The World As I Have Found It Part 7

Finding there were no other important towns beyond Evergreen, I returned to Montgomery and repaired to Savannah, Georgia, where I was treated with the most genial generosity, and should have been repaid for a trip to that place in a visit to its cemetery, whose reputation has been spread throughout the length and breadth of our land, and whose strange, sad beauty is so infinitely beyond the conceptions of imagination, but which--

"To be remembered Needs but to be seen."

Its grounds are densely grown with trees of live oak, whose huge and spreading branches, seeming to bear the size and strength of a century's growth; with the dark, drooping moss, which, as it mingles its weird, fantastic drapery with the bending, swaying, weeping willow, seems like a pall for the graves hidden in its sombre shades; while the millions of birds which dwell therein lull their warbling notes to the measure of a low funeral song; and every sound of Nature's many-voiced music seems to murmur a requiem for the dead. As I sat subdued and listening, the low, rustling sound of the wind seemed as a sigh of sorrow escaping the breast of the bereaved, and I could picture in the far away land of Palestine that sacred spot which had so often been described to me, even the "Church of the Holy Sepulchre."

This most benevolent city of Georgia, without solicitation, presented me pa.s.ses to Jacksonville and Tallaha.s.see, Fla. The former was at that time quite an unimportant place, but has since become a popular resort.

While in Tallaha.s.see I met with great sympathy and kindness from Governor Rood, who bought a book and handed me five dollars. When change was tendered to him he quietly and respectfully declined, and said with his usual delicacy that it was worth that much to him.

The Sheriff of the county was also very generous. Wishing to present me with ten dollars, and fearing to wound me by so doing, he ordered that amount of bead-work.

Tallaha.s.see was certainly the most quiet Capital City I had ever visited, resting in its placid loveliness apparently undisturbed by the usual wrangle of legislation.

We returned via Live Oaks, at which place we encountered one of those severe thunderstorms known only to tropical lands, and in which the angry "war of elements" strikes terror to the hearts of those unschooled to it.

All through its thundering and lightning, its wind and torrent, I was in such a state of nervous excitement, that when the last lurid light faded, the last crash was echoed by a low reverberating moan and died away, I gave one deep sigh of intense relief and sank exhausted from the reaction.

CHAPTER XXII.

"I lay upon the headland heights, and listened To the incessant moaning of the sea In caverns under me, And watched the waves that tossed, And fled, and glistened; Until the rolling meadows of amethyst Melted away in mist."

My visit to Charleston combined little of eventful note, and this city is to well known as a seaport to require a detailed description. There, as in all places in close proximity to the ocean, I was spell-bound amid the ceaseless ebb and flow, the endless melody of the waves glowing and scintillating with myriad gem-like hues from the amethyst, the emerald and the diamond, to the many-hued opal, its varied and changing beauty bearing all the brilliant glory of the fabled dolphin, born in its depths.

In this sea-girt city I found the home of Mrs. Glover, and above all her hallowed presence there. She is an accomplished lady, and once wrote an attractive novel, more for pastime than from any literary aspirations.

Vernon, the hero of her story of Vernon Grove, was blind, and as this depiction of character was so much more true to nature than the pen-pictures of other gifted delineators, even that of the shrewd searcher of the human heart, Wilkie Collins, that she had won the sympathy and interest of all at the Baltimore Inst.i.tution, at which, in former years, she had been so cheerfully greeted.

Vernon possessed none of the melancholy, inanimate, suspicious characteristics supposed by many to belong of necessity to the blind, but was a brilliant, cheerful, high-minded person, who filled every position in life with dignity, accepted every sorrow and disappointment with resignation, in every struggle was a lion-hearted hero, and in every contest a conqueror.

This gifted lady was a sister of Mrs. Bowen, of Baltimore, who, as well as her husband, was a warm, true friend to the blind, and ever joyously hailed as a guest in the inst.i.tution.

After traveling through the Carolinas I went to Richmond, Virginia, the Rome of America, and like that ancient city built upon seven hills, while in its patrician pride and family loyalty it possessed much of the essence of the old Roman spirit.

