UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
AT LOS ANGELES
THE
LIFE AND POEMS
THEODORE WINTHROP
EDITED BY HIS SISTER
WITH PORTRAIT
NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
1884
Copyright, 1884,
By HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY.
. Johnlatid Stereotype Foundry,
Suffolk Co., N. y.
PS
PREFACE
CO
c/5
This Memorial of Theodore Winthrop has
been prepared, first for those who loved him
and valued his friendship, but whose remem-
brance of his life and death is beginning to
fade with the progress of time; and next for
the Young People of America, to whom the
story is a new one, but none the less good for
them to hear. Most of all for thoughtful
young men who have high aims like his, who
have felt the pangs of discouragement and
delay, and who will find sympathy in his life's
experience. Though a quarter of a century
has vanished, this record in his own words
of struggle and victory remains undimmed by
the lapse of years, and may still shed light
and hope into many hearts.
" One, generation passeth away and another
generation cometh, but the earth abideth forever"
268902
CONTENTS.
CHAP.
I. CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 1
II. EUKOPEAN TRAVEL 31
HI. MANHOOD 72
IV. THE TROPICS 92
V. THE WILDERNESS 137
VI. DARIEN 172
VII. TWO WORLDS 196
VHI. LAW AND AUTHORSHIP . . . . .260
IX. THE WAR. . 283
THE LIFE AND POEMS
OF
THEODORE WINTHROP.
CHAPTER I.
CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH.
ANEW generation, with all its vivid personal life,
has sprung up since the close of our great Civil
War. As in the " sprout lands " of our mountain sides,
this active pushing young growth is fast covering the
blackened burnt districts, and the charred stumps,
that still show where the giants of the forests, pillars
of flame, fell before the blast. Though in the heart
of our re-united country, the warnings and the lessons,
both of failure and success, are still unforgotten, the
new men, full of their own affairs, can never know the
story as those knew it, who lived through that long
agony, that new birth. The memory of our second
struggle, like that of our first Kevolution, grows more
holy as its noise dies away, and yet a thousand details
will fade in a few short years into the light of common
history. So mnoh, of late, has this been felt, that there
is everywhere an effort to grasp these fleeting shadows,
and to fix them by the photography of literature. Much
has already been lost, that research will, by and by,
vainly strive to regain. Already, those who waited
for that day, who saw it and were glad, are beginning
2 HIS BIRTH,
to die, and in a little while there will be none of them
left to tell the tale as it should be told.
Among the first of that " cloud of witnesses " who
made history for us in those days (so late, yet so long
ago) Theodore Winthrop fell at Great Bethel, in Vir-
ginia, on June 10th, 1861, before our country was half
awakened to the mighty work before it, or knew the
strength, born of sorrow, that was to come in time of
need. Love of country, where it becomes a passion,
may have smouldered through years of quiet and safety,
but when the hour strikes, and danger threatens the
Mother Land, it leaps into a blaze, and becomes a
beacon on the hill top, a prairie fire, that runs over
the broad land from East to West. The story of Theo-
dore "Winthrop's life, and of his death, coming as it
did at the opening of the war, and making him a type
and ideal for the ardent youth of that day, are among
the nobler things that should not be forgotten. He
was the representative man of the hour, the representa-
tive of the promise, beauty, culture, and patriotism that
were crowding to the front. To some he had seemed
a dreamy poet only, to others a man of society, to
others a wandering, aimless traveler. Few knew his
love for his country till he died for Her. Then they
believed it, and the belief grew like a creed, like a new
religion, in the warm air of that summer of 1861.
Theodore Winthrop was born on Sept. 22d, 1828.
His father was Francis Bayard Winthrop, a direct de-
scendant of Governor Winthrop of Massachusetts, and
of his son, Governor Winthrop of Connecticut, of whose
claims to distinction it is not necessary to speak. There
was also a third Governor Winthrop, and then the fam-
MT. 1] FAMILY HISTORY. 3
ily rested from its governors, and had a quiet period
of comfort, and probably of conservative obscurity, for
little is recorded of them for some time; though Wait
Still Winthrop was Judge of the Supreme Court of Mass-
achusetts in 1708, and there was a Prof. Winthrop of
Harvard College, in the chair of Mathematics and Nat-
ural Philosophy, from 1738 to 1779, a friend and cor-
respondent of Franklin, and F. E. S. Theodore Win-
throp's mother was Elizabeth Dwight Woolsey, daughter
of William Walton Woolsey, one of the staunch old mer-
chants of New York who by their probity and energy
made the city so strong and great. She was one of the
numerous descendants, on her mother's side, of the re-
doubtable President Edwards, whose bold metaphys-
ical thought started New England thinkers upon a
track he little dreamed of, and whose unassailable logic
taught them their only possible tactics, that of denying
his premises. Her mother was Elizabeth Dwight, sis-
ter of Timothy Dwight, President of Yale College, a
poet, theologian and scholar, a great man in his day,
and a worthy, though not an original, thinker, but a
disciple and imitator of Edwards, his progenitor.*
William Walton Woolsey, whose family came from
Dosoiis, Long Island, though himself an Old School
Presbyterian, had for an ancestor one Benjamin Wool-
sey, who was drummed out of a small town in Long
Island for the crime of being an Episcopal clergyman
* The family of Francis Bayard Winthrop consisted, at the time
of Theodore's birth, of two sons by a former marriage, and two
daughters, the children of Elizabeth Woolsey. His brother Wil-
liam and a sister were born afterwards, besides two children who
died. There were living at the time of Winthrop's death a brother
and three sisters, Elizabeth, Laura, William, and Sarah, and
two half-brothers, Charles and Edward.
4 FAMILY HISTORY. [1828
and wishing to settle there. The Woolseys remained
at Dosoris, where they have still an old graveyard, and
became one of those " good old Long Island families,"
upon whom New York has always rested her flank
with safety.
But, though Puritans of the Puritans, some of the
family valued still more their descent from the Hu-
guenot brothers, Antony and Leonard Lispenard, who
came from their "own Eochelle, proud city of the
waters," after the revocation of the Edict of- Nantes,
and settled New Rochelle; also being valued citizens
of New York, where they owned property, and after
whom Antony, Leonard and Lispenard streets were
named. The great - grandmother of Theodore Win-
throp was Cornelia Lispenard, and her daughter, Alice
Marston, was his grandmother; a lady whose uncle,
John Marston, bought and colonized an island soine-
Avhere near the coast of Africa, and died there, not long
after the failure of his enterprise.
It was no wonder that the blood of these old rangers
and colonizers was hot within him, and prevented Theo-
dore Winthrop from remaining quiet for any length
of time in his restless youth. Yet it was an impulse
that he shared with most men of the Northern races, and
which, since the days of the old Sea Kings, and even
from pre-historic times, has kept them perpetually ?
" walking to and fro upon the earth, and going up and
down on it," like Satan of old.
Genealogy contains too many unknown quantities
to make it an exact science, if indeed it can ever be
a science at all. That we find deep truths, as well
as mysteries, in heredity, no one can doubt who
sees that the same nose, and the same temper, re-
Mr. 1] FAMILY HISTORY. 5
appear at intervals in families, to the great regret of
everybody. But when it is considered that we have
all eight great-grandparents and sixteen progenitors
of one more generation back, it does not seem as if
a man could get much out of any one of them. The
distinguished Jonathan Edwards is said to have any-
where from fifteen hundred to two thousand lineal
descendants now living, all proud of their descent.
Though they are called a willful race, how much of
the peculiar characteristics of the great Calvinist is it
likely that each one of these can possess? Have they
not each thirty-one other ancestors ? Surely, many of
them have strayed from his guidance, and some are
even said to belong to " The Society for the Preven-
tion of Cruelty to Children " !
In New England the reverence for family is deeper
than anywhere in this country. People trace with
genuine and proper pride their descent from the Pil-
grim Fathers or the Revolutionary Heroes, while at
the Far "West, the opposite pole of the magnet, they
say, with rough good sense, "No daddyism! Who are
you, sir?"
The Winthrops kept up their old traditions, though
somewhat retiring from public view after their brilliant
beginning, and were little heard of in the Revolution-
ary days. In course of time, these Puritans became
Episcopalians, as the Woolseys, who began in the
English Church, became Presbyterians and Congrega-
tionalists. In after years they came again to the front,
and we hear of Thomas Lindall Winthrop, Lieutenant-
Governor of Massachusetts, and his distinguished son,
Robert C. Winthrop, and among the Woolseys, Presi-
dent Theodore Woolsey of Yale College. Scholars and
6 FAMILY HISTORY. [1830
literary men were frequently cropping out in the strata
of both families, such as President S. W. Johnson of
Columbia College, Theodore Winthrop's elder brother,
a theological professor, and many among the Dwights.
Thus it is easy to see that he was born into what
Oliver Wendell Holmes admirably calls the " Brahmin
Caste of New England," and might well have had an
hereditary literary ambition. He was named from his
uncle Theodore Woolsey, who himself was called after
Theodore Dwight, his mother's brother, who was au-
thor, editor, and a man of influence in Hartford,
Connecticut.
The family traditions were all of culture. His fa-
ther, Francis Bayard Winthrop, was a man of refined
taste, a graduate of Yale College, and owned what was
called, fifty years ago, a fine library, of about two thou-
sand volumes selected by himself, besides a small col-
lection of good pictures and engravings, in a time when
such things were rare. He was an enthusiast in Art
and Literature, and loved Music and the Theater.
His children could see upon the walls Alston's Angel
and Both's Sunshine, and browsed freely in the library,
till books became their familiar friends. Their father
was one of the first persons to recognize the genius of
Hawthorne on reading his " Twice Told Tales," in the
winter of 1839-40. These pictures and engravings from
the old masters familiarized the children with forms of
beauty, and an old-fashioned garden, with flowers and
lilac bushes and pear-trees, gave them a pleasant play-
ground. But their happiest recollections linger round
their woodland walks with their father. He was a man
of delicate health (delicate and fond of reading when
a boy, when his brothers and sisters were romping
2Bx. 3-6] WOODLAND WALKS. 7
and shooting arrows at the eyes of the old Governor's
portraits), a lawyer who had retired from business in
New York with reduced fortune, to live quietly at
New Haven, and educate his children. Here he
bought a roomy house in Wooster St., of the old-
fashioned New England type, with four rooms on a
floor, and a hall through the middle, and a garret
(not an attic), with great oak beams overhead, cob-
webs, dark corners, and a mysterious cock-loft. He
was hospitable, and charming in his own family, to
whom he was a true father (one of the rarest beings
in the world), and not a man whom they saw, sleepy
and harassed, once or twice a week. He had a won-
derful croon that always put the babies to sleep, he
danced quadrilles, sang songs, played games, told
wonderful tales in the twilight, and took them for
long walks in the woods. There were woods in those
days not too far off. His health required these walks,
and the children were usually his companions. They
learned to love Nature; birds and wild flowers were
their friends; they learned to know TKEES, rare but
necessary knowledge; they climbed the great precipi-
tous bluffs of East and West Eock, which stand over
against New Haven, like Arthur's Seat by Edinboro',
and wandered along where the quiet stream of the
Quinippiac winds among its hayricks. The hayricks
stand there still the crop has never failed. A rarer
pleasure was a long drive, taking their mother with
them, through the laurel lanes to some lovely lake
among the hills, where they dined " on dainty chicken,
snow-white bread," and spent a whole summer's day
of delight. Thus the children found eyes, without
looking through the spectacles of science, and knew
8 THE LONG WHARF. [1831-4
perhaps almost as much about plants as Solomon,
without effort of study. New Haven in those days
was a quiet, lovely little town, scholarly and demure,
under the lofty arch of whose elms strayed the college
boys, studious or otherwise, the professor, stern of ex-
terior, and the dreaming school girl. No sound of
factories disturbed the silence, the railroad was not
dreamed of, the steamboat had but lately begun to
churn up the waters of the little bay. The town
seemed asleep, save when the buzzing boys poured
out of chapel or recitation.
There are few things more perfect of their kind than
one of those avenues of elms in the old New England
towns, whose leafy Gothic arches and sunny shadowed
grass, dwell in the minds of her children as sweet and
poetic memories that come back to them again and
again, wherever they go, and touch them with home-
sickness on the Lung' Arno or Unter den Linden.
Theodore Winthrop grew up in one of these beauti-
ful old towns, and wandered in childhood and youth
under the great elms around the Green, till they en-
tered into his heart and became a part of himself.
The Long Wharf was also one of his haunts, where
the town boys were always scrambling about, where
their imaginations were kindled by the sight of the
ships that traded to far countries, yes, even as far as
the "West Stingys," and from whose cargoes stray
gifts of oranges and cocoanuts sometimes found their
way to the pockets. The tarry smell, the sailor talk,
the molasses barrels, the chance sailing in smaller
craft, the handling of a rope or an oar, were all de-
lightful and full of a free life. There has always been
a strong attraction between wharfs and small boys.
^T. 3-6] FIRST SCHOOL DAYS. 9
Doubtless they found it so in the Piraeus, yea, in Tyre
and Sidon. The muddy little harbor was frozen in
winter, so that sometimes the only line of steamboats
was shut out, but it became a fine place for skating, a
favorite sport of Winthrop's. Though not robust, he
was active and sprightly, and good at all the athletic
sports then in vogue. Shells and canoes did not then
exist, but he was a good oarsman in the method of
the day. No one knew when or how he learned to
row and swim, these things come by nature to most
active boys. There are not many anecdotes preserved
of his childhood. He was a quiet, reticent boy, not
precocious, yet uncommonly intelligent, fair and deli-
cate looking, with chestnut hair and blue eyes, and
was always scrupulously neat. His father writes of
him, at two years old, as " his golden-haired boy, with
a picture book under each arm."
No dirt ever seemed to stick to him, -even on the
Long Wharf, while his younger brother, who kept
everybody laughing at his jokes, had the usual boyish
hatred of the "harmless necessary," soap. Another
brother, the eldest child of his parents, was so preco-
cious that he wrote Latin verses at the age of nine,
and kept little note books of historical reading. He
succumbed, as was natural, to some childish disease,
and Theodore was given his name, and became a great
darling in consequence. The " first Theodore," as he
was called, was spoken of by the children with awe
and reverence as a wonder.
The good old New England dame-school was an
institution as nearly perfect as is possible with things
below, and into the kind arms of one of these Theo-
dore was early received, to learn his A, B, C. Good
10 THE DAME SCHOOL. [1831-4
Mrs. Bonticue (or, as the children called her, Miss
Bunnickyer), was the widow of a sea captain. It is a
well-known fact that a sea captain and his wife are
seldom seen together on this earth, and to this rule
she was no exception, though the portrait of the de-
ceased, ruddy and promising long life, hung in her
low, snug parlor, along with much coral and many
shells and ostrich eggs. Mrs. Bonticue had never
heard of Pestallozi, much less of a Kindergarten; but
she had it all in her brain, and possessed the genius for
teaching little children which must always be inborn.
Her school was exceptionally good, making allowance
for the bright halo that memory casts round the pleas-
ant things of childhood. But is it not true that the
bitter hate of a boy for his cruel teacher, or his con-
tempt for an incompetent one, lasts as long as his love
for a kind master, and is equally founded on fact and
experience ? Children know far more, and reason far
more, than we elders think, who have forgotten our
childhood; their large eyes are terrible, and they know
their small flat world far better than we know our big
round one. Good Mrs. Bonticue was faithful, she
was even rather stern, as we thought, and did not
ignore the rod altogether. She sat erect, with snowy
cap and apron, and kept order and discipline; but she
was kind and judicious. The school-room was a large
room at the back of the house (to us it seemed enor-
mous), looking out on a ragged little garden, in which
(fortunately for us) the pear-trees bore winter pears,
whose fruit of immortal green still puckers the mem-
ory. In the corner was a small bed where a tired
little one was sometimes put to sleep, for they were very
young at school. At four years of age children were
Mr. 3-6] THE DAME SCHOOL. 11
expected to learn to read, if they were not dunces,
and it did no harm to the health of any of them.
Before six they were "bound to read fluently, to write
their names, and to know a little of Peter Parley's
Geography, Webster's Spelling-book, and perhaps a
trifle of Goldsmith's " History of England." At six
the best girls could sew WELL, make a shirt, knit stock-
ings, and make button holes such as are seldom seen
now. All this was not precocity, but the fruit of good,
painstaking teaching during several years, for the
children entered the school at three years of age, or
even earlier, and they were taught in a pleasant and
amusing way. They learned to sing pretty little songs
("Mary had a little lamb," was new then!), they spoke
" pieces," in nasal tones, but armed with simple moral,
about birds and flowers, or against cruelty to animals.
It was not all sweetness, however; there was a hard
block of wood behind Madam's chair, which was a
stool of repentance there was a ferule that could give
smart raps to the little fingers. The most flagrant of-
fenders had to stand in the corner, to be " sissed at,"
the boys with girls' bonnets on, the girls with boys' hats
on; but a still more condign punishment was to be put
upon the garret stairs, a sort of donjon keep that
cowed the boldest, for at the top of it was, we knew
not what, a place of crackings and rustlings, and
hoards of strange things, where perchance the ghost of
Capt. Bonticue might walk in full nautical costume
with a cat-o'-nine tails. There was a legend, however,
that a brave boy had once dared to ascend those stairs
and had found apples ! Good Mrs. Bonticue was a
comely woman, in the prime of life, and her two
daughters handsome young women, but all seemed
12 THE CARBONARI. [1835
old and venerable to the children in the happy place
where Theodore's education began so well. He was
called the best and brightest boy in the school.
Among the memories of his childhood, young as he
was, may have been the strange vision of some dis-
tinguished exiles, the famous Carbonari, several of
whom came to New Haven about 1835, in hopes of
gaining a subsistence as teachers of Italian in Yale
College. This hope proved vain, but their coming
made quite an excitement in the town, and they were
kindly welcomed, and hospitably entertained by many,
and among others by Mr. Wiiithrop. Who could re-
sist that noble pitiful story, and the pleading of those
sad Italian eyes, where one could read the tale of sev-
enteen years of patient endurance, imprisonment, and
privation ? Theodore may have caught some faint idea
of their pathetic history, may have had a lesson of lib-
erty, a sense of what it means to lose it, a vague im-
pression of what it is to suffer for one's country. For
the older children at least, to see these noble and hand-
some men, dark and gently mysterious, to hear them,
gentlemen of birth and culture, tell, in their broken
way, how they passed long years of their lives in knit-
ting coarse stockings for the soldiers, and were thank-
ful even for that menial occupation, to hear in those
sweet low southern voices the ring of sharp pain,
deadened by long-borne waiting and despair, were
things the children could not easily forget. To have
a caressing hand, just unchained, laid upon the head,
and one's name spoken with tender Italian diminu-
tives, by those who had lost home and friends, and the
best of life and youth, for pure patriotism, was a deep
lesson that returned again and again to their mem-
MT. 8-12] HIS FATHER'S DEATH. 13
ories; and when afterward they read the wonderful
narrative of Silvio Pellico, they could fill up the pic-
ture with the reality they had seen.
These men found some means to live, assisted per-
haps by Italian friends. Foresti was long a respected
and successful teacher in New York, others were artists
and teachers elsewhere, and were finally amnestied by
Victor Emanuel, and returned to their beloved country,
for whom they had suffered so much. Most of them
are now dead, after a peaceful old age among their
friends and families, and their memories are adored in
their own land as prophets and martyrs. If they had
not prepared the way, then Mazzini, Cavour, and Gari-
baldi might never have found that path that led through
dark waters to a United Italy.
We next find Theodore Winthrop preparing for col-
lege at the good sound school of Silas French, where
he was well thought of in the class and in the play-
ground. At the age of twelve, he had the mis-
fortune to lose one of his best friends, his kind and
gentle father, but he was not too young to have had his
character already biased by his influence. He was of
all the children the one who most resembled his father,
in manner as well as in more important characteristics.
" The thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts," and
although he spoke but little of his feelings, it is easy
to see from his writings that the mysteries of life and
death had early troubled his mind, and that the loss
of his father must have made a deep impression upon
him. Such things are very strange and bitter to a sensi-
tive child, and, as Thoreau says, "we see but one corpse
in our lives."
His mother, left in early middle life with five chil-
14 HIS MOTHER. [1841
dren to bring up on small means, and with little ad-
vice or assistance from others, performed her task
with patience and calmness, and bore up wonder-
fully under her burdens, as many another noble wo-
man has done. She was always, in youth and age, a
beautiful woman, of an exquisite and refined appear-
ance, with chestnut hair and eyes, and the delicately
tinted complexion that belongs to that type. She was
spoken of by every one who knew her as a woman near
to perfection in temper and character, of an angelic
gentleness, mingled with spirit; most appreciative, and
skilled in calling forth the best powers of others, and
winning their confidence. She was a great reader,
loved flowers and gardening, and wrote pretty verses,
when that accomplishment was still uncommon. Her
powers of quotation were immense, and Dr. Woolsey,
her brother, in a youthful poem, describing playfully
the family group, speaks of her as in the act of " cit-
ing, quoting in other words." Always busy about
family affairs, she never seemed to read, and was ac-
cused of getting up all the literature of the day before
any one rose in the morning, or after bedtime. To
which she replied, "Oh, no! I have used Bulwer's
' Last of the Barons ' to put myself to sleep for the last
five years.'' The songs of Burns were the cradle songs
of her children (for she could sing sweetly, and had
caught the airs by ear from a Scotch relative), and,
from Percy's " Reliques " down to Scott and Southey,
she trained them to be familiar with the whole range
of the best English poetry, with the exception of Chaucer
who had not yet been interpreted. Spenser's ' Faerie
Queen ' was one of her greatest favorites. She studied
with them much histoi-y and other literature, and there
2ET. 15] COLLEGE LIFE. 15
was reading aloud in the evenings for their father,
whose eyesight was not strong.
Theodore Winthrop entered college in 1843, at the age
of fifteen, with credit, and seemed to hold a good place
there. Be that as it may, " the wind's will," the rebel
nature of the boy, so long dormant, awoke. No ill
report had been heard of by his family, when a reck-
less moment of folly led to the usual consequences, he
broke away from rules, displeased authorities, and was
sent away from college. His error was trifling, but no
doubt bitter to him and his mother for the time. It
was the beginning of the battle which he had to fight
out with himself and with life, in which the victory
was not fully gained till long years after. He left
New Haven and spent the winter of 1844-5 in Ohio
with his half brother, the Eev. Edward Winthrop, a
scholarly man, who had been valedictorian of the class
of 1838. The little town of Marietta must have been
dull enough then for a place of penance, where he
found no better amusement than to spend the even-
ing in a grocery store with some other boys, cracking
nuts, and scrambling eggs upon a stove.
In the spring he returned home, and was admitted
into the next class, where he soon won an honorable
position. It was a noted class, this one of '48, both
for its scholarship and its manliness, and he was happy
in the companionship he found, and distinguished in
it, especially for Greek and composition. He was not
strong enough in mathematics to win one of the high-
est places, but he gained two scholarships, an oration,
and many prizes for composition. His college themes
were as usual upon didactic subjects, and show more
thought and reading than is usual at his age. The
16 RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. [1848
subject of his Commencement oration was " The Study
of the Beautiful necessary to a Liberal Education."
It was a characteristic choice, and the oration was
very much admired by his class-mates, who thought
him a wonder. This little assemblage of his peers
voted him their poet and philosopher, in the worship
of boyish friendship, while he, with reciprocal enthu-
siasm, deemed them the coming men, and saviors of
their country.
During his college life he " experienced religion," as
was then the phrase, and with deep sincerity. His
thoughtful nature could hardly escape such a conver-
sion at that time. It was in the air, and most young
persons felt it more or less. His religious fervor con-
tinued for a long time, for in such an earnest mind as
his it could hardly fade into mere indifference. After
a while he became emancipated from its narrowness,
and emerged into the free space of a liberal Christi-
anity, but he did not gain liberty without a bitter strug-
gle. Meanwhile he went through the usual phases of
religious excitement; he was often heard to pray aloud
in his chamber as if in agony; he grew melancholy and
almost morbid, and his health began to break down
under this strain, joined to the eagerness of hard study,
anxious as he was to regain a high position in his col-
lege. After graduating with honor in 1848, when
nearly twenty, he resolved to remain at Yale, and pursue
the philosophical course, under the guidance of Dr.
Woolsey, then Professor of Greek, and Prof. Porter.
But his health grew more and more delicate, his re-
ligious excitement abated, and left him in doubt and
misery, and at last he found that he could hold out
no longer, and determined to go to Europe, where
MT. 19] HIS JOURNAL. 17
everybody who could do so went for health in those
days, paying, as many a young scholar has done,
his expenses with the proceeds of his scholarship.
At what time he had determined to strive for literary
fame is not exactly known, but it is certain that the
thought had already dawned in his mind. In a jour-
nal, kept through several of these years, he often
speaks of this ambition as his dearest one, and doubt-
less the success of his college efforts in composition
had encouraged him in the idea. The journal begins
in July, 1848, just before he graduated, and is full of
his studies, of his religious hopes and fears, and of his
affection for his family ? his instructors, and his college
friends, of keen introspection and self-examination, to-
gether with impressions of such authors as Paley and
Butler (dry bones for such a sensitive mind).
"Friday, August 25th, 1848. Commencement,
with all its anxieties and interests, has passed.
If I am not contented with my lot, no one can be.
One thing I can feel now, and that is how much 1
owe to my mother, and to the influences of home,
which have done so much for my character. My
mother is worthy of all love and admiration, and
of all care on my part, and I pray that I may feel
this as I ought ! Another thing I have learned is,
that no effort is thrown away, as in preparing for
these scholarships. I have done something, yet
how little to what I might have done, but this
little has made me Clark Scholar, and but for
drawing lots, would have made me Berkeleian.
Labor ! labor is the great thing ! Now 1 see how
much better it was; if I had drawn the lot prob-
18 STUDY. [1848
ably I should not have studied for the Clark and
gained the higher honor, and should not have had
the advantage of the study for it, which has done
me more good than all the studies perhaps of rny
previous life; more than the Berkeleian, though that
was an introduction and a discipline for it. ...
The future is before me ! I am a man ! The mo-
tives of college exist for me no longer, the rewards
which a man receives from the world are more
distant, and perhaps more uncertain. Now, it
must be study for study's sake, and from a sense
of duty only; henceforth I must work like a man
and perhaps like a horse. What a man is at
twenty, when his character is nearly formed, there
are many chances that he will be through life.
Before twenty we have nearly all chosen what we
will be."
His vacation was passed with his brother Charles on
a farm in the state of New York; his letters and jour-
nals are full of pleasant impressions, and the didactic
reflections of youth. Though the thoughts seem com-
paratively crude, they are far deeper than those of
most young men of twenty, and the style is always
good. He criticises sermons, books, conversations,
and people, and analyzes Coleridge, Wordsworth,
Southey, Dr. Arnold, Ruskin, and other writers, look-
ing at them from a religious point of view, as well as
a literary one.
"Friday, Sept. 22d, 1848. To-day I am twenty
years old, and it seems fitting that I should soberly
and with a spirit of self-examination look back on
JET. 20] AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. 19
ray past life. Of my early childhood I do not re-
member much almost nothing of my thoughts
and feelings then. 1 know that I was studious, and
remember early having doubts about free will. I
hardly date further back than twelve, with any
connected recollection. My slight remembrances
of this period give me no satisfaction, for I see
myself as a selfish child, often exaggerating my
little indispositions, doing little but read novels.
My remembrances of my father, though faint, are
very pleasing, being almost entirely of a journey I
took with him, probably the autumn before his
death, which happened the 20th March, 1841. I
remember with pain having then offended him in
some way. There are many spots of recollection in
all this time of Mr. French's School, where I went
at eight years of age; of Stratford; and earliest of
all, of a visit to New York, and a family wedding,
when I was six. I was twelve when my father
died.
" The next thing of importance was my entering
college in August, 1843. I took a good standing
on my entrance, from previous knowledge, with-
out any study. I had no desire to excel; I was
idle and reckless all the first year, till on Nov. llth,
1844, I was dismissed from college for breaking
Freshmen's windows. I spent the winter idly
with my brother Edward in Marietta, Ohio, and
came home with better hopes. I wasted the sum-
mer, and at last entered Yale again, still idle, till
about Christmas, I saw, and loved, as the influence
20 FIRST LOVE. [1848
upon me showed, Miss , and immediately gave
up the folly that had possessed me. This prepared
the way for the entrance of God's Spirit into my
heart, for in March next following, Mrs. , speak-
ing to me on my choice of a profession, made me
first think, to any effect, of my relation to a dis-
tant future, and this was my first step in what
was certainly a new life. I was confirmed that
summer, and took the communion on the first
Sunday in August. At that time, the young lady
whom I mentioned above continued to exercise a
great influence over me, though I never knew her,
or exchanged a word with her in my life, and I
shall always, even if I never see her again, retain
a very grateful feeling towards her, for an in-
fluence so entirely unconscious as it must have
been. In April, 1848, I was examined for the
Berkeleian scholarship, and declared equal to Colton,
my competitor; drew lots with him and lost. This
I believe brings the chronicle down to historic
times. Now for myself, what I know." . . .
Then follows more self-examination and self-accusa-
tion. In his journeys there appears more and more
feeling for natural scenery, but as yet no originality
of description.
" Thursday, Oct. 12th, 1848. I have now become
regularly settled in my mode of life and studies
for the winter. These will be, Mental and Moral
Science, Greek, German, and History. Besides
these, I hope to write some Latin every day, and
^T. 20] AFTER COLLEGE. 21
a good deal of English, and I must have a little
poetry and light reading. My studies have begun
with Mill's " Logic," a book which 1 have thus far
found it hard to understand. My Greek studies,
carried on with Mr. Woolsey, are very interesting,
giving me new ideas of the exact use of words. I
see how a mind need not be narrowed by the study ,
of detail, even so far as it may be carried by the'
critical study of a language. But I am very un-
disciplined. I hope to make history a real philo-
sophical study of human progress. Our country
is destined, they say, to become the chief station
between Europe and Eastern Asia. If the course
of Empire is westward, what will it do, when it
gets to the Pacific ? "
Pages upon pages follow, of his long thoughts upon
all subjects likely to interest a musing metaphysical
mind, or rather a mind passing through the phase of
metaphysics, in the light of an alert conscience. In fact
the effect of his studious and sedentary life upon a consti-
tution always delicate was such as to make his conscience
often a morbid one. His health was probably saved from
utter wreck by athletic exercises, such as rowing, skating,
and walking. The journal contains constant references
to his college friends, with whom he corresponded, and
long disquisitions upon subjects connected with his
studies, which resemble themes and sermons, yet show
a mind fuh 1 of work and thought, putting forth shoots
in all directions. At this time he began to write
verses, and show them to a friend. Some of them
have been preserved, but they lack originality, though
22 EARLY DREAMS. [1848
they possess some poetic form. He had not got much
farther than the wish for expression, the words had
not yet come to him, but everything evinces a bias
towards a life of letters. His love of country already
declares itself strongly.
" How much this California excitement reminds
me of the time when Peru and Mexico were dis-
covered; the conquest of the country in all its
points bears so striking a resemblance to the first
attack by the Spaniards.
" How interesting are the effects ! giving in the
first place a President to this vast country, under
whose administration we first take acknowledged
place as the first people in the world ! Let Europe
go back to barbarism or anarchy, here the result
of the world's weary labors will be preserved, and
here the seed sown since the beginning of the
world shall ripen, and bring forth fruit. But enough
of this rhapsody " (Several pages long).
Many things were opening to him, almost too many.
The beauty of Nature now blossomed in his soul, and
Art was to be revealed before long in its own home.
" My aesthetic faculties, which have been asleep
for some time, are, I hope, waking again. If any-
thing could do it, it would be such a sunset; with
the evening which followed. The whole earth
covered with pure white snow; the West Rock
range not perfectly white, but hoary, and making
a sharp line against the glowing horizon, where
2Ei. 20] EARLY DREAMS. 23
the sun went down full-orbed in splendor. And
the gradation of color, so glorious, from the bright
radiance of the sun's last tarrying place, to the
solemn glory of the zenith, and then the moon,
and the evening star shining on the snow; the sky
like steel. It is enough to make a poet of any one
who will let it into his soul. I got excited the
other day about poetry, and spent a morning in
writing some verses, which did very well, for my
small experience. I have read 'Modern Painters,'
too, an era in my life. Since then I have allowed
myself too many dreams, and have wished to be
a poet,
" 'Singing hymns unbidden till the world was wrought
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not.'
" It will not do ! My life must be practical.
" I have, in connection with Heeren's 'Asia,' read
some translations from the Sanskrit Milman's
'Nala and Damayanta,' and Sir William Jones' 'Sa-
contala.' They are beautiful, simple, and tender."
Here follows a critique upon Hindu poetry.
" In my late dreams of writing poetry, which*
my present powers do not confirm, I have been ex-
amining my past life, to see if I have any of those
'first affections, those shadowy recollections,' those
inward promptings that speak the power, the love,
the imagination of the true poet. I find that in
all my dreams I have desired something great, and
noble; but all dreamers have. I find that I have
24 THE YOUNG POET.
been deeply impressed with nature and beauty;
but all dreamers have. As a child, I felt the won-
ders of the Hudson in a journey with my father,
and now often, in my boat, when I am in the trough
of the sea, with nothing but water around me, and
seem lost in the waste of water, as I go down into
the belly of one of those waves, I feel my nothing-
ness completely; and fear without fright is a part
of the sublime. But if all thoughts of poetry should
be to me but idle dreams, may I ever be able to
say with Coleridge, ' Poetry has been to me its
own exceeding great reward.' I never really set
about writing it till January 5th of this year, when
mother read me some vei-ses of hers about a bright-
er land, beyond an intervening water, which were
really very beautiful. They seemed to wake me
up, so that morning I wrote some verses, which I
count really as my first. They speak of the in-
fluence upon me, long ago, of a lady whom 1 do
not know. The great secret seems to be that, Avith
your mind ready and alive to what you are in
search of, you will be sure to find it. If you have
any creative power, the thoughts that would other-
wise pass through and be forgotten are thus chained.
I hardly dare to say to myself how much I wish
to find this power within me; it would satisfy all
the desire I have had to teach others to love beauty,
and to be made purer by it. If I might, I would
strive to be the poet of my country and my God,
guiding and raising the eyes of many young spirits
who like myself are beginning life with some noble
ET. 20] JOURNAL. 25
aspirations. I almost think sometimes that I might.
It would be a sacred, an awful trust. I do riot de-
serve it. I must not dream, but labor, nor mistake
the desire for the power to speak to young men
and warn them and move them.
' ' I began ' Sartor Resartus ' this evening (Saturday,
Jan. 20th, 1849). I am prepared to like Carlyle
very much. He suggests much to me of the force
of words. But I am a great deal too fond of the
sound of my own voice, and often find that, like a
fool, I would rather talk myself than hear others.
u I think dancing rather a bore, and supper always
makes me sick, yet the party at Mrs. D 's was
one of the pleasantest I remember
" I have been told on good authority that Robes-
pierre was an Irishman.
" Beauty of language places Pindar above all the
Greek poets
" Prince Louis Napoleon must be a very poor
sort of a man. He has, I suppose, strong advisers,
but can a man of so little ability sustain himself in
France at the present crisis ? Perhaps a nonentity
is the best they could have just now. A man of
power without principle might seize again upon
the throne, and so keep up the series of revolutions.
Unless they have a Republic, which will leave them
nothing to seek for, the French, from mere dissatis-
faction with the existing order of things, would have
another Revolution ; but it would be only temporary.
A republic actually existing removes the causes
for revolution. The California mania still rages
26 JOURNAL. [1849
more and more. Some of my friends have gone.
Most of those who expect to make their fortunes
by mining will be disappointed. Wonderful that
this gold should have been kept out of sight so
long, and only be found when it can help our
country to be the middle of the world ; for here we
are with eastern ports for Europe and western
ones for Asia. With a people equal to anything,
I do not see but we shall be masters of the world.
Who knows but the whole world may one day bo
united under a representative government?
" I find my uncle's opinion about the Alcestis
quite agrees with mine. Admetus is made so con-
temptible that no other charm can counterbalance
this. Alcestis is tender and devoted, and her char-
acter is all the beauty of the play, for, certainly, not
beautiful are the recriminations of Admetus and his
father, or the double entendres with Hercules.
"I re-read with pleasure Tennyson's poems. He
has exquisite power over language, and his poems
have blood in them, and are really classic. The
poetic aestrus that excited me a while ago, has fled
away perhaps, forever.
" Oh, that I had had a guide in life, in youth,
and been saved much folly ! Whatever I have of
good, is owing to the silent influence of home and
my mother. I have been reading Grote's History,
and more Carlyle. He makes me long to visit the
north of Europe. I must see Europe sometime, and
all those places whose names are like household
words. England most of all.
JET. 20] LOSS OF HEALTH. 27
"I have often observed that the stars seem to
shine down into my breast, not into my eyes. It
has given me occasion for some pleasant fancies.
"I find that I am vain, even to myself; talking
about what I could do, if I were not too lazy. I
have no business to be lazy. I must work and be
a man, or starve. But life and the world still seem
so obscure ! "
" Worcester, Mass., Sunday, May 20th. At Mr.
Foster's. My health has been so poor for the
two months past that I have not felt inclination
or energy, hardly ability, to write here. I have
been a martyr to dyspepsia, which has troubled me
more or less my whole life, but more this spring
than ever. In fact, I have been quite good-for-
nothing, and at times quite desperate. I gave
up study pretty much, my mind lost all spring,
and even the desire for information* and the wish
for the good opinion of others. All my hopes died
within me. Henry Hitchcock and I have now been
nearly a week in Worcester, and I have been en-
joying myself and constantly improving in health.
Life begins to look a little brighter for me. I really
think if I had continued a month longer I should
have fallen into a settled melancholy. I have en-
joyed my stay in Worcester, not only on account
of Dwight Foster's and Henry Hitchcock's society,
but because the intercourse with a man of Mr. Fos-
ter's age and sense is an unusual pleasure to me,
and the friendship between father and son is a
thing that I know nothing of. To be among new
28 LOSS OF HEALTH.
people is quite a study, especially when they are
so different from my own female family circle. I
have learned something of the public characters
of the last generation, of whom my knowledge had
been almost confined to their names. Mr. Foster
has given me two letters of Fisher Ames. He
must have been an admirable man. I have read
his great speech on Jay's treaty, which was said
to be knee deep in pathos. Ill health prevented
him from engaging in public life to the height of
his powers, and finally obliged him to retire alto-
gether, at the time when his reputation was great-
est. That speech, which was his last, was also his
best.
"e7wie4th, 1849. I have now been so long in feeble
health and really unable to do anything, that some-
times I almost despair. My spirits have been very
much depressed, and serious considerations as to my
course in life have weighed upon me heavily. I have
hesitated long and painfully about my profession. I
have wished and prayed to do my duty. My friends
are divided in opinion, but they cannot choose for me.
My own judgment directs me to Law as my future
profession. A life of study and retirement would
increase my tendency to morbid views of myself
and others, and destroy my usefulness and happi-
ness. Of this state of mind I have had warnings
this spring. If my mind had been left to prey
upon itself much longer it might have led to dis-
aster. The very thought of such a thing makes
me watchful. An active life among men would
MT. 20] LOSS OF HEALTH. 29
correct this. I have lost all inclination for a stu-
dent's life. In a literary life I might not be dili-
gent. The prospect is dim before me, but I mean
to study law this next year at Cambridge, and then
make up my mind and know better what I am tit
for. I suppose I could do respectably in anything
I tried, but this would not satisfy me. I want em-
inence, and to obtain this may be beyond my pow-
ers. I wonder if I could make a good speech? I
look to the bar as a stepping-stone to politics.
" July 20th, 1849. As I do not wish to fill my
pages with complaints, I will say nothing of the
ill health that interrupted and finally put an end
to my studies. Finding that I could really do noth-
ing at home and that the partial relaxation of a
walk or an idle day did me no good, and with the
fear before me that a winter of severe study at
Harvard would finish me entirely, I decided, with
the advice and approval of my mother, to devote a
year to travel in Europe. 1 was very unwilling
to come to this, as it compelled the deferring of all
my plans, and I can ill afford the time or the money.
But it seemed the only way which united the re-
covery of my health with the prospect of mental
improvement. I rejoice in the opportunity, and
shall try to make the best of it, though I regret
the cause."
Through all this youthful journalizing, moralizing,
essay-writing, and earnest self-questioning and accu-
sation, a peculiarly sensitive and impressionable soul
may plainly be seen, struggling with ill health in the
30 THE REMEDY.
narrow cage of a quiet scholarly town, yet living a
real life, with sympathies going out to everything
around it. But a change was near. The earnestness
might have become morbidness, the sensitiveness, weak-
ness, or the struggle, misery and failure, had it not been
for the life-giving influence of wider experience, of new
worlds to conquer. The fight was yet to come, and
weapons were now to be put into his hands.
CHAPTER II.
EUROPE.
HE sailed for Europe in the Liverpool packet, Mar-
garet Evans, on Friday, July 27th, 1849. The influ-
ence of a foreign tour upon such a youth as he, must
have been very great. He was changed, he became a
man. His letters and journals were full of fascination
to his family, but now the grand tour is a thing of every
day, and they contain much that would not interest a
reader, and that would seem, hurried as they were,
like pages from guide books. It was then a rarer
chance than now for a young collegian to travel, and
he was probably the first of his class to go. His mind
was more ripe and prepared by study than most young
men of twenty-one. Although he traveled afterwards,
often and widely, there is only one first time; and its
mark is plainly to be seen in his literary woi'k, which
until then was the mere boyish effort of a fledgeling,
trying his wings, but never soaring. From this time
a love of travel and adventure was born in his soul,
bringing with it free thought and independent action.
His first impressions were overwhelming, nor was his
ardent young heart ashamed to beat as he neared
his goal.
32 LAND, HO! [349
"England, August 26th, 1849.
"I had asked the mate to call me early, and
after sitting up till midnight enjoying the flashing
of the ship through the water under a thirteen-
knot breeze, and having caught a glimpse of St.
Catherine's light, with a dark line under it, that
the mate said was land, I turned in for a few hours,
with the exciting feeling that in the morning I
should see the land of our forefathers. I went up on
deck at five o'clock. The sun was just risen, the air
fresh and sparkling, and about three miles to wind-
ward the white cliffs of Beachy Head, their bril-
liant front coming sharply down to the clear green
water, and drawing a wavy line against the sky.
The very sight of land brings ecstasy to one who
has been long at sea, and this was more than vul-
gar earth and speechless clods. The recollection
of such things never leaves one, but to put it down
in black and white seems too much of rhapsody."
He landed from the ship in a pilot boat which put
them ashore at New Haven, a coincidence very pleas-
ant to him.
"I could hardly restrain myself," he says, "from
shouting and singing as I touched the land."
His first view of London impresses him deeply:
" August 29th, 1849.
"I had of course the usual feelings of delight
and excited interest on first seeing London, and
the usual astonishment of every one at its vast ex-
&T. 20] LONDON. 33
tent, and the crowds that throng its streets, and
my wonder is always on the increase, as I wander
about from street to street, and find everywhere the
same mass of houses, and the same vast multitude
hurrying about, and not caring the least for you.
I cannot bear merely to go from place to place, not
seeing things thoroughly. I want to allow each
well-known place to be familiar and real to me,
before I confuse its impressions by adding some-
thing new. I wander about the whole time, find-
ing myself continually in familiar places. As soon
as I arrived and had dinner, I started down the
Strand from Morley's, and walked five or six miles,
coming home quite tired out. The next day I was
everywhere for a moment, just to satisfy the first
cravings of curiosity. I saw Westminster Abbey,
but only the exterior, for I found this affected me
so much that I could not trust myself further.
Yesterday I felt too unwell to do much, so I rode
down to St. Paul's in the morning, and spent the
rest of the day lying under the trees in Hyde Park.
" Whether it is not being strong, or what, I do
not know, but the sight of all these places has so
much effect upon me that I cannot refrain from
tears, and I was rejoiced to be able among the
trees of the Park to give them full flow. Don't
think me a fool, but I cannot help it."
