In the afternoon of this day we reached the Rock river, in whose
neighborhood we proposed to make some stay, and crossed at Dixon's
ferry.
This beautiful stream flows full and wide over a bed of rocks,
traversing a distance of near two hundred miles, to reach the
Mississippi. Great part of the country along its banks is the finest
region of Illinois, and the scene of some of the latest romance of
Indian warfare. To these beautiful regions Black Hawk returned with his
band "to pass the summer," when he drew upon himself the warfare in
which he was finally vanquished. No wonder he could not resist the
longing, unwise though its indulgence might be, to return in summer to
this home of beauty.
Of Illinois, in general, it has often been remarked that it bears the
character of country which has been inhabited by a nation skilled like
the English in all the ornamental arts of life, especially in landscape
gardening. That the villas and castles seem to have been burnt, the
enclosures taken down, but the velvet lawns, the flower gardens, the
stately parks, scattered at graceful intervals by the decorous hand of
art, the frequent deer, and the peaceful herd of cattle that make
picture of the plain, all suggest more of the masterly mind of man, than
the prodigal, but careless, motherly love of nature. Especially is this
true of the Rock river country. The river flows sometimes through these
parks and lawns, then betwixt high bluffs, whose grassy ridges are
covered with fine trees, or broken with crumbling stone, that easily
assumes, the forms of buttress, arch and clustered columns. Along the
face of such crumbling rocks, swallows' nests are clustered, thick as
cities, and eagles and deer do not disdain their summits. One morning,
out in the boat along the base of these rocks, it was amusing, and
affecting too, to see these swallows put their heads out to look at us.
There was something very hospitable about it, as if man had never shown
himself a tyrant near them. What a morning that was! Every sight is
worth twice as much by the early morning light. We borrow something of
the spirit of the hour to look upon them.
The first place, where we stopped was one of singular beauty, a beauty
of soft, luxuriant wildness. It was on the bend of the river, a place
chosen by an Irish gentleman, whose absenteeship seems of the wisest
kind, since for a sum which would have been but a drop of water to the
thirsty fever of his native land, he commands a residence which has all
that is desirable, in its independence, its beautiful retirement, and
means of benefit to others.
His park, his deer-chase, he found already prepared; he had only to
make an avenue through it. This brought us by a drive, which in the heat
of noon seemed long, though afterwards, in the cool of morning and
evening, delightful, to the house. This is, for that part of the world,
a large and commodious dwelling. Near it stands the log-cabin where its
master lived while it was building, a very ornamental accessory.
In front of the house was a lawn, adorned by the most graceful trees. A
few of these had been taken out to give a full view of the river,
gliding through banks such as I have described. On this bend the bank is
high and bold, so from the house or the lawn the view was very rich and
commanding. But if you descended a ravine at the side to the water's
edge, you found there a long walk on the narrow shore, with a wall above
of the richest hanging wood, in which they said the deer lay hid. I
never saw one, but often fancied that I heard them rustling, at
daybreak, by these bright clear waters, stretching out in such smiling
promise, where no sound broke the deep and blissful seclusion, unless
now and then this rustling, or the plash of some fish a little gayer
than the others; it seemed not necessary to have any better heaven, or
fuller expression of love and freedom than in the mood of nature here.
Then, leaving the bank, you would walk far and far through long grassy
paths, full of the most brilliant, also the most delicate flowers. The
brilliant are more common on the prairie, but both kinds loved this
place.
Amid the grass of the lawn, with a profusion of wild strawberries, we
greeted also a familiar love, the Scottish harebell, the gentlest, and
most touching form of the flower-world.
The master of the house was absent, but with a kindness beyond thanks
had offered us a resting place there. Here we were taken care of by a
deputy, who would, for his youth, have been assigned the place of a page
in former times, but in the young west, it seems he was old enough for a
steward. Whatever be called his function, he did the honors of the place
so much in harmony with it, as to leave the guests free to imagine
themselves in Elysium. And the three days passed here were days of
unalloyed, spotless happiness.
