Margaret Fuller Ossoli - At Home And Abroad

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"'For a time he seemed, if not happy, not positively unhappy; but,
after a few years, Mrs. P. fell into the habit of drinking, and then
such scenes as you witnessed grew frequent. I have often heard of
them, and always that P. sat, as you describe him, his head bowed down
and perfectly silent all through, whatever might be done or whoever
be present, and always his aspect has inspired such sympathy that no
person has questioned him or resented her insults, but merely got out
of the way as soon as possible.'

"'Hard and long penance,' said my father, after some minutes musing,
'for an hour of passion, probably for his only error.'

"'Is that your explanation?' said the lady. 'O, improbable! P. might
err, but not be led beyond himself.'

"I know that his cool, gray eye and calm complexion seemed to say
so, but a different story is told by the lip that could tremble, and
showed what flashes might pierce those deep blue heavens; and when
these over-intellectual beings do swerve aside, it is to fall down a
precipice, for their narrow path lies over such. But he was not one
to sin without making a brave atonement, and that it had become a holy
one, was written on that downcast brow."

The fourth day on these waters, the weather was milder and brighter,
so that we could now see them to some purpose. At night the moon was
clear, and, for the first time, from, the upper deck I saw one of the
great steamboats come majestically up. It was glowing with lights,
looking many-eyed and sagacious; in its heavy motion it seemed a
dowager queen, and this motion, with its solemn pulse, and determined
sweep, becomes these smooth waters, especially at night, as much as
the dip of the sail-ship the long billows of the ocean.

But it was not so soon that I learned to appreciate the lake scenery;
it was only after a daily and careless familiarity that I entered into
its beauty, for Nature always refuses to be seen by being stared at.
Like Bonaparte, she discharges her face of all expression when she
catches the eye of impertinent curiosity fixed on her. But he who has
gone to sleep in childish ease on her lap, or leaned an aching brow
upon her breast, seeking there comfort with full trust as from a
mother, will see all a mother's beauty in the look she bends upon him.
Later, I felt that I had really seen these regions, and shall speak of
them again.

In the afternoon we went on shore at the Manitou Islands, where the
boat stops to wood. No one lives here except wood-cutters for the
steamboats. I had thought of such a position, from its mixture of
profound solitude with service to the great world, as possessing an
ideal beauty. I think so still, even after seeing the wood-cutters and
their slovenly huts.

In times of slower growth, man did not enter a situation without a
certain preparation or adaptedness to it. He drew from it, if not to
the poetical extent, at least in some proportion, its moral and its
meaning. The wood-cutter did not cut down so many trees a day, that
the Hamadryads had not time to make their plaints heard; the shepherd
tended his sheep, and did no jobs or chores the while; the idyl had a
chance to grow up, and modulate his oaten pipe. But now the poet
must be at the whole expense of the poetry in describing one of these
positions; the worker is a true Midas to the gold he makes. The poet
must describe, as the painter sketches Irish peasant-girls and Danish
fishwives, adding the beauty, and leaving out the dirt.

I come to the West prepared for the distaste I must experience at its
mushroom growth. I know that, where "go ahead" is tire only motto, the
village cannot grow into the gentle proportions that successive
lives and the gradations of experience involuntarily give. In older
countries the house of the son grew from that of the father, as
naturally as new joints on a bough, and the cathedral crowned the
whole as naturally as the leafy summit the tree. This cannot be here.
The march of peaceful is scarce less wanton than that of warlike
invasion. The old landmarks are broken down, and the land, for a
season, bears none, except of the rudeness of conquest and the needs
of the day, whose bivouac-fires blacken the sweetest forest glades. I
have come prepared to see all this, to dislike it, but not with stupid
narrowness to distrust or defame. On the contrary, while I will not be
so obliging as to confound ugliness with beauty, discord with harmony,
and laud and be contented with all I meet, when it conflicts with my
best desires and tastes, I trust by reverent faith to woo the mighty
meaning of the scene, perhaps to foresee the law by which a new order,
a new poetry, is to be evoked from this chaos, and with a curiosity
as ardent, but not so selfish, as that of Macbeth, to call up the
apparitions of future kings from the strange ingredients of the
witch's caldron. Thus I will not grieve that all the noble trees are
gone already from this island to feed this caldron, but believe
it will have Medea's virtue, and reproduce them in the form of new
intellectual growths, since centuries cannot again adorn the land with
such as have been removed.

