demolished an accusation or successfully rebutted the insolence of the
chairman. Dr. Follen was again stopped, as he was showing that mobs had
been the invariable consequence of censures of abolitionism passed by
public meetings in the absence of gag-laws. He was desired to hold his
tongue, or to be respectful to the committee; to which he replied, in
his gentlest and most musical voice, "Am I, then, to understand that, in
speaking ill of mobs, I am disrespectful to the committee?" The chairman
looked foolish enough during the applauses which followed this question.
Dr. Follen fought his ground inch by inch, and got out all he had to
say. The conduct of the chairman became at last so insufferable, that
several spectators attempted a remonstrance. A merchant was silenced; a
physician was listened to, his speech being seasoned with wit so
irresistible as to put all parties into good-humour.
The loudly-expressed opinion of the spectators as they dispersed was,
that the chairman had ruined his political career, and, probably, filled
the chair of a committee of the legislature for the last time. The
result of the affair was that the report of the committee "spoke
disrespectfully" of the exertions of the abolitionists, but rejected the
suggestion of penal laws being passed to control their operations. The
letters from the South therefore remained unanswered.
The abolitionists held a consultation whether they should complain to
the legislature of the treatment their statements had received, and of
the impediments thrown in the way of their self-justification. They
decided to let the matter rest, trusting that there were witnesses
enough of their case to enlighten the public mind on their position. A
member of the legislature declared in his place what he had seen of the
treatment of the appellants by the chairman, and proposed that the
committee should be censured. As the aggrieved persons made no formal
complaint, however, the matter was dropped. But the faith of the
abolitionists was justified. The people were enlightened as to their
position; and in the next election they returned a set of
representatives, one of whose earliest acts was to pass a series of
anti-slavery resolutions by a majority of 378 to 16.
These were a few of the signs of the times in Massachusetts when I was
there. They proved that, while the aristocracy of the great cities were
not to be trusted to maintain the great principles on which their
society was based, the body of the people were sound.
HOT AND COLD WEATHER.
"Weigh me the fire; or canst thou find
A way to measure out the wind;
Show me that world of stars, and whence
They noiseless spill their influence!
This if thou canst."
HERRICK.
"Sic vita."
I believe no one attempts to praise the climate of New-England. The very
low average of health there, the prevalence of consumption and of decay
of the teeth, are evidences of an unwholesome climate which I believe
are universally received as such. The mortality among children
throughout the whole country is a dark feature of life in the United
States. I do not know whether any investigation has been made into the
numbers who die in infancy; but there can be no mistake in assuming that
it is much greater than among the classes in Europe who are in a
situation of equal external comfort. It was afflicting to meet with
cases of bereavement which seem to leave few hopes or objects in life;
it is afflicting to review them now, as they rise up before my mind. One
acquaintance of mine had lost four out of six children; another five out
of seven; another six out of seven; another thirteen out of sixteen; and
one mourner tells me that a fatality seems to attend the females of his
family, for, out of eighteen, only one little granddaughter survives;
and most of this family died very young, and of different kinds of
disease. Never did I see so many wo-worn mothers as in America. Wherever
we went in the North, we heard of "the lung fever" as of a common
complaint, and children seemed to be as liable to it as grown persons.
The climate is doubtless chiefly to blame for all this, and I do not
see how any degree of care could obviate much of the evil. The children
must be kept warm within doors; and the only way of affording them the
range of the house is by warming the whole, from the cellar to the
garret, by means of a furnace in the hall. This makes all comfortable
within; but, then, the risk of going out is very great. There is far
less fog and damp than in England, and the perfectly calm, sunny days of
midwinter are endurable; but the least breath of wind seems to chill
one's very life. I had no idea what the suffering from extreme cold
amounted to till one day, in Boston, I walked the length of the city and
back again in a wind, with the thermometer seven degrees and a half
below zero. I had been warned of the cold, but was anxious to keep an
appointment to attend a meeting. We put on all the merinoes and furs we
could muster; but we were insensible of them from the moment the wind
reached us. My muff seemed to be made of ice; I almost fancied I should
have been warmer without it. We managed getting to the meeting pretty
well, the stock of warmth we had brought out with us lasting till then.
