Margaret Fuller Ossoli - At Home And Abroad

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We came in a row-boat up Loch Katrine, though both on that and Loch
Lomond you _may_ go in a hateful little steamer with a squeaking
fiddle to play Rob Roy MacGregor O. I walked almost all the way
through the pass from Loch Katrine to Loch Lomond; it was a distance
of six miles; but you feel as if you could walk sixty in that pure,
exhilarating air. At Inversnaid we took boat again to go down Loch
Lomond to the little inn of Rowardennan, from which the ascent is made
of Ben Lomond, the greatest elevation in these parts. The boatmen
are fine, athletic men; one of those with us this evening, a handsome
young man of two or three and twenty, sang to us some Gaelic songs.
The first, a very wild and plaintive air, was the expostulation of a
girl whose lover has deserted her and married another. It seems he is
ashamed, and will not even look at her when they meet upon the road.
She implores him, if he has not forgotten all that scene of bygone
love, at least to lift up his eyes and give her one friendly glance.
The sad _crooning_ burden of the stanzas in which she repeats this
request was very touching. When the boatman had finished, he hung his
head and seemed ashamed of feeling the song too much; then, when we
asked for another, he said he would sing another about a girl that was
happy. This one was in three parts. First, a tuneful address from a
maiden to her absent lover; second, his reply, assuring her of his
fidelity and tenderness; third, a strain which expresses their joy
when reunited. I thought this boatman had sympathies which would
prevent his tormenting any poor women, and perhaps make some one
happy, and this was a pleasant thought, since probably in the
Highlands, as elsewhere,

"Maidens lend an ear too oft
To the careless wooer;
Maidens' hearts are _always soft_;
Would that men's were truer!"

I don't know that I quote the words correctly, but that is the sum and
substance of a masculine report on these matters.

The first day at Rowardennan not being propitious for ascending the
mountain, we went down the lake to sup, and got very tired in various
ways, so that we rose very late next morning. Their we found a day
of ten thousand for our purpose; but unhappily a large party had come
with the sun and engaged all the horses, so that, if we went, it must
be on foot. This was something of an enterprise for me, as the ascent
is four miles, and toward the summit quite fatiguing; however, in the
pride of newly gained health and strength, I was ready, and set forth
with Mr. S. alone. We took no guide,--and the people of the house did
not advise it, as they ought. They told us afterward they thought the
day was so clear that there was no probability of danger, and they
were afraid of seeming mercenary about it. It was, however, wrong, as
they knew what we did not, that even the shepherds, if a mist comes
on, can be lost in these hills; that a party of gentlemen were so a
few weeks before, and only by accident found their way to a house on
the other side; and that a child which had been lost was not found for
five days, long after its death. We, however, nothing doubting, set
forth, ascending slowly, and often stopping to enjoy the points of
view, which are many, for Ben Lomond consists of a congeries of hills,
above which towers the true Ben, or highest peak, as the head of a
many-limbed body.

On reaching the peak, the night was one of beauty and grandeur such as
imagination never painted. You see around you no plain ground, but on
every side constellations or groups of hills exquisitely dressed in
the soft purple of the heather, amid which gleam the lakes, like eyes
that tell the secrets of the earth and drink in those of the heavens.
Peak beyond peak caught from the shifting light all the colors of the
prism, and on the farthest, angel companies seemed hovering in their
glorious white robes.

Words are idle on such subjects; what can I say, but that it was a
noble vision, that satisfied the eye and stirred the imagination in
all its secret pulses? Had that been, as afterward seemed likely,
the last act of my life, there could not have been a finer decoration
painted on the curtain which was to drop upon it.

About four o'clock we began our descent. Near the summit the traces of
the path are not distinct, and I said to Mr. S., after a while, that
we had lost it. He said, he thought that was of no consequence, we
could find oar way down. I thought however it was, as the ground was
full of springs that were bridged over in the pathway. He accordingly
went to look for it, and I stood still because so tired that I did not
like to waste any labor. Soon he called to me that he had found it,
and I followed in the direction where he seemed to be. But I mistook,
overshot it, and saw him no more. In about ten minutes I became
alarmed, and called him many times. It seems he on his side did the
same, but the brow of some hill was between us, and we neither saw nor
heard one another.

