Removal to the country—Walk in the forest—Equality
At length my wish of obtaining a house in the country was gratified. A
very pretty cottage, the residence of a gentleman who was removing into
town, for the convenience of his business as a lawyer, was to let, and
I immediately secured it. It was situated in a little village about a
mile and a half from the town, close to the foot of the hills formerly
mentioned as the northern boundary of it. We found ourselves much more
comfortable here than in the city. The house was pretty and commodious,
our sitting-rooms were cool and airy; we had got rid of the detestable
mosquitoes, and we had an ice-house that never failed. Beside all this,
we had the pleasure of gathering our tomatoes from our own garden, and
receiving our milk from our own cow. Our manner of life was infinitely
more to my taste than before; it gave us all the privileges of
rusticity, which are fully as incompatible with a residence in a little
town of Western America as with a residence in London. We lived on
terms of primaeval intimacy with our cow, for if we lay down on our
lawn she did not scruple to take a sniff at the book we were reading,
but then she gave us her own sweet breath in return. The verge of the
cool-looking forest that rose opposite our windows was so near, that we
often used it as an extra drawing- room, and there was no one to wonder
if we went out with no other preparation than our parasols, carrying
books and work enough to while away a long summer day in the shade; the
meadow that divided us from it was covered with a fine short grass,
that continued for a little way under the trees, making a beautiful
carpet, while sundry logs and stumps furnished our sofas and tables.
But even this was not enough to satisfy us when we first escaped from
the city, and we determined upon having a day’s enjoyment of the
wildest forest scenery we could find. So we packed up books, albums,
pencils, and sandwiches, and, despite a burning sun, dragged up a hill
so steep that we sometimes fancied we could rest ourselves against it
by only leaning forward a little. In panting and in groaning we reached
the top, hoping to be refreshed by the purest breath of heaven; but to
have tasted the breath of heaven we must have climbed yet farther, even
to the tops of the trees themselves, for we soon found that the air
beneath them stirred not, nor ever had stirred, as it seemed to us,
since first it settled there, so heavily did it weigh upon our lungs.
Still we were determined to enjoy ourselves, and forward we went,
crunching knee deep through aboriginal leaves, hoping to reach some
spot less perfectly airtight than our landing-place. Wearied with the
fruitless search, we decided on reposing awhile on the trunk of a
fallen tree; being all considerably exhausted, the idea of sitting down
on this tempting log was conceived and executed simultaneously by the
whole party, and the whole party sunk together through its treacherous
surface into a mass of rotten rubbish that had formed part of the pith
and marrow of the eternal forest a hundred years before.
We were by no means the only sufferers by the accident; frogs, lizards,
locusts, katiedids, beetles, and hornets, had the whole of their
various tenements disturbed, and testified their displeasure very
naturally by annoying us as much as possible in return; we were bit, we
were stung, we were scratched; and when, at last, we succeeded in
raising ourselves from the venerable ruin, we presented as woeful a
spectacle as can well be imagined. We shook our (not ambrosial)
garments, and panting with heat, stings, and vexation, moved a few
paces from the scene of our misfortune, and again sat down; but this
time it was upon the solid earth.
We had no sooner began to “chew the cud” of the bitter fancy that had
beguiled us to these mountain solitudes than a new annoyance assailed
us. A cloud of mosquitoes gathered round, and while each sharp
proboscis sucked our blood, they teased us with their humming chorus,
till we lost all patience, and started again on our feet, pretty firmly
resolved never to try the _al fresco_ joys of an American forest again.
The sun was now in its meridian splendour, but our homeward path was
short and down hill, so again packing up our preparations for felicity,
we started homeward, or, more properly speaking, we started, for in
looking for an agreeable spot in this dungeon forest we had advanced so
far from the verge of the hill that we had lost all trace of the
precise spot where we had entered it. Nothing was to be seen but
multitudes of tall, slender, melancholy stems, as like as peas, and
standing within a foot of each other. The ground, as far as the eye
could reach (which certainly was not far), was covered with an unvaried
bed of dried leaves; no trace, no track, no trail, as Mr. Cooper would
call it, gave us a hint which way to turn; and having paused for a
moment to meditate, we remembered that chance must decide for us at
last, so we set forward, in no very good mood, to encounter new
misfortunes. We walked about a quarter of a mile, and coming to a steep
descent, we thought ourselves extremely fortunate, and began to
scramble down, nothing doubting that it was the same we had scrambled
up. In truth, nothing could be more like, but, alas! things that are
like are not the same; when we had slipped and stumbled down to the
edge of the wood, and were able to look beyond it, we saw no pretty
cottage with the shadow of its beautiful acacias coming forward to meet
us: all was different; and, what was worse, all was distant from the
spot where we had hoped to be. We had come down the opposite side of
the ridge, and had now to win our weary way a distance of three miles
round its base, I believe we shall none of us ever forget that walk.
The bright, glowing, furnace- like heat of the atmosphere seems to
scorch as I recall it. It was painful to tread, it was painful to
breathe, it was painful to look round; every object glowed with the
reflection of the fierce tyrant that glared upon us from above.
