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 IVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNI1 
 
 IVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNh 
 
THE 
 
 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
The right of Translation is reserved. 
 
i Jteit- UK 
 " 
 
 
 I 1 
 
 
H. O M[ 1, 
 
 <x 
 
 HALL. ViRTtJE 
 
THE 
 
 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD ; 
 
 IMPEESSIONS OF AMERICA. 
 
 BY 
 
 FREDRIKA BREMER. 
 
 TRANSLATED BY MARY HOWITT. 
 
 " SING UNTO THE LORD A NEW SOXG." Psalm XCVi. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 YOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 AETHUR HALL, VIETTJE, & CO. 
 
 25, PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 
 1853. 
 
LONDON : 
 BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS. 
 
Bg 
 
 v, / 
 
 TO THE EEADEE. 
 
 THE only excuse for troubling thee with so long a 
 correspondence is, that if it had not been published in this 
 manner, it would not have been published at all. And 
 ray excuse for publishing it at all is that, for many 
 reasons I would not abstain from doing so. 
 
 In placing these letters in thy hand, dear reader, I 
 should wish that thy mind might be favourably disposed 
 toward them, or at least, might not be in opposition to 
 the spirit in which these letters were first written. They 
 need it more than anything which I have yet written, 
 because, I cannot conceal it from myself, they suffer from 
 egotism the offence of all autobiography. This, 
 whilst it may not offend the sympathetic feelings of a 
 brother or sister, may easily offend the stranger who does 
 not partake in them. Much therefore in the letters which 
 referred to myself, and which was personally agreeable to 
 me, has been omitted in their transcription for the press, 
 but not all, otherwise the ingenuous character of the 
 letters must have been sacrificed, together with the 
 
vi TO THE READER. 
 
 peculiar colouring of my life and its circumstances in 
 America. Much remains of that which individually 
 pleased or annoyed me perhaps more than should have 
 remained. Whilst transcribing these letters I have often 
 been unable to realise to myself that I was then preparing 
 them for the public, and not writing them merely to my 
 sister, " my innermost," to whom even the innermost 
 might be revealed, and the most childish things be spoken. 
 As soon as I began to write, that sister always stood 
 before me, with her mild, heavenly eyes, her indulgent 
 smile, intercepting the view of my unknown readers. I 
 saw only her, I forgot them. I know that I have often 
 erred in this way, and especially, in the earlier portion 
 of these collected letters, during a time when illness 
 rendered me weak, and weakness strengthened egotism. 
 If I have allowed this illness to remain too prominent in 
 this portion of the letters, there is, however, this excuse 
 for it, that it is a malady, which is very prevalent 
 in America, which is caused by the climate, the general 
 diet and mode of life, and against which both natives and 
 emigrants cannot be sufficiently cautioned. And if I have 
 said too much about this malady and its causes, other 
 authors, on the contrary, have said too little. It is the 
 most dangerous monster of the New World. In extreme 
 cases it leads to the madhouse or to death. Happy they 
 who know how to avoid it, or who, at the commencement, 
 find, as I did, a good physician, who, by the united powers 
 of diet and medicine, is able to avert the malady before it 
 gains too much ascendancy. 
 
TO THE READER. vii 
 
 I have in the letters to my sister preserved the endear 
 ing epithets as they were originally written, and which we 
 in Sweden make use of among relatives or dear friends ; 
 although many readers may think them somewhat childish. 
 I cannot help it. I have attempted to exclude them and 
 to substitute others more befitting, but I could not succeed ; 
 such appeared stiff, unnatural and prosaic. Better the 
 childish than the prosaic, thought I ; and the little words 
 will, I trust, be overlooked for the sake of the great 
 matter, which, without any merit of mine, is yet contained 
 in these letters. 
 
 And if, dear reader, thou hast now and then patience 
 with the letter-writer when she speaks in sickness of 
 body, or in the foolishness of affection, thou wilt be 
 rewarded by being led, in her healthier and stronger 
 moments, as by a sisterly hand, into a more familiar and 
 cordial intimacy with that great country beyond the 
 Atlantic, with its people, its homes, and its inner life, 
 than might otherwise have been the case ; and this thou 
 wilt find is worth all the trouble. 
 
 I know the faults of my work, a knowledge often 
 painful to me, better than my reader, or any one else. 
 And this knowledge would depress me, if I did not know 
 at the same time, that all which is best in this work will 
 contribute in bringing nearer to each other the good 
 homes of the New World, and the good homes of Europe, 
 and above all those of my native land ; in bringing the 
 noble, warm hearts there, nearer to those which beat 
 
viii TO THE READER, 
 
 here, and thus, as far as I am able, aid in knitting 
 together the beautiful bonds of brotherhood between 
 widely-sundered nations. 
 
 Mayst thou, dear reader, feel the same, and let this 
 
 reconcile thee to the 
 
 LETTER-WRITER. 
 
TO MY AMEEICAN FKIENDS. 
 
 STOCKHOLM, May, 1853. 
 
 THESE letters were written in your homes whilst I lived 
 there with you, as a sister with her brothers and sisters ; 
 in the North, in the West, in the South, of your great 
 country. They were written during familiar intercourse 
 with you. And without you they would not have been 
 what they now are, for without you I could not have become 
 acquainted with the Homes of the New World, nor have 
 been able from your sacred peaceful hearths to contem 
 plate social life beyond. To you, therefore, I inscribe 
 these Letters. They will bear witness to you of me, and 
 of my life among you. You said to me, 
 
 " We hope that you will tell us the truth." 
 
 You wished nothing else from me. I have endeavoured 
 to fulfil your wishes. Be you my judges ! 
 
 That which I saw and found in the New World has 
 been set down in these letters. They are, for the most 
 part, outpourings from heart to heart ; from your homes 
 to my home in Sweden. When I wrote, I little thought 
 
x TO MY AMERICAN FRIENDS. 
 
 of committing them to the press, little thought of writing 
 a book in America, least of all in these letters, and of 
 that they bear internal evidence. Had such a thought been 
 present with me, they would have been different to what 
 they are ; they would have been less straightforward and 
 natural ; more polished, more attired for company, but 
 whether better I cannot say. My mind in America was 
 too much occupied by thoughts of living, to think of 
 writing about life. Life was overpowering. 
 
 The idea of writing letters on America did not occur 
 to me until I was about to leave the great land of 
 the West, and the feeling became more and more strong 
 in me, that what I had seen and experienced during these 
 two years journeyings was not my own property alone, 
 but that I had a duty to fulfil as regarded it. I had, it is 
 true, a presentiment from the first that the great New 
 World would supply me with many subjects for thought, to 
 be made use of at some future time, perhaps even in books, 
 but in what manner, in what books of that I had no dis 
 tinct idea. I confess to you that I went about in America 
 with the thought of metamorphosing the whole of 
 America in a novel ; and you, my friends, into its heroes 
 and heroines : but that with such subtle delicacy, that 
 none of you should be able to recognise either America or 
 yourselves. 
 
 But the realities of your great country could not be 
 compressed into a novel. The novel faded away like a 
 rainbow in the clouds, and the reality stood only the 
 stronger forward, in all its largeness, littleness, pleasant 
 ness, sorrow, beauty, completeness, manifold and simple, 
 
TO MY AMERICAN FRIENDS. xi 
 
 in one word, in all its truth ; and I felt that my best work 
 would be merely a faithful transcript of that truth. But 
 how that was to be accomplished I did not clearly know 
 when I left America. 
 
 " You will understand, you will know it all when you 
 are at home ! " frequently said that precious friend who 
 first met me on the shore of the New "World, whose home 
 was the first into which I was received, whom I loved to 
 call my American brother, and who beautified my life 
 more than I can tell by the charm of his friendship, by the 
 guidance of his keen intellect and his brotherly kindness 
 and care ; whose image is for ever pictured in my soul in 
 connection with its most beautiful scenes, its romantic 
 life, its Indian summer, and, above all, its highland 
 scenery on that magnificent river, where he had built his 
 delightful home, and now has his grave ! Yet no, not 
 alone in connection with these pictures does he live before 
 me ; time and space do not contain a character such as 
 his. To-day, as yesterday, and in eternity, shall I perceive 
 his glance, his voice, his words, as they were once present 
 with me ; they are united with all that is beautiful and 
 noble in the great realm of creation. His words are a 
 guide to me as well in Sweden as they were in America. 
 I love to recal every one of them. 
 
 " You will know it all when you come into your own 
 country," said he with reference to many questions, many 
 inquiries, which at my departure from America were dark 
 to my understanding. 
 
 The thought of publishing the letters which I had 
 written home from America, as they first flowed from my 
 
xii TO MY AMERICAN FRIENDS. 
 
 pen on the paper, or as nearly so as possible, did not 
 occur to me until several months after my return, when 
 with a feeble and half-unwilling hand I opened these 
 letters to a beloved sister who was now no longer on 
 earth. I confess that the life which they contained 
 reanimated me, caused my heart to throb as it had done 
 when they were written, and I could not but say to myself, 
 " These, the offspring of the moment, and warm feeling, are, 
 spite of all their failings, a more pure expression of the 
 truth which my friends desire from me, and which I wish , 
 to express, than any which I could write with calm 
 reflection and cool hand." And I resolved to publish the 
 letters as they had been inspired by the impression of the 
 moment, and have on their transcription merely made 
 some omissions and occasional additions. The additions 
 have reference principally to historical and statistical facts 
 which I found passingly touched upon in the letters or in 
 my notes, and which are now amplified. The omissions 
 are of such passages as refer to my OWTL affairs or those of 
 others, and which I considered as of too private or too 
 delicate a nature to bear publicity. I have endeavoured 
 in my communications from private life not to overstep 
 the bounds which a sense of honour and delicacy pre 
 scribed; nor to introduce anything which it would be 
 undesirable to publish, either as regarded confidential 
 communication or the names of individuals. I am deeply 
 sensible of the requirements of delicacy in this respect ; 
 and nothing would be more painful to me than to feel 
 that from want of due circumspection I had failed 
 herein. 
 
TO MY AMERICAN FRIENDS. xiii 
 
 I fear, nevertheless, that some of my friends may feel 
 their delicacy wounded by the praise which I could not 
 always withhold. They must forgive me for my love s 
 sake ! 
 
 I have lived in your country and your homes with no 
 
 F 
 ordinary affection ; your homes received me there in no 
 
 ordinary manner. If the heaped-up measure sometimes 
 ran over, it was less my fault than yours. Ah ! ,The 
 deeds of selfishness and of hatred ring every day in 
 our ears with the names of those who practise them. 
 Let us preserve then other names to be conveyed 
 round the world on the wings of spring and love, that 
 like a heavenly seed they may take root in the earth, 
 and cause all the best feelings of the soul to blossom. 
 The heart sometimes is ready to doubt of goodness 
 and its power on earth, it must see before it can 
 believe. I would hereby aid it in this respect. I have 
 spoken of you.* 
 
 The best, the most beautiful, in your hearts and in your 
 homes has, after all, not been revealed. I know that 
 within the human heart and home, as in the old temple of 
 the older covenant, there is a holy of holies upon whose 
 golden ark the countenances of the cherubim may alone 
 gaze and read the tables of the covenant. 
 
 I have followed my own convictions in that which I have 
 censured or criticised in your country and your people. 
 That which I myself have seen, heard, experienced, felt, \ 
 
 * In the English and American editions the initials of the names are 
 merely given, where the names belong to private individuals. I have 
 however considered this veiling of my friends to be superfluous in the 
 Swedish, where in any case their names merely sound as a remote echo. 
 
xiv TO MY AMERICAN FRIENDS. 
 
 thought, that have I written, without fearing anything, 
 excepting any error as regards truth and justice. 
 
 But when you read these letters, my friends, have 
 patience, if possible, till the end ; and remember that 
 these are often the impression of the moment, which 
 later impressions mature or change. 
 
 Consider them as digits, which you must go through 
 before you are able to combine them into a whole. 
 Four of the letters, those, namely, to H. C. Orsted, to 
 I. P. Bocklin, to Her Majesty the Queen Dowager of 
 Denmark, and to H. Martensen, are to be regarded as 
 resting-places by the way, from which the ground which 
 has been passed over is reviewed, and the path and the 
 goal reflected upon. Some repetitions occur in these, 
 which it was not possible to avoid. I fear that some 
 repetition may also be found in the other letters, and it 
 might have been avoided. But .... 
 
 From you, my friends, I hope for that truth before 
 which it is pleasant to bow even when it is painful. 
 Wherever I have erred, wherever I have formed a wrong 
 judgment, I hope that you will freely correct me. I know 
 that you will acknowledge all that which is good and true 
 in what I have written. I fear from you no unjust judg 
 ment. It seems to me that I have found among you the 
 gentlest human beings, without weakness ; therefore I 
 love to be judged by you. 
 
 I here return to your beautiful homes as a spirit, 
 reminding you of the stranger whom you received as a 
 guest, and who became a friend, to converse with you of 
 former days spent on your hearths, to thank and to bless 
 
TO MY AMERICAN FRIENDS. xv 
 
 you, and not merely you, whose guest I was, but the many 
 who benefited me in word or deed, the warm-hearted, 
 noble-minded, all those who let me drink the morning- 
 dew of a new, a more beautiful creation, that elixir of life 
 which gives new, youthful life to heart and mind. Words 
 are poor, and can only feebly express the feelings of the 
 soul. May, however, somewhat of the life s joy which you 
 afforded me, again breathe forth from these letters to you, 
 and convey to you a better expression of thanks than 
 that which can here be uttered by, 
 
 Your guest and friend, 
 
 FREDRIKA BREMER. 
 
THE 
 
 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD, 
 
 LETTEK I. 
 
 ON THE SEA. 
 
 Sept. 23rd, 1849. 
 
 Tins is, dearest Agatha, my second day on the great 
 ocean ! And if the voyage goes on as it has begun I shall 
 not soon long for land. The most glorious weather, the 
 /"heaven and the sea full of light, and for a habitation on 
 my voyage to the new world a cabin large and splendid 
 as a little castle, and besides that, convenient in the 
 highest degree. And how I enjoy my quiet uninter 
 rupted life here on board, after the exciting days in 
 England, where the soul felt itself as on a rack, whilst 
 the body hurried hither and thither in order to see and 
 accomplish that which must be seen and accomplished 
 before I was ready for my journey ! For it was requisite 
 to see a little of England, and especially of London, 
 before I saw America and New York. I did not wish to 
 be too much overcome by New York, therefore I would 
 know something of the mother before I made acquaintance 
 with the daughter, in order to have a point and rule of 
 comparison, that I might correctly understand the type. 
 I knew that Sweden and Stockholm were of another race, 
 
 VOL. I. B 
 
2 HOMES OF THE NEW WOELD. 
 
 unlike the English country, and towns, people, manners, 
 mode of building, and so on. But England had in the 
 first place given population, laws, and tone of mind to 
 the people of the new world. It was the old world in 
 England which must become my standard of judgment as 
 regarded the new. For that reason I came first to England, 
 and to England I shall, please God, return when I have 
 finished my pilgrimage on the other side of the ocean, 
 in order to obtain a more decided impression, to form 
 a conclusive judgment before I return home. "We 
 will expound together the runes in the native land of 
 runic lore. 
 
 Now, however, I know what London looks like, and I 
 shall not be amazed by the buildings of New York. 
 
 To-day, Sunday, has been to me really a festival day. 
 We have had divine service on board, and that was 
 good and beautiful. The passengers, about sixty in 
 number, together with the crew of the vessel, all in 
 their best attire, assembled in the great saloon on deck. 
 The captain, a brisk, good-looking, young officer, read 
 the sermon and prayers, and read them remarkably well. 
 The whole assembly joined in the prayers and responses, 
 as is customary in the English episcopal church. The 
 sun shone in upon that gay assembly composed of so 
 many different nations. 
 
 To be so solitary, so without countrymen, kindred or 
 friends, in this assembly, and yet to know myself so 
 profoundly united with all these in the same life and the 
 same prayer, " Our Father, which art in Heaven!" it 
 affected me so much that I wept (my usual outlet, as you 
 know, for an overflowing heart, in joy as in grief). The 
 captain thought that I needed cheering, and came to 
 me very kindly after the service. But it was not so. I 
 was happy. 
 
 Since then I have walked on deck, and read a poem 
 called " Evangeline," a tale of Acadia, by the American 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 3 
 
 poet, Henry Longfellow. The poem belongs to America, 
 to its history and natural scenery. There is much 
 dramatic interest and life in it. The end, however, 
 strikes me as melo-dramatic and somewhat laboured. 
 The beginning, the descriptions of the primeval forests 
 of the new world, the tall trees which stand like the old 
 druids with long descending beards and harps, which 
 sound and lament in the wind, is glorious, and is a 
 chord of that fresh minor key, which pervades the whole 
 song, about the peaceful persecuted people of Acadia a 
 beautiful but mournful romance, and founded upon 
 history. This little book was given to me by William 
 Howitt on my departure from England ; and thus I have 
 to thank him for this my first taste of American literature, 
 in which I fancy I can perceive a flavour of the life of the 
 New World. 
 
 How pleasant it is to be able to read a little, and to be 
 able to lie and think a little also ! People here show me 
 every possible attention ; first one and then another comes 
 and speaks a few words to me. I answer politely, but I 
 do not continue the conversation ; I have no inclination 
 for it. Among the somewhat above fifty gentlemen, who 
 are passengers on board, there is only one a handsome 
 old gentleman whose countenance promises anything 
 of more than ordinary interest. Nor among the twelve or 
 thirteen ladies either is there anything remarkably pro 
 mising or attractive, although some are very pretty and 
 clever. I am very solitary. I have an excellent cabin 
 to myself alone. In the day I can read there by the 
 light from the glass window in the roof. In the evening 
 and at night it is lighted by a lamp through a ground 
 glass window in one corner. 
 
 People eat and drink here the whole day long ; table is 
 covered after table ; one meal-time relieves another. 
 Everything is rich and splendid. Yes, here we live really 
 magnificently; but I do not like this superabundance, 
 
 B 2 
 
4 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 and the eternally long dinners are detestable to me ; all 
 the more so sitting against a wall between two gentlemen, 
 who are as still as mice, and do nothing but eat, although 
 one of them, an Englishman, might converse very well if 
 he would. My passage -money is thirty-five sovereigns, 
 which includes everything. Somewhat less in price, 
 and somewhat less to eat and drink, would be more to 
 my taste. 
 
 Later. I have just seen the sun go down in the 
 sea, and the new moon and stars come forth. The 
 North Star and Charles s Wain have now gone farther 
 from me ; but just above my head I see the cross and 
 the lyre, and near them the eagle which we also see at 
 home ; and with these companions by the way I cannot 
 be other than cheerful. We have the wind in our favour, 
 and drive on our thundering career with all sails set. If 
 we continue to proceed in this way we shall make the 
 voyage in from twelve to thirteen days. 
 
 I hope, my sweet Agatha, that you regularly received 
 my two letters from England ; I sent the last from 
 Liverpool on the morning before I went on board. I was 
 quite alone there, and had to do and arrange everything 
 for myself: but all went on right. I had the sun with 
 me, and my little travelling fairy, and the last dear letters 
 of my beloved, my passport to the new world, and to the 
 better world, if so be, for they are to me like a good 
 conscience. I say nothing about my good spirits, but 
 you know me, my darling : " Long live Hakon Jarl ! " 
 
 Thursday. Five days at sea ! and we are already more 
 than half-way to New York. We have had fair wind 
 without intermission, and if all goes on as it has begun 
 we shall make one of the most rapid and most prosperous 
 voyages which has ever been made from Europe to 
 America. " But one must not boast till one has crossed 
 the brook." To-day when the wind blew and the sea 
 heaved somewhat roughly, my style of writing became 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 5 
 
 somewhat like Charles XII. s in his letter to " mon 
 coeur." I get on capitally, my little heart, and do not 
 wish myself away, so comfortable am I here, and so 
 animating and elevating appears to me the spectacle of 
 heaven and earth. Yes, the soul obtains wings there 
 from and raises herself upwards, high above the roar 
 ing deep. 
 
 For several days we have seen no other object than 
 heaven and sea, and circling sea-birds ; not a sail, nor 
 the smoke of a steamer. All is vacancy in that immense 
 circle of space. But the billows, and the sunbeams, and 
 the wandering clouds are sufficient company ; these and 
 my own thoughts. I stand and walk whole hours alone 
 on deck and inhale the fresh soft sea-air, watch one 
 leviathan dive down and rise again from the roaring 
 waves, and let niy thoughts dive down also, and circle 
 round like the sea-birds in the unknown distance. There 
 was always something of the life and joy of the Viking 
 in me, and it is so even now. Yesterday was a glorious 
 day, it was throughout a festival of beauty which I enjoyed 
 unspeakably. 
 
 In my early youth, when we were many in family, and 
 it was difficult to be alone, I used sometimes to go and 
 
 
 
 lock myself in that dark little room at Arsta, where 
 mamma keeps her keys, merely that I might feel myself 
 alone, because as soon as I was quite alone in that pitch 
 darkness, I experienced an extraordinary sensation a 
 sensation as if I had wings and was lifted up by them out 
 of my own being, and that was an unspeakable enjoyment 
 to me. That half -spiritual, half-bodily feeling is inexpli 
 cable to me; but it always returns when I am quite 
 alone and altogether undisturbed by agitating thoughts ; 
 as is the case at this time. I experience a secret, won 
 derful joy as I stand thus alone among strangers, in the 
 midst of the world s sea, and feel myself to be free and 
 light as a bird upon the bough. 
 
6 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 Yet it is not this feeling alone which gives me here 
 calmness and, as it were, wings, hut another which I well 
 understand, and which is common to all alike as to me. 
 For whoever when alone in the world, or in heart, can 
 from his heart say Our Father! Mine and all men s! 
 To him will be given rest and strength, sufficient and 
 immortal, merely through this consciousness. 
 
 Out of the chaotic group of human countenances, which 
 at first met my eyes here, a few figures have come nearer 
 to me, and have acquired an interest for me through 
 glances, expression or words. Among these is a tall 
 respectable clergyman from New York, by name John 
 Knox ; and who seems to me to have a little of the 
 historical Knox-nature of stern Puritanism, although 
 united to much benevolence. Besides him, a family 
 from New York, also, consisting of an old lady, the 
 mother, with her daughter and son-in-law a handsome 
 young couple, who have for their bridal-tour visited, 
 during eleven months, Egypt, Greece, Italy, France, etc., 
 without having, in the first instance, seen Niagara, or 
 any of the natural wonders of their own country, which 
 I do not quite forgive in them. They are now on 
 their return, the old lady having gained the knowledge 
 " that all human nature is very much alike throughout 
 the world." This family, as well as Mr. Knox, are 
 Presbyterian, and will not concede that Unitarians are 
 Christians. 
 
 There is also a couple of young ladies from Georgia. 
 One of them a handsome, married lady ; the other a very 
 
 pale young girl with delicate features, Hanna L , 
 
 clever, sensible, and charming, with whom it is a pleasure 
 for me to converse. Although belonging to a slave- 
 holding family, she condemns slavery, and labours at 
 home to make the slaves better and happier. She is 
 consumptive, and does not expect to life long ; but goes 
 forward to meet death with the most contented mind. 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 7 
 
 One sees the future angel gleam forth from her eyes, but 
 the suffering mortal is seen in the delicate features. 
 
 Besides these, there are some elderly gentlemen, with 
 respectable and trustworthy countenances, who assure 
 me that I shall find much pleasure in my journey 
 through the United States ; and lastly, a couple of slave 
 holders, handsome, energetic figures, who invite me to 
 the South, and assure me that^ I shall find the slaves 
 there to be " the most happy and most enviable 
 population ! ! " 
 
 The days pass on calmly and agreeably. The only 
 objection I have to the life on board the " Canada," is 
 the excess of eating and drinking. 
 
 Monday, October 1. The tenth day on board. It has 
 been somewhat less agreeable during the last few clays : 
 stormy and rough. We had yesterday what they call " a 
 gale." I endeavoured, but in vain, to stand on deck. I was 
 not made to be a sailor. We are near Newfoundland. We 
 steer so far northward to avoid the equinoctial storms on 
 the more southern ocean. But we have had contrary 
 winds, and considerable storms for some days, so that w r e 
 have not progressed as favourably as the commencement 
 promised. We shall not reach Halifax till to-morrow. 
 We shall put in there for a few hours and send our 
 European letters to the post (for this reason I am bringing 
 mine into order), after which we steer direct south to 
 New York. 
 
 I am perfectly well; have not been sea-sick for a moment, 
 but cannot deny but that it seems to me rather unpleasant 
 when, in the evening and at night, the waves thunder and 
 strike above our heads, and the vessel heaves and strains. 
 Fortunately, the ladies are all well and cheerful ; and in 
 the evening three of them sing, two of whom met here for 
 the first time in the world ; the " old lady," who, after all, 
 is not so old only about fifty and who has a splendid 
 soprano voice, and the pale girl and her friend, with their 
 
8 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 clear voices, sing hymns and songs remarkably well 
 together. It is very charming and beautiful. The tones 
 remain with me at night like consolatory spirit-voices, 
 like the moonlight on the swell of the waves. 
 
 Last night, when the sea was rough and there was even 
 some clanger, when every movable thing was tumbled 
 about, and I thought of my home, and was in " a shocking 
 humour," and acknowledged it even to my fellow-voyagers, 
 those three voices sang hymns so exquisitely till about 
 midnight, that every restless wave within me hushed 
 itself to repose. To-day, we have better weather and 
 wind, and are all in good spirits. Some little children, 
 however, are so sick that it is pitiable to see them. This 
 next night we shall come into dangerous water. One 
 of the great steamers, which goes between Europe and 
 America, struck amid the surf in the neighbourhood of 
 Halifax, and suffered considerable damage. But we must 
 manage better than that. Our Captain Judkins is con 
 sidered to be a remarkably skilful seaman. An excellent, 
 good-tempered, and kind-hearted man is he beside ; likes 
 to come and sit in the saloon with the ladies, tells them 
 stories, and plays with the children. 
 
 I read a deal here on board ; one can get through a 
 vast many books on such an occasion. I have read 
 Chateaubriand s " Confessions," but without much plea 
 sure. What can one learn from an autobiography in which 
 the writer acknowledges that he will confess nothing 
 about himself which would be derogatory to his dignity. 
 It was in a manner different to this that St. Augustine 
 wrote his Confessions, regarding merely the eternal eye ; 
 in a different manner Rousseau, great and noble, at least 
 in his desire to confess to the truth. Thus will I, some 
 time, shrive myself. For every object and every consi 
 deration is mean except this, the highest. Chateaubriand s 
 French vanity spoils, for me, his book ; nevertheless, I 
 have retained some glorious descriptions, some occasional 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 9 
 
 profound word or expression, as well as another fresh 
 conviction of the weakness of human nature. 
 
 I have read here also Miss Martineau s " Life in the 
 East." I like to study pictures of the East, and of the 
 earliest period of the cultivation of our race in opposition 
 to the West that promised land which I am approaching 
 with a thousand questions in my soul. But I am disturbed 
 in Miss Martineau s book by her evident endeavour to 
 force her own religious opinions upon the life and history 
 of antiquity. Some great and beautiful thoughts, never 
 theless, run through the book, like a refreshing breeze. 
 In them I recognise that noble spirit before which I often 
 bowed myself in awe, and before which I bowed last when 
 reading her " Life in a Sick Boom." 
 
 The calmest day we have yet had on board ! And this 
 calm is really beautiful after the last day s storm. Little 
 sparrows swarm around our vessel in the evening, with 
 greetings from land. They remind me of the birds which 
 brought to Columbus the first intelligence from the shores 
 of the New World. What must have been his state of 
 mind on seeing them ! 
 
 To-morrow morning, early, we may set foot on American 
 soil at Halifax ; but as we there fall in again with " Old 
 England," I take the matter coolly. I have been on deck 
 for a long time. Sea and sky are calm, and of an uniform 
 light grey, like the everyday life of the north. We leave 
 a broad, straight pathway behind us on the sea, which 
 seems to fade away towards the horizon. 
 
 I have been annoyed to-day by the behaviour of some 
 gentlemen to a little storm -driven bird which sought for 
 rest in our vessel. Wearied, it settled down here and 
 there upon our cordage, but was incessantly driven away, 
 especially by two young men, an Englishman and a 
 Spaniard, who seemed to have nothing to do but to teaze 
 this poor little thing to death with their hats and handker 
 chiefs. It was distressing to see how it endeavoured 
 
10 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 again and again, upon its wearied wings, to follow the 
 vessel, and again panting to alight upon its cordage or 
 masts, only to be again driven away. I was childish 
 enough to persecute these young men with nay prayers that 
 they would leave this poor little creature in peace. But it 
 was to no purpose, and to my astonishment, neither did any 
 of the other passengers take the little stranger under their 
 protection. I called to mind that I had seen in Swedish 
 vessels little storm- driven birds treated differently left 
 in peace, or fed with bread-crumbs. The end of the 
 pursuit here was, that after the bird had left its tail in the 
 hand of one of its tormentors, it was soon taken ; it was 
 then put into a dark cage, where it died in a few hours. 
 
 I consider myself to be far from all excess of sensi 
 bility ; but nothing angers me more, among human 
 beings, than unnecessary cruelty to animals ; and I know 
 that a noble human nature abhors it. For the rest, I 
 deplored over the cruel children in men s shape, because 
 I believe in a Nemesis even in little things ; and I believe 
 that the hour may come when these young men may long 
 for rest, and find none ; and that then that hunted 
 bird may make itself remembered by them. When I 
 arrive in America one of my first visits shall be to 
 the Quakers, because I know that one of the beautiful 
 traits of their religion is mercy to animals. 
 
 I once was also a cruel child, when I did not under 
 stand what suffering was, and what animals are. I 
 received my first lesson in humanity to animals from a 
 young, lively officer, who afterwards died the death of a 
 hero in the war against Napoleon. Never shall I forget 
 his reproachful glance and tone, as he said to me, " The 
 poor worm ! " It is now more than thirty years since ! 
 
 I shall, my dear heart ! write no more this time. But 
 as soon as I reach New York I shall again write to you. 
 And that which I long for there, is to hear from home. 
 It is now so long since I had a letter. 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 11 
 
 Many feelings stir within me as I thus approach the end 
 of my voyage, feelings not easy to describe. "What will be 
 the end of it ? That I do not know. One thing, however, 
 I know : that I shall see something new ; learn something 
 new ; forget that which was of old ; and press onward to 
 that which lies before me. There is much for me to forget, 
 and to be renewed. And this, also, I know : that friends 
 will meet me in that foreign land ; and that one faithful 
 friend comes to meet me on the shore. That is good ! 
 
 Good night, dear little sister. I embrace you and 
 mamma ; kind greetings to relations and friends and 
 may she live in the new world, as in the old, 
 
 Your 
 
 FREDRIKA. 
 
 LETTEE II. 
 
 NEW YORK, October 4th, 1849. 
 
 " GOOD morning, little sister mine ! or rather, good 
 evening in the New World, where I now set firm foot, 
 after thirteen days rocking on the sea. I am lodging in 
 the Astor House, one of the largest and best hotels of 
 New York, and where the inhabitants are as numerous 
 as in the capital of Iceland, namely, about five 
 hundred. 
 
 Opposite to this Astor House I see a large, so-called, 
 museum, with fluttering banners and green shrubs on 
 the roof, and the walls covered with immense paintings, 
 representing " The Greatest Wonders in the World," in 
 immense, wonderful animals, and extraordinary human 
 beings, all of which may be seen in the house ; among 
 these I observe a fellow who makes a summerset aloft in 
 the air out of the yawning jaws of a whale ; a " salto 
 mortale," like the salt-prophet, Jonas ; and many such 
 like curiosities, which are still further trumpetted forth 
 
12 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 by a band of musicians from a balcony before the house. 
 They play very well, and the whole looks very merry. 
 
 In front of the Astor House is a green space, inclosed 
 with trees, and in the centre a large fountain, which 
 has a refreshing appearance, and there I have refreshed 
 myself by walking an hour this afternoon. Astor 
 House is situated in Broadway, the great high-street and 
 thoroughfare of New York, where people and carriages 
 pour along in one incessant stream, and in true repub 
 lican intermixture. Long lines of white and gilded 
 omnibuses wind their way at an uninterrupted, rapid rate, 
 as far as one can see, amid thousands of other vehicles, 
 great and small. The broad side-paths are thronged 
 with people of all classes ; there are beautiful houses, 
 and houses under erection ; splendid shops, and a heap 
 of horrible rubbish. There is something confused in this 
 Broadway which makes one feel a little bewildered in the 
 beginning. And thus, in the first place, I merely think 
 of getting across the street alive. That beautiful little 
 green plot, with its lovely fountain, seems to me, beside 
 the bustling Broadway, like an oasis in the agitated sand. 
 
 I must now say something of my arrival here. 
 
 I last left you the day before we reached Halifax. 
 That night was the end of any danger in our voyage ; for 
 it was during a thick mist that we approached the shore 
 and its dangerous surf. We were obliged every now and 
 then to lie still. In the morning, however, we were at 
 Halifax, and I saw the surf-billows, like some unknown, 
 enormous sea-creatures, heave themselves, roaring at a 
 distance around us. I went on shore at Halifax, but only 
 to meet again the worst features of the old world, fog, 
 rags, beggars, dirty, screaming children, wretched horses, 
 and such-like. I was glad to stay only a few hours 
 there. 
 
 The following clay we took our course direct to New 
 York; that was a real enjoyment, warm weather, a calm 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 13 
 
 sea, favourable wind, and in the evening the ocean full of 
 phosphoric light and stars, and heaven full of stars also, 
 shining out from amid poetical clouds. It was a glorious 
 evening. I was on deck till quite late, and watched the 
 fireworks which our keel called forth from the deep along 
 the whole track of the ship. We sailed, as it were, in an 
 element of bright silver, from which the most splendid 
 constellation of golden stars sprang forth incessantly. 
 
 The day before had been cloudy ; the heavens and the 
 sea had been grey ; the waves lead-coloured. But when 
 we came into the large, beautiful haven of New York, which 
 inclosed us like an open embrace, the sun broke through 
 the clouds, strong and warm, and everything far around 
 was illuminated. It was a glorious reception by the New 
 World ; besides this, there was a something so singularly 
 full of vitality, so exuberantly young, which struck me 
 deeply : there was in it something of that first life of 
 youth, such as is felt at fifteen or sixteen. I drank in the 
 air as one might drink in water, whilst I stood on deck 
 looking out upon the new shore which we were rapidly 
 approaching. 
 
 The shore is low. A forest of masts, as yet, hid New 
 York from my sight; one only saw its towers and its 
 smoke; and right and left in the harbour lay, with its 
 green hills and groups of beautiful villas and houses, the 
 large islands, Long Island, and to the left Staten Island, 
 which seemed to me higher and more woody than the rest 
 of the coast. The harbour is magnificent; and our 
 arrival was festively beautiful, thanks to sun and wind ! 
 
 A very agreeable family of the name of B , from 
 
 Georgia, took charge of me and mine with the utmost 
 kindness, and I accompanied them to the Astor House, 
 where we immediately obtained rooms. The pale girl and 
 myself took up our quarters in a room four stories high ; 
 we could not manage it otherwise. 
 
 I had not been a quarter of an hour in the Astor 
 
14 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 House, and was standing with, my travelling companions 
 in a parlour, when a gentleman dressed in black, with a 
 refined, gentlemanly appearance and manner, and a pair 
 of the handsomest brown eyes I ever saw, approached me 
 gently, and mentioned my name in a remarkably melo 
 dious voice : it was Mr. Downing, who had come from his 
 villa on the Hudson to meet me on my arrival. I had 
 scarcely expected that, as I was so much after my time, 
 and he had already made a journey to New York on my 
 behalf in vain. His exterior and his whole demeanour 
 pleased me greatly. I do not know why, but I had 
 imagined him to be a middle-aged man, with blue eyes 
 and light hair ; and he is a young man, about thirty, 
 with dark eyes and dark hair, of a beautiful brown, and 
 softly curling in short, of quite a poetical appearance ! He 
 will remain here with me over to-morrow ; but he insists 
 upon it that on the following day I shall accompany him 
 to his house on the Hudson, where I can make the 
 acquaintance of his wife, at my leisure, in the Highlands 
 of the Hudson, as well as consider over my future 
 travelling movements. 
 
 I have spent the evening with my friends from the 
 " Canada," and Mr. Downing, in one of the many large 
 drawing-rooms of the house, and there made various 
 acquaintances. Magnificent drawing-rooms with furniture 
 of velvet, with mirrors and gilding, brilliant with gas- 
 lighted magnificent chandeliers, and other grandeur, 
 stand open in every storey of the house, for ladies and 
 gentlemen who live here, or who are visiting here, to 
 converse or to rest, talking together on soft and splendid 
 sofas or arm chairs, fanning themselves, and just as if 
 they had nothing else to do in the world than to make 
 themselves agreeable to one another. Scarcely can a 
 lady rise than immediately a gentleman is at hand to 
 offer her his arm. 
 
 October 5th. Uf! It is more wearisome here than 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 15 
 
 anybody can believe ; and I am quite tired out after one 
 day of lion -life. 
 
 Through the whole day have I had nothing to do but 
 to receive visits ; to sit or to stand in a grand parlour, 
 and merely turn from one to another, receiving the 
 salutations and shaking hands with sometimes half a 
 dozen new acquaintance at once gentlemen of all pro 
 fessions and all nations, ladies who invite me to their house 
 and home, and who wish that I would go immediately; 
 besides, a number of letters which I could do no more 
 than merely break open, requests for autographs and so 
 on. I have shaken hands with from seventy to eighty 
 persons to-day, whilst I was unable to receive the visits of 
 many others. Of the names I remember scarcely any, but 
 the greater number of the people whom I have seen please 
 me from their cordial frank manners, and I am grateful 
 to them for their extreme friendliness towards me. It feels 
 to me so warm and hospitable. Nevertheless I was very 
 glad to be relieved for a few hours from my good friends, 
 and to drive out with Mr. Downing to the beautiful park, 
 Greenwood, the large and new cemetery of New York, a 
 young Pere la Chaise, but on a more gigantic scale as to 
 situation and plan. One drives as if in an extensive 
 English park, amid hill and dale. From the highest 
 hill, Ocean Hill, as it is called, one looks out to the sea 
 a glorious view. I should like to repose here. The most 
 beautiful monument which I saw, was of white marble, 
 and had been erected by sorrowing parents over their 
 young daughter and only child. The young girl had 
 been driven over ; I suppose it must have been in 
 Broadway. 
 
 On our return to the hotel I dined with Mr. Downing 
 in one of the smaller saloons. I saw some gentlemen 
 sitting at table, whom it was as distressing for me to look 
 at as it is to look at over- driven worn-out horses, for so 
 they looked to me. The restless, deeply sunk eyes, the 
 
16 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 excited, wearied features, to what a life they bore witness ? 
 Better lie and sleep on Ocean Hill than live thus on 
 Broadway ! These figures resembled a few of those which 
 I had seen at the Astor House ; but I had already seen 
 on Broadway both human beings and horses which I 
 wished not to have seen on the soil of the New World, 
 and which testify to dark passages of life even there. 
 And yet, how should it be otherwise, especially at New 
 York ? which is rather a large hotel, a caravanserai for the 
 whole world, than a regular American city. 
 
 After dinner I again received visitors, among these, 
 Mrs. Child ; she gave me the impression of a beautiful 
 soul, but too angular to be happy. The little poetess, 
 Miss Lynch, was among the visitors of the morning, an 
 agreeable, pretty, and intellectual young lady, in whose 
 countenance there is a look of Jenny Lind. I also saw 
 some of my countrymen. A pleasant young Swede, 
 Frestadius, came with a large bouquet. The Norwegian 
 consul, Hejerdahl, Mr. Buttenskon, I had scarcely time 
 for more than merely to exchange a greeting with. 
 Oneonius came also from the West, and wished to talk 
 with me, that I might warn our countrymen against 
 emigration and its sufferings. 
 
 Among the invitations of to-day there was one to a 
 Phalanstery, situated at New Jersey, not far from New 
 York. I shall have no objection to make a nearer 
 acquaintance with these wild beasts. The family which 
 invited me thither, on a visit to themselves, did not seem 
 at all repulsive, but, on the contrary, attractive ; so 
 ingenuous, kind, and earnest, did they appear. 
 
 But -that which I am a little afraid of is, for myself at 
 least, lest life in this country should be like this of to-day; 
 then I should be regularly worn out, for my strength 
 could never stand against these many lively people. What 
 is to be done if it goes on in this way ? Fortunately I 
 I shall be conveyed away from New York early to-morrow 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 17 
 
 morning by the excellent Mr. Downing. This evening 
 I must, spite of my fatigue, drive to a soiree at the 
 house of Miss Lynch, who wishes to introduce me to 
 some of her literary friends. I am dressed for this 
 purpose, have on my best clothes, and look quite 
 respectable in them, and am writing whilst I wait for the 
 carriage. Only to think of those who are lying down to 
 sleep ! 
 
 1 am still in joint quarters with the pale young girl 
 from the South ; I have never seen any one with so 
 serene a mind, or one who meets suffering so cheerfully. 
 She is a quiet, pious being, endow r ed with great strength 
 and tenderness of soul. 
 
 I must now go ! Good night ! 
 
 NEWBTTRGH ON THE HUDSON, October 7th. 
 
 Sunday. My sweet sister, my sweet friend ! how glad 
 I am to be here in the young, new world ; how thankful 
 I am to Providence, who, in his mercy, through the 
 impulse of mind and of steam, brought me happily hither, 
 although I am at the same time almost as much burdened 
 as elevated by the crowd of impressions and thoughts 
 which, as it were, rush in upon me at once. 
 
 Everything of which I have had a foretaste, which I 
 have sought after and longed for, do I meet with here, 
 and more than that. I mean nourishment and light for 
 the inquiring and searching spirit within me. I consider 
 myself especially fortunate in coming in contact with 
 Mr. Downing, a noble and acutely discriminating spirit, a 
 true American, yet without blind patriotism, an open 
 heart, a critically sagacious intellect, one who can assist 
 me to understand the condition and the questions of this 
 country. And with such assistance it is very requisite to 
 begin. 
 
 It was also requisite that I should really be released 
 
18 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 bodily from my friends of the Astor House and New York, 
 who otherwise would have made an end of me in the 
 beginning. I was so weary of that first day s labour in 
 social life, which lasted till long after midnight, and was 
 so much in want of rest and sleep, that I did not believe 
 it possible for me to set off from New York at five o clock 
 the next morning. I said so to Mr. Downing, who very 
 mildly, yet decidedly, remarked, " Oh, we must endeavour 
 to do so !" on which I thought to myself, " these Americans 
 believe that everything is possible ! " but feeling at the 
 same time that the thing was quite impracticable. And 
 yet at half-past four the next morning I was up and 
 ready dressed, kissed in her bed the pale girl from the 
 South, who at the last moment tied round my neck a little 
 silk handkerchief, as delicate and white as herself, and 
 then hastened down to place myself under the tyranny of 
 Mr. Downing. The carriage was already at the door, 
 and seated in it I found Miss Lynch, whom Mr. Downing 
 had invited to pass the Sunday at his house. 
 
 " Go a-head ! New World ! " cried the servant at the 
 door of the hotel to our driver ; and we rolled away down 
 Broadway to the harbour, where the great steamboat, the 
 "New World," received us on board. This was really a 
 little floating palace, splendid and glittering with white 
 and gold on the outside, splendid and elegant within : 
 large saloons, magnificent furniture, where ladies and 
 gentlemen reclined comfortably, talking or reading the 
 newspapers. I saw here none of Dickens smoking and 
 spitting gentlemen. AVe floated proudly and Smoothly on 
 the broad magnificent Hudson. It was a pity that the 
 day was rainy, because the voyage was, excepting for this, 
 one of the most beautiful which any one can conceive, 
 especially when after a few hours time, we reached w r hat 
 are called the Highlands. The shores, with their boldly 
 wood-covered heights, reminded me continually of the 
 shores of the Dala and the Angermanna rivers, nay, seemed 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 19 
 
 to me to belong to the same natural conformation, ex 
 cepting that here it was broader and on a larger scale ; and 
 the dark clouds which hung between the hills in heavy 
 draperies above the river, were in perfect harmony with 
 the gloomily beautiful passes, through which we swung, 
 and which presented at every new turn new and more 
 magnificent pictures. The river was full of life. Wooden- 
 roofed steamboats, brilliant, as ours, with gold and 
 white, passed up and down the river. Other steam 
 boats drew along with them flotillas of from twenty to 
 thirty boats, laden with goods from the country to New 
 York, whilst hundreds of smaller and larger craft were 
 seen skimming along past the precipitous shores like 
 white doves with red fluttering neck-ribbons. On the 
 shores shone forth white country-houses and small farms. 
 I observed a great variety in the style of building : many 
 of the houses were in the gothic style, others like Grecian 
 temples ; and why not ? The home ought to be a temple 
 as well as a habitation and a storehouse Also in our 
 old North was the houseplace a sacred room in which the 
 household gods were to be worshipped. I saw too that 
 there was every variety of church on the shores : the 
 prevailing colour being white. Many private houses, 
 however, were of a soft grey and of a sepia tint. During 
 the latter part of the journey, the clouds came down 
 upon us, and we became perfectly wet. But with the 
 agreeable Miss Lynch and Mr. Downing it was an 
 easy thing to preserve sunshine in temper and in con 
 versation. 
 
 After a sail of between three and four hours, we landed 
 at the little town of Newburgh, where Mr. Downing s 
 carriage awaited to convey us up the hills to a beautiful 
 villa of sepia-coloured sandstone, with two small pro 
 jecting towers, surrounded by a park : lying high and 
 open it has a free view over the beautiful river and its 
 shores. A delicate, pretty little woman met us at the 
 
 c 2 
 
20 HOMES OF THE NEW WOULD. 
 
 door of the house, embraced Mr. Downing, and cordially 
 welcomed his guests. This was Mrs. Downing. She 
 seemed to be of a bird-like nature ; and We shall get on 
 and twitter together charmingly, because I, too, have 
 something of that nature about me. 
 
 The Astor House and its splendid rooms, and social life 
 and the " New World " steamer, with all its finery, were 
 good specimens of the showy side of the life of the new 
 world; and Mr. Downing said that it was quite as well that 
 I should at once have seen something of it, that I might 
 the better be able to form an opinion of the other side of 
 life here of that which belongs to the inward, more 
 refined, peculiar, individual development. And I could 
 not easily have a better specimen of this than in 
 Mr. Downing himself, and his home. He has built his 
 house himself. It was himself who planted all the trees 
 and flowers around it ; and everything seems to me to 
 bear the stamp of a refined and earnest mind. It stands 
 in the midst of romantic scenery, shadowy pathways, the 
 prettiest little bits of detail and splendid views. Every 
 thing has been done with design; nothing by guess, 
 nothing with formality. A soul has here felt, thought, 
 arranged. Within the house there prevails a certain 
 darkness of tone : all the wood-work of the furniture is 
 brown; the daylight even is dusk, yet nevertheless 
 clear, or more properly full of light a sort of imprisoned 
 sunshine, something warm and deep ; it seemed to me 
 like a reflection of the man s own brown eyes. In the 
 forms, the furniture, and the arrangement, prevails the 
 finest taste ; everything is noble and quiet, and everything 
 equally comfortable as it is tasteful. The only things 
 which are brilliant in the rooms are the beautiful flowers 
 in lovely vases and baskets. For the rest, there are books, 
 busts, and some pictures. Above small bookcases, in the 
 form of gothic windows, in the walls of Mr. Dowmng s 
 parlour, stand busts of Linnaeus, Franklin, Newton, and 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 21 
 
 many other heroes of natural science. One sees in 
 this habitation a decided and thorough individuality of 
 character, which has impressed itself on all that surrounds 
 it. And in this way ought every one to form himself 
 and his own world. One feels here Mr. Downing s motto, 
 " II buono e il hello. In food, in fruits, as well as in 
 many small things, prevails a certain amount of luxury ; 
 but which does not make any outward show; it exists, 
 as it were, concealed in the inward richness and exqui 
 site selection of the thing itself. I did not expect to 
 have met with this kind of home in the young new 
 world. 
 
 Since I have been here it has rained and blown 
 incessantly, and I am quite appalled at the climate. It 
 could hardly be worse with us in October. But not the 
 less happy do I esteem myself for having come to so good 
 a home. My room is in the upper story, and has a 
 magnificent view over the Hudson, and the hills on the 
 other side of the river. 
 
 I thought that I should be here, for a time at least, free 
 from visitors. But no ! Last evening, as I sate with my 
 friends in their peaceful parlour, there came, amid the 
 darkness, the storm, and the rain, Professor Hart, the 
 editor of Sartain s " Union Magazine " in Philadelphia, 
 who immediately on the announcement of my arrival in 
 the newspapers, had travelled from Philadelphia to New 
 York, and from New York had followed me hither merely, 
 he said, to "monopolise" me for his magazine, begging 
 me to write for it, and for none other, during my visit to 
 America. So much for American .enterprise in matters 
 of business. For the rest, there was so much gentlemanly 
 refinement in his manner, and a something so benevolently 
 good and agreeable in his pale, delicate countenance, that 
 I could not help taking a fancy to him, and giving him 
 my word that if I should write anything for publication 
 in America I would leave it in his hands. But I doubt 
 
22 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 whether I shall write anything here. Here I have need 
 to think and to learn. 
 
 Monday, the Sth of October. To-day the sun 
 shines above the lordly Hudson, which flows at my 
 feet ; and I should feel myself happy with my thoughts 
 and my American books were not the stream of 
 visitors again in motion, taking up my time and my 
 attention. I must beg of the Downings to defend my 
 forenoon hours, and during them not to allow me to be 
 called from my cage ; if not, I shall become a savage lion, 
 instead of a tame lioness, as they would have me, and as 
 is most becoming to my disposition. I feel myself par 
 ticular!} 7 happy with the Downings, and I am able to learn 
 very much from Mr. Downing, whose individuality of 
 character strikes me more and more. There is something 
 of a quiet melancholy in him, but he has an unusually 
 observant glance, a critical, and rather sarcastic turn of 
 mind, the result of a large comprehension. He is 
 silent, but one of those silent persons from whom one 
 seems to hear profound wisdom, though not a word is 
 said. His mind is in a high degree receptive and 
 discriminating, and the conversation of all is interesting 
 to him. His wife is a charming, merry, and amiable 
 little creature, of a highly cultivated mind, and equal to 
 her husband. 
 
 I have to-day, at the suggestion of Mr. Downing, 
 written to Professor Bergfalk to invite him hither. 
 Professor Bergfalk is at this time at Poughkeepsie, a few 
 Swedish miles up the country, where he is perfecting 
 himself in the use of the English language. I consider 
 it is a particularly fortunate thing for me to be able now 
 and then, during my stay here in this country, to meet 
 and to converse with Bergfalk ; and I wish him to make 
 Mr. Downing s acquaintance, and for Mr. Downing to 
 become acquainted with Bergfalk, that he may know how 
 interesting a Swedish learned man can be. 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 23 
 
 Now receive a large, cordial embrace across the great 
 ocean for mamma and you ! 
 
 P.S. I must tell you that among my invitations is one 
 to a wedding in the neighbourhood : I shall gladly accept 
 it. I like to see brides and weddings. 
 
 In my next letter I shall speak of my plans and of my 
 route for the future : at present they are not wholly 
 decided ; further than that, I wish to spend the winter in 
 Boston the American Athens and there, as far as I 
 can, come to a knowledge of the intellectual movements 
 in the life of the New World. In the first place, it is a 
 good thing for me to spend about three weeks with the 
 Downings, and to make excursions with them to some of 
 their friends on the Hudson, " some of the best people 
 in the country," as they say. Among these is Washington 
 Irving, who, together with Fenimore Cooper, was the 
 first who made us in Sweden somewhat at home in 
 America. Miss Sedgwick is expected here in a few days : 
 I shall be glad to see her, and thank her for the pleasure 
 we have had in her "Kedwood" and "Hope Leslie." If 
 I could only have a little time for myself ! The difficulty 
 to me is to be able to receive all the kind people who 
 hasten to me from far and near, from different states and 
 towns. But although I can but imperfectly respond to 
 their good-will, yet I am not the less heartily grateful for 
 it ; and never shall I forget how, on the very first day of 
 my arrival in New York, more than half-a-dozen homes 
 were opened to me, where I might have been received as 
 guest and member of the family ; and the number of these 
 homes increase daily. I have even had invitations from 
 Quakers. Would t^at I could have accepted one-fifth of 
 these ! 
 
24 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 LETTEK III. 
 
 ON THE HUDSON, Oct. 11, 1849. 
 
 MY DEAR HEART ! We went to the wedding at nine 
 o clock in the morning. We drove to the house of the 
 bride in pouring rain. All the guests, about a hundred in 
 number, were already assembled. The bride s father, an 
 elderly gentleman of a remarkably agreeable appearance, 
 offered me his arm to lead me into the room where the 
 marriage was to take place. It was the only daughter of 
 the house who was to be married. The elder sister had 
 been dead about a year, and that the mother still grieved 
 for her loss might be seen by her pale, sorrowful, counte 
 nance. The wedding company was very silent. One 
 might rather have believed oneself in a house of mourning 
 than at a joyful festival. And as the eldest daughter had 
 died soon after her marriage, and in consequence of it, 
 namely, when she was about to become a mother, it was 
 not without cause that this festival was regarded with 
 serious thoughts. 
 
 Ladies and gentlemen were introduced to me one after 
 another, and then again the whole circle became silent. 
 Presently it was whispered round that the marriage 
 ceremony was about to commence. A door opened, 
 and a young gentleman entered, leading in a young lady 
 in her bonnet and travelling dress. They took their 
 places side by side at the bottom of the room, a venerable 
 old clergyman stepped forward to the young couple, and 
 they were united in holy wedlock or ever by a short 
 prayer, a short admonition, and a short benediction. 
 Friends and relations then came forward, and kissed and 
 congratulated the new-married pair ; I also went forward, 
 leaning on the father s arm, kissed the bride and shook 
 hands with the young husband. He looked happy and 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 25 
 
 perfectly self-possessed. She also looked pleased, and 
 besides that, very pretty ; nay, she would have appeared 
 really handsome if she had been in bridal attire, and not 
 dressed as for a journey, and that evidently less with 
 regard to looking handsome than to the rainy weather 
 in which the new married couple would commence their 
 journey through life ; that is to say, immediately after the 
 marriage ceremony they would set sail for Niagara, and 
 must therefore hasten away to the steam-boat. Champagne 
 and cake was handed round. 
 
 One saw the bridal presents arranged upon a table ; 
 they were looked at, and each wedding-guest received a 
 little pasteboard box, tied round with white ribbon, in 
 which was a piece of bride-cake. After that every one 
 set off, even the young couple, they to return, after a few 
 weeks pleasure -tour, to reside with the parents. It all 
 took place in the twinkling of an eye. 
 
 This marriage ceremony seemed to me characteristic 
 of that haste and precipitation for which I have often 
 heard the Americans reproached. Life is short, say they, 
 and therefore they hurry along its path, dispensing with 
 all needless forms and fashions which might impede the 
 necessary business of life, and perform even this as rapidly 
 as possible, making five minutes suffice to be married in, 
 and receiving even the marriage benediction in travelling 
 costume, that they may instantly set off on a journey to 
 Niagara, or somewhere else. 
 
 But I must acknowledge that on this occasion it was 
 merely the form which was hurried. It was evident that 
 earnestness lay at the bottom of every heart, and even the 
 short marriage-blessing bore the impression of deep and 
 solemn earnestness. One could easily see that it was not 
 a matter of jest, not a matter of passing interest, but one 
 of great importance. Many persons were affected, some 
 wept they thought probably of the former marriage in 
 this family. The old servant, a negro, who handed about 
 
26 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 refreshments, had one of those countenances in which may 
 be read a whole volume of the inner life of the family, 
 and which shows that it is a life of affection, in which the 
 servant feels himself to be a member of the family. 
 
 Many people disapprove of these marriages in travelling 
 attire, and at the moment of setting out for a journey, 
 and insist on their being conducted with greater solemnity. 
 Nor are they the only customary mode here. They have 
 also evening marriages, when the bride is dressed pretty 
 much as with us, and everything is conducted with about 
 the same solemnity, with the exception of exhibiting the 
 bride to the people, surrounded by lights, marshals, and 
 bridemaids, as is usual with us in Sweden, and I believe 
 in Sweden alone. 
 
 Saturday, Oct. 20th. I have not now written for 
 several days, the time having been occupied by many 
 people, and many engrossing engagements. I shall now, 
 however, note down the more important of the late 
 occurrences. 
 
 Hitherto I have not received any letter ; I long, I long, 
 so much ! 
 
 I have greatly enjoyed this period of my new life, and 
 the Hesperian fruits, and whether it is the effect of these 
 or of the new world s youthful, lively atmosphere (we have 
 had for some time the most beautiful weather) or of the new 
 impressions which daily flow in upon me, but I feel the 
 strings of life vibrate as it were more strongly, and my 
 pulse beat at times almost feverishly. I feel myself to be 
 drinking nectar spiritually and bodily; it is a divine 
 drink, but almost too potent for a weak mortal, at least as 
 an everyday beverage. The excess of social intercourse 
 is also too exciting, however charming and agreeable it 
 may be. Mr. and Mrs. Downing, who have no children, 
 seem to live for the beautiful and the agreeable in life 
 amid a select circle of friends and neighbours, who for the 
 most part reside on the lovely banks of the Hudson, and 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 27 
 
 a cheerful and unembarrassed social intercourse seems to 
 characterise the life of this circle. They are continually 
 visiting one another. The banks of the Hudson are now 
 in all the pomp of autumn, and the foliage of the woods 
 which clothe the shores and the heights, and which 
 consist of a great variety of trees, is now brilliant with 
 the most splendid variation of colour, from light yellow to 
 intense scarlet; but it is too gorgeous and chaotic a 
 splendour to be truly agreeable to my eye, which requires 
 more uniformity of colour. 
 
 Of fruit there is here the greatest abundance ; the most 
 beautiful peaches, although their season is properly over ; 
 pears, plums, grapes, that is to say, hot-house grapes and 
 many other. The Downings table is ornamented every 
 day with a basket filled with the most glorious fruit 
 really Hesperian and beautiful flowers arranged with the 
 most exquisite taste. The breakfasts here, in the country, 
 are much more substantial than with us in Sweden. 
 Besides coffee and tea the table is supplied with fish, 
 fresh meat, buckwheat cakes, omelets, and so on. Besides 
 which here is bread of Indian corn and a kind of sweet 
 potato, which is peculiar to the country, and which is an 
 extremely good and palatable fruit. It is long, soft, and 
 mealy, yellow and very sweet. It is commonly brought 
 to table unpeeled, and is eaten with butter. At dinner 
 there is meat, in the same way as in England, together 
 with various vegetables and fruit peculiar to America. In 
 the afternoon but little is eaten; they have commonly 
 tea, and bread-and-butter or tea-bread, and after that 
 preserved fruits, mostly peach, and cream. One custom, 
 which appears to me to be especially excellent, is to 
 place little tables beside the guests, one to each two 
 persons, before the tea is handed round. In this way people 
 place themselves together, two and two, and have the 
 most delicious little tete-d-tetes, and that you know I am 
 very fond of. I cannot converse well except when tete-a-tete* 
 
28 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 My happiest hours here are those which I spend alone in 
 the forenoon, in my own room, with American books, 
 which Mr. Downing lends me, and those passed in the 
 evening with my host and hostess, sitting in the little 
 darkened parlour with bookcases and busts around us, 
 and the fire quietly glimmering in the large fire-place. 
 There, by the evening lamp, Mr. Downing and his wife 
 read to me by turns passages from their most esteemed 
 American poets. The books I afterwards carry with me 
 up into my chamber ; in this way I have become acquainted 
 with Bryant, Lowell, and Emerson, all of them represen 
 tatives, in however dissimilar a manner, of the life of 
 the New World. Bryant sings especially of its natural 
 life, of its woods, its prairies, its peculiar natural scenes 
 and phenomena and his song breathes the quiet fresh 
 inspiration of natural life. One feels the sap circulating 
 through the growth of the tree, and the leaves shooting 
 forth. His Thenatopsis, or night-song, is a largely 
 conceived although a short poem, in which the whole 
 earth is regarded as a huge burial-place. Lowell is 
 inspired by the great social questions of the new world, 
 by the ideal life of the new \vorld, which he calls forth 
 into existence in his songs about freedom, about the 
 bliss of a free and contented, noble life, and about 
 the honour and beauty of labour. Again and again 
 I beg Mr. Downing to read to me that beautiful little 
 poem, " The Poor Man s Son," which charms me by 
 its melody, and by its impartial spirit which is moral 
 melody, and by that cheerful truth which it utters in the 
 prospects for the poor man s son on the soil of the new 
 world. Would that I could translate for you that beau 
 tiful poem, and that Mr. Downing could read it to you 
 with his musical voice ! His little wife, Caroline, prefers 
 reading a short epic poem, called " Sir Launfall s Vision." 
 Lowell s ideas are purely moral, and a deep vein of 
 religious feeling runs through them. One of his most 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 29 
 
 beautiful songs, in which burns a strong and noble 
 patriotism, is directed against a political measure in 
 Congress favourable to the maintenance of slavery in the 
 United States. By this and many anti-slavery songs has 
 this young poet taken his place among the leaders of that 
 great party in the country which calls itself Abolitionist, 
 and which insists upon the abolition of slavery. He must 
 express himself in verse he does not make the verse, he 
 sings it, and in his song there is that overflowing senti 
 ment which makes the heart overflow, and the mind spread 
 forth her wings. 
 
 Waldo Emerson, rather a philosopher than poet, yet 
 poetical in his prose philosophical essays, strikes me as 
 a new and peculiar character, the most unusual of the 
 three. He seems to me as an American Thorild, who 
 by his own strong, powerful nature would transform the 
 world, seeking for law and inspiration merely within his 
 own breast. Strong and pure, self-collected and calm, 
 but at the same time fantastical, he puts forth from his 
 transcendental point of view aphorisms on nature and 
 history, on God (whom he does not regard as a personal 
 God, but as a superior soul in harmony with laws), and on 
 men, criticising men and their works from the ideal of the 
 highest truth and the highest beauty. " The world," says 
 Emerson, " has not seen a man," and he looks forward 
 with longing to that man, the man of the New World, in 
 whose advent he believes. What this new man shall 
 really be, and what he is to do, is somewhat undecided, 
 merely that he shall be true and beautiful, and further, 
 I suspect, he must be very handsome and tall of stature, 
 if he is to find favour with Emerson, who is himself, they 
 say, a man of singular beauty, and who regards any 
 personal defect as a sort of crime. The new man 
 regards no laws but those within his own breast ; but 
 there he finds the unfalsified wells of truth and beauty. 
 The new man believes in himself alone ; he demands 
 
30 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 everything from himself, and does all for himself, reposes 
 upon himself and in himself. The new man is a stoic, 
 hut not stern as such ; he is beautiful and gentle. 
 "Wherever he conies life hlooms : in the circle of friends 
 it becomes as a holy day; nectar and ambrosia pour 
 forth at his approach; but he himself needs no friend. 
 He needs none, not even God; he himself becomes 
 godlike, inasmuch as that he does not need him. He 
 conquers heaven, inasmuch as he says to heaven, "I 
 desire thee not ! " He descends down into nature as a 
 restorer, governs and places it under the spell of his 
 influence, and it is his friend. In it he has that which 
 suffices him ; the divinities of the woods whisper to him 
 their peace and their self-sufficingness ; there is not a 
 mole -hill which has not a star above it ; there is no 
 sorrow which the healing life of nature cannot heal. 
 He says farewell to the proud world ; he tramples upon 
 the greatness of Rome and Greece in this little rural 
 home where he in the trees can see God. Emerson s 
 language is compressed and strong, simple, but singularly 
 plastic. His turns of thought are original ; old ideas are 
 reproduced in so new and brilliant a manner that one 
 fancies them heard for the first time. The divining- 
 rod of genius is in his hand. He is master in his own 
 domain. His strength seems to me peculiarly to be that 
 of the critic, a certain grand contempt and scorn of the 
 mediocre of the weak and paltry wherever he sees it, and 
 he sees it in much and in many things. He chastises it 
 without mercy ; but, at the same time, with wonderful 
 address. Emerson s performances in this way are really 
 quite regal. They remind me of our King Gustavus 
 Adolphus the Great, when he took the criminal soldier by 
 the hair, and delivered him over to punishment, with the 
 friendly words, " Come, my lad, it is better that thy body 
 now suffer chastisement than that thy soul go to hell." 
 Yet there is more in Emerson even than the intention 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 31 
 
 of chastisement. The writings of this scorner of imper 
 fection, of the mean and the paltry, this bold exacter of 
 perfection in man, have for me a fascination which 
 amounts almost to magic ! I often object to him ; I 
 quarrel with him; I see that his stoicism is one-sidedness, 
 his pantheism an imperfection, and I know that which is 
 greater and more perfect, but I am under the influence 
 of his magical power. I believe myself to have become 
 greater through his greatness, stronger through his 
 strength, and I breathe the air of a higher sphere in his 
 world, which is indescribably refreshing to me. Emerson 
 has more ideality than is common among thinkers of the 
 English race, and one might say that in him the idealism 
 of Germany is wedded to the realism of Britain. 
 
 I have, as yet, never gone a step to see a literary lion : 
 but Waldo Emerson, this pioneer in the moral woods of 
 the New World, who sets his axe to the roots of the old 
 trees to hew them down, and to open the path for new 
 planting ; I would go a considerable way to see this man. 
 And see him I will, him, who, in a society as strictly 
 evangelical as that of Massachusetts and Boston (Emerson 
 was the minister of a Unitarian congregation in Boston), 
 had the courage openly to resign his ministration, his 
 church, and the Christian faith, when he had come to 
 doubt of its principal doctrines ; who was noble enough, 
 nevertheless, to retain universal esteem, and old friends ; 
 and strong enough, while avoiding all polemical contro 
 versy and bitterness of speech, to withdraw into silence, 
 to labour alone for that truth which he fully acknowledged, 
 for those doctrines which the heathen and the Christian 
 alike acknowledge. Emerson has a right to talk about 
 strength and truth, because he lives for these virtues. 
 And it will benefit the world which is slumbering in 
 the Church from the lack of vital Christianity, to be 
 roused up by such fresh winds from the Himalaya of 
 heathenism. But how can Emerson overlook ? Yet 
 
32 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 I will not ask about it. Emerson is just and true. Would 
 that many were like him ! 
 
 But now I must tell you something of my late doings 
 in society. Miss Catherine Sedgwick, the author of 
 "Redwood," came here, together with her young niece, 
 Susan, a few days after my arrival. Mr. Downing, who 
 greatly esteems her, wished me to make her acquaintance. 
 She is between fifty and sixty, and her countenance 
 indicates a very sensible, kind, and benevolent character. 
 Her figure is beautifully feminine, and her whole 
 demeanor womanly, sincere, and frank, without a shadow 
 of affectation. I felt my soul a little slumbrous while 
 with her for the first few days ; but this feeling was, as 
 it were, blown quite away in a moment by a touching 
 and beautiful expression of cordiality on her side, which 
 revealed us to each other; and since then I have felt 
 that I could live with her as with a heavenly soul, in 
 which one has the most undoubting trust. I derived 
 pleasure, also, from her highly sensible conversation, 
 and from her truly womanly human sympathies. She 
 has a true and gentle spirit ; and I feel that I could 
 really depend upon her. Of late years she has written 
 much for, what I will call, the people of lower degree in 
 society ; because here, where almost every person works for 
 their living, one cannot properly speak of a working-class, 
 but quite correctly of people of small means and narrow 
 circumstances a class which has not yet worked itself up. 
 Franklin, himself a workman, and one who worked himself 
 upwards, wrote for this class. Miss Sedgwick writes 
 for the same ; and her little novels and stories are much 
 liked, and produce a great deal of good. People praise, 
 in particular, a story called " Home," which I shall 
 endeavour to read. Miss Sedgwick was at this time 
 occupied in preparing a new edition of her collected 
 works. She consulted me about some proposed altera 
 tions in some of these works, and I told her that I, 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 33 
 
 for my own part, never would alter anything in the 
 works which I had written long since, even where I saw 
 their faults, and could easily correct them ; because, 
 where an author lives and writes through a long course 
 of years, his or her works constitute a history of that 
 author s development, which ought to remain unaltered 
 as a history in itself, alike instructive to him as to others. 
 An author s works are portions of an autobiography, 
 which he must write whether he will or not. 
 
 Miss Sedgwick invited me to her house in Lennox, 
 in the western part of Massachusetts, during the next 
 summer, and promised to visit with me a Shaker estab 
 lishment in New Lebanon, which lies at no great distance 
 from her house. 
 
 Whilst Miss Sedgwick has been here the Downings 
 have made an excursion with us to the top of South Beacon, 
 one of the highest hills in the highlands of this district. 
 Mr. Downing drove me, and for this mountain-road a 
 skilful driver and a good horse were really needful, because 
 the road was steep, and rather an apology for a road 
 .than anything else. But we stumbled and struggled over 
 stock and stone in our light carriage, until we had 
 ascended about nine hundred feet, and from the top of the 
 wood-covered hill looked down upon half the world, as 
 it seemed to me, but which presented the appearance 
 of a billowy chaos of wooded heights and valleys, in which 
 human dwellings were visible, merely as specks of light, 
 scarcely discernible to the naked eye. Man, so great in his 
 suffering, in his combat, vanished into nothing, seen from 
 this material hill-top, and therefore I thought not about 
 him. That which was most refreshing to me in this land 
 scape was the view of the Hudson, which, like a clear 
 thought bursting from chaos, makes for itself a path 
 through the woods, and flows brilliantly forth into the 
 infinite. Our party was a little too large and a little too 
 merry for me. I know not how it is that a thoughtful 
 
 VOL. I. D 
 
34 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 silence should always come over me in such gay parties, 
 amid natural scenes. And here I ought to have been alone 
 with the magnificence of Nature. One little moment, 
 partly alone and partly with Mr. Downing, who knows 
 how to be gay and jocular with the gay, and silent 
 with the silent, was to me the crowning luxury of the 
 excursion, during which there was no lack of champagne 
 and joke, and more substantial fare yet for the palate, 
 together with polite gentlemen and lovely ladies, both 
 young and old. Yes, lovely ladies there certainly are 
 here, but rather pretty and delicate than, properly 
 speaking, beautiful. A really beautiful woman I have 
 not yet seen here, but neither have I seen a single 
 ill-favoured countenance or deformed person. That which 
 especially pleases me is the easy, unembarrassed, and yet 
 modestly kind intercourse which exists between the young 
 of both sexes. 
 
 Completely weary were we when, after our excursion 
 to the hills, we reached home in the evening, and beau 
 tiful was rest in that lovely quiet home with the kind 
 Downings. That which my mind has retained of the 
 excursion is the view of that bright river, bursting forth 
 from the gloomy forests of earth. It gleams, as it were, 
 within me. 
 
 I parted from Miss Sedgwick with the feeling that I 
 should never like to part with her. Her niece, Susan, 
 was an agreeable well- educated girl. A young gentleman, 
 who is said to be her lover, followed her hither. 
 
 A few days after our excursion to South Beacon we 
 went up the Hudson to visit a family of the name of 
 D., who belong to the aristocracy of these shores. 
 "We set off in good time in the morning ; the air was 
 delicious ; the wind still, and the shores shone out in the 
 utmost splendour of their autumnal pomp beneath a 
 somewhat subdued sunshine. The sails on the river 
 scarcely moved, and above the heights lay a sort of sunny 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 35 
 
 mist, a light haze which is said to distinguish this period 
 of the year, and that state of the atmosphere which is 
 here called " the Indian Summer." It commences, they 
 say, at the end of October, and extends often through 
 the whole of November into December, and is considered 
 one of the most beautiful parts of the year. And if I am 
 to judge by these days, one can scarcely imagine more 
 perfect weather ; warm and calm, the purest, most delicious 
 atmosphere, sunshine softened by that light haze which 
 seems to cast a mystical romantic veil over the landscape 
 brilliant with the splendour of autumn. Whence comes 
 this Egj^ptian veil of mist ? " It comes from the Indians 
 who are now smoking their pipes at their great Pahaws," 
 replied the cheerful Mrs. Downing ; " I wish you to have 
 an accurate idea of things here." The accurate truth 
 however is that nobody can say what is the real cause of 
 this smoke -like mist, or of this summer in the midst of 
 autumn. 
 
 But to return to our excursion, which was charming. 
 We left the highlands of the Hudson ; the shores now 
 became lower and the river wider, embracing islands 
 on its bosom. But soon we perceived in the distance 
 a yet higher and more massive range of hills than I 
 had hitherto seen, the magnificent thousand-feet-high 
 Katskill mountains, which are a portion of the great 
 Alleghany chain, which divides North America from 
 north to south. 
 
 The banks of the river, which were scattered with 
 houses, appeared rich and well cultivated. There were 
 no castles, no ruins here, but often very tasteful houses 
 with terraces and orchards, whole parks of peach trees. 
 The only historical legends of these shores are a few 
 traditions of wars with the Indians. I did not seem to 
 miss the ruins and the legends of the Rhine. I like these 
 fresh new scenes which have a vast future. We have 
 ruins enough in the Old World. Among the company 
 
 D 2 
 
36 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 on board was a Shaker in drab clothes, and a hat with 
 broad brim ; in countenance he looked like a cross old 
 fellow, not at all a good representative of the Shaker 
 establishment. After a sail of about three hours we 
 reached Blithewood, the beautiful seat of the D. s, whither 
 we were invited to a great breakfast. Here, as in 
 many other places, I observed how they exclude the 
 daylight from the rooms. This troubles me, who am 
 accustomed to our light rooms in Sweden, and who love 
 the light. But they say that the heat of the sun is too 
 powerful here for the greater part of the year, and that 
 they are obliged as much as possible to exclude its light 
 from the rooms. A handsome, stately lady, whose figure 
 was of remarkably beautiful proportions, and much 
 rounder than is common among the ladies I have yet 
 seen, received us kindly. This was Mrs. D. She 
 is a Catholic, and is, I believe, of an Irish family, and 
 her sisters are Calvinists. They manage however to 
 agree together remarkably well, both in affection and 
 good deeds that central Church in which all sects may 
 unite in the name of the same Lord. 
 
 We were conducted to our room, refreshed and dressed 
 ourselves ; then came breakfast and all the neighbours, 
 and I had to shake from sixty to seventy kindly extended 
 hands, which would not have been a difficult task if a 
 deal of small talk had not followed, which, through the 
 repetition of the same word and thing, became wearisome, 
 and made me feel like a parrot. The assembly was 
 beautiful and gay, and the breakfast, which was mag 
 nificent, was closed by a dance. It was a pleasure to 
 me to see so many lovely and lively young girls, delicate 
 figures, though deficient in strength. The ladies dress 
 with taste ; have small hands and feet, and remind one 
 of the French, but are more lovely than they. Some 
 thing however is wanting in their countenances, but what 
 I do not rightly know I fancy it is expression. I was 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 37 
 
 not quite in spirits, and felt to-day somewhat fatigued. 
 When, however, in the evening, I canie forth into the 
 open air, and, accompanied by the silent Mr. Downing, 
 wandered quietly beside the glorious calm river, and 
 contemplated the masses of light and soft velvet-like 
 shadow, which lay on the majestic Katskill mountains, 
 behind which the sun sank in cloudless splendour ; then 
 did the heart expand itself and breathe freely in that 
 sublime and glorious landscape ; then did I drink from 
 the mountain -springs ; then did I live for the first time 
 that day. 
 
 In the evening I enjoyed an unusual pleasure. Mrs. D. 
 played on the harp and piano, and sang remarkably 
 well, with extraordinary power, like a real musician, 
 which I believe is a rare thing in this country. There 
 were both words and expression in her singing, and 
 so there is also in her demeanour; hers is a noble 
 figure, with a free and independent carriage ; " she 
 sustains herself," as you would say. She neither sings 
 nor talks by rote. She sings and talks out of her own 
 independent, feeling, and thinking soul. Her eldest son, 
 a boy of thirteen, has, it appears to me, a real genius for 
 music, even though he broke off and was not able to sing 
 to the end and I believe that he really could not a 
 little fantastic song, the first notes of which, however, 
 were sufficient to foretell a something beyond talent in 
 the boy. He was not in the mood, and in that state 
 he could not sing. Mrs. D. told me, during our conver 
 sation at table, that her son was to learn a handicraft 
 trade, because, although they were now wealthy, the 
 time might come when they would be so no longer, 
 but when it might be necessary for him to earn his 
 bread as a common workman; so uncertain is the 
 stability of wealth in America; w^hy so, I could not 
 rightly understand. 
 
 The following day I again saw a crowd of people, 
 
38 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 who came to see the Swedish stranger. In the afternoon 
 I visited two or three beautiful places in the neigh 
 bourhood. On one of these, a point projecting into 
 the river, has a ruin been built, in which are placed 
 various figures and fragments of walls and columns, 
 which have been brought from the remarkable ruins 
 lately discovered in Central America or Mexico. The 
 countenances and the head-dresses resembled greatly 
 those of Egyptian statues : I was struck in particular 
 with a sphynx-like countenance, and a head similar to that 
 of a priest of Isis. This ruin and its ornaments in the 
 midst of a wild, romantic, rocky, and wooded promontory, 
 was a design in the best taste. 
 
 In the evening we left this beautiful Blithewood, its 
 handsome mistress and our friendly entertainers. We 
 returned home in the night. The cabin in which we sate 
 was close and very hot. Just beside us sate two young 
 men, the one of whom, smoked and spat incessantly just 
 before Mrs. Downing and myself. " That gentleman 
 needs a Dickens ! " said I softly to Mr. Downing. " But 
 then," replied Mr. Downing, in the same under tone, 
 " Dickens would have committed the mistake of supposing 
 him to be a gentleman ! " 
 
 Of my Blithewood visit I retain the Katskill moun 
 tains and Mrs. D. I made a little sketch of her profile 
 in my album (I took one also of Miss Sedgwick), and 
 she gave me at parting a beautiful purse, made with an 
 unusual kind of beads. 
 
 Another festivity at which I was present during this 
 time was at Mrs. Downing s grandmother s. It was a 
 family party, on the occasion of her ninetieth birthday. 
 She lives on the opposite shore ; and there assembled 
 this day in her honour, children and grandchildren, and 
 grandchildren s children, as weU as other near connec 
 tions, an assembly of from fifty to sixty persons. The 
 li ttle old lady of ninety was still lively and active, almost as 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 39 
 
 much so as a young girl. We ate and drank, and some toasts 
 were proposed : I gave one for " The Home " in America 
 as well as in Sweden. In the afternoon we had a little 
 music. I played Swedish polskas; and a young artist, 
 a Mr. C., properly a landscape painter, son-in-law of 
 one of the sons or granddaughters of the family, sang an 
 Italian bravura aria, so beautifully, and with such an 
 exquisite voice, that it was really a refreshment to hear 
 him, and one was sure that he had learned the art 
 in Italy. 
 
 I have been entertained at two other houses on the 
 Hudson, and saw in the one a beautiful, animated hostess, 
 and many beautiful articles of luxury, but without that 
 elegant arrangement which distinguishes the house of 
 the Downings ; and in the other an original old lady, 
 who has been compared among the neighbours to " ma 
 chere Mere " in " The Neighbours," and who really 
 gives occasion for the comparison ; besides which, we 
 met there a remarkably excellent man, Dr. H., a firm 
 Swedenborgian, and a more agreeable person to talk 
 with than the generality of Swedenborgians whom I have 
 met with. He has built a house for himself upon one 
 of the terraces of the Hudson. A splendid lodge, of 
 grey stone, is already complete, and people are a little 
 curious to know whether a lady is not coming into 
 the house ; and it is maintained that the heart of an 
 amiable young girl in the neighbourhood is interested in 
 the question. 
 
 N.B. Dr. H. is very much esteemed and liked, 
 especially by the ladies ; but he has hitherto exhibited a 
 heart of stone to their charms. 
 
 I have been much pleased at this moment by a visit 
 from Bergfalk, as well as by witnessing his state of 
 mind, and the fresh, unprejudiced view which he takes 
 of the good and evil in this New World; and by his 
 warm feeling for Sweden, and the strong hope which he 
 
40 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 entertains of her future development. He is fresh and 
 vigorous, and has a pleasure in communicating his 
 thoughts. And although his English is every now and 
 then the most wonderful gihberish that ever was heard, 
 yet his thoughts find their way through it, and by it, and 
 sometimes in a brilliant manner. Thus, for example : 
 last evening, when characterising the faults and the merits 
 of Macaulay s historical work, this was so striking as to 
 cause the otherwise undemonstrative Mr. Downing to 
 exclaim repeatedly, " Excellent ! delightful ! " 
 
 Mr. Downing was interested by Bergfalk in a high 
 degree, and invited him to spend the night there ; but he 
 had already engaged rooms in the town. We accom 
 panied him to his inn; and I gave him Lowell s and 
 Emerson s works to bear him company. 
 
 To-day, Sunday the 21st, as I continue my letter, 
 Bergfalk is again here, and with him a Swedish doctor, 
 Uddenberg, living at Barthelemi, and who came to pay 
 his respects to me. The morning has been intellectually 
 rich to me in a conversation on Lowell s poem of 
 " Prometheus ; " and the manner in which an American poet 
 has treated this primeval subject of all ages and all poets. 
 Bergfalk again distinguished himself by his power of 
 discriminating the characteristics of the subjects; and 
 nothing like this is ever thrown away upon Mr. Downing. 
 At my request he read that fine portion of Prometheus s 
 defiance of the old tyrants, in which the poet of the New 
 "World properly stands forth in opposition to those of the 
 Old World, because it is not, as in the Prometheus of 
 .ZEschylus, the joy of hatred and revenge, in the con 
 sciousness that the power of the tyrant will one day come 
 to an end ; nor as in Shelley, merely the spirit of defiance, 
 which will not yield, which knows itself to be mightier 
 than Zeus in the strength of suffering and of will, no : 
 it is not a selfish joy which gives power to the newly- 
 created Prometheus ; it is the certainty which defies the 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 41 
 
 tyrant, and by his strength has prepared freedom and 
 happiness for the human race. That threat with which 
 he arms himself against his executioner, that defiance by 
 which he feels that he can crush him, is prophetic of the 
 ideal future of the new world of America; for much 
 suffering has rendered keen his inner vision, and made 
 of him a seer, and he beholds 
 
 " A sceptre and a throne ; 
 The pipings of glad shepherds on the hills, 
 Tending the flocks no more to bleed for thee ; 
 The songs of maidens pressing with white feet 
 The vintage, on thine altars poured no more ; 
 The murmurous bliss of lovers underneath 
 Dim grape-vine bowers, whose rosy branches press 
 Not half so close as their warm cheeks untouched 
 By thoughts of thy brute lust ; the hive-like hum 
 Of peaceful commonwealths, where sunburnt toil 
 Reaps for itself the rich earth made its own 
 By its own labour, lightened with glad hymns 
 To an omnipotence which thy mad bolts 
 Would cope with as a spark with the vast sea, 
 Even the spirit of free love and peace, 
 Duty s own recompense through life and death ; 
 These are such harvests as all master-spirits 
 Reap, haply not on earth, but reap no less 
 Because the sheaves are bound by hands not theirs ; 
 These are the bloodless daggers wherewithal 
 They stab fallen tyrants, this their high revenge : 
 For their best part of life on earth is when 
 Long after death, prisoned and pent no more, 
 Their thoughts, their wild dreams even, have become 
 Part of the necessary air men breathe ; 
 When, like the moon herself behind a cloud, 
 They shed down light before us on life s sea, 
 That cheers us to steer onward, still in hope ; 
 Earth with her twining memories ivies o er 
 Their holy sepulchres ; the chainless sea, 
 In tempest, or wide calm, repeats their thoughts, 
 The lightning and the thunder, all free things 
 Have legends of them for the ears of men. 
 All other glories are as falling stars, 
 But universal nature watches theirs : 
 Such strength is won by love of human kind." 
 
42 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 After this came Caroline Downing, with her favourite 
 bard Bryant, the poet of nature. But Bryant s song also 
 is warm with patriotism, with faith in the future of 
 America, and in her sublime mission. Thus, in that 
 beautiful epic poem, " The Prairies," in which he paints, 
 as words can seldom paint, the illimitable western fields, 
 in their sunbright, solitary beauty and grandeur, billowy 
 masses of verdure and flowers waving in the wind ; above 
 these the vagrant clouds ; and, higher still, "the sunshine, 
 gleaming above the vast scene, paradisaic, splendid, and 
 rich, but silent and desolate as the desert. The silence, 
 however, is broken. The poet hears a low humming. 
 What is it? It is a bee, which flies forth over the 
 flowery plain, and sucks the honey of the flowers. The 
 busy bee becomes a prophet to the poet ; and in its 
 humming flight and its quiet activity he hears the ad 
 vancing industry of the human race, which will extend 
 itself over the prairies, transform them into a new 
 Paradise, and cause new and yet more beautiful flowers 
 to spring up : 
 
 " From the ground 
 
 Comes up the laugh of children, the soft voice, 
 Of maidens, and the sweet and solemn hymn 
 Of sabbath worshippers. The low of herds 
 Blends with the rustling of the heavy grain 
 Over the dark-brown furrows." 
 
 Last of all, I come to the poems of Waldo Emerson, 
 small in dimensions, but great in their spirit and tone ; 
 and read aloud a little dithyrambic poem, which is 
 characteristic of the individuality of the poet. Other 
 American poets speak to society ; Emerson always merely 
 to the individual ; but they all are to me as a breeze from 
 the life of the New World, in a certain illimitable vast- 
 ness of life, in expectation, in demand, in faith, and hope 
 a something which makes me draw a deeper breath, 
 and, as it were, in a larger, freer world. Thus says 
 Emerson s poem : 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 43 
 
 GIVE ALL TO LOVE. 
 
 GIVE all to love ; 
 Obey thy heart ; 
 Friends, kindred, days, 
 Estate, good fame ; 
 
 Plans, credit, and the muse ; 
 
 Nothing refuse. 
 * # * * 
 
 For it is a god, 
 
 Knows its own path, 
 
 And the outlets of the sky. 
 
 Tis not for the mean ; 
 It requireth courage stout, 
 Souls above doubt, 
 Valour unbending ; 
 Such twill reward, 
 They shall return 
 More than they were 
 And ever ascending. 
 
 Yet hear me, yet 
 
 One word more thy heart behoved, 
 
 One pulse more of firm endeavour, 
 
 Keep thee to-day, 
 
 To-morrow, for ever 
 
 Free as an Arab 
 
 Of thy beloved. 
 
 Cling with life to the maid ; 
 But when the surprise 
 Vague shadow of surmise 
 Flits across her bosom young 
 Of a joy apart from thee, 
 Free be she, fancy free, 
 Do not thou detain a hem, 
 Nor the palest rose she flung 
 From her summer diadem. 
 
 Though thou loved her as thyself, 
 
 As a self of purer clay, 
 
 Though her parting dims the day, 
 
 Stealing grace from all alive, 
 
 Heartily know, 
 
 When half-gods go 
 
 The Gods arrive. 
 
44 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 This is noble stoicism. Among Emerson s poems 
 are some which bear witness to a less noble spirit, 
 to a self-consciousness which rejoices in its contempt 
 of the world; that knows itself to have enough, whilst 
 the world perishes of hunger ; a something which re 
 minds one of the answer of the ant to the grasshopper, 
 in La Fontaine s fable. But this shadow passes away, 
 as do all clouds, from the clear heaven of the poet, having 
 not there their abiding home. One strongly prominent 
 feature in him is his love of the strong and the great. 
 Thus he speaks in his poem, " The World-Soul : "- 
 
 " Thanks to the morning light, 
 Thanks to the seething sea, 
 To the uplands of New Hampshire, 
 To the green-haired forest free ; 
 Thanks to each man of courage, 
 To the maids of holy mind, 
 To the boy with his games undaunted 
 "Who never looks behind." 
 
 But nobler even than this is the song of our Geijer : 
 
 " I greet with love each field and grove, 
 And thou, blue billowy sea, I love ; 
 Life-giving light in depth and height, 
 Thou heavenly sun, art my delight ! 
 But more than all earth s fair array, 
 More than the blue waves dancing play, 
 Love I 
 
 The dawning light of heavenly rest 
 Within a trembling human breast ! " 
 
 Of this light Emerson knows nothing. Emerson has, 
 in other respects, many points of resemblance with Geijer, 
 but he stands as much below him as heathenism stands 
 below Christianity. 
 
