Complete Prose Works

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NIGHTS ON THE MISSISSIPPI

_Oct. 29th, 30th, and 31st_.--Wonderfully fine, with the full harvest
moon, dazzling and silvery. I have haunted the river every night
lately, where I could get a look at the bridge by moonlight. It is
indeed a structure of perfection and beauty unsurpassable, and I never
tire of it. The river at present is very low; I noticed to-day it had
much more of a blue-clear look than usual. I hear the slight ripples,
the air is fresh and cool, and the view, up or down, wonderfully
clear, in the moonlight. I am out pretty late: it is so fascinating,
dreamy. The cool night-air, all the influences, the silence, with
those far-off eternal stars, do me good. I have been quite ill of
late. And so, well-near the centre of our national demesne, these
night views of the Mississippi.

UPON OUR OWN LAND

"Always, after supper, take a walk half a mile long," says an old
proverb, dryly adding, "and if convenient let it be upon your own
land." I wonder does any other nation but ours afford opportunity for
such a jaunt as this? Indeed has any previous period afforded it?
No one, I discover, begins to know the real geographic, democratic,
indissoluble American Union in the present, or suspect it in the
future, until he explores these Central States, and dwells awhile
observantly on their prairies, or amid their busy towns, and the
mighty father of waters. A ride of two or three thousand miles, "on
one's own land," with hardly a disconnection, could certainly be had
in no other place than the United States, and at no period before
this. If you want to see what the railroad is, and how civilization
and progress date from it--how it is the conqueror of crude nature,
which it turns to man's use, both on small scales and on the
largest--come hither to inland America.

I return'd home, east, Jan. 5, 1880, having travers'd, to and fro and
across, 10,000 miles and more. I soon resumed my seclusions down
in the woods, or by the creek, or gaddings about cities, and an
occasional disquisition, as will be seen following.

EDGAR POE'S SIGNIFICANCE

_Jan. 1, '80_.--In diagnosing this disease called humanity--to assume
for the nonce what seems a chief mood of the personality and writings
of my subject--I have thought that poets, somewhere or other on the
list, present the most mark'd indications. Comprehending artists in a
mass, musicians, painters, actors, and so on, and considering each and
all of them as radiations or flanges of that furious whirling wheel,
poetry, the centre and axis of the whole, where else indeed may we so
well investigate the causes, growths, tally-marks of the time--the
age's matter and malady?

By common consent there is nothing better for man or woman than a
perfect and noble life, morally without flaw, happily balanced in
activity, physically sound and pure, giving its due proportion, and no
more, to the sympathetic, the human emotional element--a life, in all
these, unhasting, unresting, untiring to the end. And yet there is
another shape of personality dearer far to the artist-sense, (which
likes the play of strongest lights and shades,) where the perfect
character, the good, the heroic, although never attain'd, is never
lost sight of, but through failures, sorrows, temporary downfalls, is
return'd to again and again, and while often violated, is passionately
adhered to as long as mind, muscles, voice, obey the power we call
volition. This sort of personality we see more or less in Burns,
Byron, Schiller, and George Sand. But we do not see it in Edgar Poe.
(All this is the result of reading at intervals the last three days a
new volume of his poems--I took it on my rambles down by the pond, and
by degrees read it all through there.) While to the character first
outlined the service Poe renders is certainly that entire contrast and
contradiction which is next best to fully exemplifying it.

Almost without the first sign of moral principle, or of the concrete
or its heroisms, or the simpler affections of the heart, Poe's verses
illustrate an intense faculty for technical and abstract beauty, with
the rhyming art to excess, an incorrigible propensity toward nocturnal
themes, a demoniac undertone behind every page--and, by final
judgment, probably belong among the electric lights of imaginative
literature, brilliant and dazzling, but with no heat. There is an
indescribable magnetism about the poet's life and reminiscences, as
well as the poems. To one who could work out their subtle retracing
and retrospect, the latter would make a close tally no doubt between
the author's birth and antecedents, his childhood and youth, his
physique, his so-call'd education, his studies and associates, the
literary and social Baltimore, Richmond, Philadelphia and New York, of
those times--not only the places and circumstances in themselves, but
often, very often, in a strange spurning of, and reaction from them
all.

