Chapter III (2)

Oh! he was wearied of this passing scene!
But loved not death; his purpose was between
Life and the grave; and it would vibrate there
Like a wild bird, that floated far and fair
Betwixt the sun and sea.

He went, and came—
And thought, and slept, and still awoke the same—
A strange, strange youth; and he would look all night
Upon the moon and stars, and count the flight
Of the sea waves, and let the evening wind
Play with his raven tresses, or would bind
Grottos of birch, wherein to sit and sing;
And peasant girls would find him sauntering,
To gaze upon their features, as they met,
In laughter, under some green arboret.

At last he became a monk, and, on his knees,
Said holy prayers, and with wild penances
Made sad atonement; and the solemn whim
That, like a shadow, loiter’d over him,
Wore off, even like a shadow. He was cursed
With none of the mad thoughts that were at first
The poison of his quiet; but he grew
To love the world and its wild laughter too,
As he had known before: and wish’d again
To join the very mirth he hated then.

He durst not break the vow—he durst not be
The one he would—and his heart’s harmony
Became a tide of sorrow. Even so,
He felt hope die—in madness and in wo!

But there came one—and a most lovely one
As ever to the warm light of the sun
Threw back her tresses—a fair sister girl,
With a brow changing between snow and pearl;
And the blue eyes of sadness, filled with dew
Of tears—like Heaven’s own melancholy blue—
So beautiful, so tender; and her form
Was graceful as a rainbow in a storm:
Scattering gladness on the face of sorrow—
Oh! I had fancied of the hues that borrow
Their brightness from the sun; but she was bright
In her own self—a mystery of light!
With feelings tender as a star’s own hue,
Pure as the morning star! as true, as true:
For it will glitter in each early sky,
And her first love be love that lasteth aye!

And this was Agathè—young Agathè—
A motherless, fair girl: and many a day
She wept for her lost parent. It was sad
To see her infant sorrow; how she bade
The flow of her wild spirits fall away
To grief, like bright clouds in a summer day
Melting into a shower; and it was sad
Almost to think she might again be glad—
Her beauty was so chaste, amid the fall
Of her bright tears. Yet in her father’s hall
She had lived almost sorrowless her days;
But he felt no affection for the gaze
Of his fair girl; and when she fondly smiled,
He bade no father’s welcome to the child,
But even told his wish, and will’d it done,
For her to be sad-hearted—and a nun!

And so it was. She took the dreary veil,
A hopeless girl! and the bright flush grew pale
Upon her cheek; she felt, as summer feels
The winds of autumn, and the winter chills
That darken his fair suns—it was away,
Feeding on dreams, the heart of Agathè!

The vesper prayers were said, and the last hymn
Sung to the Holy Virgin. In the dim,
Gray aisle, was heard a solitary tread,
As of one musing sadly on the dead—
’Twas Julio. It was his wont to be
Often alone within the sanctuary;
But now, not so—another: it was she!
Kneeling in all her beauty, like a saint
Before a crucifix; but sad and faint
The tone of her devotion, as the trill
Of a moss-burden’d melancholy rill.
And Julio stood before her;—’twas as yet
The hour of the pale twilight—and they met
Each other’s gaze, till either seem’d the hue
Of deepest crimson; but the ladye threw
Her veil above her features, and stole by
Like a bright cloud, with sadness and a sigh!

Yet Julio still stood gazing and alone,
A dreamer!——“is the sister ladye gone?”
He started at the silence of the air
That slumber’d over him—she is not there.

And either slept not through the live-long night,
Or slept in fitful trances, with a bright,
Fair dream upon their eyelids: but they rose
In sorrow from the pallet of repose:
For the dark thought of their sad destiny
Came o’er them, like a chasm of the deep sea,
That was to rend their fortunes; and at eve
They met again, but, silent, took their leave,
As they did yesterday: another night,
And neither spoke awhile—a pure delight,
Had chasten’d love’s first blushes: silently
Gazed Julio on the gentle Agathè—
At length, “Fair Nun!” she started, and held fast
Her bright hand on her lips—“the past, the past,
And the pale future! there be some that lie
Under those marble urns—I know not why,
But I were better in that holy calm,
Than be as I have been, perhaps, and am.
The past!—ay! it hath perish’d; never, never,
Would I recall it to be blest for ever;
The future it must come—I have a vow”—
And his cold hand rose trembling to his brow,
“True, true, I have a vow; is not the moon
Abroad, fair nun?”—“indeed! so very soon?”
Said Agathè, and “I must then away.”
“Stay, love! ’tis early yet; stay, angel, stay!”

But she was gone:—yet they met many a time
In the lone chapel, after vesper chime—
They met in love and fear.

One weary day,
And Julio saw not his loved Agathè;
She was not in the choir of sisterhood
That sang the evening anthem; and he stood
Like one that listen’d breathlessly awhile;
But stranger voices chanted through the aisle.
She was not there; and after all were gone,
He linger’d: the stars came—he linger’d on,
Like a dark fun’ral image on the tomb
Of a lost hope. He felt a world of gloom
Upon his heart—a solitude—a chill.
The pale moon rose, and still he linger’d still.
And the next vesper toll’d; nor yet, nor yet—
“Can Agathè be faithless and forget?”

It was the third sad eve, he heard it said,
“Poor Julio! thy Agathè is dead;”
And started. He had loiter’d in the train
That bore her to the grave: he saw her lain
In the cold earth, and heard a requiem
Sung over her. To him it was a dream:
A marble stone stood by the sepulchre;
He look’d, and saw, and started—she was there!
And Agathè had died: she that was bright—
She that was in her beauty! a cold blight
Fell over the young blossom of her brow,
And the life’s blood grew chill—she is not now.

