_Pittsfield, Mass., July 26th, 1834_.
One means by which Prussian tyranny sought to break down the spirit and
health of Baron Trenck, during his long and rigorous imprisonment at
Magdeburg, was to have him roused by a sentinel, every fifteen minutes
of his sleeping hours. You can form a lively conception of the efficacy
of the plan, if you have ever been compelled by exhausted nature to woo
her "sweet restorer" in a stage-coach, over a very uneven road: but
what think you of dozing it _outside_, on the driver's seat? Instead of
_two_ this morning, the waiter called me at _one_; when I had not slept
a single wink--("sleepless myself, to give my readers sleep.") Sickened
by the motion of the close and crowded coach, I presently mounted
beside the driver; where drowsiness soon overcame me. So, tying one arm
with my handkerchief to the iron on the stage roof, I took, for about
two hours, such slumber as was permitted by the heavings of our
vehicle, on a hilly road: such slumber, as one might enjoy while tossed
in a blanket, or "upon the high and giddy mast," rocking his brains,
"in cradle of the rude imperious surge." On fully awaking, half an hour
before sunrise, I found we were ascending a mountain (part of the Green
Mountain,) by a gentle slope of three or four degrees, continuing for
six miles. The scenery, (wildly picturesque in itself,) bursting thus
suddenly upon the view, was particularly striking. Indeed, no day of my
tour has presented a greater number of boldly beautiful landscapes.
That I never try to spread these beauties upon my page, you must
ascribe to the fear that they would but 'evanish' in the endeavor, and
by no means to any profane contempt--unpardonable, you know according
to Dr. Beattie, for
--------"the boundless store
Of charms which Nature to her votary yields;
The warbling woodland, the resounding shore,
The pomp of groves, and garniture of fields;
All that the genial ray of morning gilds,
And all that echoes to the song of even;
All that the mountains sheltering bosom shields,
And all the dread magnificence of Heaven"--
I most devoutly worship them all. But humbler themes befit and demand
my pen.
It is a New England custom, to bury all the dead of a township, or of a
certain subdivision of it, in a common grave yard; usually, not within
any village, and apart from any church. This yard is enclosed with a
wall; and every grave is marked by a stone (commonly hewn marble,) with
a neat and simple inscription of name and years, supplying "the place
of fame and elegy." By a sort of tacit consent, each family is allowed
to cluster its dead together in a separate portion of the ground;
sometimes in a capacious vault, marked with the family name. The
curious may at any time find an hour's amusement--aside from the more
serious thoughts proper to the place--in reading, on the tombstones,
the surnames common and peculiar to New England, and the Christian
names--mostly scriptural--betokening the original and enduring sway of
Puritanism. A southerner naturally wonders why the grave yards are
without the villages. To an inquiry of mine into the reason, a _'cute_
female (evidently far wiser than her husband, who was also in company,)
answered, that it was "to accommodate those who live at a distance."
How it did this--or how, if the distant on one side were accommodated,
those on the other were not equally incommoded--my sage instructress
did not expound. The village itself (at least its ordinary _nucleus_,
the meeting-house) is usually central to the town, for the equal
convenience of all. It seems more probable that _health_, and the
readier command of space, influence the location of burying grounds.
One of the objects that have struck me most pleasingly, is the _Liberty
Pole_, in almost every village. Its use is to hoist a flag upon, on the
Fourth of July, and other festal days. It figures exquisitely in
"McFingal"--that best poem, of its length, that America has produced;
so often quoted for Hudibras, and so inadequately honored, not only in
the south, but here, in its native north. Do take down the book, or, if
you have it not, go straight and buy it; turn to the second or third
canto--I forget which--and be grave if you can, while you read how the
Tory hero "fierce sallied forth" attended by
"His desperate clan of tory friends:
When sudden met his angry eye
A pole ascending thro' the sky:--"
the ceremonies of its rearing and consecration; the attack, not _wordy_
alone, of the hero upon it; his inglorious discomfiture; his wadling
flight,
("With legs and arms he worked his course,
Like rider that outgoes his horse;")
his fall, and decoration with tar and feathers; the hoisting of the
tory constable by a rope fastened to his waistband,
"Till, like the earth, as stretched on tenter,
He hung, self-balanced, on his centre;"
where, as Socrates (according to a witty comic poet of his day) got
himself swung in mid air to clear his perceptions,
"Our culprit thus in purer sky,
With like advantage raised his eye;
And looking forth in prospect wide,
His _tory errors clearly spied_."
