IN CANADA; TORONTO; KINGSTON; MONTREAL; QUEBEC; ST. JOHN’S. IN THE
UNITED STATES AGAIN; LEBANON; THE SHAKER VILLAGE; WEST POINT
I WISH to abstain from instituting any comparison, or drawing any
parallel whatever, between the social features of the United States and
those of the British Possessions in Canada. For this reason, I shall
confine myself to a very brief account of our journeyings in the latter
territory.
But before I leave Niagara, I must advert to one disgusting circumstance
which can hardly have escaped the observation of any decent traveller who
has visited the Falls.
On Table Rock, there is a cottage belonging to a Guide, where little
relics of the place are sold, and where visitors register their names in
a book kept for the purpose. On the wall of the room in which a great
many of these volumes are preserved, the following request is posted:
‘Visitors will please not copy nor extract the remarks and poetical
effusions from the registers and albums kept here.’
But for this intimation, I should have let them lie upon the tables on
which they were strewn with careful negligence, like books in a
drawing-room: being quite satisfied with the stupendous silliness of
certain stanzas with an anti-climax at the end of each, which were framed
and hung up on the wall. Curious, however, after reading this
announcement, to see what kind of morsels were so carefully preserved, I
turned a few leaves, and found them scrawled all over with the vilest and
the filthiest ribaldry that ever human hogs delighted in.
It is humiliating enough to know that there are among men brutes so
obscene and worthless, that they can delight in laying their miserable
profanations upon the very steps of Nature’s greatest altar. But that
these should be hoarded up for the delight of their fellow-swine, and
kept in a public place where any eyes may see them, is a disgrace to the
English language in which they are written (though I hope few of these
entries have been made by Englishmen), and a reproach to the English
side, on which they are preserved.
The quarters of our soldiers at Niagara, are finely and airily situated.
Some of them are large detached houses on the plain above the Falls,
which were originally designed for hotels; and in the evening time, when
the women and children were leaning over the balconies watching the men
as they played at ball and other games upon the grass before the door,
they often presented a little picture of cheerfulness and animation which
made it quite a pleasure to pass that way.
At any garrisoned point where the line of demarcation between one country
and another is so very narrow as at Niagara, desertion from the ranks can
scarcely fail to be of frequent occurrence: and it may be reasonably
supposed that when the soldiers entertain the wildest and maddest hopes
of the fortune and independence that await them on the other side, the
impulse to play traitor, which such a place suggests to dishonest minds,
is not weakened. But it very rarely happens that the men who do desert,
are happy or contented afterwards; and many instances have been known in
which they have confessed their grievous disappointment, and their
earnest desire to return to their old service if they could but be
assured of pardon, or lenient treatment. Many of their comrades,
notwithstanding, do the like, from time to time; and instances of loss of
life in the effort to cross the river with this object, are far from
being uncommon. Several men were drowned in the attempt to swim across,
not long ago; and one, who had the madness to trust himself upon a table
as a raft, was swept down to the whirlpool, where his mangled body eddied
round and round some days.
I am inclined to think that the noise of the Falls is very much
exaggerated; and this will appear the more probable when the depth of the
great basin in which the water is received, is taken into account. At no
time during our stay there, was the wind at all high or boisterous, but
we never heard them, three miles off, even at the very quiet time of
sunset, though we often tried.
Queenston, at which place the steamboats start for Toronto (or I should
rather say at which place they call, for their wharf is at Lewiston, on
the opposite shore), is situated in a delicious valley, through which the
Niagara river, in colour a very deep green, pursues its course. It is
approached by a road that takes its winding way among the heights by
which the town is sheltered; and seen from this point is extremely
beautiful and picturesque. On the most conspicuous of these heights
stood a monument erected by the Provincial Legislature in memory of
General Brock, who was slain in a battle with the American forces, after
having won the victory. Some vagabond, supposed to be a fellow of the
name of Lett, who is now, or who lately was, in prison as a felon, blew
up this monument two years ago, and it is now a melancholy ruin, with a
long fragment of iron railing hanging dejectedly from its top, and waving
to and fro like a wild ivy branch or broken vine stem. It is of much
higher importance than it may seem, that this statue should be repaired
at the public cost, as it ought to have been long ago. Firstly, because
it is beneath the dignity of England to allow a memorial raised in honour
of one of her defenders, to remain in this condition, on the very spot
where he died. Secondly, because the sight of it in its present state,
and the recollection of the unpunished outrage which brought it to this
pass, is not very likely to soothe down border feelings among English
subjects here, or compose their border quarrels and dislikes.
