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Margaret Fuller Ossoli - At Home And Abroad

M >> Margaret Fuller Ossoli >> At Home And Abroad




With us was a young lady who showed herself to have been bathed in
the Britannic fluid, wittily described by a late French writer, by
the impossibility she experienced of accommodating herself to the
indecorums of the scene. We ladies were to sleep in the bar-room, from
which its drinking visitors could be ejected only at a late hour. The
outer door had no fastening to prevent their return. However, our host
kindly requested we would call him, if they did, as he had "conquered
them for us," and would do so again. We had also rather hard couches
(mine was the supper-table); but we Yankees, born to rove, were
altogether too much fatigued to stand upon trifles, and slept as
sweetly as we would in the "bigly bower" of any baroness. But I think
England sat up all night, wrapped in her blanket-shawl, and with a
neat lace cap upon her head,--so that she would have looked perfectly
the lady, if any one had come in,--shuddering and listening. I know
that she was very ill next day, in requital. She watched, as her
parent country watches the seas, that nobody may do wrong in any case,
and deserved to have met some interruption, she was so well prepared.
However, there was none, other than from the nearness of some twenty
sets of powerful lungs, which would not leave the night to a deathly
stillness. In this house we had, if not good beds, yet good tea, good
bread, and wild strawberries, and were entertained with most free
communications of opinion and history from our hosts. Neither shall
any of us have a right to say again that we cannot find any who may
be willing to hear all we may have to say. "A's fish that comes to the
net," should be painted on the sign at Papaw Grove.




CHAPTER III.

ROCK RIVER.--OREGON.--ANCIENT INDIAN VILLAGE.--GANYMEDE TO
HIS EAGLE.--WESTERN FOURTH OF JULY CELEBRATION.--WOMEN IN THE
WEST.--KISHWAUKIE.--BELVIDERE.--FAREWELL.


In the afternoon of this day we reached the Rock River, in whose
neighborhood we proposed to make some stay, and crossed at Dixon's
Ferry.

This beautiful stream flows full and wide over a bed of rocks,
traversing a distance of near two hundred miles, to reach the
Mississippi. Great part of the country along its banks is the finest
region of Illinois, and the scene of some of the latest romance of
Indian warfare. To these beautiful regions Black Hawk returned with
his band "to pass the summer," when he drew upon himself the warfare
in which he was finally vanquished. No wonder he could not resist the
longing, unwise though its indulgence might be, to return in summer to
this home of beauty.

Of Illinois, in general, it has often been remarked, that it bears the
character of country which has been inhabited by a nation skilled
like the English in all the ornamental arts of life, especially in
landscape-gardening. The villas and castles seem to have been burnt,
the enclosures taken down, but the velvet lawns, the flower-gardens,
the stately parks, scattered at graceful intervals by the decorous
hand of art, the frequent deer, and the peaceful herd of cattle that
make picture of the plain, all suggest more of the masterly mind
of man, than the prodigal, but careless, motherly love of Nature.
Especially is this true of the Rock River country. The river flows
sometimes through these parks and lawns, then betwixt high bluffs,
whose grassy ridges are covered with fine trees, or broken with
crumbling stone, that easily assumes the forms of buttress, arch, and
clustered columns. Along the face of such crumbling rocks, swallows'
nests are clustered, thick as cities, and eagles and deer do not
disdain their summits. One morning, out in the boat along the base of
these rocks, it was amusing, and affecting too, to see these swallows
put their heads out to look at us. There was something very hospitable
about it, as if man had never shown himself a tyrant near them. What
a morning that was! Every sight is worth twice as much by the early
morning light. We borrow something of the spirit of the hour to look
upon them.

The first place where we stopped was one of singular beauty, a beauty
of soft, luxuriant wildness. It was on the bend of the river, a place
chosen by an Irish gentleman, whose absenteeship seems of the wisest
kind, since, for a sum which would have been but a drop of water to
the thirsty fever of his native land, he commands a residence
which has all that is desirable, in its independence, its beautiful
retirement, and means of benefit to others.

His park, his deer-chase, he found already prepared; he had only to
make an avenue through it. This brought us to the house by a drive,
which in the heat of noon seemed long, though afterwards, in the cool
of morning and evening, delightful. This is, for that part of the
world, a large and commodious dwelling. Near it stands the log-cabin
where its master lived while it was building, a very ornamental
accessory.