In his long letters (often of sixteen large and closely
written pages), are minute details of everything he
sees, which were all new to his untraveled readers at
home. Though not yet twenty-one when he landed in
34 LONDON. [1849
England, he was prepared with a knowledge of his-
tory, topography, and art, especially of architecture,
which was very uncommon at his age, and seemed
half instinctive.
" London, Moray's Hold, Sept. 1st, 1849.
" DEAR MOTHER, I sent you yesterday a letter,
which I fear will interest you but little, as it was
written in great haste. I have now been in Lon-
don three whole days, and my wonder does not at
all dimmish at the vastness of the city, the in-
finitude of people, and the perfect order that
prevails everywhere. In all this concourse every
man seems to know his business and his place, and
every horse and every vehicle obeys the same great
law. The sense of one's insignificance and mo-
mentariness is so strong as to be almost painful.
If I were asked, what I consider the greatest won-
der of London yet ? I should say to ride from Char-
ing Cross to the Bank about two o'clock, on the
top of a 'bus, and see the crowds of people, and the
wonderful driving. You will be tired, no doubt,
of my speaking so often of these things, but re-
member, this is not only my first view of London,
but of any great city. New York seems small now.
I will tell you better things by and by.
"On Wednesday, Sept, 5th, 1849, I left Euston
Square for the North. The perfection of the ar-
rangements on the English railways is quite strik-
ing to me, after the comparative confusion of ours,
though we're doing much better now."
tffr. 20] SCOTLAND. 35
During this journey he visits Sheffield and York,
giving a minute description of the Cathedral, as well
as of Durham. Arriving at Edinboro' the first place
of interest is naturally Holyrood.
" I was shown about by a very solemn old wo-
man, whom I made more communicative by prob-
ing her about Sir Walter, of whom she spoke as of
some dear friend. * And the affability of Sir Wal-
ter, and how he used to ask questions, did Sir
Walter, though all the while, you know, sir, he
knew the whole better than anybody else.' When
I touched her upon the house of Stuart, she laid her
hand upon my arm, and in a mysterious whisper
declared to me the awful secret that she was a
Jacobite."
Edinboro' and its associations interest him deeply.
He is enchanted with Melrose.
" I longed for you more than ever to see it with
me; but for a full account of these things I must
refer you, from Theodore abroad, with a thousand
things to say, and no time to say them in, to Theo-
dore at home, the best of all places, as I feel more
and more clearly every day.
" I called on Sir William Hamilton, and spent a
very pleasant evening with him. To say that I
admired Melrose would be absurd. It is fairer than
the things of earth, and seems so because time has
purged away all the earthly part, leaving only
what was permanent. One thing that strikes me
36 FfNGAL'S CAVE. [1849
as a chief element of its beauty is that it has no
windows or doors to check your view in looking
out, and you have the whole thrown open, so that
everywhere a broken arch or a fallen pillar gives
a new view; and then the color of the stone, a
beautiful red-brown."
Not to linger too long in Scotland, where he takes
an extended tour, he went on to Staffa.
" As I went north I had an odd sort of feeling
as if I were coming to the end of the world, and
as if each narrow rocky point was a jumping-off
place. I thought of going to the Isle of Skye, but
it is too late and cold, so I shall return towards
England, which seems quite like a home, and more
as I am always taken for an Englishman, and have
some difficulty in establishing my nationality. I
enjoy traveling more than at first. I used to be
sometimes at a loss with my little experience, but
greenness soon wears off, and I learn to bluster
like John Bull. The scene at Staffa was very
striking, in this solitary place, with the sea break-
ing wildly on the rocks, and became still more so
when we entered Fingal's Cave. There came to
my mind the passage in the Bible speaking of the
wicked calling for the mountains to fall on them,
and the hills to cover them ; and this was such a
hiding place. It was almost awful ; a temple not
made with hands ; the black damp rocks going down
to an unknown depth in the black water; the light
from the entrance just sufficient to make the whole
MT. 21] SCOTLAND. 37
interior visible, without any glare. I have never
seen anything that seemed to bring me so near
eternity as this, so far from the .homes and works
of man."
" Stirling, Oct. 6th, 1849.
" This is my last point in Scotland, and I say it
with regret. It is quite a relief to be again in the
Lowlands, in softer scenery. I feel this particularly
after Glencoe, which is the climax of desolate Scotch
mountain scenery. You will be surprised when I
say that here at Stirling I saw my first horse -race,
and never care to see one again. I found it very
stupid. I make acquaintance with many travelers,
or they with me, and I meet the same tourists over
and over. The English throw off their reserve as
soon as they cross their own frontier, and can say,
' We don't have such bread in England.'
" I like my lonely walks over the moors, where
the grouse get quietly up from under my feet,
knowing my umbrella is not a gun, and the deer
look at me from the hill, or the hare from the
covert.
" It is pleasant to study the surnames on signs,
and see if they are like ours, or new to me. One
name I noticed was Mr. Twentyman, himself a host.
Many I find that I supposed the coinage of some
author's brain. They told me to be sure to go to
Fountain's Abbey, and I am glad I did. The first
view of the Abbey is most beautiful, just in the cen-
ter of a picture, with a dark background of woods
and a foreground of soft green meadow, through
38 ENGLISH LIFE. [1849
which winds a little wooded stream, and a pond is
at your feet with swans sailing about."
Giving a long description of the architecture of the
Abbey from Early English to Perpendicular, full of ap-
preciation and detail, he enjoys the grotesque carved
stalls at Eipon, where he finds a pig playing the bag-
pipe, Punch wheeling Judy in a barrow, a fox and
goose and other odd fancies, and goes to Haddon Hall,
Chatsworth, and Stratford-on-Avon.
"At Kirkstall, as elsewhere, I found the most
splendid screens of ivy, made more beautiful by
the blossoms of a lighter green. These monstrous
old trunks cling to the walls with a grasp that re-
minds me of the feeling that comes in bad dreams
they hold fast without any apparent means the
whole mass bared of its leaves and dead, but still
holding fast, and interlaced in the most complex
manner.
"I have amused myself by going into country
alehouses, to see all sides of English life. I went
into a little place in Lichfield on the Fair day. I
meant to have taken my glass with the farmers,
but the barmaid insisted on taking me into another
room, set round with little tables, garnished with
long clay pipes. Two women came in from the
market, producing mutton pies, on which they pro-
ceeded to dine heartily. I would far rather go to
these places than to an upper class hotel, where
people are all alike. I find great delight in the
scenes that make real to me so much. I see the
Ex. 21] ENGLISH LIFE. 39
very people that novelists have described, 'Mr.
Weller ' and ' Samivel,' cockney sportsmen, and gen-
iuses with dishevelled hair, benevolent old green-
horns with eyeglass and black gaiters a whole
Pickwick Club at every railway station, fat old
ladies that have 'dowager' stamped upon every
feature and motion, from the ungainly waddle of
their gait, to the manifold ribbons of their mon-
strous hats; people wild about their multifarious
luggage, and making every possible blunder. A
thousand such things I see; and I am glad always
to see the comic side, for the sorrowful intrudes
itself quite too often, and painful questions force
themselves upon the mind.
"The English parks and seats are very beautiful
in their perfect finish, but hardly more so than the
country everywhere; you are astonished to find al-
ways the same green fields and trim hedges and
grand trees.
" One of my objects is to see as many cathedrals
as possible, for each is interesting in itself, and has
features quite peculiar to itself. Gloucester is re-
markable for its perfection in every part .... but
I must not give you an architectural treatise merely.
" In going to Bath I was amused to notice the
odd way of going down the steep hills with the
donkey carts. They tie the foremost beast of the
tandem to the back of the cart, and putting a sack
over his hinder parts, they knock away his legs
from under him, and he slides down hill, acting as
a drag."
40 OXFORD. [1849
Visiting Oxford he meets with great kindness and
hospitality, and sees many interesting people.
"You know how I feel about Oxford, and can
imagine with what feelings I walked through the
quadrangles and gardens, and recognized the fa-
miliar names of each. I refer you to my future
letters for descriptions. Some of the young men
have the unmistakable look that distinguishes a
Freshman everywhere, the same mingling of con-
scious importance with apprehension and innocent
surprise. Altogether a very gentlemanly looking
collection of men, and many handsome ones among
them."
Three long letters, of sixteen pages each, contain his
impressions of Oxford and Cambridge, and their po-
etic, scholarly life and beauty.
" At Balliol we saw among the curiosities a tank-
ard, given by the Man of Koss Mr. Kyrle. It had
a hedgehog, his crest, upon it, and a lady who knows
the family told me that they have a superstition
that a hedgehog always precedes each member of
the family to the other world, for one of these ani-
mals is always found dead by the door before any
death in the house.
" how I glory in my country ! There are times
when sad and gloomy views of life must be present
to one who feels ' the burthen of the mystery of all
this unintelligible world,' but I rejoice to think
that there are among us some men, young and old,
-Efc. 21] OXFORD. 41
who combine reverence for the past with hope for
the future, in whom reverence is not blindness, nor
hope rashness. They will be our salvation.
"A genuine enthusiasm like Ruskin's is not com-
mon in Oxford; the present spirit of the place seems
opposed to it; the easy life of a fellow of a college
is enjoyed rather as a period of scholastic leisure,
than of serious and diligent preparation for the
duties of life. This impression at least I derived
from the men themselves. It is not so, of course,
with all. There is life enough among the younger
men, especially those who come from Rugby."
Among his letters of introduction was one to a gen-
tleman who was a strong opponent of the Tractarian
movement. The controversy was still rife, and he
appears to have heard much discussion on the subject,
though he seems only to have been interested as a
looker on. But everything set him thinking.
" I have always in my mind, when I see any-
thing new or important, its effect if carried over
to my own country, and I should think, on the
whole, our system is far in advance of Oxford, and
not much behind Cambridge. Every one, nearly,
in Oxford thinks that some change is necessary,
but none are agreed as to what it is.
"I sometimes feel disposed to come directly
home. I have seen things and people, already,
enough to last me all my life.
"Mr. G told me that on his proposing to
bring me to visit a friend, the person expressed
42 AN ATTACHE. [1849
great consternation, and said, ' How do you know
but he is going to write a book ! '
" One thinks of the English as a stable govern-
ment, but it has a strange effect on me here, where
I hear only English opinions, to find how every-
thing is in a transition state everybody proposing
some plan of improvement, so that ours seems the
settled government and this the experimental."
" London, Morley's Hotel, Nov. 9th, 1849.
" One can hardly know, until you have been
about these streets, how true and how telling are
the jokes and caricatures in Punch. In fact a care-
ful study of Punch is an excellent preparation for
London life.
" I am acting as a sort of attache to our Embassy.
I call myself so, because Mr. L told me I was
his only one. Attaches are rather ornamental than
useful, their duties being generally only to the
ladies of the family; these I have faithfully per-
formed, and besides I am deep in the secrets of the
Mosquito question.
" I shall go to Paris probably on Monday, and
am, for my convenience, charge de depeches for the
Legation.
" I always enjoy myself to an intense degree in
a crowd, and delight in going down into the City
on the top of a 'bus. It was my first wonder in
London, and will be my last the marvelous driv-
ing in the streets."
In Paris he meets many friends, but is very far from
being well or happy. In fact, his health was never
-&T. 21] PARIS LIFE. 43
strong enough to give him a fair start in life, and
though in after years it gradually improved, and out-
door life and travel always invigorated him, illness
constantly interfered with his plans. He spent a great
deal of his time in Paris in the friendly home of the
Hunts, the family of the distinguished painter, William
Hunt, and his brother, Richard Hunt, the architect,
who were both there, engaged in art studies; and he
also met, for the first time, Mr. "W. H. Aspinwall,
destined to become his fast friend.
He was a favorite wherever he went, and proper
reticence and want of space alone forbid quoting his
descriptions of the people he met, both high and low,
who were kind and attentive to him. Society could
not fail to awaken still more a young soul only too im-
pressible for its own happiness. Everything was ap-
preciated and assimilated. He started wonderfully
well prepared for travel for a young man not twenty-
one, and his art criticisms* seldom differ from the best
ideas of to-day.
" Paris, Nov. 22d, 1849.
" DEAR MOTHER, At another time I would have
liked to stop and see the country, but now I looked
upon Paris as a sort of El Dorado, where I was to
find health, and everything that I wished; so I
hastened on, reaching there about five AM. I de-
livered my despatches to the Secretary of Legation
the next day, and found he was from Woodbury,
Connecticut. I am very much amused in the
streets with everything, soldiers, peasants, bonnes,
* Mostly omitted.
44 PARIS LIFE. [1849
hand-bills arid signs, but the novelty and surprise
is that I feel so much at home, and find people so
little different from ours. I suppose it is every-
one's experience. I have felt also, in London and
in Paris, the desolation that comes at first in a
great city, but the loneliness soon wears off. I
have been established in my 'appartement' about
half an hour, and expect to be very comfortable.
" I enjoy the contrast between the fashion and
splendor of the Boulevards, and the narrow and an-
cient streets, where you find a life so different that
you might think yourself in another world lofty
old houses, crammed with people from cellar to sky-
light, but in all their darkness preserving some-
thing of the attempt at elegance that makes any
house in Paris prettier than any house elsewhere.
The women, in nice caps, go about as if life were
pleasant, and the muddy street a ball-room. The
Parisian ladies all wear stout shoes, and sometimes
gaiters besides; their example ought to be followed
by ours, who are sadly imprudent, even with our
delightful climate.
"In the public speaking, though there is plenty
of life in the manner, the rising inflection constantly
used makes it monotonous and peculiar at first.
" I see my old schoolmate, Dick Hunt, all the
time; he is working hard at architecture, with a
manly and patriotic feeling to make himself of use
at home. He has passed rapidly and successfully
through all the examinations. The French system
is calculated to bring out any original powers a
^T. 21] PARIS LIFE. 45
man has. I am in the Louvre all the time, admir-
ing, and full of plans for improving the condition
of the fine arts in my own country. I am inclined
to think that few men place their hopes higher
than their powers, and therefore expect my friend
Dick Hunt will do good work at home.
" I feel that I have learnt much of men and things,
not half as much as I ought, but something to take
the romance out of me, and to do away with the idle
dreamy spirit that I have so much indulged, until
at last my eyes have been opened. This is an ep-
och in my life ; but all such changes are sudden.
" I had a very interesting visit to the school where
the daughters of the Legion of Honor are gratui-
tously educated. ... In one room there were forty-
one pianos going at once, and each on a different
piece. Think of rattling away with forty others
practicing at the same time ! Habit settles it, but
it must injure the ear, while it promotes attention.
It is very cold, and the days are very short, yet I
feel brighter than for some time. I start in good
spirits, and hope to enjoy myself in Italy, going
by Avignon and Nismes, to Marseilles. Love to
all my dear friends. I have longed to send you
some of the pretty Christmas things that fill the
shop windows."
Extracts from Journal.
"Dreamed about writing a book on Art. The
ideas of William Hunt are certainly very fine and
good. I think I should like to stay in Europe and
46 JOURNAL. [1850
go into diplomatic life. Talked with Dick Hunt
about changing" our seat of government, and lay-
ing out a grand new city as a national monument.
Hurrah! We'll do it!"
" In the salon of the Louvre, devoted to portraits
of the kings of France, it seemed an odd coinci-
dence that Louis Philippe's portrait fills up the
very last space that is left in the room. And yet
they talk here as if Louis Napoleon would make
himself emperor before long."
Many interesting things must have been talked of
between these three brilliant young men and the
charming women of the Hunt family, and excellent
guides and teachers they nmst have been in Paris life.
Leaving Paris, he goes by Lyons, Nismes, Avignon, to
Marseilles, and by steamer to Genoa and Rome. Here
he became better acquainted with Mr. William H.
Aspinwall and his family, who were kind friends to
him then and in the future. But the cloud still
hangs over him, and he cannot get away from it by
change of place.
"Owing to my peculiar state of health, I lose a
great deal, finding it quite impossible to make use
of all the opportunities for improvement that trav-
eling affords. I find myself very wretched, wish-
ing for nothing so much as death, and yet know-
ing not what death is."
For all these drawbacks, he sees everything Paris,
the Louvre, Kachel, Rome, the Carnival, all, and more,
that tourists of that day usually saw, and that all the
^ET. 21] THE SOUTH. 47
world knows now so well and studied French and
Italian as he went. Still doubting and distrusting
himself, he thinks he is learning little, while he is
absorbing knowledge at every pore.
" On the Avignon steamer was a motley crowd.
Among the soldiers was a small man of fifty-five
or sixty, with keen and sharp features, a grizzled
moustache, and long imperial, wearing a colonel's
uniform, decorated, and in all respects, as I sup-
posed, un veritable Chasseur d'Afrique. I learned
that this colonel was the painter, Horace Vernet,
on his way to make some sketches for the gov-
ernment. He is a colonel of the National Guard,
and I suppose wears the uniform from fancy. At
Avignon, his birthplace, is the famous Mazeppa
that you have so often seen engraved."
"Some, Feb. 3d, 1850.
"DEAR MOTHER, Forgive the stupidity of my
letters. Attention and observation have become
my only faculties; cramming my only occupation.
Some time I hope to digest all this. Men are known
and formed by the company they keep, and when
one's sole companion is John Murray 'the trav-
eler's Bible,' what can you expect ? I am staying
a little longer here, for the sake of the Carnival,
though the feeling of the people will prevent much
of the usual gayety ; but you know it would hardly
do to miss a thing that one has heard so much
about, and one of the great lions of the modern
world. The pleasure of my stay in Rome has been
very much increased by the kindness of the C 's,
48 ROME. [1850
and I have a new set of friends in the Aspinwalls.
But I must tell you how I got here. It was a
lovely sail by steamer from Marseilles to Genoa.
That being my first Italian town, interested me
extremely, in a thousand different ways the cos-
tumes of the men, the picturesque veils of the
women, the delightful narrow streets, the palaces,
the Vandykes. We landed at Leghorn in a snow-
storm, and the next day had to put into the harbor
of San Stefano. The country between Civita Vecchia
and Rome was the most desolate 1 ever saw or im-
agined only a few huts, and shepherds clad in
goat skins, more shaggy than the goats they tended,
and far more savage than the beautiful gray oxen.
With this desert on one side, and the glorious sea
on the other, the solitude was strange and intense.
I ran about Rome the next day, full of excitement,
till I reached the Capitol, and climbed the tower at
top, from whence I had all Rome at my feet. There,
my dear mother, was the Forum! and between me
and it a succession of ruins, triumphal arches,
broken pillars ; enough to suggest the ancient mag-
nificence; enough to make me feel that this was
Rome, and recall a few of the lessons that formed
the boy and influenced the young man. The day
was superb, and the mountains, covered with snow,
made an admirable background; below, the eye lost
itself in the great plain of the Campagna, seem-
ing like a great lake. Towards the west were
the heights of the Janiculum and the Vatican,
crowned with stone pines, and to the north Mod-
^T. 21] ROME. 49
ern Rome domed up ! After satisfying my eyes
with a good long look, I took out my map, and
studied the localities, till I felt pretty well at home,
and then started for an exploration, in which I will
not force you to follow me. You do not want a
description of St. Peter's, and I will only say that
I was not disappointed, though it seemed some-
what different from my preconceived ideas. . . .
One thing that impressed me in the sculptures of
the Vatican was the wonderful life-like perfection
of the animals, and they have been very interest-
ing to me. I did not know how admirable in na-
ture and expression the lions, tigers, horses, dogs
and birds of the ancients were, and so I had an
agreeable surprise in the hall of animals; rinding
myself in a petrified menagerie, only needing the
spell reversed, to let loose their fury upon me.
"One of the great charms to me in Rome has
been the multitude of beautiful views that you
have on every side; making new combinations of
river, mountain, and the broad expanse of the
Campagna, with the mass of the modern city, and
the ruins of the old. Any one of these alone were
worth coming to Rome for, as I felt while lying
this morning in the sun, in front of the church of
St. Onofrio, looking down upon the city, and giv-
ing myself to quiet enjoyment. Then I entered
the church, interesting for some pictures, and par-
ticularly as being the place where the poet was
buried whom I have to thank for some of my hap-
piest hours. It was in the convent of San Onofrio
50 NAPLES. [1850
that Tasso passed the few last days of his life. You
may imagine that I felt some interest in standing
by the grave of the man who has Christianized
my Dioraed into my Tancred. The monk who was
my guide took me into his apartment, which still
contains some of his little private effects a pen-
case, a reading-glass, a crucifix, an autograph let-
ter written just before his death."
"Naples, Feb. 17th, 1850.
"The views leaving Home and on the journey
were most interesting. I arrived here just too late
for a magnificent eruption of Vesuvius, but I has-
tened to ascend, in hopes of seeing its effects. The
air here is delicious, the sky and water beautiful
it is a divine place 'all save the spirit of man ' I
have enjoyed the museum, the Pompeian relics of
Art, and the noble antique statues."
These European letters alone would fill a volume,
and it is necessary to hasten on, and omit all but what
is characteristic of himself.
"Friday, March 8th.
" I am at Athens, where I arrived to-day. We
had a delightful sail to Messina, down the beauti-
ful Bay of Naples and along the purple shores of
Sicily. Soon after leaving Messina, we came in
sight of a very large mountain, rising far above its
neighbors. At first, though its outline seemed
strangely familiar, I did not make it out, but as
we approached there could be no mistaking Etna !
MT. 21] THE ISLES OF GREECE. 51
At sunset, its form was still clear against the sky.
Next morning we arrived at Malta. This climate
is said to be intolerable, the island becomes a sort
of griddle, and already, March 5th, it is too warm,
and roses in bloom. We left Malta in a beautiful
sunset, and I was just able to get on deck the sec-
ond evening in time to get a glimpse of the shores
of Greece. We were just in view of the southern
headlands of Laconia, and next morning were fairly
along shore, with the isles of Greece on every side,
and between the shores of Argolis and JEgina on
one hand, and Sunium on the other. Passing
.Egina, we could see the ruins of the temple of
Jupiter, Pan Hellenus, and already the Acropolis
had been some time in sight. The view in ap-
proaching was fine the plain of Athens, sur-
rounded by a great semicircle of mountains,
with the harbor of the Pireeus in the foreground,
filled with ships of different flags, and to the
left the bay of Salamis, where the English fleet
is lying.
"The first thing that struck me was the exces-
sive barrenness of the country, increased by the
intense cold of the past winter, which has de-
stroyed almost everything oranges, palms, and
even olives; I have been told that the snow lay
fourteen inches deep in the streets, and the mer-
cury went down to 16 F. To get a good impres-
sion of Athens one should enter from Elensis;
there the country is more cultivated, and the
vVcropolis descends more boldly on that side.
52 A THENS. [1850
" I strolled about, feeling very miserable after
five days of seasickness, until I was restored by
seeing the columns of Jupiter Olympus, and I lin-
gered about, enjoying the view, till the sun went
down most gloriously behind the mountains on the
other side, making long shadows from the crags
that break the surface of the plain. The Ilissus,
you know, is only a brook, dry in the summer, but
the ravine is picturesque, and there is a pretty
little cascade close by the temple. Altogether
the view was beautiful, heightened by the fresh
green of the springing wheat, and had accessories
that only Athens could show.
"Next morning we spent several hours at the
Acropolis. You can imagine I was glad to stand
there, and see with my eyes and my imagination
what Pericles saw. Nature has remained the same,
and these beautiful shores and waters are now as
then. It requires but little help from the fancy to
restore and repeople these unrivaled shores. I
was surprised to find how large a portion of the
ruins remain lying about, so that a great deal could
be set up again, but of course it would not be
desirable.
" On Monday we were off with a party for Mara-
thon. Leaving Athens we passed over an extensive
plain, with Hymettus on our right and Pentelicus
just before, with other mountains stretching all
about. The scene, with the fine cool morning air,
produced with me an exhilaration that was almost
childish delight. I go too easily from one extreme
-<ET. 21] MARA THON. 53
to the other. We passed a grove of very remark-
able old olives, ' older than Christianity,' the guide
said, gnarled and twisted, and curiously knotted,
like cables. The road was the worst I ever saw,
and some of the party performed singular feats
of horsemanship, rudely severing all ties. After
winding for a long time among the rocks, we
began to go down an almost precipitous descent,
and saw before us the plain of Marathon, with the
sea making a most exquisite curve within a point,
and in the background the blue heights of Euboea.
We had a good gallop over the plain, though some
of it is marshy. It is covered with white narcissus,
and there were plenty of little daisies and bluebells,
to say nothing of the especial flower of Greece, the
beautiful anemone or paparona, in all colors, from
white, through all the shades of pink, to a deep
rich purple and brilliant scarlet, which carpets the
ground.
" A little elevation, called the tomb of the Athe-
nians, gives you an excellent view. It seems a
capital place for the movements of infantry, though
rather heavy for cavalry, and with the rugged
heights behind, is an exceedingly strong position.
I wish I could tell you more of what I have done,
as, for example, the ascent of Pentelicus."
"April 13th, 1850.
" I wrote last from Athens, just before starting
for a tour in the Morea. Of course we go on horse-
back, as there are only three carriage roads in
54 THE MO RE A. [1850
Greece, and we take a guide and all necessaries
with us, as there are no hotels. The road from
Athens to Megara is exceedingly beautiful. Leav-
ing Athens, you turn up the pass of Daphne, hav-
ing a superb view of the Acropolis, the Parthenon,
Pentelicus, the town, and the bay, seeing the whole
across the green plain, and the olives of the Aca-
deme a simple, striking view, that takes hold of
the mind and the memory like no other. Passing
the little monastery of Daphne, between two hills,
you come upon a view different but equally fine
the lovely sweep of the bay of Eleusis-Salamis, and
the lofty mountains behind Megara; the waters a
glorious blue, such as you find only in these seas,
and the mountains of clear yet softened tints, as
they are always in Greece, like forget-me-nots. I
have become by this time enough of a traveler not
to be frightened by any place, however dirty, and
go everywhere, and look at everything, sure al-
ways that what a 'Milordo Americane' does, will
always be right. Thus I have got a very good
idea of life in Greece. From Megara I started for
Corinth, in a violent snow-storm. The roads in
Greece are as bad as possible, they are half moun-
tain, and half mud. Next day to Nauplia, and
the fourth to Argos, and returned to Athens nearly
by the same route. I hope ' something to my ad-
vantage' may turn up one of these days, and give
me an opportunity of seeing all the ivorld.
"You may think my desires for longer travel
absurd with my means, but I have already con-
-Ex. 21] THERMOPYLAE. 55
suited prudence, and turned back from Constan-
tinople arid the Turks.
" My second tour in Greece was to Thermopylae.
The scenery of Greece is almost peculiar to itself.
Wood is rather rare, but many of the higher
mountains are thickly covered with pines, whose
dark foliage contrasts with the brilliant white snow,
and the brilliant blue above; soft mists and heavy
clouds hang over the summits, and there are num-
berless ravines, chasms, gorges, dells, most exquis-
itely beautiful, that a thousand times repay for the
vexations of the journey. Keturning from Ther-
mopylae, the clouds breaking suddenly showed me
Parnassus just in front, capped with heavy snow;
farther off I could see the familiar outline of Heli-
con and its outlying hills, and Cithaeron faintly in
the distance. These noble mountains were the
grander features of the scene, Parnassus rising
abruptly from the lake-like plain, green and un-
inclosed. To pay for this we had to put up at a
wretched Khan, where the fleas left not an inch
untouched as I lay on the floor, an owl hooted all
night over my head, and a boy coughed awfully.
For one moment I dropped asleep, and the next
awoke with a dream that the day of judgment had
come. This was on the site of the old Cheronsea.
The lovely anemones were my companions for the
whole journey."
"Venice, April 19th, 1850.
"To-night Venice has been enchanting! Always,
even in the remorseless glare of noonday, the Pi-
56 VENICE. [1850
azza di San Marco is like the vision of a fairy tale,
but this evening, moonlight, darkened each mo-
ment by passing clouds, has given the scene a ro-
mantic charm that no words of mine can present.
I walked until my feet ached, trying to stop, but
compelled to go on. The moon shone from time
to time on the water, and the Salute, and San
Giorgio, while on the other side a heavy black
mass of clouds shone now and then with sudden
lightning, against which the great Campanile stood
grandly. Again I say, it was enchanting! The
romance that gives interest to the very name of
Venice meets with no disappointment when tested
by reality. As usual, it is different from your ex-
pectations, and you regret the sad decay that shows
itself everywhere, but the novelty and real beauty
that remain are quite enough to make itmost memor-
able among the scenes that a traveler would recall.
But this pleasure could not last; a life here, I should
think, would be almost insupportable: man is not
amphibious, and the perpetual and unstable gon-
dola; the canal at every turn, green and muddy,
instead of your own little grass-plat; the want of
the cheerful rattle and bustle of a crowded city, all
this would make Venice a place to wonder at and
admire, but where you would feel always afloat,
and never have a home feeling. The climate here
is very injurious to pictures and marbles, and causes
the buildings to decay. Padua is one great studi-
ous cloister. Everywhere the country is putting
on spring colors, and the horse-chestnut blossoms
^ST. 21] FLORENCE. 57
carry me home at once, as I think of the beautiful
tree opposite our house."
Visiting Verona, and all the cities of northern Italy,
we find him next at Florence, where, as usual, he ob-
serves closely people and things, art and nature, and
writes minutely.
"The situation of Florence is the most beautiful
that you can imagine, in the midst of green hills
scattered with villas. This is May, the most lovely
month in Italy. I begin to understand what the
poets mean by May, and also to realize the actual
beauty of the highly praised Italian sky. Since
the weather has become settled, we have had
Claude sunsets in abundance. There is no more
clearness, no more brilliant coloring, than at home,
ours cannot be equaled for gorgeousness of cloud-
scenery, but there is a sort of impalpable haze,
that refines the outlines, and makes the tints more
delicate, without indistinctness. Just before sun-
set, the horizontal rays are intercepted by this me-
dium, and it makes itself visible, veiling but not
hiding, and throwing a rich golden glow over
everything, and giving you exactly the effect that
you see in Claude's scenes, but with all the inten-
sity of Nature.
"It would take me a week to tell you all I have
seen in the galleries and streets of Florence and
Siena. Whether any of the celebrated works of
art deserve the enthusiastic admiration lavished
upon them I have long ceased to doubt."
58 ITALIAN JOURNEYS. [18-50
By Pistoja he goes on through lovely scenery to
the Baths of Lucca, "the beau ideal of a water-
ing-place," to Pisa, " the beauty of whose wonder-
ful Piazza, so quiet, solemn, and apart, with its
unrivaled group of buildings, the world can hai'dly
equal," ran down again to Genoa by the Riviera di
Ponente, where " some of the views over land and
water are as beautiful as mind can conceive," by
the magnificent Gulf of Spezia and Carrara. From
Genoa to Nice, to see the Eiviera, which well de-
serves all the praise bestowed upon it. Such views
are quite indescribable, and the road itself, and the
little towns are greatly to be admired." To the
modern, brilliant city of Turin, to gay Milan,
" where, though you may criticise, you would ra-
ther give yourself up to the solemn reverence that
a truly Gothic Cathedral, the noblest work of man,
inspires. It is a most fairy-like place, the stone
seems to lose its quality of weight, while it retains
that of stability and strength. This is partly owing
to the finish of the details. You begin resolutely
to study the lines of the foundation, but before you
know it you run up a buttress to its exquisite statue
and pinnacle, and lose yourself in the blue sky. I
have seen nearly all the best specimens of monu-
mental architecture in Italy, many of them hidden
carefully under curtains, or a lock and key; here
you have a great building quite as delicately
wrought, and standing freely in public gaze."
By the fascinating old towns of Bergamo and
Brescia, he makes the tour -of the Italian Lakes.
M-r. 21] SWITZERLAND. 59
" The world is full of flowers now, the fields scarlet
with poppies, the views the loveliest that eyes ever
beheld."
"St. Gall, Switzerland, June 30th, 1850.
" MY DEAR MOTHER, From a fair and lovely spot
in this land, whose exquisite beauty and wild
grandeur have begun to open upon me, I begin
on Sunday morning my first letter from Switzer-
land to those I love best. We walked over the
Spliigen Pass from Chiavenna. Parts of the pass
are richly wooded with chestnuts, then beeches
and ashes, whose delicate foliage, in contrast with
evergreens, clothes the mountain sides. You soon
become so hardened to waterfalls that you hardly
notice them. Then come the flowers, and then the
stern desolation of the heights, silent and lonely,
save for the friendly trickle of some little stream
that accompanies you on your way, growing as
you descend. And then what a charm the smiling
valleys have, with their villages, pastures and or-
chards (almost like home), after the stupendous
Via Mala !
" I am sure there is no river in the world that
does so much as the Rhine ! The more I think of
this country of Switzerland, the more wonderful
it seems to me, the great watershed of Europe,
the home of freedom, the strong barrier, and, in the
midst of populous lands, a hermitage, a solitude,
where man can retire to worship God, and measure
himself with nature. At Coire, P left me, and
I got a splendid knapsack, and went on alone to
60 SWITZERLAND. [1850
the baths of Pf'affers, a most interesting place,
where you seem to be let completely into the se-
crets of Nature. Leaving this, I follow down the
valley of the Rhine, and reach the lovely village
ofWildhaus." . . .
It were pleasant to accompany him in his pedestrian
tour through Switzerland; but his minute and enthu-
siastic accounts of all the usual and unusual routes,
peaks, passes, and glaciers, would occupy too much
space. He made the "tour of Monte Kosa," the
"tour of Mont Blanc," walked immensely, but made
no great ascensions. During the tour of Mont Blanc,
he ascended a mountain called the Cramont, famous
for one of the best views of the great peak.
" Getting what I thought sufficient directions, I
started off alone, the mountain being directly in
front of the village (of Cormayeur). For a couple
of hours the ascent was not difficult, and after a
pleasant walk, with the view of Mont Blanc grow-
ing finer and finer, I found myself at the foot of
the precipitous portion of the ascent, a distance of
about 2000 feet, the whole height being 8000.
Here I found a cowboy who showed me the path
to the top, which, making a detour, avoided the
precipice by climbing an ascent nearly as steep.
It is always one of the pleasant things among the
Alps to meet with human faces, and human habi-
tations, with their cheerful accompaniments of cow-
bells. I pulled up this sharp ascent for nearly an
hour, and then found farther progress stopped by
Me. 21] MOUNTAIN ADVENTURES. 61
a wall of rock ahead, while the path turned round
it. I looked up the wall, and supposing it only
an affair of a couple hundred feet or so, determined
upon an escalade, and picking out a good place
began my climb. The wall was very much like
the face of East Kock, but being of broken flaky
limestone it afforded footing and handhold, though
neither very secure, so that after a quarter of an
hour of really very hard work, I reached the point
which I had supposed to be the summit. Imagine
my surprise and almost consternation, when I found
that the crag I had attained was nothing more
than a bastion of the grand wall, which, higher
and more inaccessible, towered above my head. I
felt myself 'in a fix.' To descend, I was sure was
almost impossible. To get up had been dangerous,
and I did not dare to go over it, with the addi-
tional impetus of down-hill work. I looked up at
the frowning wall before me, and down the one
which I had ascended, and knew that if my hand
or foot should fail me, or if a stone should give
way, it was quite unlikely that I should write any
more letters home. The view from this point was
very grand, for I had taken my seat upon a point
of rock, and could look at it quietly. This side of
Mont Blanc is bolder, and less hidden by other
summits than that towards Chamounix, the rest
of the chain too is very grand, particularly the
column-like crag of the Geant, and the serrated
edge of the Jorasses. The morning mists had
rolled away, and all their snows glittered against
62 MOUNTAIN ADVENTURES. [1850
the metallic luster of the sky. I could see directly
under my feet the chalets I had passed in the morn-
ing, and the smoke of some charcoal burners' fires.
Even the sound of the bells came up distinctly to
my ears. Except a little of the valley of Corma-
yeur the rest was all a prison-like wall of rock, a
prison with a door large enough indeed, but which
opened into a place as disagreeable as would have
been the oubliette of a torture chamber, if the un-
fortunate culprit could have looked before he leaped.
However, it did not take me as long as the writ-
ing of these lines to decide, that, as I could not go
down, and could not spend my life in this spot, I
must go up ; so collecting myself, and putting my
trust in Providence, I went at it, tooth and nail.
I don't care about tiring you with the rest of my
climb I should not like to do it again and when,
after an escalade of an hour, I found myself at
the summit, my first act was to kneel down and
thank God that my life, however useless, had been
preserved for a time. After enjoying the superb
panorama of mountains from the top, I descended
on the back, where for a short distance it is some-
what steep, but nothing in comparison
The next day about three o'clock I found my self quite
a lion among some guides, for having already done
what they considered a long day's journey, and in-
tending to do four hours more. At six, we reached
the charming baths of St. Gervais. I was so little
tired with my walk of thirteen hours, that I was al-
most ready for a dance they got up in the evening."
Mr. 21] GERMANY AND HOLLAND. 63
Five closely-written sheets do not suffice for his de-
light in Chamounix and its excursions, "its sunsets
that cannot be described, its unsullied noonday skies."
The letter closes at Geneva, the end of his Swiss tour.
Again he says,
" I close this letter at Frankfort, filled with hope-
ful thoughts for you all. A year and more has
passed since I left home, a year which seems to me
like the vision of a dream. I have walked in my
sleep, and seen things without knowing how. The
autumn begins to come on again, and the wind to
have a gloomy sound, so I am glad I have no more
space to fill to-day."
Another very long letter tells of a visit to Strasbourg,
to Baden, the Rhine, Heidelberg, Cologne, and takes
him to Holland. He finds a resemblance between
Amsterdam and New York
"all but its extreme cleanliness. It shows the
corruption of the world that a place should be ad-
mired for what ought to be a matter of course.
The windmills are the most striking objects. In
some directions they seem to be in forests, and woe
would it have been to Don Quixote if he had found
himself in such a throng; the watermills would
have ducked him, the sawmills sliced him, like any
bit of tough old timber, the oilmills squeezed the
juices out of his hungry carcass, and the gristmills
finished the unfortunate hero by making him into
sausage meat."
64 PARIS. [1850
"I close in Paris, where I ana now established,
after finishing my tour in Holland, and seeing
something of Belgium. I have a room across the
river in the Rue de I University for which I am to
pay 25 francs a month. My breakfast costs 2 sous,
arid my dinner in proportion. Sunday next being
Sept. 22d, I attain the age of 22. Such a com-
bination of 2's ought to produce good fortune. I
am rather young still ! I am studying French, hard,
and take a lesson every day. In the past year I
have learned a thing or two, and Paris seems to
me like an old friend, with whom I can look back
upon the past. And yet with what different eyes
I look upon it all ! If it were not for the assurance
of your love, and the hope of making myself worthy
of it, and of showing, to you and to others, that all
your thoughtfulness, all your sacrifices, and all the
power of your beautiful example, have had their in-
fluence in saving me from intellectual and moral
worthlessness, if it were not for you and a few
others who love me, Life, with its weary weight
of mysteries and doubts, of hopeless searchings
into an obdurate future, of disgusts and contempts,
of unanswerable questionings, would lose all that
makes it even endurable. An almost total despair
sometimes comes over me ! Can even love, can
even Faith, make this existence tolerable?" . . .
" Paris, Dec. 12th, 1850.
"Mr DEAR MOTHER, The interval that has elapsed
since you last heard from me, did not come from
negligence. It was the desire to give you a sur-
M-r.M] HOME AGAIN. 65
prise. I had thought it out a dozen times how I
should reach New York iri the evening, too late
for the last train for HOME ! How I should rush
over to Staten Island, a terra incognita to me
and find them just locking up ; then arriving next
morning at New Haven, should enter by the back
door, and catch all the family in the midst of their
several avocations. With this idea in my mind I
refrained from writing, lest I should betray myself.
I shall not tell you what steamer I intend to take,
expect me till I come ; it will not be so soon as you
think, and I want to spare you the anxiety of count-
ing days. It seems hard to go home, yet inexpress-
ibly joyful ! The very prospect makes my heart
almost leap out of my mouth, and writing seems
absurd. No more husks ! Hurrah ! fatted calves
and best robes, for the Enfant Prodigue is coming
home ! Put your best foot foremost, everybody,
and take me to your heart again, my beloved
mother. T. W."
On his return home, in Jan., 1851, he writes in his
journal:
"I can now see that I have gained much. I
have placed myself on a higher level, whence I
can look at my increased forces, and see that they
are, in some respects, ready for battle. They are
but raw levies, willing, but ignorant and undisci-
plined there is nothing of the steadiness of veteran
troops about them. It will be a work of time, but
I hope they will turn out good soldiers.
66 NEW LIFE. [1851
" I would not now give up any of the lessons I
learned in Europe, and I wish I could remember
how I learned them. No more, I hope, shall I waste
time in deploring. I shall bewail no more that I
have done no more. I shall try to avoid looking back
with the morbid self-reproachful feeling, which I
have encouraged, rather than checked, thus far. It
is a dangerous thing to my progress. I could wish
that I had an accurate history of that miserable
three months I spent in Paris."
From this time begins a new era in his life, a time
of new resolves, of greater firmness, of greater cheer-
fulness and courage. Some poems, written about these
days, express this mood, and show also that he had
begun to grasp words and rhythm, and to prove his
weapons. Not a single poem that he ever wrote ap-
pears to be finished, or to have received the last
touches from his hand, but were fragments, scribbled
on the backs of letters and other scraps of paper, and
thrown aside. There is a swing and a life in the fol-
lowing lines, as if they were thought out as he paced
the deck while nearing the country he loved so well,
while his heart burned with the nearness of home, and
his blood thrilled at the touch of the land wind.
Dash ! Dash from wave to onward wave !
Eager ship ! not eager as my heart !
Lift freer ! bound bolder ! while the brave
Comrade gales, wilder, fresher start !
Heaving, curling, foaming emerald swells !
Take twilight thro' each jeweled crest !
22] EARLY POEMS. 67
Shades deepen down the emerald dells,
Wild winds come roaring from the west.
Wild winds ! not wilder than my hope !
When summit-poised, I see the shore
Glimmer far, plunging down the slope,
Steep surges greet me with their roar.
Wandering soul ! who knows what deeper joy,
What deeper sorrow now shall test
Thy manlier manhood ? What if coy
Love, long sought love, should meet thy quest V
Tremble not, nor stir thy steady calm:
Sad heart, be still ! world saddened heart !
Nor dare to lift triumphant psalm
Thou hast not learned to know thy part !
Grand sea ! oh sweep me homeward fast !
Mine is a land of surging sweeps,
Lone forests, prairies rolling vast,
Palisades of fortress mountain-steeps.
Noble land to stride athwart, and wake
All its myriads up to nobler thought;
Dull sleep of thousand hearts to brake,
Till great deliverance is wrought ! (1851).
NOETHEEN LIGHTS.
Wild soul of mine, be strong, be brave !
Vast land of mine, thy opening skies
Where omen lights dash wave on wave,
Crowd night with hopes, when daylight dies,
Telling me my wings shall yet be free,
Nobler far their soaring yet shall be !
68 EARLY POEMS. [1851
Visions truer than what daylight gives,
Pace grandly down my shadowy dreams;
Trailing light they march, a glow that lives
Brightening, till my darkness radiance seems.
Call you midnight this ? methinks proud day
Proudly thus his noontide might array.
Cold brilliance of a northern sky,
Rosier than tropic sunset glows;
Spirit pageants bannered gloriously
Throng heaven with triumph. Ghostly snows
Wintry piled in silver swelling mass
Flush with golden splendors as they pass.
Then startling voices rouse my soul:
"Weird whispers, strangely stirring, breathe
Through mazy flashes, to a scroll
Rune written dancers twine and wreathe,
Mortal music never such as this
Taught sadness certainty of bliss !
Certain bliss, yet nobler effort still !
Grander duties, gemmed with finer joys !
Prophet glories nerve me to fulfil
True hope, that worthily destroys
All the long ignoble bitter past;
Merging it in strength and peace at last.
(1851.)
DEFEAT?
Forgotten aspirations ! Faint
Trembles of bygone tumult, heavings stilled !
Prayers when I deemed myself a saint 1
Uplifting dreams ! thoughts with broad visions filled !
