Although I date this letter as above, it will not be so old a one as at
first sight it would appear to be when it reaches you. I shall carry it
on with me to Montreal, and despatch it from there by the steamer which
goes to Halifax, to meet the Cunard boat at that place, with Canadian
letters and passengers. Before I finally close it, I will add a short
postscript, so that it will contain the latest intelligence.
We have had a blessed interval of quiet in this beautiful place, of
which, as you may suppose, we stood greatly in need, not only by reason
of our hard travelling for a long time, but on account of the incessant
persecutions of the people, by land and water, on stage coach, railway
car, and steamer, which exceeds anything you can picture to yourself by
the utmost stretch of your imagination. So far we have had this hotel
nearly to ourselves. It is a large square house, standing on a bold
height, with overhanging eaves like a Swiss cottage, and a wide handsome
gallery outside every story. These colonnades make it look so very
light, that it has exactly the appearance of a house built with a pack
of cards; and I live in bodily terror lest any man should venture to
step out of a little observatory on the roof, and crush the whole
structure with one stamp of his foot.
Our sitting-room (which is large and low like a nursery) is on the
second floor, and is so close to the Falls that the windows are always
wet and dim with spray. Two bedrooms open out of it--one our own; one
Anne's. The secretary slumbers near at hand, but without these sacred
precincts. From the three chambers, or any part of them, you can see the
Falls rolling and tumbling, and roaring and leaping, all day long, with
bright rainbows making fiery arches down a hundred feet below us. When
the sun is on them, they shine and glow like molten gold. When the day
is gloomy, the water falls like snow, or sometimes it seems to crumble
away like the face of a great chalk cliff, or sometimes again to roll
along the front of the rock like white smoke. But it all seems gay or
gloomy, dark or light, by sun or moon. From the bottom of both Falls,
there is always rising up a solemn ghostly cloud, which hides the
boiling cauldron from human sight, and makes it in its mystery a hundred
times more grand than if you could see all the secrets that lie hidden
in its tremendous depth. One Fall is as close to us as York Gate is to
No. 1, Devonshire Terrace. The other (the great Horse-shoe Fall) may be,
perhaps, about half as far off as "Creedy's."[3] One circumstance in
connection with them is, in all the accounts, greatly exaggerated--I
mean the noise. Last night was perfectly still. Kate and I could just
hear them, at the quiet time of sunset, a mile off. Whereas, believing
the statements I had heard I began putting my ear to the ground, like a
savage or a bandit in a ballet, thirty miles off, when we were coming
here from Buffalo.
I was delighted to receive your famous letter, and to read your account
of our darlings, whom we long to see with an intensity it is impossible
to shadow forth, ever so faintly. I do believe, though I say it as
shouldn't, that they are good 'uns--both to look at and to go. I roared
out this morning, as soon as I was awake, "Next month," which we have
been longing to be able to say ever since we have been here. I really do
not know how we shall ever knock at the door, when that slowest of all
impossibly slow hackney-coaches shall pull up--at home.
I am glad you exult in the fight I have had about the copyright. If you
knew how they tried to stop me, you would have a still greater interest
in it. The greatest men in England have sent me out, through Forster, a
very manly, and becoming, and spirited memorial and address, backing me
in all I have done. I have despatched it to Boston for publication, and
am coolly prepared for the storm it will raise. But my best rod is in
pickle.
Is it not a horrible thing that scoundrel booksellers should grow rich
here from publishing books, the authors of which do not reap one
farthing from their issue by scores of thousands; and that every vile,
blackguard, and detestable newspaper, so filthy and bestial that no
honest man would admit one into his house for a scullery door-mat,
should be able to publish those same writings side by side, cheek by
jowl, with the coarsest and most obscene companions with which they must
become connected, in course of time, in people's minds? Is it tolerable
that besides being robbed and rifled an author should be forced to
appear in any form, in any vulgar dress, in any atrocious company; that
he should have no choice of his audience, no control over his own
distorted text, and that he should be compelled to jostle out of the
course the best men in this country who only ask to live by writing? I
vow before high heaven that my blood so boils at these enormities, that
when I speak about them I seem to grow twenty feet high, and to swell
out in proportion. "Robbers that ye are," I think to myself when I get
upon my legs, "here goes!"
The places we have lodged in, the roads we have gone over, the company
we have been among, the tobacco-spittle we have wallowed in, the strange
customs we have complied with, the packing-cases in which we have
travelled, the woods, swamps, rivers, prairies, lakes, and mountains we
have crossed, are all subjects for legends and tales at home; quires,
reams, wouldn't hold them. I don't think Anne has so much as seen an
American tree. She never looks at a prospect by any chance, or displays
the smallest emotion at any sight whatever. She objects to Niagara that
"it's nothing but water," and considers that "there is too much of
that."
I suppose you have heard that I am going to act at the Montreal theatre
with the officers? Farce-books being scarce, and the choice consequently
limited, I have selected Keeley's part in "Two o'Clock in the Morning."
I wrote yesterday to Mitchell, the actor and manager at New York, to get
and send me a comic wig, light flaxen, with a small whisker halfway down
the cheek; over this I mean to wear two night-caps, one with a tassel
and one of flannel; a flannel wrapper, drab tights and slippers, will
complete the costume.
I am very sorry to hear that business is so flat, but the proverb says
it never rains but it pours, and it may be remarked with equal truth
upon the other side, that it never _don't_ rain but it holds up very
much indeed. You will be busy again long before I come home, I have no
doubt.
We purpose leaving this on Wednesday morning. Give my love to Letitia
and to mother, and always believe me, my dear Henry,
Affectionately yours.
[Sidenote: Mr. Henry Austin.]