I had enjoyed so many a laugh at the whole scene, that when a Liberty
Pole was first shown me (at Hartford) by an interesting fellow
traveller, it required all my phlegm to refrain from clapping my hands
with pleasure.
* * * * *
_Albany, July 27_.
It was nearly eleven--two hours later than usual--when we arrived last
night. A series of little casualties delayed us: a thunder storm, quite
as magnificent as most that we have in Virginia, only our thunder and
lightning are far superior; a tree, of eight or nine inches diamater,
blown across the road by a _semi_-tornado that accompanied the cloud;
and divers other detentions. The storm met us near the top of a
mountain, upon the line of Massachusetts and New York; obliging us to
halt, and fend off the rain as best we might, by buttoning down the
curtains. The descent hitherward, winds, for perhaps a mile, along the
steep mountain side; commanding a fine view of the pretty village of
Lebanon, and its prettier valley. Near Lebanon is a settlement of
Shakers. The only incivility I have yet experienced from a stage
driver, was a few miles this side of Lebanon; when, availing myself of
a brief halt at a hotel to get some refreshment, I received an
indistinct notice that the stage could not wait: and a minute or two
after, some one called to me, "you are left, sir!" On going to the
door, sure enough, the horses were in a sweeping trot, twenty or thirty
yards (or, as they say here, four or five rods) off. I soon overtook
them; and was admitted, the driver surlily grumbling at the
unreasonableness of expecting him to _wait all day_. He was soured by
being so late. And whoever considers how nice a point of honor--aye,
and of duty, and interest--it is with that fraternity to be punctual,
will not blame him very severely. They have been civil and obliging to
me; the one by whom I slept yesterday morning, was even kind.
So well established is this good character of New England stage
drivers, that ladies often travel by stage for scores of miles, with no
other protector. And the driver does protect them, vigilantly. Every
way, however, the freedom with which females trust themselves abroad
there, and in the south, is remarkably different. I have seen handsome
young ladies, of refined appearance, driving in a chaise, with no male
attendant, to a town seven or eight miles from their home. And such
things are of every day occurrence, attracting no especial notice. This
freedom arises, I believe, from several causes. It is unquestionably
owing, in part, to the sober, honest, and peaceful habits of the
people, and to the certainty, that any wrong or insult offered to a
female, would be promptly resented and punished; as in Ireland, under
the reign of Brien the Brave, a beautiful damsel, richly attired, could
walk alone, safe and fearless, from end to end of the kingdom.[1]
Contiguity of residences aids this effect. Then, in the country
villages of the north, there are many more ladies than gentlemen, from
the emigration of the latter westward, and from their resorting to the
maritime cities and to the ocean, for trade and seafaring employment.
Besides, New Englanders have less time for pleasure than we have; and
no Virginian will deny that "to tend the fair" is a _pleasure_. But the
freedom of female movements is partly attributable also to the
prevalence, among the New England men, of a less tender and obsequious
_manner_ at least, towards the fair sex, than southrons habitually
shew. They do not practise those minute, delicate attentions--that
semi-adoration--ingrained in the very constitutions of our well bred
men. (Not dandies--I speak of _men_.) Indeed our claim to superiority
may be pushed still further. In affability to inferiors, our northern
brethren are decidedly behind us. In their middling and lower classes,
nay and in the lower _tier_ of their upper classes, this short-coming
is particularly discernible: and extends even to their deportment
towards equals. Clowns and servants--I beg pardon--"_helps_"--seem not
to expect, or to relish, the courtesy which, in the Old Dominion, every
true gentleman pays to the poorest man. Soon after entering the
country, I found it necessary, if I would have respect from them, to
abate much of the respectful address, which habit had rendered
essential to my own comfort. Can these deficiencies of
manner--supposing them to exist--and _my_ belief of them is confirmed
by that of others--be ascribed to the utter proscription of
_duelling_--that vaunted nurse of courtesy? I should rather attribute
them to three other causes. _First_--a dislike to outward displays of
emotion; a hard-featured sturdiness of soul, which, content to _feel_
kindly and deeply, and to _act_ kindly too in things of solid import,
forgets or disdains the petty blandishments of _manner_, as idle forms,
often the offspring of deceit, and unworthy of a mind bent upon
substantial good. This estimable, but unamiable trait--derived purely
from his sire, John Bull--makes Jonathan disliked on a superficial
view. But those who consider him with candid attention, and bearing in
mind the true saying of honest Kent, that
"They are not empty-hearted, whose low sound
Reverbs no hollowness"--
perhaps find the unsightly iron casket stored with the richest jewels.
