of the German Christmas-tree. My little friend Charley and three
companions had been long preparing for this pretty show. The cook had
broken her eggs carefully in the middle for some weeks past, that
Charley might have the shells for cups; and these cups were gilded and
coloured very prettily. I rather think it was, generally speaking, a
secret out of the house; but I knew what to expect. It was a Newyear's
tree, however; for I could not go on Christmas-eve, and it was kindly
settled that Newyear's-eve would do as well. We were sent for before
dinner, and we took up two round-faced boys by the way. Early as it was,
we were all so busy that we could scarcely spare a respectful attention
to our plum-pudding. It was desirable that our preparations should be
completed before the little folks should begin to arrive; and we were
all engaged in sticking on the last of the seven dozen of wax-tapers,
and in filling the gilded egg-cups and gay paper cornucopiæ with
comfits, lozenges, and barley-sugar. The tree was the top of a young
fir, planted in a tub, which was ornamented with moss. Smart dolls and
other whimsies glittered in the evergreen, and there was not a twig
which had not something sparkling upon it. When the sound of wheels was
heard, we had just finished; and we shut up the tree by itself in the
front drawing-room, while we went into the other, trying to look as if
nothing was going to happen. Charley looked a good deal like himself,
only now and then twisting himself about in an unaccountable fit of
giggling. It was a very large party; for, besides the tribes of
children, there were papas and mammas, uncles, aunts, and elder
sisters. When all were come we shut out the cold; the great fire burned
clearly; the tea and coffee were as hot as possible, and the cheeks of
the little ones grew rosier and their eyes brighter every moment. It had
been settled that, in order to cover our designs, I was to resume my
vocation of teaching Christmas games after tea, while Charley's mother
and her maids went to light up the front room. So all found seats, many
of the children on the floor, for Old Coach. It was difficult to divide
even an American stagecoach into parts enough for every member of such a
party to represent one; but we managed it without allowing any of the
elderly folks to sit out. The grand fun of all was to make the clergyman
and an aunt or two get up and spin round. When they were fairly
practised in the game, I turned over my story to a neighbour, and got
away to help to light up the tree.
It really looked beautiful; the room seemed in a blaze, and the
ornaments were so well hung on that no accident happened, except that
one doll's petticoat caught fire. There was a sponge tied to the end of
a stick to put out any supernumerary blaze, and no harm ensued. I
mounted the steps behind the tree to see the effect of opening the
doors. It was delightful. The children poured in, but in a moment every
voice was hushed. Their faces were upturned to the blaze, all eyes wide
open, all lips parted, all steps arrested. Nobody spoke, only Charley
leaped for joy. The first symptom of recovery was the children's
wandering round the tree. At last a quick pair of eyes discovered that
it bore something eatable, and from that moment the babble began again.
They were told that they might get what they could without burning
themselves; and we tall people kept watch, and helped them with good
things from the higher branches. When all had had enough, we returned to
the larger room, and finished the evening with dancing. By ten o'clock
all were well warmed for the ride home with steaming mulled wine, and
the prosperous evening closed with shouts of mirth. By a little after
eleven Charley's father and mother and I were left by ourselves to sit
in the Newyear. I have little doubt the Christmas-tree will become one
of the most flourishing exotics of New-England.
The skysights of the colder regions of the United States are resplendent
in winter. I saw more of the aurora borealis, more falling stars and
other meteors during my stay in New-England than in the whole course of
my life before. Every one knows that splendid and mysterious exhibitions
have taken place in all the Novembers of the last four years, furnishing
interest and business to the astronomical world. The most remarkable
exhibitions were in the Novembers of 1833 and 1835, the last of which I
saw.
