LETTER XXIX.

ONLY a kiss in spirit and a few lines to-day, because I have so many irons in the fire that I am, as it were, a little bewildered in my head, but that is with sweet wine!

I have been located since last Tuesday in the most agreeable and the most kind of homes, where those most agreeable of human beings and married people, Mr. and Mrs. S., middle-aged, that is to say, about fifty, wealthy and without children, find their happiness in gathering around them friends and relations, and in making them happy. I am occupying one of the many guest-chambers of their handsome and spacious house, and am treated with as much kindness as if I were a member of the family. A pale, gentle, and grave young clergyman (a mourning widower), and two unmarried ladies, relations of my entertainers, compose the family. My host, a giant   [p. 96]   in stature, and his little wife, have a good deal of humor, so that there is no lack of savory salt for the every day meal.

A word now about the journey hither from St. Louis. It was made in six days, by the Asia, safely and quietly, spite of the uneasy companionship of four-and-twenty little children from ten years to a few months old. One could not but think one's self well off if only a third of the number were not crying at once. There were also some passengers of the second or third sort, ladies who smoked their pipes and blew their noses in their fingers, and then came and asked how one liked America. Ugh! There are no greater contrasts than exist between the cultivated and the uncultivated ladies of this country.

One mother with her daughter pleased me, nevertheless, by their appearance and their evident mutual affection. But just as I was about to make some advances to the mother, she began with the question whether the United States answered my expectations. And that operated upon me like a bomb.

I spent my time, for the most part, quietly in my own cabin, finding companionship in my books, and in the spectacle presented by the banks of the river. When evening came, and with it candles, I had the amusement of the children's going to bed in the saloon, for there were not berths for them all. There was among the passengers one young mother, not above thirty years old, with eight children, the youngest still at the breast. She had gone with her husband and children to settle in the Far West, in some one of the Mississippi States, but the husband had fallen ill of cholera on the way, and died within four-and-twenty-hours. And now the young mother is returning with all her fatherless little ones to her paternal home. She is still very pretty, and her figure is delicate. Although now and then a tear may be seen trickling down her cheek as she sits of an evening nursing   [p. 97]   her little baby, yet she does not seem overcome by her loss, or greatly cast down. Seven of the children, four boys and three girls, are laid each evening in one large bed, made upon a long mattress, exactly in front of my door, without any other bedding than this mattress and a coverlit thrown over them. I have been much amused by a little lad of three years old, a regular Cupid both in head and figure, whose little shirt scarcely reached to his middle. He could not manage to be comfortable in the general bed, and longed probably for the warm mother's bosom; and therefore continually crept out of the former, and stole softly and resolutely, in his Adamic innocence, into the circle of ladies, who were sitting round the room talking or sewing by lamp-light. Here he was snapped up by his mother in his short shirt (much in the same way as our dairy-maids may snap up by their wings a chicken which they will put into a pen, or into the pot), and thus carried through the room back to his bed, where he was thrust in, à la chicken, with a couple of slaps upon that portion of his body which his little shirt did not defend, and then covered in with the quilt. In vain. He was soon seen again, white and round, above the quilt, spite of the hands of brothers and sisters, which let fall upon him a shower of blows: higher and higher he rose raised himself on hands and feet, and the next minute my curly-headed Cupid stood on his two bare feet, and walked in among the circle of ladies, lovely, determined, and untroubled by the plague of clothes, or by bashfulness, where he was received by a burst of laughter, to be snapped up again by his mother, and again thrust under the quilt with an extra whipping, but too gentle to make any very deep impression. Again the same scene was renewed, to my great amusement, certainly six or seven times during an hour or two each evening. A little crying, it is true, always accompanied it; but the perseverance and the calm good humor of the little Cupid were   [p. 98]   as remarkable as his beauty, worthy of an Albano's pencil. But pardon me! such tableaux are not exactly of your kind. But this you should have seen!

Now for the scenery by the way. A little below St. Louis, we saw on the Mississippi the magnificent three-decked steamer the St. Louis, run aground in the middle of the river. We steamed past without troubling ourselves about it. It was a beautiful and sunny day. The landscape on the banks presented, for some time, nothing remarkable. Presently, however, on the Missouri bank rose up, close to the river, perpendicular cliffs, the walls of which presented the most remarkable imagery in bass-relief, sometimes also in high relief, of altars, urns, columns and pyramids, porticoes and statues, which it is difficult to persuade one's self are chiseled by the hand of Nature and not of art. These remarkable rocky walls occur at various places, but detached, and only along the Missouri shore.

