OF THE UNIVERSITY Of ILLINOIS SA'b H'M BOOKSTACXS Return this book on or before the Latest Date stamped below. University of Illinois Library Hoy o >? i S3 L161— H41 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign https://archive.org/details/worksofnathaniel01hawt The Apple Orchard. See page 87. WORKS OF NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 43iofic <£bition. AMERICAN NOTE BOOKS. — ENGLISH NOTE BOOKS. FOUR VOLUMES IN ONE. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS. BOSTON: HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY. Etoerst&e Pass, UDamirilijre. Copyright, 1868, 1870, By SOPHIA HAWTHORNE. All rights reserved. Ei) t Biberstbe Preag : H. O. Houghton and Company, Cambridge. H3I )tlOa, T - 4 - 4 PASSAGES FROM THE AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. VOL. I. cs i ^ : : r ^5 - r " ■ PASSAGES FROM HAWTHORNE’S AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. Salem, June 15, 1835. — A walk down to the Jum per. The shore of the coves strewn with bunches of sea-weed, driven in by recent winds. Eel-grass, rolled and bundled up, and entangled with it, — large marine vegetables, of an olive color, with round, slender, snake- like stalks, four or five feet long, and nearly two feet broad : these are the herbage of the deep sea. Shoals of fishes, at a little distance from the shore, discernible by their fins out of water. Among the heaps of sea- weed there were sometimes small pieces of painted wood, bark, and other driftage. On the shore, with pebbles of granite, there were round or oval pieces of brick, which the waves had rolled about till they resem- bled a natural mineral. Huge stones tossed about, in Bvery variety of confusion, some shagged all over with sea-weed, others only partly covered, others bare. The old ten-gun battery, at the outer angle of the Juniper, very verdant, and besprinkled with white-weed, clover, and buttercups. The juniper-trees are very, aged and decayed and moss-grown. The grass about the hospital is rank, being trodden, probably by nobody but myself VOL. I A AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. 2 [ 1835 . There is a representation of a vessel under sail, cut with a penknife, on the corner of the house. Returning by the almshouse, I stopped a good while to look at the pigs, — - a great herd, — who seemed to be just finishing their suppers. They certainly are types of unmitigated sensuality, — some standing in the trough, in the midst of their own and others’ victuals, — some thrusting their noses deep into the food, — some rubbing their backs against a post, — some hud- dled together between sleeping and waking, breathing hard, — all wallowing about ; a great boar swaggering round, and a big sow waddling along with her huge paunch. Notwithstanding the unspeakable defilement with which these strange sensualists spice all their food, they seem to have a quick and delicate sense of smell. What ridiculous-looking animals ! Swift him- self could not have imagined anything nastier than what they practise by the mere impulse of natural genius. Yet the Shakers keep their pigs very clean, and with great advantage. The legion of devils in the herd of swine, — what a scene it must have been ! Sunday evening, going by the jail, the setting sun kindled up the windows most cheerfully ; as if there were a bright, comfortable light within its darksome stone wall. June 18. — A walk in North Salem in the decline of yesterday afternoon, — beautiful weather, bright, sunny, with a western or northwestern wind just cool enough, and a slight superfluity of heat. The verdure, both of trees and grass, is now in its prime, the leaves elastic, all life. The grass-fields are plenteously bestrewn with AMERICAN NOTE-HOOKS. IS35.J b wliite-weed, large spaces looking as white as a sheet of snow, at a distance, yet with an indescribably warmer tinge than snow, — living white, intermixed with living green. The hills and hollows beyond the Cold Spring copiously shaded, principally with oaks of good growth* and some walnut-trees, with the rich sun brightening in the midst of the open spaces, and mellowing and fad- ing into the shade, — and single trees, with their cool spot of shade, in the waste of sun : quite a picture of beauty, gently picturesque. The surface of the land is so varied, with woodland mingled, that the eye cannot reach far away, except now and then in vistas perhaps across the river, showing houses, or a church and sur- rounding village, in Upper Beverly. In one of the sunny bits of pasture, walled irregularly in with oak- shade, I saw a gray mare feeding, and, as I drew near a colt sprang up from amid the grass, — a very small colt. He looked me in the face, and I tried to startle him, so as to make him gallop ; but he stretched his long legs, one after another, walked quietly to his mother, and began to suck, — just wetting his lips, not being very hungry. Then he rubbed his head, alter- nately, with each hind leg. He was a graceful little beast. I bathed in the cove, overhung with maples and wal- nuts, the water cool and thrilling. At a distance it sparkled bright and blue in the breeze and sun. There were jelly-fish swimming about, and several left to melt away on the shore. On the shore, sprouting amongst the sand and gravel, I found samphire, grow- ing somewhat like asparagus. It is an excellent salad at this season, salt, yet with an herb-like vivacity, and 4 AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. [l83£ very tender. I strolled slowly through the pastures, watching my long shadow making grave, fantastic ges- tures in the sun. It is a pretty sight to see the sun- shine brightening the entrance of a road which shortly becomes deeply overshadowed by trees on both sides. At the Cold Spring, three little girls, from six to nine, were seated on the stones in which the fountain is set, and paddling in the water. It was a pretty picture, and would have been prettier, if they had shown bare little legs, instead of pantalets. Very large trees over- hung them, and the sun was so nearly gone down that a pleasant gloom made the spot sombre, in contrast with these light and laughing little figures. On per- ceiving me, they rose up, tittering among themselves. It seemed that there was a sort of playful malice in those who first saw me ; for they allowed the other tc keep on paddling, without warning her of my approach. I passed along, and heard them come chattering be- hind. June 22. — I rode to Boston in the afternoon with Mr. Proctor. It was a coolish day, with clouds and intermitting sunshine, and a pretty fresh breeze. We stopped about an hour at the Maverick House, in the sprouting branch of the city, at East Boston, — a stylish house, with doors painted in imitation of oak ; a large bar ; bells ringing ; the bar-keeper calls out, when a bell rings, ‘‘Number — ” ; then a waiter replies, “Num- ber — answered ” ; and scampers up stairs. A ticket is given by the hostler, on taking the horse and chaise, which is returned to the bar-keeper when the chaise is wanted. The landlord was fashionably dressed, with 1835. J AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. 5 the whitest of linen, neatly plaited, and as courteous as a Lord Chamberlain. Visitors from Boston thronging the house, — some standing at the bar, watching the process of preparing tumblers of punch, — others sit- ting at the windows of different parlors, — some with faces flushed, puffing cigars. The bill of fare for the day was stuck up beside the bar. Opposite this princi- pal hotel there was another, called “ The Mechanics,” which seemed to be equally thronged. I suspect that the company were about on a par in each ; for at the Maverick House, though well dressed, they seemed to be merely Sunday gentlemen, — mostly young fellows, — clerks in dry-goods stores being the aristocracy of them. One, very fashionable in appearance, with a handsome cane, happened to stop by me and lift up his foot, and I noticed that the sole of his boot (which was exquisitely polished) was all worn out. I apprehend that some such minor deficiencies might have been de- tected in the general showiness of most of them. There were girls, too, but not pretty ones, nor, on the ■whole, such good imitations of gentility as the young men. There were as many people as are usually col- lected at a muster, or on similar occasions, lounging about, without any apparent enjoyment ; but the obser- vation of this may serve me to make a sketch of the mode of spending the Sabbath by the majority of un- married, young, middling-class people, near a great town. Most of the people had smart canes and bosom- pins. Crossing the ferry into Boston, we went to the City Tavern, where the bar-room presented a Sabbath scene of repose, — stage-folk lounging in chains half asUep, f> AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. [ 1835 . smoking cigars, generally with clean linen and othei niceties of apparel, to mark the day. The doors and blinds of an oyster and refreshment shop across the street were closed, but I saw people enter it. There were two owls in a back court, visible through a window of the bar-room, — speckled gray, with dark- olue eyes, — the queerest-looking birds that exist, — bo solemn and wise, — dozing away the day, much like the rest of the people, only that they looked wiser than any others. Their hooked beaks looked like hooked noses. A dull scene this. A stranger, here and there, poring over a newspaper. Many of the stage-folk sit- ting in chairs on the pavement, in front of the door. We went to the top of the hill which formed part of Gardiner Greene’s estate, and which is now in the pro- cess of levelling, and pretty much taken away, except the highest point, and a narrow path to ascend to it. It gives an admirable 1 view of the city, being almost as high as the steeples and the dome of the State House, and overlooking the whole mass of brick buildings and slated roofs, with glimpses of streets far below. It was really a pity to take it down. I noticed, the stump of a very large elm, recently felled. No house in the city could have reared its roof so high as the roots of that tree, if indeed the church-spires did so. On our drive home we passed through Charlestown. Stages in abundance were passing the road, burdened with passengers inside and out ; also chaises and barouches, horsemen and footmen. We are a commu nity of Sabbath-breakers ! Angus * 31 — A drive to Nahant yesterday afternoon AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. 7 1 ^.] Slopped at Rice’s, and afterwards walked down to the steamboat wharf to see the passengers land. It is strange how few good faces there are in the world, comparatively to the ugly ones. Scarcely a single comely one in all this collection. Then to the hotel. Barouches at the doors, and gentlemen and ladies going to drive^ and gentlemen smoking round the piazza The bar-keeper had one of Benton’s mint-drops for a bosom-brooch ! It made a very handsome one. I crossed the beach for home about sunset. The tide was so far down as just to give me a passage on the hard sand, between the sea and the loose gravel. The sea was calm and smooth, with only the surf- waves whitening along the beach. Several ladies and gentle- men on horseback were cantering and galloping before and behind me. A hint of a story, — some incident which should bring on a general war ; and the chief actor in the incident to have something corresponding to the mis- chief he had caused. September 7. — A drive to Ipswich with B At the tavern was an old, fat, country major, and another old fellow, laughing and playing off jokes on each other, — one tying a ribbon upon the other’s hat. One had been a trumpeter to the major’s troop. Walking about town, we knocked, for a whim, at the door of a dark old house, and inquired if Miss Hannah Lord lived there. A woman of about thirty came to the door, with rather a confused smile, and a disorder about the bosom of her dress, as if she had been disturbed while H AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1835. nursing her child. She answered us with great kind* ness. Entering the burial-ground, where some masons were building a tomb, we found a good many old monuments, and several covered with slabs of red freestone or slate, and with arms sculptured on the slab, or an inlaid circle of slate. On one slate grave-stone, of the Rev. Nathl. Rogers, there was a portrait of that worthy, about a third of the size of life, carved in relief, with his cloak, band, and wig, in excellent preservation, all the buttons of his waistcoat being cut with great mi- nuteness, — the minister’s nose being on a level with his cheeks. It was an upright grave-stone. Return- ing home, I held a colloquy with a young girl about the right road. She had come out to feed a pig, and was a little suspicious that we were making fun of her, yet answered us with a shy laugh and good-nature, — the pig all the time squealing for his dinner. Displayed along the walls, and suspended from the pillars of the original King’s Chapel, were coats-of- arms of the king, the successive governors, and other distinguished men. In the pulpit there was an hour- glass on a large and elaborate brass stand. The organ was surmounted by a gilt crown in the centre, sup- ported by a gilt mitre on each side. The governor’s pew had Corinthian pillars, and crimson damask tapes- try. In 1727 it was lined with china, probably tiles. Saint Augustin, at mass, charged all that were ac cursed to go out of the church. “ Then a dead body arose, and went out of the church into the churchyard. i835.J AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. 9 with a white cloth on its head, and stood there till mass was over. It was a former lord of the manor, whom a curate had cursed because he refused to pay his tithes. A justice also commanded the dead curate to arise, and gave him a rod ; and the dead lord, kneeling, received penance thereby.” He then ordered the lord to go again to his grave, which he did, and fell immediately to ashes. Saint Augustin offered to pray for the curate, that he might remain on earth to confirm men in their belief; but the curate refused, because he was in the place of rest. A sketch to be given of a modern reformer, — a type the extreme doctrines on the subject of slaves, cold water, and other such topics. He goes about the streets haianguing most eloquently, and is on the point of making many converts, when his labors are suddenly intei rupted by the appearance of the keeper of a mad- house, whence he has escaped. Much may be made of this idea. A change from a gay young girl to an old woman ; the melancholy events, the effects of which have clus- tered around her character, and gradually imbued it with their influence, till she becomes a lover of sick- chamhers, tak'ng pleasure in receiving dying breaths and in laying out the dead ; also having her mind full of funeral remin/scences, and possessing more acquaint- ances beneath the burial turf than above it. A well-concerted train of events to be thrown into confusion, by some misplaced circumstance, unsuspected 1 * 10 AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. [ 183 *. till the catastrophe, yet exerting its influence from be* ginning to end. Qn the common, at dusk, after a salute from two field-pieces, the smoke lay long and heavily on the ground, without much spreading beyond the original space over which it had gushed from the guns. It was about the height of a man. The evening clear, but with an autumnal chill. The world is so sad and solemn, that things meant in jest are liable, by an overpowering influence, to become dreadful earnest, — gayly dressed fantasies turning to ghostly and black-clad images of themselves. A story, the hero of which is to be represented as naturally capable of deep and strong passion, and look- ing forward to the time when he shall feel passionate love, which is to be the great event of his existence. But it so chances that he never falls in love , and al- though he gives up the expectation of so doing, and marries calmly, yet it is somewhat sadly, with senti- ments merely of esteem for his bride. The lady might be one who had loved him early in life, but whom then, in his expectation of passionate love, he had scorned. The scene of a story or sketch to be laid within the light of a street-lantern ; the time, when the lamp is near going out ; and the catastrophe to be simultaneous with the last flickering gleam. The peculiar weariness and depression of spirits 1835 .] AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. 11 which is felt after a day wasted in turning over a mag- azine or other light miscellany, different from the state of the mind after severe study ; because there has been no excitement, no difficulties to be overcome, but the spirits have evaporated insensibly. To represent the process by which sober truth grad- ually strips off all the beautiful draperies with which imagination has enveloped a beloved object, till from an angel she turns out to be a merely ordinary woman. This to be done without caricature, perhaps with a quiet humor interfused, but the prevailing impression to be a sad one. The story might consist of the various alterations in the feelings of the absent lover, caused by successive events that display the true character of his mistress ; and the catastrophe should take place at their meeting, when he finds himself equally disappointed in her person ; or the whole spirit of the thing may here be reproduced. Last evening, from the opposite shore of the North River, a view of the town mirrored in the water, which was as smooth as glass, with no perceptible tide or agi- tation, except a trifling swell and reflux on the sand, although the shadow of the moon danced in it. The picture of the town perfect in the water, — towers of churches, houses, with here and there a light gleaming near the shore above, and more faintly glimmering un- der water, — all perfect, but somewhat more hazy and indistinct than the reality. There were many clouds flitting about the sky ; and the picture of each could be traced in the water, — the ghost of what was itself un 12 AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. [ 183 ; substantial. The rattling of wheels heard long arid far through the town. Voices of people talking on the other side of the river, the tones being so distinguishable in all their variations that it seemed as if what was there said might be understood ; but it was not so. Two persons might be bitter enemies through life, and mutually cause the ruin of one another, and of all that were dear to them. Finally, meeting at the funeral of a grandchild, the offspring of a son and daughter mar- ried without their consent, — and who, as well as the child, had been the victims of their hatred, — they might discover that the supposed ground of the quarrel was altogether a mistake, and then be wofully recon ciled. Two persons, by mutual agreement, to make their wills in each other’s favor, then to wait impatiently for one another’s death, and both to be informed of the de- sired event at the same time. Both, in most joyous sorrow, hasten to be present at the funeral, meet, and find themselves both hoaxed. The story of a man, cold and hard-hearted, and ac- knowledging no brotherhood with mankind. At his death they might try to dig him a grave, but, at a little space beneath the ground, strike upon a rock, as if the earth refused to receive the unnatural son into her bosom. Then they would put him into an old sepul- chre, where the coffins and corpses were all turned to dust, and so he would be alone. Then the body would petrify ; and he having died in some characteristic act A MBJKIC AN NO v TE-BOOKS. 13 £835. J and expression, he would seem, through endless ages of death, to repel society as in life, and no one would be buried in that tomb forever. Cannon transformed to church-bells. A person, even before middle age, may become musty and faded among the people with whom he has grown up from childhood ; but, by migrating to a new place, he appears fresh with the effect of youth, which may be communicated from the impressions of others to his own feelings. In an old house, a mysterious knocking might be heard on the wall, where had formerly been a door- way, now bricked up. It might be stated, as the closing circumstance of a tale, that the body of one of the characters had been petrified, and still existed in that state. A young man to win the love of a girl, without any serious intentions, and to find that in that love, which might have been the greatest blessing of his life, he had conjured up a spirit of mischief which pursued him throughout his whole career, — and this without any re- vengeful purposes on the part of the deserted girl. Two lovers, or other persons, on the most private business, to appoint a meeting in what they supposed to be a place of the utmost solitude, and to find it thronged with people. 14 AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1835. October 17. — Some of the oaks are now a deep brown red ; others are changed to a light green, which, at a little distance, especially in the sunshine, looks like the green of early spring. In some trees, different masses of the foliage show each o** these hues. Some of the walnut-trees have a yet more delicate green. Oth ers are of a bright sunny yellow. Mr. was married to Miss last Wednesday. Yesterday Mr. Brazer, preaching on the comet, ob- served that not one, probably, of all who heard him, would witness its reappearance. Mrs. shed tears. Poor soul ! she would be contented to dwell in earthly love to all eternity ! Some treasure or other thing to be buried, and a tree planted directly over the spot, so as to embrace it with *ts roots. A tree, tall and venerable, to be said by tradition U have been the staff of some famous man, who happen?! to thrust it into the ground, where it took root. A fellow without money, having a hundred and sev enty miles to go, fastened a chain and padlock to hi iegs, and lay down to sleep in a field. He was appre hended, and carried gratis to a jail in the town whither he desired to go. An old volume in a large library, — every one to be afraid to unclasp and open it, because B was said to be a book of magic. AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. 1835 .] 15 A ghost seen by moonlight ; when the moon was out, it would shine and melt through the airy substance of the ghost, as through a cloud. Prideaux, Bishop of Worcester, during the sway of the Parliament was forced to support himself and his family by selling his household goods. A friend asked him, “ How doth your lordship ? ” “ Never better in my life,” said the Bishop, “ only I have too great a stomach ; for I have eaten that little plate which the sequestrators left me. I have eaten a great library of excellent books. 1 have eaten a great deal of linen, much of my brass, some of my pewter, and now I am come to eat iron ; and what will come next I know not.” A scold and a blockhead, — brimstone and wood, — a good match. i To make one’s own reflection in a mirror the subject of a story. In a dream to wander to some place where may be heard the complaints of all the miserable on earth. Some common quality or circumstance that should bring together people the most unlike in all other respects, and make a brotherhood and sisterhood of them, — -the rich and the proud finding themselves in the same category with the mean and the despised. A person to consider himself as the prime mover oi certain remarkable events, but to discover that his ac 16 AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1835. tions have not contributed in the least thereto. Anoth’ er person to be the cause, without suspecting it. October 25. — A person or family long desires some particular good. At last it comes in such profusion as to be the great pest of their lives. A man, perhaps with a persuasion that he shall make his fortune by some singular means, and with an eager longing so to do, while digging or boring for water, to strike upon a salt-spring. To have one event operate in several places, — as, for example, if a man’s head were to be cut off in one town, men’s heads to drop off in several towns. Follow out the fantasy of a man taking his life by instalments, instead of at one payment, — say ten years of life alternately with ten years of suspended animation. Sentiments in a foreign language, which merely con- vey the sentiment without retaining to the reader any graces of style or harmony of sound, have somewhat of the charm of thoughts in one’s own mind that have not yet been put into words. No possible words that we might adapt to them could realize the unshaped beauty that they appear to possess. This is the reason that translations are never satisfactory, — and less so, I should think, to one who cannot than to one who can pronounce the language. A person to be writing a tale, and to find that it 1836. | AMETWO A N NOTE-BOOKS. 17 shapes itself against his intentions ; that the characters act otherwise than he thought ; that unforeseen events occur ; and a catastrophe comes which he strives in vain to avert. It might shadow forth his own fate, — he having made himself one of the personages. It is a singular thing, that, at the distance, say, of five feet, the work of the greatest dunce looks just as well as that of the greatest genius, — that little space being all the distance between genius and stupidity. Mrs. Sigourney says, after Coleridge, that “ poetry haa been its own exceeding great reward.” For the writ- ing, perhaps ; but would it be so for the reading ? Four precepts: To break off customs ; to shake ofi spirits ill-disposed ; to meditate on youth ; to do noth- ing against one’s genius. Salem, August 31, 1836. — A walk, yesterday, down to the shore, near the hospital. Standing on the old grassy battery, that forms a semicircle, and looking sea- ward. The sun not a great way above the horizon, yet so far as to give a very golden brightness, when it shone out. Clouds in the vicinity of the sun, and nearly all the rest of the sky covered with clouds in masses, not a gray uniformity of cloud. A fresh breeze blowing from land seaward. If it had been blowing from the sea, it would have raised it in heavy billows, and caused it to dash high against the rocks. But now its surface was not at all commoved with billows ; there was only rough- ness enough to takeoff the gleam, and give it the aspect 18 AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. r ism of ron after cooling. The clouds above added to the black appearance. A few sea-birds were flitting over the water, only visible at moments, when they turned their white bosoms towards me, — as if they were then first created. The sunshine had a singular effect. The clouds would interpose in such a manner that some objects were shaded from it, while others were strongly illuminated. Some of the islands lay in the shade, dark and gloomy, while others were bright and favored spots. The white light-house was sometimes very cheerfully marked. There was a schooner about a mile from the shore, at anchor, laden apparently with lumber. The sea all about her had the black, iron aspect which I have described ; but the vessel herself was alight. Hull, masts, and spars were all gilded, and the rigging was made of golden threads. A small white streak of foam breaking around the bows, which were towards the wind. The shadowiness of the clouds overhead made the effect of the sunlight strange, where it fell. September. — The elm-trees have golden branches in- termingled with their green already, and so they had on the first of the month. To picture the predicament of worldly people, if ad- mitted to paradise. As the architecture of a country always follows the earliest structures, American architecture should be a refinement of the log-house. The Egyptian is so of tiie cavern and mound ; the Chinese, of the tent ; the Gothic, of overarching trees ; the Greek, of a cabin. f 836 , J AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. 