The persons who saw the falling stars of the 14th of November, 1833,
were few; but the sight was described to me by more than one. It was
seen chiefly by masters of steamboats, watchmen, and sick nurses. The
little children of a friend of mine, who happened to sleep with their
heads near a window, surprised their father in the morning with the
question what all those sparks were that had been flying about in the
night. Several country people, on their way to early market, saw the
last of the shower. It is said that some left their carts and kneeled in
the road, thinking that the end of the world was come; a very natural
persuasion, for the spectacle must have been much like the heavens
falling to pieces. About nine o'clock in the evening several persons
observed that there was an unusual number of falling stars, and went
home thinking no more about it. Others were surprised at the increase by
eleven, but went to rest notwithstanding. Those who were up at four saw
the grandest sight. There were then three kinds of lights in the heaven
besides the usual array of stars. There were shooting points of light,
all directed from one centre to the circuit of the horizon, much
resembling a thick shower of luminous snow. There were luminous bodies
which hung dimly in the air; and there were falling fireballs, some of
which burst, while others went out of sight. These were the meteors
which were taken by the ignorant for the real stars falling from the
sky. One was seen apparently larger than the full moon, and they shed so
bright a light that the smallest objects became distinctly visible. One
luminous body was like a serpent coiling itself up; another "like a
square table;" another like a pruning-hook. Those which burst left
trains of light behind them, some tinged with the prismatic colours. The
preceding day had been uncommonly warm for the season; but, before
morning, the frost was of an intensity very rare for the month of
November. The temperature of the whole season was unusual. Throughout
November and December it was so warm about the northern lakes that the
Indians were making maple sugar at Mackinaw, while the orange-trees were
cut off by the frost in Louisiana. A tremendous succession of gales at
the same time set in along the eastern coast. Those may explain these
mysteries who can.
It is exceedingly easy to laugh at men who, created to look before and
after, walking erect, with form "express and admirable" under the broad
canopy of heaven, yet contrive to miss the sights which are hung out in
the sky; but which of us does not deserve to be thus laughed at? How
many nights in the year do we look up into the heavens? How many
individuals of a civilized country see the stars on any one night of the
year? Some of my friends and I had a lesson on this during the last
April I spent in America. I was staying at a house in the upper part of
New-York. My host and hostess had three guests at dinner that day--three
persons sufficiently remarkable for knowing how to use their eyes--Miss
Sedgwick, Mr. Bryant, and the author of the Palmyra Letters. During
dinner we amused ourselves with pitying some persons who had actually
walked abroad on the night of the last 17th of November without seeing
the display. Our three friends walked homeward together, two miles down
Broadway, and did exactly the same thing; failed to look up while an
aurora borealis, worthy of November, was illuminating the heavens. We at
home failed to look out, and missed it too. The next time we all met we
agreed to laugh at ourselves before we bestowed any more of our pity
upon others.
On the 17th of November in question, that of 1835, I was staying in the
house of one of the professors of Harvard University at Cambridge. The
professor and his son John came in from a lecture at nine o'clock, and
told us that it was nearly as light as day, though there was no moon.
The sky presented as yet no remarkable appearance, but the fact set us
telling stories of skysights. A venerable professor told us of a
blood-red heaven which shone down on a night of the year 1789, when an
old lady interpreted the whole French revolution from what she saw. None
of us had any call to prophesying this night. John looked out from time
to time while we were about the piano, but our singing had come to a
conclusion before he brought us news of a very strange sky. It was now
near eleven. We put cloaks and shawls over our heads, and hurried into
the garden. It was a mild night, and about as light as with half a
moon. There was a beautiful rose-coloured flush across the entire
heaven, from southeast to northwest. This was every moment brightening,
contracting in length, and dilating in breadth. My host ran off without
his hat to call the Natural Philosophy professor. On the way he passed a
gentleman who was trudging along, pondering the ground. "A remarkable
night, sir," cried my host. "Sir! how, sir?" replied the pedestrian.
"Why, look above your head!" The startled walker ran back to the house
he had left to make everybody gaze. There was some debate about ringing
the college-bell, but it was agreed that it would cause too much alarm.