I was standing on the wharf at this place, watching the passengers
embarking in a steamboat which preceded that whose coming we awaited, and
participating in the anxiety with which a sergeant’s wife was collecting
her few goods together—keeping one distracted eye hard upon the porters,
who were hurrying them on board, and the other on a hoopless washing-tub
for which, as being the most utterly worthless of all her movables, she
seemed to entertain particular affection—when three or four soldiers with
a recruit came up and went on board.
The recruit was a likely young fellow enough, strongly built and well
made, but by no means sober: indeed he had all the air of a man who had
been more or less drunk for some days. He carried a small bundle over
his shoulder, slung at the end of a walking-stick, and had a short pipe
in his mouth. He was as dusty and dirty as recruits usually are, and his
shoes betokened that he had travelled on foot some distance, but he was
in a very jocose state, and shook hands with this soldier, and clapped
that one on the back, and talked and laughed continually, like a roaring
idle dog as he was.
The soldiers rather laughed at this blade than with him: seeming to say,
as they stood straightening their canes in their hands, and looking
coolly at him over their glazed stocks, ‘Go on, my boy, while you may!
you’ll know better by-and-by:’ when suddenly the novice, who had been
backing towards the gangway in his noisy merriment, fell overboard before
their eyes, and splashed heavily down into the river between the vessel
and the dock.
I never saw such a good thing as the change that came over these soldiers
in an instant. Almost before the man was down, their professional
manner, their stiffness and constraint, were gone, and they were filled
with the most violent energy. In less time than is required to tell it,
they had him out again, feet first, with the tails of his coat flapping
over his eyes, everything about him hanging the wrong way, and the water
streaming off at every thread in his threadbare dress. But the moment
they set him upright and found that he was none the worse, they were
soldiers again, looking over their glazed stocks more composedly than
ever.
The half-sobered recruit glanced round for a moment, as if his first
impulse were to express some gratitude for his preservation, but seeing
them with this air of total unconcern, and having his wet pipe presented
to him with an oath by the soldier who had been by far the most anxious
of the party, he stuck it in his mouth, thrust his hands into his moist
pockets, and without even shaking the water off his clothes, walked on
board whistling; not to say as if nothing had happened, but as if he had
meant to do it, and it had been a perfect success.
Our steamboat came up directly this had left the wharf, and soon bore us
to the mouth of the Niagara; where the stars and stripes of America
flutter on one side and the Union Jack of England on the other: and so
narrow is the space between them that the sentinels in either fort can
often hear the watchword of the other country given. Thence we emerged
on Lake Ontario, an inland sea; and by half-past six o’clock were at
Toronto.
The country round this town being very flat, is bare of scenic interest;
but the town itself is full of life and motion, bustle, business, and
improvement. The streets are well paved, and lighted with gas; the
houses are large and good; the shops excellent. Many of them have a
display of goods in their windows, such as may be seen in thriving county
towns in England; and there are some which would do no discredit to the
metropolis itself. There is a good stone prison here; and there are,
besides, a handsome church, a court-house, public offices, many
commodious private residences, and a government observatory for noting
and recording the magnetic variations. In the College of Upper Canada,
which is one of the public establishments of the city, a sound education
in every department of polite learning can be had, at a very moderate
expense: the annual charge for the instruction of each pupil, not
exceeding nine pounds sterling. It has pretty good endowments in the way
of land, and is a valuable and useful institution.
The first stone of a new college had been laid but a few days before, by
the Governor General. It will be a handsome, spacious edifice,
approached by a long avenue, which is already planted and made available
as a public walk. The town is well adapted for wholesome exercise at all
seasons, for the footways in the thoroughfares which lie beyond the
principal street, are planked like floors, and kept in very good and
clean repair.
It is a matter of deep regret that political differences should have run
high in this place, and led to most discreditable and disgraceful
results. It is not long since guns were discharged from a window in this
town at the successful candidates in an election, and the coachman of one
of them was actually shot in the body, though not dangerously wounded.
