Retrospect of Western Travel Volume I Part 2

The moment of first landing in a foreign city is commonly spoken of as a perfect realization of forlornness. My entrance upon American life was anything but this. The spirits of my companions and myself were in a holyday dance while we were receiving our first impressions; and New-York always afterward bore an air of gayety to me from the a.s.sociation of the early pleasures of foreign travel.

Apartments had been secured for us at a boarding-house in Broadway, and a hackney-coach was in waiting at the wharf. The moonlight was flickering through the trees of the Battery, the insects were buzzing all about us, the catydids were grinding, and all the sounds, except human voices, were quite unlike all we had heard for six weeks. One of my companions took the sound of the catydid for a noise in her head for many hours after coming into their neighbourhood. As we rattled over the stones, I was surprised to find that the street we were in was Broadway; the lower and narrower end, however; but nothing that I saw, after all I had heard, and the panorama of New-York that I had visited in London, disappointed me so much as Broadway. Its length is remarkable, but neither its width nor the style of its houses. The trees with which it is lined gave it, this first evening, a foreign air.

Our hostess at the boarding-house shook hands with us, and ordered tea.

While we were waiting for it, and within ten minutes after I had crossed the first American threshold, three gentlemen introduced themselves to me, one of whom was the melancholy politician whom I have mentioned elsewhere[1] as having forewarned me of the total overthrow of the United States' inst.i.tutions which would certainly take place while I was in the country. This gentleman afterward became a dear and intimate friend; and we found that politics are, perhaps, the only subject on which we entertain irreconcilable differences of opinion. We often amused ourselves with recurring to this our first meeting. This gentleman afforded me an early specimen of the humour which I think one of the chief characteristics of the Americans. In the few minutes during which we were waiting for tea, he dropped some drolleries so new to me, and so intense, that I was perplexed what to do with my laughter.

Footnote 1: Society in America, vol. i., p. 10.

While we were at tea a few gentlemen dropped in, and read the newspapers at the long table at which we were seated. One fixed my attention at once. He had the carriage of a soldier, with an uncommonly fine countenance, bearing a general resemblance to the great men of the Revolution with whose portraits the English are most familiar. I think it is not a mere fancy that there is an air common to Washington, Jefferson, and Madison. This gentleman reminded me of them all; and the quietness with which he made his remarks, and his evident high breeding, piqued the curiosity of a stranger. He was General Mason, the father of the young governor of Michigan; and the most eminent citizen of Detroit. From time to time, in my travels, I met various members of his family, whose kindness always made me thankful that accident had placed me in the same house with them at the outset.

In our rooms we found beds with four posts, looking as if meant to hang gowns and bonnets upon; for there was no tester. The washstand was without tumbler, gla.s.s, soap, or brush-tray. The candlestick had no snuffers. There was, however, the luxury, sufficient for the occasion, that every article of furniture stood still in its place, and that the apartment itself did not rock up and down. The first few days after a voyage go far towards making one believe that some things have a quality of stability, however one may be metaphysically convinced that the sea affords a far truer hint of the incessant flux and change which are the law of the universe. If I had rejoiced in the emblem at sea, I now enjoyed the deception on land.

At five in the morning I threw up my sash to see what I could see. I cannot conceive what travellers mean by saying that there is little that is foreign in the aspect of New-York. I beheld nothing at this moment that I could have seen at home, except the sky and the gra.s.s of the courtyard. The houses were all neatly and brightly painted, had green outside blinds to every window, and an apparatus for drying linen on the roof. A young lady in black silk, with her hair neatly dressed, was mopping the steps of one house, and a similar young lady was dusting the parlour of another. A large locust-tree grew in the middle of the courtyard of the house I was in, and under it was a truly American woodpile. Two negroes were at the pump, and a third was carrying muskmelons.