The following from a report in the Washington "Star" of November 16,
1875, may afford those who care for it something further of my point
of view toward this interesting figure and influence of our era. There
occurr'd about that date in Baltimore a public reburial of Poe's
remains, and dedication of a monument over the grave:

"Being in Washington on a visit at the time, 'the old gray' went over
to Baltimore, and though ill from paralysis, consented to hobble up
and silently take a seat on the platform, but refused to make any
speech, saying, 'I have felt a strong impulse to come over and be
here to-day myself in memory of Poe, which I have obey'd, but not the
slightest impulse to make a speech, which, my dear friends, must also
be obeyed.' In an informal circle, however, in conversation after the
ceremonies, Whitman said: 'For a long while, and until lately, I had a
distaste for Poe's writings. I wanted, and still want for poetry, the
clear sun shining, and fresh air blowing--the strength and power of
health, not of delirium, even amid the stormiest passions--with always
the background of the eternal moralities. Non-complying with these
requirements, Poe's genius has yet conquer'd a special recognition for
itself, and I too have come to fully admit it, and appreciate it and
him.

"'In a dream I once had, I saw a vessel on the sea, at midnight, in
a storm. It was no great full-rigg'd ship, nor majestic steamer,
steering firmly through the gale, but seem'd one of those superb
little schooner yachts I had often seen lying anchor'd, rocking so
jauntily, in the waters around New York, or up Long Island sound--now
flying uncontroll'd with torn sails and broken spars through the wild
sleet and winds and waves of the night. On the deck was a slender,
slight, beautiful figure, a dim man, apparently enjoying all the
terror, the murk, and the dislocation of which he was the centre and
the victim. That figure of my lurid dream might stand for Edgar
Poe, his spirit, his fortunes, and his poems--themselves all lurid
dreams.'"

Much more may be said, but I most desired to exploit the idea put at
the beginning. By its popular poets the calibres of an age, the weak
spots of its embankments, its sub-currents, (often more significant
than the biggest surface ones,) are unerringly indicated. The lush and
the weird that have taken such extraordinary possession of Nineteenth
century verse-lovers--what mean they? The inevitable tendency of
poetic culture to morbidity, abnormal beauty--the sickliness of all
technical thought or refinement in itself--the abnegation of the
perennial and democratic concretes at first hand, the body, the earth
and sea, sex and the like--and the substitution of something for
them at second or third hand--what bearings have they on current
pathological study?

BEETHOVEN'S SEPTETTE

_Feb. 11, '80_.--At a good concert to-night in the foyer of the opera
house, Philadelphia--the band a small but first-rate one. Never did
music more sink into and soothe and fill me--never so prove its
soul-rousing power, its impossibility of statement. Especially in the
rendering of one of Beethoven's master septettes by the well-chosen
and perfectly-combined instruments (violins, viola, clarionet, horn,
'cello and contrabass,) was I carried away, seeing, absorbing many
wonders. Dainty abandon, sometimes as if Nature laughing on a hillside
in the sunshine; serious and firm monotonies, as of winds; a horn
sounding through the tangle of the forest, and the dying echoes;
soothing floating of waves, but presently rising in surges,
angrily lashing, muttering, heavy; piercing peals of laughter, for
interstices; now and then weird, as Nature herself is in certain
moods--but mainly spontaneous, easy, careless--often the sentiment of
the postures of naked children playing or sleeping. It did me good
even to watch the violinists drawing their bows so masterly--every
motion a study. I allow'd myself, as I sometimes do, to wander out of
myself. The conceit came to me of a copious grove of singing birds,
and in their midst a simple harmonic duo, two human souls, steadily
asserting their own pensiveness, joyousness.

A HINT OF WILD NATURE

_Feb. 13_.--As I was crossing the Delaware to-day, saw a large flock
of wild geese, right overhead, not very high up, ranged in V-shape,
in relief against the noon clouds of light smoke-color. Had a capital
though momentary view of them, and then of their course on and on
southeast, till gradually fading--(my eyesight yet first rate for the
open air and its distances, but I use glasses for reading.) Queer
thoughts melted into me the two or three minutes, or less, seeing
these creatures cleaving the sky--the spacious, airy realm--even the
prevailing smoke-gray color everywhere, (no sun shining)--the
waters below--the rapid flight of the birds, appearing just for a
minute--flashing to me such a hint of the whole spread of Nature, with
her eternal unsophisticated freshness, her never-visited recesses of
sea, sky, shore--and then disappearing in the distance.

LOAFING IN THE WOODS

_March 8_.--I write this down in the country again, but in a new spot,
seated on a log in the woods, warm, sunny, midday. Have been loafing
here deep among the trees, shafts of tall pines, oak, hickory, with
a thick undergrowth of laurels and grapevines--the ground cover'd
everywhere by debris, dead leaves, breakage, moss--everything
solitary, ancient, grim. Paths (such as they are) leading hither and
yon--(how made I know not, for nobody seems to come here, nor man
nor cattle-kind.) Temperature to-day about 60, the wind through the
pine-tops; I sit and listen to its hoarse sighing above (and to the
_stillness_) long and long, varied by aimless rambles in the old roads
and paths, and by exercise-pulls at the young saplings, to keep my
joints from getting stiff. Blue-birds, robins, meadow-larks begin to
appear.

