"Let none our author rudely blame,
Who from the story has thus long digress'd."
DAVENANT.
"Nay, tell me not of lordly halls!
My minstrels are the trees;
The moss and the rock are my tapestried walls,
Earth sounds my symphonies."
BLACKWOOD'S _Mag._
"Sorrow is knowledge; they who know the most
Must mourn the deepest o'er the fatal truth;
The Tree of Knowledge is not that of Life."
MANFRED.
There are few lovelier villages in the Valley of the West than the
little town of Edwardsville, in whose quiet inn many of the preceding
observations have been sketched.[132] It was early one bright morning
that I entered Edwardsville, after passing a sleepless night at a
neighbouring farmhouse. The situation of the village is a narrow ridge
of {175} land swelling abruptly from the midst of deep and tangled
woods. Along this elevation extends the principal street of the place,
more than a mile in length, and upon either side runs a range of neat
edifices, most of them shaded by forest-trees in their front yards.
The public buildings are a courthouse and jail of brick, neither of
them worthy of farther mention, and two plain, towerless churches,
imbosomed in a grove somewhat in the suburbs of the village. There is
something singularly picturesque in the situation of these churches,
and the structures themselves are not devoid of beauty and symmetrical
proportion. At this place, also, is located the land-office for the
district. On the morning of my arrival at the village, early as was
the hour, the place was thronged with disappointed applicants for
land; a lean and hungry-looking race, by-the-by, as it has ever been
my lot to look upon. Unfortunately, the office had the evening before,
from some cause, been closed, and the unhappy speculators were forced
to trudge away many a weary mile, through dust and sun, with their
heavy specie dollars, to their homes again. I remember once to have
been in the city of Bangor, "away down East in the State of Maine,"
when the public lands on the Penobscot River were first placed in the
market. The land mania had for some months been running high, but
could hardly be said yet to have reached a crisis. From all quarters
of the Union speculators had been hurrying to the place; and day and
night, for the week past, the steamers had been disgorging upon the
city their ravenous freights. The important {176} day arrived. At an
early hour every hotel, and street, and avenue was swarming with
strangers; and, mingling with the current of living bodies, which now
set steadily onward to the place of sale, I was carried resistlessly
on by its force till it ceased. A confused murmur of voices ran
through the assembled thousands; and amid the tumult, the ominous
words "_land--lumber--title-deed_," and the like, could alone be
distinguished. At length, near noon, the clear tones of the auctioneer
were heard rising above the hum of the multitude: all was instantly
hushed and still; and gaining an elevated site, before me was spread
out a scene worthy a Hogarth's genius and pencil. Such a mass of
working, agitated features, glaring with the fierce passion of
avarice and the basest propensities of humanity, one seldom is fated
to witness. During that public land-sale, indeed, I beheld so much of
the selfishness, the petty meanness, the detestable heartlessness of
man's nature, that I turned away disgusted, sick at heart for the race
of which I was a member. We are reproached as a nation by Europeans
for the contemptible vice of avarice; is the censure unjust? Parson
Taylor tells us that Satan was the first speculator in land, for on a
certain occasion he took Jesus up into an exceedingly high mountain,
and showed him all the kingdoms of the earth and the glory thereof,
and said to him, "All these things will I give to thee if thou wilt
fall down and worship me," when, in fact, the devil did not own one
inch of land to give!
"Think of the devil's brazen phiz,
When not an inch of land was his!"
{177} Yet it is to be apprehended that not a few in our midst would
not hesitate to barter soul and body, and fall down in worship, were a
sufficient number of _acres_ spread out before them as the recompense.
Among other objects worthy the traveller's notice in passing through
Edwardsville is a press for the manufacture of that well-known,
agreeable liquid, _castor oil_: it is situated within the precincts of
what is termed, for distinction, the "Upper Village." The apparatus,
by means of which the oil is expressed from the bean and clarified, is
extremely simple, consisting merely of the ordinary jack-screw. One
bushel of the castor beans--_palma Christi_--yields nearly two gallons
of the liquid. The only previous preparation to pressing is to dry the
beans in an oven. This establishment[133] has been in operation upward
of ten years, and has rendered its proprietor, Mr. Adams, a wealthy
man.[134] He has a delightful villa, with grounds laid out with
taste; and though many years have passed away since he left his native
New-England, yet the generosity of his heart and the benevolence of
his character tell truly that he has not yet ceased the remembrance of
early principles and habits. The village of Edwardsville and its
vicinity are said to be remarkably healthy; and the location in the
heart of a fertile, well-watered, heavily-timbered section of country,
tilled by a race of enterprising yeomanry, gives promise of rapid
advancement. The town plat was first laid off in 1815; but the place
advanced but little in importance until five years afterward, when a
new {178} town was united to the old. About twelve miles southeast
from Edwardsville is situated the delightful little hamlet of
Collinsville, named from its founder, to which I paid a hasty visit
during my ramble on the prairies.[135] It was settled many years ago,
but till very recently had not assumed the dignity of a town. Its site
is the broad, uniform surface of an elevated ridge, ascending gently
from the American Bottom, beautifully shaded by forest-trees, and
extending into the interior for several miles. It is almost entirely
settled by northern emigrants, whose peculiarities are nowhere more
strikingly exhibited. Much attention is bestowed upon religion and
education; not a grocery exists in the place, nor, by the charter of
the town, can one be established for several years. This little
village presents a delightful summer-retreat to the citizens of St.