When the breakfast-bell rang the long and cross tables in the eating-room were filled in five minutes. The cross table, at which our hostess presided, was occupied by General Mason's family, a party of Spaniards, and ourselves. The long one was filled up with families returning southward from the springs; married persons without children, who preferred boarding to housekeeping; and single gentlemen, chiefly merchants. I found this mode of living rather formidable the first day; and not all the good manners that I saw at public tables ever reconciled me to it.

From a trunk belonging to a lady of our party having been put on board a wrong ship, we had some immediate shopping to do, and to find a mantuamaker. We suspected we should soon be detained at home by callers, and therefore determined to transact our business at once, though our luggage had not arrived from the custom-house, and we were not "dressed for Broadway," as the phrase is.

In the streets I was in danger of being run down by the fire-engines, so busy were my eyes with the novelties about me. These fire-engines run along the side-pavement, stopping for n.o.body; and I scarcely ever walked out in New-York without seeing one or more out on business, or for an airing. The novelties which amused me were the spruce appearance of all the people; the pervading neatness and brightness, and the business-like air of the children. The carmen were all well dressed, and even two poor boys who were selling matches had clean shirt-collars and whole coats, though they were barefooted. The stocks of goods seemed large and handsome, and we were less struck with the indifference of manner commonly ascribed to American storekeepers than frequently afterward.

The most unpleasant circ.u.mstance was the appearance and manner of the ladies whom we saw in the streets and stores. It was now the end of a very hot summer, and every lady we met looked as if she were emerging from the yellow fever; and the languid and unsteady step betokened the reverse of health.

The heat was somewhat oppressive. We were in the warm dresses we had put on while yet at sea, as our trunks had not made their appearance. Trains of callers came in the afternoon and evening; members of Congress, candidates for state offices, fellow-pa.s.sengers and their friends, and other friends of our friends; and still we were not "dressed for Broadway." In the evening the luggage of my companions was brought up, but not mine. Special orders had been issued from the custom-house that my baggage should pa.s.s without examination; and it was therefore at this moment on board ship. To-night it was too late; next morning it was Sunday, and everything in the hold was under lock and key, and unattainable till Monday. There seemed no hope of my getting out all day, and I was really vexed. I wanted to see the churches, and hear the preaching, and be doing what others were doing; but the heat was plainly too great to be encountered in any gown but a muslin one. A lady boarding in the house happened to hear of the case, and sent her servant to say that she believed her dresses would fit me, and that she should be happy to supply me with a gown and bonnet till my trunks should arrive. I accepted her kind offer without any scruple, feeling that a service like this was just what I should wish to render to any lady under the same circ.u.mstances; so I went to church equipped in a morning-gown and second-best bonnet of this neighbourly lady's.

The church that we went to was the Unitarian church in Chamber-street.

Its regular pastor was absent, and a professional brother from Philadelphia preached. We were most deeply impressed by the devotional part of his service, delivered in a voice which I have certainly never heard equalled for music and volume. His discourse moved us no less. We looked at one another in much delight. I warned my companion not to be too certain that this preaching was all we then felt it to be; we had been six Sundays at sea, and some of the impression might be owing to this being the renewal of the privilege of social worship in a church. I heard much of the same preaching afterward, however; and I am now of the same opinion that I was this first day; that it is the most true, simple, and solemn that I ever listened to. The moment the service was over the minister came down from the pulpit, addressed me as an old friend, and requested me to accept the hospitality of his house when I should visit Philadelphia. Under the emotions of the hour it was impossible to help giving a glad a.s.sent; and in his house I afterward enjoyed many weeks of an intercourse as intimate as can ever exist between members of the same family. We kept up the most rapid and copious correspondence the whole time I was in America, and he and his wife were my American brother and sister, the depositaries of all those "impressions" on the mind of a stranger about which American society is so anxious.

General Mason introduced me to Governor Ca.s.s, then secretary-at-war, now amba.s.sador at Paris. Governor Ca.s.s is a shrewd, hard-looking man, the very concentration of American caution. He is an accomplished and an honest man; but his dread of committing himself renders both his solid and ornamental good qualities of less value to society than they should be. The state of Michigan, which is under great obligations to him, is proud of her citizen; and it is agreed, I believe, on all hands, that his appointment is more satisfactory and honourable to his country than that of many who have been sent as ministers to foreign courts.

