prettiest, the most graceful I ever beheld. There was something so soft and beseeching in its look. I chose him at once, took him and shot him dead. You see, the antlers are not very large. It was young, but the prettiest creature. In the course of this morning's drive we visited the gentleman on their fishing party. They hailed us gaily and rode ashore to show us what fine booty they had. No disappointment there, no dull work. On the beautiful point of land from which we first saw them lived a contented woman, the only one I heard of out there. She was English and said she had seen so much suffering in her own country that the hardships of this seemed as nothing to her. But the others, even our sweet and gentle hostess, found their labors disproportioned to their strength, if not to their patience. But while their husbands and brothers enjoyed the country in hunting or fishing, they found themselves confined to a comfortless and laborious indoor life. But it need not be so long. This afternoon, driving about on the banks of these lakes, we found the sea in all of one kind of loveliness, wide graceful woods and then these fine sheets of water with fine points of land jutting out boldly into them. It was lovely, but not striking or peculiar. All woods suggest pictures. The European forests, with its long glades and green sunny dels, naturally suggested the figures of arm night on his proud steed, or maiden, decked in golden pearl, pricking along them on a snow-white palfrey. The green dels of weary Palmer sleeping there beside the spring with his head upon his wallet. Our minds familiar with such figures, people with them, the New England woods. Wherever the sunlight falls down a longer than usual cart track, wherever a cleared spot is lain still enough for the trees to look friendly, with their exposed sides cultivated by the light, and the grass to look velvet warm and be embroidered with flowers. These western woods suggest a different kind of valley. The Indian legends have often an air of the wildest solitude, as has the one Mr. Lowell has put in diverse in his late volume. But I did not see those wild woods, only such as suggest little romances of love and sorrow, like this. A maiden sat beneath the tree, tear-bedoed her pale cheeks be, and she sighed heavily, from forth wood into the light of hunter strides with carol light, in a glance so bold and bright. He careless stopped and eyed the maiden. Why weepest thou, he gently said. I love thee well, be not afraid. He takes her hand and leads her on. She should have waited there alone, for he was not her chosen one. He leans her head upon his breast. She knew it was not her home of rest, but, ah, she had been sore distressed. The sacred stars looked sadly down. The parting moon appeared to frown, to see thus dim the diamond crown. Then from the thicket starts a deer. The huntsman, seizing on his spear, cries, Maiden, wait thou for me here. She sees him vanish in tonight. She starts from sleep into deep affright, for it was not her own true night. Though but in dream, Gunhilda failed, though but a fancied ill assailed. Though she but fancied, fault bewailed. Yet thought of day makes dream of night. She is not worthy of the night. The inmost altar burns not right. If loneliness thou canst not bear, cannot the dragons venom dare. Of the pure mead thou shouldst despair. Now sadder that lone maiden sighs, far bitter her tears profane her eyes. Crust in the dust her heart's flower lies. On the bank of Silver River we saw an Indian encampment. A shower threatened us, but we resolved to try if we could not visit it before it came on. We crossed a wide field on foot, found them at mid the trees on a shelving bank. Just as we reached them the rain began to fall in torrents. With frequent thunderclaps and we had to take refuge in their lodges. These were very small being for temporary use, and we crowded the occupants much, among whom were several sick on the damp ground or with only a ragged mat between them and it. But they showed all the gentle courtesy which marks them towards the stranger, who stands in any need. Though it was obvious that the visit which inconvenienced them could only have been caused by the most impertinent curiosity, they made us as comfortable as their extreme poverty permitted. They seemed to think we would not like to touch them. A sick girl in the lodge where I was persisted in moving so as to give me the dry place. A woman with the sweet melancholy eye of the race kept off the children and wet dogs from even the hand of my garment. Without their fires smoldered and black kettles hung over them on sticks. Smoked and seathed in the rain. An old theatrical-looking Indian stood with arms folded, looking up to the heavens from which the rain dashed and the thunder reverberated. His heir was French Roman, that is, more Romanesque than Roman. The Indian ponies, much excited, kept careering through the wood, around the encampment, and now and then halting suddenly would thrust in their intelligent, though amazed, physicist as if to ask their masters when this awful pothr would cease and then, after a moment, rush and trample off again. At last we got off well-wetted, but with a