But one man was killed on the same occasion; and from the very window
whence he received his death, the very flag which shielded his murderer
(not only in the commission of his crime, but from its consequences), was
displayed again on the occasion of the public ceremony performed by the
Governor General, to which I have just adverted. Of all the colours in
the rainbow, there is but one which could be so employed: I need not say
that flag was orange.
The time of leaving Toronto for Kingston is noon. By eight o’clock next
morning, the traveller is at the end of his journey, which is performed
by steamboat upon Lake Ontario, calling at Port Hope and Coburg, the
latter a cheerful, thriving little town. Vast quantities of flour form
the chief item in the freight of these vessels. We had no fewer than one
thousand and eighty barrels on board, between Coburg and Kingston.
The latter place, which is now the seat of government in Canada, is a
very poor town, rendered still poorer in the appearance of its
market-place by the ravages of a recent fire. Indeed, it may be said of
Kingston, that one half of it appears to be burnt down, and the other
half not to be built up. The Government House is neither elegant nor
commodious, yet it is almost the only house of any importance in the
neighbourhood.
There is an admirable jail here, well and wisely governed, and
excellently regulated, in every respect. The men were employed as
shoemakers, ropemakers, blacksmiths, tailors, carpenters, and
stonecutters; and in building a new prison, which was pretty far advanced
towards completion. The female prisoners were occupied in needlework.
Among them was a beautiful girl of twenty, who had been there nearly
three years. She acted as bearer of secret despatches for the
self-styled Patriots on Navy Island, during the Canadian Insurrection:
sometimes dressing as a girl, and carrying them in her stays; sometimes
attiring herself as a boy, and secreting them in the lining of her hat.
In the latter character she always rode as a boy would, which was nothing
to her, for she could govern any horse that any man could ride, and could
drive four-in-hand with the best whip in those parts. Setting forth on
one of her patriotic missions, she appropriated to herself the first
horse she could lay her hands on; and this offence had brought her where
I saw her. She had quite a lovely face, though, as the reader may
suppose from this sketch of her history, there was a lurking devil in her
bright eye, which looked out pretty sharply from between her prison bars.
There is a bomb-proof fort here of great strength, which occupies a bold
position, and is capable, doubtless, of doing good service; though the
town is much too close upon the frontier to be long held, I should
imagine, for its present purpose in troubled times. There is also a
small navy-yard, where a couple of Government steamboats were building,
and getting on vigorously.
We left Kingston for Montreal on the tenth of May, at half-past nine in
the morning, and proceeded in a steamboat down the St. Lawrence river.
The beauty of this noble stream at almost any point, but especially in
the commencement of this journey when it winds its way among the thousand
Islands, can hardly be imagined. The number and constant successions of
these islands, all green and richly wooded; their fluctuating sizes, some
so large that for half an hour together one among them will appear as the
opposite bank of the river, and some so small that they are mere dimples
on its broad bosom; their infinite variety of shapes; and the numberless
combinations of beautiful forms which the trees growing on them present:
all form a picture fraught with uncommon interest and pleasure.
In the afternoon we shot down some rapids where the river boiled and
bubbled strangely, and where the force and headlong violence of the
current were tremendous. At seven o’clock we reached Dickenson’s
Landing, whence travellers proceed for two or three hours by stage-coach:
the navigation of the river being rendered so dangerous and difficult in
the interval, by rapids, that steamboats do not make the passage. The
number and length of those _portages_, over which the roads are bad, and
the travelling slow, render the way between the towns of Montreal and
Kingston, somewhat tedious.
Our course lay over a wide, uninclosed tract of country at a little
distance from the river-side, whence the bright warning lights on the
dangerous parts of the St. Lawrence shone vividly. The night was dark
and raw, and the way dreary enough. It was nearly ten o’clock when we
reached the wharf where the next steamboat lay; and went on board, and to
bed.
She lay there all night, and started as soon as it was day. The morning
was ushered in by a violent thunderstorm, and was very wet, but gradually
improved and brightened up. Going on deck after breakfast, I was amazed
to see floating down with the stream, a most gigantic raft, with some
thirty or forty wooden houses upon it, and at least as many flag-masts,
so that it looked like a nautical street. I saw many of these rafts
afterwards, but never one so large. All the timber, or ‘lumber,’ as it
is called in America, which is brought down the St. Lawrence, is floated
down in this manner. When the raft reaches its place of destination, it
is broken up; the materials are sold; and the boatmen return for more.