She died like Zephyr falling amid flowers!
Like to a star within the twilight hours
Of morning—and she was not! Some have thought
The Lady Abbess gave her a mad draught
That stole into her heart, and sadly rent
The fine chords of that holy instrument,
Until its music falter’d fast away,
And she—she died—the lovely Agathè!

Again, and through the arras of the gloom
Are the pale breezes moaning: by her tomb
Bends Julio, like a phantom, and his eye
Is fallen, as the moon-borne tides, that lie
At ebb within the sea. Oh! he is wan,
As winter skies are wan, like ages gone,
And stars unseen for paleness; it is cast,
As foliage in the raving of the blast,
All his fair bloom of thoughts. Is the moon chill,
That in the dark clouds she is mantled still?
And over its proud arch hath Heaven flung
A scarf of darkness. Agathè was young!
And there should be the virgin silver there,
The snow-white fringes delicately fair!

He wields a heavy mattock in his hands,
And over him a lonely lanthorn stands
On a near niche, shedding a sickly fall
Of light upon a marble pedestal,
Whereon is chisel’d rudely, the essay
Of untaught tool, “_Hic jacet Agathè_,”
And Julio hath bent him down in speed,
like one that doeth an unholy deed.

There is a flagstone lieth heavily
Over the ladye’s grave; I wist of three
That bore it of a blessed verity!
But he hath lifted it in his pure madness
As it were lightsome as a summer gladness,
And from the carved niche hath ta’en the lamp
And hung it by the marble flagstone damp.

And he is flinging the dark, chilly mould
Over the gorgeous pavement: ’tis a cold,
Sad grave; and there is many a relic there
Of chalky bones, which, in the wasting air,
Fell mouldering away: and he would dash
His mattock through them with a cursed clash
That made the lone aisle echo. But anon
He fell upon a skull—a haggard one,
With its teeth set, and the great orbless eye
Revolving darkness, like eternity.
And in his hand he held it till it grew
To have the fleshy features and the hue
Of life. He gazed, and gazed, and it became
Like to his Agathè—all, all the same!
He drew it nearer,—the cold, bony thing!—
To kiss the worm-wet lips. “Aye! let me cling—
Cling to thee now forever!”—but a breath
Of rank corruption, from its jaws of death,
Went to his nostrils, and he madly laugh’d,
And dash’d it over on the altar shaft,
Which the new-risen moon, in her gray light,
Had fondly flooded, beautifully bright!

Again he went
To his world work beside the monument.
“Ha! leave, thou moon! where thy footfall hath been
In sorrow amid heaven! there is sin
Under thy shadow, lying like a dew;
So come thou, from thy awful arch of blue,
Where thou art ever as a silver throne
For some pale spectre-king! come thou alone,
Or bring a solitary orphan star
Under thy wings! afar, afar, afar,
To gaze upon this girl of radiancy,
In her deep slumbers—wake thee, Agathè!”

And Julio hath stolen the dark chest
Where the fair nun lay coffin’d, in the rest
That wakes not up at morning; she is there
An image of cold calm! One tress of hair
Lingereth lonely on her snowy brow;
But the bright eyes are closed in darkness now;
And their long lashes delicately rest
On the pale cheek, like sun-rays in the west,
That fall upon a colorless sad cloud.
Humility lies rudely on the proud,
But she was never proud; and there she is,
A yet unwither’d flower the autumn breeze
Hath blown from its green stem! ’Tis pale, ’Tis pale,
But still unfaded, like the twilight veil
That falleth after sunset; like a stream
That bears the burden of a silver gleam
Upon its waters; and is even so,—
Chill, melancholy, lustreless, and low!

Beauty in death! a tenderness upon
The rude and silent relics, where alone
Sat the destroyer! Beauty on the dead!
The look of being where the breath is fled!
The unwarming sun still joyous in its light!
A time—a time without a day or night!
Death cradled upon beauty, like a bee
Upon a flower, that looketh lovingly!
Like a wild serpent, coiling in its madness,
Under a wreath of blossom and of gladness!

And there she is; and Julio bends o’er
The sleeping girl—a willow on the shore
Of a Dead Sea! that steepeth its fair bough
Into the bitter waters,—even now
Taking a foretaste of the awful trance
That was to pass on his own countenance!

Yes! yes! and he is holding his pale lips
Over her brow; the shade of an eclipse
Is passing to his heart, and to his eye
That is not tearful; but the light will die
Leaving it like a moon within a mist,—
The vision of a spell-bound visionist!

He breathed a cold kiss on her ashy cheek,
That left no trace—no flush—no crimson streak
But was as bloodless as a marble stone,
Susceptible of silent waste alone.
And on her brow a crucifix he laid,—
A jewel’d crucifix, the virgin maid
Had given him before she died,—the moon
Shed light upon her visage—clouded soon,
Then briefly breaking from its airy veil,
Like warrior lifting up his aventayle.

But Julio gazed on, and never lifted
Himself to see the broken clouds, that drifted
One after one, like infant elves at play,
Amid the night winds, in their lonely way—
Some whistling and some moaning, some asleep,
And dreaming dismal dreams, and sighing deep
Over their couches of green moss and flowers,
And solitary fern, and heather bowers.
The heavy bell toll’d two, and, as it toll’d,
Julio started, and the fresh-turn’d mould
He flung into the empty chasm with speed,
And o’er it dropt the flagstone.—One could read
That Agathè lay there; but still the girl
Lay by him, like a precious and pale pearl,
That from the deep sea-waters had been rent—
Like a star fallen from the firmament!