 I cannot, perhaps, do full justice to Emerson s poems 
 by my translation ; I never was very clever at translation ; 
 and I fancy it almost impossible to render the poetic 
 element of Emerson into another tongue, because it is of 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 45 
 
 so peculiar a kind, and has, like the character of the poet, 
 its own extraordinary rhythm and spirit. 
 
 Henry Longfellow, the author of " Evangeline," is 
 perhaps the best read and the most popular of the poets 
 of America, hut this is owing to qualities which are 
 common alike to the elder poets of all countries, rather 
 than to any peculiar characteristics of the New World s 
 poets. Those sentiments, whether happy or sorrowful, 
 which exist in the breast of every superior human being, 
 are peculiarly his domain, and here he exercises his 
 sway ; and in particular, in his delineation of the more 
 delicate changes of feeling. In " Evangeline " alone has he 
 dealt with an American subject, and described American 
 scenery. 
 
 But enough now, my sweet sister, of this poesy of 
 morning. We will now have our dinner. Men of the 
 two countries are invited, and yet a third, namely, the 
 Swedish Consul, from Boston, Mr. Benzon, who is coming 
 to see me. 
 
 In the Evening. The day is ended with its changing 
 scenes and impressions. If I could only take everything 
 more coolly ! But I am too ardent, too easily excited. 
 Every impression goes directly to my heart and there it 
 remains too strongly impressed. I am alone in my room, 
 and see from my window, through the dark yet star-bright 
 night the steamboats which pass along the Hudson, and 
 send forth from their chimneys sulphur-blue and yellow 
 flames. 
 
 To-morrow morning I am going with the Downings 
 to visit some of their best friends, a family of the name 
 of H., who live on the Hudson, in the neighbourhood of 
 Washington Irving. And next week I return to New 
 York, there to begin my campaign, for which this little 
 taste of rural life and society is merely a prelude. 
 
 Among the people who, during this time, have come to see 
 me are in particular a married couple, Mr. and Mrs. S., 
 
46 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 who came hither with their little baby from New York, 
 solely to offer me their house as my home when there. 
 They were so beautiful and so earnestly kind ; there 
 appeared to me to be something so pure, so single-minded 
 about them ; they seemed to speak so entirely from their 
 own honest hearts, that I was glad to accept their invi 
 tation, and to arrange to go to them before I took up my 
 quarters in any other homes, : as I had promised to do for 
 a time. Among others that of Miss Lynch. It seems 
 as if I should scarcely be obliged to pay anything for my 
 living in this country, if I am to continue being thus enter 
 tained. But I must not expect that it will be thus 
 everywhere. Besides, it has its disadvantages, as well as 
 its advantages and its great pleasures. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. S., who are of the class called Socialists 
 and Abolitionists, and who belong to the Liberal 
 Movement Party in the country, are universally acknow 
 ledged to be remarkably noble and estimable people. 
 " From them," said Mr. Downing, " you will hear what 
 is going forward in this party, and you will probably 
 see at their house William Henry Channing, one of 
 our most distinguished lecturers and extempore speakers, 
 and through him you may become acquainted with 
 Emerson." 
 
 I cannot tell you, my Agatha, how fortunate I esteem 
 myself, that immediately at the commencement of my 
 visit here, I have come into contact with so profoundly 
 thinking and so universally comprehensive a mind as that 
 of Mr. Downing, and who, besides, is so indescribably 
 kind to me, and so careful that I shall derive every 
 possible advantage from my journey, and see everything, 
 both good and bad, in their true light. He never dictates, 
 never instructs me, but now and then, and as if by chance, 
 he mentions to me the names of persons who are active for 
 the future of the New World in one way or another, and 
 makes me observant of what is going on in the country. 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 47 
 
 I notice, among other things, with what precision all 
 branches of intellectual labour seem to be carried on ; 
 and how easily ability and talent make their way, find 
 their place and their sphere of action, become known and 
 acknowledged. 
 
 Mr. Downing has mentioned to me Horace Mann as 
 one of the persons who have most effectually laboured for 
 the future ; as an individual who has brought about, by 
 his enthusiasm and determination, a great reform in 
 the work of instruction ; who has laboured for the 
 erection of beautiful new schools in all parts of the 
 country, and has infused a new life into the organisation 
 of schools. It appears that the reformers and the 
 lecturers who develope the spiritual and intellectual life 
 in America, and call forth its ideal, come from the 
 northern states, from New England, and in particular 
 from Massachusetts, the oldest home of the Pilgrims 
 and the Puritans. 
 
 Of that which he himself has done, Mr. Downing 
 speaks with the utmost modesty ; but I heard from 
 Miss Sedgwick that few men in the United States are so 
 universally known, or so generally influential as he. His 
 works on architecture, on gardening, on flowers and fruits 
 and all of which are calculated to ennoble the taste, to 
 make the purest productions in their branches of science 
 and art accessible to every man these works are to be 
 found everywhere, and nobody, whether he be rich or 
 poor, builds a house or lays out a garden without con 
 sulting Downing s works. Every young couple who sets 
 up housekeeping buys them. 
 
 "It happens," said Mr. Downing modestly, "that I 
 came at a time when people began universally to feel the 
 necessity of information about building houses and laying 
 out gardens." 
 
 He is what people call here " a self-made man," that is 
 to say, a man who has less to thank education for what he 
 
48 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 is than his own endeavours. " He is one of our hest 
 men," said Miss Sedgwick. 
 
 It will readily be supposed that it was painful to me 
 to leave him and his truly sweet and kind little wife. 
 Mr. Downing has drawn up for me a proposed route of 
 travel the plan of a journey for one year through the 
 United States, as well as furnished me with letters to his 
 friends in the different States. I still had a deal to 
 say to you about my happiness in being here, my hap 
 piness in the new vitality which seems given to me, 
 although I feel that the outer life is a little wearisome 
 sometimes; and I expect to have to pay for it one of 
 these days. But ah ! how few there are who have to 
 complain of having too many objects of interest, of expe 
 riencing too much good will ! My beloved Agatha, think 
 of me in thy prayers ; and that I know thou dost, and 
 thank God for me that He has so abundantly fulfilled my 
 secret prayers, has satisfied my hunger and my thirst, and 
 nourished me with His riches and His goodness ! 
 
 In the Morning. Yet once more a greeting from the 
 beautiful banks of the Hudson from the heights of 
 Newburgh, before I leave them, perhaps for ever. 
 Mr. Downing says, indeed, that I must return to them 
 next year ; but it is long till then, and I must travel far 
 and see very much. 
 
 Again a beautiful morning. The river is bright as a 
 mirror ; hundreds of little vessels glide softly, like swim 
 ming sea-gulls, on the bosom of the water between the 
 lofty hills. I wonder how they are able to move. The 
 wind seems to sleep. Over the river and the mountains, 
 over the golden woods, which assume every day a yet 
 more golden hue, over the white glittering villages with 
 their church spires, and in the bosom of the wooded hills 
 rests the thin, white misty veil of the Indian summer. It 
 is a scene of which the character is grand and calmly 
 romantic. I feel and see it, but not merely in external 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 49 
 
 nature. This Indian summer with its mystical life, its 
 thin veil cast over the golden woods and mountains I feel 
 it in my soul. I look around me on nature, and ask, " Is 
 it I who live in thee, or dost thou awaken this life in my 
 soul ? " 
 
 I see the beautiful well-built little houses, with their 
 orchards and grounds which lie Like pearls set in the 
 emerald green frame of the river ! How much is con 
 tained in them of that which is most valuable in the life 
 of the new world. How beautiful and perfect seems 
 here private life, engrafted as it is into public life ; and 
 what a pleasure it is to me that I have become acquainted 
 with many of the families inhabiting these small homes 
 on the banks of this great and glorious river ! 
 
 Not far from Mr. Downing s villa is a beautiful country 
 seat, inhabited by four sisters, all unmarried. A good 
 brother, who had become wealthy by trade, built this 
 house, and bought the land around it for his sisters. 
 Some years afterwards, the brother fell into misfortunes : 
 he lost all that he was possessed of. The sisters now 
 took upon themselves the education of his children, he 
 has now his home with them. They are excellent and 
 agreeable women, who know equally well how to converse 
 seriously or merrily. On the other side of the river a brick- 
 maker has built himself a lovely villa. This honourable man 
 for so he seems to be, and so he really is has been here 
 two or three times to present me with flowers, and invite 
 me to his villa. Mr. Downing has called my attention to a 
 beautiful little house, a frame-house, with green verandah 
 and garden just in this neighbourhood. "It belongs," 
 said he, " to a man who in the day drives cart-loads of 
 stone and rubbish for making the roads. In this is the 
 working-man of the new world superior to him of the 
 old. He can here by the hard labour of his hands obtain 
 the more refined pleasures of life, a beautiful home, and 
 the advantages of education for his family much more 
 
 VOL. I. E 
 
50 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 quickly. And here lie may obtain these if he will. In 
 Europe the greater number of workpeople cannot obtain 
 them do what they will. 
 
 At this moment an explosion thunders from the other 
 side of the Hudson, and I see huge blocks of stone 
 hurled into the air, and then fall into the water, which 
 foams and boils in consequence : it is a rock, which is 
 being blasted with gunpowder on a line of railway now in 
 progress along the banks of the river, and where the 
 power of steam on land will compete with the power of 
 steam on water. To hurl mountains out of the way ; to 
 bore through them ; to form tunnels ; to throw mountains 
 into the water as a foundation for roads in places where 
 it is necessary for it to go over the water ; all this these 
 Americans regard as nothing. They have a faith to 
 remove mountains. 
 
 Now come the steam-boats thundering like tempest in 
 the mountains. Two or three chase each other like 
 immense meteors; one amongst them comes along 
 heavily, labouring and puffing, dragging along a large 
 fleet of larger and smaller craft. New York receives 
 butter, and cheese, and cattle, and many other good 
 things from the country ; and the country, with its towns 
 and rural abodes, receives coffee and tea, and wine, 
 and wearing-apparel, and many other things from New 
 York, and through New York, from Europe. The little 
 town of Newburgh maintains alone by its trade from the 
 country and back two or three steam-boats. When one 
 sees the number, and the magnificence of the steam-boats 
 on the Hudson, one can scarcely believe the fact, that it 
 is not more than thirty years since Fulton made here 
 his first experiment with steam-power on the river, and 
 that amid general distrust of the undertaking. He says 
 himself, when speaking on this subject : 
 
 " When I was about to build my first steam-boat, the 
 public of New York in part regarded it with indifference, 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 51 
 
 in part with contempt, as an entirely foolish undertaking. 
 My friends were polite, but they were shy of me. They 
 listened with patience to my explanations, but with a 
 decided expression of disbelief in their countenances. 
 As I went daily to and from the place where my boat 
 was building, I often lingered unknown near the idle 
 groups of strangers who were collected there, and 
 listened to their remarks respecting the new locomo 
 tive. Their language was always that of scorn and 
 persecution. People laughed aloud, and made jokes at 
 my expense ; and reckoned up the fallacy and loss of 
 money on Mr. Fulton s Folly, as the undertaking was 
 constantly called. Never did I meet with an encouraging 
 remark, an animating hope, or a warm wish. 
 
 " At length came the clay when the experiment was to 
 be tried. To me it was a moment of the utmost import 
 ance. I had invited many of my friends to go on board 
 and witness the first successful voyage. Many of these 
 did me the kindness to come, but it was evident that 
 they did so reluctantly, and in the belief that they should 
 become the witnesses of my humiliation, and not of my 
 triumph ; and I know very well that there was sufficient 
 reason to doubt of my success. The machinery was 
 new, and ill made. A great portion of it was prepared by 
 artisans unaccustomed to such work ; and difficulties 
 might easily arise, also, from other causes. The hour 
 arrived at which the boat was to begin to move. My 
 friends stood in groups on deck. Their looks indi 
 cated uneasiness, mingled with fear : they were silent and 
 dejected. The signal was given, and the boat was put in 
 motion ; it advanced a short distance, then stopped, and 
 became immovable. The former silence now gave place 
 to murmurs and displeasure, and disquiet whisperings, 
 and shrugging of shoulders. I heard on all sides I said 
 it would be so ; It is a foolish undertaking ; I wish 
 we were all well out of it. 
 
 E 2 
 
62 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 " I mounted on the platform, and told my friends that 
 I did not know what was the cause of the stoppage, but 
 that if they would be calm, and give me half an hour s 
 time, I would either continue the voyage or give it up 
 entirely. I went down to the engine, and very soon 
 discovered an unimportant oversight in the arrangement : 
 this was put to rights. The boat began to move once 
 more. We left New York ; we passed through the High 
 lands ; we arrived at Albany ! But even then was 
 mistrust stronger than positive proof. It was doubted 
 whether the thing could be carried through, and if so, 
 whether it would ever lead to any great advantage." 
 
 This was about thirty years since ; and now half the 
 human race flies over land and sea upon Fulton s wings ! 
 But even in the New World first discoveries have to 
 contend with trouble and opposition. 
 
 The dew of morning lies upon the soft grass-plat before 
 my window, and the beautiful groups of flowers and trees 
 are glittering with it ; among these is the little magnolia, 
 with beautiful light-red seed-vessels ; everything is beauti 
 ful and peaceful, and that great, rich scene, the life upon 
 the river below ! I should like to live beside a large river 
 like this. What great thoughts, what life is there not in 
 it, from its commencement in the fountains of the clouds, 
 in the cradle of the hills, and during its course through 
 the valleys and the fields of earth, growing ever mightier 
 as it advances ! 
 
 As guests the affluent cities it inviteth, 
 
 And flowery meadows gather round its knees. TEGNER. 
 
 It is a benefactor wherever it goes ; it salutes and 
 makes festive ; confers benefits and blessings ; but it 
 takes no notice of this ; it pauses not, neither rests. 
 
 Lands it baptises with its name and flows on ; 
 
 A hero s life ! Then hastens he onward to his goal, 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 63 
 
 the ocean : there lie finds rest rest worthy of a heroic 
 soul peace in the infinite, the great : sufficient for all. 
 
 I would willingly live by the Hudson if I did not know 
 a river yet dearer to me : it is called Gotha River. Our 
 Arsta is charming beside its salt waves. But I would 
 rather have a little place beside the river Gotha ; and I 
 fancy that you would be better there, on the western coast 
 of Sweden, than on the eastern, and the colder. 
 
 I must now leave you, to write other letters. Mr. 
 Downing will also write a few words to you and to 
 mamma. I yesterday proposed a toast, your health, and 
 we drank it in champagne. 
 
 Kind greeting to relations and friends, and say some 
 thing especially cordial to Beata Afzelius from me. 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 BROOKLYN, November 5th, 1849. 
 
 MY SWEET SISTER, Again in New York, or in that 
 portion of the great city which is called Brooklyn, and 
 which is separated from New York by the so-called East 
 River, and which will be a city of itself, and which has 
 also a right to be so for its own sake. Brooklyn is as 
 quiet as New York is bewildering and noisy : it is built 
 upon the heights of Long Island; has glorious views 
 over the wide harbour, and quiet broad streets, planted 
 on each side with acanthus trees, a kind of Chinese tree, 
 and I believe of the acacia family, which has a leaf like 
 our ash, only much broader, and which bears long pods. 
 There is also another kind of tree, with a taller stem, which 
 gives shade and a peaceful and rural character to the 
 streets. It is said that the merchants of New York go 
 over to Brooklyn, where they have their house and home, 
 to sleep. The friend with whom. I am living, Marcus S., 
 
54 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 has his place of business in New York and his proper 
 home here in Brooklyn, one of the very prettiest rural 
 homes, by name " Kose Cottage," which he himself 
 built, and around which he has himself planted trees, 
 covered arbours with trailing vines, has sown the fields 
 with maize, and other vegetables, so that the place has the 
 united character of park and garden. From this place 
 he drives every morning to New York, and hither 
 he returns every evening, but not merely to sleep, but 
 to rest, and enjoy himself with wife, children, and friends. 
 Rose Cottage lies just on the outskirts of the town 
 (you must not imagine it a little town, but one which 
 has a hundred thousand inhabitants, its own proper 
 town-house, very magnificent, and from fifty to sixty 
 churches), and the country, with wooded heights and 
 green fields, may be seen therefrom on three sides. But 
 houses are now building at various distances, and 
 threaten soon to shut out the country. It may, however, 
 be some years yet before Eose Cottage comes into the 
 city. I shall now remain here a little while before I set 
 off to Massachusetts and Boston. 
 
 Much, very much, had I to tell you, but alas ! I have 
 neither the time nor the necessary repose ; and I must 
 here give you my life more as a compendium than I did 
 in Denmark. My impressions of life here are more great, 
 more massive, on a broader scale, so to say : I cannot 
 yet bring them under control, cannot yet deal with 
 them ; I cannot give them expression. I have a feeling 
 of the forms in the block, but it will require time and 
 labour to hew them out. This much, however, is certain : 
 the effect of my American journey, as far as myself 
 am concerned, is altogether quite different to what I 
 expected. I came hither to breathe a new and fresher 
 atmosphere of life ; to observe the popular life, institu 
 tions, and circumstances of a new country ; to become 
 clearer in my own mind on certain questions connected 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 55 
 
 with the development of nations and people ; and in 
 particular, to study the women and the homes of the 
 New World, and from the threshold of the home to obtain 
 a view of the future of humanity, because, as the river is 
 born from the springs of heaven, so is the life and the 
 fate of a people born from the hidden life of the home. 
 
 I came, in a word, to occupy myself with public affairs ; 
 and it is private affairs, it is the individual which seizes 
 upon my interest, my feelings, my thoughts. I came 
 with a secret intention of breaking myself loose from 
 fiction and its subjects, and of living with thinkers for 
 other purposes ; and I am compelled towards it more 
 forcibly than ever; compelled involuntarily, both by 
 thought and feeling, towards fiction ; compelled to bring 
 into life forms, scenes, and circumstances, which, as dim 
 shadows, have for twenty years existed in the background 
 of my soul. And in this so-called realist country, but 
 which has more poetical life in it than people have any 
 idea of in Europe, have I already, "in petto," experienced 
 and written more of the romance of life, than I have 
 done for many years. And I shall continue to do so 
 during my residence here. 
 
 When I became aware that, from my waking in the 
 morning, I was occupied in my innermost work-room, not 
 with American affairs and things, but with my own ideal 
 creations, influenced by the interest which everything 
 that surrounded me, and which my new circumstances 
 excited within me, I then gave up the thought of 
 attempting to do anything else but what God had given 
 me to do. I must also here employ my talent, and 
 follow my own vocation, and let fate and circumstances 
 make of it what they must and will. 
 
 I shall, as hitherto, study the world of private life, but 
 shall allow the air and life of the New World, that great 
 world s life, to flow into it, and give to it greater effect. 
 Thus would I always have it to be. I must work it out 
 
56 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 better hereafter. I have long had a presentiment of the 
 romance of life, in its infinite greatness and depth of 
 feeling. When it dawned before my glance, that first 
 view of a transfigured world, never shall I forget that 
 heavenly Aurora, which was, which is, which will con 
 tinue for ever to be a bright spot in my earthly life. For 
 that I have to thank Sweden. Clouds, however, veiled it 
 for a moment ; I did not see it clearly, or rather, I could 
 no longer recal it in its first beauty. Now again I 
 behold it ; and I predict that for its perfect daybreak I 
 shall have to thank America. My life, also, in and with 
 this new world, assumes a romantic form. It is not 
 merely a new continent, a new form of things, with cen 
 turies for its future which I have here to observe ; it is a 
 living soul, a great character, an individual mind, with 
 which I must become acquainted, live and converse with 
 during a profoundly earnest intercourse. How I desire 
 to see its characteristic features, to listen to its reve 
 lations, its unconsciously oracular words regarding its 
 life and its future ! And that great, universal hospitality 
 with which this great new world receives me, makes me 
 feel that it is a heart, a living spirit which meets me in it. 
 Now for a little of the exterior of my life. I last left 
 you when I was just about to pay a visit with Mr. 
 Downing to Mr. H. and his family. As we came down 
 to the bridge at Newburgh two men were there, the one 
 fat, and the other lean, who were talking loudly, and 
 with so much warmth, that they seemed to be in a state 
 of anger with each other. "Everybody who goes with 
 this steam-boat is robbed ! " exclaimed the one ; " it is 
 full of pickpockets and rogues !" "Let everyone who is 
 carefuUrf his life," cried the other, " take care not to go 
 in the boat he recommends : it has a cracked boiler, and 
 will blow up before long !" "That is not true, but the 
 greatest lie ! " returned the first, and they cast terrible 
 glances at each other from under their contracted eye- 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 57 
 
 brows, whilst they continued to go on commending their 
 own boats and abusing each other s. 
 
 " What is the meaning of this ? " said I to Mr. Downing, 
 who smiled quietly, and replied : " Here is an opposition. 
 Two vessels are emulous for passengers ; and these 
 fellows are hired by the two parties to puff their boats. 
 They act this part every day, and it means nothing 
 at all." 
 
 I observed, also, that whilst they cast the most ferocious 
 glances at each other, there was frequently a smile on 
 their lips at the ready abuse which they poured out 
 against each other s boats, probably alike innocent, and 
 alike safe, the one as the other ; and the people around 
 them laughed also, or did not trouble themselves the least 
 about their contention. I saw that the whole thing was a 
 comedy, and wondered only how they could endure to 
 play it so often. 
 
 Mr. Downing had already made choice of his boat : 
 and we had not long been on board before the captain 
 sent to offer " Miss Bremer and her friends " free passage 
 by the steamer as well as by the railway of the Hudson. 
 And thus by means of my good name and American 
 politeness, we sailed down the Hudson in the warm, 
 calm summer air. But the brickmaker, Mr. A., who had 
 already declared himself as my friend, had brought me 
 beautiful flowers, invited me to his villa by the Hudson, 
 and discovered some good phrenological developments in 
 my forehead, here seized upon me, and conducted me to 
 his wife, who introduced me to a poet, whose verses, she 
 maintained I must have read ; and the poet introduced 
 three ladies, and the three ladies various other ladies and 
 gentlemen. I became, as it were, walled in, felt as hot as 
 if in an oven, and fled out of the saloon to my silent 
 friend on deck, upbraiding him because he had given me 
 up as a prey to the natives of the country. Nevertheless, 
 I very much liked my friend the brickmaker, who is a 
 
58 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 broad, substantial, kind creature, with an open heart and 
 countenance. I liked also the poet, who was evidently a 
 lively and good-tempered person, only that I had not read 
 his verses, and all these my new friends were too many 
 for me. I was now able to sit silently on deck with the 
 silent Mr. Downing ; but yet, with the consciousness that 
 I inwardly conversed with him, that his glance rested 
 upon the same objects as mine, and that his mind received 
 them and judged of them, if not as I did, yet in a manner 
 which I could understand, because I understood him. 
 Now and then a word was uttered, now and then a remark 
 was made, and all was cheerful and amusing. How 
 pleasant is such companionship ! 
 
 When we left the steamboat we took our places on the 
 Hudson Eailway, the same which is in progress opposite 
 to Newburgh, and along which we flew with arrow-like 
 speed to Mr. H. s villa, which lies upon a height by the 
 river- side. There we were soon in the midst of a 
 beautiful home and domestic circle. The father of 
 the family, Mr. H., is the son of the general of that 
 name, the contemporary and friend of Washington, and 
 one of the great men of the American War of Inde 
 pendence. Mr. H., his wife, a still handsome elderly 
 lady, of quiet motherly appearance, a son, and three 
 daughters, constitute the family. Mrs. S., the married 
 daughter, whose praise, as a woman remarkably gifted 
 both in heart and head, I had heard from many people, 
 gave me an invitation to visit with her the schools 
 and various other benevolent institutions of New York, 
 which I gratefully accepted. The two younger, unmarried 
 daughters, Mary and Angelica, seemed to me like types of 
 the two female characters which are often introduced in 
 Cooper s novels. Mary is of a lively, ardent character, 
 full of energy; she has bright brown eyes, is witty 
 and merry in conversation. Angelica is Madonna-like, 
 gentle and fair, a beautiful, noble, and, in mine and many 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 59 
 
 other people s eyes, a most highly attractive being. I 
 remarked in particular the charm of her voice, and her 
 movement, and how, without asking any questions, she 
 could, even with ladies, set a conversation afloat, and 
 keep it up with animation. 
 
 Mr. H., the father, took me out with him to visit 
 various small farmers of the district, so that I might 
 see something of their circumstances. At two of the 
 houses we arrived just at dinner-time, and I saw the 
 tables abundantly supplied with meat and cakes of Indian 
 meal, vegetables, and fruit, as well as with the most beau 
 tiful white bread. The houses were for the most part 
 " frame-houses," that is to say, a sort of neatly-built 
 wooden house; the rooms had large windows, which were 
 light and clean. It was a real pleasure to me to converse 
 with Mr. H., who is well acquainted with the country, 
 and a warm friend of its free institutions, the excellence 
 of which he has had an opportunity of testing during a 
 long official life. 
 
 The day was beautiful, but a little cool in the wind 
 not a " well -mingled air," as you are accustomed to 
 call it. And the air here has something so keen, so 
 penetrating, that I am affected by it as I never was in 
 Sweden. 
 
 There was a whole crowd of strangers to dinner, among 
 whom was Washington Irving, a man of about sixty, with 
 large beautiful eyes, a large well-formed nose, a coun 
 tenance still handsome, in which youthful little dimples 
 and smiles bear witness to a youthfully fresh and 
 humorous disposition and soul. He must be a man 
 of an usually happy temperament, and of the most 
 excellent heart. He has surrounded himself with a 
 number of nieces (he says he cannot conceive of what 
 use boys are in the world), whom he makes happy, and 
 who make him so by their affection. He says he has the 
 peculiar faculty of liking everything which he possesses, 
 
60 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 and everything which seeks his protection. He is an 
 optimist, but not a conceited one. 
 
 He was my neighbour at table, and I have to thank 
 him for not becoming sleepy ; nor should I have supposed, 
 as people told me, that he was accustomed to be sleepy at 
 great dinners, at which I certainly am not surprised. But 
 the dinner to-day was not one of the long and tedious 
 description, besides which he evidently endeavoured to 
 make the conversation interesting and agreeable; and I, 
 too, did my best, as you may easily suppose. 
 
 In the afternoon I begged him to allow me to take a 
 profile likeness of him ; and, in order that he might not go 
 quite asleep during the operation, I begged Angelica H. 
 to sit just opposite to him, and talk to him ; and 
 the plan succeeded excellently. The handsome old 
 gentleman now became wide awake, loquacious and 
 lively, and there was such vivacity in his smile, and so 
 much fun in all the merry dimples of his countenance, 
 that it is my own fault if I have not made one of the 
 best and most characteristic portraits that has ever been 
 taken of this universally beloved author. I am glad to 
 have it to show to his friends and admirers in Sweden. 
 Washington Irving invited me and my friends to his 
 house for the following evening ; but, as we were obliged 
 to return home that day, we could not accept his invi 
 tation, but engaged to pay him a visit in the morning. 
 
 In the evening, the new married son of the family 
 returned home from a journey. It was delightful to see 
 the handsome young man sitting between his father and 
 mother, full of mirth and cordiality, endeavouring to 
 divide himself, as it were, equally between them, replying 
 to their questions, and acknowledging their tokens of 
 affection. 
 
 Among other objects of interest which I saw here, and 
 which I had also seen in a few other houses on the 
 Hudson, was the " American Birds " of Audubon, a work 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 61 
 
 of real genius and merit ; for one does not merely see the 
 various kinds of American birds, but also their charac 
 teristics, their life, and history ; how they build and feed 
 themselves ; their quarrels, perils, and joys. Some of 
 the paintings seem to me to show a little eccentricity in 
 design ; but what can be more eccentric than nature 
 herself in certain hours and humours ? 
 
 Another interesting acquaintance which I made here 
 was with Mr. Stevens, who discovered and has written 
 upon the remains of Central America. What a rich 
 field is there presented for American enterprise and 
 love of investigation. And they ought not to rest, these 
 Vikings of the present time, before all this is their own, 
 and they have there free space to work in. At present 
 there are great difficulties in the way of their advancing 
 into these regions. 
 
 On the following morning, we had, among other good 
 things for breakfast, (they have only too many and too 
 highly- seasoned dishes cayenne pepper here spoils 
 both meat and the stomach) ; we had also honey from 
 Hymettus, which had been sent by a friend of the 
 family who had lately returned from his travels in 
 Greece. This classical honey seemed to me not any 
 better than the virgin honey of our northern bees. 
 Flowers and bees are pretty nearly alike all over the 
 world, and are fed by the same heavenly honey- dew. I 
 thought how our bees at Arsta murmur their songs in 
 autumn around the mignonette, and how thou thyself 
 seest them now as thou movest like a little queen among 
 thy subjects in the flower-garden, among beds of flowers 
 which thou hast had planted. Alas ! but it is true that 
 even now it is there the winter trance, and the bees have 
 forgotten themselves in their hives ! I forget here how 
 the year goes on, because the Indian summer is a time 
 of enchantment. 
 
 I went in the forenoon with Mary H. to "Washington 
 
62 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 Irving s. His house or villa, which stands on the banks 
 of the Hudson, resembles a peaceful idyll ; thick masses 
 of ivy clothe one portion of the white walls and garland 
 the eaves. Fat cows fed in a meadow just before the 
 window. Within, the room seemed full of summer 
 warmth, and had a peaceful and cheerful aspect. One 
 felt that a cordial spirit, full of the best sentiment 
 of the soul, lived and worked there. Washington Irving, 
 although possessed of the politeness of a man of the 
 world, and with great natural good-temper, has, never 
 theless, somewhat of that nervous shyness which so 
 easily attaches itself to the author, and in particular to 
 him who is possessed of delicacy of feeling and refine 
 ment. The poetical mind, by its intercourse with the 
 divine spheres, is often brought somewhat into dishar 
 mony with clumsy earthly realities. To these belong 
 especially the visits of strangers and the forms of social 
 intercourse, as we make them in good society on earth, 
 and which are shells that must be cracked if one would 
 get at the juice of either kernel or fruit. But that is a 
 difficulty for which one often has not time. A portrait 
 which hangs in Washington Irving s drawing-room, and 
 which was painted many years since, represents him as 
 a remarkably handsome man, with dark hair and eyes 
 a head which might have belonged to a Spaniard. When 
 young, he must have been unusually handsome. He 
 was engaged to a young lady of rare beauty and excel 
 lence ; it would have been difficult to meet with a 
 handsomer pair. But she died, and Washington Irving 
 never again sought for another bride. He has been 
 wise enough to content himself with the memory of a 
 perfect love, and to live for literature, friendship, and 
 nature. He is a wise man, but without wrinkles and 
 grey hair. Washington Irving was at this time occupied 
 with his " Life of Mahomet," which will shortly be sent 
 to press. Two ladies, the one elderly, the other younger, 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 63 
 
 neither of them handsome, but with countenances full 
 of intelligence and feeling, and near relations of his, were 
 at his house. 
 
 Again at Mr. H. s, I received a number of visitors, 
 all handsome, and in manners kind and open-hearted. 
 The ladies have in general fine figures, but they are 
 somewhat too spare. After that we had music. Mary 
 H. and I had just sate down, full of enthusiasm, to 
 an overture for four hands, which we played so that 
 they who heard us cried bravo ! when Mr. Downing, 
 with his melodious voice, and decided manner, which 
 makes him sometimes a sort of amiable despot, inter 
 rupted us with the words, "Now it is time," namely, 
 time for us to take leave, and I hastened to the rail 
 way, which as with an iron hand had stopped the music 
 of life. But it accompanied me nevertheless in the 
 impression of that beautiful family life which I have again 
 seen here ; and to the railroad also accompanied me that 
 fine old gentleman, Mr. H., who, during the whole time, 
 had shown me the greatest kindness, and now, at parting 
 begged me to regard him as a father, to consider his 
 house as mine, and to come and remain there whenever 
 I might find myself not so well off in any of the United 
 States. And I know that this offer on his part is as 
 equally sincere as is that of Mr. Downing, that I would 
 regard him as a brother, and allow him to serve me 
 whenever I might find occasion. " Bear that well in 
 mind ! " these were his words at parting, so that I have 
 now both father and brother in this new world that 
 will do to begin with ! 
 
 I sate silent in the railway carriage beside my silent 
 friend, but the music of whose soul I am always con 
 scious of, though he speak not a word ; so that after all, 
 there was no interruption to the music. 
 
 We sailed up the Hudson on a gloomy but beautiful 
 evening. The air was quite calm ; now and then a 
 
64 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 steam-boat came thundering towards us with, its naming 
 chimney, but the river was unusually quiet. From out 
 the dark shadows which the lofty mountains threw upon 
 the shores, gleamed here and there small red lights. 
 "They are from the cottages of the labourers on the 
 railway," said Mr. Downing. 
 
 " Not they," said I ; " they are little dwarfs that are 
 peeping out of the rocks and that unclose the openings 
 to the mountain halls within ; we Scandinavians know all 
 about it ! " 
 
 Mr. Downing laughed and allowed my explanation to 
 pass. That which I seem to want here, if I think about 
 a want at all, where so much new and affluent life pre 
 sents itself, is that life of sagas and traditions which we 
 possess everywhere in Sweden, and which converts it 
 into a poetic soil full of symbolical runes, in forest, and 
 mountain, and meadow, by the streams and the lakes, 
 nay, which gives life to every stone, significance to every 
 mound. In Sweden all these magnificent hills and 
 mountains by the Hudson would have symbolical names 
 and traditions. Here they have only historical traditions, 
 mostly connected with the Indian times and wars, and 
 the names are rather of a humorous than a poetic 
 tendency. Thus a point of rock somewhat nose -like 
 in form, which runs out into the river, is called St. 
 Anthony s Nose, and in sailing past it I could not help 
 thinking of a merry little poem which Mr. Downing read 
 to me, in which St. Anthony is represented as preaching 
 to the fishes, who came up out of the depths quite 
 astonished and delighted to hear the zealous father of 
 the Church preaching for their conversion. The end, 
 however, is, 
 
 Much delighted were they, 
 But preferred the old way. 
 
 And thus continued in their natural vices ; and St. Anthony 
 got a long nose. 
 
-HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 65 
 
 I spent yet a few Indian summer days with my friends 
 by the Hudson days rich in many things ; intercourse 
 with human beings, and with nature, and the enjoyment 
 of beautiful paradisaical fruits : the new moon lit her 
 torch, and gave a yet more highly romantic character to 
 the summer veil on mountain and river wonderfully 
 beautiful days and scenes ! and wonderfully beautiful was 
 that day when, during a storm, I travelled with my friends 
 down the Hudson to New York. Autumn had during 
 its advance given uniformity of colouring to the woods. It 
 varied now between copper and gold, and shone like an 
 infinitely rich golden embroidery on the Indian veil of mist 
 which rested upon the heights along the Hudson. The 
 wind was so violent that at times the vessel was driven 
 on the banks, and, as the evening advanced, the groups 
 of people became more and more silent in the crowded 
 saloon. Friend drew T near to friend, husband to wife ; 
 mothers pressed their children closer to their breasts. 
 My eye by chance fell on the tall figure of a man of 
 energetic appearance ; a little woman stood close beside 
 him, and her hand was pressed to his heart. A speechless 
 and passionate life prevailed there prevailed throughout 
 the atmosphere that stormy, hot evening. This and some 
 other scenes have inscribed themselves ineffaceably on 
 my soul ; thou shalt read them there some time there or 
 upon paper, for whatever I experience forcibly and deeply 
 thou knowest that I must, sooner or later, give back either 
 in word or form. 
 
 We arrived in storm and darkness at New York, but 
 nevertheless reached the Astor House most comfortably ; 
 and very soon was I seated familiarly with my friends in 
 a light and handsome room, drinking tea and the most 
 delicious milk cooled with ice. 
 
 " In order that I may now show you proper respect," 
 said Mr. Downing, " as we are about to part, I believe that 
 I must beg from you an autograph ! " 
 
 VOL. I. p 
 
66 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 Thus he often good-humouredly teases me, knowing, as 
 he does, my abhorrence of the American autograph col 
 lectors. We spent the evening pleasantly reading by 
 turns from our favourite poets, Lowell, Bryant, and 
 Emerson. It was twelve o clock when we separated, and 
 I went to my room. But I remained up for some time, 
 listening through the open window to the softly plashing 
 rain, drinking in the balsamic air, and allowing the breath 
 of a new life to penetrate my very being. 
 
 I remained yet a few days at the Astor House with the 
 Downings. During these we visited the Exhibition of 
 the American Art-Union in New York. Among the 
 paintings of native artists, I saw none which indicated 
 peculiar genius, with the exception of a large historical 
 painting from the first Mexican War between the 
 Spaniards and the Indians. A few pieces of sculpture 
 gave me great pleasure, from their delicacy of expression 
 and mastership in execution. Among these in particular 
 was a marble bust of Proserpine, and a fisher-boy listening 
 to the sound of the sea in a conch-shell, both the works 
 of the American artist Hiram Powers. One could almost 
 wish for something greater and more national in subject; 
 but greater beauty, or more perfection in form, would be 
 impossible. Just opposite to the room of the American 
 Art-Union they have placed, with good judgment, as it 
 seemed to me, the so-called Diisseldorf Gallery, a col 
 lection of old paintings, principally of the German school, 
 which has been opened for the benefit and instruction of 
 American artists and lovers of art. But the want of time 
 prevented me from visiting this gallery, at the present 
 moment. 
 
 Among other good things which awaited me here was 
 an offer from a much-esteemed publisher of New York, 
 Mr. George Putnam, the same who is bringing out the 
 works of Miss Sedgwick, to publish a new and hand 
 some edition of my writings, which have hitherto been 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 67 
 
 printed and circulated here at a low price, and to allow 
 me the same pecuniary advantage as a native author. 
 Mr. Downing was pleased with the proposal, because he 
 knows Mr. Putnam to be a thoroughly honourable and 
 trustworthy man. 
 
 It was not without pain that I parted from the 
 Downings, with whom I had spent so richly intellectual 
 and delightful a time (I will call it my honeymoon 
 in the New World), and to whom I am really cordially 
 attached. But I shall see them again ; I have to thank 
 Mr. Downing for many things ; for the wisdom and the 
 tact, as well as the brotherly earnestness with which he has 
 assisted me to arrange my movements here in the new 
 world, and as regarded invitations and other marks of 
 friendliness which I have received. At parting he ad 
 monished me with his beautiful smile, that I should on all 
 occasions make use of a little inborn tact (N.B. a thing 
 which I was born without) so as to know what I ought 
 to do and to permit. I think, in the meanwhile that I 
 made good use of his advice, by immediately afterwards 
 declining the proposal of a young gentleman to climb a 
 lofty church tower with him. Nothing strikes me so 
 much as the youthfulness of this people I might almost 
 say childish fervour and love of adventure. They hesitate 
 at nothing, and regard nothing as impossible. But I 
 know myself to be too old to climb up church towers with 
 young gentlemen. 
 
 When the Downings left me, I was intrusted to the kind 
 care of Mr. Putnam, who was to conduct me to his villa 
 on Staten Island. It was with difficulty that we drove 
 through the throng of vehicles of all kinds which filled the 
 streets leading to the harbour, in order to reach the steam 
 boat in tune. I cannot help admiring the way in which the 
 drivers here manage to get out of the way, and twist about 
 and shoot between and disentangle themselves without 
 any misadventure from the really Gordian knot of carts 
 
 F 2 
 
63 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 and carriages. It is extraordinary, but it is not excellent. 
 I sat all the time in expectation of seeing the head of a 
 horse come through the carriage-window, or of the carriage 
 being smashed to pieces. In the meanwhile, all went 
 well ; we reached the steamboat in time, had a beautiful 
 sail upon the calm waters of the extensive bay, where 
 large and small steamboats incessantly are passing and 
 winding their way among the sailing craft. That is a 
 scene of life ! 
 
 At Mr. Putnam s beautiful house on one of the heights 
 of Staten Island, I saw a most charming, cheerful, and 
 agreeable little hostess and three pretty children, and in 
 the evening a whole crowd of people from the neighbour 
 hood. I played Swedish polskas and ballads for them. 
 The best thing of the evening was a comic song, sung by 
 an excellent elderly gentleman. 
 
 I was frozen in my bedroom, because the weather is 
 now cold, and they do not heat the bedrooms in this 
 country. It is here as in England, not as in our good 
 Sweden ; and I can hardly accustom myself to these cold 
 bedchambers. It was to me particularly hard to get up 
 and to dress myself in that chilly room, with my fingers 
 benumbed with cold. But I forgot both the numbness 
 and the frost when I went down to breakfast, and saw 
 the bright sun, and the lovely and kind hostess in that 
 cheerful room, with its prospect over the bay, the city, 
 and the island. In the forenoon Mr. Putnam drove me 
 in a covered carriage to see the island, and to call upon 
 various families. The rich golden woods shone in their 
 autumnal pomp of varied gold or brown a colouring both 
 warm and deep, like that of the soul s noblest sufferings. 
 I indulged the emotion which it excited, and I drove 
 through the woods as through a temple filled with symbolic 
 inscriptions, and that which it presented to me I could 
 read and decipher. Thus we advanced to the loftiest 
 point of the island, whence the prospect was glorious, 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 69 
 
 from its vast extent over land and water. The height 
 was lost ; and the eye hovered and circled, like the eagle, 
 in the air ; but with no rock, no mountain -crag, on which 
 to rest. 
 
 I saw also two handsome houses, with their gardens, 
 and two handsome, kind ladies. One of them was really 
 beautiful, but sorrowing: death had lately taken from 
 her her heart s joy. In the second home joy and happi 
 ness were the dwellers ; there was no mistake about that. 
 I was obliged to promise to return there in the spring, 
 and there to witness that lovely season. But I wonder 
 how many breaches of promise I shall be guilty of in this 
 country ! 
 
 Mr. Putnam conveyed me back to New York, and to 
 the kind Mrs. S., who now took charge of me, and 
 with her I visited various public institutions, among 
 which were a couple of large schools, where I saw hun 
 dreds of cheerful children, as well as young people. I 
 remarked in particular the bright, animated, beautiful 
 eyes of the children. The mode of instruction seemed to 
 me especially calculated to keep the children awake and 
 attentive. One building contained many, or all grada 
 tions of scholars. The lowest rooms are appropriated to 
 the smallest children, of from four to six years old (each 
 child having its little chair and detached desk standing 
 before it), and with each story ascends the age of the 
 pupils, and the branches of knowledge in which they are 
 instructed. In the uppermost story they have advanced 
 to nineteen or twenty, or even above (as well in the girls 
 school as the boys ), take diplomas, and go thence out 
 into the world to live and teach according as they have 
 learnt here. I however did not gain much information. 
 I wished to put questions, but they gave themselves little 
 time to answer, and I saw that my visit was regarded not 
 as for instruction, but for display. In the institution for 
 the deaf and dumb a young teacher indicated by signs to 
 
70 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 the pupils a long history, which they were to write 
 upon the writing-tablets which hung around the walls. 
 They did it excellently ; and I could not but marvel at 
 their powers of memory and their quickness of apprehen 
 sion and expression. 
 
 The following day an excursion was proposed to one of 
 the islands in the neighbourhood of the city, where right- 
 minded men have established a large institution for the 
 reception and assistance of emigrants, who, in sickness or 
 destitution, arrive in New York from Europe. The 
 island is called "Ward s Island," the institution "the 
 Emigrant s Asylum." One of its principal founders and 
 supporters, Mr. Golden, formerly one of the chief lawyers 
 of New York, and now a man of affluence, occupying 
 himself solely and entirely with benevolent institutions, 
 conducted Mrs. S. and myself, as well as Bergfalk, 
 whom I persuaded to accompany us thither, in his carriage. 
 Bergfalk is addicted to burying himself among law-books 
 and acts of parliament, to living with the dead, and I must 
 decoy him forth to breathe the fresh air with the living, 
 and to live among them. 
 
 The day was glorious, and the sail in the boat upon 
 that calm, fragrant water (I never knew water give forth a 
 fragrance as it does here) in that warm autumnal sun, was 
 one of the most agreeable imaginable. On Ward s Island 
 people may form a slight idea of the difficult question 
 which the Americans have to meet in the reception of the 
 poor, and often most wretched population of Europe, and 
 how they endeavour to meet it. Thousands who come 
 clad in rags, and bowed down with sickness, are brought 
 hither, succoured, clothed, fed, and then sent out west 
 ward to the States of the Mississippi, in case they have no 
 friends or relations to receive them at a less remote dis 
 tance. Separate buildings have been erected for the sick 
 of typhus fever ; for those afflicted with diseases of the 
 eye ; for sick children ; for the convalescent ; for lying-in 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 71 
 
 women. Several new houses were in progress of erection. 
 Upon those verdant, open hills, fanned by the soft sea- 
 breezes, the sick must, if possible, regain health, and the 
 weak become strong. We visited the sick ; many hundreds 
 were ill of typhus fever. We visited also the convalescent 
 at their well- supplied dinner-table. 
 
 "But if," said I to Mr. Golden, "they are supplied 
 every day with such soup and such meat as this, how 
 can you manage to get rid of them, at least of such as live 
 only to eat ? " 
 
 " With them we do as the Quaker did with his adver 
 sary," replied Mr. Golden, smiling : " he took hold of him 
 in a rough manner. How now ? said the enemy. 
 You are really not going to strike me : that is against 
 your religious principles ! No, said the Quaker, I 
 shall not strike thee ; but I shall keep hold of thee in a 
 very uncomfortable manner. " 
 
 Bergfalk was as much pleased as I was, in seeing 
 this noble, flourishing institution, which the people 
 of the New World have established for the unfortunate 
 children of the Old ; and I enjoyed no less the peculiar 
 individuality of Mr. Golden, one of those strong charac 
 ters who sustain such institutions as easily as a mother her 
 child upon her arm a man strong of heart, soul, and body. 
 For such men I feel an admiration which is akin to a 
 child-like love; I would willingly serve them as a 
 daughter. They have the magnetism which is ascribed to 
 the mountain character. 
 
 I visited also with Mrs. S., the home established for 
 the restoration of fallen women : it appeared to me excel 
 lent, and well arranged. Miss Sedgwick is one of the 
 managers, and does a very great deal of good. She reads 
 to the women stories which call forth their better nature, 
 and talks to them cordially and wisely. She must be one 
 of the most active supporters of this reformatory home. 
 
 Mrs. S., who is a gentle, motherly, and domestic woman, 
 
72 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 as well as a good citizen even beyond the sphere of 
 her own house and every noble woman ought to be 
 the same was an amiable hostess to me ; and the only 
 thing which I lacked was, that I was unable to talk more 
 with her. But these schools, asylums, etc., they are in 
 the highest degree excellent and estimable : but ah ! how 
 they weary me ! Mrs. S, conducted me to the house of 
 Miss Lynch, where I saw a whole crowd of people, and 
 among them Bryant the poet, who has a beautiful charac 
 teristic head, with silvery locks. 
 
 From Miss Lynch s I was taken by a kind and respect 
 able professor, Hackitt, I believe, he was called to the 
 Elysian Fields, a park-like tract, on an island near New 
 York, and- so called from their beautiful idyllian scenery; 
 and they were beautiful as an idyll, and the day, and the 
 air nay, my child, we have nothing like them in the Old 
 World ! at least, I have never felt any such. I drink in 
 this air as I would drink nectar, and feel it almost like a 
 pleasant intoxication : it must belong to this time of the 
 year, and to the magic life of this Indian summer. I 
 wandered in the Elysian Fields with really Elysian 
 feelings, saw flocks of white sails coming down the 
 Hudson, like winged birds of peace, and I allowed my 
 thoughts to float up it to the friends there, the new and 
 yet so dear; far from me, and yet so near. It was an 
 enchanting day that day in the Elysian Fields of the 
 new world. My professor was good and wise, as Mentor, 
 in "Les Aventures de Telemaque," and I fancy wiser, 
 because he did not talk, but followed me with fatherly 
 kindness, and seemed to enjoy my pleasure. In the 
 evening he conducted me across East River to Eose 
 Cottage, in that quiet Brooklyn ; and there I shall rest 
 some days a little apart from the world. 
 
 Now a word about my new friends, Marcus and 
 Bebecca. They are a very peculiar kind of people; 
 they have a something about them remarkably simple 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 73 
 
 and humane, serene, and beautiful, which seems to me of 
 angelic purity. The first day that I dined at their house 
 they called me hy my name, and wished that I should 
 call them the same ; and now I live with them familiarly 
 as with a brother and a sister. They have been, and are, 
 indescribably kind to me. The first day I was there I 
 was somewhat out of humour : I suffered from the cold, 
 especially in my bed-room, and from having to place 
 myself in new circumstances, to which I always have a 
 repugnance. But they had a stove set in my chamber, 
 made it warm and comfortable, and I soon felt myself at 
 home with them, and happy. 
 
 Marcus is also what is called a self-made man. But 
 I rather suspect that our Lord himself was of his kind, 
 both in heart and head. His countenance reminds me of 
 Sterne s expression about a face " it resembles a 
 blessing." His wife, Rebecca, comes of the race of 
 Quakers, and has something about her of that quiet, 
 inward light, and that reflectiveness, which, it is said, 
 belongs to this sect. Besides this, she has much talent 
 and wit, and it is especially agreeable to hear her con 
 verse. Her exterior is pleasing, without being beautiful ; 
 her mouth remarkably fresh and cheerful, and her figure 
 classically beautiful. Both husband and wife are true 
 patriots and warm friends of humanity, loving the ideal 
 in life, and living for it. They are people of affluence, 
 and are able to do much good. They are interested in 
 Socialism, but rather as amateurs than as the actually 
 initiated. Yet Marcus has associated several of his 
 clerks with him in his business. But he is one of that 
 class who do not like to talk about what they do, or that 
 others should busy themselves therewith. His wife and 
 friends like to talk about him ; and I do not wonder at it. 
 The family consists of three children. Eddy, the eldest 
 boy, twelve years old, and who might serve as a model 
 either for a Cupid or for one of Raphael s angels, has a 
 
74 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 quiet, thoughtful demeanour, with great refinement of 
 expression. Little Jenny, the only daughter, is a sweet 
 little girl; and then comes "the haby," a yellow-haired 
 little lad, with his father s brow and clear blue eyes : a 
 delicate, but delightful child. 
 
 With Marcus I talk about what is going on both now 
 and for hereafter in the country, whether afar off or 
 near ; with Eebecca about the history of the inward life ; 
 and thus learn much which both affects and interests me. 
 Yes, my sister, there is here much more poetry, much more 
 of the romance of life, than we have imagined. Life here is 
 new youth. The climate, also, is youthful, but not always 
 most agreeably so: it is very fickle. The first days I 
 spent here at Brooklyn were so bitterly cold that I was 
 frozen both body and mind. Now, and for the last 
 three days, it has been so warm, that I have lain at night 
 with my window open, have seen the stars shining through 
 the Venetian shutters, and been saluted in the crimson 
 dawn by the mildest zephyrs, and that air, and that odour, 
 which has in it something magical. 
 
 November 7th. I have not been able to write for 
 several days. I am sorry for it, my sweet child, but I 
 cannot help it. I will some time, by word of mouth, fill 
 up the gaps which remain in my letters. Many things 
 which are flattering, and many things which are difficult, 
 occur to me every day, which are not worth putting down 
 on paper. My life is a daily warfare against kindness 
 and politeness, and curiosity, during which I often am 
 weary and worn out ; often, also, I feel the wafting influence 
 of an extraordinary youthfulness and enjoyment gush 
 through my soul. I felt this one day during a conver 
 sation with the noble, enthusiastic W. H. Channing, a 
 character as ardent as it is pure, with a beaming eye, and 
 a countenance as pure and regular as I could imagine that 
 of a seraph to be. His figure, which is noble and elegant, 
 is well suited for that of a public speaker. He is rather a 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 75 
 
 critical admirer tlian an enthusiast as regards his country. 
 He loves enthusiastically merely the ideal and the perfect, 
 and knows that the reality falls short of this. 
 
 " We are very young, very young ! " said he, speaking 
 of the people of the United States. He spoke of Waldo 
 Emerson with admiration, but as of a remotely lofty 
 spirit. " He is the best of us all ! " said he. 
 
 " Is he your friend ? " I inquired. 
 
 " No," replied he ; "I cannot flatter myself with such 
 a relationship between us. He is besides too much 
 
 apart, too . But you ought to see him to be able to 
 
 understand him." 
 
 I made some observation against Emerson s turn of 
 mind. Channing did not make much reply to this, but 
 continued mentally to look up to Emerson as one looks 
 up to some star of the first magnitude. This man must 
 have the power of fascination. 
 
 On Wednesday I go with Channing and Marcus and 
 Rebecca to the North American Phalanstery in New Jersey, 
 take a near view of that wonderful thing, and learn more 
 about Christian Socialism. Bergfalk will go with us. After 
 that I return here, where I remain to the end of the week. 
 The following week I shall spend with Miss Lynch in 
 New York, and give myself up to a life of society there. 
 After that, I return here, and accompany my friends to 
 Massachusetts, in order to celebrate with their relations 
 there the great festival of Thanksgiving- day, as it is 
 called. This day, which is fixed this year for the 26th of 
 November, is celebrated with particular solemnity in the 
 States of New England, where it first originated. After 
 that, I shall visit the Lowells, the Ernersons, and many 
 others, to whom I am invited, and so on to Boston, 
 where I think of spending the winter months, and whence 
 my friends will return home. 
 
 In the evening, at sunset, I went out for a solitary 
 walk in the road, half town, half country. I walked 
 
76 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 beneath the green trees; and by my side went the 
 beautiful Eddy, quite silent. The evening sky glowed, 
 and cast its warm reflections over meadow and wooded 
 height. And when I turned my eyes from these to the 
 beautiful boy at my side, I met his, as gentle and winning 
 as an angel s glance. He seemed to see and to under 
 stand that which lived within my soul. Thus walked we 
 onward. But it began to grow dusk ; and now a man on 
 horseback rode up to us with a large box or package upon 
 his arm : it was that good Marcus, on his Dolly ; and the 
 package which he carried was for me, and was full of the 
 most beautiful flowers, from Mr. Downing; and with 
 them a few words for me, still more beautiful than the 
 flowers. Rebecca and I arranged the flowers in a 
 beautiful alabaster vase, in the form of a lily, rising 
 from its basin. Marcus and Channing assisted us with 
 their eyes. 
 
 I am quite well, my little Agatha, spite of vagaries both 
 of body and soul, and am infinitely thankful for what I 
 here learn and experience, and for these good, cordial 
 friends ! That which I want is to hear good news both 
 from you and from mamma. I hope to hear by this day s 
 post, hope and long. I must now send off this letter, and 
 set to work on many others. Kiss mamma for me, and 
 greet all who wish for greetings 
 
 From your 
 
 FREDRIKA. 
 
 LETTEE V. 
 
 ROSE COTTAGE, November 12&, 1849. 
 
 AT length, at length I have received letters from home, 
 letters from mamma, and from you, my sweet Agatha ! 
 I kissed the letter for joy when it was put into my hand. 
 But ah ! how it grieved me to hear that you are again ill, 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 77 
 
 and that without either rhyme or reason, so soon after 
 leaving the baths of Marstrand, where I last saw you so 
 well. I can now merely endeavour to console myself 
 with the belief, that by this indisposition you will get 
 rid of all further indisposition for the year, and that you 
 therefore will be in all the better health for the winter. 
 Will you not? yes, we must next winter remove with 
 you to some warmer climate, to your beautiful Italy, to 
 Rome, or to Palermo, and next summer you can make 
 good use of sea-bathing again at Marstrand. And I will 
 be with you, my dear heart, and talk and write beautiful 
 things for you, because I shall be rich in such things, 
 and we will inhale a new and beautiful life together. I 
 have not yet received your letter to London, but I shall 
 have it yet, or else E. L. deserves to lose his head, if he 
 have not already lost it, for he took it upon himself to 
 receive this letter and send it on to me. But yet once 
 more, thanks for the beautiful letters. 
 
 I must now tell you about our expedition to the 
 Phalanstery. It was a charming morning when we set 
 out. The air felt quite young scarcely five years old. 
 It was not a boy, it was a girl, full of animation, but shy ; 
 a veiled beauty. The sun was concealed by light clouds, 
 the winds were still. As Marcus, Rebecca, and I, were 
 standing for a short time by the ferry at Brooklyn, waiting 
 for the boat to take us over to New York, a Quakeress was 
 also standing there, with a Roman nose, and a frank 
 but grave countenance. I looked at her, and she looked 
 at me. All at once her countenance brightened as if by 
 a sunbeam. She came up to me, " Thou art Miss 
 
 Bremer," said she. "Yes," said I, " and thou art " 
 
 She mentioned her name, and we shook hands cordially. 
 The inward light had illumined her in more than one 
 way, and on such a morning I felt myself on the sweetly 
 familiar terms of " thee and thou " with the whole world. 
 
 We crossed the river, Marcus, Rebecca, and I. The 
 
78 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 morning wind awoke, and the clouds began to move; 
 sailing craft and steam-boats passed one another in the 
 bay, and young lads sate in their boats fishing up large 
 casks and planks which the current bore with it out to 
 sea. The shores shone out green and gold. An hour 
 afterwards and we were on board the steam-boat which 
 would convey us to New Jersey. Bergfalk had joined 
 us full of life and good-humour. Channing had come 
 with his pure glance, clear as the light of a diamond, 
 and with him Mr. H., a lover of flowers and of Channing. 
 We steamed along amid sunshine and conversation on 
 subjects of interest, the dialogue being principally between 
 Channing and myself, the others putting in now and 
 then a word, every one rather opposed to me, and I a 
 little opposed to all, with the exception of Marcus, whose 
 reason accorded with my views. By this time the clouds 
 began to gather over us, and it soon began to rain. 
 
 We arrived in New Jersey amid rain, and in rain we 
 reached the little town of Ked Bank. Here a waggon 
 from the Phalanstery met us, which had been sent for 
 the guests, as well as for potatoes, and in it we stowed 
 ourselves, beneath a tilted cover of yellow oil-cloth, 
 which sheltered us from the rain. A handsome young 
 man, one of the people of the Phalanstery, drove the 
 pair of fat horses which drew us, and after we had 
 ploughed the sand for a couple of hours, we arrived at 
 the Phalanstery, a couple of large houses, with several 
 lesser ones standing around them, without any thing 
 remarkable in their style of architecture. The landscape 
 around had a pleasant, park-like appearance ; the fields 
 and the trees were yet quite green. New Jersey is cele 
 brated for its mild climate and its fine fruits. We were 
 conducted into a hall and regaled with a dinner which 
 could not have been better if it had been in Arcadia; 
 it would have been impossible to have produced better 
 milk, bread, or cheese. They had also meat here. 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 79 
 
 I here met with the family which had first invited me 
 to the Phalanstery, and found them to be the sister and 
 brother-in-law of Marcus, two earnest, spiritual-minded 
 people, who have a profound faith in and love for the 
 principle of association. He is the president of the 
 institution at this place. Mr. A., who has not alone 
 enthusiasm, but who is evidently a clever and straight 
 forward man of business, gifted with the power of 
 organisation, was originally a minister, and devoted 
 himself for a long time most beneficially as a missionary 
 of the poor, " a minister at large," as they are called in this 
 country ; after which he lived for ten years as a farmer 
 in one of the western states in the valley of the 
 Mississippi, cultivating maize and fruit, and finding him 
 self well off amid the affluent solitudes of nature. As 
 his children, however, grew up, it appeared to him too 
 solitary for them ; the house became too small, and for 
 the sake of their education and their moral and intel 
 lectual development, he removed again, and came nearer 
 to the great world of man. But in so doing he resolved 
 to unite himself with that portion of it which, as it 
 appeared to him, came the nearest to his idea of a 
 Christian community. He and his wife and children, 
 therefore, joined this association, which was established 
 eight years before by a few married couples, all enthu 
 siasts for this idea, and which now calls itself "the 
 North American Phalanstery." Each member advanced 
 the sum of one thousand dollars ; land was purchased, 
 and they began to labour together, according to laws 
 which the society had laid down beforehand. Great 
 difficulties met them in the commencement, in particular 
 from their want of means to build, for the purchase of 
 implements, and so on. It was beautiful and affecting to 
 hear what fatigue and labour the women subjected them 
 selves to women who had been but little accustomed to 
 anything of this kind ; how steadfastly and with what noble 
 
80 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 courage they endured it ; and how the men, in the spirit 
 of brotherhood, did their part in any kind of work as 
 well as the women, merely looking at the honour 
 and the necessity of the work, and never asking 
 whether it was the fit employment for man or for woman. 
 They had suffered much from calumny, but through 
 it all they had become a stronger and more numerous 
 body. 
 
 They had now overcome the worst, and the institution 
 was evidently improving. It was in contemplation at 
 this time to build a new house, in particular a large 
 eating-hall and place for social meeting, together with a 
 cooking and wash-house, provided with such machinery 
 as should dispense with the most onerous hand-labour. 
 The number of members was at this time somewhat 
 above seventy. The establishment has its own peculiar 
 income from mills and from tillage as well as from its 
 orchards. They cultivate peaches, melons, and tomatoes. 
 In the mills they prepare hominy (ground maize), which 
 is boiled into a sort of pudding and eaten universally, 
 especially for breakfast. 
 
 One evening a great portion of the members of the 
 Phalanstery assembled in one of the sitting-rooms. Various 
 individuals were introduced to me, and I saw a great 
 number of very handsome young people ; in particular I 
 remarked the niece and nephew of Marcus S., Abbie 
 and her brother, as being beautiful according to one s 
 ideal standard. Many among the men wore coarse 
 clothes ; but all were neat, and had a something of great 
 earnestness and kindness in their whole demeanour. 
 
 Needlework was brought in and laid upon a table. 
 This was the making of small linen bags for containing 
 hominy, and which, when filled and stamped with the 
 name of the Phalanstery, are sent for sale to New York. 
 I sewed one bag ; Channing also made another and 
 maintained that he sewed quicker than I did ; my opinion, 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 81 
 
 however, is that my sewing was the best. After this I 
 played Swedish dances and ballads for the young people, 
 which excited them in a remarkable manner, especially 
 the Necks polska. I related also to them the legend of 
 the Neck and the Priest, and the Wand which became 
 verdant, a legend which shows that even the spirits of 
 nature might be saved. This struck them very much, 
 and the tears came into many eyes. 
 
 I had a little room to myself for the night, which some 
 of the young girls had vacated for me. It was as small as a 
 prison cell ; had four bare white walls, but was neat and 
 clean, and had a large window with a fine and beautiful 
 prospect ; and I was exceedingly comfortable in that little 
 chamber, and slept well upon a good sofa bed to the 
 sound of the plashing rain, and in the mild atmosphere 
 which entered through the half-opened window. The 
 bed-making sisters, two handsome, kind young girls, were 
 the last which I saw in my room. I was awoke in the 
 morning by the sound of labour throughout the house ; 
 people were going and coming, all full of business; it 
 sounded earnest and industrious. I thought the " Essenes 
 and the Pythagoreans began the day with a song, a 
 consecration of the day s work to the service of the holy 
 powers," and I sighed to think that the associations of 
 the West were so far behind those of the East. I dressed 
 myself and went down. 
 
 As there is always an impulse within me to enter body 
 and soul into the life which at that time exists around 
 me, so would I now live here as a true and earnest 
 member of the Phalanstery, and therefore I entered as a 
 worker into one of the bands of workers. I selected that 
 in which cooking was going forward, because I consider 
 that my genius has a bent in that direction. I was soon 
 standing, therefore, by the fire, with the excellent 
 Mrs. A., who had the management of this department; 
 and I baked a whole pile of buckwheat cakes, just as 
 
82 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 we bake cakes in Sweden, but upon a large iron plate, 
 until breakfast, and had then the pleasure of serving 
 Marcus and Channing with some of them quite hot for 
 breakfast. I myself thought that I had been remarkably 
 fortunate with my cakes. In my fervour of association I 
 laboured also with hands and arms up to my very elbows 
 in a great kneading trough, but had very nearly stuck 
 fast in the dough. It was quite too heavy for me, though 
 I would not confess it ; but they were kind enough to 
 release me from the operation in the politest manner and 
 place it in abler hands. 
 
 The rain had ceased, and the sun began to find his way 
 through the clouds. I now therefore went out to look 
 about me, accompanied by Mrs. A., and the lady of 
 the President, the latter of whom wore a short dress and 
 pantaloons, which were very becoming to her fine and 
 picturesque figure, and besides which, were well calculated 
 for walking through the wet fields and woods. We first 
 paid a visit to the mills. Two handsome young girls, also 
 in short dresses or blouses, girt with leathern bands, and 
 with jaunty little caps on their heads, which were remark 
 ably becoming, went, or rather danced along the footpath 
 before us, over hill and dale, as light and merrily as birds. 
 They were going to assist at the hominy mills. I went 
 through the mills, where everything seemed excellent and 
 well arranged, and where the little millers were already 
 at their work. 
 
 Thence we went across the meadows to the potato - 
 fields, where I shook hands with the chief, who, in his 
 shirt -sleeves, was digging up potatoes among his senators. 
 Both the chief and the other members looked clever and 
 excellent people ; and the potato crop promised this year 
 to be remarkably rich. The land in New Jersey appears 
 to be very good and fruitful. The sun shone pleasantly 
 over the potato field, the chief, and his labourers, among 
 whom were many men of education and intelligence. 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 83 
 
 In my conversation with the two sensible women, my 
 conductresses, I learned various particulars regarding the 
 laws and life of the Phalanstery ; among others, that 
 they are wise enough not to allow the public to absorb 
 private property. Each individual may invest as much as 
 he likes in the association, and retain as much of his own 
 property as he wishes. For that which he so invests 
 he receives interest. The time required for labour is ten 
 hours a day. All who work over hours are paid for such 
 over work. The women participate in all rights equally 
 with the men : vote, and share in the administration of 
 law and justice. " But," said Mrs. A., " we have had 
 so much to do with our domestic affairs, that we have 
 hitherto troubled ourselves very little about these things." 
 
 Any one who makes known his desire to become a 
 member may be received as such after a probation of one 
 year in the Phalanstery, during which time he must have 
 shown himself to be unwearied in labour, and stedfast in 
 brotherly love and good will. As regards his religion, 
 rank, or his former mode of life, no questions are asked. 
 The association makes a new experiment in social and 
 economic life : it regards the active principle of love as 
 the ruling power of life, and wishes to place everything 
 within the sphere of its influence ; it will, so to say, 
 begin life anew, and makes experimental researches into 
 its laws ; like those plants called exogens, it grows from 
 the exterior inwards, but has, it appears to me, its principle 
 much less determinate than the vegetable. 
 
 Being asked in the evening my opinion of this com 
 munity, I candidly confessed in what it appeared to be 
 deficient ; in particular as regarded a profession of religion 
 and public divine service ; its being based merely upon a 
 moral principle, the validity of which might be easily 
 called in question, as they did not recognise a connection 
 with a life existing eternally beyond earth and time, with any 
 eternally binding law, nor even with a divine Lawgiver. 
 
 G 2 
 
84 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 " The serpent may one day enter your paradise, and 
 then how can you expel it ? " 
 
 I told them also how I had felt that morning; how 
 empty and dead a life of lahour seemed to me which was 
 not allied to the service of the Supreme, which did not 
 admit of space for the holy and the beautiful. 
 
 An elderly gentleman, who sat near me, with a very 
 good and honest countenance, but who had a horrible 
 trick of incessant spitting, was the person who in par 
 ticular replied to my objections. But his reply and that 
 of the others merely served to strengthen my impression 
 of the cloudy state in which the intellect here is at 
 present. I therefore remained silent after I had given 
 my opinion. But I and many others hoped that Channing 
 would have spoken. He, however, did not ; but sat 
 listening with his beautiful speaking head, and his 
 beaming glance turned towards the disputants. After 
 that Bergfalk and I began to talk with each other in 
 Swedish, in order that they might hear that extraordinary 
 foreign tongue. We placed ourselves opposite each other, 
 in the midst of the company, and conversed in Swedish for 
 the edification of our very attentive audience. 
 
 I was again requested to play for the young people. 
 The following day at noon we were to leave. In the 
 morning, about half a dozen beautiful young girls seized 
 upon me, and conducted me from one house to another, 
 and I played to all the mothers and grandmothers in the 
 Phalanstery, and upon every piano which was to be found 
 there, six or seven in number ; and the young creatures 
 were so charmed and so excited with the marches and 
 the polskas and the songs which I played to them, that 
 they both laughed and cried. N.B. Music as yet in the 
 Phalanstery is merely a babe in swaddling clothes ; they 
 regard at present their work as their play. It is true never 
 theless that the children there are unusually cheerful; 
 the very little ones were in particular most charming. 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 85 
 
 Magnificent lads were the lads of the association, and not 
 in the least bashful before the stranger. One saw in them 
 the dawning spirit of the co-operatist. 
 
 I became, however, horribly weary of my part as 
 associate sister, and was glad to sit down and play for the 
 Phalanstery, and to kiss all the young girls (and glorious 
 warm-hearted girls they are), and shake hands with the 
 associate brothers and sisters, and leaving the Phalanstery 
 with my friends, seat myself again quietly in the steam 
 boat on my way back to New York. 
 
 Much delighted were they, 
 But preferred the old way. 
 
 I was like the fishes in St. Anthony s sermon, not a 
 morsel more converted than they were. Because, although 
 I should lose all regard for myself if I did not believe 
 that I was inwardly associated with the interests of 
 humanity in every various sentiment of my being, in my 
 prayers as well as in my work did not feel myself to be a 
 worker in the great Phalanstery of the human race yet is 
 my nature altogether opposed to association when brought 
 into too near a proximity, or in outward life. And I 
 would rather live in a cottage on the bleakest granite 
 mountain of Sweden, alone by myself, and live on bread 
 and water and potatoes (which I would boil for myself), 
 than in a Phalanstery on the most fertile soil, in the 
 midst of associated brethren and sisters, even if they 
 were as agreeable as are they at this place. But that 
 belongs to my individual character ; I cannot live perfectly 
 excepting hi solitude. For the greater number of people, 
 however, even the outward life of association is the 
 happiest and the best. Association in that form which it 
 assumes, for example, in this Phalanstery, is evidently 
 doing a justice to many individuals which would never be 
 done to them in the great social system as it is usually 
 constructed. Thus, for example, there was here a man, 
 
86 HOMES OF THE NEW WOELD. 
 
 who was possessed of considerable knowledge and a cul 
 tivated mind, but in consequence of the weakness of his 
 eyes, was incapacitated for maintaining himself by any 
 means which required much eyesight. This man was 
 poor, and without near connections. In the ordinary 
 state of society he must either have taken refuge in some 
 asylum for indigence, where his life, physical and spiritual, 
 would have been scantily supplied, or he must have sunk 
 into the coarse working class, who merely labour for the 
 life of the body. As a member of the Phalanstery, this 
 man gave his bodily labour ten hours in the day, and on 
 the other hand was entitled to all the nobler enjoyments 
 of cultivated life, intercourse with superior and educated 
 people, good meals partaken in cheerful company, always 
 a kind welcome, and every evening, when the work of the 
 day was over, if he were so inclined, rest and refreshment 
 in society, in a large light room, with agreeable women, 
 handsome children, music, books, opportunities for con 
 versation on the highest interests of life in connection 
 with the interests of the association. After all, I believe 
 that I begin to love this association, whilst I write about 
 it, and whilst I think upon the noble justice which it does 
 to this individual and to many others like him. Is there 
 not something great and beautiful, when a community 
 thus receives into its bosom even the meanest human 
 being, who will not be useless, and which allows him to 
 become participant of its enlightened life, so long as he 
 takes part in its life of labour ? And that it is which 
 Christian Socialism aims at. And well may it, in the 
 consciousness thereof, courageously bear the derision and 
 contempt which the world at large casts upon it, and with 
 its countenance turned towards the eternal light say con 
 solingly, as Mr. A. (the preacher and the farmer) said 
 to me at our departure, " We know that we have not 
 trodden any man under foot." 
 
 But my doubt as to the want of solid construction in 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 87 
 
 this particular case returned nevertheless; and on the 
 steamboat, in quiet conversation with my friends, we 
 examined the question still further. I repeated my 
 objections against this building without foundation. 
 Channing was certain about it, in the belief that the more 
 profound laws of reason and of life necessarily become 
 developed from human nature when it is left to test and 
 to experimentise itself. " That which I require in the 
 Phalanstery," said Channing, " will yet come, and come 
 in a new way, and with deeper conviction." I believe, as 
 Channing does, that it must come, because human nature 
 possesses these seeds of eternal ideas within its own 
 breast, and has developed them in all ages. All historical 
 religions and modes of philosophy, religious associations, 
 and so on, bear witness to this truth. But I continue to 
 demand from the Socialists, why not take up that work 
 which is already begun and continue it ? Why not accept 
 the consciousness which the human race universally 
 possesses of itself, its life, and its aims ? Why 
 attempt to undertake a work which has already been 
 given up ? That is to waste time and strength which 
 might be turned to better account. But perhaps there 
 may be something new here which I have not clearly 
 seen the principle of a new beginning. It is evident to 
 me, however, in the meantime, that neither do the others 
 see it very clearly. They go en tdtonnemcnt ; but they 
 are perhaps guided by an instinct which is clairvoyant. 
 
 I shall return to this institution and to these subjects. 
 This Phalanstery is for the present the only one on this 
 plan existing in the United States. Many others have 
 been founded, but all have failed and gone to pieces from 
 the difficulty of winning the interest of the members and 
 their stedfast co-operation for the principle of the insti 
 tution and for the common weal. The enthusiasts have 
 done the work, the sluggish -spirited have lived upon 
 them ; the former have done everything, the latter 
 
88 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 nothing. Founder s theory about the attraction of labour 
 has been effectually refuted by many sluggish natures. 
 The advocates of the theory maintain, indeed, that it has 
 never yet been fully proved, because mankind has not 
 been educated to consider labour attractive. But we 
 shall see. 
 
 At home at Eose Cottage, in the quiet, affectionate 
 family circle there, how pleasant was rest after the 
 Phalanstery expedition ! There also my most beautiful 
 hours are passed in the society of the husband and wife, 
 in conversation with them, and in reading together the 
 poets of America. Here also is Lowell a favourite, and 
 it is a pleasure to hear Eebecca read him and other 
 poets, because she reads remarkably well. Marcus 
 leaves the house generally immediately after breakfast, 
 but during that meal he often finds time to read us some 
 thing important either in the newspaper or from books 
 for the most part having reference to social questions and 
 improvement. He is now busied with a scheme for the 
 erection of baths and washhouses on a large scale, for 
 the benefit of the poor of New York, and with collecting 
 subscriptions for that purpose. 
 
 I must now tell you something about W. H. Charming, 
 because he is _ one of the most intimate friends of the 
 family, and is connected with them and with the spiritual 
 life of the country in a remarkable manner. He was 
 some years ago the minister of a Unitarian congregation 
 in Cincinnati, but the room, that is to say, Unitarianism, 
 became too small for him ; he could not breathe freely forth 
 heart and soul in it, and " he therefore resigned an office 
 which he could no longer hold with an easy conscience," 
 although his congregation, which was very much attached 
 to him, did all they could to induce him to remain, and 
 although he knew not how henceforth he was to maintain 
 himself, his wife, and his two children. But he thought 
 like the old patriarch, strong in faith, when he obeyed 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 89 
 
 the summons of the Supreme, " the Lord indeed 
 regards sacrifice ! " And the Lord did so. Some of his 
 friends took the suhject under consideration, and wrote 
 a letter to Charming, the contents of which were, " Come 
 to us ; become our friend and spiritual shepherd ; but in 
 perfect freedom ; follow your own inspiration : preach, 
 talk to us how and when it appears best to you. We 
 undertake to provide for your pecuniary wants. Live 
 free from anxiety, and happy how and where you will ; 
 teach us how we should live and work ; our homes and 
 our hearts are open to you." 
 
 Channing s answer to this letter proved the nobility 
 and the earnestness of his heart. He came. And since 
 that time he has lived conformably with the invitation 
 which enabled him to visit prisons, to become one in 
 religious and social festivals and societies, or to lecture 
 on social questions in New York, Boston, and other 
 towns ; following the dictates of his inspiration, and 
 by his genial and beautifully gifted character awakening 
 the soul and warming the heart ; producing " revivals " 
 of a higher life, scattering the seed of eternal life, and 
 fanning up the feeble flames of the true life wherever 
 he came. 
 
 He visits his friends whenever he likes, often unex 
 pectedly, but he is always wished for and warmly 
 welcomed ; always finds in every house a room prepared 
 for W. H. Channing. The good Marcus S. has such 
 respect for intellectual and spiritual gifts, and in par 
 ticular such devotion to Channing, that he has a peculiar 
 pleasure in serving him. He and Kebecca, and some 
 other friends, entertain the thought of building him a 
 house near the Phalanstery. The thought of this and of 
 Channing s satisfaction, made Kebecca quite happy. 
 All, Agatha ! to live among such people ! It is worth 
 the fatigue of crossing the world s sea merely to become 
 acquainted with them, 
 
90 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 Next Sunday Charming will deliver a lecture in New 
 York, and I, as well as my friends, shall go to hear 
 him. I am well off here in Brooklyn, in this home, 
 with this married pair and their beautiful children ! 
 Here too it is quiet and beautiful. I can wander about 
 alone and in silence, take long walks by myself in the 
 neighbourhood. I observe among the trees here, splendid 
 weeping-willows, actually colossal trees. They are still 
 quite green. The grapes ripen in the open air ; Marcus 
 has only to put his hand outside the garden-porch, 
 around which the vine -branches form a leafy bower, 
 to gather whole handfulls of beautiful bunches, with 
 which he comes in and regales us. And I often walk 
 in a long pleached alley covered with vines, where I 
 gather and eat. The grapes are of a pale lilac colour, 
 small, very sweet and agreeable, but have always a little 
 lump inside which is rather sour and unripe. This may 
 be peculiar to grapes hi this country. The verandah 
 which ornaments the front of the house is now 
 splendid with the most beautiful chrysanthemums. In 
 summer they tell me numbers of humming birds hover 
 around the roses. 
 
 NEW YORK, NINTH STREET. 
 
 Thursday, November 15th. Again an interruption of 
 several days. My dear child ! life is to me like a rushing 
 river, and I must be borne on with it, taking only care that 
 I don t lose life. The more detailed account of the career 
 and its adventures I must leave till we meet. 
 
 Last Sunday morning I went to church with my 
 friends to a beautiful church with painted windows, 
 which give a somewhat gloomy appearance to the church ; 
 people here are so afraid of sunshine. The building 
 was fine, but the sermon, by a Unitarian preacher, was 
 of the most meagre description. In the afternoon, we 
 drove to New York, to hear Channing. There is always 
 such a crowd and such a bustle on the New York side 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WOELD. 91 
 
 of East River, that I always feel as if one must there 
 fight for life and limb. Yet it is very seldom that any 
 accident occurs. I was glad to be able to hear Charming, 
 of whose extraordinary ability as an extempore speaker 
 I had heard so much. The room in which the lecture 
 was to be delivered, and which might hold about 
 five hundred persons, was quite full. It was built as 
 an amphitheatre, in an oval half-circle. Charming 
 entered, and commenced by prayer, standing the while 
 with his face turned to the assembly. After this he 
 addressed them, but with downcast eyes and in a careless 
 and almost indifferent manner. The subject which he 
 besought the audience, as well as himself, to consider, 
 was "the assembly of the saints." Some beautiful 
 observations there were, but the whole was so devoid of 
 any deep coherence, so undeveloped and without applica 
 tion, so wanting in life and warmth, that I was amazed 
 in the highest degree. " Is this," thought I, " American 
 eloquence ? is this the richly-gifted orator of whom I 
 have heard so much praise ? And those downcast looks, 
 that immovability how can it be ! " But now I heard 
 Rebecca whisper to her husband, " What is amiss with 
 Channing ? He must be ill ! He is not like himself ! " 
 
 This consoled me ; because I now perceived that this 
 was an unusual state with Channing. He was actually 
 not like himself. That inspired expression of counte 
 nance which I had so often seen in him had vanished. 
 Several times he stopped and seemed endeavouring to 
 collect himself. But the discourse could not proceed. 
 It was painful to see that it could not, and at length 
 Channing brought it to a sudden close. And then, with 
 a fine, almost hectic, flush mantling his cheek, he advanced 
 a step or two and said 
 
 " I feel it to be necessary to offer an excuse to the 
 assembly for the unsatisfactory manner in which I have 
 treated niy subject, and which has arisen from a total 
 
92 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 want of spiritual life in myself this evening, and of which 
 I was unconscious when I entered the hall." 
 
 The undisguised and noble candour with which this 
 explanation was given refreshed my spirit, as did also 
 the manner in which his friends bore the disappointment 
 of the evening. One could see that they thought, " it is 
 of no importance, for Charming will make it up to us 
 another time. No matter." 
 
 A little circle of his friends surrounded him, whilst 
 the rest of the numerous assembly quietly left the hall. 
 Afterwards he told Marcus and Rebecca that he could 
 not explain the weight which seemed like a bewitchment 
 to have enchained his powers of mind that evening. He 
 had come to New York from his house on the Hudson 
 full of life, excited by the beautiful, star-bright evening, 
 and full of a desire to speak. But when he entered the 
 hall, he had become like a person deprived of the use of 
 his limbs, and he could not shake off the heavy cramping 
 fetters which he was disposed to ascribe to the magic 
 influence of some opposing evil spirit. 
 
 "When, however, I see at. times the glance of Channing s 
 eye, the fine clear crimson of his cheek, I cannot help 
 asking myself whether these times of exaltation are not 
 the contents of a dangerous chalice which, while they 
 enhance life, bring death all the nearer ; the Prometheus 
 spirit which steals the fire of heaven is compelled to pay 
 for it with days of imprisonment and sorrow. But 
 who could or who would prevent the bird from seeking 
 the mountain even though he become the prey of the 
 fowler, or the silk-worm from spinning, although she 
 spins her own tomb ? From the very threads that she 
 spins the human race after all make their holiday attire. 
 
 On Monday my good hosts took me to Miss Lynch, 
 who lives in one of the quiet and fashionable quarters of 
 New York. And, for a little time, I took leave of this 
 couple, so pure-hearted, so happy in each other, so 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 93 
 
 infinitely kind to me. But I shall return to them ; with 
 them I shall have my head-quarters, and my home 
 whenever I return into this neighbourhood ; such was 
 the agreement between us before we parted. 
 
 On Tuesday I dined with Mrs. Kirkland, the author of 
 that excellent and amusing book, " A New Home in the 
 West," and saw in the evening from sixty to seventy of 
 her friends. Amongst these was a remarkably agreeable 
 gentleman from Illinois, who invited me to his house 
 there, and who promised to be my cicerone in that part 
 of the great west. Mrs. Kirkland is one of the strong 
 women of the country, with much a plomb, but with also 
 much womanliness both of heart and soul, kind as a 
 mother, a friend and fellow-citizen; one whom I like, 
 and of a character to which I feel myself attracted ; her 
 beautiful smile and the flash of her brown eye, when she 
 becomes animated, betray the spirit which lives in her 
 book of the " New Home," but over which the mis 
 fortunes and burden of life seem afterwards to have cast 
 a veil. 
 
 On Wednesday I was taken to a lady s academy, 
 called " the Rutger Institution," from the name of the 
 founder, and here I saw four hundred and sixty young 
 girls, and some excellent arrangements for their instruc 
 tion and cultivation. I also heard and read several 
 compositions by the young girls, both in prose and verse ; 
 and I could not but admire the perspicuity of thought, 
 the perfection of the language, and above all, the living 
 and beautiful feeling for life which these productions 
 displayed. Genius, properly so called, I did not find in 
 them ; and I question the wisdom of that publicity which 
 is given to such youthful efforts. I fear that it may 
 awaken ambition and an inclination to give importance 
 to literary activity, which befools many young minds, 
 while so few are possessed of the divine gift of genius 
 which alone makes literature as well as authors good for 
 
94 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 anything. I fear that it causes them to forget for a mere 
 show of life the heauty of that life of which Byron speaks 
 in these glorious lines 
 
 Many are poets, but without the name ; 
 Many are poets who have never penned 
 Their inspirations, and perchance the best ; 
 They felt, and loved, and died. * * * 
 
 They compressed 
 
 The God within them, and regained the stars, 
 Unlaurelled upon earth, but far more blessed 
 Than those who are degraded by the jars 
 Of passion and their frailties linked to fame, 
 Conquerors of high renown, but full of scars. 
 
 I have also taken the liberty of expressing this in a 
 little preface which I have been asked to write for these 
 productions, which are about being published. And in 
 any case, these words of Goethe, in " Faust," apply to all 
 writers 
 
 First we should live ; we afterwards may write. 
 
 These young girls may be said as yet scarcely to have 
 lived, known, thought enough to write of their own 
 experience, their own faith and conviction. They write, 
 as people sing, by the ear. It is good, it is excellent that 
 every one should early learn to disentangle their thoughts, 
 to express themselves well and clearly, and for this 
 purpose are these trials of authorship commendable. 
 But the publicity, the having them printed, the trum 
 peting them abroad, the rewarding them, and so on, can 
 that also be good for the young, for any one, or for 
 anything ? 
 
 True genius will in its own way and its own time make 
 for itself a path to praise and renown, 
 
 For it is a god ; 
 
 Its own course it knoweth, 
 
 And the paths through the clouds. 
 
 After having gone through the Institute, and taken 
 breakfast with the family whose name it bears, and which 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 95 
 
 seems to belong to the wealthy and fashionable class 
 of the city, I dined with the N. s, whom you may 
 remember were with us at Arsta, and who had now 
 kindly invited me to their house. They wished also to 
 take me to the opera this evening, but Miss Lynch was 
 going to have a large party, where I was to be introduced 
 to people, and people were to be introduced to me, and 
 I drove therefore to the house to act the parrot in a great 
 crowd of people till towards midnight. These introduc 
 tions are very wearisome ; because I must for a hundred 
 times reply to the same questions, and these for the most 
 part of an unmeaning and trivial character, just as people 
 would put to a parrot, whose answers are known before 
 hand for example : Had you a good passage from 
 England ? How do you like New York ? How do you 
 like America ? How long have you been here ? How 
 long do you think of remaining ? Where are you going 
 to from here ? and such like. 
 
 It is true that numbers of really kind and good- 
 hearted people come to see me, and I am not mistaken 
 in the feeling which brings many others ; but there are 
 too many. It is an actual whirl of presentations and 
 scraps of conversation which serves no other purpose 
 than to make the soul empty and the body weary. A good 
 earnest conversation with an earnest person would be a 
 refreshment. But scarcely could I have begun such a one 
 before I must turn round my head again to reply to the 
 question, " Had you a good passage ?" or " What do you 
 think of New York ? " or " How do you like America ? " 
 
 Such fetes as these are one s ruin ! And in the mean 
 time I am taken up with visits, letters, and notes, 
 invitations, autographs, so that I have no time for myself. 
 I had this morning a . charming visit from a little lady 
 doctor, tha,t is to say, a lady who practises the healing 
 art, a Miss H. H., " female physician," as she calls 
 herself, from Boston, who invited me to her house there, 
 
96 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 insisted upon it that I must come, would not let me 
 escape till I had promised, and was all the time so full 
 of animation, and so irresistibly merry that we, she and 
 I and the whole company, burst into one peal of laughter 
 after another. There was besides so much that was 
 excellent and really sensible in what she said, and I felt 
 that there was so much heart in the zealous little 
 creature, that I could not help liking her, and made her 
 the promise as she wished. With her was another lady, 
 as quiet as she was active, a female professor of phreno 
 logy, who wished to get hold of my head. But my poor 
 head has now enough to do to hold itself up in the whirl 
 of company life. 
 
 I have passed the forenoon in making visits with 
 Mrs. Kirkland, and at six o clock I went to dine with 
 Consul Habicht, our Swedish Consul in New York, who 
 is very agreeable and polite, but who dines so horribly 
 late. In the morning I shall be taken by a lively lady, 
 Mrs. L., to her country seat on the Hudson, and 
 on Saturday I return to see a great number of people at 
 Miss Lynch s. And thus is every day occupied for the 
 whole time. 
 
 Sunday the ~L$th. And now for a short time before 
 going to church let me converse a little with my Agatha. 
 Do you know that it is really remarkable what I have 
 gone through, both as regards people and things. I am 
 beginning to have an esteem for rrryself. But it is really 
 necessary to be strong as a stranger and a guest in this 
 country. 
 
