Retrospect of Western Travel Volume Ii Part 12

The skysights of the colder regions of the United States are resplendent in winter. I saw more of the aurora borealis, more falling stars and other meteors during my stay in New-England than in the whole course of my life before. Every one knows that splendid and mysterious exhibitions have taken place in all the Novembers of the last four years, furnis.h.i.+ng interest and business to the astronomical world. The most remarkable exhibitions were in the Novembers of 1833 and 1835, the last of which I saw.

The persons who saw the falling stars of the 14th of November, 1833, were few; but the sight was described to me by more than one. It was seen chiefly by masters of steamboats, watchmen, and sick nurses. The little children of a friend of mine, who happened to sleep with their heads near a window, surprised their father in the morning with the question what all those sparks were that had been flying about in the night. Several country people, on their way to early market, saw the last of the shower. It is said that some left their carts and kneeled in the road, thinking that the end of the world was come; a very natural persuasion, for the spectacle must have been much like the heavens falling to pieces. About nine o'clock in the evening several persons observed that there was an unusual number of falling stars, and went home thinking no more about it. Others were surprised at the increase by eleven, but went to rest notwithstanding. Those who were up at four saw the grandest sight. There were then three kinds of lights in the heaven besides the usual array of stars. There were shooting points of light, all directed from one centre to the circuit of the horizon, much resembling a thick shower of luminous snow. There were luminous bodies which hung dimly in the air; and there were falling fireb.a.l.l.s, some of which burst, while others went out of sight. These were the meteors which were taken by the ignorant for the real stars falling from the sky. One was seen apparently larger than the full moon, and they shed so bright a light that the smallest objects became distinctly visible. One luminous body was like a serpent coiling itself up; another "like a square table;" another like a pruning-hook. Those which burst left trains of light behind them, some tinged with the prismatic colours. The preceding day had been uncommonly warm for the season; but, before morning, the frost was of an intensity very rare for the month of November. The temperature of the whole season was unusual. Throughout November and December it was so warm about the northern lakes that the Indians were making maple sugar at Mackinaw, while the orange-trees were cut off by the frost in Louisiana. A tremendous succession of gales at the same time set in along the eastern coast. Those may explain these mysteries who can.

It is exceedingly easy to laugh at men who, created to look before and after, walking erect, with form "express and admirable" under the broad canopy of heaven, yet contrive to miss the sights which are hung out in the sky; but which of us does not deserve to be thus laughed at? How many nights in the year do we look up into the heavens? How many individuals of a civilized country see the stars on any one night of the year? Some of my friends and I had a lesson on this during the last April I spent in America. I was staying at a house in the upper part of New-York. My host and hostess had three guests at dinner that day--three persons sufficiently remarkable for knowing how to use their eyes--Miss Sedgwick, Mr. Bryant, and the author of the Palmyra Letters. During dinner we amused ourselves with pitying some persons who had actually walked abroad on the night of the last 17th of November without seeing the display. Our three friends walked homeward together, two miles down Broadway, and did exactly the same thing; failed to look up while an aurora borealis, worthy of November, was illuminating the heavens. We at home failed to look out, and missed it too. The next time we all met we agreed to laugh at ourselves before we bestowed any more of our pity upon others.

On the 17th of November in question, that of 1835, I was staying in the house of one of the professors of Harvard University at Cambridge. The professor and his son John came in from a lecture at nine o'clock, and told us that it was nearly as light as day, though there was no moon.

The sky presented as yet no remarkable appearance, but the fact set us telling stories of skysights. A venerable professor told us of a blood-red heaven which shone down on a night of the year 1789, when an old lady interpreted the whole French revolution from what she saw. None of us had any call to prophesying this night. John looked out from time to time while we were about the piano, but our singing had come to a conclusion before he brought us news of a very strange sky. It was now near eleven. We put cloaks and shawls over our heads, and hurried into the garden. It was a mild night, and about as light as with half a moon. There was a beautiful rose-coloured flush across the entire heaven, from southeast to northwest. This was every moment brightening, contracting in length, and dilating in breadth. My host ran off without his hat to call the Natural Philosophy professor. On the way he pa.s.sed a gentleman who was trudging along, pondering the ground. "A remarkable night, sir," cried my host. "Sir! how, sir?" replied the pedestrian.