He hides the grave-tools in an aged porch,
To westward of the solitary church:
And he hath clasp’d around the melting waist,
The beautiful, dead girl: his cheek is pressed
To hers—life warming the cold chill of death!
And over his pale palsy breathing breath
His eye is sunk upon her—“Thou must leave
The worm to waste for love of thee, and grieve
Without thee, as I may not.—Thou must go,
My sweet betrothed, with me—but not below,
Where there is darkness, dream, and solitude,
But where is light, and life, and one to brood
Above thee till thou wakest.—Ha? I fear
Thou wilt not wake for ever, sleeping here,
Where there are none but winds to visit thee,
And convent fathers, and a choristry
Of sisters, saying, ‘Hush!’—But I will sing
Rare songs to thy pure spirit, wandering
Down on the dews to heaven: I will tune
The instrument of the ethereal noon,
And all the choir of stars, to rise and fall
In harmony and beauty musical.”

He is away—and still the sickly lamp
Is burning next the altar; there’s a damp,
Thin mould upon the pavement, and, at morn,
The monks do cross them in their blessed scorn,
And mutter deep anathemas, because
Of the unholy sacrilege, that was
Within the sainted chapel,—for they guess’d,
By many a vestige sad, how the dark rest
Of Agathè was broken,—and anon
They sought for Julio. The summer sun
Arose and set, with his imperial disc
Toward the ocean-waters, heaving brisk
Before the winds,—but Julio came never:
He that was frantic as a foaming river—
Mad as the fall of leaves upon the tide
Of a great tempest, that hath fought and died
Along the forest ramparts, and doth still
In its death-struggle desperately reel
Round with the fallen foliage—he was gone,
And none knew whither—still were chanted on
Sad masses, by pale sisters, many a day,
And holy requiem sung for Agathè!

(End of the first Chimera.)

* * * * *

THE QUEEN OF MAY.

BY GEORGE P. MORRIS.

Like flights of singing-birds went by
The rosy hours of girlhood’s day;
When in my native bowers,
Of simple buds and flowers,
They wove a crown and hailed me Queen of May!

Like airy nymphs the lasses came
Spring’s offerings at my feet to lay;
The crystal from the fountains,
The green boughs from the mountains,
They brought to cheer and shade the Queen of May!

Around the May-pole on the green,
A fairy ring, they tript away!—
All merriment and pleasure,
To chords of tuneful measure,
They bounded by the happy Queen of May!

Though years have past, and time has strewn
My raven locks with flakes of gray,
Fond memory brings the hours
Of birds and blossom-showers,
When in girlhood I was crowned the Queen of May!

* * * * *

DREAMS OF THE LAND AND SEA.

BY DR. REYNELL COATES.

INTRODUCTORY.

“’Tis all but a dream at the best!”

Dreams of the Land and Sea! Why should I style them dreams? They are pictures of actual scenes, though some of them relate to events removed far back in the dimness of years, and the touches of the brush have felt the mellowing influence of time.

While striving to avoid whatever is irrelevant or out of keeping, I have not endeavored to confine myself, in these sketches, within the limits of simple narrative, but have ventured occasionally to mingle facts with speculations on their causes, or to follow their consequences to probable results: nor have I totally discarded the imagination—although the scenes are invariably drawn from nature, and the principal personages are real characters—the accessory actors only are sometimes creatures of the brain. In many of the descriptions, the reader will perceive the evidences of a desire to place in prominent relief the works of nature and her God, while art, and all its vanities, is made to play a subordinate part; for nothing can be more impertinently obtrusive than the pigmy efforts of the ambitious, struggling for distinction by attempting either to mar or to perfect the plans of the Great Architect of Creation, or carve _a name_ upon the columns of his temple.

Yet such is the social disposition of man, that no scene, however grand or beautiful, can awaken pleasurable emotion unless it is linked directly with humanity. There is deep oppression in the sense of total loneliness,—and few can bear the burden calmly, even for an hour! A solitary foot-print in the desert,—a broken oar upon the shelterless beach,—the tinkling of a cow-bell in the depth of the forest,—the crowing of the cock heard far off in the valley as we sink exhausted on the mountain side when the gloom of night settles heavily down upon our path-way,—who that has been a wanderer has not felt the heart-cheering effect of accidents like these! They tell us that, though our solitude be profound, there is sympathy near us, _or there has been recently_.

In deference, then, to this universal feeling, I have selected for these articles such sketches only as are interwoven with enough of human life to awaken social interest, even while grappling with the tempest—riding the ocean wave, or watching the moon-beams as they struggle through the foliage of scarce trodden forests, and fall half quenched, upon the withered leaves below.

But why should I style them dreams? There are many valid reasons. To the writer, the past is all a dream! But of this the world knows nothing, nor would it care to know. The scenes described are distant, and distance itself is dreamy! What can be more like the color of a dream than yon long range of mountains fading into the sky behind its veil of mist!

Let us ascend this lofty peak! ’Tis sunset! Cast your glance westward, where

“——Parting day
Dies like the Dolphin——.”

The sun slowly retires behind the far off hills. Inch after inch, the shadows climb the summit where you stand. He is gone!—yet you are not in darkness! His beams, which reach you not, still gild the motionless clouds, and these emblems of obscurity reflect on you the memory of his glory:—and, oh! how exquisitely pencilled in the clear obscure stands forth yon range, clad with towering trees, where each particular branch, and almost every leaf, seems separately portrayed against the paling sky,—_miraculously near_!

