for the winter. I had resolved some time before, that, having heard
every species of abuse of Garrison, I ought in fairness to see him. The
relation of the above particulars quickened my purpose, and I mentioned
my wish to the relator, who engaged that we should meet, mentioning that
he supposed I was aware what I should encounter by acknowledging a wish
to see Garrison. I was staying at the house of a clergyman in Boston,
when a note was brought in which told me that Mr. Garrison was in town,
and would meet me at any hour, at any friend's house, the next day. My
host arrived at a knowledge of the contents of the note quite against my
will, and kindly insisted that Mr. Garrison should call on me at home.
At ten o'clock he came, accompanied by his introducer. His aspect put to
flight in an instant what prejudices his slanderers had raised in me. I
was wholly taken by surprise. It was a countenance glowing with health,
and wholly expressive of purity, animation, and gentleness. I did not
now wonder at the citizen who, seeing a print of Garrison at a shop
window without a name to it, went in and bought it, and framed it as the
most saintlike of countenances. The end of the story is, that when the
citizen found whose portrait he had been hanging up in his parlour, he
took the print out of the frame and huddled it away. Garrison has a good
deal of a Quaker air; and his speech is deliberate like a Quaker's, but
gentle as a woman's. The only thing that I did not like was his
excessive agitation when he came in, and his thanks to me for desiring
to meet one "so odious" as himself. I was, however, as I told him,
nearly as odious as himself at that time; so it was fit that we should
be acquainted. On mentioning afterward to his introducer my impression
of something like a want of manliness in Garrison's agitation, he
replied that I could not know what it was to be an object of insult and
hatred to the whole of society for a series of years; that Garrison
could bear what he met with from street to street, and from town to
town; but that a kind look and shake of the hand from a stranger
unmanned him for the moment. How little did the great man know our
feelings towards him on our meeting; how we, who had done next to
nothing, were looking up to him who is achieving the work of an age,
and, as a stimulus, that of a nation!
His conversation was more about peace principles than the great subject.
It was of the most practical cast. Every conversation I had with him
confirmed my opinion that sagacity is the most striking attribute of his
conversation. It has none of the severity, the harshness, the bad taste
of his writing; it is as gladsome as his countenance, and as gentle as
his voice. Through the whole of his deportment breathes the evidence of
a heart at ease; and this it is, I think, more than all his distinct
claims, which attaches his personal friends to him with an almost
idolatrous affection.
I do not pretend to like or to approve the tone of Garrison's printed
censures. I could not use such language myself towards any class of
offenders, nor can I sympathize in its use by others. But it is only
fair to mention that Garrison adopts it warily; and that I am persuaded
that he is elevated above passion, and has no unrighteous anger to vent
in harsh expressions. He considers his task to be the exposure of
fallacy, the denunciation of hypocrisy, and the rebuke of selfish
timidity. He is looked upon by those who defend him in this particular
as holding the branding-iron; and it seems true enough that no one
branded by Garrison ever recovers it. He gives his reasons for his
severity with a calmness, meekness, and softness which contrast strongly
with the subject of the discourse, and which convince the objector that
there is principle at the bottom of the practice. One day, when he was
expressing his pleasure at Dr. Channing having shaken hands with him the
preceding day, he spoke with affectionate respect of Dr. Channing. I
asked him who would have supposed he felt thus towards Dr. Channing,
after the language which had been used about him and his book in the
Liberator of the last week. His gentle reply was,
"The most difficult duty of an office like mine is to find fault with
those whom I love and honour most. I have been obliged to do it
about ---- ----, who is one of my best friends. He is clearly wrong in a
matter important to the cause, and I must expose it. In the same way,
Dr. Channing, while aiding our cause, has thought fit to say that the
abolitionists are fanatical; in other words, that we set up our wayward
wills in opposition to the will we profess to obey. I cannot suffer the
cause to be injured by letting this pass; but I do not the less value
Dr. Channing for the things he has done."
I was not yet satisfied of the necessity of so much severity as had been
used. Garrison bore with me with a meekness too touching to be ever
forgotten.