But we set out cold on our return; and, by the time I got home, I did
not very well know where I was and what I was about. The stupefaction
from cold is particularly disagreeable, the sense of pain remaining
through it; and I determined not to expose myself to it again. All this
must be dangerous to children; and if, to avoid it, they are shut up
during the winter, there remains the danger of encountering the ungenial
spring.
It is a wretched climate. The old lines would run in my head,
"And feel, by turns, the bitter change
Of fierce extremes, extremes by change more fierce:
From beds of raging fire to starve in ice
Their soft ethereal warmth, and there to pine
Immoveable, infixed, and frozen round,
Periods of time, thence hurried back to fire."
The fiery part of the trial, however, I did not much mind; for, after
the first week of languor, I enjoyed the heat, except for the perpetual
evidence that was before us of the mischief or fatality of its effects
to persons who could not sit in the shade, and take it quietly, as we
could. There were frequent instances of death in the streets, and the
working-people suffer cruelly in the hot months. But the cold is a real
evil to all classes, and, I think, much the most serious of the two. I
found the second winter more trying than the first, and I hardly know
how I should have sustained a third.
Every season, however, has its peculiar pleasures; and in the retrospect
these shine out brightly, while the evils disappear.
On a December morning you are awakened by the domestic scraping at your
hearth. Your anthracite fire has been in all night; and now the ashes
are carried away, more coal is put on, and the blower hides the kindly
red from you for a time. In half an hour the fire is intense, though, at
the other end of the room, everything you touch seems to blister your
fingers with cold. If you happen to turn up a corner of the carpet with
your foot, it gives out a flash; and your hair crackles as you brush it.
Breakfast is always hot, be the weather what it may. The coffee is
scalding, and the buckwheat cakes steam when the cover is taken off.
Your host's little boy asks whether he may go coasting to-day, and his
sisters tell you what day the schools will all go sleighing. You may see
boys coasting on Boston Common all the winter day through; and too many
in the streets, where it is not so safe. To coast is to ride on a board
down a frozen slope; and many children do this in the steep streets
which lead down to the Common, as well as on the snowy slopes within the
enclosure where no carriages go. Some sit on their heels on the board,
some on their crossed legs. Some strike their legs out, put their arms
a-kimbo, and so assume an air of defiance amid their velocity. Others
prefer lying on their stomachs, and so going headforemost; an attitude
whose comfort I never could enter into. Coasting is a wholesome exercise
for hardy boys. Of course they have to walk up the ascent, carrying
their boards between every feat of coasting; and this affords them more
exercise than they are at all aware of taking.
As for the sleighing, I heard much more than I experienced of its
charms. No doubt early association has something to do with the American
fondness for this mode of locomotion; and much of the affection which is
borne to music, dancing, supping, and all kinds of frolic, is
transferred to the vehicle in which the frolicking parties are
transported. It must be so, I think, or no one would be found to prefer
a carriage on runners to a carriage on wheels, except on an untrodden
expanse of snow. On a perfectly level and crisp surface I can fancy the
smooth rapid motion to be exceedingly pleasant; but such surfaces are
rare in the neighbourhood of populous cities. The uncertain, rough
motion in streets hillocky with snow, or on roads consisting for the
season of a ridge of snow with holes in it, is disagreeable, and
provocative of headache. I am no rule for others as to liking the bells;
but to me their incessant jangle was a great annoyance. Add to this the
sitting, without exercise, in a wind caused by the rapidity of the
motion, and the list of _désagrémens_ is complete. I do not know the
author of a description of sleighing which was quoted to me, but I
admire it for its fidelity. "Do you want to know what sleighing is like?