On this most beautiful beach of smooth white pebbles, interspersed
with agates and cornelians for those who know how to find them, we
stepped, not like the Indian, with some humble offering, which, if no
better than an arrow-head or a little parched corn, would, he judged,
please the Manitou, who looks only at the spirit in which it is
offered. Our visit was so far for a religious purpose that one of our
party went to inquire the fate of some Unitarian tracts left among
the wood-cutters a year or two before. But the old Manitou, though,
daunted like his children by the approach of the fire-ships, which he
probably considered demons of a new dynasty, he had suffered his
woods to be felled to feed their pride, had been less patient of an
encroachment which did not to him seem so authorized by the law of the
strongest, and had scattered those leaves as carelessly as the others
of that year.

But S. and I, like other emigrants, went, not to give, but to get,
to rifle the wood of flowers for the service of the fire-ship. We
returned with a rich booty, among which was the _Uva-ursi_, whose
leaves the Indians smoke, with the _Kinnikinnik_, and which had then
just put forth its highly finished little blossoms, as pretty as those
of the blueberry.

Passing along still further, I thought it would be well if the crowds
assembled to stare from the various landings were still confined to
the _Kinnikinnik_, for almost all had tobacco written on their faces,
their cheeks rounded with plugs, their eyes dull with its fumes. We
reached Chicago on the evening of the sixth day, having been out five
days and a half, a rather longer passage than usual at a favorable
season of the year.

Chicago, June 20.

There can be no two places in the world more completely thoroughfares
than this place and Buffalo. They are the two correspondent valves
that open and shut all the time, as the life-blood rushes from east to
west, and back again from west to east.

Since it is their office thus to be the doors, and let in and out, it
would be unfair to expect from them much character of their own. To
make the best provisions for the transmission of produce is their
office, and the people who live there are such as are suited for
this,--active, complaisant, inventive, business people. There are no
provisions for the student or idler; to know what the place can give,
you should be at work with the rest; the mere traveller will not find
it profitable to loiter there as I did.

Since circumstances made it necessary for me so to do, I read all the
books I could find about the new region, which now began, to become
real to me. Especially I read all the books about the Indians,--a
paltry collection truly, yet which furnished material for many
thoughts. The most narrow-minded and awkward recital still bears some
lineaments of the great features of this nature, and the races of men
that illustrated them.

Catlin's book is far the best. I was afterwards assured by those
acquainted with the regions he describes, that he is not to be
depended on for the accuracy of his facts, and indeed it is obvious,
without the aid of such assertions, that he sometimes yields to the
temptation of making out a story. They admitted, however, what from
my feelings I was sure of, that he is true to the spirit of the scene,
and that a far better view can be got from him than from any source
at present existing, of the Indian tribes of the Far West, and of the
country where their inheritance lay.

Murray's Travels I read, and was charmed by their accuracy and clear,
broad tone. He is the only Englishman that seems to have traversed
these regions as man simply, not as John Bull. He deserves to belong
to an aristocracy, for he showed his title to it more when left
without a guide in the wilderness, than he can at the court of
Victoria. He has; himself, no poetic force at description, but it is
easy to make images from his hints. Yet we believe the Indian cannot
be locked at truly except by a poetic eye. The Pawnees, no doubt, are
such as he describes them, filthy in their habits, and treacherous in
their character, but some would have seen, and seen truly, more beauty
and dignity than he does with all his manliness and fairness of mind.
However, his one fine old man is enough to redeem the rest, and is
perhaps tire relic of a better day, a Phocion among the Pawnees.

Schoolcraft's Algic Researches is a valuable book, though a worse
use could hardly have been made of such fine material. Had the
mythological or hunting stories of the Indians been written down
exactly as they were received from the lips of the narrators, the
collection could not have been surpassed in interest? both for
the wild charm they carry with them, and the light they throw on a
peculiar modification of life and mind. As it is, though the incidents
have an air of originality and pertinence to the occasion, that gives
us confidence that they have not been altered, the phraseology in
which they were expressed has been entirely set aside, and the flimsy
graces, common to the style of annuals and souvenirs, substituted for
the Spartan brevity and sinewy grasp of Indian speech. We can
just guess what might have been there, as we can detect the fine
proportions of the Brave whom the bad taste of some white patron has
arranged in frock-coat, hat, and pantaloons.