He never speaks of himself or his persecutions unless compelled, and his
child will never learn at home what a distinguished father he has. He
will know him as the tenderest of parents before he becomes aware that
he is a great hero. I found myself growing into a forgetfulness of the
deliverer of a race in the friend of the fireside. One day, in Michigan,
two friends (who happened to be abolitionists) and I were taking a drive
with the governor of the state, who was talking of some recent commotion
on the slavery question. "What is Garrison like?" said he. "Ask Miss
M.," said one smiling friend: "Ask Miss M.," said the other. I was asked
accordingly; and my answer was, that I thought Garrison the most
bewitching personage I had met in the United States. The impression
cannot but be strengthened by his being made such a bugbear as he is;
but the testimony of his personal friends, the closest watchers of his
life, may safely be appealed to as to the charms of his domestic
manners.
Garrison gayly promised me that he would come over whenever his work is
done in the United States, that we may keep jubilee in London. I believe
it would be safe to promise him a hundred thousand welcomes as warm as
mine.
LAKE GEORGE.
"Those now by me as they have been,
Shall never more be heard or seen;
But what I once enjoy'd in them,
Shall seem hereafter as a dream."
G. WITHER.
Everybody who has heard of American scenery has heard of Lake George. At
one time I was afraid I should have to leave the States without having
visited the lake which, of all others, I most desired to see, so many
hinderances had fallen in the way of my plans. A few weeks before I left
the country, however, I was fortunate enough to be included in a party
of four who made a trip to the Springs and the lake. It was not in the
fashionable season, and for this I was not sorry. I had seen the
Virginia Springs and Rock-away in the plenitude of their fashionable
glory, and two such exhibitions are enough for one continent.
It was about noon on the 12th of May when we alighted shivering from the
railcar at Saratoga. We hastened to the Adelphi, and there found the
author of Major Jack Downing's Letters and two other gentlemen reading
the newspapers round a stove. We had but little time to spare; and, as
soon as we had warmed ourselves and ascertained the dinner hour, we set
forth to view the place and taste the Congress water. There is nothing
to be seen but large white frame houses, with handsome piazzas,
festooned with creepers (at this time only the sapless remains of the
garlands of the last season). These houses and the wooden temple over
the principal spring are all that is to be seen, at least by the bodily
eye. The imagination may amuse itself with conjuring up the place as it
was less than half a century ago, when these springs bubbled up amid the
brush of the forest, their qualities being discovered by the path
through the woods worn by the deer in their resort to it. In those days
the only edifices were a single loghut and a bearpound; a space enclosed
with four high walls, with an extremely narrow entrance, where it was
hoped that bears might get in during the dark hours, and be unable to
find their way out again. Times are much changed now. There are no bears
at Saratoga but a two-legged species from Europe, dropping in, one or
two in a season, among the gentry at the Springs.
The process of bottling the Congress water was in full activity when we
took our first draught of it. Though the utmost celerity is used, the
water loses much of its virtue and briskness by bottling. The man and
boy whom we saw filling and corking the bottles with a dexterity which
only practice can give, are able to despatch a hundred dozen per day.
There are several other springs, shedding waters of various medicinal
virtues; but the Congress fountain is the only one from which the
stranger would drink as a matter of taste.
The waterworks are just at hand, looking like a giant's shower-bath. At
the top of the eminence close by there is a pleasure railroad; a
circular track, on which elderly children may take a ride round and
round in a self-moving chair; an amusement a step above the old
merry-go-round in gravity and scientific pretension. But for its
vicinity to some tracts of beautiful scenery, Saratoga must be a very
dull place to persons shaken out of their domestic habits, and deprived
of their usual occupations; and the beauties of the scenery must be
sought, Saratoga Lake lying three miles, Glen's Falls eighteen, and Lake
George twenty-seven miles from the Springs.
At dinner Mr. R., the gentleman of our party, announced to us that he
had been able to engage a pretty double gig, with a pair of brisk
ponies, for ourselves, and a light cart for our luggage. The day was
very cold for an open carriage; but it was not improbable that, before
twenty-four hours were over, we might be panting with heat; and it was
well to be provided with a carriage in which we might most easily
explore the lake scenery if we should be favoured with fine weather.