Thus, still proceeding southward down the Mississippi, we arrived at the embouchure of the Ohio. The scenery here is expansive and flat. The clear blue Ohio, "the beautiful river," flows calmly and confidingly into the turbid Mississippi-Missouri, as the serene soul of one friend into the disquieted mind of another. The banks of both rivers are overgrown with brushwood. The whole region has a mild and cheerful appearance. A little deserted and desolate settlement lay, with its ruinous houses, upon the point between the two rivers. It was called Cairo. It was intended for a great trading town, but had been found so unhealthy that, after several unsuccessful attempts, it had been finally abandoned.

The Asia turned her course majestically eastward, from the Mississippi up the Ohio, between the two states of Ohio and Kentucky. The Ohio River is considerably smaller than the Mississippi; the shores are higher, and more wood-covered. The river is clear and beautiful. One   [p. 99]   sees first along the banks trees being felled and log-huts, then come farms, and, lastly, beautiful country houses upon the hills, which increase in height and in degree of cultivation. The trees become tall and beautiful on each side the river, and in their leafy branches may be observed green knots and clusters, which, in the distance, look not unlike birds' nests. These are mistletoe, which here grows luxuriantly. The views now expand, the trees become more scattered, the hills retire backward, and upon the shore of the beautiful Ohio rises, with glittering church-spires, and surrounded by vineyards and ornamental villas, with a background of a semi-circle of two hills, a large city: it is Cincinnati, the Queen of the West.

Sixty years since this city was not in existence. Its first founder was living here only two years since. Now it has one hundred and twenty thousand inhabitants. That one may call growth.

Before I leave the Asia, I must cast a parting glance at Mehala, the good old negro woman who was the stewardess of the vessel. She was one of those good-tempered, excellent creatures, which one can not help growing fond of, and with a great deal of that tact and prudence which belong to the negro race. She had had fourteen children, but had lost them all by death and slave-dealing. She knew only for a certainty where three of them were te be found, but that was at a great distance. She spoke sorrowfully, but without bitterness. She now belonged to a German family, who had, at her own desire, hired her out for service on the vessel, "because," she said, "they did not understand how to treat their servants." All her aim and endeavor was to save sufficient to purchase her own freedom; then she could, she knew, go to her married daughter in Kentucky, and there maintain herself by washing. She had already saved a little sum. On taking leave, the excellent old woman embraced me so cordially that it did my very heart good. As a contrast to   [p. 100]   this woman was another, the laundress on board, as cross and ill-tempered as the other was amiable.

The Asia had not long reached Cincinnati when a mild, pale gentleman came on board, and conveyed me in a carriage to the new home whither I had been invited. This was the clergyman and friend, the guest of the family, and of whom I have already spoken. When the door of the house opened I was met by a young middle-aged lady, whose charming countenance bore such a speaking impression of goodness and benevolence that I felt myself involuntarily attracted to her, and glad to be in her house; and the attraction and the pleasure have increased ever since.

I have heard Cincinnati variously called "The Queen of the West," "The City of Roses," and "The City of Hogs." It deserves all three names. It is a handsome, nay, a magnificent city, with the most beautiful situation among vineyard-hills, green heights adorned with beautiful villas, and that beautiful river, Ohio, with its rich life and its clear water. It has, in the time of roses, it is said, really an exuberant splendor from these flowers, and I see roses still shining forth pleasantly among the evergreen arbor vitæ, on the terraces, before the beautiful houses. But the predominant character at this moment is as "the City of Hogs." This is, namely, the season when the great droves of these respectable four-footed citizens come from the western farms and villages to Cincinnati, there to be slaughtered in a large establishment solely appropriated to this purpose, after which they are salted and sent to the Eastern and Southern States. I have many times met in the streets whole regiments of swine, before which I made a hasty retreat, partly because they entirely fill up the whole street, partly because their stench fills the air and poisons it. I called them respectable (aktinness wârd), because I in every way guard (akta) myself against them. I have a salutary   [p. 101]   abhorrence of "the whole of their race in this country, and if I could but impart the same to many others, then would there be many healthier and happier people than there are. I now see that Mohammed was a much wiser man and legislator than I imagined." If he could come back, be made President of the United States, and prohibit the eating of swine's flesh, and enforce the prohibition, and drive all swine out of the country, then would the Union be saved from the greatest evil after civil war, from--Dyspepsy!

But among so much that is beautiful and so much that is good, I ought not any longer to detain myself with pigs!