19 “ Though we speak nonsense, God will pick out the meaning of it,” — an extempore prayer by a New Eng- land divine. In old times it must have been much less customary than now to drink pure water. Walker emphatically mentions, among the sufferings of a clergyman’s wife and family in the Great Rebellion, that they were forced to drink water, with crab-apples stamped in it to relish it. Mr. Kirby, author of a work on the History, Habits, and Instincts of Animals, questions whether there may not be an abyss of waters within the globe, communicat- ing with the ocean, and whether the huge animals of the Saurian tribe — great reptiles, supposed to be exclu- sively antediluvian, and now extinct — may not be in- habitants of it. He quotes a passage from Revelation, where the creatures under the earth are spoken of as distinct from those of the sea, and speaks of a Saurian fossil that has been found deep in the subterranean regions. He thinks, or suggests, that these may be the dragons of Scripture. The elephant is not particularly sagacious in the wild 6tate, but becomes so when tamed. The fox directly the contrary, and likewise the wolf. A modern Jewish adage, — “ Let a man clothe him* self beneath his ability, his children according to hi* ability, and his wife above his ability.” It is said of the eagle, that, in however long a flight* 20 AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1836. he is never seen to clap his wings to his sides. He seems to govern his movements by the inclination of his wings and tail to the wind, as a ship is propelled by the action of the wind on her sails. In old country-houses in England, instead of glass for windows, they used wicker, or fine strips of oak dis- posed checkerwise. Horn was also used. The windows of princes and great noblemen were of crystal ; those of Studley Castle, Holinshed says, of beryl. There were seldom chimneys ; and they cooked their meats by a fire made against an iron back in the great hall. Houses, often of gentry, were built of a heavy timber frame, filled up with lath and plaster. People slept on rough mats or straw pallets, with a round log for a pil- low ; seldom better beds than a mattress, with a sack of chaff for a pillow. October 25. — A walk yesterday through Dark Lane, and home through the village of Danvers. Landscape now wholly autumnal. Saw an elderly man laden with two dry, yellow, rustling bundles of Indian corn- stalks, — a good personification of Autumn. Another man hoeing up potatoes. Rows of white cabbages lay ripening. Fields of dry Indian corn. The grass has still considerable greenness. Wild rose-bushes devoid of leaves, with their deep, bright red seed-vessels. Meeting-house in Danvers seen at a distance, with the sun Alining through the windows of its belfry. Bar- berry-bushes, — the leaves now of a brown red, still juicy and healthy ; very few berries remaining, mostly frost-bitten and wilted. All among the yet green grass, 1836 .] AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. 21 dry stalks of weeds. The down of thistles occasionally seen flying through the sunny air. In this dismal chamber fame was won. (Salem, Union Street.) Those who are very difficult in choosing wives seem as it they would take none of Nature’s ready-made works, but want a woman manufactured particularly to their order. A council of the passengers in a street : called by somebody to decide upon some points important to him. Every individual has a place to fill in the world, and is important in some respects, whether he chooses to be 90 or not. A Thanksgiving dinner. All the miserable on earth are to be invited, — as the drunkard, the bereaved par- ent, the ruined merchant, the broken-hearted lover, the poor widow, the old man and woman who have outlived their generation, the disappointed author, the wounded, sick, and broken soldier, the diseased person, the infidel, the man with an evil conscience, little orphan children or children of neglectful parents, shall be admitted to the table, and many others. The giver of the feast goes out to deliver his invitations. Some of the guests he meets in the streets, some he knocks for at the doors of their houses. The description must be rapid. But who must be the giver of the feast, and what his claims to preside ? X man who has never found out what he is fit for, who 22 AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1836. has unsettled aims or objects in life, and whose mind gnaws him, making him the sufferer of many kinds or misery. He should meet some pious, old, sorrowful person, with more outward calamities than any other, and invite him, with a reflection that piety would make all that miserable company truly thankful. Merry , in “ merry England,” does not mean mirthful but is corrupted from an old Teutonic word signifying famous or renowned. In an old London newspaper, 1678, there is an adver tisement, among other goods at auction, of a black girl, about fifteen years old, to be sold. We sometimes congratulate ourselves at the moment of waking from a troubled dream : it may be so the moment after death. The race of mankind to be swept away, leaving all their cities and works. Then another human pair to be placed in the world, with native intelligence like Adam and Eve, but knowing nothing of their predecessors or of their own nature and destiny. They, perhaps, to be described as working out this knowledge by their sym- pathy with what they saw, and by their own feelings. Memorials of the family of Hawthorne in the church of the village of Dundry, Somersetshire, England. The church is ancient and small, and has a prodigiously high tower of more modern date, being erected in the time of Edward IV. It serves as a landmark for an amaz- ing extent of country. AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. 25 1836 .] A singular fact, that, when man is a brute, he is the most sensual and loathsome of all brutes. A snake, taken into a man’s stomach and nourished there from fifteen years to thirty-five tormenting him most horribly. A type of envy or some other evil pas- sion. A sketch illustrating the imperfect compensations which time makes for its devastations on the person, — giving a wreath of laurel while it causes baldness, hon- ors for infirmities, wealth for a broken constitution, — ■ and at last, when a man has everything that seems de- sirable, death seizes him. To contrast the man who has thus reached the summit of ambition with the ambitious youth. Walking along the track of the railroad, I observed a place where the workmen had bored a hole through the solid rock, in order to blast it ; but, striking a spring of water beneath the rock, it gushed up through the hole. It looked as if the water were contained within the rock. A Fancy Ball, in which the prominent American writers should appear, dressed in character. A lament for life’s wasted sunshine. A new classification of society to be instituted. In- stead of rich and poor, high and low, they are to be classed, — First, by their sorrows: for instance, when- ever there are any, whether in fair mansion or ho\el, 24 AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. [me. who are mourning the loss of relations and friends, and who wear black, whether the cloth be coarse or super- fine, they are to make one class. Secondly, all who have the same maladies, whether they lie under damask canopies or on straw pallets or in the wards of hospi- tals, they are to form one class. Thirdly, all who are guilty of the same sins, whether the world knows them or not ; whether they languish in prison, looking for- ward to the gallows, or walk honored among men, they also form a class. Then proceed to generalize and classify the whole world together, as none can claim utter exemption from either sorrow, sin, or disease ; and if they could, yet Death, like a great parent, comes and sweeps them all through one darksome portal, — all his children. Fortune to come like a pedler with his goods, — as wreaths of laurel, diamonds, crowns ; selling them, but asking for them the sacrifice of health, of integrity, perhaps of Mfe in the battle-field, and of the real pleas- ures of existence. Who would buy, if the price were to be paid down ? * The dying exclamation of the Emperor Augustus, “ Has it not been well acted ? ” An essay on the misery of being always under a mask. A veil may be needful, but never a mask. Instances of people who wear masks in all classes of society, and never take them off even in the most familiar moments, though sometimes they may chance to slip aside. The various guises under which Ruin makes his ap- AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. 25 1636. j proaches to his victims : to the merchant, in the guise of a merchant offering speculations; to the young heir, a jolly companion ; to the maiden, a sighing, sentimen- talist lover. What were the contents of the burden of Christian in the Pilgrim’s Progress ? He must have been taken for a pedler travelling with his pack. To think, as the sun goes down, what events have happened in the course of the day, — events of ordi- nary occurrence : as, the clocks have struck, the dead have been buried. Curious to imagine what murmurings and discontent would be excited, if any of the great so-called calam- ities of human beings were to be abolished, — as, for instance, death. Trifles to one are matters of life and death to an- other. As, for instance, a farmer desires a brisk breeze to winnow his grain ; and mariners, to blow them out of the reach of pirates. A recluse, like myself, or a prisoner, to measure time by the progress of sunshine through his chamber. Would it not be wiser for people to rejoice at all that they now sorrow for, and vice versa ? To put on bridal garments at funerals, and mourning at weddings ? For their friends to condole with them when they at* tained riches and honor, as only so much care added ? VOL. i. 2 26 AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. [lb3G If in a village it were a custom to bang a funeral garland or other token of death on a house where some one had died, and there to let it remain till a death occurred elsewhere, and then to hang that same gar- land over the other house, it would have, methinks, a strong effect. No fountain so small but that Heaven may be im- aged in its bosom. Fame ! Some very humble persons in a town may be said to possess it, — as, the penny-post, the town- crier, the constable, — and they are known to every- body ; while many richer, more intellectual, worthier persons are unknown by the majority of their fellow- citizens. Something analogous in the world at large. The ideas of people in general are not raised higher than the roofs of the houses. All their interests ex- tend over the earth’s surface in a layer of that thick- ness. The meeting-house steeple reaches out of their sphere. Nobody will use other people’s experience, nor has any of his own till it is too late to use it. Two lovers to plan the building of a pleasure-house on a certain spot of ground, but various seeming acci- dents prevent it. Once they find a group of miserable children there; once it is the scene where crime is plotted ; at last the dead body of one of the lovers or of a dear friend is found there ; and, instead of a plea* AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. 27 1 * 36 .] ure-house, they build a marble tomb. The moral, — that there is no place on earth fit for the site of a pleas- ure-house, because there is no spot that may not have been saddened by human grief, stained by crime, or hal- lowed by death. It might be three friends who plan it, instead of two lovers ; and the dearest one dies. Comfort for childless people. A married couple with ten children have been the means of bringing about ten funerals. A blind man on a dark night carried a torch, in or- der that people might see him, and not run against him, and direct him how to avoid dangers. To picture a child’s (one of four or five years old) reminiscences at sunset of a long summer’s day, — - his first awakening, his studies, his sports, his little fits of passion, perhaps a whipping, etc. The blind man’s walk. To picture a virtuous family, the different members examples of virtuous dispositions in their way ; then introduce a vicious person, and trace out the relations that arise between him and them, and the manner in which all are affected. A man to flatter himself with the idea that he would not be guilty of some certain wickedness, — as, for in- stance, to yield to the personal temptations of the Devil, — yet to find, ultimately, that he was at that very time committing that same wickedness. 28 AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. [ 1836 . What would a man do, if he were compelled to live always in the sultry heat of society, and corni never bathe himself in cool solitude ? A girl's lover to be slain and buried in her flower- garden, and the earth levelled over him. That partic- ular spot, which she happens to plant with some pecu- liar variety of flowers, produces them of admirable splendor, beauty, and perfume ; and she delights, with an indescribable impulse, to wear them in her bosom, and scent her chamber with them. Thus the classic fantasy would be realized, of dead people transformed to flowers. Objects seen by a magic-lantern reversed. A street, or other location, might be presented, where there would be opportunity to bring forward all objects of worldly interest, and thus much pleasant satire might be the result. The Abyssinians, after dressing their hair, sleep with their heads in a forked stick, in order not to discom- pose it. At the battle of Edge Hill, October 23, 1642, Cap- tain John Smith, a soldier of note, Captain Lieutenant to Lord James Stuart’s horse, with only a groom, at- tacked a Parliament officer, three cuirassiers, and three arquebusiers, and rescued the royal standard, which they had taken and were guarding. Was this the Vir- ginian Smith ? Stephen Gowans supposed that the bodies of Adam 1636 .] AMERICA it NOTE-BOOKS. 29 and Eve were clothed in robes of light, which vanished after their sin. Lord Chancellor Clare, towards the close of his life, went to a viljage church, where he might not be known, to partake of the Sacrament. A missionary to the heathen in a great city, to de- scribe his labors in the manner of a foreign mission. In the tenth century, mechanism of organs so clumsy, that one in Westminster Abbey, with four hundred pipes, required twenty-six bellows and seventy stout men. First organ ever known in Europe received by King Pepin, from the Emperor Constantine in 757. Water boiling was kept in a reservoir under the pipes ; and, the keys being struck, the valves opened, and steam rushed through with noise. The secret of working them thus is now lost. Then came bellows organs, first used by Louis le Debonnaire. After the siege of Antwerp, the children played marbles m the streets with grape and cannon shot. A shell, in falling, buries itself in the earth, and, when it explodes, a large pit is made by the earth being blown about in all directions, — large enough, some- times, to hold three or four cart-loads of earth. The holes are circular. A French artillery-man being buried in his military cloak on the ramparts, a shell exploded, and unburied him. 80 AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. [l83fx In the Netherlands, to form hedges, young trees are interwoven into a sort of lattice-work ; and, in time, they grow together at the point of junction, so that the fence is all of one piece. To show the effect of gratified revenge. As an in- stance, merely, suppose a woman sues her lover for breach of promise, and gets the money by instalments, through a long series of years. At last, when the mis- erable victim were utterly trodden down, the triumpher would have become a very devil of evil passions, — they having overgrown his whole nature ; so that a far greater evil would have come upon himself than on his victim. Anciently, when long-buried bodies were found un- decayed in the grave, a species of sanctity was attrib- uted to them. Some chimneys of ancient halls used to be swept by having a culverin fired up them. At Leith, in 1711, a glass bottle was blown of the capacity of tvro English bushels. The buff and blue of the Union were adopted by Fox and the Whig party in England. The Prince of Wales wore them. In 1621, a Mr. Copinger left a certain charity, an almshouse, of which four poor persons were to partake, after the death of his eldest son and his wife. It was a 1836.] AMERICAN NOTE -ROOKS. 31 tenement anu y£rd. The parson, headboroughs, and his five other sons were to appoint the persons. At the time specified, however, ali but one of his sons were dead ; and he was in such poor circumstances, that he obtained the benefit of the charity for himself, as one of the four. A town derk arranges the publishments thz are given in, according to his own judgment. To make a story from Robert Raikes seeing dirty children at play, in the streets of London, and inquiring of a woman about them. She tells him that on Sundays, when they were not employed, they were a great deal worse, making the streets like hell ; playing at church, &c. He was therefore induced to employ women at a shilling to teach them on Sundays, and thus Sunday- schools were established. To represent the different departments of the United States government by village functionaries. The War Department by watchmen, the law by constables, the merchants by a variety store, &c. At the accession of Bloody Mary, a man, coming in- to a house, sounded three times with his mouth, as with a trumpet, and then made proclamation to the family. A bonfire was built, and little children were made to carry wood to it, that they might remember the circum- stance in old age. Meat and drink were provided at the bonfires. To describe a boyish combat with snowballs, and the 32 AMERICAN NOTE-BO OJ£S. [1836. victorious leader to have a statue of snow erected to him. A satire on ambition and fame to be made out of this idea. It might be a child’s story. Our body to be possessed by two different spirits; bo that half of the visage shall express one mood, and the o*her half another. An old English sea-captain desires to have a fast- sailing ship, to keep a good table, and to sail between the tropics without making land. A rich man left by will his mansion and estate to a poor couple. They remove into it, and find there a darksome servant, whom they are forbidden by will to turn away. He becomes a torment to them ; and, in the finale, he turns out to be the former master of the estate. Two persons to be expecting some occurrence, and watching for the two principal actors in it, and to find that the occurrence is even then passing, and that they themselves are the two actors. There is evil in every human heart, which may re- main latent, perhaps, through the whole of life ; but cir- cumstances may rouse it to activity. To imagine such circumstances. A woman, tempted to be false to her husband, apparently through mere whim, — or a young man to feel an instinctive thirst for blood, and to com- mit murder. This appetite may be traced in the popu- larity of criminal trials. The appetite might be ob- AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. 38 1836 .] served first in a child, and then traced upwards, mani- festing itself in crimes suited to every stage of life. The good deeds in an evil life, — the generous, nolle, and excellent actions done by people habitually wicked, — to ask what is to become of them. A satirical article might be made out of the idea of an imaginary museum, containing such articles as Aaron’s rod, the petticoat of General Hawion, the pistol with which Benton shot Jackson, — and then a dio- rama, consisting of political or other scenes, or done in wax-work. The idea to be wrought out and extended. Perhaps it might be the museum of a deceased old man. An article might be made respecting various kinds ^ ruin, — ruin as regards property, — ruin of health, — ruin of habits, as drunkenness and all kinds of debauch- ery. — ruin of character, while prosperous in other re- spects, — ruin of the soul. Ruin, perhaps, might be per- sonified as a demon, seizing its victims by various bolds. An article on fire, on smoke. Diseases of the mind and soul, — even more common than bodily diseases. Tarleton, of the Revolution, is said to have been one ftf the two handsomest men in Europe, — the Prince of Wales, afterwards George IV., being the other. Some authorities, however, have represented him as ungainly in person and rough in manners. Tarleton was originally bred to the law, but quitted law for 2 * <3 34 AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. [ 1837 . the army early in life. He was son to a mayor of Liverpool, born in 1754, of ancient family. He wrote his own memoirs after returning from America. After- wards in Parliament. Never afterwards distinguished in arms. Created baronet in 1818, and died childless in 1833. Thought he was not sufficiently honored among more modern heroes. Lost part of his right hand in battle of Guildford Court House. A man of pleasure in England. It would be a good idea for a painter to paint a pic- ture of a great actor, representing him in several differ- ent characters of one scene, — Iago and Othello, for in- stance. Maine , July 5, 1837. — Here I am, settled since night before last with B , and living very singularly. He leads a bachelor’s life in his paternal mansion, only a small part of which is occupied by a family who serve him. He provides his own breakfast and supper, and occasionally his dinner ; though this is oftener, I believe, taken at the hotel, or an eating-house, or with some of his relatives. I am his guest, and my presence makes no alteration in his way of life. Our fare, thus far, has consisted of bread, butter, and cheese, crackers, herrings, boiled eggs, coffee, milk, and claret wine. He has an- other inmate, in the person of a queer little Frenchman, who has his breakfast, tea, and lodging here, and finds his dinner elsewhere. Monsieur S does not appear to be more than twenty-one years old, — a diminutive figure, with eyes askew, and otherwise of an ungainly physiognomy ; he is ill-dressed also, in a coarse blue > 837.1 AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. 35 coat, thin cotton pantaloons, and unbrushed boots ; alto- gether with as little of French coxcombry as can well be imagined, though with something of the monkey as- pect inseparable from a little Frenchman. He is, nev- ertheless, an intelligent and well-informed man, appar- ently of extensive reading in his own language, — a philosopher, B tells me, and an infidel. His insig- nificant personal appearance stands in the way of his success, and prevents him from receiving the respect which is really due to his talents and acquirements ; wherefore he is bitterly dissatisfied with the country and Its inhabitants, and often expresses his feelings to B (who has gained his confidence to a certain degree) in very strong terms. Thus here are three characters, each with something out of the common way, living together somewhat like monks. B , our host, combines more high and admirable qualities, of that sort which make up a gentle- man, than any other that I have met with. Polished, yet natural, frank, open, and straightforward, yet with a delicate feeling for the sensitiveness of his companions ; of excellent temper and warm heart; well acquainted with the world, with a keen faculty of observation, which he lias had many opportunities of exercising, and never varying from a code of honor and principle which is really nice and Wgid in its way. There is a sort of philosophy developing itself in him which will not im- possibly cause him to settle down in this or some other equally singular course of life. He seems almost to have made up his mind never to be married, which I wonder at ; for he has strong affections, and is fond both ol women and children. 36 AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1837 Tho little Frenchman impresses me very strongly, too, — so lonely as lie is here, struggling against the world, with bitter feelings in his breast, and yet talking with the vivacity and gayety of his nation ; making this his home from darkness to daylight, and enjoying here what little domestic comfort and confidence there is for him ; and then going about all the livelong day, teaching French to blockheads who sneer at him, and returning at about ten o’clock in the evening (for I was wrong in saying he supped here, — he eats no supper) to his solitary room and bed. Before retiring, he goes to B ’s bedside, and, if he finds him awake, stands talking French, ex- pressing his dislike of the Americans, — “ Je hais,je hais les Yankees ! ” — thus giving vent to the stifled bit terness of the whole day. In the morning I hear him getting up early, at sunrise or before, humming to him- self, scuffling about his chamber with his thick boots, and at last taking his departure for a solitary ramble till breakfast. Then he comes in, cheerful and vivacious enough, eats pretty heartily, and is off again, singing French chansons as he goes down the gravel-walk. The poor fellow has nobody to sympathize with him but B , and thus a singular connection is established between two utterly different characters. Then here is myself, who am likewise a queer char- acter in my way, and have come to spend a week or two with my friend of half a lifetime, — the longest space, probably, that we are ever destined to spend to- gether; for Fate seems preparing changes for both of us. My circumstances, at least, cannot long continue as they are and have been ; and B , too, stands be- tween high prosperity and utter ruin. 1837. J AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. 