I then thought I would make the best of my way down, and I should
find him upon my arrival. But in doing so I found the justice of my
apprehension about the springs, as, so soon as I got to the foot of
the hills, I would sink up to my knees in bog, and have to go up the
hills again, seeking better crossing-places. Thus I lost much time;
nevertheless, in the twilight I saw at last the lake and the inn of
Rowardennan on its shore.

Between me and it lay direct a high heathery hill, which I afterward
found is called "The Tongue," because hemmed in on three sides by a
watercourse. It looked as if, could I only get to the bottom of that,
I should be on comparatively level ground. I then attempted to descend
in the watercourse, but, finding that impracticable, climbed on the
hill again and let myself down by the heather, for it was very steep
and full of deep holes. With great fatigue I got to the bottom, but
when about to cross the watercourse there, it looked so deep in the
dim twilight that I felt afraid. I got down as far as I could by the
root of a tree, and threw down a stone; it sounded very hollow, and
made me afraid to jump. The shepherds told me afterward, if I had, I
should probably have killed myself, it was so deep and the bed of the
torrent full of sharp stones.

I then tried to ascend the hill again, for there was no other way to
get off it, but soon sunk down utterly exhausted. When able to get up
again and look about me, it was completely dark. I saw far below me
a light, that looked about as big as a pin's head, which I knew to be
from the inn at Rowardennan, but heard no sound except the rush of the
waterfall, and the sighing of the night-wind.

For the first few minutes after I perceived I had got to my night's
lodging, such as it was, the prospect seemed appalling. I was very
lightly clad,--my feet and dress were very wet,--I had only a little
shawl to throw round me, and a cold autumn wind had already come, and
the night-mist was to fall on me, all fevered and exhausted as I was.
I thought I should not live through the night, or, if I did, live
always a miserable invalid. There was no chance to keep myself warm by
walking, for, now it was dark, it would be too dangerous to stir.

My only chance, however, lay in motion, and my only help in myself,
and so convinced was I of this, that I did keep in motion the whole
of that long night, imprisoned as I was on such a little perch of that
great mountain. _How_ long it seemed under such circumstances only
those can guess who may have been similarly circumstanced. The mental
experience of the time, most precious and profound,--for it was indeed
a season lonely, dangerous, and helpless enough for the birth of
thoughts beyond what the common sunlight will ever call to being,--may
be told in another place and time.

For about two hours I saw the stars, and very cheery and companionable
they looked; but then the mist fell, and I saw nothing more, except
such apparitions as visited Ossian on the hill-side when he went out
by night and struck the bosky shield and called to him the spirits of
the heroes and the white-armed maids with their blue eyes of grief. To
me, too, came those visionary shapes; floating slowly and gracefully,
their white robes would unfurl from the great body of mist in which
they had been engaged, and come upon me with a kiss pervasively cold
as that of death. What they might have told me, who knows, if I
had but resigned myself more passively to that cold, spirit-like
breathing!

At last the moon rose. I could not see her, but the silver light
filled the mist. Then I knew it was two o'clock, and that, having
weathered out so much of the night, I might the rest; and the hours
hardly seemed long to me more.

It may give an idea of the extent of the mountain to say that, though
I called every now and then with all my force, in case by chance some
aid might be near, and though no less than twenty men with their dogs
were looking for me, I never heard a sound except the rush of the
waterfall and the sighing of the night-wind, and once or twice the
startling of the grouse in the heather. It was sublime indeed,--a
never-to-be-forgotten presentation of stern, serene realities.

At last came the signs of day, the gradual clearing and breaking up;
some faint sounds, from I know not what. The little flies, too, arose
from their bed amid the purple heather, and bit me; truly they were
very welcome to do so. But what was my disappointment to find the mist
so thick, that I could see neither lake nor inn, nor anything to guide
me. I had to go by guess, and, as it happened, my Yankee method served
me well. I ascended the hill, crossed the torrent in the waterfall,
first drinking some of the water, which was as good at that time as
ambrosia. I crossed in that place because the waterfall made steps,
as it were, to the next hill; to be sure they were covered with water,
but I was already entirely wet with the mist, so that it did not
matter. I then kept on scrambling, as it happened, in the right
direction, till, about seven, some of the shepherds found me. The
moment they came, all my feverish strength departed, though, if
unaided, I dare say it would have kept me up during the day; and they
carried me home, where my arrival relieved my friends of distress
far greater than I had undergone, for I had had my grand solitude, my
Ossianic visions, and the pleasure of sustaining myself while they
had only doubt amounting to anguish and a fruitless search through the
night.