"Why, look above your head!" The startled walker ran back to the house he had left to make everybody gaze. There was some debate about ringing the college-bell, but it was agreed that it would cause too much alarm.

The Natural Philosophy professor came forth in curious trim, and his household and ours joined in the road. One lady was in her nightcap; another with a handkerchief tied over her head, while we were cowled in cloaks. The sky was now resplendent. It was like a blood-red dome, a good deal pointed. Streams of a greenish white light radiated from the centre in all directions. The colours were so deep, especially the red, as to give an opaque appearance to the canopy; and as Orion and the Pleiades, and many more stars could be distinctly seen, the whole looked like a vast dome inlaid with constellations. These skysights make one s.h.i.+ver, so new are they, so splendid, so mysterious. We saw the heavens grow pale, and before midnight believed that the mighty show was over; but we had the mortification of hearing afterward, that at one o'clock it was brighter than ever, and as light as day.

Such are some of the wintry characteristics of New-England.

If I lived in Ma.s.sachusetts, my residence during the hot months should be beside one of its ponds. These ponds are a peculiarity in New-England scenery very striking to the traveller. Geologists tell of the time when the valleys were chains of lakes; and in many parts the eye of the observer would detect this without the aid of science. There are many fields and cl.u.s.ters of fields of remarkable fertility, lying in basins, the sides of which have much the appearance of the greener and smoother of the dikes of Holland. These suggest the idea of their having been ponds at the first glance. Many remain filled with clear water, the prettiest meres in the world. A cottage on Jamaica Pond, for instance, within an easy ride of Boston, is a luxurious summer abode. I know of one unequalled in its attractions, with its flower-garden, its lawn, with banks shelving down to the mere; banks dark with rustling pines, from under whose shade the bright track of the moon may be seen, lying cool on the rippling waters. A boat is moored in the cove at hand. The cottage itself is built for coolness, and its broad piazza is draperied with vines, which keep out the sun from the shaded parlours.

The way to make the most of a summer's day in a place like this is to rise at four, mount your horse, and ride through the lanes for two hours, finding breakfast ready on your return. If you do not ride, you slip down to the bathing-house on the creek; and, once having closed the door, have the shallow water completely to yourself, carefully avoiding going beyond the deep water-mark, where no one knows how deep the mere may be. After breakfast you should dress your flowers, before those you gather have quite lost the morning dew. The business of the day, be it what it may, housekeeping, study, teaching, authors.h.i.+p, or charity, will occupy you till dinner at two. You have your dessert carried into the piazza, where, catching glimpses of the mere through the wood on the banks, your watermelon tastes cooler than within, and you have a better chance of a visit from a pair of humming-birds. You retire to your room, all shaded with green blinds, lie down with a book in your hand, and sleep soundly for two hours at least. When you wake and look out, the shadows are lengthening on the lawn, and the hot haze has melted away.

You hear a carriage behind the fence, and conclude that friends from the city are coming to spend the evening with you. They sit within till after tea, telling you that you are living in the sweetest place in the world. When the sun sets you all walk out, dispersing in the shrubbery or on the banks. When the moon shows herself above the opposite woods, the merry voices of the young people are heard from the cove, where the boys are getting out the boat. You stand, with a companion or two, under the pines, watching the progress of the skiff, and the receding splash of the oars. If you have any one, as I had, to sing German popular songs to you, the enchantment is all the greater. You are capriciously lighted home by fireflies, and there is your table covered with fruit and iced lemonade. When your friends have left you you would fain forget it is time to rest; and your last act before you sleep is to look out once more from your balcony upon the silvery mere and moonlit lawn.