I feel some doubt about giving any account of the public men of the United States; I do not mean scruples of conscience; for when a man comes forward in political or other kind of public life, he makes a present of himself to society at large, and his person, mind, and manners become a legitimate subject of observation and remark. My doubts arise from the want of interest in the English about the great men of America; a want of interest which arises from no fault in either party, I believe, but from the baseness of the newspapers, whose revilings of all persons in turn who fill a public station are so disgusting as to discourage curiosity, and set all friendly interest at defiance. The names of the English political leaders of the day are almost as familiar in the mouths of Americans as of natives, while people in London are asking who Mr. Clay is, and what part of the Union Mr. Calhoun comes from. The deeds of Mr. Clay and the aspirations of Mr. Calhoun would be at least as interesting in London as the proceedings of French and German statesmen, if they could be fairly placed under observation; but every man of feeling and taste recoils from wading through such a slough of rancour, folly, and falsehood as the American newspapers present as the only medium through which the object is to be attained.

Mr. Gallatin's name is, however, everywhere known and welcome. Mr.

Gallatin did me the honour of calling on me in New-York, having heard that I desired to learn the precise grounds of the quarrel which was agitating the country about the bank. I was delighted to listen to his full and luminous report of the question, and of many other matters, on which he spoke with a freedom and courtesy which would go far towards making the current of human affairs run smooth, if they were but general. He told me something of the early part of his career, which began in 1787; described his three visits to England, and sketched the character of the reigns of our last two kings, of Louis Philippe, and of President Jackson. He entered upon the philosophy of the presidentship; exhibited the spirit of the three great divisions of the United States, the north, south, and west; explained the principles on which the letting of land proceeds; described the Germans and other agricultural population of the country, and showed the process by which the aristocratic cla.s.s rises and is replenished in a democratic republic.

While he was talking I felt as if he was furnishing me with new powers of observation; and when he was gone I hastened to secure what he had told me, lest its novelty and abundance should deceive my memory. I believe Mr. Gallatin was at this time seventy-two; but he did not appear so old. He is tall, and looks dignified and courteous. He is a native of Switzerland, and speaks with a very slight foreign accent, but with a flow and liveliness which are delightful.

I was a.s.sured at the outset that the late abolition riots in New-York were the work of the Irish emigrants, who feared the increase of a free black population as likely to interfere with their monopoly of certain kinds of labour. This I afterward found to be untrue. Some Irish may have joined in "the row," but the mischief originated with natives. It is remarkable that I heard no more of abolition for many weeks; I think not till I was about leaving Philadelphia.

We obtained some "impressions" of the environs of New-York to add to those we had of the city itself, by going to spend an evening at Mr.

Kings at High Wood, two miles beyond Hoboken, on the New-Jersey side of the river. The frame cottages, with their thatched verandahs, struck me as very pretty. I could not say much for the beauty of the corn, whose plants, long since stripped of their cobs, were standing yellow and dry, and fast hastening to decay. There were ridges of gray rock, interspersed with woods, which still flourished in their summer greenness. Above all was a sunset, which, if seen in England, would persuade the nation that the end of the world was come. The whole arch of the sky appeared lined with conflagration. It seemed strange to see the wagon-driver talking with his bullocks and the old Dutch dame spinning in the stoop as quietly as if that scarlet sky had been of its usual summer blue.

I was shown on the way the spot where Hamilton received his death-wound from Colonel Burr. It was once made a qualification for office that the candidate should never have fought a duel. Duelling is an inst.i.tution not to be reached by such a provision as this. No man under provocation to fight would refrain from fear of disqualifying himself for office hereafter; and the operation of the restriction was accordingly found to be this; that duels were as frequent as ever, and that desirable candidates were excluded. The provision was got rid of on the plea that promissory oaths are bad in principle. The cure of duelling, as of every other encroachment of pa.s.sion and selfishness on such higher principles as, being pa.s.sive, cannot be imbodied in acts, must be the natural result of the improved moral condition of the individual or of society.