I have had some beautiful rambles here and there in the neighborhood, and have made many interesting acquaintance also out of the house. Foremost among these must I mention the phrenologist, Dr. Buchanan, an intellectual, eccentric little man, full of life and human love, who greatly interests me by his personal character and by the large views which he takes in his Neurology and Analysis of the human brain, "of the immense possibilities of man," allowing at the same time wide scope to the freedom of the human will. Buchanan is, in a high degree, a spiritualist, and he regards spiritual powers too as the most potent agents of all formation --regards the immaterial life as the determiner of the material. Thus he considers the will in man as determining the inner being, as influencing the development of the ductile brain, for good or for evil, and the ductile brain operates upon, elevates or depresses the skull.

Further, I am cheered in a high degree by the views current here on the subject of slavery and its possible eradication, and in the future of the negroes, as well as of Africa, through its colonization by Christian negroes from America, settled on the coast of Africa, and by the products of free labor in a wholly tropical climate being superior to that of slave labor in a half-tropical climate.

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I read in the African Repository, a periodical which is published here by Mr. D. Christy, agent of the Colonization Society in Ohio, some interesting papers on the subject of Liberia and Sierra Leone, and the increase of the colonies on the coast of Africa. The State of Ohio has lately taken a decided step by the purchase of a large district of country on the African coast called Gallinas, several hundred miles in extent, and where the slave-trade was hitherto greatly carried on. Some wealthy men in Cincinnati have appropriated several thousands of dollars to this purpose; and, in consequence of this circumstance, and the new country being colonized by free negroes from Ohio, it is called Ohio in Africa. An essential barrier has thus been placed against the carrying on of the slave-trade on the African coast.

A State Convention is at the present moment being held here, which consists of one hundred and eight citizens, to change, or, to speak more correctly, to develop the Constitution of the State, which is now probably fifty years old. I was present yesterday at one of the sittings, and shook hands with a considerable number of the wise fathers, most of whom are handsome, middle-aged men, with open countenances, and broad, clever foreheads. A great portion of the members are lawyers; there are, however, several farmers, merchants, and men of different trades. Two only of the members were unmarried men. The object which the Convention has in view is to extend the power of the people, as, for example, in the appointment of judges and other official persons.

Other interesting objects there are, besides, which are refreshing to my inmost being. There is really in Ohio a movement of central life as well in thought as in action, which I have not met with in any other state of America; and, however it may be, I seem to be living here in the very centre of the New World.

In short, my little heart, I live. I embrace in my spirit   [p. 103]   the present and the future in various developments, in various parts of the earth, near and afar; and I feel that much is developing itself within my own soul which formerly lay bound, or merely lived with a half existence; and I thank God!

December. I have now resided nearly three weeks in this good home, with these kind and good S.'s, and seen a good deal of people and of the town, as well as of the beautiful region around this place. The country is of the most beautiful and of the most attractive character that any one can imagine; lovely villas are scattered over the fertile hills, and commanding the most glorious views over the river and the whole country. The people--yes, they are even here of all sorts, the good and the bad, the agreeable and the disagreeable; some most amiable, with whom one would wish to remain long, to remain always, and others whom one would wish--where the pepper grows. Yet the greater number whom I have seen belong to the good and charming, and I have enjoyed much happiness with them.

I saw three young brides at a bridal party the other day, all of them very handsome, one remarkably so, for a beautiful soul beamed in her countenance. I said to her with my whole heart, "God bless you!" I saw on this occasion many beautiful toilets and many beautiful faces. The American ladies dress well and with good taste. And here, indeed, one seems to meet nothing but handsome faces, scarcely a countenance which may be called ugly. Yet, nevertheless, I think it would be a refreshment to see such a one, if in it I found that beauty which seems to me generally, not always, to be deficient in these truly lovely human roses, and which I may compare to the dewy rose-bud in its morning hour. There is a deficiency of shadow, of repose, of the mystery of being, of that nameless, innermost depth, which attracts the mind with a silent power in the consciousness of hidden and noble   [p. 104]   treasure. There is a deficiency of that quiet grace of being, which in itself alone is beauty. Am I unjust? Is it the glitter of the drawing-room and the chandelier which bewilders me?

One observation I considered as well founded. Artifice and vanity exercise no less power over our sex in this country than they do in the great cities of Europe, and far more than in our good Sweden. Some proofs of this fact have almost confounded me. The luxurious habits and passion for pleasure of young married ladies have not unfrequently driven their husbands to despair and to drunkenness. I once heard a young and handsome lady say, "I think that ladies, after they are married, are too little among gentlemen. When I go to a ball I always make it a duty to forget my children."