MT. 22] EARL Y POEMS. 69
Forgotten ! as the ocean has forgot
The mastery of winds that raged but now,
In swaying sunniest calm, that carelessly
Dashes with petty shifting smiles its brow.
Oh shoaling heart ! oh thin
And sandy, scattered, aimless flowing life !
Even its deeper spots have been
Fouled darkly by a secret inward strife.
Once to have heard a tone
Diviner than a dreamy symphony,
Call, thro' the silence of unknown
Awe, and a grand expectancy,
To feel a silence thronged with power
Of thoughts, like to a kneeling legion band,
Whose vows are war-cries in the hour
Of death, of martyrdom for fatherland;
And then their tramp, their throng
Bound the brave soul that, marshaling them on,
Sweeps forward with an impulse strong
Those eager souls, till life or death is won !
Oh coward heart ! defeat ?
Better have died than fled ! Better have died
Than falsely, weakly struggling, deign to treat
With those assassin foes you march beside !
Therefore they ceased, my grand
Bursts of exalted, of inspiring thought;
Hardly a straggler dares to stand
Hidden, and mourning the vain fight they fought.
70 EARLY POEMS. [18S1
Sadly I watch the dying sunset paint
My hopes with gray, their promise unfulfilled,
Nor longer catch the glory, lingering faint,
Of splendor lost to him who feebly willed.
WAITING.
So I may only live thro' my despair,
And feel the grand revulsion, and repair
My weary night watch of dull misery,
By one full gaze at unveiled ecstasy,
So I may know the terrible delight,
Intense as madness, of one instant's sight
Into the heaven of passion, when like flame
Leap the quick pulses quivering thro' my frame;
For such illumined moments I will grope
Through gloomiest ways, bearing my half-quenched
hope,
Till its charred ashes suddenly awake,
And wondrous flashes 'thwart the darkness break.
Let me not waste in skirmishes my powei-,
In petty struggles, rather in the hour
Of deadly conflict may I nobly die !
In my first battle perish gloriously !
No level life for me, no soft smooth seas,
No tender plaintive notes of lulling breeze:
I choose the night, so I may feel the gale,
Even though it wreck me on my foamy trail.
n- 22] EARLY POEMS. 71
I cannot tamely, coldly-patient live,
And all my glowing fire to ashes give !
Let ruddy light, fierce, ardent, searching flame
Arouse the dying pulses of my frame.
FEAGMENTS.
Tis grander to have merited renown,
Than to have gained it
If strong desire could conquer fate, I'd conquer
'Tis the wild battle, 'tis the crashing charge !
The shout of victory, the maddened shout;
The ecstatic agony of victor death.
He stood as a lone island lighthouse stands
On a mad midnight sea
It was the cooling of his religious enthusiasm that
he mourned in some of these verses, but if he had not
so high an ideal, would he have felt such self-contempt?
CHAPTER III.
MANHOOD.
A FTEE settling down at home, and losing the first
*- freshness of its novelty, discouragement seemed
again to close upon him. He saw no opening in life
to satisfy his hope or his eager ambition, or even to
make his living. He had become quite intimate in
Europe with Mr. W. H. Aspinwall, who took an in-
terest in him, as every one did who was brought into
his society, and felt the influence of his sweet temper,
genial manners, and original mind. He visited at Mr.
Aspinwall's house on Staten Island, and it was from
thence that the new impulse and new hope was to
come.
Extracts from Journal.
"April, 1851. I was long uncertain as to what
would be my course in life, and almost despaired
again; but when things seemed at their worst, I
received Mr. Aspinwall's offer and hope revived
again. On the first of April, 1851, I began my
new life, by entering the office of the Pacific Mail
Steamship Company, where I am to be for a time.
My occupation has principally been copying papers,
and I suppose it will be some time before I am fit
Mi. 22] THE STEAMSHIP COMPANY. ' 73
for anything else. My education with respect to
business is, I think, below the average. Still, if
taking pains can teach me, there shall be no lack.
I am interested already, and not merely in feeling
that I arn settled, and no longer idle, but in the
glimpses I get of the management of the most
important and varied affairs of the concern. My
Spanish studies go on slowly. Mr. Aspinwall com-
mands more and more my admiration. I too would
be clear and distinct as the form of a fossil fish.
Self-command ! attention ! energy !
" Men die for three reasons, because they have
not, because they cannot, because they will not,
achieve their destiny. Blessed are the good aul
faithful servants who are numbered in the first
class. Not to be despised, but worthy of all com-
passion and sympathy, are those feebler ones whom
Providence withdraws from the conflict, because
they are unequal to it. But cursed, wretched above
measure are the traitors, who seeing clearly and
knowing fully what they might be, forget their
honor, and desert their standards, fighting against
their lord. As for me, I would be in the first class,
but finding myself in the third, prefer, even with a
shock to my pride, to be ranked in the second."
To his mother he writes:
New York, April 14th, 1851.
" I feel that I cannot let another day pass with-
out a word from me. I have now been a fortnight
in my new place, and begin to be accustomed to its
74 STATEN ISLAND [1851
ways. Thus far, my employment has been pretty
mechanical
"The company has the control of fourteen or fif-
teen large steamers on the Pacific side, and more or
less to do with Law's Company on the Atlantic, and
>' 'tli parties are building new ones. The enormous
receipts that marked the first trips of our steamers,
amounting more than once to a clear profit of sev-
enty thousand dollars on a single trip, have ceased,
but the business is steady, and like to continue so.
In the office we have a pleasant set. I have only
the evening to myself, and I should of course like
more time to study, but I am quite contented, if I
were only perfectly well."
"April, 1851. Staten Island was charming to-day
in its fresh verdure.' Spring is a season one hardly
knows how to fix; it comes with the first maple
blossoms, and goes away with the last violet, soar-
ing away on the back of the last bluebird, when it
hears the war note of the first mosquito. Shrink-
ing back from the first cankerworm, it flies in ter-
ror from the first thunderstorm."
Winthrop remained during the summer in the Steam-
ship Company's office, and was also requested by Mr.
Aspinwall, who was sincerely desirous to befriend him,
to take some supervision of the studies of his son. He
did so, and a proposal followed from Mr. Aspinwall
that Winthrop should go to Switzerland with his son
and nephew, and place them in a school of his own se-
lection, still retaining his situation in the office.
Mi. 22] A TALE OF REVENGE. 75
" S. will have told you of our Jenny Lind con-
cert together; to me it was a great enjoyment, mal-
gre the loss of my pocket handkerchief (ragged) in
the crowd. She is great !
" Stolen Island. At Mr. Aspinwall's. The situa-
tion of this place is admirable, a constant source of
new delight, and the frequent passing of ocean
steamers and fine ships seems to bring one into
contact with the whole wide world. I feel much
better in health. I had a long walk on the beach
last night, with a fine surf coming up from sea-
ward, and roaring on the shore. I wander about
the woods, and see the sunset from the telegraph
station, and sometimes feel almost as if happiness
were possible. The weather here has been lovely,
and the moon exquisite
" Mr. , who has just returned from Cuba,
told me the following story, worthy a place in the
annals of Eevenge. A certain Pedro Gomez, one
of the richest proprietors on the island of Cuba,
had injured most deeply one of his countrymen.
The latter determined upon revenge, and followed
Gomez one day into the Cathedral, where there
were but a few persons present, and while he was
on his knees, came up behind him, and poured
a large bottle of vitriol 011 his head and person.
While his victim was writhing in agony at his feet,
and before the persons attracted by the screams
could secure the fiend, he said to Gomez ' Now I
am content! I have looked upon your tortures,
and this instant repays me for all you have made
76 SARATOGA. [1851
me suffer; but my revenge does not end here you
will not die, but linger through a life worse than
death, deprived even of the pleasure of my pun-
ishment. I escape you, and perish with the cer-
tainty, the ecstasy of your misery.' As he said
this, he swallowed a powerful poison, and fell dead
on the spot. Gomez survived, and is still living,
a total wreck, and completely blind. This story
had a great power over me. It is of the intense
and dramatic kind that I love."
A short vacation took him to visit his brother at
Owego, to Niagara, Trenton, Saratoga, etc.
Letter from Saratoga.
"Aug., 1851.
"The gyrations of my route have led me hither-
ward, and I am to-day making my first acquaint-
ance with an American watering place. It speaks
volumes in praise of that ' best thing, Water,' that
it should enter of necessity into all the ideas of
pleasure and pleasant places, whether as lake,
ocean, cataract, broad river, mountain brook, or
clear spring. In all, water, the prime object of
admiration, proves itself the chief element. Water
is spiritualized earth and air, and partakes of the
merits of both. I have lately been attracted by
water to Niagara and Trenton. I found myself at
the former place, very dirty, and without my port-
manteau, which the Express had not delivered.
When Sunday morning came I was in a quandary.
I could visit the falls without a clean shirt, but
then there was the great fact of dinner, there was
MT. 22] NIAGARA. 77
church, there was the uncomfortable sense of being
out of uniform, and wanting the white breastplate
of a gentleman, which would exclude me from the
society of my peers. While I was going upstairs,
I saw flitting across the distance the form of a
young lady whom I know, and whose mother I
also know. Though neither the lady nor her mothei
could supply my wants, a ray of hope entered my
breast ; she must have a protector, father, brother,
lover, somebody. Father it proved to be, and beg-
ging an interview with him in the name of his
daughter and wife, I unbosomed myself. He in-
stantly bosomed me, and, with great kindness, of-
fered me everything else. It was a most romantic
use for the father of a charmer, and when I pre-
sented myself to the ladies with the interior drapery
of a man six feet by four, gracefully disposed about,
my person, I thought I detected a smile of admira-
tion. I became their Esquire during my visit, and
had two delightful afternoon strolls. I am rejoiced
that I did not see Niagara until capable of swal-
lowing it whole. I was delighted with Trenton.
Particulars in my next."
" The day I left you is marked with white in my
calendar, for I met D wight Foster at the station
and had a delightful journey with him, and we re-
viewed the time since our separation. Our lives
had been widely different, and interesting to each
other. He is most congenial. A noble fellow !
"The views from the Staten Island hills are
superb, from Toad Hill at sunset, and still more from
78 STATEN ISLAND HILLS. [1851
Grymes hill above the Quarantine. Here you look
upon the bay, the city, and the sea. The bay is
like a great lake, and the stretch of water from the
Quarantine to Sandy Hook seems like a broad river.
To-night, as the great orb of the sun was dipping
below the horizon, the blue hills drew a sharp line
against the clear sky ; heavy masses of cloud above
were penetrated with light, and the broken edges
shone like foam caps on sea waves.
"From the top of the Fort the view is even
grander, if less picturesque more ocean and less
land. The shores come sweeping round and lock-
ing together finely. It is one of the great views
of the world "
The following poems date about this time, and from
the South Beach of Staten Island, a haunt of his.
ON THE BEACH.
Oh let me look upon that dreamy sea !
A wild love-longing for its mystery
Has mastered, ever thrills and masters me.
My soul sweeps onward to the infinite,
Trembling along the delicate delight
Of waves that brighten onward still, and run
To fade in mist that is all sky and sun.
Oh let me gaze upon that dreamy sea !
It sends such quivering looks; so smilingly
Answers my smile, that its broad majesty
But deepens joy; else it might break, and waste
In gay and dimpled laughter, that has chased
POEMS.
79
Away the nobleness of silence. Now
These smile crests fitly gem this royal brow.
Oh let me look upon that dreamy sea !
Life has not crushed and dwarfed me utterly,
All furled and drooping though my sails may be.
Let the great winds but strike them, they will bear
Much baffling yet, so but the pilot dare
To plunge down twilight drift through darkness on,
Till some vast summit wave is red with dawn.
Oh let me dream beside this dreamy sea !
Ever and ever falling soothingly,
Hippies are pleading with their melody;
The massy breakers cast their might away,
And fringing sea-weeds nicker in the sway
Of wavering waters, as a maiden's hair
Is caught and lifted by the summer air.
Then voices in the surges speak to me
Of struggle, and endurance, and a free
Dash at the fates that front us terribly.
For we are flung on life as on a surge,
Heaved along unknown currents till we merge
Our being into vastness then we cease,
Yielding and borne down steadier tides of peace,
But peace of grander action. Dreamily
Then let me look beyond this dreamy sea !
Our dreams but shadow what our lives may be :
Hopes are more real than what hopes achieve.
A vision nobler than we dare believe
Sudden will burst on us, of glorious lands,
And broad, bright oceans, foaming on their- strands.
(1851.)
80 DOUBT. [1851
DOUBT.
Is this the end of all my soul's aspiring,
This crushing doubt, this blank dismay?
And must they shrink and droop my long, untiring
Struggles, to upward mount, at last, to day ?
Speak ! ye pretended prophets ! answer me !
If ye indeed the eternal radiance see ?
Oh ! ye have cheated all our eager longing,
And we, deceived, have trusted you !
"We came, like pilgrims to a temple thronging,
To find our Goddess sullied and untrue.
Your torches glimmer with no holy gleams,
Bitterly flow your promised healing streams.
"Sept. 22d, 1851. My birthday, and on the
whole an encouraging one. I have now some
hope for my health, though it can never be strong;
and for my future. I am twenty-three. Though
1 have failed in attaining my ideal, I have not
altogether lost sight of it, and even this is better
than the entire desertion of noble aims, which is
all some persons attain to. Others seem to value
me more highly than I do myself, and Mr. Aspin-
wall's confidence in the matter of his son's training
I esteem a great thing. I shall go abroad with
the hope of good success."
"Sept. 27th, 1851. Saturday was a fine day, and
we got off most successfully in the Pacific. The
afternoon was pleasant, and the sea calm. Then
came sea-sickness, which lasted more or less till
the voyage was over, though I kept about."
- 23] EUROPE AGAIN. 81
I, Oct. 8th, 1851. London. There is
no doubt that the English railroads are better than
ours, but they are also more expensive. Autumn
is fairly begun, and a rich warm hue is over every-
thing. The country cannot but be beautiful every-
where in England from its wonderful verdure."
"Thursday, Oct. 9th. Went with early ticket to
the Great Exhibition, arid had nearly an hour before
the people thronged in. Staid till two started
for Paris in the 8.30 P. M. train."
"Saturday, Oct. llth, 1851. Paris. Dinner with
the Hunts. Always pleasant and homelike with
them."
"Oct. 12th, 1851. Diligence started at 9 A. M.
The day was perfect, the course of the road love-
ly. The night ride very agreeable. About 3 A. M.
we began to ascend the mountains, and 1 had
a beautiful walk of nearly an hour, by full moon-
light, between lofty broken hills very grand, but
the dawn and the sunrise still more fine. Noth-
ing could be lovelier than the morning; we were
above the mists of the valley, which hung in broad
river courses, or lake-like expanses, gradually lift-
ing and revealing the soft fair country, the many-
colored richness of the vine-clad hills. Some of
the vines a dark winy purple the people rejoicing
in the vintage. When we were fairly in the Jura,
a grand wall rose before us all clad with glowing
leafage, varied with dark pines and white limestone
cliffs seen through. The Jura lacks the majesty
of the higher Alps; no snowy mountains, no awful
82 THE JURA. [1851
solitudes. But in place of these, soft sloping de-
scents, wooded mountain sides, crags, and steep
ravines, not too mighty for the picturesque. About
ten o'clock this morning we came in sight of the
snowy Alps, through a gap in the mountains, and
continued to descend with the chain full in view,
for two hours down a zigzag road, admirably con-
structed. I was amused to see that the Swiss, to
be superior to the French, had planted trees along
the roadside, as soon as their territory began, and
that the stone posts were better and more frequent.
I have been told, that formerly in Switzerland, when
a man married, he planted a tree by the roadside.
I climbed upon the top of the diligence, unmindful
of the grumbling of the conductor, and took my
fill of the scene. The sun of broad day brought
into full relief the snowy summits of the loftier
peaks, while the darker mountains below carried
the eye up to their glittering field, sparkling
against the living blue of the sky. A faint veil
of mist still hid the lake, which dispersed as we
descended, and we reached at last its banks be-
tween the vine-clad slopes which lined the road.
Nothing could be richer, more gay and smiling,
than this autumn scene. We arrived in Geneva
about two, and found the town as lovely as ever,
arid the sunset glorious. The Jura became a broad
mass of the softest, most exquisite blue, outlined
against the clear sky, to call whose soft brilliancy
golden, would be defamation worthy of the debased
imagination of some California Midas."
^ET. 23] GENEVA. 83
"Oc. 14th, 1851. I must make short work of
these days. Occupied pretty much all day in my
search for a school, and feeling the great difficulties
of a proper choice. Saw Merle D'Aubigne, a man
of fine appearance, decidedly national."
"Tuesday, Oct. 21st. Went to Nijou. Eefusal of
Rosin uncertainty and distress of mind. If this
question were of my own interests, I could bear
better the thought of failure. There was a large
party of English (continentalized) on board, among
them a fine daring girl of sixteen. They were evi-
dently determined to be amused, and were quite
noisy, running here and there with spyglass in
hand, calling each other's attention in a way that
English or Americans would have called horridly
vulgar in Continental or American people, but
which I only considered pleasant, especially when
there were so few on board. Returning from Nijou,
I spent some time in balancing the advantages of
the different schools, Rosin having again refused.
" Talked with Collyer on religious subjects. He
thought it made very little difference about a man's
religious profession, provided he was true and just
in his dealings, and he had found Quakers uniform-
ly so. We have churches, because there is no true
religion. What we have is so apart from our daily
life that we take it up at the door of a church,
and lay it down on coming out.
" I went to the Cathedral and saw them vote
quietly enough. If things were as they should be,
voting on Sunday and in church would not seem
84 THE VINTAGE. [1851
wrong. As to European politics at this moment,
we can only wait to see what will come next."
"Geneva, Nov. 3d, 1851.
" DEAR MOTHER, Already I have been a month
away from home, but so rapid have been my mo-
tions that it seems very brief. I have all the time
occupied myself with the object of my journey;
arranging matters with one schoolmaster after an-
other, only to find that his final judgment was
against taking Yankee boys of that age; then
beginning with another, and with no better result.
This has been very amazing to me, and I shall at
last be obliged to content myself with a place that
is good, but not the one I should have chosen, had
choice been untrammeled. I hope soon to arrange
matters so as to come away, for I do not find this
shifting kind of life very agreeable. The air here
is mild and warm, and when the sun is out you
enjoy basking. The trees and vines still rich in
coloring, and the grass green and fresh as spring.
"The vintage is nearly over there is a kind
of tipsy odor everywhere, and stacks of squeezed
grapes along the road-sides. The first punches
are given to the grapes by a flat wooden piston,
which brings out the more delicate juice; this
makes the finer wine, and then it is put into a
press and the rest is squeezed out, 1 tasted both
lands of must, and the difference was like that
between your best Madeira and a hotel's best. I
hope to see you in three weeks or so. My present
^ET. 23] JOURNAL. 85
journey has not been prolific in adventures. I
have spent my time quietly here, reading a little,
and swinging about when I had no schools to visit.
We have pleasant people at the hotel, and dinner
is always an agreeable reunion. Love to all.
"T W"
Fragments from Journal.
" I well remember when I first resolved to be-
come an author. I had just recovered from a
severe fit of sea-sickness, and was being coddled
at a friend's house oatmeal gruel with raisins was
before me. I was free from all care, and separated
from the old by the great gulf of the ocean. I was
comfortable, as an irresponsible convalescent. I
remember when I first thought of writing a book,
but do I remember why ? If I had the results of
a long life of experience to impart, it might be
my duty. But I am only a fledgeling. I can
have no experience. But there are other motives,
money, fame, the trophies of Miltiades. Who can
thoroughly know his motives ? "
" A man may have been falling a long time, but
he first knows it when he strikes upon the ground."
" I never shall forget the change which came
over my childish dream, when I went to the Mu-
seum with my cousin, and he, the younger by a
month and the taller by a foot, went in like a man,
while I was considered under his protection, and
admitted for half price."
Returning to America, he writes to his mother:
86 RETURN HOME. [1851
December 9th, 1851.
" DEAR MOTHER, On my arrival, after a long
sea-sickness followed by a swelled face and one or
two feverish nights, I felt so ill as to be rejoiced
to accept Mr. Aspinwall's kind invitation to be
nursed at his house. I hope in a few days to be
out again. I should have gone to New Haven if
I had felt able, but shall now wait to see you till
we all meet at Christmas. My journey has been
on the whole not disagreeable, yet I cannot call
it a pleasant one, and the ocean passages were not
unpleasant, though I suffered a good deal from
sickness. My stay in Geneva I enjoyed, except
the great responsibility that I felt, from the in-
dependence and expectations of indulgence of the
boys, which made me appreciate better the influ-
ences of my own home education. I liked both
boys, and sympathized with them. 1 had a frozen
journey from Geneva to Paris, where I spent several
days with the Hunts enjoying them, as I always
do, pleasantly also seeing the Woolseys. I had
only part of a day in London. Found pleasant
people on board the Pacific. The family here are
all exceedingly kind, and I am afraid that all this
clover will spoil me for a humble diet in some
cheap boarding house, which I shall have to look
up, as soon as I go out. My life for the past two
years has cultivated my taste for comfort rather
beyond my means to gratify it.
" Yours with much love,
"T. WlNTHROP."
^T. 23] POEMS. 87
It is difficult to fix the dates of all the poems, but
the following appear to have been written about this
time.
NAPOLEON AT ST. HELENA.
Aye, smile, ye bubbling ripples at my fate,
And waste your petty sneers along the shore !
He whom you fettered hold was strong and great,
Till the awed world could bear his might no more.
Power vast and terrible alone I swayed,
Princes and monarchs were to me but men,
I crushed or used them, while their clans obeyed
The man whom destiny had called to reign.
My will was empire; man would faint and fail
Without some force heroic, to support
His insufficiency. The world grew pale,
Then yielded to the man who shrunk from naught.
I was the master. As my circle spread,
And thousand thousands drew within my sphere,
By some magnetic power all souls were led,
An adamantine influence held them there.
I moved them by their weakness and their strength,
I led them by their glory and their shame,
Woke hopes, and played on passions, till at length
This best exponent I to each became.
Brave was he ? I was braver ! In the field
Of bloodiest carnage, when the battle din
Roared loudest; ranks in glittering cuirass stesled
Shrank from the man whose armor was within.
86 RETURN HOME. [1851
December 9th, 1861.
" DEAR MOTHER, On my arrival, after a long
sea-sickness followed by a swelled face and one or
two feverish nights, I felt so ill as to be rejoiced
to accept Mr. Aspin wall's kind invitation to be
nursed at his house. I hope in a few days to be
out again. I should have gone to New Haven if
I had felt able, but shall now wait to see you till
we all meet at Christmas. My journey has been
on the whole not disagreeable, yet I cannot call
it a pleasant one, and the ocean passages were not
unpleasant, though I suffered a good deal from
sickness. My stay in Geneva I enjoyed, except
the great responsibility that I felt, from the in-
dependence and expectations of indulgence of the
boys, which made me appreciate better the influ-
ences of my own home education. I liked both
boys, and sympathized with them. I had a frozen
journey from Geneva to Paris, where I spent several
days with the Hunts enjoying them, as I always
do, pleasantly also seeing the Woolseys. I had
only part of a day in London. Found pleasant
people on board the Pacific. The family here are
all exceedingly kind, and I am afraid that all this
clover will spoil me for a humble diet in some
cheap boarding house, which I shall have to look
up, as soon as I go out. My life for the past two
years has cultivated my taste for comfort rather
beyond my means to gratify it.
" Yours with much love,
"T. WlNTHROP."
.Ex. 23] POEMS. 87
It is difficult to fix the dates of all the poems, but
the following appear to have been written about this
time.
NAPOLEON AT ST. HELENA.
Aye, smile, ye bubbling ripples at my fate,
And waste your petty sneers along the shore !
He whom you fettered hold was strong and great,
Till the awed world could bear his might no more.
Power vast and terrible alone I swayed,
Princes and monarchs were to me but men,
I crushed or used them, while their clans obeyed
The man whom destiny had called to reign.
My will was empire; man would faint and fail
Without some force heroic, to support
His insufficiency. The world grew pale,
Then yielded to the man who shrunk from naught.
I was the master. As my circle spread,
And thousand thousands drew within my sphere,
By some magnetic power all souls were led,
An adamantine influence held them there.
I moved them by their weakness and their strength,
I led them by their glory and their shame,
Woke hopes, and played on passions, till at length
This best exponent I to each became.
Brave was he '? I was braver ! In the field
Of bloodiest carnage, when the battle din
Roared loudest; ranks in glittering cuirass steeled
Shrank from the man whose armor was within.
3 POEMS. [1851
Wise was lie ? I was wiser ! In my voice
Senate's conviction and intention spoke;
With me was no uncertainty of choice,
No feeble echoes from my soul awoke.
KATHARINE TERESA.
A FRAGMENT.
And this they call to be a queen; to rule !
Am I a meek thing to be ever schooled
To duncehood ? Are these trammels, law ?
These bonds of nobleness ? No ! Faugh !
I trample them ! I am a queen !
Why throned, if stolidness can screen
What I am raised a step to see,
If selfishness can darken me ?
Wise counsels from my father's friend ?
Yes, feebly wise ! would I could strip
That smile, half sneer, from his gray lip !
When my blood kindles to a flush,
When great thoughts stir me like a rush
Of mighty winds on seas that sleep,
And my soul leaps as surges leap;
He dallies all my passion back !
Is prudence all ? No melody of hope
To catch the errant music of each breeze ?
Nothing intenser than the silken slack
Clue of my babyrinth of ease ?
Better his path who darkly gropes
In the dread of caverns, till light opes
T. 23] POEMS.
Sudden beyond. Let me be free
For soaring, not for fluttering glee !
Upward I must !
Oh for one soul !
One single soul of truth and trust !
The woman in me is not strong to thrust
And trample their false duties down to dust.
Gladly, oh God ! would I enroll
My queenhood in their ranks who stand
Beckoning the world with guiding hand,
Upward, and onward ! Oh ! I cannot die
And have done nothing, nothing gloriously !
Deeds wait who dares in the wide world !
I know not what I dare not; for the deed
There lies a woman's power, but for the plan,
On large thought based, and cautious head,
The scheme to meet a giant nation's need,
This asks the wider wisdom of a man.
Oh, solitude of high desire !
Such find I none. Grant me young death,
Ye fates ! if passionate desire
For hero life must utterly expire
With youth. Just now my eager breath
Was voiceless to my faster beating heart,
Ardently scheming to my counselor,
Of freer life, in palace and in mart,
In field and forest. To the core
Of our great land a light should stride
And tame my people out of ignorance !
My people ? God's ! by me whom chance
Made queen, not slave. But he replied,
Smiling, and fondling stars upon his breast,
90 POEMS. [1851
Sneering the people down, " 'Twere best
My girlish dreams were o'er, if this
Folly they taught and dreaminess.
He had known life, and men, and null
Was fancied freedom for the mean of men.
To form us Kings and Princes, fate did cull
Her best, her bravest, her most beautiful.
Others were fitly slaves and wisely dull
For our more glowing radiance " ....
Crush not, oh God, my earnest soul !
Oh firmly true, might I enroll
My queenhood in their ranks who stand,
Beckoning the world with guiding hand
Onward and upward ! Oh I will not die,
Nor have done aught to yield life worthily !
Die ! death ? No, I must live, for I can find
No charm in lonely heaven ! But my mind
Touched with strong passion, throbs too fast
For thought. Forth I must ride, and freely cast
My troubles to the freedom of the winds.
Ho! friend!
I will not call thee slave ! attend !
Tell them to bring me a horse !
One that can gallop !
FEAGMENT.
Lift, Father Ocean ! lift another sail,
One far white sail o'er yonder lucent rim !
Ah me ! these faint and fainter hopes will fail,
Die with this dying day, this twilight dim.
23] POEMS. 91
Oh, Father Ocean ! listen to my song !
Are there no voyagers who climb thy waves ?
No more who steer thy golden coasts along ?
Not one heroic bark the tempest braves ?
And that dear destined sailor that I wait
So long, alas ! these cold ignoble years;
That only loyal lover ! Ah, too late !
He stays unknown, and all my life is tears.
CHAPTER IV.
THE TROPICS.
TT7INTHKOP remained in the employment of the
' ' Pacific Mail Steamship Company, living some-
times in New Tok and sometimes on Staten Island,
until he was sent, during the following summer, by
the Company, to their station at Panama.
"August 25th, 1852.
" DEAR MOTHER, I have just received your note,
and shall go to New Haven on Saturday afternoon.
I have only a moment just now to be with you, as
I have some preparations to make. In many re-
spects the plan is a good one. The climate of
Panama is not dangerous, if proper care is taken,
and no serious illness of an employee has occurred.
I shall have plenty to do, and a good salary. I
shall be, for the present, cashier and ticket clerk in
the Company's office, and anything that may turn
up later will be for my advantage. Panama offers
just now things apart from my employ, of which
I will talk further when we meet. I go on the
first September.
" Yours always,
"T.W."
Err- 23] ASPINWALL. 93
"Aspinwatt, Sept. 9th.
"DEAR MOTHER, Terra firma, even the terra
firm a of a coral reef and railroad embankment, is
delightful, when one has been tossed on a ship
crowded with emigrants. Life turns out rather
queer. I never expected to squabble for the meals
of a sea-sick man, with Jews and Barbarians, and
find my best society with Nan tucket whalers and
express agents. We had very fine weather down,
though increasingly hot, until now the movement
of my pen over the paper is sudorific, and my vain
efforts to slaughter mosquitoes, the defenders of
their country, gives me a vapor bath. The United
States is a fast but small steamer, and as there
were two hundred on board, the crowd was trouble-
some, and compounded of vile elements mostly. I
was sea-sick too, and but for the kindness of the
Captain and one or two others, should have been
desperate but I will not dwell upon this.
" This place is hardly raised above the water, but
there are fine wharves, a beacon, hotel, houses,
etc. I go on to-morrow to Panama, and will write
at once."
Extracts from a letter of sixteen pages.
"Panama, Sept. 12th, 1852.
" DEAR MOTHER, I wrote you hastily from Aspin-
wall, and you will probably receive this at the same
time. It seemed strange to be greeted there by
the whistle of an engine, issuing from a tropic for-
est, and still more to be hurrying through a swamp
94= THE ISTHMUS. [1852
of broad-leaved plants, such as we have only seen
before in a conservatory. The road for somo dis-
tance passes through a festering swamp, and the
air is heavy. It is entirely built upon piles, but
they are packing it rapidly with red clay, which
bakes like brick. This swamp is most desolate,
and like a rich garden, abandoned to weeds. Some-
times a glade would open, among large trees, the
finest I have ever seen, with glittering leaves.
The plumes of the cocoa palm, wild banana, and
plantain, were the tropical elements of the scene.
Numberless creepers, like squashes and melons,
covered broad spots, and cypress vines and splen-
did purple morning-glories twice the size of ours.
Where there was a cutting, they draped the banks
with festoons.
"To the Chagres river, the present terminus, our
crowded train, was one and three-quarter hours.
The crossing is at a beautiful spot the banks are
high and bare, with deeply wooded hills behind,
and on both sides of the river a broad meadow with
park like trees, cattle feeding, and a native village.
The natives are far better looking than I expected,
and bear the climate better than our imported la-
borers. The boatmen on the Chagres are powerful
and active. They wear their hair in long black
braids, and their dresses are of loose hanging folds
of muslin. Eight of us filled a small boat, and we
were off for Chagres, up the chocolate-colored
stream, about half-past twelve. Our progress was
slow, but in the novelty of everything you might
-ZBT. 23] TROPICAL SCENES. 95
wish it slower. The river winds and doubles, so
that a fine view-point is always before you. Now
a low bank, with marshy growth, then a conical
hill, hidden in deep dark forests, then feathery
palms and bamboos, then a village with its plan-
tations. The river is most beautiful, lonely and
grand. We saw few birds, two or three scarlet
flamingoes, and towards evening a flock of scream-
ing paroquets. Our boat was the second to arrive
at Crudes, thinking ourselves fortunate to pass the
rapids before dark. Crimes is a town of two-
thousand inhabitants, who live in huts along the
river. The hotels are barracks, built of reeds with-
out any floors, the display of liquors terrific.
" We left Cru9es in the morning, and plunged at
once into a shady wood, sparkling with dewdrops.
Some part of the road is an old rough pavement,
covered with muddy water, other parts are like
the worst of Irish bogs, up to the mules' bellies. I
was a little anxious about these bad spots, and I
tried to guide my mule, but soon gave it up, and
yielded to her entirely, only lifting my rubber-
covered legs when the mud was deepest. The
weather was very tine, and the 'clear sky, the
sparkling light and the broad leaves of unknown
plants with gigantic shadows delighted me. Some-
times the mule track ran through defiles so narrow
that there was only room to clear one's legs, and
if the animal entered with the wrong foot foremost
he was obliged to stop and change, each track being
formed to fit the feet. Through these places a cool
98 PANAMA. [1852
willingly stay. I like to see and realize all these
places, and if anything more comes of my trip, it
is so much gained. We have a nice set of men
here, and there is some amusement always on
hand. With love to all, dear mother,
" Yours,
"THEO. WINTHROP."
"Panama, Sept. 26th, 1852.
" MY DEAR MOTHER, I have described to you my
first impressions; now I can speak as an old resi-
dent. I am reasonably well, and quite contented ;
much more so than during my last year in New
York. As this is the dull season for passengers,
I have time for studying Spanish, and reading, as
much as the indolent climate will permit. The
society in the office is pleasant, and our chat at
meals amusing. My foremost interest here was
certainly the great Western Ocean, which of course
I expected to find on the west, and to know that
the sun, when it sunk every night, was on its way
to wake up the Japanese, without any work to do,
but to see its own broad face on the shifting swells.
I was surprised to see the ocean on the east. This
is owing to the shape of the coast, as you can see
on the map. The town lies upon a point of land,
terminating in a reef at low tide a mile long, but
as there is a rise of twenty-two feet, the water at
high tide bathes the foot of the walls. The circuit
of these old walls is nearly a mile, and you can
still walk round them, though they are somewhat
ruined. The fine bastions are tolerably preserved,
-ZET. 24] TABOGA. 99
and they are surrounded on all three sides by water,
so that they give a fine promenade and view. Some
twenty grand old bronze cannon are mounted there,
and the sea dashes round the base, thirty or forty
feet below, or retiring, leaves the reef bare, and cov-
ered with little shell fish. On the northern side of
the town is a fine crescent-shaped beach, of four
miles in circuit, terminating in a rocky point, be-
hind which is the site ot old Panama. Low trees
grow down to the sand. There is a great variety
of shells, and crabs are as thick as ants in an ant
hill. Above the town are concentric ranges of
hills, thickly covered with forests, solitary and
impressive, from which there is an extensive view
over this vast sweep of the lonely bay, and the tile-
covered roofs of the town under your feet. Panama
is like an old Spanish town. The bay is beautiful.
Six large islands rise from the water, besides sev-
eral little rock islets. Taboga, the most distant
and the largest, is lofty, rising twelve hundred
feet, and thickly and richly wooded nearly to the
top. The houses of its natives are clustered near
the beach, in front of the palm groves, and about
a gun shot from shore lie the ships at anchor, so
there is always a busy look. It is the ideal of a
tropical island. The night I spent there, I arose
after feverish tossings, and dreams, and with Mr.
, followed up the valley or rather ravine of a
clear mountain stream, with the early sunlight
touching the massive foliage of unknown trees, to
some nymph baths in the cavities of the rocks.
100 TABOGA. [1852
My bath was a deep rock-pool, a basin which I
could span with my arms, and the water just over
my head. Into this a slender cascade fell four or
five feet down, with an accommodating ledge to sit
upon, and receive the douche. It was the luxury
of a bath.
" Taboga is nine miles from Panama. A small
steamer runs there once a day, passing the other
islands, some of which rise in conical form, four
or five hundred feet from the water. You can
easily imagine that, with these green outlines; the
heavy hill masses in the background; the faint
line of the distant shore of the bay, blue upon
the horizon; the old rusty city and its batteries,
the view is in the highest degree beautiful. It is,
however, the beauty of the volcanic tropic ; far dif-
ferent from the picturesque north. It has a certain
sameness that might become wearisome, just as
the unchanging summer might make one sigh for
the bracing air of our December. I find it impos-
sible to persuade myself that this hot weather will
last forever like this. Yet, for a hot climate, it is
a delightful one. Exertion and exercise are im-
possible, and the sun at midday cannot .be borne,
but as soon as instantaneous evening has come
on, a cool breeze from the land falls over the hill,
and the night is restoring. The showers come on
at noon, and for half an hour the Plaza is afloat,
and a river runs by our office to the bay. Great
black tumbling clouds pursue the ranges down to
the coast, and then break away into masses all
^T. 24] PANAMA. 101
over the sky, which at this season is almost al-
ways watery. I have found in the woods many
beautiful flowers. The fruit trees combine beauty
with utility, and are the handsomest of the forest.
One could make here a true garden of the Hes-
perides. We have tropical fruits and vegetables
in abundance, with fish and poultry meat is poor.
I tell you these things just as I think of them, and
shall reserve other matters for chapters in my Book ! !
I have killed one scorpion, mosquitoes are steady,
but not very venomous. Fire crackers are abun-
dant and noisy so are bells. Riding is the only
exercise possible, so it is necessary for the preser-
vation of health, but enormously expensive. Rents
are enormous so are provisions so is everything
else. I have assisted in the dispatch of one steam-
er, and got the run of matters. We had really
quite an exciting time of it.
"The ships are in tip-top order; the enormous
crowd they sometimes carry is the only difficulty.
If I keep my health I shall do very well here, though
I cannot feel settled yet. As I may not have time
to-morrow and cannot say more to-night, I will
close, with best love for all.
" Yours,
"THEO. WlNTHROP."
"Panama, Oct. 3d, 1862.
"DEAR MOTHER, since I wrote to you I have
been for a short time quite ill, but am now very-
well, and the better for the attack and the warn-
ing. I shall enjoy riding here when the dry sea-
102 PANAMA. [1852
son comes. To the north of the town are wide,
undulating plains called Llanos. These are quite
uninclosed. The soil is red clay, only very short
grass grows on it. At intervals groves and thickets
of shrubs are sprinkled about, and the same rich
vegetation covers the conical hills that give variety
to the landscape. Occasionally a green ravine marks
the course of a small stream. Nothing could be
more beautiful than these parks of nature, and a
ride over them, on one of the quick-pacing horses
of the country, is exhilarating. You go this way
and that on chance trails, meeting only a native or
two. To the south of the town the country is marsh
or forest as far as the eye can reach, over the plains
and over the hills. I am glad to hear such good
accounts from all at home. I suffer less from the
heat than at first, and continue to be in good spirits
and happy, and could be contented here for an in-
definite time."
"Panama, Oct. 13th, 1852.
"DEAR MOTHER, I have learned something by
this journey, apart from the knowledge of a new
part of the world. There is a direct contact with
men here which cannot fail to sharpen the facul-
ties, and I may possibly be, if I stay, disciplined
into discretion and self-command, both of which
I need. Our family of men does not allow the self-
ishness which both solitary and domestic life en-
courage. I am now pretty well, and expect to
continue so. Men are ill and die here principally
on account of the lives they lead. I have not been
^T. 24] PANAMA. 103
about much, for the rains have been more violent
and frequent. Just at the hour for going out, veri-
table deluges fall. It is fun to see how all the
world runs. Nobody has far to go, and so they
wait till the last minute, and then take to their
heels, from the lank, pedagogical, cat-smiling Don,
to the aboriginal little varmint with half a shirt
and a tray of plantains on his head. The Don
takes shelter in his counting-house, the varmint
sheds his shirt and mounting a stick rides boldly
forth through the shower, an agile little brownie.
Presently, squads of these imps appear, and as a
great spout of water begins to gush from the gur-
ffosle of the Cathedral each one takes his station
C5 O
and gets a douche, that I, for one, envy.
"The only fault I have to find with Panama is
the uncertainty of my position, which I hope the
next steamer will remedy. Meanwhile I am ac-
climating. Nothing I can do here, as I have said,
is so delightful as riding over the undulating sa-
vannas about the town, long land-swells of soft
grass, just as the sun is setting, and the cool of the
evening coming on. A couple of miles from town
is the farm house called San Jose di Dios, formerly
an old Jesuit country house, commanding the whole
sweep of the country and bay. Don Carlos Zachris-
san, a Swede and former merchant, lives there, and
we occasionally pay him a visit. No lovelier site
could be found for a house. The ground-floor is high
and open, serving for shed, etc., and the upper floor
alone, as is usual here, is inhabited by the family.
104 A PICNIC. [1852
"Last week, being at Taboga, I joined a picnic
party with some of our employees, to go to the
island of Taboguilla, about three miles off. In the
rainy season, it will not do to be out of the reach
of shelter, so we took our new specie scow, a great
lubberly craft, but with a covered hold. Poco Ti-
empo is the word here, so our jolly party did not
start till the morning breeze was just dying away,
and half a mile from the shore had to tow her with
a row-boat we had brought along, I volunteering
for bow-oar, which I found no joke, against a tide
rising twenty feet. The grand object of the expe-
dition was a real Down East chowder, and fish was
to be caught for the purpose; but as I did not like
the hot sun, I preferred landing with the shore
party. Two rocky points inclosed a smooth white
beach behind which a grove of cocoa palms drew
along under the hill. There was a hut of reeds
for our dining-room and kitchen, and our provender
being placed in the hands of our cook, I started
with the wooden-legged commander of our coal-
hulks, a capital fellow, on a foraging expedition.
There was a sort of garden on the island, where I
found some small tomatoes and red peppers for our
stew. As I went farther, I found myself in an im-
mense grove of plantains and bananas, growing
about twelve feet high, and forming a complete
protection from the sun and rain. The fruit is
plucked before it is quite ripe, by the summary
process of cutting down the plant, from whose
roots new shoots spring. The bunches are then
<ET. 24] LANDING GOLD. 105
hung in the sun to ripen. Arming myself with
some fruit, I came down to the party, and though
the fishermen got nothing, we had a capital din-
ner and speeches in plenty. Going home, the skies
fell upon us, and then the wind falling after, we
took to the boats and pulled away a four-oared
man-of-war stroke home in the cool dark night.
Sea-going men love to talk when they can get any
one to listen, and as I am a pretty good listener, I
have plenty of amusement with some of our people,
who are a capital set. The history of this coast,
with which our company is identified, is of itself a
most romantic one."
" October 17th, 1852.
" The Tennessee arrived yesterday, and not being
able to take the treasure ($2,000,000) from the specie
launch that night, several of us guarded it on board,
keeping watch under the stars with 'sword and
pistol by our side.' It was rather exciting to sleep
on a blanket on deck in turn, and to look up be-
tween dozes to see that the others were wide awake,
and to land IT, as the mild broad splendor of the
morning brightened into dawn, glowing across the
bay. It is always a most picturesque scene, this land-
ing treasure. I will describe it hereafter. With
best love, and hopes to hear from you soon,
" Yours,
"THEO. WINTHROP."
Extracts from Journal.
"Panama, Nov. 9th, 1853. With what pleas-
ure shall I some time recollect these scenes in
106 CLIMATE. [1852
which I have entered upon a completely new
life, and having begun by making many mistakes,
am now beginning to control and direct myself.
With a pure and single mind, a man may be
happy anywhere. I was surprised to find at the
time of the yellow fever that I felt no fear, and
was callous to the fact of the constant deaths around
me. Perhaps it was because I did not see death.
God preserve in my absence all at home ! I could
not return to a desolate fireside, and home is my
only bond to anything good."
"The effect of this climate is that one loses that
glad self-imposition of labor which one finds in a
cold climate. I have the spirit of travel strong
within me. Here I gain nothing; there is little to
do, and usually 1 am positively idle. The uncer-
tainty of my residence here keeps my mind em-
ployed in planning for the future, and I now hope
they may not keep me to my present employment,
as I can do much better for myself. Energy is
sunk, when a man works on a salary without the
spur of personal interest. I am sure of doing well
in the course I propose. This will probably require
my return to New York for a time. Why do men
live? Just tell me that if you please, and I will
go home, and save myself all the lifelong labor of
the inquiry."