My visit there was during the most fervid heat of the summer solstice, when through the sultry days all living creatures are panting and breathless, yet withal the stay of three weeks' duration pa.s.sed away with delightful rapidity, and time stole upon us and stole from us almost imperceptibly.

Leaving Richmond for White Sulphur Springs, I stopped at all important intervening points. At Staunton I devoted an entire day to the inspection of the Inst.i.tution for the Blind, and in pleasant acceptance of hospitalities dispensed both by inmates and officials.

Arriving at White Sulphur after dark, we found the mountain air so cold that we could almost imagine ourselves suddenly transported from the Equator to the Pole, and were as thoroughly chilled as one unacclimated would be from so great and sudden a transition.

The mammoth hotel of this watering place, comfortably seated in its dining-hall twelve hundred guests, and all its appointments were in equally grand proportion. We occupied, from choice, one of the cozy little cottages, nestling like a dove-cot in some bowery shade, with its patch of green-sward and flower-garden in front and purling brook behind, holding the double charm of rural simplicity and home-like air. Hattie led me through every path and grove, nook and glen of this sweet seclusion, this valley embosomed in mountains, and my thoughts reverted to the days when the belles and beaux of our American court sought these sylvan shades; when Washington and the successive Chief Magistrates of the Great Republic had gracefully glided through the stately minuet and invested this spot with a now cla.s.sic interest.

Prominent among the visitors was the leonine General Lee, a Colossus in person and in mind. In spirit brave as a true hero, but in manner gentle as a woman. In the sweet solace of sympathy his heart went out to the blind girl, and a.s.sumed the tangible form of solid favors, for by his personal efforts under the magic influence and royal mandate of his imperial power many a little volume was appropriated that would have been otherwise unnoticed.

George Peabody was also a guest, but in this, his last visit to his native country, he was too ill and prostrate to receive friends. I felt for him a strong personal sympathy for his beneficence to my native city, to which he ever acknowledged himself indebted for his first business success; and in which the pure, white marble structure, with its magnificent library and other appointments, so well known as "The Peabody Inst.i.tute," stands as a monument of his munificence.

Returning to Richmond, we took the James River route to Baltimore, a trip fraught with varied interest.

At Yorktown, that city of eld, we landed to take in a cargo of freight, not neglecting the usual store of oysters, of which we had at supper a sumptuous feast and it was from no fickle epicurean fancy that all p.r.o.nounced these delicious bivalves the finest in the world, for, certainly, never before or since have we partaken of them with such rare relish and absolute gusto.

CHAPTER XXIII.

"Sweet is the hour that brings us home, Where all will spring to meet us; Where hands are striving as we come, To be the first to greet us.

When the world has spent its frowns and wrath, And care been sorely pressing; 'Tis sweet to turn from our roving path, And find a fireside blessing; Ah, joyfully dear is the homeward track, If we are but sure of a welcome back!"

Home again in dear old Baltimore, where over my cradle was sung my mother's first lullaby, and where so many localities were invested with the charm of loved a.s.sociation. I of course visited the Inst.i.tution for the Blind, which would not, in its many changes, have seemed at all like home but for the music of a familiar voice and the presence of dear Miss Bond, who still with loving dignity presided as matron, throned in the majesty of n.o.ble humanity, and crowned with purity and goodness.

Dr. Fisher, Mr. Trust and Mr. Newcomer still faithfully held their positions as Directors, and cordially welcomed me home. Mr. Morrison, the new Superintendent, and his most estimable wife, although they had never seen me, brought me near to them by the bond of sympathetic kindness, and seemed not like strangers but friends.

It seemed singular to those who had known little Mary Day to have her go back to them a married woman, and indeed, for the moment, time seemed to have gone backward in its flight; the dignity of the matron was forgotten, and I was a child again, even little Mary Day. I felt glad of an a.s.surance from Miss Bond, that so fondly had my name been cherished, even by those in the inst.i.tution who had never met me, that it was regarded as a "household word," and that enshrined in the most sacred niche of the temple of love was the image of Mary L. Day. As a testimony of this continued affection I was fondly urged to remain in the inst.i.tution while in the city, but, as I had so many resident relatives, I declined.