A scandalous lawsuit is now pending here between a young couple who have been married a few years. It was most magnificent wedding; the establishment, furniture, every thing, was as expensive and splendid as possible; every thing was silk, and velvet, and jewels. Soon, however, discord arose between the married pair, in consequence, it is said, of the young wife's obstinacy in rouging against the wish of her husband. Her vain and foolish mother appears to have taken the side of the daughter against the husband, and now the two are parted, and a correspondence is published which redounds to the honor of none of the family.

On the other hand, the besetting sins of the men in the Great West are gambling and drunkenness; it may be summed up in that state of feeling which is called recklessness.

"For what do people marry here in the West; for love or for money?" inquired I of an elderly, clever, and intellectual gentleman, one of my friends.

"For money," replied he, shortly.

His wife objected to that severe judgment; but he   [p. 105]   would not retract it, and she was obliged to concede that money had a great influence, after all, in the decision of a match.

That marriages, in spite of this, should often turn out happy, must be attributed to our Lord's mercy, and to the firm moral principles which are instilled into this generation by nature and education, and supported by the influence of general moral opinions. Nor is it other than natural that under such circumstances many marriages are also unhappy, and that the number of divorces is large in a portion of the American States where the law does not lay any very momentous impediment in the way. The frequency of divorce here may also be caused by the circumstance of the Americans having less patience than other people with imperfection, and preferring to cut the Gordian knot asunder, than labor through a course of years in unloosening it. "Life is short!" say they.

Yet in the mean time have I nowhere seen more perfectly happy marriages than in America; but these were not entered into for the sake of money.

"What is there better here in the Western States than in those of the East that makes you prefer living here?" inquired I of my excellent hostess.

"More freedom and less prejudice," replied she; "more regard to the man than to his dress and his external circumstances; a freer scope for thought and enterprise, and more leisure for social life."

And yet I seem here to have remarked that shortness of temper, impatience, misunderstandings, and envyings, all the petty feuds of social life, no less take up their quarters here than in other great cities of the New World. The good seed and the tares spring up together every where in the fields of the earth, whether in the West or whether in the East.

The climate of Cincinnati is not good; the air is keen, and the rapid alternations in the weather may have some   [p. 106]   effect in producing that irritability of temperament which I seemed to observe.

It has been a pleasure to me while here to attend various lectures, and foremost among them I must mention Dr. Buchanan's animated and really intellectual extempore address in the Medical College on the activity of the brain and its relationship to human free-will. Another also, on Lord Bacon of Verulam, by the young Unitarian minister, Mr. Livermore, which was interesting from its impartiality and its profound pshychological glance. A third was by a planter and quondam slaveholder, Mr. Casius M. Clay, of Kentucky, who emancipated the slaves upon his plantation, and now, having come forward as the opponent of slavery, a hostile feeling has been excited against him in the slave states. Hence it happened that during a public lecture given by him on the slavery question a year ago at a city of Kentucky (Louisville, I believe), he was attacked by a ferocious man and his adherents, who beat and cut him dreadfully, while he, unprepared for such an onslaught, had no weapon wherewith to defend himself. Already severely wounded by many bowie-knives, he would probably have perished had not his little son of thirteen bravely thrust his way through the crowd to his father, and given him a bowie-knife for his defense. Clay could now stand on the defensive, and he did that with so much effect that he gave his opponent his death-wound. He himself lay sick of the wounds which he had received for nearly twelve months, and this was now the first time after his recovery that he had given a public lecture, but not now in Kentucky, in Ohio.

The large hall in which he was to speak was full to overflowing. I had already become acquainted with him at the bridal party, and he had since then paid me a visit, and I was pleased with his manly, determined demeanor, and the deep gleam in his dark blue eye, as well as by   [p. 107]   the view he took of the necessarily rude and low condition of a state in which slavery is a "domestic institution," of its corrupting influence on the morals and tone of mind, and, as a consequence thereof, the dominion of the pistol and the bowie-knife. His belief was that negro slaves might and ought to be transformed into free laborers. I inquired from him how his own slaves conducted themselves as freemen.

"Excellently!" replied he; "but there were not many of them, and they had, by degrees, been prepared for freedom."