At eight we landed again, and travelled by a stage-coach for four hours
through a pleasant and well-cultivated country, perfectly French in every
respect: in the appearance of the cottages; the air, language, and dress
of the peasantry; the sign-boards on the shops and taverns: and the
Virgin’s shrines, and crosses, by the wayside. Nearly every common
labourer and boy, though he had no shoes to his feet, wore round his
waist a sash of some bright colour: generally red: and the women, who
were working in the fields and gardens, and doing all kinds of husbandry,
wore, one and all, great flat straw hats with most capacious brims.
There were Catholic Priests and Sisters of Charity in the village
streets; and images of the Saviour at the corners of cross-roads, and in
other public places.
At noon we went on board another steamboat, and reached the village of
Lachine, nine miles from Montreal, by three o’clock. There, we left the
river, and went on by land.
Montreal is pleasantly situated on the margin of the St. Lawrence, and is
backed by some bold heights, about which there are charming rides and
drives. The streets are generally narrow and irregular, as in most
French towns of any age; but in the more modern parts of the city, they
are wide and airy. They display a great variety of very good shops; and
both in the town and suburbs there are many excellent private dwellings.
The granite quays are remarkable for their beauty, solidity, and extent.
There is a very large Catholic cathedral here, recently erected with two
tall spires, of which one is yet unfinished. In the open space in front
of this edifice, stands a solitary, grim-looking, square brick tower,
which has a quaint and remarkable appearance, and which the wiseacres of
the place have consequently determined to pull down immediately. The
Government House is very superior to that at Kingston, and the town is
full of life and bustle. In one of the suburbs is a plank road—not
footpath—five or six miles long, and a famous road it is too. All the
rides in the vicinity were made doubly interesting by the bursting out of
spring, which is here so rapid, that it is but a day’s leap from barren
winter, to the blooming youth of summer.
The steamboats to Quebec perform the journey in the night; that is to
say, they leave Montreal at six in the evening, and arrive at Quebec at
six next morning. We made this excursion during our stay in Montreal
(which exceeded a fortnight), and were charmed by its interest and
beauty.
The impression made upon the visitor by this Gibraltar of America: its
giddy heights; its citadel suspended, as it were, in the air; its
picturesque steep streets and frowning gateways; and the splendid views
which burst upon the eye at every turn: is at once unique and lasting.
It is a place not to be forgotten or mixed up in the mind with other
places, or altered for a moment in the crowd of scenes a traveller can
recall. Apart from the realities of this most picturesque city, there
are associations clustering about it which would make a desert rich in
interest. The dangerous precipice along whose rocky front, Wolfe and his
brave companions climbed to glory; the Plains of Abraham, where he
received his mortal wound; the fortress so chivalrously defended by
Montcalm; and his soldier’s grave, dug for him while yet alive, by the
bursting of a shell; are not the least among them, or among the gallant
incidents of history. That is a noble Monument too, and worthy of two
great nations, which perpetuates the memory of both brave generals, and
on which their names are jointly written.
The city is rich in public institutions and in Catholic churches and
charities, but it is mainly in the prospect from the site of the Old
Government House, and from the Citadel, that its surpassing beauty lies.
The exquisite expanse of country, rich in field and forest,
mountain-height and water, which lies stretched out before the view, with
miles of Canadian villages, glancing in long white streaks, like veins
along the landscape; the motley crowd of gables, roofs, and chimney tops
in the old hilly town immediately at hand; the beautiful St. Lawrence
sparkling and flashing in the sunlight; and the tiny ships below the rock
from which you gaze, whose distant rigging looks like spiders’ webs
against the light, while casks and barrels on their decks dwindle into
toys, and busy mariners become so many puppets; all this, framed by a
sunken window in the fortress and looked at from the shadowed room
within, forms one of the brightest and most enchanting pictures that the
eye can rest upon.
In the spring of the year, vast numbers of emigrants who have newly
arrived from England or from Ireland, pass between Quebec and Montreal on
their way to the backwoods and new settlements of Canada. If it be an
entertaining lounge (as I very often found it) to take a morning stroll
upon the quay at Montreal, and see them grouped in hundreds on the public
wharfs about their chests and boxes, it is matter of deep interest to be
their fellow-passenger on one of these steamboats, and mingling with the
concourse, see and hear them unobserved.