We got home alive, which agreeably surprised us; and when our parched
tongues again found power of utterance, we promised each other
faithfully never to propose any more parties of pleasure in the grim
store-like forests of Ohio.
We were now in daily expectation of the arrival of Mr. T.; but day
after day, and week after week passed by till we began to fear some
untoward circumstance might delay his coming till the Spring; at last,
when we had almost ceased to look out for him. on the road which led
from the town, he arrived, late at night, by that which leads across
the country from Pitzburgh. The pleasure we felt at seeing him was
greatly increased by his bringing with him our eldest son, which was a
happiness we had not hoped for. Our walks and our drives now became
doubly interesting. The young men, fresh from a public school, found
America so totally unlike all the nations with which their reading had
made them acquainted, that it was indeed a new world to them. Had they
visited Greece or Rome they would have encountered objects with whose
images their minds had been long acquainted; or had they travelled to
France or Italy they would have seen only what daily conversation had
already rendered familiar; but at our public schools America (except
perhaps as to her geographical position) is hardly better known than
Fairy Land; and the American character has not been much more deeply
studied than that of the Anthropophagi: all, therefore, was new, and
every thing amusing.
The extraordinary familiarity of our poor neighbours startled us at
first, and we hardly knew how to receive their uncouth advances, or
what was expected of us in return; however, it sometimes produced very
laughable scenes. Upon one occasion two of my children set off upon an
exploring walk up the hills; they were absent rather longer than we
expected, and the rest of our party determined upon going out to meet
them; we knew the direction they had taken, but thought it would be as
well to enquire at a little public-house at the bottom of the hill, if
such a pair had been seen to pass. A woman, whose appearance more
resembled a Covent Garden market-woman than any thing else I can
remember, came out and answered my question with the most jovial good
humour in the affirmative, and prepared to join us in our search. Her
look, her voice, her manner, were so exceedingly coarse and vehement,
that she almost frightened me; she passed her arm within mine, and to
the inexpressible amusement of my young people, she dragged me on,
talking and questioning me without ceasing. She lived but a short
distance from us, and I am sure intended to be a very good neighbour;
but her violent intimacy made me dread to pass her door; my children,
including my sons, she always addressed by their Christian names,
excepting when she substituted the word “honey;” this familiarity of
address, however, I afterwards found was universal throughout all ranks
in the United States.
My general appellation amongst my neighbours was “the English old
woman,” but in mentioning each other they constantly employed the term
“lady;” and they evidently had a pleasure in using it, for I repeatedly
observed, that in speaking of a neighbour, instead of saying Mrs.
Such-a-one, they described her as “the lady over the way what takes in
washing,” or as “that there lady, out by the Gulley, what is making
dip-candles.” Mr. Trollope was as constantly called “the old man,”
while draymen, butchers’ boys, and the labourers on the canal were
invariably denominated “them gentlemen;” nay, we once saw one of the
most gentlemanlike men in Cincinnati introduce a fellow in dirty shirt
sleeves, and all sorts of detestable et cetera, to one of his friends,
with this formula, “D— let me introduce this gentleman to you.” Our
respective titles certainly were not very important; but the eternal
shaking hands with these ladies and gentlemen was really an annoyance,
and the more so, as the near approach of the gentlemen was always
redolent of whiskey and tobacco.
But the point where this republican equality was the most distressing
was in the long and frequent visitations that it produced. No one
dreams of fastening a door in Western America; I was told that it would
be considered as an affront by the whole neighbourhood. I was thus
exposed to perpetual, and most vexatious interruptions from people whom
I had often never seen, and whose names still oftener were unknown to
me.
Those who are native there, and to the manner born, seem to pass over
these annoyances with more skill than I could ever acquire. More than
once I have seen some of my acquaintance beset in the same way, without
appearing at all distressed by it; they continued their employment or
conversation with me, much as if no such interruption had taken place;
when the visitor entered, they would say, “How do you do?” and shake
hands.
“Tolerable, I thank ye, how be you?” was the reply.
If it was a female, she took off her hat; if a male, he kept it on, and
then taking possession of the first chair in their way, they would
retain it for an hour together, without uttering another word; at
length, rising abruptly, they would again shake hands, with, “Well, now
I must be going, I guess,” and so take themselves off, apparently well
contented with their reception.
I could never attain this philosophical composure; I could neither
write nor read, and I always fancied I must talk to them. I will give
the minutes of a conversation which I once set down after one of their
visits, as a specimen of their tone and manner of speaking and
thinking. My visitor was a milkman.
“Well now, so you be from the old country? Ay—you’ll see sights here, I
guess.”
“I hope I shall see many.”
“That’s a fact. I expect your little place of an island don’t grow such
dreadful fine corn as you sees here?” [Corn always means Indian corn,
or maize.]
“It grows no corn at all, sir.’”
“Possible! no wonder, then, that we reads such awful stories in the
papers of your poor people being starved to death.”
“We have wheat, however.”
“Ay, for your rich folks, but I calculate the poor seldom gets a belly
full.”
“You have certainly much greater abundance here.”