This is a vision of the _past_. Its strength is owing to the depth of shade,—not to the intensity of light:—for, when the sun at noon-day, poured its full tide of rays upon the scene, the sky was brighter, and rock and river glinted back the flashing beams until the eye was pained:—but where were then those lines of beauty? The details were distinct. Then you might gaze on the forest in its reality, and could almost penetrate its secret paths, despite their dark green canopy!—but where were the broad effect, the bold, sweeping outlines that now give unity and grandeur to the fading scene? The _soul_ of creation is before you—more palpable than _its mere_ corporeal elements are hid from sight. It resembles the master-piece of some great artist whose pencil portrays, in simple light and shade, a noble picture. All there is _life_! Those countenances!—those various attitudes are _speaking_! The shrubbery waves in the wind, and over the tremulous waters of that lovely lake, the very song of yonder mountain maid seems floating _upon the canvass_. Do you not hear the music? ’Tis but a dream of boyhood! Approach the painting! There is no _real_ outline there! The brush has been rudely dashed athwart the piece surcharged with heavy colors. Masses of many hues roughen the surface, and all is meaningless confusion.

Stand back a-pace! Again the cottage, lake and mountain start from the surface, _truer than truth itself_.

Panting with sighs and toil, man reaches by painful steps, the mid-land height of life, as we have climbed this summit, and when fainting by the way, it has been _his_ resource, as _ours_, to cast himself upon the bosom of his “mother,” earth[2]—look back and _dream_! We have no other mother now! But when you nestled to a parent’s breast, and felt the present impress of her love, knew you its breadth and depth as this vision shows it?

Memory is like the painter or the sun-set—its images appear more real than the substantial things they picture, and glow the richer as the gloom of oblivion gathers around them.

Turn your eyes eastward! Night sits upon the landscape. No ray of the past illuminates it. The very elevation on which you stand increases the darkness with its shadow, while it widens your distance from every object vaguely and fearfully looming through the evening mist.

This is a vision of the _future_. That height of land which seems to reach the clouds, upon whose dusky flank the overawed imagination figures cave and precipice, torrent and cataract, is but a gentle slope, with just enough of rudeness to render still more beautiful by contrast, the village spire, the moss-roofed mill, the waving grain that crowns its very top. Such it is seen by day.

Thus, when, in middle life, man peers into the future, what frightful shadows haunt him. Coming events magnified to giants by the obscurity around, stalk menacingly forward. Danger threatens him at every step, and there is naught beyond but that black back-ground—_Death_! The heavens shed no light upon the future. He is descending the hill of life, and their glories are fading behind him. He strives to borrow from the past a gleam to guide him onward, but in vain! Too often his own ambition has prompted him to choose the lofty path that now condemns him to redoubled darkness. Yet, although these spectres of the gloom are most frequently mere creatures of the brain, which day-light would dispel, they govern his career and cover him with dread. The _dream_ is _truth_ to him—and it is only _truth itself_ that he esteems a _dream_! Why can he not wait for sun-rise! Then should he see even the grave overhung with the verdure of spring, and death arrayed in all the glory of a morn of promise!

There is reality in dreams!—Come, then, and let us dream together!—our visions may be dark sometimes, but we will not forget that the sun will rise on the morrow.

-----

[2] When the celebrated Indian Chief, Tecumseh entered a Council Chamber of the whites, where the officers, already seated, thoughtlessly allowed him to remain standing, his countenance in gathering gloom, betrayed the consciousness of the slight, which _savage_ courtesy would not have suffered to occur. The look aroused attention, and a chair was handed him—but his proud lip curled. He threw himself upon the ground, exclaiming—“Tecumseh will repose on the bosom of his mother!”

A SERMON BY A MARMOT—OR THE EXILE OF CONNECTICUT.

“But come thy ways!—we’ll go along together;
And ere we have thy youthful wages spent,
We’ll light upon some settled, low content.”
_As You Like It._

Every subject of observation presents itself under a variety of aspects, regulated, not only by the situation of the observer, but by his moral peculiarities also. The little animal whose name dignifies the caption of this article, though it may be better known to many of my readers by the title of ground-hog, or wood-chuck, is usually regarded as a terror, or a pest, to the farmer. Contributing in no appreciable degree to the comfort or advantage of man, and seemingly created solely for the purpose of digging unsightly holes in the ground, eating corn, and diffusing an odour by no means agreeable; it is commonly hated or despised, according to the profession of those who honor it with notice. But nothing that springs from creative wisdom is a proper subject for contempt, and good may be derived, in many instances, from the most unpromising sources, by those who devote themselves to the study of nature. Among the tribes of animals that seem to have least connection with man and his interests, there are many whose habits may teach us more effective lessons than we often derive from the homilies of more pretending instructors.

The individual wood-chuck, here introduced to the reader, was more fortunate than most of his species, for he had succeeded in winning the affections of a worthy agriculturalist, in whose family he was regularly domiciliated during the months of his activity, (for the Marmot is a hybernating animal,) and he reciprocated the attachment of his human protectors with a gratitude apparently as warm as that of any other quadruped familiar of the kitchen.