The only times when I felt disposed to quarrel with the inexhaustible American mirth was on the hottest days of summer. I liked it as well as ever; but European strength will not stand more than an hour or two of laughter in such seasons. I remember one day when the American part of the company was as much exhausted as the English. We had gone, a party of six, to spend a long day with a merry household in a country village; and, to avoid the heat, had performed the journey of sixteen miles before ten o'clock. For three hours after our arrival the wit was in full flow; by which time we were all begging for mercy, for we could laugh no longer with any safety. Still, a little more fun was dropped all round, till we found that the only way was to separate, and we all turned out of doors. I cannot conceive how it is that so little has been heard in England of the mirth of the Americans; for certainly nothing in their manners struck and pleased me more. One of the rarest characters among them, and a great treasure to all his sportive neighbours, is a man who cannot take a joke.

The prettiest playthings of summer are the humming-birds. I call them playthings because they are easily tamed, and are not very difficult to take care of for a time. It is impossible to attend to book, work, or conversation while there is a humming-bird in sight, its exercises and vagaries are so rapid and beautiful. Its prettiest att.i.tude is vibrating before a blossom which is tossed in the wind. Its long beak is inserted in the flower, and the bird rises and falls with it, quivering its burnished wings with dazzling rapidity. My friend E. told me how she had succeeded in taming a pair. One flew into the parlour where she was sitting, and perched. E.'s sister stepped out for a branch of honeysuckle, which she stuck up over the mirror. The other bird followed, and the pair alighted on the branch, flew off, and returned to it. E. procured another branch, and held it on the top of her head; and hither also the little creatures came without fear. She next held it in her hand, and still they hovered and settled. They bore being shut in for the night, a nest of cotton-wool being provided. Of course it was impossible to furnish them with honeysuckles enough for food; and sugar and water was tried, which they seemed to relish very well. One day, however, when E. was out of the room, one of the little creatures was too greedy in the saucer; and, when E. returned, she found it lying on its side, with its wings stuck to its body, and its whole little person clammy with sugar. E. tried a sponge and warm water; it was too harsh: she tried old linen, but it was not soft enough: it then occurred to her that the softest of all substances is the human tongue. In her love for her little companion, she thus cleansed it, and succeeded perfectly, so far as the outward bird was concerned. But though it attempted to fly a little, it never recovered, but soon died of its surfeit. Its mate was, of course, allowed to fly away.

Some Boston friends of mine, a clergyman and his wife, told me of a pleasant summer adventure which they had, quite against their will. The lady had been duly inoculated or vaccinated (I forget which) in her childhood, but nevertheless had the smallpox in a way after her marriage. She was slightly feverish, and a single spot appeared on her hand. The physician declared "that is _it_," and, as good citizens are bound to do, they gave information of this fearful smallpox to the authorities. The lady and her husband were ordered into quarantine; the city coach came for them, and they were transported to the wharf, and then to the little quarantine island in the harbour, where they spent a particularly pleasant week. My friend was getting well when she went, and she was quite able to enjoy the charms of her new residence. Her husband read to her in the piazza as she worked; he bathed, and was spared a Sunday's preaching; she looked abroad over the sea, and laughed as often as she imagined what their friends supposed their situation to be. They had the establishment all to themselves, except that there was a tidy Scotchwoman to wait on them. Was ever quarantine so performed before?

The reader may think, at the end of this chapter, that there is something far more pleasant than worthy of complaint in the extremes of the seasons in the United States. It would be so if health were not endangered by them; but the incessant regard to the physical welfare which prudence requires is a great drawback to ease and pleasure; and the failure of health, which is pretty sure to come, sooner or later, is a much worse. In my own opinion, the dullest climate and scenery may be turned to more pleasurable account by vigour of body and mind, than all the privileges of American variety and beauty by languid powers. All that the people of New-England can do is to make the best of their case.

Those who are blessed with health should use every reasonable endeavour to keep it; and it may be hoped that an improved settlement and cultivation of the country will carry on that amelioration of its climate which many of its inhabitants are a.s.sured has already begun.

