those we had of the city itself, by going to spend an evening at Mr.
Kings at High Wood, two miles beyond Hoboken, on the New-Jersey side of
the river. The frame cottages, with their thatched verandahs, struck me
as very pretty. I could not say much for the beauty of the corn, whose
plants, long since stripped of their cobs, were standing yellow and dry,
and fast hastening to decay. There were ridges of gray rock,
interspersed with woods, which still flourished in their summer
greenness. Above all was a sunset, which, if seen in England, would
persuade the nation that the end of the world was come. The whole arch
of the sky appeared lined with conflagration. It seemed strange to see
the wagon-driver talking with his bullocks and the old Dutch dame
spinning in the stoop as quietly as if that scarlet sky had been of its
usual summer blue.
I was shown on the way the spot where Hamilton received his death-wound
from Colonel Burr. It was once made a qualification for office that the
candidate should never have fought a duel. Duelling is an institution
not to be reached by such a provision as this. No man under provocation
to fight would refrain from fear of disqualifying himself for office
hereafter; and the operation of the restriction was accordingly found to
be this; that duels were as frequent as ever, and that desirable
candidates were excluded. The provision was got rid of on the plea that
promissory oaths are bad in principle. The cure of duelling, as of every
other encroachment of passion and selfishness on such higher principles
as, being passive, cannot be imbodied in acts, must be the natural
result of the improved moral condition of the individual or of society.
No one believes that the legal penalties of duelling have had much
effect in stopping the practice; and it is an injury to society to
choose out of the ample range of penalties disqualification for social
duty as one.
The view from Mr. King's garden at High Wood is beautiful. From one
opening a reach of twelve miles of the Hudson is commanded, from the
Narrows upward. A soft red light was resting on the waters, the last
tinge from the late flaming sky. The dark sloops moored below were thus
rendered visible, while the twilight shrouded the rocks. Opposite there
was a flare in the woods from a glasshouse; and the lights of the city
twinkled afar off, reflected in the waters.
One of the first impressions of a foreigner in New-York is of the
extreme insolence and vulgarity of certain young Englishmen, who thus
make themselves very conspicuous. Well-mannered Englishmen are scarcely
distinguishable from the natives, and thus escape observation; while
every commercial traveller who sneers at republicanism all day long, and
every impertinent boy, leaving home for the first time, with no
understanding or sympathy for anything but what he has been accustomed
to see at home, obtrudes himself upon the notice, and challenges the
congeniality of such countrymen and countrywomen as he can contrive to
put himself in the way of. I was annoyed this evening, on my return
home, by a very complete specimen of the last-mentioned order of
travellers.
Need I say, after thus detailing the little incidents which followed my
landing in America, that my first impressions of the country were highly
agreeable?
THE HUDSON.
"Oh, there is not lost
One of earth's charms: upon her bosom yet,
After the flight of untold centuries,
The freshness of her far beginning lies,
And yet shall lie."
BRYANT.
I went three times up the Hudson; and, if I lived at New-York, should be
tempted to ascend it three times a week during the summer. Yet the
greater number of ladies on board the steamboat remained in the close
cabin among the crying babies, even while we were passing the finest
scenery of the river. They do not share the taste of a gentleman who,
when I was there, actually made the steamboat his place of abode during
the entire summer season, sleeping on board at Albany and New-York on
alternate nights, and gazing at the shores all the day long with
apparently undiminishing delight.
The first time we went up the early part of the morning was foggy, and
the mist hung about the ridge of the Palisades, the rocky western
barrier of the river. There were cottages perched here and there, and
trees were sprinkled in the crevices, and a little yellow strand, just
wide enough for the fisherman and his boat, now and then intervened
between the waters and the perpendicular rock. In the shadowy recesses
of the shore wore sloops moored. Seagulls dipped their wings in the
gleams of the river, and the solitary fishhawk sailed slowly over the
woods. I saw on the eastern bank a wide flight of steps cut in the turf,
leading to an opening in the trees, at the end of which stood a white
house, apparently in deep retirement. Farther on the river widened into
the Tappan Sea, and then the hills rose higher behind the banks, and
wandering gleams lighted up a mountain region here and there. The
captain admitted us, as strangers (of course without any hint from us),
into the wheel-room, which was shady, breezy, roomy, and commanding the
entire view. Hence we were shown Mr. Irvings's cottage, the spot where
André was captured, and the other interesting points of the scenery.
Then the banks seemed to close, and it was matter for conjecture where
the outlet was. The waters were hemmed in by abrupt and dark mountains,
but the channel was still broad and smooth enough for all the steamboats
in the republic to ride in safety. Ridges of rock plunged into the
waters, garnished with trees which seemed to grow without soil; above
them were patches of cultivation on the mountain sides, and slopes of
cleared land, with white houses upon them. Doves flitted among the
nearest trees, and gay rowboats darted from point to point from one
island to another.
