Choice Specimens of American Literature, and Literary Reader Part 21

... At the moment when these narratives take us to the valley of the Mississippi, that immense territory presented a strange contrast to its present condition. From its head waters amid the lakes of Minnesota to its mouth; from its western springs in the heart of the Rocky mountains to its eastern cradle in the Alleghenies, all was yet in its primeval state. The Europeans had but one spot, Tonty's little fort; no white men roamed it but the trader or the missionary. With a spa.r.s.e and scattered Indian population, the country teeming with buffalo, deer, and game, was a scene of plenty. The Indian has vanished from its banks with the game that he pursued. The valley numbers as many states now as it did white men then; a busy, enterprising, adventurous, population, numbering its millions, has swept away the unprogressive and una.s.similating red man.

The languages of the Illinois, the Quapaw, the Tonica, the Natchez, the Ouma, are heard no more by the banks of the great water; no calumet now throws round the traveller its charmed power; the white banner of France floated long to the breeze, but with the flag of England and the standard of Spain all disappeared we may say within a century. For fifty years one single flag met the eye, and appealed to the heart of the inhabitants of the sh.o.r.es of the Mississippi.[45] Two now divide it: let us hope that the altered flag may soon resume its original form, and meet the heart's warm response at the month as at the source of the Mississippi.

[Footnote 45: In allusion to the Rebellion.]

=_John Gorham Palfrey, 1796-._= (Manual, pp. 504, 532.)

From the "History of New England."

=_149._= HAPPINESS OF WINTHROP'S CLOSING YEARS.

He was greatly privileged in living so long. Just before he died, that ecclesiastical arrangement had been made, which he might naturally hope would preserve the churches of New England in purity, peace, and strength, to remote times. Religious and political dissensions, which had disturbed and threatened the infant Church and the forming State, appeared to be effectually composed. The tribunals, carefully const.i.tuted for the administration of impartial and speedy justice, understood and did their duty, and commanded respect. The education of the generations which were to succeed had been provided for with an enlightened care. The College had bountifully contributed its ripe first-fruits to the public service; and the novel system of a universal provision of the elements of knowledge at the public cost, had been inaugurated with all circ.u.mstances of encouragement.

A generation was coming forward which remembered nothing of what Englishmen had suffered in New England for want of the necessaries and comforts of life. The occupations of industry were various and remunerative. Land was cheap, and the culture of it yielded no penurious reward to the husbandman; while he who chose to sell his labor was at least at liberty to place his own estimate upon it, and found it always in demand. The woods and waters were lavish of gifts which were to be had simply for the taking. The white wings of commerce, in their long flight to and from the settler's home, wafted the commodities which afford enjoyment and wealth to both sender and receiver. The numerous handicrafts, which in its constantly increasing division of labor, a thriving society employs, found liberal recompense; and manufactures on a larger scale were beginning to invite acc.u.mulations of capital and a.s.sociated labor.

The Confederacy of the Four Colonies was an humble, but a substantial, power in the world. It was known to be such by its French, Dutch, and savage neighbors; by the alienated communities on Narragansett Bay; and by the rulers of the mother country.

During Winthrop's last ten years, nowhere else in the world had Englishmen been so happy as under the generous government which his mind inspired and regulated. What one mind could do for a community's well-being, his had done. The prosecution of the issues he had wrought for was now to be committed to the wisdom and courage of a younger generation, and to the course of events, under the continued guidance of a propitious Providence.

CHAPTER II.

ESSAYISTS, MORALISTS, AND REFORMERS.

=_Joseph Dennie, 1768-1812._= (Manual, p. 497.)

From "The Lay Preacher."

=_150._= REFLECTION'S ON THE SEASONS.

"Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun."

The sensitive Gray, in a frank letter to his friend West, a.s.sures him that, when the sun grows warm enough to tempt him from the fireside, he will, like all other things, be the better for his influence; for the sun is an old friend, and an excellent nurse, &c. This is an opinion which will be easily entertained by every one who has been cramped by the icy hand of Winter, and who feels the gay and renovating influence of Spring. In those mournful months when vegetables and animals are alike coerced by cold, man is tributary to the howling storm and the sullen sky, and is, in the phrase of Johnson, a "slave to gloom;" but when the earth is disenc.u.mbered of her load of snows, and warmth is felt, and twittering swallows are heard, he is again jocund and free.