ORIGINALS.

"The ideal is in thyself; thy condition is but the stuff thou art to shape that same ideal out of. What matters whether such stuff be of this sort or of that, so the form thou give it be heroic, be poetic."

--_Sartor Resartus._

Every state of society has, happily, its originals; men and women who, in more or fewer respects, think, speak, and act, naturally and unconsciously, in a different way from the generality of men. There are several causes from which this originality may arise, particularly in a young community less gregarious than those of the civilized countries of the Old World.

The commonest of these causes in a society like that of the United States is, perhaps, the absence of influences to which almost all other persons are subject. The common pressure being absent in some one direction, the being grows out in that direction, and the mind and character exhibit more or less deformity to the eyes of all but the individual most concerned. The back States afford a full harvest of originals of this cla.s.s; while in England, where it is scarcely possible to live out of society, such are rarely to be found.

Social and professional eccentricity comes next. When local and professional influences are inadequately balanced by general ones, a singularity of character is produced, which is not so agreeable as it is striking and amusing. Of this cla.s.s of characters few examples are to be seen at home; but, instead of them, something much worse, which is equally rare in America. In England we have confessors to tastes and pursuits, and martyrs to pa.s.sions and vices, which arise out of a highly artificial state of society. In England we have a smaller proportion of grave, innocent, professional buffoons; but in America there are few or no fas.h.i.+onable ingrained profligates, few or no misers.

In its possession of a third higher cla.s.s, it is reasonable and delightful to hope that there is no superiority in the society of any one civilized country over that of any other. Of men and women who have intellectual power to modify the general influences to which, like others, they are subject, every nation has its share. In every country there have been beings who have put forth more or less of the G.o.dlike power involved in their humanity, whereby they can stem the current of circ.u.mstance, deliberately form the purpose of their life, and prosecute it, happen what may. The number is not large anywhere, but the species is nowhere unknown.

A yet smaller cla.s.s of yet n.o.bler originals remains; those who, with the independent power of the last mentioned, are stimulated by strong pressure of circ.u.mstance to put forth their whole force, and form and achieve purposes in which not only their own life, but the destiny of others, is included. Such, being the prophets and redeemers of their age and country, rise up when and where they are wanted. The deed being ripe for the doing, the doer appears. The field being white for harvest, the reaper shows himself at the gate, whether the song of fellow-reapers cheers his heart, or lions are growling in his solitary path.

Many English persons have made up their minds that there is very little originality in America, except in regions where such men as David Crockett grow up. In the wilds of Tennessee and Kentucky twenty years ago, and now in Arkansas and Missouri, where bear-hunting and the buffalo chase are still in full career, it is acknowledged that a man's natural bent may be seen to advantage, and his original force must be fully tested. But it is asked, with regard to America, whether there is not much less than the average amount of originality of character to be found in the places where men operate upon one another. It is certain that there is an intense curiosity in Americans about English oddities; and a prevailing belief among themselves that England is far richer in humorists than the United States. It is also true that the fickleness and impressibleness of the Americans (particularly of the New-Englanders) about systems of science, philosophy, and morals, exceed anything ever seen or heard of in the sober old country; but all this can prove only that the nation and its large divisions are not original in character, and not that individuals of that character are wanting.

It should be remembered that one great use of a metropolis, if not the greatest, is to test everything for the benefit of the whole of the rest of the country. The country may, according to circ.u.mstances, be more or less ready to avail itself of the benefit; but the benefit exists and waits for acceptance. Now the Americans have no metropolis. Their cities are all provincial towns. It may be, in their circ.u.mstances, politically good that they should have the smallest possible amount of centralization; but the want of this centralization is injurious to their scientific and philosophical progress and dignity, and, therefore, to their national originality. A conjurer's trip through the English counties is very like the progress of a lecturer or newly-imported philosopher through the American cities. The wonder, the excitement, the unbounded credulity are much alike in the two cases; but in the English village there may be an old man under the elm smiling good-naturedly at the show without following after it; or a sage young man who could tell how the puppets are moved as well as if he saw the wires. And so it is in the American cities. The crowd is large, but everybody is not in it; the believers are many, but there are some who foresee how soon the belief will take a new turn.