There was a peculiar charm in coming here, where the choice of location,
and the unobtrusive good taste of all the arrangements, showed such
intelligent appreciation of the spirit of the scene, after seeing so
many dwellings of the new settlers, which showed plainly that they had
no thought beyond satisfying the grossest material wants. Sometimes they
looked attractive, the little brown houses, the natural architecture of
the country, in the edge of the timber. But almost always when you came
near, the slovenliness of the dwelling and the rude way in which objects
around it were treated, when so little care would have presented a
charming whole, were very repulsive. Seeing the traces of the Indians,
who chose the most beautiful sites for their dwellings, and whose habits
do not break in on that aspect of nature under which they were born, we
feel as if they were the rightful lords of a beauty they forbore to
deform. But most of these settlers do not see it at all; it breathes, it
speaks in vain to those who are rushing into its sphere. Their progress
is Gothic, not Roman, and their mode of cultivation will, in the course
of twenty, perhaps ten, years, obliterate the natural expression of the
country.
This is inevitable, fatal; we must not complain, but look forward to a
good result. Still, in travelling through this country, I could not but
be struck with the force of a symbol. Wherever the hog comes, the
rattlesnake disappears; the omnivorous traveller, safe in its stupidity,
willingly and easily makes a meal of the most dangerous of reptiles, and
one whom the Indian looks on with a mystic awe. Even so the white
settler pursues the Indian, and is victor in the chase. But I shall say
more upon the subject by-and-by.
While we were here we had one grand thunder storm, which added new glory
to the scene.
One beautiful feature was the return of the pigeons every afternoon to
their home. Every afternoon they came sweeping across the lawn,
positively in clouds, and with a swiftness and softness of winged
motion, more beautiful than anything of the kind I ever knew. Had I been
a musician, such as Mendelsohn, I felt that I could have improvised a
music quite peculiar, from the sound they made, which should have
indicated all the beauty over which their wings bore them. I will here
insert a few lines left at this house, on parting, which feebly indicate
some of the features.
Familiar to the childish mind were tales
Of rock-girt isles amid a desert sea,
Where unexpected stretch the flowery vales
To soothe the shipwrecked sailor's misery.
Fainting, he lay upon a sandy shore,
And fancied that all hope of life was o'er;
But let him patient climb the frowning wall,
Within, the orange glows beneath the palm tree tall,
And all that Eden boasted waits his call.
Almost these tales seem realized to-day,
When the long dullness of the sultry way,
Where "independent" settlers' careless cheer
Made us indeed feel we were "strangers" here,
Is cheered by sudden sight of this fair spot,
On which "improvement" yet has made no blot,
But Nature all-astonished stands, to find
Her plan protected by the human mind.
Blest be the kindly genius of the scene;
The river, bending in unbroken grace,
The stately thickets, with their pathways green,
Fair lonely trees, each in its fittest place.
Those thickets haunted by the deer and fawn;
Those cloudlike flights of birds across the lawn;
The gentlest breezes here delight to blow,
And sun and shower and star are emulous to deck the show.
Wondering, as Crusoe, we survey the land;
Happier than Crusoe we, a friendly band;
Blest be the hand that reared this friendly home,
The heart and mind of him to whom we owe
Hours of pure peace such as few mortals know;
May he find such, should he be led to roam;
Be tended by such ministering sprites--
Enjoy such gaily childish days, such hopeful nights!
And yet, amid the goods to mortals given,
To give those goods again is most like heaven.
Hazelwood, Rock River, June 30th, 1843.
The only really rustic feature was of the many coops of poultry near the
house, which I understood it to be one of the chief pleasures of the
master to feed.
Leaving this place, we proceeded a day's journey along the beautiful
stream, to a little town named Oregon. We called at a cabin, from whose
door looked out one of those faces which, once seen, are never
forgotten; young, yet touched with many traces of feeling, not only
possible, but endured; spirited, too, like the gleam of a finely
tempered blade. It was a face that suggested a history, and many
histories, but whose scene would have been in courts and camps. At this
moment their circles are dull for want of that life which is waning
unexcited in this solitary recess.
The master of the house proposed to show us a "short cut," by which we
might, to especial advantage, pursue our journey. This proved to be
almost perpendicular down a hill, studded with young trees and stumps.