picturesque scene for memory. At a house where we stopped to get dry they told us that this wandering band of pot-wattomies who had returned on a visit, either from homesickness or need of relief, were extremely destitute. The women had been there to see if they could barter their headbands, with which they clubbed their hair behind into a form not unlike a Grecian knot, for food. They seemed indeed to have neither food, utensils, clothes, nor bedding. Nothing but the ground, the sky, and their own strength. Little wonder if they drove off the game. Part of the same band I had seen in Milwaukee on a begging dance, the effect of this was wild and grotesque. They wore much paint and feather headdresses. Indians without paint or poor coots said a gentleman who had been a great deal with and really liked them. And I like the effect of the paint on them. It reminds me of the gay fantasies of nature. With them in Milwaukee was a chief, the finest Indian figure I saw, more than six feet in height erecting of a sullen butt grand gate and gesture. He wore a deep red blanket, which fell in large falls from his shoulders to his feet, did not join in the dance, but slowly strode about through the streets. A fine sight, not a French Roman, but a real Roman. He looked unhappy, but listlessly unhappy, as if he felt it was of no use to strive or resist. While in the neighborhood of these lakes we visited also a foreign settlement of great interest. Here were minds, it seemed, to comprehend the trust of their new life, and if they can only stand true to them will derive and bestow great benefits therefrom. But sad and sickening to the enthusiast who comes to these shores, hoping the tranquil enjoyment of intellectual blessings and the pure happiness of mutual love must be a part of the scene that he encounters at first. He has escaped from the heartlessness of courts to encounter the vulgarity of a mob. He is secured solitude, but it is a lonely, a deserted solitude. Amid the abundance of nature he cannot, from petty but insuperable obstacles, procure for a long time comforts or a home. But let him come sufficiently armed with patience to learn the new spells which the new dragons require, and this can only be done on the spot. He will not finally be disappointed of the promised treasure. The mob will resolve itself into men, yet crude, but of good dispositions and capable of good character. The solitude will become sufficiently enlivened and home grow up at last from the rich sod. In this transition state we found one of these homes. As we approached it seemed the very Eden which earth might still afford to a pair willing to give up the hackneyed pleasures of the world for a better and more intimate communion with one another and with beauty. The wild road led through wild beautiful woods, to the wilder and more beautiful shores of the finest lake we saw. On its waters, glittery in the morning sun, a few Indians were paddling to and fro in their light canoes. On one of those fair gnolls I have so often mentioned stood the cottage beneath trees which stooped as if they yet felt brotherhood with its roof tree. Flowers waved, birds fluttered round, all had the sweetness of a happy seclusion, all invited on entrance to cry all hail ye happy ones to those who inhabited it. But on entrance to those evidently rich in personal beauty, talents, love and courage the aspect of things was rather sad. Sickness had been with them, death, care and labor. These had not yet blighted them, but had turned their gay smiles grave. It seemed that hope and joy had given place to resolution. How much too was there in them, worthless in this place, which would have been so valuable elsewhere. Refined graces, cultivated powers, shine and vain before field laborers, as laborers are in this present world. You might as well cultivate heliotropes to present to an ox. Oxen and heliotropes are both good, but not for one another. With them were some of the old means of enjoyment, the books, the pencil, the guitar. But where the washed up and the axe are so constantly in requisition, there is not much time and pliancy of hand for these. In the inner room the master of the house was seated. He had been sitting there long, for he had injured his foot on shipboard, and his farming had to be done by proxy. His beautiful young wife was his only attendant and nurse, as well as a farm housekeeper. How well she performed hard and unaccustomed duties. The objects of her care showed. Everything that belonged to the house was rude but neatly arranged. The invalid, confined to an uneasy wooden chair, they had not been able to induce anyone to bring them in easy chair from the town, looked as neat and elegant as if he had been dressed by the valet of a duke. He was of northern blood, with clear full blue eyes, calm features, a tempering of the soldier, scholar and man of the world in his aspect. Whether that various intercourses had given himself that thorough red look never seen in Americans or that it was in Herodot from a race who had known all these disciplines, he formed a great but pleasing contrast to his wife, whose glowing complexion and dark mellow eye bespoke in origin in some climate more familiar