My cousin, William Heald, who had by his kindness infused light into some of my darkest hours, had won a lovely woman for a wife, and certainly no one more richly deserved such a consummation. Cousin Sammy Heald had also married his fair fiance, of the West, who in her sweet purity of character, beauty of person and a life fragrant and blossoming with good deeds, could justly be called a "prairie flower." He had been ordained a Methodist minister, and was winning true laurels in his little charge in Iowa, to which conference he belonged. He had chosen his proper vocation, for as a preacher he was "Native, and to the manor born," for when a wee boy, he had written and declaimed many a sermon, and had his mimic audience been a real one these efforts would have produced electrical effect.

Among the many changes in my Baltimore circle was the vacant chair at the fireside, once filled by my uncle Jacob Day, whose memory and whose life was pervaded by the odor of true sanct.i.ty. It could truly be said of him at the sunset of a beautiful life, that

"Each silver hair, each wrinkle there, Records some good deed done; Some flower cast along the way, Some spark from love's bright sun."

He had been a great leader in the Sabbath School movement, and a prominent feature of the funeral cortege was a procession of his pupils in pure white raiment, who, in token of their love and bereavement, strewed his grave with flowers.

I cannot close my home chapter without an expression of exultant pride for my cla.s.smates who have done so n.o.bly in their various vocations. Two had entered the literary ranks as book-writers, and had met with marked success in the acceptance and sale of their works; three stood high as teachers; one earned a good living by tuning pianos; several were engaged in various departments of the inst.i.tution; and two ranked high as musicians, which profession has seemed an especial field for the blind.

To use the musical measure of poetic prose as rendered by Mr. Artman, one of the most renowned blind authors--"There is a world to which night brings no gloom, no sadness, no impediments; fills no yawning chasm and hides from the traveler no pitfall. It is the world of sound. Silence is its night, the only darkness of which the blind have any knowledge. In it every attribute of Nature has a voice; the beautiful, the grand, the sublime, have each a language, and to me, whose heart is in tune, every sound has a peculiar significance. Sounds fill the soul, while light fills the eye only. 'In the varied strains of warbling melody,' as it winds in its graceful meanderings to the deep recesses of his soul, or of the rich and boundless harmony, as it swells and rolls its pompous tide around him, he finds a solace and a compensation for the absent joys of sight."

And so I close with a blessing upon the members of my cla.s.s, and may the G.o.d of light and love illumine their paths, and glorify their lives, is my earnest, heartfelt prayer.

CHAPTER XXIV.

"The prayer of Ajax was for light; Through all that dark and desperate fight, The blackness of that noonday night, He asked but the return of sight, To see his foeman's face.

"Let our unceasing, earnest prayer Be, too, for light--for strength to bear Our portion of the weight of care, That crushes into dumb despair One half the human race."

From Baltimore I went to Westminster, Maryland, to visit my cousin, Charles Henniman, and my stay there was characterized by all the joy of sweet reunion and eager acceptance of hospitalities so lavishly bestowed.

It was with mingled emotions of pleasure and pain I greeted my old friend, Carrie Fringer. In person she was of a peculiar type of beauty, a face regular in features as a Madonna, beaming with the soft, love-light of rare, sweet eyes, in whose depths were imprisoned not only an intense brightness, but the still deeper glow of a soul of love and truth. Curls of soft brown hair fell upon her symmetrical shoulders and softened the face they framed into an almost spiritual sweetness. From an affliction in her childhood she had almost ever since been unable to walk, and indeed none of the beautiful limbs were available for voluntary motion. Thus deprived of more than half of life's joy, its sweet activity, many would have lapsed into a morbid, nervous condition, over which we might justly have thrown the mantle of charity, but this dear friend was so lovely and chastened in her affliction, that she seemed almost a Deity in her attributes of tender love and patient self-abnegation, united to a heroic endurance of pain with which she was daily, hourly and momently tortured.

Surely

"The good are better made by ill, As odors crushed are sweeter still."

Going to Washington I accompanied an excursion down the Potomac to Mount Vernon, that sacred spot whose mention sends a thrill of patriotic pride through every American heart, hallowed as it is by memories of George Washington. So I became one of the zealous pilgrim throng who wended their way to this our Mecca, dear to us as that sacred place in the old world to the most devout worshiper of the Prophet Mahomet.