He inveighed boldly and earnestly in his speech this evening against an institution which loosened all family bonds and degraded women, and he uttered a violent tirade against the new Fugitive Slave Bill, as well as against Daniel Webster, who had supported it. He recalled to his recollection a painting, which he had seen as a child, in which the fires of Purgatory were represented. There might be seen various poor sinners who were endeavoring to come forth from the devouring flames, but a superintendent devil stood by with horns and claws, and a huge hay-fork in his hand, ever ready to seize each poor soul about to escape from the fire, to take him on the prongs of his fork and hurl him back again. This superintendent devil he recognized as Daniel Webster.

That was the brilliant point in the speech, which throughout was conventional, and which passed over from the Slave Bill and Webster to the Bible and Christianity. The clever combatant was not successful on this ground, and proved himself to be a poor theologian, inasmuch as he mistook Christianity for that contracted Church which lays sole claim to the appellation, and measured the words of the Bible according to their abuse or their irrational misapplication. But this abuse of Scripture is so common among the defenders of slavery, even among the clergy, that I am not surprised at many persons being   [p. 108]   provoked by it, and being led to suspect the wells of truth, from which men will draw up lies.

The numerous assembly, however, had a keen sense; they perceived the error and preserved silence. The speaker, who had been received with demonstrations of great enthusiasm, found his audience much cooled at the close.

Ohio is, as you know, a free state, and exactly on the opposite side of the beautiful river which bears its name lies the slave state of Kentucky, and slaves flying across the river to reach a free shore were heard of formerly as an every-day occurrence. Now such a flight avails nothing to the poor slaves. They are pursued and recaptured as well in a free as in a slave state.

I have heard histories of the flight of slaves which are full of the most intense interest, and I can not conceive why these incidents do not become the subjects of romances and novels in the literature of this country. I know no subject which could furnish opportunities for more heart-rending or more picturesque descriptions and scenes. The slaves, for example, who fly "the way of the North Star," as it is called, who know no other road to liberty than the road toward the North, who wander on by night when it shines, and conceal themselves by day in the deep forests, where sometimes gentle Friends (Quakers) carry out food to them, without which they would probably perish: this journey, with its dangers and its anticipations, its natural scenery and its nocturnal guiding star--what subjects are here for the pen of genius! Add to this the converse, the agony or the joy of warm, loving, suffering human hearts--in short, here are subjects of a higher romantic interest than are found in Chateaubriand's "Atala." I can not understand why, in particular, noble-minded American women, American mothers who have hearts and genius, do not take up the subject, and treat it with a power which should pierce through bone and marrow,   [p. 109]   should reduce all the prudential maxims of statesmen to dust and ashes, and produce a revolution even in the old widely-praised Constitution itself. It is the privilege of the woman and the mother which suffers most severely through slavery. And if the heart of the woman, and the woman would heave warmly and strongly with maternal life's blood, I am convinced that the earth, the spiritual earth of the United States, must quake thereby and overthrow slavery!

Often when I have heard the adventures of fugitive slaves, their successful escape or their destruction, and have thought of the natural scenery of America, and of those scenes which naturally suggest themselves on "the way of the North Star," I have had a wish and a longing desire to write the history of a fugitive pair, so as it seems to me it ought to be written, and I have been inclined to collect materials for that purpose. And if I lived by this river and amid these scenes, I know for what object I should then live. But as it is, I am deficient in local knowledge. I am not sufficiently acquainted with the particular detail of circumstances, which would be indispensable for such a delineation, which ought to be true, and to take a strong hold upon the reader. That office belongs to others besides myself. I will hope for and expect--the American mother.

Ohio is called "the Buckeye State," from the brown fruit of a kind of chestnut called the buckeye, which is very general throughout the state. The state is said to possess a fertile soil, good for grain and the rearing of cattle, and pastorally beautiful scenery, although not of a magnificent character. Both this state and Kentucky are renowned for their fine trees. I regret that the season of the year does not permit seeing more of their beauty and of the country; of that rich country which could maintain eight or ten millions of inhabitants beyond its present number.

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All within doors is good, peaceful, and charming. A new guest, a friend of the family, has enlivened the social circle for the last few days. He is a Mr. D., from New England, but not at all a Yankee in disposition; on the contrary, he seems quite refined, very dapper, and highly perfumed, as if he had just stepped out of Madame De Sêvignê's drawing-room circle into ours. He interests himself principally for social life and literature, for friends and acquaintance, for agreeable objects and the pleasures of the hour; is an amateur of handsome ladies, bonmots, and bonne chère; is acquainted with the minutest niceties of Shakspeare; and is able to see great things in a little billet of four lines written by a lady's hand; for the rest, he is an honorable man, a devoted friend, a good companion, and one who talks well on every-day subjects.