 The day before yesterday Mrs. L. (an excellent type 
 of the exuberantly youthful life of the people of the 
 New World), fetched me and Miss Lynch to her villa on 
 the Hudson. But firstly, we had to pay a morning visit 
 to a rich lady, who had a morning reception, then to a 
 little Quaker lady, eighty-four years old, the handsomest 
 little old woman I ever saw, and who in her delicate white 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 97 
 
 Quaker garments and muslin, seemed to me like a living 
 holiday. I made a sketch of her head in my album, to 
 Mrs. L. s great delight, who desired people to come and 
 look at the old lady, and at me as I sketched her. 
 
 After this we drove to a great lunatic asylum, Blu- 
 mingdale, as it is called. And here I was delighted 
 delighted by the affectionate consideration for the patient 
 which is shown in everything, and which treats these, the 
 earth s most unfortunate beings, as the children of the 
 family. Music is heard in many of the rooms, for there 
 is a considerable number of pianos in the establishment ; 
 and the feeble mind seemed especially to enjoy the relaxa 
 tion it thus obtained. Without, flowers were cultivated 
 and planted in garden beds (within, the ladies also made 
 flowers). There was also a museum of minerals, shells, 
 stuffed birds, and other animals, besides a library and 
 other things : all calculated to awaken an interest in the 
 diseased mind, and to turn it from its morbid self- 
 observation to the observation of other objects, and to 
 occupy it therewith. The park which surrounds the 
 house, is large and beautiful; and the patients may 
 wander undisturbed in its many alleys, enjoy the beauty 
 of the country, and rest on the benches under the trees. 
 The flowers were a real luxury here, and on all hands one 
 met with agreeable objects, with the exception, of course, 
 of the poor lunatics themselves. Nay, even in them also, 
 for in them one sees objects of much mercy mercy which 
 produces the most beautiful results, because the method 
 which is universally adopted in the United States for the 
 treatment of the insane, operates so beneficially that their 
 recovery belongs to the rule, incurable insanity forming 
 the exception ; that is to say, if on the commencement of 
 the disease the patient has been immediately placed in 
 one of these excellent asylums. 
 
 From this asylum we continued our way into the 
 country. Our hostess continually, as we drove along, 
 
98 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 springing out of the carriage, now to fetch a basket with 
 cakes and other things for her housekeeping, now for 
 bouquets for Miss Lynch and myself. At length we came 
 to the beautiful villa, F. Hall, on the Hudson, where we 
 found a large family party assembled, and where 
 Mr. L., a kind old gentleman and a Quaker, just as 
 quiet in body and mind as his wife was restless, was 
 waiting dinner for us, a substantial and delicious dinner, 
 as were all the dinners I saw in this country. In 
 the evening we had a party of about sixty persons. It 
 was more agreeable than I expected, and fatigued me 
 less. But ah ! how these Americans, and in particular 
 these lady Americans, do ask question upon question ! 
 My gay hostess a sort of Amelia A., but with yet 
 higher " spirits," refreshed and amused me. She was so 
 full of unaffectedly fresh life. Thus, for example, she 
 sung, and very well too ; but there was a part of the song 
 which was evidently too high for her voice, and when she 
 came to this a second time, she stopped short just as if 
 the notes had stuck fast in her throat, rose up and left 
 the piano, as much untroubled as if she had been singing 
 alone to herself, and went and chatted and laughed with 
 various people in the company. This was all very sweet 
 and fresh. Mr. L. is a handsome, fatherly old gentle 
 man, whom I like much. He is his wife s second husband ; 
 and beneath this family life there is a romantic love-story, 
 more beautiful and noble than one generally finds in 
 written romances. 
 
 I slept well, and awoke by seeing a strong red light 
 shining through the Venetian shutters of my window. I 
 thought of fire, and sprang up. But it was the crimson 
 light of sunrise which glowed with pale red flames in the 
 eastern heavens, above the green heights, above the calm 
 mirror-like river, and the white sails quietly sleeping, and 
 which now, as it were, shook off sleep, awoke by its 
 splendour. It was enchantingly beautiful. I, too, shook 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 99 
 
 off sleep, both of body and mind, at tbis glorious spectacle. 
 This Aurora which kissed and transfigured everything, 
 living or dead ! For such sights and such scenes is 
 King David s song of praise alone available. " Sing to 
 the Lord a new song ! Sing to the Lord all the earth ! " 
 
 That beautiful morning hour passed by, and I went 
 down to breakfast. Then began the torment of the day, 
 with company both in doors and out, and the eternal 
 questions, which did not leave me a moment s peace, and 
 which interrupted every dawning sentiment of delight in 
 the lovely landscape. Some handsome young girls, in 
 particular, drove me almost to desperation by their 
 " Miss Bremer, have you seen the telegraph there, on the 
 other side of the river ? " " Miss Bremer, do you see the 
 railway down there ? " " Miss Bremer, do you see the 
 splendid foliage on the river-banks?" And "Miss Bremer, 
 have you such in Sweden ? " 
 
 To hear and to have to answer such questions as these 
 two or three times, is quite too much ; but if they are 
 repeated six or seven times, and one does not see any end 
 to it ! At length, quite worn out by it, I told Mrs. L. 
 that I could not bear company in the morning, but that 
 during this time I must be a little alone ; she took it well 
 and kindly, mentioned it to the young girls, who also 
 were very amiable about it, and left me in peace. But 
 I fear that the young have lived with nature, as if they 
 heard her not, and forgot her for railroads and outward 
 glittering things, and see not in her an instructress and a 
 friend. If it were not so, they would talk less and listen 
 more, or have a little more reflection. But it is not their 
 fault. 
 
 In the forenoon I drove round in the carriage with my 
 hostess, Bancroft, the historian, and Anne Lynch to call 
 on several of the neighbours. I saw in their beautiful 
 villas a vast amount of comfort and even the exquisite 
 luxury of pictures and statues ; met in one place with a 
 
 H2 
 
100 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 horrible lion-hunter, who tormented us with talk, albums, 
 the desire for autographs and subscriptions and so on, 
 and persecuted us even to our carriage, whither we had 
 betaken ourselves, calling after Mr. Bancroft to know 
 where he lived. " Drive, drive ! " cried we, laughing, and 
 so drove as fast as we could to the so-called " High 
 Bridge," where a glorious natural scene met our eyes. 
 Yes, the scenery of this new world seems to me rich and 
 beautiful ; if one could only see it in peace, and with 
 time for reflection ! But here, in the neighbourhood of 
 New York, people seem obliged every moment to turn 
 their heads or their attention to the Croton Aqueduct, 
 which conveys water from Croton to New York, a mag 
 nificent and excellent work, invaluable to the great city ; 
 but which gave me a deal of trouble ! But now to 
 proceed on our drive. Our hostess talked and laughed 
 and joked the whole time in her overflowing animation 
 and merriment. The carriage jumped over stock and 
 stone along the bad road, like a leaping calf. I sat silent 
 and patient, out of sheer fatigue. Thus drove we round 
 the country and shore, and at length back to dinner, to 
 see company, write autographs, and so on ; then drove at 
 full gallop to New York, where the Downings were to 
 meet me, and a great party at Miss Lynch s. To this 
 house on the Hudson also, and to this lady did I 
 promise to return next summer, to go with her to her 
 father s large farm, where she was brought up, and 
 where her father and sisters still lived. Yes, we were 
 to do a deal together. But ah ! the exuberantly ardent 
 lady, who I think might prevent the Hudson from 
 freezing, I feel myself like a feeble fly beside her, and 
 cannot but remember the story of " Le pot de fer et le pot 
 de terre" 
 
 The Downings were already in Miss Lynch s parlour 
 when I arrived. I was so glad to see them, and to be able 
 to pour out my heart to them in full freedom, that all at 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 101 
 
 once I felt myself rested. And if you had seen me a few 
 hours later in a company of about a hundred people, you 
 would not have imagined that a few hours before I had 
 been weary and completely knocked up. Only to see the 
 Downings revived me, to say nothing of various beautiful 
 acts of kindness on their part. Mr. Downing looked so 
 well this evening that he attracted the attention of many 
 people by his remarkable and distinguished appearance, as 
 he wandered among the crowd with his reserved demeanour, 
 his deep and speaking eye, his half shy, half proud 
 expression. The company at Miss Lynch s this evening- 
 was remarkably handsome : I saw some splendid toilettes 
 and some splendid figures among the ladies. The men, 
 in a general way, are not handsome ; but they have a 
 manly appearance, have good foreheads, bright eyes, a 
 cheerful and determined manner. The hostess herself, in 
 an elegant white dress, exactly suited to her slender and 
 well-made figure, and with a white flower in her hair, 
 ornamenting that simply beautiful and graceful head, was 
 one of the most agreeable forms in the company, moving 
 about lightly and freely as a bird, introducing people to 
 one another, mingling them in conversation in such a 
 manner as always gave pleasure with those happy words 
 and expressions which some people can never hit upon, 
 let them seek ever so much, but which others can hit upon 
 without seeking for ; and Anne Lynch is one of these. 
 
 I distinguished myself peculiarly as a flower- distributor. 
 I had received a great number of flowers to-day, and I was 
 thus enabled to give a little bouquet of flowers to one and 
 another lady in company. This flower- distribution pleased 
 me greatly, because it furnished me with an opportunity of 
 saying, or at all events, of looking a little kindness to 
 many a one. And this is nearly the only thing I can 
 return for all the kindness which I receive here. 
 
 Among the guests of the evening I remember in par 
 ticular an agreeable Mrs. Osgood, one of the best poetesses 
 
102 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 of tlie United States, not only for her beautiful speaking 
 eyes, her manner and style of expression, both so full of 
 soul, but also because she placed in my hands her fan, 
 saying that it must remind me of " Fanny." All the ladies 
 in this country use fans, and flutter and manoeuvre a 
 great deal with them; but I, as yet, had not furnished 
 myself with one. I remember also in particular a gentle 
 man with splendid eyes, and frank, cordial manner, whom 
 I wished I could have had more conversation with, for 
 there was evidently both genius and heart in him. He is 
 one of the most celebrated preachers of the Episcopal 
 Church of New York, and is named Hawks. This was, 
 as yet, the most entertaining evening party I had been to 
 in this country. 
 
 Later. I have now been to church with Mrs. Kirkland, 
 and have heard one of the best sermons I ever heard : 
 no narrow-minded sectarian view of religion and life, but 
 one in which the church a regular cathedral church 
 arched itself over life, as the dome of heaven arches 
 itself over earth and all its creatures; a large-minded 
 sermon, such as properly befits the New World, that 
 great new home for all the people, and all the races of the 
 world. Bergfalk was also among the audience, and was 
 as much struck as I was with the sermon and the preacher, 
 Mr. Bellows. 
 
 I am now going to dine with my friends, the Downings, 
 at the Astor House; and the evening I spend with a 
 family of the name of S. To-morrow I go to a grand 
 dinner, and in the evening to the opera. 
 
 Thursday. Is there in this world anything more weari 
 some, more dismal, more intolerable, more indigestible, 
 more stupefying, more unbearable, anything more calcu 
 lated to kill both soul and body than a great dinner at 
 New York ? For my part, I do not believe there is. 
 People sit down to table at half-past five or six o clock ; 
 they are sitting at table at nine o clock, sitting and being 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 103 
 
 served with, the one course after another, with the one 
 indigestible dish after another, eating and being silent. I 
 have never heard such a silence as at these great dinners. 
 In order not to go to sleep, I am obliged to eat, to eat 
 without being hungry, and dishes, too, which do not agree 
 with me. And all the while I feel such an emotion of 
 impatience and wrath at this mode of wasting time and 
 God s good gifts, and that in so stupidly wearisome a 
 manner, that I am just ready to fling dish and plate on 
 the floor and repay hospitality by a sermon of rebuke, if I 
 only had courage enough. But I am silent, and suffer 
 and grumble and scold in silence. Not quite beau 
 tiful this ; but I cannot help it ! I was yesterday at 
 one of these great dinners a horrible feast ! Two 
 elderly gentlemen, lawyers, sat . opposite me, sat and 
 dozed while they opened their mouths to put in the 
 delicacies which were offered to them. At our peasant- 
 weddings, where people also sit three hours at table, there 
 are, nevertheless, talk and toasts, and gifts for the bride 
 and bridegroom, and fiddlers to play in every dish ; but 
 here one has nothing but the meat. And the dinners in 
 Denmark ! I cannot but think of them, with their few 
 but excellent dishes, and animated cheerful guests, who 
 merely were sometimes too loud in their zeal for talking, 
 and making themselves heard; the wit, the joke, the 
 stories, the toasts, the conversations, that merry, free, 
 lively laisser aller, which distinguishes Danish social life ; 
 in truth, it was champagne champagne for soul and body 
 at the entertainments there ! the last at which I was 
 present in Europe before I came hither. But these 
 entertainments here ! they are destined to hell, as Heiberg 
 says in " A Soul after Death," and they are called " the 
 tiresome." And they ought to be introduced into the 
 Litany. On this occasion, however, Fortune was kind 
 to me and placed by my side the interesting clergyman, 
 Dr. Hawks, who during dinner explained to me with his 
 
104 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 beautiful voice, and in his lucid and excellent manner, his 
 ideas regarding the remains in Central America, and his 
 hypothesis of the union of the two continents of America 
 and Asia in a very remote age. It was interesting to hear 
 him, and interesting would it be to me to see and hear 
 more of this man, whose character and manner attract 
 me. He also is among those who have invited me to his 
 house and home, but whose invitation I am obliged to 
 decline, and in this case I feel that it is a renunciation 
 and loss. 
 
 As he led me from the dinner-table, I proposed to him 
 to preach against such dinners. But he shook his head, 
 and said, with a smile, "Not against dinners, Miss 
 Bremer ! " 
 
 Gentlemen, even the best of them, are decidedly too 
 fond of eating. 
 
 When at night I went home with Anne Lynch, the air 
 was delicious, and the walk through this night air, and 
 in the quiet streets the causeways here are broad and 
 as smooth as a house-floor very agreeable. The starry 
 heavens God s town stood with streets and groups of 
 glittering dwellings in quiet grandeur and silence above 
 us. And here, in that quiet, starlight night, Anne 
 Lynch unfolded all her soul to me, and I saw an earnest 
 and profound depth, bright with stars, such as I scarcely 
 expected in this gay being, who, butterfly-like, flutters 
 through the life of society as in its proper element. I 
 had always thought her uncommonly agreeable, had 
 admired the ability with which she, without affluence, 
 and who, alone by her talents and personal endowments, 
 had made for herself and for her estimable mother an inde 
 pendence, and by which she had become the gathering 
 point for the literary and the most cultivated society of 
 New York, who assembled once a week in her drawing- 
 room. I had admired also her inoffensive wit ; her 
 child-like gaiety and good-humour, and especially liked 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 105 
 
 a certain expression in her eye, as if it were seeking for 
 something, " something a long, long way off," even in 
 her apparently dissipated worldly life ; in a word, I had 
 liked her, had a deep interest in her now I loved her. 
 She is one of the birds of Paradise which skims over 
 the world without soiling its wings with its dust. Anne 
 Lynch, with her individuality and her position in society, 
 is one of the peculiar figures of the New World. 
 
 The evening and night parties which I see here 
 are, for the rest, not to compare with the most beautiful 
 of the kind which I have seen in Sweden and Denmark. 
 Here there is not space nor yet flowers enough, nor air 
 enough. Above everything, I lack costume, character in 
 dress. The ladies are handsome, are well and tastefully 
 dressed, but they are too much like one another. The 
 gentlemen are all dressed alike. This cannot here be 
 otherwise, and it is good and right at the bottom. But 
 it is not good for picturesque effect. Nor does it seem 
 to me that the mental individuality is sufficiently marked 
 to produce an outward impression. But to this subject 
 I must return. 
 
 At the opera this evening I saw a large and handsome 
 building; splendid toilettes in the boxes, and on the 
 stage a prima donna, as Desdemona, against whom I 
 have nothing to object, excepting that she could love 
 such a disagreeable Othello. The music, the singing, 
 and the scenery, all tolerably good (with the exception of 
 Othello), but nothing very good. One might say, ce n est 
 pas ga ! but there was nothing which would make one 
 think "C est $a!" like a tone, a glance, a gesture of 
 Jenny Lind. 
 
 A lecture was delivered last Sunday evening, in the 
 same hall where I had heard Channing, on Christian 
 Socialism, by Mr. Henry James, a wealthy, and, as it 
 is said, a good man. His doctrine was that which 
 recognises no right but that of involuntary attraction, 
 
106 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 no law of duty but that of the artist s worship of beauty, 
 no God but that of the pantheist, everywhere and 
 yet nowhere a doctrine of which there is no lack of 
 preachers either in Sweden. After the conclusion of the 
 discourse, which was given extempore, with accordant life 
 and flashing vivacity, Channing arose and said, that " if 
 the doctrine which we had just heard enunciated were 
 Christian Socialism, then he did not agree with it ; that 
 the subject ought to be searched to the bottom; that he 
 considered the views of the speaker to be erroneous, and 
 that on the following Sunday he would take up the question 
 in that place, and show them in what the errors of these 
 views consisted." 
 
 The thing has excited attention, because both speakers 
 are fellow-labourers in a newspaper called " The Spirit 
 of the Age," and both are men of distinguished talent. 
 I am glad, as I shall thus have an opportunity of 
 hearing Channing before I leave New York, and that on 
 one of the most interesting subjects of the day and 
 period. 
 
 The next letter which you will receive from me will 
 be from the homes of New England. Next Monday I 
 set off with the S. s. One of the first homes in which 
 I shall rest after the festival of Thanksgiving Day, 
 will be that of the excellent and noble poet Lowell. 
 The invitation came to me from himself and his wife, 
 while I was with the Downings. As yet I have scarcely 
 done anything but go from one house to another, in 
 teresting, but troublesome, for one must always be 
 charged, if not exactly with genius, at least with good- 
 humour and strength to see company, and to be agree 
 able, when one often feels oneself so weary as not to be 
 good for anything else than to sit in a corner and be 
 silent or spin. But, thank God for all that is good 
 and joy- giving ! And how much more joyfully should I 
 spin this life of festivals and living impressions if I did 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 107 
 
 but know that you, my little Agatha, were joyful and a 
 little better. We cannot, however, expect very much at 
 this time of the year. I kiss mamma s hand, and thank 
 her for that dear letter, and embrace you across the 
 great waters. 
 
 LETTEK VI. 
 
 WESTBOROTCH, Dec. 2nd, 1849. 
 
 MY DEAE LITTLE AGATHA, I now write to you from a 
 little town near Boston, while waiting for the railway 
 train, which at five o clock will take us, that is to say, 
 myself, Mr. and Mrs. S., their little son Eddy, and 
 Professor Bergfalk, whom I induced to come with us. He 
 must not begin here to bury himself among books as he 
 did in Sweden : he must go abroad, and see a little of 
 life and mankind here to begin with, and celebrate the 
 festival of Thanksgiving one of the really national 
 festivals of the Americans in the heart of the State 
 where it arose, and where it still is cordially main 
 tained. When winter comes, he may read to his heart s 
 content in his beloved books. The truth is Bergfalk 
 was not hard to persuade, but came willingly and with 
 pleasure. 
 
 I wrote to you last in New York during my warfare 
 there. It was very troublesome to me, and did not mend at 
 Brooklyn. Strangers came from morning to evening, and, 
 though many amiable people were among them, I longed 
 many a time merely to lie down and sleep. I must, 
 however, tell you of the occasions when the interest of the 
 moment chased away all drowsiness and fatigue and made 
 me more awake than ever. Amongst these stands fore 
 most the evening of Channing s improvised lecture. 
 Last Sunday evening Channing was fully himself, and 
 his discourse poured forth like a clear rushing river, 
 
108 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 logical, perspicuous, glorious in subject and in elaboration. 
 It was to me a spiritual feast. He started with the idea of 
 a personal God in opposition to that of the pantheist, every 
 where and nowhere ; developing from that divine per 
 sonality the thence derived doctrine of duty, of social law, 
 of beauty, of immortality as applicable to every man, to 
 every human society, and proved how merely upon this 
 ground Christian Socialism, or Christian community, could 
 become stable, could advance humanity to its highest 
 purpose. Channing did not this time interrupt himself 
 once ; he did not replace a single word, carried along by a 
 continued inspiration, sustained by an enthusiasm without 
 extravagance, without passion, never violating the law of 
 beauty, and with a polemical creed which never wounded 
 the divine law. He merely once said in a somewhat 
 sharper tone, that the " person who did not in his own 
 breast become conscious of the duality of human nature, 
 who did not combat with a lower self, is either without 
 humanity, or is deeply to be pitied." 
 
 The hall was quite full of people, and the profoundest 
 attention prevailed. At the close of the oration a circle 
 of congratulating friends gathered around Channing. I 
 saw even the speaker of the former evening, Mr. H. James, 
 go forward to Channing, lay his hand upon his shoulder, 
 as if caressingly, as he said " You have done me an 
 injustice ; you have misunderstood me ! " He seemed 
 pale and agitated, but perfectly kind. 
 
 I went in a little carriage alone with Channing from 
 Brooklyn to New York this evening, and remarked 
 how desirous he seemed of dissipating his thoughts and 
 occupying them with subjects foreign to that of the 
 lecture. Now, as he took me back to the carriage and 
 we were about to separate (lie was to remain in New 
 York, and I was returning to Brooklyn), I could not avoid 
 saying to him, " How happy you must have felt this 
 evening ! " 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 109 
 
 " Yes, oh yes ! " he replied, with a half sigh ; " but 
 then I have wounded Mr. James ! " 
 
 Afterwards he extended to me his hand, with his 
 beaming smile, and said 
 
 " We shall meet in the morning ! " 
 
 But when comes that morning ? We have now parted 
 for a long time. But it is true, that if one ever meets 
 a spirit like that of Channing, it must be felt like a 
 meeting in the morning. 
 
 I recollect one evening party at the S. s with especial 
 pleasure. There were a sufficiency of space, air, flowers, 
 and some remarkably agreeable people. A noble, hand 
 some Miss S. recited a poem with much pathos of voice, 
 but otherwise altogether quietly. She and her handsome 
 sister wore real chrysanthemums in their hair. One 
 most charming young girl played on the piano one of her 
 own compositions, full of sweet feeling. Young C. sang. 
 They danced also. It was a gay, agreeable party, where 
 each performed some social duty, and where all seemed 
 to enjoy .life, and each other s society. 
 
 On Monday morning we set off, taking our way through 
 Connecticut. I left New York and Brooklyn with many 
 an unanswered letter of invitation, many unvisited 
 schools and institutions coming speeding after me, as if to 
 lay hold upon me ! I had a bad conscience. I actually 
 ran away from the battle of people. I could not do 
 otherwise. If I had been two people I could not have 
 answered all the invitations, calls, etc., and I am only 
 one ! But I shall return to New York. I must yet see 
 something more of its best and of its worst ; among the 
 latter, that portion of the city which is called " Five 
 Points," from five streets coming together at one place, 
 and where the lowest and the most dangerous population 
 of the city has its abode. I asked Mr. D., in joke, 
 whether he would go through the " Five Points," with me. 
 He answered decidedly, " No." Ah ! " II bello eil buono" 
 
110 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 is not there to be met with. But beyond the beautiful 
 and the good, seek I for truth and for reality in every 
 thing and everywhere. I must also make myself somewhat 
 better acquainted with the five points in the refined life of 
 New York ; for I know that there, as in all great cities, is 
 also to be found in the life of the higher class the five 
 ugly and dangerous points. As the first point I reckon 
 the long and tiresome dinners. 
 
 New York appears to me outwardly a plodding and 
 busy city without beauty and interest. There are beautiful 
 and quiet parts, with beautiful streets and dwellings ; but 
 there the life in the streets is dead. On the Broadway, 
 again, there is an endless tumult and stir, crowd and 
 bustle, and in the city proper, people crowd as if for dear 
 life, and the most detestable fumes poison the air. New 
 York is the last city in the world in which I would live. 
 But it is also to be regarded merely as a vast hotel, a 
 caravanserai both for America and Europe. Besides, it is 
 true that I always felt myself there in such a state of 
 combat and so fatigued, that I had not time to look around 
 for anything beautiful. But, thank heaven ! I know 
 Brooklyn, and there I could both live and sleep. 
 
 And now let us proceed on our way through the valleys 
 of Connecticut to the small homes of New England, the 
 home-land of the earliest pilgrims. 
 
 In the afternoon we reached Hartford. We were 
 invited for the evening to Mrs. Sigourney s, the author of 
 " Pleasant Memories from Pleasant Lands ; " and here I 
 shook hands with the whole town I believe, from the 
 bishop, a handsome old prelate, to the school girl, and 
 played my usual part in society. Mrs. Sigourney, a very 
 kind little sentimentalist, but a very agreeable lady, 
 dressed in green, about fifty years old, with a good 
 motherly demeanour, would perforce keep me with her all 
 night, and I could not go back to my excellent chamber 
 at the hotel, which I would so gladly have done, where I 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. Ill 
 
 might rest and have been silent. In the morning, however, 
 I forgot the little annoyance in breakfast and conversation 
 with my kind hostess and her agreeable only daughter. 
 The sun shone into the room, and the whole had the 
 character of a good home made warm by love. In such 
 homes I always do well, and I should have liked to have 
 stayed longer with Mrs. Sigourney had it been possible. 
 At parting she presented me with a handsome volume of 
 her collected poetical works, and therein I read a poem 
 called " Our Country," for which I could have kissed her 
 hand, so beautiful was it, and so noble and so truly 
 feminine is the spirit it breathes. As coining from a 
 woman and a mother there is great beauty in the following 
 address to her native land 
 
 Ah beautiful and glorious ! thou dost wrap 
 The robes of Liberty around thy breast, 
 And as a matron watch thy little ones 
 Who from their cradle seek the village-school, 
 Bearing the baptism on their infant brow 
 Of Christian faith and knowledge ; like the bud 
 That at the bursting of its sheath, doth feel 
 Pure dews, and heavenward turn. 
 
 There is thy strength, 
 
 In thy young children, and in those who lead 
 Their souls to righteousness. The mother s prayer 
 With her sweet lisper ere it sinks to rest 
 The faithful teacher mid a plastic group 
 The classic halls, the hamlets slender spire, 
 From whence, as from the solemn gothic pile 
 That crowns the city s pomp, ascendeth sweet 
 Jehovah s praise ; these are thy strength, my land ! 
 These are thy hope. 
 
 Oh lonely ark, that rid st 
 A tossing deluge, dark with history s wrecks, 
 And paved with dead that made not heaven their help, 
 God keep thee perfect in thy many parts, 
 Bound in one living whole. 
 
 After those pleasant morning hours I was obliged again 
 to see people, and was therefore taken out by my hostess 
 in a carriage to see the town, which appears to me to be 
 
112 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 well-built and well-situated. The public buildings are 
 the largest and the most ornamented of any in the 
 town. But everything, both within and without, testifies 
 of affluence and prosperity. About noon I took leave of 
 my friends at Hartford, and promised to come back. 
 
 It was rather late when we reached Worcester, where 
 we had an invitation from the Mayor, and who this 
 evening kept open house in our honour. As soon, there 
 fore, as we had arrived, we were obliged to dress ourselves 
 and go to a grand party. As there was a great gathering 
 in the town of the schools and the teachers of the district, 
 the house was so crowded that we could scarcely move in 
 the rooms, and my host himself did not know the names 
 of many persons whom he presented to me. But it was 
 all the same to me, because it is very seldom that those 
 foreign names fix themselves in my memory ; and kind 
 people are all alike welcome to a friendly hand- shaking 
 with me. We were received also with beautiful and 
 cordial songs of welcome, and with gifts of flowers from 
 handsome girls and young men. I played the Neck s 
 polska to them, and Kebecca S. related to them, in my 
 stead, the legend of the Neck and the Priest, the profound 
 sentiment of which never fails to impress the mind of the 
 hearer, and which is an excellent specimen of the popular 
 poetry of Scandinavia. 
 
 Among the guests in company was the celebrated 
 blacksmith and linguist, Elihu Burrit, a very tall and 
 strong-limbed man, with an unusually lofty forehead, 
 large beautiful eyes, and, above all, handsome and strong 
 features ; a man who would excite attention in any 
 company whatever, as well for his appearance as for the 
 expression of singular mildness and human love which 
 marks his countenance. He had lately arrived here 
 from the Peace Congress, I believe in Paris, and talked 
 about peace principles, of which much is said and taught 
 in these the oldest lands of the pilgrim fathers. I 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 113 
 
 declared myself to be a friend of war, of a good righteous 
 war, when, at least, peace cannot have a great and 
 prolonged life 011 earth. But what is now the state 
 of the world during a long peace ? Do not thousands of 
 little dwarfs stick up their heads and fight with pins 
 or pen-points, sticking and scratching from right to 
 left, calling up petty-mindedness, selfishness, bitterness, 
 causing petty affronts, wretched gratification, idle tales 
 and endless vexation in every quarter ? Is not society 
 broken up into a thousand little quarrels and little 
 contentions ? If now a serious, honourable war occurred, 
 like the giants who crush the dwarfs. People would then 
 forget their petty contentions for great common interests. 
 In these they would again become brothers : and after the 
 giants come the gods, and with them the renovation of 
 life.* Mankind must evidently grow in heart and in 
 intelligence ; and the community must perfect its work 
 before they talk about universal peace. This must 
 proceed from within. 
 
 Among the questions which were this evening put to 
 me was this: "What do you think of so many people 
 coming to see you ? " " I wish that I were handsomer ! " 
 replied I, simply, and with truth. 
 
 Our host was a man of agreeable person, frank and 
 kind as a true American, his wife was a graceful, agreeable 
 woman, with the stamp of peacefulness and refine 
 ment which I have frequently observed in the Quaker 
 women, and which makes them particularly charming to 
 me. She had lost an only child ; and had now adopted as 
 her own a little boy, who loved her as a mother, and who 
 scarcely could be happy when away from her. 
 
 We spent the forenoon of the following day in visiting 
 several small homes, many of them belonging to families 
 of Quakers, which were all distinguished by their order 
 
 * As Translator I beg to dissent considerably from these views of Miss 
 Bremer. M. H. 
 
 VOL. I. I 
 
114 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 and neatness ; but also, at the same time, I fancied by a 
 something of stiffness and emptiness which would be 
 oppressive to me. After this we continued our way 
 to Uxbridge, where we were to keep the Thanksgiving 
 festival. 
 
 I saw from the railroad the paternal home of Marcus S. ; 
 that country house and home where he had been brought 
 up with many brothers and sisters, and to which his 
 looks were now directed with affection. The moon arose 
 and shone upon the waters of the Blackstone river, along 
 which the railroad runs. Lights glimmered from the 
 factories on the other side of the river. I saw this 
 landscape, as in a dream, hour after hour, and rather 
 saw than felt its beauty, because the motion and the 
 rattle of the railway carriage produced a fatiguing and 
 deafening effect. 
 
 "We took up our quarters with a newly married couple, 
 a physician and his little wife, the eldest niece of 
 Marcus S. They had built their house according to 
 one of Mr. Downing s designs, and laid out their garden 
 also after his plan ; and here they lived without a servant, 
 the wife herself performing all the in- doors work. This 
 is very much the custom in the small homes of the New 
 England states, partly from economic causes, and partly 
 from the difficulty there is in getting good servants. I 
 slept in a little chamber without a fire-place, according 
 to the custom of the country : but the night was so very 
 cold that I could not sleep a wink; besides which, I 
 was visited during the long night by some not very 
 pleasing doubts as to how in the long run I should be able 
 to get on in this country, where there is so much that I 
 am unaccustomed to. When the sun however rose, it 
 shone upon a little white church; which with its taper 
 spire rising out of a pine -wood upon a height, just before 
 my window, and the whole landscape lit up by the morn 
 ing sun, presented so fresh, so northern, so Swedish an 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW \YORLD. 115 
 
 aspect that it warmed my very heart, and I saluted 
 Thanksgiving- day with right thankful feelings. The 
 whole scene with its hills and its valleys, now brightened 
 by the morning sun, actually resembled the scenery 
 around us, and I thought of the Christmas morning at 
 our church with its burning candles ; the pine wood 
 and the lit-up cottages within it, the peasants, the sledges 
 with their little bells, and all the cheerful life of the 
 sacred Christmas time ! But our little red-painted 
 cottages were changed into small white houses which 
 looked much more affluent. 
 
 My hands were so benumbed with cold that I had 
 difficulty in dressing, and was all in a shiver when 
 I went down to breakfast in that little room, where, 
 on the contrary, it was stiflingly hot from an iron stove. 
 The breakfast, as is usual in the country, was abundant 
 and excellent : but I cannot believe, that these abundant 
 hot breakfasts are wholesome. 
 
 After breakfast we went to church, for this day is 
 regarded as sacred throughout the country. The preacher 
 enumerated all the causes for thankfulness which his 
 community had had, as well publicly as privately, all the 
 good which they had experienced since the Thanksgiving 
 festival of the foregoing year ; and although he was 
 evidently not of a practical mind, and the history of the 
 year was given rather in the style of a chronicle, " on 
 this solemn and interesting occasion," yet from its subject 
 and purpose it was calculated to engage the mind. 
 Why have not we ; why have not all people such a festival 
 in the year ? It has grown out of the necessities of the 
 nobler popular heart ; it is the ascribing of our highest 
 earthly blessings to their heavenly Giver. We have 
 many publicly appointed days for prayer, but none for 
 thanksgiving : it is not right and noble. 
 
 I have inquired from many persons here the origin of this 
 
 festival in America ; but it is remarkable how little people 
 
 i 2 
 
116 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 are able to throw light upon its historical commencement. 
 They know merely that it arose in the " earliest times of 
 the pilgrim -fathers in America," and that it has since 
 established itself in the church as the expression of the 
 higher popular feeling. I have, nevertheless, heard it 
 said and it does not seem to me improbable that it 
 arose at the commencement of the colony, when, at a time 
 of great scarcity, and in the prospect of approaching 
 famine, five ships laden with wheat arrived from England ; 
 that therefore it was for a long time the custom in 
 Massachussets to lay, at this festival, five grains of corn 
 upon the dinner-plate of each guest, which custom is 
 retained to this day in certain of the parts of the State. 
 
 The weather was splendid, but cold, as after church 
 we walked through the rural city, with its small houses 
 and gardens, and saw the well-dressed inhabitants return 
 ing home from church. Everything testified of order and 
 of easy circumstances without show and luxury. We 
 dined in a large company, the dinner being at once abun 
 dant yet frugal, at the house of one of Marcus S. s relations. 
 We spent the evening with his sister and her family, who 
 own and cultivate a large farm near Uxbridge, the mother 
 of our doctor s little wife ; and here all the relations were 
 assembled. The mistress of the house, a quiet, agreeable, 
 motherly woman, " lady -like " in her manners, as was her 
 sister at the Phalanstery, and that from nobility and 
 refinement of soul, pleased me extremely, as did all the 
 simple cordial people of this neighbourhood ; they were 
 much more hearty, and much less given to asking 
 questions than the people I had met with in the great 
 city parties. We had a great supper with the two indis 
 pensable Thanksgiving- day dishes, roast turkey and 
 pumpkin pudding. It is asserted that the turkeys in 
 the states of New England always look dejected as the 
 time of Thanksgiving approaches, because then there is a 
 great slaughter among them. The clergyman who had 
 
HOMES OP THE NEW WORLD. 117 
 
 preached in the morning asked a blessing, which would 
 have appeared too long had it not been for its excellence. 
 
 After supper the young people danced. I taught them 
 the Swedish dance called " Vafva Wallmar," and played 
 the music for them, which excited general applause. 
 Towards midnight we returned to our little home, Marcus 
 and Eebecca occupying my former cold chamber, and a 
 bed being made up for me in the pretty parlour, where I 
 had a bright coal fire and a letter from the Downings, 
 which made me still warmer than the fire it was almost 
 too many good things ! Marcus and Rebecca said that 
 they liked a cold sleeping-room, and that they were 
 accustomed to it ; and it may be so ; but yet it was 
 very kind ! In the morning my little hostess brought me 
 a cup of coffee, which she herself had made, and waited 
 upon me in the most sweet and kind manner. I was 
 thankful, but rather ashamed ; nor would I have permitted 
 it had I been younger and stronger than I am. 
 
 Bergfalk had also suffered much from the cold, although 
 lodged in excellent quarters with Marcus s sister. 
 
 Friday forenoon we drove to Hopedale Community, a 
 little Socialist settlement a few miles from Uxbridge, 
 where also my friends have relatives and acquaintance. 
 The day was mild and the air soft, and the drive through 
 the yet verdant meadows agreeable. One of Marcus s 
 nephews drove us. 
 
 Hopedale Community is a small settlement altogether 
 founded upon Christian principles, and with a patriarchal 
 basis. The patriarch and head of the establishment, 
 Adin Ballou, a handsome old gentleman, received us, 
 surrounded by a numerous family. Each family has here 
 its separate house and garden. The greater number of 
 the people are handicraftsmen and agriculturists. Here 
 also were we received with songs of welcome and flowers. 
 Here also I remarked in the young people a singularly 
 joyous and fresh life, and it was delightful to see the 
 
118 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 happy groups passing to and fro in the sunshine from 
 one comfortable home to another. The church of the 
 little community, as well as its schoolhouse, struck me as 
 remarkably unchurchlike. Various moral aphorisms, such 
 as "Hope on, hope ever;" " Try again," and such like, 
 might be read upon the naked walls. For the rest it was 
 evident that the poetic element had much more vitality 
 here than among the community of New Jersey. The 
 moral element constituted nevertheless the kernel even 
 here, the poetic was merely an addition the sugar in the 
 moral cake. 
 
 We dined in an excellent little home. They asked no 
 questions of the guests, merely entertained them well and 
 kindly. A negro and his wife came hither wishing to be 
 received as members of the community. Hopedale Com 
 munity would suit me better than the North American 
 Phalanstery, partly from the separate dwellings, and 
 partly from the recognition of the Christian faith, as 
 well as for the sake of the patriarch, who has the appear 
 ance of a man in whom one might place the most heart 
 felt confidence. The little community has been in 
 existence about seven years, and consists of about thirty 
 families, comprising in all one hundred and seventy 
 souls. Every member pledges himself to " the Christian 
 faith, non-resistance, and temperance." Adin Ballou 
 has published a work on the right understanding of these 
 subjects, which he gave me. 
 
 Taking one thing with another, it seemed to me as if 
 life in this home, and in this community, was deficient in 
 gaiety, had but few enjoyments for the intellect, or the 
 sense of the beautiful ; but it was at the same time most 
 truly estimable, earnest, God-fearing, industrious, upon 
 the whole, an excellent foundation for a strong popular 
 life. From these small homes must proceed earnest men 
 and women, people who take life seriously, and have 
 early learnt to labour and to pray. Hopedale Community 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WOULD. 119 
 
 simply describes its object to be, " a beginning upon a 
 small scale of those industrial armies which shall go forth 
 to subdue, to render fruitful and to beautify the barren 
 fields of the earth, and to make of them worthy dwelling- 
 places for practical Christian communities, and the wider 
 extension of general improvement for the best interests 
 of mankind." Practical Christianity is the watchword of 
 these peaceful conquerors. " Blessed are the peace 
 makers, for they shall inherit the earth." 
 
 I shall for the present write no more about my cam 
 paign : although often amused and interested, I wonder 
 continually whether I shall ever again have any rest; 
 there seems no prospect of it, however. The cold is now 
 also come here, and it is a hard master to strive against. 
 To-day it is a regular tempest. I wonder how it is with 
 you, my darling, and whether you find yourself warm and 
 comfortable in our quiet home in Stockholm. May you 
 be so, my beloved Agatha, and may the winter not be too 
 severe for you ! 
 
 BOSTON, December 2nd. 
 
 Here I am now, my dear child, in the midst of severe 
 cold, but in a warm and handsome room in Eevere House, 
 with a glowing fire to bear me company. Here I am 
 installed by Marcus and Rebecca, who merely exhorted 
 me to be comfortable and not to want for anything. 
 
 In the forenoon I went with them to church, and heard 
 a singular kind of sermon from Theodore Parker, a 
 man of powerful character, and richly gifted as a speaker, 
 who, with a strong and fearless spirit, applies the morality 
 of Christianity to the political and social questions of the 
 day and the country. He has a Socratic head, large 
 well-formed hands, and his whole being, expression, 
 gestures, struck me as purely original the expression of 
 a determined and powerful nature. 
 
 I shall go in the evening to a Socialist meeting ; that 
 
120 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 is to say, if I do not prefer remaining in my own room 
 and enjoying an evening s peace ; and if I had requested 
 this of my friends, I should have done so. But I allow 
 myself to be borne along with the stream as long as I am 
 able. 
 
 In the morning we go to Emerson s, who lives in a 
 little city called Concord, at about an hour s distance by 
 railway from Boston ; and the next day, or the day 
 following that, I go to the Lowells at the University of 
 Cambridge, a few miles from this place, where I remain 
 some days, and where I shall more exactly determine my 
 stay in Boston. I have had various invitations to different 
 families, but as yet have not accepted any. It will be a 
 painful thing to me to part from these excellent people, 
 Marcus and Rebecca. They belong to the best kind of 
 people, and are infinitely agreeable to live with. 
 
 My dear Agatha ! I write very imperfectly to you 
 about both things and people here ; but neither things 
 nor people here allow me any time in which to write 
 about them. So much the more, however, shall we have to 
 talk about, and so much the more shall I some time have 
 to write about ; for people and circumstances affect me 
 powerfully, and in a manner which astonishes and 
 excites me greatly. I feel every day how altogether 
 necessary for my whole life, and for the development 
 of my moral and intellectual being, is this American 
 journey. 
 
 Tuesday, December, &th. Just returned from my little 
 
 journey with the S s and Bergfalk to Concord, the 
 
 oldest town in Massachussets, and the residence of Waldo 
 Emerson. We drove there, and arrived in the midst of a 
 regular snow-storm. But the railway carriages are well 
 warmed, and one sits there in beautiful ease and comfort, 
 excepting that one gets well shook, for the railroads here 
 are much more uneven than those on which I have 
 travelled in Europe. 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 121 
 
 Emerson came to meet us, walking down the little 
 avenue of spruce firs which leads from his house, bare 
 headed amid the falling snow. He is a quiet nobly grave 
 figure, his complexion pale, with strongly marked features 
 and dark hair. He seemed to me a younger man, but 
 not so handsome as I had imagined him ; his exterior 
 less fascinating, but more significant. He occupied himself 
 with us however, and with me in particular, as a lady and 
 a foreigner, kindly and agreeably. He is a very peculiar 
 character, but too cold and hypercritical to please me 
 entirely ; a strong, clear, eye, always looking out for an 
 ideal which he never finds realised on earth ; discovering 
 wants, short-comings, imperfections : and too strong and 
 healthy himself to understand other people s weaknesses 
 and sufferings, for he even despises suffering as a weakness 
 unworthy of higher natures. This singularity of character 
 leads one to supp ose that he has never been ill : sorrows 
 however he has had, and has felt them deeply, as some of 
 his most beautiful poems prove ; nevertheless, he has only 
 allowed himself to be bowed for a short time by these 
 griefs ; the deaths of two beautiful and beloved brothers, 
 as well as that of a beautiful little boy, his eldest son. 
 He has also lost his first wife after having been married 
 scarcely a year. 
 
 Emerson is now married for the second time, and has 
 three children. His pretty little boy, the youngest of his 
 children, seems to be, in particular, dear to him. Mrs. 
 Emerson has beautiful eyes, full of feeling, but she appears 
 delicate, and is in character very different to her husband. 
 He interested me, without warming me. That critical, 
 crystalline and cold nature may be very estimable, quite 
 healthy, and, in its way, beneficial for those who possess it, 
 and also for others, who allow themselves to be measured 
 and criticised by it. But for me David s heart with 
 David s songs ! 
 
 I shall return to this home in consequence of a very 
 
122 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 kind invitation to do so from Emerson and his wife, and 
 in order that I may see more of this sphinx-like indi 
 vidual. 
 
 From the worshipper of nature, Emerson, who does not 
 belong to any church, and who will not permit his children 
 to be baptised, because he considers the nature of a child 
 purer than is commonly that of a full-grown sinful man ; 
 we went to sleep at the house of a stern old Puritan, 
 where we had long prayers, kneeling with our faces to the 
 wall. Elizabeth H., the only daughter of the family, is 
 still beautiful, although no longer young, and a very noble 
 and agreeable woman. She was engaged to be married to 
 Emerson s best beloved brother, and, after his death, 
 declined all other matrimonial offers. She is evidently a 
 noble creature, gifted with fine and estimable qualities, 
 and her friendship for Waldo Emerson seems to me 
 something very pure and perfect. I "also hope to see 
 her again in the course of the winter. 
 
 It looked like a true Swedish winter morning, in 
 the pretty little Idylian city of Concord. Miss H. 
 went out with me, and we visited the monument erected 
 over the first victim who fell in the American War of 
 Independence, for here he fell when the first bloody 
 contest occurred. It was now nearly snowed up, and ice 
 and snow covered also the little river which beautifies the 
 city, and which was called by the Indians, Musketaquid, 
 "the Grassy Kiver." Emerson has given that name to 
 one of the freshest and sweetest of his poems. Wandering 
 in that pure winter atmosphere, beneath trees covered with 
 glittering snow, and by the side of Elizabeth H., whose 
 atmosphere is to me as inspiriting as the pure sunny air, 
 made rne cheerful both soul and body. On we rambled, 
 we met Bergfalk, who came quite warm in heart and 
 joyful from a ladies school in the city, where he had 
 heard the young girls solve mathematical problems, which 
 he had been requested to give them, and solve them easily 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 123 
 
 and well too. He was quite charmed with the young 
 girls and their teacher, a lady in the highest degree 
 gentlewornan-like, as he described her. Bergfalk had 
 made a little speech to express his pleasure, and the 
 estimable and agreeable clergyman who had accompanied 
 Bergfalk was no less warm in his praise, declaring that 
 every girls school would be delighted in the highest degree 
 with " the Professor," as he was called here, and every 
 where during our journey, for people scarcely attempted 
 to pronounce his name, as if they considered it quite 
 impossible. 
 
 I visited also several of those small homes, which are 
 very comfortable, although the family waits upon itself, 
 and does all the business of the house without a servant. 
 This is a thing to be esteemed, but not to be loved, and 
 I am not comfortable with it. 
 
 We left Concord in the afternoon without having again 
 seen Emerson. 
 
 As to the Socialist meeting this evening, I must tell you 
 that I saw there a great number of respectable -looking 
 people, and heard theories for the future, as to how 
 human beings instead of going to heaven, as now, by the 
 thorny path, will wander thither on roses, and more of the 
 same kind. I heard also various beautiful plans for the 
 accomplishing of this, but they all were remarkable for 
 their want of basis in possibility and in human nature, 
 such as it really is. In general it seems to me that the 
 Socialists fail by not taking into consideration the 
 dualism of human nature. They do not see the evil, and 
 they believe that everything can become right in this world 
 by outward institutions. I have during their discussions 
 a feeling of wandering among the clouds, or of being 
 lost in a great wood. The humane side of their theories, 
 of their endeavours for the best interests of humanity, 
 cannot be doubted. 
 
 The Swedish consul in Boston, Mr. Benzon, who was 
 
124 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 with us, made me, through Rebecca, an offer of his house, 
 as my home during the winter, which was agreeable to me, 
 although I do not know whether I shall be able to 
 accept it. But I have received many kind and beautiful 
 invitations. 
 
 And now, my dear heart, I must tell you that I am 
 losing all patience with the incessant knocking at my door, 
 and with visiting cards and letters, and am quite annoyed 
 at being continually obliged to say " come in," when I 
 would say " go away ! " Ah ! ah ! I am quite fatigued by 
 the welcome here, which will not leave me at peace ! I 
 have in the meantime not yet received any one, but 
 say I shall be at home in the evening. 
 
 In the morning I leave for Cambridge. A horrible 
 murder has just been committed here by one professor on 
 another, and the whole university and city are in a state 
 of excitement about it. It is an unheard-of occurrence, 
 and as the accused has many acquaintance and friends, 
 and has been known as a good husband, and in particular 
 as a good father, many maintain his innocence. He is in 
 the meantime conveyed to prison. People talk now about 
 scarcely anything else. 
 
 I must yet add that I am perfectly well amid all my 
 vagaries, and shall so manage during my stay in Boston 
 as to have more repose. I shall have one or two reception- 
 days during the week, and arrange so that I may have 
 time for myself; I know that I require it. Bergfalk 
 is well and lively, and liked by every one : and he sends 
 cordial greetings to mamma and to you. Greet cordially 
 from me Hagbeg, Maria, and Christine, our servants and 
 friends. 
 
 P. S. I must yet tell you that I am not sure that I 
 have judged rightly of Emerson. I confess that I was a 
 little staggered by the depreciating manner in which he 
 expressed himself about things and persons whom I 
 admired. I am not certain whether a steadfastness and 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 125 
 
 pride so little akin to my own did not tempt me to act the 
 fox and the grapes. Certain it is that Emerson s 
 behaviour and manner made upon me an impression 
 unlike that which other haughty natures produce, and 
 which it is easy for me to condemn as such, or as such 
 to despise. Not so with Emerson, he ought not to be 
 acquitted so easily ; he may be unjust or unreasonable, 
 but it certainly is not from selfish motives : there is a 
 higher nature in this man ; and I must see more of him, 
 and understand him better. For the rest, this acquaint 
 ance may end as it will, I shall be calm. " If we 
 are kindred, we shall meet ! " and if not the time 
 is long since past when I wished very much to please 
 men. I have passed through the desert of life ; I 
 have by my own efforts fought, through much difficulty, 
 my way up to that Horeb from whose summit I behold 
 the promised land; and this long suffering and this 
 great joy have made for all time, the splendid figures 
 of this world, its crowns, its laurels, and its roses, pale 
 before my eyes. I may be fascinated or charmed by them 
 for a moment, but it is soon over ; that which they give 
 makes me no richer ; that which they take away no 
 poorer : and many a time can I say to them as Diogenes 
 to Alexander, " Go out of my sunshine ! " I should not 
 even desire to come to this proud magi, Waldo Emerson, 
 and to see the stars in his heaven, if I had not my own 
 heaven and stars, and sun, the glory of which he can 
 scarcely understand. 
 
126 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 LETTEK VII. 
 
 HA YARD COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, Dec. 15th. 
 
 I CAN now, my beloved child, have a little talk with 
 you in peace. By this time mamma and you must know 
 of my arrival in this country of my first experience in 
 it, and how well all goes on with me : but I again have 
 such a craving for letters from home, and am so grieved 
 to have had but one since I came hither, and to have no 
 knowledge of how you have recovered from your illness, 
 and how mamma is, and all the rest at home. I must 
 however, soon hear, and God grant that all may be well. 
 
 I wrote lately to you from Boston : I remained there 
 
 several days with my friends, the S s, amid an 
 
 incessant shower both of visits and engagements, which 
 sometimes amused me, and sometimes drove me half to 
 desperation, and left me scarcely time to breathe. A few 
 of these days and hours I shall always remember with 
 pleasure. Among the foremost of these, is a morning 
 when I saw around me the most noble men of Massachus- 
 sets; Alcott, the Platonic idealist, with a remarkably 
 beautiful silver-haired head ; the brothers Clarke ; the 
 philanthropist, Mr. Barnard ; the poet, Longfellow ; the 
 young, true American poet, Lowell (a perfect Apollo in 
 appearance), and many others. Emerson came also with 
 a sunbeam in his strong countenance, and people more 
 beautiful more perfect in form (almost all tall and well- 
 proportioned) it would not be easy to find. 
 
 Another forenoon I saw the distinguished lawyer, 
 Wendel Phillips, and Charles Suinner, a young giant in 
 person ; Garrison, one of the principal champions of the 
 Abolitionist cause, and who, therefore, at a time of excite 
 ment, was dragged by the mob through the streets of 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 127 
 
 Boston, I believe with a halter round his neck as a 
 malefactor. One sees in his beautiful countenance and 
 clear, eagle -eye, that resolute spirit which makes the 
 martyr. Speaking with him, I told him candidly that 
 I thought the extravagance in the proceedings of the 
 Abolitionists, their want of moderation, and the violent 
 tone of their attacks could not benefit, but rather must 
 damage their cause. He replied, with good temper, "We 
 must demand the whole loaf if we would hope to get 
 one half of it ! " 
 
 He expressed himself mildly regarding the Southern 
 slave-holders, said that he valued many of them person 
 ally, but that he hated slavery, and would continue to 
 combat with it as with the greatest enemy of America. 
 And a man who had endured the maltreatment of a mob 
 who had borne the halter, and disgrace, and has 
 still stood firmly as before, combating fearlessly as 
 before ; the resolution and character of such a man 
 deserve esteem. This gentleman brought to us two 
 lately- escaped slaves, William and Ellen Kraft. She was 
 almost white ; her countenance which was rather sallow, 
 had the features of the white, and though not handsome, 
 a very intelligent expression. They had escaped by 
 means of her being dressed as a man ; he acting as her 
 servant. In order to avoid the necessity of signing her 
 name in the travellers books, for she could not write, she 
 carried her right arm in a sling, under the plea of having 
 injured it. Thus they had succeeded in travelling by 
 railway from the south to the free States of the north. 
 They appeared to be sincerely happy. 
 
 " Why did you escape from your masters ? " I asked, 
 " did they treat you with severity ? " 
 
 * No," replied she ; " they alwa} r s treated me well ; but I 
 fled from them because they would not give me my rights 
 as a human being. I could never learn anything, neither 
 to read nor to write." 
 
128 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 I remarked in her the desire for learning peculiar to 
 the white race. 
 
 " How is it," said some one in company to the negro, 
 " that the assertions of the anti-slavery party regarding 
 the treatment of the slaves, that they are often flogged 
 and severely beaten, are declared to be false ? Travellers 
 come to the north who have long resided among the 
 plantations of the south, and have never seen anything 
 of the kind." 
 
 William smiled, and said with a keen expression ; 
 "Nor are children whipped in the presence of strangers; 
 this is done when they do not see." 
 
 Neither of these escaped slaves complained of their 
 masters. And though like every other thinking Christian, 
 I must condemn slavery as a system and institution, I wait 
 to pass judgment on American slave-holders and slavery in 
 America until I have seen it nearer. I am, from ex 
 perience, suspicious of party- spirit and its blindness, and 
 whenever I see this in activity I cannot accede to it, but 
 on the contrary feel myself inclined to opposition. I will, 
 at all events, see and hear for and against the question 
 before I join either party. Justice and moderation before 
 everything ! 
 
 I was two evenings at the theatre, and saw Miss 
 Charlotte Cushman the principal actress in the United 
 States in two characters, in which she produced a great 
 effect, both here and in England, namely, Meg Merrilies 
 and Lady Macbeth. Miss Cushman, immediately on my 
 arrival in New York, had written very kindly to me, 
 offering to be any use to me in her power. Here, in 
 Boston, she placed a box at the theatre at my service, 
 which was very agreeable to me, as I could thus invite my 
 friends to accompany me. Miss Cushman is a powerful 
 actress ; she possesses great energy, but is deficient in 
 feminine grace, and wants more colour in her acting, 
 especially of the softer tone. This has reference princi- 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 129 
 
 pally to her Meg Merrilies, which is a fearful creation. 
 Miss Cushman has represented in her merely the witch, 
 merely the horrible in nature. But even the most horrible 
 nature has moments and traits of beauty ; it has sun, 
 repose, dew, and the song of birds. Her Meg Merrilies 
 is a wild rock in the sea, around which tempests are 
 incessantly roaring, and which unceasingly contend with 
 clouds and waves. She was also too hard and masculine 
 for Lady Macbeth. It was merely in the night scene that 
 her acting struck me as beautiful, and that deploring cry 
 so full of anguish which she utters when she cannot wash 
 the blood from her hands, that I feel I shall never forget. 
 
 It thrilled through my whole being, and 1 can still 
 
 hear it ; I can hear it in gloomy moments and scenes. 
 
 I like Miss Cushman personally very much. One sees evi 
 dently in her an honest, earnest, and powerful soul, which 
 regards life and her vocation with a noble earnestness. She 
 has, through great difficulties, made her own way to the posi 
 tion which, by universal recognition and with universal 
 esteem, she now occupies. She belongs to an old Puritanic 
 family, and after her father s misfortunes, she supported by 
 her talent for some years her mother and her younger sis 
 ter. She looks almost better in private than on the stage ; 
 the frank blue eye, the strong, clever forehead, and the 
 honest, sensible expression of her whole demeanour and 
 conversation make one like to be with her. 
 
 I experienced much kindness and warm goodwill in 
 Boston, of which I cannot now speak. Ah ! there is no 
 want of warm-heartedness here, my little Agatha, and the 
 youthful spirit of the people makes it very perceptible. 
 But the misfortune is, that I am but one against 
 many ; and that I have not the strength nor the disposi 
 tion to struggle with .and against that kindness which 
 I feel to be so beautiful and so genial to n^ 
 heart. The only quiet hours which I had in Boston 
 were when I was driving along the streets in a carriage to 
 
 VOL. I. K 
 
130 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 visit institutions or to pay visits : these days were also 
 agreeable from many things in themselves, and from 
 
 intercourse with my friends, the estimable S s ; they 
 
 too enjoyed them and were gay. Agreeable things 
 occurred, and agreeable people came daily and hourly, 
 with fresh plans for fresh pleasures, and from day to day 
 was deferred their return to New York and my separation 
 from them. My little female physician, Miss H., had 
 a chase after me every day, to catch me and take me 
 home with her. The Lowells came to fetch me to Cam 
 bridge, but we, my friends and myself, were grown reckless, 
 setting at nought all principles of ordinary promise - 
 keeping and propriety, and had, just out of merriment 
 and a little innocent foolhardiness, determined to per 
 severe in our unprincipled conduct, and still remain 
 together a few days longer in Boston under our pleasant 
 devil-may-care system, when two telegraphic despatches 
 came one after the other, first to Marcus, then to Rebecca, 
 containing the words, " your baby is very sick." 
 
 With this was an end to all " frolic." Rebecca, bathed 
 in tears of anguish, Marcus with trouble in his good 
 countenance, immediately got everything ready for their 
 departure, so that they might set off by railway a few 
 hours afterwards, and early the following morning reach 
 their home, where Rebecca expected to find her little boy 
 dead. 
 
 At the same time that they left I was to take up my 
 quarters at the house of the Swedish consul, Benzon. I 
 could not part with them without shedding tears ; I had 
 been so happy with them. They are such excellent 
 people, and I was now so sorry for them, although it 
 was impossible for any one to bear a sorrow more 
 beautifully than they did this. And besides, they had 
 been so inexpressibly kind to me ! I cannot describe it 
 in a letter ; and neither can I think of it without emotion. 
 To the last I had to strive with them, but in vain, that I 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 131 
 
 might be allowed to pay my expenses in Boston. They 
 maintained that I was their guest, and thus I paid not 
 the slightest sum for my expensive and splendid living 
 at the Revere House for three several days. And their 
 manner of doing me this kindness, as " an honour and 
 a pleasure to themselves ;" nay, my Agatha, I have 
 never seen its equal before ! 
 
 I took it almost as a certainty that my friends would 
 find their little boy "the baby" dead; so violent had 
 been the convulsions, into which he had been thrown, for 
 he was teething : and Rebecca expected to hear at the 
 door of her home the words, " He is not here ! he has 
 arisen ! " 
 
 The day after their arrival, however, came to me a 
 telegraphic message, with the words, " Dear Friend ! 
 Rejoice with us. Baby better. Danger nearly over. 
 
 " MARCUS." 
 
 What heartfelt pleasure this afforded me ! 
 
 In the evening I went with Benzon and Bergfalk, 
 together with a young Mr. K., an agreeable and witty 
 
 man, a friend of the S s, to a concert given by the 
 
 "Musical Fund Society," and was admitted by a free 
 ticket, which would admit myself and my friends during 
 the whole of the winter. And there I heard Beethoven s 
 Fourth Symphony excellently performed by a numerous 
 orchestra. The second adagio in this seized upon me with 
 extraordinary power. Ah ! who taught this man thus to 
 understand the inmost life of the heart, its strivings 
 upwards, its depressions and re-ascendings, its final 
 conflict, resolute endeavour, and ultimate victory ? No 
 instrumental music makes upon me a more profound 
 impression than this glorious adagio. Its tones were to 
 me like the history of my own soul. 
 
 On Sunday I again heard Theodore Parker preach. 
 He made a full and free confession of his faith, and I 
 
 K2 
 
132 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 was rejoiced to see his honesty and courage, although 
 I could not rejoice at the confession of faith in itself, 
 which was a very imperfect recognition of the Christian 
 revelation, and which acknowledged in Christ merely a 
 human and moral teacher, although as such the model 
 and the ideal of humanity. Parker belongs to the 
 Unitarian body ; and to that section of it which denies 
 miracles, and everything that requires supernatural agency 
 in the sacred history. That which really displeased me 
 was, that Parker asserted that he regarded Christ as 
 standing in no other relationship to God than did all 
 mankind ; and that he merely was mentioned in history 
 as " a modest young man from Galilee." How can a 
 lover of truth read the sacred history, and expressions 
 such as these, " He who has seen me has seen the 
 Father ; " " The Father is in me, and I in Him : " and 
 many others of a similar kind, and yet make such an 
 assertion ? 
 
 After the sermon some ladies who were unknown to 
 me, came up, and accosting me with much warmth and 
 kindness, said they hoped that I was pleased ; that I was 
 satisfied, etc. I replied that I was not wholly so ! and 
 declined to be introduced to the preacher, as, according 
 to custom here, immediately after service introductions 
 take place in the churches, and conversation is carried on, 
 which is not only unpleasant but quite out of place. 
 
 In the afternoon Benzon read aloud to Mr. K., 
 Bergfalk, and myself, an "Essay on the American Mind," 
 by a Mr. "Whipple ; it is writted in a lively manner, 
 takes broad views, and is not without marks of genius. 
 It has been very much talked about, and furnished us 
 also with matter for conversation. 
 
 In the evening I had a visit from Theodore Parker. 
 I am so great a lover of courage in all forms, and of every 
 unreserved expression of opinion and belief, that I extended 
 my hand to Parker, thanking him cordially for his can- 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 133 
 
 dour. But I nevertheless told him frankly my objections 
 to his Christology, and we had a good deal of quiet 
 controversy. I found Parker extremely agreeable to 
 converse with, willing to listen, gentle, earnest, and 
 cordial. I stated to him also my objections against the 
 Unitarian point of view in general, because from, it many 
 of the greatest and most important questions as regards 
 God, humanity and life, must be left unsolved, and never 
 can be solved. Parker heard me with much kindness 
 and seriousness, and conceded various things, conceded 
 among others the reasonableness of miracles, when 
 regarded as produced by a power in nature, but not out 
 of it, the law of nature on a larger scale. 
 
 As I said before, Parker has a Socratic head ; he has 
 a pure and strongly moral mind ; he is like Waldo 
 Emerson, captivated by the moral ideal ; and this he 
 places before his hearers in words full of a strong vitality, 
 and produces by them a higher love for truth and justice 
 in the human breast. Parker, however, as a theologist is 
 not powerful ; nor can he talk well upon the most sublime 
 and most holy doctrines of revelation, because he does not 
 understand them. In his outbursts against the petrified 
 orthodoxy, and the petrified church, he is often happy 
 and true. But I think that people may say of him as 
 somebody said about a greater man, Luther, " II a bien 
 critique mais pauvrement doctrine." Parker, however, 
 investigates earnestly, and speaks out his thoughts 
 honestly, and that is always a great merit. More we 
 can hardly desire of a man. Beyond this he teaches to 
 be very good, to do much good ; and I believe that from 
 his kind and beautiful eyes. In short I like the man. 
 
 The next day Benzon accompanied me to Cambridge 
 to the Lowells ; from whom, as I have already said, I had 
 received an invitation through Mr. Downing, who had 
 written to the poet of the pleasure which his writings 
 had given me. 
 
134 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 There I have now been a week, and shall remain 
 yet a week longer; they will have me stay, and I am 
 quite willing to stay, because I am well off to my heart s 
 content in this excellent and agreeable home. The house, 
 and a small quantity of land which surrounds it, belong 
 to the father of the poet, old Dr. Lowell, a handsome old 
 man, universally beloved and respected, and the oldest 
 minister in Massachussets. He planted all the trees 
 round the house, among which are many beautiful 
 northern pines. The whole family assembles every day 
 for morning and evening prayer around the venerable 
 old man ; and he it is who blesses every meal. His 
 prayers, which are always extempore, are full of the 
 true and inward life, and I felt them as a pleasant, 
 refreshing dew upon my head, and seldom arose from my 
 knees with dry eyes. With him live his youngest son, 
 the poet, and his wife; such a handsome and happy 
 young couple as one can hardly imagine. He is full of 
 life and youthful ardour, she as gentle, as delicate and as 
 fair as a lily, and one of the most love able women that I 
 have seen in this country, because her beauty is full of 
 soul and grace, as is everything which she does or says. 
 This young couple belong to the class of those of whom 
 one can be quite sure ; one could not for an hour, nay not 
 for half an hour, be doubtful about them. She, like him, 
 has a poetical tendency, and has also written anonymously 
 some poems, remarkable for their deep and tender feeling, 
 especially maternal, but her mind has more philosophical 
 depth than his. Singularly enough I did not discern in 
 him that deeply earnest spirit which charmed me in many 
 of his poems. He seems to me occasionally to be bril 
 liant, witty, gay, especially in the evening, when he has 
 what he calls his "evening fever," and his talk is then 
 like an incessant play of fire-works. I find him very 
 agreeable and amiable : he seems to have many friends, 
 mostly young men. Among his poems the witty and 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 135 
 
 satirical are the most popular ; as, for example, his 
 " Fable for Critics," in which, in a good-humoured way, 
 he has made himself merry with the poets and poetesses 
 of New England, only one of whom, Margaret Fuller, is 
 severely handled. His satirical, political, fugitive pieces, 
 have been very successful. As one of his merits I reckon 
 his being so fascinated by his little wife, because I am so 
 myself. There is a trace of beauty and taste in every 
 thing she touches, whether of mind or body ; and above 
 all, she beautifies life. Among other beautiful things 
 which she has created around her in her home, I have 
 remarked a little basin full of beautiful stones and shells, 
 which she herself collected ; they lie glittering in water 
 clear as crystal, and round them is a border of coral. 
 Pity it is that this much loved young wife seems to have 
 delicate lungs. Her low, weak voice tells of this. Two 
 lovely little girls, Mabel and Kose, the latter yet at 
 the mother s breast, and an elder sister of the poet, one 
 of the worthy and the good, constitute the remainder of 
 the family. 
 
 I saw here some gentlemen of the University who 
 interested me; among them Mr. Everett, a man of 
 learning and of rank, formerly ambassador to the British 
 Court ; the natural historian, Professor Agassiz, who has 
 an unusually agreeable appearance and manner (and 
 who presented his betrothed to me, a tall blonde young 
 American lady); as well as the astronomer, Professor 
 Holmes, (I believe that is his name) whose head is 
 singularly beautiful, and who brought with him two hand 
 some daughters. I have also paid some visits. 
 
 The general topic of conversation for the time is the 
 murder of Professor Parkman by Mr. Webster, the 
 Professor of Chemistry. People talk for and against. 
 One friend of the accused, a lawyer of high standing, 
 Judge T., says that he is perfectly persuaded of his 
 innocence. So also a pleasant and sensible woman, 
 
136 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 Mrs. F., who saw a good deal of him, and for the last 
 time a few days after the supposed murder, when he 
 spent an evening at her house, played at whist, and was 
 more cheerful and agreeable than usual. Young Lowell, 
 on the contrary, helieves Webster to be guilty, from various 
 things which he lately heard of his character and asso 
 ciates as a young man. He has for a long time lived 
 beyond his means, and the occasion of the murder was a 
 small sum of money, a few hundred dollars which he had 
 borrowed from Professor Parkman, who let him have no 
 peace, so urgent was he for their repayment. This 
 Parkman must have been a very singular man. Eich 
 though he was, he would literally persecute and torment 
 poor people to whom he had lent money, until it was 
 repaid by them, or they allowed him interest. Yet would 
 he the very next day send money to these same people as 
 a gift, or under some pretence or other, never however as 
 from himself, but as from some one else. He wished 
 before men to appear as an unsparing judge. 
 
 In this way he not long since persecuted Webster, until 
 the latter under pretence of settling with him, decoyed 
 him into the chemical laboratory in Boston, where he 
 made an end of him, in what manner is not yet known. 
 They have merely found fragments of the body, which 
 Webster had endeavoured partly to burn and partly to 
 conceal. Webster boldly denies the deed, but having 
 made an attempt to poison himself in prison, the suspicion 
 against him is greatly increased. 
 
 At the end of next week I shall leave the Lowells, and 
 remain for a few days with my little lady-physician; 
 after that, I remain at Benzon s house, probably 
 until I leave Boston. Benzon arranged with Rebecca 
 that she was to persuade me to this ; and as they pro 
 posed to settle the whole thing, it is both advisable 
 and agreeable to me. Benzon himself is unmarried, but 
 as the wife of his associate, Mr. K., superintends his 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 137 
 
 house, I can be boarded with her after Benzon has left 
 for Europe, which will be about the beginning of January. 
 This is highly agreeable to me also, in an economic point 
 of view. Benzon is a very good man, of a noble mind 
 and refined education, refined and delicate in his manners, 
 so that one can accept such a kindness at his hands, and 
 besides that have pleasure in his society. And, moreover, 
 I can be more free in his house, and have much more quiet 
 than I could any where else, at least in any of those 
 families which have kindly been opened to me : for there 
 the duties of society would be incumbent upon me, which 
 they will not be here. So that I believe it could not be 
 better arranged for me than it now is. 
 
 December IQth. Good morning, my little Agatha ; this 
 bright, rather windy and cold day, I saw the sun rise 
 in the morning and shine into my bed through the fir-trees 
 before my window : and Sweden and my beloved ones 
 were so near to me in this salutation of the sun through 
 the pine-trees, that I saluted that new sun for them as 
 well as for myself, and saluted this new world which gave 
 and gives me so much of life and interest. 
 
 I have now spent some quiet days in Cambridge, the 
 quietest days which I have spent since I came into this 
 country. I now see company and receive visits only 
 in the evenings. Bergfalk is now also in Cambridge, and 
 happy in the company of a library of 14,000 volumes, 
 and of various lawyers who embrace him warmly. 
 With him and my young host, I one day lately visited the 
 several buildings of the University and the library. In 
 the latter I was surprised to find one portion of the 
 Swedish literature not badly represented here. This is 
 owing to the poet, Professor Longfellow, who having 
 himself travelled in Sweden sent hither these books. He 
 has also written about Sweden, and has translated several 
 of Tegner s poems. I found also the Ecldas among the 
 Swedish books. Bergfalk laid his hands on the West- 
 
138 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 gotha laws, which he treated as an old friend, and in 
 which he showed some of the gentlemen who accom 
 panied us, an example of that alliteration which was so 
 much in vogue in the writings of our forefathers, and 
 about which the gentlemen found much to say. I saw 
 also Audubon s large and really magnificent work on the 
 American birds, a work of genius besides. 
 
 Among the visitors whom I have seen and who have 
 interested me, are a Mrs. E. and her daughter Ida. 
 Ida was born in Sweden where her father was charge 
 d affaires many years, and although she left the country 
 as a child, she has retained an affection for Sweden and 
 the Swedes. She is a handsome and agreeable young 
 lady. Her mother looks like goodness itself. 
 
 " I cannot promise you much that is entertaining," said 
 she, in inviting me to her house, "but I will nurse 
 you ! " 
 
 I could not but embrace her for this motherly good will ; 
 but ah! that which I need is not continually ranging 
 and flitting about from house to house, but to be quiet for 
 a while. I promised nevertheless to go to them (they live 
 in the country, some miles on the other side of Boston) 
 on Christmas-eve, which they will keep in a northern 
 fashion, with Christmas pine -twigs, Christmas candles, and 
 Christmas-boxes, and, as I perceive, great ceremony. But 
 more than all the Christmas -candles, and the Christmas- 
 boxes, do I need a little rest. 
 
 23rd. I have been this week to several dinner-parties 
 one very excellent at the house of Professor Longfellow 
 and his handsome and agreeable wife. Their house is 
 handsome, and there we met Miss Charlotte Cushman 
 and Miss Hays, a young English lady of interesting 
 appearance, very quiet and noble deportment, who travels 
 with her and is her friend, Charles Simmer and a couple 
 of other gentlemen. Longfellow is an agreeable host, 
 and gave us American wines, sherry and champagne, 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 139 
 
 the latter I thought especially good; it is made from 
 the Cataba grape at Cincinnati. We dined also at 
 the house of the pleasing and lively Mrs. F., whose 
 husband is a martyr to neuralgia, which makes many 
 martyrs in this country. I could scarcely avoid shedding 
 tears when I saw him, he looked so suffering, yet so 
 perfectly patient, as he sat there quite lame in his 
 wheeled chair. 
 
 Farther, we dined at Professor P. s, a Swedenborgian, 
 who showed me much kindness ; and farther still, I have 
 
 been at a Bee ! And if you would know what the 
 
 creature is in the life of society here then, behold ! 
 Is a family reduced to poverty by sickness or fire, and 
 the children are in want of clothes or whatever else it 
 may be, immediately a number of ladies of the neigh 
 bourhood who are in good circumstances meet together 
 at one place to sew for them. Such a sewing-assembly 
 as this is called a Bee! 
 
 And now there was a Bee at the house of Mrs. S., 
 the lady of the President of the University, to sew for 
 a family who had lost all their clothing by fire, and I 
 was invited to be present at it. The bee -hive was ex 
 cellent, and busy, and cheerful, and had if not honey 
 remarkably good milk and cake to offer the working 
 bees, among whom I took my place, but not to do 
 very much myself. 
 
 A merry little man, Professor K., a Dane by birth, 
 and a true Dane in naivete and loquacity, has visited and 
 amused us many times. He has associated himself with a 
 Polish professor, one as large and stately as the Dane is 
 little and lively, and the two are always together dis 
 puting and making speeches, singing each his own songs 
 in so amazingly contrasting a manner, that Maria Lowell 
 and myself kept this evening continually bursting into 
 fits of laughter. 
 
 Professor Desor, a Swiss and naturalist, has interested 
 
140 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 me greatly by his anecdotes of natural history and his 
 friendly attentions. 
 
 In the evenings when I and my young friends are alone, 
 we read; Maria reads her husband s poetry charmingly 
 well, or I relate to them some little romantic passage, 
 or a Swedish love or ghost-story, or I beg of them to 
 relate such to me. In this way I soon become at home 
 in a family. 
 
 But the New World is too young, and has too few old 
 houses and old rubbish for ghosts to thrive there ; and as 
 to love-stories they do not seem to be remarkable enough 
 to become historical, except in the homes and the hearts 
 where they live in silence. But still, every home in 
 which I have yet lived gives me its love-history, as its 
 best flower, before I have left it ; it always amuses me 
 very much, and I am filled with manifold admiration of 
 the blind, or rather the clairvoyant, god s devices for 
 making one out of two. 
 
 I go out every day, either with my young friends or 
 alone. With them I visited, to-day, Mount Auburn, 
 the great burial-place of Boston, a romantic, park-like 
 district, with hills and valleys, and beautiful trees. Elms 
 seem to be the favourite trees of Massachussets. I never 
 saw such large and beautiful elms as here. They shoot 
 aloft, palm-like, with branching trunks, and spread forth 
 their crowns, bending down their branches in the most 
 pliant and graceful manner. In their branches, now 
 leafless, I often see a little, well-built bird s-nest hang, 
 swinging in the wind. It is a small and very delicate 
 bird, called the oriole, which thus builds a cradle 
 for its young, and its bed must be very pleasant. 
 It has thus built in the branches of an immense elm 
 at Cambridge, called Washington s elm. 
 
 The weather is for the most part beautiful and sunny, 
 and the colour of the sky wonderfully clear and bright. 
 Its beauty and the transparency of the atmosphere charms 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 141 
 
 me. The weather was enchanting yesterday ; it was like 
 a spring-day. I frequently go alone to a tract of land 
 where the road soon ceases, but where the view is ex 
 tensive over the grassy fields; the ridge of the lofty 
 horizon is clothed with pine-woods, and everywhere, both 
 near and afar off, are seen small clusters of white houses 
 and churches. The grass is now withered and yellow, 
 but when the wind sweeps over it, it bears with it 
 I know not what extraordinarily agreeable odour, which 
 produces a wonderful effect upon me : memories plea 
 sant and affecting, beloved countenances, glances, voices 
 come to me in it; a thousand feelings, thoughts, pre 
 sentiments ; life becomes too full ; the heart overflows, 
 and my eyes swim with tears : how is it ? I feel myself less 
 strong than formerly, and I often have a sensation of fever. 
 I need rest. Many also say the same, but not many wish 
 it for me. We shall see, we shall see whether I am 
 able to go to Milton Hill (to the R. s), and keep Christ 
 mas. I wish it, intend it, but 
 
 December 25th. Ah ! no, my child. The journey has 
 not taken place. I had already begun to pack my port 
 manteau, but I could not manage it, and my courage 
 failed. I wrote to say it was impossible (by a young 
 gentleman who was going to the festivity) and thus I 
 passed Christmas-eve quite alone with Maria Lowell. I 
 sewed, and she read aloud to me her husband s 
 new work which had been published the day before. 
 Thus we conversed quietly and inwardly from the open 
 heart and soul even as we may converse in heaven. All 
 the rest of the family were gone to an entertainment at 
 Boston. 
 
 The Christmas-eve of the year before I had spent in 
 Denmark with the beautiful and excellent Queen Caroline 
 Amalia. The year before that with you at Arsta, with 
 Christmas branches, and cheer, and dance, for our country- 
 children, a merry company ! then to the Christmas matins 
 
142 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 the next morning. And now this evening in another 
 hemisphere, alone with a beloved young wife beautiful, 
 dissimilar pictures of life ! 
 
 In the morning I shall leave this family and Cambridge. 
 I have visited many homes in this neighbourhood ; all 
 are alike in the internal construction, neatness, arrange 
 ment and comfort ; in some there is a little more, in 
 others a little less beauty; in that lies the principal 
 difference. Longfellow s is among the most beautiful and 
 the most artistic homes I have seen here. One beautiful 
 decoration which I have seen in the homes here, as well 
 as in the other small houses of New England which I 
 have visited, is a large bouquet, a regularly gigantic 
 bouquet of the beautiful grasses of the country, and 
 which, if we are to judge by these specimens, are of 
 gigantic growth. These are placed as decorations in vases 
 in the parlour, and used also in other ways. One often 
 sees little humming birds, not of course alive, fluttering 
 among the grasses. I have seen also groups of the 
 beautiful birds of the country, and shells, used for the 
 decoration of rooms, and these seem to me excellent, and 
 in the best taste. We, even in Sweden, might have such, 
 if we would set more store on that which is our own 
 through the gift and favour of God. 
 
 I cannot tell you how kind the Lowells were and are 
 to me. I have sketches of them in my album and in my 
 heart, and you shall see them in both. 
 
 I must now say farewell, and kiss you and mamma in 
 spirit. I always fancy myself writing to both at once. 
 May I only soon receive good letters from my dear 
 ones ! That would be the best Christmas-box that I could 
 receive. 
 
 I had almost forgotten and that I ought not to do to 
 tell you of a visit I have had this evening from the 
 Quaker and poet Whittier, one of the purest and most 
 gifted of the poetical minds of the Northern States, 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 143 
 
 glowing for freedom, truth and justice, combating for 
 them in his songs and against their enemies in the social 
 life of the New World ; one of those Puritans who will 
 not bend to or endure injustice in any form. He has a 
 good exterior, in figure is slender and tall, a beautiful 
 head with refined features, black eyes full of fire, dark 
 complexion, a fine smile, and lively, but very nervous 
 manner. Both soul and spirit have overstrained the 
 nervous chords and wasted the bocty. He belongs to 
 those natures who would advance with firmness and joy to 
 martyrdom in a good cause, and yet who are never 
 comfortable in society, and who look as if they would run 
 out of the door every moment. He lives with his mother 
 and sister in a country-house, to which I have promised to 
 go. I feel that I should enjoy myself with Whittier, and 
 could make him feel at ease with me. I know from my 
 own experience what this nervous bashfulness, caused 
 by the over-exertion of the brain, requires, and how 
 persons who suffer therefrom ought to be met and 
 treated. 
 
 I have had a little botanic conversation with the 
 distinguished Professor of Botany here, Asa Gray, who 
 came and presented me with a bouquet of fragrant violets. 
 He gave me also out of his herbarium some specimens of 
 the American Linnea borealis, which resembles our 
 Swedish, but is considerably less, and has somewhat 
 different leaves. I thought that I should botanise a 
 great deal in this country, but God knows how it is ! The 
 good Downing sent me to-day a large basket, a gigantic 
 basket-full of the most magnificent apples, alike splendid 
 as excellent, and I had the pleasure of being able to treat 
 my young friends with them. The Downings and the 
 S s are incomparably kind to me. 
 
 Among the curiosities of my stay in Cambridge, I set 
 down an invitation I had one evening to go and take a 
 walk in Paradise with Adam and Eve. The gentleman 
 
144 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 from whom it came, first in writing and then by word of 
 mouth, (I fancy he exhibits some sort of a wax-work show) 
 gave me a hint that several gentlemen of the Academic 
 State would avail themselves of this opportunity of making 
 my acquaintance in Paradise in company with Adam 
 and Eve. You may very well imagine what was my 
 answer. Beautiful company ! 
 
 In conclusion I ought indeed to say a word or two about 
 Cambridge, an excellent little city of small white houses, 
 with small courts and gardens, and beautiful lofty trees, 
 regular and ornamental, but monotonous. I should 
 in the end be tempted to sing here " The same 
 and same always would make our lives sour ! " Variety 
 beautifies the whole of nature. 
 
 Here also was I shown several very handsome houses, 
 belonging, the one to a bricklayer, the other to a 
 carpenter, a third to a cabinet-maker, and so on : thus 
 universally do common handicraft trades lead to honour 
 and to property in this country. 
 
 The University is attended by about five hundred 
 students yearly. It is wholly a Unitarian establishment, 
 and belongs to the Unitarian Church. All branches 01 
 natural history are much studied here. Now however 
 people say that the example of the chemical professor 
 Webster proves that they do not produce much sanctity. 
 The history of this murder continues to be the topic of 
 general conversation, and proofs of Webster s guilt 
 accumulate more and more. He however continues to 
 deny it. An event of this kind is without parallel in this 
 community, and seems to every one almost incredible. 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 145 
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 
 BOSTON, January 1st, 1850. 
 
 A GOOD New Year to all the beloved ones at home ! 
 
 Thanks, rny dearest little Agatha, for your letter ! It 
 was a heart-felt joy and refreshment to me; for although 
 there was here and there a joyless shadow in it, yet a 
 cheerful spirit breathed through the letter, which told me 
 that you were sound both soul and body. And how 
 amusing it was to see you go out to dine with the 
 relations right and left ! And all the little news of home ; 
 of the new servant, for instance, who stands so assiduously 
 so rivetted to the back of your chair, and then darts in 
 the way before you, out of sheer respect and zeal to open 
 the doors ; ah, how amusing is all this to read about, 
 and how amusing it seems at several thousand miles 
 distance ! And that mamma should be looking so well, 
 and Charlotte so much better and Hagbert be so pleased 
 amid his activity in the country is very inspiriting. 
 
 I now again write to you in the house of Benzon, sitting 
 in a handsome little parlour, furnished with green velvet, 
 and with beautiful pictures and engravings on the walls ; 
 and I cannot tell you how glad I am to be here at rest 
 for a time, a month at least, because I require repose 
 both for soul and body, and I cannot possibly have more 
 quiet, freedom, and comfort than I have here. I have 
 not been so well for some time, for all that moving about 
 and that life of visiting, with its incessant demands both 
 on soul and body, were too much for me ; and all the time 
 I was losing sleep and freshness of mind. But thank 
 God, both one and the other promises to return with 
 giant strides after a few days rest, and the benefit of a 
 sort of Chinese decoction, given me by my little lady- 
 physician, and " Hakon Jarl is still alive !" But people 
 
 VOL. I. L 
 
146 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 live quite differently here to what they do in Europe. 
 Climate and food are different, and I do not believe that 
 the latter is suitable to the climate. 
 
 It was not without pain that I left the Lowells. They 
 are extremely estimable people, and I have really a sisterly 
 affection for them. Miss H. seized upon me with all 
 her might. I had not much inclination for the visit, but 
 it turned out much better than I expected. In the first 
 place it was amusing to become more nearly acquainted 
 with this very peculiar individual. People may have 
 better manners, more tact, and so on, but it would be 
 impossible to have a better heart ; one more warm for the 
 best interests of mankind, and, upon the whole, more 
 practical sagacity. She is of a Quaker family, and with 
 that determined will and energy which belongs to the 
 Quaker temperament, she early resolved to open both 
 for herself and her sex a path which she conceived it 
 important that women should pursue, and towards which 
 she felt herself drawn in an especial manner. She 
 therefore, together with a younger sister, took private 
 instruction from a clever and well-disposed physician ; 
 and she has now, for her sister is married, been in 
 practice twelve years as a physician of women and 
 children, acquiring the public confidence, and laying up 
 property (as, for instance, the house in which she lives, a 
 frugally furnished but excellent house, is her own), and 
 aiding, as I heard from many, great numbers of ladies in 
 sickness, and in diseases peculiar to their sex. In 
 especial has she been a benefactor to the women of the 
 lower working classes, delivering to them also lectures 
 on physiology, which have been attended by hundreds 
 of women. She read them to me ; and the first I heard, 
 or rather the introductory lecture, gave me a high opinion 
 of the little doctor and her powers of mind. I was really 
 delighted with her, and now, for the first time, fully saw 
 the importance of women devoting themselves to the 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 147 
 
 medical profession. The view she took of the human 
 body, and of its value, had a thoroughly religious ten 
 dency, and when she laid it upon the woman s heart to 
 value her own and her child s physical frame, to under 
 stand them aright, and to estimate them aright, it was 
 because their destination was lofty, because they are the 
 habitations of the soul and the temples of God. There 
 was an earnestness, a simplicity, and an honesty in her 
 representations, integrity and purity in every word ; the 
 style was of the highest class, and these lectures could 
 not but operate powerfully upon every poor human heart, 
 and in particular on the heart of every mother. And 
 when one reflects how important for future generations is 
 the proper estimation of the woman and the child, how 
 much depends upon diet, upon that fostering which lies 
 beyond the sphere of the physician and his oversight, 
 and which women alone can rightly understand; who 
 can doubt of the importance of the female physician 
 in whose case science steps in to aid the natural sense, 
 and to constitute her the best helper and counsellor of 
 women and children ? That women have a natural feeling 
 and talent for the vocation of physician is proved by 
 innumerable instances, from the experience of all ages 
 and people. And it is a shame and a pity that men 
 have not hitherto permitted these to be developed by 
 science. How much good for instance might be done, 
 especially in the country among the peasantry, if the 
 midwife, besides the knowledge which is requisite to 
 bring a child into the world, united also to this the 
 requisite knowledge for helping the mother and child to 
 a life of health. But man has neglected this, and still 
 neglects it, and it avenges itself upon thousands of sickly 
 mothers and sickly children. If, then, woman possesses 
 naturally a religious tendency of mind, and the dispo 
 sition to regard life and all things from a central, 
 sanctifying point of view inclines her to treat, even the 
 
 L 2 
 
148 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 smallest tiling as of importance looked at from this point 
 of view; if she is gifted by nature with the mother s 
 heart, and the mother s love, how well it suits her to 
 become a priestess of the temple in which the child 
 should be sanctified to God to the God of health and 
 holiness ! How sacred is her right to be there consecrated ! 
 
 In the old times the physician was also the priest, and 
 consecrated to holy mysteries. The descendants of 
 ^Esculapius were a holy race, and among them were 
 also women; the daughter of ^Esculapius, Hygeia, one 
 of them, was called the goddess of health. Of this race 
 came Hippocrates. We now talk about Hygeia, but we 
 only talk. She must be recalled to earth ; she must have 
 room given to her, and justice done to her if she is to 
 present the earth with a new Hippocrates. 
 
 But to return to my little human doctoress, who is not 
 without those sparks of the divine life, which prove her to 
 belong to the family of ^Esculapius. One sees this in her 
 eye, and hears it in her words. But the round short 
 figure has wholly and entirely an earthly character, and 
 nothing in it indicates the higher ideal life, excepting a pair 
 of small, beautiful and white hands, as soft as silk almost 
 too soft, and, as I already said, a glance peculiarly 
 sagacious and penetrating. 
 