Entirely contrary to my expectations, I only suffered for this a few
days, and was able to take a parting look at my prison, as I went
down the lake, with feelings of complacency. It was a majestic-looking
hill, that Tongue, with the deep ravines on either side, and the
richest robe of heather I have seen anywhere.

Mr. S. gave all the men who were looking for me a dinner in the barn,
and he and Mrs. S. ministered to them, and they talked of Burns,
really the national writer, and known by them, apparently, as none
other is, and of hair-breadth escapes by flood and fell. Afterwards
they were all brought up to see me, and it was pleasing indeed to
observe the good breeding and good, feeling with which they deported
themselves on the occasion. Indeed, this adventure created quite an
intimate feeling between us and the people there. I had been much
pleased, with them before, in attending one of their dances, on
account of the genuine independence and politeness of their conduct.
They were willing and pleased to dance their Highland flings and
strathspeys for our amusement, and did it as naturally and as freely
as they would have offered the stranger the best chair.

All the rest must wait a while. I cannot economize time to keep up
my record in any proportion with what happens, nor can I get out of
Scotland on this page, as I had intended, without utterly slighting
many gifts and graces.

LETTER VI.

INVERARY.--THE ARGYLE FAMILY.--DUMBARTON.--SUNSET ON THE
CLYDE.--GLASGOW.--DIRT AND INTELLECT.--STIRLING.--"THE SCOTTISH
CHIEFS."--STIRLING CASTLE.--THE TOURNAMENT GROUND.--EDINBURGH.--JAMES
SIMPSON.--INFANT SCHOOLS.--FREE BATHS.--MELROSE.--ABBOTSFORD.--WALTER
SCOTT.--DRYBURGH ABBEY.--SCOTT'S TOMB.

Paris, November, 1846.

I am very sorry to leave such a wide gap between my letters, but I was
inevitably prevented from finishing one that was begun for the steamer
of the 4th of November. I then hoped to prepare one after my arrival
here in time for the Hibernia, but a severe cold, caught on the way,
unfitted me for writing. It is now necessary to retrace my steps a
long way, or lose sight of several things it has seemed desirable to
mention to friends in America, though I shall make out my narrative
more briefly than if nearer the time of action.

If I mistake not, my last closed just as I was looking back on the
hill where I had passed the night in all the miserable chill and amid
the ghostly apparitions of a Scotch mist, but which looked in the
morning truly beautiful, and (had I not known it too well to be
deceived) alluring, in its mantle of rich pink heath, the tallest and
most full of blossoms we anywhere saw, and with, the waterfall making
music by its side, and sparkling in the morning sun.

Passing from Tarbet, we entered the grand and beautiful pass of
Glencoe,--sublime with purple shadows with bright lights between, and
in one place showing an exquisitely silent and lonely little lake.
The wildness of the scene was heightened by the black Highland cattle
feeding here and there. They looked much at home, too, in the park at
Inverary, where I saw them next day. In Inverary I was disappointed.
I found, indeed, the position of every object the same as indicated
in the "Legend of Montrose," but the expression of the whole seemed
unlike what I had fancied. The present abode of the Argyle family is
a modern structure, and boasts very few vestiges of the old romantic
history attached to the name. The park and look-out upon the lake are
beautiful, but except from the brief pleasure derived from these, the
old cross from Iona that stands in the market-place, and the drone of
the bagpipe which lulled me to sleep at night playing some melancholy
air, there was nothing to make me feel that it was "a far cry to
Lochawe," but, on the contrary, I seemed in the very midst of the
prosaic, the civilized world.

Leaving Inverary, we left that day the Highlands too, passing through.
Hell Glen, a very wild and grand defile. Taking boat then on Loch
Levy, we passed down the Clyde, stopping an hour or two on our way at
Dumbarton. Nature herself foresaw the era of picture when she made and
placed this rock: there is every preparation for the artist's stealing
a little piece from her treasures to hang on the walls of a room. Here
I saw the sword of "Wallace wight," shown by a son of the nineteenth
century, who said that this hero lived about fifty years ago, and who
did not know the height of this rock, in a cranny of which he lived,
or at least ate and slept and "donned his clothes." From the top of
the rock I saw sunset on the beautiful Clyde, animated that day by an
endless procession of steamers, little skiffs, and boats. In one of
the former, the Cardiff Castle, we embarked as the last light of day
was fading, and that evening found ourselves in Glasgow.