The Natural Philosophy professor came forth in curious trim, and his
household and ours joined in the road. One lady was in her nightcap;
another with a handkerchief tied over her head, while we were cowled in
cloaks. The sky was now resplendent. It was like a blood-red dome, a
good deal pointed. Streams of a greenish white light radiated from the
centre in all directions. The colours were so deep, especially the red,
as to give an opaque appearance to the canopy; and as Orion and the
Pleiades, and many more stars could be distinctly seen, the whole looked
like a vast dome inlaid with constellations. These skysights make one
shiver, so new are they, so splendid, so mysterious. We saw the heavens
grow pale, and before midnight believed that the mighty show was over;
but we had the mortification of hearing afterward, that at one o'clock
it was brighter than ever, and as light as day.
Such are some of the wintry characteristics of New-England.
If I lived in Massachusetts, my residence during the hot months should
be beside one of its ponds. These ponds are a peculiarity in New-England
scenery very striking to the traveller. Geologists tell of the time when
the valleys were chains of lakes; and in many parts the eye of the
observer would detect this without the aid of science. There are many
fields and clusters of fields of remarkable fertility, lying in basins,
the sides of which have much the appearance of the greener and smoother
of the dikes of Holland. These suggest the idea of their having been
ponds at the first glance. Many remain filled with clear water, the
prettiest meres in the world. A cottage on Jamaica Pond, for instance,
within an easy ride of Boston, is a luxurious summer abode. I know of
one unequalled in its attractions, with its flower-garden, its lawn,
with banks shelving down to the mere; banks dark with rustling pines,
from under whose shade the bright track of the moon may be seen, lying
cool on the rippling waters. A boat is moored in the cove at hand. The
cottage itself is built for coolness, and its broad piazza is draperied
with vines, which keep out the sun from the shaded parlours.
The way to make the most of a summer's day in a place like this is to
rise at four, mount your horse, and ride through the lanes for two
hours, finding breakfast ready on your return. If you do not ride, you
slip down to the bathing-house on the creek; and, once having closed the
door, have the shallow water completely to yourself, carefully avoiding
going beyond the deep water-mark, where no one knows how deep the mere
may be. After breakfast you should dress your flowers, before those you
gather have quite lost the morning dew. The business of the day, be it
what it may, housekeeping, study, teaching, authorship, or charity, will
occupy you till dinner at two. You have your dessert carried into the
piazza, where, catching glimpses of the mere through the wood on the
banks, your watermelon tastes cooler than within, and you have a better
chance of a visit from a pair of humming-birds. You retire to your room,
all shaded with green blinds, lie down with a book in your hand, and
sleep soundly for two hours at least. When you wake and look out, the
shadows are lengthening on the lawn, and the hot haze has melted away.
You hear a carriage behind the fence, and conclude that friends from the
city are coming to spend the evening with you. They sit within till
after tea, telling you that you are living in the sweetest place in the
world. When the sun sets you all walk out, dispersing in the shrubbery
or on the banks. When the moon shows herself above the opposite woods,
the merry voices of the young people are heard from the cove, where the
boys are getting out the boat. You stand, with a companion or two, under
the pines, watching the progress of the skiff, and the receding splash
of the oars. If you have any one, as I had, to sing German popular songs
to you, the enchantment is all the greater. You are capriciously lighted
home by fireflies, and there is your table covered with fruit and iced
lemonade. When your friends have left you you would fain forget it is
time to rest; and your last act before you sleep is to look out once
more from your balcony upon the silvery mere and moonlit lawn.
The only times when I felt disposed to quarrel with the inexhaustible
American mirth was on the hottest days of summer. I liked it as well as
ever; but European strength will not stand more than an hour or two of
laughter in such seasons. I remember one day when the American part of
the company was as much exhausted as the English. We had gone, a party
of six, to spend a long day with a merry household in a country village;
and, to avoid the heat, had performed the journey of sixteen miles
before ten o'clock. For three hours after our arrival the wit was in
full flow; by which time we were all begging for mercy, for we could
laugh no longer with any safety. Still, a little more fun was dropped
all round, till we found that the only way was to separate, and we all
turned out of doors. I cannot conceive how it is that so little has been
heard in England of the mirth of the Americans; for certainly nothing in
their manners struck and pleased me more. One of the rarest characters
among them, and a great treasure to all his sportive neighbours, is a
man who cannot take a joke.