West Point, beautiful as it is, was always visible too soon. Yet to
leave the boat was the only way to remain in sight of the Highlands; and
the charms of the place itself are scarcely to be surpassed. The hotel
is always full of good company in the season. Mr. Cozens keeps a table
for the officers, and is permitted to add as many guests as his house
will hold; but, under such circumstances, he takes pains to admit only
such as are fit company for his permanent boarders. The views from the
hotel are so fine, and there is such a provision of comfort and
entertainment, that there would be no hardship in sitting within doors
for a week; but we made the best use we could of our opportunities, and
saw and achieved everything pertaining to the place, except mounting the
Crow's Nest; an expedition which the heat of the weather prevented our
undertaking.
In some solitary spots of this settlement the stranger cannot help
meditating on the vast materials of human happiness which are placed at
the disposal of the real administrators of this great country. How great
is the apparatus to be yet put to use! Here, where life is swarming all
around, how few are the habitations of men! Here are woods climbing
above woods to the clouds and stretching to the horizon, in which
myriads of creatures are chirping, humming, and sporting; clefts whence
the waters gush out; green slopes ready for the plough and the sickle;
flat meadows with a few haycocks lying at the foot of mountains as yet
untouched. Grasshoppers spring at every step one takes in the rich
grass, and many a blue dragon-fly balances itself on the tips of the
strongest blades; butterflies, green, black, white, and yellow, dazzle
the eye that would follow them; yet how few men are near! A gay group on
the steps of the hotel, a company of cadets parading on the green, the
ferryman and his fare, and the owners of this, and that, and the other
house perched upon the pinnacles of the hills; these are all as yet
visible in a region which will hereafter be filled with speech and busy
with thought.
On the steep above the landing-place I was introduced to Mr. Irving,
with whom I had a few minutes' conversation before he stepped into the
ferryboat which was to take him over to the foundry to dinner. Many
other persons with whom I was glad to have the opportunity of becoming
acquainted were at the hotel. Mr. and Mrs. Morris were our guides to
Fort Putnam after dinner; walkers as active and resolute as ourselves.
The beauty from this elevated platform is really oppressive to the
sense. One is glad to divert one's attention from its awful radiance by
walking in precipitous places, by visiting the cell in which it is said,
but doubtfully, that André was confined, or even by meditating on the
lot of the solitary cow that has the honour of grazing in the midst of
the only ruins that adorn American scenery.
A lady in the hotel offered to meet me on the housetop at five o'clock
in the morning to see the sun rise. I looked out at three; there was a
solitary light twinkling in the academy, and a faint gleam out of a
cloudy sky upon the river. At five the sky was so thickly overspread
with clouds that the expedition to the housetop had to be abandoned. The
morning afterward cleared, and I went alone down to Kosciusko's Garden.
I loved this retreat at an hour when I was likely to have it to myself.
It is a nook scooped, as it were, out of the rocky bank of the river,
and reached by descending several flights of steps from the platform
behind the hotel and academy. Besides the piled rocks and the vegetation
with which they are clothed, there is nothing but a clear spring, which
wells up in a stone basin inscribed with the hero's name. This was his
favourite retreat; and here he sat for many hours in a day with his book
and his thoughts. After fancying for some time that I was alone, and
playing with the fountain and the leaves of the red beech and the maple,
now turning into its autumnal scarlet, I found, on looking up, that one
of the cadets was stretched at length on a high projection of rock, and
that another was coming down the steps. The latter accosted me, offering
to point out to me the objects of interest about the place. We had a
long conversation about his academical life.
The students apply themselves to mathematics during the first and second
years; during the third, to mathematics, chymistry, and natural
philosophy; and during the fourth, to engineering. There is less
literary pursuit than they or their friends would like; but they have
not time for everything. Their work is from seven in the morning till
four in the afternoon, with the exception of two hours for meals. Then
come drill and recreation, and then the evening parade. During six weeks
(I think) of the summer they camp out, which some of the youths enjoy,
while others like it so much less than living under a roof, that they
take this time to be absent on furlough. The friends of others come to
see them while the pretty spectacle of a camp is added to the
attractions of the place. Every care is used that the proficiency should
be maintained at the highest point that it can be made to reach. The
classes consist of not less than one hundred and forty, of whom only
forty graduate. Some find the work too hard; some dislike the routine;
others are postponed; and by this careful weeding out the choicest are
kept for the public service. This process may go some way towards
accounting for the present unpopularity of the institution, and the
consequent danger of its downfall. The number of disappointed youths,
whose connexions will naturally bear a grudge against the establishment,
must be great. There is a belief abroad that its principle and
administration are both anti-republican; and in answer to an
irresistible popular demand, a committee of Congress has been engaged in
investigating both the philosophy and practice of this national military
academy; for some time previous to which there was difficulty in
obtaining the annual appropriation for its support. I have not seen the
report of this committee, but I was told that the evidence on which it
is founded is very unfavourable to the conduct of the establishment in a
political point of view. The advantages of such an institution in
securing a uniformity of military conduct in case of war, from the young
soldiers of all the states having received a common education; in
affording one meeting point where sectional prejudice may be dissolved;
and in concentrating the attention of the whole union upon maintaining a
high degree of proficiency in science, are so great, that it is no
wonder that an indignant and honest cry is raised against those who
would abolish it on account of its aristocratical tendencies. I rather
think it is a case in which both parties are more than commonly right;
that it is an institution which can scarcely be dispensed with, but
which requires to be watched with the closest jealousy, that there may
be no abuse of patronage, and no such combination as could lead to the
foundation of a military aristocracy.