When Spurzheim was in America, the great ma.s.s of society became phrenologists in a day, wherever he appeared; and ever since itinerant lecturers have been reproducing the same sensation in a milder way, by retailing Spurzheimism, much deteriorated, in places where the philosopher had not been. Meantime the light is always going out behind as fast as it blazes up round the steps of the lecturer. While the world of Richmond and Charleston is working at a multiplication of the fifteen casts (the same fifteen or so) which every lecturer carries about, and all caps and wigs are pulled off, and all fair tresses dishevelled in the search after organization, Boston has gone completely round to the opposite philosophy, and is raving about spiritualism to an excess which can scarcely be credited by any who have not heard the Unknown Tongues.

If a phrenological lecturer from Paris, London, or Edinburgh should go to Boston, the superficial, visible portion of the public would wheel round once more, so rapidly and with so clamorous a welcome on their tongues, that the transported lecturer would bless his stars which had guided him over to a country whose inhabitants are so candid, so enlightened, so ravenous for truth. Before five years are out, however, the lecturer will find himself superseded by some professor of animal magnetism, some preacher of h.o.m.opathy, some teacher who will undertake to a.n.a.lyze children, prove to them that their spirits made their bodies, and elicit from them truths fresh from heaven. All this is very childish, very village-like; and it proves anything rather than originality in the persons concerned. But it does not prove that there is not originality in the bosom of a society whose superficial movement is of this kind; and it does not prove that national originality may not arise out of the very tendencies which indicate that it does not at present exist.

The Americans appear to me an eminently imaginative people. The unprejudiced traveller can hardly spend a week among them without being struck with this every day. At a distance it is seen clearly enough that they do not put their imaginative power to use in literature and the arts; and it does certainly appear perverse enough to observers from the Old World that they should be imitative in fictions (whether of the pen, the pencil, stone, or marble), and imaginative in their science and philosophy, applying their sober good sense to details, but being sparing of it in regard to principles. This arbitrary direction of their imaginative powers, or, rather, its restriction to particular departments, is, I believe and trust, only temporary. As their numbers increase and their society becomes more delicately organized; when, consequently, the pursuit of literature, philosophy, and art shall become as definitely the business of some men as politics and commerce now are of others, I cannot doubt that the restraints of imitation will be burst through, and that a plenitude of power will be shed into these departments as striking as that which has made the organization of American commerce (notwithstanding some defects) the admiration of the world, and vindicated the originality of American politics in theory and practice.

However this may be, it is certain that there are individuals existing everywhere, in the very heart of Boston itself, as original as Sam Weller and David Crockett, or any other self-complacent mortal who finds scope for his humours amid the kindly intricacies of London or the canebrakes of Tennessee.

Some of the most extraordinary instances I met with of persons growing mentally awry were among the scholars who are thinly sprinkled through the Southern and Western settlements. When these gentlemen first carried their accomplishments into the wilderness, they were probably wiser than any living and breathing being they encountered. The impression of their own wisdom was deep from the beginning, and it continues to be deepened by every accident of intercourse with persons who are not of their way of thinking; for to differ from them is to be wrong. At the same time their ways of thinking are such as are not at all likely to accord with other people's; so that their case of delusion is complete. I saw a charming pair of professors in a remote state most blessed in their opinions of themselves. They were able men, or would have been so amid the discipline of equal society; but their self-esteem had sprouted out so luxuriantly as to threaten to exhaust all the better part of them.

One of the most remarkable circ.u.mstances in the case was that they seemed aware of their self-complacency, and were as complacent about it as about anything else. One speaking of the other, says, "A. has been examining my cranium. He says I am the most conceited man in the States, except himself."