From these he proposed, with a hospitality of service worthy an
Oriental, to free our wheels whenever they should get entangled, also,
to be himself the drag, to prevent our too rapid descent. Such
generosity deserved trust; however, we women could not be persuaded to
render it. We got out and admired, from afar, the process. Left by our
guide--and prop! we found ourselves in a wide field, where, by playful
quips and turns, an endless "creek," seemed to divert itself with our
attempts to cross it. Failing in this, the next best was to whirl down a
steep bank, which feat our charioteer performed with an air not unlike
that of Rhesus, had he but been as suitably furnished with chariot and
steeds!
At last, after wasting some two or three hours on the "short cut," we
got out by following an Indian trail,--Black Hawk's! How fair the scene
through which it led! How could they let themselves be conquered, with
such a country to fight for!
Afterwards, in the wide prairie, we saw a lively picture of nonchalance,
(to speak in the fashion of dear Ireland.) There, in the wide sunny
field, with neither tree nor umbrella above his head, sat a pedler, with
his pack, waiting apparently for customers. He was not disappointed. We
bought, what hold in regard to the human world, as unmarked, as
mysterious, and as important an existence, as the infusoria to the
natural, to wit, pins. This incident would have delighted those modern
sages, who, in imitation of the sitting philosophers of ancient Ind,
prefer silence to speech, waiting to going, and scornfully smile in
answer to the motions of earnest life,
"Of itself will nothing come,
That ye must still be seeking?"
However, it seemed to me to-day, as formerly on these sublime occasions,
obvious that nothing would come, unless something would go; now, if we
had been as sublimely still as the pedler, his pins would have tarried
in the pack, and his pockets sustained an aching void of pence!
Passing through one of the fine, park-like woods, almost clear from
underbrush and carpeted with thick grasses and flowers, we met, (for it
was Sunday,) a little congregation just returning from their service,
which had been performed in a rude house in its midst. It had a sweet
and peaceful air, as if such words and thoughts were very dear to them.
The parents had with them all their little children; but we saw no old
people; that charm was wanting, which exists in such scenes in older
settlements, of seeing the silver bent in reverence beside the flaxen
head.
At Oregon, the beauty of the scene was of even a more sumptuous
character than at our former "stopping place." Here swelled the river in
its boldest course, interspersed by halcyon isles on which nature had
lavished all her prodigality in tree, vine, and flower, banked by noble
bluffs, three hundred feet high, their sharp ridges as exquisitely
definite as the edge of a shell; their summits adorned with those same
beautiful trees, and with buttresses of rich rock, crested with old
hemlocks, which wore a touching and antique grace amid the softer and
more luxuriant vegetation. Lofty natural mounds rose amidst the rest,
with the same lovely and sweeping outline, showing everywhere the
plastic power of water,--water, mother of beauty, which, by its sweet
and eager flow, had left such lineaments as human genius never dreamt
of.
Not far from the river was a high crag, called the Pine Rock, which
looks out, as our guide observed, like a helmet above the brow of the
country. It seems as if the water left here and there a vestige of forms
and materials that preceded its course, just to set off its new and
richer designs.
The aspect of this country was to me enchanting, beyond any I have ever
seen, from its fullness of expression, its bold and impassioned
sweetness. Here the flood of emotion has passed over and marked
everywhere its course by a smile. The fragments of rock touch it with a
wildness and liberality which give just the needed relief. I should
never be tired here, though I have elsewhere seen country of more secret
and alluring charms, better calculated to stimulate and suggest. Here
the eye and heart are filled.
How happy the Indians must have been here! It is not long since they
were driven away, and the ground, above and below, is full of their
traces.
"The earth is full of men."
You have only to turn up the sod to find arrowheads and Indian pottery.
On an island, belonging to our host, and nearly opposite his house, they
loved to stay, and, no doubt, enjoyed its lavish beauty as much as the
myriad wild pigeons that now haunt its flower-filled shades. Here are
still the marks of their tomahawks, the troughs in which they prepared
their corn, their caches.