I saw the well-selected library, consisting of several thousand volumes,
the spacious lecture-rooms, and students' apartments. I often wonder
whether students are at all aware of the wistful longing, the envy, with
which those who are precluded from academical life view the arrangements
of colleges. No library in a private house conveys any idea of the power
of devotion to study which is suggested by the sight of a student's
apartment in a college. The sight of the snug solitary room, the
bookshelves, the single desk and armchair, the larum, and even the
flowerpot or two in the window, and the portrait of some favourite
philosophical worthy; these things send a thrill of envy through the
heart of the thoughtful politician, or man of business, or woman, who
cannot command such facilities for study. I know that the fallacy of
attributing too much to external arrangements enters here; that many
study to as much advantage under difficulties as any academical member
in his retirement; I know, too, that the student shares the human
weakness of finding evil in his lot, and supposing that he should be
better in some other circumstances; I know this by a revelation once
made to me by a college student, for whose facilities I had been
intensely thankful, a revelation of his deep and incessant trouble
because he was living to himself, selfishly studying, and obliged to
wait four or five years before he could bestir himself for his race;
yet, in spite of all this knowledge that the common equality of
pleasures and pains subsists here, I never see the interior of a college
without longing to impress upon its inmates how envied and enviable they
are. It is difficult to remember that the stillness of the cell is of no
avail without the intentness of the mind, and that there is no
efficacious solitude in the deepest retirement if the spirit is roving
abroad after schemes of pleasure or ambition, or even of piety and
benevolence, which are not the appointed duty of the time. But I have
wandered from my new acquaintance in Kosciusko's Garden.
I was surprised to learn the extraordinary high average of health the
place can boast of. The young men enter at the age of from fourteen to
twenty, stay three or four years, and number about three hundred at a
time. The mortality in the seventeen years preceding my visit was only
five. For eight years before the winter of 1834 there had been no death.
Within a few months after, the superintendent's wife, a servant, and a
cadet died; and this was, of course, considered an extraordinary
mortality. I rather wondered at this account, for the young men look
anything but robust, and the use of tobacco among them is very free
indeed. It is prohibited, but not the less indulged in on that account,
nor from the absence of evil example in their superintendents. My new
acquaintance made very frank confessions on this subject. He told me
that he believed the free use of tobacco had extensively and irreparably
injured his health, and that he bitterly mourned his first indulgence in
it.
"Do not you mean to leave it off?" said I.
"No."
"Do you think you could not?"
"I could; but it would take three weeks to cure myself; and during that
time I could do nothing; and I cannot afford that. I could not learn my
lessons without it, and the loss of three weeks would injure all my
prospects in life."
"Hardly so fatally as the ruin of your health, I should think. Is your
case a common one here?"
"Too common. But I assure you I do all I can to prevent the bad
consequences of my own example. I warn my juniors, as they come in, very
seriously."
"Do you find your warnings of much use?"
"I am afraid not much."
"They have the usual fate of mere precept, I suppose?"
"Yes, I am afraid so."
The manners of the cadets are excellent. They are allowed, under
restrictions, to mix with the company at Mr. Cozens's, and thus to be
frequently into ladies' society. There is a book kept at the hotel,
where every cadet must, at each visit, enter his name at length, and the
duration of his stay.
The second time I was at West Point was during the camping-out season.
The artillery drill in the morning was very noisy and grand to the
ladies, who had never seen anything of the "pomp and circumstance of
glorious war." Then the cadets retired to their tents, and the ladies
flitted about all the morning, making calls on each other. When we had
discharged this first of a traveller's duties, we sauntered to the
cemetery. Never did I see such a spot to be buried in. The green hill
projects into the river so that the monumental pillar erected by the
cadets to the comrade who was killed by the bursting of a gun in 1817 is
visible from two long reaches. One other accident had occurred a little
while before; a cadet had been killed by a comrade in fencing. The tombs
are few, and the inscriptions simple. Broad, spreading trees overshadow
the long grass, and the whole is so hemmed in, so intensely quiet, that
no sound is to be heard but the plash of oars from below and the hum of
insects around, except when the evening gun booms over the heights, or
the summer storm reverberates among the mountains.