37 X think 1 should soon become strongly attached to our way of life, so independent and untroubled by the forms and restrictions of society. The house is very pleasantly situated, — half a mile distant from where the town begins to be thickly settled, and on a swell of land, with the road running at a distance of fifty yards, and a grassy tract and a gravel-walk between. Beyond the road rolls the Kennebec, here two or three hundred yards wide. Putting my head out of the window, I can see it flowing steadily along straightway between wooded banks ; but arriving nearly opposite the house, there is a large and level sand island in the middle of the stream ; and just below the island the, current is further interrupted by the works of the mill-dam, which is perhaps half finished, yet still in so rude a state that it looks as much like the ruins of a dam destroyed by the spring freshets as like the foundations of a dam yet to be. Irishmen and Canadians toil at work on it, and the echoes of their hammering and of the voices come across the river and up to this window. Then there is a sound of the wind among the trees round the house ; and, when that is silent, the calm, full, distant voice of the river becomes audible. Looking downward thither, I see the rush of the current, and mark the different eddies, with here and there white specks or streaks of foam ; and often a log comes floating on, glistening in the sun, ,as it rolls over among the eddies, having voyaged, for aught I know, hundreds of miles from the wild upper sources of the river, passing down, down, between lines of forest, and sometimes a rough clearing, till here it floats by cultivated banks, and will so on pass by the village. Sometimes a long raft of boards comes 38 AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1837 along, requiring the nicest skill in navigating it through the narrow passage left by the mill-dam. Chaises and wagons occasionally go over the road, the riders ail giving a passing glance at the dam, or perhaps alight- ing to examine it more fully, and at last departing with ominous shakes of the head as to the result of the en- terprise. My position is so far retired from the river and mill-dam, that, though the latter is really rather a scene, yet a sort of quiet seems to be diffused over the whole. Two or three times a day this quiet is broken by the sudden thunder from a quarry, where the work- men are blasting rocks ; and a peal of thunder sounds strangely in such a green, sunny, and quiet landscape, with the blue sky brightening the river. I have not seen much of the people. There have been, however, several incidents which amused me, though scarcely worth telling. A passionate tavern- keeper, quick as a flash of gunpowder, a nervous man, and showing in his demeanor, it seems, a consciousness of his infirmity of temper. I was a witness of a scuf- fle of his with a drunken guest. The tavern-keeper, after they were separated, raved like a madman, and in a tone of voice having a drolly pathetic or lamentable sound mingled with its rage, as if he were lifting up his voice to weep. Then he jumped into a chaise which was standing by, whipped up the horse, and drove off rapidly, as if to give his fury vent in that way. On the morning of the Fourth of July, two printer’s apprentice-lads, nearly grown, dressed in jackets and very tight pantaloons of check, tight as their skins, so that they looked like harlequins or circus-elcwn«, ye* 1837.] AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. 32 appeared to think themselves in perfect propriety, witk a very calm and quiet assurance of the admiration of the town. A common fellow, a carpenter, who, on the? strength of political partisanship, asked B ’s assist- ance in cutting out great letters from play-bills in order to print “ Martin Van Buren Forever ” on a flag; but B refused. B— — seems to be considerably of a favorite with the lower orders, especially with the Irish- men and French Canadians, — the latter accosting him in the street, and asking his assistance as an interpreter in making their bargains for work. I meant to dine at the hotel with B to-day ; but having returned to the house, leaving him to do some business in the village, I found myself unwill- ing to move when the dinner-hour approached, and therefore dined very well on bread, cheese, and eggs Nothing of much interest takes place. We live very com- fortably in our bachelor establishment on a cold shoul- der of mutton, with ham and smoked beef and boiled eggs, and as to drinkables, we had both claret and brown sherry on the dinner-table to-day. Last evening we had a long literary and philosophical conversation with Monsieur S . He is rather remarkably well- informed for a man of his age, and seems to have very just notions on ethics, etc., though damnably perverted as to religion. It is strange to hear philosophy of any sort from such a boyish figure. “We philosophers,” he is fond of saying, to distinguish himself and his brethren from the Christians. One of his oddities is chat, while steadfastly maintaining an opinion that he is a very small and slow eater, and that we, in common with other Yankees, eat immensely and fast, he actually 40 AMERICAN NOTE BOOKS. [1837. eats both faster and longer than we do, and devours, as B avers, more victuals than both of us together. Saturday , July 8 th. — Yesterday afternoon, a stroh with B up a large brook, he fishing for trout, and I looking on. The brook runs through a valley, on dne side bordered by a high and precipitous bank ; on the other there is an interval, and then the bank rises upward and upward into a high hill with gorges and ravines separating one summit from another, and here and there are bare places, where the rain-streams have washed away the grass. The brook is bestrewn with stones, some bare, some partially moss-grown, and sometimes so huge as — once at least — to occupy almost the whole breadth of the current. Amongst these the stream brawls, only that this word does not express its good-natured voice, and “ murmur ” is too quiet. It sings along, sometimes smooth, with the pebbles visible beneath, sometimes rushing dark and swift, eddying and whitening past some rock, or under- neath the hither or the farther bank ; and at these places B cast his line, and sometimes drew out a trout, small, not more than five or six inches long. The farther we went up the brook, the wilder it grew, The opposite bank was covered with pines and hem- locks, ascending high upwards, black and solemn. One knew that there must be almost a precipice behind, yet we could not see it. At the foot you could spy, a little way within the darksome shade, the roots and branches of the trees ; but soon all sight was obstructed amidst the trunks. On the hither side, at first the bank was bare, then fringed with alder-bushes, bending and dip* 1837.] AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. 41 ping into the stream, which, farther on, flowed through the midst of a forest of maple, beech, and other trees, its course growing wilder and wilder as we proceeded. For a considerable distance there was a causeway, built long ago of logs, to drag lumber upon ; it was now de- cayed and rotten, a red decay, sometimes sunken down in the midst, here and there a knotty trunk stretching across, apparently sound. The sun being now low towards the west, a pleasant gloom and brightness were diffused through the forest, spots of brightness scattered upon the branches, or thrown down in gold upon the last year’s leaves among the trees. At last we came to where a dam had been built across the brook many years ago, and was now gone to ruin, so as to make the spot look more solitary and wilder than if man had never left vestiges of his toil there. It was a frame- work of logs with a covering of plank sufficient to ob- struct the onward flow of the brook ; but it found its way past the side, and came foaming and struggling along among scattered rocks. Above the dam there was a broad and deep pool, one side of which was bor- dered by a precipitous wall of rocks, as smooth as if hewn out and squared, and piled one upon another, above which rose the forest. On the other side there was still a gently shelving bank, and the shore was cov- ered with tall trees, among which I particularly re- marked a stately pine, wholly devoid of bark, rising white in aged and majestic ruin, thrusting out its bark- less arms. It must have stood there in death many years, its own ghost. Above the dam the brook flowed through the forest, a glistening and babbling water-path, illuminated by the sun, which sent its rays almost 42 AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. [183^ straight along its course. It was as lovely and wild and peaceful as it could possibly have been a hundred years ago ; and the traces of labors of men long departed added a deeper peace to it. I bathed in the pool, and then pursued my way down beside the brook, growing dark with a pleasant gloom, as the sun sank and the water became more shadowy. B says that there was formerly a tradition, that the Indians used to go up this brook, and return, after a brief absence, with large masses of lead, which they sold at the trading-stations in Augusta ; whence there has always been an idea that there is a lead mine hereabouts. Great toadstools were under the trees, and some small ones as yellow and almost the size of a half-broiled yolk of an egg. Straw- berries were scattered along the brookside. Dined at the hotel or Mansion House to-day. Men were playing checkers in the parlor. The Marshal of Maine, a corpulent, jolly fellow, famed for humor. A passenger left by the stage, hiring an express onward. A bottle of champagne was quaffed at the bar. July 9th. — Went with B — — to pay a visit to the shanties of the Irish and Canadians. He says that they sell and exchange these small houses among themselves continually. They may be built in three or four days, and are valued at four or five dollars. When the turf that is piled against the walls of some of them becomes covered with grass, it makes quite a picturesque object. It was almost dusk — just candle-lighting time — when we visited them. A young Frenchwoman, with a baby in her arms, came to the door of one of them, smiling, and looking pretty and happy. Her husband, a dark, < 837 .] AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. 43 black-haired, lively little fellow, caressed the child, laughing and singing to it; and there was a red-bearded Irishman, who likewise fondled the little brat. Then we could hear them within the hut, gabbling merrily, and could see them moving about briskly in the candle- light, through the window and open door. An old Irishwoman sat in the door of another hut, under the influence of an extra dose of rum, — she being an old lady of somewhat dissipated habits. She called to B , and began to talk to him about her resolution not to give up her house : Tor it is his design to get her out of it. She is a true virago, and, though somewhat restrained by respect for him, she evinced a sturdy de- sign to remain here through the winter, or at least for a considerable time longer. He persisting, she took her stand in the doorway of the hut, and stretched out her fist in a very Amazonian attitude. “ Nobody,' ” quoth she, “ shall drive me out of this house, till my praties are out of the ground.” Then would she wheedle and laugh and blarney, beginning in a rage, and ending as if she had been in jest. Meanwhile her husband stood by very quiet, occasionally trying to still her ; but it is to be presumed, that, after our departure, they came to blows, it being a custom with the Irish husbands and wives to settle their disputes with blows ; and it is said the woman often proves the better man. The different families also. have battles, and occasionally the Irish fight with the Canadians. The latter, however, are much the more peaceable, never quarrelling among themselves, and seldom with their neighbors. They al*e frugal, and often go back to Canada with consider- able sums of money. B has gained much influence 44 AMERICAN NO 1 E-BOOKS. fl837 both with the Irish and the French —with the latter by dint of speaking to them in their own language. Re is the umpire in their disputes, and their adviser, and they look up to him as a protector and patron-friend. I have been struck to see with what careful integrity and wisdom he manages matters among them, hitherto having known him only as a free and gay young man. He appears perfectly to understand their general char- acter, of which he gives no very flattering description In these huts, less than twenty feet square, he tells me that upwards of twenty people have sometimes been lodged. A description of a young lady who had formerly been insane, and now felt the approach of a new fit of mad- ness. She had been out to ride, had exerted herself much, and had been very vivacious. On her return, she sat down in a thoughtful and despondent attitude, looking very sad, but one of the loveliest objects that ever were seen. The family spoke to her, but she made no answer, nor took the least notice ; but still sat like a statue in her chair, — a statue of melancholy and beauty. At last they led her away to her chamber. We went to meeting this forenoon. I saw nothing remarkable, unless a little girl in the next pew to us, three or four years old, who fell asleep, with her head in the lap of her maid, and looked very pretty : a pic- ture of sleeping innocence. July 11 tk, Tuesday . — A drive with B to Hal- lowed, yesterday, where we dined, and afterwards to Gardiner. The most curious object in this latter place was the elegant new mansion of . It stands on the 1837 .] AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. 45 site of Ins former dwelling, which was destroyed by fire. The new building was estimated to cost about thirty thousand dollars ; but twice as much has already been expended, and a great deal more will be required to com- plete it. It is certainly a splendid structure; the material, granite from the vicinity. At the angles it has small, circular towers ; the portal is lofty and im- posing. Relatively to the general style of domestic architecture in our country, it well deserves the name of castle or palace. Its situation, too, is fine, far retired from the public road, and attainable by a winding carriage-drive; standing amid fertile fields, and with large trees in the vicinity. There is also a beautiful view from the mansion, adown the Kennebec. Beneath some of the large trees we saw the remains of circular seats, whereupon the family used to sit before the former house was burned down. There was no one now in the vicinity of the place, save a man and a yoke of oxen ; and what he was about, I did not ascertain. Mr. at present resides in a small dwell- ing, little more than a cottage, beside the main road, not far from the gateway which gives access to his palace. At Gardiner, on the wharf, I witnessed the starting of the steamboat New England for Boston. There was quite a collection of people, looking on or taking leave of passengers, — the steam puffing, — stages ar- riving, full-freighted with ladies ai d gentlemen. A man was one moment too late ; but running along the gun- wale of a mud-scow, and jumping into a skiff, he was put on board by a black fellow. The dark cabin, wherein, descending from the sunshiny deck, it was 16 AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. [l 837. difficult to discern the furniture, looking-glasses, ana mahogany wainscoting. I met two old college acquaint- ances, — 0 , who was going to Boston, and B with whom we afterwards drank a glass of wine at the hotel. B- , Mons. S , and myself continue to live ir the same style as heretofore. We appear mutually to be very well pleased with each other. Mons. S displays many comical qualities, and manages to insure us several hearty laughs every morning and evening, — those being the seasons when we meet. I am going to take lessons from him in the pronunciation of French. Of female society I see nothing. The only petticoat that comes within our premises appertains to Nancy, the pretty, dark* eyed maid-servant of the man who lives in the other part of the house. On the road from Hallowell to Augusta we saw little booths, in two places, erected on the roadside, where boys offered beer, apples, etc., for sale. We passed an Irishwoman with a child in her arms, and a heavy bun- dle, and afterwards an Irishman with a light bundle, sitting by the highway. They were husband and wife ; and B says that an Irishman and his wife, op their journeys, do not usually walk side by side, but + hat the man gives the woman the heaviest burden to carry, and walks on lightly ahead ! A thought comes into my mind : Which sort of house excites the most contemptuous feelings in the beholder, — such a house as Mr. — - — ’s, all circumstances con- sidered, or the board-built and turf-buttressed hovels of these wild Irish, scattered about as if they had sprung up like mushrooms, in the dells and gorges, and along 1 837. J AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. 4? the banks of the river? Mushrooms, by the way, spring up where the roots of an old tree are hidden un- der the ground* Thursday, July loth. — Two small Canadian boys came to our house yesterday, with strawberries to sell. It sounds strangely to hear children bargaining in French on the borders of Yankee-land. Among other languages spoken hereabouts must be reckoned the wild Irish. Some of the laborers on the mill-dam can speak nothing else. The intermixture of foreigners some- times gives rise to quarrels between them and the natives. As we were going to the village yesterday afternoon, we witnessed the beginning of a quarrel be- tween a Canadian and a Yankee, - — the latter accusing the former of striking his oxen. B thrust himself between and parted them ; but they afterwards renewed their fray, and the Canadian, I believe, thrashed the Yankee soundly, — for which he had to pay twelve dol- lars. Yet he was but a little fellow. Coming to the Mansion House about supper4ime, we found somewhat of a concourse of people, the Governor and Council being in session on the subject of the dis- puted territory. The British have lately imprisoned a man who was sent to take the census ; and the Main- iacs are much excited on the subject. They wish the Governor to order out the militia at once, and take pos- session of the territory with the strong hand. There was a British army-captain at the Mansion House ; and an idea was thrown out that it would be as well to seize upon him as a hostage. I would, for the joke’s sake, that it had been done. Personages at the tavern ; 48 AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS* fl837. the Governor, somewhat stared after as he walked through the bar-room ; Councillors seated about, sitting on benches near the bar, or on the stoop along the front cf the house ; the Adjutant-General of the State ; two young Blue-Noses, from Canada or the Provinces ; a gentleman “ thumbing his hat ” for liquor, or perhaps playing off the trick of the “ honest landlord ” on some stranger. The decanters and wine-bottles on the move, and the beer and soda founts pouring out continual streams, with a whiz. Stage-drivers, etc., asked to drink with the aristocracy, and mine host treating and being treated. Rubicund faces ; breaths odorous of brandy and water. Occasionally the pop of a cham- pagne cork. Returned home, and took a lesson in French of Mons. S . I like him very much, and have sel- dom met with a more honest, simple, and apparently so well-principled a man ; which good qualities I impute to his being, by the father’s side, of German blood. He looks more like a German — or, as he says, like a Swiss — than a Frenchman, having very light hair and a light complexion, and not a French expression. He is a vivacious little fellow, and wonderfully excitable to mirth ; and it is truly a sight to see him laugh ; — ev- ery feature partakes of his movement, and even his whole body shares in it, as he rises and dances about the room. He has great variety of conversation, com- mensurate with his experiences in life, and sometimes will talk Spanish, ore rotundo , — sometimes imitate the Catholic priests, chanting Latin songs for the dead, in deep, gruff, awful tones, producing really a very strong impression, — then he will break out into a light, French AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. 49 1 837. J song, perhaps of love, perhaps of war, acting it out, as if on the stage of a theatre : all this intermingled with continual fun, excited by the incidents of the passing moment. He has Frenchified all our names, calling B Monsieur Du Pont, myself M. de L’Aubepine, and himself M. le Berger, and all, Knights of the Round-Table. And we live in great harmony and brotherhood, as queer a life as anybody leads, and as queer a set as may be found anywhere. In his more serious intervals, he talks philosophy and deism, and preaches obedience to the law of reason and morality ; which law he says (and I believe him) he has so well observed, that, notwithstanding his residence in dissolute countries, he has never yet been sinful. He wishes me eight or nine weeks hence, to accompany him on foot to Quebec, and then to Niagara and New York. I should like it well, if my circumstances and other considera- tions would permit. What pleases much in Mons. S is the simple and childlike enjoyment he finds in trifles, and the joy with which he speaks of going back to his own country, away from the dull Yankees, who here misunderstand and despise him. Yet I have never heard him speak harshly of them. I rather think that B and I will be remembered by him with more pleasure than anybody else in the country ; for we have sympathized with him, and treated him kindly, and like a gentleman and an equal ; and he comes to us at night as to home and friends. I went down to the river to-day to see B fish for salmon with a fly, — a hopeless business ; for he says that only one instance has been known in the United States of salmon being taken otherwise than VOL. I. 3 © 50 AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1837 with a net. A few chubs were all the fruit of his pisca tory efforts. But while looking at the rushing and rip- pling stream, I saw a great fish, some six feet long and thick in proportion, suddenly emerge at whole length, turn a somerset, and then vanish again beneath the wa- ter. It was of a glistening, yellowish brown, with its fins all spread, and looking very strange and startling, darting out so lifelike from the black water, throwing itself fully into the bright sunshine, and then lost to sight and to pursuit. I saw also a long, flat-bottomed boat go up the river, with a brisk wind, and against a strong stream. Its sails were of curious construction : a long mast, with two sails below, one on each side of the boat, and a broader one surmounting them. The sails were colored brown, and appeared like leather or skins, but were really cloth. At a distance, the vessel looked like, or at least I compared it to, a monstrous water-insect skimming along the river. If the sails had been crimson or yellow, the resemblance would have been much closer. There was a pretty spacious raised cabin in the after part of the boat. It moved along lightly, and disappeared between the woody banks. These boats have the two parallel sails attached to the same yard, and some have two sails, one surmounting the other. They trade to Water ville and thereabouts, — - names, as “ Paul Pry,” on their sails. Saturday, July 15th . — Went with B yesterday to visit several Irish shanties, endeavoring to find out who had stolen some rails of a fence. At the first door at which we knocked (a shanty with an earthen mound heaped against the wall, two or three feet thick), the 1837.1 AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. 51 inmates were not up, though it was past eight o’clock. At last a middle-aged woman showed herself, half dressed, and completing her toilet. Threats were made of tearing down hei house ; for she is a lady of very in- different morals, and sells rum. Few of these people are connected with the mill-dam, — or, at least, many are not so, but have intruded themselves into the vacant huts which were occupied by the mill-dam people last year. In two or three places hereabouts there is quite a village of these dwellings, with a clay and board chimney, or oftener an old barrel, smoked and charred with the fire. Some of their roofs are covered with sods, and appear almost subterranean. One of the little hamlets stands on both sides of a deep dell, wooded and bush-grown, with a vista, as it were, into the heart of a wood in one direction, and to the broad, sunny river in the other: there was a little rivulet, crossed by a plank, at the bottom of the dell. At two doors we saw very pretty and modest-looking young women, — one with a child in her arms. Indeed, they all have innu- merable little children ; and they are invariably in good health, though always dirty of face. They come to the door while their mothers are talking with the visitors, standing straight up on their bare legs, with their little plump bodies protruding, in one hand a small tin sauce- pan, and in the other an iron spoon, with unwashed mouths, looking as independent as any child or grown person in the land. They stare unabashed, but make no answer when spoken to. “ I ’ve no call to your fence, Misser B .” It seems strange that a man should have the right, unarmed with any legal instru- ment, of tearing dowr (Jbe^jvejljjg-^ij^es of a score of 52 AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. [ 1837 . families, and driving the inmates forth without a shelter. Yet B undoubtedly has this right; and it is not a little striking to see how quietly these people contem- plate the probability of his exercising it, — resolving, indeed, to burrow' in their holes as long as may be, yet caring about as little for an ejectment as those who could find a tenement anywffiere, and less. Yet the wo- men, amid all the trials of their situation, appear to have kept up the distinction between virtue and vice ; those who can claim the former will not associate with the latter. When the women travel with young children, they carry the baby slung at their backs, and sleep- ing quietly. The dresses of the new-comers are old-fashioned, making them look aged before their time. Monsieur S shaving himself yesterday morning. He was in excellent spirits, and could not keep his tongue or body still more than long enough to make two or three consecutive strokes at his beard. Then he would turn, flourishing his razor and grimacing joy- ously, enacting droll antics, breaking out into scraps and verses of drinking-songs, “ A boire! a boire ! ” — then laughing heartily, and crying, u Vive la gaite ! ” — then resuming his task, looking into the glass with grave face, on which, however, a grin would soon break out anew, and all his pranks would be repeated with variations. He turned this foolery to philosophy, by observing that mirth contributed to goodness of heart, and to make us love our fellow-creatures. Conversing with him in the evening, he affirmed, with evident be- lief in the truth of what he said, that he would have no objection, except that it w'oold be a very foolish thing, 18*37. ] AMERICAN NOTE-ROOKS. 