" How warm-bath like it was yesterday evening
at the ball ! The Flexibles or Lancasterianos were
in full feather, the lions of the occasion. Hence-
forth I have new ideas of the Polka, as danced
^ET. 24] TABOGA. 107
with the mercury at 85, while turning a stout
lady who danced stiffly. But really a dance like
that was a very agreeable variety here. The even-
ings and nights continue to be delicious. How
shall I ever be contented where fires are. The last
days of the Carnival have been quite gay among
the natives, the plazas full of people in their best
clothes. All night they keep up their fandangoes."
" Delightful to watch the approach of day ori a
coal ship, and lie in a hammock all day and listen
to the grumbles and yarns of our one-legged com-
mander. All around swim processions of beautiful
fish, irresponsive however to my hook."
" The shores of Taboga away from the port are
much bolder, the heights fall down almost perpen-
dicularly, and a rich warm covering of trees, many
of them fringed with moss, droop beautifully down
the sides. The dark green water breaks grandly
on the sunken rocks, and roars in the crevices.
There is said to be a cave under the cliffs, filled
with human bones and " mucho oro." No one on
the island appears to have entered it, they were
afraid. I provided myself with candles to explore
it, but the state of the tide prevented me from land-
ing, and I had to content myself with listening to
the roar of the surf in the subterranean chamber,
though I doubt if it is of any great extent. I cannot
describe the beauty of the woods that follow down
the little brooks in the island, nor the feathery
foliage of an old grove of tamarind trees on the
sand near the shore, nor an orange orchard near to
108 TABOGA. [1852
these. The view from the summit of Taboga is
beautiful indeed. The outlook is unimpeded over
the sea that foams and dashes silently below."
"All the islands of the bay are visible, and the
village of Taboga and its shipping look to you as
they do to the eyes of the Turkey buzzards, lazily
flapping over the top. The pearl islands are blue
clouds to seaward, the long line of the coast
stretches far up and down in a succession of conical
peaks, as wild and solitary as when the Spaniards
first landed there. We descended in a break-neck
line through a wood, and at dusk came, pine-ap-
ple-serrated-leaf-leg-scratchedly down to the vil-
lage. To-day is Sunday, but it has been a busy one.
We have been all day landing the treasure from
the steamer Oregon. The pull on board ship in
the cool morning was delightful. We send the
treasure ashore from the steamer anchorage, two
or three miles, in a large flat-bottomed launch. We
bring it as near the shelving beach as possible, and
then our principal man, Jose Maria, an athletic, in-
telligent native, strips, and shoulders out the heavy
boxes. His assistants carry it to the place where
the mules are waiting. We of the Pacific Mail
Steamship Company, stand all along the line and
watch each precious box with jealous care. It is
put on the mules, a box weighing from seventy to
one hundred pounds on each side."
"Panama, Nov. 2d, 1852.
''DEAR MOTHER, In the morning, after closing
my last letter, I got up at 3 A. M., and soon started
&T. 24] THE GOLD TRAIN. 109
with Mr. , at five, to accompany the gold train.
At five it is quite light in these latitudes. We had
let the trains get perhaps half an hour in advance,
and had heard the arrieros go singing off in the
dusk. Everything was carefully packed, and I ig-
norantly thought that all was arranged for the trip,
but just outside the town we found everything in
confusion. The whole fifty or sixty mules with
twenty men were brought to a stand still. The
mules are tied nose and tail, four or five together,
and any disarrangement in the fixtures of one
puts a brake on the progress of all. The lashings
by which the boxes are attached to the animal are
as complicated as the darns of an old blue woolen
stocking, or the lacings of a Greek herdsman's
sandal, and they fasten, not only the boxes, but
all the traps of the muleteers, and perhaps a live
chicken or two by the leg. All was at loose ends,
some muleteers eating breakfast, some standing
about, and saying l poco tiempo.' 1 Mr. how-
ever soon put a very different face upon the matter,
by riding about and slashing men and mules in-
discriminately, and pres'ently we were off, the mule-
teers tugging at the leading ropes, and the guards
punching in the rear. There was profundity of
mud all along, and the beasts (now united), avoid-
ing the depths, strayed everywhere among the
bushes, necessitating hurry-scurry pursuit by half
naked drivers, with shouts and screams. The morn-
ing was as early mornings are here, the sky varied
with heavy clouds and mists, coloi-ed by the sun-
110 THE RIVER CROSSING. [1852
rise, the forest hills holding the wreaths of mist
like patches of melting snow. Nothing could be
worse than the road, and so thought the pedes-
trians, California bound, who, lifting up sadly the
patches of torn boot that still adhered to their legs,
asked despairingly the distance to Panama. A lit-
tle out of the town we met a large party, some
twenty hand-organs, with their Italian grinders
then parties of tired men and women, the latter in
Amazonian attire and sitting ' Califourchon ' on
their mules, a little uncertain whether to laugh
or blush, and oh, how dirty ! Making progress of
a mile and a half an hour, we came about nine
o'clock to the river Cardenas, where we overtook
the whole train mustering in the stream, now
about two hundred feet wide. The scene was
very picturesque the river is rapid, arid winds in
a spot where the thicket has given place to enor-
mous trees that embower its current, under these,
and around a hut, all the mules and their drivers
are grouped, and just as we turned into the open-
ing a body of California-bound came down into
the water, among whom I recognized the Eev.
, half-cracked, bedraggled and benevo-
lent, (looking very different from the last time I
saw him in spotless surplice, saying 'Dearly be-
loved,') who had given up his mule to a woman
in distress. There was also a sturdy Paddy woman,
who marched right through the stream, disdaining
to hold up her skirts, which the flowing river washed
as she went. She called encouragingly to her friend,
^T. 24] MALAPROPS. Ill
who followed, ' Here, Mrs. McGarvey ! this way, Mrs.
McGarvey ! never mind, my dare.'
"Next day the balconies of the hotel were draped
with wet clothes, and the town pervaded by their
odor. Having seen the gold (the largest quantity
ever sent) safely started, we turned back, and
splashing through the mud, with the help of big
spurs and whips accomplished the six miles in an
hour and a half.'
" We met the mail agent, famous for his Malaprops.
These are authentic. ' I hope the Department will
let me stop over one trip, as I have provided a sub-
terfuge. 'Yes, sir! I like the Oregonl On board
I was treated with perfect impunity.' ' No, sir ! I
did not strike him, sir; but I loaded him with op-
probrious epitaphs ! '
" For a man who is capable of seeing and grasp-
ing opportunities, Panama is the focus of two Amer-
icas. It commands the Australian continent, and
is within easy reach of the Indies. South America
is at hand with inexhaustible wealth, untouched
as at the creation. This very Isthmus, small as
it looks on the map, has miles and miles of the
richest soil, capable of producing everything that
a warm climate allows."
"Panama, Nov. 17th, 1852.
" DEAR MOTHER, You are perhaps shivering along
to church, and on your return, sitting by the good
old grate in the dear old parlor, which existed when
I was a boy, and which still, on the domestic Sun-
day evening, retains its ancient privilege of assem-
112 TROPICAL NIGHTS. [1852
bling the family, for the enjoyment that family af-
fection can give to those who know what it is.
While I, deprived of these pleasures, sit in my
thinnest clothes, and try to catch each puff of the
southerly breeze. This is no cold November blast
but a delicious fresh wind, accompanied by the roar
of the surf that glitters, wind scattered. I appre-
ciate the nature of the day, though I have just run
away from our church, where a half-cracked Bap-
tist, dressed in a queer white ascension robe fas-
tened by nine gold clasps, after thanking God that
he was not as other men are, began giving out his
own version of the Bible, beginning with the first
chapter of Genesis. I miss very much the quiet
rational pleasures of life at home.
" As the dry season approaches, the rains become
less frequent, the sky clearer. At night the stars
are most brilliant and twinkle more than ours.
Sirius flickers like the flame of a blown candle and
seems almost extinguished, then bursting out in
splendor. Now too, for the first time, I see the
clear moonlight the days of parching glare are
approaching. There are many things pleasant in
my life here, such as, this morning, tumbling up
at dawn and pulling out in the beautiful coolness
to the steamer, with the addition of the excitement
of the news. On the beach all was bustle native
porters squabbling, boatmen shouting."
"But on the water, and over the soft wash of
the swells, all was quiet the hills and islands
softly veiled in mist; the steamer and the ships
&T. 24] SUNDAYS. 113
swinging with indolent grace to their anchors. On
board was worse confusion. An exodus of gold
diggers with their luggage were pushing across the
narrow gangway, while, as man after man issued
from the press, they were received and dismembered
by the boatmen below clamorously. Homer would
have added an 'as when.' Or the morning when
I turned out at 1 A. M., and in the delicious tropical
night, pulled to the California, bringing the largest
treasure yet, $2,600,000, and shipping it by pictur-
esque lamplight and by the clear beam of moon-
like Lucifer. These things are so delightful to me
that I fear lest I shall tire you by my description."
" Nov. 21st, 1852. I rejoice that my residence in
Panama is drawing to a close, but I shall not re-
turn without seeing San Francisco. This is Sunday,
but the quiet of the day is disturbed by the festiv-
ities of the New Granadian Independence, and fire-
works, crackers, and a ball, are the order of the day,
while the troops, clad in a sweltering uniform, are
marching and firing."
" All the church ceremonies, and many of the
customs here are ridiculous, from their not being
adapted to the climate, but formed on European
models. The only peculiar and pretty thing is the
costume of the ladies, who discard the bonnet, and
wearing instead the veil, add much to their charms.
To-day, as they knelt, in heaps of muslin and lace,
on the cathedral floor, they looked very attractive."
" I am now awaiting further advices from Mr.
Aspinwall as to my future movements. He wrote
114 DISCONTENTED. [1852
that I would probably not remain in Panama. But
love to all. I cannot write in good spirits, though
I danced off the last remains of my fever, and had
a jolly time with the fair ladies of Panama last
night. I have been ill; but what right have I to
make you unhappy by my despondency. I am los-
ing all my friends' weddings when will my turn
come? "
" December 4th, 1852. Summer is approaching, 1
feel misplaced here and discontented." ....
The place in the Pacific Mail Steamship Company,
and still more at Panama, seems to have been made for
Winthrop by the kindness of Mr. Aspinwall, and his
sincere desire to serve him, without the certainty that
there was really a suitable opening for him. On ar-
rival he found that there was really no sufficient opening,
that the gentleman he was expected to replace wished
to return to Panama, having the right to do so, and
that his position was not altogether a pleasant one
for a man of delicacy. He was treated with great
kindness, however, by every one there, and found his
residence, on the whole, agreeable, but there was not
enough for him to do, nor was there any future for
a man of his stamp, nor any reason to remain and lose
his time and health, simply to be a ticket agent, or
policeman of treasure.
"December 24th, 1852.
" I have been absent sixteen days in the interior,
in that part of the Isthmus above Panama, and had
a most interesting tour in a novel country. I took
a primitive coasting canoe, rigged with low, square
^T. 24] AN EXCURSION. 115
sails very fast to a point some hundred miles
distant, and buying a horse, returned by land, stop-
ping at all the towns and villages. The country
was quite different from my expectations, and my
tour has fortified my health decidedly. You must
not have toe high an idea of the beauty of the in-
land scenery. The forests are usually destitute of
fine trees, the very luxuriance of the vegetation
impeding its grandeur, and there is a look of
tangled neglect in the thickets of vines. But the
broad sweeping plains, grazed by thousands of cat-
tle, are very fine, spreading unbroken sometimes as
far as the eye can reach, and sometimes undulat-
ing softly to the base of the range of mountains
that lifts itself in the background. Like islands
upon these seas of verdure, lie scattered villages,
sheltered by groves of palms of ever-rustling foli-
age. The people are lively and picturesque; their
wealth consists in large herds of cattle, and the
style of life is simple and patriarchal, a little viti-
ated by rumors of civilization and California. I
have seldom passed a fortnight of more amusement
and instruction combined.
"Two gentlemen of my acquaintance were about
to make a business tour, and I, having nothing to
do, seized the opportunity to go with them. Sail-
ing very fast before the light airs prevailing along
shore, in our primitive and picturesque craft, and
listening to the monotonous chant which our crew
kept up hour after hour, one forgets the present
and is carried back to the early ages of the world.
116 THE INTERIOR. [1852
We were two beautiful nights and one blazing day
reaching our destination on the upper side of the
bay, and were glad to leave the cramped craft and
stretch our legs a little on shore. After waiting
some time at the mouth of a small river for the tide
to rise, we ascended its rapid course for four miles
or so, to the landing. The low banks were covered
with swampy bushes or large trees, and every few
minutes an unwieldy alligator would tumble him-
self into the stream ; from the hide of one of these
fellows my ball glanced off, as from a coat of mail.
" Over the green savannas, after a day or two of
dry weather, you can gallop as on a race course,
but in the swamps are horrid bits, where we went
plunging through the mud up to our horses' bellies.
The mountains, which form the backbone of the
Isthmus, from some of the higher peaks of which
both oceans can be seen, are bare, and not very
bold, though one striking serrated range accom-
panied us for several days. There is a little gold
in these mountains, but the valuable mines are
further south, where in the province of Chico and
on the banks of the Atrato are fabulous treasures.
" We met with hospitality everywhere and the
fat of the land. The houses, one story high, un-
ceiled, with earthen or tiled floors, are composed
generally of one living room and small ones ad-
joining cooking is done in a shed. All the towns
are near a stream of water. The Indians live in
palm-leaf huts. The life seems indolent, but the
people do all that their nature requires, and live
JET. 24] THE INTERIOR. 117
content what more is necessary. We were gazed
on with curiosity by whole villages.
"Oar return trip Avas made on horseback, and it
would be long to tell all our adventures. How my
half-broken yellow horse performed sundry capers,
how we rode to the festival of Penonome with the
jolliest of galloping priests, where we saw all the
prettiest girls in the country, and an assemblage
of pure Indians Cholos from the mountains else-
where hardly seen. How comical was the proces-
sion of alcaldes of these little towns, elegantly at-
tired in antediluvian cloth coats, and followed by
ushers with long black rods, going to offer the first
fruits of their villages to the Padre. How I grew
fat on rice stewed in liquid lard, sancoche, eggs,
maize bollos, and tamal, with yard after yard of
jerked beef, and relays of plantains in every form.
How I thought oranges rather dear at sixteen the
half-dime. How, finding my companions were to
stay rather too long at Penonome, I straddled my
nag and went to Panama alone, with a boy I hired.
How I enjoyed it, though the roads were severe.
How I rode over seven leagues of glorious sea
beach, part by blazing daylight, and part by the
stars, and then slung my hammock and waited for
the dawn. How lovely were all the dawns and all
the nights on the broad plains. I could fill a volume
with this journey! Stewing with heat on this last
day of 1852, I am
" Yours ever,
"TflEO. WlNTHROP."
118 THE NEW YEAR. [1853
"Panama, Jan. 2d, 1853.
" It seems fitting, my dear mother, that I should,
with the New Year, renew my allegiance to you,
and offer you my services for what they are worth.
If it were a new situation, I might think it nec-
essary to recommend myself, and recount my qual-
ifications. Such an experiment would be useless
with one who has always known me better than I
know myself. So, my dear mother, if you will
have another year of the old servant, who has been
in your family more than twenty-four years, you
must take him, good, bad or indifferent, and make
the best of him. He cannot do much, but the
wages he requires are precious, nothing less than
your love will satisfy his grasping desire, and if
you deny him this, he will be in despair. For
then, not only will he lose the direct benefits of
the service, but the companionship of those who
have gladly shared it with him, friendly rivals for
the favor of their mistress. Accept then my alle-
giance for A. D. 1853.
"Panama is crowded to-day by muddy Ameri-
cans, wetted to the skin by an expiring -deluge of
the rainy season, which, by almanac, should have
ended a month ago. The New Year was marked
only by an unusual clatter of bells. There was a
band of exiled Jesuits here yesterday, dismissed
from the South American Republics. Ecuador was
the last to find them dangerous, and dispatched
these thirty-four fellows to Panama, and Panama
pitilessly hurried them away in their priestly robes,
^T. 24] PANAMA. 119
topped with striped ponchos, and they filed away
on mule-back, certainly more intelligent, and prob-
ably more virtuous than the established priesthood.
You must not expect much of a letter, for I was
dancing till five A. M., and rose at eight to go to a
funeral. There are quite charming young ladies
here, and though they have not much education,
yet banalities sound quite prettily, lisped in their
exquisite language.
" Do send me some books, especially travels in
South America and Mexico. I have plenty of time,
and want to inform myself about the countries of
this continent, becoming more and more important
every day. One of the [>leasantest things here, is
the arrival of relay a'ter relay of our officers from
the steamers. They generally stay with us, and
make part of the family. They are sometimes
jolly rough diamonds, but usually educated and
agreeable.
" The world appears to be boiling up pretty well,
but we lead a life apart from all except the interests
of the company, and the small commerce of Pan-
ama. Almost every one in the town is engaged in
some peddling business, or endeavoring to prey
upon the public in some official capacity. The
future of New Granada, if it is to have one, will
not come from the men of Panama, but from the
interior provinces. I am disposed to believe that
the capital, Bogota, is much more enlightened than
this place. If I should recall here what I said and
express my wish to escape, you will no doubt think
120 PANAMA. [1853
me inconsistent. I want to go because I have no
settled position in the office, and consequently
must be often idle. I am not gaining much in
business experience, and in a mongrel place like
this I have no good opportunity to improve in
Spanish. I should feel better if I thought my salt
was fairly earned here. I am content to stay only
so long as I make myself so, and am falling into
indifference. I have seen a good deal of life here,
and manage to pass away the time, if without pro-
fit, without ennui. I am in, probably, for an ab-
sence more or less long from home, but I may stay
here for some time longer, if^I have anything to
gain by it. I have still the promise of a vacancy in
a purser's berth, and my passage to San Francisco.
"Jan. 24th. I spent the whole of Saturday on
the gangway of the steamer, receiving passengers
and disposing of them there were some three
hundred and seventy and then was up all night
on board until the ship left. The dispatch of one
of these crowded vessels is something you can
have no idea of; such thronging, such crushing,
such shirking payment. Now that I am get-
ting well into it, I find it a very agreeable life.
The climate suits my stomach, and I am prudent
and tip-toppish. You must be tired of my raptures
about the nights, but I am never tired of them.
It is perfect bliss to exist. As soon as the sun sets
a roseate flush, passing into the tenderest lilac,
covers the sky nearly to the zenith, and then
changes gradually to a golden light, only giving
Mi. 24] ASPINWALL. 121
way to the moon. Then the delicious cooling
breeze comes down from the mountains and rustles
over the water. Though there is a monstrous im-
provement in the people who go to California, yet
it is still bad enough. The close contact with all
sorts of characters on these crowded steamers is
very demoralizing; there is a dreadful degree of
familiarity, and if I were taking out a lady, I should
wish to do so round the Gape, in one of those fine
ships. This will be changed when the railroad is
finished. Five sheets of stuff is pretty well for one
letter ! Eh, madame ? "
"Aspinwall, Jan. 29th, 1853.
" DEAR MOTHER, I am once more within hailing
distance of you, though really no nearer than usual.
It is the Atlantic that is tumbling so furiously on
the beach, and here is an American town, with
Yankee houses, and Yankee enterprise. A friend's
wife was expected in the steamer from New York,
and I came down krescort her across the Isthmus
to her husband, Capt. P , who could not leave
the steamer. Since I was here in September the
town has been increasing, and the railroad extend-
ing. No one can have an idea of the enormous
difficulties of this immense enterprise, nor of the
dreadful sacrifice of life it cost. It was commonly
said to be built of dead men's bones or on human
sleepers. Imagine that at one station of some two
hundred and twenty men, there were, day before
yesterday, one hundred and eighty sick. But all
the gentlemen of the corps are in good health. It
122 NIGHT IN THE FOREST. [1853
will be another year's work, and hardly before the
year 1854 will the first train make its triumphal
entry into Panama. Aspinwall, like Venice, is a
city in the sea, and now, with a norther blowing
hard, there is a heavy swell tumbling in every-
where and wetting you as you go. I found there
had been some mistake about the arrangements
for Mrs. P , so I volunteered to come, and
started about 1 p. M. on the 29th. My mule was
rather slow, and evening overtook me in the worst
part of the road. It was at first very pleasant, as
twilight rapidly faded away, to pass through these
cool dim depths, but as it grew darker and darker,
I at first lost sight of my path, (which was just
as well, for the condition of it was awful,) and then
of my white mule; so I thought it time to stop. It
was exciting and romantic, but dangerous, though
one has confidence in these animals; so, coming to
a native hut, I decided to wait till the moon rose.
I fortunately had a crust of bread and a drop of
brandy, so dividing my corner of a loaf with my
host, I made a light supper, and went to bed on a
hide spread on the ground. About nine o'clock,
after a short nap, the moon just lighting the depths
of the forest, I started again, and enjoyed the re-
mainder of the scramble. The neglected woods
were beautiful in the concealing light and shadow,
and the vines and creepers, ragged by day, were
graceful and delicate in the mysterious moonlight.
It was well worth seeing, but I was not sorry to
change total solitude for the huts of Crudes on the
JET. 24] A SPIN WALL. 123
Chagres River. Here I found my friend Mr. V ,
and we made an alliance for the rest of the journey.
Next morning we started down the river in a
canoe, talking away the time very pleasantly, till
the distant whistle of the engine put him on the
qui vive for his first sight of a railway a great
event in a man's life. Much has been done tow-
ards the completion of the road since I was here.
It was quite refreshing to be taken back to civili-
zation, and to see the interest that my companion
took in everything.
" Aspinwall is upon Manzanilla Island, which is
very low, in some parts below the level of the sea,
that filters through the coral reef, and has heaped
up a dike of sand against its own encroachments.
Much of it is nothing but a mangrove swamp, to
be filled in hereafter, before the place can be really
healthy ; some of these swamps, where the bushes
have been cut away, and only the small tangled
stumps remain, are the most absolutely desolate
places the mind can conceive. But there is a look
of progress and energy here which astonishes me,
coming from Panama. Last night, Capt. P
arrived, relieving me from responsibility. The gale
is still blowing grandly, with interval torrents of
rain. Just now it is a fine sight to see the steamer
come rolling and pitching into the harbor. If with
these rains, which prevail at least eight months of the
year, we had the same temperature as you, the coun-
try would be almost uninhabitable, but the air is soft
and balmy, and the fresh dampness most luxurious.
124 ASPINWALL. [1853
"Last night, at eight, the Ohio arrived, and I
went down to the wharf with three gentlemen who
expected their wives. It was not without difficulty
and danger that Capt. P and I went on board,
he to be disappointed of his wife's coming, and
saddened, poor fellow, by the news of his child's
fatal illness. I got your welcome letters. It was
refreshing to be a few minutes with ladies. The
arrival of two steamers from New York, and one
from California, with an aggregate of two thou-
sand people, puts this place in an uproar, increased
by the small space terra firma affords, all the dry
spots being in demand as the storm continues.
What a variety of life one sees here! Jews are in
throngs. The temperature is several degrees lower
than in Panama. Keep me informed of what goes
on in the world.
"T. W."
"DEAR S : It is quite refreshing to think of
an intelligent lively Yankee young lady, such as I
hope you are, in this land of languor, and would
be doubly so, could I have the tonic of a personal
interview. However, I try sometimes to be with
you in spirit, and imagine the dear happy fireside.
The confidence in each other that rules in such a
home is particularly blissful to dwell on, in this
outer world, where every man's hand is against his
neighbor. At home, one can, for a while, unbuckle
the hard cuirass of defensive armor, and rest se-
cure from a treacherous attack."
Mi. 24] PANAMA. 125
"Panama, Feb. 12th, 1853.
" DEAR MOTHER, You can hardly imagine how
dead Panama becomes in these fortnightly inter-
vals between steamers. Never in my life have I
been so thoroughly indolent as here, and I am be-
coming heartily tired of it. I cannot possibly make
more than one good day's work of all I have to do
in the fortnight. Your wishes, and my own un-
willingness to lose nearly two years passed in my
present employ, keep me here with the uncomfor-
table feeling that I am after all dependent on a
patron. The sinecure that I at present hold has
the same influence as an office under government
would have, it makes me careless and irresponsi-
ble. Discontented, and conscious that I cannot
continue so long, I am all the time on the anxious
seat. By every steamer I look for some orders that
never come, and I cannot make any settled plan for
the future. What is a man to do, who at the very
period of life when he ought to be in the straight,
well-known path of certain and steady employment,
when he should have the self-guidance of a nearly
completed development, what is a man to do, who,
instead of all this, is still afloat, without any rud-
der? I have always supposed, that, at twenty-five,
the manly character would have taken its tone, as
the physical is then complete. I know this is pain-
ful to you, but I must sometimes relieve myself of
gnawing thoughts, or I shall eat my heart out,
here. My health is good, and I have one source
of pleasure, my daily rides. After a hard, hot, glar-
126 ON A HAND-CAR. [1853
ing day, we dine at four, and then I ride; passing
the suburb with its straggling huts, I come upon
the plain with the cool wind blowing soft in my
face. The level light of the declining sun gives a
magic brilliancy to the green of the undulating
savanna, and falls upon the bold islands and
sparkling waters of the bay. Then, when I turn
back, the sun sets, the wooded hills silhouette
themselves on the horizon, the softly shaded glow
fades and gives place to the violet of the tropics,
where the new moon hangs. Soon, suddenly, all
is darkness around her faint fire."
" DEAR MOTHER, I have been again to Aspinwall,
part of the way on a hand-car
" I walked along in search of the employees
house, but by some means passed it, and went
stumbling over the track, till discovering my mis-
take I found I had walked three miles through the
solitude. I can never forget that starlight walk,
though part of the time I was uncommonly sleepy.
Returning, I found the world stirring in the dawn,
and receiving many cautions about trains, I tum-
bled into a crack-wheeled hand-car, and rolled off.
It was the luxury of traveling, to be whirled along
against the fresh morning breeze that my own prog-
ress created, down the long narrow vista of the
forest. The great buttressed trees seemed to have
withdrawn astonished from the path, while deep
among the mazes of the untouched woods I could
see that the large-leaved vines had climbed up to
Mr. 24] ASPINWALL. 127
the tree-tops to see this wonderful band of sun-
light. Some of these vines, fell down, smooth, leaf-
less, and straight as a rope, a hundred feet to the
ground. I was so utterly overcome by sleep that
I lay down flat in the car, and telling my two
Carthagenians that I would give them a dollar
each, if I arrived by a certain time, I enjoyed one
of the soundest and most blissful sleeps of my life.
I was awakened by the stopping of the car to al-
low another to pass, and then wide awake, I be-
thought myself of my toilet. A muddy mule-ride
and a boat trip had not tended to cleanse my per-
son, and much to the astonishment of the men, I
opened rny saddle-bags, and taking out-clean clothes,
completely arrayed my self alfresco. By and by, we
began to keep a sharp lookout for the train pres-
ently we saw it, just it time to tumble the car off,
and let it hurry by. Soon bustling and American-
ized Aspinwall came in view. I had about an hour
there and returned in the train at 11 A. M.
" Aspin wall, March, 1st, 1853. This place has
such a home feeling that I enjoy my visits particu-
larly. Last evening we had a jolly ' American
time,' and some sham spiritual manifestations. I
determined on this trip to vary my route a little,
and joined a party of natives who were going down
to Gorgona to hire their mules to passengers. We
went off through the very thickest of the woods,
by the land route, impassable except in the dry
season, and pretty bad now. Up and down tre-
mendously steep pitches, slippery with mud, and
128 PANAMA. [1853
hung with nooses of straggling vines, that would
now and then try to hang a fellow before his time.
They had forgotten my crupper, and I often nearly
slipped forward over the mule's head, while Can-
dido, my old black guide, slipped backwards to the
tail of his. The heat has brought out some new
flowers, especially a splendid scarlet passion flower,
but the variety has never been so great as I ex-
pected. An hour and a half of this riding brought
me to the river, and thence the way was easy,
across a fine meadow, sprinkled with trees. I wrote
from Panama that I had determined to go to San
Francisco. I ought to see it, and to learn the Com-
pany's mode of business there. But I find that
after all I have become very much attached to
Panama, with all its disadvantages. There is talk
now of weekly steamers, which will give more in-
terest to the life there. This is my sixth trip across
the Isthmus. We had the yellow fever badly at
Panama, six weeks ago, but only among the pas-
sengers. The great obstacle to my success here
is my own unsettled feeling. I want to be seeing
the world."
"Panama, March 8th, 1853. To-day I start for
San Francisco in the California, one of our best
ships. I have not left the Company's employ, and
shall have the same option that I have here, of
taking a pursership, when there is one, or any
other chance that may offer. I have not left Pan-
ama without reflection. I have been here six months,
and know the place and all in it, and there is noth-
J&r. 24] ACAPULCO. 129
ing more for me to do here. Yet I leave the place
and many friends with sincere regret."
" Acapulco, March 14th, 1853.
" MY DEAR MOTHER, Nearly half way to cool
weather again, and looking to the positive enjoy-
ment of putting on warm clothes and finding pleas-
ure in a fast walk. Panama is fading already in
my recollection, and the existence apart that I led
there is becoming like a dream. Yet it was diffi-
cult to tear myself away, and I shall long remem-
ber the Cathedral Plaza and the life around it.
My heart always sinks when I remember how lit-
tle my health fits me to join battle with the giants
I see around me, but as I am seeking my fortune,
I must not allow apprehensions."
" Our voyage' thus far has been agreeable, with
few passengers, and pleasant company among the
officers. The ocean has been strictly Pacific, hardly
broken by a ripple. We have sailed along with a
remorseless glare of sunlight, and I have felt the
heat on this trip more than at any time in Panama.
At first we passed along a bold hilly shore, thickly
wooded and completely solitary; then between
rocky islands, and then leaving the land blue in
the distance, and striking across the Bay of Tehuan-
tepec, we are now in sight of the distant Mexican
coast. We have had no events; a few flying fish,
a couple of water spouts, stretching down slender
arms of cloud, like sherry cobbler tubes, into the
water. The sea is beautifully blue, the horizon
cloudless, the nights fine, with a young moon."
130 SAN FRANCISCO. [1853
" I feel very far from home and have no idea
what I shall do in San Francisco. As we approach
Acapulco, sailing- down a broad belt of moonlight,
numerous fires of burning brush blaze wildly on the
shore. At midnight, we plunged into the land,
and all at once, a way opening, found ourselves in
a smooth lake, surrounded by hills, with no appar-
ent exit. We lay still till morning and then I went
ashore with the purser. The town is surrounded
by hills, barren and burnt, as if volcanic fires had
just passed over them, and the irregular town with
many cracked and ruined edifices, shows traces of
the late earthquakes. Everything is parched, the
houses of one story, the people live lazily in the
shade of their corridors. We shall soon be off, and
1 shall write from San Francisco."
"San Francisco.
" MY DEAR MOTHER, I arrived here on Thursday
evening, March 24th. We had fine weather, and
a fine coast, from Acapulco till we crossed the gulf
of California. At San Diego we saw American
California; shores like downs, bare of all but grass,
backed by high hills, sprinkled with snow. The
change to really cold weather, mercury 45 was se-
vere but refreshing, and I felt new life when I could
button together what the moths of Panama have left
of my overcoat, and walk the deck rapidly. San
Diego is desolate and uninteresting. The harbor,
confined with sand bars, is perfectly land-locked.
Approaching Monterey, the coast became appar-
ently more fertile, there were some trees, princi-
JET. 24] SAN FKANCISCO. 131
pally pines, and more verdure, the hills too were
higher and finer in outline and the rocky points
brilliant with surf. Monterey is prettily situated
on a sweep of the Bay, wooded with pines a green
and smiling country round it, with all the fresh-
ness of spring. But the coast is generally bare,
and the fertility and beauty of the country are
said to be behind the coast range. About 1 p. M.,
on the 24th, we began to see the Heads at the en-
trance of the Bay of San Francisco. There had
been a gale, and the day was splendidly clear of
the fogs that beset the coast, and have recently
caused the loss of our Steamship, Tennessee. The
entrance is fine indeed, and worthy the noble bay.
On the south the shore is barren and sand-hilly,
with a certain wild look; on the north, the cliffs
come precipitately down to the water, and the en-
trance is somewhat beset with rocks that are cov-
ered with birds, and basking seals. After the first
set of points, the coast trends inward to another
set, the real ' Golden Gate,' equally bold and fine,
and about as wide as the Narrows ; this continues
perhaps two miles, when you begin to discern the
shipping and the town, creeping round the point,
and the whole breadth of the lake-like bay opens
grandly before you. The effect is simple in its
elements, an expanse of calm water, bounded by
sharply defined hills. From the summits over-
looking the town you have striking panoramic views
over the bay, and down upon this wonderful city,
a realization in rapidity of growth, if not in splen-
132 SAN FRANCISCO. [1853
dor, of our fairy tales. On arriving, we found all
the paraphernalia of civilization ; we were boarded
by news boats, and our arrival announced by tele-
graphs. Firing our gun, and rounding the point,
I was astonished to find an array of shipping ap-
parently as great as in New York. Fine ships
were lying out in the stream, and blocking up the
crowded wharves, and back of them stretched an
extent of city seeming interminable, and exagger-
ated by the evening mist and smoke. The wharf
and steamers alongside were filled with people
awaiting our arrival, and there was far more bus-
tle, and noise, and throng, than on a similar occa-
sion at home. In fact the activity of this place is
appalling. The original town was built upon a
narrow, crescent-shaped piece of ground backed
by steep hills, but as it extended, the hills were
cut away, and the water filled up, till our office,
which was on the shore, is now half a mile from
the wharves. But they could not fill in rapidly
enough, and a very large part of the town is plank-
ing, upon piles. But further in, upon terrafirma^are
broad streets and substantial edifices of brick and
stone, of good appearance. Everywhere construc-
tion and destruction are going on together. People
are generally convinced that the town is a fixed
fact, and are making their arrangements accord-
ingly. The hills are being dug down, and in mak-
ing a call yesterday, I found the easiest method of
getting away was to plunge down a sand bank
eight feet high. It is indeed a most astonishing
^T. 24] SAN FRANCISCO. 133
place, and coming from the poco tiempo of Panama,
the contrast was striking. But the whole thing
appears unsubstantial. It is generally agreed that
the emplacement of the town is by no means the
best, and there are persons who expect that the
whole will be abandoned, and Benecia, or some
other locality chosen.
"March 27th.
"To-day it rains, but the temperature is pleas-
ant. The two previous days fine, much like our
October weather. It suits me exactly. San Fran-
cisco is even more alive by night than by day, the
shops and gambling houses in full blast; with night
auctions of all sorts of Jew-wares, and old clothes
and new. To-morrow or next day I shall go to Be-
necia, and perhaps begin my little journey to the
mines, and perhaps home. A few days will settle
the matter. I might find something to do if I
staid here. I cannot think of anything else but
how to get on respectably, and to have something
better than my miserable life for the past two
years. Having no profession, and no mercantile
education or experience, I have nothing to fall
back upon."
"San Francisco, April 14th, 1853.
"My DEAR MOTHER: I have given you my first
impressions of San Francisco. My second corres-
pond with these so far as in being agreeably dis-
appointed in the town and its surroundings. In
respect to mere position the place has not much to
boast of. It began upon the sandy beach of a cove
134 SAN FXANCISCO. [1853
in the bay, at the foot of some sandhills, and as the
city progressed they cut down the hills and threw
the sand into the water, making a flat of half a
mile in advance of the old front. The hills that
remain, partly excavated above the town are bar-
ren, and scantily covered with grass and stunted
bushes. The prettiest of these is called the Cali-
fornia lilac (Ceanothus?) bearing a pretty bluish
flower, delightfully fragrant. These hills, destined
soon to fall before the encroaching city, overhang
it, and give a bird's eye view of its rectangular
plan and unfinished appearance. The general tone
is bricky and dusty. The prevailing element is pul-
verized sphere, and it may be safely called the dir-
tiest place in the world. A single day will trans-
form it from a slough, navigable only in a pair of
gaff-topsail boots, to an ankle-deep dustpan, and
when you consider that besides the immense street
traffic, there is not a block where they are not fill-
ing up or pulling down, you may imagine that the
springy plank pavements send up dust as thick as
a London fog. But the same hills give you also
views beyond this waste, across the quiet waters
of the inland sea, to the smooth treeless hills that
like carefully kept green pastures surround it. The
forms of these, not bold or picturesque, are grace-
ful and lovely indeed, and in this atmosphere, clear
but soft, they assume a richness of hue that re-
minds me of the shores of Greece. In this land-
scape there are no picturesque effects, no spots or
nooks of beauty, its grand characteristic is breadth,
JET- 24] BENECIA. 135
outline, panoramic effect. Along the southern coast
of the bay the same forms prevail, but the soil is
richer, and now in spring, they are either beauti-
fully green, or thickly carpeted with flowers, among
which the golden glow of the escholtzia is con-
spicuous. There are no inclosures, and you can
ride or walk where you like. Most of the flowers
are new, but I find my old favorite the Bartsia,*
large yellow pansies, and lupines, blue and white.
I spent my second Sunday at Benecia, where there
was an attempt to make a city that would rival
San Francisco, which is a failure. Some persons
interested in real estate persuaded the Pacific Mail
Steamship Company to establish its depot there,
bribing it by the present of a large peat bog.
The emplacement of the town is good, for an in-
land one, and it may in time be important, but
meanwhile the company has wasted enormous
sums of money in establishing the works there,
thirty miles from San Francisco. The steamboats
that ply on the bay are as complete as our own.
They are fast and explosive. The sail up the bay
at evening is very beautiful; everything on a
grander scale than the Bay of Panama. Benecia
lies just above the entrance of Suisun Bay which
is formed by the junction of Sacramento and St.
Joaquin rivers, on the slope of the low hills; a
straggling town without a tree. The bend of the
river here is very beautiful, and the opposite bank,
rising abruptly, and sprinkled with low trees, looks
* Castllleia (Gray).
136 THE GOLDEN GATE. [1853
like a park. In the background are the two fine
summits of Monte Diabolo, two thousand feet high,
distant thirty miles, but immediate in the clear air.
The water of the river is muddy, but from a height,
it has, when the sun falls upon it, a pink color,
something like this blotting-paper, novel to me,
and pretty. The same soft hills covered with
flowers rise above the town, and with a friend
I lay basking in the sun, enjoying the view, and
thinking that this part of California at least was
worthy of the name."
''April 16th. Last Sunday I had a fine long walk
down the bay we walked about fifteen miles, and
collected enormous bunches of flowers. The sea-
ward views are noble, particularly from Fort Point,
one of the heads of the Golden Gate, where the
United States is building a lighthouse. Here you
look near two hundred feet down a precipice.
There is a grand beach and ocean swell outside,
beyond the outer heads of the bay. The confor-
mation of some of these sandhills is singular, and
in some places they sweep away inland, advancing
like .a cataract of water, smooth and softly rounded
to the top, and then breaking precipitously. The
weather has been almost perfect since my arrival,
exactly the thing for exercise, making me regret
my tiresome confinement to the office, and urging
me to terminate it, and begin my wanderings.
You need not be surprised to see me at home tow-
ards autumn, if I should come home across the
plains, or by Mexico."
CHAPTER V.
THE WILDERNESS.
"Portland, Oregon, April 29th, 1853.
DEAR MOTHER, I left San Francisco on Sun-
day the 24th April, in the Columbia. Outside
the bay we met a stiff norwester that made me sea-
sick as usual, and put us back nicely. The steamer
follows the coast at a distance of from three to ten
miles. The shores are mostly bold and harborless.
The coast range of mountains is clothed with in-
exhaustible forests, all the way to the Columbia
and beyond, and already the lumber trade is be-
coming important, both along the coast and on the
Columbia, where numberless sawmills are fast
opening little breathing-holes in the sunless for-
est. The size of the red wood pines is almost
fabulous. What do you think of one here at
Portland, ninety-six feet in circumference, one at
Humboldt fifty-five feet in diameter, and one three
hundred and thirteen feet long. Here at Portland,
more than one hundred and twenty miles from the
sea, ships are freighted with spars and timbers for
China. For ages, Oregon will supply lumber to
the Pacific world. These deep pine woods give a
gloomy look to the coast. The shores are bold and
138 THE PACIFIC COAST. [1853
dangerous, and the sea roars and dashes heavily
on the outlying rocks. We stopped in the night at
Port Oxford, where is a small military post. Some
of the headlands are precipitous and striking. The
bar at the mouth of the Columbia is a very dan-
gerous one, and even crossing with the most fa-
vorable wind and tide, the swell and roar of the
breakers was grand. Passing this you enter a spa-
cious estuary, inclosed between a low piny point
and a high wooded bluff, and to the south end-
ing in a clear green spot; an old battle-ground of
the Indians. You look out upon a beautiful ex-
panse of water, surrounded by low mountains,
black with pines, in the distance, and more than
one hundred miles inland, the superb cone of St.
Helen's, one of the noblest of snowy mountains, is
a crown to the view. The river at this point is
very grand and solitary, worthy of being the
great stream of the Pacific coast. Proceeding, you
bend to the right, and find in a small cove, the
few houses of Astoria. The situation is not fitted
for a town, and the anchorage and channel will
hinder, if not prevent, its becoming the site of a
great place, such as must arise at this mouth of
the Columbia. Just above is a pretty promontory
called Tongue point, on the technical left bank of
the river, with bays above and below, and com-
manding its whole sweep Five miles or so brings
you to the real course of the stream, from one to
three miles in width. As it narrows, some bold
basaltic cliffs rise above in three terraces with deep
Mi. 24] THE COLUMBIA. 139
water at the base, and covered with thick firs.
The opposite banks are low, with deciduous trees
in their fresh spring foliage. Two or three little
threads of cascades fall down the cliif. The scen-
ery all along is of a similar character, wild and im-
posing, as the course of a great river should be.
The first stopping-places are nothing more than a
house and a sawmill. Opposite the mouth of the
Cowlitz, a village called Kanier is growing up.
At this point the grand peak of St. Helen's came
out brilliantly against the sky. It is a rounded
cone, of which you see nothing but the snowy sum-
mit, one third of the mountain, above surrounding
ranges. It is a volcano, and still occasionally
smokes. At the town of St. Helen's, the course
of the river brings the peak exactly opposite, and
in full view across, a grand object for perpetual
admiration. The clouds hid the others, Mt. Hood
and Mt. Eanier, from view. St. Helen's, which
has now about thirty houses, is at the proper head
of navigation for large ships, and is likely to be-
come the important point. Here the bank is a
rock of basalt of twenty feet high, affording an ad-
mirable locality for a town and port. One mouth
of the Willamette comes in here. From this point
it became too dark to see. Portland, up the Willam-
ette, the farthest point to which vessels of any
size can go, struggles along the bank of the river,
a thriving place of fifteen hundred people. Above,
the river becomes shallow, and there are bad rapids,
only passable by small steamers. There is a very
140 OREGON. [1853
large trade up the river, but the sooner they have
good roads, to escape navigation, the better."
"Portland, Oregon, April 29th, 1853.
" DEAR SISTER, It was a very natural thing for
me to have gone to California, when on the Pacific
coast, but coming here, to a country once so much
more thought of than California, and of late so little
in comparison, has a different effect. Oregon still
seems distant from the old United States, and there
is a feeling of grandeur connected with the forests,
the mountains, and the great continental river of
this country that belongs to nothing in the land
of Gold. The Columbia, as I have said before, is a
most imposing river in its lower course, a great broad
massive stream, whose scenery has a breadth and a
wild powerful effect every way worthy of it. It
will be cultivated worthily also, and some thousand
years hence, the beauty of its highly finished shores
will be exquisite, backed by the snow peaks. There
is a heartiness and rough sincerity impressed upon
people by the kind of life they lead in new coun-
tries. An easy hospitality given and received
without much ceremony is a thing of course. The
prices are so high that all the old ideas of economy
are thrown aside. Money is easily made and freely
spent. A dollar is absolutely nothing. All the
men of the country are young, and almost all pros-
perous. The population on the whole is perhaps
not of the most valuable kind, consisting largely
of the successors of the pioneers, a sort of semi-
Mi. 24] OREGON. 141
civilized race who have not the intelligence or en-
ergy of a real farming people, but are half nomad
still, without much local attachment. The very
bad land system, formed to prevent speculation,
has prevented investment in land by settlers who
could not wait till a residence of four years upon a
spot gave them ownership, or of two the privilege
of purchase. At present, no one .not living upon a
spot of land can possess it; there are no titles even
to house lots in towns. The prosperous people are
the farmers of cattle and produce, who live princi-
pally upon the valley of the Willamette. Every-
thing they can raise meets a ready market and
high prices. It is the paradise of farmers. Lum-
bering also is lucrative, store-keeping, and manual
labor of all kinds. There must always be a marked
difference between the character of this people and
the Californians. In a few minutes, when I get a
little colder, I will turn in between the blankets of
my host, who has a large country store here. On
the whole, I will turn in now. Good night.