The exception was a fair one. When I saw B., I thought that I had seen the topmost wonder of the world for self-complacency; but upon this Alp another was to arise, as I found when I knew A. The only point of inferiority in A. is that he is not quite immoveably happy in himself.

His feet are far from handsome, and no bootmaker at the West End could make them look so. This is the bitter drop in A.'s cup. This is the vulnerable point in his peace. His pupils have found it out, and have obtained a hold over him by it. They have but to fix their eyes upon his feet to throw him into disturbance; but, if they have gone too far, and desire to grow into favour again, they need only compliment his head, and all is well again. He lectures to them on Phrenology; and, when on the topic of Galen's scull, declares that there is but one head known which can compare with Galen's in its most important characteristics.

The students all raise their eyes to the professor's bald crown, and the professor bows. He exhibits a cast of Burke's head, mentioning that it combines in the most perfect manner conceivable all grand intellectual and moral characteristics; and adding that only one head has been known perfectly to resemble it. Again the students fix their gaze on the summit of the professor, and he congratulates them on their scientific discernment.

This gentleman patronises Mrs. Somerville's scientific reputation. He told me one morning, in the presence of several persons whom he wished to impress with the highest respect for Mrs. Somerville, the particulars of a call he once made upon her during a visit to England. It was a long story; but the substance of it was, that he found her a most extraordinary person, for that she knew more than he did. He had always thought himself a pretty good mathematician, but she had actually gone further. He had prided himself upon being a tolerable chymist, but he found she could teach him something there. He had reason to think himself a good mineralogist; but, when he saw her cabinet, he found that it was possible to get beyond him. On entering her drawing-room he was struck by some paintings which he ascertained to be done by her hand, while he could not pretend to be able to paint at all. He acknowledged that he had, for once, met his superior. Two days after, among a yet larger party, he told me the whole story over again. I fell into an absent fit in planning how I could escape from the rest of his string of stories, to talk with some one on the opposite side of the room. When he finally declared, "In short, I actually found that Mrs. Somerville knows more than I do," I mechanically answered, "I have no doubt of it." A burst of laughter from the whole party roused me to a sense of what I had done in taking the professor at his word. His look of mortification was pitiable.

It was amusing to see him with the greatest statesman in the country, holding him by the b.u.t.ton for an hour together, while lecturing in the style of a master to a hopeful schoolboy. The pompous air of the professor and the patient snufftaking of the statesman under instruction made a capital caricature subject. One of the professor's most serious declarations to me was, that the time had long been past when he believed he might be mistaken. He had once thought that he might be in the wrong like other people, but experience had taught him that he never erred. As, therefore, he and I did not agree on the point we were conversing about, I must be mistaken. I might rely upon him that it was so.

It is not to be expected that women should resist dangers of position which men, with their wider intercourses, cannot withstand. The really learned and able women of the United States are as modest and simple as people of sound learning and ability are; but the pedantry of a few bookish women in retired country situations exceeds anything I ever saw out of novels and farces.

In a certain region of the United States there are two sisters, living at a considerable distance from each other, but united (in addition to their undoubted sisterly regard) by their common belief that they are conspicuous ornaments of their country. It became necessary for me to make a call on one of these ladies. She knew when I was going, and had made preparation for my reception. I was accompanied by three ladies, one of whom was an avowed auth.o.r.ess; a second was a deep and thoroughly-exercised scholar, and happened to have published, which the pedantic lady did not know. The third was also a stranger to her, but a very clever woman. We were treated with ludicrous precision, according to our supposed merits; the third-mentioned lady being just honoured with a pa.s.sing notice, and the fourth totally neglected. There was such an unblus.h.i.+ng insolence in the manner in which the blue-stocking set people who had written books above all the rest of the world, that I could not let it pa.s.s unrebuked; and I treated her to my opinion that they are not usually the cleverest women who write; and that far more general power and wisdom are required to conduct life, and especially to educate a family of children well, than to write any book or number of books. As soon as there was a pause in the conversation, I rose to go.