A little way down the river is the site of an ancient Indian village,
with its regularly arranged mounds. As usual, they had chosen with the
finest taste. It was one of those soft shadowy afternoons when we went
there, when nature seems ready to weep, not from grief, but from an
overfull heart. Two prattling, lovely little girls, and an African boy,
with glittering eye and ready grin, made our party gay; but all were
still as we entered their little inlet and trod those flowery paths.
They may blacken Indian life as they will, talk of its dirt, its
brutality, I will ever believe that the men who chose that
dwelling-place were able to feel emotions of noble happiness as they
returned to it, and so were the women that received them. Neither were
the children sad or dull, who lived so familiarly with the deer and the
birds, and swam that clear wave in the shadow of the Seven Sisters. The
whole scene suggested to me a Greek splendor, a Greek sweetness, and I
can believe that an Indian brave, accustomed to ramble in such paths,
and be bathed by such sunbeams, might be mistaken for Apollo, as Apollo
was for him by West. Two of the boldest bluffs are called the Deer's
Walk, (not because deer do _not_ walk there,) and the Eagle's Nest. The
latter I visited one glorious morning; it was that, of the fourth of
July, and certainly I think I had never felt so happy that I was born in
America. Wo to all country folks that never saw this spot, never swept
an enraptured gaze over the prospect that stretched beneath. I do
believe Rome and Florence are suburbs compared to this capital of
nature's art.
The bluff was decked with great bunches of a scarlet variety of the
milkweed, like cut coral, and all starred with a mysterious-looking dark
flower, whose cup rose lonely on a tall stem. This had, for two or
three days, disputed the ground with the lupine and phlox. My companions
disliked, I liked it.
Here I thought of, or rather saw, what the Greek expresses under the
form of Jove's darling, Ganymede, and the following stanzas took form.
GANYMEDE TO HIS EAGLE,
SUGGESTED BY A WORK OF THORWALDSEN'S.
Composed on the height called the Eagle's Nest, Oregon, Rock River,
July 4th, 1843.
Upon the rocky mountain stood the boy,
A goblet of pure water in his hand,
His face and form spoke him one made for joy,
A willing servant to sweet love's command,
But a strange pain was written on his brow,
And thrilled throughout his silver accents now--
"My bird," he cries, "my destined brother friend,
O whither fleets to-day thy wayward flight?
Hast thou forgotten that I here attend,
From the full noon until this sad twilight?
A hundred times, at least, from the clear spring,
Since the full noon o'er hill and valley glowed,
I've filled the vase which our Olympian king
Upon my care for thy sole use bestowed;
That at the moment when thou should'st descend,
A pure refreshment might thy thirst attend.
Hast thou forgotten earth, forgotten me,
Thy fellow bondsman in a royal cause,
Who, from the sadness of infinity,
Only with thee can know that peaceful pause
In which we catch the flowing strain of love,
Which binds our dim fates to the throne of Jove?
Before I saw thee, I was like the May,
Longing for summer that must mar its bloom,
Or like the morning star that calls the day,
Whose glories to its promise are the tomb;
And as the eager fountain rises higher
To throw itself more strongly back to earth,
Still, as more sweet and full rose my desire,
More fondly it reverted to its birth,
For, what the rosebud seeks tells not the rose,
The meaning foretold by the boy the man cannot disclose.
I was all Spring, for in my being dwelt
Eternal youth, where flowers are the fruit,
Full feeling was the thought of what was felt,
Its music was the meaning of the lute;
But heaven and earth such life will still deny,
For earth, divorced from heaven, still asks the question _Why?_
Upon the highest mountains my young feet
Ached, that no pinions from their lightness grew,
My starlike eyes the stars would fondly greet,
Yet win no greeting from the circling blue;
Fair, self-subsistent each in its own sphere,
They had no care that there was none for me;
Alike to them that I was far or near,
Alike to them, time and eternity.
But, from the violet of lower air,
Sometimes an answer to my wishing came,
Those lightning births my nature seemed to share,
They told the secrets of its fiery frame,
The sudden messengers of hate and love,
The thunderbolts that arm the hand of Jove,
And strike sometimes the sacred spire, and strike the sacred grove.