You can soon try. Set your chair on a springboard out in the porch on
Christmas day; put your feet in a pailful of powdered ice; have somebody
to jingle a bell in one ear, and somebody else to blow into the other
with the bellows, and you will have an exact idea of sleighing."
I was surprised to find that young people whose health is too delicate
to allow them to do many simple things, are not too delicate to go out
sleighing in an open sleigh. They put hot bricks under their feet, and
wrap up in furs; but the face remains exposed, and the breathing the
frosty air of a winter's night, after dancing, may be easily conceived
to be the cause of much of the "lung fever" of which the stranger hears.
The gayest sleighing that I saw was on the day when all the schools in
Boston have a holyday, and the pupils go abroad in a long procession of
sleighs. The multitude of happy young faces, though pinched with cold,
was a pretty sight.
If the morning be fine, you have calls to make, or shopping to do, or
some meeting to attend. If the streets be coated with ice, you put on
your India-rubber shoes--unsoled--to guard you from slipping. If not,
you are pretty sure to measure your length on the pavement before your
own door. Some of the handsomest houses in Boston, those which boast the
finest flights of steps, have planks laid on the steps during the season
of frost, the wood being less slippery than stone. If, as sometimes
happens, a warm wind should be suddenly breathing over the snow, you go
back to change your shoes, India-rubbers being as slippery in wet as
leather soles are on ice. Nothing is seen in England like the streets of
Boston and New-York at the end of the season while the thaw is
proceeding. The area of the street had been so raised that passengers
could look over the blinds of your ground-floor rooms; when the
sidewalks become full of holes and puddles, they are cleared, and the
passengers are reduced to their proper level; but the middle of the
street remains exalted, and the carriages drive along a ridge. Of
course, this soon becomes too dangerous, and for a season ladies and
gentlemen walk; carts tumble, slip, and slide, and get on as they can;
while the mass, now dirty, not only with thaw, but with quantities of
refuse vegetables, sweepings of the poor people's houses, and other
rubbish which it was difficult to know what to do with while every place
was frozen up, daily sinks and dissolves into a composite mud. It was in
New-York and some of the inferior streets of Boston that I saw this
process in its completeness.
If the morning drives are extended beyond the city, there is much to
delight the eye. The trees are cased in ice; and when the sun shines out
suddenly, the whole scene looks like one diffused rainbow, dressed in a
brilliancy which can hardly be conceived of in England. On days less
bright, the blue harbour spreads in strong contrast with the sheeted
snow which extends to its very brink.
The winter evenings begin joyously with the festival of Thanksgiving
Day, which is, if I remember rightly, held on the first Thursday of
December. The festival is ordered by proclamation of the governor of the
state, which proclamation is read in all the churches. The Boston
friends with whom we had ascended the Mississippi, and travelled in
Tennessee and Kentucky, did not forget that we were strangers in the
land; and many weeks before Thanksgiving Day they invited us to join
their family gathering on that great annual festival. We went to church
in the morning, and listened to the thanksgiving for the mercies of the
year, and to an exemplification of the truth that national prosperity is
of value only as it is sanctified to individual progression; an
important doctrine, well enforced. This is the occasion chosen by the
boldest of the clergy to say what they think of the faults of the
nation, and particularly to reprobate apathy on the slavery question.
There are few who dare do this, though it seems to be understood that
this is an occasion on which "particular preaching" may go a greater
length than on common Sundays. Yet a circumstance happened in New-York
on this very day which shows that the clergy have, at least in some
places, a very short tether, even on Thanksgiving Day. An Episcopalian
clergyman from England, named Pyne, who had been some years settled in
America, preached a thanksgiving sermon, in which he made a brief and
moderate, even commonplace allusion to the toleration of slavery among
other national sins. For some weeks he heard only the distant mutterings
of the storm which was about to burst upon him; but within three months
he was not only dismissed from his office, but compelled to leave the
country, though he had settled his family from England beside him. He
was anxious to obey the wishes of his friends, and print verbatim the
sermon which had caused his ruin; but no printer would print, and no
publisher would agree to sell his sermon. At length he found a printer
who promised to print it on condition of his name being kept secret; and
the sermon was dispersed without the aid of a publisher. Mr. Pyne sailed
for England on the following 1st of April; as it happened, in the same
ship with Mr. Breckinridge, the Presbyterian clergyman who put himself
into unsuccessful opposition to Mr. Thompson, at a public discussion at
Glasgow last year. The voyage was not a pleasant one, as might be
supposed, to either clergyman. Nothing could be more mal-à-propos than
that one who came over with a defence in his mouth of the conduct of the
American clergy on the slavery question should be shut up for three
weeks with a clergyman banished for opening his lips on the subject.