with the sun. He looked as if he could sit there a great while patiently and live on his own mind, biding his time. She as if she could bear anything for affection, say, but would feel the weight of each moment as it passed. Seeing the album full of drawings and verses which bespoke in circle of elegant and affectionate intercourse they had left behind, we could not but see that the young wife sometimes must need his sister, the husband and companion, and both must often miss that electricity which sparkles from the chain of congenial minds. For man a position is desirable in some degree proportion to his education. Mr. Birkbeck was bred a farmer, but these were nurslings of the court and city. They may persevere for an affectionate courage shown in their eyes, and if so become true lords of the soil and informing geniuses to those around. Then perhaps they will feel that they have not paid too dear for the tormented independence of the new settler's life. But generally the mass grossest will not thrive in the wood, and a ruder growth of healthy and pure we wish rather to see there. I feel very differently about these foreigners from Americans. American men and women are inexcusable if they do not bring up children so as to be fit for vicitudes. That is the meaning of our star, that here all men being free and equal all should be fitted for freedom and in independence by his own resources wherever the chain full wave of our mighty stream may take him. But the star of Europe brought a different horoscope, and to mix destinies breaks the thread of both. The Arabian horse will not plow well, nor can the plow horse be rode to play the jureed. But a man is a man wherever he goes, and something precious cannot fail to be gained by one who knows how to abide by a resolution of any kind and pay the cost without a murmur. Returning the fine carriage at last fulfilled its threat of breaking down. We took refuge in a farmhouse. Here was a pleasant scene, a rich and beautiful estate, several happy families who had removed together and formed a natural community ready to help and alive in one another. They were farmers at home in western New York, and both men and women knew how to work, yet even here the women did not like the change, but they were willing as it might be best for the young folks. Their hospitality was great, the house full of women and pretty children seemed all of one mind. Returning to Milwaukee much fatigued, I entertained myself for a day or two with reading. The book I had brought with me was in strong contrast with the life around me. Very strange was this vision of an exalted and sensitive existence, which seemed to invade the next fear, in contrast with the spontaneous instinctive life so healthy and so near the ground I had been surveying. This was the German book entitled The Sieris of Preyhorst, revelations concerning the inward life of man and the projection of a world of spirits into ours, communicated by Justinius Kerner. This book published in Germany some 12 years since, which called forth their plenteous dues of admiration as plenteous hailstorms of jeers and scorns. I never saw mention till some year or two since in any English publication, then a playful but not sarcastic account of it in the Dublin magazine. So far excited my curiosity that I procured the book intending to read it so soon as I should have some leisure days, such as this journey has afforded. Dr. Kerner, its author is a man of distinction in his native land, both as a physician and a thinker, though always on the side of reverence, marvel and mysticism. He was known to me only through two or three little poems of his in Catholic legends, which I much admired for the fine sense they showed of the beauty of symbols. He here gives a biography, mental and physical, of one of the most remarkable cases of high nervous excitement at the age so interested in such, yet affords, with all its phenomena of clairvoyance and susceptibility of magnetic influences. I insert some account of this biography at the request of many who have been interested by slight references to it. The book, a thick and heavy volume, written with true German patience, some would say clumsiness, as not probably and may not be translated into other languages. As to my own mental position on these subjects, it may be briefly expressed by a dialogue between several persons who honor me with a portion of friendly confidence in of criticism, and myself expressed as free hope. The others may be styled old church, good sense, and self-poise. Good sense. I wonder you take any interest in such observations or experiments. Don't you see how almost impossible it is to make them with any exactness? How entirely impossible to know anything about them unless made by yourself, when the least leaven of credulity, excited fancy, to say nothing of willing or careless imposture, spoils the whole loaf. Beside allowing the possibility of some clear glimpses into a higher state of being, what do we want of it now? All around us lies what we neither understand nor use. Our capacities, our instincts for this, our present sphere, are but half developed. Let us confine ourselves to that till the lesson be