The cart preceded us. On the road, a large white snake made a prodigious
spring from the grass at the driver, who, being thus challenged, was not
slow in entering into combat with the creature. He jumped down and
stoned it for some time with much diligence before it would lie down so
that he might drive over it. As we proceeded the country became richer,
and we had fine views of the heights which cluster round the infant
Hudson, and of the Green Mountains of Vermont.
We were all astonished at the splendour of Glen's Falls. The full though
narrow Hudson rushes along amid enormous masses of rock, and leaps sixty
feet down the chasms and precipices which occur in the passage, sweeping
between dark banks of shelving rocks below, its current speckled with
foam. The noise is so tremendous that I cannot conceive how people can
fix their dwellings in the immediate neighbourhood. There is a long
bridge over the roaring floods which vibrates incessantly, and clusters
of sawmills deform the scene. There is stonecutting as well as planking
done at these mills. The fine black marble of the place is cut into
slabs, and sent down to New-York to be polished. It was the busiest
scene that I saw near any water-power in America.
Lake George lies nine miles beyond Glen's Falls. We saw the lake while
we were yet two miles from Caldwell, the pretty village at its southern
extremity. It stretched blue among the mountains in the softening light;
and we anticipated what our pleasures were to be as we looked upon the
framework of mountains in which this gem is set. We had just emerged
from a long and severe winter. We had been walking streets in every
stage of thaw; and it was many months since we had loitered about in the
full enjoyment of open air and bright verdure, as we hoped to do here.
This trip was to be a foretaste of a long summer and autumn of outdoor
delights.
The people at the inn were busy cleaning, in preparation for summer
company; but they gave us a welcome, and lodged and tended us well. Our
windows and piazza commanded a fine view of the lake (here just a mile
broad), of the opposite mountains, and of the white beach which sweeps
round the southern extremity of the sheet of waters, as transparent as
the sea about the Bermudas.
As we had hoped, the next morning was sunny and warm. We employed it in
exploring the ground about Fort William Henry, which stands on an
eminence a little way back from the water, and is now merely an
insignificant heap of ruins. The French and Indians used to pour down
upon the settlements in the plains by the passes of the Lakes Champlain
and George, and near these passes were fought some of the severest
battles recorded in American history. The mountain opposite our windows
at the Lake House is called French Mountain, from its being the point
where the French showed themselves on the bloody 8th of September, 1755,
when three battles were fought in the neighbourhood on the same day. It
was two years later when the Marquis of Montcalm conducted an army of
10,000 men to invest Fort William Henry. Colonel Monroe, who held it for
the British, was obliged, after a gallant defence, to capitulate. He
marched out with 3000 men, and many women and children. The Indians
attached to the French army committed outrages which it is thought the
marquis might have prevented. But it is probable that, when the guilt of
taking savages for allies in offensive warfare is once incurred, any
amount of mischief may ensue which no efforts of the commander can
control. Every one knows the horrible story of Miss McCrea, the young
lady who was on the way to be married to her lover in the British army,
and who was tomahawked and scalped by the Indians in whose charge she
was travelling. During the recrimination between the commanders on this
occasion, General Burgoyne explained his inability to control the
movements of passionate savages; and it must be supposed that Montcalm
had no more power over the Indians who plundered and then murdered
almost the whole number of the British who evacuated Fort William Henry.
It was a horrible scene of butchery. We went over the ground, now waste
and still, tangled with bushes, and inhabited only by birds and
reptiles.
After wandering for some hours on the beach, and breaking our way
through the thick groves which skirt it, dwelling upon the exquisite
scene of the blue lake, with its tufted islands shut in by mountains, we
wished to find some place where we might obtain an equally good distant
view, and yet enjoy the delights of the margin of the water. By climbing
a fence we got to a green bank, whence we could reach a log in the
water; and here we basked, like a party of terrapins, till dinnertime.
The foliage of the opposite woods, on French Mountain, seemed to make
great progress under the summer warmth of this day; and by the next
morning the soft green tinge was perceptible on them, which, after the
dry hardness of winter, is almost as beautiful as the full leaf.