Some weeks afterward, when I was on a journey, a lady drove up from a distance of two miles to make an afternoon call upon me. It was the sister. She told me that she came to carry me home with her for the night, "in order," said she, "that you may see how we who scribble can keep house." As I had never had any doubt of the compatibility of the two things, it was of little consequence that I could not go. She informed me that she lectured on Mental and Moral Philosophy to young ladies. She talked with much admiration of Mr. Brown as a metaphysician.

I concluded this gentleman to be some American worthy with whom I had to become acquainted; but it came out to be Dr. Thomas Brown whom she was praising. She appeared not to know even the names of metaphysicians out of the Scotch school; and if the ghosts of the Scotch schoolmen were present, they might well question whether she understood much of them.

She told me that she had a great favour to ask of me: she wanted permission to print, in a note to the second edition of her Lectures on Mental and Moral Philosophy, a striking observation of mine made to her sister, which her sister had transmitted to her by the next post. I immediately a.s.sured her that she might print anything that I had said to her sister. She then explained that the observation was that they are not usually the cleverest women who write. I recommended her to make sure of the novelty of the remark before she printed it; for I was afraid that Shakspeare or somebody had had it first. What was the fate of the opinion I do not know; but it may be of use to the sisters themselves if it suggests that they may be mistaken in looking down upon all their s.e.x who do not "scribble."

I think it must have been a pupil of theirs who wrote me a letter which I threw into the fire in a fit of disgust the moment I had read it. A young lady, who described herself as "an ambitious girl," sent me some poetry in a magazine, and an explanation in writing of her own powers and aspirations. No one likes aspiration better than I, if only there be any degree of rational self-estimate connected with it. This young lady aspired to enter the hallowed precincts of the temple where Edgeworth, More, and others were immortalized. As for how she was to do it, her case seemed to be similar to that of a West Indian lady, who once complained to me that, while she was destined by her innate love of the sublime and the beautiful to be distinguished, Providence would not let her. The American young lady, however, hoped that a friends.h.i.+p with me might persuade the world to recognise her powers; and she informed me that she had come to town from a distance, and procured an invitation to a house where I was to spend the evening, that we might begin our friends.h.i.+p. The rooms happened to be so tremendously crowded that I was not obliged to see any more persons than those immediately about me. I was told that the "ambitious girl" was making herself very conspicuous by standing on tiptoe, beaming and fluttering; but I did not look that way, and never saw her. I hope she may yet read her own poetry again with new eyes, and learn that the best "ambition" does not write about itself, and that the strongest "powers" are the least conscious of their own operation.

In two of the eastern cities I met with two ladies who had got a twist in opposite directions. It has been represented in England that a jealousy of English superiority, even in natural advantages, is very prevalent in the United States. I do not think so; and I am by no means sure that it is not nearly as rare as the opposite extreme. One instance of each kind of prejudice came under my notice, and I am not aware of more. At a party at Philadelphia, a lady asked me if I had not crossed the Alleghanies, and whether I did not think them stupendous mountains.

I admired the views they presented, and said all I could for the Alleghanies; but it was impossible to agree that they were stupendous mountains. The lady was so evidently mortified, that I began to call the rivers stupendous, which I could honestly do; but this was not the same thing. She said, in a complaining tone,

"Well, I cannot think how you can say there are no high mountains in the United States."

"You mistake me," I said. "I have not seen the White Mountains yet; and I hear they are very grand."

"You English boast so of the things you have got at home!" said she.

"Why, I have seen your river Avon, that you make so much of. I stood by the Avon, under Warwick Castle, and I said to my husband that it was a mighty small thing to be talked of at such a distance. Why, if I had been ten years younger, I could almost have jumped over it."

I told her that I believed the Avon was not so celebrated for the quant.i.ty of water in it as on some other accounts.