53 to expose his whole heart, his whole inner man, to the view of the world. Not that there would not be much evil discovered there ; but, as he was conscious of being in a state of mental and moral improvement, working out his progress onward, he would not shrink from such a scrutiny. This talk was introduced by his mention- ing the “ Minister’s Black Veil,” which he said he had seen translated into French, as an exercise, by a Miss Appleton of Bangor. Saw by the river-side, late in the afternoon, one of the above-described boats going into the stream, with the water rippling at the prow, from the strength of the current and of the boat’s motion. By and by comes down a raft, perhaps twenty yards long, guided by two men, one at each end, — the raft itself of boards sawed at Waterville, and laden with square bundles of shin- gles and round bundles of clapboards. “ Friend,” says one man, u how is the tide now ? ” — this being impor- tant to the onward progress. They make fast to a tree, in order to wait for the tide to rise a little higher. It would be pleasant enough to float down the Kennebec on one of these rafts, letting the river conduct you on- ward at its own pace, leisurely displaying to you all the wild or ordered beauties along its banks, and per- haps running you aground in some peculiarly pictu- resque spot, for your longer enjoyment of it. Another object, perhaps, is a solitary man paddling himself down the river in a small canoe, the light, lonely touch of his paddle in the water making the silence seem deeper. Every few minutes a sturgeon leaps forth, sometimes behind you, so that you merely hear the splash, and, turning hastily around, see nothing but the disturbed 54 AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. [ 183 ?. water. Sometimes he darts straight on end out of a quiet black spot on which your eyes happen to be fixed, and, when even his tail is clear of the surface, he falls down on his side, and disappears. On the river-bank, an Irishwoman washing some clothes, surrounded by her children, whose babbling sounds pleasantly along the edge of the shore ; and she also answers in a sweet, kindly, and cheerful voice, though an immoral woman, and without the certainty of bread or shelter from day to day. An Irishman sit- ting angling on the brink with an alder pole and a clothes-line. At frequent intervals, the scene is sud- denly broken by a loud report like thunder, rolling along the banks, echoing and reverberating afar. It is a blast of rocks. Along the margin, sometimes sticks of timber made fast, either separately or several to- gether ; stones of some size, varying the pebbles and sand ; a clayey spot, where a shallow brook runs into the river, not with a deep outlet, but finding its way across the bank in two or three single runlets. Look- ing upward into the deep glen whence it issues, you see its shady current. Elsewhere, a high acclivity, with the beach between it and the river, the ridge broken and caved away, so that the earth looks fresh and yel- low, and is penetrated by the nests of birds. An old, shining tree-trunk, half in and half out of the water. An island of gravel, long and narrow, in the centre of the river. Chips, blocks of wood, slabs, and other scraps of lumber, strewed along the beach ; logs drift ing down. The high bank covered with various trees and shrubbery, and, in one place, two or three Irish shanties. 1837 .] AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. 55 Thursday , Jidy 20. — A drive yesterday afternoon to a pond in the vicinity of Augusta, about nine miles off, to fish for white perch. Kemarkables : the steering of the boat through the crooked, labyrin- thine brook, into the open pond, — the man who acted as pilot, — his talking with B about politics, the bank, the iron money of “ a king who came to reign, in Greece, over a city called Sparta,” — his advice to B to come amongst the laborers on the mill-dam, because it stimulated them “ to see a man grinning amongst them.” The man took hearty tugs at a bottle of good Scotch whiskey, and became pretty merry. The fish caught were the yellow perch, which are not esteemed for eating ; the white perch, a beautiful, silvery, round-backed fish, which bites eagerly, runs about with the line while being pulled up, makes good sport for the angler, and an admirable dish ; a great chub ; and three horned pouts, which swallow the hook into their lowest entrails. Several dozen fish were taken in an hour or two, and then we returned to the shop where we had left our horse and wagon, the pilot very eccentric behind us. It was a small, dingy shop, dimly lighted by a single inch of candle, faintly disclos- ing various boxes, barrels standing on end, articles hanging from the ceiling ; the proprietor at the counter, whereon appear gin and brandy, respectively contained in a tin pint-measure and an earthenware jug, with two or three tumblers beside them, out of which nearly all the party drank ; some coming up to the counter frankly, others lingering in the background, waiting to be pressed, two paying for their own liquor and with- drawing. B — - — treated them twice round. The pilot 56 AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. [ 1837 . after drinking his brandy, gave a history of our fishmg expedition, and how many and how large fish we caught. B making acquaintances and renewing them, and gaining great credit for liberality and free- heartedness, — two or three boys looking on and lis- tening to the talk, — the shopkeeper smiling behind his counter, with the tarnished tin scales beside him, — the inch of candle burning down almost to extinction. So we got into our wagon, with the fish, and drove to Rob- inson’s tavern, almost five miles off, where we supped and passed the night. In the bar-room was a fat old countryman on a journey, and a quack doctor of the vicinity, and an Englishman with a peculiar accent. Seeing B ’s jointed and brass-mounted fishing-pole, he took it for a theodolite, and supposed that we had been on a surveying expedition. At supper, which consisted of bread, butter, cheese, cake, doughnuts, and gooseberry-pie, we were waited upon by a tall, very tall woman, young and maiden-looking, yet with a strongly outlined and determined face. Afterwards we found her to be the wife of mine host. She poured out our tea, came in when we rang the table-bell to refill our cups, and again retired. While at supper, the fat old traveller was ushered through the room into a contigu- ous bedroom. My own chamber, apparently the best in the house, had its walls ornamented with a small, gilt-framed, foot-square looking-glass, with a hairbrush hanging beneath it; a record of the deaths of the family written on a black tomb, in an engraving, where a father, mother, and child were represented in a grave- yard, weeping over said tomb ; the mourners dressed in black, country-cut clothes ; the engraving executed 1537 .] AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. 57 in Vermont. There was also a wood engraving of the Declaration of Independence, with fac-similes of the autographs ; a portrait of the Empress Josephine, and another of Spring. 1*. the two closets of this chamber were mine hostess’s cloak, best bonnet, and go-to-meet- ing apparel. There was a good bed, in which I slept tolerably well, and, rising betimes, ate breakfast, con- sisting of some of our own fish, and then started for Augusta. The fat old traveller had gone off with the harness of our wagon, which the hostler had put on to his horse by mistake. The tavern-keeper gave us his own harness, and started in pursuit of the old man, who was probably aware of the exchange, and well satisfied with it. Our drive to Augusta, six or seven miles, was very pleasant, a heavy rain having fallen during the night and laid the oppressive dust of the day before. The road lay parallel with the Kennebec, of which we oc- casionally had near glimpses. The country swells back from the river in hills and ridges, without any interval of level ground ; and there were frequent woods, filling up the valleys or crowning the summits. The land is good, the farms look neat, and the houses comfortable. The latter are generally but of one story, but with large barns ; and it was a good sign, that, while we saw no houses unfinished nor out of repair, one man at least had found it expedient to make an addition to his dwelling. At the distance of more than two miles, we had a view of w T hite Augusta, with its steeples, and the State-House, at the farther end of the town. Observable matters along the road were the stage, — all the dust of yesterday brushed off, and no 3 * 58 AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. [lS37. now dust contracted, — full of passengers, inside and out ; among them some gentlemanly people and pretty girls, all looking fresh and unsullied, rosy, cheerful, and curious as to the face of the country, the faces of pass- ing travellers, and the incidents of their journey ; not yet damped, in the morning sunshine, by long miles of jolting over rough and hilly roads, — to compare this with their appearance at midday, and as they drive into Bangor at dusk ; — two women dashing along in a wagon, and with a child, rattling pretty speedily down hill ; — people looking at us from the open doors and windows ; — the children staring from the wayside ; — • the mowers stopping, for a moment, the sway of their scythes ; — the matron of a family, indistinctly seen at some distance within the house, her head and shoulders appearing through the window 7 , drawing her handker- chief over her bosom, which /had been uncovered to give the baby its breakfast, — the said baby, or its im- mediate predecessor, sitting at the door, turning round to creep away on all fours ; — a man building a flat- bottomed boat by the roadside : he talked w r ith B about the Boundary question, and swore fervently in favor of driving the British “ into hell’s kitchen ” by main force. Colonel B , the engineer of the mill-dam, is now here, after about a fortnight’s absence. He is a plain country squire, with a good figure, but with rather a heavy brow ; a rough complexion ; a gait stiff, and a general rigidity of manner, something like that of a schoolmaster. He originated in a country town, and is a self-educated man. As he walked down the gravel- path to-day, alter dinner, he took up a scythe, which AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. 59 / 837. J one of the mowers had left on the sward, and began + 0 mow, with quite a scientific swing. On the coming of the mower, he laid it down, perhaps a little ashamed of his amusement. I was interested in this ; to see a man, after twenty-five years of scientific occupation, thus try- ing whether his arms retained their strength and skill for the labors of his youth, — mindful of the day when he wore striped trousers, and toiled in his shirt-sleeves, * — and now tasting again, for pastime, this drudgery be- neath a fervid sun. He stood awhile, looking at the workmen, and then went to oversee the laborers at the mill-dam. Monday , July %kth. — I bathed in the river on Thurs- day evening, and in the brook at the old dam on Satur- day and Sunday, — the former time at noon. The as- pect of the solitude at noon was peculiarly impressive, there being a cloudless sunshine, no wind, no rustling of the forest-leaves, no waving of the boughs, no noise but the brawling and babbling of the stream, making its way among the stones, and pouring in a little cataract round one side of the mouldering dam. Looking up the brook, there was a long vista, — now ripples, now smooth and glassy spaces, now large rocks, almost blocking up the channel; while the trees stood upon either side, mostly straight, but here and there a branch thrusting itself out irregularly, and one tree, a pine, leaning over, — not bending, — but leaning at an angle over the brook, rough and ragged ; birches, alders ; the tallest of all the trees an old, dead, leafless pine, rising white and lonely, though closely surrounded by others. Along the brook, now the grass and herbage extended close to 60 AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. [ 183 ? the water ; now a small, sandy beach. The wall of rock before described, looking as if it had been hewn* but with irregular strokes of the workman, doing his job by rough and ponderous strength, — now chancing to hew it away smoothly and cleanly, now carelessly smiting, and making gaps, or piling on the slabs of rock, so as to leave vacant spaces. In the interstices grow brake and broad-leaved forest-grass. The trees that spring from the top of this wall have their roots pressing close to the rock, so that there is no soil be- tween ; they cling powerfully, and gr^sp the crag tight- 'v with their knotty fingers. The trees on both sides are so thick, that the sight and the thoughts are almost immediately lost among confused stems, branches, and clustering green leaves, — a narrow strip of bright blue sky above, the sunshine falling lustrously down, and making the pathway of the brook luminous below. En- tering among the thickets, I find the soil strewn with old leaves of preceding seasons, through which may be seen a black or dark mould ; the roots of trees stretch frequently across the path ; often a moss-grown brown log lies athwart, and when you set your foot down, it sinks into the decaying substance, — into the heart of oak or pine. The leafy boughs and twigs of the un- derbrush enlace themselves before you, so that you must stoop your head to pass under, or thrust yourself through amain, while they sweep against your face, and perhaps knock off your hat. There are rocks mossy and slip- pery ; sometimes you stagger, with a great rustling of branches, against a clump of bushes, and into the midst of it. From end to end of all this tangled shade goes a pathway scarcely worn, for the leaves are not trodden AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. 61 i 83/ . J through, yet plain enough to the eye, winding gently to avoid tree-trunks and rocks and little hillocks. In the more open ground, the aspect of a tall, fire-blackened stump, standing alone, high up on a swell of land, that rises gradually from one side of the brook, like a monu- ment. Yesterday, I passed a group of children in this solitary valley, — two boys, I think, and two girls. One of the little girls seemed to have suffered some wrong from her companions, for she was weeping and complaining violently. Another time, I came suddenly on a small Canadian boy, who was in a hollow place, among the ruined logs of an old causeway, picking raspberries, — lonely among bushes and gorges, far up the wild valley, — and the lonelier seemed the little boy for the bright sunshine, that showed no one else in a wide space of view except him and me. Remarkable items : the observation of Mons. S when B was saying something against the character of the French people, — “ You ought not to form an un- favorable judgment of a great nation from mean fellows like me, strolling about in a foreign country.” I thought it very noble thus to protest against anything discredit- able in himself personally being used against the honor of his country. He is a very singular person, with an originality in all his notions ; — not that nobody has ever had such before, but that he has thought them out for himself. He told me yesterday that one of his sisters was a waiting-maid in the Rocher de Caucale. He is about the sincerest man I ever knew, never pretending to feelings that are not in him, — never flattering. His feelings do not seem to be warm, though they are kind- ly. He is so single-minded that he cannot understand £> 2 AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. [ J 837 . badinage, but takes it all as if meant in earnest, — a German trait. He values himself greatly on being a Frenchman, though all his most valuable qualities come from Germany. His temperament is cool and pure, and he is greatly delighted with any attentions from the ladies. A short time since, a lady gave him a bouquet of roses and pinks ; he capered and danced and sang, put it in water, and carried it to his own chamber ; but he brought it out for us to see and admire two or three times a day, bestowing on it all the epithets of admira- tion in the French language, — “ Super be ! magni- iique ! ” When some of the flowers began to fade, he made the rest, with others, into a new nosegay, and consulted us whether it would be fit to give to another rady. Contrast this French foppery with his solemn moods, when we sit in the twilight, or after B is abed, talking of Christianity and Deism, of ways of life, of marriage, of benevolence, — in short, of all deep mat- ters of this world and the next. An evening or two since, he began singing all manner of English songs, — such as Mrs. Hemans’s “ Landing of the Pilgrims,” “ Auld Lang Syne,’’ and some of Moore’s, — the singing pretty fair, but in the oddest tone and accent. Occa- sionally he breaks out with scraps from French trage- dies, which he spouts with corresponding action. He generally gets close to me in these displays of musical and histrionic talent. Once he offered to magnetize me in the manner of Monsieur P . Wednesday , July 2§th. — Dined at Barker’s yestei- day. Before dinner, sat with several other persons in the stoop of the tavern. There were B , J. A. 1837 .] AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS 63 Chandler, Clerk of the Court, a man of middle age of beyond, two or three stage people, and, near by, a negro, whom they call “ the Doctor,” a crafty-looking fellow, one of whose occupations is nameless. In pres- ence of this goodly company, a man of a depressed, neglected air, a soft, simple-looking fellow, with an anx- ious expression, in a laborer’s dress, approached and inquired for Mr. Barker. Mine host being gone to Portland, the stranger was directed to the bar-keeper, who stood at the door. The man asked where he should find one Mary Ann Russell, — a question which excited general and hardly suppressed mirth ; for the said Mary Ann is one of a knot of women who were routed on Sunday evening by Barker and a constable. The man was told that the black fellow would give him all the information he wanted. The black fellow asked, — “ Do you want to see her?’ Others of the by-standers or by-sitters put vari- ous questions as to the nature of the man’s business with Mary Ann. One asked, — “ Is she your daughter ? ” “ Why, a little nearer than that, I calkilate,” said the poor devil. Here the mirth was increased, it being evident that the woman was his wife. The man seemed too simple and obtuse to comprehend the ridicule of his situation, or to be rendered very miserable by it. Nevertheless, he made some touching points. “ A man generally places some little dependence on his wife ’ said he, “ whether she ’s good or not.” He meant, probably, that he rests some affection on 64 AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1837 her. He told us that she had behaved well, till com- mitted to jail for striking a child ; and I believe he was absent from home at the time, and had not seen her since. And now he was in search of her, intending, doubtless, to do his best to get her out of her troubles, and then to take her back to his home. Some advised him not to look after her ; others recommended him to pay “ the Doctor ” aforesaid for guiding him to her ; which finally “ the Doctor ” did, in consideration of a treat ; and the fellow went off, having heard little but gibes, and not one word of sympathy ! I would like to have witnessed his meeting with his wife. There was a moral picturesqueness in the contrasts of the scene, — a man moved as deeply as his nature would admit, in the midst of hardened, gibing spectators, heart- less towards him. It is worth thinking over and study- ing out. He seemed rather hurt and pricked by the jests thrown at him, yet bore it patiently, and sometimes almost joined in the laugh, being of an easy, unenergetic temper. Hints for characters : — Nancy, a pretty, black-eyedj intelligent servant-girl, living in Captain II ’s fam- ily. She comes daily to make the beds in our part of the house, and exchanges a good morning with me, in a pleasant voice, and with a glance and smile, — somewhat shy, because we are not acquainted, yet capable of be- ing made conversable. She washes once a week, and may be seen standing over her tub, with her handker- chief somewhat displaced from her white neck, because it is hot. Often she stands with her bare arms in the water talking with Mrs. TI , or looks through the window, perhaps, at B , or somebody else crossing 1837.]) AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. 65 die yard, — ratlier thoughtfully, but soon smiling or laughing. Then goeth she for a pail of water. In the afternoon, very probably, she dresses herself in silks, looking not only pretty, but lady-like, and strolls round the house, not unconscious that some gentleman may be staring at her from behind the green blinds. Aftei supper, she walks to the village. Mornii ig and evening, she goes a-miiking. And thus passes her life, cheer- fully, usefully, virtuously, with hopes, doubtless, of a husband and children. — Mrs. H is a particularly plump, soft-fleshed, fair-complexioned, comely woman enough, with rather a simple countenance, not nearly so piquant as Nancy’s. Her walk has something of the roll or waddle of a fat woman, though it were too much to call her fat. She seems to be a sociable body, prob- ably laughter-loving. Captain H himself has commanded a steamboat, and has a certain knowledge of life. Query, in relation to the man’s missing wife, how much desire and resolution of doing her duty by her husband can a wife retain, while injuring him in what is deemed the most essential point ? Observation. The effect of morning sunshine on the wet grass, on sloping and swelling land, between the spectator and the sun at some distance, as across a lawn. It diffused a dim brilliancy over the whole surface of the field. The mists, slow-rising farther off, part rest- ing on the earth, the remainder of the column already ascending so high that you doubt whether to call it a fog or a cloud. Friday , July 28th. — Saw my classmate and formerly 66 AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1037 intimate friend, , for the first time since we gradu- ated. He has met with good success in life, in spite of circumstance, having struggled upward against bitter opposition, by the force of his own abilities, to be a mem- ber of Congress, after having been for some time the leader of his party in the State Legislature. We met like old friends, and conversed almost as freely as we used to do in college days, twelve years ago and more. He is a singular person, shrewd, crafty, insinuating, with wonderful tact, seizing on each man by his manageable point, and using him for his own purpose, often without the man’s suspecting that he is made a tool of ; and yet, artificial as his character would seem to be, his conver- sation, at least to myself, was full of natural feeling, the expression of which can hardly be mistaken, and his revelations with regard to himself had really a great deal of frankness. He spoke of his ambition, of the ob« stacles which he had encountered, of the. means by w T hicb he had overcome them, imputing great efficacy to his personal intercourse with people, and his study of their characters ; then of his course as a member of the Legis- lature and Speaker, and his style of speaking and its effects ; of the dishonorable things which had been im- puted to him, and in what manner he had repelled the charges. In short, he wrnuld seem to have opened him- self very freely as to his public life. Then, as to his private affairs, he spoke of his marriage, of his wife, his children, and told me, with tears in his eyes, of the death of a dear little girl, and how it affected him, and how impossible it had been for him to believe that she was really to die. A man of the most open nature might well have been more reserved to a friend, after 1837 .] AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. 67 twelve years’ separation, than was to me. Never- theless, he is really a crafty man, concealing, like a mur- der-secret, anything that it is not good for him to have known. He by no means feigns the good-feeling that he professes, nor is there anything affected in the frank- ness of his conversation ; and it is this that makes him so very fascinating. There is such a quantity of truth and kindliness and warm affections, that a man’s heart opens to him, in spite of himself. He deceives by truth. And not only is he crafty, but, when occasion demands, bold and fierce as a tiger, determined, and even straight- forward and undisguised in his measures, — a daring fellow as well as a sly one. Yet, notwithstanding his consummate art, the general estimate of his character seems to be pretty just. Hardly anybody, probably, thinks him better than he is, and many think him worse. Nevertheless, if no overwhelming discovery of rascality be made, he will always possess influence ; though I should hardly think that he would take any prominent part in Congress. As to any rascality, I rather believe that he has thought out for himself a much higher sys- tem of morality than any natural integrity would have prompted him to adopt ; that he has seen the thorough advantage of morality and honesty ; and the sentiment of these qualities has now got into his mind and spirit, and pretty well impregnated them. I believe him to be about as honest as the great run of the world, with something even approaching to high-mindedness. His person in some degree accords with his character,— thin and with a thin face, sharp features, sallow, a pro- jecting brow not very high, deep-set eyes, an insinuat- ing smile and look, when he meets you, and is about to 68 AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1837 address you. I should think that he would do away with this peculiar expression, for it reveals more of him- self than can be detected in any other way, in personal intercourse with him. Upon the whole, I have quite a good liking for him, and mean to go to to see him. Observation. A steam-engine across the river, which almost continually during the day, and sometimes all night, may be heard puffing and panting, as if it uttered groans for being compelled to labor in the heat and sun- shine, and when the world is asleep also. Monday , July 31s£. — Nothing remarkable to record. A child asleep in a young lady’s arms, — a little baby, two or three months old. Whenever anything partially disturbed the child, as, for instance, when the young lady or a by-stander patted its cheek or rubbed its chin, the child would smile ; then all its dreams seemed to be of pleasure and happiness. At first the smile was so faint, that I doubted whether it were really a smile or no ; but on further efforts, it brightened forth very de- cidedly. This, without opening its eyes. — A. constable, a homely, good-natured, business-looking man, with a warrant against an Irishman’s wife for throwing a brick- bat at a fellow. He gave good advice to the Irishman about the best method of coming easiest through the affair. Finally settled, — the justice agreeing to relin- quish his fees, on condition that the Irishman would pay for the mending of his old boots ! I went with Monsieur S yesterday to pick rasp- berries. He fell through an old log bridge thrown over a hollow ; looking back, only his head and shoulders appeared through the rotten logs and amorg the bushea 1837.J AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. 