After dinner we took a drive along the western bank of the lake. The
road wound in and out, up and down on the mountainous barrier of the
waters, for there was no beach or other level. One of the beauties of
Lake George is that the mountains slope down to its very margin. Our
stout ponies dragged us up the steep ascents, and rattled us down on the
other side in charming style; and we were so enchanted with the
succession of views of new promontories and islands, and new aspects of
the opposite mountains, that we should have liked to proceed while any
light was left, and to have taken our chance for getting back safely.
But Mr. R. pointed to the sinking sun, and reminded us that it was
Saturday evening. If the people at the inn were Yankees, they would make
a point of all the work of the establishment ceasing at sunset,
according to the Sabbath customs of New-England; and we must allow the
hostler a quarter of an hour to put up the ponies. So we unwillingly
turned, and reached Caldwell just as the shutters of the stores were in
course of being put up, and the last rays of the sun were gushing out on
either side the mountain in the rear of the village. At the Lake House
the painters were putting away their brushes, and the scrubbers emptying
their pails; and, by the time twilight drew on, the place was in a state
of Sunday quietness. We had descried a church standing under the trees
close by, and the girl who waited on us was asked what services there
would be the next day. She told us that there was regular service during
the summer season when the place was full, but not at present; she
added, "We have no regular preacher just now, but we have a man who can
make a very smart prayer."
The next day was spent in exploring the eastern side of the lake for
some distance on foot, and in sitting on a steep grassy bank under the
pines, with our feet overhanging the clear waters glancing in the sun.
Here we read and talked for some hours of a delicious summer Sunday. I
spent part of the afternoon alone at the fort, amid a scene of the
profoundest stillness. I could trace my companions as they wound their
way at a great distance along the little white beaches and through the
pine groves; the boat in the cove swayed at the end of its tether when
the wind sent a ripple across its bows; the shadows stole up the
mountain sides; and an aged labourer sauntered along the beach, with his
axe on his shoulder, crossed the wooden bridge over a brook which flows
into the lake, and disappeared in the pine grove to the left. All else
was still as midnight. My companions did not know where I was, and were
not likely to look in the direction where I was sitting; so, when they
came within hail--that is, when from mites they began to look as big as
children--I sang as loud as possible to catch their attention. I saw
them speak to each other, stop, and gaze over the lake. They thought it
was the singing of fishermen, and it was rather a disappointment when
they found it was only one of ourselves.
On the Monday we saw the lake to the best advantage by going upon it. We
took boat directly after breakfast, having a boy to row us; a stout boy
he must be, for he can row twenty-eight miles on the hottest summer's
day. The length of the lake is thirty-six miles; a long pull for a
rower; but accomplished by some who are accustomed to the effort. First
we went to Tea Island. I wish it had a better name, for it is a
delicious spot, just big enough for a very lazy hermit to live in. There
is a teahouse to look out from, and, far better, a few little reposing
places on the margin; recesses of rock and dry roots of trees, made to
hide one's self in for thought or dreaming. We dispersed; and one of us
might have been seen, by any one who rowed round the island, perched in
every nook. The breezy side was cool and musical with the waves. The
other side was warm as July, and the waters so still that the cypress
twigs we threw in seemed as if they did not mean to float away. Our
boatman laid himself down to sleep, as a matter of course, thus bearing
testimony to the charms of the island; for he evidently took for granted
that we should stay some time. We allowed him a long nap, and then
steered our course to Diamond Island. This gay handful of earth is not
so beautiful as Tea Island, not being so well tufted with wood; but it
is literally carpeted with forget-me-not. You tread upon it as upon
clover in a clover-field.
We coasted the eastern shore as we returned, winning our way in the
still sunshine under walls of rock overhung by projecting trees, and
round promontories, across little bays, peeping into the glades of the
shore, where not a dwelling is to be seen, and where the human foot
seems never to have trod. What a wealth of beauty is there here for
future residents yet unborn! The transparency of the waters of this lake
is its great peculiarity. It abounds with fish, especially fine red
trout. It is the practice of the fishermen to select the prime fish from
a shoal, and they always get the one they want. I can easily believe
this, for I could see all that was going on in the deep water under our
keel when we were out of the wind; every ridge of pebbles, every tuft of
weed, every whim of each fish's tail, I could mark from my seat. The
bottom seemed to be all pebbles where it was not too deep to be clearly
seen. In some parts the lake is of unmeasured depth.