The few stories Mrs. Jameson wrote out, though to these also a
sentimental air has been given, offend much less in that way than is
common in this book. What would we not give for a completely faithful
version of some among them! Yet, with all these drawbacks, we cannot
doubt from internal evidence that they truly ascribe to the Indian
a delicacy of sentiment and of fancy that justifies Cooper in such
inventions as his Uncas. It is a white man's view of a savage hero,
who would be far finer in his natural proportions; still, through a
masquerade figure, it implies the truth.

Irving's books I also read, some for the first, some for the second
time, with increased interest, now that I was to meet such people as
he received his materials from. Though the books are pleasing from,
their grace and luminous arrangement, yet, with the exception of the
Tour to the Prairies, they have a stereotype, second-hand air. They
lack the breath, the glow, the charming minute traits of living
presence. His scenery is only fit to be glanced at from, dioramic
distance; his Indians are academic figures only. He would have made
the best of pictures, if he could have used his own eyes for studies
and sketches; as it is, his success is wonderful, but inadequate.

McKenney's Tour to the Lakes is the dullest of books, yet faithful and
quiet, and gives some facts not to be met with everywhere.

I also read a collection of Indian anecdotes and speeches, the worst
compiled and arranged book possible, yet not without clews of some
value. All these books I read in anticipation of a canoe-voyage
on Lake Superior as far as the Pictured Rocks, and, though I was
afterwards compelled to give up this project, they aided me in judging
of what I subsequently saw and heard of the Indians.

In Chicago I first saw the beautiful prairie-flowers. They were in
their glory the first ten days we were there,--

"The golden and the flame-like flowers."

The flame-like flower I was taught afterwards, by an Indian girl, to
call "Wickapee"; and she told me, too, that its splendors had a useful
side, for it was used by the Indians as a remedy for an illness to
which they were subject.

Beside these brilliant flowers, which gemmed and gilt the grass in a
sunny afternoon's drive near the blue lake, between the low oak-wood
and the narrow beach, stimulated, whether sensuously by the optic
nerve, unused to so much gold and crimson with such tender green, or
symbolically through some meaning dimly seen in the flowers, I enjoyed
a sort of fairy-land exultation never felt before, and the first drive
amid the flowers gave me anticipation of the beauty of the prairies.

At first, the prairie seemed to speak of the very desolation of
dulness. After sweeping over the vast monotony of the lakes to come to
this monotony of land, with all around a limitless horizon,--to walk,
and walk, and run, but never climb, oh! it was too dreary for any but
a Hollander to bear. How the eye greeted the approach of a sail, or
the smoke of a steamboat; it seemed that anything so animated must
come from a better land, where mountains gave religion to the scene.

The only thing I liked at first to do was to trace with slow and
unexpecting step the narrow margin of the lake. Sometimes a heavy
swell gave it expression; at others, only its varied coloring, which
I found more admirable every day, and which gave it an air of mirage
instead of the vastness of ocean. Then there was a grandeur in the
feeling that I might continue that walk, if I had any seven-leagued
mode of conveyance to save fatigue, for hundreds of miles without an
obstacle and without a change.

But after I had ridden out, and seen the flowers, and observed the
sun set with that calmness seen only in the prairies, and tire cattle
winding slowly to their homes in the "island groves,"--most peaceful
of sights,--I began to love, because I began to know tire scene, and
shrank no longer from "the encircling vastness."

It is always thus with the new form of life; we must learn to look
at it by its own standard. At first, no doubt, my accustomed eye kept
saying, if the mind did not, What! no distant mountains? What! no
valleys? But after a while I would ascend the roof of the house where
we lived, and pass many hours, needing no sight but the moon reigning
in the heavens, or starlight falling upon the lake, till all the
lights were out in the island grove of men beneath my feet, and felt
nearer heaven that there was nothing but this lovely, still reception
on the earth; no towering mountains, no deep tree-shadows, nothing but
plain earth and water bathed in light.

Sunset, as seen from that place, presented most generally, low-lying,
flaky clouds, of the softest serenity.