"T. W."
"April 30th.
" My plans are quite grand for a tour in these re-
gions till my money is all gone. On the steamer,
coming here, I met quite a character, a pioneer of
this country, with all the typical qualities of the
class. Born in Kentucky, educated as a surveyor,
and passing the earlier part of his life on the fron-
tier, he moved to this country fifteen years ago in
the first emigration, took up a whole claim, and by
142 VANCOUVER. [1853
the sudden colonization of the country, finds him-
self a rich man. He is rough and back woodsy, but
has the real love of nature and freedom, with a
tinge of romance. I am off across the plains, and
may return home that way. Hurrah for freedom
and a wild life ! ! T. W."
" Vancouver, Washington Territory, May 1st, 1853.
"My DEAR MOTHER, I arrived here from Portland
yesterday. The distance is eight miles by land,
sixteen by water. I got a pony and lashed him
for a moment to a wheelbarrow which he found so
tempting that he dashed off, dragging it, and de-
tained me till he was caught. Vancouver is the
headquarters of the Hudson's Bay Co. as well as
of the U. S. Army for Oregon and Washington
Territories. It is upon the right, or north bank
of the Columbia, six miles above the Willamette.
Having been long settled by the Company, they
have cleared a large space of land, taken out the
stumps, and given to the broad meadow on the
river bank, the beautiful smoothness of an English
lawn. There is a belt of fine trees along the river,
and .behind the ground rises in a gentle terrace to
the U. S. Barracks. Below, upon the flat, are the
stockades and buildings of the Hudson's Bay Co.
When the Indians were dangerous, these stock-
ades were necessary, but now their tribes have
dwindled away into total insignificance. Back
of all is the deep pine forest, with some fine outly-
ing trees. I had a letter of introduction from Gen.
Hitchcock to % the commanding officer, Col. Boniie-
Mr. 24] VANCOUVER. 143
ville, who received me very kindly, and gave me
quarters in his house, and I was soon at home with
all the officers. I had also a letter to Gov. Ogden
of the H. B. Co., a British subject, all his life in
the service, who looks like an old gray lion. I
had intended to stop and go up the Columbia
only as far as the Cascades and the Dalles, but I
found that Capt. Brent with a small party of men
was going up to Fort Hall and thence to Salt Lake
and to return thence to California, and I decided
to go with them as a most excellent chance. The
Hon. Mr. Fitz William, a young Englishman of my
own age is also of the party, on his way across the
plains, and we shall travel as pleasantly as possible.
Capt. Brent is on government service, and we shall
see some of the most interesting parts of the less
visited Indian country. I have not yet decided
whether to go on with FitzWilliam across the
plains and report to you, via. St. Louis, or return to
California. Most likely the latter. We shall travel
expedite, and be about thirty days from the Dalles
to Salt Lake, where, if sufficient inducement offers,
I shall turn Mormon. Once off, you may not hear
from me for a long time, but you need have no
anxiety, as we travel with perfect security, in the
good season. I expect to gain health and strength
enough to last the rest of my life. I should come
of course straight on with F. W., but I have left all
my traps in California, and seen nothing of that
country, not even the mines. However, quien
sabe? I shall rap the old knocker at your door
144 THE DALLES. [1853
about the end of July, in a flannel shirt and buck-
skin breeches. Yours, T. W."
"Dalles of the Columbia, May 10th, 1853.
"DEAR MOTHER, I wrote you last from Vancou-
ver. We left there on Monday morning in the lit-
tle steamer Multnomah At 4 P. M. we reached
the landing at the foot of the rapids in the midst
of the Cascade Mountains. These mountains are
of trap formation and present bold crags and pre-
cipitous fronts. The scenery had already been
bolder and wilder than any river I had seen,
and it became more and more singular and strik-
ing. I have only time for a line. These moun-
tains are from one thousand five hundred, to four
or five thousand feet high, and the great river
forces its way through them in a wild pine-clad
gorge for sixty miles. We encamped at the land-
ing, and next day took the luggage of the party
up to the foot of the principal rapid in small boats,
where we portaged them on a rude tram-road.
The company being large, Capt. Brent's party,
with one hundred days' provisions, and Capt Wal-
ler's company of infantry, with baggage, ammuni-
tion, caissons, etc., the process occupied two entire
days, till we got on board a flat boat. It was nav-
igated by two ignorami, and we had to stop and
cut a big steering oar in the woods. It blew a gale
our flat came very near being wrecked, which
would have been awkward with sixty men on
board, and we put into port about seven miles
up, where we encamped and had a pleasant time.
2Er. 24] THE DALLES. 145
Next morning, with scenery growing still wilder,
we went up "stream, the strong wind helping our
crazy craft to struggle. About noon, we put into
port again, waiting for the wind to fall, and I had
time to climb a mountain and see the course of the
river. We got away in the afternoon, and camped
out, twenty miles up, in a splendid place. The
tents and numerous camp-fires made the woods
and crags most animated. Many pretty cascades
came tumbling into the river. On the third day we
reached the Dalles, and were most hospitably en-
tertained at the Barracks, I being quartered with
Major Alvoord, to whom I had a letter. The cam-
paign thus far has been delightful, with a pleasant
and lively set of officers, and all the excitement of
a small military expedition. We find that there
need be no apprehensions about the Indians. The
Cascades of the Columbia are rapids, not falls, but
very picturesque. Here at the Dalles, the river is
drawn into a narrow compass between walls of trap,
about forty feet high, and at the Dalles proper, is
confined in a space of about eighty -five yards; I
will visit that to-day. We start into the wilder-
ness in two or three days; everything propitious, the
party most harmonious. You will not hear from me
for a long time."
"Portland, Oregon, June 13th, 1853.
"DEAR MOTHER, ' Ehomme propose. Dieu dis-
pose!' Never more true! I made my prepara-
tions to return across the plains, and reached
the Dalles, as I have written you, but went no fur-
146 ILLNESS. [1853
ther. There I had, very mildly, the small pox,
which I probably caught from a friend, whom I
visited in Portland at the moment when the dis-
ease was most infectious. He, poor fellow, had it
terribly in the confluent form, but with me, the
fever was slight, and the eruption has left almost
no traces, so that you would not notice that I had
had the malady. The day after I wrote you, in
fact that very day I had a slight attack of fever,
so that I was hardly able to keep my saddle in a
ride we took to the Dalles, and on returning I felt
so ill as to lie down. I was quartered with Major
Alvoord, who commanded the post, and on the
disease pronouncing itself, he gave up his room to
me and camped out. From him and all the other
officers, as well as Dr. Summers, I received every
kindness and sympathy, though of course they
had to avoid me. I am still anxious lest I should
have given the complaint to some of them. It
has been very virulent here, the Indians dying in
crowds almost always fatal. With me, except
the slight irritation caused by the eruption, the
illness was nothing; the chief discomfort was the
idea of having a dangerous malady, and the fear
of giving it to others. Of course I was very much
disappointed in not being able to go with Brent
and FitzW. The party would have been perfect.
They waited a week, but could delay no longer.
In about three weeks I was pronounced safe, and
left my confinement with no other symptom than
an all-grasping appetite. When I was well enough
MT. 24] DISAPPOINTMENT. 147
to travel, it was useless to undertake to overtake
my party, so I determined at least to defer the
trip. The country about the Dalles is desolate
and wild in the extreme, and sad must be the
disappointment of the emigrants, who arrive there
in the autumn when every green thing is parched,
themselves way-worn, their wealth of cattle become
poverty half starved and almost hopeless. But the
beauty of Oregon is further on, and if the rest of the
Willamette and the adjoining valleys, corresponds
with what I have seen, Oregon is one of the loveli-
est places on earth. While I was ill, the Columbia
rose enormously with its regular June flood from the
melting snows. This made a difference of thirty
feet in the water level, and the country below
Vancouver is now a vast lake. The narrow chan-
nels of the Dalles were filled almost to the brim
and the Rapids almost obliterated. At the Dalles,
the river is confined in three narrow rifts in the
rook, the widest only sixty feet, the others almost
jumpable. The difference of level between high
and low water is sixty feet. It must bewilder and
stranger when the river is low. There is nothing
beautiful except the grandeur of the mighty rushing
torrent mass. The barracks are on a hillside, scant-
ily wooded, with a noble view of Mt. Hood, always
magnificent with its unsullied snows, and just at
the angle of the Columbia below, the rounded
cone of Mt. Adams fills up the gap of the range.
These snowy summits are all isolated, not forming
the beautiful ranges of the Alps they rise singly
148 THE DALLES. [1853
and apart, and it is only at a certain elevation that
you command more than one or two at a view. As
single peaks, all are very fine, but I have not yet
seen any really picturesque high-mountain scenery.
" At the Dalles, when I was there, high disagree-
able winds came down over the mountains, mak-
ing the weather chilly when the mercury stood at
90. This wind prevails during the summer on the
whole course of the Columbia. After I was con-
valescent, I took several long rides over the hills,
treeless and only scantily covered with grass,
and with many flowers, some of them pretty and
peculiar
"I left the Dalles on June 4th, in one of the H. B.
Co.'s boats carrying furs, collected during the win-
ter by a fine specimen of a Highlander who has
charge of Fort Coleville, followed by a fine tail of
half-breeds and Indians with one picturesque old
white-headed Canadian, of whom 1 bought a noble
pair of buckskin pantaloons. The free life that
these men lead in the wilderness has great charms
for me. We had a pleasant trip down the River,
floating almost fast enough, though the Indians
pulled like good fellows. We stopped several times
for them to "muck or muck,"* which they are
ready for forty times a day. Soon after noon we
reached the Cascades, and making the portage,
while the lightened boat shot the Rapids, got
away on the lower river. The rise of the water
had changed the look of things a house where
we had slept was .up to the second story in water.
* To eat, iu Chinook.
ET. 24] THE COLUMBIA. 149
The evening was most lovely. At nightfall the
Indians all went to sleep in the bottom of the boat,
and we floated rapidly down stream all night, by
starlight, dozing in our blankets. At 4 A. M. we
landed at Vancouver, where I was kindly received
again by Gov. Ogden, and had plenty of condolence
for my illness. The flood had been very destruc-
tive to the crops, and the whole of the lovely
meadow was a great lake. The officers of Van-
couver are pleasant company, and the H. B. Co.
live in solid comfortable style, with plenty of good
beer. I enjoyed my final convalescence.
"The Indians of the Columbia are a miserable
race, living on salmon and roots. The fishery at
the Cascades is fabulously productive, and the
lodges for drying the richly colored fish are really
curiosities. The fish are caught in a scoop net,
Avhich an Indian standing on a framework, built
over the most rapid spots sweeps down against
the stream, till he catches his quantum. I have
seen them take four or five splendid fish in as
many minutes. The whole world lives upon Sal-
mon till it is tired of it. ... With my say half
said, Yours, T. W.
" My plans are unformed as yet after my forced
return to Oregon, and I don't know what route I
shall take to get home."
g t Umpqua River, June 28th, 1853.
" My letters come to you from places you never
heard of perhaps, but of more or less importance
in this growing country. This is a town just cut
150 THE WILLAMETTE. [1853
out of the woods, rough enough in appearance, and
almost inaccessible at times, but a large business
is done here. It is one of the principal points of
supply for the North California and Oregon mines,
and for a large and beautiful farming country on
the upper Umpqua River. Leaving Portland, I
followed up the Willamette valley. The scenery
is lovely. Of the River I did not see much, as it
flows between banks thickly wooded with firs, the
deep black woods of the country, but the valley is
composed of beautiful smooth prairies, sprinkled
with belts of heavy timber, or open groves of oaks.
This is the general character of the country smooth
grazing meadows, suitable for any kind of farming.
The plains are broken by frequent water-courses,
and you can hardly go a mile without finding a
brook, or spring. On one side, the coast range
closes the view, a rough and rather desolate chain,
on the other, the Cascade Mountains higher and
more distant defined by the great snow peaks
rising almost isolated, and nearly at regular inter-
vals so much higher are they than the main
range. From many spots and slight elevations, I
could see several of these peaks, far off on the hor-
izon. From one hill near Salem, I could see seven
of them. At this great distance nearly two hun-
dred miles, the smooth rounded cone of St. Helen's
is particularly fine, rising as if at once from the
plain, superbly defined against the sky in the blue
distance. Looking at these peaks so far off, they
are even more imposing than a connected range,
Mi. 24] OREGON. 151
and I have seen few more striking views than that
one near Salem, where the eye could command all
of them, and a vast expanse of plain and forest,
sprinkled with cultivated spots, and backed by
hills and the far chains of the Mountains. It is
the part of the world to live in ! Most of the val-
ley being open, excellent roads were made merely
by driving wagons over the grass till a track is
worn, and to a traveler on horseback, progress is very
easy. The donation law, giving to every family
settled before 1849, a section of land, and to every
single man a half section, has strung along cabins
at a distance of a mile or so, with their little spots
of cultivation, but in general, the wide plains are
grazed by herds of the finest cattle. The stock
here is exceedingly good, the best alone support-
ing the journey across, and being improved by it,
and by the excellent pastures of the country.
Though the Willamette valley is not very wide,
each of the small streams which flows into it has
its own little spot of smooth verdure in the forest,
with a supply of fine oak and fir timber for the
cabins, and a rill of water flowing by the door.
Labor is dear, and the prices of provisions high. The
old farmers found themselves suddenly rich on the
discovery of gold, and became lazy, consequently
nothing has been done to develop the country in
proportion to its resources. Many of the settlers
are half-breeds and Canadians of the H. B. Co., and
there is one extensive district called the French
Prairie, where you naturally call for a glass of
152 OREGON. [1853
water in that language. A few Indians remain,
but they are lazy and good-for-nothing, and the
salmon fishing makes them comparatively rich.
In the lower country they are more powerful and
dangerous. I bought a fine American mare, and
started one morning up the Willamette Kiver.
The short interval between the farm-houses makes
it always possible to get something to eat, and if
there is a lady of the house, she is always captivated
by talking of the trip across the plains, which al-
most all the Oregon women have made. You
turn your horse into the rich pastures, and take a
nooning under the trees, or a bath in some
living brook. In the forests, the fern is usually
breast deep. The weather has been delicious, the
heat bearable except at noon, the nights cool
enough for blankets. My first night brought me
to Salem, the present capital, a village of less than
one thousand people, on one of these exquisite
plains. The streets are wide, and the original oak
trees have been left about. Mount Hood is every-
where in plain sight. My second day carried me
through a region of equal beauty, to Marysville, the
head of high- water steam navigation on theWillam-
ette, on another tine plain, where the coast range
comes nearer. Whenever one has hit on a good
site for a town, his next neighbor starts a rival one,
so that there are often two settlements within a
quarter of a mile in open warfare if you buy a
lot in one, you lose the good opinion of everybody
in the other. I stopped the third night at a
Sfr- 24 ] OREGON. 153
farmer's a backwoodsman enriched by the mines,
and not even taking trouble to milk his cows, ex-
cept for the household. Kough enough some of
these rich farmers are Pike County men, as they
say, who have fallen into pleasant places. My
fourth night I was to have spent at the house of
an acquaintance, but I missed it, and as it was a
splendid night, I turned my horse to graze, and
finding a nice oak grove, made a fine fire in a
hollow tree, and a capital bed with my blankets and
saddle cover; ate two soda biscuits, and when I was
tired of admiring the light of the full moon, turned
in for the night. Next morning I had nothing to
do but to shake myself, saddle and ride to Youcalla,
to my friend's house to breakfast. He was one of
the emigration of '43, and is a man of remarkable
intelligence and energy, who looks like a back-
woodsman and thinks like the most cultivated.
He has nearly confirmed my intention of settling
in this country. His farm is meadow, completely
encompassed by hills covered with grass, serving
as a range for the cattle that form his wealth."
"Fort Vancouver.
" I wish I had time to describe to you my trip
to Scottsburg, with my sail down the Umpqua, to
the mouth, my journey up the river, by another
route to Winchester, whence want of time prevented
me from going to the mines. I returned another
way, down the left bank of the Willamette, through
the beautiful Yamhill country, diverged across the
Tualtin plains, and the Ikapoose mountain to the
154 PORTLAND. [1853
town of St. Helen's on the Columbia, and stopped to
ascend the Chehallis mountain whence there is a
noble panorama of the plains and snow peaks,
worthy of the Alps. If I had a home, a wife, and
something to fix me to a local habitation, I should
most certainly establish myself here in Oregon.
But until then, I shall probably be a rolling stone.
I believe, if I could make up my mind to stay here,
I could have a small fortune in six months. I am
now at the Hudson's Bay Co., where I am always
at home, and find it pleasant. I have never felt
better. I close in Portland, in splendid weather."
" Portland, July 12th, 1853.
" MY DEAR BROTHER : I wish that you could see
the great brick of these parts, Governor Ogden of
the Hudson Bay Co., and other minor bricks of the
same certainly the nicest set of men whom I have
had the good fortune to know, free and hospitable,
full of fun and good sense. This Oregon is a noble
country ! The summer climate almost perfection,
and the winter, though rainy, not severe or dis-
agreeable. It offers a grand field for a man who
is either a world in himself, or who can have his
own world about him. There are very few educa-
ted or enlightened men here, so that one might
want society, yet any man who unites sense to
education can do anything he pleases. It would
take but little to induce me to give up the old
country and live here, but my unhappy, unsettled
disposition is always in the way. Look me up a
JET. 24] PUGET SOUND. 155
charming young woman, who has no objection to
a red beard, and can do anything, from preaching
to dancing the polka, from making a cocktail to
running a steam-engine, marry her by proxy and
lock up till demand. Boston is said to be a good
place, so look out for me there. If I return this
summer, it will be with the intention of coming
out again with a plan, formed on my knowledge
of the country.
"T. W."
" Fort NisqwMy, Puget Sound, July 23d, 1853.
" DEAR MOTHER, I am still on the move as you
see. Who knows where I shall stop ? My last was
from Vancouver. We went down the river that
morning in a small steamer that deposited us at
Monticello, among the mosquitoes. Next day we
went up the river, thirty miles in a canoe, with
four Indians to paddle ; the stream flows through
dense forests, buzzing with mosquitoes ; very rapid
current, and slow progress. The Indian lodges of
the better class are entirely above ground, built
of boards, with bunks, mats, blankets, and other
comforts, according to the wealth of the owner.
All understand the Chinook jargon the most com-
ical of all languages, if it can be called one, con-
taining words from most languages, and answering
to the Pigeon English of the Chinese.* At Cowlitz,
the head of navigation, we spent a tedious day wait-
ing for horses, until the next evening, when we
rode eight miles to Jackson's prairie, passing the
* See Vocabulary in "Canoe and the Saddle."
156 PUGET SOUND. [1853
Hudson's Bay Co.'s beautiful farms there, rich with
ripe grain. Over the trees that belted the river,
nearer than ever rose graceful St. Helen's, and now
first clearly seen, the immense bulk of Kanier, the
most massive of all grand, grand above the plain!
Mr. Jackson is an old settler and has a splendid
farm. All the scanty population is alive with hopes
and questions about the great Eailroad, and the
exploring parties, and every man is certain that
it must come through his place. Next morning,
rode through a country of cedar trees. Stop and
noon at Ford's, and then in the cool of the hottest
of days ride till midnight by moon fifty-two miles
to Olympia. Four miles from Ford's are the mound
prairies spotted with small mounds at first just
distinguishable becoming as we go on fifty feet
in diameter and ten to fifteen feet high, covering
an immense extent of country. The mound prairie
is marked by a mound of another class fifty feet or
much more in height, almost perfectly regular,
with some large trees on it. A Yankee has built
a house on the apex, and means to make a nursery
of fruit trees on its fertile sides. About eleven
p. M. the roar of a cascade announced our arrival at
Olympia, at the head of the Sound. We could just
see a pretty little fall, a mill, and the great expanse
of the Sound. A few houses make Olympia a thriv-
ing lumbering village, cleared from the woods, with
stumps in the main street. Plenty of oysters and
large queer clarns. Puget Sound here terminates
in a point, spreading below to a great lake with
-SJT. 24] OREGON: 157
low banks, thick with firs. Tide rises nearly twenty-
feet, water clear low tide leaves a great mud flat
below the place. Stopped a day. I was with Capt.
Trowbridge, who had come to make tidal observa-
tions on the Sound. Next day we started in a noble
clipper of a canoe for Steilacoon, the U. S. Fort.
Paddled along against tide. Indians took it easy
shot a duck and a pole cat pulled up a gigantic
purple star-fish made a vocabulary of the Inoo-
squamish language. Had a jolly time splendid
sheet of water with islands and nooks of bays.
Mt. Ranier hung up in the air. Landed nine p. M.,
walked two miles through the woods to the Bar-
racks waked an officer supper, and bed. To-day
walked to Fort Nisqually a Hudson's Bay Co.
farm and station. Dr. Tolmie in charge going to
Vancouver's Island to-morrow, invited me to go,
probably shall and join the other party there.
" These disjointed words were written by vio-
lent effort in a small house, with mercury at 90 F.
With best love to all, and assurances of reasonable
well being, Yours,
"T. W."
Tictoria, rancouver's Island, Aug. 15th, 1852.
" DEAR MOTHER, I can hardly represent to my-
self the summer life at home, the dusty streets,
quenched by an occasional shower, to the joy of
the party assembled in the porch, just out of reach
of the sprinkles; the delicious evenings, just cool
enough to restore after the sultriness of the glar-
158 WILD LIFE. [1853
ing day, with open windows and music, or a moon-
light walk ; the crush of Commencement, the after
calm. A year passed without a winter seems to
have no right to a summer, and I am hardly con-
scious of its having come and gone. The weather
just now is like a New England October, the days
warm and cloudless, but the nights so cool that
two blankets do not come amiss. A heavy smoke
from the burning woods casts a haze over every-
thing, as in our Indian summer. The arm of the
sea upon which Victoria is looks beautiful in the
sunny afternoon, with the smoke just obscuring
the rocky, too barren shores, and veiling the white
houses of the village.
" Since I last wrote, I have, besides cruising
about the Island, seeing the points and the settle-
ments, taken a trip over to the American shore to
the coal mines on Bellington Bay. I took a large
clipper canoe, and five Indians, with one wife, and
provisions, etc., and started one fresh blowing morn-
ing when they thought it something of a risk to
go. It looked rather squally at first, but I soon
got confidence in my vessel, which went nobly
over the heavy swells, just on the safe side of dan-
ger the Indians highly excited as the seas struck
her. We crossed a somewhat dreaded traverse be-
tween this and a neighboring island, and then gen-
tly glided along among the smaller islands of the
archipelago. Everywhere the Indians were salmon
fishing, sometimes with a small flat net, extended
between two large canoes, and sometimes singly, in
E-r. 24] WILD LIFE. 159
great fleets of little canoes, trolling with the line fas-
tened to a paddle. My Indians were of the Nook
Lummi tribe, and were in good spirits, as they
were going to visit their friends. Like all on that
coast, they were a careless, jolly, happy race, amus-
ing themselves with jokes and me with songs, some
of which were pretty and original. I tried to write
down the notes of one, and on laying down my
paper, one of them with a most quizzical look, pre-
tended to be able to sing it, the rest roaring with
laughter. Towards evening we landed in a deep,
quiet, solitary, tarn-like cove, walled in by rocks
and overhung by great pine trees. As the canoe
entered, thousands of ducks rose from the water,
and flew screaming about; but the door was shut
by the canoe ; when we fired, the whole place was
alive with echoes. As we landed, a young Indian
stepped on the cover of a box and split it; where-
upon the owner of the box and he became ' silex '
or in the sulks; the former wrapped himself up in
his blanket toga, like the dying Caesar, and lying
down in the bottom of the boat, refused to be com-
forted; neither of them would eat anything, like a
pair of pouting children. After a while they re-
laxed, and were very glad to get some prog that
was put away for them. It was a capital evening,
and my kibobs of fresh mutton relished amazingly.
Then in the dim twilight we floated on, some pad-
dling and some sleeping, and made the destined
shore about midnight. Next morning I found that
by some misunderstanding (tremen. long word
160 WILD LIFE. 1853]
that) we had come to the wrong part of the Bay,
or rather, were not in the Bay at all. Our course
then was inland, up a good sized river, thickly
shrouded with almost tropical vegetation. Pres-
ently we came to an Indian salmon weir, a high
framework of poles reaching across the stream, and
serving also as a light foot bridge at intervals,
wicker-work shields are suspended in the water,
and just against them, baskets, like a lobster pot;
the salmon, rushing up stream, is met by the shield,
and turning, falls into the pot. This fishery be-
longed to one of my men, and as we came, an In-
dian was just taking a noble salmon out; we ac-
cepted the invitation to breakfast, and such a
kettle of fish! of which a mighty portion was first
served out to me, sitting in state on a mat-covered
dais, in a hut neither clean nor well ventilated.
Hurrah for savage life ! "
"Dalles, Aug. 31st, 1853.
" DEAR MOTHER, I arrived here to-day across the
mountains from Nisqually, after an adventurous
and rather arduous journey of several days, in the
course of which I was pretty much thrown on my
own resources my Indian guide having left me
to shift for myself in the middle of a great prairie.
I have no time to give a full account. I arrived
to-day, and start to-morrow for Salt-Lake with the
mail carriers, and shall leave there, Oct. 1st, for
home, likewise with the mail. Write me to St.
Louis, so that I shall have news on my arrival.
^T. 24] RETURN. 161
No false start this time, I hope ! I am in much
haste to make my preparations for the morrow.
Captain Brent has just returned, and gives me an
excellent account of his trip."
Here for a time the letters cease, and the reader
must be referred to the pages of " The Canoe and the
Saddle," which contains Theodore Winthrop's own ac-
count of this wild journey across the Cascade Moun-
tains, with some notes upon the Dalles and their
legends, and a very amusing vocabulary of the be-
wildering Chinook Jargon, which is a true confusion
6f tongues. One of the legends is a weird reproduc-
tion in Indian folk lore of the tale of Eip Van Winkle,
a story so old and universal that it might have been
told by the shores of Atlantis. Another relates some
of those wonderful and supernatural leaps across chasms
such as we always hear of in mountain countries. The
volume also contains a sketch of life in the Isthmus,
which, like the other sketch, was written and thrown
aside (a fragment perhaps of some larger plan,) and
never prepared for publication. It seems fitting to
close this period of his life with his own words.
" So, on the morrow, I mounted a fresh horse, and
went galloping along on my way across the con-
tinent. With my comrades, a pair of frank, hearty,
kindly roughs, I rode over the dry plains of the
upper Columbia, beyond the sight of Mt. Hood and
Tacoma the less, across John Day's river and the
Umatilla, day after day, through throngs of emi-
grants with their flocks and their herds and their
little ones in great patriarchal caravans, with
162 THE CANOE AND THE SADDLE. [1853
their white-roofed wagons strewed over the sur-
ging prairie, like sails on a populous sea, moving
away from the tame levels of mid America to
regions of fresher and more dramatic life on the
slopes toward the Western sea. I climbed the
Blue Mountains, looked over the lovely valley of
the Grande Ronde, wound through the stern denies
of the Burnt River Mountains, talked with the great
chiefs of the Nez Perces at Fort Boisee, dodged
treacherous Bannacks along the Snake, bought sal-
mon and otter skins of the Shoshonees at the
Salmon Falls, shot antelope, found many oases of
refreshing beauty along the breadth of that desolate
region, and so, after much adventure, and at last
deadly sickness, I came to the watermelon patches
of the Great Salt Lake valley, and drew recovery
thence. I studied the Utah landscape, Oriental,
simple and severe. I talked with Brother Brigham,
a man of very considerable power, practical sense
and administrative ability. I chatted with the
buxom thirteenth of a Boss Mormon and was not
proselyted. And then, in delicious October, I has-
tened on over the South Pass, through the buffalo,
over prairies on fire quenched at night by the first
snows of autumn. For two months I rode, with
days sweet and cloudless, and every night I
bivouacked beneath the splendor of unclouded stars.
And in all that period, when I was so near to Nature,
the great lessons of the wilderness deepened into
my heart, day by day, the hedges of conventionalism
withered away from my horizon, and all the ped-
-3BT.26] ST. LOUIS. 163
antries of scholastic thought perished out of my
mind forever." ("Canoe and Saddle." Finis.)
Here then was a turning-point in Winthrop's career,
or at least in his mental experience, and one of which
he was himself conscious, if not at the moment, at
least not long after. Few records of this time can be
found in letters and journals, but the seed sown then
bore abundant fruit upon the pages of " John Brent."
At St. Louis he stopped awhile with kind friends and
relatives, and enjoyed the society of his classmate and
dear friend Henry Hitchcock, who had settled there
a nephew of Gen. Hitchcock, U. S. A. This visit to
St. Louis had much influence upon his future life, and
movements. He has often spoken of his delight in
being with his friends once more and among culti-
vated people and lovely women. About this time his
mind began to be full of the visions of authorship, or
rather the visions he had always had began to take
form and to become plans. On his return home, at a
white heat with the excitement of his adventurous
journeys, he began to write or sketch out many
things, some of which afterward arranged themselves
into permanent shape. It is impossible to fix the dates
of these first ideas. Many of them doubtless darted
into his mind as he galloped over the great plains,
or through the tangled tropic forests, and others were
long seething in his brain, before anything was put
upon paper. He was at Salt Lake City on Sept. 28th,
1853, and returned home on Nov. 28th, stopping at
Fort Bridger, and staying awhile at the. hospitable
Fort Laramie, where his visit is still talked of, and
the house where he lived pointed out. The pictures
164 POEMS. [1853
of that journey, live upon his pages of after days the
Indian, the settler, the lonely fort, the slow moving
caravan, the Mormon fanatic. Some of his poems
belong to this period, and are full of reminiscences of
the Plains, such as these.
MOONLIGHT.
Dreamy, dreamy moonlight over plain,
Over river softly shifting light;
Dreamy dark, the forest mountain chain
Marks glimmering outlines on the night.
Dreamy hopes of unimagined bliss
Breathe, passing into mournful sighs,
Breezes whisper hopes of happiness;
Catch the sweet murmur ere it dies !
Brief, oh too faintly, sadly brief,
Fitful dreams drifted, drifted on,
Swift as the flicker of a leaf,
Shook glancing hope and then were gone !
Stay, tender dreamy moonlight peace !
Queenly calmness, sweep along my sky !
Day blasts me, action will not cease,
March we must, ever wearily !
March we will, true men will be true !
Yet in our harsh and bitter days,
Sweetly pausing moments will renew
Gleams of these soothing moonlight rays.
Never fairer, dim dreamy world !
Banners of man's hostile daylight strife
Droop listless, all peaceful furled,
Sweet grows the friendliness of life.
MT. 25] POEMS. 165
FOKEST FIBE.
Oh ! glorious comrade ! how we welcomed him !
The broad and friendly glow, the smile, the laugh,
The speaking sparkles. Not a moment still,
But merrier than gayest merriment,
And startling oft, as thoughts seize name and live,
Live in the soul, till gloom falls utterly.
Welcome, divine one ! banquet brilliantly,
Feast thou, the festal hero ! now we stand
Most willing servitors. Be lavish long
FIEE UP!
Eevelry ! revelry !
O ! might my soul be like a flame !
Making gloom glory,
To engulf with light the shame
Of a world's dark story !
Oh splendor, brilliancy !
Shout with me victory !
Suddenly victor, one flash,
And circles shrinking,
Of night from that patriot dash,
Nightward are sinking.
Eevelry ! revelry !
Yes, noble knight, thou hast won !
Take thy grand pleasure,
Mantle with splendor the dim,
Lavish thy treasure !
166 FRAGMENTS. [1853
Fading, soon fading !
Torture as keen will be thine,
When dying flame lashes
Its death for one fleeting shine,
Then sinks to ashes.
PEOSE FRAGMENT.
(Supposed Fragment of a Tale.)
Out of the forest on fire, on to the plain, the wide
plain sweeping up to the swelling hills, restless surg-
ing hills, tending to limitless horizons beyond the edge
of the world, I came alone, off from the snow peaks,
down across the piny mountains. The chill wind
blew, bringing dismal snow squalls from the wintry
sky, a torn angry sky, frowning upon the flaming
woods. Hot blasts came, mingled with cold snow-
flakes. Alone and objectless I went. I passed the
hills, utterly cold, cold as my heart, and came among
the desolate rocks over the river, desolate as the
world's end black volcanic rocks. And the river had
fled, and was ever flying, bursting in agonized strug-
gles through the harsh rocks ! Alone and hopeless I
rode. Why should I struggle further. Let me die
here, of cold and despair. I mounted the last hill,
vast swelling hill, broad curving hill, brown with
parched grass that died long ago when there was
summer, and looked upon the valley of Death, worse
than death, of no life, lone and horrible as a deserted
hell. Here let me starve and die. I looked my last
upon the ice peaks, that leagues upon their further
^ET. 25] FRAGMENTS. 167
side, looked on the vales of my youth and peace, be-
fore I murdered all my hopes, and went wandering
haunted
FBAGMENTS DAWN.
Dawn glimmers through the forest edge of plains,
The thinly crisping waves gleam with faint light,
Singly the stars are captured, as day gains
Its upward marches. Shivering flies the night.
Broad golden dawn above a waste of snow,
Showers of gold upon a glittering field,
As when a peerless lady smiles her love
On her true knight who wears a silver shield.
Then a bold sunrise. Mists fall down and drift
Low on the earth, as doubts desert the sky
"When the old darkness of the world is rift
To brave youth, looking with hope-lighted eye.
FEAGMENTS.
'Tis the wild battle, 'tis the crashing charge
The shout of victory the maddened shout
The ecstatic agony of victor death.
Down the valley we came at a run,
Sunset behind and the water before,
"Wild hills beside us one by one;
We could race with night but a moment more.
168 FRAGMENTS. [1853
A stony valley ! skeletons lay
Where weary cattle had sunk to death;
Ghastlier seemed the twilight gray,
Drearier night drew over the heath
Men have called Death the relentless, a Eeaper,
But too hasty, he gathers unripened his grain,
Or himself stern and fleshless, cares not for his harvest,
And strides with delight o'er a desolate plain.
Sorrows are servants of Death, not so daring,
As they stay the fresh hopes our bright comrades
of life,
And the soul stands as lonely as in a burned forest
Uprises a pine tree, unscorched from the strife.
"A bounding gallop is good
Over wide plains;
A wild free sail is good
'Mid gales and rains;
A dashing dance is good
Broad halls along,
Clasping and whirling on,
Through the gay throng.
But better than these,
When the great lakes freeze,
By the clear sharp light,
Of a starry night,
O'er the ice spinning,
25] EAST AND WEST. 169
With a long free sweep,
Cutting and ringing,
Forward we keep !
Or round and around,
"With a sharp clear sound,
To fly like a fish in the sea,
Ah, this is the sport for me !
(Printed in ST. NICHOLAS, Jan., 1880.)
THE EAST AND THE WEST.
(Printed in the ATLANTIC MONTHLY, April, 1863.)
We of the East spread our sails to the sea,
You of the West stride over the land,
Both are to scatter the hopes of the free
As the sower sheds golden grain from his hand.
'Tis ours to circle the stormy bends
Of a continent, yours its ridge to cross;
We must double the capes where a long world ends,
Lone cliffs, where two enemy oceans toss.
They meet and are baffled 'mid tempest and wrath;
Breezes are skirmishing, angry winds roar, *
While poised on some desperate plunge of our path
We count up the blackening wrecks on the shore.
And you, through dreary and thirsty ways
Where rivers are sand, and winds are dust,
Through sultry nights and feverish days
Move westward still, as the sunsets must.
170 EAST AND WEST. [1853
Where the scorched air quivers along the slopes,
Where the slow-footed cattle lie down and die,
Where horizons draw backward, till baffled hopes
Are weary of measureless waste and sky.
Yes ! ours to battle relentless gales,
And yours the brave and the patient way;
But we hold the storms in our trusty sails,
And for you, the life-giving fountains play.
There are stars above us, and stars for you,
Best on the path and calm on the main;
Storms are but zephyrs when hearts are true:
We are no weaklings, quick to complain,
When lightnings flash bivouac fires into gloom,
And with crashing of forests the rains sheet down;
Or when ships plunge onward where night clouds
loom,
Defiant of darkness, and meeting its frown.
These are the days of motion, and march;
Now we are ardent, and young and brave;
Let those who come after us build the arch
Of our triumph, and plant with the laurel our grave.
Time enough to rear temples when heroes are dead;
Time enough to sing paeans after the fight;
Prophets urge onward the future's tread;
We we are to kindle its beacon light !
Our sires lit torches of quenchless flame,
To illumine our darkness, if night should be,
But day is a friend to our standards, and shame
Be ours, if we win not the victory !
JET. 25] EAST AND WEST. 171
Man is nobler than men have been,
Souls are vaster than souls have dreamed,
There are broader oceans than eyes have seen,
Noons more glowing than yet have beamed.
Creeping shadows cower low on our land:
These shall not dim our grander day;
Stainless knights must be those who stand
Full in the van of a world's array !
When shall we cease our meager distrust ?
When to each other our true hearts yield?
To make this world an Eden, we must
Fling away each weapon and shield,
And meet each man as a friend and mate;
Trample and spurn and forget our pride,
Glad to accept an equal fate,
Laboring, conquering, side by side !
CHAPTER VI.
DAEIEN.
AGAIN the noble and prophetic images of a soldier's
life and an early death arise in his mind, but only
as apt thoughts and fancies, not at all as presentiments.
His mind was too healthy for presentiments, yet the
constant use of these metaphors seems singular after
the fact. But even thoughts, visions, or preparations
for authorship, could not quench the thirst for adven-
ture that was not yet assuaged in his heart. The white
heat was not yet cooled, nor was the fire indeed ever
burned out. He received an offer to join the Darien
Expedition, under Lieutenant Strain, to prospect for
a ship canal across the Isthmus. His friend Mr. As-
pinwall was desirous to have him go, in order that the
facts regarding the possibility of the route might be
well understood. The Panama E. R Co. could not
well be in favor of any other route than their own
across the Isthmus at that tune, and was naturally de-
sirous to know if any other was practicable. But it
was for the adventure and the experience of the thing,
more than for any other reason, that Theodore Win-
throp started again on a voyage at the end of Decem-
ber 1853, having been little more than a month at home.
"New York, Dec. 1853.
"DEAR MOTHER, I am off again once more for
the tropics, as a volunteer in the U. S. Commission
Mr. 25] THE CYANE. 173
for Survey of the proposed canal route across the
Isthmus of Darien, sixty miles or so to the south
of Panama. As a volunteer I get no pay, but have
all my expenses paid. We sail on Monday in the
sloop-of-war Cyane, Captain Hollins. Lieutenant
Strain is the ship engineer. My few minutes con-
versation with him shows him to be a gentleman.
The way of it was this : I heard incidentally at the
Panama R. R. office, that there was an agent here
on the part of the British Company for the canal,
and called upon him to inquire, ending by offer-
ing my services, should the thing be carried out.
He also told me that the Cyane had not sailed, and
after thinking over the matter, I went back and
told him I should like to go down in her. We met
Mr. Strain, and the arrangement was made in two
minutes. They were very glad to have me go, and
I do so with especial reference to future employ in
their Company. I wish you would come down to-
morrow and see me before I go. I shall be at very
little expense a few flannel shirts. Don't fail to
come. My place is that of any officer employed in
the Expedition, except that I shall have no respon-
sibility, and no pay. We shall be gone about three
months. It is the most favorable season."
"U. S. Sloop-of-War CYANE, i
"Mono, Passage, Jan. 1st, 1854. 1
"Ten knots an hour down the N. E. trades, shel-
tered under a sail from the sun of the tropics, a
fresh cool breeze following fast, a brilliant sea with
sparkling foam-crests, a clean ship, with black con-
174 THE CYANE. [1854
trast of battery, plenty of sailor life strewed over
the decks in Sunday rig, a dim outline of Hayti
on the starboard quarter, hopes of Cartagena in a
few days, these are the pleasures of our New
Year's day, and go to counterbalance the minor
discomforts of our sea life. Its outset was not so
agreeable. The second day we thrust ourselves
into a Hatteras hurricane, and I passed the second
miserable night of my life. Lying loose upon the
wet floor of the Wardroom, suffering agonies of
seasickness, conscious that a most fearful gale was
blowing, and we might be wrecked; with rushes
of water pouring down all the hatches, as the big
seas washed fore and aft, I half died, till we pitched
and rolled out of trouble, and all there was to trouble
had been pitched and rolled out of me. Thence-
forward we had better fortune. The marrow-chill-
ing cold of our first days gave place to warmth.
Warmth is now heat, till I am conscious that cravats
are only a martyr's sacrifice to northern civilization,
and regret that my stock of thin coats will be half
out when this one is dirty. Being supernumeraries
on board a man-of-war, where there is no room to
spare, our party of ten has to take up with very
scanty accommodations, but we manage to bring
into play, 'the more the merrier,' we rough it
really, in fare as well as space, but have always
fine weather and a clear deck, with the run of the
officers' quarters. Captain Hollins is a rough sort
of jolly customer. The Lieutenants I find all good
lei Iowa
. 25] SEA LIFE. 175
"The magnificent weather continues. We have
a glorious breeze, and sail nobly away, hoping to
make one of the shortest passages on record to
Cartagena. On deck the air is delicious, but
below very hot. Life on board a man-of-war is
much more varied than on a passenger ship. Ex-
ercising at the guns, inspections, and the general
discipline of a ship's company of two hundred men
break completely upon any possible monotony.
We have gone so fast and so favorably, that we
have had no time to be bored. To-day we have
awnings spread, and lie about, chatting on the
decks. I dined with the Captain, and sat all the
evening, having a very pleasant time. He has
seen a great deal of service, beginning on board
the President, and was in the action when she was
captured by the British squadron. The last few
days have been delightful. We had constant
showers, but were protected by the awning. The
nights were brilliant, the stars soft, the moon was
lovely, and the ship sailing always with a fine ten
or twelve knot trade. The night of the third, the
wind being almost a gale, we lay to, for fear of
overrunning the port, and next morning in view
of the low coast, sailed along, until about mid-day
we came in sight of the town. It lies on low ground,
directly upon the beach, where a heavy surf was
rolling, but the harbor is back of the town, and
entered by the Boca Chica, a narrow passage, de-
fended by two noble batteries. Through this you
176 CARTAGENA [1854
enter a noble bay, landlocked like a lake, in the
bosom of the deep forest, which rises on hills of
considerable elevation. Down this great bay we
beat against the wind, which, a gale outside, was
tempered by the land into a breeze. We were
abreast of the city at noon, but it was sunset when
we left the Cyane, now gliding along as quietly as
if she had never known what tumult was, and
pulled ashore in the cool evening, delighted with
terrafirma"
"Cartagena, Jan. 7th.
" Above the town and about three miles inland is
a high ridge, terminating in a precipice, a striking
object, and giving a noble view of the expanse of
the inland lake in its setting of green woods. I
have just returned from a before-breakfast ride to
the top of this hill, La Popa. A narrow winding
path leads to the top where there is a telegraph
station, and an old ruined convent the old and
the new meet there as elsewhere. The old fortifi-
cations are massive and magnificent. They are
built partly of coral rock and there is a grand
broad battery looking out to sea, which would be
the glory of any American town. There is a gen-
eral air of shabbiness and decay. The houses are
like what I desci-ibed to you in Panama, of two
stories, and with projecting balconies, and great
door- windows; entered below through a heavy
portal, and are built on arches, and round a court.