In front of the house was a lawn, adorned by the most graceful trees.
A few of these had been taken out to give a full view of the river,
gliding through banks such as I have described. On this bend the bank
is high and bold, so from, the house or the lawn the view was very
rich and commanding. But if you descended a ravine at the side to the
water's edge, you found there a long walk on the narrow shore, with
a wall above of the richest hanging wood, in which they said the deer
lay hid. I never saw one but often fancied that I heard them rustling,
at daybreak, by these bright, clear waters, stretching out in such
smiling promise where no sound broke the deep and blissful seclusion,
unless now and then this rustling, or the splash of some fish a little
gayer than the others; it seemed not necessary to have any better
heaven, or fuller expression of love and freedom, than in the mood of
Nature here.

Then, leaving the bank, you would walk far and yet farther through
long, grassy paths, full of the most brilliant, also the most delicate
flowers. The brilliant are more common on the prairie, but both kinds
loved this place.

Amid the grass of the lawn, with a profusion of wild strawberries, we
greeted also a familiar love, the Scottish harebell, the gentlest and
most touching form of the flower-world.

The master of the house was absent, but with a kindness beyond thanks
had offered us a resting-place there. Here we were taken care of by
a deputy, who would, for his youth, have been assigned the place of
a page in former times, but in the young West, it seems, he was old
enough for a steward. Whatever be called his function, he did the
honors of the place so much in harmony with it, as to leave the guests
free to imagine themselves in Elysium. And the three days passed here
were days of unalloyed, spotless happiness.

There was a peculiar charm in coming here, where the choice of
location, and the unobtrusive good taste of all the arrangements,
showed such intelligent appreciation of the spirit of the scene, after
seeing so many dwellings of the new settlers, which showed plainly
that they had no thought beyond satisfying the grossest material
wants. Sometimes they looked attractive, these little brown houses,
the natural architecture of the country, in the edge of the timber.
But almost always, when you came near the slovenliness of the
dwelling, and the rude way in which objects around it were treated,
when so little care would have presented a charming whole, were
very repulsive. Seeing the traces of the Indians, who chose the most
beautiful sites for their dwellings, and whose habits do not break
in on that aspect of Nature under which they were born, we feel as if
they were the rightful lords of a beauty they forbore to deform. But
most of these settlers do not see it at all; it breathes, it speaks
in vain to those who are rushing into its sphere. Their progress is
Gothic, not Roman, and their mode of cultivation will, in the course
of twenty, perhaps ten years, obliterate the natural expression of the
country.

This is inevitable, fatal; we must not complain, but look forward to
a good result. Still, in travelling through this country, I could not
but be struck with the force of a symbol. Wherever the hog comes,
the rattlesnake disappears; the omnivorous traveller, safe in its
stupidity, willingly and easily makes a meal of the most dangerous of
reptiles, and one which the Indian looks on with a mystic awe. Even so
the white settler pursues the Indian, and is victor in the chase. But
I shall say more upon the subject by and by.

While we were here, we had one grand thunder-storm, which added new
glory to the scene.

One beautiful feature was the return of the pigeons every afternoon
to their home. At this time they would come sweeping across the lawn,
positively in clouds, and with a swiftness and softness of winged
motion more beautiful than anything of the kind I ever knew. Had
I been a musician, such as Mendelssohn, I felt that I could have
improvised a music quite peculiar, from the sound they made, which
should have indicated all the beauty over which their wings bore them.
I will here insert a few lines left at this house on parting, which
feebly indicate some of the features.

THE WESTERN EDEN.

Familiar to the childish mind were tales
Of rock-girt isles amid a desert sea,
Where unexpected stretch the flowery vales
To soothe the shipwrecked sailor's misery.
Fainting, he lay upon a sandy shore,
And fancied that all hope of life was o'er;
But let him patient climb the frowning wall,
Within, the orange glows beneath the palm-tree tall,
And all that Eden boasted waits his call.

Almost these tales seem realized to-day,
When the long dulness of the sultry way,
Where "independent" settlers' careless cheer
Made us indeed feel we were "strangers" here,
Is cheered by sudden sight of this fair spot,
On which "improvement" yet has made no blot,
But Nature all-astonished stands, to find
Her plan protected by the human mind.