The vessel in which we returned from Quebec to Montreal was crowded with
them, and at night they spread their beds between decks (those who had
beds, at least), and slept so close and thick about our cabin door, that
the passage to and fro was quite blocked up. They were nearly all
English; from Gloucestershire the greater part; and had had a long
winter-passage out; but it was wonderful to see how clean the children
had been kept, and how untiring in their love and self-denial all the
poor parents were.
Cant as we may, and as we shall to the end of all things, it is very much
harder for the poor to be virtuous than it is for the rich; and the good
that is in them, shines the brighter for it. In many a noble mansion
lives a man, the best of husbands and of fathers, whose private worth in
both capacities is justly lauded to the skies. But bring him here, upon
this crowded deck. Strip from his fair young wife her silken dress and
jewels, unbind her braided hair, stamp early wrinkles on her brow, pinch
her pale cheek with care and much privation, array her faded form in
coarsely patched attire, let there be nothing but his love to set her
forth or deck her out, and you shall put it to the proof indeed. So
change his station in the world, that he shall see in those young things
who climb about his knee: not records of his wealth and name: but little
wrestlers with him for his daily bread; so many poachers on his scanty
meal; so many units to divide his every sum of comfort, and farther to
reduce its small amount. In lieu of the endearments of childhood in its
sweetest aspect, heap upon him all its pains and wants, its sicknesses
and ills, its fretfulness, caprice, and querulous endurance: let its
prattle be, not of engaging infant fancies, but of cold, and thirst, and
hunger: and if his fatherly affection outlive all this, and he be
patient, watchful, tender; careful of his children’s lives, and mindful
always of their joys and sorrows; then send him back to Parliament, and
Pulpit, and to Quarter Sessions, and when he hears fine talk of the
depravity of those who live from hand to mouth, and labour hard to do it,
let him speak up, as one who knows, and tell those holders forth that
they, by parallel with such a class, should be High Angels in their daily
lives, and lay but humble siege to Heaven at last.
Which of us shall say what he would be, if such realities, with small
relief or change all through his days, were his! Looking round upon
these people: far from home, houseless, indigent, wandering, weary with
travel and hard living: and seeing how patiently they nursed and tended
their young children: how they consulted ever their wants first, then
half supplied their own; what gentle ministers of hope and faith the
women were; how the men profited by their example; and how very, very
seldom even a moment’s petulance or harsh complaint broke out among them:
I felt a stronger love and honour of my kind come glowing on my heart,
and wished to God there had been many Atheists in the better part of
human nature there, to read this simple lesson in the book of Life.
* * * * *
We left Montreal for New York again, on the thirtieth of May, crossing to
La Prairie, on the opposite shore of the St. Lawrence, in a steamboat; we
then took the railroad to St. John’s, which is on the brink of Lake
Champlain. Our last greeting in Canada was from the English officers in
the pleasant barracks at that place (a class of gentlemen who had made
every hour of our visit memorable by their hospitality and friendship);
and with ‘Rule Britannia’ sounding in our ears, soon left it far behind.
But Canada has held, and always will retain, a foremost place in my
remembrance. Few Englishmen are prepared to find it what it is.
Advancing quietly; old differences settling down, and being fast
forgotten; public feeling and private enterprise alike in a sound and
wholesome state; nothing of flush or fever in its system, but health and
vigour throbbing in its steady pulse: it is full of hope and promise. To
me—who had been accustomed to think of it as something left behind in the
strides of advancing society, as something neglected and forgotten,
slumbering and wasting in its sleep—the demand for labour and the rates
of wages; the busy quays of Montreal; the vessels taking in their
cargoes, and discharging them; the amount of shipping in the different
ports; the commerce, roads, and public works, all made _to last_; the
respectability and character of the public journals; and the amount of
rational comfort and happiness which honest industry may earn: were very
great surprises. The steamboats on the lakes, in their conveniences,
cleanliness, and safety; in the gentlemanly character and bearing of
their captains; and in the politeness and perfect comfort of their social
regulations; are unsurpassed even by the famous Scotch vessels,
deservedly so much esteemed at home. The inns are usually bad; because
the custom of boarding at hotels is not so general here as in the States,
and the British officers, who form a large portion of the society of
every town, live chiefly at the regimental messes: but in every other
respect, the traveller in Canada will find as good provision for his
comfort as in any place I know.