Nature renews her charter to her sons.... Hence is enjoyed, in the highest luxury,--

"Day, and the sweet approach of even and morn, And sight of vernal bloom and summer's rose, And flocks, and herds, and human face divine."

It is nearly impossible for me to convey to my readers an idea of the "vernal delight" felt at this period by the Lay Preacher, far declined in the vale of years. My spectral figure, pinched by the rude gripe of January, becomes as thin as that "dagger of lath" employed by the vaunting Falstaff, and my mind, affected by the universal desolation of winter, is nearly as vacant of joy and bright ideas as the forest is of leaves and the grove is of song. Fortunately for my happiness, this is only periodical spleen. Though in the bitter months, surveying my attenuated body, I exclaim with the melancholy prophet, "My leanness, my leanness! woe is me!" and though, adverting to the state of my mind, I behold it "all in a robe of darkest grain," yet when April and May reign in sweet vicissitude, I give, like Horace, care to the winds, and perceive the whole system excited by the potent stimulus of suns.h.i.+ne....

I have myself in winter felt hostile to those whom I could smile upon in May, and clasp to my bosom in June.

=_William Gaston,[46] 1778-1844._=

From "Essays and Addresses."

=_151._= THE IMPORTANCE OF INTEGRITY.

The first great maxim of human conduct--that which it is all-important to impress on the understandings of young men, and recommend to their hearty adoption--is, above all things, in all circ.u.mstances, and under every emergency, to preserve a clean heart and an honest purpose....

Without it, neither genius nor learning, neither the gifts of G.o.d, nor human exertions, can avail aught for the accomplishment of the great objects of human existence. Integrity is the crowning virtue,--integrity is the pervading principle which ought to regulate, guide, control, and vivify every impulse, device, and action. Honesty is sometimes spoken of as a vulgar virtue; and perhaps, that honesty which barely refrains from outraging the positive rules ordained by society for the protection of property, and which ordinarily pays its debts and performs its engagements, however useful and commendable a quality, is not to be numbered among the highest efforts of human virtue. But that integrity which, however tempting the opportunity, or however secure against detection, no selfishness nor resentment, no l.u.s.t of power, place, favor, profit, or pleasure, can cause to swerve from the strict rule of right, is the perfection of man's moral nature. In this sense, the poet was right when he p.r.o.nounced "an honest man's the n.o.blest work of G.o.d."

It is almost inconceivable what an erect and independent spirit this high endowment communicates to the man, and what a moral intrepidity and vivifying energy it imparts to his character.... Erected on such a basis, and built up of such materials, fame is enduring. Such is the fame of our Was.h.i.+ngton--of the man "inflexible to ill, and obstinately just." While, therefore, other monuments, intended to perpetuate human greatness, are daily mouldering into dust, and belie the proud inscriptions which they bear, the solid, granite pyramid of his glory lasts from age to age, imperishable, seen afar off, looming high over the vast desert, a mark, a sign, and a wonder, for the wayfarers though this pilgrimage of life.

[Footnote 46: A prominent lawyer and statesman of North Carolina.]

=_Jesse Buel, 1778-1839._= (Manual, p. 504.)

From "The Farmer's Instructor."

=_152._= EXTENT AND DEFECTS OF AMERICAN AGRICULTURE.

We have a.s.sociated, gentlemen, to increase the pleasures and profits of rural labor, to enlarge the sphere of useful knowledge, and, by concentrating our energies, to give them greater effect in advancing the public good. In no country does the agricultural cla.s.s bear so great a proportion to the whole population as in this. In England one-third of the inhabitants only are employed in husbandry; in France, two-thirds; in Italy, a little more than three-fourths; while in the United States the agricultural portion probably exceeds five-sixths. And in no country does the agricultural population exercise such a controlling political power, contribute so much to the wealth, or tend so strongly to give an impress to the character of a nation as in the United States. Hence it may be truly said of us that our agriculture is our nursing mother, which nurtures, and gives growth, and wealth, and character to our country.... Knowing no party, and confined to no sect, its benefits and its blessings, like dews from heaven, fall upon all.