The lady who went on the opposite tack is not very old, and I suppose, therefore, that her loyalty to the crown of England is hereditary. She made great efforts to see me, that she might enjoy my British sympathies. With a grieved countenance she asked me whether the folly and conceit of her countrymen in separating themselves from the crown were not lamentable. She had hoped that, before this, they would have become convinced of the guilt and silliness of their rebellion, and have sought to be taken back; but she hoped it was not yet too late. I fear she considered me a traitor to my country in not condemning hers. I was sorry to deprive her of her last hope of sympathy; but what could one do in such a case?

There must be many local and professional oddities in a country like America, where individuals fill a larger s.p.a.ce in society, and are less pressed upon by influences, other than local and professional, than in Old World communities. A judge in the West is often a remarkable personage to European eyes. I know one who unites all the odd characteristics of the order so as to be worth a close study. Before I left home, a friend desired me to bring her something, she did not care what, that should be exclusively American; something which could not be procurable anywhere else. When I saw this judge I longed to pack him up, and direct him, per next packet from New-York, to my friend; for he was the first article I met with that could not by possibility have been picked up anywhere out of the United States. He was about six feet high, lank as a flail, and seeming to be held together only by the long-tailed drab greatcoat into which he was put. He had a quid in his cheek whenever I saw him, and squirted tobacco-juice into the fireplace or elsewhere at intervals of about twenty seconds. His face was long and solemn, his voice monotonous, his manner dogmatical to a most amusing degree. He was a dogged republican, with an uncompromising hatred of the blacks, and with an indifferent sort of pity for all foreigners. This last feeling probably induced him to instruct me on various matters. He fixed his eyes on the fire, and talked on for my edification, but without taking express notice of the presence of any one, so that his lecture had the droll appearance of being a formal soliloquy. In the same speech he declared that no man was made by G.o.d to run wild through a forest who was not able to comprehend Christianity at sight; missions to the heathen being therefore sanctioned from heaven itself; and that men with a dark skin cannot, in three years, learn the name of a rope or a point of the compa.s.s, and that they are therefore meant to be slaves.

It seemed to me that he was bound to suspend the operation of the law against all coloured persons on the ground of their incapacity, their lack of understanding of the common affairs of life. But the ground of their punishment in this life seemed to be that they might be as wise as they pleased about the affairs of the next. He proceeded with his enunciations, however, without vouchsafing an explanation of these mysteries. It must be an awkward thing to be either a heathen or a negro under his jurisdiction, if he acts upon his own doctrines.

Country doctors are not unlike wild country judges. Being obliged to call in the aid of a village doctor to a companion, I found we had fallen in with a fine specimen of the cla.s.s. I was glad of this afterward, but much annoyed at the time by the impossibility of extracting from him the slightest information as to my friend's state and prospects in regard to her health. I detained him in conversation day after day to no purpose, and varied my questions with as much American ingenuity as I could command; but all in vain. He would neither tell me what was the matter with her, nor whether her illness was serious or trifling, or whether it was likely to be long or short. He would give me no hint which could enable me to form my plans, or to give my distant friends an idea whether or when they might expect to see us.

All that he would say was, "Hope your friend will be better;" "hope she will enjoy better health;" "will make her better if we can;" "must try to improve her health;" and so on. I was informed that this was all that I should extract if the illness were to last a twelvemonth. He took a blue paper with some white powder in it out of one pocket, and a white paper with some other powder out of another pocket; spilled some at random into smaller papers, and gave directions when they should be taken, and my friend speedily and entirely recovered. I never was so completely in the dark about the nature of any illness I saw, and I am completely in the dark still. I fancy I hear now the short, sharp, conceited tones of the doctor, doggedly using his power of exasperating my anxiety. Such was not his purpose, however. The country doctors themselves and their patients believe that they cure with far more certainty than any other doctors; the profession are probably convinced that they owe much to the implicit faith of their charge, and are resolved to keep up this faith by being impenetrable, allowing no part of their practice to be made a subject of discussion which can possibly be rendered mysterious. The chief reason of the success of country doctors is, doubtless, that they have to treat chiefly diseases of local prevalence, about which they employ long experience and practised sagacity, without having much account to give of their method of proceeding.