One night a star "shot madly from, its sphere," and it had a fair
chance to be seen, but that serenity could not be astonished.

Yes! it was a peculiar beauty, that of those sunsets and moonlights on
the levels of Chicago, which Chamouny or the Trosachs could not make
me forget.[A]

[Footnote A: "From the prairie near Chicago had I seen, some days
before, the sun set with that calmness observed only on the prairies.
I know not what it says, but something quite different from sunset
at sea. There is no motion except of waving grasses,--the cattle move
slowly homeward in the distance. That _home!_ where is it? It seems as
If there was no home, and no need of one, and there is room enough to
wander on for ever."--Manuscript Notes.]

Notwithstanding all the attractions I thus found out by degrees on the
flat shores of the lake, I was delighted when I found myself really on
my way into the country for an excursion of two or three weeks. We set
forth in a strong wagon, almost as large, and with the look of those
used elsewhere for transporting caravans of wild beasts, loaded with
everything we might want, in case nobody would give it to us,--for
buying and selling were no longer to be counted on,--with, a pair of
strong horses, able and willing to force their way through mud-holes
and amid stumps, and a guide, equally admirable as marshal and
companion, who knew by heart the country and its history, both natural
and artificial, and whose clear hunter's eye needed, neither road nor
goal to guide it to all the spots where beauty best loves to dwell.

Add to this the finest weather, and such country as I had never seen,
even in my dreams, although these dreams had been haunted by wishes
for just such a one, and you may judge whether years of dulness might
not, by these bright days, be redeemed, and a sweetness be shed over
all thoughts of the West.

The first day brought us through woods rich in the moccason-flower
and lupine, and plains whose soft expanse was continually touched with
expression by the slow moving clouds which

"Sweep over with their shadows, and beneath
The surface rolls and fluctuates to the eye;
Dark hollows seem to glide along and chase
The sunny ridges,"

to the banks of the Fox River, a sweet and graceful stream. We
readied Geneva just in time to escape being drenched by a violent
thunder-shower, whose rise and disappearance threw expression into all
the features of the scene.

Geneva reminds me of a New England village, as indeed there, and
in the neighborhood, are many New-Englanders of an excellent stamp,
generous, intelligent, discreet, and seeking to win from life its true
values. Such are much wanted, and seem like points of light among the
swarms of settlers, whose aims are sordid, whose habits thoughtless
and slovenly.[A]

[Footnote A: "We passed a portion of one day with Mr. and Mrs. ----,
young, healthy, and, thank Heaven, _gay_ people. In the general
dulness that broods over this land where so little genius flows,
and care, business, and fashionable frivolity are equally dull,
unspeakable is the relief of some flashes of vivacity, some sparkles
of wit. Of course it is hard enough for those, most natively disposed
that way, to strike fire. I would willingly be the tinder to promote
the cheering blaze."--Manuscript Notes.]

With great pleasure we heard, with his attentive and affectionate
congregation, the Unitarian clergyman, Mr. Conant, and afterward
visited him in his house, where almost everything bore traces of his
own handiwork or that of his father. He is just such a teacher as is
wanted in this region, familiar enough, with the habits of those he
addresses to come home to their experience and their wants; earnest
and enlightened enough to draw the important inferences from the life
of every day.[B]

[Footnote B: "Let any who think men do not need or want the church,
hear these people talk about it as if it were the only indispensable
thing, and see what I saw in Chicago. An elderly lady from
Philadelphia, who had been visiting her sons in the West, arrived
there about one o'clock on a hot Sunday noon. She rang the bell and
requested a room immediately, as she wanted to get ready for afternoon
service. Some delay occurring, she expressed great regret, as she had
ridden all night for the sake of attending church. She went to
church, neither having dined nor taken any repose after her
journey."--Manuscript Notes.]

A day or two we remained here, and passed some happy hours in the
woods that fringe the stream, where the gentlemen found a rich booty
of fish.

Next day, travelling along the river's banks, was an uninterrupted
pleasure. We closed our drive in the afternoon at the house of an
English gentleman, who has gratified, as few men do, the common wish
to pass the evening of an active day amid the quiet influences of
country life. He showed us a bookcase filled with books about this
country; these he had collected for years, and become so familiar with
the localities, that, on coming here at last, he sought and found, at
once, the very spot he wanted, and where he is as content as he hoped
to be, thus realizing Wordsworth's description of the wise man, who
"sees what he foresaw."