 With her I saw several of the " emancipated ladies," 
 as they are called ; such, for instance, as deliver public 
 lectures, speak in public at antislavery meetings, etc. 
 One of these struck me from the picturesque beauty 
 of her figure and head, her pale noble countenance and 
 rich golden hair, together with the perfect gentleness and 
 womanliness of her whole demeanour and conversation, 
 united to manly force of will and conviction. She is a 
 Mrs. Paulina Davis, from Providence, and has for many 
 years delivered with great success, lectures on physiology, 
 which are much attended by the working classes. She 
 and niy little doctoress are warm friends. I saw also her 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 149 
 
 husband, Mr. Davis ; he seems to he a sensible man, and 
 perfectly approves his wife s views and activity. I 
 promised to visit this couple in Providence. 
 
 I heard here many things about the Shakers and their 
 community, as my little doctor is physician of some of 
 them ; I also read several letters of some of their elders, 
 in which occurred beautiful, pious thoughts and feelings, 
 but in a very narrow sphere. I received an invitation to 
 visit the Shaker establishment at Harvard, near Boston, 
 and where there is a garden of medicinal plants. I shall 
 be glad to become better acquainted with these extra 
 ordinary people. I saw here various new kinds of people 
 and strangers, because my little doctor has a large circle 
 of acquaintances. Every evening, at the close of the 
 day, she read her Bible aloud, and we had prayers in the 
 old Puritanic style. 
 
 My visit, and the new pictures of life which I saw here, 
 were really refreshing to me : but I was glad nevertheless 
 to return to the repose of Mr. Benzon s house, where 
 Mrs. K. does not say three words during the day, and 
 yet is kind and agreeable, and where a respectable good- 
 tempered German, Christine, takes care both of the house 
 and of me, and where I can be alone a great portion of 
 the day, because Benzon is occupied at his office out of 
 the house. When he returns in the evening he is an 
 extremely pleasant companion, reading to me, or con 
 versing in an entertaining manner. I have hitherto neither 
 received visits nor accepted invitations, but have so 
 arranged that Mondays are my reception days. Thus I 
 shall now begin to breathe in peace, and to read and write 
 a little. To-day, however, Benzon will accompany me to 
 the Lowells, whom I wish to surprise with a few little 
 matters which I hope will give them pleasure. One feels 
 oneself so poor if always receiving kindness. 
 
 December *8th. And now, my dear child, I have received 
 your second letter. And your letters do you hear ? 
 
150 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 you are not to despise. To be able to see by them 
 exactly how things are at home, that is my wish, whether 
 it be cloudy or bright, and your letters can give me nothing 
 more precious than the simple truth -than the reality as 
 it is. And my little Agatha, bear in mind as much as 
 possible that spring and summer will return that the sun 
 is behind the cloud and will come forth in his due time. 
 That is an old song, but I have often experienced its 
 truth, and I do so now. 
 
 We have here a perfectly Swedish winter, and to-day 
 it is as grey and cold as we ever could have it at 
 Stockholm. And it is a little satisfaction to me not to 
 have it better than my friends in Sweden. I am most 
 excellently well off at Benzon s house, and it is a satisfac 
 tion to pay something towards my living, though that is 
 not done till Mr. Benzon leaves for Europe, which he will 
 do on Wednesday. He will not however reach Stockholm 
 before May or June. He will then call on mamma and 
 you and convey greetings from me. 
 
 Yesterday forenoon I had my reception, between twelve 
 and four o clock, and saw a whole crowd of people, and 
 received a great number of invitations. Among these 
 was one from a lady with whom I would gladly become 
 more intimate ; this was a Mrs. B., a young and affluent 
 widow with one child, a splendid little girl. She looked 
 so good, so very much like a gentlewoman, was so 
 agreeable and so unspeakably amiable towards me ; she 
 wished merely, she said, that I should be benefited by 
 her, that she might drive me out, and endeavour to give 
 me all the pleasure she could in the most delicate and 
 agreeable manner. I should like it; in her nothing 
 repels, but much pleases me. We could sit side by 
 side in the carriage and be silent, and of that I am 
 very fond. 
 
 I have also been present at one of the " Conversations " 
 of Alcott, the Transcendentalist, and have even taken some 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 151 
 
 part in the conversation. There were present from forty to 
 fifty people, all seated on benches. Alcott sits in a pulpit 
 with his face towards the people, and begins the conversa 
 tion by reading something aloud. On this occasion it was 
 from the writings of Pythagoras. He is a handsome man 
 of gentle manners, but a dreamer whose Pythagorean 
 wisdom will hardly make people wiser now a days. He 
 himself has lived for many years only on bread, fruits, 
 vegetables, and water, and this is what he wishes all other 
 people to do ; and thus fed, they would become, according 
 to his theory, beautiful, good and happy beings. Sin is 
 to be driven out by diet. And the sacred flood of enthu 
 siasm would constantly flow in the human being purified 
 and beautified by diet. Both the proposition and the 
 conversation were in the clouds, although I made a few 
 attempts to draw them forth. Alcott drank water and we 
 drank fog. He has paid me a few visits, and has 
 interested me as a study. He passed last evening with 
 me and Benzon, and entertained us with various portions 
 of his doctrine. Every bland and blue-eyed person, 
 according to him, belongs to the nations of light, to the 
 realm of light and goodness. I should think Lowell would 
 be Alcott s ideal of a son of light ; all persons however 
 with dark eyes and hair, are of the night and evil. I 
 mentioned Wilberforce and other champions of the light, 
 with dark hair. But the good Alcott hears an objection 
 as if he heard it not, and his conversations consist in his 
 talking and teaching himself. We drank tea, and I 
 endeavoured to persuade Alcott to drink at least a glass of 
 milk. But that was too much akin to animal food. He 
 would not take anything but a glass of water and a piece 
 of bread. He is at all events a Transcendentalist who 
 lives as he teaches. 
 
 I have accepted some invitations for this week. I am 
 to dine on Sunday with Laura Bridgeman at the house 
 of her second creator, the director of the Deaf and 
 
152 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 Dumb Institution in Boston Dr. How. His agreeable 
 wife came here herself with the invitation. 
 
 9th. I shall now close my letter because Benzon is 
 about to set out on his journey. I shall miss him, for he 
 has been indescribably kind and agreeable to me, and has 
 arranged everything beforehand so admirably, that it could 
 not be better or more convenient. 
 
 To-day I shall dine and spend the evening out. So 
 also to-morrow ; and to-morrow in the forenoon I shall 
 visit several public institutions in company with Charles 
 Sumner, the young giant and lawyer. I begin now to 
 rattle about again. If one could only do it in moderation. 
 But there are difficulties here in this country. 
 
 Bergfalk is again in New York. We shall probably 
 hardly meet again, as his ways are not my ways, 
 excepting in our common goal and object Sweden. 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 
 BOSTON, Jan. 22nd. 
 
 I SHALL now, my sweet child, have a little chat with 
 you, and this chat I shall send by post. I can hardly 
 conceive that I have not written to you for all these 
 fourteen days ; but one engagement succeeded another, 
 and people, and letter-writing, and many things occupied 
 the time, and the days went on I know not how. 
 
 I have also been a little out of sorts again and not able 
 to do much. The good allopathists here and I have had 
 one of the first physicians in Boston did not understand 
 my malady, and prescribed merely for the stomach. I 
 therefore took refuge with homoeopathy. 
 
 But I must tell you how it happened. I went one 
 day although I felt very miserably unwell to visit 
 several public institutions, accompanied or rather taken 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 153 
 
 there by Charles Sumner. First to the House of Correc 
 tion for women, where I admired the order and arangement 
 of everything ; after that we went to the Lunatic Asylum 
 for the poor. It was clean and well-ordered, but, ah ! 
 it was deficient in all the comfort and beauty which 
 had distinguished the Asylum for the wealthy insane 
 at Bloomingdale. One woman conceived a violent friend 
 ship for me, embraced and blessed me continually, and 
 desired the others to bless me also. 
 
 " Say, bless her ! " said she to Mr. Sumner. He was 
 engaged in conversation with the superintendent and did 
 not attend to her request. She repeated it, and said 
 finally in a wild, threatening voice " Say, bless her ! " 
 
 " Yes, God bless her ! " said Sumner, now kindly, in 
 his deep, beautiful voice ; and with this my friend laughed 
 and was very much pleased. 
 
 Among the men were two with whom Sumner was 
 acquainted ; they were two of his college companions ; 
 men with good heads, and who had been before him in 
 mathematics. Now their high-arched foreheads appeared 
 not to harbour a sensible thought. One of them recog 
 nised his former comrade, but the recognition seemed to 
 grieve and embarrass him. 
 
 From this asylum I was obliged to go out to dine, and 
 after that to a Swedenborgian meeting at the Sweden- 
 borgian church, where I shook hands with about one 
 hundred Swedenborgians. 
 
 It was half-past ten when at length I reached home, 
 and for the first time in the day I experienced a feeling of 
 comfort and satisfaction. Every feeling of annoyance had 
 vanished, and I enjoyed half an hour of rest with a female 
 friend who .had accompanied me home. But at this 
 moment came my physician, and would of necessity take 
 me with him to a large party. 
 
 I prayed to be excused ; I said, " Now for the first 
 time am I enjoying rest to-day ; for the first time to-day 
 
154 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 am I feeling pretty well. You are doing now what so 
 many others do ; you say I must have rest, and yet you at 
 the same time compel me to go into company ! " 
 
 It was of no use. I could not gainsay my physician ; 
 go I must, and that to a party, given by one of the most 
 elegant ladies of Boston, at about twelve o clock at 
 night. It was too much ! And that is the way they kill 
 strangers in this country. They have no mercy on the poor 
 lion, who must make a show and whisk his tail about 
 as long as there is any life left in him. One must 
 really be downright obstinate and stern, if one would be 
 at peace here. And I feel as if I should become so. It 
 is said that Spurzheim was regularly killed with kindness 
 by the Bostonians. 
 
 But to return to my evening. That nervous de 
 pression again returned and I passed two distressing 
 hours, and envied the Indians and all free people who 
 lived in the open, wild woods. When again at home, 
 I was seized by the dread of one of my sleepless 
 nights, and of the wretched day which was certain 
 to succeed it, when life would seem to be the heaviest 
 of burdens although I might not be otherwise ill. When 
 therefore I now felt my hands burning as in fever, I 
 recollected some homoeopathic globules which my friend 
 Downing, who is himself a homoeopathist, had given me 
 when I was very much excited, and which had calmed me 
 wonderfully. Of these I took a few, and I slept better 
 that night than I had done for many weeks. As early 
 therefore as possible the following day I went out 
 among my acquaintance in Boston, inquiring after a 
 homoeopathic physician. A kind, handsome, elderly lady, 
 Mrs. C. (the mother of three tall sons), promised to 
 send her physician to me. Accordingly when, about noon, 
 having returned from a walk, I entered my sitting-room, I 
 beheld there a tall old gentleman with a pale and strongly 
 marked countenance, high forehead, bald temples, silver- 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 156 
 
 grey hair, and a pair of deep-set, blue eyes full of feeling 
 and fervour. He stood there silent and dressed in black, 
 in the middle of the room, with the appearance almost of 
 a clergyman, and with his penetrating, earnest eyes riveted 
 upon me. I do not know how it was, but it was so, that 
 from the first moment I saw him I felt confidence in and 
 affection towards him. I advanced towards him, took his 
 hand between both mine, looked up in his pale, grave 
 countenance and said, "help me !" Thus helpless, feeble, 
 and poor, had I now for some time felt myself to be, under 
 the power as it were of a strange suffering, which 
 crippled me both in soul and body, and alone too, in a 
 strange land, without any other support than the powers 
 of my own soul and body to sustain me through the work 
 which I had undertaken ! 
 
 He replied in a deep bass voice, speaking slowly as if 
 with difficulty but ah, my child, it seems like vanity 
 in me to say what he replied ; but let me seem vain for 
 this once he said, "Miss Bremer, no one can have 
 read your Neighbours, and not wish to help you ! And 
 I hope to be able to help you ! " 
 
 I wept ; I kissed the thin, bony hands, which I held, 
 as I would have kissed those of a fatherly benefactor ; I 
 felt myself also like a child. 
 
 He gave me a little white powder, which looked like 
 nothing, and which I was to take before I went to bed. 
 I took it ; slept excellently, and the next day ah ! what 
 feelings. All malady was gone. I felt myself as if 
 sustained by spirit-wings ; a nameless sensation of 
 peace and health pervaded my whole being. I went 
 out. I did not feel my body. I rejoiced in the blueness 
 of heaven, in the leaping of the billows. I could see 
 that the world was beautiful. I had not felt thus for a 
 long time, and the certainty that I had now a remedy 
 which would support my still vigorous power and will, 
 made me unspeakably happy. I thanked God. And 
 
156 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 not merely for my own sake, but for yours, because I am 
 convinced that nothing would suit you and your weakness 
 so well as these airy, light, almost spiritual, and won 
 derfully effective medicines. These little white nothings 
 of powders and globules, which taste like nothing, look 
 like nothing, operate powerfully and quickly, often within 
 half or a quarter of an hour. And, finally, I beg of you 
 to make the trial of them, if this winter, as is generally 
 the case with you in the winter, you find yourself out of 
 health, both body and mind ; make the trial of them, and 
 throw all other medicine out of the window. Pay atten 
 tion also to diet, and that you do not eat anything which 
 disagrees with you. My doctor maintains that my 
 disorder proceeds from the stomach, and is of the kind 
 very common in this country, and which is called 
 dyspepsia. He has prescribed for me a very exact diet ; 
 that I am not to eat fat or greasy meat, nor roast meat, 
 nor highly seasoned, no preserves, nor many other things. 
 I was for a long time obstinate, and insisted upon it 
 that my stomach was the best part about me. I have, 
 however, since then remarked, to my astonishment, that 
 certain food operates upon my condition; that, for 
 instance, I wake in the morning with a sensation of 
 misery if I eat preserves in the evening ; and that, on the 
 contrary, I am quite well in the morning when I eat 
 nothing sweet or fat in the evening. The difficulty is 
 for me, here in this country, to adhere to any fixed 
 regimen, but I am becoming more and more convinced 
 that the diet here is unwholesome, and is not suited to 
 the climate, which is hot and stimulating. They eat hot 
 bread for breakfast, as well as many fat and heating 
 dishes, besides roast pork, sausages, omelets, and such 
 like. In the evening, especially at all suppers, they eat 
 oysters stewed, or as salad, and peach-preserve or peach- 
 ice. Oysters, cooked in every possible way, are very 
 much eaten by all, and precisely these, and the other 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 157 
 
 articles which I have mentioned, are difficult of digestion 
 and highly injurious to weak stomachs. 
 
 And now adieu to this food, physic, and stomach 
 chapter, but which has a great interest for me and many 
 others, and which ought to be seriously taken into 
 consideration here. 
 
 As to my doctor, I must tell you that his name is 
 David Osgood, that he visits me every day, and treats me 
 with the greatest tenderness, and that he has promised 
 to make me quite cheerful and strong before I leave 
 Boston. He is of an old Puritan family, and is himself 
 a real original ; he has a rough exterior, but the most 
 gentle and the best of hearts, as may be seen by his eyes. 
 There are certain eyes which certainly can never die. 
 They must remain in heaven as they are on earth. That 
 which I remember most clearly about my friends, is 
 always their eyes, their glance. I am sure that at the 
 resurrection I shall recognise my friends by their 
 eyes. 
 
 I must now tell you about Concord, and the Sphinx 
 in Concord, Waldo Emerson, because I went to Concord 
 five days ago, attended by " himself." I was wretchedly 
 unwell; I do not know what it was that I had 
 eaten the day before, or whether it was merely the 
 removal and the journey to a new home which had 
 caused me to have no sleep the preceding night. What 
 ever the cause might be, I sate, weak with fever and 
 dejected in mind, by the side of the strong man, silent 
 and without being able to say a single word, merely 
 mechanically turning my head as he pointed out to me 
 a few remarkable places which we passed. And he per 
 fectly understood what was amiss with me, and let me be 
 silent. I was weak with fever, and oppressed with a 
 feeling as if I should fall to pieces during the first four- 
 and-twenty hours that I was in Emerson s house ; but 
 after that, whether it was the little white nothing-powder, 
 
158 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 or the pure snow-refreshed atmosphere (we had a regu 
 larly beautiful Swedish winter at Concord), or whether 
 it was the presence of that strong and strength -giving 
 spirit in whose home I found myself, or whether it was 
 all these together, I cannot say, hut I became quite 
 right again, and felt myself light and well. 
 
 And during the four days that I remained in Emerson s 
 house, I had a real enjoyment in the study of this strong, 
 noble, eagle-like nature. Any near approximation was, 
 as it were, imperfect, because our characters and views 
 are fundamentally dissimilar, and that secret antagonism 
 which exists in me towards him, spite of my admiration, 
 would at times awake, and this easily called forth his 
 icy-alp nature, repulsive and chilling. But this is not 
 the original nature of the man ; he does not rightly thrive 
 in it, and he gladly throws it off, if he can, and is much 
 happier, as one can see, in a mild and sunny atmosphere 
 where the natural beauty of his being may breathe freely 
 and expand into blossom, touched by that of others as 
 by a living breeze. I enjoyed the contemplation of him, 
 in his demeanour, his expression, his mode of talking, 
 and his every-day life, as I enjoy contemplating the calm 
 flow of a river bearing along, and between flowery shores, 
 large and small vessels as I love to see the eagle circling 
 in the clouds, resting upon them and its pinions. In 
 this calm elevation Emerson allows nothing to reach 
 him, neither great nor small ; neither prosperity nor 
 adversity. 
 
 Pantheistic as Emerson is in his philosophy, in 
 the moral view, with which he regards the world and 
 life, he is in a high degree pure, noble, and severe, 
 demanding as much from himself as he demands from 
 others. His words are severe, his judgment often 
 keen and merciless, but his demeanour is alike noble 
 and pleasing, and his voice beautiful. One may quarrel 
 with Emerson s thoughts, with his judgment, but not 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 159 
 
 with himself. That which struck me most, as distinguish 
 ing him from most other human beings, is nobility. He 
 is a born nobleman. I have seen before two other men 
 born with this stamp upon them. His Excellency 
 
 W r, in Sweden, and is the second, Emerson 
 
 the third, which has it, and perhaps in a yet higher 
 degree. And added thereto that deep intonation of voice, 
 that expression, so mild yet so elevated at the same time. 
 I could not but think of Maria Lowell s words, "If he 
 merely mentions my name I feel myself ennobled." 
 
 I enjoyed Emerson s conversation, which flowed as 
 calmly and easily as a deep and placid river. It was 
 animating to me both when I agreed and when I dis 
 sented; there is always a something important in what 
 he says, and he listens well and comprehends, and replies 
 well also. But whether it was the weariness of the spirit, 
 or whether a feeling of esteem for his peace and freedom, 
 I know not, but I did not invite his conversation. When 
 it came it was good ; when it did not come it was good 
 also, especially if he were in the room. His presence was 
 agreeable to me. He was amiable in his attention to me, 
 and in his mode of entertaining me as a stranger and 
 guest in his house. 
 
 He read to me one afternoon some portions of his 
 Observations on England (in manuscript), and scraps from 
 his conversations with Thomas Caiiyle (the only man of 
 whom I heard Emerson speak with anything like admira 
 tion), about " the young America," as well as the narrative 
 of his journey with him to Stonehenge. There are some 
 of these things which I can never forget. In proportion 
 as the critical bent of Emerson s mind is strong, and as 
 he finds a great want in human beings, and in things 
 generally measuring them by his ideal standard, is his 
 faith strong in the power of good, and its ultimate triumph 
 in the arrangement of the world. And he understands 
 perfectly what constitutes noble republicanism and 
 
160 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 Americanism, and what a nobly-framed community and 
 social intercourse. But the principle, the vitalising, the 
 strengthening source yes, that Emerson sees merely in 
 the pure consciousness of man himself ! He helieves in 
 the original purity and glory of this source, and will 
 cleanse away everything which impedes or sullies it all 
 conventionality, untruth and paltriness. 
 
 I said to an amiahle woman, a sincere friend of 
 Emerson s, and one who, at the same time is possessed 
 of a deeply religious mind, " How can you love him so 
 deeply when he does not love, nor put faith in the Highest 
 which we love?" 
 
 " He is so faultless," replied she, " and then he is 
 lovely!" 
 
 Lovable he is, also, as one sees him in his home and 
 amid his domestic relations. But you shall hear more 
 about him when we meet, and you shall see his strong 
 beautiful head in my album, among many American 
 acquaintance. I feel that my intercourse with him will 
 leave a deep trace in my soul. I could desire in him 
 warmer sympathies, larger interest in such social ques 
 tions as touch upon the well-being of mankind, and more* 
 feeling for the suffering and the sorrow of earth. But 
 what right indeed has the flower which vibrates with 
 every breath of wind to quarrel with the granite-rock 
 because it is differently made. In the breast of such 
 lie strong metals. Let the brook be silent, and rejoice 
 that it can reflect the rock, the flowers, the firmament, 
 and the stars, and grow and be strengthened by the 
 invisible fountains, which are nourished by the moun 
 tain-tops. 
 
 But I must give you a specimen or two of Emerson s 
 style, and of his manner of seeing and feeling which most 
 please me. I will make two extracts from his " Essays," 
 which are applicable to all mankind, to all countries, and to 
 all times, and which are portions of, or drops from that vein 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 161 
 
 of iron ore which runs through everything that Emerson 
 says or writes, because it is the life of his life. 
 In his lecture on self-reliance, he says : 
 " To believe your own thought, to believe that which is 
 true for you in your private heart is true for all men, 
 that is genius. Speak your latent conviction, and it shall 
 be the universal sense ; for always the inmost becomes 
 the outmost, and our first thought is rendered back to us 
 by the trumpets of the last judgment. The highest merit 
 which we ascribe to Moses, Plato, and Milton, is that 
 which every man recognises as the voice of his own soul, 
 is that they set books and traditions at nought, and spoke 
 not what men, but what they thought. A man should 
 learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which 
 flashes across his mind from within, more than the 
 lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he 
 dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. 
 In every work of genius we recognise our own rejected 
 thoughts ; they come back to us with a certain alienated 
 majesty. Great works of art have no more affecting 
 lesson for us than this. They teach us to abide by our 
 own spontaneous impression with good-humoured inflexi 
 bility, then most when the whole cry of voices is on the 
 other side. Else to-morrow a stranger will say, with 
 masterly good sense, precisely what we have thought and 
 felt the whole time, and we shall be forced to take our 
 own opinion from another. 
 
 # # * # 
 
 " Trust thyself; every heart vibrates to that iron string. 
 Accept the place which the Divine Providence has found 
 for you; the society of your cpntemporaries, the con 
 nection of events. Great men have always done so, and 
 confided themselves, childlike, to the genius of their 
 age, betraying their perception that the Eternal was 
 stirring at their heart, working through their hands, 
 predominating in all their being. And we are now men, 
 
 VOL. I. M 
 
162 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 and must accept in the highest mind the same transcen 
 dent destiny ; and, not pinched in a corner, not cowards 
 fleeing before a revolution, but redeemers and benefactors, 
 pious aspirants to be noble clay, plastic under the 
 Almighty effort, let us advance and advance on Chaos 
 
 the Dark. 
 
 # * * * 
 
 " Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist. 
 He who would gather immortal palms must not be 
 hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore 
 if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred, but the 
 integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, 
 and you shall have the suffrage of the world. 
 
 # * * * 
 
 " A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, 
 adored by little statesmen, and philosophers, and divines. 
 With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. 
 Speak out what you think to-day in words as hard as 
 cannon-balls, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks 
 in hard words again, though it contradict everything you 
 said to-day. Ah, then, exclaim the aged ladies, you shall 
 be sure to be misunderstood. Misunderstood ? It is a 
 right fool s word. Is it so bad then to be misunderstood ? 
 Pythagoras was misunderstood ; and Socrates, and Jesus, 
 and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, 
 and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To 
 be great is to be misunderstood. 
 
 " I suppose no man can violate his nature. All the 
 sallies of his will are rounded in by the law of his being, 
 as the inequalities of Andes and Himmaleyah are insig 
 nificant in the curve of the sphere. We pass for what 
 
 we are. 
 
 # * # * 
 
 " Fear never but you shall be consistent in whatever 
 variety of actions, so they be each honest and natural in 
 their hour. 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 163 
 
 " One tendency unites them all. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 " Perception is not whimsical, but fatal. If I see a 
 trait, my children will see it after me, and in course of 
 time all mankind, although it may chance that no one 
 has seen it before me. My perception of it is as much a 
 fact as the sun. 
 
 " The relations of the soul to the Divine Spirit are so 
 pure that it is profane to seek to interpose helps. It 
 must be, that when God speaketh, He should communicate 
 not one thing, but all things, and new-create the whole. 
 Whenever a mind is simple, and receives a divine 
 wisdom, then old things pass away, means, teachers, 
 texts, temples fall ; all things are made sacred by relation 
 to it one thing as much as another. 
 
 * # # # 
 
 " Yet see what strong intellects dare not yet hear God 
 Himself, unless He speak the phraseology of I know not 
 what David, or Jeremiah, or Paul. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 " If w r e live truly, we shall see truly. "When we have 
 new perceptions we shall gladly disburden the memory 
 of its inward treasures as old rubbish. When a man lives 
 with God, his voice shall be as sweet as the murmur of 
 the brook and the rustle of the corn. 
 
 * * * # 
 
 " This is the ultimate fact which we so quickly reach on 
 this as on every topic, the resolution of all into the Ever- 
 blessed One. Virtue is the governor, the creator, the 
 reality. All things real are so by so much of virtue as 
 they contain. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 " Let us not rove ; let us sit at home with the cause. 
 Let us shun and astonish the intruding rabble of men, 
 and books, and institutions, by a simple declaration of 
 the divine fact. Bid them take the shoes off their feet, 
 
 M2 
 
164 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 for God is here within. Let our simplicity judge them, and 
 our docility to our own law demonstrate the poverty of 
 nature and fortune, beside our native rulers. 
 # # * * 
 
 " We must go alone. I like the silent church before 
 
 o 
 
 the service begins better than any preaching. How far 
 off, how cool, how chaste the persons look, begirt each 
 one with a precinct or sanctuary. So let us always sit. 
 * * But your isolation must not be mechanical, but 
 spiritual, that is, must be devotion. * * The power 
 which men possess to annoy me I give them by a weak 
 curiosity. No man can come near me but through my 
 own act. What we desire, that we have ; but by desire we 
 bereave ourselves of the love. 
 
 " If we cannot at once rise to the sanctities of obedience 
 and faith, let us at least resist our temptations ; let us 
 enter into the state of war, and wake Thor and Wodin, 
 courage and constancy, in our breast. This is to be done 
 in our smooth times by speaking the truth. Check this 
 lying hospitality and lying affection. Live no longer to 
 the expectation of those deceived and deceiving people 
 with whom we converse. Say to them, O father ! O mother ! 
 
 wife ! O brother ! O friend ! I have lived with you 
 after appearances hitherto. Be it known unto you that 
 henceforward I obey no law less than the eternal law. I 
 shall endeavour to nourish my parents, to support my 
 family, to be the chaste husband of one wife, but these 
 relations I must fill after a new and unprecedented way. 
 
 1 appeal from your customs. I must be myself. I cannot 
 break myself any longer for you, or you. If you can love 
 me for what I am, we shall be the happier. If you cannot, 
 I will still seek to deserve that you should. I must be 
 myself. I will not hide my tastes or aversions. I will 
 so trust that what is deep is holy that I will do strongly 
 before the sun and moon whatever inly rejoices me and 
 my heart appoints. If you are noble I will love you ; if 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 165 
 
 you are not, I will not hurt you and myself by hypo 
 critical attentions. If you are true, but not in the same 
 truth with me, cleave to your companions ; I will seek my 
 own. I do this not selfishly, but humbly and truly. It 
 is alike your interest, and mine, and all men s, however 
 long we have dwelt in lies, to live in truth. Does this 
 sound harsh to say? You will soon love what is dictated by 
 your nature as well as mine ; and if we follow the truth it 
 will bring us out safe at last. But so you may give these 
 friends pain. Yes ; but I cannot sell my liberty to save 
 their sensibility. Besides, all persons have their moments 
 of reason, when they look out into the region of absolute 
 truth ; then will they justify me, and do the same 
 thing. 
 
 " The populace think that your rejection of popular 
 standards is a rejection of all standard, and the bold 
 sensualist will use the same philosophy to gild his crimes. 
 But the law of consciousness abides. There are two 
 confessionals, in one or the other of which we must be 
 shriven. You may fulfil your round of duties by clearing 
 yourself in the direct or in the reflex way. Consider 
 whether you have satisfied your relations to father, 
 cousin, neighbour, town, cat, and dog, and whether any 
 of these can upbraid you. But I may also neglect 
 this reflex standard, and absolve me to myself. I 
 have my own stern claims and perfect will. It denies 
 the name of duty to many offices that are called duties. 
 But if I can discharge its debts, it enables me to 
 dispense with the popular code. If any body imagines 
 that this law is lax, let him keep its commandment for 
 one day. 
 
 " And truly it demands something godlike in him who 
 has cast off the common motives of humanity, and has 
 ventured to trust himself for a taskmaster. High be his 
 heart, faithful his will, clear his sight, that he may in 
 good earnest be doctrine, society, law to himself, that a 
 
166 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 simple purpose may be to him as strong as iron necessity 
 to others. 
 
 " If any man consider the present aspects of what is 
 called by distinction, society, he will see the need of these 
 ethics." 
 
 I must remark, that if any one will seriously observe 
 human nature, as it commonly is, he will easily see 
 that a moral code, such as Emerson s, would produce 
 conceited and selfish beings, and that it is merely calcu 
 lated for natures as pure and beautiful as his own, and 
 which form the exception to the general rule. That 
 which he in all cases mistakes is the radical duality of 
 human nature. Yet with what freshness, invigoration, 
 does not this exclamation come to our souls, " Be true ; 
 be yourself! " Especially when coming from a man who 
 has given proofs that in this truth a human being may 
 fulfil all his human duties, as son, brother, husband, 
 father, friend, citizen. But a true Christian does all 
 this, and something more. 
 
 I must give you two examples of Emerson s doctrines, 
 as relates to the relationship of friend with friend, and 
 on friendship ; because they accord with my own feelings, 
 and act as an impulse in the path which for some time 
 I have chosen for myself. 
 
 " Friendship requires that rare mean betwixt likeness 
 and unlikeness that piques each with the presence of 
 power and of consent in the other party. Let me be 
 alone to the end of the world, rather than that my friend 
 should overstep by a word or a look his real sympathy. 
 I am equally balked by antagonism and by compliance. 
 Let him not cease an instant to be himself. The only 
 joy I have in his being mine is that the not mine is mine. 
 It turns the stomach, it blots the daylight when I 
 looked for a manly furtherance, or, at least, a manly 
 resistance to find a mush of concession. Better be a 
 nettle in the side of your friend than his echo. The 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 167 
 
 condition which high friendship demands is, ability to 
 do without it. To be capable of that high office requires 
 great and sublime parts. There must be my two before 
 there can be my one. Let it be an alliance of two large, 
 formidable natures, mutually beheld, mutually feared, 
 before yet they recognise the deep identity which beneath 
 their disparities unites them. 
 
 "He is only fit for this society who is magnanimous. 
 He must be so to know its law. He must be one who is 
 sure that greatness and goodness are always economy, 
 He must be one who is not swift to intermeddle with his 
 fortunes. Let him not dare to intermeddle with this. 
 Leave to the diamond its ages to grow, nor expect to 
 accelerate the births of the eternal. Friendship demands 
 a religious treatment. We must not be wilful, we must 
 not provide. We talk of choosing our friends, but our 
 friends are self- elected. Reverence is a great part of it. 
 Treat your friend as a spectacle. Of course, if he be 
 a man, he has merits that are not yours, and that you 
 cannot honour. If you must needs hold him close to 
 your person, stand aside give those merits room let 
 them mount and expand. Be not so much his friend 
 that you can never know his peculiar energies, like fond 
 mammas who shut up their boy in the house until he 
 has almost grown a girl. Are you the friend of your 
 friend s buttons or of his thought ? To a great heart he 
 will still be a stranger in a thousand particulars, that he 
 may come near in the holiest ground. Leave it to boys 
 and girls to regard a friend as a property, and to suck a 
 short and all- confounding pleasure instead of the pure 
 
 nectar of God. 
 
 * # # # 
 
 "A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. 
 Before him I may think aloud. I am arrived at last in 
 the presence of a man so real, so equal, that I may drop 
 even those undermost garments of dissimulation, courtesy, 
 
168 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 and second thought, which men never put off, and may 
 deal with him with the simplicity and wholeness with 
 which one chemical atom meets another. 
 
 * # * * 
 
 " Let us huy our entrance to this guild by a long 
 probation. Why should we desecrate noble and beautiful 
 souls by intruding on them ? Why insist on rash per 
 sonal relations with your friend ? Why go to his house, 
 and know his mother, and brother, and sisters ? Why be 
 visited by him at your own ? Are these things material 
 to our covenant ? Leave this touching and clawing. Let 
 him be to me as a spirit. A message, a thought, a sincerity, 
 a glance from him I want ; but not news nor pottage. 
 I can get politics, and chat, and neighbourly conveniences 
 from cheaper companions. Should not the society of 
 my friend be to me poetic, pure, universal, and quiet as 
 Nature herself ? Ought I to feel that our tie is profane 
 in comparison with yonder bar of cloud that sleeps on 
 the horizon,, or that clump of waving grass that divides 
 the brook ? Let us not vilify, but raise it to that 
 
 standard. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 "Worship his superiorities. Wish him not less by a 
 thought, but hoard and tell him all. Guard him as thy 
 great counterpart ; have a princedom to thy friend. Let 
 him be to thee for ever a sort of beautiful enemy, untame- 
 able, devoutly revered, and not a trivial conveniency to be 
 soon outgrown and cast aside. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 " What is so great as friendship, let us carry with what 
 grandeur of spirit we can. Let us be silent, so we may hear 
 the whisper of the gods. Let us not interfere. Who set you 
 to cast about what you should say to the select souls, or to 
 say anything to such ? No matter how ingenious, no 
 matter how graceful and bland. There are innumerable 
 degrees of folly and wisdom ; and for you to say aught is 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 169 
 
 to be frivolous. Wait, and thy soul shall speak. Wait 
 until the necessary and everlasting overpowers you, until 
 day and night avail themselves of your lips. 
 
 * # # # 
 
 " Vain to hope to come nearer to a man by getting into 
 his house. If unlike, his soul only flies the faster 
 from you, and you shall catch never a true glance of his 
 eye. We see the noble afar off, and they repel us ; why 
 should we intrude ? Late very late we perceive that 
 no antagonism, no introduction, no consuetudes, or habits 
 of society, should be of any avail to establish us in such 
 relations with them as we desire, but solely the uprise 
 of nature in us to the same degree it is in them, then 
 shall we meet as water with water ; and if we should 
 not meet them then, we shall not want them, for we are 
 
 already they. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 " Only be admonished by what you already see, not to 
 strike leagues of friendship with cheap persons where no 
 friendship can be. Our impatience betrays us into rash 
 and foolish alliances which no God attends. By persist 
 ing in your path, though you forfeit the little, you gain 
 the great. You become pronounced. You demonstrate 
 yourself so as to put yourself out of the reach of false 
 relations, and you draw to you the first-born of the 
 world those rare pilgrims whereof only one or two 
 wander in nature at once, and before whom the vulgar 
 great show as spectres and shadows merely. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 " It has seemed to me lately more possible than I knew 
 to carry a friendship greatly on one side, without the 
 correspondence of the other. Why should I cumber 
 myself with the poor fact that the receiver is not capa 
 cious ? It never troubles the sun that some of his rays 
 fall wide and vain into ungrateful space, and only a 
 small part on the reflecting planet. Let your greatness 
 
172 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 have they produced results which are so. The aim the 
 intention, is the best part of them. 
 
 Emerson says in his characteristics of transcendentalism : 
 " If there is anything grand and daring in human 
 thought or virtue ; any reliance on the vast, the unknown ; 
 any presentiment an extravagance of faith the spirit 
 ualist adopts it as highest in nature. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 " These youths bring us a rough but effectual aid. By 
 their unconcealed dissatisfaction, they expose our poverty 
 and the insignificance of man to man. 
 
 * # * * 
 
 " These exacting children advertise us of our wants. 
 There is no compliment, no smooth speech with them ; 
 they pay you only this one compliment of insatiable 
 expectation ; they aspire, they severely exact ; and if they 
 stand fast in this watch-tower, and persist in demanding 
 to the end, and without end, then are they terrible friends, 
 whereof poet and priest cannot choose but stand in 
 awe ; and what if they eat clouds and drink wind, they 
 have not been without service to the race of man. 
 
 * # # * 
 
 " When every voice is raised for a new road, or another 
 statute ; or a subscription of stock ; for an improvement 
 in dress, or in dentistry ; for a new house or a large busi 
 ness ; for a political party, or a division of an estate 
 will you not tolerate one or two solitary voices in the 
 land, speaking for thoughts and principles not marketable 
 or perishable ? Soon these improvements and mechanical 
 inventions will be superseded; these modes of living 
 lost out of memory ; these cities rotted, ruined by war, 
 by new inventions by new seats of trade, or the 
 geologic changes ; all gone, like the shells which sprinkle 
 the sea-beach with a w r hite colony to-day for ever re 
 newed, to be for ever destroyed. But the thoughts which 
 these few hermits strove to proclaim by silence, as well 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 173 
 
 as by speech, not only by what they did, but by what 
 they forbore to do, shall abide in beauty and strength, 
 to re-organize themselves in nature, to invest them 
 selves anew in other, perhaps higher- endowed and 
 happier-mixed clay than ours, in fuller union with the 
 surrounding system." 
 
 Thus says the noble idealist; and perhaps I have 
 quoted too much from him, when I cannot at the same 
 time show you what he is because this is the most 
 remarkable thing in him. I have nothing against his 
 children the transcendentalists ; it is a refreshment 
 both to hear and to see them, and they utter many a 
 forgotten truth with new life. They are the element 
 of youth in life, and always produce a renovating effect, 
 and they behold many a beauty which older eyes are no 
 longer clear enough to perceive. I remember to have 
 heard that Schelling would not take as pupils young men 
 above five -and- twenty years of age. He considered them 
 after that age not to be so capable, not to be possessed 
 of immediate perception and insight. But when these 
 young pagan alp-natures say, " We have reached to the 
 highest ! " then, I say, " Nonsense ! you have done 
 nothing of the kind ! You say, We are gods. I say, 
 Descend from your elevation to the divinely made 
 world, then will I believe you. You satisfy yourselves 
 with your lofty, isolated position, believing that you do 
 enough by showing the ideal. Ah ! the ideal has never 
 been unknown ! You are poor, sinful, imperfect human 
 creatures, like the rest, and your bravery does not come 
 up to the heart of Christianity, which does not merely 
 exhibit the ideal, but helps to attain it ; not merely 
 suffers all, but overcomes all ; does not sit still and look 
 grandly forth, but combats with its followers, admonish 
 ing them to overcome evil with good ! " 
 
 If the transcendentalists will really create a new, a 
 transcendental state, then they must create a something 
 
174 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 beyond that ; they must, in their ideal man, present a 
 more beautiful figure than that which has already been 
 presented on earth and for earth the powerful, and, at 
 the same time, humble son of heaven and earth, uniting 
 both in one new creation. But they cannot even under 
 stand the beauty of this. 
 
 But enough of the transcendentalists. I must, how 
 ever, say a few words about a lady who belongs to this 
 sect, and whose name I have frequently heard since I 
 came to America, partly with blame, partly with praise, 
 but always with a certain degree of distinction, namely 
 Margaret Fuller. Although devoid of beauty, and rather 
 disagreeable than agreeable in her manners, she seems 
 to be gifted with singular talents, and to have an actual 
 genius for conversation. Emerson, speaking with 
 admiration of her powers, said, " Conviction sits upon 
 her lips." Certain it is that I have never heard of a 
 woman in this country possessed of such ability for 
 awakening enthusiasm in the minds of her friends. 
 Emerson said of her, with his usual almost alarming 
 candour, " She has many great qualities ; many great 
 faults also." 
 
 Among these latter appear to be her arrogance and her 
 contemptuous manner towards others less gifted than her 
 self. I have also heard that she could repent of and ask 
 pardon for severe words. In haughtiness and independ 
 ence of temper, in pride and honesty, and in critical 
 asperity, she was perfectly a transcendentalist ? The 
 " Conversations " which she at one time gave in a select 
 circle at Boston, are spoken of as of the highest interest. 
 Mrs. Emerson cannot sufficiently praise her fervent 
 eloquence and the extraordinary affluence of her mind, 
 and I believe half reproaches me for not being like 
 her. 
 
 Margaret Fuller went to Italy with my friends, the 
 S s, about two years since, and remained there when 
 
HOMES OF THE XEW WORLD. 175 
 
 they left. A report has now reached this country that 
 she has connected herself with a young man (she herself 
 is no longer young, heing upwards of forty) ; and a 
 Fourrierist, or Socialist marriage, without the external 
 ceremony, is spoken of; certain it is that the marriage 
 remained secret, and that she has a child, a boy. She 
 herself has written about it, and about her maternal joy, 
 but not anything about her marriage, merely that she 
 shall relate what farther concerns her when she returns 
 to America, which will be next year. All this has 
 furnished subject for much conversation among her 
 friends and her enemies. They who loved neither 
 herself nor her turn of mind believe the worst; but I 
 shall never forget with what zeal one of her friends, 
 Mr. W. R., defended her on one occasion in com 
 pany, and that merely on the ground that her character 
 repelled every suspicion of any action which might cast 
 a stain upon it. Her friends at Concord among these 
 the Emersons, Elizabeth H., and a younger sister of 
 Margaret Fuller, married in Concord seemed perfectly 
 easy with regard to her conduct, and convinced that it 
 will justify itself in the open light of day. This is 
 beautiful. 
 
 Margaret Fuller has in her writings asserted the right 
 of woman to her own free development, and to liberty in 
 many cases where, although conformable to the strictest 
 moral code, it would yet be offensive to many even in this 
 so-called free country. Her friends, and among these the 
 
 excellent, pure -hearted S s, wish me to become 
 
 acquainted with her. 
 
 "Ah! you must see Mrs. Ripley," said Emerson, on 
 one occasion, with his fine smile ; " she is one of the most 
 remarkable persons in Concord." 
 
 And I saw a handsome, elderly lady, with silver-white 
 hair, clear, deep blue eyes, as of the freshest youth, a 
 very womanly demeanour, from which nobody could sur- 
 
176 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 mise that she reads Greek and Latin, and understands 
 mathematics, like any professor, and helps young students, 
 who cannot pass their examination in these branches of 
 knowledge, by her extraordinary talent as a teacher, and 
 by her motherly influence. Many a youth blesses the 
 work she has done in him. One of these related of her, 
 " She examined me in Euclid whilst she shelled peas, and 
 with one foot rocked the cradle of her little grandson." 
 
 I spent, with the Emersons, an evening with Mrs. 
 Ripley. Neither were there any servants kept in her 
 house. These ladies of New England are clever ladies, 
 true daughters of those pilgrim women who endured 
 hardships so manfully and laboured equally with their 
 husbands, and established with them that kingdom which 
 now extends over a hemisphere. 
 
 An ancestor of Elizabeth H. was one of the first 
 pilgrims which that little ship, the " Mayflower," con 
 veyed to the shore of Massachussetts. He related 
 many times how, when these men were about to frame 
 laws for the new colony, they liked to talk them over 
 before their wives, their sisters, and daughters, and to 
 hear their thoughts upon them. This was beautiful and 
 sensible. Of a certainty that chivalric sentiment and 
 love which generally prevail in America for the female 
 sex had their origin in the dignity and the noble conduct 
 of those early women ; of a certainty, from that e arly 
 equality, that equality in rule and in rights which pre 
 vails here in domestic and social life, although not as yet 
 politically. 
 
 I liked to talk with Elizabeth H. There is something 
 very profound and great in this young woman ; and 
 her words frequently are as brilliant as diamonds in 
 sunshine. 
 
 Among the persons whom I saw at the Emersons, and 
 who interested me, was Professor Sherbe, a Swiss, a 
 man of a noble and grave exterior, with something also 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 177 
 
 of ultra-idealism in his philosophy. He has fought 
 against the Jesuits in Switzerland, and is now a teacher 
 and lecturer in America. Lastly, I made the acquaint 
 ance of a Doctor Jackson, the discoverer of the somnific 
 effects of ether on the human frame and consciousness, 
 and for which he received a medal from our King Oscar, 
 which was shown to me. He made the discovery entirely 
 by accident, as he has described. I congratulated him 
 on having thus become the means of an infinite blessing 
 to millions of suffering beings. 
 
 I left Concord accompanied by this gentleman, who 
 is brother to Mrs. Emerson. But Concord did not leave 
 my memory; its snow-covered scenery; its blue, clear 
 sky ; its human beings ; its transcendentalists : all that 
 I had experienced, heard and seen in Concord, and 
 most of all, its sphinx (as Maria Lowell calls Emerson), 
 these all form a sort of alpine region in my mind which 
 has a power of fascination for me, and to which I shall 
 long to return as to the scenes and sights of my native 
 land. 
 
 When I reached home last evening I found Marcus 
 S., who had come hither on business. It was a 
 heart-felt joy to me, to see, once more, that excellent, 
 good friend. After I had spent an hour in conversing 
 with him and Mr. Suinner, I went with Marcus to Alcott s 
 concluding "Conversation," where several pre-arranged 
 topics with regard to diet and its importance to humanity, 
 were discussed. Alcott maintained that all high and holy 
 teachers of the human race had paid great attention to diet, 
 and in particular had abstained from flesh. Some one said 
 that Christ had eaten flesh. Another said that that could 
 not be proved. A third said that he, at all events, had 
 eaten fish. I said that that stood written in the Gospels. 
 A second agreed. "No matter," said Alcott, "I know 
 better than to eat fish." 
 
 The man is incorrigible. He drinks too much water, 
 
 VOL. I. N 
 
178 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 and brings forth merely hazy and cloudy shapes. He 
 should drink wine and eat meat, or at least, fish, so 
 that there might be marrow and substance in his ideas. 
 Marcus, too, was amused at the Conversation, but in 
 his quiet way. Among the audience were some ladies 
 with splendid, intelligent foreheads, and beautiful forms. 
 But I did not hear them say a word : I wonder how they 
 could sit still and listen in silence ; for my part, I 
 could not do it. And, although the company were 
 invited to a new series of Conversations, this of a 
 certainty will be the last at which I shall be present. 
 
 January %6th. Alcott came to me yesterday afternoon ; 
 we conversed for two hours ; he explained himself better 
 during our dialogue than in his public Conversation, 
 and I understood better than hitherto that there was 
 really at the bottom of his reform -movement a 
 true and excellent thought. This thought is the im 
 portance of an earnest and holy disposition of 
 mind in those who enter into the bonds of wedlock, 
 so that the union may be noble, and its offspring 
 good and beautiful. His plans for bringing about these 
 beautiful and holy marriages between good and beautiful 
 people (for none other are to enter into matrimony 
 oh ! oh ! for the many ! ) may be right for aught I 
 know. They are better and more accordant to human 
 nature than those of Plato for the same purpose. But 
 who will deny that it would be better for the world if 
 they who cause human beings to be born into the world 
 did it with a higher consciousness, with a deeper 
 sentiment of responsibility. Marriage, looked at with 
 reference to this subject, stands in general very low. 
 A man and woman marry to be happy, selfishly happy, 
 and beyond that the thought seldom extends ; does not 
 elevate itself to the higher thought "we shall give 
 life to immortal beings ! " And yet, this is the 
 highest purport of marriage. Married couples who 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 179 
 
 have not offspring of their own may fulfil its duties 
 by adopting orphan children. 
 
 " But why do you not enunciate these views fully ? " 
 inquired I from Alcott : " they are of higher importance 
 than any I have heard during your Conversations, and 
 are really of the highest importance to society." 
 
 Alcott excused himself by the difficulty of treating 
 such a subject in public conversation, and spoke of 
 the intention he had of realising his views in the for 
 mation of a little society, in which, I presume, he would 
 act as high-priest. Again a dream. But the dreamer 
 has risen considerably in my estimation by the reality 
 and the nobility of his views on this subject. I will even 
 excuse his whim about diet, with the exception of its 
 exclusiveness. I adhere to that system, which, without 
 the one-sidedness of this and the continued use of wine 
 and all other of God s good gifts, yet still cries aloud 
 to mankind, " Take heed ye be not overtaken by gluttony 
 and drunkenness." 
 
 Alcott gave me two books. They contain conversations 
 which took place between him and various children 
 during a period when he had a school which was 
 intended to be "the School," par excellence. Alcott s 
 main point in the education of children is to awaken their 
 higher nature and to give them a high esteem for it, so 
 that they may love it and always act in accordance with 
 it. He, therefore, early places before their eyes the 
 human-ideal, or the ideal-human being in Jesus Christ. 
 On every occasion of the children s assembling, Alcott 
 began his instruction by reading aloud a chapter from 
 the Holy Scriptures. When this was ended, he asked 
 the children ; what was in your thoughts, or in your soul, 
 whilst you heard this? " Many of the replies were very 
 naive. 
 
 After this Alcott led them to consider what virtue 
 had been exhibited in the narrative, or the incident which 
 
 N2 
 
180 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 they had just heard, and also to name its opposite, and 
 to think whether they discovered it in themselves, and 
 so on. Much that was excellent and worthy of reflection 
 was thus brought forward, and the whole was calculated 
 for the child s development. Many a word of dewy, 
 primeval freshness proceeded from those childish lips, 
 but also much that was childish and unsatisfactory both 
 from child and teacher. In any case, this is a method 
 which, though it would not answer in schools of any 
 extent, is one which every mother ought to reflect upon. 
 
 " What was there in your soul, in your heart ? " What 
 might not loving lips call forth in the child s conscious 
 ness, to the child s memory, by these words, spoken in the 
 evening after the day s schooling, work, play, sorrow, 
 and joy ! 
 
 When Alcott was gone, Emerson came and remained a 
 good hour with me. He is iron, even as the other is 
 water. And yet, nevertheless, his world floats in an 
 element of disintegration, and has no firm unwavering 
 shapes. Wonderful is it how so powerful and concrete a 
 nature as his can be satisfied with such disintegrated 
 views. I can find fault with Emerson s mode of thought, 
 but I must bow before his spirit and his nature. He 
 was now on his way to New York, where he was invited 
 to give a course of lectures. He has promised, when he 
 returns again, to visit me. I must sometime have a 
 more thorough conversation with him, as well on religious 
 subjects as on the future prospects of America. I feel 
 also a little desire for combat with him. For I never see 
 a lion in human form without feeling my lion-heart beat. 
 And a combat with a spirit like that is always a pleasure 
 even if one wins no victory. 
 
 As regards Alcott, I do not know what spirit of con 
 tradiction makes me continually excited by him, as well 
 as to amuse myself with him. I sincerely appreciate, 
 however, the beautiful aims of the excellent idealist, and 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 181 
 
 I like, when I say anything against him, to hear 
 Emerson s deep voice saying, reproachfully, " Amid all 
 the noise and stir of the present clay for outward and 
 material aims, cannot you bear to hear one or two indivi 
 dual voices speaking for thoughts and principles which 
 are neither saleable nor yet transitory ? " 
 
 Ah, yes ! If they were but a little more rational. 
 
 I was this evening at a large party of the Boston 
 fashionables, at Mrs. B. s. I felt quite well ; the 
 company was handsome, elegant, very polite, and the 
 evening was agreeable to me. Another evening I was at 
 another great fashionable party in another house. I did 
 not feel well, and the company seemed to me rather 
 splendid and aristocratic than agreeable. I saw here a 
 couple of figures such as I did not look for in the 
 drawing-rooms of the New World, and, least of all, among 
 the women of New England, so puffed up with pride, 
 so unlovely one read the " money-stamp," both in glance 
 and figure. I was told that Mrs. - - and her sister 
 had spent a year in Paris ; they ought to have brought 
 thence a little Parisian grace and common-sense, as well 
 as fashion. People who are arrogant on account of their 
 wealth, are about equal in civilisation with our Lap 
 landers, who measure a man s worth by the number of 
 his reindeer. A man with one thousand reindeer is a 
 very great man. The aristocracy of wealth is the lowest 
 and commonest possible. Pity is it that it is met with 
 in the New World more than it ought to be. One can 
 even, in walking through the streets, hear the expression, 
 " He is worth so many dollars ! " But the best people 
 here despise such expressions. They would never defile 
 the lips of Marcus S., Channing, or Mr. Downing. 
 And as regards the fashionable circles, it must be 
 acknowledged that they are not considered the highest 
 here. One hears people spoken of here as being " above 
 fashion," and by this is meant people of the highest 
 
182 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 class. It is clear to me that there is here an aristocracy 
 forming itself by degrees which is much higher than that 
 of birth, property, or position in society ; it is really the 
 aristocracy of merit, of amiability, and of character. But 
 it is not yet general. It is merely as yet a little handful. 
 But it grows, and the feeling on the subject grows also. 
 
 I have been to a charming little dinner at Professor 
 How s, where I met Laura Bridgeman. She is now 
 twenty ; has a good, well-developed figure, and a coun 
 tenance which may be called pretty. She wears a green 
 bandage over her eyes. When she took my hand, she 
 made a sign that she regarded me to be a child. One 
 of the first questions which she asked me was, " How 
 much money I got for my books ? " A regular Yankee 
 question, which greatly delighted my companions, who, 
 nevertheless, prevented its being pressed any further. I 
 asked Laura, through the lady who always attends her, 
 if she were happy ? She replied with vivacity, and an 
 attempt at a sound which proved that she could not 
 sufficiently express how happy she was. She appears 
 indeed to be almost always gay and happy ; the unceas 
 ing kindness and attention of which she is the object, 
 prevents her from having any mistrust of mankind, and 
 enables her to live a life of affection and confidence. 
 Dr. How, one of those dark figures whom Alcott 
 would regard as offspring of the night ; that is to say, 
 with dark complexion, dark eyes, black hair, and a 
 splendid energetic countenance, but with a sallow com 
 plexion ; is universally known for his ardent human 
 love, which induced him to fight for the freedom of the 
 Greeks and Poles, and finally to devote himself to those 
 whose physical senses are in bonds. His acquaintance 
 is valuable to me, for his own sake, though I shall not 
 be able to enjoy much of his society. He appears, like 
 me, to suffer from the climate and from the over-exciting 
 nature of the food of the country. His wife is a most 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 183 
 
 charming lady, with great natural gifts, fine education, 
 and great freshness of character. Two lovely little girls, 
 red and white as milk and cherries, as soft as silk, fresh 
 and fair as dew-drops, even in their dress, came in at the 
 end of dinner, and clung caressingly around the dark, 
 energetic father. It was a picture that I wished Alcott 
 could have seen. 
 
 I think of remaining here about fourteen days longer, to 
 allow the homoeopathic remedies time to effect their work 
 in me. My good Doctor comes to me every day, and 
 it is a joy to me merely to see him. I am indescribably 
 thankful for the good which I experience, and have 
 experienced, from homoeopathy, and am thinking con 
 tinually how good it would be for you. 
 
 Rich I certainly shall not become here, my sweet 
 child, because I have here neither time nor inclination to 
 write anything. But my journey, thanks to American 
 hospitality, will not cost me nearly so much as I 
 expected. And if some of my friends might rule, it 
 would not cost me anything ; I should live and travel at 
 the expense of the American people but that would 
 be too much. 
 
 It is horrible weather to-day pouring rain and strong 
 wind. I was rejoicing in the hope of being left at peace 
 in consequence of the weather, but I was not able to say 
 no to a couple of visitors, one of whom had called with 
 the intention of taking me to an evening-party, the other 
 to ask me to sit for my portrait. But they both received 
 a negative. 
 
 I have just received the most beautiful bouquet 
 from a young lady-friend a great number of beautiful 
 small flowers arranged in the cup of a large snow-white 
 Calla Ethiopica ; and but few days pass without my 
 receiving beautiful bouquets of flowers from known or 
 unknown friends. This is very sweet and beautiful 
 towards a stranger : and to such I never say no, but 
 
184 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 am right thankful both for the flowers and the good 
 will. 
 
 Now adieu to this long chatty epistle, and a hearty 
 a Dieu to my little friend. 
 
 LETTEE X. 
 
 BOSTON, February 1st. 
 
 MOST hearty thanks my dear little heart for your letter 
 of the 15th of December : it is so inexpressibly dear to 
 me to hear and see how things are at home, as well in the 
 little as the great. If you only had not your usual winter 
 complaint. Ah that winter ! but I am glad nevertheless 
 that you feel a little better in December than in November, 
 and assure myself that in January you will be better still. 
 And then comes the prospect of summer and the baths of 
 Marstrand. Mamma writes that you were evidently 
 stronger for your summer visit to Marstrand. And you 
 will be yet stronger still after your next summer s visit. 
 But your ideal that farm-yard servant-girl, who took the 
 bull by the horns, when will you come up to that ? 
 
 My strength has increased considerably for some time, 
 thanks to my excellent Dr. Osgood and his little nothing- 
 powders and globules. And when I feel myself well my 
 soul is cheerful and well, and then my mind is, full of 
 thoughts which make me happy; then I am glad to be on 
 the Pilgrims soil ; that soil which the Pilgrim -fathers as 
 they are here called, first trod, first consecrated as the 
 home of religious and civil liberty, and from winch little 
 band the intellectual cultivation of this part of the world 
 proceeds and has proceeded. 
 
 It was in the month of December, 1620, when the little ship, 
 the "Mayflower," anchored on the shore of Massachussets, 
 with the first Pilgrims, one hundred in number. They 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 185 
 
 were of that party which in England was called Puritan ; 
 which had arisen after the Reformation, and in consequence 
 of it, and which required a more perfect Reformation than 
 that which Luther had brought about. But they desired 
 more; to give full activity to the truth which Luther 
 promulgated when he asserted man s direct relationship 
 to God through Jesus Christ, denying any right of the 
 Church or of tradition to interfere in the determination of 
 that which should be believed or taught, and demanding 
 liberty for every human being to examine and judge for 
 himself in matters of faith, acknowledging no other law 
 or authority than God s Word in the Bible. The 
 Puritans demanded on these grounds their right to reject 
 the old ceremonial of the Established Church, and in the 
 place of those empty forms, the right to choose their own 
 minister ; the right to worship God in spirit and in truth, 
 and the right of deciding for themselves their form of 
 Church government. Puritanism was the rising of that 
 old divine leaven which Christ had foretold should one 
 day " leaven the whole lump " of the spiritual life of 
 liberty in Jesus Christ. The charter of freedom given by 
 him was the watchword of the Puritans. With this in 
 their hand and on their lips they dared to enter into 
 combat with the dominant Episcopal Church ; refused to 
 unite themselves with it, called themselves non-conform 
 ists, and held separate assemblies or religious conventicles. 
 The State Church and the government rose in opposition 
 and passed an act against conventicles. 
 
 But the Puritans and the conventicles increased year 
 by year in England. Noble priests, such as Wicliff, and 
 many of the respectable of the land, became their adherents. 
 Queen Elizabeth treated them however with caution and 
 respect. Her successor, King James, raved blindly 
 against them, saying, " I will make them conform, or I 
 will harry them out of the land ; or worse, only hang 
 them ; that is all ! " And the choice was given them ; 
 
186 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 either to return to the State Church, or imprisonment and 
 death. This only strengthened the opposition ; " For," 
 says Thomas Carlyle, otherwise tolerably bitter in his 
 criticism on human nature, " people do human nature an 
 injustice when they believe that the instigation to great 
 actions is self-interest, worldly profit or pleasure. No, 
 that which instigates to great undertakings, and produces 
 great things, is the prospect of conflict, persecution, 
 suffering, martyrdom, for the truth s sake." 
 
 In one of the northern counties of England, a little 
 company of men and women, inhabitants of small towns 
 and villages, united in the resolve to risk all for the open 
 acknowledgment of their pure faith, conformably with the 
 teachings of which they determined to live. They were 
 people of the lowest condition, principally artisans or 
 tillers of the soil ; men who lived by the hard labour of 
 their hands, and who were accustomed to combat with the 
 severe circumstances of life. Holland at this time offered 
 to them, as it did to all the oppressed combatants for the 
 truth, a place of refuge ; and to Holland the little knot 
 of Puritans resolved to flee. They escaped from their 
 vigilant persecutors through great dangers, and Leyden 
 in Holland became their city of refuge. But they did not 
 prosper there ; they felt that it was not the place for them ; 
 they knew that they were to be pilgrims on the earth 
 seeking a father-land : and amid their struggles with the 
 hard circumstances of daily life, the belief existed in 
 their souls that they were called upon to accomplish a 
 higher work for humanity than that which consisted with 
 their present lot. " They felt themselves moved by zeal 
 and by hope to make known the Gospel and extend the 
 kingdom of Christ in the far- distant land of the New 
 World ; yes, if they even should be merely as stepping- 
 stones for others to carry forth so great a work." 
 
 They asked, and after great difficulty obtained, the 
 consent of the English government to emigrate to North 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 187 
 
 America, where they might endeavour to labour for the 
 glory of God and the advantage of England. 
 
 They chartered two ships, the " Mayflower " and 
 " Speedwell," to bear them across the sea. Only the 
 youngest and strongest of the little band, who voluntarily 
 offered themselves, were selected to go out first on the 
 perilous voyage ; and that after they had publicly prepared 
 themselves by fasting and prayer. " Let us," said they, 
 " beseech of God to open a right way for us and our little 
 ones, and for all our substance ! " 
 
 Only a portion of those who had gone out to Holland 
 found room in the two vessels. Among those who 
 remained was also their noble teacher and leader, John 
 Robinson. But from the shores of the Old World he 
 uttered, as a parting address, these glorious words 
 " I charge you, before God and his blessed angels, that 
 you follow me no farther than you have seen me follow 
 the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord has yet more truth 
 to break forth out of his Holy Word. I cannot suffi 
 ciently bewail the condition of the reformed churches 
 who are come to a period in religion, and will go no farther 
 at present than the instruments of their reformation. 
 Luther and Calvin were great and shining lights in their 
 times, yet they penetrated not into the whole counsel of 
 God. I beseech you remember it tis an article of your 
 Church covenant that you be ready to receive whatever 
 truth shall be made known to you from the written Word 
 of God." 
 
 " When our vessels were ready to receive us on board," 
 writes one of the party, " the brethren who had fasted 
 and prayed with us gave us a parting feast at the house 
 of our minister, which was roomy; and then, after 
 shedding many tears, we refreshed ourselves with the 
 singing of hymns, making joyful music in our hearts as 
 well as with our voices, for many of our community were 
 very skilful in music. After this they accompanied us 
 
188 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 to Dreft Harbour, where we were to go on board, and 
 there we were entertained anew. And after our minister 
 had prayed with us, and floods of tears had been shed, 
 they accompanied us on board. But we were in no con 
 dition to talk one with another of the exceeding great 
 grief of parting. From our vessel, however, we gave 
 them a salutation ; and then extending our hands to each 
 other, and lifting up our hearts for each other to the 
 Lord our God, and so set sail." 
 
 A prosperous wind quickly conveyed the Pilgrims to 
 the English shore ; and then the smallest of the vessels, 
 the " Speedwell," was compelled to lie-to for repairs. 
 But scarcely had they again left the English coast with 
 sails unfurled for the Atlantic, when the captain of the 
 " Speedwell " and his company lost courage in the 
 prospect of the greatness of the undertaking and all its 
 perils, and desired to return to England. The people of 
 the " Mayflower " agreed that " it was very grievous and 
 discouraging." And now the little band of resolute men 
 and women, several of the latter far advanced in preg 
 nancy, persevered in their undertaking, and with their 
 children and their household stuff, an entire floating 
 village, they sailed onward in the " Mayflower " across the 
 great sea towards the New World, and at the most 
 rigorous season of the year. After a stormy voyage of 
 sixty-three days, the Pilgrims beheld the shores of the 
 New "World, and in two more days the " Mayflower " 
 cast anchor in the harbour of Cape Cod, on the coast 
 of Massachussets. 
 
 Yet, before they land, and whilst the " Mayflower " yet 
 rests upon the waves of the deep, they assemble to 
 deliberate on some constituted form of government ; and, 
 drawing up the following compact, they formed them 
 selves into a voluntary body-politic. 
 
 " In the name of God, Amen. We, whose names are 
 underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread sovereign 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 189 
 
 King James, having undertaken, for the glory of God 
 and advancement of the Christian faith, and honour of 
 our king and country, a voyage to plant the first colony 
 in the northern parts of Virginia, do, by these presents, 
 solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God and one of 
 another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a 
 civil body-politic, for our better ordering and preserva 
 tion, and furtherance of the ends aforesaid ; and by virtue 
 hereof, to enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal 
 laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, from 
 time to time, as shall be thought most convenient for the 
 general good of the colony. Unto which we promise all 
 due submission and obedience." 
 
 This instrument was signed by all the men in com- 
 pairy, forty-one in number. Thus was framed, in the 
 cabin of the " Mayflower," the most truly democratic 
 constitution which the world had yet seen. That demo 
 cratic, self-governing community came forth in a state of 
 complete organisation from the " Mayflower " to the shore 
 of the New World. 
 
 Like Abraham, the pilgrim-band went forth, obedient 
 to the voice of God, into a land to them unknown, 
 and not themselves fully cognisant of the work they 
 were called to do. 
 
 They went forth to seek a free virgin soil on which to 
 found their pure church, for the glory of God s kingdom, 
 and unconsciously to themselves, likewise, to found, in 
 so doing, a new civil community which should be a 
 home and a community for all people of the earth. 
 The " Mayflower " gave birth to popular constitutional 
 liberty at the same time that it established the pure 
 vitality of religion : and that was but natural, the latter 
 included the former. The Pilgrims conveyed with them 
 the new life of the New World without being themselves 
 conscious of it. 
 
 They landed on a rock, since called " Plymouth Eock," 
 
190 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 or, also, " The Pilgrims Rock." It was a young girl 
 who was first permitted to spring from the boat on shore. 
 It was her light foot which first touched the rock. It 
 was at the commencement of winter when the pilgrims 
 reached the new land; and they were met by cold, 
 and storm, and adverse circumstances. They made an 
 excursion of discovery inland, and found, in one place, a 
 little corn, but no habitations, only Indian graves. 
 
 They had been but a few days on shore, and were 
 beginning to build habitations as a defence against the 
 storms and the snow, when the Sunday occurred, and it is 
 characteristic of that first Puritan community that, under 
 their circumstances, they rested from all labour, and kept 
 the Sabbath uninterruptedly and with all solemnity. 
 
 I have lately read a narrative, or, more properly 
 speaking, a chronicle, kept as a diary of the life of the 
 first colonists, their wars and labours during the first 
 year of their settlement. It is a simple chronicle, 
 without any wordiness or parade, without any attempt at 
 making it romantic or beautiful, but which affected me 
 more, and went more directly to the depths of the heart, 
 than many a touching novel ; and which seemed to me 
 grander than many a heroic poem. For how great in 
 all its unpretendingness was this life, this labour ! What 
 courage, what perseverance, what steadfastness, what 
 unwavering trust in that little band ! How they aided 
 one another, these men and women ; how they persevered 
 though all sorrow and adversity, in life and in death. 
 They lived surrounded by dangers, in warfare with the 
 natives ; they suffered from climate, from the want of 
 habitations and conveniences, from the want of food ; 
 they lay sick ; they saw their beloved die ; they suffered 
 hunger and cold; but still they persevered. They saw 
 the habitations they had built destroyed, and they built 
 afresh. Amid their struggles with want and adversity, 
 amid the Indian s rain of arrows, they founded their 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 191 
 
 commonwealth and their church ; they formed laws, 
 established schools, and all that could give stability and 
 strength to a human community. They wielded the 
 sword with one hand and guided the plough with the 
 other. Amid increasing jeopardy of life, they in parti 
 cular reflected on the welfare of their successors, and 
 framed laws which every one must admire for their 
 sagacity, purity, and humanity. Even the animal crea 
 tion was placed under the protection of these laws, and 
 punishment ordained for the mistreatment of the beast. 
 
 During the first year their sufferings and hardships 
 were extreme. " I have seen men," writes an eye-witness, 
 " stagger by reason of faintness for want of food." 
 
 The harvest of the third year was abundant, and now, 
 instead of, as hitherto, each one labouring for the common 
 benefit, each colonist worked alone for his own family and 
 his own advantage. This gave an impulse to labour and 
 to good management. And when they had lived through 
 the time of want, a time of prosperity commenced, and 
 the colony increased rapidly in power and extent. In a 
 few years it was said of it " that you might live there from 
 one year s end to another without seeing a drunkard, 
 hearing an oath, or meeting with a beggar." They who 
 survived the first period of suffering lived to be extremely 
 old. 
 
 It is not to be wondered at, that from a parentage strong 
 as this, should be derived a race destined to become a 
 great people. Other colonies more to the south, whose 
 morals were more lax, and whose purpose of life was of 
 a lower range, had either died out or maintained merely a 
 feeble existence amid warfare with the natives, suffering 
 from the climate and encompassed with difficulties. The 
 Puritans, on the contrary, with their lofty aims of life, 
 their steadfast faith and pure manners, became the 
 conquerors of the desert and the lawgivers of the New 
 World. Nor do I know of any nation which ever had a 
 
192 HOMES OF THE NEW WOULD. 
 
 nobler foundation or nobler founders. The whole of 
 humanity had taken a step onward with the Pilgrim- 
 fathers in the New World. The work which they had to 
 do concerned the whole human race. 
 
 And when from the land of the Pilgrims I look abroad 
 over the United States, I see everywhere, in the south as 
 well as the north and the west, the country populated, 
 the empire founded by a people composed of all peoples, 
 who suffered persecution for their faith, who sought 
 freedom of conscience and peace on a new free soil. I 
 see the Huguenot and the Herrnhutter in the south, and 
 along the Mississippi, in the west, Protestants and 
 Catholics, who, from all the countries of Europe seek for 
 and find there those most precious treasures of mankind ; 
 and who in that affluent soil establish flourishing commu 
 nities under the social and free laws instituted by the 
 oldest Pilgrims. 
 
 To them belongs the honour of that new creation, and 
 from them even to this day, proceed the creative ideas in 
 the social life of the New World ; and whether willingly 
 or unwillingly, widely differing people and religious sects 
 have received the impression of their spirit. Domestic 
 manners, social intercourse, form themselves by it ; the 
 life and church- government of all religious bodies recog 
 nise the influence of the Puritan standard, " Live con 
 formably to conscience; let thy whole behaviour bear 
 witness to thy religious confession." And that form of 
 government which was organised by the little commu 
 nity of the " Mayflower," has become the vital principle 
 in all the United States of America, and is the same 
 which now on the coast of the Pacific Ocean controls and 
 directs with quiet power the wild free spirits of California, 
 educating them to self-government and obedience to law. 
 
 The old colonies have sent out to all parts of the Union 
 crowds of pilgrims, sons and daughters, and they consti 
 tute at this time more than one -third of the population of 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 193 
 
 the United States of North America. They were never 
 theless most numerous in the north, and there they have 
 left the strongest impression of their spirit. 
 
 When I contemplate that Puritan community as it 
 exists in our time, about two centuries after its first 
 establishment, it seems to me that there are two main 
 springs within its impulsive heart ; the one is a tendency 
 towards the ideal of moral life, the other impels it to 
 conquer the earth, that is to say, the material power and 
 products of life. The men of the New World, and pre 
 eminently the men of New England, (humourously called 
 Yankees) have a passion for acquisition, and for this 
 object think nothing of labour even the hardest and 
 nothing of trouble ; nay, to travel half over the world to 
 do a good stroke of business, is a very little thing. The 
 Viking element in the Yankee s nature, and which he per 
 haps originally inherited from the Scandinavian Vikings, 
 compels him incessantly to work, to undertake, to accom 
 plish something which tends either to his own improve 
 ment or that of others. For when he has improved himself, 
 he thinks, if not before, of employing his pound for the 
 public good. He gets money, but only to spend. He 
 puts it by, but not for selfish purposes. Public spirit is 
 the animating principle of his life, and he prefers to leave 
 behind him the name of an esteemed and beloved citizen 
 rather than a large property. He likes to leave that which 
 he has acquired to some institution or benevolent estab 
 lishment, which thenceforth commonly bears his name. 
 And I know those whose benevolence is so pure that they 
 slight even this reward. 
 
 The moral ideal of man and of society seems to be 
 clearly understood here, and all the more clearly in those 
 northern states which have derived their population from 
 the old colonies. From conversation with sensible 
 idealists among my friends as well as from the attention 
 I have given to the spirit of public life here, I have 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
194 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 acquainted myself with the demands made by man and by 
 society, and for which young America combats as for its 
 true purpose and mission, and they appear to be as 
 follows : 
 
 Every human being must be strictly true to his own 
 individuality ; must stand alone with God, and from this 
 innermost point of view must act alone conformably to 
 his own consciencious convictions. 
 
 There is no virtue peculiar to the one sex which is not 
 also a virtue in the other. Man must in morals and 
 conduct come up to the purity of woman. 
 
 Woman must possess the means of the highest develop 
 ment of which her nature is capable. She must equally 
 with man have the opportunity of cultivating and 
 developing her intellect. She must possess the same 
 rights in her endeavours after freedom and happiness as 
 man. 
 
 The honour of labour and the rewards of labour ought 
 to be equal to all. All labour is in itself honourable, and 
 must be regarded as such. Every honest labourer must 
 be honoured. 
 
 The principle of equality must govern in society. 
 
 Man must become just and good through a just and 
 good mode of treatment. Good must call forth good. 
 
 (This reminds me of that beautiful Swedish legend of 
 the middle ages, about the youth who was changed by a 
 witch into a wehr-wolf, but who, at the sound of his 
 Christian name, spoken by a loving voice, would recover his 
 original shape.) 
 
 The community must give to every one of its members 
 the best possible chance of developing his human abilities, 
 so that he may come into possession of his human rights. 
 This must be done in part by legislation, which must 
 remove all hindrances and impediments ; in part by public 
 educational institutions which shall give to all alike the 
 opportunity of the full development of the human 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 195 
 
 faculties, until they reach the age when they may be 
 considered as capable of caring for and determining for 
 themselves. 
 
 The ideal of society is attained in part by the individual 
 coming up to his own ideal ; in part by those free insti 
 tutions and associations in which mankind is brought 
 into a brotherly relation with each other, and by mutual 
 responsibility. 
 
 EVERYTHING FOR ALL is the true object of society. 
 Every one must be able to enjoy all the good things of 
 earth, as well temporal as spiritual,- every one according 
 to his own capacity of enjoyment. None must be excluded 
 who does not exclude himself. The chance of regaining 
 his place in society must be given to everyone. For this 
 cause the prison must be an institution for improvement, 
 a second school for those who need it. Society must 
 in its many-sided development, so organise itself that 
 all may be able to attain everything : EVERYTHING FOR 
 ALL. 
 
 The ideal of the man of America seems to me to be, 
 purity of intention, decision in will, energy in action, 
 simplicity and gentleness in manner and demeanour. 
 Hence it is that there is a something tender and chivalric 
 in his behaviour to woman, which is infinitely becoming 
 to him. In every woman he respects his own mother. 
 
 In the same way it appeared to me that the ideal of 
 the woman of America, of the woman of the New World, 
 is, independence in character, gentleness of demeanour 
 and manner. 
 
 The American s ideal of happiness seems to me to be, 
 marriage and home, combined with public activity. To 
 have a wife, his own house and home, his own little piece 
 of land ; to take care of these, and to beautify them, 
 at the same time doing some good to the state or to 
 the city this seems to me to be the object of human 
 life with most men ; a journey to Europe to see 
 
 o 2 
 
196 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 perfected cities, and ruins belong to it, as a desirable 
 episode. 
 
 Of the American home I have seen enough, and heard 
 enough, for me to be able to say that the women have 
 in general all the rule there which they wish to have. 
 Woman is the centre and the lawgiver in the home of 
 the New World, and the American man loves that it 
 should be so. He wishes that his wife should have her 
 own will at home, and he loves to obey it. In proof of 
 this, I have heard the words of a young man quoted ; " I 
 hope that my wife will have her own will in the house, 
 and if she has not I ll make her have it ! " I must, how 
 ever, say, that in the happy homes in which I lived 
 I saw the wife equally careful to guide herself by the 
 wishes of her husband as he was to indulge hers. 
 Affection and sound reason make all things equal. 
 
 The educational institutions for woman are in general 
 much superior to those of Europe ; and perhaps the 
 most important work which America is doing for the 
 future of humanity, consists in her treatment and educa 
 tion of woman. Woman s increasing value as a teacher, 
 and the employment of her as such in public schools, 
 even in those for boys, is a public fact in these states 
 which greatly delights me. Seminaries have been esta 
 blished to educate her for this vocation (I hope to be 
 able to visit that at West Newton, in the neighbourhood 
 of Boston, and which was originated by Horace Mann). 
 It even seems as if the daughters of New England 
 had a peculiar faculty and love for this employment. 
 Young girls of fortune devote themselves to it. The 
 daughters of poor farmers go to work in the manufac 
 tories a sufficient time to earn the necessary sum to put 
 themselves to school, and thus to become teachers in due 
 course. Whole crowds of school-teachers go hence to 
 the western and southern states, where schools are daily 
 being established, and placed under their direction. 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 197 
 
 The young daughters of New England are universally 
 commended for their character and ability. Even Waldo 
 Emerson, who does not easily praise, spoke in com 
 mendation of them. They learn in the schools the 
 classics, mathematics, physics, algebra, with great ease, 
 and pass their examinations like young men. Not long 
 since a young lady in Nantucket, not far from Boston, 
 distinguished herself in astronomy, discovered a new 
 planet, and received, in consequence, a medal from the 
 King of Prussia. 
 
 The literature of Germany has for some years taken 
 a great hold in the Northern States, and has had a 
 remarkable influence on the minds of the youthful 
 student in particular, as awakening the mind to the ideal 
 of life. The public speakers and lecturers, who attract 
 multitudes to hear them, are the advocates and promul- 
 gators of the human ideal. Peace, liberty, genuineness 
 of character, temperance, purity, and the ennobling of 
 every phase and condition of life, the diffusion of the 
 benefits of life and cultivation to all men, are the subjects 
 which animate the eloquence of the speaker and attract 
 thousands of listeners. All questions are treated and 
 worked out with reference to " the benefit of all, the 
 ennobling of all." 
 
 It is said of a tree that it grows when it raises itself 
 nearer to heaven ; and we may, in this sense, say of this 
 community, that it grows. It labours not merely to 
 extend, but to elevate itself. 
 
 Since I last wrote, I have spent an amusing evening 
 at an anti-slavery meeting, in Faneuil Hall (a large hall 
 for public assemblies), which was very animated. Mr. 
 Charles Sumner, who wished me to see one of the 
 popular assemblies here, accompanied me. Some run 
 away slaves were to be introduced to the public, and the 
 talking was about them. The hall and the galleries 
 were quite full. One of the best, and certainly most 
 
198 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 original, speaker of the evening, was a great negro, who 
 had lately succeeded in escaping from slavery with his 
 wife and child, and who related the history of his escape. 
 There was a freshness, a life, an individuality in this 
 man s eloquence and gestures which, together with the 
 great interest of the narrative, were infinitely delightful. 
 Sometimes he made use of such extraordinary similes 
 and expressions, that the whole assembly burst into peals 
 of laughter ; but John Brown, that was his name, did not 
 join in it; he did not allow himself to be moved, but 
 went on only the more earnestly with his story. 
 
 I remember, in particular, when he described crossing 
 a river while pursued by the men employed to catch him. 
 " There sit I now," said he, " in a boat with merely one 
 pair of oars, and row and row with all my might to reach 
 the other, the free shore, where my wife and my child 
 await me. And there I see the pursuers coming after 
 me, rowing with three pair of oars. They have nearly 
 caught me ; but above us sits the great God, and looks 
 at us, and he gave me the start. I reach the shore ; I 
 am upon free ground ! And now, this evening, I am with 
 my wife and my child ! " 
 
 The assembly clapped their hands in tumultuous 
 applause. After this speaker a group came forward, 
 which was also saluted with much clapping of hands ; a 
 young, fair lady, in a simple white dress, and hair without 
 any ornament, stepped forward, leading a dark Mulatto 
 woman by the hand. She had been a slave, and had 
 lately escaped from slavery on board a vessel, where she 
 had been concealed. Her owners, who suspected her 
 place of concealment, obtained a warrant for searching 
 the vessel, which they did thoroughly, burning brimstone 
 in order to compel her to come forth. But she endured 
 it all, and succeeded in making her escape. It was a 
 beautiful sight, when the young, white woman, Miss 
 Lucy S., one of the ladies whom I had seen at my 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 199 
 
 little Doctress s, placed her hand upon the head of the 
 black woman, calling her sister, and introducing her as 
 such to the assembled crowd. It looked well and beau 
 tiful, and it was certainly felt by all that the white woman 
 stood here as the friend and protector of the black. 
 Miss Lucy performed her part very well, in a perfectly 
 womanly, quiet, and beautiful manner. She then related 
 the history of the late slave, and talked about slavery for 
 a full hour, with perfect self-possession, perspicuity, and 
 propriety of tone and gesture. But instead of speaking, 
 as she might and ought to have done, from her own 
 womanly feeling of life instead of awakening sympathy 
 for those wrongs which woman especially suffers in slavery, 
 inasmuch as her very children do not belong to her ; 
 that the beings whom she brings forth in sorrow are the 
 property of her master, and may be taken from her and 
 sold whenever he will instead of la} r ing stress upon this 
 and many other circumstances repulsive to the heart and 
 to every sense of justice, and which especially befal the 
 female slave ; Miss Lucy struck into the common track of 
 so-much hackneyed abuse of the pro-slavery men of the 
 north, and against Daniel Webster and his warm zeal 
 for Hungarian freedom, while he saw with indifference 
 three millions of native Americans held in slavery. She 
 repeated merely what the men had already said, and 
 said better and more powerfully than she had done ; she 
 entirely mistook her own mission as a female speaker. 
 When will women perceive that, if they would worthily 
 take a place in the forum, they must come forth with the 
 dignity and power of the being who has new and mighty 
 truths to enunciate and represent ? They must feel and 
 speak from the centre of the sphere of woman. Not all 
 the good-nature and courtesy of man will enable them 
 to maintain their place on the public platform, if they do 
 not take possession of it on their own positive ground. 
 There is no want of this in itself; it lies near to the 
 
198 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 original, speaker of the evening, was a great negro, who 
 had lately succeeded in escaping from slavery with his 
 wife and child, and who related the history of his escape. 
 There was a freshness, a life, an individuality in this 
 man s eloquence and gestures which, together with the 
 great interest of the narrative, were infinitely delightful. 
 Sometimes he made use of such extraordinary similes 
 and expressions, that the whole assembly burst into peals 
 of laughter ; but John Brown, that was his name, did not 
 join in it; he did not allow himself to be moved, but 
 went on only the more earnestly with his story. 
 
 I remember, in particular, when he described crossing 
 a river while pursued by the men employed to catch him. 
 " There sit I now," said he, " in a boat with merely one 
 pair of oars, and row and row with all my might to reach 
 the other, the free shore, where my wife and my child 
 await me. And there I see the pursuers coming after 
 me, rowing with three pair of oars. They have nearly 
 caught me ; but above us sits the great God, and looks 
 at us, and he gave me the start. I reach the shore ; I 
 am upon free ground ! And now, this evening, I am with 
 my wife and my child ! " 
 
 The assembly clapped their hands in tumultuous 
 applause. After this speaker a group came forward, 
 which was also saluted with much clapping of hands ; a 
 young, fair lady, in a simple white dress, and hair without 
 any ornament, stepped forward, leading a dark Mulatto 
 woman by the hand. She had been a slave, and had 
 lately escaped from slavery on board a vessel, where she 
 had been concealed. Her owners, who suspected her 
 place of concealment, obtained a warrant for searching 
 the vessel, which they did thoroughly, burning brimstone 
 in order to compel her to come forth. But she endured 
 it all, and succeeded in making her escape. It was a 
 beautiful sight, when the young, white woman, Miss 
 Lucy S., one of the ladies whom I had seen at my 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 199 
 
 little Doctress s, placed her hand upon the head of the 
 hlack woman, calling her sister, and introducing her as 
 such to the assembled crowd. It looked well and beau 
 tiful, and it was certainly felt by all that the white woman 
 stood here as the friend and protector of the black. 
 Miss Lucy performed her part very well, in a perfectly 
 womanly, quiet, and beautiful manner. She then related 
 the history of the late slave, and talked about slavery for 
 a full hour, with perfect self-possession, perspicuity, and 
 propriety of tone and gesture. But instead of speaking, 
 as she might and ought to have done, from her own 
 womanly feeling of life instead of awakening sympathy 
 for those wrongs which woman especially suffers in slavery, 
 inasmuch as her very children do not belong to her ; 
 that the beings whom she brings forth in sorrow are the 
 property of her master, and may be taken from her and 
 sold whenever he will instead of laying stress upon this 
 and many other circumstances repulsive to the heart and 
 to every sense of justice, and which especially befal the 
 female slave ; Miss Lucy struck into the common track of 
 so-much hackneyed abuse of the pro-slavery men of the 
 north, and against Daniel Webster and his warm zeal 
 for Hungarian freedom, while he saw with indifference 
 three millions of native Americans held in slavery. She 
 repeated merely what the men had already said, and 
 said better and more powerfully than she had done ; she 
 entirely mistook her own mission as a female speaker. 
 When will women perceive that, if they would worthily 
 take a place in the forum, they must come forth with the 
 dignity and power of the being who has new and mighty 
 truths to enunciate and represent ? They must feel and 
 speak from the centre of the sphere of woman. Not all 
 the good-nature and courtesy of man will enable them 
 to maintain their place on the public platform, if they do 
 not take possession of it on their own positive ground. 
 There is no want of this in itself; it lies near to the 
 
200 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 heart of woman ; it is within her, around her, if she will 
 but see it. But she must yet obtain a more profound 
 knowledge both of herself and of life. The women who 
 in all ages have stood forward as the priestesses of the 
 inner life, as prophetesses and interpretesses of the 
 most sublime and the most holy, and who were listened 
 to as such by people and by kings, Deborah, Wala, 
 Sybilla, merely naming in them some of the oldest 
 types these might point out to the women of the New 
 World the ,path to public power and public influence. 
 And if they do not feel this higher power in themselves, 
 how much better to remain in quietness and silence ! 
 How powerful might they be even then ! What power is 
 mightier than that of love, than that of rational goodness ? 
 The eagle and the dove, as I have heard it said, are, of 
 all birds, those which fly farthest and most rapidly to 
 their object. 
 
 Miss Lucy Stone s audience were good-natured, listen 
 ing attentively and applauding at the close of the speech, 
 but not much. People praise her clearness of delivery, 
 her becoming manner, and the perspicuity of her mind : 
 that was all ; more could not be said and that was not 
 much. 
 
 The gentlemen who followed her brought with them 
 more life and interest. But they offended me by their 
 want of moderation and justice ; by their style of decla 
 mation ; by their endeavouring to point out even in the gal 
 leries of the hall, individuals who did not agree with them 
 in their anti- slavery labours ; it offended me to hear family 
 life desecrated by making known dissensions ; for example, 
 between the father and the daughter on these questions ; 
 thus overlooking the divine moral law of "Judge not !" 
 These tirades were carried to an extreme and with much 
 personality. But all was animated and amusing, and the 
 best understanding seemed to exist between the speaker 
 and his audience. Wendel Phillips, the young lawyer, 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 201 
 
 seemed to possess the greatest share of public favour ; 
 and he is really an unusually gifted and agreeable speaker, 
 carrying the public along with him, and seeming to 
 know his own power of moving and electrifying them. 
 A Mr. Quincy, a young man, of one of the highest 
 families in Boston, spoke violently against anti-slavery 
 people, and among others against his own eldest brother, 
 now Mayor of Boston. But the public did not like his 
 outbreak, especially against the Mayor, and hissed and 
 clamoured terrifically. Mr. Quincy proceeded with still 
 more violence, walking up and down the platform, his 
 hands in the pockets of his coat- skirts, which he fluttered 
 about, as if he enjoyed himself, and was fanned by the 
 most agreeable of zephyrs. 
 