... Our agriculture is greatly defective. It is susceptible of much improvement. How shall we effect this improvement? The old are _too old to learn_, or, rather, to unlearn what have been the habits of their lives. The young cannot learn as they ought to learn, and as the public interests require, because they have no suitable school for their instruction. We have no place where they can learn the _principles_ upon which the _practice_ of agriculture is based, none where they can be instructed in all the modern improvements of the art.

Much injury has been done to the cause of agriculture by sanguine speculations, which have only led to expense and disappointments; but all works on agriculture are not of that character; nor should it be forgotten that theory is the parent of practical knowledge, and that the very systems which farmers themselves adopt, were originally founded upon those theories which they so much affect to despise. Neither can it be denied that systems grounded upon theory alone, unsupported by experiment, are properly viewed with distrust; for the most plausible reasoning upon the operations of nature, without accompanying proof deduced from facts, may lead to a wrong conclusion, and it is often difficult to separate that which is really useful, from that which is merely visionary.... Prudence, therefore, dictates the necessity of caution; but ignorance is opposed to every change, from the mere want of judgment to discriminate between that which is purely speculative, and that which rests upon a more solid foundation.

=_Robert Walsh, 1784-1859._= (Manual, p. 504.)

From "Didactics, Social, Literary, &c."

=_153._= FALSE SYMPATHY WITH CRIMINALS.

Whatever the impulse to guilt, some suppression or aberration of the reason may ever be alleged and admitted. In this mode, however, sentimentalists might argue or whine away the whole body of crimes and punishments. It is the duty of every true friend of humanity and order, to protest against perverted sensibilities or sophistical refinements, which find warrant or apology for depraved appet.i.tes,--for the worst distemperature of the mind, and the most fatal catastrophes,--in natural propension, and unrestrained feeling. Spurious sympathy is a more prolific evil than sanguinary rigor, useless and pernicious as the latter is, in our humble opinion. Public executions do more harm than good,--but are not worse than morbid public commiseration and entreaty for criminals, to whom the real justice of the law has been applied, after fair and merciful trial....

Many of the worst criminals, who, in different ages and countries, have justly suffered ignominious death on the wheel, the block, or the gallows, were men of "extraordinary character," of singular acuteness, of the most decided spirit. To acknowledge this fact is not to applaud their conduct, or admire their general ultimate character....

We have constantly remembered what we early read in the works of Mr.

Burke, that it is the propensity of degenerate minds to admire or wors.h.i.+p _splendid wickedness_; that, with too many persons, the ideas of justice and morality are fairly conquered and overpowered by guilt when it is grown gigantic, and happens to be a.s.sociated with the l.u.s.tre of genius, the glare of fas.h.i.+on, or the robes of power. Against this species of degeneracy or illusion it has been our uniform endeavor to guard ourselves, and our conscientious practice to warn and exhort others. The integrity and delicacy of the moral sense, whether in individuals or communities, form a most important subject of the care of all public writers and speakers, in all transactions by which, or the history or treatment of which, the public, judgment and feelings may be affected. Hence, when mail robbers or murderers are to be tried or executed, we should be disposed to avoid all extraordinary bustle, or concern, or voluminous details about their fate; we should deem it the true policy of practical ethics to abstain from everything calculated to produce advent.i.tious interest or consequence for the culprits. It is not with pleasure that we hear of the crowds that besiege the door of the court-room, or see in the newspapers the many columns of evidence, with an endless repet.i.tion of trifling circ.u.mstances, any more than we can rejoice for the cause of moral and social order when convicted highwaymen or murderers are carried to the gallows as _saints_, and hung amidst vast a.s.semblages, either merely indulging a callous curiosity, or losing all the horror of their offences in emotions of compa.s.sion or admiration, awakened by the dramatic nature of the whole scene.

=_Thomas S. Grimke,[47] 1786-1834._=

From "Addresses, Scientific and Literary."