Louis, only ten miles distant.
The sun had not yet risen when I left Edwardsville, after a pleasant
visit, and, descending into the Bottom, pursued my route over the
plain to Alton. The face of the country, for a portion of the way, is
broken, and covered with forests of noble trees, until the traveller
finds himself on the deep sand-plains, stretching away for some miles,
and giving support to a stunted, scragged growth of shrub-oaks. The
region bears palpable evidence of having been, at no distant period,
submerged; and the idea is confirmed by the existence, at the present
time, of a lake of considerable extent on the southern border, which,
from the character of the surface, a slight addition of water would
spread for miles. I shall not {179} soon forget, I think, the day I
entered Alton for the second time during my ramble in the West. It was
near the noon after an exceedingly sultry morning; and the earth
beneath my horse's hoofs was reduced by protracted drought to an
impalpable powder to the depth of several inches. The blazing
sunbeams, veiled by not a solitary cloud, reflected from the glassy
surface of the Mississippi as from the face of an immense steely
mirror and again thrown back by the range of beetling bluffs above,
seemed converged into an intense burning focus along the scorched-up
streets and glowing roofs of the village. I have endured heat, but
none more intolerable in the course of my life than that of which I
speak.
In the evening, when the sultriness of the day was over, passing
through the principal street of the town, I ascended that singular
range of bluffs which, commencing at this point, extend along the
river, and to which, on a former occasion, I have briefly alluded. The
ascent is arduous, but the glorious view from the summit richly repays
the visiter for his toil. The withering atmosphere of the depressed,
sunburnt village at my feet was delightfully exchanged for the
invigorating breezes of the hills, as the fresh evening wind came
wandering up from the waters. It was the sunset hour. The golden,
slanting beams of departing day were reflected from the undulating
bosom of the river, as its bright waters stretched away among the
western forests, as if from a sea of molten, gliding silver. On the
left, directly at your feet, reposes the village of Alton, overhung by
hills, with the gloomy, castellated {180} walls of the Penitentiary
lifting up their dusky outline upon its skirts, presenting to the eye
a perfect panorama as you look down upon the tortuous streets, the
extensive warehouses of stone, and the range of steamers, alive with
bustle, along the landing. Beyond the village extends a deep forest;
while a little to the south sweep off the waters of the river,
bespangled with green islands, until, gracefully expanding itself, a
noble bend withdraws it from the view. It is at this point that the
Missouri disgorges its turbid, heavy mass of waters into the clear
floods of the Upper Mississippi, hitherto uncheckered by a stain. At
the base of the bluffs, upon which you stand, at an elevation of a
hundred and fifty feet, rushes with violence along the crags the
current of the stream; while beyond, upon the opposite plain, is
beheld the log hut of the emigrant couched beneath the enormous
sycamores, and sending up its undulating thread of blue, curling smoke
through the lofty branches. A lumber steam-mill is also here to be
seen. Beyond these objects the eye wanders over an interminable carpet
of forest-tops, stretching away till they form a wavy line of dense
foliage circling the western horizon. By the aid of a glass, a range
of hills, blue in the distance, is perceived outlined against the sky:
they are the bluffs skirting the beautiful valley of the Missouri. The
heights from which this view is commanded are composed principally of
earth heaped upon a massive ledge of limerock, which elevates itself
from the very bed of the waters. As the spectator gazes and reflects,
he cannot but be amazed that the {181} rains, and snows, and torrents
of centuries have not, with all their washings, yet swept these
earth-heaps away, though the deep ravines between the mounds, which
probably originated their present peculiar form, give proof conclusive
that such diluvial action to some extent has long been going on. As is
usually found to be the case, the present race of Indians have availed
themselves of these elevated summits for the burial-spots of their
chiefs. I myself scraped up a few decaying fragments of bones, which
lay just beneath the surface.