learned. Let us be completely natural before we trouble ourselves with a supernatural. I never see any of these things, but I long to get away and lie under a green tree and let the wind blow on me. There is marvel and charm enough in that for me. Free hope. And for me also, nothing is truer than the words worthy in creed on which Carlyle lays such stress that we need only look on the miracle of every day to set ourselves with thought and admiration every day. But how are faculty sharpened to do it precisely by apprehending the infinite results of every day? Who sees the meaning of the flower uprooted in the plowed field? The plowman who does not look beyond its boundaries and does not raise his eyes from the ground? No, but the poet who sees that field and its relations with the universe, it looks oftener to the sky than on the ground. Only the dreamer shall understand realities though, and truth, his dreaming must not be out of proportion to his waking. The mind roused powerfully by this existence, stretches of itself into what the French sage calls the aromal state. From the hope thus gleaned it forms the hypothesis under whose banner it collects its facts. Long before these slight attempts were made to establish as a science what is at present called animal magnetism always, in fact men were occupied more or less with this vital principle, principle of flux and influx, dynamic of our mental mechanics, human phase of electricity. Poetic observation was pure, there was no quackery in its free course, as there is so often in this willful tampering with the hidden springs of life, for it is tampering a less done and a patient spirit and with severe truth. Yet it may be by the rude or greedy miners some good war is unearthed, and some there are who work in the true temper, patient and accurate in trial, not rushing to conclusions, feeling there is a mystery, not eager to call it by name, till they can know it as a reality. Such may learn, such may teach. Subject to the sudden revelations, the breaks in habitual existence caused by the aspect of death, the touch of love, the flood of music, I never lived that I remember what you call a common natural day. All my days are touched by the supernatural, for I feel the pressure of hidden causes and the presence sometimes the communion of unseen powers. It needs not that I should ask the clairvoyant whether a spirit world projects into ours, as to the specific evidence I would not tarnish my mind by hasty reception. The mind is not, I know, a highway, but a temple, and its doors should not be carelessly left open. Yet it were sin if indolence or coldness excluded what had he claimed to enter, and I doubt whether, in the eyes of pure intelligence, an ill-grounded hasty rejection be not a greater sign of weakness than an ill-grounded and hasty faith. I will quote as my best plea the saying of a man old in years, but not in heart, in whose long life has been distinguished by that clear adaption of means to ends which gives the credit of practical wisdom. He wrote to his child, I have lived too long and seen too much to be incredulous. Noble the thought, no less its frank expression, instead of saw as a caution, mean advice as in other modern instances. Such was the romance of Socrates when he bathed his disciples, sacrificed a cock to esculapias. Old church, you're always so quick-witted and valuable, free hope, you don't get time to see how often you err and even perhaps sin and blaspheme. The author of all has intended to confine our knowledge within certain boundaries, has given us a short span of time for a certain probation for which our faculties are adapted. By wild speculation and intemperate curiosity, we violate his will and incur dangerous perhaps fatal consequences. We waste our powers in becoming morbid and visionary, are unfitted to obey positive precepts and perform positive duties. Free Hope I do not see how it is possible to go further beyond the results of a limited human experience than those who pretend to settle the origin in nature of sin, the final destiny of souls and the whole plan of the causal spirit with regard to them. I think those who take your view have not examined themselves and do not know the ground on which they stand. I acknowledge no limit set up by man's opinion as to the capacities of man. Care is not taken, I see it, that the trees grow not up into heaven, but to me it seems the more vigorously they aspire the better. Only let it be a vigorous, not a partial or sickly aspiration, but not the tree forget its root. So long as the child insists on knowing where its dead parent is, so long as bright eyes weep at mysterious pressures, too heavy for the life, so long as that impulse is constantly arising which made the Roman emperor address his soul in a strain of such touching softness, vanishing from the thought as the column of smoke from the eye. I know of no inquiry which the impulse of man suggests that is forbidden to the resolution of man to pursue. In every inquiry, unless sustained by a pure and reverent spirit, he gropes in the dark, or falls headlong. Self-poise. All this may be very true, but what is the use of all this straining? Far sought is dear bought. Well, we