 At length the tumult and the cry of " Phillips ! " 
 " Wendel Phillips! " was so overpowering, that Mr. Quincy 
 could not be heard. He paused, and beckoned with a 
 smile to Wendel Phillips that he should take his place. 
 
 Phillips, a fair-complexioned young man, of a pleasing 
 figure and very easy deportment, stepped forth, and was 
 greeted with a salvo of clapping, after which a profound 
 silence prevailed. Wendel Phillips spoke with the calmness 
 and self-possession of a speaker who perfectly under 
 stands both himself and his hearers, and he took up that 
 subject which Miss Lucy had passed over ; he spoke for 
 the female slave, for the mother whose new-born child 
 belongs not to her, but to the slave-holder and to slavery. 
 He spoke of this with the low voice of suppressed 
 emotion, and a simplicity of language, yet powerful enough 
 to excite to the utmost the human heart against the 
 circumstances and the mode of treatment which he 
 described. It was masterly. The assembly hung on his 
 lips and took in every word. Once, during an argument, 
 he addressed my companion, Mr. Sumner, saying, " Is it 
 not so, brother Sumner ? " Sumner smiled, and nodded 
 an affirmative. 
 
202 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 At the close of this speech an excited gentleman leapt 
 upon the platform and began to declaim at the side of 
 Phillips. Phillips laughed, and prayed the assembly not 
 to listen to this " incapable gentleman." The assembly 
 were thrown into a state of fermentation, yet in perfect 
 good-humour ; they smiled, they whistled, they shouted, 
 they clapped, and hissed, all together. During this 
 commotion the people began to leave the galleries with 
 the utmost calmness and composure. Plates were sent 
 round through the hall to receive a collection for the 
 Mulatto -woman, after which we left the hall together with 
 many others ; and I could not but admire the quietness, 
 the methodic manner, in which this was done. There was 
 no crushing nor confusion ; each one followed silently in his 
 turn, and thus the assembly flowed away like a quiet river. 
 
 I was glad to have been at a popular assembly where so 
 much license prevailed, but which was yet under the 
 control of order and good temper. 
 
 I visited the Senate-House one day in company with 
 Mr. Simmer. Saw the Senate sitting sleepily over a 
 question of shoe-leather, and heard in the House of 
 Representatives a good deal of very animated but some 
 what plebeian eloquence in a debate on the question of 
 "Plurality and Majority," as well as voting. But of this 
 I shall say no more. The Americans speak extempore 
 with great ease and fluency : their speeches here were 
 like a rushing torrent ; the gestures energetic, but 
 monotonous, and without elegance. 
 
 The President, the speaker, and several of the members 
 of both Houses, came and shook hands with me, and bade 
 me welcome. I mention this because it seems to me 
 beautiful and kind thus to welcome a foreigner and a 
 woman, without importance in political life, but who 
 properly belongs to the quiet world of home. Does not 
 this show that the men of the New World regard the 
 home as the maternal life of the State ? 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 203 
 
 I was pleased by this visit to the States-House of 
 Boston, which is also, in its exterior, a magnificent 
 building. Two immense fountains cast up their waters 
 in front of its fa9ade, and from the flight of steps 
 outside the house the view is splendid. Below lies the 
 extensive green called " Boston Common," in the middle 
 of which is also a beautiful fountain, which throws 
 up its water to a great height. Eound it, on three 
 sides, run three remarkably beautiful streets, each street 
 planted through its whole length with lofty trees, mostly 
 the elm, the favourite tree of Massachussets, and some of 
 the same kind beautify also the park-like Common. 
 On the fourth side is an open view of the ocean creek. 
 
 Here, on the broad causeways, beneath the beautiful 
 elms, I am fond of walking when the weather is mild, 
 to behold through the branches of the trees the bright 
 blue heaven of Massachussets, and to see in the park, 
 the little Republicans coming out of school, running and 
 leaping about. In this neighbourhood are various 
 beautiful well-built streets, among which " Mount Auburn 
 Street," with its view of the sea, and along which I walk 
 on my way to the Common from my home at Mr. Benzon s. 
 Below the hill on the other side lies the market-place, 
 " Louisberg Square," where I also often take a walk; 
 but less for its little inclosure of trees and shrubs, and 
 the there enclosed wretched statue of Aristides, but 
 because Mrs. B. lives there ; and with her I always feel 
 myself quiet and happy, and am willing now and then 
 to take an excellent little dinner in company with 
 her mother, Mrs. L., a clever, cordial and splendid old 
 lady, and one or two other guests. Mrs. B. is one of 
 the genus fashionable, who has her clothes ready-made 
 from Paris, and who lives as a rich lady, but whose heart 
 is nevertheless open to life s modest works of love, and 
 who endeavours to make all around her, even animals, 
 happy. A magnificent grey greyhound called Princess, 
 
204 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 has its home in the house, and is the most excellent 
 house-dog I ever made acquaintance with. 
 
 Mrs. B. s little daughter, Julia, is remarkably like 
 her grandmother in her turn of mind, her liveliness and 
 even her wit. This charming little girl makes the most 
 amusing puns without being at all aware of it. 
 
 One day when there was good sledging, Mrs. B. 
 took me to see a sledge-drive on the Neck, a narrow 
 promontory which is the scene of action for the sledging 
 of the Boston fashionables. The young gentlemen in 
 their light elegant carriages, with their spirited horses, 
 flew like the wind. It looked charming and animated. I 
 once saw one of the giant sledges, in which were seated 
 from fifty to a hundred persons. This was drawn by four 
 horses, and certainly above fifty young ladies in white, 
 and with pink silk bonnets and fluttering ribbons, filled 
 the body of the carriage. It looked like an immense 
 basket of flowers, and had also a splendid and beautiful 
 appearance. But I am not fond of seeing people in a 
 crowd, not even as a crowd of flowers ; a crowd nullifies 
 individuality. More beautiful sledging than that of the 
 Swedish " Kacken," where a gentleman and lady sit side 
 by side, on bear or leopard skins, drawn by a pair of 
 spirited horses covered with swinging white nets, more 
 beautiful carriages and driving than these have I never 
 seen. 
 
 There has been this winter no good sledging in Boston ; 
 nor has the winter been severe. Yet, nevertheless, it is 
 with difficulty that I can bear the air as soon as it becomes 
 cold. I who have such a love of the Swedish winter, and 
 who breathe easily in our severest weather, have really 
 difficulty in breathing here when the atmosphere is as 
 cold as it is just now, it feels so keen and severe. It 
 seems to me as if the old Puritanic austere spirit had 
 entered or rather gone forth into the air and penetrated it ; 
 and such an atmosphere does not suit me. Of a certainty 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 205 
 
 the atmosphere of America is essentially different to that 
 of Europe. It seems thin and dry, wonderfully fine 
 and penetrating, and it certainly operates upon the con 
 stitutions of the people. How seldom one sees fat people 
 or plump forms here. The women appear delicate and 
 not strong. The men strong and full of muscular 
 elasticity, but they are generally thin, and grow more in 
 height than otherwise. The cheeks become sunk in the 
 man even while he is but a youth, and the countenance 
 assimilates to the Indian type. The climate of Boston 
 is, for the rest, not considered good on account of the 
 cold sea-winds. 
 
 Of Boston I shall not say much, because I have not 
 seen much, and not in the best state of mind to judge. 
 The city itself does not seem to possess anything remark 
 ably beautiful, excepting that of which I have spoken. 
 The neighbourhood of Boston, on the contrary, I have 
 heard described as very beautiful, and in many cases 
 bearing a resemblance to that of Stockholm. As yet I 
 have only seen it in a covered carriage and in its winter 
 aspect. I have observed a great number of charming 
 country-houses or villas. 
 
 My most agreeable hours in Boston have been spent at 
 Mrs. Kemble s readings from Shakspeare. She is a real 
 genius, and her power of expression, and the flexibility 
 of her voice, so that she at the moment can change it for 
 the character she represents, are most wonderful. None 
 can ever forget that which h 3 has once heard her read ; 
 she carries her hearer completely into the world and the 
 scene which she represents. Even Jenny Lind s power of 
 personation is nothing in comparison with hers. She is 
 excellent, and most so in heroic parts. I shall never 
 forget her glowing, splendid countenance, when she as 
 Henry V. incited the army to heroic deeds. And she 
 gave the scene between the enamoured warrior-king and 
 the bashful elegant and yet naive French princess in such 
 
206 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 a manner as made one both laugh and cry, that is to say, 
 one laughed with tears of sheer joy in one s eyes. When 
 she steps forward before her audience, one immediately 
 sees in her a powerful and proud nature, which bows 
 before the public in the consciousness that she will soon 
 have them at her feet. And then while she reads, yes, 
 then she forgets the public and Fanny Kenible ; and the 
 public forget themselves and Fanny Kemble too ; and both 
 live and breathe and are thrilled with horror, and bewitched 
 by the great dramatic scenes of life which she with magic 
 power calls forth. Her figure is strong although not 
 large, and of English plumpness ; a countenance, which 
 without being beautiful, is yet fine, and particularly rich 
 and magnificent in expression. " In her smile there are 
 fifty smiles," said Maria Lowell, who always says things 
 beautifully. 
 
 Fanny Kemble was extremely amiable and kind to me, 
 and sent me a free admission for myself and a friend to 
 her Headings. She has read to-day my favourite of all 
 the Shakspeare dramas, Julius Csesar, and she read it so 
 that it was almost more than I could bear. In com 
 parison with these glorious heroic characters and their 
 life, that which at present existed around me, and I myself 
 in the midst of it, seemed so poor, so trivial, so colourless, 
 that it was painful to me. And that which made it still 
 more so, was, that I was obliged between every act, and 
 whilst wholly excited by the reading, to turn to the right 
 hand and to the left to reply to introductions and to shake 
 hands very possibly with the best people in the world, 
 but I wished them altogether, for the time, in the moon. 
 Besides which, a lady, a stranger to me, who sate by me, 
 gave me every time anything remarkable occurred, either 
 in the piece or in its delivery, a friendly jog with her 
 elbow. 
 
 As regards the people around me, I may divide them 
 into two, or rather into three classes. The first is worthy 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 207 
 
 of being loved, full of kindness, refinement, and a beautiful 
 sense of propriety ; in truth, more amiable and agreeable 
 people I have never met with ; the second are, thought 
 less, mean well, but often give me a deal of vexation, 
 leave me no peace either at home, in church, or at any 
 other public place, and have no idea that anybody can 
 desire or need to be left at peace. Much curiosity pre 
 vails certainly in this class, but much real good-nature 
 and heartfelt kindness also, although it often expresses 
 itself in a peculiar manner. But, then, I should not 
 perhaps feel this so keenly if I had my usual strength 
 of body and mind. The third yes, the third is altoge 
 ther but I will only say of it, that it is not a numerous 
 class, and belongs to a genus which is found in all 
 countries alike, and which I place in the litany. 
 
 I receive invitations through the whole week, but I 
 accept only one, and another invitation to dinner, that is 
 to say, to small dinner-parties. These are for the most 
 part very agreeable, and I thus am able to see happy 
 family groups on their own charming and excellent 
 hearths. One recognises the English taste and arrange 
 ment in everything. For the most part, I decline all 
 invitations for the evening. Evening parties do not 
 agree with me ; the heat produced by the gas-lights of 
 the drawing-rooms makes me feverish. On the contrary, 
 I have greatly enjoyed my quiet evenings at home 
 since I had a young friend to read aloud to me, that 
 I could not wish for anything better. Mr. V., an 
 agreeable young man, son of Benzon s companion, and 
 who also lives in the house, offered to read aloud to me 
 in the evening, although he did not know, he said, 
 whether he could do it to please me, as he had never 
 before read aloud. He read rather stumblingly at first, 
 but softly, and with the most gentle of manly voices. 
 It was like music to my soul and my senses ; it calmed 
 me deliciously. Before long he lost all his stumbling, 
 
208 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 and his reading became continuous and melodious as 
 a softly purling stream. And thus has he afforded me 
 many good, quiet evenings, in the reading of the 
 biography of Washington, of the President of Cambridge, 
 Jared Sparks , Emerson s Essays, or other works. Mr. 
 Charles Sumner has also enabled me to spend some 
 most agreeable hours, whilst he has read to me various 
 things, in particular some of Longfellow s poems. One 
 day he read a story to me, in itself a poem in prose, by 
 Nathaniel Hawthorn, which gave me so much pleasure 
 that I beg leave to tell it you with the greatest 
 possible brevity. N. B. Hawthorn is one of the latest 
 of the prose writers of North America, and has acquired 
 a great reputation. His works have been sent to me by 
 some anonymous female friend, whom I hope yet to be 
 able to discover, that I may thank her. He treats 
 national subjects with much earnestness and freshness ; 
 and that mystical, gloomy sentiment, which forms, as 
 it were, the back- ground of this picture, like a nocturnal 
 sky, from which the stars shine forth, exercises a magical 
 influence on the mind of the New World, perhaps because 
 it is so unlike their every-day life. The piece which 
 Sumner read to me is called " The Great Stone Face," 
 and the idea seems to be taken from the actual large 
 rock countenance, which it is said may be seen at one 
 place among the mountains of New Hampshire the 
 White Mountains, as they are called and which is known 
 under the name of " the Old Man of the Mountain." 
 
 " In one of the valleys of New Hampshire," says 
 Hawthorn, " there lived in a mean cottage a young lad, 
 the child of poor parents. From his home and from the 
 whole valley might be seen in one of the lofty distant 
 mountains a large human profile, as if hewn out in the 
 rock, and this was known under the name of the Great 
 Stone Face. There was an old tradition in the valle} r , 
 that there should some day come a man to the valley 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 209 
 
 whose countenance should resemble that of the great 
 stone face ; that he should be the noblest of men, and 
 should introduce a golden age into the valley. The 
 young lad grew up in the full view of that great stone 
 face which seemed to hold dominion over the dale, and 
 in the constant thought of the expected stranger, who 
 would one day come and make the dales-people so happy. 
 For hours he would gaze at the large stone countenance, 
 filling his whole soul with the sublime beauty and 
 nobility of its features. Thus time passed ; he went to 
 school, grew up a young man, became a schoolmaster and 
 clergyman ; but he always kept looking at the lofty, pure 
 countenance in the rock, and more and more grew his love 
 of its beauty, and more and more deeply he longed after 
 the man who had been foretold and promised, and whose 
 countenance should resemble this. 
 
 All at once a great cry rang through the dale, 
 1 He is coming ! he is coming ! And everybody went 
 out to meet and to welcome the great man, and the young 
 minister among the rest. The great man came in a 
 great carriage, drawn by four horses, surrounded by the 
 shouting and exulting crowd ; and everybody exclaimed, 
 as they looked at him, How like he is to the great 
 stone face ! 
 
 But the young clergyman saw at the first glance that 
 it was not so, and that he could not be the foretold and 
 promised stranger, and the people also, after he had 
 continued some time in the valley, discovered the same 
 thing. 
 
 The young man went quietly on his way as before, 
 doing all the good he could, and waiting for the expected 
 stranger, gazing continually on the large countenance, 
 and fancying that he was living and acting for ever in its 
 sight. 
 
 Once more the cry went abroad, He is coming ! he 
 is coming ! the great man ! And again the people 
 
 VOL. I. P 
 
210 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 streamed forth to meet him, and again he came with all 
 the pomp of the former, and again the people cried out, 
 How like he is to the great stone face ! The youth 
 looked and saw a sallow countenance with really some 
 resemblance to the large features of the face ; but, for all 
 that it was very unlike. And after a while he began to 
 remark that the resemblance became still more and more 
 unlike, nor was it long before everybody found out that 
 their great man was not a great man at all, and that he 
 had no similarity to the large stone face. After this he 
 disappeared from the dale. These expectations and these 
 disappointments were repeated yet several times. 
 
 At length, although the good clergyman gave up 
 almost entirely his sanguine expectations, he still hoped 
 silently, and continued silently to work in his vocation, 
 but with more and more earnestness, extending yet more 
 and more the sphere of his operations for ever glancing 
 upwards to that large stone countenance, and, as it were, 
 impressing yet deeper and deeper its features upon his 
 soul. Thus time went on, and the young man had 
 advanced towards middle life ; his hair had begun to grow 
 grey, and his countenance to be ploughed by the furrows 
 of advancing years, but the great long-expected stranger 
 had not appeared. But he yet hoped on. 
 
 In the meantime, the influence of his life and his 
 labours had ennobled the dales-people, and given beauty to 
 the dale itself. Universal peace and universal prosperity 
 prevailed there during a long course of years. And by 
 this time the locks of the clergyman were of a silvery 
 whiteness ; his face had become pale and his features 
 rigid, yet was his countenance beaming with human love. 
 About this time the people began to whisper among 
 themselves, Does not there seem to be a remark 
 able resemblance between him and the great stone 
 face ? 
 
 One evening a stranger came to the clergyman s 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 211 
 
 cottage and was hospitably entertained there. He had 
 come to the dale to see the great stone countenance, of 
 which he had heard, and to see the man also of whom 
 report said that he bore the same features, not merely in 
 the outward face, but in the beauty of the spirit. 
 
 In the calmness of evening, in presence of the Eternal, 
 in presence of that large stone countenance of the rock, 
 they conversed of the profound and beautiful mysteries of 
 the spiritual life, and while so doing they themselves 
 became bright and beautiful before each other. 
 
 May not this be the long-expected, the long- 
 desired one, thought the clergyman, and gazed at the 
 transfigured countenance of his guest. As he thus 
 thought, a deep feeling of peace stole over him. It was 
 that of death. 
 
 He bowed his head, closed his eyes ; and in those rigid 
 but noble features, in that pure pale countenance, the 
 stranger recognised with amazement him whom they 
 had sought for him who bore the features of the great 
 stone face." 
 
 Hawthorne is essentially a poet and idealist by nature. 
 He is, for profound, contemplative life, that which N. P. 
 Willis, with his witty, lively pen, is for the real and the 
 outward. The former seeks to penetrate into the interior 
 of the earth, the latter makes pen and ink sketches by 
 the way ; the former is a solitary student, the latter a man 
 of the world. Hawthorne s latest work, " The Scarlet 
 Letter," is making just now a great sensation, and is 
 praised as a work of genius. I however have not yet 
 read it, and there is a something in its title which does not 
 tempt me. Hawthorne himself is said to be a handsome 
 man, but belongs to the retiring class of poetical natures. 
 I know his charming wife and sister-in-law. Both are 
 intellectual women, and the former remarkably pretty and 
 agreeable, like a lovely and fragrant flower. The 
 Hawthornes are thinking of removing to the beautiful 
 
 p 2 
 
212 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 lake-district in the west of Massaclmsets, to Lenox, 
 where also Miss Sedgewick resides. They have kindly 
 invited me to their house, and I shall be glad to become 
 better acquainted with the author of the " Great stone 
 face." 
 
 Cooper and Washington Irving (the former lives on his 
 own property west of New York) have already by their 
 works introduced us to a nearer acquaintance with a part 
 of the world of which we before knew little more than the 
 names Niagara and Washington. After these poets in 
 prose, several ladies of the Northern States have 
 distinguished themselves as the authors of novels and 
 tales. Foremost and best of these are, Miss Catherine 
 Sedgewick, whose excellent characteristic descriptions and 
 delineations of American scenes even we in Sweden are 
 acquainted with, in her " Eedwood " and "Hope Leslie ; " 
 Mrs. Maria Child, who in her pictures of the life of 
 antiquity as well as that of the present time, expresses 
 her love for the ideal beauty of life, for everything which 
 is good, noble and harmonious, and who in all objects, 
 in mankind, in flowers, stars, institutions, the sciences, 
 art, and in human events, endeavours to find the point or 
 the tone wherein they respond to the eternal harmonies ; 
 a restless seeking after eternal repose in the music of the 
 spheres, a Christian Platonic thinker, a Christian in heart 
 and deed ; Mrs. Caroline Kirkland, witty, humourous 
 and sarcastic, but based upon a large heart and a fine 
 understanding, as we also saw by her delicious book, " A 
 New Home in the West ; " Miss Maria M Intosh, whom 
 we also know by her novel, " To seem or to be," and 
 whose everyday life is her most beautiful novel. (But 
 that one might also say of the others.) Of Mrs. Sigourney 
 I have already spoken. Mrs. L. Hall, the author of a 
 great dramatic poem called "Miriam," I know as yet 
 merely by report. Of the lesser authoresses and 
 poetesses I say nothing, for they are legion. The latter 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 213 
 
 sing like birds in spring time. There are a great many 
 siskins, bullfinches, sparrows; here and there a thrush 
 with its deep and eloquent notes, beautiful though few ; 
 but I have not as yet heard among these minstrels either 
 the rich inspiriting song of the lark or the full inspira 
 tion of the nightingale ; and I do not know whether this 
 rich artistic inspiration belongs to the womanly nature. 
 I have not in general much belief in the ability of woman 
 as a creative artist. Unwritten lyrics, as Emerson once 
 said when we spoke on this subject, should be her forte. 
 
 The young Lowells are in affliction. Their youngest 
 child, the pretty little Rose, is dead. James Lowell has 
 just informed me of this in a few words. I must go to 
 them ; I have not seen them for a long time now, not 
 since that little child s illness. 
 
 February Wth. Now, my little Agatha, I will for a 
 moment take up the pen and 
 
 February loth. Down went the pen just as I had 
 taken hold of it. 
 
 A visitor came whom I was obliged to receive, and then 
 and then Ah ! how little of life s enjoyment can one 
 have in this hurrying life, although it may be, and indeed 
 is honourable. I will rest for one day from opening 
 notes of invitation, requests for autographs, verses, 
 packets and parcels, containing presents of books and 
 flowers, and so on. I cannot, or to speak more properly, 
 I am not able to read all the notes and letters which come 
 to me in the course of the day, and merely to think of 
 answering them puts me in a fever, and then people, 
 people, people ! ! ! 
 
 In the meantime I am heartily thankful to God and my 
 good physician that my health is so much better, because 
 it will now enable me to accept more adequately the good 
 will which is shown towards me, and for which I feel 
 grateful, and also to complete my campaign in the country. 
 
2H HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 I cannot sufficiently thank Mr. B. for the comfort 
 which he has afforded me in Boston, neither Mr. and 
 Mrs. K., my kind host and hostess since Mr. B. left. 
 As regards my convenience and comfort, I have been 
 treated like a princess. But I long for the South, long 
 for a milder climate, and for life with nature. I long also 
 for freer, more expansive views, for the immeasurable 
 prairies, for the wonderful West, the Ohio and the 
 Mississippi. There for the first time they tell me that I 
 shall see and understand what America will become. But 
 this much I do understand of what I hear about the 
 fertility and affluence of this region that if the millennium 
 is ever to take place on this earth it must be in the valley 
 of the Mississippi, which is said to be ten times more 
 extensive than the valley of the Nile, and capable of 
 containing a population of two hundred and fifty millions 
 of souls. 
 
 And now, my little heart, I will give you a bulletin 
 of the manner in which the last days have been spent. 
 
 I went to Cambridge, accompanied by the estimable 
 Professor P. Little Rose lay shrouded in her coffin, 
 lovely still, but much older in appearance ; the father 
 sate at her head and wept like a child ; Maria wept 
 too, so quietly, and I wept with them, as you may well 
 believe. The affectionate young couple could weep 
 without bitterness. They are two, they are one in love. 
 They can bow down together and rest. They have 
 both very susceptible feelings, and sorrow therefore 
 takes a deep hold on them. Maria told me that little 
 Mabel she is three years old came early in the morning 
 to her bed and said, " Are you lonely now, mamma ? (little 
 Rose had hitherto always slept in her mother s bed) shall 
 I comfort you ? " 
 
 I dined with Professor P., but I was distressed in 
 mind, not well, and not very amiable either ; I therefore 
 excused myself from an evening party, and went home. 
 
 \ 
 
 V. \ 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 215 
 
 If people could but know how much I suffer from this 
 nervous indisposition they would excuse an apparent 
 unfriendliness which exists neither in my disposition nor 
 my heart. In the evening I composed myself by listening 
 to the melodious reading of young Mr. V. 
 
 One day I visited the celebrated manufactory of Lowell, 
 accompanied by a young agreeable countryman of mine, 
 Mr. Wachenfelt, who has been resident here for several 
 years. I would willingly have declined the journey, 
 because it was so cold, and I was not well, but they had 
 invited strangers to meet me, got up an entertainment, 
 and therefore I was obliged to go. And I did not regret 
 it. I had a glorious view from the top of Drewcroft Hill 
 in that star-light cold winter evening, of the manufactories 
 of Lowell lying below in a half-circle, glittering with a 
 thousand lights like a magic castle on the snow-covered 
 earth. And then to think, and to know, that these lights 
 were not ignes fatui, not merely pomp and show, but that 
 they were actually symbols of a healthful and hopeful life 
 in the persons whose labour they lighted ; to^ know that 
 within every heart in this palace of labour burned a bright 
 little light, illumining a future of comfort and prosperity 
 which every day and every turn of the wheel of the 
 machinery only brought the nearer. In truth there was a 
 deep purpose in these brilliant lights, and I beheld this 
 illumination with a joy which made the winter s night feel 
 warm to me. 
 
 Afterwards I shook hands with a whole crowd of people 
 in a great assembly, and the party was kept up till late in 
 the night. The following morning I visited the manu 
 factories and saw " the young ladies " at their work and at 
 their dinner ; saw their boarding-houses, sleeping-rooms, 
 etc. All was comfortable and nice as we had heard it 
 described. Only I noticed that some of " the young 
 ladies " were about fifty, and some of them not so very 
 well clad, while others again were too fine. I was most 
 
216 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 struck by the relationship between the human being and 
 the machinery. Thus, for example, I saw the young girls 
 standing each one between four busily working spinning 
 jennies : they walked among them, looked at them, watched 
 over and guarded them much as a mother would 
 watch over and tend her children. The machinery was 
 like an obedient child under the eye of an intelligent 
 mother. 
 
 The procession of the operatives, two and two, in 
 shawls, bonnets, and green veils, as they went to their 
 dinner, produced a fine and imposing effect. And the 
 dinners which I saw at a couple of tables (they take their 
 meals at small tables five or six together) appeared to be 
 both good and sufficient. I observed that besides meat 
 and potatoes there were fruit-tarts. 
 
 Several young women of the educated class at Lowell 
 were introduced to me, and amongst these some who were 
 remarkably pretty. After this my companions drove me 
 out in a covered carriage over the crunching snow (there 
 were seventeen degrees of cold this day) that I might see 
 the town and its environs. The situation is beautiful, on 
 the banks of the cheerfully rushing Merrimac river (the 
 laughing river), and the views from the higher parts of the 
 town as far as the white mountains of New Hampshire, 
 which raise their snowy crowns above every other object, 
 are extensive and magnificent. The town was laid out 
 somewhat above thirty years ago by the great uncle of 
 James Lowell, and has increased from a population at 
 that time amounting to a few hundred persons, to thirty 
 thousand, and the houses have increased in proportion. 
 
 Much stress is laid upon the good character of the 
 young female operatives at the time of their entering the 
 manufactories, and upon their behaviour during the period 
 of their remaining there. One or two elopements I heard 
 spoken of. But the life of labour here is more powerful 
 than the life of romance, although that too lives in the 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 217 
 
 hearts and heads of the young girls, and it would be bad 
 were it otherwise. 
 
 The industrious and skilful can earn from six to eight 
 dollars per wee!:, never less than three, and so much is 
 requisite for their board each week, as I was told. The 
 greater number lay by money, and in a few years are able 
 to leave the manufactory and undertake less laborious 
 work. 
 
 In the evening I returned by railway to Boston, 
 accompanied by the agreeable Wachenfelt, who seemed to 
 be very much taken with the inhabitants of Lowell. I 
 lost one thing by my visit to Lowell, which I regret having 
 lost; that was the being present at Fanny Kemble s 
 reading of " Macbeth " the same evening. The newspaper 
 had published the same day a full account of the judicial 
 examination into the Parkman murder, and its melancholy 
 details had so affected Fanny Kemble s imagination, as 
 she herself said, that it gave to her reading of the 
 Shakspearian drama a horrible reality, and to the night- 
 scene with the witches, as well as to the whole piece, an 
 almost supernatural power, as I have been told by several 
 persons who were present. 
 
 I went last Sunday with Miss Sedgewick, who is 
 come to the city for a few days, and two gentlemen, to 
 the sailors church to hear Father Taylor, a celebrated 
 preacher. He is a real genius, and delighted me. What 
 warmth, what originality, what affluence in new turns of 
 thought, and in poetical painting ! He ought of a truth 
 to be able to awaken the spiritually dead. On one occa 
 sion, when he had been speaking of the wicked and sinful 
 man and his condition, he suddenly broke off and began 
 to describe a spring morning in the country ; the beauty 
 of the surrounding scene, the calmness, the odour, the 
 dew upon grass and leaf, the uprising of the sun ; then 
 again he broke off, and returning to the wicked man, 
 placed him amid this glorious scene of nature but, " the 
 
218 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 unfortunate one ! He cannot enjoy it ! " Another time, as 
 I was told, lie entered his church with an expression of 
 profound sorrow, with bowed head, and without looking to 
 the right and the left as is his custom (N.B. He must 
 pass through the church in order to reach the pulpit), 
 and without nodding kindly to friends and acquaint 
 ances. All wondered what could have come to Father 
 Tajdor. He mounted the pulpit, and then bowing 
 down, as if in the deepest affliction, exclaimed, " Lord 
 have mercy upon us because we are a widow ! " And so 
 saying he pointed down to a coffin which he had had 
 placed in the aisle below the pulpit. One of the sailors 
 belonging to the congregation had just died, leaving a 
 widow and many small children without any means of 
 support. Father Taylor now placed himself and the 
 congregation in the position of the widow, and described 
 so forcibly their grief, their mournful countenances, 
 and their desolate condition, that at the close of the 
 sermon the congregation rose as one man, and so con 
 siderable was the contribution which was made for the 
 widow, that she was raised at once above want. In fact 
 our coldly moralising clergy who read their written 
 sermons ought to come hither and learn how they may 
 touch and win souls. 
 
 After the service I was introduced to Father Taylor and 
 his agreeable wife, who in disposition is as warm-hearted as 
 himself. The old man (he is about sixty) has a remarkably 
 lively and expressive countenance, full of deep furrows. 
 When we thanked him for the pleasure which his sermon 
 had afforded us, he replied, " Oh ! there s an end, an end of 
 me ! I am quite broken down ! I am obliged to screw 
 myself up to get up a little steam. It s all over with me 
 now ! " 
 
 Whilst he was thus speaking, he looked up, and 
 exclaimed with a beaming countenance, " What do I see ? 
 Oh my son ! my son ! " And extending his arms he went 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 219 
 
 forward to meet a gigantically tall young man, who, with 
 joy beaming on his fresh, good-tempered countenance, was 
 coming through the church, and now threw himself with 
 great fervour into Father Taylor s arms, and then into 
 those of his wife. 
 
 " Is all right here, my son ? " asked Taylor, laying his 
 hand on his breast ; " has all been well kept here ? Has 
 the heart not become hardened by the gold ? But I see 
 it, I see it ! All right ! all right ! " said he, as he saw 
 large tears in the young man s eyes. " Thank God ! God 
 bless thee, my son ! " And with that there was again a 
 fresh embracing. 
 
 The young man was a sailor, no way related to Father 
 Taylor, except spiritually ; who, having been seized by the 
 California!! fever, had set off to get gold, and now had 
 returned after an interval of a year, but whether with or 
 without gold, I know not. But it was evident that the 
 heart had not lost its health. I have heard a great deal 
 about the kindness and liberality of Father Tajlor and 
 his wife, in particular to poor sailors of all nations. 
 
 In the afternoon of the same day I attended divine 
 service in the chapel of Mr. Barnard, as I had been 
 invited to do, and I saw in his house proofs of this man s 
 admirable activity in the aid of the poor and the 
 unfortunate by means of education and work. There 
 were present in the chapel about five hundred children, 
 and after the service I shook hands with the whole five 
 hundred little republicans, male and female, and with 
 some of them twice over ; the boys were especially zealous, 
 and noble merry lads they were. The earnest and 
 effective means which are in operation throughout this 
 State for the education of the rising generation are the 
 most certain and beautiful signs of its own fresh vitality 
 and an augury of a great future. 
 
 Mr. Barnard is a missionary of the Unitarian commu 
 nity, and one of its most zealous members in its labours 
 
220 HOMES OF THE NEW WOULD. 
 
 of human kindness. N.B. Most of the larger sects in 
 this country have their missionaries, or, as they are also 
 called here, " ministers at large," whom they send forth to 
 preach the word, establish schools or perform works of 
 mercy, and who are maintained by the community to 
 which they belong, and whose influence they thus 
 extend. 
 
 I have during my stay in Boston visited different 
 churches, and it has so happened that the greatest 
 number of them have belonged to the Unitarian body. 
 So great indeed is the predominance of this sect in 
 Boston, that it is generally called " the Unitarian city." 
 And as it has also happened that many of my most 
 intimate acquaintances here are of this faith, it has been 
 believed by many that I also am of it. You know how 
 far I am otherwise, and how insufficient and how unsatis 
 fying to my mind were those religious views which I held 
 during a few months of my life and which I abandoned 
 for others more comprehensive. Here in this country 
 however it is more consistent with my feelings not to 
 follow my own sympathies, but to make myself acquainted 
 with every important phase of feeling or intellect in its 
 fullest individuality. I therefore endeavour to see and to 
 study in every place that which is its characteristic. 
 Hence I shall in America visit the churches of every 
 sect, and hear if possible the most remarkable teachers 
 of all. The differences of these, however important they 
 may be for the speculative understanding of the entire 
 system of life, are of much less importance to practical 
 Christianity and to the inward life. And therefore in 
 reality they trouble me but very little. All Christian 
 sects acknowledge, after all, the same God ; the same 
 divine mediator and teacher ; the same duty ; the same 
 love ; the same eternal hope. The various churches are 
 various families, who having gone forth from the same 
 father are advancing towards eternal mansions in the 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 221 
 
 house of the Eternal Father. Every one has his separate 
 mission to accomplish in the kingdom of mind. God 
 has given different gifts of understanding, and thence 
 different forms of comprehension and expression of truth. 
 By this means truth in its many-sidedness is a gainer. 
 And the full discussion even of the highest subjects, 
 which takes place in the different churches of this country, 
 as well as in the pages of their public organs (for every 
 one of the more considerable religious sects has its own 
 publication, which diffuses its own doctrines as w r ell as 
 reports the transactions of its body) are of infinite 
 importance for the development of the religious mind of 
 the people. Besides this, it must tend to an increasingly 
 clear knowledge of the essential points of resemblance in 
 all Christian communities, to the knowledge of the positive 
 in Christianity, and must prepare the way by degrees for a 
 church universal in character and with a oneness of view, 
 even in dogmas. 
 
 The two great divisions of the church in the United 
 States appear to be those of the Trinitarian and Uni 
 tarian. The Unitarians arose in opposition to the 
 doctrine of a mechanical Trinity, and the petrified old 
 state-church (the Episcopalian) which held it. The latter 
 lays most stress upon faith, the former on works. Both 
 acknowledge Christ (the one as God, the other as divine 
 humanity) and regard him as the highest object for the 
 imitation of man. Both have individuals within their 
 pale who prove that in either it is possible to advance as 
 far and to deserve in as high a degree the name of a 
 Christian. 
 
 I have heard two good sermons from the clergy of the 
 old state-church in this country. It seems to me that 
 this church is regarded as the peculiarly aristocratic 
 church here, and that the fashionable portion of society 
 generally belongs to it ; it belongs to people of good ton. 
 But the speculative mind in the church appears to me not 
 
222 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 yet to have come forth from its cave of the middle 
 ages ; they still oppose faith to reason, and there 
 appears not yet to be within the realm of theology an 
 enlightened mind like that of our H. Martinsen in the 
 North. I say this however without heing fully certain on 
 the subject. I have not yet heard or read sufficiently the 
 theological literature of this country. 
 
 The most distinguished leader and champion of 
 Unitarianism in this country, Dr. Ellery Channing, called 
 also the Unitarian Saint, from the remarkable beauty of 
 his character and demeanour, showed how far a human 
 being might go in his imitation of Christ. I have heard 
 many instances related by his friends of the deep 
 earnestness, of the heart-felt sincerity with which this 
 noble man sought after the just and the pure mode of 
 action in every case, even in the most trifling. One may 
 see in his portrait a glance which is not of this world, 
 which neither seeks for nor asks anything here, but which 
 seeks for and inquires from a higher friend and councillor. 
 One may see it also in his biography, and in the Detached 
 letters lately published by his nephew, H. W. Channing, 
 and which the latter has had the kindness to send to me. 
 I read them occasionally, and cannot but think of your 
 favourite text : " Blessed are the pure in heart, for they 
 shall see God." 
 
 How pure and beautiful for instance is the sentiment 
 which is contained in these words, which I now take at 
 random from the volume before me : 
 
 " Eeflect how unjust you are towards yourself if you 
 allow any human being to hinder the growth of a soul 
 such as yours. Bear in mind that you were created to 
 love infinitely, to love eternally, and do not allow an 
 
 unrequited affection to close this divine spring. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 " I cannot reprove your wish to die. I know no advan 
 tage greater than that of death, but it is an advantage for 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 223 
 
 those in whom evil has been more and more subdued, and 
 who have been continually gaining an ascendancy over 
 self. I should be glad to awaken that disinterested self- 
 sacrificing human love, both in you and in myself, as well 
 as a more profound consciousness of our own spiritual 
 nature, reliance on the divine principle within us, the 
 innermost work of our loving, and on God s infinite love 
 to that divine life. Nothing can harm us but infidelity to 
 ourselves, but want of reverence for our own sublime 
 spirit. Through failure in this respect we become slaves 
 to circumstances and to our fellow men." 
 
 Everywhere, and on all occasions, one sees Channing 
 turning to that divine teacher in the human breast, which 
 is one with the divine spirit of God for the fulfilling of 
 the law, and it is from this inward point of view that he 
 regulated his outward conduct. 
 
 And never indeed has God s blessing more visibly 
 rested upon a human being. How fresh, how full are the 
 expressions of his joy and gratitude as he became older ; 
 how he seemed to become younger and happier with each 
 passing year ! He reproached himself with having 
 enjoyed too much, with being too happy in a world where 
 so many suffered. But he could not help it. Friends, 
 nature, the invisible fountains of love and gratitude in his 
 soul all united themselves to beautify his life. All only 
 the more enlarged his sphere of vision, all the more, 
 during declining health, increased his faith and hope in 
 God and man, all the more his love for life, that great, 
 glorious life ! 
 
 It was during his old age that he wrote 
 
 " Our natural affections become more and more beautiful 
 to me. I sometimes feel as if I had known nothing of 
 human life until lately but so it will be for ever. We 
 shall wake up to the wonderful and beautiful in what we 
 have seen with undiscerning eyes, and find a new creation 
 without moving a step from our old haunts." 
 
224 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 He often spoke of his enjoyment of life in advancing 
 years. Somebody asked him one day what age he con 
 sidered as the happiest. He replied with a smile, that he 
 considered it to be about sixty. 
 
 During the illness, which, gradually wasting him away, 
 ended his days, his inward life seemed to increase in 
 fervour and strength. He inquired with the most cordial 
 interest about the circumstances of those who came to 
 visit him. Every human being seemed to have become 
 more important and dearer to him, and yet all the while 
 his brain kept ceaselessly labouring with great thoughts 
 and objects. 
 
 " Can you help me," said he to his friends during his 
 last days, " to draw down my soul to every- day things 
 from these crowds of images, these scenes of infinitude, 
 this torrent of thought ? " 
 
 Once, when some one was reading to him, he said, 
 " Leave that ; let me hear about people and their affairs ! " 
 
 He was often heard, during his last painless struggle, 
 to say, " Heavenly Father ! " His last words were, " I do 
 not know when my heart was ever so overflowed with a 
 grateful sense of the goodness of God ! " And his last 
 feeble whisper was, " I have received many messages from 
 the Spirit ! " 
 
 "As the day declined," adds his biographer, "his 
 countenance fell, he became weaker and weaker. With 
 our aid he turned himself towards the window which 
 looked out over the valleys and wooded heights to the east. 
 We drew aside the curtains and the light fell on his face. 
 The sun had just gone down, and the clouds and sky 
 were brilliant with crimson and gold. He breathed more 
 and more softly, and, without a sigh, the body fell asleep. 
 We knew not when the spirit departed." 
 
 Thus only can sink a sun-like human being ; thus only 
 can die a man whom God loves, and in whose heart His 
 Spirit abides. 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 225 
 
 How great a power this true Christian exercised upon 
 others, I can judge from the following little occurrence. 
 
 One day I was walking with Mr. B. through the 
 streets of Boston, and as we passed one house, he bowed 
 his head reverentially as he said, " That is a house which 
 for several years I never approached without feelings of 
 the most heartfelt reverence and love. There dwelt 
 Dr. Channing ! " 
 
 As regards my own private friends, I do not trouble 
 myself in the least to what religious sect they belong 
 Trinitarians or Unitarians, Calvinists or Baptists, or 
 whatever it may be but merely that they are noble and 
 worthy to be loved. Here also are many people, who 
 without belonging to any distinct church, attend any one 
 where there is a good preacher, and for the rest, live 
 according to the great truths which Christianity utters, 
 and which they receive into their hearts. Some of my 
 best friends in this country belong to the invisible church 
 of God. 
 
 February IQth. What beautiful days ! Three days of 
 the most delicious spring weather. And this luxurious 
 blue heaven, and this air, so pure, so spiritually full of 
 life, and as it were so intoxicating. I have not felt any 
 thing like it ! I become as it were permeated by it. I have 
 been so well these last days, have felt such a flood of fresh 
 life in me that it has made me quite happy and childish 
 enough to feel a desire to tell everybody so, and to bid 
 them rejoice with me. I know that many would do so ; 
 and I know that I myself should be glad to know some one 
 who having suffered as I have done, now feel as I do. In 
 my joy I compelled my little allopathic doctor, Miss H., 
 to thank God for the progress which I and the homoeo 
 pathic doctor had made. And she did so with all her 
 heart. She has a heart as good as gold. 
 
 I have, these beautiful days, enjoyed the weather and 
 my walks, and the company of agreeable people, and- 
 
 VOL. I. Q 
 
226 HOMES OF THE NEW WOKLD. 
 
 the whole world. One day Mr. Longfellow came and 
 took me to dine with them at his father-in-law s I 
 believe (you know that my strength never lay in genea 
 logy), Mr. A. s. This was on the first of the beautiful 
 days, and as soon as I came out of my gate I stood 
 quite amazed at the beauty of the sky and the deli- 
 ciousness of the air. I told the amiable poet that I 
 thought it must have been himself that had enchanted 
 them. 
 
 The A. s is one of the most beautiful homes I 
 have yet seen in Boston; the elderly couple are both 
 handsome ; he an invalid, but with the most kind and 
 amiable temper ; she, cheerful both body and soul, and 
 very agreeable. With them and the Longfellows I had a 
 charming little dinner. 
 
 On Monday the Longfellows had a cast taken of my 
 hand in plaster of Paris ; for here, as elsewhere, it is a 
 prevailing error that my hands are beautful, whereas they 
 are only delicate and small. When I returned I found 
 my room full of people. N.B., it was my reception-day, 
 and I had stayed out beyond my time. But I was all 
 the more polite, and I fancy that no one was displeased. 
 I felt myself this day to be a regular philanthrope ; thus 
 the people stayed till past three o clock. 
 
 When my visitors were gone the young Lowells came 
 for the first time since their loss, and Maria set down 
 upon the floor a basket full of the most beautiful mosses 
 and lichens, which she and James had gathered on the hill 
 for me, as they knew I was fond of them. This affected me 
 sincerely ; and it affected me also to see again the same 
 kind of plants which I myself had gathered on the hill in 
 the park at Arsta, and I could not help it I watered 
 them with tears ; my soul is like a heaving sea, the waves 
 of which flow and ebb alternately. But they are swayed 
 in both cases by the same element. 
 
 Yesterday afternoon Waldo Emerson called on me, and 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 227 
 
 we had a very serious conversation together. I was afraid 
 that the admiration and the delight with which he had 
 inspired me had caused me to withhold my own confession 
 of faith had caused me apparently to pay homage to his, 
 and thereby to be unfaithful to my own higher love. This 
 I could not be. And exactly because I regarded him as 
 being so noble and magnanimous I wished to become clear 
 before him as well as before my own conscience. I wished 
 also to hear what objection he could bring forward against 
 a world as viewed from the Christian point of view, which 
 in concrete life and reality stands so infinitely above that 
 of the pantheist, which resolves all concrete life into the 
 elemental. I fancied that he, solely from the interest of 
 a speculative question, would have been led out of the 
 universal into the inward. Because, when all is said 
 which the wisdom of antiquity and of the noblest 
 stoicism can say about the Supreme Being, about the 
 " superior soul " as an infinite law-giving, impersonal 
 power, which brings forth, and then, regardless of any 
 individual fate, absorbs into itself all beings, who must 
 all blindly submit themselves as to an eternally unjust 
 and unsympathetic law of the world, how great and 
 perfect is the doctrine that God is more than this law of 
 the world ; that he is a Father who regards every human 
 being as His child, and has prepared for each, according to 
 their kind, an eternal inheritance in His house, in His 
 light ; that He beholds even the falling sparrow ; this is 
 a doctrine which satisfies the soul ! And when all is 
 said which the noblest stoicism can say to man about his 
 duty and his highest nobility, if it made Epictetes and 
 Socrates, and set Simeon Stylites on his pillar, how 
 incomparably high and astonishing is this command to 
 mankind : 
 
 " Be ye perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect ! " 
 
 A command, a purpose which it requires an eternity to 
 
 attain to ! And when all is said which all the wise men 
 
 Q2 
 
228 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 of the old world, and all the transcenclentalists of the 
 new world can say ahout the original nobility of the soul, 
 and her ability to keep herself noble by constantly having 
 her regards fixed on the ideal, and by avoiding the rabble 
 and the trash of ^the earth ; and when the endeavours of 
 the transcendentalists when the divinely aspiring spark 
 within us makes us acknowledge the poverty of this merely 
 negative point of view, and our inability to attain to the 
 highest requirement of our better nature ; then how great 
 and consolatory, how conclusive is the doctrine which says 
 that the divine Spirit will put itself in connection with 
 our spirit, and satisfy all our wants by the inflowing of 
 its life ! 
 
 This most extreme vitalising process, this " new birth " 
 and new development, which the Scriptures often speak 
 of as a marriage, as the coming of the bridegroom to the 
 bride, as a new birth, which we may see every day 
 exhibited in natural life as, for instance, by the grafting 
 of a noble fruit-tree upon a wild stock is finally the only 
 explanation of human life and its yearning endeavours. 
 
 This is what I wished to say to Emerson ; what I 
 endeavoured to say, but I know not how I did it. I 
 cannot usually express myself either easily or successfully 
 until I become warm, and get beyond or through the first 
 thoughts : and Emerson s cool, and as it were, circumspect 
 manner, prevented me from getting into my own natural 
 region. I like to be with him, but when with him I am 
 never fully myself. I do not believe that I now expressed 
 myself intelligibly to him. He listened calmly and said 
 nothing decidedly against it, nor yet seemed inclined to 
 give his views as definite. He seemed to me principally 
 to be opposed to blind or hypocritical faith. 
 
 " I do not wish," said he, " that people should pretend 
 to know or to believe more than they really do know 
 and believe. The resurrection, the continuance of our 
 being is granted," said he also; "we carry the pledge 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 229 
 
 of this in our own breast; I maintain merely that we 
 cannot say in what form or in what manner our 
 existence will be continued." 
 
 If my conversation with Emerson did not lead to any 
 thing very satisfactory, it led nevertheless to my still 
 more firm conviction of his nobility and love of truth. 
 He is faithful to the law in his own breast, and speaks 
 out the truth which he inwardly recognises. He does 
 right. By this means he will prepare the way for a 
 more true comprehension of religion and of life. For 
 when once this keen glance, seeing into the innermost 
 of everything once becomes aware of the concealed 
 human form in the tree of life like Napoleon s in the 
 tree at St. Helena then will he teach others to see it 
 too, will point it out by such strong new and glorious 
 words, that a fresh light will spring up before many, 
 and people will believe because they see. 
 
 At the conclusion of our conversation I had the 
 pleasure of giving Emerson " Geijer s History of Sweden," 
 translated into English, which he accepted in the most 
 graceful manner. I have never seen a more beautiful 
 smile than Emerson s ; the eyes cast a light upon it. 
 Mr. Downing s is the only smile which resembles it; 
 it is less brilliant, but has a more romantic grace about it. 
 
 Later in the evening I heard Emerson deliver a public 
 lecture on " The Spirit of the Times." He praised the 
 ideas of the Liberals as beautiful, but castigated with great 
 severity the popular leaders and their want of nobility of 
 character. The perversity and want of uprightness in 
 party spirit prevented the upright from uniting with any 
 party. Emerson advised them to wait for and look for 
 the time when a man might work for the public without 
 having to forego his faith and his character. 
 
 Emerson is much celebrated both here and in England 
 as a lecturer. I do not, for my part, think him more 
 remarkable as such than during a private conversation on 
 
230 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 some subject of deep interest. There is the same deep, 
 strong, and at the same time melodious, as it were 
 metallic tones ; the same plastic turns of expression, the 
 same happy phraseology, naturally brilliant ; the same 
 calm and reposing strength. But his glance is beautiful 
 as he casts it over his audience, and his voice seems more 
 powerful as he sways them. The weather however was 
 this evening horrible ; the wind was very high, and the 
 rain fell in torrents, (for it never rains here softly or in 
 moderation) and very few people were present at the 
 lecture. Emerson took it all very coolly, and merely said 
 to some one, " one cannot fire off one s great guns for so 
 few people." 
 
 I have visited to-day the Navy Yard of Boston and 
 Massachusetts, and have shaken hands with the officers of 
 the fleet and their ladies at a collation given at the house 
 of the Commodore, during the whole of which we were 
 regaled with fine instrumental music. It is a magnificent 
 Navy Yard, and the whole thing was beautiful and kind, 
 and afforded me pleasure. 
 
 I have this week also visited, in company with the 
 distinguished school-teacher, Gr. B. Emerson (the uncle 
 of "Waldo), some of the common schools, and could not but 
 be pleased with the excellent manner in which the 
 children read, the girls in particular, that is to say, with 
 so much life and expression, that one saw they fully 
 understood both the words and the meaning ; they also 
 answered questions in natural history extremely well. 
 Mr. E. has himself a large private school which is much 
 celebrated. 
 
 In the evening I am going to Fanny Kemble s reading 
 of Shakspeare s " Midsummer Night s Dream," and after 
 that with Emerson to a musical soiree at the house of a 
 wealthy merchant, his friend Mr. A., whom he greatly 
 esteems for his practical abilities as well as for his honest 
 decided character. 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 231 
 
 And now, my little Agatha, I am preparing to set off to 
 the South, first to New York, then to Philadelphia, then 
 to Washington, then to Charleston in South Carolina ; 
 from which place I shall farther decide on my course. 
 Thank God, I now feel strong and capable of the journey. 
 I have invitations and offers of homes from all quarters, 
 nearly from every one of the States. From Philadelphia 
 alone I have above half a dozen. Some of them I cannot 
 accept ; others I can accept with pleasure, but in any case 
 it is good to experience so much warm and ready hospi 
 tality. 
 
 My good physician continues daily to visit and watch 
 over me, I might almost say with fatherly tenderness. 
 He brought with him to-day an allopathic physician, 
 Dr. W., whom he wished to introduce to me, because, 
 said he, " I have a high esteem for him." Dr. W. has for 
 several weeks together, with two other allopathic physi 
 cians, attended a gentleman who has been ill of typhus 
 fever, and who lives not far from Mr. B., one of the 
 brothers C., and one of the most celebrated preachers 
 of Boston. The crisis of the fever had happily passed ; 
 the patient lived, but continued to be ill with a great 
 number of important symptoms, which defied, week after 
 week, all the skill and experience of the physicians. One 
 of them, Dr. W., said, " We have done all that is in our 
 power as allopathists. We will call in a homoeopathist 
 and let him try his skill." My doctor was called in. He 
 immediately began by applying specifics against the 
 symptoms which caused the chaotic state of the disease, 
 and got rid of them within six and thirty hours or less. 
 The patient was brought into a calm state, when after an 
 examination of homoeopathic accuracy it was discovered 
 that a tumour had begun to form in his left side, 
 which had naturally kept up his feverish state. This 
 was operated upon, and the sick man is now in a 
 perfectly convalescent state, to the great joy of his 
 
232 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 family and Ms many friends. See now what homoeopathy 
 can do ! 
 
 I lately heard a little hoy spoken of, who in consequence 
 of having taken cold had an attack of acute rheumatism, 
 and lay in a state of such horrible suffering that he could 
 not hear any one to come near him, and he hecame 
 almost free from pain through homoeopathic treatment 
 within twelve hours. My good doctor was an allopathist 
 in his younger days, and from over-exertion in his pro 
 fession, suffered to that degree from neuralgia that the 
 physicians gave him up, and as a last resource sent him 
 over to Europe. There he met with Hannemann, who did 
 not convince him hy his teaching, hut induced him to 
 make trial of his means of cure. These immediately 
 produced the most favourable results in his condition, 
 and in so doing changed his medical theory. When he 
 returned to America he was quite well, and a homce- 
 opathist. And I too praise homoeopathy. But I believe 
 at the same time that allopathy has its own sphere, 
 and that it ought to go hand in hand with homoeopathy, 
 even as the excellent Dr. "VV. and Dr. 0. came to 
 visit me. 
 
 My good doctor has one trouble with me. The little 
 globules which Mr. Downing gave me, and which caused 
 me to sleep so well, have maintained their magic power 
 over me, and cause me to sleep even when O. s me 
 dicine will not do it. Downing will not tell me the 
 name of this remedy, but carries on a merry little joke 
 about it, saying that it is not the medicine, but the 
 conjuration which he says over it, which makes it so 
 efficacious, and when I ask for the name, he merely sends 
 me some more globules. My good doctor smiles, and says, 
 " I don t like this Downing medicine which excels mine. 
 I do not like it because it is not I who give it you." But 
 I laugh (and he smiles too) and I always have my 
 Downing medicine standing every night on a table by my 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 233 
 
 bed. "With it I lay myself down in confidence. There is 
 a good spirit in the little vial. 
 
 February 25th. Where did I leave you last, my child ? 
 Yes, I know ! I was going to hear Fanny Kemble. She 
 read the " Midsummer Night s Dream." But this dream 
 I have never quite understood, nor thought much of, nor 
 do I yet, spite of Fanny Kemble s masterly reading. 
 The evening at the A. s was pleasant to me. Miss A. 
 is a good and charming young girl, with sense and sterling 
 character, and really a musical talent for the piano. 
 Besides this, Emerson was kind and conversable. He is 
 much struck with Fanny Kemble s appearance and talent. 
 He now had seen her for the first time, and said, in 
 speaking of her, " What an abundance there is in her ! 
 She is Miranda, Queen Catherine, and many more at the 
 same time ! " 
 
 He likes strongly-expressed individuality. And so do 
 I. But Emerson sees human beings too much merely as 
 individuals. He says of one person, " that is an actress !" 
 of another, " that is a saint ! " of a third, " that is a man 
 of business ! " and so on, and sets them away each one in 
 his corner, after he has clapped his ticket upon them. 
 And so indeed has every planet its own axis on which it 
 turns ; but its greatest importance seems to me to consist 
 in its relationship to the sun, that centre around which 
 it revolves, and which determines its life and its course. 
 
 I shall not now write any more to you from Boston, 
 because I must get ready for my journey, and I have 
 much to do in the way of visits and letter-writing before I 
 can creditably leave the city and neighbourhood. But 
 ah ! that will hardly be possible. I cannot bear much ; 
 the least exertion brings on fever. The air is again cold 
 and keen, and I am again not well I know not whether 
 from the air or the food, or whether from people and all 
 one s social duties. But this I know, that I shall soon 
 again be well. The climate, and I myself, here in this 
 
234 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 country, are alike variable ; and when people ask me one 
 of the standing questions here, " What similarity is there 
 between the climate of your country and that of ours ? " 
 my answer is equally a standing one, " That between a 
 staid married man and a changeable lover." 
 
 Last evening I spent very agreeably with Miss Sedge- 
 wick and her adopted daughter, a pleasing young wife, 
 Mrs. M. Fanny Kemble was there, and her cheerful 
 strongly-marked character is always refreshing ; as is also 
 Miss Sedgewick s kindness and fine understanding. 
 
 Fanny Kemble asked me across the room a question 
 about Lindblad. 
 
 " What do you know about our Lindblad ? " replied I. 
 
 " Do I not know Lindblad ? " replied she, with the air 
 and pride of a queen. " Do I not know this beautiful 
 singer ? " And she mentioned several of Lindblad s ballads 
 which she said she sang. 
 
 It delighted me to hear that Lindblad s songs are known 
 and beloved in England and America. 
 
 I shall write no more this time. I shall now make my 
 curtsey to Boston and Bunker s-hill, the monument on 
 which it is said was completed by the work of women (that 
 is to say its top), that of the men not being sufficient. 
 
 And now to the South ! to the South ! 
 
 LETTEE XI. 
 
 NEW YORK, March 2nd, 1850. 
 
 WHAT a shabby trick, or rather how negligent of fate, 
 my sweet Agatha, to let a little creature fall who has no 
 superabundance of strength, and yet so much patience ! 
 It grieves me to the heart ! That treacherous ice which 
 let you slip so sadly when you were on so good an errand ! 
 And what were the good angels about to permit it ? I 
 can hardly forgive them ! 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 235 
 
 Thank God, however, that you are now getting better, 
 and that spring is approaching, and the time for the 
 Marstand baths, and that you can have the benefit of 
 them. And our poor Marie stands in need of them also. 
 I do not thank Charlotte and all our friends for being so 
 attentive to you, because that is quite natural, but I like 
 them all the more for it, and think better of them than of 
 the negligent good angels. And, my little Agatha, if the 
 heart and the will could have wings, then I should be now 
 in your chamber, and by your bed ; or if, as I hope, you 
 have said good bye to bed, by your side, as your stick or 
 crutch, or your waiting-maid : and that you know. 
 
 Thanks be to homoeopathy and my good watchful doctor, 
 I am now again in better health, though not yet quite 
 recovered, and have now and then relapses ; but they are 
 of short continuance, and as I now understand my com 
 plaint better, and how it ought to be treated, I hope to be 
 myself again shortly. I have not been so during these 
 winter months. My sun has been darkened, and at times 
 so totally that I have feared being obliged to return to 
 Europe with my errand in America uncompleted ; I feared 
 that it was not possible for me to stand the climate. And 
 that has not a little astonished me, as I considered myself 
 so strong, or so elastic, that I could bear and get through 
 as much as any Yankee. But the malady which I have 
 endured, and still endure, is like the old witch who could 
 trip up even Thor. 
 
 It is a disagreeable, poisonous, insidiously serpent-like 
 disease a vampire which approaches man in the dark, 
 and sucks away the pith and marrow of body, nerves, and 
 even of soul. Half or two-thirds of the people in this 
 country suffer, or have suffered, in some way from this 
 malady ; and I with them. The fault lies in the articles 
 of food, in their mode of life, in the manner of warming 
 their rooms, all of which would be injurious in any 
 climate, but which in one so hot and exciting as this is 
 
236 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 downright murder. The great quantity of flesh meat and 
 fat, the hot bread, the highly-spiced dishes, preserves in 
 an evening, oysters, made dishes we could not bear 
 these in Sweden (we indeed will never roast our meat with 
 anything but good butter ! ) and here they ought to be 
 put in the Litany that they ought ! and so ought also 
 the " furnaces," as they are called, that is, a sort of pipe 
 which conveys hot air into a room through an opening in 
 the floor or the wall, and by which means the room 
 becomes warm, or as it were boiling, in five or ten minutes, 
 but with a dry, close, unwholesome heat, which always 
 gives me a sensation of pain as well as drowsiness in 
 the head. The small iron stoves which are in use here 
 are not good either : they are too heating and too extreme 
 in their heat ; but yet they are infinitely better than these 
 furnaces, which I am sure have some secret relationship 
 with the fiery furnace of hell. They seem to me made 
 on purpose to destroy the human nerves and lungs. 
 Besides these, they have in their drawing-rooms the 
 heat of the gas-lights ; and when we add to this the 
 keenness and the changeableness of the atmosphere out 
 of doors, it is easy to explain why the women, who in 
 particular are, in this country, so thoughtless in their 
 clothing, should be delicate and out of health, and why 
 consumption should be greatly on the increase in these 
 north-eastern states. Besides this, many often suffer 
 from dyspepsia as a consequence. I am in the meantime 
 indescribably thankful to have been rescued from the 
 cl^ws of the monster ; for I consider myself to have been 
 so, as I understand how to defend myself with regard to 
 food, and I take with me my physician s globules and 
 prescriptions. And my good old physician, with his 
 somewhat rugged exterior and his heart warm with 
 human love, I am really so much attached to him ! For 
 seven weeks has he now attended me with the greatest 
 care, coming every day, sometimes two or three times in 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 237 
 
 the day, when he thought I was in a more suffering state, 
 giving me the most fatherly advice, and finally furnishing 
 me with medicines and rules and regulations, as regards 
 diet, for the whole of my journey; and when I offered to 
 pay him for the trouhle he had taken, he would not hear 
 of such a thing, shaking his head, and saying, in his deep 
 serious voice, that it was one of the happiest circumstances 
 of his life, that he could in any measure contribute to the 
 re-establishment of my health. " One thing, however, I 
 beg of you," wrote he, in his fatherly farewell letter, " and 
 that is that you will sometimes write to me, and tell me 
 about your health, and what you are doing and enjoying ; 
 because I hear a great deal about human suffering and 
 sorrow, but very seldom about human happiness." 
 
 Yes, my sweet Agatha, I cannot tell whether I rightly 
 know the American character, but of this I am certain, 
 that what I do know of it is more beautiful and more 
 worthy to be loved than any other that I am acquainted 
 with in the world. Their hospitality and warm-hearted 
 ness, w r hen their hearts are once warmed, are really over 
 flowing, and know no bounds. And as some travellers 
 see and make a noise about their failings, it is very well 
 that there should be somebody who, before anything else, 
 becomes acquainted with their virtues. And these failings 
 of theirs, as far as I can yet see their national failings, 
 may all be attributed principally to the youthful life of 
 the people. In many cases I recognise precisely the 
 faults of my own youth, the asking questions, want 
 of reflection, want of observation of themselves and 
 others, a boastful spirit, and so on. And how free from 
 these failings, and how critically alive to them are the 
 best people in this country ! America s best judges and 
 censors of manners are Americans themselves. 
 
 March 5th. You thank me for my letters, my sweet 
 Agatha ; but to me they seem so wretched and so 
 few. I meant to have written you better letters; but 
 
238 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 partly I have been so indisposed, and so depressed in 
 mind, that I have not been able to write ; and in part the 
 daily desire to see people and things, the receiving of 
 visits and letters, and such like, have so wholly occupied 
 me that my letters home have suffered in consequence. 
 This also can be merely the slightest summa summarum 
 of the last fortnight s occurrences, for they have come 
 on like a torrent, and I can scarcely remember their 
 detail. 
 
 I was present at two other Conversations of Alcott s 
 before I left Boston. They attracted me by Emerson s 
 presence, and the part he took in them. Many interesting 
 persons and persons of talent were present, and the 
 benches were crowded. The conversation was to bear 
 upon the principal tendencies of the age. 
 
 First one, then another clever speaker rose, but it 
 was most difficult to centralise. The subjects had a 
 strong inclination to go about through space like wan 
 dering stars, without sun or gravitation. But the presence 
 of Emerson never fails to produce a more profound 
 and more earnest state of feeling, and by degrees the 
 conversation arranged itself into something like obser 
 vation and reply ; in particular, through Emerson s good 
 sense in calling upon certain persons to express their 
 sentiments on certain questions. A somewhat unpolished 
 person in the crowd suddenly called upon Emerson, with 
 a rude voice, to stand forth and give a reason for what he 
 meant by " the moral right of victory on earth, and justice 
 of Providence, and many more absurd phrases which he 
 makes use of in his writings, and which were totally 
 opposed to the doctrines of Christianity, the testimony of 
 the martyrs, and which would make all martyrs to be fools 
 or cheats ? " The tone in which this inquiry was made 
 was harsh, and in the spirit of an accusation. The whole 
 assembly directed their eyes to Emerson. I could per 
 ceive that he breathed somewhat quicker, but when, after 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 239 
 
 a few moments reflection, lie replied, his manner was as 
 calm, and his voice, if possible, more gentle and melodious 
 than common, forming a strong contrast to that of the 
 questioner. " Assuredly," replied he, " I consider that 
 every one who combats and suffers for any truth and 
 right, will in the end obtain the victory; if not in his 
 first appearance, then certainly in his second." 
 
 The inquirer was silenced by this reply, but looked 
 angry and irresolute. 
 
 By degrees, however, the conversation, through the 
 influence of Emerson, divided itself, as it were, into two 
 streams, and which in fact might be called the two 
 principal tendencies of the age ; the one was Socialism, 
 which seeks to perfect man and human nature by means 
 of social institutions, and which seemed to have many 
 adherents in the assembly : the second, under the guidance 
 of Emerson, who would perfect society by means of 
 each separate human being perfecting himself. The 
 former begin with societ} r , the latter with the indi 
 vidual. One of the company, who was called upon by 
 Emerson to express his opinion, said "that he held 
 the same views as Emerson, inasmuch as man must 
 first begin the work of perfection in himself. He must 
 adorn himself as a bride to make himself fit for a union 
 with the divine spirit. It was by means of this union 
 that the most perfected humanity would be attained to ! " 
 To these remarks Emerson replied by a beautiful, grateful 
 smile. " You see that I," continued the speaker, " like 
 my great countrymen, Swedenborg and Linnaeus, lay 
 great stress upon marriage" (you may guess certainly 
 who the speaker is now). 
 
 " You then regard marriage as of the highest importance 
 in life ? " said Alcott, very much pleased. 
 
 "Yes, the spiritual marriage ; it is the only one which 
 is necessary." 
 
 With this reply Alcott seemed less pleased. For the 
 
240 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 rest Alcott would do without us, and without children 
 altogether, except a few select ones, an elite corps, of which 
 he would himself he the teacher, and who would he the 
 new-horn generation. 
 
 When the conversation had pretty fully developed the 
 wisdom and the folly of the assembly, Theodore Parker 
 took up the word, and gave an excellent, hut covertly 
 sarcastic statement of that which had been said during the 
 evening, in particular of Alcott s philanthropic views with 
 regard to the present human generation. When he had 
 ended, an involuntary smile played upon all countenances, 
 upon Emerson s as well as the rest ; but however, turning 
 his eagle -like head eagle -like in expression if not in 
 features towards the speaker, he said, " that is quite right, 
 and would be still more so if we came here to examine 
 a speech from the chair, and not a free, unreserved con 
 versation. But here might avail a maxim which I saw 
 applied by one of my friends in England, who used to 
 assemble his friends for the discussion of interesting topics. 
 He had inscribed above the door of the room used for 
 their discussions some words which I am sorry I do 
 not accurately remember but the substance of which was, 
 that every body was welcome to say what he thought right, 
 but that it was forbidden to any one to make remarks on 
 that which was said. 
 
 On this, a new smile was on every face, and evidently 
 at Parker s expense. Parker seemed a little hurt, red 
 dened, but said after a moment s pause "that he 
 thought it was better to make some remarks on that which 
 had been said, than to come together and talk, without 
 knowing distinctly what they were talking about." 
 
 And now again all laughed, and Emerson also with 
 Parker, and the assembly broke up cheerfully ; and I drove 
 home more amused and edified than I expected ever to 
 have been at one of Alcott s " Conversations." 
 
 I was present again at two more of Fanny Kemble s 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 241 
 
 Readings, and was greatly delighted. My acquaintance 
 with her has also afforded me great pleasure and interest. 
 She is full of genius, and is, in every respect, a richly- 
 gifted woman, with a warm heart and noble mind, and 
 with life and with " spirit " enough to ride a horse to death 
 every day, and to master every man or woman who might 
 attempt to master her. Proud one moment, as the 
 proudest queen, she can yet, towards an unpretending 
 being, be the next as humble and as amiable as an amiable 
 young girl. Loving splendour, and expensive in her way 
 of life and her habits, she can yet be simple as a simple 
 countryman or a peasant-maiden ; thus, she often, in the 
 country, dressed in man s attire, goes ranging about 
 through wood and field, and on one occasion she herself 
 drove a cow home to Miss Sedgewick, who had lost hers, 
 and who now received this as a present from her " sublime " 
 Fanny. (N.B. She lives in Miss Sedgewick s neighbour 
 hood and the two are very fond of each other.) She utters 
 the noblest thoughts, yet she is deficient in the more refined 
 womanliness, and seems to me not to understand the true 
 dignity of her own sex. But she understands Shakspeare, 
 and reads incomparably. Her Henry V., Brutus, Cleopatra 
 (in the death scene), I shall never forget. 
 
 Maria Lowell accompanied me to the forenoon readings 
 last Saturday. She read Shakspeare s enchanting " As 
 you like it," and she read it enchantingly well. After 
 the reading I invited her to take luncheon with me, 
 together with the young Lowells. 
 
 She came brimful of life, warm from the reading, and 
 warm from the increased warmth of her hearers ; her eye 
 seemed to comprehend the whole world, and the dilated 
 nostrils seemed to inhale all the affluent life of the world. 
 By chance, it so happened, that Laura Bridgeman with 
 her attendant, had come to call on me at the same time, 
 and was seated in my room as Fanny Kemble entered. 
 Fanny Kemble had never before sejen the blind, deaf and 
 
 VOL. I. R 
 
242 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 dumb Laura, and she was so struck by the sight of this 
 poor, imprisoned being, that she sate certainty above a 
 quarter of an hour lost in the contemplation of her, whilst 
 large tears streamed unceasingly down her cheeks. Laura 
 was not quite well, and she was therefore more than 
 usually pale and quiet. One can hardly imagine a 
 greater contrast than these two beings, these two lives. 
 Fanny Kemble with all her senses awake to life, powerful 
 enough to take possession of life in all its manifold phases 
 and its fulness ; Laura Bridgeman shut out from life, her 
 noblest senses closed, dead, without light, without hearing, 
 
 without the power of speech ! ! and yet, perhaps, Laura 
 
 was now the happier of the two, at least in her own sense 
 of existence. She even made intelligible her lively sense 
 of happiness, in reply to the question which was put to her. 
 Fanny Kemble wept, wept bitterly. Was it for Laura, 
 for herself, or merely from the contrast between them ? 
 
 I went up to her several times to offer her some 
 refreshment, but she merely answered " By and by," and 
 continued to gaze at Laura, and tears continued to fall. 
 
 In awhile she became composed, and we had an hour s 
 cheerful and amusing conversation with the Lowells. 
 After which I took a little sketch of Laura. 
 
 Fanny Kemble, as you know, has been married to a 
 wealthy American and slave-holder, Mr. Butler, and is 
 now separated from him. This marriage and its conse 
 quences seem to have embittered her life, especially the 
 separation of herself and her two children. I have heard 
 her lament over this in the most heart-rending manner, 
 and I cannot conceive how the social spirit of America, 
 in general so favourable to woman and to mothers, can 
 permit so great an injustice when the fault which occa 
 sions the marriage separation is on the man s side. To 
 separate a mother from her children ! That ought never 
 to take place if she does not openly forfeit her right to 
 them ! In this tragedy of marriage the two principal 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 243 
 
 persons have each their friends and adherents, but the 
 general voice seems to be in her favour. I can very well 
 believe that Fanny Kemble would not be the most excel 
 lent nor the most tractable of wives. But why then did 
 he so resolutely endeavour to win her ? He knew before 
 hand her temper and her anti- slavery sympathies, for she 
 is too truthful to have concealed anything. Extraordinary 
 in the meantime is that sort of magnetic power which 
 this woman, so unfeminine in many respects, exercises 
 upon a great number of men. For my part to use the 
 words of one of her friends I am glad that there is one 
 Fanny Kemble in the world, but I do not wish that 
 there should be two. 
 
 The last evening party at which I was present at Boston 
 was at the Mayor s, Mr. Q., who belongs to one of the 
 oldest families in Massachusetts. The last few days 
 before my departure were full of occupation, and the 
 last of all, on which I had to pack, to write many letters, 
 to make calls and to receive visits at the latest moment, 
 threw me again into my wretched and feverish state. But 
 when it was over, that last day of my stay in Boston, 
 with its various scenes, its fatigues, and its queerness, and 
 with it a section and one heavy enough of my life in 
 the New World, and when late in the evening young V. 
 read to me some chapters in the Gospel of St. John, then 
 was it good, then was it beautiful and pleasant. And if 
 even at that time the fountain of tears was unsealed, it 
 was from a deep sense of gratitude. For was not that 
 season of sickness and depression over ; and had I not 
 through it learned to know and to love one of the best 
 and the noblest of men, my good physician and friend, 
 Dr. O. ; and had become acquainted with a glorious 
 remedy both for you and for myself? And I now also 
 understood the sufferings of nervous patients. I had never 
 had experience of such myself, and had been inclined to 
 be impatient towards them. I shall now do better. 
 
 B2 
 
244 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 Young V. is a complete Englishman in appearance, 
 character, and prejudices, and in a certain solidity of man 
 ner and demeanour, which is not American. But with all 
 this he is very agreeable and polite, and I have to thank 
 him for many friendly attentions, most of all for his 
 evening readings. These were the delicious outpouring 
 of the Spirit of Peace after the restless hours and the 
 fatigues of the day. 
 
 I left Boston on the last of February at eight in the 
 morning. I was accompanied to the railway station by 
 Mr. K. and young V., and at the station, who should I 
 see but my good doctor, who had come thither to bid me 
 farewell, and the amiable Professor H. who presented me 
 with a large and beautiful bouquet. With this in my 
 hand away I sped in the comfortable railway carriage, on 
 the wings of steam, in splendid sunshine on that bright 
 cold morning, cheerful both in soul and body, and with a 
 certain peace of conscience at having so far fulfilled my 
 social duties in Boston. I, however, it is true, glanced 
 with envy at a hen which, at one of the cottages which w r e 
 passed, lay in the dust, basking in the sunshine, and I 
 thought it was much better to be a hen than a Hon. 
 
 I was invited at Springfield to dine at the Union Hotel, 
 and there to receive visits from various ladies and 
 gentlemen, as well as to write autographs. And then 
 forward on my frying career. The sky had in the mean 
 time become cloudy ; it grew darker and darker, and I 
 arrived at New York in a regular tempest of wind and 
 snow. At the station however I was met by a servant 
 and carriage sent for me by Marcus S. And half 
 an hour afterwards I was at Rose Cottage, Brooklyn, 
 drinking tea with my excellent friends, who received me 
 in the kindest manner, and with whom I sate up talking 
 till late. 
 
 And I am now with them, and able to hide myself from 
 the world for a few days. This is enchanting ; I hope 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 245 
 
 here perfectly to regain my strength before I betake 
 myself to the South. Here I have the peace of freedom 
 which I desire, and my friends mode of living is alto 
 gether simple and healthful ; and they themselves, and the 
 children, and Bose Cottage, with its peaceful spirit 
 yes, with many such homes, the New "World would be 
 also the Better World ! 
 
 It is, however, very cold still, and I long for the South, 
 and for a milder air. I am not very fond of the climate 
 of Massachusetts. Yet I have to thank Massachusetts 
 for some glorious spring- days during the winter, for its 
 beautiful, deep blue, beaming sky, for its magnificent 
 elms, in the long sweeping branches of which the oriole 
 builds in full security its little nest which sways in the 
 wind ; I thank it for its rural homes, where the fear of 
 God, and industry, family affections, and purity of life, 
 have their home. Its educational system has my esteem, 
 and many excellent people have my love. To the good 
 city of Boston I give my blessing, and am glad to be 
 leaving it for the present, but hope to return, because I 
 must again see my friends there, when the elm-trees are 
 in leaf; above all my good doctor and the young Lowells. 
 And we have agreed to meet next summer. We shall 
 together visit Niagara, which Maria Lowell as yet has 
 never seen. When she was last with me in Boston I saw 
 upon the floor of my bed-room a flower which had fallen 
 from her bonnet, a white rose with two little pale pink 
 buds, and which had touched her light curls, they lay 
 upon the carpet like a remembrance of her, and I picked 
 them up, and shall keep them always as a remembrance 
 of that lovely young woman. I thank the land of the 
 Pilgrims above all for its ideal, for its conception of a 
 higher law in society, a law of God, which ought to be 
 obeyed rather than human law ; for its conception of a 
 standard of morality higher than that which is current in 
 the world, and which demands the highest purity of life 
 
246 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 in man as in woman, and which admits of no lax con 
 cession; for its noble feeling as regards the rights of 
 woman and her development as fellow citizen ; for its 
 sense of the honour of labour, and its demanding for 
 every good labourer honourable wages as such. I thank 
 it for its magnanimous wish and endeavour to give every 
 thing to all; for those little settlements in which the 
 children of the New World endeavour to bring into 
 operation the divine teaching. People say that such 
 ideas are impractical. It is by such impractical ideas that 
 society approaches nearer to heaven, nearer to the 
 kingdom of God, and the very things which are insecure 
 root themselves firmly in those which are secure. 
 
 Sunday. I am just returned from a Presbyterian 
 church, where I have heard a young preacher from the 
 West preach " on the positive in Christianity," one of the 
 best extempore Christian discourses which I ever heard 
 in any country. The preacher, Henry Beecher, is full 
 of life and energy, and preaches from that experience 
 of Christian life which gives a riveting effect to his 
 words ; besides which he appears to me to be singularly 
 free from sectarian spirit, and attaches himself with 
 decision and clearness to the common light and life of 
 every Christian church. He has also considerable wit, 
 and does not object to enliven his discourse with 
 humourous sallies, so that more than once the whole 
 audience of the crowded church burst into a general 
 laugh, which however did not prevent them from soon 
 shedding joyful tears of devotion. That was the case at 
 the prayer of the young preacher over the bread and wine 
 at the administration of the sacrament, and tears also 
 streamed down his own cheeks as he bowed in silent, rapt 
 contemplation of the splendid mystery of the sacrament, 
 of that humanity which through the life of Christ is now 
 born and transfigured. When we stand at the communion 
 table with our nearest kindred or our family, we ought to 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 247 
 
 have this thought livingly present to our minds, that we 
 should behold them as transformed by the spirit of Christ ; 
 we should think, how beautiful will my husband, my 
 friend, my brother, become, when this his failing, or that 
 his short-coming is done away with, when he stands forth 
 transfigured through the divine life ! Oh how patient, 
 how gentle, how affectionate, how hopeful, are we not 
 capable of becoming ! Such was the substance of the 
 young minister s discourse, but how earnestly and con 
 vincingly he spoke is not for me to describe. I also partook 
 of the sacrament, to which he invited all Christians 
 present, of whatever name or sect they might be, as well 
 as strangers from other lands. The bread (small square 
 pieces of bread upon a plate) and the wine, were carried 
 to the benches and passed on from hand to hand, which 
 took considerably from the solemnity of the ceremony. 
 How beautiful is our procession to the altar, and after 
 that the hallelujah song of the assembly ! 
 
 The ritual of our Swedish church, as expressive of the 
 religious feeling of the assembly, seems to me also to be 
 better and more perfect than that of any other church 
 with which I am acquainted, yet nevertheless even that 
 might be better still. But the sermons and the hymns 
 are better in this country ; the former have considerably 
 more reality, and are more applicable to actual life ; and 
 the latter have more life and beauty also, and would have 
 still more if they were really sung by the congregation. 
 This however I have to object against the hymns of the 
 United States, that they are sung by a trained choir in 
 the gallery, and all the rest of the congregation sit silently 
 and listen just as they would sit in a concert-room. Some 
 accompany them, reading from their hymn-books, but 
 others never open theirs. When I have occasionally 
 lifted up my voice with the singers I have seen my 
 neighbours look at me with some surprise. And then 
 the hymns and psalms here are so full of rhythm, have 
 
248 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 such vitalising tunes, and such vitalising, beautiful words, 
 that I feel as if people ought to sing them with heart and 
 soul. Our long, heavy Swedish psalms, full of self- 
 observation and repetition,* are not met with here ; neither 
 have I here met with those monotonous feeble, poor tunes, 
 which destroy all life in the soul, and which made me 
 every time a hymn was begun, glance with a certain fear at 
 its length ; for if it were very long, I never reached the 
 end of it without being weary and sleepy, though I might 
 have begun with fervency of feeling. And was it different 
 with others ? I have often looked around me during the 
 singing in Swedish churches, and have seen many a dull, 
 sleepy eye ; many a half-opened mouth which did not utter 
 a word, and had forgotten to close itself, in short, a sort of 
 idiotic expression which told me that the soul was away, 
 and whilst I thus looked at others, I found it was the 
 same with myself. The prayers it seems to me are better 
 with us than with the congregations here ; but still they 
 might be improved even with us. In the episcopal 
 churches of this country the prayers are according to 
 the printed form in the book, and it frequently happens 
 that the soul has no part in these. It is a mere prating 
 with the lips. In the Unitarian churches the preacher 
 prays for the congregation and in its name, prays an 
 infinitely long prayer, which has the inconvenience of saying 
 altogether too much, of using too many words, and yet of 
 not saying that which any single individual ought to say. 
 How often have I thought during these long prayers, how 
 much more perfect it would be if the minister merely 
 said, " Lord help us ! " or " Lord let thy countenance 
 shine upon us ! " Better than all would it be as Jean 
 Paul proposed, that the minister should merely say, " Let 
 us pray ! " And then that some beautiful soul-touching 
 
 * I am not speaking here of those glorious Swedish psalms, which are 
 capable of a comparison with the most beautiful hymns of any Christian 
 people. 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WOELD. 249 
 
 music should play, during which all should pray in silence 
 according to the wants and the inspirations of their souls. 
 Of a truth then would prayers ascend more pure and 
 fervent than any prescribed by human tongues and forms. 
 A worship of God in spirit and in truth, a vital expression 
 of the life and truth of Christianity should we then have 
 on earth. 
 
 But 1 must yet say a few words about that young 
 disciple of Calvin, Henry Beecher, but who has left far 
 behind him whatever is hard and petrified in the 
 orthodoxy of Calvin, and breaking away from that has 
 attached himself to the true Christian doctrine of mercy 
 to all. He was with us last evening, and told us how 
 as a missionary he had preached in the West beneath the 
 open sky to the people of the wilderness, and how during 
 his solitary journeys amid those grand primeval scenes, 
 and during his daily experience of that most vitalising 
 influence of Christianity upon the fresh human soul, he 
 had by degrees introduced order into his own inward 
 world, had solved hitherto difficult religious questions, and 
 had come forth from the old dead church into one more 
 comprehensive, and more full of light. He described 
 also, in the most picturesque manner, the nocturnal camp- 
 meeting of the West ; the scenes of baptism there on the 
 banks of rivers and streams, as well in their poetical as 
 in their frequently comic aspects. There is somewhat of 
 the power of growth peculiar to the great Western wilds 
 in this young man, but somewhat of its rudeness also. 
 He is a bold, ardent young champion of that young 
 America, too richly endowed and too much acknowledged 
 as such, for them not to be quite conscious of their own 
 I. And even in his sermon this I was somewhat too 
 prominent. But only more and more do I feel how great 
 an interest I shall take in visiting that great West where 
 " growth " seems to be the only available watchword; where, 
 in the immeasurable valley of the Mississippi, between 
 
250 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 the Alleghanies and the Eocky Mountains, it is said there 
 is room for a larger population than that of the whole of 
 Europe ; and where a great and new people are developing 
 themselves, through a union of all races of people, in the 
 lap of a grand and powerful natural scenery, which like a 
 strong mother will train them up into a more vigorous 
 and higher human life. Many a thinking man here in 
 the Eastern States has said to me, " You will not see 
 what the American people are becoming, not see the 
 Young American, until you reach the West." 
 
 I had intended to set off from New York to Philadelphia 
 in company with Mrs. Kirkland, according to her proposal, 
 and thence go forward with Anne Lynch to Washington, 
 to attend some of the sittings of Congress, and to see its 
 lions ; but I am so afraid of all the fatigue and excitement 
 which mixing in society involves, and I am so anxious to 
 go to the South, because this season of the year is best for 
 that purpose, as in May the heat is already too great in 
 the Southern States, that, after consultation with my 
 friends, I have determined to go on Saturday by steamer 
 to Charleston in South Carolina. Within seventy-two 
 hours I shall be there, and probably in full summer, 
 whilst here the ground is covered with snow. 
 
 From Charleston I shall travel to the different places 
 to which I am invited, and spend in Carolina and Georgia, 
 that paradise of North America, the months of March 
 and April. In May, I shall go to Washington, and 
 after a stay of a fortnight there, return here, and so 
 go westward to Cincinnati (Ohio), on to Illinois and 
 Wisconsin, where I shall visit my countrymen, the Swedes 
 and Norwegians, and see how they are getting on. From 
 this point I shall travel by the great inland lakes to 
 Niagara, where, about the end of June, I have agreed to 
 meet the Downings and the Lowells. 
 
 Thus, my sweet Agatha, you see my tour made out ; 
 and I am certain to have the eye of a good spirit from my 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW, -WORLD. 251 
 
 Swedish home upon me during My journey. It may so 
 happen that after this I may not^ b^ ahle to write to you 
 as often as heretofore ; but once M&bnth, at least, you 
 shall have a letter, and I will trj**fl write better letters 
 than I have yet done. Ah ! if I could only continue to 
 be as well as I am now beginning to feel, then I should 
 live and think and write so much ! I sometimes also feel 
 as if a book on America would come forth from me ; but 
 then it would be very different to any other of my works. 
 
 The sun and the light now come in upon me in my 
 charming room at Kose Cottage. If they would but only 
 shine now in upon you, my sweet child, and speak of spring 
 and warm breezes, and the sea-baths and good health ! 
 
 March loth. I could not accomplish my journey as I 
 had arranged. The vessel by which I thought of sailing 
 has been sold to the Calif ornian trade, and the next 
 steamer which goes to Charleston will not leave till 
 Saturday fortnight, and I had neither time nor inclination 
 to defer my going south so long. I have therefore 
 determined to go by a sailing vessel, and Marcus S. has 
 arranged for me to go by a good and safe packet. If the 
 wind is favourable I shall be there in from four to five 
 days ; and I fancy that the voyage will be amusing. If 
 the wind is contrary and the weather stormy, it will still 
 be well. I do not object to be tossed a little by wind 
 and wave. 
 
 I have packed my things to-day and got ready for the 
 journey, and although there is a tempest of wind and 
 snow, yet I feel cheerful and impatient to be off. The 
 spirit of the Vikings is again awake within me, and 
 
 " Pleasant to me is the song of the billows 
 Which heave on the tempested sea ! " 
 
 I shall be better off amid them than in the gas-lighted 
 drawing-rooms of Boston and New York. 
 
 I have now spent a week with Mrs. Kirkland in New 
 
252 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 York. She is not the gay and vivacious being which hef 
 book, " A New Home in the West," led us to imagine. 
 Hers is a character of greater depth. That playful spirit, 
 with its feeling for the comic in life, has been depressed 
 by sorrow and misfortune, but it flashes forth sometimes 
 and then reveals the depth of the soul s earnestness. She 
 is an ardent and strong woman, and a true fellow-citizen, 
 and has sustained herself amid great trials by religion, 
 and by the necessity to work for her four children, two 
 sons and two daughters ; the youngest son, Willie, and 
 the youngest daughter, Cordelia, are especially my 
 favourites. Friendship with the noble and distinguished 
 preacher, Mr. Bellows, as well as her literary occupation, 
 make her life anything but poor. She is one of those 
 natures in which the feminine and the manly attributes 
 are harmoniously blended, and which therefore is well 
 balanced, and is capable of taking the lead of those 
 around her. 
 
 I saw at her house a Miss Haynes, who has been a 
 missionary in China, and who, still young and handsome, 
 conducts a large girls boarding-school in New York. She 
 interested me by her individuality, and by the interesting 
 stories which she related of Miss Dorothea Dix (the 
 Mrs. Fry of the New World), and her uncommon force of 
 character and activity. I hope yet to meet this angel of 
 prisons and hospitals, and to kiss her hand for that which 
 she is, and that which she does. 
 
