"I lay upon the headland heights, and listened
To the incessant moaning of the sea
In caverns under me,
And watched the waves that tossed,
And fled, and glistened;
Until the rolling meadows of amethyst
Melted away in mist."
My visit to Charleston combined little of eventful note, and this city is
to well known as a seaport to require a detailed description. There, as in
all places in close proximity to the ocean, I was spell-bound amid the
ceaseless ebb and flow, the endless melody of the waves glowing and
scintillating with myriad gem-like hues from the amethyst, the emerald and
the diamond, to the many-hued opal, its varied and changing beauty bearing
all the brilliant glory of the fabled dolphin, born in its depths.
In this sea-girt city I found the home of Mrs. Glover, and above all her
hallowed presence there. She is an accomplished lady, and once wrote an
attractive novel, more for pastime than from any literary aspirations.
Vernon, the hero of her story of Vernon Grove, was blind, and as this
depiction of character was so much more true to nature than the
pen-pictures of other gifted delineators, even that of the shrewd searcher
of the human heart, Wilkie Collins, that she had won the sympathy and
interest of all at the Baltimore Institution, at which, in former years,
she had been so cheerfully greeted.
Vernon possessed none of the melancholy, inanimate, suspicious
characteristics supposed by many to belong of necessity to the blind, but
was a brilliant, cheerful, high-minded person, who filled every position
in life with dignity, accepted every sorrow and disappointment with
resignation, in every struggle was a lion-hearted hero, and in every
contest a conqueror.
This gifted lady was a sister of Mrs. Bowen, of Baltimore, who, as well as
her husband, was a warm, true friend to the blind, and ever joyously
hailed as a guest in the institution.
After traveling through the Carolinas I went to Richmond, Virginia, the
Rome of America, and like that ancient city built upon seven hills, while
in its patrician pride and family loyalty it possessed much of the essence
of the old Roman spirit.
My visit there was during the most fervid heat of the summer solstice,
when through the sultry days all living creatures are panting and
breathless, yet withal the stay of three weeks' duration passed away with
delightful rapidity, and time stole upon us and stole from us almost
imperceptibly.
Leaving Richmond for White Sulphur Springs, I stopped at all important
intervening points. At Staunton I devoted an entire day to the inspection
of the Institution for the Blind, and in pleasant acceptance of
hospitalities dispensed both by inmates and officials.
Arriving at White Sulphur after dark, we found the mountain air so cold
that we could almost imagine ourselves suddenly transported from the
Equator to the Pole, and were as thoroughly chilled as one unacclimated
would be from so great and sudden a transition.
The mammoth hotel of this watering place, comfortably seated in its
dining-hall twelve hundred guests, and all its appointments were in
equally grand proportion. We occupied, from choice, one of the cozy little
cottages, nestling like a dove-cot in some bowery shade, with its patch of
green-sward and flower-garden in front and purling brook behind, holding
the double charm of rural simplicity and home-like air. Hattie led me
through every path and grove, nook and glen of this sweet seclusion, this
valley embosomed in mountains, and my thoughts reverted to the days when
the belles and beaux of our American court sought these sylvan shades;
when Washington and the successive Chief Magistrates of the Great Republic
had gracefully glided through the stately minuet and invested this spot
with a now classic interest.
Prominent among the visitors was the leonine General Lee, a Colossus in
person and in mind. In spirit brave as a true hero, but in manner gentle
as a woman. In the sweet solace of sympathy his heart went out to the
blind girl, and assumed the tangible form of solid favors, for by his
personal efforts under the magic influence and royal mandate of his
imperial power many a little volume was appropriated that would have been
otherwise unnoticed.
George Peabody was also a guest, but in this, his last visit to his native
country, he was too ill and prostrate to receive friends. I felt for him a
strong personal sympathy for his beneficence to my native city, to which
he ever acknowledged himself indebted for his first business success; and
in which the pure, white marble structure, with its magnificent library
and other appointments, so well known as "The Peabody Institute," stands
as a monument of his munificence.
Returning to Richmond, we took the James River route to Baltimore, a trip
fraught with varied interest.
At Yorktown, that city of eld, we landed to take in a cargo of freight,
not neglecting the usual store of oysters, of which we had at supper a
sumptuous feast and it was from no fickle epicurean fancy that all
pronounced these delicious bivalves the finest in the world, for,
certainly, never before or since have we partaken of them with such rare
relish and absolute gusto.