_Next day, 9th_.--A snowstorm in the morning, and continuing most of
the day. But I took a walk over two hours, the same woods and paths,
amid the falling flakes. No wind, yet the musical low murmur through
the pines, quite pronounced, curious, like waterfalls, now still'd,
now pouring again. All the senses, sight, sound, smell, delicately
gratified. Every snowflake lay where it fell on the evergreens,
holly-trees, laurels, &c., the multitudinous leaves and branches
piled, bulging-white, defined by edge-lines of emerald--the tall
straight columns of the plentiful bronze-topt pines--a slight resinous
odor blending with that of the snow. (For there is a scent to
everything, even the snow, if you can only detect it--no two places,
hardly any two hours, anywhere, exactly alike. How different the odor
of noon from midnight, or winter from summer, or a windy spell from a
still one.)

A CONTRALTO VOICE

_May 9, Sunday_.--Visit this evening to my friends the J.'s--good
supper, to which I did justice--lively chat with Mrs. J. and I. and
J. As I sat out front on the walk afterward, in the evening air, the
church-choir and organ on the corner opposite gave Luther's hymn, _Ein
feste berg_, very finely. The air was borne by a rich contralto. For
nearly half an hour there in the dark (there was a good string of
English stanzas,) came the music, firm and unhurried, with long
pauses. The full silver star-beams of Lyra rose silently over the
church's dim roof-ridge. Vari-color'd lights from the stain'd glass
windows broke through the tree-shadows. And under all--under the
Northern Crown up there, and in the fresh breeze below, and the
_chiaroscuro_ of the night, that liquid-full contralto.

SEEING NIAGARA TO ADVANTAGE

_June 4, '80_.--For really seizing a great picture or book, or piece
of music, or architecture, or grand scenery--or perhaps for the first
time even the common sunshine, or landscape, or may-be even the
mystery of identity, most curious mystery of all--there comes some
lucky five minutes of a man's life, set amid a fortuitous concurrence
of circumstances, and bringing in a brief flash the culmination of
years of reading and travel and thought. The present case about two
o'clock this afternoon, gave me Niagara, its superb severity of action
and color and majestic grouping, in one short, indescribable show.
We were very slowly crossing the Suspension bridge-not a full stop
anywhere, but next to it--the day clear, sunny, still--and I out on
the platform. The falls were in plain view about a mile off, but very
distinct, and no roar--hardly a murmur. The river tumbling green and
white, far below me; the dark high banks, the plentiful umbrage, many
bronze cedars, in shadow; and tempering and arching all the immense
materiality, a clear sky overhead, with a few white clouds, limpid,
spiritual, silent. Brief, and as quiet as brief, that picture--a
remembrance always afterwards. Such are the things, indeed, I lay away
with my life's rare and blessed bits of hours, reminiscent, past--the
wild sea-storm I once saw one winter day, off Fire island--the elder
Booth in Richard, that famous night forty years ago in the old
Bowery--or Alboni in the children's scene in Norma--or night-views,
I remember, on the field, after battles in Virginia--or the peculiar
sentiment of moonlight and stars over the great Plains, western
Kansas--or scooting up New York bay, with a stiff breeze and a good
yacht, off Navesink. With these, I say, I henceforth place that view,
that afternoon, that combination complete, that five minutes' perfect
absorption of Niagara--not the great majestic gem alone by itself, but
set complete in all its varied, full, indispensable surroundings.

JAUNTING TO CANADA

To go back a little, I left Philadelphia, 9th and Green streets, at 8
o'clock P.M., June 3, on a first-class sleeper, by the Lehigh Valley
(North Pennsylvania) route, through Bethlehem, Wilkesbarre, Waverly,
and so (by Erie) on through Corning to Hornellsville, where we arrived
at 8, morning, and had a bounteous breakfast. I must say I never put
in such a good night on any railroad track--smooth, firm, the minimum
of jolting, and all the swiftness compatible with safety. So without
change to Buffalo, and thence to Clifton, where we arrived early
afternoon; then on to London, Ontario, Canada, in four more--less than
twenty-two hours altogether. I am domiciled at the hospitable house of
my friends Dr. and Mrs. Bucke, in the ample and charming garden and
lawns of the asylum.