The late distinguished philanthropist, Mr. Anthony Benezette, extended his benevolence to every thing possessing life that came within the sphere of his influence, and he regularly fed the rats in his cellar, until he attracted a colony of these predatory vermin, by no means agreeable to the taste or interest of his next-door neighbor. When the latter at last endeavored to eradicate the nuisance by regularly shooting every adventurous member of the murine fraternity that ventured upon his premises, Mr. B., with tears in his eyes, protested against this murderous proceeding. “Don’t shoot the poor innocent creatures!” he said. “If thou wilt only feed them regularly every day, as I do, they’ll never do thee any harm.” Whether a similar policy had been the origin of the kindness shown our little friend, the Marmot, I know not, but he had the felicity to be born in a land where corn is cheap, and society difficult of access, and he probably owed his protection to a masculine edition of the feeling that so frequently promotes the happiness of a poodle or a parrot.

His guardian moved in a humble sphere, and most travellers might have passed the brute and his human associates alike unnoticed: but I propose to employ him as a hook, on which to hang the observations and reflections of a day in the woods, and a night in the log-cabin. It is a slender theme at best, and if discretion be the test of wisdom, I know not but our Marmot displays as high a grade of intellectual endowment as any of the other actors in the tale.

One of these was an eastern merchant, who had purchased some thousands of acres of land—wild, lonely, and far removed from practicable roads or navigable streams.—He had purchased it in utter ignorance of its resources, and was then upon his way to give it an inspection.

The next was the narrator—recently appointed to a chair in a Collegiate Institution, almost embosomed in the wilderness. He had accepted the station in a moment of depression, all uninformed of the condition of the country where _it flourished_, and had just arrived to _blush_ beneath the honors of the professional gown in halls that rejoiced in a faculty—_lucus a non lucendo_!—of three persons, and wanted but a library, an apparatus, influence, and a class, to render it an honor to the state that chartered it!

The third was a thriving specimen of the sturdy woodsman and pains-taking farmer of the border—the intermediate step between the adventurous pioneer and the established settler. He had emigrated from the beautiful valley of the Connecticut—a valley where nature has done so much and man so little! to seek a more promising asylum west of the Alleghany Mountains, and he carried all his fortune with him. A young and lovely wife followed his footsteps from town to town—from wilderness to wilderness.—An axe was on his shoulder, two hundred dollars in his pocket, and he possessed much of that shrewdness which ordinarily passes current for talent.

He was moderate in his desires, _and only took up three hundred acres to begin with_; choosing a location where a rude and cellarless hut of logs graced one angle of the plot of ground,—its site selected because a spring and streamlet there supplied the most important necessary of life—good water.

Four acres of unfenced clearing marked the progress of his less prosperous predecessor in taming the primeval forest. Alas! The want of capital!—Two years of bootless labor on the part of that predecessor, left the ground encumbered still with girdled timber. The long and naked limbs of many a stately tree—all sapless now—stood pale and inflexible in the summer gale—a monument of desolation. Some rough, irregular furrows,—ploughed with borrowed oxen, and ornamented with the vine of an occasional refuse potato creeping through the starting briars and brush-wood,—alone gave evidence of human industry; for the wilderness was rapidly reclaiming its own.

There was a half-burnt brand on the deserted hearth within the hovel; but the blasts that entered freely through the intervals between the logs,—from which, mass by mass, the clay was falling;—had scattered the ashes widely over the room. A rusty tin basin on the floor, and a broken axe-helve lying athwart the doorless lintel, completed the household inventory. The ground had reverted to the noble and wealthy company from whom it was originally purchased—their funds enriched by the payment of the first instalment, and the value of the _improvements_ added to their property.—But where is the former owner? Probably renewing the same improvident game in the wilds of Michigan or Wisconsin.

Such was the home to which our adventurous representative of the land of steady habits had introduced his amiable and delicate wife, four years before the time of our journey.

The station enjoyed many advantages. Civilization was slowly tending thitherward, and every year enhanced the nominal, if not the real value of the land. Moreover, there were many neighbors to break the tedium of life in the wilds. Nine miles to the westward—that being the direction of the older settlements,—there lived a veteran of two wars, whose pension made him rich in a country where a dollar is a rarity, and trade is carried on exclusively by barter. He was the most important man within the circuit of twenty miles; for he owned the only forge. Not even the influence of Squire Tomkins, whose aristocratical residence, five miles deeper in the forest, was furnished with the luxury of weather-boarding, and flanked by a regular barn and stables, could outweigh, _in public opinion_, the claims of one whose labors contributed so essentially to the every-day comfort of life, if not to its preservation, in the rude contest between the settler and nature. Public opinion did I say?—Why! besides these three high personages and their families, a migratory trapper and bee-hunter on the one hand, and a half-cast Indian basket-maker on the other, _there was no public_; yet here was found not only public opinion, but party feeling also—politics and sectarianism!—And where did ever society exist without them? But it is time to commence our journey.

One morning, during the autumn of 1828, I strolled into the principal store of the beautiful little village of ——, in Western Pennsylvania, to exchange the latest paper from the American Athens, for another daily sheet from the Commercial Emporium. An old friend, Mr. W——, of Philadelphia, entered at about the same time, with a map of the surrounding counties, to enquire the road to certain tracts of land but recently conveyed to him. A tall man, who had seen some forty summers, but whose keen dark eye, such as you can only find in the wilderness, seemed to have gathered a smouldering fire, beneath the shadow of the forest leaves, which few would wish to wake, stept forward to give the required information. Rude shoes, unstockinged feet, coarse woolen pantaloons, and a hunting shirt, composed his whole attire:—A rifle, with a richly chased silver breeching, swinging athwart his back, raised him above the ordinary hunter in the curious scale of conventional rank that men acknowledge in obedience to their nature, even in the heart of unfrequented woods; but the cart-whip in his right hand, and a basket of eggs hanging upon the left arm seemed irrelevant to his other accoutrements. A finely chiselled nose, verging on the Roman character, and a strong habitual compression of the jaws, marked great decision, firmness, and desperate daring—while his manly tread, in which the foot seemed to cling for a moment to the surface and as instantly rose upon the toe with a slow, but elastic and graceful motion, seemed better fitted to follow the mountain-side, or the torrent’s track, than the dull routine of the furrow. His traits and carriage, thus mingled and contrasted, would have proved a puzzle to the keenest judges of human nature,—the bar-keeper of a hotel, or the agent of a rail-road—but his origin was still distinctly marked, notwithstanding his change of residence and habits, in the somewhat sharpened expression of the face, the narrowness of the external angle of the eye, the covert curl of the lip, and the faintest perceptible elevation of the corresponding corner of the mouth. He was the Connecticut farmer of our story, on whose original stock of character four years of close communion with bears and deer, had engrafted _a twig_ of that which graces the western hunter.