After service Dr. Channing took us to Persico's studio, where the new
bust of Dr. Channing stood; and one, scarcely less excellent, of
Governor Everett. We then spent an hour at Dr. Channing's, and he gave
me his book on slavery, which was to be published two days afterward. I
was obliged to leave it unread till the festivities of the day were
over; but that night and two succeeding ones I read it completely
through before I slept. It is impossible to communicate an idea of the
importance and interest of that book at the time it was published. I
heard soon afterward that there was difficulty in procuring it at
Washington, partly from the timidity of the booksellers, it having been
called in Congress "an incendiary book." It was let out at a high price
per hour. Of course, as soon as this was understood at Boston, supplies
were sent otherwise than through the booksellers, so that members of
Congress were no longer obliged to quote the book merely from the
extracts contained in the miserable reply to it which was extensively
circulated in the metropolis.
This book was in my head all the rest of the day, from whose observances
all dark subjects seemed banished. At three o'clock a family party of
about thirty were assembled round two wellspread tables. There was only
one drawback, that five of the children were absent, being ill of the
measles. There was much merriment among us grown people at the
long-table; but the bursts of laughter from the children's side-table,
where a kind aunt presided, were incessant. After dinner we played
hunt-the-slipper with the children, while the gentlemen were at their
wine; and then went to spend an hour with a poor boy in the measles, who
was within hearing of the mirth, but unable to leave his easy-chair.
When we had made him laugh as much as was good for him with some of our
most ludicrous English Christmas games, we went down to communicate more
of this curious kind of learning in the drawing-rooms. There we
introduced a set of games quite new to the company; and it was
delightful to see with what spirit and wit they were entered into and
carried on. Dumb Crambo was made to yield its ultimate rhymes, and the
storytelling in Old Coach was of the richest. When we were all quite
tired with laughing, the children began to go away; some fresh visiters
dropped in from other houses, and music and supper followed. We got home
by eleven o'clock, very favourably impressed with the institution of
Thanksgiving Day. I love to dwell upon it now, for a new interest hangs
over that festival. The friend by whose thoughtfulness we were admitted
to this family gathering, and in whose companionship we went--the
beloved of every heart there, the sweetest, the sprightliest of the
party--will be among them no more.
Christmas evening was very differently passed, but in a way to me even
more interesting. We were in a country village, Hingham, near the shores
of Massachusetts Bay, and were staying in the house of the pastor, our
clerical shipmate. The weather was bad, in the early part of the day
extremely so; and the attendance at the church was therefore not large,
and no one came to dinner. The church was dressed up with evergreens in
great quantity, and arranged with much taste. The organist had composed
a new anthem, which was well sung by the young men and women of the
congregation. At home the rooms were prettily dressed with green, and
an ample supply of lights was provided against the evening. Soon after
dinner some little girls arrived to play with the children of the house,
and we resumed the teaching of English Christmas games. The little
things were tired, and went away early enough to leave us a quiet hour
before the doors were thrown open to "the parish," whose custom it is to
flock to the pastor's house, to exchange greetings with him on Christmas
night. What I saw makes me think this a delightful custom. There is no
expensive or laborious preparation for their reception. The rooms are
well lighted, and cake and lemonade are provided, and this is all.