It is evident that the city has been rich and splen-
did, and even now, a little prosperity would make
^T. 25] CARTAGENA. 177
it a fine place. However decayed these old towns
may be, to me they are always interesting roman-
tically ruinous, with their neglected gardens and
shrubs, in the courts where the sun hardly enters.
The old Viceroyal palace has been imposing, with
its double arcade, but looks shabby now. Though
the heat here is intense in the day, there are cool
sea breezes, and the moonlight nights are perfect.
The day after our arrival, there was an official in-
terview with the Governor. No U. S. Man-of-war
has been here for many years, and we created
quite a sensation. We do not, however, get much
information about our destination nobody here
has been there, and they are afraid of the Indians
but we do not need it, as our party will probably
be the first to cross. We learn fhat an English,
arid probably a French man-of-war, will rendezvous
on this side, to aid in the survey, and the Virago,
that I met at Vancouver, has already been dis-
patched to the Gulf of San Miguel on the other
side. The Governor informs us that an officer of
New Granada with a party wishes us to wait. He
is expected daily, but we shall probably have to
stay till the latter part of next week. I still regard
the success of the expedition as very doubtful. Most
of the party have come on shore and are at the
Hotel. Last night, Twelfth Night, was dis-
tinguished by a half-masked ball, given under a
tent or awning, in front of the old Palace of the
Inquisition. The square was full of the common
people gambling and dancing, and the town lighted,
178 CALEDONIA BAY. [1854
and crowded with promenaders and maskers, looked
quite lively. There was not so much beauty as
we used to see in Panama. I am very glad to
see this noble old place, one of the great centers
of old Spanish commerce."
"Feb. 16th, 1854.
" We have been lying quietly some time in
Caledonia Bay the survey of the harbor proceed-
ing rapidly. There is no definite news of our
exploring party, absent now nearly four weeks
my anxiety about them is becoming intense.
Knowing the character of the country, I cannot
but fear for their safety, especially as the rumors
from the Indians are in general unfavorable. This
is a most beautiful bay, and the presence of four
men-of-war, with their boats constantly moving,
gives life to the scene. We lie here as in a smooth
lake, stretching some ten miles up the coast, and
sheltered to seaward by a range of coral " cayes,"
covered with impenetrable mangroves, and trav-
ersed by numberless channels, exquisite narrow
lanes of water, through which the boat slips, her
oars almost touching either side. The main land
of the Isthmus lies to the south-west mountain
rising above mountain, covered with the dark
foliage of this climate. These dark woods look
imposing in the distance, but gloomy enough when
you are encamped in their untrodden recesses.
Their color is relieved by some purple flowering
trees, and by the wheel of the graceful cocoa palm.
If one were asked to pick out a spot seemingly im-
-&T. 25] CALEDONIA BAY. 179
practicable for a canal, he could hardly find one
more completely so than this Isthmus, as we see
it from the ship. The eye hardly finds a resting-
place of level ground, in following back the suc-
cessive ridges that lead up to the Cordillera, the
back bone of the Isthmus, that within ten miles of
the shore, rises to the height of two thousand to
four thousand feet. As you advance into the in-
terior you find the anticipated difficulties realized,
the mountains are solid, craggy, lofty; the for-
ests are impenetrable, except as you cut your
way through their net work; the rivers are tor-
rents, up whose beds and over whose slippery
rocks walking is no joke. But to begin at the
beginning.
" We sailed from Cartagena on Jan. 13th. Early
on the 17th, we cast anchor in this Bay. A few
Indians came on board and begged the Captain
not to land, till they should have communicated
with their chiefs. They are a small race, with
slight but active forms, brown flat Indian faces,
shapeless features, but bright quick eyes, noticing
everything. They navigate in good canoes, made
of coarse mahogany. Capt. Hollins agreed to re-
ceive on board a council of chiefs, a boat being
dispatched fifteen miles, to bring a 'great old
man.' I went also. We had a dangerous time
among the breakers in a heavy swell, but the trip
was interesting. The weather was too bad to re-
turn the same day, so we staid aboard a small
schooner at anchor in the Bay the Indians re-
180 CALEDONIA BAY. [1854
questing us not to land. We lost however the
council of chiefs they came on board at eleven
A. M. and staid till about midnight, discussing,
without food, when they agreed that we should
enter the country, on Capt. Rollins' assurance that
he would do so at all events. This deference to
the Indians, was in accordance with the instruc-
tions of the Secretary of the Navy, who expressly
forbade any leading to hostilities. We attributed
the unwillingness of the Indians to policy, but
afterwards found that they feared punishment for
the murder of four English sailors from the Virago.
The council was described as very amusing the
gravity of the Indians, and their emphatic in-
articulate language, their odd state dresses, old
European coats and no trowsers. They live com-
fortably in good huts, have plenty of food, and
trade for shirts, arms, etc. This insignificant race
is the only one, except the Japanese, that has kept
itself isolated from all intercourse with strangers,
save a little trading along shore. We were now
to enter the forests of their unknown country,
where one Indian is an army, and even with all
their assurances, much caution is necessary. They
appeared to think a canal not very easy. 'Too
much hill 'pose Jesus Christ He want um canal
He make um, He no want um, He no make um.'
They have very little idea of religion, and show a
sort of respect to rude wooden idols, painted in
coats, pants, and hats. There is something re-
spectable in the proud independence they show,
Mr. 25] TROPICAL NIGHT. 181
refusing presents, refusing to trade, and deserting
their homes while we are here.
"On the evening of January 19th we disem-
barked in the heavy surf on the beach no good
landing-place having as yet been discovered and
some of them got everything wet. I had already
satisfied myself, on board ship, that the party was
badly provided, and would be badly managed on
shore, and anticipated trouble. We camped that
night in some huts on the beach, and about noon,
started, part paddling, part dragging a canoe up
the Caledonia, a considerable stream, the bed of
the proposed canal. At evening, having made
about five miles, we came to a charming cacao-
grove,* and a large hut, just abandoned, where we
were glad to colonize. The cacao is a pretty, reg-
ular tree about thirty feet high, with a large oval
leaf. The great rough, red pod that holds the fruit
hangs all over the tree, and grows frequently out
of the trunk. Up to this point, the river, clear as
crystal, had been easy in its descent, though rapid.
I shall never forget that first night ! My watch
was from twelve to two o'clock; the moon had just
risen ; it was the type of a tropical night, soft and
clear, a glow of starlight, and from time to time
clouds passing over the moon made everything look
weird and strange. Every now and then one of
the men would think he saw something moving in
the woods, which I found to be moonshine. A
dense forest surrounded us, and from it came in-
Cacao tree, not cocoa palnj,
182 EXPLORING. [3854
numerable sounds of insect life, with strange
screams of monkeys, and occasionally the cat-like
rnew of the tiger. The party lay snoring, each
man according to his own idea of music. Next
morning we marched one and a half miles up the
river, to the junction of branches, following first
the east branch, till it became such a mere torrent as
to stop the Ship Canal in that quarter. Some of the
party pursued the branch with me, further, finding
it a clear mountain stream, falling some one hun-
dred feet to the mile, down a gorge in the chain.
It was a New England stream in the tropics, over-
hung with drooping palms and vine canopies very
unfit for clipper ships. Keturning we took the
other branch. This is the hardest walking one can
do, and when you add to wading for hours in the
stony bed of a rapid stream, the load of your knap-
sack with ten days' prog, change of clothes, pistol,
ammunition and carbine, all with the mercury at
80 ' F., it is indeed wearisome. Most glad we were
to come to camp in a charming spot on the west
branch. Next morning we pursued the stream,
and in two hours, coming to a gorge which we
could not pass in the river bed, the word was given
to take to the hillside. This was very steep and
thickly wooded, and when I had, with much diffi-
culty clambered round into the stream again, I
found I was joined by only four of the party.
Here we stopped, and waited for the rest, firing
the concerted signal. After waiting nearly two
hours and finding the shots apparently tending up
^T. 25] EXPLORING. 183
stream, and above us, still in pursuance of orders,
we followed slowly up, expecting every moment to
overtake them.
" But we saw nothing of them, and following up
the whole of that day, passed the night on a little
bit of smooth rock, the only spot large enough to
hold us. Above, the stream came falling in a suc-
cession of tumbling cascades, and on each side rose
high mountains. Up the mountain, to the right,
we cut a path next morning, finding a summit of,
say two thousand feet. From a tree on the top, we
could see nothing but similar mountains, clothed
with profound forests. Mr. Holcomb, one of our
five, has been many years in these countries, as
engineer on canals and railroads, and volunteered
to join us. He knew more of the country and how
to proceed than all the rest put together. I had
some experience by this time, and we two could
decide best as to a safe course. We had reached
a point where no further progress was possible up
the stream, and had no compass to guide us for-
ward or backward in these forests, where a vertical
sun is no help, and there are none of the indications
of northern woods. We had only one hatchet for
cutting our path, and perhaps three days' provisions.
So we decided to retrace our steps to the ship,
searching by the way for traces of the party, and
succeeded in reaching it the following day. Hav-
ing made our report, Capt. Hollins dispatched two
parties on our recommendation, one to follow fur-
ther the east branch, and the other, with Holcomb
184 EXPLORING. [1854
and myself, to try and discover the route taken by
our main party, and carry them relief During our
absence H. M. Brig Espiegk and French steamer
Chimere had arrived bringing the English engi-
neers. We had met their exploring party, some
sixty in number, as we came down to the beach.
" When we arrived at the forks of the Kiver, the
officer in command, who had been instructed to
detach certain men with relief for Strain, for rea-
sons of his own, diminished our number and stores.
However, Holcomb and I determined to push on,
and even if we could not find the other party, to
explore something of the interior. This time we
had four men and three gentlemen, a compass, and
for want of ' machete^,' shai-p cutlasses to cut paths,
extra shoes, but not the proper amount of provi-
sions."
" By making long marches the first and second
days, and cutting into the woods, we managed to
strike, near the spot where the party had separated,
an Indian trail, which they had followed. We
traced it, though little marked by them, up and
down high hills, for about two hours, till we came
to a email stream, flowing apparently into the Pa-
cific. Here we found their camp, and a note in a
forked stick. The only way we can account for
their turning off so suddenly is, that overjoyed at
finding this trail, Mr. Strain forgot that some of
the party must according to his orders be follow-
ing the stream, and pushed on, trusting to his fir-
ing to bring us along, whereas, had he thought of
JET. 25] THE SEARCH. 185
sending a messenger up stream, he would have
found us waiting for him. His note said that he
would follow down the small stream, thinking it a
tributary to the Kiver we were in search of, the
Savanna, leaving it, and cutting across, should its
course prove unfavorable. On examining every-
thing carefully, our conclusion was to cut in a
diagonal on our course, thinking we might fall in
with traces of the party. We proceeded all day
across the ridges, cutting our path slowly, over
places that were nearly precipitous, and then were
obliged to camp on a sloping mountain side, so
steep that I was constantly obliged to pull myself
back into place. We cut down palm leaves for a
bed, but there was poor sleep for any one. A fire
was essential, to keep off tigers.
" The next day we cut our way to the summit
of the ridge, about three thousand feet high, and
clearing away the trees, got a view of the bay and
ships, eleven or twelve miles off at the least. You
can have no idea of the thickness of these woods ;
sometimes not a step in advance is possible, unless
you cut your way through matted vines and bushes,
and worse, the long sword-like leaves of the prickly
pinuela. Proceeding a little further, we cut our
way to the west, hoping to have a view likewise
toward the Pacific, but we saw nothing but more
mountains. There was a long valley in our course,
which we followed down till we found a little level
where we camped early and rested. I made my
bed under an exquisite young palm, but he did not
186 THE SEARCH. [1854
shelter me from the showers which are frequent
here. Next morning we started, everything wet,
and pitching down a precipice of one thousand feet
by aid of trees and vines, came to the romantic
gorge of our stream. Its course was exactly what
we wished, and receiving almost immediately sev-
eral branches, it became a considerable river, flowing
through the most romantic scenery. From all we
had heard we inferred that this river was the Sa-
vanna, and followed it, almost certain of overtaking
our party. For two days and a half we followed
the River, which wound more and more, finding
occasionally traces of Indians, and one small plan-
tain patch, whence we heard a gun, which we
supposed was a signal from our party. On pro-
ceeding to the spot the Indian had made tracks.
On the second day we became convinced that the
river was not the Savanna but the Chaqunque,
which, according to the English engineers, ought
to have been in quite another place. But nothing
could exceed the unreliability of our information
it was all wrong. We determined to follow this
stream as long as our provisions would allow. As
the Eiver grew larger, we could no longer march
in its bed, but had to leave it constantly and cut.
On the noon of the third day's march down the
River, Holcomb and I left the party, and, climbing
to the top of the highest hill, took a survey of the
country to the west. No level, but a high coast
range shut out the view. A point had now been
reached beyond which it was not safe to venture,
JEi. 25] THE SEARCH. 187
without risking our lives; our provisions barely
sufficed for our return, and to cut our way across
to some unknown point on the Gulf of San Miguel
might be perilous. So we turned back, repassing
the same way, and seeing some game, wild turkeys,
deer, monkeys, ducks, and tracks of wild hog,
tigers and tapirs. Reaching the Indian's hut again,
still deserted, we were glad to borrow some of his
plantains to make a grand feast, and started, re-
freshed, carrying some with us. It was always
difficult to sleep, from watchfulness, fatigue, and
the noises of the woods, and I used to move in the
morning, very seedy."
"We made some terrible marches on our re-
turn, putting two and a half days' march into one,
being able to do it on account of the path we had
cut, and reached the ship on the evening of the
ninth day. Both the other parties had arrived
before us, without penetrating more than ten miles
or so into the Cordillera, and that not in a direct
line. At the lowest estimate, we had gone, say
forty-five miles, more than far enough to have
reached tide water on the Pacific had we been in
the right way, and not misinformed. If nothing
should be heard of our first party, these falsities will
be one cause of their loss. For there is now reason
to fear that they have met with some dreadful fate,
though we by no means give up hope. Since the
note we found, which was dated Jan. 24th, up to
to-day, Feb. 17th, nothing has been heard of the
party, and we fear starvation, exhaustion, or pos-
188 CALEDONIA BAY. [1854
sibly violence from the Indians, may have destroyed
them. One of the engineers has started for the
interior with an Indian guide.
"Feb. 19th. We have now in port the Cyane,
the British brig Devastation and surveying schoon-
er Scorpion French steamer Chimere, a coasting
steamer, and a New Grenadian force of about eighty
men. Nothing is doing but the survey of the bay,
nothing is heard of the missing party. It is prob-
able that in a few days a carefully equipped party
will be dispatched in search of them. Time hangs
heavy, for anxiety about their fate is always pres-
ent to my mind, but it is pleasant on board, the
climate is delightful, with a fresh breeze, mercury
at 80 R, ship in fine order, Capt. Rollins very
amusing, sensible, and full of jolly yarns. Civili-
ties pass between the vessels, and I have the pleas-
antest kind of intercourse with the officers. We
vary the monotony by a sail, or a little fishing or
shooting."
" Caledonia Bay, Feb. 22d, 1854.
"DEAR MOTHER: It gives me a strange feeling
to think of the possibility of the loss of our whole
party, and that if Holcomb and I had not been
separated from them, there was much more chance
of their safety. Why should five out of the twenty-
seven have been saved by the merest accident, and
the remainder have perished, as we fear, by the most
dreadful of deaths ? Life is of very little value to
me, as I shall never accomplish anything in it, but
there is something very desperate in the idea of
M-r. 25] SEARCH RELINQUISHED. 189
death in this wilderness. There is still a possibility
of their safety, all our anxiety may be thrown away,
and I endeavor to put away desperate thoughts. A
very few days will decide. Meantime everything
goes on quietly on board. It is tedious, but I must
wait till I hear of the party, though I have been
offered a passage in the Espiegle."
From printed Account.
"It is difficult to imagine how any men in their
senses could have been so totally deceived with re-
gard to the whole character of the Isthmus as those
two engineers. If there is no better passageway
than this, the ship canal is impracticable. We of-
fered to refit and continue the search, but this was
not considered necessary by Capt. Hollins. Mr.
Holcomb, finding that nothing remained to be done,
and thinking Lieut. Strain must have crossed safely
to the Pacific, took passage in a coasting vessel to
Aspinwall. No further search was undertaken
while the Cyane lay in Caledonia Bay. As time
passed, great anxiety began to be felt, but it was
not till she had sailed to Aspinwall that we were
convinced of their loss. Capt. Hollins distinctly
informed me that no further search would be un-
dertaken, and that the expedition was at an end. I
therefore requested and received from him a formal
letter of discharge, and took passage, with Messrs.
Holcomb and Bird in a steamer for New York.
Shortly after my arrival, I received letters from
the Cyane. stating that their plans had been unex-
190 RETURN HOME. [1854
pectedly changed and that they should renew the
search. I subsequently heard of the arrival of Lieut.
Strain and his party on the Pacific, without aid
from the ship. The above is a plain statement of
facts. Justice to myself and the gentlemen placed
in a similar position renders it necessary to make
this explicit denial of any wish to separate from
Lieut. Strain's party, or of our neglect to do all
in our power to search for, and relieve him. We
acted through all under the orders and with the
approval of Capt. Hollins."
Lieut. Strain reached the Pacific in safety, after un-
dergoing great hardships and losing several men by
exhaustion and starvation, and the whole expedition
was a failure.
Theodore Winthrop reached home in March, 1854.
Here ends his period of travel and adventure; and
after this time his mind was occupied in using this ma-
terial, and in making various essays toward the liter-
ary life he longed for, in planning and beginning tales
and novels, and finally in writing the novels which
gave him posthumous fame. They were most care-
fully written and re-written, cast and re-cast. He used
to say that he could not sleep at night sometimes, for
the plots of stories that ran in his head. Among his
writings are dozens of these, sketched out or hinted
at, and often several different beginnings, apparently
for the same story. His note-books of travel with their
covers of rough deerskin and birch bark contain many
such hints and ideas.
Soon after his return home he began to study law
with Mr. Charles Tracy of New York, and his mother's
m-s. 25-6] STATEN ISLAND. 191
family removed, in the autumn of the same year, from
New Haven, to Staten Island, where they formed one
family with the branch then residing there, an arrange-
ment adding greatly to the comfort and happiness of
all parties. During the winter a course of free lec-
tures was given on Staten Island, and Winthrop gave
two lectures, one called " Adventure," in which he led
his hearers through the mazes of a tropic forest, and
the other on the subject of " The Fine Arts in America."
His brother William, who had been admitted to the
Boston Bar, and had afterwards come to New York,
lived there also, and the brothers, with their brother-
in-law, W. Templeton Johnson, had much outdoor life
together; they enjoyed rowing in the old-fashioned
way, before the swift and unsocial " shell " and canoe
were invented. The three were good walkers, and
would often on a Sunday or holiday morning have
pleasant tramps of twenty or thirty miles over the hills
of Staten Island, exploring them pretty thoroughly,
and breathing their pure air.
For the summer holidays of 1855, an expedition was
planned to Mt. Desert by Mr. Tracy, a place of which
he and some of his friends may be said to have been
the discoverers in the year 1854, though artists like
Church and Kensett had been there already. They
sent, early in the spring of 1855, to have preparations
made for a large party, in the houses of several farmers
of the place, to whom summer boarders were till then
unknown, even sending vegetable seeds to be planted
and providing various stores for their own use. The
party consisted of Mr. Tracy and Mr. Titus with their
families, F. E. Church, just rising into fame as a painter,
Winthrop and his brother, and other young people,
192 MT. DESERT. [1835
altogether numbering about thirty persons, who took
possession of the island of Mt. Desert, and must indeed
have made its echoes ring. So carefully planned and
well selected a party could not fail to be a success, and
in fact, its members that remain still look fondly back
to the Mt. Desert expedition as the happiest frolic of
their lives. The aborigines marveled, and yet were
delighted to see pleasures and goings on, the like of
which they had never imagined before, and when the
gay summer was ended by a grand ball, given by the
party to all the inhabitants of Bar Harbor in a big
barn, with decorations by Church, jokes by Winthrop,
and dancing by everybody, the island thought that
nothing half so " splendid " had ever happened to it
before. Since then tourists have taken possession, it
has become a watering place, "and lots have risen in
value, but it is not likely that any party has ever been so
happy on its lovely shores again. Not long after this
summer holiday, Winthrop's first novel, " Mr. Waddy's
Return," was projected and written, the scene of which
is partly laid at Mt. Desert. It has never been pub-
lished. The following little poems are also memorials
of this unique summer.
Droop lower, gloom, and hide
Past years, that drowning creep o'er years to be !
This urgent future, like a tide
Whelms my faint struggles with eternity.
Wrap closer, mists! not one
Fair weather consort hope of mine is nigh.
Their white sails faded with the sun,
And I drift where I lost them, cheerlessly.
Mr. 26] POEMS. 193
Thus mused I, when a gush
Of girlish laughter danced along the air,
Voices as radiant as a flush
Of sunbeams, that the ripples cannot bear
To see, and smile not. Sounds
Of finest graceful gladness, they awake
Quivers of joy-throbs, wider bounds,
All pulsing upwards, till our stirred hearts make
One leap to ecstasy!
And poising like an eaglet on a breeze
Are fanned thro' realms of fantasy
Heavenward sweeping over sparkling seas,
Then sink in pensive peace !
Thanks, gentle melody ! My gloom is fled.
Delicate laughter, never cease !
Or live in echoes, circling overhead;
As faint gold haloes crown
The saintliness of maidens, only seen
When star-like eyes look down
And recognize on earth a sister sheen.
Drifting and sailing like a sleep,
Uncertain as a dream,
Slowly along the wooded steep,
Lowly the mist wreaths trail and creep,
Clinging above the stream.
Now dawn will boldly leap;
We wait its gleam.
194 POEMS. [1855
Brighter and broader, fairest light !
Grow to a grander noon:
Hope of young day most exquisite,
Spring to a future radiantly bright,
Mantle the earth with princely boon
Of glowing splendor ! Yes, our night
Will vanish soon.
Backward, and downward, oh they fall !
The saddening mists return !
Were they our hopes that vanished all?
Or gloomy draped in funeral pall
Mourners became ? A present, stern
With hopelessness, makes us its thrall.
Fair dawn ! return !
Watching and hoping wait we still !
Light is not perished yet:
Count its great heart-beats by the thrill
Of stars, that ever eager trembling, will
Pay with quick messages the debt
Of starry duty, glimmering until
Night rolls its veil of jet.
Yonder our shout has waked a tone
Of gentle answer. They seemed lone,
Those words. A misty sunset wreath
Stole their faint life, and underneath
Left ghostly twilight. But we spoke
Then silence instant into music woke.
Not melody unsyllabled that falls
Shaken in ripples from among the leaves,
MT. 26] POEMS. 195
Wlieii winds are breathing forth their whisper-calls;
But a familiar voice the silence cleaves,
And echoes o'er the shadowy moveless lake,
Soothed into calmness, for the sake
Of those soft voices exquisite;
Most gayly sweet in shrill delight
Of song and pause, till words far lost
Deep in the forest back were tost;
But faint, as if the woods unwillingly
Answering, parted with that harmony ;
So, when our souls stand on the brink
Of silence, and our glances shrink
From awe beyond, we timid cast
A longing question through the vast
Unknown. Then listen ! fading fly
Tkose answer echoes. Ah, they die !
And silence comes again, and mystery.
Oh voiceful silence ! Let it yield to thee
The secret, in revealing echoes sent !
Such longings were their own accomplishment.
CHAPTEK VII.
TWO WORLDS.
ALONG poem, which he called by the title of " Two
Worlds," appears to have been Winthrop's next
sustained effort. It was evidently written with a view
to publication and afterwards thrown aside, as he be-
came more fascinated with the idea of prose writing,
or more aware of the difficulties of this undertaking.
It appeared at first too unfinished to give to the public,
but upon careful study it seemed only necessary to cut
off redundancies to show that it is one of his best works,
and worthy of his reputation. A sort of novel in blank
verse, it is full of youth, force, and the fresh spirit of
life and travel, noble soldierly thoughts, and strange
presentiments; the retreating wave of adventure, carry-
ing with it the rich experience of these varied, crowded
years. The prophetic references to a soldier's death
cannot fail to strike every reader.
The Poem is tinged with melancholy almost too
deep for one so young, but he had, even at the
threshold of life, already felt and suffered much. The
time was one of discouragement to the thoughtful
and sympathetic, who had faith in humanity. Win-
throp, though but a tourist, had seen in Europe the
failure of the wild hopes of 1848, the disappointment,
.ET. 27] TWO WORLDS. 197
the reaction, the despair; and it had sunk very far
into his young soul. And as those years passed on,
the skies still grew darker, till now, in 1855, he could
find little to cheer. Napoleon III. was weaving those
webs that took all kingdoms into his toils, and be-
witching his country with the magic of a name not
rightly his own. England, the great beating heart
of the world, pulsating through all her arteries to
its extremities, was learning slowly her lesson, while
France, the brain of Europe, was dulled with false-
hood's opiates. The futile Crimean war had begun,
the red dawn in Italy was darkened with clouds, and
Cavour's far-reaching plans were as yet unknown.
The master-currents that now sweep all seas, and
have already borne away so much that was impure
and evil, were then but under-currents, murmuring
in the night. America, disgraced, and drifting as
if to total wreck, stood with the slave-whip in her
hand, upon a sinking deck; no more the hope of Free-
dom and the world. It was the darkness before dawn ;
yet the morning star was rising in Kansas, for those
whose eyes, half blinded with tears, were searching
everywhere for light, and quick ears could hear the low
whisper of the great prairie winds, soon to swell into
the roar of the storm. Save this gleam, all was gloom
upon our little ball, where we are held by force so
irresistible, that we cannot leave it, even to explore
our own forlorn, dead moon, still less to learn one
moment's history of the milh'on worlds that fill the
boundless space beyond. Such was the time in which
this Poem was written.
198 TWO WORLDS. [1855
TWO WOELDS.
GRIEF.
The prairies. Storms at war with sunset. Night,
Stern despot of the Orient, watched to crush
All the stern glory of that battling west.
But light was born to be a Victor, now
Is Victor, who can say it shall not be ?
Vain the slant javelins of showers, and vain
Drifting bewilderment of skirmishers.
There was a master radiance in the sky,
A dash of beaming sabers into gloom.
Oh, brilliant charge ! See, they are struggling through !
Clouds break in gorgeous pageantry of night;
Pennon and plume and lance and morion
Glittered, then swiftly fled, to die forlorn;
Fled, as a melting army vanishes,
So passed the hero Sun to due repose.
Then came a brightening forth of stars, as flowers
Peep timid from a trodden battle-field,
The sweeter for the horror that was there.
The prairies. Sunset. Massy, surging lands
Swept level westward into boundlessness.
Oh ! glorious wildness of those rolling plains !
A sea of land, mighty and beaconless,
But the bold race that fate has launched on it
Shall chase, and grapple with the sunset fires,
And face to face with virgin nature, find
Such unwooed beauty as in paradise.
^T. 27] GRIEF. 199
Twilight upon the prairies. Silently
Forth passed a melancholy mourning train;
From some rude frontier fort the funeral came.
There are some carrion souls who greedily
Trample and foul dear memories of the dead;
But this grave must be sacred, and they chose
A thin grove that the river islanded.
A river, purposeless; not urgently
Through chasms flying; fled; while melody
Of lingering echoes, trembled up the gorge
Not thus, but over sandy levels spread
Dwindled along to shallow vanishings,
To such an idleness of unlinked pools,
As thoughtless summer leaves to parch and die,
Or hopeless waters on a seaside waste,
Where hasty, cruel tides abandoned them.
A desolate grave, barren and lone as death,
Where no familiar landscape soothed the soul
With memories bitter-sweet of boyish days,
Where never Nature could conspire with time;
There were they buried. No half sacrifice,
Manhood and beauty immolated both !
Fate dared not leave that lonely woman there.
A soldier's grave, a soldier's funeral!
His troop fired harsh farewell, then shrank away
Leaving an orphan 'wildered by his grief,
Listening amazed to the low-tapping drum,
That like his heart-beats marked a dirge
Alone, upon a desert reach of plain
Stood the rude outwork fort* a nation's march
One day may leave a sudden city there.
* Fort Laramie.
200 TWO WOKLDS. [1855
Far wavering dimness of a tropic laud,
On the weird stormy edge of a wild sea,
May silence gray despair with sober hope,
For men who tread a slowly-sinking deck;
But never such more welcome to the wrecked,
Than this lone fort, when hope's last buoyancy
Has sunk away from some poor lost one, drowned
And mastered by the long land surges power.
Terribly lightless skies gloom over him,
The wail of winds has saddened to a dirge,
His glance, like drowsy sailors, careless falls,
Haply to spy, now lift now sink again,
Far white sails of a distant caravan,
Chasing the west wind. Ah, in vain, in vain !
Gladly would he despair, and sleep and die
When hope dies, souls die but his weary frame
Inertly rouses for one effort more.
No ! can it be ? A smoke ! The fort ! Life ! Life !
Dull sense of safety first, then every pulse
Trembles to music of a new-born joy,
To meet that lonely fort's warm welcoming;
For kindly influence was there, more sweet
Than even soldier's hospitality :
A woman's hand, a woman's heart ruled there
Strange contrast fates that brought her there to die !
Moon rising on the prairies. As a ghost
Peering to watch if it were yet her hour,
Pale she arose, and chilled each shuddering star.
A breeze as soft, and sadder than the night,
Swept, gathering moans of an all-weary world,
To sigh them forth where 'twas most desolate.
But grief was there far wilder than the winds,
/ET. 27] GRIEF. 203
It struck them dumb with keener wail than theirs;
Oh, autumn winds ! unmusical with leaves,
Bring back the tender love that yesterday
Was better than all hope to this poor boy,
To-day an orphan, friendless and alone.
Ho ! for the prairies ! How I long again
From dawn to dusk to gallop freely there,
With my heart in my throat, dashing, not beating.
Dreaming myself, perhaps, some virgin knight,
Who after vigils, noble with resolves,
Scarfed by his mistress, breathes a sword-hilt prayer,
Springs to his horse and hies to chivalry,
Voicing his joy in shouts, his love in songs.
Ho ! for the prairies ! To the chase they sped
At dawn, the father and the son. The hosts
Of shaggy bearded buffaloes afar
Were cropping dainty pleasure amid flowers.
Soon tainted breezes warned them. Hence, away !
And panic trembled on from group to group.
A sound of the gallop of horses came with the wind,
The ponderous thousands fled all terrorstruck.
They knew untrodden valleys far away,
Maiden tressed meadows, soothed by amorous airs,
Slow drifting eagles overhead might deem
Those vales fair lakes of mountain loveliness,
Such sun-shot ripples trembled over them.
Thither their flight was surging. Suddenly
A hunter on a hill crest full in front,
An errant savage stood against the sky.
New panic swerved the herd. They trampled back
What recked they of the prairie flowers they crushed ?
202 TWO WORLDS. [1855
Fled bellowing along to solitude.
At last, slow thought of safety gave them rest.
Their dark bulk islanded the vale. They grazed,
While champions held unwieldy tournament.
Back on the prairie, crushed to utter horror,
Speechlessly striving for a ruined smile,
The father died and the son knelt by him
Utterly wrecked, upon that rolling sea.
The boy and that grave savage bore him home,
But there was one who watched for their return,
And half divined a coming agony,
That neared her with a sure slow step, like fate.
Oh could her throbbing heart throb life to his !
Marble, not death, has love touched into life.
Silently dead ! not even a farewell word !
No answer ! horrible, dark, dreamless sleep !
The blank dead loneliness that circled her
She could not dwindle, and endure. Her soul
Had no long banishment of waiting years.
Life's giant secret trembled at her lips.
Oh for one instant to endow her son !
To robe him with her ermine, breathe to him
One dying promise of love's deathlessness !
Then grief arose wrapping blank night around
The orphan until sleep, like low wild strain
Of melancholy music, stole his thoughts,
Sighing him down a river of repose.
He woke to strange bewilderment.
Dead! dead!
The slow recurrence of that crushing word
Fell steadily upon his shivering soul,
2Ei. 27] GRIEF 203
As waves in dim gray ghostly northern seas
Hammer against their ice walls. Thus, all through
The unlinked moments of that shattered day
A sunken look, as though of madness, warned
Aloof all sympathy. If they had come
With paltry talk of pity, with pretence
Of sorrow wept away and half consoled,
Sternly repellant iciness had struck
And curdled colder through him. Memory
Of festivals spurns meager charity,
Starving alone. The fort, the plain, the chase,
The crash, the death-like pictures on the air
Of deserts, rose and fell unreal to him;
Slow blending to a void, a heavy void
That clasped and crushed him like a prison dream,
So hours toiled up to look on drearier wastes.
Weird moonlight on the prairies. On the grave
Alone, alone he sank and wept away,
Each fondly treasured hope of life-long love,
Wasted with tears, swifter than tears. Then sobs
Followed, as moaning winds come after rains.
Passionate grief , utterly desolate !
When man despairs with manhood's stern despair,
There comes an airy dagger of a thought,
With hint of instant keen release, and some
Have sheathed this ice within their colder breast
When they have proved and scorned this beggar, life.
Fearful release ! whisper it not to him !
But whisper, whisper winds, how future suns
Shall draw sweet blossoms out of wintriness.
Poor boy! he cannot cleave through dark to light.
He droops amid the marble ghastliness
204 TWO WORLDS. [1855
Of ruined shrines where faith found shelter late.
Poor boy ! may he find sympathy ! Till now,
His life was stellar as far western plains,
Where golden poppies sprinkle golden soil,
Amazing timid spring with bounteousness.
One violet eve the pale sierras blushed
Shame for waste winter, love for summer near.
But ah! a traitor yet was lingering there;
A laggard storm, a sullen malcontent,
Nursing his lonely ruthlessness, till he
Felt shivering summer hedge him closer in,
Then burst away with lavish cruelty,
Leaving the hillsides torn and gaunt and gray
With the fierce landslide and its path of wreck.
Full moonlight on the prairie. On the grave,
As if his mother's spirit gently there
Caressed him, breathed the night wind soothingly;
He raised his wistful face that tears had paled,
Wild glancing heavenward, as souls will look
W _ien earth is blank of omens. Was there peace
Where proudly mournful dwelt the lonely moon,
That sad pale moon whose light is memory ?
His mother taught him prayers by moonlight; could
These speak for him ? " God, if thou hearest me,
Why hast thou taken from me all I loved '? "
He listened. Answer none. The silence brought
The aimless rippling of that shallow stream.
Stern Heaven had no reply. He must endure,
Weary to fainting with the waste of tears.
Oh dull, cold Heaven ! cruelly bitter cold !
To him a ceremonial friend that speaks
Of grief outlived, ( and buys him decent weeds.
JET. 27] GRIEF. 205
And that white moon, forlorn as soiled ghost
Pallid and wayworn on the steely sky,
He cursed her sorrowful calm. His heart was lashed
With fierce rebellion shifting to despair.
I've stood beside the weary moaning sea
When every ship had folded its white wings
To nestle with its comrades. Measured beat
Of waves fell waste as days, and years, and lives,
When hope has had its sunset. Far I looked
Beyond, beyond the verge of night, and still
One throng, one haste for that brief sighing plash,
Joining the long slow wail of ocean waves.
His moments grew to such wide dreariness.
Ah ! myriad love tones he shall never hear
Nor utter. Melody of mother's love
Shall faintly die amid life's jar and crash.
No sister's arms around him flung, shall yet
Quell the insurgent wildness of his soul
With all the gentle pity of a look.
Yes, he must march untrammeled by a joy;
Bare as an athlete. No spoiled nursling he,
Toyed into unweaned manhood, to become
A well conditioned child of circumstance,
Bolstered to smoothed respectability,
Who fondly deems his feeble self a sage,
And gulls the world with wisdom
Go then, unshielded, orphaned innocent !
Buy with your heart's blood surety of distrust,
Aye ! there are some stern lessons manhood earns,
Wrenched out of pain and sorrow. We must gain
Not' flimsy immortality of fame,
206 TWO WORLDS. [1855
But the high royalty of self-control,
A God's inheritance of self-control.
So the soul stands amid its passion throngs,
Like some wild nation's bold-eyed orator:
He lifts his hand; men hush, listening him breathe
Words as of God. Ah ! self-control too late !
Where wert thou, laggard ally, while we fought?
What comfort now, when lost and routed all
We mourn our bravest, fallen one by one,
That should have led us with dim evening forth
To thunder down the hill, and shout, and catch
Keen sunset on our sabres. We creep back
Seeking our dead, for torchlight burial.
The mists of midnight thickened round the grave;
Dim cheerless presages enshrouded him.
Oh mystery of grief ! The air was filled
With rustling silence. Trembles musical,
Of whispers, gushing to fine utterance,
Faded in sighs. Oh for one tone, from out
The wide unknown, to echo on forever,
From life's grand undervoice of melody !
But no ! all unrevealed, all dark, all chill,
All shadowy stillness, like that ghostly plain.
n.
DEPARTURE.
Oh ! pearly are the gold-linked hours of youth
Lit by fine gleams of sympathy ! Alas,
Orphaned of these, life drags and clanks its years,
Rests but to count such fetters. Richard lived.
Eh. 27] DEPARTURE. 207
No love glance dwelt upon his industry;
Nature's deep harmonies were harshness all,
Unguided to his thirsty heart by love.
A comrade, spectral dimness, dwelt with him,
Dimness more terrible than darkness is.
To grope in cavern light not light to step
Carefully, shudderingly, lest yo\i touch
Something that will with fleshless arms embrace
Your form, and leap into the void and sink
Forever ? Better blank forgetfulness !
Madness, crime, sorrow to one isolate,
On these, life drifts an idle pageant by.
Caught on the brink of torrents masterful
Lie rotting giant trunks whose graceful strength
Could bear a nation's standard through the fight;
Pines that the woodman far away descried,
And traced along the sighing winter woods,
Then proudly smote them down, and saw the sky
Flash blue above, where late the shadows hung.
Shall this young soul waste utterly, or shall
The maddening gush of life sweep it along ?
Or calm, majestic, searching floods uplift,
And into seas eternal nobly bear ?
He had known starving pangs: when others whined
At lessened luxury, he smiled contempt.
His was a strangely mingled nature, all
A father's power, a mother's passion. She
Was nurtured in the halls of Italy.
Embrace less vestal than chaste moonbeams, ne'er
Had taught her heart the tremble of great bliss.
The breeze that lingered near her, fragrance caught
208 TWO WORLDS. [1855
From leagues of vineyards hung with bursting grapes,
From orange flowers beside the golden fruit.
Whene'er at noonday, dreaming pensively,
She asked her virgin soul what love might be,
Its depth, aye and its madness, she might read
In dark-eyed portraits gravely studying her,
As if their memory clung to that dim hall,
That race, whose old inheritance was love.
In her fair echo-haunted land, all sounds
Were music, every sight was art. Her soul
Was throbbing full of unvoiced melodies;
She closed her eyes and gave their pictures back
To memory, stealing thus from every scene
A filmy semblance of their beauty; thus
When after exiled years were dreariest,
One magic whisper could uncurtain all
Those sunny streets and shadowy palaces.
But when she sat at twilight, all alone,
Her thought as vague as twilight, suddenly
Her look dashed through the darkness to a star
Unknown until it shot, and fell, and died.
She watched its vanishing. Her eyes were filled
With softly darkling boldness flashing far.
Life swept and broadened to eternity;
Night's noble voice of silence spoke to her;
Heart echoes answered back heroic vows.
Oh, had you seen her then, her white hands clasped
All proudly pale, like a scorned sybil, scarce
One could have whispered of the damning wrongs
That murdered freedom in her fatherland:
Lest she should pass and leave you silently,
Flitting, a white revenge, from shade to shade,
And while the tyrant's guards were shuddering,
^T. 27] DEPARTURE. 2l
A scream should ring along his silent halls !
And she be found, a kneeling martyr, faint
With noble murder, she had dared to do.
Her father was a dreamy soul, he built
Proud schemes on fancied perfectness of man.
Such scholar patriot as may be in lands
Where thinkers peep at life through theories.
In fondest parent converse with his child
He painted their dear land an Arcady;
His calmly sailing hopes touched golden sands
Of peace, nor saw the baffling present, thick
With flashing gloom of toppling storm clouds piled.
But the day came at last, as such days come.
A thought had quivered like a dagger drawn;
A thought and word had stolen from man to man,
And whispers grew to shouts; the shout heaved on
Thro' that fair city, richly historied,
Circling the palace, like the roar that folds
Crags, on the edges of a cataract.
Oh ! fools ! fools ! why came ye with honest hopes
Unweaponed, but with cries for justice, blind
Against the steely hedges of a throne ?
The King came forth upon the balcony
The King came forth. Had he a soul in him
To see those pleading looks and not be moved ?
Then shouted they, Listen, oh majesty !
Our wrongs must speak ! One honest pledge to us
Of royal faith shall send us peaceful home.
Aye ! say you so, my friends ! answered the King,
I'll send you quicker. Men ! fire on this mob !
210 TWO WORLDS.
One breathless, pulseless beat of time, and then
Expectant stillness quivered with a flash
Of death's impassive enginery, then death
"Was hurled among the men who fronted it.
And when the smoke drifted reluctantly,
Except some corpses, now and then a moan,
And something in the air that said, Revenge !
The spot was left to utter loneliness.
Calm stood the palace, with its wealth of mild
Madonnas, shrined upon the carven walls.
Sweet faces, saddened with the thought of death.
Not thus the contest ended. Thro' the streets,
Were wailing cries of grief, that wrought themselves
To cries for vengeance. Arming hastily
"With hasty arms. Tumultuous gatherings.
Blood-maddened crowds. Counsels precipitate.
Bold deeds. Each house a fortress. Every square
A battle-field. Heroes unknown till now.
Delicate women brave as bravest men
Women bereaved, fiercer than fiercest men.
Yet a few words, a little yielding then,
One honest purpose could have spared this blood
Joy then in homes where pale and silent now
Mothers were wailing horror. Yet kings sit
Wrapped in the heritage of self and pride,
And lying to their false luxurious souls,
Call desolation, order; ruin, peace.
Her father was the noblest noble there,
Among the highest of the counselors.
Now, there was fear among them, as a child
Shudders along the crinkling smooth of waves,
-2ET. 27] DEPARTURE. 211
Ere the assaulting gale comes thick and fast.
The Marquis, pleading, came before the King,
" O spare them ! man of this our grand old town !
Brief is a blood-gained victory, and soon
The current sweeps to ruin. You will learn
That eddies struggle vainly against tides.
Back to brave faith ! Nobly go forth to them,
Say you have erred ! Oh ! never such a shout
As then shall seal their new-born loyalty.
But if they hear not, then in God's name die !
Nor let assassin-haunted years creep on."
" Marquis," the King replied, " came you to court
More often, you would use more courtly words
We pardon you, for ancient services,
And that fair daughter, whom we favor much.
As for these noisy fools, we'll have the streets
Swept of their idling. We have charged our troops
To burn and level, for we need a site
For our new hall of sculpture." Sneeringly
He spoke, but fear played round his ashen lips,
Killing the sneer.
Fiercer the conflict raged
Without, a sound of myriad utterance blent.
Where shouts with shrieks and curses mingling rose,
And roars with death shots.
" Oh ! God pardon me,
" That I have dallied thus ! Tyrant, I go ! "
And thro' the panic strode with step so firm
None dared to stay him. Then he flung his life
On battle-surges, learning now at lastj
How the Crusader's blood flowed restlessly
Beneath his calmness.
212 TWO WORLDS. [1855
Ah how vainly vain !
This dainty Freedom would not tread on blood,
So the revolt was crushed.
Was it for this,
The pageantry of gorgeous, martial shows?
They could not know, the people, drunken with
Magnificence, all thrilling with the crash
Of military music, dazed with show
Of sabres, plumes and flashing cavalry,
The purpose of this two-edged instrument
Driving to deeper slavery. Like fate,
Steady and ruthless on the squadrons marched,
And left behind them maidens whose white innocence
Felt the swift bullet as their earliest pang;
And silver, reverend age all unrevered.