69 — A shower coming on, the rapid running of a little barefooted boy, coming up unheard, and dashing swiftly past us, and showing the soles of his naked feet as he ran adown the path, and up the opposite rise. Tuesday , August ls£. — There having been a heavy rain yesterday, a nest of chimney-swallows was washed down the chimney into the fireplace of one of the front rooms. My attention was drawn to them by a most ob- streperous twittering ; and looking behind the fire-board, there were three young birds, clinging with their feet against one of the jambs, looking at me, open-mouthed, and all clamoring together, so as quite to fill the room with the short, eager, frightened sound. The old birds, by certain signs upon the floor of the room, appeared to have fallen victims to the appetite of the cat. La belle Nancy provided a basket filled with cotton-wool, into which the poor little devils were put ; and I tried to feed them with soaked bread, of which, however, they did not eat with much relish. Tom, the Irish boy, gave it as his opinion that they were not old enough to be weaned. I hung the basket out of the window, in the sunshine, and upon looking in, an hour or two after found that two of the birds had escaped. The other ] tried to feed, and sometimes, when a morsel of bread was thrust into its open mouth, it would swallow it But it appeared to suffer very much, vociferating loudly when disturbed, and panting, in a sluggish agony, witl eyes closed, or half opened, when let alone. It dis iressed me a good deal ; and I felt relieved, thougl somewhat shocked, when B put an end to its mis ery by squeezing its head and throwing it out of tb.» 70 AMERICAN NOTE-ROOKS. [1837 window. They were of a slate-color, and might, I sup- pose, have been able to shift for themselves. — The other day a little yellow bird flew into one of the empty rooms, of which there are half a dozen on the lower floor, and could not find his way out again, flying at the glass of the windows, instead of at the door, thumping his head against the panes or against the ceiling. I drove him into the entry and chased him from end to end, endeavoring to make him fly through one of the open doors. He would fly at the circular light over the door, clinging to the casement, sometimes alighting on one of the two glass lamps, or on the cords that sus- pended them, uttering an affrighted and melancholy cry whenever I came near and flapped my handkerchief, and appearing quite tired and sinking into despair. At last he happened to fly low enough to pass through the door, and immediately vanished into the gladsome sun- shine. — Ludicrous situation of a man, drawing his chaise down a sloping bank, to wash in the river. The chaise got the better of him, and, rushing downward as if it were possessed, compelled him to run at full speed, and drove him up to his chin into the water. A singu- lar instance, that a chaise may run away with a man without a horse ! Saturday , August 12th . — Left Augusta a week ago this morning for . Nothing particular in our drive across the country. Fellow-passenger, a Boston dry- goods dealer, travelling to collect bills. At many of the country shops he would get out, and show his unwel- come visage. In the tavern, prints from Scripture, var- nished and on rollers, — such as the Judgment of T837.J AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. 71 Christ ; also, a droll set of colored engravings of the story of the Prodigal Son, the figures being clad in modern costume, — or, at least, that of not more than half a century ago. The father, a grave, clerical per- son, with a white wig and black broadcloth suit; the son, with a cocked hat and laced clothes, drinking wine out of a glass, and caressing a woman in fashionable dress. At a nice, comfortable, boarding-house tavern, without a bar or any sort of wines or spirits. An old lady from Boston, with her three daughters, one of whom was teaching music, and the other two school- mistresses. A frank, free, mirthful daughter of the landlady, about twenty-four years old, between whom and myself there immediately sprang up a flirtation, which made us both feel rather melancholy when we parted on Tuesday morning. Music in the evening, with a song by a rather pretty, fantastic little mischief of a brunette, about eighteen years old, who has mar- ried within a year, and spent the last summer in a trip to the Springs and elsewhere. Her manner of walking is by jerks, with a quiver, as if she were made of calves- feet jelly. I talk with everybody : to Mrs. T good sense, — to Mary, good sense, with a mixture of fun, — to Mrs. G , sentiment, romance, and nonsense. Walked with to see General Knox’s old man- sion, — a large, rusty-looking edifice of wood, with some grandeur in the architecture, standing on the banks of the river, close by the site of an old burial-ground, and neai where an ancient fort had been erected for defence against the French and Indians. General Knox once owned a square of thirty miles in this part of the coun- try and he wished to settle it with a tenantry, after 72 * AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS [1837 the fashion of English gentlemen. He would permit no edifice to be erected within a certain distance of his mansion. His patent covered, of course, the whole present town of Waldoborough and divers other flour- ishing commercial and country villages, and would have been of incalculable value could it have remained un- broken to the present time. But the General lived in grand style, and received throngs of visitors from foreign parts, and was obliged to part with large tracts of his possessions, till now there is little left but the ruinous mansion and the ground immediately around it. His tomb stands near the house, — a spacious receptacle, an iron door at the end of a turf-covered mound, and sur- mounted by an obelisk of marble. There are inscrip- tions to the memory of several of his family ; for he had many children, all of whom are now dead, except one daughter, a widow of fifty, recently married to Hon. John H . There is a stone fence round the monu- ment. On the outside of this are the gravestones, and large, flat tombstones of the ancient burial-ground, — the tombstones being of red freestone, with vacant spaces, formerly inlaid with slate, on which were the inscriptions, and perhaps coats-of-arms. One of these spaces was in the shape of a heart. The people were very wrathful that the General should have laid out his grounds over this old burial-place ; and he dared never throw down the gravestones, though his wife, a haughty English lady, often teased him to do so. But when the old General was dead, Lady Knox (as they called her) caused them to be prostrated, a j they now lie. She was a woman of violent passions, and so proud an aristocrat, that, as long as she lived, she would never enter any AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. 73 house in the town except her own. When a married daughter was ill, she used to go in her carriage to the door, and send up to inquire how she did. The General was personally very popular ; but his wife ruled him. The house and its vicinity, and the whole tract covered by Knox’s patent, may be taken as an illustration of what must be the result of American schemes of aris- tocracy. It is not forty years since this house was built, and Knox was in his glory ; but now the house is all in decay, while within a stone’s throw of it there is a street of smart white edifices of one and two stories, occupied chiefly by thriving mechanics, which has been laid out where Knox meant to have forests and parks. On the banks of the river, where he intended to have only one wharf for his own West Indian vessels and yacht, there are two wharves, with stores and a lime- kiln. Little appertains to the mansion except the tomb and the old burial-ground, and the old fort. The descendants are all poor, and the inheritance was merely sufficient to make a dissipated and drunken fellow of the only one of the old General’s sons who survived to middle age. The man’s habits were as bad as possible as long as he had any money ; but when quite ruined, he reformed. The daughter, the only survivor among Knox’s children (herself childless), is a mild, amiable woman, therein totally differing from her mother. Knox, when he first visited his estate, arriving in a vessel, was waited upon by a deputation of the squatters, who had resolved to resist him to the death. He received them with genial courtesy, made them dine with him aboard the vessel, and sent them back to their constituents in great love and admiration 4 TOl I. 74 American Note-books. [1837. of him. He used to have a vessel running to Phila- delphia, I think, and bringing him all sorts of delica- cies. His way of raising money was to give a mort- gage on his estate of a hundred thousand dollars at a time, and receive that nominal amount in goods, which he would immediately sell at auction for perhaps thirty thousand. He died by a chicken-bone. Near the house are the remains of a covered way, by which the French once attempted to gain admittance into the fort ; but the work caved in and buried a good many of them, and the rest gave up the siege. There was re- cently an old inhabitant living, who remembered when the people used to reside in the fort. Owl’s Head, — a watering-place, terminating a point of land, six or seven miles from Thomaston. A long island shuts out the prospect of the sea. Hither coasters and fishing-smacks run in when a storm is anticipated. Two fat landlords, both young men, with something of a contrast in their dispositions ; — one of them being a brisk, lively, active, jesting, fat man ; the other more heavy and inert, making jests sluggishly, if at all. Aboard the steamboat, Professor Stuart of Andover, sitting on a sofa in the saloon, generally in conversation with some person, resolving their doubts on one point or another, speaking in a very audible voice ; and strangers standing or sitting around to hear him, as if he were an ancient apostle or philosopher. He is a bulky man, with a large, massive face, particularly calm in its expression, and mild enough to be pleasing. When not otherwise occupied, he reads, without much notice of what is going on around him. He speaks without effort yet thoughtfully. AMERICAN NOTE-ROOKS. 1 837. J 7h We got lost in a fog the morning after leaving Owl’s Head. Fired a brass cannon, rang bell, blew steam, like a whale snorting. After one of the reports of the cannon, we heard a horn blown at no great distance, the sound coming soon after the report. Doubtful whether it came from the shore or a vessel. Contin- ued our ringing and snorting ; and by and by some- thing was seen to mingle with the fog that obscured everything beyond fifty yards from us. At first it seemed only like a denser wreath of fog ; it darkened still more, till it took the aspect of sails ; then the hull of a small schooner came beating down towards us, the wind laying her over towards us, so that her gunwale was almost in the water, and we could see the whole of her sloping deck. “ Schooner ahoy ! ” say we. “ Halloo ! Have you seen Boston Light this morning ? ” “ Yes ; it bears north-northwest, two miles distant.” “Very much obliged to you,” cries our captain. So the schooner vanishes into the mist behind. We get up our steam, and soon enter the harbor, meeting vessels of every rig ; and the fog, clearing away, shows a cloudy sky. Aboard, an old one-eyed sailor, who had lost one of his feet, and had walked on the stump from Eastport to Bangor, thereby making a shocking ulcer. Penobscot Bay is full of islands, close to which the steamboat is continually passing. Some are large, with portions of forest and portions of cleared land ; some are mere rocks, with a little green or none, and inhabited by sea-birds, which fly and flap about hoarsely. Their eggs may be gathered by the bushel, and are good to eat. Other islands have one house and barn on hem, 76 AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1837 this sole family being lords and rulers of all the land which the sea girds. The owner of such an island must have a peculiar sense of property and lordship he must feel more like his own master and \ih owr man than other people can. Other islands, perhaps high, precipitous, black bluffs, are crowned with a white light-house, whence, as evening comes on, twin- kles a star across the melancholy deep, — seen by vessels coming on the coast, seen from the main-land, seen from island to island. Darkness descending, and, looking down at the broad wake left by the wheels of the steamboat, we may see sparkles of sea-fire glitter- ing through the gloom. Salem , August 22 d. — A walk yesterday afternoon down to the Juniper and Winter Island. Singular effect of partial sunshine, the sky being broadly and heavily clouded, and land and sea, in consequence, be- ing generally overspread with a sombre gloom. But the sunshine, somehow or other, found its way between the interstices of the clouds, and illuminated some of the distant objects very vividly. The white sails of a ship caught it, and gleamed brilliant as sunny snow, the hull being scarcely visible, and the sea around dark ; other smaller vessels too, so that they looked like heavenly- winged things, just alighting on a dismal world. Shift- ing their sails, perhaps, or going on another tack, they almost disappear at once in the obscure distance. Isl- ands are seen in summer sunshine and green glory ; their rocks also sunny and their beaches white ; while other islands, for no apparent reason, are in deep shade, and share the gloom of the rest of the world. Some- 1837 .] AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. 77 times pait of an island is illuminated and part dark. When the sunshine falls on a very distant island, near- er ones being in shade, it seems greatly to extend the bounds of visible space, and put the horizon to a farther distance. The sea roughly rushing against the shore, and dashing against the rocks, and grating back over the sands. A boat a little way from the shore, tossing and swinging at anchor. Beach birds flitting from place to place. The family seat of the Hawthornes is Wigcastle, Wigton, Wiltshire. The present head of the family, now residing there, is Hugh Hawthorne. William Hawthorne, who came over in 1635-36, was a younger brother of the family. A young man and girl meet together, each in search of a person to be known by some particular sign. They watch and wait a great while for that person to pass* At last some casual circumstance discloses that each is *he one that the other is waiting for. Moral, — that what we need for our happiness is often close at hand, if we knew but liow to seek for it. The journal of a human heart for a single day in or- dinary circumstances. The lights and shadows that flit across it ; its internal vicissitudes. Distrust to be thus exemplified : — Various good and desirable things to be presented to a young man, and offered to his acceptance, — as a friend, a wife, a for- tune ; but he tc refuse them all, suspecting that it is AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. 78 0*7 merely a delusion. Yet all to be real, and lie to be told so, when too late. A man tries to be happy in love ; he cannot sincerely give his heart, and the affair seems all a dream. In domestic life, the same ; in politics, a seeming patriot ; but still he is sincere, and all seems like a theatre. An old man, on a summer day, sits on a hill-top, or on the observatory of his house, and sees the sun’s light pass from one object to another connected with the events of his past life, — as the school-house, the place where his wife lived in her maidenhood, — its setting beams falling on the churchyard. An idle man’s pleasures and occupations and thoughts during a day spent by the sea-shore : among them, that of sitting on the top of a cliff, and throwing stones at his own shadow, far below. A blind man to set forth on a walk through ways unknown to him, and to trust to the guidance of any- body who will take the trouble ; the different charac- ters who would undertake it : some mischievous, some well-meaning, but incapable ; perhaps one blind mar, undertakes to lead another. At last, possibly, he re jects all guidance, and blunders on by himself. In the cabinet of the Essex Historical Society, old portraits. — Governor Leverett ; a dark mustachioed face, the figure two-thirds length, clothed in a sort of frock coat, buttoned, and a broad sword-belt girded round the waist, and fastened with a large steel buckle : AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. 79 the hilt of the sword steel, — altogether very striking. Sir William Pepperell, in English regimentals, coat, waistcoat, and breeches, all of red broadcloth, richly gold-embroidered ; he holds a general’s truncheon in his right hand, and extends the left towards the batteries erected against Louisbourg, in the country near which he is standing. Endicott, Py ncheon, and others, in scarlet robes, bands, &c. Half a dozen or more family portraits of the Olivers, some in plain dresses, brown, crimson, or claret ; others with gorgeous gold-em- broidered waistcoats, descending almost to the knees, so as to form the most conspicuous article of dress. La- dies, with lace ruffles, the painting of which, in one of the pictures, cost five guineas. Peter Oliver, who was crazy, used to fight with these family pictures in the old Mansion House ; and the face and breast of one lady bear cuts and stabs indicted by him. Miniatures in oil, with the paint peeling off, of stern, old, yellow faces. Oliver Cromwell, 'apparently an old picture, half length, or one third, in an oval frame, probably painted for some New England partisan. Some pictures* that had been partly obliterated by scrubbing with sand. The dress- es, embroidery, laces of the Oliver family are generally better done than the faces. Governor Leverett’s gloves, — the glove part of coarse leather, but round the wrist a deep, three or four inch border of spangles and silver embroidery. Old drinking-glasses, with tall stalks. A black glass bottle, stamped with the name of Philip English, with a broad bottom. The baby- linen, &c., of Governor Bradford of Plymouth County Old manuscript sermons, some written in short-hand, others in a hand that seems learnt from print. 80 AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1837. Nothing gives a stronger idea of old worm-eaten aris- tocracy — of a family being crazy with age, and of its being time that it was extinct — than these black, dusty, faded, antique-dressed portraits, such as those of the Oliver family ; the identical old white wig of an ancient minister producing somewhat the impression that his very scalp, or some other portion of his personal self, would do. The excruciating agonies which Nature inflicts on men (who break her laws) to be represented as the work of human tormentors ; as the gout, by screwing the toes. Thus we might find that worse than the tor- tures of the Spanish Inquisition are daily suffered with- out exciting notice. Suppose a married couple fondly attached to one an- other, and to think that they lived solely for one anoth- er ; then it to be found out that they were divorced, or that they might separate if they chose. What would be its effect? Monday , August %lth. — Went to Boston last Wednes- day. Remarkables : — An author at the American Stationers’ Company, slapping his hand on his manu- script, and crying, “I’m going to publish.” — An ex cursion aboard a steamboat to Thompson’s Island, to visit the Manual Labor School for boys. Aboard the steamboat several poets and various other authors ; a Commodore, — Colton, a small, dark brown, sickly man, with a good deal of roughness in his address ; Mr. Waterston, talking poetry and philosophy. Examina- 1837 .] AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. 81 tion and exhibition of the boys, little tanned agricultu- rists. After examination, a stroll round the island, ex- amining the products, as wheat in sheaves on the stub- ble-field ; oats, somewhat blighted and spoiled ; great pumpkins elsewhere ; pastures ; mowing ground ; — all cultivated by the boys. Their residence, a great brick building, painted green, and standing on the summit of a rising ground, exposed to the winds of the bay. Ves- sels flitting past ; great ships, with intricacy of rigging and various sails ; schooners, sloops, with their one or two broad sheets of canvas : going on different tacks, so that the spectator might think that there was a dif- ferent wind for each vessel, or that they scudded across the sea spontaneously, whither their own wills led them. The farm boys remain insulated, looking at the passing show, within sight of the city, yet having nothing to do with it ; beholding their fellow-creatures skimming by them in winged machines, and steamboats snorting and puffing through the waves. Methinks an island would be the most desirable of all landed property, for it seems like a little world by itself ; and the water may answer instead of the atmosphere that surrounds plan- ets. The boys swinging, two together, standing up, and almost causing the ropes and their bodies to stretch out horizontally. On our departure, they ranged themselves on the rails of the fence, and, being dressed in blue, looked not unlike a flock of pigeons. On Friday, a visit to the Navy Yard at Charlestown, m company with the Naval Officer of Boston, and Gil- ley. Dined aboard the revenue-cutter Hamilton. A pretty cabin, finished off with bird’s-eye maple and ma- hogany ; two looking-glasses. Two officers in blue 4 * F 82 AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. |’l837. frocks, with a stripe of lace on each shoulder. Dinner, chowder, fried fish, corned beef, — claret, afterwards champagne. The waiter tells the Captain of the cutter that Captain Percival (Commander of the Navy Yard) is sitting on the deck of the anchor hoy (which lies in- side of the cutter), smoking his cigar. The Captain sends him a glass of champagne, and inquires of the waiter what Percival says to it. “ He said, sir, 4 What does he send me this damned stuff for?’ but drinks, nevertheless.” The Captain characterizes Percival as the roughest old devil that ever was in his manners, but a kind, good-hearted man at bottom. By and by comes in the steward. “ Captain Percival is coming aboard of you, sir.” “ Well, ask him to walk down in- to the cabin ” ; and shortly down comes old Captain Per- cival, a white-haired, thin-visaged, weather-worn old gentleman, in a blue, Quaker-cut coat, with tarnished lace and brass buttons, a pair of drab pantaloons, and brown waistcoat. There was an eccentric expression in his face, which seemed partly wilful, partly natural. He has not risen to his present rank in the regular line of the profession ; but entered the navy as a sailing- master, and has all the roughness of that class of offi- cers. Nevertheless, he knows how to behave and to talk like a gentleman. Sitting down, and taking in hand a glass of champagne, he began a lecture on economy, and how well it was that Uncle Sam had a broad back, being compelled to bear so many burdens as were laid on it, — alluding to the table covered wit.\ wine-bottles. Then he spoke of the fitting up of the cabin with ex- pensive woods, — of the brooch in Captain Scott’s bo- ttom. Then he proceeded to discourse of politics, taking 183 AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. 