Blest be the kindly genius of the scene;
The river, bending in unbroken grace,
The stately thickets, with their pathways green,
Fair, lonely trees, each in its fittest place;
Those thickets haunted by the deer and fawn;
Those cloudlike flights of birds across the lawn!
The gentlest breezes here delight to blow,
And sun and shower and star are emulous to deck the show.

Wondering, as Crusoe, we survey the land;
Happier than Crusoe we, a friendly band.
Blest be the hand that reared this friendly home,
The heart and mind of him to whom we owe
Hours of pure peace such as few mortals know;
May he find such, should he be led to roam,--
Be tended by such ministering sprites,--
Enjoy such gayly childish days, such hopeful nights!
And yet, amid the goods to mortals given,
To give those goods again is most like heaven.

Hazelwood, Rock River, June 30, 1843.


The only really rustic feature was of the many coops of poultry near
the house, which I understood it to be one of the chief pleasures of
the master to feed.

Leaving this place, we proceeded a day's journey along the beautiful
stream, to a little town named Oregon. We called at a cabin, from
whose door looked out one of those faces which, once seen, are never
forgotten; young, yet touched with many traces of feeling, not only
possible, but endured; spirited, too, like the gleam of a finely
tempered blade. It was a face that suggested a history, and many
histories, but whose scene would have been in courts and camps. At
this moment their circles are dull for want of that life which, is
waning unexcited in this solitary recess.

The master of the house proposed to show us a "short cut," by which
we might, to especial advantage, pursue our journey. This proved to be
almost perpendicular down a hill, studded with young trees and stumps.
From these he proposed, with a hospitality of service worthy an
Oriental, to free our wheels whenever they should get entangled,
also to be himself the drag, to prevent our too rapid descent. Such
generosity deserved trust; however, we women could not be persuaded to
render it. We got out and admired, from afar, the process. Left by our
guide and prop, we found ourselves in a wide field, where, by playful
quips and turns, an endless "creek," seemed to divert itself with our
attempts to cross it. Failing in this, the next best was to whirl
down a steep bank, which feat our charioteer performed with an air
not unlike that of Rhesus, had he but been as suitably furnished with
chariot and steeds!

At last, after wasting some two or three hours on the "short cut,"
we got out by following an Indian trail,--Black Hawk's! How fair
the scene through which it led! How could they let themselves be
conquered, with such a country to fight for!

Afterwards, in the wide prairie, we saw a lively picture of
nonchalance (to speak in the fashion of clear Ireland). There, in the
wide sunny field, with neither tree nor umbrella above his head, sat
a pedler, with his pack, waiting apparently for customers. He was not
disappointed. We bought what hold, in regard to the human world,
as unmarked, as mysterious, and as important an existence, as the
infusoria to the natural, to wit, pins. This incident would have
delighted those modern sages, who, in imitation of the sitting
philosophers of ancient Ind, prefer silence to speech, waiting to
going, and scornfully smile, in answer to the motions of earnest life,

"Of itself will nothing come,
That ye must still be seeking?"

However, it seemed to me to-day, as formerly on these sublime
occasions, obvious that nothing would, come, unless something would
go; now, if we had been as sublimely still as the pedler, his pins
would have tarried in the pack, and his pockets sustained an aching
void of pence.

Passing through one of the fine, park-like woods, almost clear from
underbrush and carpeted with thick grasses and flowers, we met (for it
was Sunday) a little congregation just returning from their service,
which had been performed in a rude house in its midst. It had a sweet
and peaceful air, as if such words and thoughts were very dear to
them. The parents had with them, all their little children; but we saw
no old people; that charm was wanting which exists in such scenes in
older settlements, of seeing the silver bent in reverence beside the
flaxen head.

At Oregon, the beauty of the scene was of even a more sumptuous
character than at our former "stopping-place." Here swelled the river
in its boldest course, interspersed by halcyon isles on which Nature
had lavished all her prodigality in tree, vine, and flower, banked
by noble bluffs, three Hundred feet high, their sharp ridges as
exquisitely definite as the edge of a shell; their summits adorned
with those same beautiful trees, and with buttresses of rich rock,
crested with old hemlocks, which wore a touching and antique grace
amid, the softer and more luxuriant vegetation. Lofty natural mounds
rose amidst the rest, with the same lovely and sweeping outline,
showing everywhere the plastic power of water,--water, mother of
beauty,--which, by its sweet and eager flow, had left such lineaments
as human genius never dreamt of.