Come in a moment, in a moment gone,
They answered me, then left me still more lone,
They told me that the thought which ruled the world,
As yet no sail upon its course had furled,
That the creation was but just begun,
New leaves still leaving from the primal one,
But spoke not of the goal to which _my_ rapid wheels would run.
Still, still my eyes, though tearfully, I strained
To the far future which my heart contained,
And no dull doubt my proper hope profaned.
At last, O bliss, thy living form I spied,
Then a mere speck upon a distant sky,
Yet my keen glance discerned its noble pride,
And the full answer of that sun-filled eye;
I knew it was the wing that must upbear
My earthlier form into the realms of air.
Thou knowest how we gained that beauteous height,
Where dwells the monarch of the sons of light,
Thou knowest he declared us two to be
The chosen servants of his ministry,
Thou as his messenger, a sacred sign
Of conquest, or with omen more benign,
To give its due weight to the righteous cause,
To express the verdict of Olympian laws.
And I to wait upon the lonely spring,
Which slakes the thirst of bards to whom 'tis given
The destined dues of hopes divine to sing,
And weave the needed chain to bind to heaven.
Only from such could be obtained a draught
For him who in his early home from Jove's own cup has quaffed.
To wait, to wait, but not to wait too long,
Till heavy grows the burthen of a song;
O bird! too long hast thou been gone to-day,
My feet are weary of their frequent way,
The spell that opes the spring my tongue no more can say.
If soon thou com'st not, night will fall around,
My head with a sad slumber will be bound,
And the pure draught be spilt upon the ground.
Remember that I am not yet divine,
Long years of service to the fatal Nine
Are yet to make a Delphian vigor mine.
O, make them not too hard, thou bird of Jove,
Answer the stripling's hope, confirm his love,
Receive the service in which he delights,
And bear him often to the serene heights,
Where hands that were so prompt in serving thee,
Shall be allowed the highest ministry,
And Rapture live with bright Fidelity.
The afternoon was spent in a very different manner. The family, whose
guests we were, possessed a gay and graceful hospitality that gave zest
to each moment. They possessed that rare politeness which, while fertile
in pleasant expedients to vary the enjoyment of a friend, leaves him
perfectly free the moment he wishes to be so. With such hosts, pleasure
may be combined with repose. They lived on the bank opposite the town,
and, as their house was full, we slept in the town, and passed three
days with them, passing to and fro morning and evening in their boats.
(To one of these, called the Fairy, in which a sweet little daughter of
the house moved about lighter than any Scotch Ellen ever sung, I should
indite a poem, if I had not been guilty of rhyme on the very last page.)
At morning this was very pleasant; at evening, I confess I was generally
too tired with the excitements of the day to think it so.
Their house--a double log cabin--was, to my eye, the model of a Western
villa. Nature had laid out before it grounds which could not be
improved. Within, female taste had veiled every rudeness--availed itself
of every sylvan grace.
In this charming abode what laughter, what sweet thoughts, what pleasing
fancies, did we not enjoy! May such never desert those who reared it and
made us so kindly welcome to all its pleasures!
Fragments of city life were dexterously crumbled into the dish prepared
for general entertainment. Ice creams followed the dinner drawn by the
gentlemen from the river, and music and fireworks wound up the evening
of days spent on the Eagle's Nest. Now they had prepared a little fleet
to pass over to the Fourth of July celebration, which some queer
drumming and fifing, from the opposite bank, had announced to be "on
hand."
We found the free and independent citizens there collected beneath the
trees, among whom many a round Irish visage dimpled at the usual puffs
of Ameriky.
The orator was a New Englander, and the speech smacked loudly of Boston,
but was received with much applause, and followed by a plentiful dinner,
provided by and for the Sovereign People, to which Hail Columbia served
as grace.
[Illustration: LOG CABIN AT ROCK RIVER]
Returning, the gay flotilla hailed the little flag which the children
had raised from a log-cabin, prettier than any president ever saw, and
drank the health of their country and all mankind, with a clear
conscience.
Dance and song wound up the day. I know not when the mere local
habitation has seemed to me to afford so fair a chance of happiness as
this. To a person of unspoiled tastes, the beauty alone would afford
stimulus enough. But with it would be naturally associated all kinds of
wild sports, experiments, and the studies of natural history. In these
regards, the poet, the sportsman, the naturalist, would alike rejoice in
this wide range of untouched loveliness.