No one believes that the legal penalties of duelling have had much effect in stopping the practice; and it is an injury to society to choose out of the ample range of penalties disqualification for social duty as one.

The view from Mr. King's garden at High Wood is beautiful. From one opening a reach of twelve miles of the Hudson is commanded, from the Narrows upward. A soft red light was resting on the waters, the last tinge from the late flaming sky. The dark sloops moored below were thus rendered visible, while the twilight shrouded the rocks. Opposite there was a flare in the woods from a gla.s.shouse; and the lights of the city twinkled afar off, reflected in the waters.

One of the first impressions of a foreigner in New-York is of the extreme insolence and vulgarity of certain young Englishmen, who thus make themselves very conspicuous. Well-mannered Englishmen are scarcely distinguishable from the natives, and thus escape observation; while every commercial traveller who sneers at republicanism all day long, and every impertinent boy, leaving home for the first time, with no understanding or sympathy for anything but what he has been accustomed to see at home, obtrudes himself upon the notice, and challenges the congeniality of such countrymen and countrywomen as he can contrive to put himself in the way of. I was annoyed this evening, on my return home, by a very complete specimen of the last-mentioned order of travellers.

Need I say, after thus detailing the little incidents which followed my landing in America, that my first impressions of the country were highly agreeable?

THE HUDSON.

"Oh, there is not lost One of earth's charms: upon her bosom yet, After the flight of untold centuries, The freshness of her far beginning lies, And yet shall lie."

BRYANT.

I went three times up the Hudson; and, if I lived at New-York, should be tempted to ascend it three times a week during the summer. Yet the greater number of ladies on board the steamboat remained in the close cabin among the crying babies, even while we were pa.s.sing the finest scenery of the river. They do not share the taste of a gentleman who, when I was there, actually made the steamboat his place of abode during the entire summer season, sleeping on board at Albany and New-York on alternate nights, and gazing at the sh.o.r.es all the day long with apparently undiminishing delight.

The first time we went up the early part of the morning was foggy, and the mist hung about the ridge of the Palisades, the rocky western barrier of the river. There were cottages perched here and there, and trees were sprinkled in the crevices, and a little yellow strand, just wide enough for the fisherman and his boat, now and then intervened between the waters and the perpendicular rock. In the shadowy recesses of the sh.o.r.e wore sloops moored. Seagulls dipped their wings in the gleams of the river, and the solitary fishhawk sailed slowly over the woods. I saw on the eastern bank a wide flight of steps cut in the turf, leading to an opening in the trees, at the end of which stood a white house, apparently in deep retirement. Farther on the river widened into the Tappan Sea, and then the hills rose higher behind the banks, and wandering gleams lighted up a mountain region here and there. The captain admitted us, as strangers (of course without any hint from us), into the wheel-room, which was shady, breezy, roomy, and commanding the entire view. Hence we were shown Mr. Irvings's cottage, the spot where Andre was captured, and the other interesting points of the scenery.

Then the banks seemed to close, and it was matter for conjecture where the outlet was. The waters were hemmed in by abrupt and dark mountains, but the channel was still broad and smooth enough for all the steamboats in the republic to ride in safety. Ridges of rock plunged into the waters, garnished with trees which seemed to grow without soil; above them were patches of cultivation on the mountain sides, and slopes of cleared land, with white houses upon them. Doves flitted among the nearest trees, and gay rowboats darted from point to point from one island to another.

West Point, beautiful as it is, was always visible too soon. Yet to leave the boat was the only way to remain in sight of the Highlands; and the charms of the place itself are scarcely to be surpa.s.sed. The hotel is always full of good company in the season. Mr. Cozens keeps a table for the officers, and is permitted to add as many guests as his house will hold; but, under such circ.u.mstances, he takes pains to admit only such as are fit company for his permanent boarders. The views from the hotel are so fine, and there is such a provision of comfort and entertainment, that there would be no hardship in sitting within doors for a week; but we made the best use we could of our opportunities, and saw and achieved everything pertaining to the place, except mounting the Crow's Nest; an expedition which the heat of the weather prevented our undertaking.