Fair children too ! oh waste ! And yet there stared
That ever glorious heaven overhead.
No blasting vengeance fell. Damnable fate !
Master of Misery. I cannot look
With stony eyes of monster calmness on
These horrors of hell; they madden, madden me !
Oh G-od ! thou wrongest us with this devil world.
Night and despair.
'Neath the dim palaces,
Some trembling ones with torches sought their dead.
Silence, unquivered by their whispers, harked
For the faint terror of a distant scream.
Oh bitter hopelessness of noble hope !
Our cresting souls touch immortality
Then slide and sink to bitterness again.
Perhaps the Marquis thus had yielded, died,
But as his thoughts voyaged a starless waste,
&T. 27] DEPARTURE. 213
Sudden, love anchored him to deeper faith.
My daughter ! Oh if some stray hope can say
God is not ever thus, she shall be saved.
Then his wild haste was 'ware of forms like hers
Lying all still. He shuddered, hurrying on.
No glimmer in his palace halls. The dark
Made him recoil in terror. But as he
Came near, a man, a friend that lurked within
The shadow, met him. She is safe, we wait,
I wait. They entered secretly, where she
With steady tearlessness had watched. She thought
Her woman's heart all steeled heroical,
A shield, not to be shielded. Now her veil
Of sternness fell away in blissful tears.
Child ! Father ! Oh fond instant ! They have met.
Safety is sure but for the moment now.
And fly we must ! Yet death were easier far
Than brave enduring of a hopeless life !
Hopeless? Nay hopeful! Exiles, we may wake,
Urge, goad our nation's sleep, a giant's sleep.
Calm on their flight those grand old portraits looked
Perhaps they saw far off a brighter day,
Perhaps they cared not, knowing that events,
And all the vexed machinery of a world,
Are nothing, if not triers of the soul.
I've dreamed or known a tale of one who ran
The scourging gauntlet of a life; and friends,
And foes, and hopes, and fears, and circumstance,
And his own fiery passions stood, and smote
Him as he passed. But when he struggled thro'
And plunged his lacerated soul in death
214 TWO WORLDS. [1855
He climbed upon the further brink and saw
Eternity.
And there stood growing to a God-like calm,
Himself the peer of any crowned one there.
They fled in sad perplexity of night,
Through streets where many a deed of blood was done,
Ghastly with faint historic terrors, now
Ghastlier with present horror of the dead;
Protected by the friend that helped their flight,
A boldly-thoughtful, self-reliant friend.
A traveler from a newer world he came
To look on history. Europe is history
To us, the children of the present. We
Were heirs to what they toil and err for still.
Eicher than dreams were those fair treasuries
Of art, and clouds of golden romance, kept
In memory of sunsets unforgot.
But there, as one in ruddy autumn strays
Through western forests flaming gorgeously,
With purple rich as wine that holds the sun,
With fruity orange, crimson like a blush,
When cheeks reflect the glow of ardent lips,
As one thus wandering not beguile 1 from thought
That spring and hope are fairer, sees beneath
Dead leaves the quivering pureness of a fount;
He found a fresh soul 'neath the gorgeousness,
The ripened splendors of a fading land.
Quick as the light that strikes from soul to soul
Love-kindled fires die never, never. Even
From sadly quenching tears their ashes find
Strange and rekindling life. Not so to these.
.Ex. 27] DEPARTURE. 215
To them dawn deepened into sunny day
Love sweeping thro' their heaven like a sun.
A city by the sea-side, proudly fair,
Gave refuge. There the Marquis loved to learn
A soothing sadness in the cadenced waves,
Their sweet low murmur soothed his soul, and then
The sprinkling sparkles made him glad again.
Ever beneath their brilliant surface-play
And flash and glitter, grew the undertone
Of vastness, as below the gayest life,
Eternity speaks thro' the intervals.
Breezes said, peace, to him. Waves sped to kiss.
Kocks told of firm endurance. Waves and breeze,
Of seas and skies all tranquil after storms.
Ah, transient, traitor calm ! brief, false delight !
Betrayed ! A group of seeming fishermen,
Idle as noon, were lounging there, and songs
Droned into fitful chorus drowsily.
They stole upon him in his reverie,
Seized, bound him, dragged him where a lazy bark
Seemed waiting for a wind. Then spread white sails,
And swifter than a sea-bird, vanished far,
O'er the horizon, and were seen no more.
A child was gathering pebbles by the shore,
Waves freshened them to gems. He saw the deed.
Athwart his innocence a shadow fell,
A first wrong chilled his spirit, and his tale
Went murmuring thro' the city : hardly waked
Surprise or pity in that land of wrongs.
But she, his daughter, oh ! a tenderest calm
Effaced all tremors of distrust, and love
216 TWO WORLDS. [1855
Was sinking, wavering, deepening thro' her soul,
As suns thro' placid waters. The delight
Of listening while a lover speaks, she proved,
Nor knew that dear, dear whisper yet was love.
The stranger told her of his noble land,
A queenly Virgin for the manliest love.
A Land he worshiped with a rapturous love;
Grand with the gloom of forest's mysteries,
Grand with the sweep of billowy boundless plains,
Surging on westward like a rolling sea.
Hopes of a world are launched and sailing there.
And then a legendary tale of love
He told, of Nature's sympathies unseen,
For not all aimless are the wandering airs,
The North flies wooing to the sunny South,
Flower to sweet floweret nods and becks and bends,
With tender look and tone love-musical.
The stranger drew such symbols from the scenes
Of home. Thus covertly his story plead
For him who told it. But for her, whom Love
Had guarded as some latest dearest prize,
When lesser hearts were vanquished, now she feels
New thoughts were nestling in her inmost heart.
His gaze was on her, but she dared not lift
Timid concealment from her eyes, and show
Another, what she shrank herself to know.
Could this be love, young love ? She blushed, as clouds,
Belated night-clouds unarrayed for day,
Blush at intrusive sunrise.
All his soul
Was trembling at his lips. They had no voice
2ET.27] DEPARTURE. 217
For such emotion. These are moments when
We strip us of our poverty of words,
And let our unrobed spirits meet and clasp
In a voiceful silence. Silence oh how sweet !
That shall be breathed away by silver tones,
Waking the matinal of purer life.
Across the peace of that fair moment's pause,
There came an evil-omened messenger,
Such as ill tidings always find themselves,
To tell her father's capture, but his child,
Perplexed in mazes of his pitiful
And droning tale, was lured along, till doubt
Grew lurid sudden with harsh certainty.
Shoreward she fled, not swift as her despair.
It was no idly cruel tale : she looked
To far horizons where hope ever flies,
For sunlit gleams of his departing sail.
As mariners, when shores are fading fast,
Watch the white waving of a loved one's hand.
Gone ! gone ! the careless ripples had erased
His struggling footsteps. Nought but happiness
Smiled on the dimpling face of ocean.
What mockery is other's bliss, when we
Mourn unto death ! Oh futile exile now !
Now icy darkening dread swept endlessly
Down unknown futures that she dimly saw;
Such voids of darkness where the soul may grope,
And doubt its God, and doubt if death be peace.
Alone ! she moaned it to the winds and waves,
Alone ! came sadly echoing down the winds,
Alone ! each slender wavelet sighing said.
218 TWO WORLDS. [1855
i
Alone but for an instant; by her side
A deep voice whispered, crushing to deep calm
Its passion, bringing hope to her despair.
His kind permitted manly firm embrace
Protected her, and then those words were breathed
Which he who has not said, and she, who has
Not heard, or dreamed, and longed to hear, may wait
For new creation in some other life,
In this all undeveloped. Sweet is love,
"When beauty, queenly proud and coldly fair,
Learns first its womanhood, and tenderness,
And yields to love that knows no king or queen,
But greater love. And beautiful is love,
When happy lovers stealing out at eve
Sigh out their soft vows underneath the moon,
She smiling on them with her silver smile,
Cheerer of love for ages. Sweet is love
Whose calmful rest and placid gentleness
Flows steady on or dallies sunnily,
But oh ! how doubly dearest dear is love,
The refuge of a lone and banished soul,
Exiled from by-gone bliss, and shivering on
The cold world's edge; cold, cold, ah cold to her!
She trembled back to hope that waited her,
Flinging sweet sunlight even through her tears,
The myriad ripples crowded up, and cast
Tribute of sympathy. The ocean sees
So much despair of hopeless drifting wrecks,
Such cruel selfishness, such dull dismay,
That it must long to look on happiness
Like this; not joy, but pity, rescue, love.
Then, as she saw her love-illumined soul,
It dazzled her; at every word, her heart
3T. 27] DEPARTURE. 219
Throbbed to be worthy its eternity.
His voice was peace beneath his burning words.
Alone no more, for love was clasping her;
Love ! winds came murmuring and breathing it !
Love ! it was this the thronging wavelets plashed !
Love ! farther, deeper, fainter, echoing on,
And knocking at her spirit's silent shrine.
Who would not change such sorrow for such joy ?
And ah ! when we touch back o'er happy hours,
Waking again their well-known melody,
Again we see that tropic violet fade,
Again that tall chill shadow's steady march.
Light after night, night after light again.
So by their rapture sat the angel-fiend,
Grief sat with folded arms till they were calm,
And whispered, ye are one, and both are mine.
Gravely they sought through dim perplexity.
Follow ? we might, but that were desperate.
I've heard the tyrant looked upon you once.
Perhaps he'd make conditions, that you both
Would spurn. Your race is noble, old in fame.
His safety lies in this, the King might fear
Your father's friends, who still have influence.
Patience he taught with many words like these,
Patience, that poor thin curtain of despair.
So might she hope, and hope, till poignant grief
Should blunt and tarnish like a patriot's blade,
Waiting heroic days that shall not be.
Not many days had passed when came a friend,
The same ill-omened friend; for once, he brought
Tidings but half of sadness, 'twas a scroll
A seeming peasant gave him secretly.
220 TWO WORLDS. [1855
" My death they dared not. I shall see thee yet,
Oh daughter of my heart ! This is my doom :
Unnumbered years of prison. Exile then.
Trust in the stranger, dear one. He has told
A. love as true as faith is. Go with him
To that young kindly refuge-land of his.
There wait me, for my long revengeful years
Are passed, annuled in hope. Children, depart."
I've looked o'er pathless woods, shadowed and dim,
To one white peak as lonely as a thought,
Eosy and luminous at dawn and eve,
Queening sublimely o'er the solemn pines,
Then down columnar vistas deep and dark,
Where there was sunless silence, league on league,
At last in moonlit glory overhead
Suddenly shone the mount like God's calm face.
Ah! shall these loving ones then -meet again!
Since that first hour of passion and despair,
Then lit with heaven thro' its luridness,
Her lover came not as a lover. Friend
Was calmer, almost closer. Tenderly
He watched, and cheered, and roused, and quieted;
Soothed when her flashing looks indignant came.
Oh God ! I cannot bear this wrong ! this wrong !
Then tears that burned like blood burst fiercely vain.
Grief was the master; yet the drowning crush
Of certainty was better than despair.
Life they had left him. Years and exile; these
Were pain, yet pain we scorn and bear.
And love,
Thither her soul bent drooping, and its warmth
-ET. 27] DEPARTUKE. 221
Was sweeter than its shelter. "Warmth that drew
AJ1 blossoms back, unfolding tear-bedimmed,
And fairer for the vanishing of tears.
Had love not been ? Oh God ! that could not be !
Love was, and faith, not dim and utter blank.
Her soul went wandering down the labyrinth,
Conscious, yet careless be they thorns or flowers.
Thus he began his tale of love; a tale
That life shall daily wreathe with episode.
He saw her first enhaloed; oh how fail-
Is woman who forgets herself in prayer !
It chanced he entered out of sunlight, where,
Dazzled with marbled vastness, dome on dome,
He found the somber, spacious, vaulted aisles,
Silent and solemn with the thought of God,
As when in forest temples life grows wide.
Then silence felt the rustling of a tone
Soft as the shiver of moonlighted leaves,
And voices linked them to it as it rose,
Sweetness embodied into power. Deep
And pouring grander surges on and on,
Till sudden as some angel messenger,
Again the one sweet utterance soared up,
Poised over awfulness, telling of faith
So gently keen and piercing delicate,
It found the guarded fountain of his tears;
And these came purely as a child's. He shrank
Back to a chapel where a woman knelt.
With few brief bitter words, self-scorning words,
He showed his soul to God.
222 TWO WORLDS. [1855
And turning thence
He met one glance from that fair kneeling one.
Dark eyes met his with pitying earnestness,
And knew him nobler than his wild remorse.
Thus he began his tale of love for her.
So they were joined in marriage, sadly, yet
With hope and joy that needed not be gay.
The raven presence of that grave old friend
Croaked its congratulations, all presage
Of grief in sorrow lost to them and then
A last farewell to Italy. To streets
Kich with the shadows of their palaces;
To sunny shores, where life is laughed away;
To churches jewel bright as fairy caves;
A last farewell, not all unanswered yet,
To that blue-green entrancing, murmuring sea,
Beloved of poets since Homer; where the hopes
Of earliest man were launched, awhile to float
And spread their sails to softer gales, before
Their ocean ventures. Bitterly, farewell !
For bitterer than parting is the thought
Of wrong that parts us; of our traitor friends,
Of cowards, treason, and ingratitude.
Westward they went where no dead past could come
To bring them burdens more than they could bear.
His was a soldier's life; on the frontier
Was fascinating peril. Dwelling there
Alone, with nothing but each other's love,
God gave them a dear child, a son, in whom
Each saw the other's image glorified.
Not wholly happy; thoughts would come uncalled
JET. 27] DEPARTURE. 223
In tenderer moments, of that prisoned one.
But years will pass, and life will fade, and time
"Was linking on his iron round for him.
At last came sudden sweet bewilderment
Of freedom, when all hope seemed desperate,
Released he stood, all hesitant, as one
"Who looks from crags where rich vales smiling lie
But mists and surging clouds dawn-lit with rose
Are enviously beautiful between.
Ah ! were it then another prison dream ?
They met. It was then true, the blessed dream ?
No more to end in maddening tears; no more
The cruel bitterness of vision shone
Upon his prison wall, to fade with day.
Their treasured fondness softly rained on him;
Soft came love touches, sweet a daughter's kiss,
Sweet, manly cherishing, and dearer yet
That shyly playful infantile respect.
A child for weary age ! Ah, worn away
Were manhood's fresher graces, and harsh lines
Wrought by the chisel on his prison walls,
Had writ themselves in wrinkles on his face.
But smooth broad skies were over him at last,
And smiles responsive to his children's smiles
Calmed him to reverend beauty. Now not less
He loved his much-loved land, but life had taught
A martyr patience. He had torn his heart
With vulture fury, clanking at his chain
To bitter waiting; as he paused, not prayed,
In nights of watching, angels came to him,
And down far narrowing vistas slowly led.
224 TWO WORLDS. [1855
Madness was tamed at last to hope and faith,
Cycles count brief beside eternity,
And years are nought, and God is calmly true,
And light is born to be a victor, still.
A noble presence his; a brave firm soul,
That grief had proved, but crushed not. Dignity
Of thought too stern, as of some granite front
Where storms have wintered, yet its purple walls
"Wait but for level suns and kindlier beams
To wave with gentle aspens tender green.
Oh ! sweet to live again fresh childhood o'er
With that young comrade now so doubly his.
No music like his childish questioning
(Young romance dawning in devouring eyes)
Of the old lands of Art and History,
Of the old plains of Syria or of Greece,
The battle-fields of Marathon and Troy,
Plains lone as ours, but far more desolate,
For theirs is solitude deserted, ours
Unvisited, save by long moving herds.
Thus picturing on, he told of ancient fanes,
Marble, and nobly set on marble hills.
Of marble islands in a dazzling sea,
Homes of bright gods, whose temples saw the sun
At eve, when every vale was dim with night
Inevitable, and at morn, ere light
Inevitable, conquered gloom. And then
He spoke of goddess statues, marble cold,
Else we might hate mortality, and forms
Whose saintly distance, love, not passion roused,
And pictures, where some brilliant scene was staid
Aglow with finer splendors than its own;
^T. 27] DEPARTURE. 225
And portraits, where like sunbeam, genius looked
Thro' robes of life, to know and stamp the man
World without end, a slave, or hero still.
And then he stirred the boy to fervidness
Of pure ambition with his histories.
How noble men, his sires, had writ their names
Aloft on hopes, as Christian voyagers
Mark symbol crosses in the wilderness.
He taught him too the poets of Italy,
Most sadly musical voice of the past.
Dearest the boy loved Tasso, and would dream
Himself a pilgrim warrior, pure and true,
Like Tancred, pure as love, and true as faith.
Oh trebly happy childhood ! Age bestowed
Its lessons from the past; that shadowy past
Perhaps had stood 'twixt him and life, a veil
Kich tapestried with splendid pageantry;
But a brave present, and its manliness
His father taught. See how the living stand
In onward fronts of battle. Plains behind
Are strewed with corpses where our own shall lie
When life is fought away. Watch and behold,
In faint weird light that comes before the moon
They lie, far scattered; men, heroes perchance,
Forgotten. Know, my son, he said, that we
Men of to-day are good and bad, are mean
And great, no more, no less, than all that were
Before, and are to be. Regret not then
Past days, nor waste thy soul in longings vague.
None nobler have been, may be, than thou may'st.
To-day is mightier than eternities.
226 TWO WORLDS. [1855
But beautifully hovering ever near,
His mother's spirit, and her presence dwelt
Most gently merciful, with sheltering arms.
Oh ! she would guard him from the cruelty
Of slow, of sad, of difficult return
Back to the paths his soul was planted in.
Touched by hope's prophet wand, she saw for him
The stately grandeur of a noble mind,
To claim dominion on its wakening.
Such were these boyhood's years, love sentineled.
Life is not wasteful of its happy hours.
Brief placid days, calm and pathetic rest,
The grandsire knew, ere death came peacefulest.
Death, Lethe of the long dark bitter years,
Death, Life's quick, clear, bold, sure interpreter.
Then came the orphan horror of strange fate;
As when a slumberer, starry canopied,
Startled to waking by some nameless thrill,
Wakes prisoner 'mid dusky savage forms,
That bend and glide before his startled eyes.
Slowly checked heart-beats tremble to new life,
Void outstretched arms grope slow to new embrace.
Slow chime new voices with departed tones,
And dreary to the boy were wanderings
To seek from lower levels friendly draughts.
Love sprang so sparkling from his native earth,
So eager fresh, that kindly pity seemed
Only less bitter than indifference;
And manhood came with hasty harshness on,
Exhausted with its own rebelliousness.
Mi. 27] PASSION. 227
There grew a longing in his soul for peace,
Peace in that calming South, his mother's home.
A thicket present urged him back; he longed
To bask in suns that ripen orange blooms,
To gaze on seas deep blue and tremulous,
To soothe dead grief with Art that cannot die,
To leave the future blank awhile, and learn
Content, at least control, silent and stern.
Friends too there were, and words of kindliness
Had simply come from him who herited
His grandsire's rank, and old memorial halls.
Such cherished longings came most musical,
And called his doubting soul. Come ! Follow us !
Vain are tumultuous days; vain owlish nights,
Idle is bustling under steely skies,
Ignoble progress, soulless energy.
Better be cradled on a tideless sea.
The old world has what we are striving for.
Then yielding bitterly, alone he went
Went sailing eastward, flying to the Past.
m.
PASSION.
Marquis. The hour for council now. I leave you, sir;
Pardon this hasty welcome till we meet,
Then I may urge and prove its earnestness.
Meanwhile, I give you to a fairer guide,
My wife will show you thro' the galleries:
You are as near allied as we to these
Herited splendors. For an hour, adieu !
228 TWO WOKLDS. [1855
Beatrice. 'Tis best your flush of wonder first should fall
Upon the noblest works, and afterward
Give quiet thought to lesser things of grace.
First I will dazzle you with Titian's glow
A glorious crash shall rouse our sympathy;
Then through that golden thrill and radiance,
Shall enter pureness delicately sweet;
Calmness of tender maiden majesty,
A Raphael dreamed her whom we idolize.
The pageant chorus of the Veronese
Shall crowd our vision next: we'll follow thus
The changes of a music-fantasy.
[They pass into the Gallery.]
Richard. I ask a sadder pleasure first. You have
A portrait of my mother, ere she fled.
Beatrice. I longed to show you this, but dared not dim
My welcome. Oh ! I love that sybil face !
She is the guardian saint of all my dreams !
That portrait veiled is hers. Poor boy, he weeps !
I thought him cold to our warm greeting. No J
This deep emotion waited. How it flings
Back thought on self, to see another's grief.
And I is there another life on earth
That I should passionately weep like this?
Mother ! Ah bitter shame ! Ah lonely home !
Mine deemed me but a rival and a spy;
She cursed me for her waning charms, she sold
My young hope to a master overkind.
Whom could I weep with such dear bitterness ?
Sad I might be, but nothing desolate.
Yet as I look upon that weeping boy,
JET. 27] PASSION. 229
There starts and writhes within my soul the thought
That griefs may be, whose sudden fatal coil
May murder life and hope. How strangely like
That mother guardian of my dreams he is.
Richard. Sweet mournful vision ! gentle comforter !
Oh ! heaven grows dearer now ! Keen memory
Has pierced the mist, and side by side they stand,
A mother in her hour of agony,
A maiden here in dreamy innocence,
Forever purely blending in my love.
Oh lady ! pardon me and pity me !
Yes, I am lonely, lonely ! but till now
Proudly alone. This fair pathetic face,
A mother's, makes all pity sweet to me.
Kind lady ! may I shelter me in yours ?
Beatrice. My pity? Sisterly I give it! More,
If such a shallow heart as mine can bear
The burden of such grief, oh ! trust in me !
Are we not kinsfolk? Must we not be friends?
It seems that I might hold a brother's love
Nearer my heart than all its idle dreams.
Richard. Alas ! how many said they pitied me,
And turned away to their own happiness,
Which smiling bent to meet them. Mourners greet
But mourners, and their joy, their warmth, their love,
Is swiftly stolen while the jailer waits,
That shadowy comrade ever whispering
Haste ! 'tis the hour for solitude and self,
A life like yours must not be darkened thus.
230 TWO WORLDS. [1855
Beatrice. A life like mine ! 'Tis full of gayety,
And futile laughter, dallying thought away
From what it dares not picture. No, my friend !
No heart is sadder than an empty heart.
Not that my heart is empty. No, I have
My husband, and my house, a troop of friends,
The sunniest, dearest city for my home !
This be it mine to show you. We have talked
Too tearfully. Not saddening, but to cheer
Should be our converse. Come, the gallery !
This is our Raphael, our pride.
Eichard. A face
Of virgin vision, ever worshiping
With thought dilate and gazing on her dreams,
Till some wild leaping light of life shot forth,
Her stainless hope emboding in a God.
Madonna ! Canst thou save the motherless?
Beatrice. Oh she can save ! In my deep-yearning hours,
I soared upon the eternal music, on
And breathless ever on, seemed close to God.
But sudden, checked, and falling like a star,
Saw God, so cold and stern and far away,
Heard all the world's old sneer and jar again.
Then how her look seemed listening to my heart,
Whose prayerswere tears! Say shall we look once more?
Art cannot be all pure; but Pagans come
And study on these Venuses for hours.
Richard. This morning, as I came with stranger steps
It chanced I passed a church, and entered there :
Dim incense with its odor clogged the air;
Softly along the edge of kneeling throngs
MT. 27] PASSION. 231
I moved toward a chapel, cavern like.
Statues watched there, and one pale sentinel,
Leaning his head upon his hand, was still,
As dreaming of the things that are not known
Nor ever shall be to the living known,
Bewildered by some chaos of despair.
Great dread went shivering to my heart, for I
Have looked into such voids, and gazing there
Deemed life was death a blank; eternity.
Oh what a mind was his who knew it all,
And could revenge him in immortal forms !
Beatrice. Yes, Angelo ! For him and Dante, life
Was bitter, love and country all were lost.
They hid their shame and sorrow in their art.
He would have stony sleep, nor feel nor see.
Ah what a tale that solemn chapel holds !
That marble man his master ! Think of it !
Richard. These portraits! I may trace myself, in
them;
Perchance the passion of our race may gleam
Thro' generations, from the hard old eyes
Of some grim grandsire with a pointed beard,
First of his name; or some foul gnawing worm
Of baseness I am sometimes conscious of,
May lurk behind the purest seeming smile
Of yon fair dame, blue eyed and sunny haired,
But I must glance, and leave you.
Beatrice. To return
And make our home your own. We purpose this.
New friends must fain be despots. You must dwell
In sunshine with us, leaving grief behind.
232 TWO WORLDS. [1855
Richard. You are too good to me. Oh can it be
My past is passing from me in this hour,
Nor need I drain the last, the bitterest drops ?
Pardon this selfishness. But at your voice
Opens my heart responsive, as one note,
A bird's first matin song, breathed timidly
Awakes the burst that fills the silent woods.
I will not turn again to what I was.
But I should go. Adieu !
Beatrice. We meet
So soon, I will not say adieu.
[He goes.']
Strange youth !
What eager looks and wild words chasing them,
As if some starving tropic wanderer
Had pierced thro' thorny thickets, the dark lairs
Of fierce wild beasts and reptiles, and beyond
Beheld a glade feathered with whispering palms,
Where gentle dusky forms gave signs of peace.
May I be peace to him, if there is peace.
But I too must be calm, 'twill be a task.
I dare not be ennobled now, I live
Perhaps content. I dare not plunge to life.
Oh leave me in the playful shallows still.
I cannot meet the storm. How sad he is !
Yes, I will cheer him. We will make him tell
The wonders of his savage land, and we
Will guide him thro' the loveliness of ours.
The dear old Marquis loves a listener.
Poor boy ! No mother, sister, friend, and I
His senior by a year of matronhood.
He said the world was cold. Was his the fault?
Mr. 27] PASSION. 233
He shall not find us so. I think my heart
Unfolds itself in sunshine like a flower
And loves to blossom all the summer's day.
Ah ! is it then all unattainable
To cast self utterly upon a friend,
Sobbing, oh comfort me for what I am,
And what I cannot be ? to feel some heart
Throb tenderness to mine ? It may not be.
Know you how storms steal on the helpless world?
Calm waves are dimpled o'er with agate cells,
Capricious sails flap idly here and there.
Sleep pilot, by your vacillating helm,
Or waking, whistle to the dallying gale !
It comes across the tired flowers. It comes
With distant sparkles kindling as they near.
It stays, the sails flap dazzling sunshine out.
Sudden the fierce black squall screams thro' the yards.
Fond pilot ! where is now thy sunlit sail ?
I pace the sullen beach, 'twixt foam and surge;
The sky is voiceless. Ah, remorseful sea !
No crash can hide thy pleading undertone.
There helpless in the valleys of the waves,
There battered, tossed upon their leaden green,
There is a dead man floating helplessly
Back to the beaches of his boyhood's play.
Some have told strangest talcs of hearts asleep
In innocence, by angel dreams o'erhung,
Whereat their parted rose lips smiled the more :
Or devils whispered, till in slumber deep
They muttered strange and guilty words of shame.
Tossing in agony that cannot wake,
234 TWO WORLDS. [1855
Ah, Beatrice, it is no fiend that comes,
No tempter this: his soul would shrink like thine,
And folding, quiver back from touch that harms.
Ye both are noble still, unsullied hearts
Your scorn, all proudly pure, would wither one
"With devil's whisper, hinting of a sin.
So dwelt they through a summer of delight;
Days exquisite; days ripening to their close;
Noons in cool lofty galleries, where thought
"Was calmed with beauty and grew reverent.
Art wooed them to delight, till wearying
They wandered forth, strewing long rose-leaf trails,
Through the fair garden's bosky trellises,
By cave, and wilderness, where statues seemed
Listening to their worn fountain's babbling flow.
Such wanderings brought deeper sympathy;
Betrayed to new and tropic summer life
These children, guiltless of experience.
Twilights of dreaminess came after noons;
Green glowed the west beyond the olive-hills.
Passion unknown flamed through him suddenly,
His hopes took hers by hand; we dare not tell
Save in such moments what wild hopes we have
For our own country in the sunset- west,
"Where thought outmarching sunset, makes high day
As love makes all things new. Oh holiest home !
No waymark ruins glimmer down our past;
Our day was hardly dawning when it nooned,
Light came as in a forest when pines fall.
Light, virgin light. Perish the darkness then !
-33T. 27] PASSION. 235
Noons thus, thus twilight dreams, then grew the moon
From when it seemed the circlet to a star,
Grew like a wish unspoken, until day
Looked farewell kindly; delicately then
Sweet pallor gently stole to be the queen,
And all the world was homage. Fairer scene
From all her skies she never saw than this :
Lily pale Beatrice, pure as herself,
Steadily gazing on the trembling stars,
And one beside her finding heaven with her.
Wild heart-beats sent no roses to her cheeks;
The breath of love brings roses, but not yet
Love breathed, to bloom the rose or wither it.
Delicious days ! days calm with drowsiness
Of sunshine, where warm airs are slumbering too.
Days made for idleness and confidence,
When youth may sit and babble of itself,
While gentle eyes draw every secret out.
The world untried is but your plaything then;
Thro' life's illumined shallows you will wade
Onward to shore, and bolder as you stride.
Death you would leap, as leaps a mountaineer
Green glacier chasms, onward still to climb,
Forever upward to eternal hills.
It could not be but oft caressingly,
With fondness inexpressible, she laid
Her hand on his, or touched his cheek, for still
She kept the fancy of a sister's love
Nor knew the cheat. Yet tremors of delight
Came with that gentle pressure. Starting thence
236 TWO WORLDS.
She drew away, while all her passionate heart
Stood waiting at her lips, as stays a cloud,
Curbing the whirling madness of the storm.
It could not "be but oftentimes she sang
Music of Italy, that land's own voice,
Where life seems born to sweetly sing away,
Unmindful of its tragedy. She sang,
And ecstasy chilled through him like a burst
Of earliest sunshine over opening buds.
He clung and trembled on the edge of bliss
So keen, one throb had made it agony.
She lost all presence in the flow of song,
Till suddenly she felt his eager look,
And blushingly glanced downward, with a strain
Of half despair, hid in a daring song,
Drooping and dying into quietude.
Then silence, while their hearts heard echoes fall.
Then burst defiant strains, bold martial notes,
Strains that might shake a nation's banner out,
And call battalions of brave thoughts to arms.
But when the battle music died away,
Brave thoughts, too loyal, trusting, sank to rest,
And passion, that from poisoned ambush crept,
Came back to conquer them in sleep
I have been bitter oftener than is well,
"When the thorn labyrinth we wander in
Had lost its clue of flimsy spider threads.
Then have I closed my eyes, and listening,
Heard the eternal music. Many times
It lay all hidden in its purity
Beneath a maiden's song. And sterner oft,
^T. 27] PASSION. 237
When crowds were gay and brazen instruments
Crashed welcome to a gorgeous tyranny,
The pauses whispered, God is vengeance ! Oft
Fleet winds have been my harpers. Eustling grain
I've heard to whisper thanks for harvest time,
And I have heard a tremble thro' the woods
Methought bright-winged sunbeams fluttered down,
For leaves were ah 1 astir, with simple joy,
And silvery laughter gay. Then glancing down,
"Water, the best andloveliest,like a girl
Came dancing on from mossy darkness, 'mid
Old autumn leaves and pebbles opaline.
And evermore enchantingly the song,
Delicate music, sweet as smiles I heard,
And low deep undertones from far away.
For grander now the stream was flowing on
At call of destiny. So drifting down,
My errant sylvan river guiding me,
And master now, at last there seemed to be
A noontide sunrise all along the south;
Two heavens met cinctured with a belt of gold;
Thence came the eternal music, and the blue,
The hither blue was counting on its shore
Beats of wild melody. Die nobly here,
Beautiful river, in eternity.
Be lost in broader music evermore.
Like swallows bounding, bounding over light,
Skimming the white and billowy air along,
Eagerly full of bursting darting song,
Soared Beatrice and her wild lover; nay,
Not lover. Lifted over floods of song,
And borne away by melody, to coasts
238 TWO WORLDS. [1855
Unknown of earthly unillumined souls,
They dwelt where symphonies eternally
Eternal seas are sounding
Oh innocently, innocently, love
Stole to their hearts, of pity born and thanks;
For pity grew, like some transcendent flower,
Blameless for poison till one plucked and died.
Easy is erring over plains of flowers,
Slowly the lost are lost, and sadly trace
Their backward path by blossoms plucked, now dead.
Slowly it clouded over Beatrice,
The love that was not sunshine: prisoner
In fine and golden web herself had wove ;
It seemed to deck her like sweet tracery
Of bridal lace. She dreamed all carelessly
Those filmy bonds to breathe away. Alas,
Her pure pride lied to her that she might check,
Still cherishing her honest tenderness.
She stood beside the hearth where smouldering fire,
Ashes and embers lay which should have warmed
Her home of marriage, over these she bent,
Too heart-chilled even to have one fluttering breath
To strive and pant to kindle them again.
It was a noble palace, and its lord
A kind old man. And when she came at first
He led her over tessellated halls,
She turning childlike here and there, and gay
She flew along her new and wider cage,
Singing to prove how bird-like free she was.
In pauses of her song she asked for love;
Alas! it came not. Kindness, fondness, these
Were grateful. Tokens sweet, betokening
MT. 27] PASSION. 239
Little from his slow heart, all mossed with age.
Oh mystery ! and she was all alone.
The priest appears, the magic words are said
Open the ivory gates, all void within.
Could it be wrong to give the heart away,
So it was but a heart ? That kind old man
Was harmless of heart craving; so it seemed
She was what he would have, a brilliant thing
For throngs to envy, nor the less to him
A prattling comrade. With an unconfessed
Remorse, to reparation urging her,
Hardly self convict of a traitor thought,
More gently than in friendliest moments past
She laid her hand in his, and cheered and soothed
His trifle flurried panics, sang him songs,
Listened indulgently to critic doubts,
And talk of ladies who when he was young
Had higher notes, trills more articulate
Than hers, all dimmed for his old ears. At times
She wept for him, for pity. Wasted pearls !
Waste as the unprized priceless love he lost,
Serene, contented in his littleness.
But when with night came dreams, wild stormy dreams,
Ever one haunting form before her eyes
Came in her troubled sleep. She dreamed of flight
Over red deserts, over wastes of blood;
A steady tramp came closing after her,
And a fiend's face more terrible than death
Looked o'er her shoulder, or she fell down, down,
Through horrible abysses, clasped with him
Who was her own, yet changed to pallid death.
240 TWO WORLDS. [1855
Dreams such as these the master- thought betrayed;
For dreams are never wholly dreams, but shapes
Mystic, distorted from our daylight hopes.
But what of Eichard ? Oh ! forgive the boy,
If when a winning syren sang delight,
Along his heart, shrine after holy shrine
Opening received and echoed ecstasy.
He thought not of an angel visitant
One purely came. Could aught but worship be ?
She was so heavenly stainless ! Not misled
Was that young heart of his by elder sneers
That beauty was but veiled impurity.
Merciful beauty ! Angel of mean earth,
Divine, divinest ! On his loneliness,
Exhaustless bounty she had kindly showered;
His bliss seemed questionless, his right, his own.
Terrible beauty! Fiend all serpent-like;
No evil hiss is in thy delicate voice,
Glorious maddening tempter. Calm as fate
Thou strikest thy deep fangs when strikes the hour,
Changing from woman to a monster vile.
He could not choose but love, love, love; red fate;
A tyrant, treads on choice. His spirit prayed
Peace ! peace ! I bore my other misery,
But this I cannot bear, this torture Love.
No choice but love ! Ah ! warm and friendly foe,
That smiles so on us with unconscious eyes !
To check such instinct passion ere it grew
For this were need of man's firm wisdom. He
Took but his heart for leader. Were life true ?
Beautiful, white-plumed chieftain, we would march
En- 27] PASSION. 241
With thee, through fight, to safety ! But 'tis false
There is no guide, not any, save to err.
It pleased the Marquis that his wife could find
A comrade in his kinsman whom he loved,
And Richard, full of kindly gratefulness,
Held out his sturdy arm and sturdier mind,
Sonlike for him to cling. Not yet was wrong.
There had been loud wild gales till noon, and leaves,
Autumnal leaves, were whirling on the air;
But after noon the winds were still, and mist,
The slumbrous haze of autumn slow enwrapped,
Enshrouded earth. So calm the day became,
So lulled into such indolent repose,
Such dull luxurious entrancement, such
Hot breathlessness, such pause of time and life,
As level rivers know when near the sea.
Slow lagged the sluggish blood thro' half-closed veins.
Keen blasts that stir the ardent spirits up
Had fallen blunted, and each drowsy flower
Had folded eyelid over eye, in sleep.
It was such eve as this. Irresolute
The oval sun had vainly sunk away;
A pall closed in his parting. Lowering
Dull skies athwart their lurid reaches watched;
No dewy freshness came from twilight dells,
Alone they sat. Oh, lovers surely now,
And fearfully alone. The walls they built
Crushed them like chaos. None, it seemed, could pass
Forever. But without a magic word,
Two souls are prisoned there, forever damned
Never shall Heaven visit them, nor hope.
242 TWO WORLDS. [1855
They sat in terrible twilight. Nevermore
Can any steady look between them pass
Forever tremors bring betrayal near.
They heard an old man's step along the walk.
He came to warn them kindly of the mists
Of autumn, fevered dews, pestiferous moons.
His tread came somewhat slowly on, a doom
That tramped along the chamber of their souls,
To bar back life. They heard his rustling feet
Among the dead leaves coming, and he seemed
To count the pebbles as he dragged along.
He came, and looking westward as he spoke,
Said simply, " This may be our last fine night;
The lurid west foretells great storms to come ;
Winter must soon be with us. Eichard, we
Like not your talk of parting. You will find
No city fair as this. Not ruined Rome,
Not Naples with its fevers and its fires,
Not stagnant Venice, nor Milan, whose dome
Has gone to seed with pinnacles. No, stay
With us, your kinsfolk. Beatrice and I
Both love you as a son. Yes, be our son !
Forget your savage land. Your home is here,
Among the civilized. She prays it too;
Yes, cheer my age, my heart, and be our son."
" His son ! O God ! My son ! oh God ! "
She turned;
There was a ghastly moon low in the sky,
Just risen, not so ghastly as her face.
Grasp not so chilly at her tender heart !
Back ! grim Eemorse ! Back ! seize that cowering one !
In mercy hide him from the self he hates !
-2ET. 27] PENANCE. 243
The living silence was as still as death;
Paleness drooped over her as falls a shroud;
A mask it seemed; despair quenched agony.
Parting without forgiveness ? not a look ?
Her life was feebly fluttering at her heart,
She fell and she was dead. Not yet. They stooped;
Lifting her tenderly. Her eyes unclosed,
Life had one message more. It was for him.
With one last throb heart said farewell to heart,
Death waited carelessly. Kind Heaven had met
Her pardoned spirit, pardoned ere she erred.
Mercy unmasked the sternness from her lips,
One last flush tinged her pallor, and she smiled.
There came a smile yes, even for him a smile
He will remember always. But her hand
Was clasped within her husband's.
So she died.
IV.
PENANGE.
Penance for sins not ours ! Sorrow for crimes
We hated when we did ! Regret for bliss
Our ruthless ignorance has cast away.
Remorse for harmful deeds that guiltlessly
Murdered pure joy in others' hearts and ours.
Despair alone 'mid corpses of its hopes,
As in a plague-struck city's lonely square,
A mother sits, her children round her, dead.
Why was I born to be the butt of fate ?
Make answer, life! Art thou one giant lie?
Thou hast been villain false to me ! Alas
244 TWO WORLDS. [1855
I see no truth, not any. Everywhere
Is bubbling laughter of the idiot soul.
Yet merry, merry is youth, and lovelier
Than any birds are childish melodies.
How lightsome were my days. Visions too soon
In childhood gave me longing to be cursed
With knowledge, but my mother's sunny smile
Shone then and I was happy.
Ne'er again,
Gallops of glory, shall ye lead me on,
Thoughtless of sunset, over prairie crests.
Eight through the stirring foeinan wind I rode,
Till my horse stopped at once with eyes of flame,
Instantly still was I, for fronting me
Sunset was sadly grand, like heaven we lose,
Too far, too far. But brief was sadness then,
As home I flew beneath the comrade stars.
How dear to live again the old delights !
Ah that this trembling peace across my brow
Were more than memory of a mother's kiss !
Oh mother of my early dawning love !
Oh mother of my questioning young heart !
Oh mother of my lofty eager hopes !
Oh angel guide ! When stars grew large and deep,
Longing to speak their mystery, thy soft
Dark eyes how tender true, how faithful calm,
How tortureless beside their restless glow.
Never again my youth shall meet its mate !
My brother-father, ardent, manly, wise,
Sincere in all emotions, chivalrous,
Not curdled o'er with trifling maxims, such
As moulder down broad natures into mean.
2Eec. 27] PENANCE. 245
Not with weak warnings did he fright my life.
He said, be true, be bold ! For he who trusts
His truth of heart, himself to self a friend,
Gleans through the treacherous melee of the world
A chief, of argent shield and stainless plume.
Ah ! near was heaven to our far bivouacs !
Stars overhung us graciously, and fleet
Came answer by them to the hope of light,
Inner, eternal. Boundless hours we passed;
All my impassioned boyhood silently
Followed his earnest manhood, as he told
How the world-wise and dwarfish creature man
Starts up to gianthood antean, when
Bare nature wrestles with the recreant.
We face to face with virgin nature stand,
Wooing the unwooed beauty, we would tame.
Ourselves the while must simpler be, as those
Bold knights, companions to the nymphs and fauns.
Be nature now thy boyhood's love, my son;
Go with her, hand in hand, and heart to heart;
Follow, where lapt in ferny nooks she hides
A maiden fragile as anemones.
Follow, where underneath the fragrant pines
She sings a sighing lay as soft as theirs,
Within the holies of those vista'd aisles.
And follow her where over prairie land,
Her feet with dawn-lit dews impearled, she flies,
And ever flings behind a lure of flowers.
Follow with love relentless. When at last
You win the dear delight of heart to heart,
246 TWO WORLDS. [1855
Oh ! in her wondrous eyes, all mysteries
Of beauty deeper than your dreams, will look
Intensest answer to your earnest quest,
All life immortalized with ecstasy.
In this wild world of ours are stirring scenes
Where manly souls meet nature. Bivouacs,
The march, the night watch, soldier's fare, the tale
Round gleaming camp fires. Up ! away at dawn !
Westward from orient, onward with the sun !
Noon gallops. Thirst and weariness; the flood;
The plunge to save a maddened drowning horse,
The mountain pass. Snow perils, starving days,
The hearty savagery of appetite;
Exalting glimpses over lands unknown;
Long vales that slope in green to inland seas;
Sweet prairie shrines, watched round by evergreens,
One noblest pine standing a sentinel,
Where as you ride a doe bounds up and flies,
Pauses with pleading look, then flies again.
And know, my son, if ere it be thy heart
Is echoless when pine trees sigh to thee,
Is echoless to voices of the groves,
And in God's silences jars, worldly-false,
Eemember penitence may grow remorse,
Eemorse, despair. Go then, and seek thy love,
Kneeling in forest shrine, or where the grand
Uplifting of her snow peak queens afar.
There came a day in autumn, dashed with spring,
Sunny with sparkles through its living air.
My father ! oh my father ! Hopefully
Forth on the gallop to the hunt we rode,
All wild with vigor as we faced the hills.
2Ei. 27] PENANCE. 247
Back rolled the black and roaring multitude !
Trampled to death ! O God ! I see him yet !
My hero ! crushed and utterly defaced,
And struggling thro' his agony to smile,
To speak to me, and moan one parting word.
Oh, dare I trace again that dizzy hour
That brings again my terror worse than death,
When she we loved came flying like a wind
Glancing on me as if from far away,
Then died there ?
Was not this enough, oh God ?
Must I step blindly down to darker fate,
Groping to my own dungeon ? With a clang
The heavy doors closed, leaving hope behind,
Tomb like. My love lies buried in that grave.