It was three o'clock before we returned; and, as it is not usual for
visiters to spend six or seven hours of a morning on the lake, the good
people at the Lake House had been for some time assuring one another
that we must have been cast away. The kind-hearted landlady herself had
twice been out on the top of the house to look abroad for our boat. I
hope the other members of my party will be spared to visit this scene
often again. I can hardly hope to do so; but they may be sure that I
shall be with them in spirit, for the time will never come when my
memory will not be occasionally treated with some flitting image of Lake
George.
CEMETERIES.
"Diis manibus."
_Ancient Inscription._
As might have been predicted, one of the first directions in which the
Americans have indulged their taste and indicated their refinement is in
the preparation and care of their burial-places. This might have been
predicted by any one who meditates upon the influences under which the
mind of America is growing. The pilgrim origin of the New-England
population, whose fathers seemed to think that they lived only in order
to die, is in favour of all thoughts connected with death filling a
large space in the people's minds. Then, in addition to the moving power
of common human affections, the Americans are subject to being more
incessantly reminded than others how small a section of the creation is
occupied by the living in comparison with that engrossed by the dead. In
the busy, crowded empires of the Old World, the invisible are liable to
be forgotten in the stirring presence of visible beings, who inhabit
every corner, and throng the whole surface on which men walk. In the New
World it is not so. Living men are comparatively scarce, and the general
mind dwells more on the past and the future (of both which worlds death
is the atmosphere) than on the present. By various influences, death is
made to constitute a larger element in their estimate of collective
human experience, a more conspicuous object in their contemplation of
the plan of Providence, than it is to, perhaps, any other people. As a
natural consequence, all arrangements connected with death occupy much
of their attention, and engage a large share of popular sentiment.
I have mentioned that family graveyards are conspicuous objects in
country abodes in America. In the valley of the Mohawk, on the heights
of the Alleghanies, in the centre of the northwestern prairie, wherever
there is a solitary dwelling there is a domestic burying-place,
generally fenced with neat white palings, and delicately kept, however
full the settler's hands may be, and whatever may be the aspect of the
abode of the living. The new burial-places which are laid out near the
towns may already be known from a distance by the air of finish and
taste about their plantations; and I believe it is allowed that Mount
Auburn is the most beautiful cemetery in the world.
Before visiting Mount Auburn I had seen the Catholic cemetery at
New-Orleans, and the contrast was remarkable enough. I never saw a city
churchyard, however damp and neglected, so dreary as the New-Orleans
cemetery. It lies in the swamp, glaring with its plastered monuments in
the sun, with no shade but from the tombs. Being necessarily drained, it
is intersected by ditches of weedy stagnant water, alive with frogs,
dragon-flies, and moscheto-hawks. Irish, French, and Spanish are all
crowded together, as if the ground could scarcely be opened fast enough
for those whom the fever lays low; an impression confirmed by a glance
at the dates. The tombs of the Irish have inscriptions which provoke a
kind of smile, which is no pleasure in such a place. Those of nuns bear
no inscription but the monastic name--Agathe, Seraphine, Thérèse--and
the date of death. Wooden crosses, warped in the sun or rotting with the
damp, are in some places standing at the heads of graves, in others are
leaning or fallen. Glass boxes, containing artificial flowers and tied
with faded ribands, stand at the foot of some of these crosses.
Elsewhere we saw pitchers with bouquets of natural flowers, the water
dried up and the blossoms withered. One enclosure surrounding a monument
was adorned with cypress, arbour vitæ, roses, and honeysuckles, and this
was a relief to the eye while the feet were treading the hot dusty walks
or the parched grass. The first principle of a cemetery was here
violated, necessarily, no doubt, but by a sad necessity. The first
principle of a cemetery--beyond the obligation of its being made safe
and wholesome--is that it should be cheerful in its aspect. For the sake
of the dead, this is right, that their memories may be as welcome as
possible to survivers; for the sake of the living, that superstition may
be obviated, and that death may be brought into the most familiar
connexion with life that the religion and philosophy of the times will
allow; that, at least, no hinderance to this may be interposed by the
outward preparations for death.