There is one American boat—the vessel which carried us on Lake Champlain,
from St. John’s to Whitehall—which I praise very highly, but no more than
it deserves, when I say that it is superior even to that in which we went
from Queenston to Toronto, or to that in which we travelled from the
latter place to Kingston, or I have no doubt I may add to any other in
the world. This steamboat, which is called the Burlington, is a
perfectly exquisite achievement of neatness, elegance, and order. The
decks are drawing-rooms; the cabins are boudoirs, choicely furnished and
adorned with prints, pictures, and musical instruments; every nook and
corner in the vessel is a perfect curiosity of graceful comfort and
beautiful contrivance. Captain Sherman, her commander, to whose
ingenuity and excellent taste these results are solely attributable, has
bravely and worthily distinguished himself on more than one trying
occasion: not least among them, in having the moral courage to carry
British troops, at a time (during the Canadian rebellion) when no other
conveyance was open to them. He and his vessel are held in universal
respect, both by his own countrymen and ours; and no man ever enjoyed the
popular esteem, who, in his sphere of action, won and wore it better than
this gentleman.
By means of this floating palace we were soon in the United States again,
and called that evening at Burlington; a pretty town, where we lay an
hour or so. We reached Whitehall, where we were to disembark, at six
next morning; and might have done so earlier, but that these steamboats
lie by for some hours in the night, in consequence of the lake becoming
very narrow at that part of the journey, and difficult of navigation in
the dark. Its width is so contracted at one point, indeed, that they are
obliged to warp round by means of a rope.
After breakfasting at Whitehall, we took the stage-coach for Albany: a
large and busy town, where we arrived between five and six o’clock that
afternoon; after a very hot day’s journey, for we were now in the height
of summer again. At seven we started for New York on board a great North
River steamboat, which was so crowded with passengers that the upper deck
was like the box lobby of a theatre between the pieces, and the lower one
like Tottenham Court Road on a Saturday night. But we slept soundly,
notwithstanding, and soon after five o’clock next morning reached New
York.
Tarrying here, only that day and night, to recruit after our late
fatigues, we started off once more upon our last journey in America. We
had yet five days to spare before embarking for England, and I had a
great desire to see ‘the Shaker Village,’ which is peopled by a religious
sect from whom it takes its name.
To this end, we went up the North River again, as far as the town of
Hudson, and there hired an extra to carry us to Lebanon, thirty miles
distant: and of course another and a different Lebanon from that village
where I slept on the night of the Prairie trip.
The country through which the road meandered, was rich and beautiful; the
weather very fine; and for many miles the Kaatskill mountains, where Rip
Van Winkle and the ghostly Dutchmen played at ninepins one memorable
gusty afternoon, towered in the blue distance, like stately clouds. At
one point, as we ascended a steep hill, athwart whose base a railroad,
yet constructing, took its course, we came upon an Irish colony. With
means at hand of building decent cabins, it was wonderful to see how
clumsy, rough, and wretched, its hovels were. The best were poor
protection from the weather the worst let in the wind and rain through
wide breaches in the roofs of sodden grass, and in the walls of mud; some
had neither door nor window; some had nearly fallen down, and were
imperfectly propped up by stakes and poles; all were ruinous and filthy.
Hideously ugly old women and very buxom young ones, pigs, dogs, men,
children, babies, pots, kettles, dung-hills, vile refuse, rank straw, and
standing water, all wallowing together in an inseparable heap, composed
the furniture of every dark and dirty hut.
Between nine and ten o’clock at night, we arrived at Lebanon which is
renowned for its warm baths, and for a great hotel, well adapted, I have
no doubt, to the gregarious taste of those seekers after health or
pleasure who repair here, but inexpressibly comfortless to me. We were
shown into an immense apartment, lighted by two dim candles, called the
drawing-room: from which there was a descent by a flight of steps, to
another vast desert, called the dining-room: our bed-chambers were among
certain long rows of little white-washed cells, which opened from either
side of a dreary passage; and were so like rooms in a prison that I half
expected to be locked up when I went to bed, and listened involuntarily
for the turning of the key on the outside. There need be baths somewhere
in the neighbourhood, for the other washing arrangements were on as
limited a scale as I ever saw, even in America: indeed, these bedrooms
were so very bare of even such common luxuries as chairs, that I should
say they were not provided with enough of anything, but that I bethink
myself of our having been most bountifully bitten all night.