Not far from the river was a high crag, called the Pine Rock, which
looks out, as our guide observed, like a helmet above the brow of the
country. It seems as if the water left here and there a vestige of
forms and materials that preceded its course, just to set off its new
and richer designs.

The aspect of this country was to me enchanting, beyond any I have
ever seen, from its fulness of expression, its bold and impassioned
sweetness. Here the flood of emotion has passed over and marked
everywhere its course by a smile. The fragments of rock touch it with
a wildness and liberality which give just the needed relief. I should
never be tired here, though I have elsewhere seen country of more
secret and alluring charms, better calculated to stimulate and
suggest. Here the eye and heart are filled.

How happy the Indians must have been here! It is not long since they
were driven away, and the ground, above and below, is full of their
traces.

"The earth is full of men."

You have only to turn up the sod to find arrowheads and Indian
pottery. On an island, belonging to our host, and nearly opposite his
house, they loved to stay, and, no doubt, enjoyed its lavish beauty
as much as the myriad wild pigeons that now haunt its flower-filled
shades. Here are still the marks of their tomahawks, the troughs in
which they prepared their corn, their caches.

A little way down the river is the site of an ancient Indian village,
with its regularly arranged mounds. As usual, they had chosen with the
finest taste. When we went there, it was one of those soft, shadowy
afternoons when Nature seems ready to weep, not from grief, but from
an overfull heart. Two prattling, lovely little girls, and an African
boy, with glittering eye and ready grin, made our party gay; but
all were still as we entered the little inlet and trod those flowery
paths. They may blacken Indian life as they will, talk of its dirt,
its brutality, I will ever believe that the men who chose that
dwelling-place were able to feel emotions of noble happiness as they
returned to it, and so were the women that received them. Neither were
the children sad or dull, who lived so familiarly with the deer
and the birds, and swam that clear wave in the shadow of the Seven
Sisters. The whole scene suggested to me a Greek splendor, a Greek
sweetness, and I can believe that an Indian brave, accustomed to
ramble in such paths, and be bathed by such sunbeams, might be
mistaken for Apollo, as Apollo was for him by West. Two of the boldest
bluffs are called the Deer's Walk, (not because deer do _not_ walk
there,) and the Eagle's Nest. The latter I visited one glorious
morning; it was that of the fourth of July, and certainly I think I
had never felt so happy that I was born in America. Woe to all country
folks that never saw this spot, never swept an enraptured gaze over
the prospect that stretched beneath. I do believe Rome and Florence
are suburbs compared to this capital of Nature's art.

The bluff was decked with great bunches of a scarlet variety of the
milkweed, like cut coral, and all starred with a mysterious-looking
dark flower, whose cup rose lonely on a tall stem. This had, for
two or three days, disputed the ground with the lupine and phlox. My
companions disliked, I liked it.

Here I thought of, or rather saw, what the Greek expresses under the
form of Jove's darling, Ganymede, and the following stanzas took form.

GANYMEDE TO HIS EAGLE.

SUGGESTED BY A WORK OF THORWALDSEN'S.

Composed on the height called the Eagle's Nest, Oregon, Rock River,
July 4th, 1843.

Upon the rocky mountain stood the boy,
A goblet of pure water in his hand;
His face and form spoke him one made for joy,
A willing servant to sweet love's command,
But a strange pain was written on his brow,
And thrilled throughout his silver accents now.

"My bird," he cries, "my destined brother friend,
O whither fleets to-day thy wayward flight?
Hast thou forgotten that I here attend,
From the full noon until this sad twilight?
A hundred times, at least, from the clear spring,
Since the fall noon o'er hill and valley glowed,
I've filled the vase which our Olympian king
Upon my care for thy sole use bestowed;
That, at the moment when thou shouldst descend,
A pure refreshment might thy thirst attend.

"Hast thou forgotten earth, forgotten me,
Thy fellow-bondsman in a royal cause,
Who, from the sadness of infinity,
Only with thee can know that peaceful pause
In which we catch the flowing strain of love,
Which binds our dim fates to the throne of Jove?

"Before I saw thee, I was like the May,
Longing for summer that must mar its bloom,
Or like the morning star that calls the day,
Whose glories to its promise are the tomb;
And as the eager fountain rises higher
To throw itself more strongly back to earth,
Still, as more sweet and full rose my desire,
More fondly it reverted to its birth,
For what the rosebud seeks tells not the rose,
The meaning that the boy foretold the man cannot disclose.