SUNDAY WITH THE INSANE

_June 6_.--Went over to the religious services (Episcopal) main Insane
asylum, held in a lofty, good-sized hall, third story. Plain boards,
whitewash, plenty of cheap chairs, no ornament or color, yet all
scrupulously clean and sweet. Some three hundred persons present,
mostly patients. Everything, the prayers, a short sermon, the firm,
orotund voice of the minister, and most of all, beyond any portraying,
or suggesting, _that audience_, deeply impress'd me. I was furnish'd
with an arm-chair near the pulpit, and sat facing the motley, yet
perfectly well-behaved and orderly congregation. The quaint dresses
and bonnets of some of the women, several very old and gray, here and
there like the heads in old pictures. O the looks that came from those
faces! There were two or three I shall probably never forget. Nothing
at all markedly repulsive or hideous--strange enough I did not see one
such. Our common humanity, mine and yours, everywhere:

"The same old blood--the same red, running blood;"

yet behind most, an inferr'd arriere of such storms, such wrecks, such
mysteries, fires, love, wrong, greed for wealth, religious problems,
crosses--mirror'd from those crazed faces (yet now temporarily so
calm, like still waters,) all the woes and sad happenings of life and
death--now from every one the devotional element radiating--was it
not, indeed, _the peace of God that passeth all understanding_,
strange as it may sound? I can only say that I took long and searching
eyesweeps as I sat there, and it seem'd so, rousing unprecedented
thoughts, problems unanswerable. A very fair choir, and melodeon
accompaniment. They sang "Lead, kindly light," after the sermon.
Many join'd in the beautiful hymn, to which the minister read the
introductory text, _In the daytime also He led them with a cloud, and
all the night with a light of fire_. Then the words:

Lead, kindly light, amid the encircling gloom,
Lead thou me on.
The night is dark, and I am far from home;
Lead thou me on.
Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene; one step enough for me.

I was not ever thus, nor pray'd that thou
Should'st lead me on;
I lov'd to choose and see my path; but now
Lead thou me on.
I loved the garish day, and spite of fears
Pride ruled my will; remember not past years.

A couple of days after, I went to the "Refractory building," under
special charge of Dr. Beemer, and through the wards pretty thoroughly,
both the men's and women's. I have since made many other visits of the
kind through the asylum, and around among the detach'd cottages. As
far as I could see, this is among the most advanced, perfected, and
kindly and rationally carried on, of all its kind in America. It is a
town in itself, with many buildings and a thousand inhabitants.

I learn that Canada, and especially this ample and populous province,
Ontario, has the very best and plentiest benevolent institutions in
all departments.

REMINISCENCE OF ELIAS HICKS

_June 8_.--To-day a letter from Mrs. E. S. L., Detroit, accompanied in
a little post-office roll by a rare old engraved head of Elias Hicks,
(from a portrait in oil by Henry Inman, painted for J. V. S., must
have been 60 years or more ago, in New York)--among the rest the
following excerpt about E. H. in the letter:

"I have listen'd to his preaching so often when a child, and sat with
my mother at social gatherings where he was the centre, and every one
so pleas'd and stirr'd by his conversation. I hear that you contemplate
writing or speaking about him, and I wonder'd whether you had a picture
of him. As I am the owner of two, I send you one."

GRAND NATIVE GROWTH

In a few days I go to lake Huron, and may have something to say of
that region and people. From what I already see, I should say the
young native population of Canada was growing up, forming a hardy,
democratic, intelligent, radically sound, and just as American,
good-natured and _individualistic_ race, as the average range of best
specimens among us. As among us, too, I please myself by considering
that this element, though it may not be the majority, promises to be
the leaven which must eventually leaven the whole lump.

A ZOLLVEREIN BETWEEN THE U.S. AND CANADA

Some of the more liberal of the presses here are discussing the
question of a zollverein between the United States and Canada. It
is proposed to form a union for commercial purposes--to altogether
abolish the frontier tariff line, with its double sets of custom house
officials now existing between the two countries, and to agree upon
one tariff for both, the proceeds of this tariff to be divided between
the two governments on the basis of population. It is said that a
large proportion of the merchants of Canada are in favor of this
step, as they believe it would materially add to the business of the
country, by removing the restrictions that now exist on trade between
Canada and the States. Those persons who are opposed to the measure
believe that it would increase the material welfare or the country,
but it would loosen the bonds between Canada and England; and this
sentiment overrides the desire for commercial prosperity. Whether the
sentiment can continue to bear the strain put upon it is a question.
It is thought by many that commercial considerations must in the end
prevail. It seems also to be generally agreed that such a zollverein,
or common customs union, would bring practically more benefits to
the Canadian provinces than to the United States. (It seems to me a
certainty of time, sooner or later, that Canada shall form two or
three grand States, equal and independent, with the rest of the
American Union. The St. Lawrence and lakes are not for a frontier
line, but a grand interior or mid-channel.)