I understand there is an intellectual society of high merit in
Glasgow, but we were there only a few hours, and did not see any one.
Certainly the place, as it may be judged of merely from the general
aspect of the population and such objects as may be seen in the
streets, more resembles an _Inferno_ than any other we have yet
visited. The people are more crowded together, and the stamp of
squalid, stolid misery and degradation more obvious and appalling.
The English and Scotch do not take kindly to poverty, like those of
sunnier climes; it makes them fierce or stupid, and, life presenting
no other cheap pleasure, they take refuge in drinking.

I saw here in Glasgow persons, especially women, dressed in dirty,
wretched tatters, worse than none, and with an expression of listless,
unexpecting woe upon their faces, far more tragic than the inscription
over the gate of Dante's _Inferno_. To one species of misery suffered
here to the last extent, I shall advert in speaking of London.

But from all these sorrowful tokens I by no means inferred the
falsehood of the information, that here was to be found a circle
rich in intellect and in aspiration. The manufacturing and commercial
towns, burning focuses of grief and vice, are also the centres of
intellectual life, as in forcing-beds the rarest flowers and fruits
are developed by use of impure and repulsive materials. Where evil
comes to an extreme, Heaven seems busy in providing means for the
remedy. Glaring throughout Scotland and England is the necessity for
the devoutest application of intellect and love to the cure of ills
that cry aloud, and, without such application, erelong help _must_ be
sought by other means than words. Yet there is every reason to hope
that those who ought to help are seriously, though, slowly, becoming
alive to the imperative nature of this duty; so we must not cease
to hope, even in the streets of Glasgow, and the gin-palaces of
Manchester, and the dreariest recesses of London.

From Glasgow we passed to Stirling, like Dumbarton endeared to the
mind which cherishes the memory of its childhood more by association
with Miss Porter's Scottish Chiefs, than with "Snowdon's knight and
Scotland's king." We reached the town too late to see the castle
before the next morning, and I took up at the inn "The Scottish
Chiefs," in which I had not read a word since ten or twelve years old.
We are in the habit now of laughing when this book is named, as if it
were a representative of what is most absurdly stilted or bombastic,
but now, in reading, my maturer mind was differently impressed from
what I expected, and the infatuation with which childhood and early
youth regard this book and its companion, "Thaddeus of Warsaw," was
justified. The characters and dialogue are, indeed, out of nature, but
the sentiment that animates them is pure, true, and no less healthy
than noble. Here is bad drawing, bad drama, but good music, to which
the unspoiled heart will always echo, even when the intellect has
learned to demand a better organ for its communication.

The castle of Stirling is as rich as any place in romantic
associations. We were shown its dungeons and its Court of Lions,
where, says tradition, wild animals, kept in the grated cells
adjacent, were brought out on festival occasions to furnish
entertainment for the court. So, while lords and ladies gay danced and
sang above, prisoners pined and wild beasts starved below. This, at
first blush, looks like a very barbarous state of things, but, on
reflection, one does not find that we have outgrown it in our present
so-called state of refined civilization, only the present way of
expressing the same facts is a little different. Still lords and
ladies dance and sing, unknowing or uncaring that the laborers who
minister to their luxuries starve or are turned into wild beasts. Man
need not boast his condition, methinks, till he can weave his costly
tapestry without the side that is kept under looking thus sadly.

The tournament ground is still kept green and in beautiful order, near
Stirling castle, as a memento of the olden time, and as we passed
away down the beautiful Firth, a turn of the river gave us a very
advantageous view of it. So gay it looked, so festive in the bright
sunshine, one almost seemed to see the graceful forms of knight and
noble pricking their good steeds to the encounter, or the stalwart
Douglas, vindicating his claim to be indeed a chief by conquest in the
rougher sports of the yeomanry.