Then, with a very little money, a ducal estate may be purchased, and by
a very little more, and moderate labor, a family be maintained upon it
with raiment, food and shelter. The luxurious and minute comforts of a
city life are not yet to be had without effort disproportionate to their
value. But, where there is so great, a counterpoise, cannot these be
given up once for all? If the houses are imperfectly built, they can
afford immense fires and plenty of covering; if they are small, who
cares?--with such fields to roam in. In winter, it may be borne; in
summer, is of no consequence. With plenty of fish, and game, and wheat,
can they not dispense with a baker to bring "muffins hot" every morning
to the door for their breakfast?
Here a man need not take a small slice from the landscape, and fence it
in from the obtrusions of an uncongenial neighbor, and there cut down
his fancies to miniature improvements which a chicken could run over in
ten minutes. He may have water and wood and land enough, to dread no
incursions on his prospect from some chance Vandal that may enter his
neighborhood. He need not painfully economise and manage how he may use
it all; he can afford to leave some of it wild, and to carry out his own
plans without obliterating those of nature.
Here, whole families might live together, if they would. The sons might
return from their pilgrimages to settle near the parent hearth; the
daughters might find room near their mother. Those painful separations,
which already desecrate and desolate the Atlantic coast, are not
enforced here by the stern need of seeking bread; and where they are
voluntary, it is no matter. To me, too, used to the feelings which haunt
a society of struggling men, it was delightful to look upon a scene
where nature still wore her motherly smile and seemed to promise room
not only for those favored or cursed with the qualities best adapting
for the strifes of competition, but for the delicate, the thoughtful,
even the indolent or eccentric. She did not say, Fight or starve; nor
even, Work or cease to exist; but, merely showing that the apple was a
finer fruit than the wild crab, gave both room to grow in the garden.
A pleasant society is formed of the families who live along the banks of
this stream upon farms. They are from various parts of the world, and
have much to communicate to one another. Many have cultivated minds and
refined manners, all a varied experience, while they have in common the
interests of a new country and a new life. They must traverse some
space to get at one another, but the journey is through scenes that make
it a separate pleasure. They must bear inconveniences to stay in one
another's houses; but these, to the well-disposed, are only a source of
amusement and adventure.
The great drawback upon the lives of these settlers, at present, is the
unfitness of the women for their new lot. It has generally been the
choice of the men, and the women follow, as women will, doing their best
for affection's sake, but too often in heart-sickness and weariness.
Beside it frequently not being a choice or conviction of their own minds
that it is best to be here, their part is the hardest, and they are
least fitted for it. The men can find assistance in field labor, and
recreation with the gun and fishing-rod. Their bodily strength is
greater, and enables them to bear and enjoy both these forms of life.
The women can rarely find any aid in domestic labor. All its various and
careful tasks must often be performed, sick or well, by the mother and
daughters, to whom a city education has imparted neither the strength
nor skill now demanded.
The wives of the poorer settlers, having more hard work to do than
before, very frequently become slatterns; but the ladies, accustomed to
a refined neatness, feel that they cannot degrade themselves by its
absence, and struggle under every disadvantage to keep up the necessary
routine of small arrangements.
With all these disadvantages for work, their resources for pleasure are
fewer. When they can leave the housework, they have not learnt to ride,
to drive, to row, alone. Their culture has too generally been that given
to women to make them "the ornaments of society." They can dance, but
not draw; talk French, but know nothing of the language of flowers;
neither in childhood were allowed to cultivate them, lest they should
tan their complexions. Accustomed to the pavement of Broadway, they dare
not tread the wild-wood paths for fear of rattlesnakes!
Seeing much of this joylessness, and inaptitude, both of body and mind,
for a lot which would be full of blessings for those prepared for it, we
could not but look with deep interest on the little girls, and hope they
would grow up with the strength of body, dexterity, simple tastes, and
resources that would fit them to enjoy and refine the western farmer's
life.