The house is very pleasantly situated, however, and we had a good
breakfast. That done, we went to visit our place of destination, which
was some two miles off, and the way to which was soon indicated by a
finger-post, whereon was painted, ‘To the Shaker Village.’
As we rode along, we passed a party of Shakers, who were at work upon the
road; who wore the broadest of all broad-brimmed hats; and were in all
visible respects such very wooden men, that I felt about as much sympathy
for them, and as much interest in them, as if they had been so many
figure-heads of ships. Presently we came to the beginning of the
village, and alighting at the door of a house where the Shaker
manufactures are sold, and which is the headquarters of the elders,
requested permission to see the Shaker worship.
Pending the conveyance of this request to some person in authority, we
walked into a grim room, where several grim hats were hanging on grim
pegs, and the time was grimly told by a grim clock which uttered every
tick with a kind of struggle, as if it broke the grim silence
reluctantly, and under protest. Ranged against the wall were six or
eight stiff, high-backed chairs, and they partook so strongly of the
general grimness that one would much rather have sat on the floor than
incurred the smallest obligation to any of them.
Presently, there stalked into this apartment, a grim old Shaker, with
eyes as hard, and dull, and cold, as the great round metal buttons on his
coat and waistcoat; a sort of calm goblin. Being informed of our desire,
he produced a newspaper wherein the body of elders, whereof he was a
member, had advertised but a few days before, that in consequence of
certain unseemly interruptions which their worship had received from
strangers, their chapel was closed to the public for the space of one
year.
As nothing was to be urged in opposition to this reasonable arrangement,
we requested leave to make some trifling purchases of Shaker goods; which
was grimly conceded. We accordingly repaired to a store in the same
house and on the opposite side of the passage, where the stock was
presided over by something alive in a russet case, which the elder said
was a woman; and which I suppose _was_ a woman, though I should not have
suspected it.
On the opposite side of the road was their place of worship: a cool,
clean edifice of wood, with large windows and green blinds: like a
spacious summer-house. As there was no getting into this place, and
nothing was to be done but walk up and down, and look at it and the other
buildings in the village (which were chiefly of wood, painted a dark red
like English barns, and composed of many stories like English factories),
I have nothing to communicate to the reader, beyond the scanty results I
gleaned the while our purchases were making.
These people are called Shakers from their peculiar form of adoration,
which consists of a dance, performed by the men and women of all ages,
who arrange themselves for that purpose in opposite parties: the men
first divesting themselves of their hats and coats, which they gravely
hang against the wall before they begin; and tying a ribbon round their
shirt-sleeves, as though they were going to be bled. They accompany
themselves with a droning, humming noise, and dance until they are quite
exhausted, alternately advancing and retiring in a preposterous sort of
trot. The effect is said to be unspeakably absurd: and if I may judge
from a print of this ceremony which I have in my possession; and which I
am informed by those who have visited the chapel, is perfectly accurate;
it must be infinitely grotesque.
They are governed by a woman, and her rule is understood to be absolute,
though she has the assistance of a council of elders. She lives, it is
said, in strict seclusion, in certain rooms above the chapel, and is
never shown to profane eyes. If she at all resemble the lady who
presided over the store, it is a great charity to keep her as close as
possible, and I cannot too strongly express my perfect concurrence in
this benevolent proceeding.
All the possessions and revenues of the settlement are thrown into a
common stock, which is managed by the elders. As they have made converts
among people who were well to do in the world, and are frugal and
thrifty, it is understood that this fund prospers: the more especially as
they have made large purchases of land. Nor is this at Lebanon the only
Shaker settlement: there are, I think, at least, three others.
They are good farmers, and all their produce is eagerly purchased and
highly esteemed. ‘Shaker seeds,’ ‘Shaker herbs,’ and ‘Shaker distilled
waters,’ are commonly announced for sale in the shops of towns and
cities. They are good breeders of cattle, and are kind and merciful to
the brute creation. Consequently, Shaker beasts seldom fail to find a
ready market.