He has given a new turn to our observations of the Great West, regarding it from a mythological point of view, and as a new Jothunhun with Thor and Loke, the Krimthursar and Giants. And the comparisons which he makes between the Scandinavian Jothunhun, its heroes and their adventures, which he reads from a translation of Sturleson's Edda, by the poet Longfellow, and that of the New World's now existing Jothunhun and its giants, furnish occasion for many amusing narratives and relations. Thus the extreme West becomes the new Utgaerd, full of monsters and witches; the mammoth grotto is the glove of Skyenin; the divine hog, Schrimmer, lives here a thousand-fold, and the achievements of Thor and Starkotter are renewed in those of the giants of the giant river and the states of the Mississippi. Of these we have a great number of anecdotes, which season our meals, and our host, Mr. S. (whom Mr. D. and I call "the good Jothun," and who seems to like the title very well), contributes many a racy and amusing addition to this mythology of the West. See here two specimens.

A man, one of the men of the West, was standing on   [p. 111]   the shore of the Mississippi, when a steamer blew up in the air, on which he exclaimed, "By God! the Americans are a great people!" A common exclamation in the Great West on every occasion.

Another man, a Viking on the Mississippi, struck his boat upon a snag in the river, and as he himself hung upon this, he exclaimed, while his boat was dashed to pieces,

"Hail, Columbia, happy land!
If I'm not lost, I'll be d--d!"

Another man, a passenger in one of the Mississippi steamers, lately got into a quarrel with another passenger. They went upon the upper deck and exchanged a few shots, and then came down again as if they had only been playing at ball. One of these gentlemen looked rather pale and went into his cabin, but came out morning, noon, and evening regularly to his meals for two days; on the third, however, he was found dead in his bed, with five bullets in his body.

One must confess that this was taking the matter coolly.

A certain humorous exaggeration seems to be characteristic of the inhabitants of the West, as well in their combatant disposition as in expression. Kentucky is particularly accused of this, and gives occasion for many amusing stories. Thus it is told of a Kentucky man that he boasted of the fertility of the soil of Kentucky in the following words: "If we manure well, and sow corn (maize), we shall get about one hundred and fifty grains for each one; if we sow without manure, we get one hundred; and if we neither manure nor sow, we get about fifty."

The Jothun histories belong now to our daily bread, and new ones come up every day. With Mr. S., the pale minister, I do not, however, talk about such things, but, on the contrary, of theology and Swedenborgology. We   [p. 112]   dispute a little; but I find so much to learn from the crystally-pure truth and beauty of his soul, that I have more pleasure in listening to its quiet expression than in maintaining my own arguments. He is one of the quiet in the land, whose lives are their best teaching. He still sorrows deeply for his departed wife.

"People do not know how sufficiently to value the blessings of matrimony," said he to me on one occasion. "We do not live in marriage up to the height of that happiness and that life which we, nevertheless, hold in our own hand."

Miss Harriet, the eldest sister of Mrs. S., an excellent, stout, grave, elderly lady, near upon sixty, does not make her appearance till dinner, and but very seldom in the drawing-room. On the contrary, I often found that she had some employment in my room, and in my drawers, and about my wash-stand, and that it was done stealthily, which appeared to me a little extraordinary, until I put in connection with it another extraordinary thing, and thus, by means of the latter, was able to explain the former. I discovered, namely, in my drawers, that a collar or a pair of muslin sleeves, which I had laid aside because they had become somewhat too gray for wear, had reassumed, by some inexplicable means, their pure white color, and lay there fresh washed and ironed as if of themselves. In the same way I found that the old collar had been mended, and still more, a new collar exhibited itself trimmed with real lace, and a new pair of muslin sleeves which had never been there before, but which were exactly of the kind that I wore --and for all that, Miss Harriet, when I met her, looked as grave as ever, and just as if she would say that she never concerned herself with other people's affairs, and wished that neither would others trouble themselves about hers. It was some time before I, in real earnest, began to suspect that Miss Harriet had taken upon herself the charge of the getting up and   [p. 113]   repairing of my fine linen, and supplying such new as I seemed to stand in need of. And when at length I charged her with it, she tried to look a little cross, but that good, roguish smile betrayed her; but the good, kind, sisterly soul has since then not been able to keep me at a distance by her somewhat harsh voice and grave manner. But that this voice never spoke other than in truth, and that under that apparently cold demeanor there dwelt a good, honest heart, a clear and sound understanding, a somewhat jocose and excellent temper and powers of conversation--all this I discovered by degrees, and this also had I been assured of by Mr. H.

