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I now write to you from a little log-house, in the midst of prairie-land, between Madison and Galena. The log-house belongs to a farm, and is, at the same time, post-house, and a sort of country inn. Mr. D., the son-in-law of my good hostess in Madison, had the kindness to drive me hither himself, in a little open carriage, by which means I made the journey much more comfortably than by the stage, which comes here in the night.

Blue Mound is one of the highest hills in Wisconsin, and derives its name from its fine dark blue color when seen from afar. It appears then as if enveloped in a clear   [p. 643]   purple veil, and is seen at many miles' distance, shining out thus against the soft blue sky. It resembles Kimkulle with us, but is more steep; like Kimkulle, it is covered with pasture-fields and wood.

When I arrived here I was so enchanted with the vast, glorious landscape, and with the view which it afforded over the prairie on all sides, that I resolved to remain here for a couple of days, in order that I might, in peace and solitude, become acquainted with the prairie and the sunflowers.

The house possessed but one guest chamber, and that a little garret within a large garret, in which were lodged half a dozen laboring men. But I was assured that they were very silent and well-behaved, and I was furnished with a piece of wood, with which to fasten the hasp of my door inside, as there was no lock. The room was clean and light, although very low and badly arranged; and I was glad to take up my abode in it, spite of the breakneck steps by which it was reached.

I spent nearly the whole of yesterday out in the prairie, now wandering over it, and gazing out over its infinite extent, which seemed, as it were, to expand and give wings to body and soul; and now sitting among sunflowers and asters, beside a little hillock covered with bushes, reading Emerson, that extraordinary Ariel, refreshing, but evanescent, and evanescent in his philosophic flights as the fugitive wind which sweeps across the prairie, and brings forth from the strings of the electric telegraph melodious tones, which sound and die away at the same moment. His philosophy is like that wind; he himself is something much beyond it, and much better. It is his own individuality which gives that wonderfully bewitching expression to these imperfect concords.

How grand is the impression produced by this infinite expanse of plain, with its solitude and its silence! In truth, it enables the soul to expand and grow, to have a   [p. 644]   freer and deeper respiration. That great West! Yes, indeed; but what solitude! I saw no habitations except the little house at which I was staying; no human beings, no animals; nothing except heaven and the flower-strewn earth. The day was beautiful and warm, and the sun advanced brightly through heaven and over earth, until toward evening, when by degrees it hid itself in light clouds of sun-smoke, which, as it descended, formed belts, through which the fiery globe shone with softened splendor, so that it represented a vast pantheon, with a cupola of gold, standing on the horizon above that immeasurable plain. This Temple of the Sun was to me one which I shall never forget.

To-morrow or the day following I shall leave this place, and on Monday I hope to be on the Mississippi.

I shall now write a few words to young Mrs. D., my beloved sunflower at Madison. I must tell you that the cook in her family, a respectable, clever Norwegian, would not on any terms receive money from me for the trouble she had had on my account.