 At Mrs. Kirkland s I also saw the young traveller, 
 Bayard Taylor, who had just returned from California, 
 and I was glad to hear his stories from the land of gold ; 
 in particular of the character of its scenery, its climate, 
 vegetable productions, and animals. Apropos of him. I 
 must beg leave to tell you a little about what I think a 
 Yankee is, or what he seems to me to be ; and by Yankee 
 is properly understood, one of the boys of New England ; 
 the type of the " go a-head America," of Young America. 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 253 
 
 He is a young man it is all the same if lie is old who 
 makes his own w r ay in the world in full reliance on his 
 own power, stops at nothing, turns his back on nothing, 
 finds nothing impossible, goes through everything, and 
 comes out of everything always the same. If he falls, 
 he immediately gets up again, and says " no matter ! " If 
 he is unsuccessful, he says " try again ! " " go a-head ; " 
 and he begins again, or undertakes something else, and 
 never stops till it succeeds. Nay he does not stop then. 
 His work and will is to be always working, building, 
 beginning afresh, or beginning something new; always 
 developing, extending himself or his country ; and some 
 body has said, with truth, that all the enjoyments of 
 heaven would not be able to keep an American in one 
 place, if he was sure of finding another still further west, 
 for then he must be off there to cultivate and to build. 
 It is the Viking spirit again ; not the old Pagan, however, 
 but the Christian, which does not conquer to destroy, but 
 to ennoble. And he does not do it with difficulty and 
 with sighs, but cheerfully and with good courage. He 
 can sing " Yankee Doodle " even in his mishaps ; for if a 
 thing will not go this way, then it will go that. He is at 
 home on the earth, and he can turn everything to his 
 own account. He has, before he reaches middle life, been 
 a schoolmaster, farmer, lawyer, soldier, author, states 
 man ; has tried every kind of profession, and been at 
 home in them all ; and besides all this, he has travelled 
 over half, or over the whole of the world. Wherever he 
 comes on the face of the earth, or in whatever circum 
 stances, he is sustained by a two-fold consciousness which 
 makes him strong and tranquil ; that is to say, that he is 
 a man who can rely upon himself; and that he is the 
 citizen of a great nation designed to be the greatest on 
 the face of the earth. He thus feels himself to be the 
 lord of the earth, and bows himself before none save to 
 the Lord of lords. To Him however he looks upward, 
 
254 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 with the faith and confidence of a child. A character of 
 this kind is calculated to exhibit at times its laughable 
 side, but it has undeniably a fresh, peculiar greatness 
 about it, and is capable of accomplishing great things. 
 And in the attainment of the most important object in 
 the solution of the highest problem of humanity a 
 fraternal people, I believe that the Father of all people 
 laid his hand upon the head of his youngest son, as our 
 Charles the Ninth did, saying, " He shall do it ! he shall 
 do it ! " 
 
 As an example of those amusing and characteristic 
 instances of Yankee spirit, which I have often heard related, 
 take the following. A young man, brother to Charles 
 Sumner, travelled to Petersburg to present an acorn to the 
 Emperor Nicholas, but I must tell you the story as Maria 
 Child tells it, in her entertaining letters from New York. 
 
 " One day a lad, apparently about nineteen, presented 
 himself before our ambassador at St. Petersburg. He 
 was a pure specimen of the genus Yankee ; with sleeves 
 too short for his bony arms, trowsers half way up to his 
 knees, and hands playing with coppers and tenpenny nails 
 in his pocket. He introduced himself by saying I ve 
 just come out here to trade, with a few Yankee notions, 
 and I want to get a sight of the Emperor. 
 
 " Why do you wish to see him ? 
 
 " * I ve brought him a present all the way from 
 Americky. I respect him considerable, and I want to 
 get at him, to give it to him with my own hands. 
 
 " Mr. Dallas smiled, as he answered, It is such a 
 common thing, my lad, to make crowned heads a present, 
 expecting something handsome in return, that I am afraid 
 the Emperor will consider this only a Yankee trick. 
 What have you brought ? 
 
 " An acorn ! " 
 
 " An acorn ! What under the sun induced you to 
 bring the Emperor of Kussia an acorn ? 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 255 
 
 " "Why, just before I sailed, mother and I went on to 
 Washington to see about a pension ; and when we was there, 
 we thought we d just step over to Mount Vernon. I picked 
 up this acorn there ; and I thought to myself I d bring it 
 to the Emperor. Thinks, says I, he must have heard a 
 considerable deal about our General Washington, and I 
 expect he must admire our institutions. So now you see 
 I ve brought it, and I want to get at him. 
 
 " My lad, it s not an easy matter for a stranger to 
 approach the Emperor ; and I am afraid he will take no 
 notice of your present. You had better keep it. 
 
 " * I tell you I want to have a talk with him. I expect I 
 can tell him a thing or two about Americky. I guess he d 
 like mighty well to hear about our railroads, and about 
 our free-schools, and what a big swell our steamers cut. 
 And when he hears how well our people are getting on, 
 may be it will put him up to doing something. The long 
 and the short on t is, I shan t be easy till I get a talk 
 with the Emperor ; and I should like to see his wife and 
 children. I want to see how such folks bring up a 
 family ! 
 
 " Well, sir, since you are determined upon it, I will 
 do what I can for you; but you must expect to be 
 disappointed. Though it will be rather an unusual 
 proceeding, I would advise you to call on the vice- 
 chancellor, and state your wishes. He may possibly 
 assist you ! 
 
 " * Well, that s all I want of you. I will call again, and 
 let you know how I get on. 
 
 " In two or three days he again appeared, and said, 
 Well, I ve seen the Emperor, and had a talk with him. 
 He s a real gentleman, I can tell you. When I gave him 
 the acorn, he said he should set a great store by it ; that 
 there was no character in ancient or modern history he 
 admired so much as he did our Washington. He said 
 he d plant it in his palace garden with his own hand, and 
 
256 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 lie did do it for I see him with iny own eyes. He 
 wanted to ask me so much about our schools and rail 
 roads, and one thing or another, that he invited me to 
 come again, and see his daughters ; for he said his wife 
 could speak better English than he could. So I went 
 again yesterday ; and she s a fine knowing woman, I tell 
 you ; and his daughters are nice gals/ 
 
 " What did the Empress say to you ? 
 
 " Oh, she ask me a sight o questions. Don t you 
 think, she thought we had no servants in Americky ! I 
 told her poor folks did their own work, but rich folks 
 had plenty of servants. But then you don t call em 
 servants, said she ; you call em help. I guess, ma am, 
 you ve been reading Mrs. Trollope ? says I. We had 
 that ere book a-board our ship. The Emperor clapped 
 his hands, and laughed as if he d kill himself. You re 
 right, sir, said he, you re right. We sent for an English 
 copy, and she been reading it this very morning ! Then 
 I told all I knew about our country, and he was mightily 
 pleased. He wanted to know how long I expected to stay 
 in these parts. I told him I d sold all the notions I 
 brought over, and guessed I should go back in the same 
 ship. I bid em good bye, all round, and went about my 
 business. Ain t I had a glorious time ? I expect you 
 did not calculate to see me run such a rig ? 
 
 " No, indeed I did not, my lad. You may very well 
 consider yourself lucky ; for it s a very uncommon thing 
 for crowned heads to treat a stranger with so much 
 distinction. 
 
 " A few days after he called again, and said, I guess I 
 shall stay here a spell longer, I m treated so well. 
 T other day a grand officer come to my room, and told 
 me that the Emperor had sent him to show me all the 
 curiosities ; and I dressed myself and he took me into a 
 mighty fine carriage, with four horses ; and I ve been to 
 the theatre and the museum ; and I expect I ve seen about 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 257 
 
 all there is to be seen in St. Peter sburgh. What do 
 you think of that, Mr. Dallas ? 
 
 " It seemed so incredible that a poor, ungainly Yankee 
 lad should be thus loaded with attentions, that the ambas 
 sador scarcely knew what to think or say. 
 
 " In a short time his visitor re-appeared. * Well/ said 
 he, I made up my mind to go home ; so I went to thank 
 the Emperor and bid him good-bye. I thought I could 
 not do less, he d been so civil. Says he, Is there anything 
 else you d like to see before you go back to Americky ? 
 I told him I should like to have a peep at Moscow ; for I 
 had heard considerable about their setting fire to the 
 Kremlin, and I d read a deal about General Buonaparte ; 
 but it would cost a sight o money to go there, and I 
 wanted to carry my earnings to my mother. So I bid 
 him good-bye, and come off. Now what do you guess he 
 did next morning ? I vow he sent the same man in 
 regimentals, to carry me to Moscow in one of his own 
 carriages, and bring me back again, when I ve seen all I 
 want to see ! And we re going to-morrow morning, 
 Mr. Dallas. What do you think now ? 
 
 " And sure enough the next morning the Yankee boy 
 passed the ambassador s house in a splendid coach and 
 four, waving his pocket-handkerchief, and shouting Good 
 bye ! Good-bye ! 
 
 "Mr. Dallas afterwards learned from the Emperor that 
 all the particulars related by this adventurous youth were 
 strictly true. He again heard from him at Moscow, 
 waited upon by the public officers, and treated with 
 as much attention as is usually bestowed on ambassadors. 
 
 " The last tidings of him reported that he was travelling 
 in Circassia, and writing a journal, which he intended to 
 publish. 
 
 " Now who but a Yankee could have done all that ? " 
 adds Mrs. Child. 
 
 Between this young Yankee and the American states- 
 
 VOL. I. 6 
 
258 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 man and gentleman Henry Clay, there is a great distance, 
 and I do not know why he just now presented himself to 
 my memory out of the great number of persons that 
 I saw in New York this week. I saw him at the house of 
 Anne Lynch, who is one of his especial lady friends, and 
 sometimes acts as his secretary. He is a very tall and 
 thin old gentleman, with an unusually lofty, bald brow, an 
 ugly but expressive countenance, an awkward figure, but 
 with real grace of manner and a pleasing, sonorous voice. 
 He has when he likes, and he always likes to have it 
 with ladies, a remarkably obliging, I might say heart-felt, 
 expression and manner. He is likewise surrounded by 
 female worshippers, and he himself seems to be a great 
 worshipper of woman. He has been some few days in 
 New York, and overwhelmed by friends and invitations. 
 He seemed, however, to me to bask himself in the 
 sunshine of his popularity more than I should have 
 thought an old man would have done. I should not 
 have thought that he could have endured that horrible 
 
 fine life of day labour ! The Americans have more 
 
 enthusiasm for their great statesmen than the Europeans 
 for their kings. Clay, though from one of their slave- 
 states (Kentucky), is, I believe, a liberal-minded man, 
 who understands and who desires the true greatness of 
 his country. Although not properly of the Yankee race 
 for the Southern states were peopled by that political 
 party, known in England under the name of Cavaliers, 
 and opposed to the Puritans in manners, life, and temper 
 he has, nevertheless, some of that viking-spirit which 
 distinguishes the sons of the New World. He is what 
 is here designated " a self-made man ; " his father was 
 a poor farmer, and his life has been a restless combat on 
 the stormy sea of politics ; he has fought several duels, 
 and as a senator, has combated by word, and by 
 influence in the Congress of the United States, for the 
 well-being of the Union at home and for its power 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 259 
 
 abroad, during a long course of years, both bravely and 
 honourably. 
 
 Yet another figure glances distinctly forth from these 
 days so rich in people a lovely, captivating female figure, 
 the perfect gentlewoman Mrs. Bancroft, the wife of the 
 historian of that name. After several years residence in 
 Europe, and acquaintance with the high life of the highest 
 circles in England, she has returned to America with a 
 definite understanding and a warm sense of the advantages 
 of her native land and of its mission to humanity. 
 
 Mrs. Kirkland took me back to the S. s. Ah 
 Agatha, if I could only show to you how amiable is 
 this married couple, how good, how pure, how delicate- 
 minded ! Marcus is certainly one of the best and most 
 warm-hearted beings that beautify this earth. And 
 Eebecca is good also, unusually endowed, amusing, and 
 most charming. To do good and to help others is their 
 greatest joy their continual thought. And besides that, 
 they are so cheerful, have such a good and beautiful and 
 excellent way of taking anything, that even that which is 
 vexatious changes itself into something good and agreeable 
 in their hands. And if people could only communicate 
 such things by teaching, I should learn much from them. 
 Happier human beings I have never seen. And they them 
 selves are so filled with gratitude for the happiness which 
 they have experienced and still experience, that they are 
 prepared to receive whatever blow may come, in the feel 
 ing that they have had so much of this world s good fortune. 
 But misfortune seems not to have the heart to strike 
 these gentle and grateful beings, who look at it with 
 glances of submissive love ; it approaches and threatens, 
 but then passes by. Thus was it with regard to their 
 baby, which long hovered on the brink of the grave, but 
 which now becomes daily stronger and livelier. How 
 kind they have been and are to me I have not words to 
 tell ! They think for me, arrange everything for me and 
 
 s 2 
 
260 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 look after me as if I were their sister ; and they do every 
 thing so nicely and so well. I cannot be sufficiently 
 grateful for these friends. 
 
 The Downings also those amiable people and kind 
 friends are to me invaluable. They came to New York 
 to see me, and brought me the most beautiful flowers. 
 His dark eyes, and her gentle, bright blue ones, as blue 
 as our Swedish violets, will accompany me on my journey 
 will remain in my heart. 
 
 March 16th. But I do not know how rightly I am to 
 get away, there is so much difficulty both as regards 
 
 the vessels and the captains. The captain, that is to 
 
 say him of the sailing-vessel, when he learnt the name of 
 the lady-passenger who wished to sail in his vessel 
 refused to receive her on board ; and when Marcus 
 insisted upon knowing his reason why, he replied that he 
 did not wish to have any authors on board his ship who 
 would laugh to scorn his accommodations, and who would 
 put him in a book. Marcus laughed and wanted to per 
 suade him to run the risk, assuring him that I was not 
 dangerous, and so on. But the man was immoveable. 
 He would not take me on board ; and I have now to wait 
 till the next steam-boat goes, which is eight days later. 
 And for this I have to thank Mrs. Trollope and Dickens. 
 But I am happy at Rose Cottage with my amiable friends, 
 and this delay has afforded me the pleasure of hearing 
 Emerson s lectures at various times, both here and in 
 New York. It is a peculiar pleasure to hear that deep, 
 sonorous voice uttering words which give the impression 
 of jewels and real pearls as they fall from his lips. 
 I heard him yesterday in his lecture on eloquence severely 
 chastise the senseless exaggeration and inflation of expres 
 sion made use of by some of his countrymen, and which 
 he compared with the natural and poetically beautiful, yet 
 destructive hyperbole of the East. He produced examples 
 of both, and the assembly, in the best possible humour 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 261 
 
 with, their lecturer, gave the most lively demonstrations of 
 approval and pleasure. Marcus S. and some other 
 gentlemen of Brooklyn invited Emerson to give these 
 lectures, and I thus saw him there several times. Perhaps 
 we may never meet again. But I am glad to have seen him. 
 20th. We have had two quiet beautiful evenings, for I 
 do not this time either receive visits, or accept invi 
 tations, unless exceptionally; I must rest. My friends 
 and I have therefore heen alone, and we have spent the 
 evenings in reading and conversation. I have read a letter 
 which they have received from Margaret Fuller, now the 
 Marchioness Ossoli, for her marriage is now divulged, and 
 her advocate, Mr. W. K., was perfectly right. Madame 
 Ossoli is now, with her husband and child, on her way to 
 America, where she will take up her residence. And on 
 board the same vessel is also that young man who travelled 
 to Petersburg, and gave the Emperor of Russia the acorn. 
 Her last letter is from Gibraltar, and describes the 
 affectingly beautiful evening when the body of the captain 
 he had died of small-pox was lowered into the sea, above 
 which the evening sun descended brilliantly, and small craft 
 lay with white sails outspread like the wings of angels. A 
 certain melancholy breathes through the letter, and a 
 thoroughly noble tone of mind, with no trace whatever of 
 that insolent and proud spirit which various things had 
 led me to expect in her. In her letter to Rebecca she 
 spoke of her joy as a mother, and of her beautiful child, 
 in the most touching manner. " I can hardly understand 
 my own happiness," she says in one place ; " I am the 
 mother of an immortal being, God be merciful to me a 
 sinner ! That does not sound much like pride ! She 
 has sent home a box of presents and souvenirs for her 
 friends, " in case I should not again see my father-land," 
 says she. She has commenced the voyage with joyless 
 presentiments ; and now that the good captain of the 
 vessel is dead, during the voyage they seem to increase. 
 
262 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 Yet all has gone well hitherto, and her mother, three 
 brothers, and her only sister, the young amiable lady at 
 Concord, and many of her friends, expect her with longing 
 and with joy. 
 
 22nd. Yesterday I visited the Female Academy at 
 Brooklyn, an educational institute for five hundred young 
 girls, where they study and graduate as young men do. 
 I admired the arrangement of the establishment, its 
 museum, library, &c., and was especially pleased with the 
 deportment of the young girls ; heard their compositions 
 both in prose and verse, liked them and the young ladies 
 who read them. I also heard here a song, with which, to 
 my shame I say it, I have been greeted two or three 
 times in this country, because the words, in which I cannot 
 discover a grain of sense or connection, have been 
 dedicated to me, (they begin, " I dream, I dream of my 
 father-land ") and the music to Jenny Lind ! C est 
 imprimee ! These finishing schools for young girls give 
 unquestionably a deal of finish, various kinds of 
 knowledge, demeanour in society, self-possession, &c. 
 But are they calculated to develop that which is best in 
 woman ? I doubt it ; and I have heard sensible women 
 in this country, even among the young, doubt also, or 
 rather deny that they are. They may be good as a 
 temporary means of leading women into those spheres of 
 knowledge from which they have hitherto been excluded. 
 Thus these young ladies are universally commended for 
 the progress which they make, and for their skill in 
 mathematical studies, in algebra, and physics. But it is 
 clear to me that the pursuit of these scholastic studies 
 must involve the neglect of much domestic virtue and 
 pleasure. The young girl, in her zeal to prepare her 
 lessons, snubs her mother, and looks cross at her father, 
 if they venture to interrupt her. They call forth her 
 ambition at the expense of her heart. They lay too 
 much stress upon school learning. The highest object of 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 263 
 
 schools should be to prepare people to do without them. 
 At all events the life of the young girl ought to be divided 
 between the school and home, so that the school may 
 have but a small part of it. The good home is the true 
 high school. 
 
 But I almost reproach myself for saying so much 
 against an institution where I experienced so much of the 
 young heart s warmth as I did here. Certain it is that I 
 embraced and was embraced, that I kissed and was 
 kissed, by daughters, and nieces, and mammas, and aunts, 
 so that there was almost too much of it. But the warm 
 heartedness there warmed my own heart, and I bore away 
 with me many lively memories of it. 
 
 I am now preparing for my departure, and in the mean 
 time have taken the portraits of my friends and their 
 children, "the rose-coloured family," in a little group of 
 heads, which I leave with them as a memorial of me. I was 
 very sorry to part with it. I should like to have had it 
 always with me. But I shall see them again, for I am 
 returning here. Great part of my books and clothes, as 
 well as my one chest, I shall leave at their house. When 
 I look at the former, and see the thick volumes of Hegel s 
 Philosophy and Scandinavian Mythology, which I intended 
 to have studied during my visit to this country, I cannot 
 but smile. I have not once thought of opening them. 
 
 March 2th. Yesterday Channing was here, the 
 amiable W. H. Channing ! He came in the morning, 
 fresh and dewy as a morning in May. We had during 
 the winter exchanged a couple of letters, and in them had 
 got a little atwist. Emerson was the apple of discord 
 between us. Channing set up Emerson, and I set up 
 myself. And thus we both became silent. When we 
 now met he was most cordial and beaming, gave me a 
 volume of Wordsworth s, the "Excursion" and was 
 perfectly kind and amiable. W^ith such men one breathes 
 the air of spring. 
 
264 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 There was a little party in the evening, Channing 
 among the rest. After he had said good night and left 
 the house, he came hastily back, and calling me out, led 
 me into the piazza, where pointing up to the starry 
 heavens, which shone forth in beaming splendour above 
 us, he smiled, pressed my hand, and was gone. 
 
 But I must not talk only of myself and my own affairs ; 
 I must say a little about the affairs of the public. The 
 question of universal interest, and which now occupies 
 everyone, regards the incorporation of California and 
 Texas with the Union as independent States. The whole 
 country may be said to be divided into two parties, 
 Pro -Slavery, and An ti- Slavery. California, rapidly popu 
 lated, and that principally from the North-Eastern States, 
 the enterprising sons of the Pilgrims, has addressed to 
 Congress a petition to be freed from slavery, and to be 
 acknowledged as a free state. To this the Southern 
 slave states will not consent, as California by its position 
 belongs to the Southern States, and its freedom from 
 slavery would lessen their weight in Congress. They 
 contend desperately for the maintenance of what they 
 call their rights. The Northern free states contend 
 just as desperately, in part to prevent the extension of 
 slavery to California and Texas, and in part to bring 
 about the abolition of that which they with reason regard 
 as a misfortune and a plague-spot to their father-land. 
 And the contest is carried on. with a good deal of bitter 
 ness on both sides, both in and out of Congress. 
 
 Abolitionists are here of all shades. Various of my 
 acquaintance belong to the Ultras; the S. s to the 
 Moderates, and to these last I attach myself; I think the 
 others unreasonable. 
 
 The continually increasing emigration of the poorest 
 classes of Europe, principally from Ireland and Germany, 
 has given rise to great exertions, not to oppose it, but to 
 deal with it, and to make it not merely uninjurious, but as 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 265 
 
 beneficial as possible, both for the country and the people 
 themselves. 
 
 The Irish become here the best labourers which 
 America possesses, in particular for the making of roads 
 and canals. The Germans are assisted for the most 
 part, to the West, to the great German colonies in the 
 Valley of the Mississippi, and where all hands and all 
 kinds of human qualifications are in demand. There 
 begin to be in the Eastern States, as in Europe, more 
 labourers than labour ; but these also are moving off in 
 great numbers westward. That great West, as far as the 
 Pacific Ocean, is the future, and the hope of North 
 America, the free space and boundless prospect of which 
 give to its people a freer respiration, a fresher life than 
 any other nation enjoys. 
 
 On all questions of general interest in the separate 
 States, meetings are held, resolutions taken, and motions 
 or petitions sent up to Congress, where the carrying them 
 out comes within its administration. And it is a pleasure 
 to hear how they all, at least in the Northern States, march 
 onward for the advancement of popular education, and 
 for the development of popular power, and all such public 
 measures as tend to the general advantage. 
 
 In the midst of all the agitation of these great questions 
 there comes at this moment the news of Jenny Lind s 
 expected arrival, which has gone like wild-fire through the 
 country, electrifying everybody and causing every counte 
 nance to clear up. It is as if a melodious major key 
 echoed in every breast. 
 
 Thanks, my sweet child, for what you write about our 
 friends and acquaintance at home. Greet them for me, 
 and tell Mrs. L. that I think of her as tenderly and as 
 faithfully as in Sweden. One of the happiest days of 
 my life will be when I hear that she has recovered from 
 her illness. 
 
 I must have mentioned to you, as among my kindest 
 
266 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 acquaintance in Boston, the Longfellows, both man 
 and wife, and Professor and Mrs. How. I always felt 
 animated, both heart and soul, when I was with them. 
 Mrs. How, a most charming little creature, fresh and 
 frank in character, and endowed with a delicate sense of 
 the beautiful, I could really get very fond of. 
 
 I have declined the offers of several portrait-painters, 
 but I could not help sitting to one in Boston, a Mr. 
 Furniss, an agreeable young man ; and he has taken a 
 pleasing likeness of me. People say it is very like, and 
 it is to be engraved. 
 
 I now bid you farewell ; embrace and kiss mamma s 
 hand in spirit. May you be able soon to tell me that 
 you are quite well ! I salute every spring day that comes, 
 on your account. And we have had here some beautiful, 
 vernally mild da} r s, but the weather is now again cold, 
 and as severe, and keen, and snowy as it ever is 
 at this season in Sweden. But it will soon change again. 
 And how I long for the South ! 
 
 I have rested now thoroughly for some days, and I 
 feel myself stronger each day. May my clear Agatha 
 only feel the same ! 
 
 P.S. Mrs. W. H. of Charleston has written to me 
 
 and kindly invited me to her house there. But 1 
 
 must see her first to know whether we can get on well 
 together. I shall therefore, in the first instance, go to 
 an hotel in the city, and remain there for a few da} r s in 
 the most perfect quiet, and in the enjoyment of freedom 
 and solitude. Then we shall see ! 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 267 
 
 LETTER XII. 
 
 CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA, March 22nd, 1850. 
 
 AH that I could but fly away and cast a glance 
 into my home and see how it is with my Agatha and 
 mamma ! But ah ! " that cannot be, your grace ! " said 
 the duck, and therefore I must sit dull and silent as a 
 duck, and enjoy myself by hoping and trusting that 
 you are advancing with great strides on the path of 
 improvement, and that you are becoming more and 
 more like Taglioni in agility and grace. May it be 
 so, my little heart ! and may everything be well at 
 home ! 
 
 Things have gone splendidly with me. I arrived 
 this morning, after a voyage of three days and nights, 
 expecting to have found here full summer, and somewhat 
 annoyed, instead of that, to find the weather cold and 
 grey, and to be obliged to go about in winter clothing. 
 But it cannot last long. The trees, for all the streets 
 are planted with trees, are already clothed in tender 
 green ; roses, lilies, and orange-blossoms beckon from 
 terraces and gardens, and the sun begins to break through 
 the clouds. Probably, in the morning, it will be real 
 summer again. 
 
 The weather during the last days of my stay at 
 Brooklyn was wild and winterly, and the day I went 
 on board was icy-cold; one saw ice and icicles every 
 where ; the sharp wind was full of icicles. The good, 
 amiable Marcus and Rebecca, with their two eldest chil 
 dren, the angelic Eddie and the merry little Jenny, 
 accompanied me on board. Marcus carried my luggage, 
 spoke to the captain and to the stewardess for me, 
 and arranged everything. 
 
 I was so overwhelmed by introductions to strange people 
 
268 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 that I was obliged to take refuge in my room that I 
 might say a few words and take leave of my friends. 
 
 I really sate down and grieved for an hour after the 
 S. s had left me, and I was borne upon the waves 
 farther and farther from them. At night I dreamed that 
 they were with me, and I thought, then, they are not gone, 
 and we are not parted ; it was merely a bad dream ! 
 But the dream was true enough. 
 
 The whole of the first day of the voyage was cold, grey, 
 and cheerless. I avoided everybody excepting a couple 
 of Quakers, Friends as they are commonly called, a man 
 and his wife, with whom I became a little acquainted, and 
 who pleased me as Friends generally do by their quietness 
 and their peaceful, silent demeanour. Their earliest 
 youth was past; she had one of those pure, beautiful 
 countenances which one so often meets with among Quaker 
 women ; he seemed to be out of health, and they were 
 travelling to the South on his account. The next day 
 we had splendid sunshine, but still cold, till towards 
 noon, when we seemed, all at once, to come into really 
 warm spring. It was like magic. Sky and sea were 
 bathed in light ; the air was full of life and delicious 
 influence. It was enchantingly beautiful, divine ! My 
 whole being was suffused with this glory. I avoided the 
 catechising conversation and sate down on the upper 
 deck, and saw the sun go down and the full moon ascend 
 in mild splendour ; saw the north-star shining at yet greater 
 distance from me^ and Orion and Sirius ascend to the 
 zenith. Hour after hour went by and I was unconscious 
 of everything excepting that the new world was beautiful, 
 and its Creator great and good. I feared nothing 
 excepting that somebody might come and talk to me and 
 thus interrupt the glorious silence, the repose and gladness 
 of my spirit. 
 
 I saw, on the lower deck, young men and their wives 
 come out into the clear moonlight, pair after pair, cooing 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 269 
 
 affectionately like doves ; saw the Friends, my friends, 
 sitting side by side, gazing upwards at the moon which 
 shone upon their mild and calm countenances ; saw the 
 moonbeams dancing upon the dancing billows while 
 we were borne onward along the calm sea towards Cape 
 Hatteras, the light-house of which shone towards us, like 
 a huge star on the south horizon. 
 
 At Cape Hatteras we were to enter the Gulf of Mexico, 
 and this point is one of danger to the mariner. Violent 
 gusts of wind and storm are generally encountered there ; 
 and many a fearful shipwreck has occurred at Cape 
 Hatteras ; but tempest and disaster came not near us. 
 The moon shone, the billows danced, the wind was still, 
 the pairs of turtle-doves cooed, and the Friends slumbered ; 
 we passed Cape Hatteras at midnight, and I hoped 
 now to be in the region of steady summer warmth. But 
 psha ! Nothing of the kind. 
 
 Next morning it was again grey and cold and cheerless, 
 and not at all like summer. One portion of the company 
 lay in their berths suffering from sea-sickness ; another 
 portion sate down to a merry game of cards under an 
 awning on deck. I sate apart with the Friends who were 
 silent arid at last went to sleep. But I was full of life and 
 wide awake all day ; felt remarkably well and spent a rich 
 forenoon in company with the sea and with Bancroft s 
 "History of the United States," which interests me extremely 
 as well from its truly philosophical spirit as for its excel 
 lent narrative style. In the former he resembles our 
 Geijer, in the latter, D Aubigne. I read also on the 
 voyage a little pamphlet on " Special Providence " by 
 a sort of renowned clairvoyant of New York, named 
 Davis, but a production which more clearly testified to 
 the blindness of the spirit I never saw, and I knew 
 not whether to be more astonished at its pretension or 
 at its poverty. 
 
 On the morning of the fourth day we were before 
 
270 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 Charleston. The morning was grey and cheerless and 
 not agreeable. But the shores around the bay covered 
 with dark cedar-woods, and pale green broad-leaved trees 
 had a singular but attractive appearance. Everything 
 was novel to niy eyes, even the exterior of the city, which 
 rather resembled a city of the European continent, at 
 least in the style of its houses, than either Boston or New 
 York. A young gentleman with whom I had had some 
 excellent conversation on board, and whom I liked 
 excepting that he would make a show with his French, 
 which, after all, was nothing to make any show with now 
 stood with me on deck observing the country, where he 
 was at home, and crying up the happiness of the negro- 
 slaves, which did not much enhance his own worth ; for 
 remarks of this kind only show want of judgment or of 
 politeness. A young lady who had shared my cabin, and 
 been silent and sea-sick the whole time, now lifted up her 
 head and instantly asked me " how I liked America ? " 
 
 Mrs. W. H. sent her brother, a handsome, middle- 
 aged gentleman, to take me in a carriage to her house, 
 but I preferred my own freedom, and to accompany the 
 Friends to the hotel which they had decided upon for 
 themselves. And there am I now, in a little room with 
 four bare, white -washed walls. 
 
 I have been out wandering about the town for two good 
 hours, pleased with my solitude and by the great number 
 of new objects which meet my eye everywhere; by the 
 appearance of the town with its numerous gardens (for it 
 is like a great assemblage of country houses, each one 
 with its verandah or piazza ornamented with foliage and 
 flowers) ; by the many kinds of trees, all strange to me, 
 and which are now in flower or in leaf (I only saw one 
 without leaves, but with its stem and tops covered with pink 
 blossoms); by the dark-green orange groves in the gardens, 
 and which whisper and diffuse their fragrance on the 
 breeze. Negroes swarm in the streets. Two thirds of the 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 271 
 
 people whom one sees out in the town, are negroes or 
 mulattoes. They are ugly, but appear for the most part 
 cheerful and well fed. In particular one sees fat negro and 
 mulatto women, and their bright coloured handkerchiefs, 
 often wound very tastefully round the head, produce a 
 picturesque appearance, a thousand times preferable to 
 the bonnets and caps which they wear in the free States, 
 and which are unbecoming to them. 
 
 That which struck me most in the streets, after the 
 great number of negroes, was the large flocks of turkey- 
 buzzards, which stalk about here and there, picking up 
 any offal which they can find to eat. They are so fear 
 less, that they will scarcely move out of your way. I saw 
 numbers of them also, sitting in rows on the roofs and 
 chimneys, and a very strange appearance they made, 
 stretching out their heavy wings in the air and the sun 
 shine. They are regarded in Charleston as a species of 
 city-scavengers, and are therefore welcome to the streets. 
 It is forbidden to destroy them. 
 
 March 29th. Cold, cold, still intolerably cold to 
 day. 
 
 At five o clock this morning I heard the drum which 
 calls the negro slaves to work. 
 
 Yesterday afternoon I was invited by my acquaintance 
 from the Northern States, who are here in the hotel, to 
 drive out with them, and we had a charming drive in the 
 beautiful sunshine. The country is altogether flat, 
 as far as one can see. Beautiful forest tracts, plantations 
 of trees, and water, all contribute a charm to it. The 
 town itself lies by the sea, upon a peninsula, between two 
 rivers, the Ashley and Cooper, which discharge them 
 selves into the sea. 
 
 My friends brought oranges and bananas for me, as 
 we drove along, and I now for the first time tasted this 
 tropical fruit, which people here are so fond of. It has a 
 delicate, sweet, somewhat insipid, flavour; in form it 
 
272 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 resembles our large seed-cucumbers ; in colour and in 
 flesh it is like a melon, but less juicy. I could have fancied 
 I was biting into soap. I have a notion that we shall not 
 become good friends, the banana and I. 
 
 My Quaker friends left early this morning to go still 
 farther south, in the hope of reaching summer air. It was 
 too cold for them here. The month of February was here 
 very warm, and the yellow jasmine which then flowers 
 is now nearly over. 
 
 I must now bid you adieu, as I must go out and 
 call on Mrs. W. H., and see whether I could be happy 
 with her. If not, I shall remain quietly here, although it 
 is certainly no Eldorado. The hotel is probably not one 
 of the best in the city. A chaos of negro lads throng 
 about the dinner and supper table, pretending to be waiters, 
 but they do nothing more than spring hither and thither, 
 round one another, without either dexterity or order, and 
 move about everything on the table, without rhyme or 
 reason which I can discover. I am waited on in my room 
 by a pretty mulatto girl, very ragged, yet with such a good 
 and patient look, that it makes me unhappy. I asked 
 her how much wages she had ; she looked at me with 
 astonishment, and replied, " that she belonged to Missis." 
 But " Missis " is a lady, of a stern mien, and keen-eyed, 
 whose property I would not willingly be, and poor girl ! 
 Miss D. told me that a young servant girl of the house 
 had last year been flogged by the gentleman of the 
 house, the son of the lady. 
 
 I could remain here very well a few days longer, and 
 then proceed further south, to Savannah and to Augusta 
 in Georgia, whither I am invited by my fellow passengers 
 of the "Canada," the family of the name of B. and 
 Miss L. I ought to remain there through the month of 
 April, for there one sees the paradise of the South. 
 And I ought to take the opportunity of seeing something 
 of the plantations there. If the Southerners knew with 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 273 
 
 what an unprejudiced and honest intention I come to 
 them, merely seeking for the truth in everything, and 
 ready to do justice to the good in all, even in slavery, 
 then would they not meet me with suspicious glances. 
 I have besides no wish to penetrate particularly into the 
 most sorrowful side of Southern life. That has been 
 penetrated into enough already. I wish to see nature, 
 life that which the New World is becoming here also, and 
 that aspect of life, as a part of it, which is the result of 
 position and the gifts of nature. I wish therefore to 
 avoid conversations on slavery with people in general ; 
 and with some individuals in particular. With sensible 
 and right-minded people however, many of whom are to 
 be met with here, I will talk of slavery, will question 
 them, and listen to them, and I am certain that we shall 
 understand each other and perfectly agree, if not always 
 in the thing, at all events in disposition of mind. I am 
 come hither to see and to learn, not as a spy. I wish to 
 have in the South, mild atmosphere, flowers, repose, health; 
 and the good that it has and does will I acknowledge 
 with all my heart. I also believe that there are few 
 Southerners who do not regard slavery as the misfortune 
 of the country, although they consider it difficult to be 
 rid of it. 
 
 From Savannah I shall write again to you. Now merely 
 a kiss and heartfelt wishes that this may find you once 
 more active and well. 
 
 Later. Yet a few more words to tell you that I have 
 seen Mrs. W. H. and her children, and that I remove 
 to-morrow to her house and home. The very first view 
 of her countenance, and its expression, so full of kindness 
 and sincerity, was sufficient for me. I liked her im 
 mediately, and the short conversation I had with her 
 sufficed to strengthen the impression of the first glance. 
 She is evidently one of the intelligent, kind and motherly 
 women of the earth ; she has, it is true, a little weakness 
 
 VOL. I. T 
 
274 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 towards literary endowments and literary people, but I, 
 for my part, consider this quite amiable in her. She is 
 about my own age, and might, from her appearance, be a 
 Swede. The blue eyes, the round fresh countenance, the 
 plump figure, as well as the charming good nature in 
 speech and manner, are so like our Swedish ladies. She 
 is indeed of Scandinavian descent ; her father was Danish 
 by name, Monefelt. Of the other members of the 
 family I saw three pretty girls ; the eldest seventeen, the 
 youngest nine years old, and a handsome lad of ten. 
 Mr. W. H., two elder sons, and the eldest daughter of the 
 family, are now from home. 
 
 I have seen also another agreeable family, that of 
 Dr. G., whose wife, son-in-law, and daughters, have called 
 on me, and offered to take me to the islands and the 
 beautiful places in the neighbourhood. 
 
 I have likewise seen to-day Mrs. Harnmarskold (Emilie 
 Holmberg) and her mother. Tears of longing for 
 Sweden filled the eyes of the old lady. The younger 
 lady is a much esteemed teacher of music here. 
 
 I can now write no more, the post is leaving. 
 
 God bless my sweet Agatha ! 
 
 LETTER XIII. 
 
 CHARLESTON, April 12$, 1850. 
 
 I SEE a feeble Southern beauty reposing upon a 
 luxurious bed of flowers in a nectarine grove, surrounded 
 by willing slaves, who at her nod bring to her the most 
 precious fruits and ornaments in the world. But all her 
 beaut} r , the splendour of her eye, the delicate crimson of 
 her cheek, the pomp which surrounds her couch, cannot 
 conceal the want of health and vigour, the worm winch 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 275 
 
 devours her vitals. This weak, luxurious beauty is 
 South Carolina. 
 
 And after all, my Agatha, she is beautiful. I have 
 inexpressibly enjoyed her peculiar charm, so delightful, 
 so rich, and to rne so novel. 
 
 I have been fourteen clays here, and although the 
 weather for the most part has been rainy, and is so still, 
 yet there have been days when I have wished that all 
 feeble, ailing humanity, (and you my Agatha above all,) 
 could remove hither, breathe this air, see this exquisite 
 pomp of heaven and earth, which must invigorate them 
 like a balsam of life, and enjoy life anew. I can under 
 stand how the mariners who first approached these shores, 
 and felt these gentle breezes, this atmosphere, believed 
 that they were drinking an elixir of life, and hoped to find 
 here the fountain of perpetual youth. 
 
 During these delicious days I have made some excur 
 sions into the country, round the city, with Mrs. H., and 
 some kind acquaintance. In all directions, after we had 
 ploughed through an extent of deep sand but they 
 are now beginning everywhere to form, wooden roads, 
 which are very excellent to drive upon we arrived at 
 forest. And the forest here is a sort of paradisaical 
 wilderness, or abounding with many kinds of trees and 
 plants which I never before heard of or saw. Nothing 
 is studied or trimmed, but everything grows in wild 
 luxuriant disorder : myrtles and fir-trees, magnolias and 
 cypresses, elms and oaks, and a great many foreign trees, 
 the names of which I do not know. The most magnificent 
 and the most abundant of all trees here is the live-oak, 
 an evergreen, an immense tree, from the branches of which 
 depending masses of moss, often three or four yards in 
 length, (the Tillandsia Umvides) hung down in heavy 
 draperies. These pendant grey masses upon the heavy 
 branches produce the most unimaginably picturesque 
 effect, and when these trees have been planted with any 
 
 T2 
 
276 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 regularity they form the most magnificent natural Gothic 
 churches with arcades and lofty vaulted aisles. Beneath 
 these long-hranched patriarchs of the forest flourish a 
 number of lesser trees, shrubs, plants, and climbing 
 vegetation, especially the wild vine, which fill the wood 
 with perfume, and make a beautiful show in the hedges, 
 and up aloft in the trees, whence they fling down their 
 wild blossoming branches. Thus, with the wild yellow 
 jasmine, which was here and there yet in flower ; thus with 
 the white Cherokee rose, which also grows wild, and in 
 the greatest abundance ; thus, with many other showy 
 creeping plants, which on all sides twine around the boles 
 of the trees, and many of which are said to be poisonous. 
 (And many poisonous things, both of vegetable and animal 
 life, are said to be in these wildernesses.) The magnolia 
 is one of the most glorious of their trees, a tall green- 
 leaved laurel, the white blossoms which are said to be the 
 most beautiful flowers of the South ; but it does however 
 not begin to flower till the end of May. 
 
 The city itself is now in full bloom, for the city is like 
 a great assemblage of villas standing in their gardens, 
 which are now brilliant with roses of every kind. The 
 fragrance of the orange blossom fills the air, and the 
 mocking-bird, the nightingale of North America (called 
 by the Indians, cenconttatolly , or the hundred-tongued, 
 from its ability to imitate every kind of sound), sings in 
 cages in the open windows, or outside them. I have not 
 yet heard it sing when free in the woods. The nectarine 
 and the fig-tree have already set their fruit. I observed 
 this in Mrs. W. H. s garden, where also I saw the 
 Carolina humming-bird flutter, like a little spirit, among 
 the scarlet honeysuckle flowers, sipping their honey as it 
 flew. That is something particular, and very beautiful, 
 my little Agatha, and I am fortunate in being here. 
 
 I have received many kind visits and invitations, and 
 first among the former let me mention that which is 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 277 
 
 most to my taste, and to which I owe some of my most 
 beautiful hours in the New "World. You know my faculty 
 of receiving decided impressions as regards persons, and 
 of my coming into rapport with them almost at the first 
 moment. This faculty or power, which has never yet 
 deceived me, has become more keen since I went abroad 
 on my Viking expedition, quite alone, and have thereby 
 been brought into immediate connection with a great 
 number of persons. I have, of late in particular, acquired 
 a sort of mercurial sensitiveness to the various tempera 
 ments and natures which approach me, and the barometer 
 of my feelings rises or falls accordingly. Thus as I liked 
 Mrs. W. H. from the first moment, did I like but in 
 another way Mrs. Holbrook, the wife of the Professor 
 of Natural History, from the first moment when I saw 
 and heard her. I became animated, and as it were 
 awakened, by the fresh intelligent life which spoke in that 
 lovely, animated woman. There is nothing common 
 place, nothing conventional in her. Everything is clear, 
 peculiar, living, and above all, good. I felt it like a 
 draught of the very elixir of life the very fountain of 
 youth. The next day I dined with Mrs. W. H., at her 
 beautiful, elegant residence, the sea-breezes coming in 
 refreshingly through the curtains of the windows. Her 
 mother, Mrs. R., a beautiful old lady, with splendid 
 eyes ; her sister, Miss Lucas K. ; three ideally lovely and 
 charming young girls, her nieces ; and three very agreeable 
 gentlemen, composed the party. Mr. Holbrook is, together 
 with Aggassiz, the Swiss, now on a natural history expedi 
 tion to the great fens of Florida, called the Ever Glades. 
 
 After an excellent dinner we drove to the battery, the 
 fashionable promenade of the city, and which consists of 
 a bald inclosure along the beach, where people walk 
 round and round in a circle, so that they see again and 
 again all those they know, and all those they do not know, 
 who are promenading there, a thing that I should have 
 
278 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 nothing to do with beyond at most once a-year, not even 
 to breathe the very best sea-air. Neither did this sort of 
 promenade seem particularly to Mrs. Holbrook s taste; 
 but the people of the New World, in general, are fond of 
 being in company, are fond of a crowd. 
 
 After an excellent tea, Mrs. Holbrook drove me home. 
 And that was one day of fashionable life at Charleston ; 
 and it was very good. But better still, was another day 
 spent in the country, alone with her at her country-seat, 
 Belmont, some miles out of town. 
 
 She came about noon and fetched me in a little carriage. 
 We were alone, we two, the whole day ; we wandered in 
 myrtle-groves we botanised we read ; Mrs. H. made 
 me acquainted with the English poet, Keats ; and above 
 all, we talked ; and the day passed like a golden dream, 
 or like the most beautiful reality. You know how easily 
 I get wearied with talk, how painful to me is the effort 
 which it requires. But now I talked for a whole day with 
 the same person, and I was not conscious either of effort 
 or of fatigue. It was delicious and amusing, amusing, 
 amusing ! The air itself was a delicious enjoyment. 
 Mrs. Holbrook was like a perpetually fresh-welling foun 
 tain, and every subject which she touched upon became 
 interesting, either from her remarks upon it, or from the 
 views which her conversation unfolded. Thus we flew 
 together over the whole world, not always agreeing, but 
 always maintaining the best understanding : and that day, 
 in the fragrant myrtle -groves of Belmont, on the banks of 
 the Ashley river, is one of my most beautiful days in the 
 New World, and one which I shall never forget. Now I 
 became acquainted, for the first time, with the amber-tree, 
 and several other trees and plants, whose names and 
 properties Mrs. H. mentioned to me. Natural science 
 has extended her glance over the life of the world, with 
 out diverting it from the religious and heavenly life. 
 For her the earth is a poem, which in its various forms 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 279 
 
 testifies of its Poet and its Creator ; but the highest 
 evidence of Him she derives, not from the natural life, but 
 from a still, lofty figure, which once advanced from the 
 shadows of life before her glance, and made life for her 
 light and great, connecting time and eternity. Mrs. H. 
 is a platonic thinker, who can see (which is rare in this 
 world) system in all things, and dissimilar radii having all 
 relationship to one common centre. I spoke freely to 
 her of what I considered the great want in the female 
 education of this country, and of all countries. Women 
 acquire many kinds of knowledge, but there is no system- 
 atising of it. A deal of latin, a deal of mathematics, 
 much knowledge of the physical sciences, &c., but there is 
 no philosophical centralisation of this, no application of the 
 life in this to life itself, and no opportunity afforded after 
 leaving school of applying all this scientific knowledge to 
 a living purpose. Hence it falls away out of the soul, like 
 flowers that have no root, or as leaves plucked from the 
 branches of the tree of knowledge when the young disciple 
 goes from school into life. Or if they do remember what 
 they have learned, it is but merely remembered work, and 
 does not enter as sap and vegetative power into the life 
 itself. That which is wanting in school-learning, in the 
 great as in the small, is a little Platonic philosophy. 
 
 On other subjects we did not fully agree; my imagi 
 nation could not always accompany the flights of my 
 friend. But the charm in Mrs. H. is that she has genius, 
 and she says new and startling things, in particular as 
 regard the life and correspondence of nature and of the 
 spirit. 
 
 When the sun sank in the waters of the river this 
 beautiful day came to an end, and we returned to the city. 
 But I must go again to Belmont, and spend a few days 
 there with its good genius ; so it is said but I know 
 not whether I shall have the time. 
 
 Mrs. H. belongs to the aristocratic world of Charleston, 
 
280 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 and to one of its noblest families, the Kutleges, but is 
 universally acknowledged as one of " the most intellectual 
 and charming women," and is spoken of as " above 
 fashion ; " and how could such a spirit be trammeled by 
 fashion ? 
 
 She has, however, one twist, but that is universal here, 
 and it belongs to the slave states. 
 
 South Carolina is generally called the Palmetto State. 
 I expected to have seen everywhere this half-tropical 
 species of tree. I was quite annoyed not to see, either in 
 or out of Charleston, any palmettos. They have been, in 
 a Vandal-like manner, cut down for piles, and for ship 
 building, because this timber is impenetrable to water. At 
 length, however, a few days ago, I saw this States-tree of 
 Carolina (for the State bears a palmetto-tree on its banner) 
 on Sullivan s Island, a large sand-bank in the sea, outside 
 Charleston, where the citizens have country-houses for 
 the enjoyment of sea-air and sea-bathing; and there in 
 various gardens we may yet see clumps of palmettos. 
 Imagine to yourself a straight round stem, slightly knotted 
 at the joints, from the top of which large, green, waving 
 fans, with finger-like divisions, branch forth on all sides 
 upon long stalks, and you have an image of the palmetto, 
 the representative of the palm. I was invited by Mr. and 
 Mrs. Gilman. to a pic-nic on Sullivan s Island. Pic-nics 
 are here the current name for excursions into the country, 
 where they go to eat, and to enjoy themselves in a merry 
 company. These parties are very much liked, especially 
 by the young people ; and many a tender, serious union, 
 looks back for its commencement to a merry pic-nic. 
 That at which I was now present was a large party, nor 
 was there any lack of young people, nor yet of young 
 enamoured pairs ; but the day was cool, and I felt it to 
 be rather laborious than agreeable, which is often the 
 case with me on so-called parties of pleasure. But I 
 really did enjoy a drive with Mrs. Oilman on the beach, 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 281 
 
 along the firm fine sands, whilst the waves came rolling 
 in, thundering and foaming even to the horses feet. 
 There was a wild freshness in this scene, whilst the air 
 was of the mildest and most delicious character. How 
 romantic is " nature," and how rich in picturesque con 
 trasts ! Both Mr. and Mrs. Oilman are of the poetical 
 temperament ; she has sung the beauty of quiet and pious 
 life; he the subjects connected with his native land. His 
 splendid song, 
 
 " Fathers, have ye bled in vain ! " 
 
 written from fervent inspiration at a time when the disso 
 lution of the Union was threatened by the bitterness of 
 party strife, has been sung with rapture throughout the 
 United States, and perhaps may have contributed more 
 to arouse the public spirit of fellow-citizenship than any 
 governmental measure which is said to have saved " the 
 Union." Mr. Oilman is a highly esteemed and beloved 
 minister of Charleston, a handsome elderly man, whose 
 inward earnestness and nobility are faithfully reflected 
 in his exterior. 
 
 Last evening I was at a wedding, that is to say, I was 
 invited to witness the marriage ceremony in the church. 
 It was between a Catholic and a member of the English 
 Episcopalian church ; and they had agreed to select the 
 minister of the Unitarian congregation of Charleston, 
 Mr. Oilman, to unite them. Only the relatives and 
 friends of the bridal pair were to be present at the cere 
 mony, which took place in the evening by lamp -light. 
 The bride was lovely as a new-blown white rose, small 
 and delicate, dressed in white, and with a very pretty 
 garland and veil. The bridegroom was a tall and thin 
 gentleman ; not handsome, but had the look of a good, 
 respectable man, is very rich, and desperately in love with 
 his white rcse-bud. Their bridal tour is to be a pleasure 
 trip to Europe. After the marriage ceremony, which was 
 
282 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 worthily and beautifully performed by Mr. Gilman, the 
 company rose from their seats and congratulated the 
 bridal pair. A fat old negro-woman sate, like a horrid 
 spectre, black and silent by the altar. This was the 
 nurse and foster-mother of the bride, and who could not 
 bear the thought of parting with her. This parting, how 
 ever, is only for the time of their journey, as these black 
 nurses are cared for with great tenderness as long as they 
 live in the white families, and generally speaking they 
 deserve it from their affection and fidelity. 
 
 You may believe that there has not failed to be here 
 conversations about slavery. I do not originate them, 
 but when they occur, which they frequently do, I express 
 my sentiments candidly but as inoffensively as may be. 
 One thing, however, which astonishes and annoys me 
 here, and which I did not expect to find, is that I scarcely 
 ever meet with a man, or woman either, who can openly 
 and honestly look the thing in the face. They wind and 
 turn about in all sorts of ways, and make use of every 
 argument sometimes the most opposite, to convince me 
 that the slaves are the happiest people in the world, and 
 do not wish to be placed in any other condition, or in any 
 other relationship to their masters than that in which 
 they now find themselves. This in many cases, and 
 under certain circumstances, is true ; and it occurs more 
 frequently than the people of the Northern States have 
 any idea of. But there is such an abundance of unfortu 
 nate cases, and always must be in this system, as to 
 render it detestable. 
 
 I have had a few conversations on the subject, some 
 thing in the following style : 
 
 Southerner. "Report says, Miss Bremer, that you 
 belong to the abolitionist party ? " 
 
 Myself. " Yes, certainly, I do ; but so, doubtlessly, do 
 we both; you as well as I." 
 
 Southerner is silent. 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 283 
 
 Myself. " I am certain that you, as well as I, wish 
 freedom and happiness to the human race." 
 
 Southerner. " Y y ye e e e s ! but but 
 
 And now come many buts, which are to prove the difficulty 
 and the impossibility of the liberation of the negro race. 
 That there is difficulty I am willing to concede, but not 
 impossibility. This, however, is clear, that there requires 
 a preparation for freedom, and that this has been long 
 neglected. There is here, in Charleston, a noble man 
 who thinks as I do on the matter, and who labours in this 
 the only true direction and preparation for this freedom, 
 namely, the negroes initiation into Christianity. Formerly 
 their instruction was shamefully neglected, or rather 
 opposed : the laws of the State forbidding that slaves 
 should be taught to read and write, and long opposing 
 their instruction, even in Christianity. But better times 
 have come, and seem to be coming. People frequently, 
 in their own houses, teach their slaves to read; and 
 missionaries, generally methodists, go about the planta 
 tions preaching the Gospel. 
 
 But the onesidedness and the obstinate blindness of 
 the educated class in this city, really astonish and 
 vex me. And women, women, in whose moral sense of 
 right, and in whose inborn feeling for the true an d the 
 good, I have so much faith and hope women grieve me 
 by being so shortsighted on this subject, and by being 
 still more irritable and violent than the men. And yet it 
 is women, who ought to be most deeply wounded by the 
 immorality and the impurity of the institution ! Does it 
 not make a family a non-entity ? Does it not separate 
 husband and wife, mother and child? It strikes me 
 daily with a sort of amazement when I see the little negro 
 children, and think " These children do not belong to 
 their parents ; their mother, who brought them into the 
 world with Suffering, who nourished them at her breast, 
 who watched over them, she whose flesh and blood they 
 
284 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 are, has no right over them. They are not hers ; they are 
 the property of her possessor, of the person who hought 
 her, and with her all the children she may have, with his 
 money ; and who can sell them away whenever he pleases." 
 Wonderful 1 
 
 The moral feeling, it is said, is becoming more and 
 more opposed to the separation of families and of little 
 children from their mothers hy sale ; and that it now no 
 longer takes place at the public slave -auctions. But one 
 hears in the Northern, as well as in the Southern States, 
 of circumstances which prove what heart-breaking occur 
 rences take place in consequence of their separation, 
 which the effects of the system render unavoidable, and 
 which the best slaveholders cannot always prevent. 
 
 The house-slaves here seem, in general, to be very well 
 treated ; and I have been in houses where their rooms, 
 and all that appertains to them (for every servant, male 
 or female, has their own excellent room), are much better 
 than those which are provided for the free servants of our 
 country. The relationship between the servant and the 
 employer seems also, for the most part, to be good and 
 heartfelt ; the older servants especially seem to stand in 
 that affectionate relationship to the family which charac 
 terises a patriarchal condition, and which it is so beautiful 
 to witness in our good families between servant and 
 employer ; at the same time with this great difference, that 
 with us the relationship is the free-will attachment of 
 one rational being to another. Here also may often 
 occur this free-will attachment, but it is then a conquest 
 over slavery, and that slavish relationship, and I fancy 
 that here nobody knows exactly how it is. True 
 it is, in the meantime, that the negro race has a strong 
 instinct of devotion and veneration, and this may be 
 seen by the people s eyes, which have a peculiar, kind, 
 faithful, and affectionate expression, which I like, and 
 which reminds me of that beautiful expression in the eye 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 285 
 
 of the dog : true is it also, that they have a natural 
 tendency to subordination to the white race, and to 
 obey their higher intelligence; and white mothers and 
 black nurses prove continually the exclusive love of the 
 latter for the child of the white. No better foster- 
 toaothers, no better nurses, can any one have for their 
 children, than the black woman ; and in general no better 
 sick nurses than the blacks, either male or female. They 
 are naturally good-tempered and attached ; and if the 
 white " Massa " and " Missis," as the negroes call their 
 owners, are kind on their part, the relationship between 
 them and " Daddy " and " Mammy," as the black servants 
 are called, especially if they are somewhat in years, is really 
 good and tender. But neither are circumstances of quite 
 the opposite kind wanting. The tribunals of Carolina, 
 and the better class of the community of Carolina, have 
 yet fresh in their memory, deeds of cruelty done to house- 
 slaves which rival the worst abominations of the old 
 heathen times. Some of the very blackest of these deeds 
 
 have been done by women ; by women in the higher 
 
 class of society in Charleston ! Just lately, also, has a 
 rich planter been condemned to two years imprisonment 
 in the house of correction, for his barbarous treatment of 
 a slave. And then it must be borne in mind that the 
 public tribunal does not take cognisance of any other 
 cruelties to slaves, than those which are too horrible and 
 too public to be passed over ! When I bring forward 
 these universally-known circumstances in my arguments 
 with the patrons and patronesses of slavery, they reply, 
 " Even in your country, and in all countries, are masters 
 and mistresses sometimes austere to their servants." To 
 which I reply, " But then they can leave them ! " And to 
 this they have nothing to say, but look displeased. 
 
 Ah! the curse of slavery, as the common phrase is, 
 has not merely fallen upon the black, but, perhaps, at 
 this moment, still more upon the white, because it has 
 
286 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 warped his sense of truth, and has degraded his moral 
 nature. 
 
 The position and the treatment of the hlacks, however, 
 really improve from year to year. The whites, neverthe 
 less, do not seem to advance in enlightenment. But I 
 will see and hear more before I condemn them. Perhaps 
 the lover of darkness has established himself principally in 
 Charleston. " Charleston is an owl s nest ! " said a witty 
 Carolina lady to me one day. 
 
 I must now tell you something about the home in which 
 I am, and in which I find myself so well off, and so happy, 
 that I would not wish for a better. The house with its 
 noble garden stands alone in one of the most rural streets 
 of the city, Lynch-street, and has on one side a free view 
 of the country and the river, so that it enjoys the most 
 delicious air the freshest breezes. Lovely sprays of 
 white roses, and of the scarlet honeysuckle, fling them 
 selves over the piazza, and form the most exquisite 
 verandah. Here I often walk, especially in the early 
 morning and in the evening, inhaling the delicious air, 
 and looking abroad over the country. My room, my 
 pretty airy room, is in the upper story. The principal 
 apartments which are on the first story open upon the 
 piazza, where people assemble or walk about in the 
 evening, when there is generally company. 
 
 You are a little acquainted with Mrs. W. H. already, 
 but no one can rightly know her, or value her, until they 
 have seen her in daily life, within her own home. She is 
 there more like a Swedish lady than any woman I have 
 met with in this country, for she has that quiet, attentive, 
 affectionate, motherly demeanour; always finding some 
 thing to do, and not being above doing it with her own 
 hands. (In the slave states people commonly consider 
 coarse work as somewhat derogatory, and leave it to be 
 done by slaves.) Thus I see her quietly busied from 
 morning till evening ; now with the children, now with 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 287 
 
 meals, when she assists her servants to arrange the table ; 
 or when meals are over and removed, and all is in order 
 which needs looking after, (for the negroes are naturally 
 careless,) she will be busy cutting out and making clothes 
 for them, or in dressing and smartening up the little 
 negroes of the house ; then she is in the garden, planting 
 flowers or tying up one that has fallen down, training and 
 bringing into order the wild shoots of trailing plants ; or 
 she is receiving guests, sending off messengers, &c., and 
 all this with that calm comprehension, with that dignity, 
 which at the same time is so full of kindness, and which 
 is so beautiful in the mistress of a family, which makes 
 her bear the whole house, and be its stay as well as its 
 
 ornament. In the evening, in particular but I will 
 
 give you a circumstantial history of my day. 
 
 Early in the morning comes Lettis, the black-brown 
 servant, and brings me a cup of coffee. An hour after 
 wards little Willie knocks at my door, and takes me down 
 to breakfast, leaning on my little cavalier s shoulder, 
 sometimes I am conducted both by him and Laura, to 
 the lowest story, where is the eating-room. There when 
 the family is assembled, good Mrs. Rowland dispenses 
 tea and coffee and many good things, for here, as in the 
 North, the breakfasts are only too abundant. One of the 
 principal dishes here is rice (the principal product of 
 Carolina) boiled in water in such a manner as to swell the 
 grains considerably, yet still are they soft, and eat very 
 pulpy. I always eat from this dish of rice at breakfast, 
 because I know it to be very wholesome. People 
 generally eat it with fresh butter, and many mix with it 
 also a soft-boiled egg. For the rest they have boiled meat 
 and fish : sweet potatoes, hommony, maize-bread, eggs, 
 milk cooled with ice ; all which are really a superabundance 
 of good things. During the whole meal-time one of the 
 black boys or girls stands with a besom of peacocks 
 feathers to drive away the flies. 
 
288 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 After breakfast all go out on the piazza for a little while, 
 the children leap about and chase one another through 
 the garden, and it is a delight to see the graceful Sarah, 
 now thirteen, leap about, brilliant with the freshness of 
 youth and joy, and light as a young roe, with her plaits 
 of hair and her ribbons flying in the wind. She is a 
 most charming creature. The elder sister, Illione, is 
 also a pretty girl, with something excellent, grave and 
 demure in her demeanour and manner. Willie has 
 beautiful eyes and brown curls, and Laura is a little rose 
 bud. Two little black negro-girls, Georgia and Attila, the 
 children of Lettis, jump and leap about in the house, and 
 on the steps, as quick and dexterous as one might fancy 
 black elves. 
 
 After breakfast I go into my own room and remain there 
 quite undisturbed the whole forenoon. At twelve o clock 
 Mrs. W. H. sends me up a second breakfast, bread and 
 butter, a glass of iced milk, oranges and bananas. You 
 see my dear heart, I am not likely to suffer from hunger. 
 At three o clock they dine, and there may be a guest or 
 two to dinner. In the afternoon my good hostess takes 
 me out somewhere, which is in every way agreeable 
 to me. 
 
 The evening is nevertheless the flower of the day in 
 this family, (ah, in how many families is the evening 
 the heaviest part of the day !) Then the lamps are 
 lighted in the beautiful drawing-rooms ; and all are 
 summoned to tea. Then is Mrs. W. H., kind, and fat, 
 and good, seated on the sofa with the great tea-table 
 before her, loaded with good things ; then small tea-tables 
 are placed about, (I always have my own little table to 
 myself near the sofa,) and the lively little negro-boy, Sam, 
 (Mrs. W. H. s great favourite) carries round the refresh 
 ments. Then come in, almost always, three or four 
 young lads, sons of neighbouring friends of the family, 
 and a couple of young girls also, and the young people 
 
HOLIES OF THE NEW WORLD. 289 
 
 dance gaily and gracefully to the piano, in all simplicity 
 and good faith. The children of the house are amiable 
 with one another, they are very fond of one another, and 
 dance together as we used to do in the evenings at home. 
 But they are happier than we were. I generally play 
 an hour for them, either waltzes or quadrilles. Strangers, 
 in the mean time, call and take their leave. 
 
 Later, people go out on the piazza, where they walk 
 about, or sit and talk, but I prefer rather quietly to enjoy 
 the fragrant night-air, and to glance through the open 
 doors into the room where the handsome children are 
 skipping about in the joy of youth, Sarah always ideally 
 lovely and graceful, and without knowing it. 
 
 Mr. M., the brother of Mrs. W. H., and the gentle 
 man who came to fetch me the first morning, is a guest 
 here every evening ; he is a man of great conversational 
 powers, and tells a story remarkably well. 
 
 But with none of them am I so much at home as with 
 my good sensible hostess. And I cannot describe how 
 excellently kind she is to me. 
 
 April \2>th. We had last evening a great storm of 
 thunder and lightning, such as I have never seen in 
 Europe, although I remember one June night last year, 
 in Denmark, at Soro, when the whole atmosphere was as 
 it were in bright flame. But here the flashes of lightning 
 were like glowing streams of lava, and the thunder- claps 
 instantly succeeded them. For the first time in my life I 
 felt a little frightened at a thunder-storm. And yet I 
 enjoyed the wild scene. 
 
 In a couple of days I shall go hence on a visit to 
 Mr. Poinsett, the late Minister of War for the United States, 
 as well as their Ambassador to Mexico, and who now 
 lives as a private man on his own plantation. He must 
 be an unusually interesting and amiable man, has seen a 
 great deal of life and of the world, and I am therefore 
 glad to receive an invitation to his house near George 
 
 VOL. i. u 
 
290 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 Town, a day s journey from this place. I have to^ thank 
 Mr. Downing for this. I shall spend there a few days, 
 and return hither, whence I shall go to Georgia. I must 
 make good use of the time, because early in May the 
 heat becomes great in the South, and then all the planters 
 remove from their plantations to avoid the dangerous 
 fevers which then prevail. During the summer months 
 it is said that a night spent on one of the rice -plantations 
 would be certain death to a white man. The negroes on 
 the contrary suffer little or nothing from the climate. 
 
 I am now making a sketch, from an oil painting, of the 
 portrait of a great Indian chief, by name Osconehola, 
 who, at the head of the Seminole tribe, fought bravely 
 against the Americans in Florida, who wished to drive 
 the Indians thence and send them westward to Arkansas. 
 The country in the southern parts, which was possessed by 
 the tribes of the Seminole and Creek Indians, and where 
 they were continually an annoyance to white settlers, 
 produces as its more general wood a tree which is called 
 light-wood, from the gumminess of its timber, which 
 quickly kindles and burns with a bright flame. It is not 
 of a large size, and is easy to fell. The Arkansas, on the 
 Western side of the Mississippi, produces for the most 
 part oak forests, bounded by the wild steppland (Nebraska, 
 the principal resort of the Indians at this time in North 
 America), and has a severe climate. 
 
 Osconehola therefore replied to the message and the 
 threat which was sent by the government of the United 
 States, in these words : 
 
 " My people are accustomed to the warm air of Florida, 
 to the rivers and the lakes which abound in fish ; to the 
 light-wood, which is easy to fell, and which burns easily. 
 They cannot live in that cold country where only the oak 
 tree grows. The people cannot fell the large trees ; they 
 will perish there for want of the light- wood ! " 
 
 And when at last the choice was given him, either open 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 291 
 
 war with the United States, or that he should sign the 
 contract which banished himself and his people from 
 Florida, he struck his spear through it, and said, 
 
 " I defy them to conquer us within five years ! " 
 
 And the war between the Florida Indians and the army 
 of the United States continued five years; much blood 
 was shed on both sides, and still were the Indians in 
 possession of the country, and would perhaps have been 
 so still had not Osconehola been taken captive through 
 perfidy and deceit. When under the protection of the 
 white flag he came to have a talk with the Spanish General 
 Hernandez. The treachery was indeed the Spaniards , 
 but still it appears that the American officers were neither 
 ignorant of it nor yet averse to it. 
 
 Osconehola was taken as prisoner, first to St. Augustin, 
 then to Charleston, and to Fort Moultrie, on Sullivan s 
 Island. From this moment it appeared as if his spirit 
 was broken. Persons who visited him in his prison 
 Mr. M. was among these says that he never saw a 
 glance so melancholy and gloomy. He, however, never 
 uttered any lamentation, but often spoke with bitterness 
 of the manner in which he had been taken prisoner, and 
 of the injustice which had been done to his people in 
 forcing them from their native soil to remove to a northern 
 land where no light-wood was to be found ! 
 
 His handsome person, his melodious voice, his large 
 dark eyes, full of gloomy fire, his bravery and his fate, 
 awoke a universal interest for him, and the ladies in 
 particular felt an enthusiasm for the handsome Seminole 
 chief, visited him and made him presents. But he seemed 
 indifferent to all ; grew more and more silent, and from 
 the moment when he was put in prison, his health 
 declined, although he did not appear to be ill. He ate 
 but very little, and would take no medicine. It was evident 
 that he wished to die. The captive eagle could not live 
 deprived of the free life and air of his forest. 
 
 u 2 
 
292 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 Two of his wives, one young and handsome, the other 
 old and ugly, accompanied him into captivity. The old 
 one waited on and tended him, and he seemed to love her 
 most. He was always occupied by hut one thought the 
 certain ruin of his people in that cold land where there 
 was no light-wood. Embittered and silent, he wasted 
 away by degrees, and died one month after his arrival at 
 Fort Moultrie, died because he could not live. The light- 
 wood in his life was consumed. A weeping willow droops 
 over the white marble stone which covers his grave outside 
 the wall of the fortress by the sea-shore. 
 
 It is a few years since he died, and his life, combat and 
 death, are an abbreviated history of the fate of his nation 
 in this part of the world. For this reason, and also for 
 the sake of the expression of his handsome countenance, 
 have I wished to make a sketch of his portrait, so that 
 you may see it. I have heard him spoken of here by 
 many persons. Otherwise, I have not just now a weakness 
 for the Indians, notwithstanding their stern virtues, and 
 beautiful characters, and the splendour with which 
 novelists have loved to surround them. They are 
 extremely cruel in their wars between the different tribes, 
 and they are usually severe to the women, whom they 
 treat as beasts of burden, and not as equals. 
 
 CasaBianca, April IQth. I now write to you, my sweet 
 child, from a hermitage on the banks of the little river 
 Pee Dee. It is a solitary, quiet abode, so solitary and 
 quiet, that it almost astonishes me to find such a one in 
 this lively active part of the world, and among these 
 company-loving people. 
 
 A fine old couple, Mr. Poinsett and his lady, who 
 remind me of Philemon and Baucis, live here quite 
 alone, in the midst of negro slaves, rice -plantations, and 
 wild, sandy, forest land. There is not a single white 
 servant in the house. The overseer of the slaves, who 
 always lives near the slave -hamlet, is the only white person 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 293 
 
 I have seen out of the house. Nevertheless the old couple 
 seem to me to live as safely as we do at our Arsta, and to 
 be about as little careful of fastening the house-door at 
 night. The house is an old one (N.B., for this young 
 country), with antique furniture, and rooms testifying of 
 good old-fashioned aristocratic taste and comfort. 
 
 Bound the house is a park, or garden, rich in the most 
 beautiful trees, shrubs, and plants of the country, planted 
 by Mr. Poinsett himself, according to Mr.Downing s advice, 
 and, as under the snow-covered roof at Concord, had I the 
 pleasure of hearing the words, " Mr. Downing has done 
 much for this country," so universal is the influence of 
 Mr. Downing here in the improvement of taste, and the 
 awakening a sense of the beautiful, as regards buildings, 
 the cultivation of gardens, and the laying out of public 
 grounds. 
 
 North America has also this peculiarity, that all kinds 
 of trees and shrubs from other parts of the world may be 
 removed here, become naturalised and flourish ; in the 
 grounds around Casa Bianca are a great number from 
 foreign countries. Of all the trees here I like best the 
 native large live-oak, with its long, pendant growth of 
 moss, (two magnificent specimens of this tree stand 
 opposite the house on the banks of Pee Dee, and form by 
 their branches an immense portico, through which one 
 sees the river and the landscape beyond) and the sober, 
 lofty, dark green magnolias. Outside my window, which 
 is in the upper story, stands a cornus Floridse, a tree 
 whose crown now seems to be a mass of snow-white 
 blossom, and early in the morning I hear and see the 
 thrushes singing their rich morning song on its topmost 
 branches ; farther off is the deliciously odoriferous Olea 
 fragrans from Peru, and many beautiful rare trees and 
 shrubs. Among these sing the thrushes and the mocking 
 birds, and swarms of blackbirds twitter and chatter, and 
 build in the great live-oaks. Mrs. Poinsett will not allow 
 
294 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 them to be disturbed, and every morning, after breakfast, 
 come little grey sparrows and the brilliant cardinal-birds 
 (so called from the splendour of their plumage) quite 
 familiarly, and pick up the rice-grains which she scatters 
 for them in the piazza before the door. On the quiet little 
 river Pee Dee, glides first one and then another canoe 
 paddled by negroes, and it is only by the steamboats which 
 now and then swing their tails of smoke over the river 
 Wackamow, beyond Pee Dee, and by the sailing vessels 
 which one sees on their way down to Cuba or China, that 
 one observes that here also one lives in this trading and 
 trafficking world. 
 
 Mr. Poinsett is a French gentilhomme in his whole 
 exterior and demeanour (lie is of a Erench family), and 
 unites the refinement and natural courtesy of the French 
 man with the truthful simplicity and straightforwardness 
 which I so much like in the true American, the man of 
 the New World. That fine figure is still slender and agile, 
 although he suffers from asthma. He has seen much, 
 and been among much, and is an extremely agreeable 
 person to converse with, in particular as relates to the 
 internal political relationship of the United States, which 
 he has assisted in forming, and the spirit and intention of 
 which he thoroughly understands, whilst he has a warm 
 compatriot heart. I have, in a couple of conversations 
 with him in the evening after tea, learned more of these 
 relationships, and those of the individual states to their 
 common government, than I could have learned from 
 books, because I acquire this knowledge in a living 
 manner from the sagacious old statesman; I can ask 
 questions, make objections, and have them at once replied 
 to. He is the first man that I have met with in the South, 
 with one exception, who speaks of slavery in a really 
 candid and impartial spirit. He earnestly desires that his 
 native land should free itself from this moral obliquity, 
 and he has faith in its doing so ; but he sees the whole 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 295 
 
 thing at present involved in so many ways, and the 
 difficulties attending any change so great, that he leaves 
 the question to be solved by the future. He firmly 
 believes in the onward progress of America, but he is far 
 from satisfied with many things in the country, and 
 especially in this very State. He is one of the New 
 World s wise men, who more and more withdraw them 
 selves from the world, looking calmly on from his 
 Hermitage, and apparently happy there with his excellent 
 wife and his rural occupation. 
 
 In the morning, after I have eaten, with a good relish, 
 my breakfast of rice and egg and cocoa, I help Mrs. 
 Poinsett to feed the birds, and am delighted that the 
 beautiful showy cardinal-birds will condescend to pick up 
 my rice-grains. And then, if I rush out into the garden 
 ready to embrace the air, and the shrubs, and all nature, 
 the good old lady laughs at me right heartily. Then out 
 comes Mr. Poinsett, begs me to notice the beautiful la 
 marque rose, which Mr. Downing gave him, and which 
 now is full of large clusters of yellowish-white flowers on 
 the trellised walls of the house ; and thence he takes me 
 round the garden, and tells me the names of the plants 
 which I do not know, and their peculiarities, for the old 
 gentleman is a skilful botanist. He has also taken me 
 round his rice-grounds, which are now being sown, after 
 which they will lie under water. And it is this irrigation, 
 and the exhalation therefrom, which makes the rice- 
 plantations so unwholesome for the white population 
 during the hot season. Mr. Poinsett s plantations are not 
 large, and seem not to have more than sixty negroes upon 
 them. Several other plantations adjoin these, but neither 
 are they large, as it appeared, and my entertainers seemed 
 not to be intimate with their proprietors. 
 
 I range about in the neighbourhood, through the rice- 
 fields and negro-villages, which amuses me greatly. The 
 slave -villages consist of small, white -washed, wooden 
 
296 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 houses, for the most part built in two rows, forming a street, 
 each house standing detached in its little yard or garden, 
 and generally with two or three trees about it. The houses 
 are neat and clean, and such a village, with its peach- 
 trees in blossom, as they are just now, presents a 
 pleasant appearance. The weather is heavenly ; " true 
 Carolina air," say the Carolina people, and it is 
 delicious. 
 
 Yesterday Sunday there was in the forenoon, divine 
 service for the negroes in a wagon-shed, which had been 
 emptied for that purpose. It was clean and airy, and the 
 slaves assembled there, well-dressed and well behaved. 
 The sermon and the preacher (a white missionary) were 
 unusually wooden. But I was astonished at the people s 
 quick and glad reception of every single expression of 
 beauty or of feeling. Thus when the preacher introduced 
 the words from Job, " The Lord gave, and the Lord hath 
 taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord ! " there 
 was a general movement among the people ; the words 
 were repeated ; many exclaimed Amen ! amen! and I saw 
 many eyes full of tears. 
 
 In the evening I wandered out to enjoy the beautiful 
 evening and to look about me. I have often heard it said 
 by the friends of slavery, even in the Northern States, as 
 a proof of the happiness of the slaves, that they dance 
 and sing in the evening on the plantations. And now I 
 thought perhaps I may chance to see a dance. I reached 
 the slave village. The little white houses, overshadowed 
 by the pink blossoming trees, with their little plot of 
 gar den -ground, looked charmingly ; the little fat, black 
 children leapt about eating a large yellow root, the sweet 
 potatoe, laughing if one only looked at them, and 
 especially inclined to shake hands. But in the village 
 itself everything was very still and quiet. A few negro 
 men and women were standing about, and they looked 
 kind and well to do. I heard in one house a sound as of 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 297 
 
 prayer and zealous exhortation. I entered and saw an 
 assemblage of negroes, principally women, who were 
 much edified and affected in listening to a negro who was 
 preaching to them with great fervour and great gesticula 
 tion, thumping on the table with his clenched fists. The 
 sum and substance of his sermon was this "Let us 
 do as Christ has commanded us ; let us do as he wishes, 
 let us love one another. Then he will come to us on our 
 sick beds, on our death beds, and he will make us free, 
 and we shall come to him and sit with him in glory !" 
 
 The discourse, spite of its exaggerated pathos and its 
 circumlocution, could not have been better in its aim and 
 in its application. And it delighted me to hear the 
 doctrine of spiritual freedom promulgated by a slave among 
 slaves. I have since heard that the Methodist missionaries, 
 who are the most influential and effective teachers and 
 preachers among the negroes, are very angry with them for 
 their love of dancing and music, and declare them to be 
 sinful. And whenever the negroes become Christian they 
 give up dancing, have preaching meetings instead, and 
 employ their musical talents merely on psalms and hymns. 
 This seems to me a very unwise proceeding on the part 
 of the preachers. Are not all God s gifts good, and may 
 they not be made use of in His honour ? And why should 
 not this people, by nature joyous and childlike, worship 
 God in gladness ? I would, instead, let them have sacred 
 dances, and let them sing to them jo} r ful songs of praise 
 in the beautiful air, beneath the blossoming trees. Did 
 not King David dance and sing in pious rapture before 
 the ark of God ? 
 
 I went on still farther through wood and meadow, into 
 the wild, silent country. When it began to grow dusk I 
 turned back. I repassed the same slave village. Fires 
 blazed in the little houses, but everything was more silent 
 and stiller than before. I saw a young negro with a good 
 and handsome countenance, standing thoughtfully under 
 
298 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 a peach-tree, leaning against its bole. I accosted him, 
 and asked him of one thing and another. Another slave 
 came up, and then still another, and the conversation 
 with them was as follows : 
 
 " At what time do you get up in the morning ? " 
 
 " Before sunrise." 
 
 " When do you leave off in the evening ? " 
 
 "When the sun sets when it is dark." 
 
 "But when do you get time to look after your 
 gardens ? " 
 
 "We must do that on Sundays, or at night, for 
 when w r e come home we are so tired that we could drop 
 down." 
 
 " How do you get your dinners ? " 
 
 " We have no dinner ! It is all we can do if, while we 
 are working, we can throw a bit of bread, or some corn 
 into us." 
 
 "But my friend," said I, now a little mistrustful, 
 " your appearance contradicts what you say ; for you look 
 in very good condition, and quite brisk." 
 
 " W r e endeavour to keep ourselves up as well as we 
 can," replied the man by the tree; " what can we do unless 
 we keep up a good heart. If we were to let it droop we 
 should die ! " 
 
 The others responded to the song of lamentation. 
 
 I bade them good night and went my way, suspecting 
 that all was not true in the slaves representation. But 
 still it might be true ; it was true if not here, yet in 
 other places and under wicked masters ; it might always 
 be true in an institution which gives such irresponsible 
 power at will and all its actual and possible misery 
 presented itself to me, and made me melancholy. The 
 evening was so beautiful, the air so fragrant, the roses 
 were all in blossom ; nature seemed to be arrayed as a 
 bride ; the heaven was bright ; the new moon, with the 
 old moon in her arms, was bright in the firmament, and 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 299 
 
 the stars came out, clear and brilliant. The glory of the 
 scene, and that poor, black, enslaved, degraded people 
 they did not at all agree ! All my enjoyment was over. 
 
 I was glad however to have a man like Mr. Poinsett to 
 talk with. And to him I confided, in the evening, my 
 conversation and my thoughts. Mr. Poinsett maintains 
 that the slaves have told me falsehoods. " One can never 
 believe what they say," said he, adding, " that also is one 
 of the evils of slavery. The people are made liars 
 by it. Children learn from their parents to regard the 
 white people with fear, and to deceive them. They are 
 always suspicious, and endeavour by their complainings 
 to get some advantage. But you may be sure that they 
 have been imposing upon you. The slaves round here 
 have a certain quantity of work set them for the day, and 
 at this time of the year they have for the most part 
 finished it by four or five o clock in the afternoon. There 
 is commonly kept on every plantation a male or female 
 cook who prepares the daily dinner at one o clock. I have 
 one for my people, and I have no doubt but that Mr. - 
 also has one for his people. It cannot be otherwise. 
 And I am certain that you would find it to be so if you 
 would examine into the aifair." 
 
 Mr. Poinsett does not deny but that abuse and 
 maltreatment of slaves has often occurred and still occurs, 
 but public opinion becomes more and more sternly 
 opposed to it. Some years ago extreme cruelty was 
 practised against the slaves on a plantation in the neigh 
 bourhood, by an overseer, during the prolonged absence 
 in England of the owner of the plantations. The planters 
 in the neighbourhood united, wrote to him, told him that 
 they could not bear it, and requested that the overseer 
 should be removed. And this was done. Mr. P. considers 
 that the system of slavery operates in many cases much 
 more unfavourably on women than on men, and makes 
 them, not unfrequently, the hardest masters. 
 
300 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 18th. I am just returned from a solitary ramble into 
 the plantations, which has done me good, for it has shown 
 me that the slaves under the peach-tree really did impose 
 upon me. During my ramble I saw at one place in the 
 rice-field a number of small copper vessels standing, 
 each covered with a lid, from twenty-five to thirty in 
 number, just as with us, one sees the labourers noggins 
 and baskets standing together in the grass. I went up, lifted 
 the lid of one, and saw that the vessel contained warm, 
 steaming food, which smelt very good. Some of them 
 were filled with brown beans, others with maize -pancakes. 
 I now saw the slaves coming up from a distance, walking 
 along the headland of the field. I waited till they came 
 up, and then asked permission to taste their food, and I 
 must confess that I have seldom tasted better, or more 
 savoury viands. The brown beans were like our " princess 
 beans," boiled soft with meat and seasoned, somewhat too 
 highly for me. But it ate with a relish, and so did the 
 maize -cakes and the other viands also. The people seated 
 themselves upon the grass-sward and ate, some with 
 spoons, others with splinters of wood, each one out of his 
 own piggin, as these vessels are called, and which contained 
 an abundant portion. They seemed contented, but were 
 very silent. I told them that the poor working people in 
 the country from which I came seldom had such good food 
 as they had here. I was not come there to preach 
 rebellion among the slaves, and the malady which I 
 could not cure, I would alleviate if it was in my power. 
 Besides which, what I said was quite true. But I did not 
 tell them that which was also true, that I would rather 
 live on bread and water than live as a slave. 
 
 On my homeward way I saw an old negro, very well 
 dressed, who was standing fishing in a little stream. He 
 belonged to Mr. Poinsett, but had been by him liberated 
 from all kind of work in consequence of his age. From 
 this sensible old man I heard various things which also i 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 301 
 
 pleased me. I saw in two other places likewise the people 
 at their meals, breakfast and dinner, and saw that here 
 too the food was good and abundant. 
 
 I passed by my negroes of the peach-tree yesterday 
 afternoon, and saw them coming home with a crowd of 
 others at about six o clock. One of them sprang over a 
 hedge when he saw me, and grinning with his white teeth, 
 asked from me a half dollar. 
 
 April 20th. Good day, my sweet child ! I have just 
 had my second breakfast, at twelve o clock, of bananas. I 
 am beginning to like this fruit. It is gentle and agreeable, 
 and has a wholesome effect, as well as the mild air here, 
 that is to say, when it is mild. But even here the climate 
 is very changeable. Yesterday the thermometer fell in 
 one day twenty-four degrees, and it was so cold that my 
 fingers were stiff as icicles. To-day again one is covered 
 with perspiration, even when one sits quietly in the shade. 
 We have been twice at great dinners with planters some 
 miles from here, but I am so annoyed by great dinners, 
 and made so ill by the things I eat, that I hope, with 
 all my heart, not to go to any more. But my good hostess, 
 who has a youthful soul, in a heavy and somewhat lame 
 body, heartily enjoys being invited out. 
 
 Yesterday, as we were taking a drive, the carriage, which 
 has generally to go through heavy sand, made a stand in 
 a wood for the horses to rest. Deeper down in the wood 
 I saw a slave village, or houses resembling one, but which 
 had an unusually irregular and tumble-down appearance. 
 At my wish Mr. Poinsett went with me to it. I found the 
 houses actually in the most decayed and deplorable con 
 dition, and in one house old and sickly negroes, men and 
 women. In one room I saw a young lad very much 
 swollen, as if with dropsy ; the rain and wind could enter 
 by the roof; everything was naked in the room ; neither 
 fire-wood nor fire was there, although the day was chilly. 
 In another wretched house we saw an old woman lying 
 
302 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 among rags as in a dog-kennel. This was the provision 
 which one of the planters made for the old and sick 
 among his servants ! What a fate is theirs who have 
 fallen into such circumstances ! And what pitying eye 
 
 beholds them excepting God s ? 
 
 * * * * 
 
 In one slave village near a great house, I saw 
 remarkably handsome people, and living in good houses. 
 But I observed that the glances of the young men were 
 gloomy and defiant, with no expression of kindness 
 towards their owners. That did not look well. On our 
 homeward way we drove through many slave villages. It 
 was a pleasant sight to see the fire-light flickering in the 
 small houses for each family has its own house and to 
 see the negroes come so early from their day-labour. 
 This district consists of a sandy, wood-covered soil. The 
 wood is principally a kind of yellowish pine the yellow- 
 pine, or light-wood, with great tufts of six-inch long leaves, 
 which sometimes assume the likeness of the palmetto. 
 It is horribly monotonous ; but splendid, lofty flowers, 
 lupines, and rose-red azaleas, grow among the trees, and 
 light up the woods. It was late and dark before we 
 reached home, and I sate and looked at the lights which 
 I saw flash here and there near the road or in the wood, 
 but which vanished as we approached. I called Mr. 
 Poinsett s attention to them, and he said that they must 
 be fire-flies. They make their appearance about this 
 time. I hope to make a nearer acquaintance with the 
 shining creatures. 
 
 21s. I have to-day wandered about deliciously in wood 
 and field, and in so doing, came to a river called the 
 Black Eiver. I saw slaves at work not far off, under a 
 white overseer, from whom I requested and obtained an 
 old negro to take me across the river. The good- 
 humoured old man was more free-spoken and clear-headed 
 in his conversation than I have commonly found the slaves 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 303 
 
 to be. And whilst he rowed me in a little canoe, made 
 of a hollowed tree stem, he talked freely about the owners 
 of the plantations that lay by the river. Of one it was 
 " Good master ! blessed master, ma am ! " of another 
 " bad master, ma am ! beats his servants. Cuts them to 
 pieces, ma am ! " and so on. 
 