A few adroitly managed questions placed him immediately in possession of the residence, the destination, views and purposes of my friend, the merchant; and, in terms of courtesy, conveyed in phrase more polished than one would anticipate from his attire, he tendered his services as a guide, and the best his house afforded by the way, as host,—extending the invitation most politely to myself.

Having long been anxious to observe what charm in domestic life upon the borders, could so fascinate mankind as to impel such crowds of restless adventurers annually to plunge into the gloomy forest, there to remain socially buried for years, until the growth of settled population again environs them; I immediately ordered horse, and mounting with my Athenian friend, followed, or accompanied the light wagon of the settler, as the road or path permitted.

We had made but ten miles of progress, when the farms by the way-side began to appear few and far between. Around us, gathered, deep and more deeply still, the shadows of tall trees, which interlocked their arms above us, until mysterious twilight was substituted for the bright sunshine that made its existence known at intervals through openings in the foliage. These were met with only where some giant of the wilderness had laid him down in his last repose, when the slowly gnawing tooth of time had sapped his moss-grown trunk. Occasionally, the wagon jolted heavily over fallen trees, where the lightning had riven or the gale uprooted them. It seemed a sacrilege to disturb the dread repose of nature with our idle voices; and for miles we rode in total silence.—How startling, then, and how incongruous to our ears was the lively voice of our guide, exclaiming, as we passed _a blaze_, “we shall soon be _home_ now!” Home! and here!—I gazed around on every hand. Over the tops of the low shrubbery the eye was carried along interminable aisles of stately trees! Interminable arches rested on their summits! An awful unity of gloom engulphed us!

“High mountains are with me a feeling,”

And no man has rioted more wildly in scenes of solitude and desolation. My shoulder is familiar with the rifle, my feet with cliff and precipice, and my arms with the torrent and breaker.—Nay! more than this! I have stood alone in cities! The limitless current of life has whirled and eddied by, and I have felt no fellowship!—have felt the sternest check of all that linked me with my kind, and buried myself in egoism! “There runs not a drop of the blood of Logan in the veins of any living creature.”

But never yet came over me the thought of _home_ with such a thrilling shudder as when the word was spoken in those close and soul-oppressing woods! There was no resonance from the leafy ground—no echo from those long drawn gothic passages! The sound fell flat upon the ear, and its very cheerfulness of tone, deadened by the dark and inelastic leaves, resembled the convulsive laugh of terror or of pain!

Man is moulded for the contest. There is rapture in the strife, be it with physical or moral evils—a glory in the conquest, that repays the suffering! If vanquished,—he may fly and bide his time! If crushed,—he falls back upon his self-esteem, enfolds his robe around him, and dies, like Cæsar—bravely! Abroad—in calm or storm, in sun-shine or in tempest—man feels himself the ruler, and his pride supports him in the worst of woes; but _at home_—he is dependent! There woman rules the emotions!—Who ever knew a joy beside a gloomy hearth! Or when the wearing cares of life, or the oppression of habitual solitude has furrowed the fore-head, and fixed the features of the wife, what husband ever smiled again as once he smiled!

But away! Our path is onward!—soon we passed along the margin of a precipitate descent, and the day burst in upon us, presenting a momentary view of a long range of hills, over which the fire had swept in the preceding year. Brown furze and blackened masses of charcoal covered the slope for miles, with here and there a waving line of foliage climbing the ascent, wherever some highland rivulet had checked the progress of the flames, and preserved the grass. I had thought that Nature furnished no more spectral object than a girdled tree in a barren clearing; but the tall gnarled trunks, with charred and stunted limbs, that sentineled that ruined hill-side were more spectral still!

Descending the hill, the forest again closed around us: but presently we entered the track of a tornado—a wind-fall. It had traversed a forest of pines—and, for about two hundred yards in width, had made a passage through the woods, as straight and regular as art could have rendered it. On either hand—far as the eye could reach—arose the unbroken wall of verdure, a hundred feet in height, while in the midst, the vision stretched away over an almost level carpet of scrub-oak and whortleberries, forming a vista of unparalleled beauty; one which would have graced the palace-grounds of an emperor. Not a stump, a root, or tree was visible in all the range of sight. “God made this clearing,” I remarked. The charm of silence was broken by the comment, and the conversation immediately became general.

We had ridden about three miles farther, when the road, if road it could be called, forked suddenly; and, turning to the left, we found ourselves in front of the cottage of our host. It deserved this title richly; for never, in my many journeys beyond the margin of a regular American forest, have I seen more neatness and propriety, than was here displayed in all the accidents of a residence of logs. True! there were none of those vines and graceful shrubs that beautify the grounds around a thrifty cottage in New England; but, even here, a garden was attempted. The building, two stories in height, stood near the summit of an acclivity which formed a sort of irregular lawn, and was actually shaded by two stately trees!—the only instance of such preservation I have witnessed in the wilds of Pennsylvania.