The prettiest playthings of summer are the humming-birds. I call them
playthings because they are easily tamed, and are not very difficult to
take care of for a time. It is impossible to attend to book, work, or
conversation while there is a humming-bird in sight, its exercises and
vagaries are so rapid and beautiful. Its prettiest attitude is vibrating
before a blossom which is tossed in the wind. Its long beak is inserted
in the flower, and the bird rises and falls with it, quivering its
burnished wings with dazzling rapidity. My friend E. told me how she had
succeeded in taming a pair. One flew into the parlour where she was
sitting, and perched. E.'s sister stepped out for a branch of
honeysuckle, which she stuck up over the mirror. The other bird
followed, and the pair alighted on the branch, flew off, and returned to
it. E. procured another branch, and held it on the top of her head; and
hither also the little creatures came without fear. She next held it in
her hand, and still they hovered and settled. They bore being shut in
for the night, a nest of cotton-wool being provided. Of course it was
impossible to furnish them with honeysuckles enough for food; and sugar
and water was tried, which they seemed to relish very well. One day,
however, when E. was out of the room, one of the little creatures was
too greedy in the saucer; and, when E. returned, she found it lying on
its side, with its wings stuck to its body, and its whole little person
clammy with sugar. E. tried a sponge and warm water; it was too harsh:
she tried old linen, but it was not soft enough: it then occurred to her
that the softest of all substances is the human tongue. In her love for
her little companion, she thus cleansed it, and succeeded perfectly, so
far as the outward bird was concerned. But though it attempted to fly a
little, it never recovered, but soon died of its surfeit. Its mate was,
of course, allowed to fly away.
Some Boston friends of mine, a clergyman and his wife, told me of a
pleasant summer adventure which they had, quite against their will. The
lady had been duly inoculated or vaccinated (I forget which) in her
childhood, but nevertheless had the smallpox in a way after her
marriage. She was slightly feverish, and a single spot appeared on her
hand. The physician declared "that is _it_," and, as good citizens are
bound to do, they gave information of this fearful smallpox to the
authorities. The lady and her husband were ordered into quarantine; the
city coach came for them, and they were transported to the wharf, and
then to the little quarantine island in the harbour, where they spent a
particularly pleasant week. My friend was getting well when she went,
and she was quite able to enjoy the charms of her new residence. Her
husband read to her in the piazza as she worked; he bathed, and was
spared a Sunday's preaching; she looked abroad over the sea, and laughed
as often as she imagined what their friends supposed their situation to
be. They had the establishment all to themselves, except that there was
a tidy Scotchwoman to wait on them. Was ever quarantine so performed
before?
The reader may think, at the end of this chapter, that there is
something far more pleasant than worthy of complaint in the extremes of
the seasons in the United States. It would be so if health were not
endangered by them; but the incessant regard to the physical welfare
which prudence requires is a great drawback to ease and pleasure; and
the failure of health, which is pretty sure to come, sooner or later, is
a much worse. In my own opinion, the dullest climate and scenery may be
turned to more pleasurable account by vigour of body and mind, than all
the privileges of American variety and beauty by languid powers. All
that the people of New-England can do is to make the best of their case.
Those who are blessed with health should use every reasonable endeavour
to keep it; and it may be hoped that an improved settlement and
cultivation of the country will carry on that amelioration of its
climate which many of its inhabitants are assured has already begun.
ORIGINALS.
"The ideal is in thyself; thy condition is but the stuff thou art
to shape that same ideal out of. What matters whether such stuff be
of this sort or of that, so the form thou give it be heroic, be
poetic."