Passing along the Firth to Edinburgh, we again passed two or three
days in that beautiful city, which I could not be content to leave
so imperfectly seen, if I had not some hope of revisiting it when the
bright lights that adorn it are concentred there. In summer almost
every one is absent. I was very fortunate to see as many interesting
persons as I did. On this second visit I saw James Simpson, a
well-known philanthropist, and leader in the cause of popular
education. Infant schools have been an especial care of his, and
America as well as Scotland has received the benefit of his thoughts
on this subject. His last good work has been to induce the erection
of public baths in Edinburgh, and the working people of that place,
already deeply in his debt for the lectures he has been unwearied
in delivering for their benefit, have signified their gratitude by
presenting him with a beautiful model of a fountain in silver as an
ornament to his study. Never was there a place where such a measure
would be more important; if cleanliness be akin to godliness,
Edinburgh stands at great disadvantage in her devotions. The impure
air, the terrific dirt which surround the working people, must make
all progress in higher culture impossible; and I saw nothing which
seemed to me so likely to have results of incalculable good, as this
practical measure of the Simpsons in support of the precept,

"Wash and be clean every whit."

We returned into England by the way of Melrose, not content to leave
Scotland without making our pilgrimage to Abbotsford. The universal
feeling, however, has made this pilgrimage so common that there
is nothing left for me to say; yet, though I had read a hundred
descriptions, everything seemed new as I went over this epitome of
the mind and life of Scott. As what constitutes the great man is more
commonly some extraordinary combination and balance of qualities, than
the highest development of any one, so you cannot but here be struck
anew by the singular combination in Scott's mind of love for the
picturesque and romantic with the plainest common sense,--a delight
in heroic excess with the prudential habit of order. Here the most
pleasing order pervades emblems of what men commonly esteem disorder
and excess.

Amid the exquisite beauty of the ruins of Dryburgh, I saw with regret
that Scott's body rests in almost the only spot that is not green, and
cannot well be made so, for the light does not reach it. That is not
a fit couch for him who dressed so many dim and time-worn relics with
living green.

Always cheerful and beneficent, Scott seemed to the common eye in like
measure prosperous and happy, up to the last years, and the chair in
which, under the pressure of the sorrows which led to his death, he
was propped up to write when brain and eye and hand refused their
aid, the product remaining only as a guide to the speculator as to the
workings of the mind in case of insanity or approaching imbecility,
would by most persons be viewed as the only saddening relic of his
career. Yet when I recall some passages in the Lady of the Lake, and
the Address to his Harp, I cannot doubt that Scott had the full share
of bitter in his cup, and feel the tender hope that we do about other
gentle and generous guardians and benefactors of our youth, that in a
nobler career they are now fulfilling still higher duties with serener
mind. Doubtless too they are trusting in us that we will try to fill
their places with kindly deeds, ardent thoughts, nor leave the world,
in their absence,

"A dim, vast vale of tears,
Vacant and desolate."

LETTER VII.

NEWCASTLE.--DESCENT INTO A COAL-MINE.--YORK WITH ITS MINSTER.--
SHEFFIELD.--CHATSWORTH.--WARWICK CASTLE.--LEAMINGTON AND
STRATFORD.--SHAKESPEARE.--BIRMINGHAM.--GEORGE DAWSON.--JAMES
MARTINEAU.--W.J. FOX.--W.H. CHARMING AND THEODORE PARKER.--LONDON
AND PARIS.

Paris, 1846.

We crossed the moorland in a heavy rain, and reached Newcastle late
at night. Next day we descended into a coal-mine; it was quite an odd
sensation to be taken off one's feet and dropped down into darkness
by the bucket. The stables under ground had a pleasant Gil-Blas air,
though the poor horses cannot like it much; generally they see the
light of day no more after they have once been let down into these
gloomy recesses, but pass their days in dragging cars along the rails
of the narrow passages, and their nights in eating hay and dreaming
of grass!! When we went down, we meant to go along the gallery to the
place where the miners were then at work, but found this was a walk
of a mile and a half, and, beside the weariness of picking one's steps
slowly along by the light of a tallow candle, too wet and dirty an
enterprise to be undertaken by way of amusement; so, after proceeding
half a mile or so, we begged to be restored to our accustomed level,
and reached it with minds slightly edified and face and hands much
blackened.

Passing thence we saw York with its Minster, that dream of beauty
realized. From, its roof I saw two rainbows, overarching that lovely
country. Through its aisles I heard grand music pealing. But how
sorrowfully bare is the interior of such a cathedral, despoiled of the
statues, the paintings, and the garlands that belong to the Catholic
religion! The eye aches for them. Such a church is ruined by
Protestantism; its admirable exterior seems that of a sepulchre; there
is no correspondent life within.

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