'_Niagara, 1st June, 1843_.--I send you a token, made by
the hands of some Seneca Indian lady. If you use it for a
watch-pocket, hang it, when you travel, at the head of your
bed, and you may dream of Niagara. If you use it for a
purse, you can put in it alms for poets and artists, and the
subscription-money you receive for Mr. Carlyle's book. His
book, as it happened, you gave me as a birthday gift, and you
may take this as one to you; for, on yours, was W.'s birthday,
J.'s wedding-day, and the day of ----'s death, and we set out
on this journey. Perhaps there is something about it on the
purse. The "number five which nature loves," is repeated on
it.
'Carlyle's book I have, in some sense, read. It is witty, full
of pictures, as usual. I would have gone through with it, if
only for the sketch of Samson, and two or three bits of fun
which happen to please me. No doubt it may be of use to rouse
the unthinking to a sense of those great dangers and sorrows.
But how open is he to his own assault. He rails himself out of
breath at the short-sighted, and yet sees scarce a step before
him. There is no valuable doctrine in his book, except the
Goethean, _Do to-day the nearest duty_. Many are ready for
that, could they but find the way. This he does not show. His
proposed measures say nothing. Educate the people. That cannot
be done by books, or voluntary effort, under these paralyzing
circumstances. Emigration! According to his own estimate of
the increase of population, relief that way can have very
slight effect. He ends as he began; as he did in Chartism.
Everything is very bad. You are fools and hypocrites, or you
would make it better. I cannot but sympathize with him about
hero-worship; for I, too, have had my fits of rage at the
stupid irreverence of little minds, which also is made a
parade of by the pedantic and the worldly. Yet it is a
good sign. Democracy is the way to the new aristocracy, as
irreligion to religion. By and by, if there are great
men, they will not be brilliant exceptions, redeemers, but
favorable samples of their kind.
'Mr. C.'s tone is no better than before. He is not loving, nor
large; but he seems more healthy and gay.
'We have had bad weather here, bitterly cold. The place is
what I expected: it is too great and beautiful to agitate or
surprise: it satisfies: it does not excite thought, but fully
occupies. All is calm; even the rapids do not hurry, as we see
them in smaller streams. The sound, the sight, fill the senses
and the mind.
'At Buffalo, some ladies called on us, who extremely regretted
they could not witness our emotions, on first seeing Niagara.
"Many," they said, "burst into tears; but with those of most
sensibility, the hands become cold as ice, and they would not
mind if buckets of cold water were thrown over them!"'