know that all is in each and that the ordinary contains the extraordinary. Why should we play the baby and insist upon having the moon for a toy when a tin dish will do as well? Our deep ignorance is a chasm that we can only fill up by degrees, but the commonest rubbish will help us as well as shred silk. The god Brahma, while on earth, was set to fill up a valley, but he had only a basket given him in which to fetch earth for this purpose. So is it with us all. No leaps, no starts will avail us, but patient crystallization, alone the equal temper of wisdom, is attainable. Sit at home in the spirit world, we'll look in at your window with moonlit eyes. Run out to find it, and rainbow and golden cup will have vanished and left you the beggarly child you were. The better part of wisdom is a sublime prudence, a pure and patient truth that will receive nothing it is not sure it can permanently lay to heart. Of our study there should be in proportion two-thirds of rejection to one of acceptance. In amid the manifold infatuations and illusions of this world of emotion, a being capable of clear intelligence can do no better service than to hold himself upright, avoid nonsense, and do what chores lie in his way. Acknowledging every moment that primal truth, which no fact exhibits, nor if pressed by too warm a hope, will even indicate, I think indeed it is part of our lesson to give a formal consent to what is farcical and to pick up our living and our virtue amid what is so ridiculous, hardly daining a smile, and certainly not vexed. The work is done through all, if not by everyone. Free hope. Though art greatly wise, my friend, and ever respected by me, yet I find not in your theory or your scope room enough for the lyric inspirations or the mysterious whispers of life. To me it seems that it is madder never to abandon oneself than often to be infatuated, better to be wounded, a captive and a slave than always to walk in armor. As to magnetism that is only a matter of fancy. You sometimes need just such a field in which to wander vagrant, and if it bear a higher name yet it may be that, in last result the trance of Pythagoras might be classed with the more infantile transports of the cirrus of praevorst. What is done interests me more than what is thought and supposed. Every fact is impure, but every fact contains in it the juices of life. Every fact is a clod from which may grow an amorath or a palm. Do you climb the snowy peaks from whence came the streams where the atmosphere is rare, where you can see the sky nearer from which you can get a commanding view of the landscape? I see great disadvantages as well as advantages in this dignified position. I had rather walked myself through all kinds of places, even at the risk of being robbed in the forest, half drowned at the fort and covered with dust in the street. I would beat with a living heart of the world and understand all the moods, even the fancies or fantasies of nature. I dared to trust to the interpreting spirit to bring me out all right at last, to establish truth through error, whether this be the best ways of no consequence if it be the one individual character points out. For one like me it would be vain from glittering heights the eyes to strain. I, the truth, can only know, test it by life's most fiery glow. Seeds of thought will never thrive till do's of love shall bid them live. Let me stand in my age with all its waters flowing round me. If they sometimes subdue they must finally upbear me, or I seek the universal, and that must be the best. The spirit no doubt leads in every movement of my time. If I seek the how, I shall find it as well as if I've busied myself more with the why. Whatever is, is right, if only men are steadily bent to make it so, by comprehending and fulfilling its design. May not I have an office too in my hospitality and ready sympathy. If I sometimes entertain guests who cannot pay with gold coin, with fair rose nobles, that is better than to lose the chance of entertaining angels' unawares. You, my three friends, are held in heart honor by me. You especially good sense, because where you do not go yourself, you do not object to another's going, if you will. You are really liberal. You, old church, are of use by keeping unforgot the effigies of old religion, in reviving the tone of pure, Spinsarian sentiment, which this time is apt to stifle in its childish haste. But you are very faltering and censoring and wishing to limit others by your own standard. You, self-poise, fill a priestly office. Could but a larger intelligence of the vocation of others, and a tender sympathy with their individual natures be at it, had you more of love or more of apprehensive genius, for either would give you the needed expansion and delicacy, you would command my entire reverence. As it is, I must at times deny and oppose you, and so must others, for you tend by your influence to exclude us from our full free life. You must be content when you sense or, and rejoiced when you approve, always admonished to good by your whole being, and sometimes by your judgment. And so I pass on to interest myself and others in the memoir of the Seherin von Prävorst. End of chapter 5 part 1.