On the right, at a decent distance from the house, were a stable with a loft, and several stacks of hay; and on the left, a natural meadow, of some ten or fifteen acres, had been cleared of brush and sedge, and furnished ample pasturage for four handsome cows. This, with twelve acres of upland, formed the extent of the clearing. Several sugar maples were scattered about the lawn, and a few young fruit trees ornamented the arable land behind the house.

Here, then, was comfort—almost the aristocracy of the woods! We drove rapidly to the door, but the sound of wheels had already drawn the family without the house. The wife, a pale and delicate woman, about twenty-eight or thirty years of age, held in one hand, a bare-foot boy of three; while a little girl, still younger, folded herself in the skirt of her mother’s woollen frock—her snow-white head, and light-blue eye peeping out fearfully from her concealment, as we dismounted. A stout lad, employed by the farmer, took charge of our horses, and we were presented to our hostess.

“We have but poor accommodations to offer the gentlemen, John! but they are welcome to what we have, such as they are. You are the first strangers from the old settlements I have seen since we came to this clearing! Were you ever in Connecticut?” Anxiety and hope were most plainly depicted in the care-worn face of the speaker. I could not bear to reply in the negative, and evaded the question by noticing the children as we entered the house. Here, my companion was surprised at the progress that had been made in four short years by the labor of a settler of such slender means. Six decent chairs and a cherry-wood table ornamented the apartment—a well-made dough-trough, with a wide and smoothly planed top, served the purpose of a side-board—a large cup-board, with curious, home-made wooden locks and hinges, occupied one corner, and a rude settee contained, beneath the seat, a tool-chest and a receptacle for table-linen. The ample fire-place, with its wooden chimney, was festooned with strings of venison, hung up to smoke in pieces, and the roughly plastered wall was ornamented with two rude engravings, in _domestic_ frames—Adam and Eve driven from Paradise, and the victory of Lake Erie. To these was added a printed copy of the Declaration of Independence. A Bible stood open upon the table when we entered, and a prayer-book, Young’s Night Thoughts, The Lady of the Lake, and a few torn old numbers of a monthly magazine, adorned a shelf above the fire. We missed the usual utensils of the cuisine, but these we afterwards discovered in a more fitting place. The universal ticking of the wooden clock was heard; but whence it came, we knew not, until the hour for retiring. It stood upon the stairway.

Hanging his rifle and powder-flask on the wooden hooks, depending, according to custom, from a beam, our host remarked that we were dusty with travel.

“Tin is scarce with us here, gentlemen! and crockery is brittle,” said he; “so if you wish to wash your hands and faces, and will pardon our wild ways, follow me to the cellar, and you shall be accommodated!”

Taking a coarse but clean towel from the chest in the settee, he opened a door beneath the stairs, and descended; leading the way on this singular excursion. A cellar is a luxury in the simple cabin; but here we were provided with an apartment more complete, in its conveniencies, than those of older countries, the floor being well levelled, and the walls faced with stones of ample size. The settler had formed, in one corner, a large cavity about three feet deep. This was lined with mortar, and paved with smooth, round pebbles from the brook. A tunnel, with a wooden trunk and sliding flood-gate, about four inches square, led from the bottom of this basin, through the foundations of the wall, to the bed of a rivulet at some distance on the lawn. The greater part of the waters of a spring, which rose very near the house and fed this runnel, being diverted from their original course, were conveyed through hollow logs, cleaned out and smoothed by burning, through the wall of the cellar, about four feet above the floor, and fell in a beautiful cascade into the basin below. But our host was far too fertile in resources to permit the whole of the current to take this direction. A well made milk-trough, constructed of timbers, some of which betrayed more intimate acquaintance with the axe than the plane, occupied nearly the whole remaining portion of that side of the cellar which corresponded with the earthen basin. It was supplied with water by means of a small canal composed of pieces of bark suspended from the beams above, and capable of being projected into the cascade, so as to receive any desirable portion of the falling fluid. Another tunnel, communicating with the first, carried off the surplus. As we viewed these curious results of Yankee ingenuity and perseverance, several fine speckled trout were seen disporting among pans or crocks of the richest milk and cream, into which, we were informed, they sometimes leaped, to the no small discomforture of the tidy house-wife, when in their hide-and-whoop gambols, their daring over-acted their discretion. Here, then, we found, combined by the most simple means, the luxury of the washing-room, the drain, the bath, and the milk-house. Nor was this all! The waters of a spring, when flowing _pleno rivo_, never freeze. They carry with them, for a time, the heat which is the expression of the mean temperature of the earth, and share it with surrounding objects. The very stream, that thus contributed to his domestic comforts, and, as we afterwards discovered, rendered, in its excess, services equally important to his cattle in the farm-yard, preserved his stock of necessaries from the effects of frost, and contributed to lessen the exertions required to procure fuel for the long and dreary winter. These arrangements rendered our host still more an object of curiosity and interest—for seldom had we seen such striking evidences of philosophical deduction in house-hold affairs:—and we could not avoid the hope, that the permanent enjoyment and gradual increase of the comforts created by his genius, might be his ultimate reward. But, alas! the prevalent disposition of his tribe, when once removed from home, is—roving! Never contented with the _status quo_—or satisfied with possession; they leave the enjoyment of ease for the hope of wealth, and are ever ready to sacrifice reality _for a dream_. Yet, it was not for _us_ to censure our host severely, should he ultimately pursue the course so admirably described in one short technicality of the American woods-man—“_Flitting!_” Had we not both been _flitting_ ourselves!—the one for honor, and the other for gold! My gown and my friend’s land were of _equal value_, and both had been purchased at the expense of solid sacrifices; but little does it concern us now, that the progress of population has thrown the former over shoulders well clad in broad-cloth, bought with the surplus of a decent salary, or that the other is studded with profitable farms! In many parts of America, twelve years form an age in human affairs, and, in western Pennsylvania, _we are of the last_!