88 the opposite side to Cilley, and arguing with much per- tinacity. He seems to have moulded and shaped him- self to his own whims, till a sort of rough affectation has become thoroughly imbued throughout a kindly na- ture. He is full of antique prejudices against the mod- ern fashions of the younger officers, their mustaches and such fripperies, and prophesies little better than disgrace in case of another war ; owning that the boys would fight for their country, and die for her, but deny- ing that there are any officers now like Hull and Stu- art, whose exploits, nevertheless, he greatly depreci- ated, saying that the Boxer and Enterprise fought the only equal battle which we won during the war ; and that, in that action, an officer had proposed to haul down the stars and stripes, and a common sailor threat- ened to cut him to pieces if he should do so. He spoke of Bainbridge as a sot and a poltroon, who want- ed to run from the Macedonian, pretending to take her for a line-of-battle ship ; of Commodore Elliot as a liar ; but praised Commodore Downes in the highest terms. Percival seems to be the very pattern of ‘old integrity ; taking as much care of Uncle Sam’s interests as if all the money expended were to come out of his own pock- et. This quality was displayed in his resistance to the demand of a new patent capstan for the revenue-cutter, which, however, Scott is resolved in such a sailor-like way to get, that he will probably succeed. Percival spoke to me of how his business in the yard absorbed him, especially the fitting of the Columbus seventy-four, of which ship he discoursed with great enthusiasm. He seems to have no ambition beyond his present du- ties, perhaps never had any ; at any rate, he now pass- 84 AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. [ 1637 . es his life with a sort of gruff contentedness, grumbling and growling, yet in good humor enough. He is con scious of his peculiarities ; for when I asked him wheth- er it would be well to make a naval officer Secretary of the Navy, he said, “ God forbid, for that an old sailor was always full of prejudices and stubborn whim- whams,” instancing himself ; whereto I agreed. We went round the Navy Yard with Percival and Commo- dore Downes, the latter a sailor and a gentleman too, with rather more of the ocean than the drawing-room about him, but courteous, frank, and good-natured. We looked at ropewalks, rigging-lofts, ships in the stocks ; and saw the sailors of the station laughing and sporting with great mirth and cheerfulness, which the Commodore said was much increased at sea. We re- turned to the wharf at Boston in the cutter's boat. Captain Scott, of the cutter, told me a singular story of what occurred during the action between the Constitu- tion and Macedonian, — he being pow r der-monkey aboard the former ship. A cannon-shot came through the ship’s side, and a man’s head was struck off, probably by a splinter, for it was done without bruising the head or body, as clean as by a razor. Well, the man was walking pretty briskly at the time of the accident ; and Scott seriously affirmed that he kept walking onward at the same pace, with two jets of blood gushing from his headless trunk, till, after going about twenty feet with- out a head, he sunk down at once, with his legs under him. [In corroboration of the truth of this, see Lord Bacon, Century IY. of his Sylva Sylvarum, or Natural His- tory, in Ten Centuries, paragraph 400.] I8B7.] AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. On Saturday, T called to see E. H , Laving pre- viously appointed a meeting for the purpose of inquiring about our name. He is an old bachelor, and truly for- lorn. The pride of ancestry seems to be his great hobby. He had a* good many old papers in his desk at the Cus- tom-House, which he produced and dissertated upon, and afterwards went with me to his sister’s, and showed me an old book, with a record of the children of the first emigrant (who came over two hundred years ago), in his own handwriting. * E ’s manners are gentle- manly, and he seems to be very well informed. At a little distance, I think, one would take him to be not much over thirty ; but nearer at hand one finds him to look rather venerable, — perhaps fifty or more. He is nervous, and his hands shook while he was looking over the papers, as if he had been startled by my visit; and when we came to the crossings of streets, he darted across, cautioning me, as if both were in great danger to be run over. Nevertheless, being very quick- tempered, he would face the Devil if at all irritated. He gave a most forlorn description of his life ; how, when he came to Salem, there was nobody except Mr. whom he cared about seeing ; how his posi- tion prevented him from accepting of civilities, because he had no home where he could return them ; in short, he seemed about as miserable a being as is to be found anywhere, — lonely, and with sensitiveness to feel his loneliness, and capacities, now withered, to have enjoyed the sweets of life. I suppose he is comfortable enough when busied in his duties at the Custom-House ; for when I spoke to him at my entrance, he was too much absorbed to hear me at first. As wp walked, he AMERICAN NOTE-ROOKS. [ 1887 . 8C kept telling stories of the family, which seemed to have comprised many oddities, eccentric men and women, recluses and other kinds, — one of old Philip English (a Jersey man, the name originally L’ Anglais), who had been persecuted by John Hawthorne, of witch-time memory, and a violent quarrel ensued. When Philip lay on his death-bed, he consented to forgive his perse- cutor ; “ But if I get well,” said he, “ I’ll be damned if I forgive him ! ” This Philip left daughters, one of whom married, I believe, the son of the persecuting John, and thus all the legitimate blood of English is in our family. E passed from the matters of birth, pedigree, and ancestral pride, to give vent to the most arrant democracy and locofocoism that I ever happened to hear, saying that nobody ought to possess wealth longer than his own life, and that then it should return to the people, &c. He says S. I has a great fund of traditions about the family, which she learned from her mother or grandmother (I forget which), one of them being a Hawthorne. The old lady was a very proud woman, and, as E says, “proud of being proud,” and so is S. I . October 7th. — A walk in Northfields in the after- noon. Bright sunshine and autumnal warmth, giving a sensation quite unlike the same degree of warmth in summer. Oaks, — some brown, some reddish, some still green ; walnuts, yellow, — fallen leaves and acorns lying beneath ; the footsteps crumple them in walking. In sunny spots beneath the trees, where green grass is overstrewn by the dry, fallen foliage, as I passed, I dis- turbed multitudes of grasshoppers basking in the warm 1037.] AMERICAN NOTE-boOKS. 87 gun shine ; and they began to hop, hop, hop, pattering on the dry leaves like big and heavy drops ot‘ a thun- der-shower. They were invisible till they hopped. Boys gathering walnuts. Passed an orchard, where two men were gathering the apples. A wagon, with barrels, stood among the trees ; the men’s coats flung on the fence ; the apples lay in heaps, and each of the men was up in a separate tree. They conversed together in loud voices, which the air caused to ring still louder, jeering each other, boasting of their own feats in shaking down the apples. One got into the very top of his tree, and gave a long and mighty shake, and the big apples came down thump, thump, bushels hitting on the ground at once. “ There ! did you ever hear anything like that ? ” cried he. This sunny scene was pretty. A horse feed- ing apart, belonging to the wagon. The barberry- bushes have some red fruit on them, but they are frost- bitten. The rose-bushes have their scarlet hips. Distant clumps of trees, now that the variegated fo- liage adorns them, have a phantasmagorian, an appa- rition-like appearance. They seem to be of some kin- dred to the crimson and gold cloud-islands. It w r ould not be strange to see phantoms peeping forth from theii recesses. When the sun was almost below the horizon his rays, gilding the upper branches of a yellow walnut- tree, had an airy and beautiful effect, — the gentle con trast between the tint of the yellow in the shade and its ethereal gold in the fading sunshine. The woods tha* crown distant uplands were seen to great advantage in these last rays, for the sunshine perfectly marked out and distinguished every shade of color, varnishing them as it were ; while the country round, both hill and 88 AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1837. plain, being in gloomy shadow, the woods looked the brighter for it. The tide, being high, had flowed almost into the Cold Spring, so its small current hardly issued forth from the basin. As I approached, two little eels, about as long as my finger, and slender in proportion, wriggled out of the basin. They had come from the salt water > An Indian-corn field, as yet unharvested, — huge, golden pumpkins scattered among the hills of corn, — a noble- looking fruit. After the sun was down, the sky was deeply dyed with a broad sweep of gold, high towards the zenith ; not flaming brightly, but of a somewhat dusky gold. A piece of water, extending towards the west, between high banks, caught the reflection, and appeared like a sheet of brighter and more glistening gold than the sky which made it bright. Dandelions and blue flowers are still growing in sunny places. Saw in a barn a prodigious treasure of onions in their silvery coats, exhaling a penetrating perfume. How exceeding bright looks the sunshine, casually reflected from a looking-glass into a gloomy region of the chamber, distinctly marking out the figures and colors of the paper hangings, which are scarcely seen elsewhere. It is like the light of mind thrown on an obscure subject. Man’s finest workmanship, the closer you observe it, the more imperfections it shows ; as in a piece of polished steel a microscope will discover a rough sur- face. Whereas, what may look coarse and rough in AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. 89 •837 j Na\>iii«y’s workmanship will show an infinitely minute perfection, vhe closer you look into it. The reason of the minute superiority of Nature’s work over man’s is, that the forn.ei works from the innermost germ, while the latter works merely superficially. Standing in the cross-road that leads by the Mineral Spring, and looking towards an opposite shore of the lake, an ascending hank, with a dense border of trees, green, yellow, red, 1 asset, all bright colors, brightened by the mild brilliancy of the descending sun ; it was strange to recognize the sober old friends of spring and summer in this new dress. By the by, a pretty riddle or fable might be made out of the changes in apparel of the familiar trees round a house, adapted for children. But in the lake, beneath the afoiesaid border of trees, — the water being, not rippled, but its glassy surface somewhat moved and shaken by the remote agitation of a breeze that was breathing on the outer lake, — this being in a sort of bay, — in the slightly agitated mirror, the variegated trees were reflected dreamily and indis- tinctly ; a broad belt of bright and diversified colors shining in the water beneath. Sometimes the image of a tree might be almost traced ; then nothing but this sweep of broken rainbow. It was like the recollection of the real scene in an observer’s mind, — a confused radiance. A whirlwind, whirling the dried leaves round in a circle, not very violently. To well consider the characters of a family of persons 90 AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. [ 1837 . in a certain condition, — in poverty, for instance, — and endeavor to judge how an altered condition would affect the character of each. The aromatic odor of peat smoke in the sunny autumnal air is very pleasant. Salem , October 14^. — A walk through Beverly to Browne’s Hill, and home by the iron factory. A bright, cool afternoon. The trees, in a large part of the space through which I passed, appeared to be in their fullest glory, bright red, yellow, some of a tender green, appearing at a distance as if bedecked with new foliage, though this emerald tint was likewise the effect of frost. In some places, large tracts of ground were covered as with a scarlet cloth, — the underbrush being thus colored. The general character of these autumnal colors is not gaudy, scarcely gay ; there is something too deep and rich in it : it is gorgeous and magnificent, but with a sobriety diffused. The pastures at the foot of Browne’s Hill were plentifully covered with barber- ry-bushes, the leaves of which were reddish, and they were hung with a prodigious quantity of berries. From the summit of the hill, looking down a tract of wood- land at a considerable distance, so that the interstices between the trees could not be seen, their tops presented an unbroken level, and seemed somewhat like a richly variegated carpet. The prospect from the hill is wide and interesting; but methinks it is pleasanter in the more immediate vicinity of the hill than miles away. It is agreeable to look down at the square patches of corniield, or of potato-ground, or of cabbages still AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. 91 1837 .] green, or of beets looking red, — all a man’s farm, in short, — - each portion of which he considers separately so important, while you take in the whole at a glance. Then to cast your eye over so many different establish- ments at -once, and rapidly compare them, — here a house of gentility, with shady old yellow-leaved elms hanging around it ; there a new little white dwell- ing ; there an old farm-house ; to see the barns and sheds and all the out-houses clustered together ; to comprehend the oneness and exclusiveness and what constitutes the peculiarity of each of so many estab- lishments, and to have in your mind a multitude of them, each of which is the most important part of the world to those who live in it, — this really enlarges the mind, and you come down the hill somewhat wiser than you go up. Pleasant to look over an orchard far below, and see the trees, each casting its own shadow ; the white spires of meeting-houses ; a sheet of water, partly seen among swelling lands. This Browne’s Hill is a long ridge, lying in the midst of a large, level plain ; it looks at a distance somewhat like a whale, with its head and tail under water, but its immense back protruding, with steep sides, and a gradual curve dong its length. When you have climbed it on one side, and gaze from the summit at the other, you feel as if you had made a discovery, — the landscape being ^uite different on the two sides. The cellar of the house which formerly crowned the hill, and used to be named Browne’s Folly, still remains, two grass-grown and shallow hollows, on the highest part of the ridge. The bouse consisted of two wings, each perhaps sixty feet in ‘ength, united by a middle part, in which was the 92 AMERICAN NOTE-BOOItS. [l^\ entrance-hall, and which looked lengthwise along th« hill . The foundation of a spacious porch may be traced on either side of the central portion ; some of the stones still remain ; but even where they are gone, the line oi the porch is still traceable by the greener verdure. In the cellar, or rather in the two cellars, grow one or two barberry-bushes, with frost-bitten fruit ; there is alsc yarrow w: f h its white flower, and yellow dandelions The cellars* are still deep enough to shelter a person, al ? but his head at least, from the wind on the summit, of the hill ; but they are all grass-grown. A line of tree* seems to have been planted along the ridge of the hill The edifice must have made quite a magnificent appear ance. Characteristics during the walk : — Apple-trees with only here and there an apple on the boughs, among the thinned leaves, the relics of a gathering. In others you observe a rustling, and see the boughs shaking and hear the apples thumping down, without seeing the persou who does it. Apples scattered by the wayside, som* with pieces bitten out, others entire, which you pick up, and taste, and find them harsh, crabbed cider- apples, though they have a pretty, waxen appearance In sunny spots of woodland, boys in search of nuts, looking picturesque among the scarlet and goldeD foliage. There is something in this sunny autumnal atmosphere that gives a peculiar effect to laughter and joyous voices, — it makes them infinitely more elastic and gladsome than at other seasons. Heaps of dry leaves tossed together by the wind, as if for a couch and lounging-place for the weary traveller, while the sun is warming it for him. Golden pumpkins and squashes, l837.] AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS 93 neaped in the angle of a house, till they reach the lower windows. Ox-teams, laden with a rustling load of Indian corn, in the stalk and ear. When an inlet of the sea runs far up into the country, you stare to see a large schooner appear amid the rural landscape ; she is unloading a cargo of wood, moist with rain or salt water that has dashed over it. Perhaps you hear the sound of an axe in the woodland ; occasionally, the report of a fowling-piece. The travellers in the early part of the afternoon look warm and comfortable as if taking a summer drive ; but as eve draws nearer, you meet them well wrapped in top-coats or cloaks, or rough, great surtouts, and red-nosed withal, seeming to take no great comfort, but pressing homeward. The character- istic conversation among teamsters and country squires, where the ascent of a hill causes the chaise to go at the same pace as an ox-team, — perhaps discussing the qualities of a yoke of oxen. The cold, blue aspects of sheets of water. Some of the country shops with the doors closed ; others still open as in summer. I meet a wood-sawyer, with his horse and saw on his shoulders, returning from work. As night draws on, you begin to see the gleaming of fires on the ceilings in the houses which you pass. The comfortless appearance of houses at bleak and bare spots, — you wonder how there can be any enjoyment in them. I meet a girl in a chintz gown, with a small shawl on her shoulders, white stockings, and summer morocco shoes, — it looks observable. Turkeys, queer, solemn objects, in black attire, grazing about, and trying to peck the fallen apples, which slip away from their bills. 94 AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. [ 1837 . October 1 6 ^A. — Spent the whole afternoon in a ram ble to the sea-shore, near Phillips’s Beach. A beautiful, warm, sunny afternoon, the very pleasantest day, prob- ably, that there has been in the whole course of the year. People at work, harvesting, without their coats. Cocks, with their squad of hens, in the grass-fields, hunting grasshoppers, chasing them eagerly with out- spread wings, appearing to take much interest in the sport, apart from the profit. Other hens picking up the ears of Indian corn. Grasshoppers, flies, and flying insects of all sorts, are more abundant in these warm autumnal days than I have seen them at any other time. Yellow butterflies flutter about in the sunshine, singly, by pairs, or more, and are wafted on the gentle gales. The crickets begin to sing early in the afternoon, and sometimes a locust may be heard. In some warm spots, a pleasant buzz of many insects. Crossed the fields near Brookhouse’s villa, and came upon a long beach, — at least a mile long, I should think, — terminated by craggy rocks at either end, and backed by a high broken bank, the grassy summit of which, year by year, is continually breaking away, and precipitated to the bottom. At the foot of the bank, in some parts, is a vast number of pebbles and paving- stones, rolled up thither by the sea long ago. The beach is of a brown sand, with hardly any pebbles in- termixed upon it. When the tide is part way down, there is a margin of several yards from the water’s edge, along the whole mile length of the beach, which glistens like a mirror, and reflects objects, and shines bright in the sunshine, the sand being wet to that dis- tance from the water. Above this margin the sand is 1337 .] AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. 95 not wet, and grows less and less damp the farther to- wards the bank you keep. In some places your foot- step is perfectly implanted, showing the whole shape, and the square toe, and every nail in the heel of your boot. Elsewhere, the impression is imperfect, and even when you stamp, you cannot imprint the whole. As you tread, a dry spot flashes around your step, and grows moist as you lift your foot again. Pleasant to pass along this extensive walk, watching the surf- wave ; — how sometimes it seems to make a feint of breaking, but dies away ineffectually, merely kissing the strand ; then, after many such abortive efforts, it gathers itself, and forms a high wall, and rolls onward, heightening and heightening wdthout foam at the summit of the green line, and at last throws itself fiercely on the beach, with a loud roar, the spray flying above. As you w r alk along, you are preceded by a flock of twenty or thirty beach birds, which are seeking, I suppose, for food on the margin of the surf, yet seem to be merely sporting, chasing the sea as it retires, and running up before the impending wave. Sometimes they let it bear them off their feet, and float lightly on its breaking summit : sometimes they flutter and seem to rest on the feathery spray. They are little birds with gray backs and snow-white breasts ; their images may be seen in the wet sand almost or quite as distinctly as the reality. Their legs are long. As you draw near, they take a flight of a score of yards or more, and then recommence their dal- liance with the surfwvave. You may behold their mul- titudinous little tracks all along your way. Before you reach the end of the beach, you become quite attached to these little sea-birds, and take much interest in their 96 AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. [ 1837 . occupations. After passing in one direction, it is pleas- ant then to retrace your footsteps. Your tracks being all traceable, you may recall the whole mood and occu- pation of your mind during your first passage. Here you turned somewhat aside to pick up a’ shell that you saw nearer the water’s edge. Here you examined a long sea-weed, and trailed its length after you for a con siderable distance. Here the effect of the wide sea struck you suddenly. Here you fronted the ocean, looking at a sail, distant in the sunny blue. Here you looked at some plant on the bank. Here some vagary of mind seems to have bewildered you ; for your tracks go round and round, and interchange each other with- out visible reason. Here you picked up pebbles and skipped them upon the water. Here you wrote names and drew faces with a razor sea-sliell in the sand. After leaving the beach, clambered over crags, all shattered and tossed about every how ; in some parts curiously worn and hollowed out, almost into caverns. The rock, shagged with sea-weed, — in some places, a thick carpet of sea-weed laid over the pebbles, into which your foot would sink. Deep tanks among these rocks, which the sea replenishes at high tide, and then leaves the bottom all covered with various sorts of sea- plants, as if it were some sea-monster’s private garden. I saw a crab in one of them ; five-fingers too. From the edge of the rocks, you may look off into deep, deep water, even at low tide. Among the rocks, I found a great bird, whether a wild-goose, a loon, or an alba- tross, I scarcely know. It was in such a position that I almost fancied it might be asleep, and therefore drew near softly, lest it should take flight ; but it was dead, AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. 97 I837.J and stirred not when I touched it. Sometimes a dead fish was cast up. A ledge of rocks, with a beacon upon it, looking like a monument erected to those who have perished by shipwreck. The smoked, extempore fire- place, where a party cooked their fish. About midway on the beach, a fresh-water brooklet flows towards the sea. Where it leaves the land it is quite a rippling little current ; but, in flowing across the sand, it grows shallower and more shallow, and at last is quite lost, and dies in the effort to carry its little tribute to the main. An article to be made of telling the stories of the tiles of an old-fashioned chimney-piece to a child. A person conscious that he was soon to die, the humor in which he would pay his last visit to familiar persons and things. A description of the various classes of hotels and taverns, and the prominent personages in each. There should be some story connected with it, — as of a per- son commencing with boarding at a great hotel, and gradually, as his means grew less, descending in life, till he got below ground into a cellar. A person to be in the possession of something as per- fect as mortal man has a right to demand ; he tries to make it better, and ruins it entirely. A person to spend all his life and splendid talents in trying to achieve something naturally impossible, as to make a conquest over Nature. vox. i. 5 e 98 AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1837. Meditations about the main gas-pipe of a great city, — if the supply were to be stopped, w r hat would happen ? How many different scenes it sheds light on ? It might be made emblematical of something. December 6tk. — A fairy tale about chasing Echo to her hiding-place. Echo is the voice of a reflection in a mirror. A house to be built over a natural spring of inflam- mable gas, and to be constantly illuminated therewith. What moral could be drawn from this ? It is carbu- retted hydrogen gas, and is cooled from a soft shale or slate, which is sometimes bituminous, and contains more or less carbonate of lime. It appears in the vicinity of Lockpor* and Niagara Falls, and elsewhere in New York. 1 believe it indicates coal. At Fredonia, the whole village is lighted by «it. Elsewhere, a farm-house was lighted by it, and no other fuel used in the coldest weather. Gnomes, or other mischievous little fiends, to be represented as burrowing in the hollow teeth of some person who has subjected himself to their power. It should be a child’s story. This should be one of many modes of petty torment. They should be contrasted with beneficent fairies, who minister to the pleasures of the good. A man will undergo great toil and hardship for ends that must be many years distant, — as wealth or fame, — but none for an end that may be close at hand, — as the joys of heaven. AMERICAN NOTE-ROOKS. 99 Insincerity in a man’s own heart must make al] his enjoyments, all that concerns him, unreal ; so that his whole life must seem like a merely dramatic representa- tion. And this would be the case, even though he were surrounded by true-hearted relatives and friends. A company of men, none of whom have anything worth hoping for on earth, yet who do not look forward to anything beyond earth ! Sorrow to be personified, and its effect on a family represented by the way in which the members of the family regard this dark-clad and sad-browed inmate. A story to show how we are all wronged and w mong- ers, and avenge one another. To personify winds of various characters. A man living a wicked life in one place, and simulta- neously a virtuous and religious one in another. An ornament to be worn about the person of a lady, — as a jewelled heart. After many years, it happens to be broken or unscrewed, and a poisonous odor comes out Lieutenant F. W of the navy was an inveterate duellist and an unerring shot. He had taken offence at Lieutenant F , and endeavored to draw him into a duel, following him to the Mediterranean for that pur- nose, and harassing him intolerably. At last, both par- 100 AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. [ 183 ? ties being in Massachusetts, F determined to fight, and applied to Lieutenant A to be his second A examined into the merits of the quarrel, and came to the conclusion that F had not given F. "VY— justifiable cause for driving him to a duel, and that he ought not to be shot. He instructed F in the use of the pistol, and, before the meeting, warned him, by all means, to get the first fire; for that, if F. W fired first, he, F , was infallibly a dead man, as his antagonist could shoot to a hair’s breadth. The parties met ; and F , firing immediately on the word’s being given, shot F. W through the heart. F. W , with a most savage expression of countenance, fired, after the bullet had gone through his heart, and when the blood had entirely left his face, and shot away one of F ’s side-locks. His face probably looked as if he were already in the infernal regions ; but afterwards it assumed an angelic calmness and repose. A company of persons to drink a certain medicinal preparation, which would prove a poison, or the con- trary, according to their different characters. Many persons, without a consciousness of so doing, to contribute to some one end ; as to a beggar’s feast, made up of broken victuals from many tables ; or a patch carpet, woven of shreds from innumerable garments. Some very famous jewel or other thing, much talked of all over the world. Some person to meet with it, and get possession of it in some unexpected manner urnid homely circumstances. I837.J AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. 