And who is Mr. H.? He is one of the gentleman friends of the house, a man whom I would very gladly have for a friend. More of him you will probably know hereafter, as we are to be fellow-travelers to New Orleans.

Miss V., the second and younger friend and inmate of the family, is so silent and quiet, and it is merely from the lofty; intellectual forehead, and the repose of the whole noble figure, that one is led to suppose that she is the possessor of more than ordinary talent. True, however, it is, that now and then an observation is made, or some play of words is quietly and carelessly uttered, which makes one turn one's head, at once amused and surprised, toward the unpretending Miss V., because one seldom hears any where any thing so good as what she has said.

Thus, to-day at dinner, when they were talking of the excitement which Jenny Lind had produced in the United States, somebody said that they had seen an announcement offering "Jenny Lind herrings" for sale, and Miss V. immediately remarked that it was a selfish idea. And when we began to laugh, and some one said, "Oh, Miss V., do you make such puns?" our good Jothun returned, à la Kentuckian, "Yes, certainly--yes, certainly, she does nothing else. She it is who furnishes all our newspapers with puns."

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But she does other things also for the pleasure of the family, and among these is the manipulation of delicate sponge-cake, the best cake which is made in this country, and of Which I have here an abundance, as a reminder of the giant character of the Great West.

You thus may see a little of our every-day life; but the pearl of all to me in social life and conversation is my charming little, sensible, and kind hostess.

I have also here the pleasure of frequently hearing pieces by Beethoven played by a young girl, Miss K. G., one of the most intimate friends of the family; and played with so much fidelity, with such an inward comprehension, that not a tone nor intention of the great master is lost. This is a source to me of the greatest enjoyment. This young lady has in her appearance a great deal of that inward, beaming beauty, which I value beyond the mere exterior beauty, which is more common in the youthful countenances of this country. At my request she has carefully studied Beethoven's second adagio in the fourth symphony, which so much charmed me at Boston. Among the people who have given me pleasure here, I must mention a young poetess, Mrs. L., handsome, highly gifted, and amiable. It is a real musical delight to hear her read poetry.

Many Swedes are resident at this place, and among them several who, after having been unsuccessful in the Old World, have succeeded in the New, and are now in comfortable circumstances. One of these has made his fortune by exhibiting "Hell," a youthful production of the American sculptor, Hiram Powers, who was born in Cincinnati, worked here at a watchmaker's, and here commenced various works of art. Among these was a mechanical, moving representation of Hell. The Swede purchased it, set it up in a kind of museum, invited people to come and see how things went on in Hell, passed some violent electric shocks among them, accompanied by thunder   [p. 115]   and lightning, and is now a rich man, with wife, children, and country house, all acquired by his representation of Hell.

There are some American homes in Cincinnati into which I will introduce you. First to the home where a young widowed mother lives for the education and development of her five beautiful little boys into good Christians and fellow-citizens; then to the home where married couples without children make life rich to one another, through kindness and intelligence, dispelling ennui from their fireside, and causing sickness to become a means of deeper union between heart and heart, between heaven and earth. This is, in particular, a home where I know you would feel as I did; for it is beautiful to see people live well, but still more beautiful and still more rare to see them die so. And in this home there is one dying; quite a young girl, lovely as a rose-bud, and with such a fresh rose-tint on her cheek that no stranger could believe that death was at her heart. But she must die, and her mother knows it too. She suffers from a fatal disease of the heart; and the heart, which is becoming too large for the narrow chest, will cease to beat in a few weeks. Both mother and daughter know this, and prepare themselves, during the days and nights of suffering which they spend together, for their approaching separation, and this with heavenly light and calm. They speak of it to each other as of something beautiful for the younger one, and she prepares herself for the companionship of angels by becoming beneath the cross of suffering more patient, more affectionate to all--more like an angel still. There is nothing gloomy in this sick-room; friends come thither with presents and with love, still more to gladden the young girl, while she lingers on the brink of the grave, and to obtain from her a word or a glance from that heaven with which she is already in communion.

This serenity as regards death, and this preparation for   [p. 116]   its approach, are of more general occurrence among the people of England and North America than in any other country that I am acquainted with. People there regard it as one of their human privileges, that, as it must occur, to become acquainted with its state, and their own pilgrimage of death; to approach the hour of their change with an open glance and a vigilant mind, and with a full consciousness of the importance of their transit, to prepare themselves for it.