Such a storm I had beheld the evening before from the piazza of the
hotel. I stayed from the parade to watch it. As the thick veil of rain
came down, the mountains seemed to retire, growing larger as they
receded. As the darkness advanced, the scene became strangely compound.
A friend sat with me in the piazza, talking of the deepest subjects on
which human thought can speculate. Behind us were the open windows of
the hotel, where, by turning the head, we might see the dancing going
on; the gallant cadets and their pretty partners, while all the black
servants of the house ranged their laughing faces in the rear. The music
of the ballroom came to us mingling with the prolonged bursts of
thunder; and other and grander strains rose from the river, where two
large steamboats, with their lights, moved like constellations on the
water, conveying a regiment from Pennsylvania which was visiting the
soldiery of New-York State. They sent up rockets into the murky sky, and
poured new blasts of music from their band as they passed our
promontory. Every moment the lightning burst; now illuminating the
interior of a mass of clouds; now quivering from end to end of heaven;
now shedding broad livid gleams, which suddenly revealed a solitary
figure on the terrace, a sloop on the waters, and every jutting point of
rock. Still the dance went on till the hour struck which abruptly called
the youths away from their partners, and bade them hie to their tents.
On returning from the cemetery we found Mr. and Mrs. Kemble, from the
opposite side of the river, waiting to offer us their hospitality; and
we agreed to visit them in the afternoon. Mr. Kemble's boat awaited us
at the landing-place by three o'clock, and we rowed about some time
before landing on the opposite bank, so irresistible is the temptation
to linger in this scene of magical beauty. The Catholic chapel of
Coldspring is well placed on a point above the river; and the village,
hidden from West Point by a headland, is pretty. From Mr. Kemble's we
were to be treated with a visit to the Indian Fall, and were carried
within half a mile of it by water. We followed the brawling brook for
that distance, when we saw the glistening of the column of water through
the trees. No fall can be prettier for its size, which is just small
enough to tempt one to climb. A gentleman of our party made the attempt;
but the rocks were too slippery with wet weed, and he narrowly escaped a
tumble of twenty feet into the dark pool below. The boys, after bringing
us branches of the black cherry, clustered with the fruit, found a safe
and dry way up, and appeared waving their green boughs in triumph at the
top of the rocks. The tide had risen so that the river was brimming full
as we returned, and soft with the mountain shadows; but we landed at
West Point in time to see the sun set twice, as it happened. At the
landing-place we stood to see it drop behind the mountain; but just
after we had bidden it good-night, I saw that a meditative cadet, lying
at length upon a rock, was still basking in the golden light, and I ran
up the steep to the piazza. There, in a gap between two summits, was the
broad disk, as round as ever; and once more we saw it sink in a
tranquillity almost as grand as the stormy splendour of the preceding
night. Then ensued the evening parade, guitar music in the hotel, and
dancing in the camp.
This evening a lady and her daughter steamed down from Fishkill with a
request to us to spend a few days there; and a clergyman steamed up from
New-York with an invitation from Doctor Hosack to visit him and his
family at Hyde Park. We could not do both; and there was some difficulty
in contriving to do either, anxiously as we desired it; but we presently
settled that Fishkill must be given up, and that we must content
ourselves with two days at Hyde Park.
The next morning I experienced a sensation which I had often heard of,
but never quite believed in; the certainty that one has wakened in
another world. Those who have travelled much know that a frequent
puzzle, on waking from sound sleep in new places, is to know where one
is; even in what country of the world. This night I left my window open
close to my head, so that I could see the stars reflected in the river.
When I woke the scene was steeped in the light of the sunrise, and as
still as death. Its ineffable beauty was all; I remarked no individual
objects; but my heart stood still with an emotion which I should be glad
to think I may feel again whenever I really do enter a new scene of
existence. It was some time before my senses were separately roused;
during the whole day I could not get rid of the impression that I had
seen a vision; and even now I can scarcely look back upon the scene as
the very same which, at other hours, I saw clouded with earth-drawn
vapours, and gilded by the common sun.
At eleven o'clock we left West Point; and I am glad that we felt sure at
the time that we should visit it again; a design which we did not
accomplish, as the place was ravaged by scarlet fever at the season of
the next year that we had fixed for our visit. Mr. Livingston, who had
just returned from his French mission, was on board the boat. My letters
of introduction to him were at the bottom of my trunk; but we did not
put off becoming acquainted till I could get at them.