Our ablutions completed, we returned to the sitting-room. The tea-table was spread with a tidy cloth, and a smoking pot of Liverpool ware made its appearance, replete with a beverage, _by the name of tea_; though, by the test of the olfactories, it might have been supposed some compound discovered among the ruins of the last Piquot village, in the days when the venerable Mr. Hooker first raised the standard of his faith among the ancestors of her whose hand distilled it.—Peace be with the spirit of the good old man! Long since our journey, I have gazed, as a stranger on his venerable tomb-stone in the central church-yard of Hartford, and felt at the moment,—it may be with some bitterness—that the descendants of his flock had lost but little in frankness and hospitality, by being transplanted to the Wilds of the west! But _revennons ou nos moutons_.[3]

The table was soon amply furnished with preserves, in nameless variety, formed from the wild fruits of the neighbouring woods, by the aid of maple sugar. The unvarying hard-crusted pie, sweet, well-baked corn-bread, and the constant attendant of the lighter meals in New England, the fried potato, completed the repast. We were seated, and—after a well-spoken grace—a service which the really respectable exile of Connecticut rarely neglects in any of the changing scenes of life—we did it ample justice.

Economy of light is a matter of serious importance in the log-cabin; and after tea, we gathered round the blazing hearth, (for the autumnal nights were beginning to be cool,) adding, occasionally, a pine knot from a group collected in the corner of the fire-place, by way of illuminating an idea or a face, whenever the subject-matter of the discourse became peculiarly interesting.

Quick and puzzling were the questions with which our hostess plied us, on all things relating to the “old settlements,” as she already styled the sea-board;—for the language and habits of the “far west,” are still strangely preserved in these mid-land wildernesses, over which the genius of civilization has bounded, to wave his omnipotent wand over the regions of the setting sun, like the last of the mammoths when he disappeared from the banded hunters of the olden time.

For a while, something like the liveliness of earlier days, stole over the features of the querist, which were fast settling into the habitual gloom, that gives character to the physiognomy of the recluse and the blind. But whatever direction might be given to the discourse, in a few moments it was sure to centre in Connecticut; until, evasion proving impracticable, we were compelled, reluctantly, to confess that our travels had never extended northward or eastward of the Housatonic—the American Tweed.—A deep sigh succeeded this announcement, and our hostess drew back her chair within the shadow of—what shall I call it?—_jams_, properly so styled, the fire-place had none! Its sides were formed of short, projecting logs, about three feet in length, piled, one above another, interlocking, by deep notches, with those which formed the walls of the building, at one end, and at the other, secured by short cross-sections of a smaller tree, similarly notched, set thwartwise between their projecting extremities, and bolted with strong wooden pips. This structure supported the ample chimney, which was constructed in like manner, and shared with it the usual protection against fire, a thick internal coat of clay, admixed with a very little lime. These chimney sides formed deep recesses on either hand, in one of which, the cup-board was accommodated, while the other was graced by the dining-table.

Near to one of these shaded recesses, our hostess drew her chair, and left the conversation, for a long time, to her husband.

He inquired, with an interest, seemingly as intense as a statesman, into the politics of the East, with the tenor of which he had contrived to keep pace astonishingly, when his isolated position is considered. I was curious to know how he managed to obtain such accurate information as to men and measures at the seat of government, in the midst of so many obstacles and such untiring agricultural efforts as his rapid improvements must have demanded. His reply furnished a melancholy proof of the natural disputatiousness of our species, while it illustrated the pertinacity with which a mind, once awakened to party feelings, will cling to its old friendships and antipathies when all interests in the result have ceased.

“Why,” said he, “for a while it was easy enough; for the Post rides through here once a week, and leaves a New York paper to Squire Tomkins—so the winter I first came to these clearings, I used to walk over to read the paper every other Saturday afternoon, except when the snow was too deep, and came back on Sunday after dinner—so I learned what was going on pretty well. And sometimes one or other of the old blacksmith’s boys—that’s his grand-children!—for his two sons have gone off to Illinois—would come over of odd Saturdays, a horse-back—for the old soldier kept a horse—he’s been many years in these parts, and has cleared and sold three farms, before he fixed where he is—and he’d take up Mary behind him, and ride over to the squire’s—for one of us had to stay and tend the cow and feed the pigs; so we could not both go together—and bring her back again the next day.—And a great treat it was to Mary!—for sometimes she would see something in the paper about Connecticut.—She used to teach school in Connecticut for a while.—Poor Mary! she had a better education than I had—though mine wasn’t a bad one, for a common school, the way the world goes; and I used to be able _to say my say_ with any body; but somehow these woods are so lonely, that I’m out of practice.

“Poor Mary! her heart’s in Connecticut still, though she never tells me so,—_but she looks it sometimes_—except may-be about Thanks-giving day,—and then she can’t help _saying it_ too! I’m sometimes a’most sorry she ever married such a wild and wandering fellow as me.”