THE ST. LAWRENCE LINE

_August 20_.--Premising that my three or four months in Canada were
intended, among the rest, as an exploration of the line of the St.
Lawrence, from lake Superior to the sea, (the engineers here insist
upon considering it as one stream, over 2000 miles long, including
lakes and Niagara and all)--that I have only partially carried out my
programme; but for the seven or eight hundred miles so far fulfill'd,
I find that the _Canada question_ is absolutely control'd by this
vast water line, with its first-class features and points of trade,
humanity, and many more--here I am writing this nearly a thousand
miles north of my Philadelphia starting-point (by way of Montreal
and Quebec) in the midst of regions that go to a further extreme
of grimness, wildness of beauty, and a sort of still and pagan
_scaredness_, while yet Christian, inhabitable, and partially fertile,
than perhaps any other on earth. The weather remains perfect; some
might call it a little cool, but I wear my old gray overcoat and find
it just right. The days are full of sunbeams and oxygen. Most of the
forenoons and afternoons I am on the forward deck of the steamer.

THE SAVAGE SAGUENAY

Up these black waters, over a hundred miles--always strong, deep,
(hundreds of feet, sometimes thousands,) ever with high, rocky hills
for banks, green and gray--at times a little like some parts of
the Hudson, but much more pronounc'd and defiant. The hills rise
higher--keep their ranks more unbroken. The river is straighter and
of more resolute flow, and its hue, though dark as ink, exquisitely
polish'd and sheeny under the August sun. Different, indeed, this
Saguenay from all other rivers--different effects--a bolder, more
vehement play of lights and shades. Of a rare charm of singleness and
simplicity. (Like the organ-chant at midnight from the old Spanish
convent, in "Favorita"--one strain only, simple and monotonous and
unornamented--but indescribably penetrating and grand and masterful.)
Great place for echoes: while our steamer was tied at the wharf at
Tadousac (taj-oo-sac) waiting, the escape-pipe letting off steam, I
was sure I heard a band at the hotel up in the rocks--could even make
out some of the tunes. Only when our pipe stopp'd, I knew what caused
it. Then at cape Eternity and Trinity rock, the pilot with his whistle
producing similar marvellous results, echoes indescribably weird, as
we lay off in the still bay under their shadows.

CAPES ETERNITY AND TRINITY

But the great, haughty, silent capes themselves; I doubt if any crack
points, or hills, or historic places of note, or anything of the kind
elsewhere in the world, outvies these objects--(I write while I
am before them face to face.) They are very simple, they do not
startle--at least they did not me--but they linger in one's memory
forever. They are placed very near each other, side by side, each a
mountain rising flush out of the Saguenay. A good thrower could throw
a stone on each in passing--at least it seems so. Then they are as
distinct in form as a perfect physical man or a perfect physical
woman. Cape Eternity is bare, rising, as just said, sheer out of the
water, rugged and grim (yet with an indescribable beauty) nearly two
thousand feet high. Trinity rock, even a little higher, also rising
flush, top-rounded like a great head with close-cut verdure of hair.
I consider myself well repaid for coming my thousand miles to get the
sight and memory of the unrivall'd duo. They have stirr'd me more
profoundly than anything of the kind I have yet seen. If Europe or
Asia had them, we should certainly hear of them in all sorts of
sent-back poems, rhapsodies, &c., a dozen times a year through our
papers and magazines.

CHICOUTIMI AND HA-HA BAY

No indeed--life and travel and memory have offer'd and will preserve
to me no deeper-cut incidents, panorama, or sights to cheer my soul,
than these at Chicoutimi and Ha-ha bay, and my days and nights up and
down this fascinating savage river--the rounded mountains, some bare
and gray, some dull red, some draped close all over with matted green
verdure or vines--the ample, calm, eternal rocks everywhere--the long
streaks of motley foam, a milk-white curd on the glistening breast
of the stream--the little two-masted schooner, dingy yellow, with
patch'd sails, set wing-and-wing, nearing us, coming saucily up the
water with a couple of swarthy, black-hair'd men aboard--the strong
shades falling on the light gray or yellow outlines of the hills all
through the forenoon, as we steam within gunshot of them--while ever
the pure and delicate sky spreads over all. And the splendid sunsets,
and the sights of evening--the same old stars, (relatively a little
different, I see, so far north) Arcturus and Lyra, and the Eagle,
and great Jupiter like a silver globe, and the constellation of the
Scorpion. Then northern lights nearly every night.