But they have a great deal to war with in the habits of thought acquired
by their mothers from their own early life. Everywhere the fatal spirit
of imitation, of reference to European standards, penetrates, and
threatens to blight whatever of original growth might adorn the soil.
If the little girls grow up strong, resolute, able to exert their
faculties, their mothers mourn over their want of fashionable delicacy.
Are they gay, enterprising, ready to fly about in the various ways that
teach them so much, these ladies lament that "they cannot go to school,
where they might learn to be quiet." They lament the want of "education"
for their daughters, as if the thousand needs which call out their young
energies, and the language of nature around, yielded no education.
Their grand ambition for their children, is to send them to school in
some eastern city, the measure most likely to make them useless and
unhappy at home. I earnestly hope that, ere long, the existence of good
schools near themselves, planned by persons of sufficient thought to
meet the wants of the place and time, instead of copying New York or
Boston, will correct this mania. Instruction the children want to enable
them to profit by the great natural advantages of their position; but
methods copied from the education of some English Lady Augusta, are as
ill suited to the daughter of an Illinois farmer, as satin shoes to
climb the Indian mounds. An elegance she would diffuse around her, if
her mind were opened to appreciate elegance; it might be of a kind new,
original, enchanting, as different from that of the city belle as that
of the prairie torch-flower from the shopworn article that touches the
cheek of that lady within her bonnet.
To a girl really skilled to make home beautiful and comfortable, with
bodily strength to enjoy plenty of exercise, the woods, the streams, a
few studies, music, and the sincere and familiar intercourse, far more
easily to be met here than elsewhere, would afford happiness enough. Her
eyes would not grow dim, nor her cheeks sunken, in the absence of
parties, morning visits, and milliner's shops.
As to music, I wish I could see in such places the guitar rather than
the piano, and good vocal more than instrumental music.
The piano many carry with them, because it is the fashionable instrument
in the eastern cities. Even there, it is so merely from the habit of
imitating Europe, for not one in a thousand is willing to give the labor
requisite to ensure any valuable use of the instrument.
But, out here, where the ladies have so much less leisure, it is still
less desirable. Add to this, they never know how to tune their own
instruments, and as persons seldom visit them who can do so, these
pianos are constantly out of tune, and would spoil the ear of one who
began by having any.
The guitar, or some portable instrument which requires less practice,
and could be kept in tune by themselves, would be far more desirable for
most of these ladies. It would give all they want as a household
companion to fill up the gaps of life with a pleasant stimulus or
solace, and be sufficient accompaniment to the voice in social meetings.
Singing in parts is the most delightful family amusement, and those who
are constantly together can learn to sing in perfect accord. All the
practice it needs, after some good elementary instruction, is such as
meetings by summer twilight, and evening firelight naturally suggest.
And, as music is an universal language, we cannot but think a fine
Italian duet would be as much at home in the log cabin as one of Mrs.
Gore's novels.
The sixth July we left this beautiful place. It was one of those rich
days of bright sunlight, varied by the purple shadows of large sweeping
clouds. Many a backward look we cast, and left the heart behind.
Our journey to-day was no less delightful than before, still all new,
boundless, limitless. Kinmont says, that limits are sacred; that the
Greeks were in the right to worship a god of limits. I say, that what is
limitless is alone divine, that there was neither wall nor road in Eden,
that those who walked there lost and found their way just as we did, and
that all the gain from the Fall was that we had a wagon to ride in. I do
not think, either, that even the horses doubted whether this last was
any advantage.
Everywhere the rattlesnake-weed grows in profusion. The antidote
survives the bane. Soon the coarser plantain, the "white man's
footstep," shall take its place.
We saw also the compass plant, and the western tea plant. Of some of the
brightest flowers an Indian girl afterwards told me the medicinal
virtues. I doubt not those students of the soil knew a use to every fair
emblem, on which we could only look to admire its hues and shape.
After noon we were ferried by a girl, (unfortunately not of the most
picturesque appearance) across the Kishwaukie, the most graceful stream,
and on whose bosom rested many full-blown water-lilies, twice as large
as any of ours. I was told that, _en revanche_, they were scentless, but
I still regret that I could not get at one of them to try.