101 To poison a person or a party of persons with the sacramental wine. A cloud in the shape of an old woman kneeling, with arms extended towards the moon. On being transported to strange scenes, we teel as if all were unreal. This is but the perception of the true unreality of earthly things, made evident by the want of congruity between ourselves and them. By and by we become mutually adapted, and the perception is lost. An old looking-glass. Somebody finds out the secret of making all the images that have been reflected in it pass back again across its surface. Our Indian races having reared no monuments, like the Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians, when they have disappeared from the earth their history will appear a fable, and they misty phantoms. A woman to sympathize with all emotions, but to have none of her own. A portrait of a person in New England to be recog- nized as of the same person represented by a portrait in Old England. Having distinguished himself there, he had suddenly vanished, and had never been heard of till he was thus discovered to be identical with a distin- guished man in New England. Men of cold passions have quick eyes. 102 AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1888. A virtuous but giddy girl to attempt to piay a trick on a man. He sees what she is about, and contrives matters so that she throws herself completely into his power, and is ruined, — all in jest. A letter, written a century or more ago, but which has never yet been unsealed. A partially insane man to believe himself the Pro- vincial Governor or other great official of Massachu- setts. The scene might be the Province House. A dreadful secret to be communicated to several people of various characters, — grave or gay, — and they all to become insane, according to their characters, by the influence of the secret. Stories to be told of a certain person’s appearance in public, of his having been seen in various situations, and of his making visits in private circles ; but finally, on looking for this person, to come upon his old grave and mossy tombstone. The influence of a peculiar mind, in close communion with another, to drive the latter to insanity. To look at a beautiful girl, and picture all the lovers, in different situations, whose hearts are centred upon her May 11 th, 1838. — At Boston last week. Item? . — A young man, with a small mustache, dyed brown. 1838.] AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. 103 reddish from its original light color. He walks with an affected gait, his arms crooked outwards, treading much on his toes. His conversation is about the theatre, where he has a season ticket, — about an amateur who lately appeared there, and about actresses, with othei theatrical scandal. — In the smoking-room, two checker and backgammon boards ; the landlord a great play- er, seemingly a stupid man, but with considerable shrewdness and knowledge of the world. — F , the comedian, a stout, heavy-looking Englishman, of grave de- portment, with no signs of wit or humor, yet aiming at both in conversation, in order to support his character. Very steady and regular in his life, and parsimonious in his disposition, — worth $50,000, made by his pro- fession. — A clergyman, elderly, with a white neck- cloth, very unbecoming, an unworldly manner, unac- quaintance with the customs of the house, and learning them in a childlike way. A ruffle to his shirt, crimped. — - A gentleman, young, handsome, and sea - flushed, belonging to Oswego, New York, but just arrived in port from the Mediterranean : he inquires of me about ihe troubles in Canada, which were first beginning to make a noise when he left the country, — whether they are all over. I tell him all is finished, except the hang- ing of the prisoners. Then we talk over the matter, and I tell him the fates of the principal men, — some banished to New South Wales, one hanged, others in prison, others, conspicuous at first, now almost for- gotten. — Apartments of private families in the hotel, — what sort of domesticity there may be in them ; eating in public, with no board of their own. The gas that lights the rest of the house lights them also, in the 104 AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. [183$ chandelier from the ceiling. — A shabby-looking man, quiet, with spectacles, at first wearing an old, coarse brown frock, then appearing in a suit of elderly black, saying nothing unless spoken to, but talking intelli- gently when addressed. He is an editor, and I suppose printer, of a country paper. Among the guests, he holds intercourse with gentlemen of much more respect- able appearance than himself, from the same part of the country. — Bill of fare ; wines printed on the back, but nobody calls for a bottle. Chairs turned down for ex- pected guests. Three-pronged steel forks. Cold sup- per from nine to eleven p. m. Great, round, mahogany table, in the sitting-room, covered with papers. In the morning, before and soon after breakfast, gentlemen reading the morning papers, while others wait for their chance, or try to pick out something from the papers of yesterday or longer ago. In the forenoon, the South- ern papers are brought in, and thrown damp and folded on the table. The eagerness with which those who happen to be in the room start up and make prize of them. Play-bills, printed on yellow paper, laid upon the table. Towards evening comes the Transcript. June loth. — The red light which the sunsets at this season diffuse ; there being showery afternoons, but the sun setting bright amid clouds, and diffusing its radiance over those that are scattered in masses all over the sky. It gives a rich tinge to all objects, even to those of sombre hues, yet without changing the hues. The complexions of people are exceedingly enriched by it ; they look warm, and kindled with a mild fire. The whole scenery and personages acquire, me- 1838 .) AMERICAN NOTE-BOORS* 105 thinks, a passionate character. A love-scene should be laid on such an evening. The trees and the grass have now the brightest possible green, there having been so many showers alternating with such powerful sunshine. There are roses and tulips and honeysuckles, with their sweet perfume ; in short, the splendor of a more gor- geous climate than ours might be brought into the pic- ture. The situation of a man in the midst of a crowd, yet as completely in the power of another, life and all, as if they two were in the deepest solitude. Tremont , Boston, June 1 6 th. — Tremendously hot weather to-day. Went on board the Cyane to see Bridge, the purser. Took boat from the end of Long Wharf, with two boatmen, who had just landed a man. Row round to the starboard side of the sloop, where we pass up the steps, and are received by Bridge, who introduces us to one of the lieutenants, — Hazard. Sail- ors and midshipmen scattered about, — the middies having a foul anchor, that is, an anchor with a cable twisted round it, embroidered on the collars of their jackets. The officers generally wear blue jackets with lace on the shoulders, white pantaloons, and cloth caps. Introduced into the cabin, — a handsome room, fin- ished with mahogany, comprehending the width of the vessel ; a sideboard with liquors, and above it a look- ing-glass ; behind the cabin, an inner room, in which is seated a lady, waiting for the captain to come on board ; on each side of this inner cabin, a large and convenient state-room with bed, — the doors opening 5 * 106 AMERICAN NOTE-ROOKS. [ 1833 . into the cabin. This cabin is on a level with the quar- ter-deck, and is covered by the poop-deck. Going down below stairs, yon come to the ward-room, a pretty large room, round which are the state-rooms of the lieutenants, the purser, surgeon, &c. A stationary table. The ship’s main-mast comes down, through the middle of the room, and Bridge’s chair, at dinner, is planted against it. Wine and brandy produced ; and Bridge calls to the Doctor to drink with him, who answers affirmatively from his state-room, and shortly after opens the door and makes his appearance. Other officers emerge from the side of the vessel, or disappear into it, in the same way. Forward of the ward-room, adjoining it, and on the same level, is the midship- men’s room, on the larboard side of the vessel, not partitioned off, so as to be shut up. On a shelf a few books; one midshipman politely invites us to walk in; another sits writing. Going farther forward, on the same level we come to the crew’s department, part of which is occupied by the cooking-establishment, where all sorts of cooking is going on for the officers and men. Through the whole of this space, ward-room and all, there is barely room to stand upright, without the hat on. The rules of the quarter-deck (which extends aft from the main-mast) are, that the midshipmen shall not presume to walk on the starboard side of it, nor the men to come upon it at all, unless to speak to an officer. The poop-deck is still more sacred, — the lieutenants being confined to the larboard side, and the captain alone having a right to the starboard. A marine was pacing the poop-deck, being the only guard that I saw stationed in the vessel, — the more stringent regulations 1838. j AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. 107 being relaxed while she is preparing for sea. While standing on the quarter-deck, a great piping at the gangway, and the second cutter comes alongside, bring- ing the consul and some other gentleman to visit the vessel. After a while, we are rowed ashore with them, in the same boat. Its crew are new hands, and there- fore require much instruction from the cockswain. We are seated under an awning. The guns of the Cyane are medium thirty-two pounders ; some of them have percussion locks. At the Tremont, I had Bridge to dine with me : iced ehan^pagne, claret in glass pitchers. Nothing very re* arkable among the guests. A wine-merchant, French apparently, though he had arrived the day before in a bark from Copenhagen : a somewhat cor pulent gentleman, without so good manners as an American would have in the same line of life, but good-natured, sociable, and civil, complaining of the. heat. He had rings on his fingers of great weight of metal, and one of them had a seal for letters ; brooches at the bosom, three in a row, up and down ; also a gold watch-guard, with a seal appended. Talks of the com- parative price of living, of clothes, &c., here and in Europe. Tells of the prices of winc-s by the cask and pipe. Champagne, he says, is drunk of better quality here than where it grows. — A vendor of patent medicines, Doctor Jaques, makes acquaintance with me, and shows me his recommendatory letters in favor of himself and drugs, signed by a long list of people. He prefers, he says, booksellers to druggists as his agents, and inquired of me about them in this town. He seems fo be an honest man enough, with an intelligent face- 108 AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. f 1 838. and sensible in his talk, but not a gentleman, wearing a somewhat shabby brown coat and mixed pantaloons being ill-shaven, and apparently not well acquainted with the customs of a fashionable hotel. A simplicity about him that is likable, though, I believe, he comes from Philadelphia. — Naval officers, strolling about town, bargaining for swords and belts, and other military articles; with the tailor, to have naval buttons put on their shore-going coats, and for their pantaloons, suited to the climate of the Mediterranean. It is the almost invariable habit of officers, when going ashore or staying on shore, to divest themselves of all military or naval insignia, and appear as private citizens. At the Tremont, young gentlemen with long earlocks, — straw hats, light, or dark-mixed. — The theatre being closed, the play-bills of many nights ago are posted up against its walls. July 4th . — A very hot, bright, sunny day; town much thronged ; booths on the Common, selling ginger- bread, sugar-plums, and confectionery, spruce beer, lemonade. Spirits forbidden, but probably sold stealth- ily. On the top of one of the booths a monkey, with a tail two or three feet long. He is fastened by a cord, which, getting tangled with the flag over the booth, he takes hold and tries to free it. He is the object of much attention from the crowd, and played with by the boys, who toss up gingerbread to him, while he nibbles and throws it down again. He reciprocates notice, of some kind or other, with all who notice him. There is a sort of gravity about him. A boy pulls his long tail, whereat he gives a slight squeak, and for the future 1838 ] AMERICAN NOTE-ROOKS. 109 elevates it as much as possible. Looking at the same booth by and by, I find that the poor monkey has been obliged to betake himself to the top of one of the wood- en joists that stick up high above. There are boys, going about with molasses candy, almost melted down in the sun. Shows : A mammoth rat ; a collection of pirates, murderers, and the like, in wax. Constables in considerable number, parading about with their staves sometimes conversing with each other, producing ar effect by their presence, without having to interfere actively. One or two old salts, rather the worse foi liquor : in general the people are very temperate. At evening the effect of things rather more picturesque j some of the booth-keepers knocking down the tempo- rary structures, and putting the materials in wagons to carry away ; other booths lighted up, and the lights gleaming through rents in the sail-cloth tops. The cus- tomers are rather riotous, calling loudly and whim- sically for what they want ; a young fellow and a girl coming arm in arm ; two girls approaching the booth, and getting into conversation with the folks there- about. Perchance a knock-down between two half sober fellows in the crowd : a knock-down without a heavy blow, the receiver being scarcely able to keep his footing at any rate. Shoutings and hallooings, laughter, oaths, — generally a good-natured tumult ; and the constables use no severity, but interfere, if at all, in a friendly sort of way. I talk with one about the way in which the day has passed, and he bears testimony to the orderliness of the crowd, but suspects one booth of selling liquor, and relates one scuffle. There is a talk- ative and witty seller of gingerbread holding forth to no AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1838 dm people from his cart, making himself quite a noted character by his readiness of remark and humor, and disposing of all his wares. Late in the evening, during the fire-works, people are consulting how they are to get home, — many having long miles to walk : a father, with wife and children, saying it will be twelve o’clock before they reach home, the children being already tired to death. The moon beautifully dark-bright, not giving so white a light as sometimes. The girls all look beautiful and fairy-like in it, not exactly distinct, nor yet dim. The different characters of female countenances during the day, — mirthful and mischiev- ous, slyly humorous, stupid, looking genteel generally, but when they speak often betraying plebeianism by the tones of their voices. Two girls are very tired, — one a pale, thin, languid-looking creature; the other plump, rosy, rather overburdened with her own little body. Gingerbread figures, in the shape of Jim Crow and other popularities. In the old burial-ground, Charter Street, a slate grave- stone, carved round the borders, to the memory of “ Colonel John Hathorne, Esq.,” who died in 1717. This was the witch-judge. The stone is sunk deep in- to the earth, and leans forward, and the grass grows very long around it ; and, on account of the moss, it was rather difficult to make out the date. Other Ha- thornes lie buried in a range with him on either side. In a corner of the burial-ground, close under Dr. P s garden fence, are the most ancient stones remaining in the grave-yard ; moss-grown, deeply sunken. One 'O u Dr, John Swinnerton, Physician,” in 1688: another 1 8.18. ] AMERICAN NOTE-HOOKS. 11) to his wife. There, too, is the grave of Nathaniel Mather, the younger brother of Cotton, and mentioned in the Magnolia as a hard student, and of great promise. “ An aged ipan at nineteen years,” saith the grave- stone. It affected me deeply, when I had cleared away the grass from the half-buried stone, and read the name. An apple-tree or two hang over these old graves, and throw down the blighted fruit on Nathaniel Mather’s grave, — he blighted too. It gives strange ideas, to think how convenient to Dr. P ’s family this burial- ground is, — the monuments standing almost within arm’s reach of the side windows of the parlor — and there being a little gate from the back yard through which we step forth upon those old graves aforesaid. And the tomb of the P. family is right in front, and close to the gate. It is now filled, the last being the refugee Tory, Colonel P and his wife. M. P has trained flowers over this tomb, on account of her friend- ly relations with Colonel P . It is not, I think, the most ancient families that have tombs, — their ancestry for two or three generations having been reposited in the earth before such a luxury as a tomb was thought of. Men who founded families, and grew rich, a century or so ago, were probably the first. There is a tomb of the Lyndes, with a slab of slate affixed to the brick masonry on one side, and carved with a coat of arms. July 10th . — A fishing excursion, last Saturday afternoon, eight or ten miles out in the harbor. A fine wind out, which died awa}' towards evening, and finally 112 AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1838 became quite calm. We cooked our fish on a rock named “ Satan,” about forty feet long and twenty broad, irregular in its shape, and of uneven surface, with pools of water here and there, left by the tide, — dark brown rock, or whitish ; there was the excrement of sea-fowl scattered on it, and a few feathers. The water was deep around the rock, and swelling up and downward, waving the sea-weed. We built two fires, which, as the dusk deepened, cast a red gleam over the rock and the waves, and made the sea, on the side away from the sunset, look dismal ; but by and by up came the moon, red as a house afire, and, as it rose, it grew silvery bright, and threw a line of silver across the calm sea. Beneath the moon and the horizon, the commencement of its track of brightness, there was a cone of blackness, or of very black blue. It was after nine before we finished our supper, which we ate by firelight and moonshine, and then went aboard our decked boat again, — no safe achievement in our ticklish little dory. To those remaining in the boat, we had looked very pic- turesque around our fires, and on the rock above them, — our statures being apparently increased to the size of the sons of Anak. The tide, now coming up, gradually dashed over the fires we had left, and so the rock again became a desert. The wind had now entirely died away, leaving the sea smooth as glass, except a quiet swell, and we could only float along, as the tide bore us, almost imperceptibly. It was as beautiful a night as ever shone, — calm, warm, bright, the moon being at /all. On one side of us was Marblehead light-house, on the other, Baker’s Island ; and both, by the influence of the moonlight, had a silvery hue, unlike their ruddy 1338- J AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. 113 beacon tinge in dark nights. They threw long reflections across the sea, like the moon. There we floated slowly with the tide till about midnight, and then, the tide turning, we fastened our vessel to a pole, which marked a rock, so as to prevent being carried back by the re- flux. Some of the passengers turned in below ; some stretched themselves on deck ; some walked about, smoking cigars. I kept the deck all night. Once there was a little cat’s-paw of a breeze, whereupon we untied ourselves from the pole ; but it almost immediately died away, and we were compelled to make fast again. At about two o’clock, up rose the morning star, a round, red, fiery ball, very comparable to the moon at its rising, and, getting upward, it shone marvellously bright, and threw its long reflection into the sea, like the moon and the two light-houses. It was Venus, and the brightest star I ever beheld ; it was in the northeast. The moon made but a very small circuit in the sky, though it shone all night. The aurora borealis shot upwards to the zenith, and between two and three o’clock the first streak of dawn appeared, stretching far along the edge of the eastern horizon, — a faint streak of light ; then it gradually broadened and deepened, and became a rich saffron tint, with violet above, and then an ethereal and transparent blue. The saffron became intermixed with splendor, kindling and kindling, Baker’s Island lights being in the centre of the brightness, so that they were extinguished by it, or at least grew invisible. On the other side of the boat, the Marblehead flight-house still threw out its silvery gleam, and the moon shone brightly too ; and its light looked very singularly, mingling with the growing daylight. It was not like the moonshine* H 1 1 4 AMERICAN' NOTE-BOOKS. [ 1 * 538 . brightening as the evening twilight deepens ; for now it threw its radiance over the landscape, the green and other tints of which were displayed by the daylight, whereas at evening all those tints are obscured. It looked like a milder sunshine, — a dreamy sunshine, — the sunshine of a world not quite so real and material as this. All night we had heard the Marblehead clocks telling the hour. Anon, up came the sun, without any bustle, but quietly, his antecedent splendors having gilded the sea for some time before. It had been cold towards morning, but now grew warm, and gradually burning hot in the sun. A breeze sprang up, but oui first use of it was to get aground on Coney Island about five o’clock, where we lay till nine or thereabout, and then floated slowly up to the wharf. The roar of distant surf, the rolling of porpoises, the passing of shoals of fish, a steamboat smoking along at a distance, were the scene on my watch. I fished during the night, and, feeling something on the line, I drew up with great eagerness and vigor. It was two of those broad-leaved sea-weeds, with stems like snakes, both rooted on a stone, — all which came up together. Often these sea- weeds root themselves on muscles. In the morning, our pilot killed a flounder with the boat-hook, the poor fish thinking himself secure on the bottom. Ladurlad, in the Curse of Kehama, on visiting a certain celestial region, the fire in his heart and brain died away for a season, but was rekindled again on returning to earth. So may it be with me, in my projected three months’ seclusion from old associa lions. AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. 115 18^8. J Punishment of a miser, — to pay the drafts of hia heir in his tomb. July 13 tlu - — A show of wax-figures, consisting al- most wholly of murderers and their victims, — Gibbs and Hansley, the pirates, and the Dutch girl whom Gibbs murdered. Gibbs and Hansley were admirably done, as natural as life ; and many people who had known Gibbs would not, according to the show ; man, be convinced that this w r ax-figure was not his skin stuffed. The tw r o pirates were represented with halters round their necks, just ready to be turned off ; and the sheriff stood behind them, with his watch, waiting for the mo- ment. The clothes, halter, and Gibbs’s hair were authentic. E. K. Avery and Cornell, — the former n figure in black, leaning on the back of a chair, in the attitude of a clergyman about to pray ; an ugly devil, said to be a good likeness. Ellen Jewett and R. P. Robinson, she dressed richly, in extreme fashion, and very pretty ; he aw T kw T ard and stiff, it being difficult to stuff a figure to look like a gentleman. The showman seemed very proud of Ellen Jewett, and spoke of her somewhat as if this wax-figure were a real creation. Strong and Mrs. Whipple* who together murdered the husband of the latter. Lastly the Siamese twins. The showman is careful to call his exhibition the “ Statuary.” He walks to and fro before the figures, talking of the history of the persons, the moral lessons to be drawn therefrom, and especially of the excellence of the wax- work. He has for sale printed histories of the person- ages. He is a friendly, easy-mannered sort of a half- genteel character, whose talk has been moulded by the 116 AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1838 persons who most frequent such a show ; an air of superiority of information, a moral instructor, with a great deal of real knowledge of the world. He invites his departing guests to call again and bring their friends, desiring to know whether they are pleased ; telling that he had a thousand people on the 4th of July, and that they were all perfectly satisfied. He talks with the female visitors, remarking on Ellen Jewett’s person and dress to them, he having “ spared no expense in dressing her ; and all the ladies say that a dress never set better, and he thinks he never knew a hand- somer female.” He goes to and fro, snuffing the candles, and now and then holding one to the face of a favorite figure. Ever and anon, hearing steps upon the stair- case, he goes to admit a new visitor. The visitors, — a half bumpkin, half country-squire-like man, who has something of a knowing air, and yet looks and listens with a good deal of simplicity and faith, smiling between whiles ; a mechanic of the town ; several decent- looking girls and women, who eye Ellen herself with more interest than the other figures, — women having much curiosity about such ladies ; a gentlemanly sort of person, who looks somewhat ashamed of himself for being there, and glances at me knowingly, as if to in- timate that he was conscious of being out of place ; a boy or two, and myself, who examine wax faces and faces of flesh with equal interest. A political or other satire might be made by describing a show of wax-figures of the prominent public men ; and, by the remarks of the showman and the spectators, their characters and public standing might be expressed. And the incident of Judge Tyler as related by E might be introduced . 838 . { AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. 