The pastor and his wife received their guests as they came in, and then
all moved on to offer the greetings of the season to me. Many remained
to talk with me, to my great delight. There was the schoolmaster, with
his daughters. There was Farmer B., who has a hobby. This place was
colonized by English from Hingham in Norfolk, and Farmer B.'s ancestors
were among them. He has a passion for hearing about Old Hingham, and, by
dint of questioning every stranger, and making use of all kinds of
opportunity, he has learned far more than I ever knew about the old
place. His hopes rose high when he found I was a native of Norfolk; but
I was obliged to depress them again by confessing how little I could
tell of the old place, within a few miles of which my early years were
spent. I was able to give him some trifling fact, however, about the
direction in which the road winds, and for this he expressed fervent
gratitude. I was afterward told that he is apt to drive his oxen into
the ditch, and to lose a sheep or two when his head is running on "the
old place." I have not yet succeeded in my attempts to obtain a sketch
of Old Hingham to send over to Farmer B.; but I wish I could, for I
believe it would please him more than the bequest of a fortune.
Then came Captain L. with his five fine daughters. He looked too old to
be their father, and well he might. When master of a vessel he was set
ashore by pirates, with his crew, on a desert island, where he was
thirty-six days without food. Almost all his crew were dead, and he just
dying, when help arrived, by means of freemasonry. Among the pirates was
a Scotchman, a mason, as was Captain L. The two exchanged signs. The
Scotchman could not give aid at the moment; but, after many days of
fruitless and anxious attempts, he contrived to sail back, at the risk
of his life, and landed on the desert island on the thirty-sixth day
from his leaving it. He had no expectation of finding any of the party
alive; but, to take the chance and lose no time, he jumped ashore with a
kettleful of wine in his hand. He poured wine down the throats of the
few whom he found still breathing, and treated them so judiciously that
they recovered. At least it was called recovery; but Captain L.'s looks
are very haggard and nervous still. He took the Scotchman home, and
cherished him to the day of his death.
Then there was an excellent woman, the general benefactress of the
village, who is always ready to nurse the sick and help the afflicted,
and to be of eminent service in another way to her young neighbours. She
assembles them in the evenings once or twice a week, and reads with them
and to them; and thus the young women of the village are obtaining a
knowledge of Italian and French, as well as English literature, which
would have been unattainable without her help. The daughters of the
fishermen, bucket and netmakers, and farmers of Hingham, are far more
accomplished than many a highbred young lady in England and New-York.
Such a village population is one of the true glories of America. Many
such girls were at their pastor's this evening, dressed in silk gowns of
the latest make, with rich French pelerines, and their well-arranged
hair bound with coloured riband; as pretty a set of girls as could be
collected anywhere.
When it appeared that the rooms were beginning to thin, the organist
called the young people round him, and they sang the new Christmas
anthem extremely well. Finally, a Christmas hymn was sung by all to the
tune of Old Hundred; the pastor and his people exchanged the blessing of
the season, and in a few minutes the house was cleared.
About this scene also hangs a tender and mournful interest. Our hostess
was evidently unwell at this time; I feared seriously so; and I was not
mistaken. She was one of the noblest women I have ever known, with a
mind large in its reach, rich in its cultivation, and strong in its
independence; yet never was there a spirit more yearning in its
tenderness, more gay in its innocence. Just a year after this time she
wrote me tidings of her approaching death, cheerfully intimating the
probability that she might live to hear from me once more. My letter
arrived just as she was laid in her coffin. Her interest in the great
objects of humanity, to which she had dedicated her best days, never
failed. Her mind was active about them to the last. She was never
deceived, as the victims of consumption usually are, about her state of
health and chance of life, but saw her case as others saw it, only with
far more contentment and cheerfulness. She left bright messages of love
for all of us who knew what was in her mind, with an animating bidding
to go on with our several works. Nothing could be more simple than the
state of her mind and the expression of it, proving that she so knew how
to live as to find nothing strange in dying.