_Second_--(a less creditable cause; applicable only to the imputed want
of courtesy towards inferiors)--The employment of whites, as servants.
A master cannot treat these as his equals: it is utterly incompatible
with the relation. His demeanor towards them, he naturally extends to
their kindred, and to their class; that is, to all the poor around him.
According to that general principle of divine wisdom and goodness,
which, by a counterpoise of good and evil, equalizes every human lot,
the blighting curse of slavery seems to carry this mitigation along
with it--a more delicate and scrupulous regard, in the free, to even
the _minute_ gratification of their fellow-free. Hence--and from their
greater leisure to cultivate _manner_--chiefly arises, we may suppose,
the superiority of slave-holders in the several points of politeness.
Just so, according to Montesquieu, good-manners characterize a
monarchy. Those who can see in this, a recompense either for a
privation of the glorious right of self-government, or for the
unmeasured ills entailed by domestic slavery upon a community, are
welcome to the consolation. _Third_--(applicable, like the last, only
to intercourse with inferiors)--the system of electioneering practised
in the northern states. Usage and public opinion allow no man to
declare himself a candidate for office. His doing so, would be
political suicide. He must be _nominated_ by a CAUCUS--or CONVENTION,
as "ears polite" now require it to be called. The convention is got up
in this wise: One, or two, or three, tolerably influential men, having
a friend whom they wish to exalt, call a private meeting of those over
whom their influence especially is, and after insinuating his merits
into the minds assembled, get a resolution passed, for a general
_caucus_, of the whole party, in the _town_, or election district. All
who were at the private meeting, bestir themselves diligently to
congregate at the caucus, such persons, chiefly, as they, or some of
them, can control: and in this they are so successful, that a
nomination there, of the individual designated by the first movers of
the scheme, is almost sure to result. This nomination goes abroad, as
made by a _meeting of the people_; and unless some more skilfully
conducted or powerfully headed counter movement take place, our
candidate may count with reasonable certainty upon his election. Such
is the machinery by which aspirants get themselves hoisted into office;
as explained to me by one familiar with it--who had actually profitted
by it more than once--and who owned that it was rather a shabby feature
in the politics of his country. All aspirants, therefore, (and in our
country, how few are not so--openly or covertly!) pay court, not to the
people at large, but only to the known leaders of the caucus.
Contemning the passive wires and puppets, they regard only the hand
that works them. Thus the commonality, losing their importance in
elections, lose their strongest hold upon the civility of their
superiors. I need not run out the process. 'Twere well, if deprivation
of bows, and smiles, and kind words, were all that the million suffer
by the caucus system. But, by rendering them _insignificant in the body
politic_, that system threatens popular government itself with
overthrow. I wish, I long, to see my fellow Virginians copy our
brethren of the north in many things: but _this system_, may they shun
as the cholera! May they always adhere to their own frank and manly
plan, of having the candidate appear before them, and face to face
declare his sentiments and manifest his ability to defend the great
interests with which he asks to be entrusted!
[Footnote 1: See T. Moore's Irish Melody--
"Rich and rare were the gems she wore."]
While talking of _manners_, it would have been seasonable to speak of
the _impertinent inquisitiveness_, commonly ascribed to the Yankees. I
have seen no trace of the fault: not even so much as our own people
sometimes shew. While on foot, in the country, I was sometimes asked
_where I was from_; but it was always where the question was suggested
and justified by the course of conversation, or by the tenor and number
of my own inquiries; or, to furnish a starting place for our
colloquy--a platform whence to toss the ball of discourse: never, in a
manner the least abrupt or offensive. Among the better classes, such as
are casually met in stage-coaches and hotels, there was all the
delicate forbearance in this respect, which marks true politeness every
where.
Again--Our brother Jonathan is reputed, with us, a great sharper.