A wood surrounds the house, through which paths are cut in every
direction. It is, for this new country, a large and handsome dwelling;
but round it are its barns and farm-yard, with cattle and poultry.
These, however, in the framework of wood, have a very picturesque and
pleasing effect. There is that mixture of culture and rudeness in the
aspect of things which gives a feeling of freedom, not of confusion.

I wish, it were possible to give some idea of this scene, as viewed
by the earliest freshness of dewy dawn. This habitation of man seemed
like a nest in the grass, so thoroughly were the buildings and all
the objects of human care harmonized with, what was natural. The tall
trees bent and whispered all around, as if to hail with, sheltering
love the men who had come to dwell among them.

The young ladies were musicians, and spoke French fluently, having
been educated in a convent. Here in the prairie, they had learned to
take care of the milk-room, and kill the rattlesnakes that assailed
their poultry-yard. Beneath the shade of heavy curtains you looked out
from the high and large windows to see Norwegian peasants at work in
their national dress. In the wood grew, not only the flowers I had
before seen, and wealth of tall, wild roses, but the splendid blue
spiderwort, that ornament of our gardens. Beautiful children strayed
there, who were soon to leave these civilized regions for some really
wild and western place, a post in the buffalo country. Their no less
beautiful mother was of Welsh descent, and the eldest child bore
the name of Gwynthleon. Perhaps there she will meet with some young
descendants of Madoc, to be her friends; at any rate, her looks may
retain that sweet, wild beauty, that is soon made to vanish from eyes
which look too much on shops and streets, and the vulgarities of city
"parties."

Next day we crossed the river. We ladies crossed on a little
foot-bridge, from which we could look down the stream, and see the
wagon pass over at the ford. A black thunder-cloud was coming up; the
sky and waters heavy with expectation. The motion of the wagon, with
its white cover, and the laboring horses, gave just the due interest
to the picture, because it seemed, as if they would not have time to
cross before the storm came on. However, they did get across, and we
were a mile or two on our way before the violent shower obliged us to
take refuge in a solitary house upon the prairie. In this country it
is as pleasant to stop as to go on, to lose your way as to find
it, for the variety in the population gives you a chance for fresh
entertainment in every hut, and the luxuriant beauty makes every path
attractive. In this house we found a family "quite above the common,"
but, I grieve to say, not above false pride, for the father, ashamed
of being caught barefoot, told us a story of a man, one of the richest
men, he said, in one of the Eastern cities, who went barefoot, from
choice and taste.

Near the door grew a Provence rose, then in blossom. Other families we
saw had brought with them and planted the locust. It was pleasant
to see their old home loves, brought into connection with their new
splendors. Wherever there were traces of this tenderness of feeling,
only too rare among Americans, other things bore signs also of
prosperity and intelligence, as if the ordering mind of man had some
idea of home beyond a mere shelter beneath which to eat and sleep.

No heaven need wear a lovelier aspect than earth did this afternoon,
after the clearing up of the shower. We traversed the blooming plain,
unmarked by any road, only the friendly track of wheels which bent,
not broke, the grass. Our stations were not from town to town, but
from grove to grove. These groves first floated like blue islands
in the distance. As we drew nearer, they seemed fair parks, and the
little log-houses on the edge, with their curling smokes, harmonized
beautifully with them.

One of these groves, Ross's Grove, we reached just at sunset, It was
of the noblest trees I saw during this journey, for generally the
trees were not large or lofty, but only of fair proportions. Here they
were large enough to form with their clear stems pillars for grand
cathedral aisles. There was space enough for crimson light to stream
through upon the floor of water which the shower had left. As we
slowly plashed through, I thought I was never in a better place for
vespers.

That night we rested, or rather tarried, at a grove some miles beyond,
and there partook of the miseries, so often jocosely portrayed, of
bedchambers for twelve, a milk dish for universal hand-basin, and
expectations that you would use and lend your "hankercher" for a
towel. But this was the only night, thanks to the hospitality of
private families, that we passed thus; and it was well that we had
this bit of experience, else might we have pronounced all Trollopian
records of the kind to be inventions of pure malice.

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