117 A series of strange, mysterious, dreadful events to occur, wholly destructive of a person’s happiness. He to impute them to various persons and causes, but ultimately finds that he is himself the sole agent. Mor- al, that our welfare depends on ourselves. The strange incident in the court of Charles IX. of France: he and five other maskers being attired in coats of linen covered with pitch and bestuck with flax to represent hairy savages. They entered the hall dan- cing, the five being fastened together, and the king in front. By accident the five were set on fire with a torch. Two were burned to death on the spot, two afterwards died ; one fled to the buttery, and jumped into a vessel of water. It might be represented as the fate of a squad of dissolute men. A perception, for a moment, of one’s eventual and moral self, as if it were another person, — the observant faculty being separated, and looking intently at the qualities of the character. There is a surprise when this happens, — this getting out of one’s self, — and then the observer sees how queer a fellow he is. July 21th. — Left home [Salem] on the 23d instant To Boston by stage, and took the afternoon cars for Worcester. A little boy returning from the city, several miles, with a basket of empty custard-cups, the con- tents of which he had probably sold at the depot. Stopped at the Temperance House. An old gentle- man, Mr. Phillips of Boston, got into conversation with me, and inquired very freely as to my character, tastes, 118 AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS* [ 1838 . habits, and circumstances, — a freedom sanctioned by his age, his kindly and beneficent spirit, and the wisdom of his advice. It is strange how little impertinence depends on what is actually said, but rather, on the manner and motives of saying it. “ I want to do you good,” said he with warmth, after becoming, apparently, moved by my communications. “ Well, sir,” replied I. “ I wish you could, for both our sakes ; for I have no doubt it would be a great satisfaction to you.” He asked the most direct questions of another young man • for instance, “ Are you married ? ” having before as- certained that point with regard to myself. He told me by all means to act , in whatever way ; observing that he himself would have no objection to be a servant, if no other mode of action presented itself. The landlord of the tavern, a decent, active, grave, attentive personage, giving me several cards of his house to distribute on my departure. A judge, a stout, hearty country squire, looking elderly ; a hale and rugged man, in a black coat, and thin, light pantaloons. Started for Northampton at half past nine in the morning. A respectable sort of man and his son on their way to Niagara, — grocers, I believe, and calcu- lating how to perform the tour, subtracting as few days as possible from the shop. Somewhat inexperienced travellers, and comparing everything advantageously or otherwise with Boston customs ; and considering themselves a long way from home, while yet short of a hundred miles from it. Two ladies, rather good-look- ing. I rode outside nearly all day, and was very sociable with the driver and another outside passengei*. Towards night, took up an essence-vendor for a short I838."j AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. 119 distance. He was returning home, after having been out on a tour two or three weeks, and nearly exhausted his stock. He was not exclusively an essence-pedler, having a large tin box, which had been filled with dry goods, combs, jewelry, &c., now mostly sold out. His essences were of anise-seed, cloves, red-cedar, worm- wood, together with opodeldoc, and an oil for the hair. These matters are concocted at Ashfield, and the ped- lers are sent about with vast quantities. Cologne-water is among the essences manufactured, though the bottles have foreign labels on them. The pedler was good- natured and communicative, and spoke very frankly about his trade, which he seemed to like better than farming, though his experience of it- is yet brief. He spoke of the trials of temper to which pedlers are sub- jected, but said that it was necessary to be forbearing, because the same road must be travelled again and again. The pedlers find satisfaction for all contumelies m making good bargains out of their customers. This man was a pedler in quite a small way, making but a narrow circuit, and carrying no more than an open basket full of essences ; but some go out with wagon- loads. He himself contemplated a trip westward, in which case he would send on quantities of his wares ahead to different stations. He seemed to enjoy the intercourse and seeing of the world. He pointed out a rough place in the road, where his stock of essences had formerly been broken by a jolt of the stage. Wha/ a waste of sweet smells on the desert air ! The essence labels stated the efficacy of the stuffs for various com- plaints of children and grown people. The driver was an acquaintance of the pedler, and so gave him his 120 AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. [ 1838 . drive for nothing, though the pedler pretended to wish to force some silver into his hand ; and afterwards he got down to water the horses, while the driver was busied with other matters. This driver was a little, dark ragamuffin, apparently of irascible temper, speaking with great disapprobation of his way-bill not being timed accurately, but so as to make it appear as if he were longer upon the road than he was. As he spoke, the blood darkened in his cheek, and his eye looked ominous and angry, as if he were enraged with the person to whom he was speaking; yet he had not real grit, for he had never said a word of his grievances to those concerned. “ I mean to tell them of it by and by. I won’t bear it more than three or four times more,” said he. Left Northampton the next morning, between one and two o’clock. Three other passengers, whose faces were not visible for some hours ; so we went on through unknown space, saying nothing, glancing forth some- times to see the gleam of the lanterns on wayside ob- jects. How very desolate looks a forest when seen in this way, — as if, should you venture one step within its wild, tangled, many-stemmed, and dark-shadowed verge, you would inevitably be lost forever Sometimes we passed a house, or rumbled through a village, stopping perhaps to arouse some drowsy postmaster, who appeared at the door in shirt and pantaloons, yawning, received the mail, returned it again, and was yawning when last seen. A few words exchanged among the passengers, as they roused themselves from their half-slumbers, or dreamy, slumber-like abstraction. Meantime daw’R 1838 .] AMERICAN NOTE BOOKS. 121 broke, our faces became partially visible, the morning air grew colder, and finally cloudy day came on. We found ourselves driving through quite a romantic country, with 'hills or mountains on all sides, a stream on one side, bordered by a high, precipitous bank, up which would have grown pines, only that, losing their footholds, many of them had slipped downward. The road was not the safest in the world ; for often the carriage approached within two or three feet of a preci- pice ; but the driver, a merry fellow, lolled on his box, with his feet protruding horizontally, and rattled on at the rate of ten miles an hour. Breakfast between four and five, — newly caught trout, salmon, ham, boiled eggs, and other niceties, — truly excellent. A bunch of pickerel, intended for a tavern-keeper farther on, was carried by the stage-driver. The drivers carry a “ time- watch ” enclosed in a small wooden case, with a lock, so that it may be known in what time they perform their stages. They are allowed so many hours and minutes to do their work, and their desire to go as fast as possible, combined with that of keeping their horses in good order, produces about a right medium. One of the passengers was a young man who had been in Pennsylvania, keeping a school, — a genteeJ enough young man, but not a gentleman. He took neither supper nor breakfast, excusing himself from one as being weary with riding all day, and from the other because it was so early. He attacked me for a subscription for ^building up a destitute church,” of which he had taken an agency, and had collected two or three hundred dollars, but wanted as many thou- sands. Betimes in the morning, on the descent of a VOL. I. 6 122 AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS' [ 1838 mountain, we arrived at a house where dwelt the mar* ried sister of the young man, whom he was going to visit. He alighted, saw his trunk taken off, and then, hav ing perceived his sister at the door, and turning to bid us farewell, there was a broad smile, even a laugh of pleasure, which did him more credit with me than anything else ; for hitherto there had been a disagree- able scornful twist upon his face, perhaps, however, merely superficial. I saw, as the stage drove off, his comely sister approaching with a lighted-up face to greet him, and one passenger on the front seat beheld them meet u Is it an affectionate greeting ? ” inquired I. “ Yes,” said he, “ I should like to share it ” ; whereby I concluded that there was a kiss exchanged. The highest point of our journey was at Windsor, where we could see leagues around, over the mountain, a terribly bare, bleak spat, fit for nothing but sheep, and without shelter of woods. We rattled downward into a warmer region, beholding as we went the sun shining on portions of the landscape, miles ahead of us, while we were yet in chillness and gloom. It is prob- able that during a part of the stage the mists around us looked like sky clouds to those in the lower regions. Think of driving a stage-coach through the clouds ! Seasonably in the forenoon we arrived at Pittsfield. Pittsfield is a large village, quite shut in by moun- tain walls, generally extending like a rampart on all sides of it, but with insulated great -hills rising here and there in the outline. The area of the town is level ; its houses are handsome, mostly wooden and white but some are of brick, painted deep red, the bricks 123 18 j!\] AMERICAN NOTE-liOOKS. being not of a healthy, natural color. There are hand- some churches, Gothic and others, and a court-house and an academy ; the court-house having a marble front. There is a small mall in the centre of the town, and in the centre of the mall rises an elm of the loftiest and straightest stem that ever I beheld, without a branch or leaf upon it till it has soared seventy or perhaps a hundred feet into the air. The top branches unfortu- nately have been shattered somehow or other, so that it does not cast a broad shade ; probably they were broken by their own ponderous foliage. The central square of Pittsfield presents all the bustle of a thriving village, — the farmers of the vicinity in light wagons, sulkies, or on horseback ; stages at the door of the Berkshire Hotel, under the stoop of which sit or lounge the guests, stage-people, and idlers, observing or assist- ing in the arrivals and departures. Huge trunks and bandboxes unladed and laded. The courtesy shown to ladles in aiding them to alight, in a shower; under umbrellas. The dull looks of passengers, who have driven all night, scarcely brightened by the excitement of arriving at a new place. The stage agent demand- ing the names of those who are going on, — some to Lebanon Springs, some to Albany. The toddy-stick is still busy at these Berkshire public -houses. At din- ner soup preliminary, in city style. Guests : the court people ; Briggs, member of Congress, attending a trial here; horse-dealets, country squires, store-keepers in the village, &c. My room, a narrow crib overlooking a back court-yard, where a young man and a lad were drawing water for the maid-servants, — their jokes, especially those of the lad, of whose wit the elder fel- 124 AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1838. low, being a blockhead himself, was in great admiration, and declared to another that he knew as much as them both. Yet he was not very witty. Once in a while the maid-servants would come to the door, and hear and respond to their jokes, with a kind of restraint, yet both permitting and enjoying them. After or about sunset there was a heavy shower, the thunder rumbling round and round the mountain wall, and the clouds stretching from rampart to rampart. When it abated, the clouds in all parts of the visible heavens were tinged with glory from the west ; some that hung low being purple and gold, while the higher ones were gray. The slender curve of the new moon was also visible brightening amidst the fading bright- ness of the sunny part of the sky. There are marble quarries in and near Pittsfield, which accounts for the fact that there are none but marble grave-stones in the burial-grounds ; some of the monuments well carved ; but the marble does not withstand the wear and tear of time and weather so well as the imported marble, and the sculpture soon loses its sharp outline. The door of one tomb, a wooden door, opening in the side of a green mound, surmounted by a marble obelisk, having been shaken from its hinges by the late explosion of the powder-house, and incompletely repaired, I peeped in at the crevices, and saw the coffins. It was the tomb of Rev. Thomas Allen, first minister of Pittsfield, deceased in 1810. It contained three coffins, all with white mould on their tops : one, a small child’s, rested upon another, and the other was on the opposite side of the tomb, and the lid was considerably displaced ; but, the tomb being dark, I could see neither corpse nor skeleton. "d38.j AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. 12/i Marble also occurs here in North Adams, and thus some very ordinary houses have marble doorsteps, and even the stone walls are built of fragments of marble. Wednesday, y 2 §th. — Left Pittsfield at about eight o’clock in the Bennington stage, intending to go to Williamstown. Inside passengers, — a new married couple taking a jaunt. The lady, with a clear, pale complexion, and a rather pensive cast of countenance, slender, and with a genteel figure ; the bridegroom, a shopkeeper in New York probably, a young man with a stout black beard, black eyebrows, which formed one line across his forehead. They were very loving ; and while the stage stopped, I watched them, quite en- tranced in each other, both leaning sideways against the back of the coach, and perusing their mutual comeli- ness, and apparently making complimentary observa- tions upon it to one another. The bride appeared the most absorbed and devoted, referring her whole being to him. The gentleman seemed in a most paradisiacal mood, smiling ineffably upon his bride, and, when she spoke, responding to her with a benign expression of mat- rimonial sweetness, and, as it were, compassion for the “ weaker vessel,” mingled with great love and pleasant humor. It was very droll. The driver peeped into the coach once, and said that he had his arm round her waist. He took little freedoms with her, tapping her with his cane, — love-pats; and she seemed to see noth- ing amiss. They kept eating gingerbread all along the road, and dined heartily notwithstanding. Our driver was a slender, lathe-like, round-backed, rough-bearded thin-visaged, middle-aged Yankee, who. i 26 AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. f38r*8. became very communicative during our drive. He was not bred a stage-driver, but had undertaken the busi- ness temporarily, as a favor to his brother-in-law. He was a native of these Berkshire mountains, but had for- merly emigrated to Ohio, and had returned for a time to try the benefit of her native air on his wife’s declin- ing health, — she having complaints of a consumptive nature. He pointed out the house where he was married to her, and told the name of the country squire who tied the knot. His wife has little or no chance of recovery, and he said he would never marry again, — this resolution being expressed in answer to a remark of mine relative to a second marriage. He has no children. I pointed to a hill at some distance before us, and asked what it was. “ That, sir,” said he, “ is a very high hill. It is known by the name of Graylock.” He seemed to feel that this was a more poetical epithet than Saddleback, which is a more usual name for it. Graylock, or Saddleback, is quite a respectable moun- tain ; and I suppose the former name has been given to it because it often has a gray cloud, or lock of gray mist, upon its head. It does not ascend into a peak, but heaves up a round ball, and lias supporting ridges on each side. Its summit is not bare, like that of Mount Washington, but covered with forests. The driver said, that several years since the students of Williams College erected a building for ar observatory on the top of the mountain, and employed him to haul the materials for constructing it ; and he was the only man who had driven an ox-team up Graylock. It was necessary to drive the team round and round, in ascend ing. President Griffin rode up on horseback. 1838. j AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. 127 Along our road we passed villages, and often facto- ries, the machinery whirring, and girls looking out of the windows at the stage, with heads averted from their tasks, but still busy. These factories have two, three, or more boaTding-houses near them, two stories high, and of double length, — often with bean-vines running up round the doors, and with altogether a domestic look. There are several factories in different parts of North Adams, along the banks of a stream, — a wild, highland rivulet, which, however, does vast work of a civilized nature. It is strange to see such a rough and untamed stream as it looks to be so subdued to the pur- poses of man, and making cottons and woollens, sawing boards and marbles, and giving employment to so many men and girls. And there is a sort of picturesqueness in finding these factories, supremely artificial establish- ments, in the midst of such wild scenery. For now the stream will be flowing through a rude forest, with the trees erect and dark, as when the Indians fished there ; and it brawls and tumbles and eddies over its rock- strewn current. Perhaps there is a precipice, hundreds of feet high, beside it, down which, by heavy rains or the melting of snows, great pine-trees have slid or fallen headlong, and lie at the bottom, or half-way down, while their brethren seem to be gazing at their fall from the summit, and anticipating a like fate. And then, taking a turn in the road, behold these factories and their range of boarding-houses, with the girls look- ing out of the windows as aforesaid! And perhaps the wild scenery is all around the very site of the factory, and mingles its impression strangely with those opposite ones. These observations were made during a walk yesterday. 128 AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. [1838 I bathed in a pool of the stream that was out of sight, and where its brawling waters were deep enough to cover me, when I lay at length. A part of the road along which I walked was on the edge of a precipice, falling down straight towards the stream ; and in one place the passage of heavy loads had sunk it, so that soon, probably, there will be an avalanche, perhaps carrying a stage-coach or heavy wagon down into the bed of the river. I met occasional wayfarers ; once two women in a cart, — decent, brown-visaged, country matrons, — and then an apparent doctor, of whom there are seven or thereabouts in North Adams ; for though this vicinity is very healthy, yet the physicians are obliged to ride considerable distances among the mountain towns, and their practice is very laborious. A nod is always ex- changed between strangers meeting on the road. This morning an underwitted old man met me on a walk, and held a pretty long conversation, insisting upon shaking hands (to which I was averse, lest his hand should not be clean), and insisting on his right to do so, as being “ a friend of mankind.” He was a gray, bald headed, wrinkled- visaged figure, decently dressed, with cowhide shoes, a coat on one arm, and an umbrella on the other, and said that he was going to see a widow in the neighborhood. Finding that I was not provided with a wife, he recommended a certain maiden of forty years, who had three hundred acres of land. He spoke of his children, who are proprietors of a circus estab- lishment, and have taken a granddaughter to bring up in their way of life ; and he gave me a message to tell them in case we should meet. While this old man ^ ms. | AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. 129 wandering among the hills, his children are the gaze of multitudes. He told me the place where he was born, directing me to it by pointing to a wreath of mist which lay on the side of a mountain ridge, which he termed “ the smoke yonder ’ Speaking of the widow, he said : u My wife has been dead these seven years, and why should not I enjoy myself a little ? ” His manner was full of quirks and quibs and eccentricities, waving his umbrella and gesticulating strangely, with a great deal of action. I suppose, to help his natural foolishness, he had been drinking. We parted, he exhorting me not to forget his message to his sons, and I shouting after him a request to be remembered to the widow. Con- ceive something tragical to be talked about, and much might be made of this interview in a wild road among the hills, with Graylock, at a great distance, looking sombre and angry, by reason of the gray, heavy mist upon his head. The morning was cloudy, and all the near landscape lay unsunned ; but there was sunshine on distant tracts, in, the valleys, and in specks upon the mountain-tops. Between the ridges of hills, there are long, wide, deep valleys, extending for miles and miles, with houses scattered along them. A bulky company of mountains, swelling round head over round head, rises insulated by such broad vales from the surrounding ridges. I ought to have mentioned that I arrived at North Adams in the forenoon of the 26 th, and, liking the aspect of matters indifferently well, determined to make my head-quarters here for a short time. On the road to Northampton, we passed a tame crow, which was sitting on the peak of a barn. The 6 * i 130 AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS. [ 1836 . crow flew down from its perch, and followed us a great distance, hopping along the road, and flying, with its large, black, flapping wings, from post to post of the fence, or from tree to tree. At last he gave up the pursuit with a croak of disappointment. The driver said, perhaps correctly, that the crow had scented some salmon which was in a basket under the seat, and that this was the secret of his pursuing us. This would be a terrific incident if it were a dead body that the crow scented, instead of a basket of salmon. Suppose, for instance, in a coach travelling along, that one of the passengers suddenly should die, and that one of the indications of his death would be this deportment of the crow. July %§th. — Remarkable characters : A disagree able figure, waning from middle age, clad in a pair of tow homespun pantaloons, and a very soiled shirt, bare- foot, and with one of his feet maimed by an axe ; also an arm amputated two or three inches below the elbow. His beard of a week’s growth, grim and grisly, with a general effect of black ; altogether a disgusting object. Yet he has the signs of having been a handsome man in his idea, though now such a beastly figure that probably no living thing but his great dog would touch him without an effort. Coming to the stoop, where several persons were sitting, “ Good morning, gentle- men, ” said the wretch. Nobody answered for a time, till at last one said, “ I don’t know whom you speak to . not to me, I ’m sure ” (meaning that he did not claim to be a gentleman). “ Why, I thought I spoke to you all *t once,” replied the figure, laughing. So he sat him- self down on the lower step of the stoop, and began to AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS* 1838*] 333 talk ; and, the conversation being turned upon his bare feet by one of the company, he related the story of his losing his toes by the glancing aside of an axe, and with what great fortitude he bore it. Then he made a tran- sition to the loss of his arm, and, setting his teeth and drawing in his breath, said that the pain was dreadful ; but this, too, he seems to have borne like an Indian ; and a person testified to his fortitude by saying that he did not suppose there was any feeling in him, from observing how he bore it. The man spoke of the pain of cutting the muscles, and the particular agony at one moment, while the bone was being sawed asunder ; and there was a strange expression of remembered anguish, as he shrugged his half-limb, and described the matter. Afterwards, in a reply to a question of mine, whether he still seemed to feel the hand that had been amputated, he answered that he did always ; and, baring the stump, he moved the severed muscles, saying, “ There is the thumb, there the forefinger,’’ and so on. Then he talked to me about phrenology, of which he seems a firm be- liever and skilful practitioner, telling how he had hit upon the true character of many people. There was a great deal of sense and acuteness in his talk, and some- thing of elevation in his expressions, — perhaps a studied elevation, — and a sort of courtesy in his manner ; but his sense had something out of the way in it ; there was something wild and ruined and desperate in his talk, though I can hardly say what it was. There was a trace of the gentleman and man of intellect through his deep degradation ; and a pleasure in intellectual pursuits, and an acuteness and trained judgment, which bespoke a mind once strong and cultivated. “ My study 132 AMERICAN NOtE-ROOKS. [1838. is man,” said lie. And looking at me, “ I do not knout your name,” he said, “but there is something of the hawk-eye about 'you, too.” This man was formerly a lawyer in good practice ; but, taking to drinking, was reduced to the lowest state. Yet not the lowest ; for after the amputation of his arm, being advised by divers persons to throw himself upon the public for support, he told them that, even if he should lose his other arm, he would still be able to support himself and a servant. Certainly he is a strong-minded and iron-constitutioned man ; but, looking at the stump of his arm, he said that the pain of the mind was a thousand times greater than the pain of the body. “ That hand could make the pen go fast,” said he. Among people in general, he does not seem to have any greater consideration in his ruin because of his former standing in society. He supports himself by making soap ; and, on account of the offals used in that business, there is probably rather an evil odor in his domicile. Talking about a dead horse near his house, he said that he could not bear the scent of it. “ 1 should not think you could smell carrion in that house,” said a stage- agent. Whereupon the soap-maker dropped his head, with a little snort, as it were, of wounded feeling; but immediately said that he took all in good part. There was an old squire of the village, a lawyer, probably, whose demeanor was different, — with a distance, yet with a kindliness ; for he remembered the times when they met on equal terms. 44 You and I,” said the squire, alluding to their respective troubles and sick- nesses, 44 would have died long ago, if we had not had the courage to live.” The poor devil kept talking tc