_Yankee tricks_, and _Yankee knavery_, are ideas inseparable from the
word _Yankee_. Now my own experience does not enable me to add a single
one to the catalogue of anecdotes, by which that characteristic is
supposed to be proven. Not a single cheat--not a single trick--was
practised upon me during my sojourn in Yankee land: unless, indeed, it
was so adroitly done, as to have been hitherto imperceptible to me. The
fact is, our ideas on this point are derived almost entirely from those
delectable samples of honesty, ycleped "Yankee pedlers," who for many
years have so swarmed over the south: a race, by whom their countrymen
at home protest, with hands uplift, against being judged; and by whom,
in very truth, it is no more fair to judge them, than it would be to
judge of us by the vilest scum of our society, who may have fled to
Carolina or the Western forests, from the just punishment of their
crimes, or from the detestation that dogged their vices.
It hardly needs be said--common fame loudly enough proclaims--that
religion flourishes in New England, as much as in any part of the
world. Yet it does not obtrude itself upon the traveller's notice. It
is a quiet, Sabbath-keeping, morals-preserving, good-doing, and
heaven-serving religion, free from several extravagancies, that have
elsewhere crept into christianity. Meetings for eight, ten, or twelve
days together, and suspending, meanwhile, all attention to important
secular duties, I have not seen or heard of: even a meeting at all, on
a working day, did not meet my view during the (nearly) four weeks of
my stay; except funerals. The people seem to think both parts of the
third commandment alike binding: "_Six days shalt thou labor_," as well
as "_Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy_." Dancing is by no
means proscribed, or unusual. It is taught at many or most of the high
female boarding schools. Even in Connecticut, "junkettings" are not
unfrequent, lively enough to have pleased our venerable Pendleton, yet
"soberly" enough conducted, to have suited Lady Grace. At New Haven,
within bowshot of Yale College, a dance was kept up for two successive
nights till eleven or twelve o'clock, in an apartment just across the
street from my lodging. True, I have seen no match for my father's
friend and mine, Dr. K----, who, since the birth of his seventh
grandchild, has so often realized that pleasing trait in the picture of
French rural life--
"And the gay grandsire, skilled in gestic lore,
Has frisked beneath the burthen of three score;"
but I saw as great a wonder, in a church last Sunday. The music struck
me as particularly fine; I doubted not that it was an organ; till,
looking up to the gallery, there sat a gentleman scraping away with
might and main _upon a violin_, and another upon a bass viol:
accompanied by a flute, and an admirably tuned choir. "Our armies swore
terribly in Flanders:" but it was nothing to the deep, anathematizing
abomination with which some "unco guid" folks of my acquaintance (not
of yours) would have beheld this uncommon mode of "hymning the great
Creator." Even me, it affected very singularly: I thought of the
war-lock-dance in Kirk Alloway; of Auld Nick in shape of "towsie tyke,
black, grim and large," whose province it was to "gie them music;" how
"He screwed the pipes and gart them skirl,
Till roof and rafters a' did dirl;"
While "hornpipes, jigs, strathpeys and reels,
Put life and mettle in their heels:"
"Wi' mair o' horrible and awfu'
Which e'en to name wad be unlawfu':"
and I did not know what catastrophe might ensue, from the profanation.
Happily, however, none occurred.
In the formalities of piety, the descendants of the Pilgrims are
radically changed from the puritanical strictness of their forefathers.
The quaint names, indeed, are retained; but the straight-lacedness they
imply is gone: you find _Leah_, or _Naomi_, upon near approach, to be
as arch a lass, and _Jeremiah_, or _Timothy_, as merry a grig, as any
Sally, or Betty, Tom, or Bob, south of the Potomac.
No one in Massachusetts is any longer compelled by law to pay for the
support of religion, its temples, or its ministers. The law, requiring
the citizen to do so, only letting him choose the sect or the minister
to whom his contribution should enure, was repealed last year. Each
religious _society_--answering to _congregation_ with us--has a sort of
_corporate_ faculty, involving the power to tax its members for church
expenses, and to coerce payment by distress if it be withheld. Even
this is a stride towards hierarchy from which _our_ lawgivers have
shrunk ever since 1785; and which our people will probably never
permit.
I must say more to you, of the goodly land I have just left. My having
quitted it, need subtract nothing from the credit attached to my
observations: for I shall touch no topic, which is not as fresh in my
mind, and as susceptible of truthful representation, as if the local
scene itself stretched around me. Adieu
From the Western Monthly Magazine.