Query, did the lilied fragrance which, in the miraculous times,
accompanied visions of saints and angels, proceed from water or garden
lilies?
Kishwaukie is, according to tradition, the scene of a famous battle, and
its many grassy mounds contain the bones of the valiant. On these waved
thickly the mysterious purple flower, of which I have spoken before. I
think it springs from the blood of the Indians, as the hyacinth did from
that of Apollo's darling.
The ladies of our host's family at Oregon, when they first went there,
after all the pains and plagues of building and settling, found their
first pastime in opening one of these mounds, in which they found, I
think, three of the departed, seated in the Indian fashion.
One of these same ladies, as she was making bread one winter morning,
saw from the window a deer directly before the house. She ran out, with
her hands covered with dough, calling the others, and they caught him
bodily before he had time to escape.
Here (at Kishwaukie) we received a visit from a ragged and barefoot, but
bright-eyed gentleman, who seemed to be the intellectual loafer, the
walking Will's coffeehouse of the place. He told us many charming snake
stories; among others, of himself having seen seventeen young ones
reenter the mother snake, on the intrusion of a visiter.
This night we reached Belvidere, a flourishing town in Boon county,
where was the tomb, now despoiled, of Big Thunder. In this later day we
felt happy to find a really good hotel.
From this place, by two days of very leisurely and devious journeying,
we reached Chicago, and thus ended a journey, which one at least of the
party might have wished unending.
I have not been particularly anxious to give the geography of the
scene, inasmuch as it seemed to me no route, nor series of stations, but
a garden interspersed with cottages, groves and flowery lawns, through
which a stately river ran. I had no guide-book, kept no diary, do not
know how many miles we travelled each day, nor how many in all. What I
got from the journey was the poetic impression of the country at large;
it is all I have aimed to communicate.
The narrative might have been made much more interesting, as life was at
the time, by many piquant anecdotes and tales drawn from private life.
But here courtesy restrains the pen, for I know those who received the
stranger with such frank kindness would feel ill requited by its
becoming the means of fixing many spy-glasses, even though the scrutiny
might be one of admiring interest, upon their private homes.
For many of these, too, I was indebted to a friend, whose property they
more lawfully are. This friend was one of those rare beings who are
equally at home in nature and with man. He knew a tale of all that ran
and swam, and flew, or only grew, possessing that extensive familiarity
with things which shows equal sweetness of sympathy and playful
penetration. Most refreshing to me was his unstudied lore, the unwritten
poetry which common life presents to a strong and gentle mind. It was a
great contrast to the subtleties of analysis, the philosophic strainings
of which I had seen too much. But I will not attempt to transplant it.
May it profit others as it did me in the region where it was born,
where it belongs. The evening of our return to Chicago the sunset was of
a splendor and calmness beyond any we saw at the West. The twilight that
succeeded was equally beautiful; soft, pathetic, but just so calm. When
afterwards I learned this was the evening of Allston's death, it seemed
to me as if this glorious pageant was not without connection with that
event; at least, it inspired similar emotions,--a heavenly gate closing
a path adorned with shows well worthy Paradise.
* * * * *
Farewell, ye soft and sumptuous solitudes!
Ye fairy distances, ye lordly woods,
Haunted by paths like those that Poussin knew,
When after his all gazers eyes he drew;
I go,--and if I never more may steep
An eager heart in your enchantments deep,
Yet ever to itself that heart may say,
Be not exacting; thou hast lived one day;
Hast looked on that which matches with thy mood,
Impassioned sweetness of full being's flood,
Where nothing checked the bold yet gentle wave,
Where nought repelled the lavish love that gave.
A tender blessing lingers o'er the scene,
Like some young mother's thought, fond, yet serene,
And through its life new-born our lives have been.
Once more farewell,--a sad, a sweet farewell;
And, if I never must behold you more,
In other worlds I will not cease to tell
The rosary I here have numbered o'er;
And bright-haired Hope will lend a gladdened ear,
And Love will free him from the grasp of Fear,
And Gorgon critics, while the tale they hear,
Shall dew their stony glances with a tear,
If I but catch one echo from your spell;--
And so farewell,--a grateful, sad farewell!