--_Sartor Resartus._
Every state of society has, happily, its originals; men and women who,
in more or fewer respects, think, speak, and act, naturally and
unconsciously, in a different way from the generality of men. There are
several causes from which this originality may arise, particularly in a
young community less gregarious than those of the civilized countries of
the Old World.
The commonest of these causes in a society like that of the United
States is, perhaps, the absence of influences to which almost all other
persons are subject. The common pressure being absent in some one
direction, the being grows out in that direction, and the mind and
character exhibit more or less deformity to the eyes of all but the
individual most concerned. The back States afford a full harvest of
originals of this class; while in England, where it is scarcely possible
to live out of society, such are rarely to be found.
Social and professional eccentricity comes next. When local and
professional influences are inadequately balanced by general ones, a
singularity of character is produced, which is not so agreeable as it is
striking and amusing. Of this class of characters few examples are to be
seen at home; but, instead of them, something much worse, which is
equally rare in America. In England we have confessors to tastes and
pursuits, and martyrs to passions and vices, which arise out of a highly
artificial state of society. In England we have a smaller proportion of
grave, innocent, professional buffoons; but in America there are few or
no fashionable ingrained profligates, few or no misers.
In its possession of a third higher class, it is reasonable and
delightful to hope that there is no superiority in the society of any
one civilized country over that of any other. Of men and women who have
intellectual power to modify the general influences to which, like
others, they are subject, every nation has its share. In every country
there have been beings who have put forth more or less of the godlike
power involved in their humanity, whereby they can stem the current of
circumstance, deliberately form the purpose of their life, and prosecute
it, happen what may. The number is not large anywhere, but the species
is nowhere unknown.
A yet smaller class of yet nobler originals remains; those who, with the
independent power of the last mentioned, are stimulated by strong
pressure of circumstance to put forth their whole force, and form and
achieve purposes in which not only their own life, but the destiny of
others, is included. Such, being the prophets and redeemers of their age
and country, rise up when and where they are wanted. The deed being ripe
for the doing, the doer appears. The field being white for harvest, the
reaper shows himself at the gate, whether the song of fellow-reapers
cheers his heart, or lions are growling in his solitary path.
Many English persons have made up their minds that there is very little
originality in America, except in regions where such men as David
Crockett grow up. In the wilds of Tennessee and Kentucky twenty years
ago, and now in Arkansas and Missouri, where bear-hunting and the
buffalo chase are still in full career, it is acknowledged that a man's
natural bent may be seen to advantage, and his original force must be
fully tested. But it is asked, with regard to America, whether there is
not much less than the average amount of originality of character to be
found in the places where men operate upon one another. It is certain
that there is an intense curiosity in Americans about English oddities;
and a prevailing belief among themselves that England is far richer in
humorists than the United States. It is also true that the fickleness
and impressibleness of the Americans (particularly of the
New-Englanders) about systems of science, philosophy, and morals, exceed
anything ever seen or heard of in the sober old country; but all this
can prove only that the nation and its large divisions are not original
in character, and not that individuals of that character are wanting.
It should be remembered that one great use of a metropolis, if not the
greatest, is to test everything for the benefit of the whole of the rest
of the country. The country may, according to circumstances, be more or
less ready to avail itself of the benefit; but the benefit exists and
waits for acceptance. Now the Americans have no metropolis. Their cities
are all provincial towns. It may be, in their circumstances, politically
good that they should have the smallest possible amount of
centralization; but the want of this centralization is injurious to
their scientific and philosophical progress and dignity, and, therefore,
to their national originality. A conjurer's trip through the English
counties is very like the progress of a lecturer or newly-imported
philosopher through the American cities. The wonder, the excitement, the
unbounded credulity are much alike in the two cases; but in the English
village there may be an old man under the elm smiling good-naturedly at
the show without following after it; or a sage young man who could tell
how the puppets are moved as well as if he saw the wires. And so it is
in the American cities. The crowd is large, but everybody is not in it;
the believers are many, but there are some who foresee how soon the
belief will take a new turn.