 On the other side of the river I came to a plantation 
 where I met with the owner himself, who was a 
 clergyman. He conducted me through the slave -village, 
 and talked to me about the happiness of the negro 
 slaves, which convinced me that he himself was a slave of 
 mammon. Certain it is that under a good master they 
 are far from unhappy, and much better provided for than 
 the poor working people in many parts of Europe. But 
 under a wicked master they have fallen into direful and 
 hopeless misery. Sophists, who are determined to see 
 only the sunny side of the picture, deny absolutely that 
 such are ever to be found. But I have already both heard 
 and seen enough of them. That which the North testifies 
 against the South I will not believe ; but that which 
 the South testifies against itself, I am compelled to 
 believe. Besides the best master is no justification of 
 slavery, for the best master dies sooner or later, and his 
 slaves are then sold to the highest bidder, like cattle. - The 
 slaves out in the fields present a joyless appearance; their 
 dark colour and their grey dress, without a single white 
 or coloured garment to enliven it, give them a gloomy and 
 dull appearance. I must however mention, as an excep 
 tion, the knitted cotton caps of the men, which have 
 generally a couple of red or blue stripes, knitted into the 
 grey ground-colour. At work in the field they look like 
 figures of earth. Quite different is the appearance of our 
 peasants in their white linen, their showy, ornamental 
 attire. The slave villages, on the other hand, as I have 
 already remarked, have rather a comfortable appearance, 
 excepting that one very rarely sees glass in the windows 
 
304 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 of their houses. The window generally consists of s. 
 square opening, which is closed with a shutter. But so 
 also are those in the houses of the poor white people, and 
 in Carolina there are many such to he met with. In the 
 room one sees, nearly always, a couple of logs burning 
 on the hearth, and the household furniture and little pro 
 vision stores resemble those which are to be found in the 
 homes of our poorest people in town and country. Here 
 and there, however, one sees more attention paid to the 
 house; a little ornament about it, together with well- 
 supplied beds. Every house has a pigstye, in which 
 there is generally a very fat pig; and many hens and 
 chickens swarm about the garden-plot, in which they 
 grow Indian corn, beans, and different kinds of 
 roots. These little plots, however, do not look very 
 well attended to. The slaves sell eggs and chickens, 
 and every Christmas their pig also, and thus obtain 
 a little money to buy treacle or molasses (of which they 
 are very fond), biscuits, and other eatables. They often 
 lay up money; and I have heard speak of slaves who 
 possess several hundred dollars. This money they 
 generally place out to interest in the hands of their 
 masters, whom, when they are good, they regard as their 
 best friends, and who really are so. All the slave -villages 
 which I saw perfectly resemble each other, only that! 
 some of the houses are better, and others worse kept. 
 The slaves are under the management of one or two 
 overseers, appointed by the master, and under these there i 
 is, for each village, a driver, who wakes the slaves in the; 
 morning, or drives them to work when they are late., 
 The driver is always a negro, and is often the 
 most cruel and the most severe man in the whole 
 plantation. For when the negro is unmerciful he is< 
 so in a high degree, and he is the worst torment 
 of the negroes. Free negroes, who are possessed of 
 slaves and there are such are commonly the worsti 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 305 
 
 of masters. So, at least, I have been told by trust 
 worthy persons. 
 
 22nd. I dreamed last night so livingly of you, my 
 darling Agatha, and was delighted to see how brisk and 
 well you looked; we talked, in my dream, about 
 Marstand, and you told me that mamma thought of 
 accompanying you thither. Now that I am awake 
 I wonder whether the dream was a soothsaying. Mamma 
 is always accustomed to approve of your bathing and 
 water-cure. 
 
 My life passes quietly, as quietly as the little river 
 before my window ; but it is well for me. I have not 
 passed a calmer time since I have been in this country; 
 for, with the exception of a few occasional visits in the 
 forenoon from neighbours, I live quite alone with my 
 good, old married pair. Every morning there is laid on 
 the breakfast-table, beside my plate, a bouquet of 
 deliciously fragrant flowers, generally of the Peruvian 
 Olea fragrans, (and anything more delicious I do not know,) 
 gathered by Mr. Poinsett. Every evening I sit with him 
 and Mrs. Poinsett alone, read and talk with him, or tell 
 stories for the good old lady, or give her riddles to guess, 
 which very much amuses her. She sits by the fire and 
 takes a nap, or listens to what Mr. Poinsett and I read by 
 lamplight at the table. I wished to make him a little 
 acquainted with my friends the transcendentalists and 
 idealists of the north, and I have read to him portions of 
 Emerson s Essays. But they shoot over the head of 
 the old statesman ; he says it is all " unpractical," and 
 he often criticises it unjustly, and we quarrel. Then the 
 good old lady laughs by the fire, and nods to us, and is 
 amazingly entertained. Mr. Poinsett is nevertheless 
 struck with Emerson s brilliant aphorisms, and says that 
 he will buy his works. It is remarkable how very little, 
 or not at all, the authors of the Northern States, even 
 the best of them, are known in the south. They are 
 
 VOL. I. X 
 
306 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 afraid of admitting their liberal opinions into the slave 
 states. 
 
 Mr. Poinsett has travelled much, as well in Europe as 
 in America, and he maintains that no scenery, not even the 
 sublimest scenery of South America, its Andes and its 
 river Amazon, equals Switzerland in picturesque beauty. 
 Switzerland is the only country on the face of the earth 
 which he desires to see again, and there he would like to 
 spend his last days. He seems weary of statesmanship 
 and of the life of a statesman. Even Calhoun, the great 
 and almost idolised statesman of Carolina, is not great in 
 Mr. Poinsett s opinion, excepting in ambition. His 
 whole life seems to have been a warfare in the service of 
 ambition, and his death (for he is just dead, during the 
 sitting of Congress at Washington) the result of this 
 warfare in his breast, owing to the political feuds in 
 which he perpetually lived. 
 
 It is very charming to see my two old friends together 
 in everyday life. They are heartily attached to each 
 other. One standing quarrel they have about a horrible 
 old straw bonnet of Mrs. Poinsett s, which looks like an 
 ancient up-turned boat, and which Mr. Poinsett cannot 
 bear the sight of, and which he threatens to make 
 an end of, to burn, every time he sets eyes on it, but 
 which she obstinately will keep, and which she defends 
 with terror whenever he makes any hostile demonstration 
 against it. But it is altogether a love -squabble, and as 
 it has now lasted for ten years I suppose, it will last on to 
 the days of their death. They have both of them a 
 cough which they call " constitutional," and I also cough 
 a little now and then, as I have always done; we 
 have now three constitutional coughs. I contemplate 
 this good feeling between my old couple with delight, 
 and see how true love can bloom in and beautify old 
 age. There are attentions, pleasing little acts of fore 
 thought or compliance, which are worth many kisses, and 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 307 
 
 have certainly a greater charm than these as proofs of 
 love. 
 
 I spend the greater part of the forenoon in the garden 
 among the flowers, birds, and butterflies, all splendid and 
 strangers to me, and which salute me here as anonymous 
 beauty. During these hours spent amid this new and 
 beautiful nature, thoughts visit me which give me great 
 joy and which in every way are a great comfort to me. 
 I will explain : I have for sometime felt as if I could scarcely 
 bear to read, nor yet to write anything which required the 
 least exertion of mind, as it produces in me a degree of 
 nervous suffering which is indescribable, and the effect of 
 which remained long afterwards. I have therefore almost 
 given up the hope of studying, and of making myself 
 much acquainted with books during my residence in this 
 country ; this has been painful to me and I have long 
 striven against it, because study has always been my 
 greatest pleasure, and now more than ever was it neces 
 sary for me to be able to devour books, so that I might 
 be somewhat at home in the life and literature of this 
 country. Here, however, during these beautiful early 
 mornings, in this beautiful, fragrant, silent world of trees 
 and flowers, there has arisen within me a clearness, a 
 certainty, something like the inner light of the Quakers, 
 which tells me that it is best for me now to lay aside 
 books, and altogether to yield myself up to live in that 
 living life, to live free from care for the moment and to 
 take and accept that which the hour and the occasion 
 present, without troubling myself with many plans or 
 much thought. I must let things come to me as they may 
 come, and determine for me as they will determine. A 
 conviction has come to my mind that a higher guidance 
 attends me and that it will direct everything for the best ; 
 that I have nothing to do but to yield myself up to its 
 inspiration so long as I keep my eye firmly directed to 
 the Star of Bethlehem which hd me hither and I cannot 
 
 x 2 
 
308 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 turn my eye from that the desire to find the truth. 
 Thus shall I find the child of God ! 
 
 Therefore, in God s name, farewell to books, to the 
 old friends and pasture-grounds. I press forwards towards 
 that which is before me, and confide in the fatherly guid 
 ance of God. A something infinitely delightful and elevat 
 ing has taken possession of my soul with these thoughts, 
 and filled my heart with joy. Weak, I yet know myself 
 to be strong, bound down to the earth, I yet know that I 
 have wings; I am merely a child and yet I can over 
 come the world. 
 
 And thus I go forth and converse with the flowers, and 
 listen to the birds and to the whispering of the great 
 live-oaks. Oaks like these, with their long, depending 
 trails of moss must have inspired the oracle of Dodona. 
 
 The blackbirds which build in them in great numbers, 
 are about the size of our jackdaw, and have on each side 
 their necks, below the head, a fine yellow ruff, like a half- 
 round frill. The mockingbirds are grey, about as large as 
 our Swedish nightingale, and their song is very intricate and 
 often really charming ; but it wants the strong inspiration 
 of the European nightingale and lark. It is as if the bird 
 sang from memory ; sang reminiscences, and imitated a 
 number of sounds of other birds and even animals. There 
 are, however, in its song, beautiful, peculiar tones resem 
 bling those both of the thrush and the nightingale. People 
 say that these birds dance minuets with each other. I too 
 have seen them here figuring towards one another, tripping 
 quite in a minuet-fashion. I suppose this is their way of 
 wooing. It is remarkable that people never succeed in 
 rearing in cages the young of these birds which have 
 been taken from the nest; they always die shortly 
 after their captivity. It is asserted that the mothers 
 come to them and give them poison. The full-grown 
 birds in the country thrive very well and sing in cages. 
 
 I am sometimes interrupted in my forenoon musings 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 309 
 
 by a merry negro-girl, servant in the house, who says 
 "Missis has sent me to hunt you," and it is for me to 
 come in to my luncheon. If I am writing I remain in my 
 own room and then, generally at twelve o clock, the good 
 old lady herself comes up to me with bananas and a 
 glass of milk. In the afternoon I generally go on some 
 expedition of discovery. When I am returning home in 
 the twilight I often see my old folks coming to meet 
 me, she walking with a crutch and supported by his arm. 
 
 2th. Last evening I had an old negro to row me 
 in a little canoe down the Wachamon river, spite of 
 Mr. Poinsett s remonstrances, who fancied that no good 
 would come of it. The moon rose and shone brightly on 
 the river and its banks, over which hung various trees 
 and plants in flower with which I was unacquainted. The 
 negro, a kind old man, paddled the boat onward, and 
 wherever I saw an enticing flower, thither we paddled 
 and gathered it. Thus went we on for about two hours 
 in that clear moonlight, and everything was as solitary 
 and silent on the river, and on its banks, as in a desert. 
 
 There had, however, been this day a great wedding on 
 the banks of the Wachamon, and all the neighbours had 
 been invited; but either my host and hostess did not 
 belong to their circle of acquaintance or the fame of my 
 abolitionist views had prevented us being invited. Very 
 good ! for though I love to see brides and weddings, yet 
 I love quietness now better than all. 
 
 My good host and hostess were glad to see me return 
 from my river-excursion, and Mr. Poinsett told me the 
 names of the flowers which I had gathered ; one of these 
 was the Magnolia glauca, a white flower something like 
 our white water-lily ; this grows on a smaller tree, with 
 grey-green leaves ; the celebrated, splendid flower of the 
 South, the Magnolia grandiflora, does not blossom till the 
 end of May. 
 
 I shall in a few days leave this place and return to 
 
310 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 Charleston. My kind entertainers wish me to remain 
 yet longer, but I greatly desire to reach Savannah before 
 the heat becomes too great, and I must therefore hasten. 
 I have received much kindness here and much benefit 
 from Mr. Poinsett s conversation. The evenings spent 
 alone with my good old friends are somewhat tedious. 
 One cannot be always talking American politics, and the 
 old statesman takes an interest in nothing else, nor can 
 one always have stories and riddles at hand to amuse the 
 old lady, who sits dozing by the fire, and sometimes 
 persuades her husband to do the same, sitting opposite, 
 whilst I amuse myself as well as I can, which is not very 
 well as I am not able to read, and as there is no piano, 
 and it is then too late to go out. It is time therefore to 
 be going. I now know how life looks in the plantations, 
 know how the negro slaves live, and how rice and Indian 
 corn are planted. 
 
 Charleston, April 26th. Again, my sweet child, am I 
 in my good, excellent home with Mrs. W. H. 
 
 The sea voyage between Georgetown and Charleston 
 was cheerless and cold, but now we have the full heat of 
 the dog-days. I spent the last evening with my good old 
 couple in mending their old gloves of course by my own 
 wish whilst Philemon and Baucis sate, each in their 
 arm-chair, by the fire and slept. They are aged and 
 infirm, and have arrived at that period of life when the 
 rest and life of the child are their highest happiness. 
 The next morning I set off, accompanied by the courteous 
 old statesman as far as Georgetown, and spite of good 
 Mrs. Poinsett s troubled looks, who saw threatening clouds 
 which would drown us. We however arrived quite safely, 
 while the morning freshness, and the drive through that 
 wild district, and through forests brilliant with the 
 beautiful flowery azaleas was delightful and refreshing. 
 At Georgetown, a little town where the number of geese 
 seemed to me the most remarkable feature, I parted 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 311 
 
 from ray kind companion with the promise of a second 
 visit. 
 
 On my arrival at Charleston in the evening I was 
 met by Mr. M. with the carriage. When we reached 
 Mrs. W. H. s house the young people were dancing to 
 the piano in the brilliant drawing-room ; Mr. M. and I 
 danced in, arm in arm, among them amid great jubila 
 tion. And I found myself here almost as if in my own 
 home. Certain it is that this home has more the 
 impression of our Scandinavian homes, (N.B. when they 
 are good and happy) than any home I have yet seen or 
 heard of in this country. The domestic life, the dancing, 
 the music, and the evening games, are altogether in the 
 Swedish style. 
 
 I was yesterday present at the funeral-procession of 
 the statesman and senator of Carolina, Calhoun, whose 
 body passed through Charleston. The procession was 
 said to consist of above three thousand persons; and 
 it seemed indeed to be interminable. The hearse was 
 magnificent, and so lofty from a large catafalk that 
 it seemed to threaten all gates made by human hands. 
 
 Many regiments paraded in splendid uniforms, and a 
 great number of banners with symbolic figures and 
 inscriptions were borne aloft ; it was very splendid, and 
 all went on well. All parties seems to have united with 
 real devotion and admiration to celebrate the memory of 
 the deceased, and his death is deplored in the Southern 
 States as the greatest misfortune. He has sate many 
 years in Congress as the most powerful advocate of 
 slavery, not merely as a necessary evil, but as a good, both 
 for the slave and the slave owner ; and has been a great 
 champion for the rights of the Southern States. Calhoun, 
 Clay, and Webster, have long been celebrated as a 
 triumvirate of great statesmen, the greatest in all the land. 
 Calhoun was the great man of the Southern States, Clay 
 of the Western and Middle States, Webster of the States 
 
312 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 of New England, although there is great opposition in 
 the New England States against Webster, particularly 
 among the Anti- slavery party. Each of these, although 
 old, has been a mighty champion; at the same time 
 admired and feared, loved and hated. There yet remain 
 two ; the third fell on the scene of combat, fighting in 
 death, and as it seemed, even against it. 
 
 His portrait and bust, of which I have seen many, give 
 me the impression of a burning volcano. The hair stands 
 on end, the deep-set eyes flash, deep furrows plough that 
 keen, thin countenance. It is impossible from this 
 exterior, which seems to have been ravaged by sickness 
 and passion, to form any idea of the fascinating man in 
 society, the excellent head of a family, with manners as 
 pure as those of a woman, affectionate to all his relatives, 
 a good master, almost adored by his servants and slaves 
 in a word, the amiable human being, which even his 
 enemies acknowledge him to have been. 
 
 Political ambition and party- spirit seem to have been 
 his demons, and to have hastened his death. Clay in his 
 speech on Calhoun in the Senate, makes some gently 
 warning allusions to this. His fight for slavery was " a 
 political bravado," said a clever lady, who was not one of 
 the anti- slavery party. Pity that so good a man should 
 live and died for so wretched a thing ! 
 
 o 
 
 In South Carolina, the idolatry with which he was 
 regarded was carried to the extreme, and it has been said, 
 in joke, that " when Calhoun took snuff the whole of 
 Carolina sneezed." Even now people talk and write 
 about him as if he had been a divine person. 
 
 During the procession a whole crowd of negroes leapt 
 about the streets, looking quite entertained, as they are 
 by any pomp. Some one told me that he heard the 
 negroes say, " Calhoun was indeed a wicked man, for he 
 wished that we might remain slaves." 
 
 On the evening of this day we had strangers at home, 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 313 
 
 and games, dancing and music, all merry and gay. After 
 this we walked in the piazza in the warm moonlight-air 
 till midnight. On the country side was heard the song of 
 the negroes as they rowed their boats up the river on 
 their return from the city, whither they had taken their 
 small wares eggs, fowls, and vegetables, for sale, as they 
 do two or three times a week. 
 
 When this letter reaches you, you also will have sum 
 mer and flowers, my sweet Agatha, and God be praised 
 for it. 
 
 To-morrow I set off for Savannah, and thence to 
 Magon, the capital of Georgia, then to Montpellier, where 
 I am invited by Elliott, the distinguished bishop of the 
 Episcopal church in the Southern States, to be present at 
 the annual examination of a ladies seminary which is 
 under his care. 
 
 From that place I shall write more. 
 
 LETTEE XIV. 
 
 MA90N VINEVILLE, May 7tk, 1850. 
 
 NAY, I did not go to Savannah the day I thought of, 
 but went on an excursion, to which I invite you to 
 accompany me, but without telling you whither we go. 
 We drive to the rail-road, we enter one of the carriages : 
 Mrs. W. H., an agreeable, young man I have the 
 pleasure of introducing Mr. R. to you and myself 
 and now you will accompany us. Away we go, through 
 forest and field, eighteen miles from Charleston. It is 
 late in the afternoon and very warm. We stop ; it is in 
 the middle of a thick wood. There is wood on all sides, 
 and not a house to be seen. We alight from the carriages 
 and enter a fir- wood. After we have walked for an hour 
 along unformed paths, the wood begins to be very 
 
314 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 animated. It swarms with people, in particular with 
 blacks, as far as we can see among the lofty tree-stems. 
 In the middle of the wood is an open space, in the centre 
 of which rises a great long roof, supported by pillars, and 
 under which stand benches in rows, affording sufficient 
 accommodation for four or five thousand people. In 
 the middle of this tabernacle is a lofty, square elevation, 
 and in the middle of this a sort of chair or pulpit. 
 All round the tabernacle, for so I call the roofed-in space 
 supported on pillars, hundreds of tents and booths of all 
 imaginable forms and colours, are pitched and erected in a 
 vast circle, and are seen, shining out white in the wood to 
 a great distance, and everywhere, on all sides, near and 
 afar off, may be seen groups of people, mostly black, busied 
 at small fires, roasting and boiling. Children are. running 
 about, or sitting by the fires ; horses stand and feed beside 
 the carriages they have drawn thither. It is a perfect 
 camp, with all the varied particoloured life of a camp, 
 but without soldiers and arms. Here everything looks 
 peaceful and festive, although not exactly joyful. 
 
 By degrees the people begin to assemble within the 
 tabernacle, the white people on one side, the black on the 
 other ; the black being considerably more numerous than 
 the white. The weather is sultry; thunder- clouds cover 
 the heavens, and it begins to rain. Not a very agreeable 
 prospect for the night, my little darling, but there is 
 nothing for it, we must pass the night here in the wild 
 wood. We have no other resource. But stop ; we have 
 another resource. That excellent young Mr. E. employs 
 his eloquence, and a tent is opened for us, and we are 
 received into it by a comfortable bookseller s family. 
 The family are red-hot Methodists, and not to be objected 
 to. Here we have coffee and supper. 
 
 After this meal I went out to look around me, and was 
 astonished by a spectacle which I never shall forget. 
 The night was dark with the thunder- cloud, as well as 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 315 
 
 with the natural darkness of night ; but the rain had 
 ceased, excepting for a few heavy drops, which fell here 
 and there, and the whole wood stood in flames. Upon 
 eight fire-altars, or fire-hills, as they are called, a sort 
 of lofty table, raised on posts, standing around the 
 tabernacle, burned, with a flickering brilliance of flame, 
 large billets of fire-wood, which contains a great deal of 
 resin, whilst on every side in the wood, far away in its 
 most remote recesses, burned larger or smaller fires, 
 before tents or in other places, and lit up the lofty fir-tree 
 stems, which seemed like columns of an immense natural 
 temple consecrated to fire. The vast dome above was 
 dark, and the air was so still that the flames rose straight 
 upwards, and cast a wild light, as of a strange dawn upon 
 the fir-tree tops and the black clouds. 
 
 Beneath the tabernacle an immense crowd was 
 assembled, certainly from three to four thousand persons. 
 They sang hymns ; a magnificent quire ! Most likely 
 the sound proceeded from the black portion of the 
 assembly, as their number was three times that of the 
 whites, and their voices are naturally beautiful and pure. 
 In the tower-like pulpit, which stood in the middle of 
 the tabernacle, were four preachers, who, during the 
 intervals between the hymns, addressed the people with 
 loud voices, calling sinners to conversion and amendment 
 of life. During all this, the thunder pealed, and fierce 
 lightning flashed through the wood like angry glances of 
 some mighty invisible eye. We entered the tabernacle, 
 and took our seats among the assembly on the side of the 
 whites. 
 
 Bound the elevation, in the middle of which rose the 
 pulpit, ran a sort of low counter, forming a wide square. 
 Within this, seated on benches below the pulpit, and on 
 the side of the whites, sate the Methodist preachers, for 
 the most part handsome tall figures, with broad grave 
 foreheads ; and on the side of the blacks their spiritual 
 
316 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 leaders and exhorters, many among whom were Mulattoes, 
 men of a lofty, noticeable and energetic exterior. 
 
 The later it grew in the night, the more earnest grew 
 the appeals ; the hymns short, but fervent, as the flames 
 of the light wood ascended, like them, with a passionate 
 ardour. Again and again they arose on high, like 
 melodious, burning sighs from thousands of harmonious 
 voices. The preachers increase in the fervour of their 
 zeal ; two stand with their faces turned towards the camp 
 of the blacks, two towards that of the whites, extending 
 their hands, and calling on the sinners to come, come, all 
 of them, now at this time, at this moment, which is 
 perhaps the last, the only one which remains to them in 
 which to corne to the Saviour, to escape eternal damnation ! 
 Midnight approaches, the fires burn dimmer, but the 
 exaltation increases and becomes universal. The singing 
 of hymns mingles with the invitations of the preachers, 
 and the exhortations of the class-leaders with the groans 
 and cries of the assembly. And now, from among the 
 white people, rise up young girls and men, and go and 
 throw themselves, as if overcome, upon the low counter. 
 These are met on the other side by the ministers who 
 bend down to them, receive their confessions, encourage 
 and console them. In the camp of the blacks is heard a 
 great tumult and a loud cry. Men roar and bawl out ; 
 women screech like pigs about to be killed ; many having 
 fallen into convulsions leap and strike about them, so that 
 they are obliged to be held down. It looks here and 
 there like a regular fight ; some of the calmer participants 
 laugh. Many a cry of anguish may be heard, but you 
 distinguish no words excepting, " Oh, I am a sinner ! " 
 and "Jesus ! Jesus ! " 
 
 During all this tumult the singing continues loud 
 and beautiful, and the thunder joins in with its pealing 
 kettle-drum. 
 
 Whilst this spectacle is going forward in the black 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 317 
 
 camp we observe a quieter scene among the whites. 
 Some of the forms which had thrown themselves on 
 their knees at the counter have removed themselves, hut 
 others are still lying there, and the ministers seem in 
 vain to talk or to sing to them. One of these, a young 
 girl, is lifted up by her friends and found to be "in 
 a trance." She now lies with her head in the lap of 
 a woman dressed in black, with her pretty, young face 
 turned upwards, rigid, and as it appears, totally uncon 
 scious. The woman dressed in black and another also 
 in the same coloured attire, both with beautiful though 
 sorrowful countenances, softly fan the young girl with 
 their fans and watch her with serious looks, whilst ten 
 or twelve women most of them young stand around 
 her, singing softly and sweetly a hymn of the resurrection ; 
 all watching the young girl, in whom they believe that 
 something great is now taking place. It is really a beau 
 tiful scene in that thunderous night, and by the light of 
 the fire -altars. 
 
 After we had contemplated . these scenes, certainly 
 for an hour, and the state of exaltation began to abate, 
 and the principal glory of the night seemed to be over, 
 Mrs. W. H. and myself retired to the tent to rest. 
 This lay at the outskirts of the white camp, and from 
 a feeling of curiosity I walked some distance into the 
 darker portion of the wood. Here horrible things were 
 going on, not among human beings, but among frogs 
 and other reptiles. They also seemed to be holding some 
 sort of a great meeting, and croaked and croaked, and 
 coughed and snorted, and made such wonderful noises and 
 blurts of extraordinary sound, which were like nothing but 
 a regular comedy. Never before did I hear such a 
 concert. It was like a parody of the scenes we had 
 just witnessed. 
 
 It was sultry and oppressive in the tent. Our kind 
 hostess did all in her power to make it comfortable 
 
318 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 for us; and Mrs. "W. H. thought merely of making 
 all comfortable for me, taking all the inconvenience 
 to herself. I could not get any rest in the tent, and 
 therefore wished, at least, yet once more, to take a look 
 at the camp before I lay down for the night. 
 
 It was now past midnight ; the weather had cleared and 
 the air was so delicious, and the spectacle so beautiful, that 
 I was compelled to return to the tent to tell Mrs. Rowland, 
 who at once resolved to come out with me. The altar- 
 fires now burned low and the smoke hung within the wood. 
 The transparently bright and blue heaven stretched above 
 the camp. The moon rose above the wood, and the 
 planet Jupiter stood brilliantly shining just over the 
 tabernacle. The singing of hymns still ascended, though 
 much lower ; still the class-leaders exhorted ; still the 
 young girl slept her mysterious sleep; still the women 
 watched and waited and fanned her, in their attire of 
 mourning. Some oppressed souls still la}^ bowed upon 
 the counter and still were the preachers giving con 
 solation either by word or song. By degrees, the people 
 assembled in the tabernacle dispersed, scattered thein- 
 selved through the woods, or withdrew to their tents. 
 Even the young sleeping girl awoke and was led by 
 her friends away from the assembly. Mr. R. had 
 now joined us, and accompanied by him we went the 
 round of the camp, especially on the black side. And 
 here all the tents were still full of religious exaltation, 
 each separate tent presenting some new phasis. We 
 saw in one, a zealous convert, male or female, as it 
 might be, who with violent gesticulations gave vent to 
 his or her newly- awakened feelings, surrounded by devout 
 auditors ; in another, we saw a whole crowd of black 
 people on their knees, all dressed in white, striking them 
 selves on the breast and crying out and talking with 
 the greatest pathos; in a third, women were dancing 
 " the holy dance " for one of the newly-converted. This 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 319 
 
 dancing, however, having been forbidden by the preachers, 
 ceased immediately on our entering the tent. I saw 
 merely a rocking movement of women who held each 
 other by the hand in a circle, singing the while. In a 
 fourth, a song of the spiritual Canaan was being sung 
 excellently. In one tent we saw a fat negro-member 
 walking about by himself and breathing hard ; he was 
 hoarse, and sighing he exclaimed to himself, " Oh ! I 
 wish I could hollo ! " In some tents people were sitting 
 around the fires, and here visits were received, greetings 
 were made, and friendly, cheerful talk went on, whilst 
 everywhere prevailed a quiet, earnest state of feeling, 
 which we also experienced whenever we stopped to talk 
 with the people. These black people have a something 
 warm and kind about them which I like much. One 
 can see that they are children of the warm sun. The 
 state of feeling was considerably calmer in the camp 
 of the whites. One saw families sitting at their covered 
 tables eating and drinking. 
 
 At length we returned to our tent, where I lay upon 
 the family bed with our good hostess and her thirteen- 
 year old daughter, and slept indifferently ; yet, thanks to 
 some small white globules of my Downing-mediciiie, I 
 rested nevertheless, and became calm in the hot feverish 
 night. 
 
 At sunrise I heard something which resembled the 
 humming of an enormous wasp caught in a spider s web. 
 It was a larum which gave the sign for the general 
 rising. At half-past five I was dressed and out. The 
 hymns of the negroes, which had continued through 
 the night, were still to be heard on all sides. The 
 sun shone powerfully the air was oppressive. People were 
 cooking and having breakfast by the fires, and a crowd 
 already began to assemble on the benches under the 
 tabernacle. At seven o clock the morning sermon and 
 worship commenced. I had observed that the preachers 
 
320 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 avoided exciting the people s feelings too much, and that 
 they themselves appeared without emotion. This morn 
 ing their discourses appeared to me feehle, and especially 
 to be wanting in popular eloquence. They preached 
 morality. But a mere moral sermon should not be 
 preached when it is the heart that you wish to win ; you 
 should then tell, in the language of the heart, the 
 miracle of spiritual life. It was, therefore, a real refresh 
 ment to me when the unimpassioned and w r ell-fed preach 
 ers, who had spoken this morning, gave place to an elderly 
 man with a lively and somewhat humourous expression of 
 countenance, who from out the throng of hearers ascended 
 the pulpit and began to speak to the people in quite 
 another tone. It was familiar, fresh, cordial, and humour 
 ous ; somewhat in the manner of Father Taylor. I should 
 like to have heard him address these people, but then, 
 I am afraid the negroes would have been quite beside 
 themselves ! 
 
 The new preacher said that he was a stranger, he was 
 evidently an Englishman and that it was a mere chance 
 which brought him to this meeting. But he felt com 
 pelled, he said, to address them as " my friends," and to 
 tell them how glad he had been to witness the scenes of 
 the preceding night (lie addressed himself especially to the 
 blacks) and to give them his view of the Gospel of God as 
 made known in the Bible, and of what the Bible teaches us 
 of God. " Now, you see, my friends," this was the style 
 of his discourse " when a father has made his will, and 
 his children are all assembled to open it and learn from it 
 what are the latest wishes of their father ; they do not 
 know how their father has disposed of and arranged his 
 property; and many of them think, perhaps, there is 
 nothing for me ; perhaps he never thought of me ! But 
 now, when they open the will and find that there is some 
 thing for John, and something for Mary, and something 
 for Ben, and something for Betsy, and something for 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 321 
 
 every one, and something for all, and that altogether 
 every individual one has got a like share in the father s 
 property, and that he thought alike tenderly of them all ; 
 then they see that he loved them all equally ; that he 
 wished them all equally well : and then, my friends, if 
 we were these children, and if we all of us had obtained 
 this inheritance in the father s house, should we not, all 
 of us, love this father and understand his love for us and 
 ohey his commands ? " 
 
 " Yes ! yes ! Oh, yes ! Glory ! Glory ! Amen ! " 
 shouted the assembly with beaming glances and evident 
 delight. 
 
 The speaker continued in his good-tempered, naive 
 manner, and described to them the happy life and death 
 of a pious Christian, a true child of God. He himself, 
 the speaker, had been the witness of such a man s death, 
 and although this man was a sailor, without superior 
 education, and though he made use of the expressions 
 which belonged to his calling, yet they testified of so clear 
 a spiritual life, that even now, after his death, they might 
 testify of it before this assembly. The man had been 
 long ill of fever, which had deprived him of consciousness. 
 He appeared to be dying, and his relations stood round 
 his bed believing that they should never more hear his 
 voice, and waiting merely for his last sigh, for he lay as 
 if in a sleep of death. But all at once, he opened his 
 eyes, raised his head, and cried, in a strong joyful voice, 
 " Land a-head ! " After that his head sank down, and 
 they thought it was all over with him. But again he 
 looked up and cried, " Turn, and let go the anchor ! " 
 Again he was silent, and they believed he would be so for 
 ever. Yet once more however he looked up brightly and 
 said, with calm assurance, " All s well ! " And then he 
 was at peace. 
 
 "Amen! Amen! Glory and glory!" cried the 
 assembly, and never did I see such an expression of joy 
 
322 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 and rapture as I then saw beaming from the countenances 
 of these children of Africa : the class-leaders in particular 
 were regularly beside themselves ; they clapped their 
 hands, laughed, and floods of light streamed from their 
 eyes. Some of these countenances are impressed upon 
 my memory as some of the most expressive and the most 
 full of feeling that I ever saw. Why do not the painters 
 of the New World avail themselves of such scenes and 
 such countenances ? The delight occasioned by the 
 speaker s narrative would here and there have produced 
 convulsions, had not Mr. Martin, the principal preacher of 
 the assembly, indicated, by the movements of his hand 
 from his pulpit, its discontinuance, and immediately the 
 increasingly excited utterance ceased. Already during the 
 night had he warned the people against these convulsive 
 outbreaks, as being wrong, and disturbing both to them 
 selves and others. The Wesleyan preacher left the pulpit 
 amid continued expressions of delight from the people. 
 
 The principal sermon of the day was preached about 
 eleven o clock by a lawyer from one of the neighbouring 
 States, a tall, thin gentleman, with strongly marked keen 
 features, and deep-set brilliant eyes. He preached about 
 the Last Judgment, and described in a most lively manner, 
 " the fork-like, cloven flames, the thunder, the general 
 destruction of all things," and described it as possibly 
 near at hand. " As yet, indeed," exclaimed he, " I have 
 not felt the earth tremble under my feet ; it yet seems to 
 stand firm," and he stamped vehemently on the pulpit 
 floor ; " and as yet I hear not the rolling of the thunder of 
 doom ; but it may nevertheless be at hand," and so on ; 
 and he admonished the people therefore immediately to 
 repent and be converted. 
 
 Spite of the strength of the subject, and spite of the 
 power in the delineation, there was a something dry and 
 soulless in the manner in which it was presented, which 
 caused it to fail of its effect with the congregation. People 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 323 
 
 seemed to feel that the preacher did not believe, or rather 
 did not livingly feel, that which he described and preached. 
 A few cries and groans were heard it is true, and some 
 sinners came forth ; but the assembly upon the whole 
 continued calm, and was not agitated by the thunders of 
 the Last Judgment. The hymns were, as on the former 
 occasion, fervent and beautiful on the side of the negroes 
 camp. This people seem to have a keen perception of 
 the most beautiful doctrines of religion, and understand 
 particularly well how to apply them. Their musical 
 talents are remarkable. Most of the blacks have beautiful, 
 pure voices, and sing as easily as we whites talk. 
 
 After this service came the hour of dinner, when I 
 visited various tents in the black camp, and saw tables 
 covered with dishes of all kind of meat, with puddings 
 and tarts ; there seemed to be a regular superfluity of meat 
 and drink. Several of the tents were even furnished 
 like rooms, with capital beds, looking-glasses, and such 
 like. 
 
 The people seemed gay, happy, and gentle. These 
 religious camp-meetings my little heart, thou hast now 
 been at a camp meeting ! are the saturnalia of the negro- 
 slaves. In these they luxuriate both soul and body, as is 
 their natural inclination to do ; but on this occasion every 
 thing was carried on with decency and befitting reverence. 
 These meetings have of late years greatly improved in 
 moral character, and masters allow their servants and 
 slaves to be present at them, partly for pleasure, and partly 
 because they are often productive of good results. I did 
 not observe the slightest circumstance which was repug 
 nant to my feelings or unbecoming, except, if people will, 
 the convulsive excitement. I had some conversation on 
 this subject with the leader of the meeting, the amiable 
 and agreeable Mr. Martin, the Methodist preacher, and 
 he disapproved of it, as I had already heard. These 
 excited utterances however, said he, appear to belong to 
 
 Y 2 
 
324 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 the impulsive negro temperament, and these sudden con 
 versions, the result of a moment of excitement, have this 
 good result, that such converts commonly unite them 
 selves to churches and ministers, become members of a 
 so-called class, and thus obtain regular instruction in the 
 doctrines of religion, learn hymns and prayers, and become 
 generally from that time good Christians and orderly 
 members of society. 
 
 In the great West, as well as here in the South, and in 
 all places where society is as yet uncultivated, it is the 
 Methodists and the Baptists who first break the religious 
 ground, working upon the feelings and the senses of these 
 children of nature. Afterwards come the Calvinists, 
 Lutherans, and many others, who speak rather to the 
 understanding. Missionaries who assemble the people 
 and talk to them under God s free heaven, who know how 
 to avail themselves of every circumstance presented by 
 the time, the scenery around them, and their own free 
 positions, are likely to produce the most powerful results ; 
 and I have heard extraordinary instances related of their 
 influence over the masses, and of the contagious effect 
 of that excitement of mind which frequently occurs on 
 these occasions. These camp meetings continue from 
 three to seven days. The one at which we were present 
 was to break up on the following day, and it was expected 
 that a great number of conversions would take place on 
 the following night. Nevertheless this seemed to depend 
 upon casual circumstances, and probably more than any 
 thing else, upon a preacher whose sermon had that 
 tendency. 
 
 We spent yet a few hours in observing the spiritual 
 and physical occurrences of the camp, wandering in the 
 wood and botanising. Mr. K. gathered for me many new 
 flowers, among which was a small very pretty little yellow 
 flower, called the saffron-flower. 
 
 At five in the afternoon we returned to Charleston by a 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 325 
 
 train which conveyed certainly two thousand persons, two- 
 thirds of them blacks. They sang the whole way, and 
 were in high spirits. 
 
 The next morning, with a little basket of bananas and 
 sponge-cake, which my kind hostess and friend Mrs. 
 W. H. provided for me, I was on my way to Savannah. 
 She herself accompanied me on board the steam-boat, 
 and would willingly have accompanied me the whole 
 journey : and how willingly would I have had her with me ! 
 She is one of the persons with whom I can get on 
 extremely well. But I set off alone, with her fruit and a 
 bouquet of flowers from Mrs. Holbrook. Yet I was not 
 alone, for my heart was full of many tilings. The day 
 was glorious, and the vessel steamed up the Savannah, 
 which, with a thousand windings, flows between verdant 
 shores, which, though flat, are ornamented with charming 
 woods and plantations, with their large mansions and 
 pretty little slave villages, so that the whole was like a 
 refreshing pleasure trip. True, the slave villages are not 
 a gladdening sight, but I have hitherto seen far more 
 happy than unhappy slaves, and therefore I have not 
 as yet a gloomy impression of their condition here. 
 
 The crew of this little steamboat consisted merely of 
 slaves, blacks, and mulattoes. The captain told me 
 that they were very happy, as well as faithful and 
 clever. 
 
 " That man," said he, indicating with his glance an 
 elderly man, a mulatto, with a remarkably handsome, but 
 as it seemed to me, melancholy countenance, " is my 
 favourite servant, and I need wish for no other as care 
 taker and friend by my death-bed." 
 
 The crew appeared to be well fed and cared for. A 
 handsome and fat mulatto woman said to me, in an under 
 tone, when we were alone, 
 
 " What do you say about the institution of slavery here 
 in the South ? " 
 
326 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 " I think," replied I, " that the slaves in general appear 
 happy and well cared for." 
 
 "Yes, yes," said she, "it may seem, but " and she 
 gave a very significant glance, as if to say, " All is not gold 
 that glitters." 
 
 " You do not consider them to be well treated, then ? " 
 asked I. 
 
 " Some are, certainly," said she, " but " and again she 
 gave a significant glance. 
 
 I could have wished that she had said more, but as she 
 belonged to the vessel I could not ask any questions. I 
 would not become a spy ; that is against my nature, and 
 anything which I could not become acquainted with by my 
 own experience, or by my own direct ability, that I would 
 not know. Scarcely in any case could the mulatto woman 
 have told me anything which I did not already know : there 
 are good and there are bad masters ; happy and unhappy 
 slaves ; and the institution is a great lie in the life of 
 human freedom, and especially in the New World. 
 
 There were on board the steamer, some persons with 
 whom I was acquainted, among them Miss Mary P., 
 a lively, intelligent young girl from the State of New 
 York, who was spending the winter in Savannah on account 
 of her health. She had a pulmonary affection, and 
 suffered greatly from the winters of the Northern States ; 
 but with the southern air, especially the air of Savannah, 
 and homoeopathic treatment, she was recovering. I 
 associated with people as little as possible ; enjoyed the 
 silence and the river-journey, the beautiful day, the quiet 
 delicious scenery, so unlike the occurrences of the pre 
 ceding day. When the sun went down, and the evening 
 suddenly became dusk as is always the case in these 
 latitudes, I saw a clear white light ascend from the 
 southern heavens to the zenith. They told me it was the 
 zodiacal light. It was not flashing, coloured and brilliant, 
 as our northern lights are most frequently, but calm, soft 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 327 
 
 and clear. A grave, elderly gentleman, in whose company 
 I contemplated the starry heavens on the upper deck, told 
 me that later on in the summer the southern cross might 
 be perceived on the horizon, as well as the uppermost star 
 in the ship Argo. Thus you see that new lights and new 
 constellations now rise above my head ! I bid them 
 welcome ! 
 
 In the deep twilight came a boat rowing up to the 
 steamer. Several blacks and one white man were in the 
 boat. The white man came on board after taking a 
 friendly leave of the blacks, a voice from among whom 
 cried after him, " Don t forget yourself long away, 
 massa ! " " No ! no ! " cried massa back to them. 
 
 At about half past eleven we reached Savannah. I 
 accompanied Miss P., her sister, and a young agreeable 
 physician, to the largest hotel in the city, the Palasky 
 House : so called from the Polish hero of that name, who 
 fought and fell in the American War of Independence, 
 and whose monument, a handsome, white marble obelisk, 
 stands upon a green spot of ground before the hotel, 
 surrounded by splendid trees. 
 
 At seven o clock the next morning I was in a railway 
 carriage on my way to Ma9on, a long and very wearisome 
 day s journey, especially in the great heat, and with the 
 smoke and steam which filled the carriages. The road 
 lay through a barren, sandy extent cf country, overgrown 
 with pine-forest, and almost entirely without human 
 habitations, excepting 011 the railway stations, where 
 small colonies began to form themselves, trades were 
 followed, and the meagre soil cultivated. At a few of 
 these I alighted, and botanised in the wood, where I found 
 several yellow orchises. 
 
 The amusement of the journey was in the carriage in 
 which I sate, from a fat, jolly-looking gentleman, in a cap 
 and grey coat, in person not unlike a mealsack, upon 
 which the head was set, round and moveable as a top, and 
 
328 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 who talked politics, and poured out his vials of wrath 
 against the late Tom Jefferson, President, and author of 
 the " Declaration of Independence : " called him, in a 
 loud voice, the worst of names, always turning himself as 
 he did so to a tall, very thin military man, of a noble 
 appearance, who sate on the other side of the carriage, 
 and who seemed to be half amused by the fat man s 
 ebullitions, although he endeavoured to appease them. 
 But it was like pouring oil upon fire. 
 
 " Sir !" exclaimed our fat gentleman, with a stentorian 
 voice, on one occasion, while the train stood still, " Sir, I 
 say that if it had not been for Tom Jefferson, the whole 
 union would be five hundred years farther advanced, and 
 Carolina at least a thousand ! " 
 
 " Oh ! do you think so ? " said the other, smiling. 
 
 " Yes, I say that Tom Jefferson was the worst man who 
 has yet been placed at the head of a nation ; he has done 
 more mischief than all the Presidents after him can do 
 good ! " 
 
 " Yet he drew up our Act of Independence ! " said the 
 thin gentleman. 
 
 " He stole it, sir ! " exclaimed the fat one ; " he stole it, 
 stole it! I can prove to you that he did. There is," &c. 
 And here followed proofs and many observations and 
 replies between the two gentlemen, which I could not 
 exactly follow. 
 
 At length, up sprung the fat gentleman, and grasping 
 with both hands at two seats, stood before the thin one 
 exclaiming, 
 
 " Sir ! I regard Tom Jefferson as the compound of 
 everything which is rascally, mean, wicked, dishonourable 
 &c. &c. &c. &c. " the great flood of accusation con 
 tinuing certainly for three minutes, and ending with, " yes, 
 that is what I say, sir ! " 
 
 That is strong language, sir ! " said the other, still 
 calm, and half smiling. 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 329 
 
 " Sir ! " again exclaimed the other, " Tom Jefferson 
 was the cause of my father losing fifty thousand dollars, 
 through the embargo ! " 
 
 With these words he reseated himself, red in the face as 
 a turkey-cock, and with an air as if to say, that after that 
 nothing could be said. A smile was on almost every 
 countenance in the railway carriage ; and when Tom 
 Jefferson s enemy almost immediately after took his 
 departure, the thin gentleman turned to me, saying in his 
 good-tempered calm way, 
 
 " That settles it ! Jefferson was certainly a bad man. 
 But in any case he was a patriot." 
 
 A hundred young men, soldiers from Charleston, tra 
 velled by this train, on a visit to the Georgia militia in 
 Mac,on. They were handsome, pleasant-looking, merry 
 young fellows, who got out at every station to refresh 
 themselves, and then hurried in again. 
 
 A couple of so-called Indian mounds, that is ancient 
 burial hills of the Indians, and which resemble our 
 sepulchral mounds, excepting that they are larger and 
 flatter at the top, and in which arms and weapons are 
 found, were the only remarkable things we saw on 
 the way. 
 
 At sunset we reached MaQon. The country had now 
 assumed another character ; we saw verdant hills and 
 valleys, and beautiful white country houses shining out 
 upon the hills amid their gardens. 
 
 On all hands lay lofty trees ; we drove over a couple of 
 small rivers, with chocolate-hued water, and wooded banks ; 
 the city lay, as it were, imbedded in wood. It looked 
 young and romantic, half concealed in the valley, and half 
 stretching itself out on the open hills. It took my fancy ; 
 I was glad to be there, and had besides a certain pleasure 
 in finding myself here alone and unknown, and able to 
 live at an inn. I engaged a room at the hotel, 
 "Washington House," where I found a remarkably 
 
330 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 handsome and kind landlady ; had the pleasure of washing 
 off the dust, putting on fresh linen, and drinking a glass 
 of excellent milk, and then to be still, and contemplate 
 the life and movement in the market-place, the largest in 
 the city, and near to which the hotel stood. 
 
 Five and twenty years ago the ground on which the 
 city stood, and the whole region around, was Indian 
 territory and Indian hunting-ground. Where those wild 
 dances were danced, and their wigwams stood, now stands 
 Ma9on, with six thousand inhabitants, and shops and 
 workshops, hotels and houses, and an annually increasing 
 population ; and in the middle of its great market stands 
 Canova s Hebe in a fountain, dispensing water. The 
 young militia of Carolina and Georgia paraded the streets 
 and the market-place this evening by moonlight. All 
 the windows were open, and the negro people poured 
 out of the houses to see the young men march past with 
 their music. 
 
 I was up early the next morning, because it was 
 glorious ; the world looked young and fresh as morning, 
 and I myself felt as fresh as it. I went out on a voyage 
 of discovery with merely a couple of bananas in my old 
 man (you know that I give my travelling-bag that 
 appellation). All was as yet still in the city ; every 
 thing looked fresh and new. I had a foretaste of the 
 young life of the west. The pale crescent moon sank 
 slowly amid a violet-tinted mist, which wrapped the 
 horizon in the west, but a heaven of the most beautiful 
 blue was above me. Trees and grass glittered with dew 
 in the rising sunlight. I walked along streets planted 
 with trees, and, leaving the city, found myself upon a 
 broad high road, on each side of which lay a dense, dark 
 forest. I walked on ; all was hushed and silent, but my 
 heart sang. That which I had wished for, and longed 
 for through the whole of my youth ; that which I seemed 
 to myself to be more excluded from than anything else, a 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 331 
 
 living acquaintance with the manifold forms of life, had 
 now become mine, had become so in an unusual degree. 
 Did I not now wander free free as few could be, in the 
 great, free, new world, free to see and to become 
 acquainted \\ith whatever I chose ? Was I not free and 
 unfettered as a bird ? My soul had wings, and the whole 
 world was mine ! Precisely because I am so alone, that 
 I go so solitarily, relying on God s providence, through 
 the great wide world, and become associate with it, 
 precisely this it is which gives me such an unspeakable 
 feeling of vigour and joy; and that I do not positively 
 know whither I would go, or what I would do during my 
 solitary wanderings ; this makes me ever ready to set out 
 on my journeys of discovery, and every thing within me be 
 so particularly new and invigorating. 
 
 I was not, however, on this occasion, wholly without an 
 object; I knew that at some distance from Macon there 
 was a beautiful new cemetery, called Rose-hill Cemetery, 
 and I was now bent upon finding it. In the meantime as 
 the road which I had taken seemed to lead down to the 
 quiet sea, I determined to make inquiries after Rose-hill 
 at a dwelling which I saw upon a height not far from the 
 road. It was one of those white, well-built, and comfort 
 able frame-houses which one so often sees in the rural 
 districts of America. I knocked at the door, and it was 
 opened, but by a person who almost shocked me ; it was 
 a young lady, tolerably handsome, but with an appearance 
 of such a horridly bad temper that it quite troubled me. 
 She looked thoroughly annoyed and worn out, and bade 
 me, crossly enough, to go as far as the road went, or till 
 it parted. I went, almost astonished on so beautiful a 
 morning, amid such beautiful, youthfully fresh scenes, to 
 meet with so perfectly inharmonious a human temper. 
 Ah ! human feelings, dispositions, and tempers are every 
 where the same, and can everywhere embitter life ; in 
 every new paradise can close the gates of paradise. But 
 
332 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 sad impressions could not long remain in my mind 
 this morning. I advanced onward along the high road 
 which now ascended a hill. On the top of this hill I 
 could look around me I thought. Arrived here, I saw an 
 iron gate on my right hand, which led into a beautiful, 
 well-kept park. I opened the gate without any difficulty, 
 and was soon in a very beautiful park, the ground of 
 which was undulating, through which wound roads and 
 foot-paths, with lofty trees and groves on all hands, and 
 beds of flowering, fragrant shrubs and plants. It was 
 some time before I could see a single monument, before I 
 discovered that I really was in the place consecrated to 
 death, and that my little travelling- fairy had faithfully 
 conducted me to my goal, Rose Cemetery. 
 
 Wandering on through the silent solitary park I came to 
 the banks of a river which ran in gentle windings between 
 banks as beautiful, and as youthfully verdant as we, in our 
 youth, imagine the Elysian fields. On my side of the 
 river I beheld white marble monuments glancing forth 
 from amid the trees, speaking of the city of the dead. 
 Tall trees here and there, bent over the water. Large, 
 splendid butterflies, the names of which I did not know, 
 flew softly with fluttering wings backwards and forwards 
 over the stream, from one bank to the other. I thought 
 of the words : 
 
 " And he showed me a clear river of living water," &c. 
 
 And the whole scene was to me, at the same time, a 
 living symbol of the most beautiful presentiments of the 
 human race regarding the mystery of death. Here was 
 the city of the dead, and here, beside it, living water 
 pouring from invisible fountains, whispering in the fields 
 of death, of life and the resurrection ; here were trees, 
 that glorious life of nature, bearing abundant fruit, and 
 the leaves of which serve for the "healing of the heathen;" 
 there, on the other shore, were the fields of the blessed, 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 333 
 
 where no weariness and no woe shall ever enter ; where 
 none that are accursed shall come any more, where the 
 light of God s countenance enlightens all ; and the butter- 
 flies represented the souls which, now released from 
 earthly enthralment, are borne by their wings from the 
 one shore to the other, to sip all the flowers of the field ! 
 
 I seated myself on a piece of rock which shot out into 
 the river in a convenient ledge -like form, and beside 
 which grew some beautiful wild flowers. And here I 
 inhaled deep draughts of the elixir of life, which both 
 nature and the spirit presented to me. More glorious 
 refreshment could not have been offered to a wanderer. 
 And much such have I received, and shall yet enjoy 
 during my pilgrimage. 
 
 I have often thought that it would be well if running 
 water could be included or introduced into large ceme 
 teries, the resting-places of the dead, as a symbol at once 
 beautiful and appropriate. Here, for the first time, have 
 I seen my idea carried out. The river in this cemetery 
 is Ocrnulgee, an Indian word for the beautiful. It is of 
 that warm red tinge, like English sepia, or chocolate 
 mixed with milk, which is said to be peculiar to nearly all 
 the rivers of the south, from the Rio Colorado, in New 
 Mexico, to the Savannah, and the Pee-Dee, and others, in 
 the east, and is said to be caused by the reddish sandy 
 soil peculiar to the Southern States. This tint of water 
 produces a remarkably beautiful effect in contrast with 
 the rich, bright green vegetation of the banks. Ocmulgee 
 is, besides, a rapid and abundant river, and is in all 
 respects deserving of its name. 
 
 As my spirit had not by any means failed of its object, 
 I began to think of my body and my bananas, on which I 
 made a splendid breakfast. I have become very fond of 
 this fruit, which is very beneficial to me. I can eat it at 
 any time of the day, and always find that it agrees with 
 me. I fancy that I could live on it and bread alone ; 
 
834 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 (N.B. Swedish clap-bread, I miss that here.) A little 
 lizard, which seemed to study me very profoundly, was 
 my companion on the rock, and turned its little head this 
 way and that, with its glimmering black eyes always riveted 
 upon me. Neither man nor human dwelling were within 
 sight. It was a scene of the profoundest solitude. 
 
 This beautiful morning was the 1st of May. I wonder 
 what sort of morning it was in the park at Stockholm ! 
 
 I would willingly have spent a day in MaQon and its 
 beautiful neighbourhood ; but when I returned to my 
 hotel, I was met by an agreeable and respectable gentle 
 man, who was going to the seminary at Montpellier, to 
 fetch his daughter thence, and who invited me to accom 
 pany him. As I did not know whether Bishop Eliott 
 was aware of the day on which I might be expected at 
 Magon, and as I wished, besides this, to spare him the 
 trouble of sending for me, there being neither railroad 
 nor public conveyance to Montpellier, and as the polite 
 gentleman seemed to be very agreeable; I gratefully 
 accepted his offer, begged the hostess of the hotel to 
 take charge of my portmanteau, and soon was seated most 
 excellently in a large, comfortable, and spacious covered 
 carriage, beside my kind conductor. We had not, how 
 ever, driven a couple of hours when we met a dusty 
 travelling carriage, within which was Professor Sherbe, 
 whom I had met at Mr. Emerson s, at Concord, and who 
 was now a teacher at the seminary in Montpellier. It 
 was the carriage to fetch me to the Eliotts . I therefore 
 returned with him to Ma9on, where the horses rested, and 
 Sherbe refreshed himself after the fatiguing morning s 
 journey. The after part of the day we spent in great heat 
 on the journey to Montpellier, along roads of which you 
 would say, " ga ria pas de nom ! " and the description of 
 which is wearisome I continually believed we should be 
 upset and over bridges which looked like fabrics simply 
 designed to help the carriage and the people down into 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 335 
 
 the rivers over which they were scrambled together built 
 I cannot say. We seemed to be in a wild and newly- 
 inclosed country. At Bishop Eliott s lovely country seat 
 all was again cultivated and beautiful a continuation of 
 the romantic and luxurious district around Ma9on ; and 
 in the bishop himself I became acquainted with one of 
 the most beautiful examples of that old cavalier race 
 which gives tone and stamp to the nobler life of the 
 Southern States. Personal beauty and dignity, and the 
 most agreeable manners, were in this instance ennobled 
 by great Christian earnestness. 
 
 Bishop E. is said to have been in his youth a great 
 lover of social life, of dancing, and ladies society, and to 
 have been a great favourite in the gay world. His con 
 version to religious earnestness, is said to have been 
 rapid and decided. He is now known as one of the most 
 pre-eminently religious men in the country ; and his 
 kindness and amiability win all hearts. Mine he also 
 won ; but of that by and by. 
 
 On the evening of my arrival I sate with him and his 
 family on the piazza in front of his house, and saw 
 the fireflies shining in the air, among the trees and on 
 the grass everywhere in the park. These little insects 
 produce an effect which delights me during the dark 
 evenings and nights here. They are small beetles, some 
 what larger, and certainly longer, than our wood-louse, 
 and they emit as they fly along a bright light, quickly 
 shining out and then again extinguished, like a lightning- 
 flash, but soon renewing itself again. It is a phosphoric 
 light, and presents an incessant display of fireworks in 
 the air and on the earth at this season. If these little 
 creatures are injured, nay even trampled upon, as I have 
 seen happen by accident, they still give out light, and 
 shine beautifully as long as there is any life left in them. 
 Their light is never utterly extinguished but with their life, 
 and even outlives that a good hour. 
 
336 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 The bishop s wife is an agreeable lady, lively and intel 
 lectual, and truly musical, playing on the piano as the bird 
 sings, and who seems to have inherited from her Indian 
 foster-mother an unusual degree of acuteness and per 
 fection of organisation. Her husband often jokes her on 
 this subject. The family consists of several pretty 
 children, among which " the outlaw," the youngest son, 
 a lovely, good, little lad, who leapt about unrestrained 
 without shoes and stockings, was my especial favourite. 
 
 The family state of mind was not at this moment 
 cheerful, from various causes, and the good bishop was 
 evidently depressed. How agreeable he was, nevertheless, 
 during the few hours which he was able to devote to 
 social intercourse and conversation ! In him I found 
 much of the Emersonian truth and beauty of mind, both 
 in expression and manner, without any of his critical 
 severity, and permeated by the spirit of Christian love as 
 by a delicious summer air. He is one of those rare men 
 of the south who can see, with a clear and unprejudiced 
 glance, the institution of slavery on its dark aspect. He 
 believes in its ultimate eradication within the United 
 States, and considers that this will be effected by 
 Christianity. 
 
 " Already," said he, " is Christianity labouring to elevate 
 the being of the negro population, and from year to year 
 their condition improves, both spiritually and physically ; 
 they will soon be our equals as regards morals, and when 
 they become our equals, they can no longer be our slaves. 
 The next step will be for them to receive wages as 
 servants; and I know several persons who are already 
 treating their slaves as such." 
 
 This conversation delighted me, for I am convinced 
 that Eliott s views on this subject are correct. 
 
 The school examination was already nearly over, and a 
 great number of the young girls, the flowers of the 
 Southern States, had left. Still I saw a part of them, and 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 337 
 
 heard their compositions in prose and verse. Nearly all 
 the teachers were from the Northern States ; mostly from 
 New England, and mostly also young, pretty, and agree 
 able girls. All were assembled at the house of the bishop 
 in the evening of the concluding day of the examination. 
 I was not well that day, partly from the heat, and partly 
 from the fear I have of company, and the duties which it 
 imposes upon me ; but in the midst of the heat and the 
 company I was roused by my Scandinavian spirit, and 
 proposed the game of " lend me your fire-stick," into 
 which all the, hitherto stiff, young girls entered merrily, 
 and there was a deal of laughter, and the good bishop 
 himself became so amused that he laughed heartily; 
 and when we rested from that game, he himself began 
 another a quiet and intellectual game, in which his clever 
 little wife distinguished herself, as did he also. Thus 
 passed the evening, amid games and merriment, and I 
 forgot the heat and weariness and indisposition, and went 
 lightly and cheerfully to rest, glad in particular that I had 
 seen the good bishop cheerful. 
 
 The next morning I was to set off with Bishop Eliott, 
 and two of the young girls. We assembled, the bishop s 
 family and I, to morning prayers. But how deeply was 
 I affected this morning, when after the customary prayers 
 (the bishop and we all, as usual, kneeling), I heard him 
 utter for the stranger who was now visiting in his family, a 
 prayer as warm, as beautiful, as appropriate, as if he had 
 read the depths of my heart and knew its secret combats, 
 its strivings, its object, my own soul s inmost infinite 
 prayer. I could merely, with tears in my eyes, press his 
 hand between mine. 
 
 Accompanied by him and the two young ladies, I found 
 myself once more on the paths of the wilderness between 
 Montpellier and Mac,on, where I was received under the 
 roof of his curate, young Mr. S., and his handsome young 
 wife ; for the bishop would not permit me to return to 
 
338 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 the hotel, which I greatly wished to do. I have had, 
 however, beneath the yc-ung oaks near the curate s house, 
 a conversation with him on the trials which the Christian 
 may experience under ordinary circumstances, in the 
 everyday world, which I shall never forget, because much 
 that had occurred in my own soul had occurred also in 
 his ; and I saw in him a cross-bearer but one greater 
 and more patient than most. On the following day, 
 which was Sunday, he preached in the Episcopal church 
 of Ma9on, a small but handsome building, in which some 
 youthful communicants were to receive the Lord s Supper 
 for the first time. Eliott s sermon had reference to the 
 occasion ; he was about to consecrate them to the 
 Christian faith, its duties, trials, and greatness ; to the 
 crown of thorns and the crown of glory ; an excellent 
 sermon, full of truth, in the admonition to the life both 
 human and divine. Not brilliant and dazzling, not 
 merely half true aphorisms ; but the purest light, shining 
 because it was pure and perfect, and because it con 
 tained the whole truth. 
 
 After divine service I took leave of the noble bishop, 
 glad to have become acquainted with him, and in him a 
 true Christian gentleman. I hope to see him again, 
 probably in the west, whither he goes this autumn, to a 
 great assembly of the clergy. He has now lately returned 
 from an official journey to Florida, up the beautiful river 
 St. John, and speaks of the exuberance of natural life on 
 its shores, the beauty of its flowers and birds, so that I 
 have a great desire to go there. I parted from Eliott, 
 grieving that human sorrow should thus depress so good, 
 so noble, and so amiable a man. 
 
 If you wish to see upon what spot of all the globe 
 I am now to be found, you must look into the very middle 
 of the American State of Georgia, where is a small town 
 by the name of Magon ; and near to it a pretty village 
 of country houses and gardens, called Vineville, in 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 339 
 
 one of the prettiest of which I may be found with the 
 amiable and highly esteemed family of a banker, named 
 M., who came up to me in the church, after divine service 
 at Macon, and invited me to his house. 
 
 Everywhere throughout this country, in the south as 
 well as in the north of the United States, do I meet with 
 the same cordiality, the same incomparable hospitality. 
 And my little travelling fairy goes everywhere with me, 
 and makes everything happen for the best; and should 
 anything go contrary, I consider that is for the best also, 
 and doubt not but it is so, or will be. The morning after 
 to-morrow I intend returning to Savannah ; I cannot now 
 extend my journey farther west, into Alabama, as I 
 wished to do, on account of the heat of the season. I must 
 contrive to reach Washington before I am melted. 
 
 The 8th. When do I think of going home, my Agatha? 
 Whenever you and mamma wish it next month, next 
 week, in the morning ! My own wishes, it is true, have 
 been for some time a little expansive ; but they can be 
 restrained. I have, however, wished to remain in this 
 hemisphere through another winter, that I might see certain 
 portions of it and certain things which otherwise I cannot 
 see, and thus obtain a glimpse of the tropical glory in 
 Cuba. I wish to leave certain impressions time to 
 mature; certain old ones time to fall off under the 
 influence of the New World. The indisposition under 
 which I suffered last winter has deprived me of at 
 least three months, for during that time I was merely 
 half alive, often merely in a state of suffering. But as I 
 have said, my child, this is a floating wish ready to be 
 done away with on the least call from home; and in 
 that case we shall see each other next autumn. No 
 feeling of inward necessity like that which bade me come 
 hither, bids me now remain here over the winter. And 
 my wish to stay here will, on the first earnest call of my 
 beloved ones, dissolve into that of returning to them ; and 
 
 z2 
 
340 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 I shall in that case consider it as for the best. Merely 
 
 one word from you and mamma, and I hasten home 
 
 to you ! 
 
 LETTEE XV. 
 
 MA90N, VINEVILLE, May 8th. 
 
 MY BELOVED MAMMA, It grieves me much to know that 
 you and Agatha have had a more than usually trying 
 winter. Thank God, however, that it is now past, and 
 that the sunny side of the year is come with its more 
 cheerful prospects. The baths of Marstand will do 
 Agatha good ; but we shall never see our poor little friend 
 strong ! With regard to the wish which I have now 
 expressed to Agatha, I can merely here repeat that it 
 will not be difficult ; and that I am ready to yield it to 
 another from my beloved ones at home. 
 
 How well and happy I am among the kind people in 
 this hospitable country, which has become to me like a 
 vast home, mamma has already seen in my letters. I go 
 from home to home in America, and am everywhere 
 received and treated like a child of the house. Besides 
 the excellent effect of this, as regards the health both of 
 soul and body, it affords me an opportunity of becoming 
 acquainted with the domestic life and the homes of the 
 New World with the innermost life of this hemisphere, 
 in a manner which scarcely any other traveller ever 
 enjoyed, and which is of the highest consequence to me, 
 because it is precisely that which I wished to become 
 familiar with here. But I had scarcely any idea of the 
 degree in which the kindness and the hospitality of this 
 people would respond to this wish. Each family, if it is 
 in anything like easy circumstances, inhabits an entire 
 house ; and has besides, generally, a little garden, or at all 
 events a grass plot. The house has one or two parlours 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 341 
 
 on the ground floor, besides eating-room, kitchen, &c. 
 All the chambers are in the upper stories, and there are 
 always one or two (sometimes more) guest-chambers. 
 The guest-chamber, in an American house in the city, is 
 the same thing as for us, in Sweden, to have a guest- 
 chamber in our country-houses. Every house here, whether 
 in town or country, must have its room in which to lodge 
 the stranger. And now if a stranger comes hither from 
 a foreign land, quite alone, and not very large either, 
 it is not a very difficult thing to lodge her in the guest- 
 chamber; and in this way the whole country is one 
 great home, with guest-chambers for mamma s daughter. 
 Finding there the comforts of my own home, finding there 
 motherly mistresses of families ; sisters and brothers with 
 whom I have lived and conversed, and live and converse 
 as openly and familiarly as with my own family all this 
 has made me feel that the kingdom of heaven is not after 
 all so far from earth, at least not from the homes of earth ; 
 else otherwise how should one be able to keep up an 
 intercourse with people altogether strangers, as unre 
 servedly and as delightfully as one could with the angels 
 of God ? 
 
 I am thus now writing to you from a good, beautiful, 
 and happy home, which comprises three generations, old 
 Mr. M. and his wife, still handsome and active : their 
 only son, a highly esteemed banker of Magon, and his 
 gentle and motherly wife and their children. The whole 
 family is remarkably cordial, earnest and pious, as I often 
 find families in this country to be, and in the practice of 
 morning and evening devotion, which I like much, although 
 I sometimes think that the prayers are too long. The two 
 eldest daughters are handsome, sweet young girls, and 
 sing better than ladies generally do in this country. A 
 quiet sorrow broods over the family from the late decease 
 of a dearly beloved daughter and sister, whose loss seems 
 especially to weigh upon the mother s heart. 
 
342 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 I am living here in the midst of a large garden, in 
 which are many rare plants, and I hear the hundred- 
 tongued American mocking bird every morning singing 
 before my window. It is very agreeable to hear, but more 
 singular than charming, and not to compare with our larks 
 and nightingales, any more than the singing voices here 
 are to be compared with those of Sweden. Every land 
 has its own. 
 
 There are various features of family life here which I 
 wish were more general with us. To these belong 
 family worship morning and evening and the simple prayer 
 with which the meal is generally sanctified by the father 
 or mother of the family, " O God, bless these Thy gifts to 
 our profit, and us to Thy service ! " 
 
 With us it is usually the youngest child of the family 
 that says grace before meals if it is said aloud ; and this 
 also is beautiful, excepting that in this way it seldom has, 
 or can have the true spirit given to it. Most frequently, 
 however, our form of grace is a silent inclination of the 
 body, but the thought is of nothing but the meal before 
 us. On the contrary, I like better our usages at table than 
 in this country. With us people can enjoy the pleasures 
 of conversation, and they need not think about the dishes, 
 except in so far as enjoying them goes. Everything, with 
 us, is done silently and in due order by the attendants. 
 At a glance from the hostess you are offered a second 
 supply, but this also silently ; the dishes come round to 
 the guests, each in his turn, and after that people are not 
 troubled with them. Here it is not so. Here there is 
 an incessant asking and inviting, so that what with asking 
 and inviting, and selecting and answering, there is really 
 no time for the enjoyment of the meal, much less of 
 conversation. Neither is one able to help oneself; but 
 the host or hostess, or aunt or uncle, or some other 
 polite person, or it may be the servants, which here in 
 the south are always negroes, help you, and you seldom 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 343 
 
 get just what you wish for, or as much or as little as you 
 want, and not on that part of the plate where you wish to 
 have it. You are asked, for example 
 
 " Will you have butter ? " 
 
 " Yes, I thank you." 
 
 And with that comes a piece of butter on the edge of 
 the plate, on which the annoying thought always suggests 
 itself, that it is certainly exactly where the servant put his 
 thumb. Then it goes on : 
 
 " Will you take fish or meat ? Chicken or turkey ? " 
 
 " Chicken, if you please." 
 
 " Have you any choice ? The breast, or a wing ? " 
 
 Then comes, " Will you have pickles ? " 
 
 " No, I thank you." 
 
 A pause and calm ensues for two minutes. But then 
 somebody on your left discovers that you have no pickles ; 
 and pickles come to you from the left. " May I help you 
 to pickles ? " 
 
 "No, I thank you." 
 
 After a few minutes more somebody on the right sees 
 that you have no pickles, and hastens to offer you the 
 bottle. " Will you not take pickles ? " 
 
 "No, I thank you." 
 
 You then begin an interesting conversation with your 
 next neighbour ; and, just as you are about to ask some 
 question of importance, a person opposite you observes that 
 you are not eating pickles, and the pickle-bottle comes to 
 you across the table, and you are called upon to say once 
 more in self -justification 
 
 "No, I thank you; not any," and continue your 
 conversation. 
 
 But again, at the moment you are waiting for some reply, 
 interesting to you, comes the servant, perhaps the very 
 best daddy in the whole black world, and shoots the 
 pickle-bottle in between you and your conversible neigh 
 bour, and with horror you again behold pickles ready to 
 
344 HOMES OF THE NEW WOELD. 
 
 be put upon your plate, so that in the end you find 
 yourself quite overcome by the pickle persecution. 
 
 Thus goes on the meal ; one incessant bustle of serving, 
 which takes from you all enjoyment of the food. I have 
 at last a regular palpitation of the heart from disquiet 
 and impatience ; but that is in great measure my own 
 fault the fault of my weakness, though something must 
 be allowed to the fault of the custom here, which is not 
 quite in harmony with the higher pleasures of social 
 intercourse. This custom however did not originate in 
 this country. It belongs to England, and must be put 
 down to the account of England. Our mode of taking 
 our meals and our customs at table are more like those 
 of France; and for this I commend us. In one par 
 ticular, however, it seems to me that the homes of the 
 new world excel those of all other countries, excepting 
 of England, with which they have a close connection, and 
 that is in cleanliness. Our very best homes in Sweden 
 are in this respect seldom so admirable as is usually the 
 case here. For all here is kept neat and clean, from the 
 bed-rooms to the kitchen, and the servants have the same 
 smartness and neatness of attire, the same suavity of 
 manner as the lady and daughters of the house. An 
 American house and home is in many respects the ideal 
 of a home, if I except the apparatus for warming their 
 houses in the Northern States. Everything is to be found 
 there which can make existence fresh, and comfortable, 
 and agreeable, from the bath-room to the little garden, in 
 the town as well as in the country, with its trees, even if 
 they be but few, its beautiful grass-plot and plants, which 
 are frequently trained on trellises on the walls, whence 
 their flowers, wafted by the wind, diffuse their fragrance 
 through the windows. And if here the mistress of the 
 house, especially in the south, has lighter domestic cares 
 than our ladies, as regards housekeeping (for fresh meat 
 and vegetables may be had every day at all seasons in 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 345 
 
 this country, where the year may be reckoned by 
 summers, not by winters, as with us, and which compels 
 us to dry and salt and lay in stores during the living 
 portion of the year, in preparation for the dead), yet has 
 she much to look after and to provide for, so that house 
 and home may be supplied with, not merely the material 
 things, but with those that shall beautify it, and this more 
 especially in the Southern States where all the domestics 
 are of the negro race, which is by nature careless and 
 deficient in neatness. I admire what I saw of the 
 southern ladies and mistresses of families. The young 
 girls, on the contrary, I should like to see a little more 
 active in the house, and more helpful to their mothers in 
 various ways. But it is not the custom ; and the parents, 
 from mistaken kindness, seem not to wish their daughters 
 to do anything except amuse themselves, and enjoy liberty 
 and life as much as possible. I believe that they would 
 be happier if they made themselves more useful. The 
 family relationship between parents and children seems 
 to me particularly beautiful, especially as regards the 
 parents towards the children. The beautiful, maternal 
 instinct is inborn in the American women, at least in all 
 its fervent, heart-felt sentiment ; and better, more affec 
 tionate, family-fathers than the men of America I have 
 seen nowhere in the world. They have in particular a 
 charming weakness for daughters. And God bless them 
 for it ! I hope the daughters may know how to return it 
 with interest. 
 
 Now must I bid mamma adieu, as I am going out with 
 the family here to visit some ancient Indian graves; 
 Indian mounds as they are called. They are a sort of 
 barrows, now overgrown with trees, and are the sole 
 memorials which remain here of the original inhabitants 
 of the country, with the exception of the names which 
 they gave to rivers and mountains, and which, for the 
 most part, are still retained. These names are symbolic, 
 
346 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 and are generally melodious in sound. It is not more 
 than twenty years since the last Indian tribes in Georgia 
 were driven thence by an armed foree ; and I have heard 
 eye-witnesses relate the scene, how on the morning when 
 they were compelled to leave their huts, their smoking 
 hearths, their graves, and were driven away, men, women, 
 and children, as a defenceless herd, the air was filled with 
 their cry of lamentation ! Now no Indians are to be met 
 with in Georgia or Carolina, though in Alabama, the 
 farthest state west, may still be found tribes of Choctas 
 and Chickasas Indians. Lively pic-nics are now held on 
 these ancient Indian mounds. 
 
 I have for two nights in succession dreamed most 
 livingly that mamma was here was come to America to 
 see me. I was very glad of it, but at the same time 
 much surprised, because Agatha was not with her, and I 
 thought in my dream, it is impossible that mamma 
 could leave Agatha alone ; " it must be a dream ! " And 
 a dream, and a foolish dream it was, certainly, my sweet 
 mamma, but I should be very glad that one part of it 
 were true, namely, that I saw you looking so well and 
 so happy. If I could only see that, then would I have 
 the joy of embracing mamma, not in sleep and in a 
 dream, but in wakeful reality ! 
 
 To-morrow I set off for Savannah. 
 
 Savannah, May llth. And here I now am, sweet 
 mamma, after an affectionate parting from the amiable 
 family in Vineville, whom I was sorry to leave. I got 
 rid of a head-ache, as soon as possible, last evening, 
 after the fatiguing day s journey by railway, in the heat 
 of the sun, the smoke and the steam, during which my 
 little basket of bananas was my only comfort and support. 
 Long live the banana ! 
 
 To-day I have received visits and flowers among the 
 latter a magnolia grandiflora, a magnificent flower, as 
 noble as it is beautiful, a child of primeval light and 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 347 
 
 among the former one from a piquant young lady, who was 
 herself married at fourteen years of age she is now only 
 seventeen, but looks as if she were twenty and who will 
 carry me off this afternoon on a promenade to Bona- 
 ventura some romantic spot. Her dark romantic eyes 
 have something quite interesting in them. 
 
 Later.- I have had a visit from the greatest 
 
 autograph collector in the world, Mr. T., who kindly 
 invited me to his house and home at Savannah! and 
 here comes now my Swiss professor, and will talk to 
 me of poetry and religion, and the spirit of things ; 
 and now it is dinner-time and I must think about my 
 body, and therefore I must make an end of all. But 
 first a kiss on the paper and in spirit to my beloved ! 
 
 LETTER XVI. 
 
 SAVANNAH, May Uth, 1850. 
 
 " The greatest autograph-collector in the world " is 
 also the most friendly, the best-hearted man in the world, 
 and so kind to me that I shall always think of him 
 with gratitude. His collection of autographs is the 
 first which I have ever been able to examine with 
 interest and respect. Not because it occupies many 
 folios and has a whole room appropriated to it, and 
 could not be fully examined in less than six or seven 
 months, which certainly might inspire respect; but 
 because a portrait is appended to the handwriting of 
 each distinguished person, mostly an excellent copper 
 plate engraving, together with some letter or interesting 
 document belonging to the history of that individual. 
 All this gives to the autograph collection of Mr. T. a 
 real historical or biographical interest. 
 
 His house is one of those excellent, agreeable ones 
 
348 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 which I described in my former letter. His kind, little 
 wife, two younger sons, and the young wife of the eldest 
 son, constitute the family ; a quiet, kind, hospitable family, 
 over which death however has lately cast its shadow. Here 
 too the mothers have sorrowed most; and here sorrow two 
 mothers the elder, her eldest, grown-up son; the younger, 
 her little boy, both lately deceased ! 
 
 Savannah is the most charming of cities, and reminds 
 me of "the maiden in the greenwood." It is, even more 
 than Charleston, an assemblage of villas which have come 
 together for company. In each quarter is a green market 
 place surrounded with magnificent, lofty trees ; and in the 
 centre of each verdant market-place leaps up a living foun 
 tain, a spring of fresh water gushing forth, shining in the 
 sun and keeping the green sward moist and cool. Savannah 
 might be called the city of the gushing springs ; there 
 cannot be, in the whole world, a more beautiful city than 
 Savannah ! Now, however, it is too warm ; there is too 
 much sand and too little water. But I like Savannah. 
 I find here a more vigorous spiritual life, a more free 
 and unprejudiced looking at things and circumstances, 
 in particular at the great question of slavery, than in 
 Charleston, and I have here become acquainted with some 
 excellent, true people people who will look the question 
 directly and fairly in the face; who, themselves slave 
 holders from the more remote times, are yet labouring for 
 the instruction of the slave, for emancipation and free 
 colonisation. Ah, Agatha ! I have felt on this occasion 
 like a weary and thirsty wanderer of the desert, who has 
 arrived, all at once, at a verdant oasis where palms wave 
 and fresh waters spring forth, and I have watered with 
 tears of joy the flowers of freedom on the soil of 
 slavery. For I suffered greatly at first in society, 
 from the endeavours of many people to thrust upon me 
 their contracted views, and from a want of honesty, if not 
 in the intention, yet in the point of view from which they 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 349 
 
 regarded slavery. One evening, however, when I was 
 more than usually annoyed and quite disconcerted by the 
 observations of the people who came to see me, I found 
 my deliverance. 
 
 But I must give the history in the form which it has 
 assumed in my memory. 
 
 DIFFERENT IMPRESSIONS. 
 
 I was in company 
 With men and women, 
 And heard small talk 
 Of little things, 
 Of poor pursuits, 
 And narrow feelings, 
 And narrow views 
 Of narrow minds. 
 I rushed out 
 To breathe more freely, 
 To look on nature. 
 
 The evening star 
 Rose pure and bright, 
 The western sky 
 Was flushed with light, 
 The crescent moon 
 Shone sweetly down 
 Amid the shadows 
 Of the town. 
 Where whispering trees 
 And fragrant flowers 
 Stood hushed in silent 
 Fragrant bowers. 
 All was romance, 
 All loveliness, 
 Wrapped in a trance 
 Of mystic bliss. 
 I looked on 
 In bitterness, 
 And sighed and asked, 
 Why the great Lord 
 Made such rich beauty 
 For such a race 
 Of little men ? 
 
 I was in company 
 With men and women ; 
 
350 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 I heard noble talk 
 Of noble things, 
 Of manly doings, 
 And manly suffering, 
 And man s heart beating 
 For all mankind. 
 
 The evening star 
 
 Seemed now less bright ; 
 
 The western sky 
 
 Of paler light. 
 
 All nature s beauty and romance 
 
 The realm of Pan 
 
 Retired at once, 
 
 A shadow but to that of Man ! 
 
 Since then my world here has changed, as well as my 
 feelings, towards the southern life and people. My mental 
 vision has become clear, so that I can perceive a nohle 
 South in the South, even as its own hills arise and enable 
 me to breathe across its plain of sand, the invigorating 
 atmosphere of the hills, and which will yet become to the 
 people of the south that which Moses and Joseph were to 
 the children of Israel. For when people speak of the 
 slave race of the south, it is a mistake merely to imply the 
 blacks. And it is also unjust to think of the people of 
 the Southern States as a population of slaves and slave 
 owners. Of a truth, there exists a free people even in the 
 Southern slave states, who are silently labouring in the 
 work of emancipation. And though they may be but a 
 small number " doubt not, little flock, for it is your 
 Father s good pleasure to give you the kingdom ! " 
 
 It appears to me probable, from what I have seen and 
 heard, that Georgia will become one of the leading powers 
 in this advancing work of emancipation. Georgia, the 
 youngest of the first thirteen states of the Union, was 
 one of the most prominent in the work of American 
 independence, and the spirit of freedom has been power 
 ful here from the beginning. 
 
 All nations preserve traces of their origin, and receive 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 351 
 
 a certain stamp from the men and the circumstances which 
 determine the character of their youthful minds. This 
 is quite natural. And it is easy to see a cause for the 
 more free and fresh spirit which prevails in Georgia if we 
 reflect upon the character of the first founder of the State, 
 James Oglethorpe, and the colony which grew up under 
 his protection. 
 
 I must tell you something about this man, whose history 
 I have lately read, and of his work, because among so 
 much which is here incomplete, halting, imperfect, from 
 which the eye turns away dissatisfied, it is a refreshment 
 to fix it upon a human life which will stand the test, 
 which pursued one great purpose from the commence 
 ment to the close of its working- day, laboured for it and 
 brought it to a successful issue ; upon a man whose sole 
 object in life was to liberate the captive, to make the 
 unfortunate happy, and who, for this purpose, founded 
 a state ! 
 
 It is not much more than a hundred years since James 
 Oglethorpe came to this country at the head of a little 
 band of emigrants, and pitched his tent upon the high 
 ground between the river Savannah and the sea, where 
 now stands the city of Savannah. He was an English 
 man, and had spent a richly diversified life at the 
 University, in the army, and as a member of parliament. 
 A man of heroic character, with a heart full of benevolence 
 and energy, he was the first who sought to alleviate the 
 sufferings of debtors, which at that time were extreme in 
 England ; these unfortunate men being often immured in 
 prison for life on account of the smallest debt. As a 
 commissioner for the inspection of jails he obtained the 
 liberation of great numbers, and then sought out for 
 them, as well as for persecuted Protestants, an asylum, a 
 home of freedom in the free lands of the New World, 
 where poverty should not be opprobium ; where true piety 
 might freely worship God in its own way. 
 
352 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 It was not difficult for him to find in England men who 
 could take an interest in a grand scheme for human 
 happiness. A society was organised for the carrying out 
 of Oglethorpe s plan, which became realised by a grant 
 from George II. of the land which lay between the 
 Savannah and Alatamaha, from the head-springs of those 
 rivers due west of the Pacific, and which was placed for 
 twenty one years under the guardianship of a corporation 
 " in trust for the poor." The common seal of the corpora 
 tion bore on one side a group of silk-worms at their 
 labour, with the motto non sibi sed aliis not for themselves, 
 but for others thereby expressive of the disinterested 
 intention of the originators, who would not receive for their 
 labours any temporal advantage or emolument whatever. 
 On the reverse side was represented the genius of 
 Georgia, with a cap of liberty on her head, a spear in the 
 one hand, and a horn of plenty in the other. The reported 
 wealth and beauty of this land of promise awoke the most 
 brilliant hopes for the future. 
 
 Oglethorpe sailed from England in November, 1732, 
 with his little band of liberated captives and oppressed 
 Protestants, amounting in number to about one hundred 
 and twenty persons, and after a voyage of fifty-seven days 
 reached Charleston. Immediately after his arrival in the 
 New World, he proceeded up the Savannah river, and 
 landed on a high bluff, which he at once selected as the 
 site of his capital, and where Savannah now stands. At 
 the distance of half a mile dwelt the Yamacraw tribe of 
 Indians, who with their chief Tomo- chichi at their head, 
 sought alliance with the strangers. 
 
 " Here is a little present," said the red men, stretching 
 out before him a buffalo-hide, painted on the inner side 
 with an eagle s head and feathers. " The eagle s feathers 
 are soft, and betoken love. The buffalo s hide is warm, 
 and betokens protection. Therefore love and protect our 
 little families ! " 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 353 
 
 Oglethorpe received with kindness these friendly 
 demonstrations. 
 
 It was on the first clay of February when the little 
 band of colonists pitched their tents on the banks of the 
 river. Oglethorpe s tent stood beneath four tall pine 
 trees, and for twelve months he had no other shelter. 
 Here in this beautiful region was the town of Savannah 
 laid out, according as it stands at the present day, with 
 its regular streets and large square in each quarter of the 
 town, whilst through the primeval woods a road was 
 formed to the great garden by the river-side, which was 
 soon to become a nursery-ground for European fruits and 
 the wonderful natural products of America. 
 
 Such was the commencement of the commonwealth of 
 Georgia. The province became already in its infancy an 
 as3 r lum for the oppressed and suffering, not only among 
 the people of Great Britain, but of Europe itself. The 
 fame of this asylum in the wilderness rang through 
 Europe. The Moravian brethren, persecuted in their 
 native land, received an invitation from England, of a free 
 passage to Georgia for them and for their children, 
 provisions for a whole season, a grant of land to be held 
 free for ten years, with all the privileges and rights of 
 native English citizens, and the freedom to worship God 
 in their own way; this invitation they joyfully accepted. 
 
 On the last day of October, in the year 1733, with their 
 Bibles and hymn books, with their covered wagons, in which 
 were conveyed their aged and their little children, and one 
 wagon containing their few worldly goods, the little 
 Evangelical band set forth in the name of God, after 
 prayers and benedictions, on their long pilgrimage. They 
 sailed up the stately Rhine between its vineyards and 
 ruined castles, and thence, forth upon the great sea in 
 the depth of winter. When they lost sight of land, and 
 the majesty of ocean was revealed to them, they burst 
 forth into a hymn of praise. When the sea was calm and 
 
354 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 the sun rose in its splendour, they sang " how beautiful is 
 creation ; how glorious the Creator ! " When the wind 
 was adverse they put up prayers, when it changed, 
 thanksgivings. When they sailed smoothly with a favour 
 ing gale, they made holy covenants like Jacob of old ; when 
 the storm raged so that not a sail could be set, they lifted 
 up their voices in prayer and sang amid the storm, for 
 " to love the Lord Jesus gave great consolation." 
 
 Thus arrived they at the shore of the New World. 
 Oglethorpe met them at Charleston and bade them wel 
 come ; and five days afterwards the far wayfarers pitched 
 their tents near Savannah. Their place of residence was 
 to be yet farther up the country. Oglethorpe provided 
 them with horses, and accompanied them through the 
 wilderness, through forest and morass. By the aid of 
 Indian guides and blazed trees, they proceeded onward 
 till they had found a suitable spot for their settlement: 
 it was on the banks of a little stream, and they called it 
 Ebenezer. There they built their dwellings, and there 
 they resolved to erect a column in token of the providence 
 of God, which had brought them safely to the ends of 
 the earth. 
 
 The same year was the town of Augusta founded, which 
 became a favourite place of resort for the Indian traders. 
 The fame of Oglethorpe extended through the wilderness, 
 and in May came the chiefs of the eight tribes of the 
 Muskhogees to make an alliance with him. Long King, 
 the tall, old chief of the Oconas, was the spokesman for 
 the eight. 
 
 "The Great Spirit which * dwells everywhere around 
 us," said he, " and who gave breath to all men, has sent 
 the Englishmen to instruct us." He then bade them 
 welcome to the country south of the Savannah, as well as 
 to the cultivation of such lands as their people had not 
 used ; and in token of the sincerity of his words, he laid 
 eight bundles of buckskins at the feet of Oglethorpe. 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 355 
 
 The chief of the Coweta tribe arose and said, " We are 
 come five-ancl-twenty da} r s journey to see you. I have 
 never desired to go down to Charleston, lest I should die 
 by the way : but when I heard that you were come, and 
 that you are good men, I came down to you that I might 
 hear good things." He then gave the European exiles 
 leave to summon such of their kindred as loved them out 
 of the Creek towns, so that they might live together. 
 " Kecal," added he, " the Yamassees, that they may be 
 buried at peace among their forefathers, and that they 
 may see their graves before they die." 
 
 A Cherokee appeared among the English ; " Fear 
 nothing," said Oglethorpe, " but speak freely." 
 
 " I always speak freely," replied the mountain -chief. 
 " Wherefore should I be afraid ? I am now among 
 friends ; I feared not when I was among enemies." And 
 the settlers and the Cherokees became friends. 
 
 A Chocta-chief, " Red- Shoes," came the following year, 
 and proposed to trade, " We come from a great distance," 
 said he, " and we are a great nation. The French built 
 forts amongst us. We have long traded with them, but 
 they are poor in goods ; we desire that a trade may be 
 opened between you and us." 
 
 The good faith which Oglethorpe kept in his trans 
 actions with the Indians, his noble demeanour and 
 bearing, the sweetness of his temper, won for him the 
 confidence of the Red-men. He was pleased with their 
 simple manners and customs, and endeavoured to enlighten 
 their minds, and to instruct them in the knowledge of 
 that God whom they ignorantly worshipped. 
 