At sunrise of the morning succeeding my visit to the bluffs I was in
the saddle, and clambering up those intolerably steep hills on the
road leading to the village of Upper Alton, a few miles distant. The
place is well situated upon an elevated prairie; and, to my own taste,
is preferable far for private residence to any spot within the
precincts of its rival namesake. The society is polished, and a
fine-toned morality is said to characterize the inhabitants. The town
was originally incorporated many years ago, and was then a place of
more note than it has ever since been; but, owing to intestine broils
and conflicting claims to its site, it gradually and steadily dwindled
away, until, a dozen years since, it numbered only _seven_ families. A
suit in chancery has happily settled these difficulties, and the
village is now thriving well. A seminary of some note, under
jurisdiction of the Baptist persuasion, has within a few years been
established here, and now comprises a very respectable body of
students.[136] It originated in a seminary {182} formerly established
at Rock Spring in this state. About five years since a company of
gentlemen, seven in number, purchased here a tract of several hundred
acres, and erected upon it an academical edifice of brick;
subsequently a stone building was erected, and a preparatory school
instituted. In the year 1835, funds to a considerable amount were
obtained at the East; and a donation of $10,000 from Dr. Benjamin
Shurtliff, of Boston, induced the trustees to give to the institution
his name. Half of this sum is appropriated to a college building, and
the other half is to endow a professorship of belles lettres. The
present buildings are situated upon a broad plain, beneath a walnut
grove, on the eastern skirt of the village; and the library,
apparatus, and professorships are worthy to form the foundation of a
_college_, as is the ultimate design, albeit a Western college and a
Northern college are terms quite different in signification. I visited
this seminary, however, and was much pleased with its faculty,
buildings, and design. All is as it should be. What reflecting mind
does not hail with joy these temples of science elevating themselves
upon every green hill and broad plain of the West, side by side with
the sanctuaries of our holy religion! It is intelligence, _baptized
intelligence_, which alone can save this beautiful valley, if indeed
it is to be saved from the inroads of arbitrary rule and false
religion; which is to hand down to another generation our civil and
religious immunities unimpaired. In most of the efforts for the
advancement of education in {183} the West, it is gratifying to
perceive that this principle has not been overlooked. Nearly all those
seminaries of learning which have been established profess for their
design the culture of the _moral_ powers as well as those of the
_intellect_. That _intelligence_ is an essential requisite, a prime
constituent of civil and religious freedom, all will admit; that it
is the _only_ requisite, the _sole_ constituent, may be questioned.
"Knowledge," in the celebrated language of Francis Bacon, "is power;"
ay! POWER; an engine of tremendous, incalculable energy, but blind in
its operations. Applied to the cause of wisdom and virtue, the richest
of blessings; to that of infidelity and vice, the greatest of curses.
A lever to move the world, its influence cannot be over-estimated; as
the bulwark of liberty and human happiness, its effect has been
fearfully miscalculated. Were man inclined as fully to good as to
evil, then might knowledge become the sovereign panacea of every civil
and moral ill; as man by nature unhappily _is_, "the fruit of the
tree" is oftener the stimulant to evil than to good. Unfold the sacred
record of the past. Why did not intelligence save Greece? Greece! the
land of intellect and of thought; the birthspot of eloquence,
philosophy, and song! whose very populace were critics and bards!
Greece, in her early day of pastoral ignorance, was free; but from the
loftiest pinnacle of intellectual glory she fell; and science, genius,
intelligence, all could not save her. The buoyant bark bounded
beautifully over the blue-breasted billows; but the helm, the helm of
{184} _moral_ culture was not there, and her broad-spread pinions
hurried her away only to a speedier and more terrible destruction.
Ancient Rome: in the day of her rough simplicity, _she_ was free; but
from her proudest point of _intellectual_ development--the era of
Augustus--we date her decline.
France: who will aver that it was popular _ignorance_ that rolled over
revolutionary France the ocean-wave of blood? When have the French,
_as a people_, exhibited a prouder era of mind than that of their
sixteenth Louis? The encyclopedists, the most powerful men of the age,
concentrated all their vast energies to the diffusion of science among
the people. Then, as now, the press groaned in constant parturition;
and essays, magazines, tracts, treatises, libraries, were thrown
abroad as if by the arm of Omnipotent power. Then, as now, the
supremacy of human reason and of human society flitted in "unreal
mockery" before the intoxicated fancy; and wildly was anticipated a
career of upward and onward advancement during the days of all coming
time. France was a nation of philosophers, and the great deep of mind
began to heave; the convulsed labouring went on, and, from time to
time, it burst out upon the surface. Then came the tornado, and
France, refined, intelligent, scientific, etherealized France, was
swept, as by Ruin's besom, of every green thing. Her own children
planted the dagger in her bosom, and France was a nation of
scientific, philosophic parricides! But "France was poisoned {185} by
infidelity." Yes! so she was: but why was not the subtle element
neutralized in the cup of _knowledge_ in which it was administered? Is
not "knowledge omnipotent to preserve; the salt to purify the
nations?"
England: view the experiment there. It is a matter of parliamentary
record, that within the last twenty years, during the philanthropic
efforts of Lord Henry Brougham and his whig coadjutors, crime in
England has more than tripled. If knowledge, pure, defecated
knowledge, be a conservative principle, why do we witness these
appalling results?
What, then, shall be done? Shall the book of knowledge be taken from
the hands of the people, and again be locked up in the libraries of
the few? Shall the dusky pall of ignorance and superstition again be
flung around the world, and a long starless midnight of a thousand
years once more come down to brood over mankind? By no means. _Let_
the sweet streams of knowledge go forth, copious, free, to enrich and
irrigate the garden of mind; but mingle with them the pure waters of
that "fount which flows fast by the oracles of God," or the effect
now will be, as it ever has been, only to intoxicate and madden the
human race. There is nothing in cold, dephlegmated intellect to warm
up and foster the energies of the moral system of man. Intellect, mere
intellect, can never tame the passions or purify the heart.
_Upper Alton, Ill._