"I was all Spring, for in my being dwelt
Eternal youth, where flowers are the fruit;
Full feeling was the thought of what was felt,
Its music was the meaning of the lute;
But heaven and earth such life will still deny,
For earth, divorced from heaven, still asks the question _Why?_

"Upon the highest mountains my young feet
Ached, that no pinions from their lightness grew,
My starlike eyes the stars would fondly greet,
Yet win no greeting from the circling blue;
Fair, self-subsistent each in its own sphere,
They had no care that there was none for me;
Alike to them that I was far or near,
Alike to them time and eternity.

"But from the violet of lower air
Sometimes an answer to my wishing came;
Those lightning-births my nature seemed to share,
They told the secrets of its fiery frame,
The sudden messengers of hate and love,
The thunderbolts that arm the hand of Jove,
And strike sometimes the sacred spire, and strike the sacred grove.

"Come in a moment, in a moment gone,
They answered me, then left me still more lone;
They told me that the thought which ruled the world
As yet no sail upon its course had furled,
That the creation was but just begun,
New leaves still leaving from the primal one,
But spoke not of the goal to which _my_ rapid wheels would run.

"Still, still my eyes, though tearfully, I strained
To the far future which my heart contained,
And no dull doubt my proper hope profaned.

"At last, O bliss! thy living form I spied,
Then a mere speck upon a distant sky;
Yet my keen glance discerned its noble pride,
And the full answer of that sun-filled eye;
I knew it was the wing that must upbear
My earthlier form into the realms of air.

"Thou knowest how we gained that beauteous height,
Where dwells the monarch, of the sons of light;
Thou knowest he declared us two to be
The chosen servants of his ministry,
Thou as his messenger, a sacred sign
Of conquest, or, with omen more benign,
To give its due weight to the righteous cause,
To express the verdict of Olympian laws.

"And I to wait upon the lonely spring,
Which slakes the thirst of bards to whom 't is given
The destined dues of hopes divine to sing,
And weave the needed chain to bind to heaven.
Only from such could be obtained a draught
For him who in his early home from Jove's own cup has quaffed

"To wait, to wait, but not to wait too long.
Till heavy grows the burden of a song;
O bird! too long hast thou been gone to-day,
My feet are weary of their frequent way,
The spell that opes the spring my tongue no more can say.

"If soon thou com'st not, night will fall around,
My head with a sad slumber will be bound,
And the pure draught be spilt upon the ground.

"Remember that I am not yet divine,
Long years of service to the fatal Nine
Are yet to make a Delphian vigor mine.

"O, make them not too hard, thou bird of Jove!
Answer the stripling's hope, confirm his love,
Receive the service in which he delights,
And bear him often to the serene heights,
Where hands that were so prompt in serving thee
Shall be allowed the highest ministry,
And Rapture live with bright Fidelity."


The afternoon was spent in a very different manner. The family whose
guests we were possessed a gay and graceful hospitality that gave
zest to each moment. They possessed that rare politeness which, while
fertile in pleasant expedients to vary the enjoyment of a friend,
leaves him perfectly free the moment he wishes to be so. With such
hosts, pleasure may be combined with repose. They lived on the bank
opposite the town, and, as their house was full, we slept in the
town, and passed three days with them, passing to and fro morning and
evening in their boats. To one of these, called the Fairy, in which a
sweet little daughter of the house moved about lighter than any Scotch
Ellen ever sung, I should indite a poem, if I had not been guilty of
rhyme on this very page. At morning this boating was very pleasant; at
evening, I confess, I was generally too tired with the excitements of
the day to think it so.

The house--a double log-cabin--was, to my eye, the model of a Western
villa. Nature had laid out before it grounds which could not be
improved. Within, female taste had veiled every rudeness, availed
itself of every sylvan grace.

In this charming abode what laughter, what sweet thoughts, what
pleasing fancies, did we not enjoy! May such never desert those who
reared it, and made us so kindly welcome to all its pleasures!

Fragments of city life were dexterously crumbled into the dish
prepared for general entertainment. Ice-creams followed the dinner,
which was drawn by the gentlemen from the river, and music and
fireworks wound up the evening of days spent on the Eagle's Nest. Now
they had prepared a little fleet to pass over to the Fourth of July
celebration, which some queer drumming and fifing, from, the opposite
bank, had announced to be "on hand."

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