They eat and drink together, after the Spartan model, at a great public
table. There is no union of the sexes, and every Shaker, male and
female, is devoted to a life of celibacy. Rumour has been busy upon this
theme, but here again I must refer to the lady of the store, and say,
that if many of the sister Shakers resemble her, I treat all such slander
as bearing on its face the strongest marks of wild improbability. But
that they take as proselytes, persons so young that they cannot know
their own minds, and cannot possess much strength of resolution in this
or any other respect, I can assert from my own observation of the extreme
juvenility of certain youthful Shakers whom I saw at work among the party
on the road.
They are said to be good drivers of bargains, but to be honest and just
in their transactions, and even in horse-dealing to resist those thievish
tendencies which would seem, for some undiscovered reason, to be almost
inseparable from that branch of traffic. In all matters they hold their
own course quietly, live in their gloomy, silent commonwealth, and show
little desire to interfere with other people.
This is well enough, but nevertheless I cannot, I confess, incline
towards the Shakers; view them with much favour, or extend towards them
any very lenient construction. I so abhor, and from my soul detest that
bad spirit, no matter by what class or sect it may be entertained, which
would strip life of its healthful graces, rob youth of its innocent
pleasures, pluck from maturity and age their pleasant ornaments, and make
existence but a narrow path towards the grave: that odious spirit which,
if it could have had full scope and sway upon the earth, must have
blasted and made barren the imaginations of the greatest men, and left
them, in their power of raising up enduring images before their
fellow-creatures yet unborn, no better than the beasts: that, in these
very broad-brimmed hats and very sombre coats—in stiff-necked,
solemn-visaged piety, in short, no matter what its garb, whether it have
cropped hair as in a Shaker village, or long nails as in a Hindoo
temple—I recognise the worst among the enemies of Heaven and Earth, who
turn the water at the marriage feasts of this poor world, not into wine,
but gall. And if there must be people vowed to crush the harmless
fancies and the love of innocent delights and gaieties, which are a part
of human nature: as much a part of it as any other love or hope that is
our common portion: let them, for me, stand openly revealed among the
ribald and licentious; the very idiots know that _they_ are not on the
Immortal road, and will despise them, and avoid them readily.
Leaving the Shaker village with a hearty dislike of the old Shakers, and
a hearty pity for the young ones: tempered by the strong probability of
their running away as they grow older and wiser, which they not
uncommonly do: we returned to Lebanon, and so to Hudson, by the way we
had come upon the previous day. There, we took the steamboat down the
North River towards New York, but stopped, some four hours’ journey short
of it, at West Point, where we remained that night, and all next day, and
next night too.
In this beautiful place: the fairest among the fair and lovely Highlands
of the North River: shut in by deep green heights and ruined forts, and
looking down upon the distant town of Newburgh, along a glittering path
of sunlit water, with here and there a skiff, whose white sail often
bends on some new tack as sudden flaws of wind come down upon her from
the gullies in the hills: hemmed in, besides, all round with memories of
Washington, and events of the revolutionary war: is the Military School
of America.
It could not stand on more appropriate ground, and any ground more
beautiful can hardly be. The course of education is severe, but well
devised, and manly. Through June, July, and August, the young men encamp
upon the spacious plain whereon the college stands; and all the year
their military exercises are performed there, daily. The term of study
at this institution, which the State requires from all cadets, is four
years; but, whether it be from the rigid nature of the discipline, or the
national impatience of restraint, or both causes combined, not more than
half the number who begin their studies here, ever remain to finish them.
The number of cadets being about equal to that of the members of
Congress, one is sent here from every Congressional district: its member
influencing the selection. Commissions in the service are distributed on
the same principle. The dwellings of the various Professors are
beautifully situated; and there is a most excellent hotel for strangers,
though it has the two drawbacks of being a total abstinence house (wines
and spirits being forbidden to the students), and of serving the public
meals at rather uncomfortable hours: to wit, breakfast at seven, dinner
at one, and supper at sunset.
The beauty and freshness of this calm retreat, in the very dawn and
greenness of summer—it was then the beginning of June—were exquisite
indeed. Leaving it upon the sixth, and returning to New York, to embark
for England on the succeeding day, I was glad to think that among the
last memorable beauties which had glided past us, and softened in the
bright perspective, were those whose pictures, traced by no common hand,
are fresh in most men’s minds; not easily to grow old, or fade beneath
the dust of Time: the Kaatskill Mountains, Sleepy Hollow, and the Tappaan
Zee.