In some solitary spots of this settlement the stranger cannot help meditating on the vast materials of human happiness which are placed at the disposal of the real administrators of this great country. How great is the apparatus to be yet put to use! Here, where life is swarming all around, how few are the habitations of men! Here are woods climbing above woods to the clouds and stretching to the horizon, in which myriads of creatures are chirping, humming, and sporting; clefts whence the waters gush out; green slopes ready for the plough and the sickle; flat meadows with a few hayc.o.c.ks lying at the foot of mountains as yet untouched. Gra.s.shoppers spring at every step one takes in the rich gra.s.s, and many a blue dragon-fly balances itself on the tips of the strongest blades; b.u.t.terflies, green, black, white, and yellow, dazzle the eye that would follow them; yet how few men are near! A gay group on the steps of the hotel, a company of cadets parading on the green, the ferryman and his fare, and the owners of this, and that, and the other house perched upon the pinnacles of the hills; these are all as yet visible in a region which will hereafter be filled with speech and busy with thought.

On the steep above the landing-place I was introduced to Mr. Irving, with whom I had a few minutes' conversation before he stepped into the ferryboat which was to take him over to the foundry to dinner. Many other persons with whom I was glad to have the opportunity of becoming acquainted were at the hotel. Mr. and Mrs. Morris were our guides to Fort Putnam after dinner; walkers as active and resolute as ourselves.

The beauty from this elevated platform is really oppressive to the sense. One is glad to divert one's attention from its awful radiance by walking in precipitous places, by visiting the cell in which it is said, but doubtfully, that Andre was confined, or even by meditating on the lot of the solitary cow that has the honour of grazing in the midst of the only ruins that adorn American scenery.

A lady in the hotel offered to meet me on the housetop at five o'clock in the morning to see the sun rise. I looked out at three; there was a solitary light twinkling in the academy, and a faint gleam out of a cloudy sky upon the river. At five the sky was so thickly overspread with clouds that the expedition to the housetop had to be abandoned. The morning afterward cleared, and I went alone down to Kosciusko's Garden.

I loved this retreat at an hour when I was likely to have it to myself.

It is a nook scooped, as it were, out of the rocky bank of the river, and reached by descending several flights of steps from the platform behind the hotel and academy. Besides the piled rocks and the vegetation with which they are clothed, there is nothing but a clear spring, which wells up in a stone basin inscribed with the hero's name. This was his favourite retreat; and here he sat for many hours in a day with his book and his thoughts. After fancying for some time that I was alone, and playing with the fountain and the leaves of the red beech and the maple, now turning into its autumnal scarlet, I found, on looking up, that one of the cadets was stretched at length on a high projection of rock, and that another was coming down the steps. The latter accosted me, offering to point out to me the objects of interest about the place. We had a long conversation about his academical life.