 Oglethorpe framed laws for Georgia ; one of which for 
 bade the introduction of intoxicating liquors, another the 
 introduction of slavery. " Slavery," said Oglethorpe, " is 
 contrary to the gospel, as well as to the fundamental law 
 of England. We will not permit a law which allows 
 such horrid crime." And when, later, various of "the 
 
 AA2 
 
356 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 better class " of people endeavoured to introduce negro 
 slaves, Ogletliorpe resolutely opposed it; declared that 
 if slaves were introduced into Georgia, he would no 
 longer concern himself with the colony. He continued 
 stedfast, enforcing his determination by his almost arbi 
 trary power, although many of the planters, in the belief 
 that they could not successfully cultivate the land with 
 white labourers, threatened to leave the colony. 
 
 Ogletliorpe continued with unabated activity to labour 
 for the well-being and prosperity of Georgia, extending 
 and securing its boundaries, establishing towns, and regu 
 lating the commonwealth. He visited the Evangelical 
 brethren at Ebenezer, laid out the streets for their new 
 town, and praised their good management. Within a few 
 years the product of raw silk within this little colony had 
 increased to ten thousand pounds weight yearly, beside 
 which indigo had become a staple article of traffic. In 
 the most earnest manner these colonists opposed the use 
 of negro-slaves, maintaining that the whites could, equally 
 well, labour under the sun of Georgia. Their religion 
 united them with each other ; they settled their disputes 
 among themselves. Every occurrence in life became 
 significant of a divine providence, and the fervency of 
 their worship disturbed not the calmness of their judg 
 ment. They had peace, and were happy. 
 
 From the Moravian towns, Oglethorpe journeyed south 
 ward, passing through the narrow inland channels where 
 the shores were covered by woods of pine, evergreen oaks 
 and cedars, which grew down to the water s edge, and 
 which resounded with the melody of birds. On St. 
 Simon s island, fire having cleared the grass from an old 
 Indian field, the streets of Frederica were laid out, and, 
 amid the carolling of hundreds of birds, a fort was con 
 structed on a bluff commanding the river. 
 
 The highlands of Scotland had already sent a company 
 of bold mountaineers, who sought for a home under 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 357 
 
 Oglethorpe s banner; and, now attired in the Highland 
 costume, Oglethorpe sailed up the Alatamaha to visit 
 them at Darien, where they had taken up their quarters. 
 By the help of these hrave men, Oglethorpe determined 
 to extend the boundaries of Georgia as far as St. John s 
 river in Florida ; and the Indians of the Coweta-tribe 
 hearing the rumour of war, sent forth their gaily-painted 
 warriors, to wield the hatchet in aid of Oglethorpe. Long 
 speeches and exchange of presents were followed by the 
 wild war-dance ; and the Muskhogees and the Cherokees 
 gathered around him to renew their former friendly 
 alliance. 
 
 A great council of the Muskhogee chiefs was held at 
 Cusitas on the Chattahouchee ; and Oglethorpe making 
 his way by solitary paths, fearless of the noonday heat 
 or the dews of night, or of the treachery of hireling 
 Indians, came to this great assembly to talk to his red 
 friends, to distribute presents, to drink the sacred saf key 
 with the Creek warriors, to smoke the pipe of peace, and 
 to conclude a firm alliance with them in war or in peace. 
 
 In 1734, Oglethorpe made a voyage to England, and 
 won universal favour for his young colony. In the year 
 1736 he returned, taking with him three hundred emi 
 grants, whom he cared for like a father ; and having 
 reached land, he ascended with them a rising ground, not 
 far by Tj^bee island, where they all fell on their knees and 
 returned thanks to God, for having safely conducted them 
 to Georgia. Among these was a second company of 
 Moravians, men who had " a faith above fear," and who 
 in the simplicity of their lives seemed to revive the 
 primitive Christian communities where state and rank 
 were unknown, but where Paul the tentmaker, and Peter 
 the fisherman, presided with the demonstration of the 
 Spirit. 
 
 With this company came John and Charles Wesley; 
 Charles, the secretary of Oglethorpe, and both burning 
 
358 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 with desire to become apostles of Christ among the 
 Indians, and to live in the New "World " a life wholly 
 and entirely consecrate to the glory of God." They 
 desired to make of Georgia a religious colony. " The age 
 in which religious and political excitements were united 
 was passed," adds Bancroft, from whose " History of the 
 United States " I have taken the above narrative ; " and 
 with the period of commercial influence fanaticism had no 
 sympathy. Mystic piety, more intense by its aversion to 
 the theories of the eighteenth century, appeared as the 
 rainbow ; and Wesley was as the sower, who comes after 
 the clouds have been lifted up, and the floods have 
 subsided, and scatters his seed in the serene hour of 
 peace." 
 
 After this we find Oglethorpe at the head of the English 
 army in the war with the Spaniards in Florida, and here 
 he was brave and victorious, foremost always in danger, 
 sharing with the common soldier all the hardships of the 
 camp, and even amid all the excitements of war regardful 
 of the property of the peaceable inhabitants ; and in victory 
 humane and gentle towards his captives. In July, 1742, 
 Oglethorpe ordered a general thanksgiving throughout 
 Georgia, for the re -establishment of peace. 
 
 Thus was Georgia colonised and defended ; and when 
 its founder and preserver, James Oglethorpe, approached 
 his ninetieth year, he was able to look back to a good 
 work, to a flourishing state the boundaries of which 
 he extended and established, and the spiritual and 
 material life of which he was the founder, so that it 
 well merited the praise that was given to it in England 
 " never has a colony been founded on a more true or 
 more humane plan." 
 
 He was spoken of, even in the last year of his life, as 
 one of the finest figures that had ever been seen ; a type of 
 venerable old age. His faculties and his senses were as 
 fresh as ever, and his eye as bright : on all occasions he 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 359 
 
 was heroic, romantic, and full of chivalric politeness the 
 most beautiful impersonation of all the virtues and endow 
 ments which distinguish our ideal of a true cavalier. And 
 so warm was his heart, so active his zeal for the well- 
 being of humanity, it mattered not of what race or nation, 
 that long after his death his name became a watchword 
 for vast benevolence of heart. 
 
 After his death, many of his high-minded laws were 
 annulled ; intoxicating liquors were introduced into 
 Georgia, and, by degrees, even negro slavery. But the 
 spirit of freedom and hospitality which was the life of 
 Oglethorpe s life, which was the animating influence of 
 the earliest settlers of Georgia, lives still in Georgia. I 
 see it, I hear it, I feel it. And the emigration hither 
 from the Northern States, and in particular from the 
 states of New England, and which increases more and 
 more, and which has exercised an influence upon the 
 people and the institutions, are to me a proof of this, and 
 a pledge for the still further development of the life of 
 freedom. I observe this also in the more free and 
 happier life of the negroes in Savannah; in the per 
 mission which is given them there to have their own 
 churches, and where they themselves preach. Besides 
 this, much is done in Georgia for the instruction of the 
 negro-slaves in Christianity, for their emancipation, and 
 their colonisation at Liberia, on the coast of Africa. And 
 every year a vessel goes thence from Savannah, with 
 coloured emigrants from among the emancipated slaves 
 of the slave-states, provided with the necessaries of life, 
 money, and furniture for their dwellings. I have seen 
 various letters from this colony written by the emigrants 
 themselves, which showed the good understanding which 
 existed between them and the mother- states, and various 
 individuals there, in particular, through their religious 
 associations. For each religious denomination maintains 
 its connection with its members in the African colony, 
 
360 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 which is for the rest under the direction of its own 
 coloured officials and ministers. 
 
 The more I see of these coloured people the more is 
 my curiosity and my interest aroused, not that I see among 
 the negroes anything great, anything which makes them 
 superior to the whites. I cannot divest my mind of the idea 
 that they are, and must remain, inferior as regards intel 
 lectual capacity. But they have peculiar and unusual gifts. 
 Their moral sense is, it seems to me, as pure and delicate 
 as their musical perception ; their sensibility is acute and 
 warm, and their good temper and cheerful disposition are 
 evidently the peculiar gifts of nature, or more correctly gifts 
 of God. And though they may not have shown themselves 
 original in creative genius, yet there is in their way of 
 comprehending and applying what they learn a really new 
 and refreshing originality : that may be heard in their 
 peculiar songs; the only original people s songs which 
 the New World possesses, as soft, sweet, and joyous as 
 our people s songs are melancholy. The same may be 
 observed in their comprehension of the Christian doc 
 trines, and their application of them to daily life. 
 
 Last Sunday I went to the church of the Baptist 
 negroes here w r ith Mr. F., one of the noble-minded 
 and active descendants of the Pilgrim fathers, who resides 
 in Savannah, and who has shown me much kindness. 
 The name of the preacher was Bentley, I believe, and 
 he was perfectly black. He spoke extempore with 
 great animation and ease. The subject of his discourse 
 was the appearance of the Saviour on earth, and the 
 purpose for which he came. " I remember," said he, " on 
 one occasion, when the President of the United States 
 came to Georgia, and to our town of Savannah I re 
 member what an ado the people made, and how they 
 went out in great carriages to meet him. The carriages 
 were decorated very grandly, and the great cannon pealed 
 forth one shot after another. And so the President came 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 361 
 
 into the town in a grand, beautiful carriage, and drove 
 to the best house in the whole town, and that was 
 Mrs. Scarborough s house ! And when he came there he 
 seated himself in the window. But a cord was drawn 
 around the house, to keep us negroes and other poor folks 
 from coming too near. We must stand outside, and only 
 get a sight of the President as he sate at the window. But 
 the great gentlemen and the rich folks, they went freely 
 up the steps and in at the door, and shook hands with 
 him. Now, did Christ come in this way ? Did he come 
 only to the rich ; did he shake hands only with them ? 
 No ! Blessed be the Lord ! he came to the poor ! He 
 came to us, and for our sakes, my brothers and sisters ! " 
 " Yes, yes ! Amen ! He came to us ! Blessed be His 
 name ! Amen ! Hallelujah ! " resounded through the 
 chapel for a good minute or two ; and the people stamped 
 with their feet, and laughed and cried, with countenances 
 beaming with joy. The preacher then continued to tell 
 how Christ proved himself to be the messenger of the 
 Highest. " Now imagine, my friends," said he, " that we 
 here are a plantation of negro labourers. But the owner 
 of the plantation is away ; he is a long, long way off, over 
 the sea in England, and the negroes on the plantation 
 have never seen his face. They have never seen the 
 face of any man higher than the overseer. But now 
 they hear that the owner of the plantation, their lord and 
 master, is coming there. And they are very curious to 
 see him, and they inquire about him every day. One day 
 they see the overseer coming and with him another gen 
 tleman, whom they have never seen before. But his dress 
 is not so good, and much simpler than the overseer s ; the 
 overseer has a fine, buttoned coat on, a white cravat, a 
 handsome hat on his head, and besides that, gloves on his 
 hands. The strange gentleman, on the contrary, has no 
 gloves on, and is dressed in quite a simple, careless way. 
 And if the negroes had not known the overseer, they 
 
Bdi HOMES OF THE NEW WOULD. 
 
 never would have believed that this was the master. 
 They see, however, that the strange gentleman gives 
 orders to the overseer that he shall send one negro here 
 and another there, that many shall be called to him and 
 to tin 1 overseer, ami the negroes must K> nil th:it h<< wishes 
 and commands, and from this they can see that he is the 
 master." 
 
 How living and excellent is this representation of 
 negro-life to the negroes, drawn as it is fresh from their 
 everyday experience ! 
 
 In the afternoon of the same day I also accompanied 
 Mr. F. to hear another negro preacher. This was an old 
 mulatto, a powerful, handsome, old man, who had acquired 
 some property, and who was greatly looked up to by his 
 people ns a preacher and baptizer, lit resembled the 
 whites both in appearance and manner. He mentioned, 
 during his discourse, that he was ninety-five yews old ; 
 and he related his religious experience ; his spiritual 
 afflictions, and agony, which were so extreme as to drive 
 him almost to self-murder ; and lastly, his feelings when 
 the comprehension of Christ, and salvation through Him 
 became clear to his understanding. " The whole world 
 became changed to me," continued he ; " everything 
 seemed as if new-born, and beaming with new beauty. 
 Even the companion of my life, my wife, seemed to me to 
 be again young, and shone before me in new beauty, and 
 I could not help saying to her, * Of a truth, my wife, I 
 love thee ! " A young woman on the bench where I sate 
 luMit il,>wii, almost chi keil with lau^h.ti-r. 1 hvnt il.uvu 
 also, but to shed tears, which pleasure, sympathy, 
 my own life s experience, and the living, child-like 
 description, so faithful to nature, had called forth ; after 
 the sermon Mr. F. and I shook hands with the powerful 
 old Andrew Marshall. 
 
 The choir in the gallery negroes and negresses 
 sang quartets, as correctly and beautifully as can be 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 363 
 
 imagined. At the close of the service a woman came 
 forth, and, kneeling before the altar, seemed to be under 
 great distress of mind, and the old preacher prayed for 
 her in her sorrows and secret grief, a beautiful and heart 
 felt prayer. Thus to pray in the chapel for the afflicted 
 seems to be customary among the Baptists in this 
 country. 
 
 May 15th. It is now very warm here, and the heat is 
 enervating. If it were not so I should enjoy myself in 
 Savannah, in the family where I am staying ; where the 
 master and mistress as well as the domestics negroes 
 seein all to be influenced by the same spirit of good 
 temper and kindness, and where I have made some very 
 agreeable acquaintance. Among those whom I love 
 most are a family named M L, one of those who labour 
 for the instruction and colonisation of the slaves; the 
 daughters themselves instruct the little negro children on 
 their father s estate, and praised very much their facility 
 of learning ; in particular they seemed to have pleasure 
 in pictures and stories, and easily understood them. 
 This gave me great delight ; and what a beautiful sphere 
 of action is opened by this means for the young daughters 
 of the south ! But I fear they are yet few who embrace 
 it. I have arranged, next year, to take a pleasure trip 
 with this amiable family to Florida, where they have a 
 son residing. But man proposes, and God disposes ! 
 
 There are many beautiful places in the neighbourhood 
 of Savannah, on the high banks of the river, and the 
 number of beautiful trees and flowers is untold. It 
 delighted me to hear Swedish family-names in many of 
 the appellations of these, and thus to recognise tokens of 
 LinnaBus ; as for instance, I here found Kudbeckia, 
 Lagerstromia, a very pretty shrub with pale red flowers, 
 resembling Tellandsia, and many others. The kind ladies 
 here and I have become acquainted with some extraordi 
 nary women among them drove me about in their carriages 
 
384 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 to see the places and forest parks in the neighbourhood. 
 Bonaventura is a natural park, and is one of the remark 
 able features of the place and the south. The splendid 
 live-oaks, growing in groupes and avenues, with their 
 long hanging moss, form on all sides the most beautiful 
 Gothic arcades, and when the evening sun casts his 
 glowing beams through these deep, gloomy vistas, the 
 most lovely effects are produced. The young artists of 
 America ought to come here and study them. 
 
 A portion of this beautiful park is being converted into 
 a burial ground, and white marble gravestones raise them 
 selves below the hanging mosses of the live-oaks. This 
 moss vegetation is now in blossom ; the blossom is a small 
 green button-like flower of the pentandria class, with a 
 delicate scent. Other magnificent flowers of the south, 
 the magnolia grandiflora, the Cape jasmin, and many 
 others, are now beginning to be generally in bloom, but 
 the scent of these is strong and too powerful for my taste. 
 The scent of the woods is overpowering and not whole 
 some. Ladies of delicate complexions become flushed 
 and suffer from riding through the woods at this season. 
 The flowers operate upon them like poison. To me they 
 appeared suffocating. What odour is there so pleasant 
 and refreshing as that of our fir-woods, and our lilies of 
 the valley? 
 
 To-day, when I went out alone to a little grove in 
 the midst of the plain of sand near the town, I found 
 an abundance of the most beautiful strawberries, and 
 wondered how it could be that the negro children left 
 them in peace. I gathered and tasted them, nay I did 
 not taste them, for they had no sign of taste. They 
 were a kind of spurious strawberry. Another spurious 
 beauty in the green fields of the south is a little, low 
 shrub, a kind of Cactus which is very common, called 
 " the prickly pear," and which bears a beautiful pale yellow 
 flower, like a single mallow, but which is full of an 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 365 
 
 invisible kind of minute hooked prickle, and after gather 
 ing a flower it is many days before you can free your 
 fingers from the tiny spines. 
 
 One beautiful institution which I visited here is the 
 asylum for the orphan children of all nations and all 
 religious persuasions. It is under the direction of ladies, 
 also of various nations and religious opinions. I visited 
 it with one of the directresses, who was a Jewess, and 
 much attached to her peculiar religious doctrines, which 
 according to her representation, approached those of the 
 Christian Unitarian. The asylum was under the care 
 of Catholic Sisters of Mercy, women with good coun 
 tenances, but horrible bonnets or hooded caps, which 
 would require a person to be very far gone in world renun 
 ciation before they could endure. Both the children and 
 the establishment were a gladdening sight. The children 
 are allowed to make choice of the religious sect to which 
 they will attach themselves, and I saw three young sisters, 
 one of whom was a Methodist, the second a Baptist, and 
 the third a member of the episcopalian church. 
 
 I must now prepare to leave Savannah and go to 
 Augusta, higher up in the State. I think of ascending 
 the river from Savannah, although I am told that the 
 journey is wearisome, and the scenery monotonous. But 
 I greatly prefer the steam-boat to the railway. 
 
 I shall write more from Augusta, my little Agatha ! 
 
 P.S. When I come home I shall bring you lovely 
 workbaskets, made from the scales of the fir-cone, and 
 lined inside with red silk, which these kind ladies have 
 given me, and which are their own work. They look 
 queer, but very ornamental. 
 
366 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 LETTEK XVII. 
 
 COLUMBIA, SOUTH CAROLINA, May 25th. 
 
 WHAT a long time it is, my sweet Agatha, since I last 
 conversed with you ! but days and hours rush on like the 
 river, and I have not many minutes to myself. 
 
 I wrote to you last at Savannah. Soon after that I 
 left the city overwhelmed with kindness and presents 
 from its friendly inhabitants up to the last moment. I shall 
 always have to thank my host, Mr. T., for his heartfelt 
 kindness and good-will towards me. At the last moment 
 he compelled me to allow him to pay for my journey to 
 Augusta. People talk about the Americans spirit of 
 acquisition, and with justice ; but with the same justice 
 they ought to speak of their spirit of giving. They love 
 to give, even as they love to acquire. 
 
 Just as I was about to go on board there came a 
 Swedish sea-captain, who told some persons of my 
 acquaintance in Savannah, that he wished to see me, 
 because he was brought up at the same place as myself 
 and Jenny Lind. There was not much that was agreeable 
 for me to remember in the educational establishment where 
 we three could have been all together. And when my 
 sea-faring countryman presented himself before me, and 
 we shook hands, he asked, " Was not mademoiselle 
 brought up in Stockholm ? " 
 
 I assented. " Ay, ay ! " said he, with a significant nod 
 of the head, " it is so ; I was certain of it and in Stock 
 holm I was also brought up ! " 
 
 We shook hands again, and the good man for he 
 looked like a hearty, good fellow gave me likewise a 
 present which I shall bring home with me to Sweden. 
 Almost sinking under presents, which to the last moment 
 were laid in my arms, I set off. 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 367 
 
 This voyage up the Savannah river, which I had been 
 warned against as slow and monotonous, was more agree 
 able than I can tell. The weather was charming, and as the 
 stream was strong and the river swollen from the spring- 
 floods, the voyage was slow ; I had plenty of time to observe 
 the banks between which the river wound, and though mile 
 after mile and hour after hour presented me with only 
 one scene, yet this scene was primeval forest. Masses of 
 foliage from innumerable trees and shrubs, and beautiful 
 climbing plants seemed resting upon the water on each 
 side of the river, the shores of Georgia and Carolina. 
 Lofty, deep, and impenetrable extended the primeval 
 forest, as I was told, for many miles inland. 
 
 But here it existed in its original luxuriance and splen 
 dour. I seemed to myself to be present on the third day 
 of creation, when God called forth the vegetable world, 
 " every tree whose seed was in itself after its kind." On 
 the day when the earth opened its maternal breast and 
 produced all the various trees and flowers of the earth, 
 Savannah, with its red-brown water, was a river newly 
 sprung from chaos, and rich with its essence, nor yet 
 had had time to settle itself and clear its water, when 
 the green plants of earth sprang forth in wild luxuriance ; 
 it seemed to play with them, and they, newly upsprung 
 from the water, seemed to have no wish to part from it, 
 but half longed to fall back into it. Flower-laden, climb 
 ing plants flung themselves to the very tops of the trees, 
 and then fell down to dip again in the waves of the river. 
 From amid these masses of verdure, forming porticoes, 
 pyramids, and the most fantastic and massive creations, 
 glanced forth now and then, a Calatpa all flaming with 
 its yellowish-white flowers ; dark-green, solemn magnolias 
 lifted up their snow-white blossoms towards the light, 
 beautiful and pure as it. I noticed sycamores, amber- 
 bearing poplars, tulip-trees with their splendid yellow and 
 red flecked blossoms, mulberries, many kinds of oak, 
 
368 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 elms and willows, as I went along, and high above all 
 towered cypresses with their long, depending mosses, 
 spreading their vast arms abroad, like patriarchs over 
 the lower tribes of vegetation. Not a human dwelling 
 was to be seen on these shores, not a trace of human 
 activity. There was neither the sight nor sound of animal 
 life, and although alligators are numerous in the Savannah 
 river, I did not see one ; not a bird sang, and all 
 was silent and hushed, even the wind itself. It was a 
 desolation full of fantastic beauty, and just now in the 
 pride of its splendour. At length I saw, sitting on the 
 naked boughs of a dead fir-tree, two large birds of prey, 
 reminding the beholder that " death was come into 
 the world." 
 
 Thus we sped on, in a high-pressure boat, the Oregon, 
 with its two reeking chimneys, up the river, mile after 
 mile, hour after hour, whilst the morning and the evening, 
 the sun and the moon, seemed to contend which should 
 most beautify the scene. And I sang in my soul, as the 
 earliest colonists of Georgia had done before me, " how 
 beautiful is creation, how glorious the Creator ! " and 
 then I thought, what a poem, what a glorious romance 
 is this portion of the world in its natural life ; what 
 wealth, what beauty, what varied scenes it embraces 
 in its bosom ! I was now again alone with America ; 
 America revealed her mysteries to me, and made me 
 aware of her wealth, the inheritance of future genera 
 tions. 
 
 The Savannah forms the boundary between Carolina 
 and Georgia. I had tenderly-beloved friends both in 
 Carolina and Georgia. I loved Georgia the most, and 
 turned towards its shore, as toward a more free, a more 
 youthfully fresh land. 
 
 The voyage was an incessant feast for me, and I wished 
 only to be silent and enjoy it. But in order to do that, 
 I had to avoid, in the saloon, a throng of handsome, but 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 369 
 
 wild young girls, who had made, on their own account, a 
 pleasure -party, and now ran about here and there, chatter 
 ing, calling to one another, and laughing ; and on deck, 
 a few gentlemen, planters, who were polite and wished to 
 talk, but talked only of " cotton, cotton, cotton," and 
 how the world was beginning to busy itself about Ameri 
 can cotton. I fled away from these worshippers of cotton, 
 and endeavoured to be alone with the river and the 
 primeval forest, and with the light and shadows within 
 it. There was with the troop of young girls also a 
 youth, a handsome young man, a brother or relative of 
 some of them. Later on in the evening he had to leave 
 the vessel, and then the wild young girls took hold of him, 
 embraced and kissed him, the one after the other, in fun 
 and amid laughter, whilst he, half annoyed and half 
 amused, endeavoured to get loose from them. What 
 impression would that young man carry away with him of 
 that night s scene ? Not esteem for woman. One of the 
 elder gentlemen on deck, shook his head at the young 
 girls behaviour; " They make a fool of that young man ! " 
 said he to me. It was not till late in the night that I 
 could get to sleep for the noise which these girls made. 
 
 The next day was Sunday, and life seemed to celebrate 
 a holy-day, so still and so festively -adorned appeared all 
 nature. The wild, young girls had become quiet, and 
 assembled before the door of my cabin, which was open 
 towards the river. They were evidently in a state of 
 mind to hear something serious. The peace of the 
 Sabbath rested upon them. Had now some sower, com 
 missioned of Heaven, sown the seed of truth and the 
 comprehension of the higher life in the souls of these 
 young girls, the seed would assuredly have fallen in good 
 ground. I have faith in the inborn, pure earnestness of 
 woman s nature, and its kinship with the highest spiritual 
 life, and it grieved me when I saw it running wild as in 
 this case. Not that I think a moment of wildness is 
 
 VOL. I. B B 
 
370 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 of much consequence in a human life ; all depends upon 
 the main direction of the whole. But if nature is left to 
 itself it becomes a wilderness, and wildernesses of human 
 nature are very much less beautiful than those of the 
 primeval forest nor would even these be good to live in. 
 The spirit of a superior nature must lay his hand upon 
 the young heathen before he can become full of human 
 dignity and beauty. 
 
 Fathers and mothers in the young, new world, do not 
 seem rightly to know the good, old proverb, " Use is 
 second nature; " nor the other equally excellent one, " It 
 is easier to stem a brook than a river." 
 
 Towards the evening of this day, the young girls were 
 landed here and there at different plantations, from which 
 boats were put out to fetch them ; and from the banks of 
 the river I heard words of affectionate welcome, and saw 
 cheerful fires blazing through the thick darkness, for the 
 young moon had already set, and the darkness of night is 
 very dark here at this season, whilst the evening glow of 
 our skies lights up earth and heaven till it is dimmed by 
 the glow of morning. 
 
 On Saturday afternoon I went on board at Savannah. 
 On Monday morning I arrived at Augusta, where I was 
 met by the agreeable, excellent Mr. B., who took me 
 in his carriage to his house, where I was received with 
 great kindness by his wife, a handsome and agreeable Irish 
 lady, with a handsome English countenance, remarkably 
 like Frances von K., but with a softer expression, and 
 by Hanna L., the pale girl from the South, whom I 
 first met with on the voyage from England, and whom 
 I liked so much. It was a pleasure to me to find her 
 health now better after her European tour, and she 
 seemed to me, here in her home and her own circle of 
 friends, more amiable even than before. 
 
 I spent here some very agreeable days, receiving visitors 
 only in the evening, and spending the mornings in chiving 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 371 
 
 out to the plantations in the neighbourhood and elsewhere. 
 Here also I often had to listen to and to answer the same 
 multitude of trivial and wearisome questions, one of the 
 worst and most frequent of which was, " Do the United 
 States answer your expectations ? " 
 
 Yet even here I also hecame acquainted with some 
 excellent people, both men and women, real Christians 
 and true citizens of the world, who are silently labouring 
 at the work of emancipation, wisely and effectually ; 
 assisting the slaves into the path of self-emancipation, 
 that is to say, giving opportunity to those slaves to 
 acquire money, helping them to keep it, and encouraging 
 them to industry and good conduct, with a view to their 
 liberation at a certain time ; in a few years perhaps, or it 
 may be less, and afterwards giving them that freedom for 
 which they have worked. How beautiful it seemed to me 
 when I saw them, in particular an elderly gentleman and 
 lady, how good they seemed to me, and how amiable ! 
 How happy I felt myself in knowing them ! One of these 
 friends of humanity had advanced to a negro woman a 
 little capital, which enabled her, by her own labour, not 
 only to pay monthly interest to her owner for the money 
 he had paid for her, but by which she had the means of 
 purchasing the freedom of four of her children ; the fifth 
 had yet to be purchased, but even this one also would 
 shortly be free, through the help of a benevolent man. 
 And who does not admire this slave, who thinks nothing 
 of continuing herself a slave, but merely of purchasing 
 the freedom of emancipating her children ? Such a 
 mother would, in the times of Athens and Sparta, have 
 been proclaimed as " an honour to humanity." But this 
 mother remains an unknown slave. It is true that she 
 feels herself well off in her situation, and does not wish 
 for a freedom which at her age could not be obtained but 
 at the exchange of a life free from care, for one much 
 harder at least in Liberia. " When I am old," said she, 
 
 B B 2 
 
372 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 " and no longer able to work, master and mistress will 
 take care of me ! " So think many old slaves, and do not 
 trouble themselves about a freedom in which they would 
 have to take care of themselves. And this is good when 
 the master and mistress are good, and do not die before 
 the old slaves, in which case the fate of these is very 
 uncertain, and becomes sometimes, under new owners, 
 worse than that of the domestic animals. 
 
 During my visit to a few of the plantations, I could 
 clearly see that the ladies looked on me with suspicious 
 glances. I liked one of these ladies nevertheless. She 
 seemed to me of a fresh, fine, motherly character. I 
 requested her to accompany me to the slave-village at a 
 short distance from the house. She agreed to do so. 
 The hands, as the working negroes of the South are called, 
 were now out in the fields reaping the corn, and their 
 houses were mostly locked up ; I went into the few that 
 remained open. In one of these an old negro, who had a 
 bad foot, sat on the bed. Both himself and the whole 
 dwelling bore the stamp of good care and attention. " He 
 is well provided for in his old age, because he is one of 
 our own people," said Mrs. E., aloud to me, so that the 
 negro might hear her ; "if he were free he would not be 
 so well off." 
 
 " And why not ? " said I, but silently to myself, for I 
 would not say it aloud lest the negro should hear. " We 
 too, on our estates in Sweden, have old and sick servants, 
 and although they are free and enjoy freely the wages for 
 which they serve, yet we consider it no less incumbent on 
 us, in justice to them and as our own duty, to take all 
 possible care of them in their sickness and old age ; and 
 if they serve us faithfully, to make their old age as happy 
 as we possibly can, consistently with our own means. 
 The bad master with us, as well as the bad slave-holder 
 goes where he belongs." 
 
 This is what I wished to say to Mrs. E., and would have 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 373 
 
 said it if we had been alone together, because I could not 
 help seeing in her a somewhat proud, but at the bottom 
 a noble character, who, by the injustice of the Aboli 
 tionists against the position of the slave-holder, has been 
 driven to injustice against that of the workers, but who 
 could and who would look at the truth, if, without any 
 polemical asperity, it were placed before her unbiassed 
 judgment. But I did not find any opportunity for trying 
 the experiment because we never were alone. 
 
 The slave -villages in Georgia have the same exterior 
 as those in Carolina, and the condition of the slaves on 
 the plantations seem to me similar also. The good and 
 the bad masters make the only difference ; but then in 
 such circumstances this is immeasurable. 
 
 " Here lives the owner of a plantation who is universally 
 known as cruel to his people," was once said to me as I 
 went past a beautiful country-house, almost concealed by 
 thick trees and shrubs. People know this, and they do 
 not willingly hold intercourse with such a man, that is all. 
 Neither the angel of justice nor of love ventures into these 
 mystical groves, where human beings are sacrificed. 
 What paganism amid Christianity ! But this avenges 
 itself nevertheless on the white races, as is evident in 
 many things. 
 
 One day I went to see, in the forest, some of the poor 
 people called " clay-eaters ; " these are a kind of wretched 
 white people, found in considerable numbers both in 
 Carolina and Georgia, who live in the woods, without 
 churches, without schools, without hearths, and some 
 times also without homes, but yet independent and proud 
 in their own way, and who are induced by a diseased 
 appetite to eat a sort of unctuous earth, which is found 
 here, until this taste becomes a passion with them, equally 
 strong with the love of intoxicating liquors ; although, by 
 slow degrees, it consumes its victim, causes the complexion 
 to become grey, and the body soon to mingle with the 
 
374 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 earth on which, it has nourished itself. Clay- eaters is the 
 name given to these miserable people. No one knows 
 whence they come, and scarcely how they exist, but they 
 and the people called " Sandhill people," poor whites 
 who live in the barren, sandy tracts of the Southern 
 States, are found in great numbers here. The Sandhill 
 people are commonly as immoral as they are ignorant, 
 for, as by the law of the States it is forbidden to teach 
 the negro slaves to read and write, and in consequence 
 there would be no support for schools, where half the 
 population consists of slaves, and the country in con 
 sequence is thinly inhabited ; therefore the indigent white 
 people in the country villages are without schools, and 
 very nearly without any instruction at all. Besides which 
 these people have no feeling for the honour of labour 
 and the power of activity. The first thing which a white 
 man does when he has acquired a little money is to buy 
 a slave, either male or female ; and the slave must work 
 for the whole family. The poor slave-holder prides 
 himself on doing nothing, and letting the whole work be 
 done by the slave. Slave-labour is generally careless 
 labour, and all the more so under a lazy master. The 
 family is not benefited by it. If the master and mistress 
 are famished, the slaves are famished also, and all become 
 miserable together. But again to the clay-eaters. 
 
 Mr. G. and his family were a good specimen of this 
 class of people. They lived in the depths of a wood 
 quite away from any road. It was a hot and sultry day, 
 and it was sultry in the wood. The poison- oak (a kind 
 of dwarf oak, said to be extremely poisonous), grew thickly 
 on all sides in the sand. Deep in the wood we found a 
 newly built shed, which had been roofed in for the poor 
 family by some benevolent persons. Here lived the 
 husband and wife, with five or six children. They had 
 a roof over their heads, but that was all ; I saw no kind 
 of furniture whatever, not even a fire-place, and door 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 375 
 
 there was none. But Mr. G., an affable little man of 
 about fifty, seemed delighted with his world, with himself, 
 his children, and in particular with his wife, whom he 
 described as the best wife in the world, and with whom 
 he seemed to be enchanted. The wife, although grey as 
 the earth, both in complexion and dress, and pitifully thin, 
 was evidently still quite young and possessed real beauty 
 of feature. She looked good but not gay, was silent, and 
 kept her eyes very much fixed on her children, the 
 handsomest, the most magnificent, unbaptised young 
 creatures that any one can imagine, tumbling about with 
 one another in perfect freedom, with natural grace, 
 liveliness, and agilit} r very excellent human material 
 thought I, and better than many a baptised, over-indulged 
 drawing-room urchin. Mr. G. was talkative, and volun 
 teered us various passages out of his life s history. 
 
 He had at one time been the overseer of a slave-holder 
 and churchman : but the office was one of so much cruelty 
 that he gave it up. He could not endure having to flog 
 the slaves himself, nor yet to have them flogged. But 
 his master would not permit him to abstain from it. And 
 others were no better. He had tried them. This one, it 
 seemed to him, ought to have been better as he was a 
 religious man. "And in the beginning he was not bad," 
 said he, "but after awhile he married a rich planter s 
 daughter, which changed him greatly, and he grew worse 
 and worse every year. But that was the fault of his 
 marriage, for he was unhappy with his wife." 
 
 The clay-eater in the forest looked down with 
 compassion upon the rich planter religious professor 
 though he was unhappy with his wife and. cruel to his 
 people. He, the freeman in the wild forest, with his 
 pretty, gentle wife, and his handsome children, was richer 
 and happier than he ! Mr. G. seemed proud as a king, in 
 his free, innocent poverty. 
 
 "But cannot overseers be gentle to the slaves?" 
 
376 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 inquired I. " No," replied he, " they must be severe, 
 they must drive them with the whip, if they are to work 
 as they ought ; and the planters will have nothing else." 
 
 I leave this man s must to its own intrinsic value, and 
 to the question, whether it may not have had its origin in 
 a want of wise management and gentleness in himself. 
 But true it is that the overseers which I have as yet met 
 with, displease me by a certain severity, a certain savage 
 expression in their countenance, particularly in their eye. 
 And one of the heaviest grievances in the life of the 
 planter, seems to me to be, that the slaves, after a long 
 series of years, are left in the power of the overseers, 
 whilst the master and his family are absent from the 
 plantation for the sake of their health or their pleasure. 
 
 The day after my visit to the clay-eaters, I was present 
 at a festival at Augusta, on occasion of the presentation of 
 a sword of honour, on behalf of the State of Georgia, to a 
 young officer of Augusta, who had distinguished him 
 self, and had been severely wounded, in the war with 
 Mexico. A stage was erected for the occasion in a little 
 park within the city, and around it, in the form of an 
 amphitheatre, a gallery with benches and seats, which 
 were filled with spectators. The sword was presented to 
 the young soldier on the elevated platform, which was 
 covered with carpets and adorned with banners. It was 
 a very beautiful scene, under the open sky and the beau 
 tiful trees, only there was rather too much talking. I was 
 pleased that the young hero of the day in his speech 
 mentioned, with affection and praise, many of his com 
 rades in the war, who had, he said, deserved this 
 distinction better than he ; and he related their achieve 
 ments. He seemed to have a heartfelt delight in speaking 
 of the deeds of his companions-in-arms. The assembly 
 applauded his speech rapturously. We had besides, 
 several other speeches : I cannot help always being 
 astonished at the Americans great facility in talking. 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 377 
 
 When, however, the speeches are too numerous and too 
 long, I cannot butrecal the words^of Mr. Poinsett, when on 
 one occasion I spoke with admiration of this wonderful 
 facility in making speeches, " It is a great misfortune ! " 
 
 After the ceremony the cannon fired loud enough to 
 split the drums of one s ears, if not the walls of the 
 fortress. 
 
 The hero of the day descended from the platform amid 
 a host of friends and acquaintances ; his sword of honour, 
 with its handsome silver hilt, its inscription and belt, 
 was passed from hand to hand among the spectators. 
 After this, music struck up, and the company proceeded 
 in a promenade dance under the trees, which were 
 illuminated with coloured lamps, the young hero at a 
 given sign taking the lead. Dancing then became 
 general. I noticed a number of little girls dancing ; 
 they looked pretty, though I am not fond of seeing 
 children, so fine and such ^little women, in the dance. 
 The ladies who did not dance sat in grand style on the 
 galleried seats under the trees. Many were very hand 
 some. It astonished me, when Mrs. E., the planter s 
 lady who had looked suspiciously on me, and yet whom I 
 took a liking to, introduced me to her husband, and 
 when they both invited me very kindly and warmly to pay 
 them a visit for as long a time as might be agreeable to 
 me. I was sorry to be obliged to decline so polite an 
 invitation, one which proved to me that I had not been 
 mistaken in my liking for the lady. Her husband also 
 appeared extremely agreeable. 
 
 A heavy shower of rain, which came on quite unexpec 
 tedly, put a sudden end to the fete, and sent everybody 
 helter-skelter home. 
 
 When at home with Mr. B., I heard the negroes 
 singing, it having been so arranged by Hanna L. I 
 wished rather to have heard their own naive songs, but 
 was told that they " dwelt with the Lord," and sang only 
 
378 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 hymns. I am sorry for this exclusiveness ; nevertheless, 
 their hymns sung in quartette were glorious. It would 
 be impossible to have more exquisite or better singing. 
 They had note-books before them, and seemed to be 
 singing from them ; but my friends laughed, doubting 
 whether they were for actual use. In the midst of the 
 singing a cock began to crow in the house, and kept on 
 crowing incessantly. From the amusement this occa 
 sioned, I saw that there was more in it than appeared. 
 Nor was it in reality a cock that crowed, but a young 
 negro from a neighbouring court, who being possessed of 
 the cock s ability to crow, chose to make one in the 
 concert. 
 
 After this, another young negro, who was not so evan 
 gelical as the rest, came and sang with his banjo several 
 of the negro songs, universally known and sung in the 
 South by the negro people, whose product they are, and 
 in the Northern States by persons of all classes, because 
 they are extremely popular. The music of these songs is 
 melodious, naive, and full of rhythmical life, and the 
 deepest tenderest sentiment. Many of these songs 
 remind me of Haydn s and Mozart s simple, naive me 
 lodies ; for example, " Kosa Lee," " Oh, Susannah," 
 " Dearest May," " Carry me back to old Virginny," " Uncle 
 Ned," and " Mary Blane," all of which are full of the 
 most touching pathos, both in words and melody. The 
 words, however, are frequently inferior to the music ; they 
 are often childish, and contain many repetitions both of 
 phrases and imagery ; but frequently amid all this, expres 
 sions and turns of thought which are in the highest 
 degree poetical, and with bold and happy transitions, 
 such as we find in the oldest songs of our northern 
 people. These negro songs are also not uncommonly 
 ballads, or more properly, little romances, which contain 
 descriptions of their love affairs and their simple life s 
 fate. There is no imagination, no gloomy back-ground, 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 379 
 
 rich with saga or legend, as in our songs ; but, on the 
 other hand, much sentiment, and a naive, and often 
 humorous seizing upon the moment and its circumstances. 
 These songs have been made on the road ; during the 
 journeyings of the slaves; upon the rivers, as they 
 paddled their canoes along, or steered the raft down the 
 stream ; and in particular at the corn-hustings, which 
 are to the negroes what the harvest-home is to our 
 peasants, and at which they sing impromptu, whatever 
 is uppermost in their heart or in their brain. Yes, all 
 these songs are peculiarly improvisations, which have 
 taken root in the mind of the people, and are listened to 
 and sung to the whites, who, possessed of a knowledge of 
 music, have caught and noted them down. And this 
 improvisation goes forward every day. People hear new 
 songs continually ; they are the offspring of nature and of 
 accident, produced from the joys and the sorrows of a 
 child-like race. The rhyme comes as it may, sometimes 
 clumsily, sometimes no rhyme at all, sometimes most won 
 derfully fresh and perfect ; the rhythm is excellent, and 
 the descriptions have local colouring and distinctness. 
 Alabama, Louisiana, Tennesee, Carolina, " Old Yirginny," 
 all the melodious names of the Southern States and places 
 there, the abodes of the slaves, are introduced into their 
 songs, as well as their love-histories, and give a local 
 interest and colouring not only to the song, but to the 
 State and to the place which they sing about. Thus 
 these songs are like flowers and fragrance from the 
 negro-life in those states like flowers cast upon the waves 
 of the river, and borne hither and thither by the wind 
 like fragrance from the flowers of the wilderness in their 
 summer life, because there is no bitterness, no gloomy 
 spirit in these songs. They are the offspring of life s 
 summer-day, and bear witness to this. And if bitterness 
 and the condition of slavery were to cease for ever in the 
 free land of the United States, these songs would still 
 
380 HOMES OF THE NEW WOULD. 
 
 live, and bear witness to the light of life, even as the 
 phosphorescent beam of the fire-fly shines, though the 
 glow-worm may be crushed. 
 
 The young negro whom I heard sing this evening, sang 
 among other songs one, of which I would that I could give 
 you an idea, so fresh was the melody, and so peculiar the 
 key. Of the words I only remember this first verse : 
 
 I am going to the old Pee Dee ! 
 And there on the old Pee Dee, 
 
 On a summer s night, 
 
 When the moon shines bright, 
 My Sally I shall see ! 
 
 The last syllable of the first and last verse is long drawn 
 out. The little romance describes how the lover and 
 Sally will be married and settle themselves down, and live 
 happily all on the banks of the old Pee Dee. A heart-felt, 
 charming Southern idyll. 
 
 The banjo is an African instrument, made from the 
 half of a fruit called the calabash, or gourd, which has a 
 very hard rind. A thin skin or piece of bladder is 
 stretched over the opening, and over this one or two 
 strings are stretched, which are raised on a bridge. The 
 banjo is the negroes guitar, and certainly it is the first 
 born among stringed instruments. 
 
 The day following, when dining with a Mr. and Mrs. 
 G., I also had the pleasure of hearing some negro 
 songs which pleased me greatly. The young negro who 
 sang, having weak lungs, was not able to do much work, 
 and some kind people therefore had enabled him to 
 cultivate his musical gifts by instruction and practice. 
 He sang excellently. And in order to understand the 
 peculiar fascination of their songs, they should be heard, 
 sung by negroes, with their beaming glances and naive 
 abandon. 
 
 Augusta is a little city of the same style as Savannah, 
 but less great, less beautiful, smaller in every way ; but very 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 381 
 
 pretty nevertheless, and situated in a broad bend of the 
 Savannah. Around it are many charming country-houses 
 with their gardens. I visited several such ; saw beautiful 
 and earnest family groups ; and heard the hundred- 
 tongued birds singing in the oak-woods. Of oaks, such 
 as our Swedish oak, I find none ; but many other kinds of 
 oaks, of which the live-oak, with its delicately cut oval 
 leaf, is the most splendid kind. 
 
 During my stay at Augusta, I have been for some time 
 deliberating upon an excursion which I proposed to make 
 northward. I wished greatly to visit the highlands of 
 Georgia, and Tellulah Falls in that district, which had 
 been described to me in Charleston as the most picturesque 
 in America. I should like to have seen that original, who 
 a few years since built the first inn at the falls, and who 
 christened his eldest daughter Magnolia Grandiflora, his 
 second Tellulah Falls, and his son some other curious 
 name which I have forgotten. I had already half de 
 termined to undertake the journey, and a kind, young 
 lady had given me letters to her friends in Athens and 
 Borne, places on the road to Tellulah Falls, and which I 
 presume are related in about the same degree to the great 
 of these names, as we probably are to Adam and Eve ; 
 but the heat became great, and I felt myself so weak 
 in consequence of it, and the journey would have been so 
 
 fatiguing, that I gave it up, and determined instead 
 
 to go back to Charleston by way of Columbia, the capital 
 of South Carolina, and which I have been told has a 
 remarkably beautiful site in the neighbourhood of the 
 highlands. 
 
 Having promised to return, I parted from my kind 
 entertainers, thankful for the residence in their house, 
 and for that which the residence in Augusta had given me, 
 of gold, better than that of California. 
 
 The excellent, agreeable Mr. B. accompanied me a 
 short distance to the railroad, on the other side of the 
 
382 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 river. On our way we passed through the slave -market. 
 Forty or fifty young persons of both sexes were walking 
 up and down before the house in expectation of purchasers. 
 They were singing ; they seemed cheerful and thoughtless. 
 The young slaves who were here offered for sale were 
 from twelve to twenty years of age ; there was one little 
 boy, however, who was only six ; he belonged to no one 
 there. He attached himself to the slave-keeper. Poor 
 little fellow ! Who was his mother ? Who his sister or 
 his brother ? Many of these children were fair mulattoes, 
 and some of them very pretty. One young girl of twelve 
 was so white that I should have supposed her to belong 
 to the white race ; her features too were also those of the 
 whites. The slave-keeper told us that the day before, 
 another girl still fairer and handsomer, had been sold for 
 fifteen hundred dollars. These white children of slavery 
 become, for the most part, victims of crime, and sink into 
 the deepest degradation. Yet again, what heathenism 
 in the midst of a Christian land ! 
 
 The greater number of these young slaves were from 
 Virginia, which not needing much slave-labour itself, sells 
 its slaves down south. Some gentlemen were on the spot, 
 and one or two of them called my attention to the cheerful 
 looks of the young people. 
 
 " All the more sorrowful is their condition," thought I, 
 " the highest degradation is not to feel it ! " 
 
 But from this shame-spot in the young and beautiful 
 state of Georgia, I turn my glance with pleasure to 
 another spot, one rich in honour and hope that so- 
 called " Liberty- County ;" and it was a great loss to me 
 not to have been able to visit this, the oldest home of 
 liberty in the state of Georgia. Here began the first 
 movement in the south for American freedom. " The 
 Liberty-Boys " originated here ; and here it was that, still 
 later, commenced the first effectual movements for the 
 instruction of the negroes in Christianity, for their 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 383 
 
 emancipation and colonisation, in their African father 
 land. 
 
 A short time ago there died in Liberty -County a rich 
 planter, Mr. Clay, universally known for his zeal on these 
 subjects, and for his human kindness generally. His 
 corpse was followed to the grave by a great number of 
 persons, both whites and blacks. The whites, as soon as 
 the grave was covered in, returned to their homes, but the 
 negroes remained by the grave through the whole night, 
 singing hymns. The sister of Mr. Clay participated with 
 him in the work of elevating the slaves, and it is said 
 continues it since his death. God bless all such noble 
 and liberal-minded persons ! 
 
 I found that in Georgia, the following view of slavery 
 prevailed generally : 
 
 Slavery is an evil ; but under the wise direction of God 
 it will become a blessing to the negroes. The whites who 
 have enslaved them, will make them compensation for 
 their sufferings through the gift of Christianity, and by 
 instructing them in agriculture, and the handicraft arts, 
 thus they may be first instructed, and then gradually 
 emancipated and colonised in Africa ; the heathen 
 nations of Africa being finally Christianised and civilised 
 through the Christianised and emancipated slaves of 
 America. 
 
 I am convinced that this is the truth and the way. 
 And by this view of the question in Georgia, and from 
 what it has already begun, I see a proof of how much 
 public opinion in this country goes a-head of legislation. 
 For the law, as regards the treatment of slaves, takes a 
 very low stand in Georgia, as well as in South Carolina. 
 
 Georgia may with more justice than Carolina be called 
 the Palmetto State, as the palmetto is really very 
 abundant there, besides many other plants, which indicate 
 the neighbourhood of the tropics, and a new face of 
 nature; and how gladly would I contemplate this face 
 
384 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 still more closely! One of those plants, called Yucca 
 gloriosa, as well as the Spanish dagger, sends forth its 
 pointed dagger-like leaves in all directions from the stem, 
 and has a cluster of splendid white bell-shaped flowers. 
 
 And now adieu for the present, amid the beautiful 
 flowers of Georgia, and its still more beautiful human 
 beings. 
 
 Columbia is a pretty little city of handsome villas and 
 gardens, and in the midst of these a fine senate -house, for 
 Columbia is the capital of South Carolina. Every state 
 in the union has its capital situated in the centre of the 
 State, and commonly it is of small importance, excepting 
 as a place of meeting for the two legislative bodies, the 
 senate and representatives, who sit in the Senate House 
 of the capital some months of each year. Besides which 
 each state has its large trading towns situated by the sea, 
 or upon some of the great rivers which pour in all 
 directions through this abundantly watered portion of the 
 earth. Columbia in Carolina every state in the union 
 has, I believe, a city which is called Columbia or Colum 
 bus is beautifully situated on a height near the river 
 Congoree. 
 
 I have derived great pleasure through the kindness of 
 a Mr. Gibbs here, a natural historian, who has shown 
 me much attention. In his collection I have seen the 
 remains of those antediluvian creatures, the Megatherium 
 and Mastodon, the bones of which have been dug up here. 
 These remains belong to Titanic creatures. A single 
 tooth is as large as my hand. Mr. Gibbs has had the 
 kindness to give me drawings and descriptions of these 
 animals which I shall be glad to send home to our 
 Professor Sundevall. He has also given me a little 
 hummingbird s nest, the prettiest thing in the world, 
 built of small, delicate blades of grass and tiny pieces 
 of paper. 
 
 I was one day invited by a Professor F. to the weddings 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 385 
 
 of two couple of his house-slaves. The bridal pairs were 
 young people and looked very well, especially one of the 
 bridegrooms, a negro, black as night, and whom his 
 master commended for the excellence of his character and 
 his general intelligence, and one of the brides but 
 not of the bridegroom par excellence, were regularly 
 handsome. Both the brides were dressed very prettily 
 in white, and wore garlands. The clergyman entered the 
 negro-company, stepped up to the bridal couples and 
 very soon dismissed the marriage ceremony, after which 
 they began dancing in the same room. Negroes and 
 negresses swung round in a lively waltz ; ladies dressed 
 and decked out in gauze and flowers, altogether like our 
 ladies, the only difference being that these had more 
 finery about them, and considerably less grace ; and after 
 all they looked very much better in this borrowed and 
 imitated finery than I should have believed possible. 
 Whilst the black company danced zealously, the white 
 people went to see the wedding dinner-table, which was 
 splendidly covered with flowers and fine cakes, and 
 seemed really almost to bend under the abundance of 
 meats. 
 
 I here became acquainted with a German, Professor 
 Lieber, an author of talent and a worthy man. For the 
 rest there was nothing very remarkable here, unless it 
 were the great number of colonels. All gentlemen of 
 wealth, planters or others, it matters not, are called 
 Colonel, though they may not have been military. Such 
 colonels abound in the Southern States. When I ex 
 pressed my astonishment at this general promotion, I 
 was told that when the President of the United States 
 visited the various states, he nominated many of these 
 gentlemen to be his adjutants for the occasion ; and these 
 adopted and have since retained the title of Colonel. 
 But that sounding title for so small service, and the 
 passion for titles which evidently distinguished a portion 
 
 YOL. I. C C 
 
386 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 of the republican people of America, especially in the 
 
 South, is a little possessed of the devil; and but 
 
 little in harmony with the aim of this community. The 
 old Adam in the old uniform is going about still ! 
 
 Yesterday I went out alone on a ramble of discovery 
 through wood and field. I came to a pretty little house 
 in the midst of a wood, and there stood at its door, and 
 apparently its owner, a fat Mulatto -woman. With the 
 excuse of obtaining a glass of water I went into the house 
 and fell into discourse with the old couple, a negro and 
 his wife, to whom the house and a little garden belonged. 
 The Mulatto-woman was talkative and showed me the 
 whole house, which the master of herself and her husband 
 had built for them and given them for their life-time. It 
 showed throughout that the old couple had a love of order 
 and excellence, not only in the house but the garden. 
 Their children were all dead, and some dark words accom 
 panied by dark glances escaped the old woman in the 
 bitter feeling of the loss of her children through the fault 
 of others, which made me aware of a dark background to 
 this bright picture. But I would not seek to know more. 
 The old negro, I thought, looked anxious when his wife 
 talked gloomily. 
 
 At another place in the wood I saw, at a very little 
 residence, two elderly white ladies, evidently sisters, and 
 meanly clad, sitting enjoying the shade of a live-oak. I 
 asked permission to sit down with them in the shade. 
 They consented, and thus I fell into discourse with them, 
 was shown their house, and made acquainted with their 
 circumstances. These were narrow. The sisters had 
 seen better days, but had, since the death of their father, 
 fallen into need ; they were now supported by the product 
 of their place and by dressmaking. But they were con 
 tented, and piety and labour made life serene and the 
 days short. If only the health of one of the sisters were 
 a little better ; and the summers and the sand a little 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 387 
 
 less hot ! How similar everywhere are human cir 
 cumstances, how similar are the causes of suffering and 
 of happiness, of joy and of sorrow ! Here is it the 
 summer and the sand which is in the way of happiness ; 
 elsewhere it is the winter and the granite everywhere it 
 is sickness ! 
 
 Charleston, June 2nd. This Charleston this " owl s 
 nest," is nevertheless right pleasant as it now stands, like 
 an immense bouquet of fragrant trees and flowers, and 
 with its kind, amiable people ! It has affected me deeply 
 to have been received here as I have been by old and 
 new friends. I have come to love Charleston for the 
 sake of its inhabitants, especially for my two ladies there, 
 Mrs. W. Howland and Mrs. Holbrook. I am now once 
 more in the excellent home of the former, where I have 
 been received as a member of the family. 
 
 I arrived here the day before yesterday half suffocated 
 by the heat of the atmosphere, sunshine, smoke and steam, 
 but found here a real Swedish, fresh summer air, which 
 still continues and has greatly refreshed me, to say 
 nothing of all that is good, comfortable, and charming, 
 with which this home abounds. God be thanked for this 
 good home and for every .good home on earth! "All 
 good homes ! " is my usual toast when I propose one at 
 the American tables. 
 
 I found upon my writing-table a bouquet of beautiful 
 flowers from Mrs. Holbrook, and a book which both sur 
 prised and pleased me. I little expected in the New 
 World, and least of all in a great city, to meet with a 
 profoundly penetrative, liberal spirit which, like Boklin 
 in Sweden, and H. Martensen in Denmark, places the 
 ground of Christian faith in the highest reason. It is, 
 however, precisely this pure German spirit which I find 
 in the Philosophic Theology, or the first principles of 
 all Religious faith founded in Reason, by the young 
 missionary, James W. Miles ; a small book but of great 
 
 c c 2 
 
388 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 import, written with English clearness and precision, 
 without any German prolixity. This little work comes 
 very near Martensen s " Autonomi," that excellent trea 
 tise which Martensen has yet to develope ; and it rejoices 
 me all the more, as it proves that the laws of thought 
 develope themselves in the human race, from an inner 
 necessity, irrespective of accidental circumstances. Truths, 
 discoveries, do not emigrate from one country to another. 
 Among all people who have advanced to about the same 
 degree of intellectual cultivation the same phenomena 
 and the same views present themselves. Thus here, a 
 young, solitary, retired, but profoundly thinking man 
 arrived at the same train of thought as our greatest Scan 
 dinavian philosophical theologians, and that without 
 knowing them or the fountains from which they have 
 quaffed the new life of thought. One instance in the 
 book, by which the young Miles elucidates the connec 
 tion of the subjective reason with the objective that is 
 of man s with that of God, has struck me from the same 
 cause namely, how different minds in far distant coun 
 tries and under different circumstances arrive at the same 
 results of thought ; because I myself have frequently made 
 use of the same in conversation, as proof on this sub 
 ject and have always regarded it as my own discovery 
 and have had my own little selfish pleasure in so doing. 
 But how much greater is my pleasure in seeing that 
 it also flashes forth before another seeking soul, and 
 becomes for him a guiding star. The instance I alluded 
 to is the well-known one of Le Verrier, who calculated that 
 a star existed in a certain spot of the universe, and of the 
 star being afterwards discovered there. 
 
 I must immediately write to Mrs. H., to express 
 my pleasure in the book and its author. And now once 
 more I hope to wander with her in the shades of the 
 myrtle grove. 
 
 Justina, the eldest daughter of Mrs. W. H., is just 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 889 
 
 now returned, after about a year s residence in Baltimore, 
 in Maryland. It was a delight to me to see her joyful 
 reception at home. How alike are all good homes and 
 relationships ! The same sorrows, the same joys ! But 
 that I have long known even without seeing it. 
 
 There is here this evening a great soiree for my sake. 
 I am very glad that I am not responsible for it. I have 
 nothing to do but to go about, tolerably elegantly attired, 
 faire la belle conversation, reply to the questions, of " How 
 do you like this ? and how do you like that ? " And be 
 amiable according to my ability. 
 
 June Wth. Now, my sweet child, I must prepare 
 this letter, which is even now too long, for its departure. 
 I have enjoyed myself for several days in doing nothing, 
 watching the humming-birds, fluttering about the red 
 flowers of the garden, or looking at the great turkey 
 buzzards, sitting on the roof and chimneys, spreading out 
 their large wings in the wind or the sun, which gives them 
 a very strange appearance ; and for the rest looking about 
 me a little in the State and in the city. 
 
 South Carolina is a State of much more aristocratic 
 character, as well in law as social life, than Georgia, and 
 has not the element of freedom and humanity, as the 
 fundamental principle of its life, like its younger sister 
 State. Massachusetts and Virginia, the old dominions, 
 the two oldest mother hives, from which swarms went 
 forth to all the other States of the Union, sent also 
 its earliest cultivators to South Carolina. Puritans and 
 Cavaliers were united, but that merely through pecuniary 
 interests. The Englishmen, Lord Shaftesbury, and John 
 Locke, established here an aristocratic community, and 
 negro slaves were declared to be the absolute property of 
 their masters. Nevertheless, South Carolina lacks not in 
 her earliest history the moment which made her a member 
 of the new world, and which, according to my view, was 
 when she offered a sanctuary and a new home to the 
 
390 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 persecuted children of the old world ; yes, when she 
 gave to all persecuted, oppressed, or unhappy human 
 beings, the opportunity and the means of beginning 
 anew, a new life, a new hope, a new and more happy 
 development. 
 
 The noble Coligny, in France, long ago cast his glance 
 towards South Carolina as a place of refuge for the 
 Huguenots. And when persecution broke forth in all its 
 unbounded ferocity, they who could save themselves fled 
 hither across the sea to the land which rumour had 
 described as the pride and envy of North America, and 
 where, throughout the year, every month had its own 
 flowers which last is perfectly true. 
 
 " We quitted home by night, leaving the soldiers in 
 their beds, and abandoning the house with its furniture," 
 says Judith, the young wife of Pierre Manigault. " "We 
 contrived to hide ourselves for ten days at Eomans, in 
 Dauphigny, while a search was made for us; but our 
 faithful hostess would not betray us. After our arrival 
 in Carolina we suffered every kind of evil. In eighteen 
 months my eldest brother, unaccustomed to the hard 
 labour which we were obliged to undergo, died of a fever. 
 Since leaving France we had experienced every kind of 
 affliction, disease, pestilence, famine, poverty, hard labour. 
 I have been for six months without tasting bread, working 
 the ground like a slave ; and I have passed three or four 
 years without having it when I wanted it. And yet God 
 has done great things for us, in enabling us to bear up 
 under so many trials." 
 
 The son of Judith Manigault, who became an affluent 
 man, entrusted the whole of his large propert}^ during 
 the war of American Independence, " for the use of the 
 country which had adopted his mother." From Languedoc, 
 from Eochelle, from Saintange, from Bourdeaux, and from 
 many other French towns and provinces, fled the perse 
 cuted families who "had all the virtues of Puritans, 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 391 
 
 without their bigotry, to Carolina." Assignments of land 
 were made to them on the flowery and peaceful banks of 
 the river Cooper, beneath the shade of the glorious 
 primeval forest, whence they could lift their voices in 
 hymns of praise to their God. Thus became South 
 Carolina the asylum of the French puritans, and thus it 
 takes its place in that great asylum for all people which 
 the new world offers at this day. 
 
 And still to this day is Carolina, and most of the 
 southern provinces, full of families, descended from these 
 oldest settlers, but who have little more in common with 
 them than the name. Language, manners, memories have 
 become obliterated under the influence of the legislative, 
 amalgamating race of the new world. Yet, nevertheless, 
 somewhat of the French mode, of the French tone of 
 mind, exists still in the life and temperament of the 
 southern people. 
 
 In South Carolina the spirit and the links of social 
 life are aristocratic to a degree which I cannot approve 
 of, however much I may like certain people there. And 
 aristocracy there has this in common with aristocracies 
 of the present time ; that, while the aristocratic virtues 
 and greatness have vanished, the pretension merely 
 remains. The formerly rich, magnificent planters exist no 
 longer. Wealth, power, munificent hospitality are all 
 gone. And, bowed beneath the yoke of slavery, the 
 Southern States are a long way behind those of the 
 North, in their rapid development, in prosperity and 
 population. The emigration of the present day is also 
 beginning to bring in its manufactories and mechanical 
 art, even into the Southern States, but much more 
 into Georgia than Carolina. Yet even here has a man 
 from New England, Mr. Gregg, lately established a 
 cotton manufactory, similar to that of Lowell, laid out 
 beautifully with garden-plots for the work-people. Far 
 b ehind the Northern States stand the South in any case, 
 
392 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 as regards moral and intellectual culture, and this in 
 consequence of the unhappy slave -institution with all its 
 consequences both to the black and the white population. 
 There are great individuals in the Southern States, but 
 no great community, no united, aspiring people. The 
 fetters of slavery bind, more or less, all and every one. 
 Yet I love the South. I have found there many things to 
 love; many things to esteem; many things to enjoy; 
 many things to be grateful for ; and as it is natural to me 
 to enter into the life amid which I am living or observing, 
 I have in the South felt myself to have a southern 
 tendency, and having entered into the peculiar life of 
 the South, its circumstances and position, having a living 
 sense of the good which abundantly exists here; which 
 here is in operation; I have perfectly understood that 
 bitter feeling which ferments, even in noble minds, 
 towards the despotic and unreasonable North, against 
 that portion of the North which is so opposed to the 
 South ; against the ultra-abolitionists and their violence. 
 It is merely when I oppose them to the ultra of the 
 pro-slavery party that I hold with the former. But 
 what would I not give if the South, the true, the noble 
 South, would itself take the subject of contention in hand, 
 and silence the mouth of their opponents, silence their 
 blame both just and unjust, in a great and noble way, 
 by laws which would bring about a gradual emancipation, 
 by one law, at least, which should allow the slaves to pur 
 chase their ow r n freedom, and that of their families, at a 
 reasonable price, a price which should be established bylaw. 
 This, it seems to me, might be required from the Southern 
 States, as an act of justice to themselves, to their native 
 land so far as they desire to have part in its proud 
 charter of liberty, and that they do desire as an act of 
 justice to their posterity, to the people whom they have 
 enslaved, and for whom they thereby would open a future, 
 first by means of hope, by a noble object for which to 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 393 
 
 strive, and then a new existence in a life of freedom, 
 either in Africa, or here in their adopted country as the 
 free servants or labourers of the whites. For I confess, 
 that, according to my opinion, the Southern States would 
 lose a great part of their charm and their peculiar 
 character in losing their black population. Bananas, 
 negroes, and negro-songs are the greatest refreshments 
 of the mind, according to my experience, which I found 
 in the United States. And to every one, whether in Old 
 or New England, who is troubled by spleen or dyspepsia, 
 or over- excitement of brain or nerves, would I recommend 
 as a radical cure, a journey to the South to eat bananas, 
 to see the negroes, and hear their songs. It will do them 
 good to go through the primeval forest, with its flowers, 
 and its odours, and to sail upon the red rivers ! But the 
 negroes are preferable to everything else. They are the 
 life and the good humour of the South. The more I see 
 of this people, their manners, their disposition, w r ay of 
 talking, of acting, of moving, the more am I convinced 
 that they are a distinct stock in the great human family, 
 and are intended to present a distinct physiognomy, a 
 distinct form of the old type, man, and this physiognomy 
 is the result of temperament. 
 
 Last evening I went with Mrs. W. H. to a place in 
 the city, where the negroes, who come during the day to 
 Charleston from the plantations to sell their small wares, 
 baskets, woven mats, and such-like, as well as garden 
 produce, lie-to with their boats. It was now evening, 
 and the negroes were returning to their boats to row 
 back up the river ; they came with bundles in their hands, 
 jugs on their heads, and all sorts of vessels filled with 
 things which they had purchased with the product of 
 their wares, wheaten bread and molasses being apparently 
 the principal articles. Already were two boats filled with 
 people, and baskets, and jugs, amidst the merriest chatter 
 and laughter ; but still they waited for more, and I heard 
 
394 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 Adam, and Aaron, and Sally, and Mehala, and Lucy, and 
 Abraham, and Sarah, called for ! We, in the meantime, 
 fell into discourse with the negroes, who stood on the 
 shore, asking them to whom they belonged ; whether they 
 were well off, and so on. Two of those with whom we 
 spoke could not sufficiently praise their masters, and 
 told all that they had given them ; on the contrary, they 
 spoke ill of a planter in the neighbourhood. 
 
 " I fancy you are talking against my master ! " said a 
 young negro, somewhat tartly, who came forward with 
 a threatening gesture ; on which the others immediately 
 recalled their words. " No, heaven forbid ! They had 
 said nothing, only that their masters " But again they 
 were interrupted by the champion of the censured master, 
 who maintained that his master was not worse than 
 theirs, and so on. And now a great cry was sent forth for 
 Sally, and Nelly, and Adam, and Abraham, and Aaron ! 
 And directly Nelly, and Sally, and Abraham, and Adam, 
 and Aaron, and I do not know how many other of Adam s 
 captive sons and daughters, came running along with jugs, 
 and baskets, and bottles towards the shore, and then 
 down into the boats, amid loud shouting, and talking, and 
 laughter ; and how they all got into the boats, men and 
 molasses, women and jugs, and baskets and bottles, 
 helter-skelter, rolling and tumbling, without method or 
 measure, rhyme or reason, which I could discover, is 
 more than I can tell ! I only could stare at it in 
 astonishment. It was like a confused mass of arms and 
 legs and heads in one black movement ; but merry was it, 
 and all went on good-humouredly ; and good-humouredly 
 they went off. And all the black mass was quiet, and then 
 the boats put off from the shore with little zigzags, and 
 talk and laughter was heard from one boat to the other, 
 and white teeth shone out in the dark. When, however, 
 they had got out in the river, and the oars kept time 
 on the mirror-bright waters, they began to sing, and 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 395 
 
 the chaotic confusion dissolved itself in the most beautiful 
 harmony. 
 
 One peculiarity in these so-called children of nature is 
 their aristocratic tendency ; but I have always regarded 
 the children of nature as natural aristocrats. They pride 
 themselves on belonging to rich masters, and consider a 
 marriage with the servant of a poor master as a great 
 misalliance. They look up to their rich masters, as an 
 Oriental Grefac of the old race, upon his ancestors. That 
 which beyond everything else is an impediment to the 
 emancipation of this people, and in great masses, is their 
 want of nationality, their want of popular spirit, and a 
 general unity of feeling. They have merely a feeling for 
 family or for kindred, and perhaps for the tribe, where 
 the tribes still continue unbroken, as in Africa. They 
 have no common memories, and no common object of lofty, 
 popular aspiration. The tribes and small principalities of 
 Africa prove this also. And to imagine that the eman 
 cipated slaves of America could, beyond the sea, in 
 Liberia, in Africa, establish a community according to 
 the American republic, is, I believe, a mistake. Small 
 monarchical communities are, however, that which they 
 appear to me formed for. They feel, in a high degree, 
 the sentiment of piety and loyalty, and would always be 
 easily governed, and would like to be governed by a 
 naturally superior person. I see, therefore, the ideal of 
 negro-life in small communities, ennobled by Christianity, 
 arranging itself round a superior their priest or king, or 
 both in one person. And in America I see them thus by 
 preference around a white man, either as his free servants 
 or small tenants, convinced that as a means of leading the 
 people to order and reasonable industry the slaves fetters 
 and the whip are not needed, but merely Christian, 
 human instruction, which leads to industry and order; 
 the preaching of Christianity, and that great influence 
 which a man of the white race, by his natural intellectual 
 
396 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 superiority, and systematic turn of mind, will always have 
 over the black. And if he would add to this in the scale, 
 a moral superiority also, he would become very powerful. 
 To the white gentlemen of the South may he applied the 
 words which Victor Hugo addressed to the monarchs of 
 Europe 
 
 " Oh rois ! soyez grands, car le peuple grandit ! " 
 
 The slave population of the South is increasing every 
 day in numbers, in intelligence; is becoming more intel 
 ligent through the influence of the free blacks and the 
 mulattoes, who are daily increasing in the slave states, 
 and who participate in the educational advantages of the 
 whites. In a word, the black race is in a state of growth, 
 in every way, in the Southern States. May the white 
 race be wise enough to grow also, in spirit, in law r s, in 
 life ! It has a great problem to solve. But I have hopes 
 from the noble South, from the children of the light, 
 from the truly emancipated in the slave states. They 
 will bring the right thing about. 
 
 And that would not be difficult, if the women would but 
 awake. But, ah ! the greater number here sleep still 
 sleep still on soft couches, fanned by their slaves, not as 
 free women. Man has so long talked to woman about 
 her listening to the small voice, and that is good ; but it 
 is now time that she should listen to the great voice, to 
 the voice of God s spirit in the human race, which sounds 
 over the whole earth, and vibrates through all free 
 nations. Of a truth, it is time ! time that she listened 
 to it, that she became magnanimous in heart and in 
 thought. " If the mothers became noble-minded, would 
 not the sons be noble ? " said one of America s noble 
 women ; and history replies "Yes ! " 
 
 As regards the slave-owners, I may divide them into 
 three classes: mammon-worshippers, patriarchs, and 
 heroes, or men of progress. The first regard the slaves 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 397 
 
 merely from a pecuniary point of view, and use or 
 misuse them at pleasure. The second consider them 
 selves responsible for their office; consider that they 
 cannot, and ought not to, surrender the property which 
 they have inherited from their fathers, and which perhaps 
 is all that they possess, for themselves and their children ; 
 and they regard it as an imperative duty to preserve 
 these inherited servants, to provide for their old age, and 
 to make their present life as happy as possible, by means 
 of instruction and Christianity, and to allow them as 
 much freedom and as much innocent pleasure as possible. 
 The third, highest class, advances the well-being of the 
 slave, with reference to their emancipation ; and this is 
 done by means of education, and such practical aids. 
 They advance both people and country on the path of 
 human cultivation. I have heard mention made of some 
 persons even in Carolina as belonging to this latter class, 
 and in particular of two wealthy ladies who have lately 
 liberated their slaves. This is forbidden by the law ; but 
 here also has public opinion begun to go a-head of law ; 
 and the lawyers themselves aid by passing statutes to this 
 end, and when they are reproached with this, they laugh, 
 and seem untroubled by conscience. 
 
 I have heard some very beautiful traits of the patriarchs 
 as well as of their slaves, and of the devotion on both 
 sides. I believe them, because I have seen various 
 instances of the kind, and they appear to me very natural. 
 There is, upon the whole, no human being for whom 
 I have a greater esteem and sympathy than the good 
 and conscientious slaveholder, for his position is one of 
 difficulty, and full of trouble. 
 
 By this assertion however I stand, that the institution 
 of slavery degrades the white man still more than the 
 black ; it operates prejudicially on his development on 
 his justice on his judgment ; it operates prejudicially, 
 in an especial manner, on the education of his children, 
 
398 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 and that subjection of their naturally violent tempers, 
 which is so important in their earlier years. Private as 
 well as public morals suffer therefrom. But enough, 
 however, and perhaps for you, too much of this shadow- 
 side of the State which is beloved by the sun. 
 
 I must now give you a short summary of my late 
 doings. 
 
 I believe I last left off at the party which was going to 
 be given in the house. It was very beautiful, and all went 
 on well and very charmingly too. Mrs. Hammarskold 
 (Emilie Holmberg) sang very sweetly ; I played Swedish 
 dances ; people talked, and walked about, and drank tout 
 comme chez nous. I saw Mr. Simms, one of the best 
 poets and novelists of South Carolina, this evening. He 
 is an enthusiast for the beautiful scenery of the south, 
 and that pleased me, and therein we agreed very well, 
 not so on the great question ; but that I did not expect. 
 I could embrace a young man who is able to look at this 
 question with an unprejudiced ,and truthfully pure glance 
 that is, if he would permit it. I saw also a brother of 
 young Miles, who said, speaking on this subject to me, 
 " the world is against us, and we shall be overpowered by 
 voices and condemned without justice, for what we are, 
 and for what we are doing on behalf of our servants." I 
 could not help sympathising with him in this respect. 
 The excitement is great and the bitterness is strong at 
 this moment between the Northern and Southern States 
 of the Union. Many voices in Carolina are raised for 
 separation and war. 
 
 I have besides been to a great entertainment given by 
 the Governor of South Carolina, Mr. Akin, and his lovely 
 wife. There was very beautiful music, and for the rest, 
 conversation in the room, or out under the piazzas, in the 
 shade of blossoming creepers, the clematis, the caprifolium, 
 and roses, quite romantic in the soft night air. Five 
 hundred persons, it is said, were invited, and the enter- 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 399 
 
 tainment was one of the most beautiful I have been 
 present at in this country. 
 
 I saw many lovely young daughters of the south, but no 
 great beauty ; on the contrary, many were very pale. The 
 ladies here universally use pearl-powder, which they after 
 wards wipe off, and hence the skin has a sort of velvety, soft 
 colour, for the moment, but the complexion only becomes 
 more sallow in consequence. I am told that the great 
 heat renders the use of this powder necessary. I have 
 nothing exactly against it, if the powder be only rubbed 
 quite off again, but that is often only very imperfectly 
 done. I fear that this white powdering is probably an 
 heirloom of the old French ancestry. 
 
 Yet once more have I wandered with Mrs. Holbrook 
 in the myrtle groves of Belmont, and enjoyed with her 
 an intellectual feast. I have also seen the young intelli 
 gent missionary, Mr. Miles ; he has a pale expressive 
 countenance, a deeply penetrative eye but ah! it has 
 penetrated no more deeply to the heart of the great 
 question than most other eyes here. On other subjects 
 I have been delighted with the free, strong flight of his 
 spirit. 
 
 I was invited one evening with Mrs. H. to meet 
 various elderly members of her family. I met on this 
 occasion a couple of old unmarried ladies, the owners of 
 two beautiful islands on the coast of Carolina, where they 
 live alone, among three hundred negroes, as their owners, 
 their advisers, and physicians; and in all cases on the 
 best understanding with them. One white man only is 
 on the plantation as overseer. 
 
 I regret much not having been able to accept an 
 invitation, at least at this time, and that was to a Mr. 
 Spalding s, a rich old gentleman, who, upon the beautiful 
 island where he lives, has allowed the palmettos to grow 
 in freedom, and the negroes to live and work in free 
 dom also, governed alone by the law of duty and love 
 
400 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 and where all succeeds excellently ; and all this have I 
 been invited to see by this noble man. May he live 
 for ever ! 
 
 The coasts, both of Georgia and Carolina, abound in 
 islands, which I understand are beautiful as paradise, and 
 rich in vegetation. The finest cotton grows on them. 
 Cotton is cultivated on the hills and on the islands of 
 Georgia and Carolina; rice upon the lowlands. Even 
 Carolina has hills and mountains abounding in metals, 
 and fresh, clear mountain streams, which do not assume 
 their chocolate hue till they are far on their course. 
 
 I intended to have made my journey northwards 
 through the highlands of Carolina, and thence through 
 Tennesee and Virginia, because I must of necessity see 
 " the Old Dominion," one of the oldest parent- states, and 
 the native land of Washington; but to travel through 
 Tennesee would have been too fatiguing where the roads 
 are bad, and the inns are bad for that portion of the 
 State is yet in its infancy so that I did not dare to 
 undertake the journey in the great heat; but instead shall 
 return by the sea, beautifully and quietly as I came. On 
 the 15th inst. therefore, I shall go on board the steamer 
 to Philadelphia, and thence to Washington. Until then 
 I remain quietly here, and only make little excursions in 
 the city and its neighbourhood. 
 
 I am quite well, my little Heart, thank God and 
 homoeopathy, and unremitting care as regards diet, and 
 my beloved bananas ! Besides this, I have availed myself 
 of sea-bathing here, and though I bathe in a swamp 
 and under cover, I feel that it is good for me. The 
 Misses A., two wealthy unmarried sisters, of middle age, 
 have had the kindness to lend me their carriage and 
 horses to take me to the baths. The youngest of these 
 ladies generally accompanies rne. The coachman and 
 the horses are faithful old servants of the family, and we 
 are obliged to be driven as they will, and that is not 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 401 
 
 rapidly. The other morning the following conversation 
 occurred between the slave and his mistress. 
 
 She. " Dear Richard, don t drive us down street ; 
 
 it is so long and so sandy, we shall never get along. Do 
 you hear, Richard ? " 
 
 He. " Yes, I will drive that way, missis." 
 
 She. " Ah, dear Richard, can t you drive another ; for 
 
 instance, along street ? " 
 
 He. " No, missis. I have something to get in 
 
 street." 
 
 She. " Ah, dear Richard, cannot I avoid going there ? " 
 He. " No, missis. I want to go there, missis." 
 And spite of renewed prayers, his mistress was obliged 
 to yield, and we were driven the way which the obstinate 
 Richard chose. These faithful old servants are more 
 obstinate than ours, but then their eyes beam with a 
 something so kind, with such a cordial life that one cannot 
 help letting them have their way sometimes. They desire 
 all for the good of the family. 
 
 Among other persons here who have shown me much 
 kindness, and in whose society I have had pleasure, is 
 the minister of the Lutheran church, the clever, natural- 
 historian, Mr. Bachman, a cheerful and agreeable man, 
 and a universal favourite. 
 
 The master of the house where I am staying, Mr. 
 AVilliam Howland, is now returned home. He is a 
 man of refined, gentlemanly demeanour, and evidently a 
 kind and beloved head of the family; one who seems 
 particularly to enjoy being able to live, now for a time, 
 quietly at home with his family. The children seem to 
 dance in the evening more gaily than ever, since Justina 
 is at home, and Justina is a noble young girl, well-grown 
 and with a noble exterior, but too pale in complexion. 
 She has a fine talent for the piano, and in the evening, 
 when the dancing is over, she and her sister, Illione, sing 
 to the piano negro-songs, which amuse their father as 
 
 TOL. I. D D 
 
402 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 much as they amuse me, and we sit under the piazza in 
 the delicious night air often till midnight. 
 
 One evening which I spent at Mr. G. s, I was present 
 at the evening-worship of the negroes, in a hall which 
 that good right-thinking minister had allowed them to 
 use for that purpose. The first speaker, an old negro, 
 was obliged to give place to another, who said he was so 
 full of the power of the word, that he could not possibly 
 keep silence, and he poured forth of his eloquence for a 
 good hour, but said the same thing over and over again. 
 These negro preachers were far inferior to those which I 
 heard in Savannah. 
 
 Finally he admonished one of the sisters " to pray." 
 On this, an elderly, sickly woman began immediately to 
 pray aloud, and her evident fervour in thanksgiving for 
 the consolation of the Gospel of Christ, and her testimony 
 on behalf of its powers, in her own long and suffering 
 life, was really affecting. But the prayer was too long ; 
 the same thing was repeated too often, with an incessant 
 thumping on the bench with her fists, as an accompani 
 ment to every groan of prayer. At the close of this, and 
 when another sister was admonished to pray, the speaker 
 added, " But make it short, if you please ! " 
 
 This sister, however, did not make it short, but longer 
 even than the first, with still more circumlocution and 
 still more thumping on the bench. 
 
 A third sister, who was admonished to pray, received 
 the short, definite injunction, " But short." And, when 
 she lost herself in the long bewilderment of prayer, she 
 was interrupted without ceremony by the wordy preacher, 
 who could no longer keep silence, but must hear him 
 self talk on for another good hour. Nor was it until 
 the singing of one of the hymns composed by the negroes 
 themselves, such as they sing in their canoes, and in 
 which the name " Jerusalem " is often repeated, that the 
 congregation became really alive. They sang so that it was 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 403 
 
 a pleasure to hear, with all their souls and with all 
 their bodies in unison. For their bodies wagged, their 
 heads nodded, their feet stamped, their knees shook, their 
 elbows and their hands beat time to the tune and the 
 words which they sang with evident delight. One must 
 see these people singing, if one is rightly to understand 
 their life. I have seen their imitators, the so-called 
 " Sable Singers," who travel about the country painted up 
 as negroes and singing negro songs in the negro manner, 
 and with negro gestures, as it is said : but nothing can 
 be more radically unlike ; for the most essential part of 
 the resemblance fails namely, the life. 
 
 One of my pleasures here has been to talk with an 
 old negro called Romeo, who lives in a little house in 
 a garden near, and which said garden he takes care 
 of, or rather neglects, according to his pleasure. He 
 is the most good-tempered, merriest old man that anyone 
 can imagine, and he has a good deal of natural wit. 
 He was, in the prime of his life, stolen from Africa and 
 brought hither, and he tells stories about that event in 
 the most naive manner. I asked him one day, what the 
 people in his native land believed respecting life after 
 death ! He replied " that the good would go to the God 
 of Heaven who made them." " And what of the bad ? " 
 asked I. " They go out into the wind," and he blew with 
 his mouth around him on all sides. 
 
 I got him to sing me an Ethiopian death- song, which 
 seemed to consist of a monotone vibrating upon three semi 
 tones ; and after that an African love-song, which seemed to 
 be tolerably rude, and which convulsed the old fellow with 
 laughter. I have his portrait in my album, but he laughed 
 and was so shame-faced while I made the sketch, that it 
 was difficult for me to catch the likeness. He is dressed 
 in his slave garments, grey clothes and knitted woollen 
 cap. 
 
 The negro people and the primeval forest have made a 
 
404 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 peculiarly living impression upon me, and have extended 
 my vision as regards the richness of those forms in which 
 the Creator expresses his life. The earth seems to me as 
 a great symbolic writing, a grand epic, in which the various 
 species of man, of vegetable productions and animals, 
 water and land, form groups of separate songs and para 
 graphs which we have to read, and from which to learn 
 the style of the Great Master, His design, and His 
 system. My soul, in this view, spreads forth her wings 
 and flies alas ! only in spirit around the whole world ; 
 across the deserts and the paradise of Africa ; across 
 the icy tracts of Siberia ; over the mountain land of the 
 Himalayas everywhere between the poles and the 
 equator, where man lives, and animals breathe, and 
 vegetation ascends towards the light; and I endeavour 
 involuntarily, to groupe and arrange the dissimilar forms 
 into harmonious constellations, around one central, all- 
 illuminating Sun; but all is yet only anticipation, 
 
 glimpses, flashes of light into my soul merely the dawn, 
 the morning watch ! Perhaps at length the perfect day 
 may appear ; perhaps in the native land of runes, in my 
 own silent home, I may be enabled to expound these runes 
 of the earth, and that runic song which has been given 
 me to ponder upon. 
 
 Of the mysteries of Charleston I shall not tell you 
 anything, because I know them not, excepting by rumour, 
 and that which I know merely by rumour I leave untold. 
 Dark mysteries, more indeed than rumour has told, 
 cannot fail in a great city in which slavery abides. I 
 have heard it said that there is a flogging institution in 
 Charleston for slaves, which brings the city a yearly 
 revenue of more than ten thousand dollars. Every person 
 who wishes to have his slave punished by the whip sends 
 him there with money for his chastisement. I have both 
 heard and read of this many times, and I believe it to be 
 true. But the position of things here makes it difficult, 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 405 
 
 nay next to impossible, for me to search into such 
 things. But I cannot and will not become a spy. I 
 receive merely that which comes to me compulsively by 
 my own experience, and which I therefore consider as a 
 knowledge by higher design, as a something which I 
 ought to know, and to receive. I have here properly to 
 do with the ideal, and to seize and present it purely and 
 faithfully. And it is in the feeling of that ideal South, as 
 it already exists in some degree, and as it some time may 
 wholly exist, in order to fulfil the design of the Creator, 
 that I now bid farewell to the South, with both admiration 
 and love sorrowing for that which it now is not, and 
 hoping again to return. 
 
 I shall write you no more from this place, but next 
 from one of the Northern States. I long to go north 
 ward for cooler air and a freer people. Here one is 
 often obliged to swallow down one s innermost thoughts 
 and be silent, if one would avoid either wounding others 
 or disputing with them. And this heat if it continues 
 without intermission, as it is likely to do from one 
 month to another, till October rather would I dwell at 
 North Cape, and be lighted by fire -wood three parts of 
 the year ! 
 
 But, notwithstanding, farewell thou beautiful, flowery 
 South, the garden of North America ! Thou hast warmed 
 and refreshed me deliciously ! farewell to thy piazzas 
 covered with blossoming creepers shading pale beauties ; 
 farewell fragrant forests, red-rivers where the songs of 
 the negro resound ; farewell, kind, beautiful, amiable 
 people, friends of the slave, but not of slavery ! When now 
 in spirit I look back to the South I shall think upon you, 
 and through you, on the future of Carolina and Georgia. 
 I see you, then, beneath your palmettos or your magnolia 
 and orange groves, the fruits of all the earth, and 
 beyond all the tropical bananas, spread out before you 
 upon your hospitable boards; see you distribute them, 
 
406 HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 as I have done many a time, to the stranger, to the needy ; 
 to the messengers of all nations ! I see around you 
 blacks as servants and friends. They are free and you 
 have made them so. They sing hymns which you have 
 taught them, joyful songs which they themselves have 
 made. And for them, and for you, sing the hundred- 
 tongued birds in the cool live-oaks, which wave their long 
 pendent mosses, whilst above them and you beams the 
 mild, blue southern heaven, and the blessing of heaven ! 
 May it be so ! 
 
 P.S. Yes, I must tell you about one of the mysteries 
 of Charleston, because I have often seen it steal hastily 
 by like a shadow in the streets and alleys there. It 
 appears to be a woman, meanly clad, in the hues of 
 twilight. She is called Mrs. Doctor Susan, for she is the 
 physician and helper of the poor. She belongs to one of 
 the higher families of the city, but having made a false 
 step in her youth, became an outcast from society, which 
 in North America endures much secret immorality, but 
 none which becomes public. It might, perhaps, in the 
 course of years have forgiven, and again admitted the 
 young delinquent to its circles, but she no longer sought 
 for pardon from man. She turned her heart and her eye 
 to one much higher. She became the servant of his 
 poor and afflicted people. And since then she may only 
 be met with among them, or on the way to them. That 
 which is given to her, either of money or of clothing, is 
 applied by her to the use of the poor, and she herself 
 lives in voluntary poverty. 
 
 The negroes in my friend s family were, at one 
 time, so ill of an infectious fever that every one fled 
 from them. But Doctor Susan came and tended them, 
 and restored them to health, and when she was rewarded 
 for it she considered her reward too great. Known 
 throughout the whole city, she goes everywhere in her 
 poor, dark attire, like a messenger of consolation, but 
 
HOMES OF THE NEW WORLD. 407 
 
 always rapidly, silently, and as if fearful of being seen. 
 Like the fire -fly it is only in the dark that she sends 
 forth her clear indwelling light; like it has she been 
 trampled upon by mankind, and she yet gives forth light. 
 Farewell dear heart ! Greet those you know and wish 
 
 it from your 
 
 FREDRIKA. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
LONDON : 
 BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS. 
 
 
 

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