December 16th. A day of supreme life from a great number of living interests and thoughts. Thoughts regarding the human brain and the central point of view in which man stands with regard to the whole universe; glimpses of prevision from this sun and point of sight through an infinite expanse into the realms of all life, are predominant in my soul. Shall I ever be in full possession of myself, ever fully possess the world of thought which flashes through my soul?

I can not write much more to you to-day, because I must write many letters, and, above all, one to Böklin, which I shall inclose in this, and which you can read if you so incline. It will complete various things in my letter to you. Spite of all the interests which detain me here, and all the charms of my home, I long to proceed southward. I am afraid of the winter in the keen air of Cincinnati, and of the American mode of heating rooms, which is horrible. It is unquestionably the cause of much of that disease which seems more and more on the increase among the class of people who live most comfortably and most within doors. I long also to reach the South before Christmas, that I may, if possible, have an opportunity of seeing those dances and festivities of which I have heard are common among the negroes of the plantations at Christmas. I have heard much said about the happiness of the negroes in America, of their songs and dances, and I wish, therefore, for once to see this happiness and their   [p. 117]   festivals. In South Carolina and Georgia the preachers have done away with dancing and the singing of songs. In Louisiana there is no preaching to the slaves; perhaps they may there sing and dance.

17th. A large and excellent steamer leaves this evening for New Orleans, and with it I shall proceed thither with my cavalier, Mr. H.

I must still say a few words to you about two very pleasant parties which have been given by my friends. My objection to small familiar evening parties in America is that they occupy themselves so little by reading aloud, or by any other means of drawing the little circle toward one common point of interest.

In large parties, however, many of the elements are met with which make social intercourse perfect, among which may be reckoned as foremost that the two sexes are properly intermingled. One never sees the gentlemen here all crowding into one room, and the ladies into another, or the former in one corner of the drawing-room and the latter in another, just as if they were afraid of each other. The gentlemen who come into society--and they seem very fond of drawing-room society in an evening--consider it as a duty, and, as it seems to me, often also a pleasure, to entertain the ladies, and this evident good-will on their part awakes in them, perhaps, not a greater desire, but certainly a greater power of being agreeable and entertaining, more ability to impart to men of good taste and noble mind something much better than cigar smoke and punch. A gentleman will commonly occupy himself for a long time, frequently the whole evening, with one lady. People sit on lounges, or on small sofas of all sorts, in pairs, conversing together; or the gentleman gives the lady his arm, and they take a promenade through the room. Sometimes two ladies will sit conversing together for a long time; but the rule is for the two who associate together to be man and woman. Nor is it always the   [p. 118]   handsomest nor the most elegant lady who wins the most attention. I have seen Mr. H., a young and very agreeable man, occupy himself for whole hours in animated conversation with Miss Harriet. True it is that he has a great esteem for her, and in this he shows his good taste. I do not know that I have ever seen card-playing in any parties, large or small, in this country.

I shall always remember with feelings of affection some young girls with whom I have lately become acquainted, one among whom has lately met with a bitter trial; but, instead of allowing it to embitter her own heart, it has only the more caused it to expand with sympathy to all who suffer. God's peace rest upon that young girl! She would become very dear to me. Some sisters also there were, who in pleasure and in pain live together as sisters seldom do live. And that K. G., with her beaming soul and her music, she will always remain near my heart; but now I must proceed on my journey, and for this I must get ready.

"Belle Key," the steamer by which I shall travel, so called from the beautiful daughter of its proprietor, a belle of Louisville, is a sort of giant vessel, which, laded with every kind of product of the Great West, goes as a Christmas-envoy to New Orleans.

It is now cold at Cincinnati: the Queen of the West rains down soot and ashes, so that one becomes quite grimy. I long to be with that great Christmas-beast once more on the Mississippi.

P.S.--It is said that there is especially fine wooing in the Great West; a young girl has at least three or four suitors to choose from. Certainly, the number of men considerably predominates over that of women. In the Eastern States it seems to me that the women are in excess. The men go out thence into the West on the search for occupation and wealth. The preponderance of men over women increases the further you advance westward.

  [p. 119]  

It was said at Cincinnati that at a ball at San Francisco there were fifty gentlemen for one lady. It is also said that in the gold district, Where there are great numbers of men and no Women, that they hung up in some kind of museum a lady's dress, which was contemplated as a sort of fabulous thing. But I suspect that this belongs to the mythological legends of the Great West.

In the same category may be placed that of the Garden of Eden near Cincinnati, which I am invited to visit. It is said to be a large vineyard; but the beauty of the views from the heights of the Ohio may justify the name.