The students apply themselves to mathematics during the first and second years; during the third, to mathematics, chymistry, and natural philosophy; and during the fourth, to engineering. There is less literary pursuit than they or their friends would like; but they have not time for everything. Their work is from seven in the morning till four in the afternoon, with the exception of two hours for meals. Then come drill and recreation, and then the evening parade. During six weeks (I think) of the summer they camp out, which some of the youths enjoy, while others like it so much less than living under a roof, that they take this time to be absent on furlough. The friends of others come to see them while the pretty spectacle of a camp is added to the attractions of the place. Every care is used that the proficiency should be maintained at the highest point that it can be made to reach. The cla.s.ses consist of not less than one hundred and forty, of whom only forty graduate. Some find the work too hard; some dislike the routine; others are postponed; and by this careful weeding out the choicest are kept for the public service. This process may go some way towards accounting for the present unpopularity of the inst.i.tution, and the consequent danger of its downfall. The number of disappointed youths, whose connexions will naturally bear a grudge against the establishment, must be great. There is a belief abroad that its principle and administration are both anti-republican; and in answer to an irresistible popular demand, a committee of Congress has been engaged in investigating both the philosophy and practice of this national military academy; for some time previous to which there was difficulty in obtaining the annual appropriation for its support. I have not seen the report of this committee, but I was told that the evidence on which it is founded is very unfavourable to the conduct of the establishment in a political point of view. The advantages of such an inst.i.tution in securing a uniformity of military conduct in case of war, from the young soldiers of all the states having received a common education; in affording one meeting point where sectional prejudice may be dissolved; and in concentrating the attention of the whole union upon maintaining a high degree of proficiency in science, are so great, that it is no wonder that an indignant and honest cry is raised against those who would abolish it on account of its aristocratical tendencies. I rather think it is a case in which both parties are more than commonly right; that it is an inst.i.tution which can scarcely be dispensed with, but which requires to be watched with the closest jealousy, that there may be no abuse of patronage, and no such combination as could lead to the foundation of a military aristocracy.

I saw the well-selected library, consisting of several thousand volumes, the s.p.a.cious lecture-rooms, and students' apartments. I often wonder whether students are at all aware of the wistful longing, the envy, with which those who are precluded from academical life view the arrangements of colleges. No library in a private house conveys any idea of the power of devotion to study which is suggested by the sight of a student's apartment in a college. The sight of the snug solitary room, the bookshelves, the single desk and armchair, the larum, and even the flowerpot or two in the window, and the portrait of some favourite philosophical worthy; these things send a thrill of envy through the heart of the thoughtful politician, or man of business, or woman, who cannot command such facilities for study. I know that the fallacy of attributing too much to external arrangements enters here; that many study to as much advantage under difficulties as any academical member in his retirement; I know, too, that the student shares the human weakness of finding evil in his lot, and supposing that he should be better in some other circ.u.mstances; I know this by a revelation once made to me by a college student, for whose facilities I had been intensely thankful, a revelation of his deep and incessant trouble because he was living to himself, selfishly studying, and obliged to wait four or five years before he could bestir himself for his race; yet, in spite of all this knowledge that the common equality of pleasures and pains subsists here, I never see the interior of a college without longing to impress upon its inmates how envied and enviable they are. It is difficult to remember that the stillness of the cell is of no avail without the intentness of the mind, and that there is no efficacious solitude in the deepest retirement if the spirit is roving abroad after schemes of pleasure or ambition, or even of piety and benevolence, which are not the appointed duty of the time. But I have wandered from my new acquaintance in Kosciusko's Garden.

I was surprised to learn the extraordinary high average of health the place can boast of. The young men enter at the age of from fourteen to twenty, stay three or four years, and number about three hundred at a time. The mortality in the seventeen years preceding my visit was only five. For eight years before the winter of 1834 there had been no death.

Within a few months after, the superintendent's wife, a servant, and a cadet died; and this was, of course, considered an extraordinary mortality. I rather wondered at this account, for the young men look anything but robust, and the use of tobacco among them is very free indeed. It is prohibited, but not the less indulged in on that account, nor from the absence of evil example in their superintendents. My new acquaintance made very frank confessions on this subject. He told me that he believed the free use of tobacco had extensively and irreparably injured his health, and that he bitterly mourned his first indulgence in it.

"Do not you mean to leave it off?" said I.

"No."

"Do you think you could not?"

"I could; but it would take three weeks to cure myself; and during that time I could do nothing; and I cannot afford that. I could not learn my lessons without it, and the loss of three weeks would injure all my prospects in life."

"Hardly so fatally as the ruin of your health, I should think. Is your case a common one here?"

"Too common. But I a.s.sure you I do all I can to prevent the bad consequences of my own example. I warn my juniors, as they come in, very seriously."

"Do you find your warnings of much use?"

"I am afraid not much."

"They have the usual fate of mere precept, I suppose?"