“I expect so. Why they do say, that if a poor body contrives to be
smart enough to scrape together a few dollars, that your King George
always comes down upon ’em, and takes it all away. Don’t he?”
“I do not remember hearing of such a transaction.”
“I guess they be pretty close about it. Your papers ben’t like ourn, I
reckon? Now we says and prints just what we likes.”
“You spend a good deal of time in reading the newspapers.”
“And I’d like you to tell me how we can spend it better. How should
freemen spend their time, but looking after their government, and
watching that them fellers as we gives offices to, doos their duty, and
gives themselves no airs?”
“But I sometimes think, sir, that your fences might be in more thorough
repair, and your roads in better order, if less time was spent in
politics.”
“The Lord! to see how little you knows of a free country? Why, what’s
the smoothness of a road, put against the freedom of a free-born
American? And what does a broken zig-zag signify, comparable to knowing
that the men what we have been pleased to send up to Congress, speaks
handsome and straight, as we chooses they should?”
“It is from a sense of duty, then, that you all go to the liquor store
to read the papers?”
“To be sure it is, and he’d be no true born American as didn’t. I don’t
say that the father of a family should always be after liquor, but I do
say that I’d rather have my son drunk three times in a week, than not
look after the affairs of his country.”
Our autumn walks were delightful; the sun ceased to scorch; the want of
flowers was no longer peculiar to Ohio; and the trees took a colouring,
which in richness, brilliance, and variety, exceeded all description. I
think it is the maple, or sugar- tree, that first sprinkles the forest
with rich crimson; the beech follows, with all its harmony of golden
tints, from pale yellow up to brightest orange. The dog-wood gives
almost the purple colour of the mulberry; the chesnut softens all with
its frequent mass of delicate brown, and the sturdy oak carries its
deep green into the very lap of winter. These tints are too bright for
the landscape painter; the attempt to follow nature in an American
autumn scene must be abortive. The colours are in reality extremely
brilliant, but the medium through which they are seen increases the
effect surprisingly. Of all the points in which America has the
advantage of England, the one I felt most sensibly was the clearness
and brightness of the atmosphere. By day and by night this exquisite
purity of air gives tenfold beauty to every object. I could hardly
believe the stars were the same; the Great Bear looked like a
constellation of suns; and Jupiter justified all the fine things said
of him in those beautiful lines from I know not what spirited pen,
beginning,
“I looked on thee, Jove! till my gaze
Shrunk, smote by the pow’r of thy blaze.”
I always remarked that the first silver line of the moon’s crescent
attracted the eye on the first day, in America, as strongly as it does
here on the third. I observed another phenomenon in the crescent moon
of that region, the cause of which I less understood. That appearance
which Shakespear describes as “the new moon, with the old moon in her
lap,” and which I have heard ingeniously explained as the effect of
_earth light_, was less visible there than here.
Cuyp’s clearest landscapes have an atmosphere that approaches nearer to
that of America than any I remember on canvas; but even Cuyp’s _air_
cannot reach the lungs, and, therefore, can only give an idea of half
the enjoyment; for it makes itself felt as well as seen, and is indeed
a constant source of pleasure.
Our walks were, however, curtailed in several directions by my old
Cincinnati enemies, the pigs; immense droves of them were continually
arriving from the country by the road that led to most of our favourite
walks; they were often fed and lodged in the prettiest valleys,and
worse still, were slaughtered beside the prettiest streams. Another
evil threatened us from the same quarter, that was yet heavier. Our
cottage had an ample piazza, (a luxury almost universal in the country
houses of America), which, shaded by a group of acacias, made a
delightful sitting- room; from this favourite spot we one day perceived
symptoms of building in a field close to it; with much anxiety we
hastened to the spot, and asked what building was to be erected there.
“’Tis to be a slaughter house for hogs,” was the dreadful reply. As
there were several gentlemen’s houses in the neighbourhood, I asked if
such an erection might not be indicted as a nuisance.
“A what?”
“A nuisance,” I repeated, and explained what I meant.
“No, no,” was the reply, “that may do very well for your tyrannical
country, where a rich man’s nose is more thought of than a poor man’s
mouth; but hogs be profitable produce here, and we be too free for such
a law as that, I guess.”
During my residence in America, little circumstances like the foregoing
often recalled to my mind a conversation I once held in France with an
old gentleman on the subject of their active police, and its
omnipresent gens d’armerie; “Croyez moi, Madame, il n’y a que ceux, à
qui ils ont à faire, qui les trouvent de trop.” And the old gentleman
was right, not only in speaking of France, but of the whole human
family, as philosophers call us. The well disposed, those whose own
feeling of justice would prevent their annoying others, will never
complain of the restraints of the law. All the freedom enjoyed in
America, beyond what is enjoyed in England, is enjoyed solely by the
disorderly at the expense of the orderly; and were I a stout knight,
either of the sword or of the pen, I would fearlessly throw down my
gauntlet, and challenge the whole Republic to prove the contrary; but
being, as I am, a feeble looker on, with a needle for my spear, and “I
talk” for my device, I must be contented with the power of stating the
fact, perfectly certain that I shall be contradicted by one loud shout
from Maine to Georgia.