Another grave I see, an old man's grave,
One that I wronged. He seemed to know it not,
And ever grasped my hand and called me, son.
Most feebly smiling, said, " She loved me much,
That he would die, and say how kind I was,
He feared his love had blighted all her youth
Will she not come from heaven with pardoning words ?
Pardon for me ! oh pardon ! " Words of peace
I spoke to him, that were my agony,
So sorrowed briefly all his life away.
And this was love? An agony ! At first
How sweet and pure that tempting current flowed,
We floating innocent through hanging boughs,
The river of our love a sunlit way,
All fringed with water-lilies. Down we passed
To other zones all rich with tropic flowers;
About us closed a murmuring melody
248 TWO IVOKLDS. [1855
Lulling, prophetic, warning; over us
Winds tossed us rose leaves, bridal orange blooms;
Ever our boat on its own ripples pressed;
Its ripples made a singing as it went.
We saw the beautiful world. Her magic charm
Wooed sunshine thro' each shade, if shade there were.
I listened to my voice that spoke to her
From its delicious deeps of passion calm,
Then silent with heart trembles, till her voice
Thrilled thro' my being like a silver flood
Of moonlit waters in a shadowy dell.
Then we grew conscious suddenly of stern
And master currents, and a steely cliff
Drew to inevitable plunge beyond.
On! all forgot save love! Electric airs
Became a tempest. Cruel, strong as Death,
The dash, the struggle wild and desperate !
I saw her drowning look grow horrible,
Her smile but softly veiled it, but she gave
One death gift. On her cheek that paled by mine
One pearl-white rose just blushing at the heart.
She paid the vengeance ! Did I murder her ?
My love ! My passion ! Better both had died
Than met for ruin, bitterness, remorse.
Pale loveliness, more pale for long black hair,
Night shrouded with her hair we buried her.
One tearless, one so crushed and old and sad;
The world became to me one wide unrest.
I saw my future waste and trackless grow,
More desert than the desert there before.
Methought, could I save one, my penance might
Be angel-lifted briefly; so I plead
^ET. 27] PENANCE. 249
With brother or with sister, pointing them
To nobler selves and lives; but each had chosen;
One called choice, Fate; one, careless, turned aside
Forgetting; till in sorrowful contempt
I listened to the voices of the world.
I stood by hearths called happy, but beheld
Shy discord lurking in indifference,
Endurance, merged in hate, or in despair.
Holding the tarnished mirror of my heart
To others' hearts, still more they clouded it;
I saw the very soul of. souls to cringe
In holy hypocrites, who dare not say
In large outspoken truth that Faith was dead.
Sneers made truth lies, and every earnestness
Was met with bitter laughter. Paltry life !
How would I shrink from thee and know myself
Had I one hour of peace, one blessed hour,
Ere I drink Lethe in the vale of death.
Not this for me ! I would not heal one scar,
Where searching flames have nerved me resolute,
Were I but brave to all endurance. No !
I dare not curse e'en memory, or the sting
When coiled remorse lifts up a pale dead face
And hisses, Barest thou hope for peace ? Despair !
For I am near thee always !
I have sought,
Striding o'er science like a field, to know.
I fought against the infinite of heaven
With miserable measurements, and tried
To comprehend celestial symmetry
In vain mysterious, crowded, tremulous voids,
Ye harshly watch me with unblenching eyes,
Keen, cruel, unresponsive, omenless.
250 TWO WORLDS. [1855
Poor lagging science following in the steps
Of all this terrible and hostile life,
Canst thou defend us with thy half-drawn sword,
Thou hast not strength to lift, and darest not strike ?
It is an utter dreary thing to read
Those sad apologies called histories.
Nations have failed, the wise men say, and thus
'Twill ever be. Yet on a battle-field
Clear bugle notes amid the tumult sound
Calling a charge, and thus, amid the crash
Of cycles, has been heard the thrilling voice
Of some great prophet, shouting to his age
To march to what it might, but will not be.
He fails ! How sad for a great heart to fail !
He fails ! and drinks his poisoned cup and dies.
He fails ! his nation perishes unknown
For what they might have been, had they been men.
The past is wholly comfortless. There has
Been labor. Centuries are filled with days
And nights of toilsome toil; but every day
And night some laborer lay down and cried
To what he called his God, Give rest ! give rest !
All this is fruitless. I am weary. Death
This gave the gods. "Who knows if it be rest?
Who knows ? we question vainly, bitterly;
Our answers are Fate, Mystery and Death,
Our guide is Fate, our world is Mystery,
And only Death can tell what Death may be.
One joy is here, that neither Fate nor Death
Can conquer any so ul forever, if he dares
To stand and not to yield. Thus Eichard stood.
ET - 27] LOVE. 251
First love lias burned to ashes, and then Faith,
That would relight Love's dead and trampled torch,
Fell and was lost amid the deepening gloom.
Then, in the blackness, with one flickering hope
The wanderer passed along.
V.
LOVE.
She wandered by the sea-shore all alone,
And murmured thoughtful songs to her true heart.
Her voice was low and full of pensiveness,
And soft as if some fairy sprite within,
A dewdrop exiled from the skies, had breathed
A sigh in falling. Margaret. Not such,
Not such a Margaret as one I know,
With tendril curls like her exquisite thoughts,
With opalescent eyes, not ignorant
Of flashes, when the torrent words, too slow,
Dart leaping glances into caves of Truth,
And startle unimagined beauty forth.
As darkly-fair, as delicately-bright,
As the keen edge of a Damascus blade
Engraved with tracery of flowers, and sharp
To cut the films of doubt and fear, and show
All nobleness. The Margaret of my tale
Was lovely, not the same; the world is full
Of lovely women as the air with dew.
She wandered by the sea-shore happily
She knew the ocean infinite. It smiled
Brighter than her young gayety could smile.
252 TWO WORLDS. [1855
All moods her noble comrade shared with her,
But most his calmness and his majesty
She loved as Godlike. When the waking breeze
Shook down a golden veil before her eyesj
Her eyes as blue as shadows on the snow,
And white sails ever came and went, her thoughts
Swept grandly seaward with the tall swift ships;
But swifter darting, voyaged round the world,
And ere the ships had vanished, had embarked
On richly freighted vessels homeward bound,
And passed the outward sailor in the bay.
Sometimes she dreamed herself a tropic bird,
Heralding sunrise with a sun-flushed whig.
Happy the soul that welcomes the divine,
And such was Margaret's; but most of all
The voiceful spirits of the sea became
Her teachers. They brought wealth as seas have
poured
Gifts on the verdant island where our race
Was cradled. God save that fair isle ! But still,
Accepting joyfully all outward forms,
She longed for the unseen, unspoken. Love
Must have its meeting with another heart,
Ere life is circled to the perfect orb.
No magic words perhaps are uttered then,
But thoughts leap into being. Margaret
Looked on the sea as on a nobler life,
Beyond the gayety of girlhood's dream.
Each lifting sail bore her a hope that came,
Or bore a hope away, and still, adrift
Upon a life yet heaving after storms,
She wandered by the sea-shore, dreamily,
Lulled by the whisperings of her comrade, sea.
2Er. 27] LOVE, 253
Along the sunlit edges of his waves,
Dipping its canvas as it went, there shot
A cutter, lightly playing near the beach.
Kichard was there alone upon the sea,
And eagle-eyed he gazed upon her face,
As she stood there alone upon the sand.
Her sleep that night was full of hoverings
Of snow-winged boats that bore her gifts of flowers.
She wandered by the sea-side, hopefully,
Again, as birds fly back to summer, came
The eager boat. Steady, for it had found
Its star, hung in a sky of hope; again,
No longer wandering carelessly, no more
Koving adrift, each came, only a glance,
No word, but when apart, at night, they watched
The slow, sad parting of the sea and moon,
He knew his soul had found its mistress; she
Confessed the sov'reign of her soul had come.
Heedless we step into our shallow joys,
But tarry ere we plunge into the depths.
Hearts that when joined are one eternally,
Shrink from the fateful instant that unites:
So Eichard hastened not to further bliss,
Content with fullness of the present hour.
A chance brought them together then. He went
To a friend's mansion on a beacon hill
O'erlooking the broad bay all thick with sails
Innumerable, come from many lands;
A worthy mansion for a merchant prince,
And queened by a fair woman, full of grace.
They sat within the porch. Dim evening came,
The moon sailed upward like a noble thought
254 TWO WORLDS. [1855
They listened to the waves upon the beach
Booming the warning of the coming storm.
A pensive silence hung upon the group,
And Eichard came. The talk was grave and sad;
Of past and future life, and death, and hope;
And he had spoken somewhat desperately,
Spurning beliefs to him all utter void;
But from the darkness came a firm, sweet voice,
That chided him all innocently bold.
Speaking the intuitions of a fresh,
Pure maidenhood, wise in simplicity.
And all his sharp array of argument
Did martial homage to her victory.
" What if your lamps of life are dim ? " she said,
" "We know that God made light, and light is still
The victor. Dai'kness is but vanished light,
And doubtless it will shine again for you."
She paused; her low and richly gentle voice
Drew harmony over their troubled minds.
The surf burst with an echo grand afar
Of her sweet voice; a voice like that, he thought,
Might come from that fair lady of the shore.
Men have made many instruments, and joined
Strange elements of sound in harmony,
But over all in fuller majesty,
Arousing and subduing, breathes the voice,
When God has gifted one with melody.
It seemed to them as if an angel came
Swiftly by moonlight over ruined shrines,
To build them new, of marble. Then glad hearts
Leaped quick to gayety, and asked for song.
He stood without and listened as she sang
^ET.27] LOVE. 255
Birdlike. Then lie must sing. He chose a chant
Sung by the tropic Indians, when they dip
Their lazy paddles in a lingering stream;
Monotonous, and wild with passion hid.
So pleasant converse wore away the eve,
In which she sparkled brightest, fluttering
Like an excited bird that fears the cage.
But he was silent, wondering at his bliss;
And paradise was there, as it must be
When love creates a soul anew. She went.
She wandered by the sea-shore once again,
An orphan, like her lover. There are times
In men's and nation's lives, when anarchy
Keigns tyrant, but some still, heroic thought
"Rises, and there is quiet; as when waves
Raging more madly for the darkness, see
A stranger orb, dim and majestical,
As if some spirit from a calmer sphere,
Look wonder on the uproar, and they cease.
So rose her silent beauty on his soul,
And he went steering shoreward, seeking her.
Was it not then enough that all his youth
Was blasted, and enough his long despair ?
Was it not that his torture of remorse
Had conquered fate ? She welcomed him
With a firm gracefulness, like thinnest veil
Before the sunshine warmth of her full smile.
They met, and lingering paced along the sand,
Slow as two lovers ere they say adieu.
He rather chose to listen than to speak,
And hear the breezy gladness of her voice
Soothe every tremor of his life to peace.
256 TWO WORLDS. [1855
Her deep joy made her gay, as rippling waves
Sparkling with inward light of sunbeams play.
They talked of ocean by its mystic marge;
The sea, her comrade, with its voice of waves
"Wooed her to speak of him, and Eichard knew
The secrets of the sea in calm and storm;
And many a lovely palm-clad island stood
Within his memory. And well he knew
The secrets of the desert wastes, and all
The strange wild knowledge of the traveler.
She listened eagerly, but as he talked
She saw that all his voyages were naught
But aimless floatings on a sea of grief,
Wild chasings of an ever-flying hope,
Long, reckless, lonely flights from haunting thoughts.
A woman's heaven-taught wisdom is not bought
By bitter trials of experience;
Its flower it opens to the sun of Love
"Unconsciously; and Margaret divined
Some hidden sorrow which her hand could cure,
Touching with sympathy, not probing harsh.
She swept the discords of his heart, they rang
With a grand harshness, like the broken sounds
Before the sweetness of a symphony,
Until he threw all hesitance awa3 r ,
And leaped into the flood of his life's tale;
Telling the whole sad story to her heart.
Then, " Let me know you pardon ! I can wait
Till G-od and angels do." In her blue eyes
The quick tears dashed a shower. Grave womanhood,
Tenderly true and firm stood trial now.
She said, " God pardons, I can pity you !
&* 27] LOVE. 257
And oh, if any wish of mine, if hope,
Faith in your final conquest can arouse
A better-omened struggle, take all these."
And she stretched out her hand in pledge of troth.
Faith for another till he perishes,
Is better than a cold abandonment;
But when a man has proved the world, and self,
And found both wanting, and has hated both,
Then there is but one savior for despair.
Love, only love, a breathless messenger
Can come and wave its snow-white flag between
The bristling ranks of war. His heart stood still.
His soul was lifted on a wave of hope
He could not bear its sinking, and he sprang
Before it, venturing. " Ah lady, were I strong
With untried manhood, did I march all bold
In my young knighthood, it were victory !
But I have fought already, and have lost.
Alone I dare not yet renew the fight
No arms, no standard, it were hopeless strife
Oh save me ! Dare I ask you for your love ? "
He ceased. As eager trembling light of stars
Shot earthward, came her look, and cloudy gloom
Opened, and full-orbed love meridian shone.
So they were joined forever. He had learned
All that distrust, regret, remorse could teach.
Pardon is God's own gift, but blest the man
Who need not wait for death. By love alone
The mysteries are solved. He stands above
All doubt, like some tall sunlit peak that lifts
258 TWO WORLDS. [1855
Its head above the chaos of the storm.
Her voice all full of peace, came with her look,
As breezes come with sunrise. Winged words
Made harmony of silence; faintly then
She murmured, for her boldness shrank away,
To utter all her timid secret out.
" Speak not of severed hopes, for yours are mine,"
She said, " and yours shall brighten twined with mine.
And oh ! if this is love, that I have longed
To find, why need I longer veil my heart"?
First and forever you are there enshrined.'-'
He waited, hardly daring to believe
His happiness, then shook off the dead past,
And took her to his heart eternally.
I leave their perfect union; they shall find
Broad regions of illumined life, with glow
Of starry radiance from her vestal fires,
Rekindling his quenched life; for noble deeds
Wait him who dares to do them; a sad world
To cheer and cherish. Leaderless and lost
Brave bands of warriors straggle on the field
Unrallied, but let an Achilles' shout
Stagger the ranks opposed, a hero youth
Brandish a hope of victory, there are
Enough to throng around and charge with him !
Evening had stolen on. Distracting day
Had sunk below the world. Night veiled the earth.
The vast unknown of skies was hid with stars,
Belted Orion strode along the blue.
No moon was risen in the east, they saw
^T. 27] LOVE. 259
Only the infinite sky, only the stars.
Her hand in his, as surety of love,
They walked in trance of silence, or with words
Rushing too swiftly in tumultuous bliss.
She told him of the God who had been near
Her childhood oh how far from his hot youth !
Of duty stern, but true as faithful friend;
All she had dreamed of woman's tenderness
For noble man, ideal till he came.
She tui'ned the pages of pure maiden thought
Fair as a missal delicately wrought
By some secluded convent's patient love.
His leng forgotten prayers returned, as free
As when a ship, long tugging at her chains,
Sails onward, white winged, over boundless deeps.
CHAPTER VIII.
LAW AND AUTHORSHIP.
DURING the summer of 1855, and just before going
to Mount Desert, Winthrop was admitted to the
bar of New York and he continued in the office of
Mr. Tracy for a year or more. The Fremont Presi-
dential campaign found him, with all the ardent youth
of the North, awake and alive to the issues, that were to
be fought out, as was then supposed, by the ballot alone.
Already the prairie fires of Kansas were kindling and
spreading over the land, farther and wider than we
knew. Winthrop went first to the Adirondacks, and
then to Maine, with his dear friend Frederic E. Church,
where they spent some weeks in fishing, camping out,
and enjoying life in the wilderness, upon the lakes and
rivers with unpronounceable names that they delighted
in. A charming sketch of this tour may be found in
the volume of Winthrop 's works called " Life in the
Open Air," which also contains his critique, written
con amove, of his friend Church's famous " Heart of the
Andes," where he shows in his prose picture, that his
knowledge of mountains and their architecture < was
equal to that of the painter. Finding that stump
speakers were wanted in Maine, he made his first
essay in that direction, on the edge of the great
Northern wilderness, before small assemblies of farmers
^T- 27] A STUMP ORATOR. 261
and lumbermen, in townships now probably flourish-
ing, but till then hardly ever heard of beyond their
state. The following letter relates some of his experi-
ences as a stump orator.
" MB. ABNER TOOTHAKER'S,
"Rungely, Maine.
"Aug. 20th, 1856.
" DEAR MOTHER, After a progress up the Andros-
coggin, through lakes U'mbagog, Allegundebagog,
Weelokenabacook, Mollyclumkamug, Moosetock-
maguntiok, and Oquossok or Lakwockit, and after
being obliged to pronounce these jaw-breakers con-
stantly, we find ourselves naturally at home with
Mr. Toothaker. His beautiful farm lies sloping
down to the bank of the last named lake, with an
exquisite view of the same, and noble mountain
possibilities, just now obscured by the dark mists
of a North Easterly storm. This stays us here
now the second day, in the comfortable quarters
of a thriving farmer.
"Church has of course made himself popular with
all hands. The bag- wrinkled, leathern-skinned hag
of a grandmother has told us her history several
comical times. Mr. Toothaker had just returned
from a Fremont meeting, at the neighboring county
town, when we arrived, and finding me sympathiz-
ing, he immediately proposed to get up a meeting
here. Yesterday proved rainy and not a hay day,
and accordingly a man arrived in a curious gig
(which himself had manufactured the afternoon
before). Mr. T chartered him for a dollar to
go round and beat up the country with the news
262 THE RED SCHOOL HOUSE. [1856
that Mr. T. W of New York would give a lec-
ture on politics at the Red School House in the
Maple lot at five p. M. The weather continuing
favorably rainy, our hardy fellow citizens turned
out from a circuit of about ten miles about sixty
men and twenty women with three crybabies, who
coming with applause in the wrong place, were
put out, (as were the mothers). I spoke an hour
and three quarters currently, covering briefly the
whole ground of controversy and invented one an-
ecdote about a man and wife and son Johnny.
The audience seemed to think it was about right
in length and style, and we closed with great good
humor and three cheers. Mr. Toothaker seemed
to think I had converted all the doubters, includ-
ing ' Winthrop Elder,' 'who always thinks as
the last man tells him.' The men of Maine are
freemen, and pretty decided for freedom, whenever
they are thoroughly informed about the exact state
of the case. The first part of our journey in the
Adirondacks paid only moderately, though we had
some good things, including the self-explored ascent
of the highest summit. We came across to Mont-
pelier, where we parted from the Tracy family, they
going to Mount Desert. Thence by stage, a beau-
tiful trip, across to Lake Memphremagog and so
through wild country, up the chain of Lakes; hir-
ing boats and making portages. Well and hearty;
battening on pork and blueberry pies.
" Yours affectionately,
"THEO. WINTHROP."
^Ex. 28] DISAPPOINTMENT. 263
During the remainder of the Autumn he spoke for
Fremont on Staten Island and elsewhere. Several
fragmentary poems express the feelings of this hour
of struggle and failure.
Low as the earliest whispers of a gale,
Faint as the sunrise greetings of a dove,
Soft as the questions of uncertain love,
Thin as a dream, and as a fancy, frail,
So low is a young nation's whispered voice,
So faint are the first warnings that it hears,
So soft its questioned hopes, subdued by fears,
So thin its new ideals, frail its choice.
But soon a gale raves madly through the sky,
"Weird sunrise enters, choired by myriad birds,
Leaves whisper hopes, and mutter boding words,
Wild clouds their blood-red banners wave on high.
Oh how it sweeps along the land !
Voice of a race that will be free !
Vaster growing on every hand
The master-roar of Liberty.
Shame ! shame ! shame over all the land !
Shame for the trust we make a lie !
Dare we longer faithless, faithless stand
Claiming van-guard posts of Liberty ?
Shame for the careless yielding North,
Weakly pitying darkest, darkest wrong,
Shame for the cowards, peeping shivering forth
To stare with blinking eyes upon the strong.
264 ST. LOUIS. [185G
In the autumn of 1856, after the ending of the Fre-
mont campaign had crushed the ardent hopes for a
peaceful solution of the great questions that were
torturing all minds and hearts for truly they were
heartfelt and vital and it even seemed to some, that
submission to the slave power was inevitable, Winthrop
received a generous invitation from his dear friend
Henry Hitchcock of St. Louis, to come to him and
become his law partner. Hitchcock was already a
well-known and successful lawyer there, and "Winthrop,
delighted with the offer, went to St. Louis, full of his
usual sanguine hopes of success. He had relatives
there who were kind to him, and the society of that
hospitable city was very pleasant. As the warm
weather came on, however, he became seriously ill,
and the climate proved so injurious and unhealthy to
him that he decided to return to New York, and re-
main there, taking an office with his brother and
brother-in-law.
While in St. Louis he became deeply attached to a
young lady whose discouragement of his suit may have
had something to do with his leaving that place. She
spent the following winter, however, in New York, and
they became engaged to be married, if on her side it
could have been called an engagement. Winthrop
certainly considered it so, and was very happy in it,
not dreaming that she could prove vacillating or false
to him. But during the following year she suddenly
broke off the affair, unwilling probably to wait till
fortune came to him, and caused him great sorrow
and misery. He took refuge from his grief in literary
work, and his stories of " Cecil Dreeme," and " Edwin
Brothertoft," show how he worked off the bitterness
MT. 28] LOVE POEMS. 265
of his soul, caused by what he felt to be treachery and
betrayal of his confidence. Doubtless in time he came
to consider that what had happened was for the best,
since the heart he trusted was unworthy of his love.
A crayon sketch by Rowse was taken of him not
long after this disappointment, and bears the marks
of sorrow, in the pathetic and beautiful face.* Many
love poems naturally had birth during this period of
hope and grief. Here are a few of them.
TO ONE I KNOW.
It was not love, not love I told;
Perhaps she had not listened then.
My voice was low, my words were cold,
With dread lest she should deem me bold,
And frown, whene'er I spoke again.
I crushed the fire that would have broke,
My words were firmly, coldly calm,
No tender tone stole through and woke
My heart's resistless maddening stroke,
To dash her peace with wild alarm.
Thanks, lady ! truest thanks, I said;
Oh ! gloom and faithless death were mine,
Till some peace-angel gracious, led
Thy radiant presence here, to shed
Pure glory, radiantly divine !
Oh ! hearts like thine, all proudly pure,
All purely proud, and maiden free,
Need not such gentle touch to cure
Their torture, teaching to endure.
My heart was touched to peace by thee.
* The engraved portrait is taken from this.
266 LOVE POEMS. [185G
Thanks ! we have met, and worthier now
I pass to front and conquer fate.
Be life or pain, or bliss, my brow
Shall wear the hopes thy hopes endow,
The strength thy words create.
(July 26th, 1856.)
HOMAGE.
Pauses in that brilliant music came
Whose brazen wildness set my soul aflame,
We sat where solemnly the moonlight fell;
Around us eddying the silken throng.
Softly white moonlight slept upon the hills,
Paly fair moonlight dreamed the vales along;
Kare breezes came with shadow-stirring thrills.
And I was whispering in so low a tone,
It seemed the echo of my soul alone.
I dared not look into her large dark eyes,
So dreamy earnest, sweetly tender, they
Were bending moonbeams toward her vestal soul,
Were learning holier things than I could say;
New lights from gentle moonlit heaven they stole.
'Twas not of love I spoke of deepest thanks;
The days I marshaled into kneeling ranks,
Each murmuring thanks for every joy she gave.
Oh ! they had linked along in dreary tramp,
To gloom, (sad captives,) and uncertainty,
Chained, marching to the future as a camp
Of foes, but queenly then she set them free.
^Ei. 28] LOVE POEMS. 267
So, kindly thus we parted; she had known
That not without one triumph life had flown.
Her keenly-brilliant dazzling thoughts had stirred
One chaos, and my heart's blood richly flowed
To beats of noble music, grandly pure.
The gift of faith o'er days of darkness glowed,
Imperishably cheering, to endure.
Again she passed the brilliant crowd among;
Around her pressed the eager listening throng,
She queenliest; but her backward glances turned,
And then were softer, sweeter, where I stood,
Calm in my yielded thought, and dreamier then
Life, death, love, heaven, with an errant brood
Of hopes, made thought a labyrinth again.
LOVE COMES!
Love comes as thoughts come; unperceived at first,
They live within, and grow, absorbing all
Our life. Astonished we perceive ourselves
Their slaves. Some, sudden burst, full voiced
Upon the mind, as birds gush forth in song,
Far in a deep and silent wilderness.
Love comes like music ! stealing thro' the night,
And drawing nearer, nearer, till we seem
Involved in harmony, fast bound in song,
Willing, yet prisoned. Or like martial tones
Bursting forth wild, and making silence sweet
With gushing thrills and eager trembling swells.
Silence that longed and waited for its power.
268 LOVE POEMS. [1857
Love comes as winds come ! There are gentle winds,
Breathed soft as children's laughter on the air,
Upon our souls, that stronger, mightier grow,
And sweep us with them, and will bear us on
To havens in eternity then die
In the pure ether that is life and love
SONG.
Listen, listen, listen while I sing !
There's mirth, mirth in everything !
In laughing eyes, quick glance,
In dashing thro' a dance,
Mirth ever doth my soul entrance.
Listen, listen, listen while I sing !
There's joy, joy in everything !
In bubbling of fresh streams,
In flashing sunlight beams:
Joy sparkles through my pensive dreams.
Listen, listen, listen while I sing !
There's hope, hope in everything !
In gloom and chill and night,
When lost the guiding light,
Hope rises, radiantly bright.
Listen, listen, listen while I sing !
There's love, love in everything !
If joy and hope must die,
Still I can upward fly;
Love lifts my spirit to the sky !
. 29] LOVE POEMS. 269
HER VOICE.
It chanced in bitter mood I sadly gazed
Upon a scene whose winter chilled my heart,
Me thought I wandered in a desert maze;
Aimless and hopeless there I strayed apart.
Aimless, down lonely, gray, and solemn wastes,
No landmarks there save mounds of those who died,
No fountains save of death to him who tastes,
Lured by false sweetness in the poisoned tide.
Whereat I paused, and dwelt with folded hands,
And said, I will be coward, lingering here;
To-day less darkling than to-morrow stands;
Let me a moment cheat the fate I fear.
Strange souls of ours ! It was no despot voice,
Harsh, urgent, full of discord, like the tone
Of battle trumpet, that recalled my choice,
To march, to war, to win a grave, or throne !
A gentle music lured me on, and lo !
With light beyond, as caught from lovely eyes
I saw a path across the deserts grow,
Beyond them, mountain vales of freshness rise.
And listening to those tones my heart grew calm,
And following still those eyes, my vision clear
Saw pictures of the future sweep along,
Tender, and fair, and sweet, as Thou most dear !
270 LOVE POEMS. [1857
SONNET.
Thy words of peacefulness have been my stay,
On thy sweet features long my heart has dwelt,
Till all their soft enchantment it has felt,
Nor from these tender bonds can I away.
Strong fetters I could burst like giant play,
But thou hast thrown, until I cannot move,
Round me the silken bondage of thy love,
And ever thou recall'st me when I stray.
Gladly henceforth my wanderings I resign;
For we are ever wandering after bliss;
But is there purer happiness than this,
That I have won thee, and can call thee mine ?
Since from thy radiance a wakening ray
Burst through my night and changed it into day !
At her shrine
He knelt and vowed a noblest worthiness.
Thoughts of a future fell upon his soul,
Like soundings of a far-off, mighty sea.
SONNET.
Tell me, wide wandering soul, in all thy quest
Sipping or draining deep from crystal rim
Where pleasure sparkled, when did overbrim
That draught its goblet with the fullest zest ?
Of all thy better bliss what deem'st thou best ?
Then thus my soul made answer. Ecstasy
Comes once, like birth, like death, and once have I
Been, oh! so madly happy, that the rest
*fr. 29] LOVE POEMS. 271
Is tame as surgeless seas. It was a night
Sweet, beautiful as she, my love, my light;
Fair as the memory of that keen delight.
Through trees the moon rose steady, and it blessed
Her forehead chastely. Her uplifted look,
Calm with deep passion, I for answer took,
Then sudden heart to heart was wildly pressed.
He who has known great grief
Never can be too happy ! For he shrinks
From bliss, lest it should light upon his hearth
Then fly and leave it lonely.
HOPES.
Dare I breathe it softly sweet ?
Listen, heart of mine, my secret-hear !
Soon nobler' tones my soul shall greet !
Soon that dear music shall be near;
One is coming from the sunset that I love !
Trembling at the bliss that waits,
Ah ! might I boldly enter in !
Needs there pureness, penance at the gates ?
Painless may I heaven hope to win ?
"When from sunset comes the angel of my love ?
Only hopes, delicious hopes?
False ? No ! that can never be !
Fatal word ! how sudden darkness opes
Downward, to a drear eternity !
Night falls upon the sunset of my love !
272 LOVE POEMS. [1858
Oh ! 'tis kind
In Nature, that the mind must slowly sound
The deepest depth of sorrow, ere the heart
Begins to know its misery.
FINIS.
This is my song of love !
The dawn of love !
Chill dawn of love !
Shiver my icy heart;
As the cold mists depart,
Blushes the sky.
This is my song of love 1
Sunrise of love !
Bright radiant love !
Oh ! sudden beauty everywhere !
Fair earth, and heaven still more fair
Life ever new !
This is my song of love !
Eich noon of love !
Fullness of love !
My tidal passion's flow
Quivers with radiant glow !
Oh ! nobly bright !
This is my song of love !
Sinking of love !
Dwindling of love !
Thinner and thinner streams,
Fainter and fainter gleams,
Fading away !
JET. 29-30] AUTHORSHIP. 273
This is my song of love !
The night of love !
Black gloom of love !
Still stands my dying heart.
Hopes utterly depart!
Terror returns!
This is my curse of love !
Traitor and liar, love !
My clenched curse of love !
Oh God! I cannot die!
Thine heaven is agony !
No love ! No love !
Taking courage after a while, he went on with his law
practice, and most of all with his writings; steadily, dur-
ing the few more years that were left to him, prepar-
ing his published writings for the press. They were
rejected by several publishers, but he remained quiet,
waiting and re-casting them again. One publisher ac-
cepted "John Brent," on the condition that the epi-
sode of the death of the horse Don Fulano, killed in
being the instrument of saving a fugitive slave, should
be left out of the book. It was a temptation to Win-
throp, who wished above all things to gain a hearing,
and find a resting-place for his lever, but he resisted
it, strengthened in his resolution by one of his family,
and the lever was not firmly placed till the hand that
had held it was cold in death.
One opening, however, he found, and it cheered and
comforted him immensely. In 1860, or early in the
spring of 1861, he sent the manuscript of " Love and
274 HIS WORKS. [I860
Skates" to James Eussell Lowell, then editor of the
Atlantic: who received it gladly and with a few words
of kindness and praise that went to his heart*
The stories of " Cecil Dreeme " and " Edwin Brother-
toft " were written when his heart was wrung by dis-
appointment, and are pathetic and strong. Man de-
lights me not nor woman neither, was the tone of his
feeling at that period, but in "John Brent," "Love
and Skates," and the opening chapters of " Brightly 's
Orphan " printed in " Life in the Open Air " he is
cheerful, playful, hopeful, as was natural to his really
healthy mind. Like Hawthorne, even when he is sad-
dest, he is not morbid; the powers of evil never con-
quer; "Densdeth" and "Jane Billup " never win the
day, but show us with almost Puritan and Biblical stern-
ness, though with far from Puritan creed, how sin is
its own punishment. Even sorrow is not utter dark-
ness: light prevails in the end, and his stories are
never tragedies. There are few American books that
have more of the true spirit of American life than
these; of the East and the West, of the Plains, and
their atmosphere and scenery which Joaquin Miller
has well said, resemble the Holy Land, where some
* As Mr. Lowell is absent from the country as Minister Pleni-
potentiary to England, his leave to publish the following note is
assumed, with apology.
"Cambridge, 25th March, 1861.
"Mi DEAB SIB:
"You need have no misgivings about stamps. I shall not
let so good a story escape me so easily. I was particularly
pleased with it, and shall try to print it in June. The May
number is already full.
"Very truly yours,
J. E. LOWELL."
" MB. WDJTHBOP."
3h. 32] HIS WORKS. 275
day the prophet of a new revelation may be born,
as of old in lonely desert places; of the times
of the Eevolutionary war and the life of that strong
period, of the broad, brimming, Hudson Eiver, and the
world of things past and present which it floats down
to us; of the great city of New York, the wonderful
natural scenery that surrounds it, and its inner life, so
little understood by most writers of fiction. Beneath
its busy, mercantile and rather scampish surface he
could see Truth, Beauty, Eomance, in short Humanity
as it is, and is everywhere, not exceptional rottenness.
Is it not apparent and notable that one of the great
merits of Winthrop's writings is the quality of con-
struction; that in the poems, as well as the prose writ-
ings, in parts as well as in wholes, evolution and struc-
ture are evident ? They are not sketches lightly thrown
off; however unfinished some of those may be, which
he never thought of printing in their present form.
The shorter poems are of course only momentary ex-
pressions of feeling, and valuable not so much for
themselves, as being illustrations of his life, but in
" Two Worlds," this quality is plainly visible, and still
more in the Tales. None of the minor characters
could be left out, none of the circumstances omitted.
Armstrong in " John Brent," for instance, is necessary
to give a certain element of white fury and strength
to that immortal ride for succor and love. His sim-
plicity of revenge brings some one in to " do the kill-
ing," that must have made a dark blood stain upon
the lives of Brent and his companion, which they surely
would have regretted forever. When he says of his
brother's murder, " P'r'aps his ghost come round and
told 'em 'twarnt the fair thing they'd been at; and
276 HIS WORKS. [I860
'TWARNT; " the volume of simple meaning and pathos
in that last word is as fine as anything in the book.
The characters also of George Short and Padiham
could not be omitted in bringing out the denouement,
while in detail they are most admirable. The affection
of Winthrop for his brother can be read between all
the lines about Armstrong, and lend a touching mean-
ing to them. Armstrong must have been taken from
the life, one of the fine fellows among the pioneers
and " kindly roughs " he met on the Umpqua, or the
Willamette. The personal appearance of Ellen Clitheroe
is described from a beautiful woman, a true and kind
friend of his, who is also pictured in the last Chap-
ter (V.) of "Two Worlds."
"Not such a Margaret as one I know,
With tendril curls like her exquisite thoughts;
With opalescent eyes, not ignorant
Of flashes, when the torrent words, too slow,
Dart leaping glances into caves of Truth,
And startle unimagined beauty forth.
As darkly-fair, as delicately-bright,
As the keen edge of a Damascus blade,
Engraved with tracery of flowers, and sharp
To cut the films of doubt and fear, and show
All nobleness."
None of his characters were taken from real life
however, though they were often supposed to be.
His imagination sufficed. But it is useless to attempt
a critique of works which have been before the public
for twenty years and more, which stand on their own
merits, and have lived far beyond an ephemeral day,
En. 32] HIS WORKS. 277
and become American classics. Winthrop's life was
now fast hastening to a close, though those that knew
him little dreamed that this brilliant blooming, and
vigorous fruit, told of a coming end. And, indeed, it
was not so. His life, cut off in its early prime, would
have blossomed more abundantly, would have brought
forth more perfect fruit, mellow, fully ripened, always
wholesome. He wished to do good in his day and gen-
eration, especially to the young men of his country,
and also to do real artistic literary work, and to gain
fame. " I wish," said he, " to form a truly American
style, good and original, not imitated." Of " Brightly 's
Orphan " he said, " I have written sad things enough
I am going to write something cheerful." If his Tales
show the traces of despair, they also show the marks of
recovery, of new life and hope. He fought his doubts
of human nature, and gathered strength to believe
again in man and woman indeed a book that con-
tains such characters as Churm and Clara Denman,
rocks of integrity, from which fresh springs flow,
cannot be said to be morbid or despairing in any
sense.
Of Theodore Winthrop's works, "Cecil Dreeme,"
the first volume published, was the last written.
"John Brent," "Love and Skates," and "Edwin
Brothertoft" were separate tales in a book called
" Brothertoft Manor," and all bound together by their
connection with an old house on the Hudson, where the
personages meet and tell stories. Peter Skerret tells
the tale of the house and of his ancestors, Richard
Wade his experience on the plains, and the story of
his friend John Brent, "Love and Skates" follows
as the sequel, and history of Richard Wade himself.
278 CRITIQUE. [I860
Afterwards this book was recast, the stories separated
by Winthrdp, and put into their present form; the
same characters appearing in all. This method of
bringing in the same people in successive books, till
they seem like familiar friends, is a pleasant one, and
has been practiced by Thackeray, Trollope, and others.
" Cecil Dreeme " was a separate story, and yet Churm
appears again, and Mary Darner is alluded to, in that
book, the best, perhaps, though not the most popular,
of Winthrop's stories.
The sketches of travel were written at different times,
and their dates are uncertain. Ah 1 his works were pub-
lished posthumously, and none of them received his
last touches, except "Love and Skates" and the
sketches in the Atlantic Monthly. His name of " Broth-
ertoft Manor," was changed to " Edwin Brother toft,"
by the desire of Mr. James T. Fields, who also sug-
gested the titles for the two volumes of " The Canoe
and the Saddle," and "Life in the Open Air."
His friend George William Curtis wrote an exquisite
sketch of 'his life and character, which was printed with
the first published story, " Cecil Dreeme." It would
be impossible to improve upon it, for it is done with
the tenderness and affection of a friend and the skill
of a finished writer. A volume might be made of the
press notices of his death and of his writings, but such
things are ephemeral. Theophilus Parsons, George
Bungay, George W. Curtis and others wrote beautiful
occasional poems.
Professor John Nichol of Glasgow, in his interesting
work on American Literature, a book which we would
do weh 1 to ponder, gives the following critique upon
the writings of Theodore Winthrop whom he calls " a
ZET. 32] CRITIQUE. 279
novelist, traveler, and soldier, hindered by the short
span of his innocently erratic life, from securing the
place in his country's literature, to which, in the es-
timate of those who knew him best, he was, by his
genius and character, entitled to aspire. I give an
outline of his career, condensed or quoted from the
biographical cameo, prefixed to the edition of his
works by his friend G. "W. Curtis.*
" Winthrop's wandering life was a hindrance to the
concentration of his energies; even to the perfection
of his style, which is always fresh and clear, but some-
times rugged and dashing. On the other hand the
adventurous activity of his nature is the source of
much of the charm of his work, which like that of
Sydney, to whom Mr. Curtis is fond of comparing
him, was more than a mere promise. His claim to re-
cognition lies not merely in his having been an actor
as well as a dreamer, but in the fact that he has done
substantial and peculiar, though imperfectly appre-
ciated, work. He belonged in part to the class of the
older writers in whose minds incident predominated,
but he was also an analyst of the school of Hawthorne
and might, with length of years, have been his most
legitimate successor. The first phase is represented
in his novel, ' John Brent,' in great measure a graphic
record of his experiences in the far West, mingled with
imaginative romance. The descriptive passages in this
* Professor Nichol, who has the chair of English Literature in
Glasgow University, and who is well known among authors and
literary men in Scotland, traveled in this country during the
early part of the Civil War, and was deeply interested and
moved by the crisis. Keturning home, he took an active part
in the endeavors of the friends of our country in Scotland to
prevent injury to its cause, by measures that nearly brought
about serious difficulties with Great Britain.
280 CRITIQUE. [I860
book, especially that of the chase, rivet our attention
because they are brought into contrast with scenes of
emotion and passion, and are not mere transcripts of
still life."
Of " Edwin Brothertoft " he makes the following re-
mark, among others too long to quote.
" The flame latent in the shadowy race, the force
under gentleness which is the theme of the book here
leaps up, as the hero turns toward Vandyke's portrait
of his great ancestor, ' I love England, I love Oxford;
the history, the romance, and the hope of England are
all packed into that grand old casket of learning; but
the Colonel embarked us on the Continent. He would
frown if we gave up the great ship, and took to the
little pinnace again.' 'Cecil Dreeine,' less startling in
its episodes, which are yet of sufficient interest, is a
novel of a finer grain than Brothertoft. It is more
mature and subdued in style, and more free from
violences: mystery takes the place of horror
" Apart from its startling situations, the book teems
with passages of power, penetration, and pastoral beau-
ty, e. g., the chapter called ' Nocturne,' with the de-
scription of night, ' the day of the base, the guilty and
the desolate;' that headed 'Lydian Measures,' or the
previous reference to the effect of a fragrance, a far-
away sound, a weft of cloud, the leap of a sunbeam,
or the carol of a bird in arresting a treachery or a
crime; nor is the book wanting in occasional touches
of even broad humor. With all its defects of irregular
construction, this novel is marked by a more distinct
vein of original genius than any American work of
fiction known to us that has appeared since the au-
thor's death. Winthrop's nature was essentially sad,
^T. 32] CRITIQUE. 281
though robust, his cynicism was healthy, because he
believed in goodness, his strength in its excess may
be charged, though rarely, with coarseness, but he is
incapable of vulgarity. He has not the almost un-
erring taste of Hawthorne; his phrases are sometimes
flippant, his occasional mannerisms not free from pe-
dantry, but he is exceptionally genuine : his rare cheer-
fulness exhilarates, his prevailing melancholy takes
possession. of the reader. His 'Life in the Open Air'
and minor sketches are inspired by the nature-worship
of Thoreau, animated by a broader humanity. An
American to the core, Winthrop has all the artistic
fondness for Europe that pervades the 'Marble Faun'
of his predecessor; his memory lingers over the 'fair
spires and towers, and dreamy cloisters, dusky chapels,
and rich old halls of beautiful Oxford.'
" Manliness and intensity are the leading character-
istics of this 'fresh, earnest, unflinching' spirit, who
foreshadows in these words the close and crown of
his brief and bright career:
'"If ihe soul in the man has good hope and good
courage, through all his tones sounds the song of hope,
and the paean of assured victory
" Whoever has lived, knows that timely death is
the great prize of life; who can regret, when a worthy
soul wins it ? " *
The possibility of such a horse as Don Fulano has
been denied, but he is described in his note-books and
more fully in the " Canoe and the Saddle," as a reality,
and his wonderful leap through the lasso, as an act-
* "American Literature," by John Nichol, LL.D., Prof, of
Eng. Lit. in the University of Glasgow. Page 370.
282 INCOMPLETE TALES. [I860
ual fact. Luggernel alley on the other hand, is now
pointed out at the West, it is said, though Winthrop
drew it from his imagination, not having seen exactly
such a place. It was partly like several such wild glens,
which he had seen, and heard of, and resembles some-
what the valley of Manitou near Colorado Springs, where
he had probably never been. Among his unpublished
writings are three chapters of a story called " The
Hemlocks," the beginning of another called "The
Stoningers," a chapter or two of " Steers Flotsam and
how he came to Port," printed posthumously in the
St. Nicholas Magazine, Dec. 1879, under the title of
" Bowing against Tide," and various other fragments,
besides " Mr. Waddy's Return," his first novel, before
spoken of. Soon after his death the house of Ticknor
& Fields of Boston requested to become the publishers
of any posthumous works of his that might remain,
and this offer was accepted. They proved tender and
enthusiastic friends and guardians of his name and
fame.
CHAPTER IX
THE WAR.
A FTER his return from St. Louis, Theodore Win-
-Li- throp remained quietly upon the north shore of
Staten Island, where the large and united family lived
together in one home. A pleasant social circle sur-
rounded them. Frederic Church was their frequent
visitor, Francis George Shaw, Sydney Howard Gay,
George William Curtis, and other true and tried
friends were constantly with them, and the little
band of earnest thinkers and ardent lovers of their
country had long talks and consultations, as the po-
litical horizon grew darker, while fears of war, min-
gled with fears of what was worse, some shameful
compromise, infected even the children of the house
with a vague anxiety. Thus the long, long winter
wore away, and that spring came at last.
Who does not remember the opening year of 1861,
when war was gathering in the air, when " men's hearts
failed them for fear, and for looking for the things that
were coming on the earth," when the warmth of that
wonderfully early spring seemed portentous, and the
premature thunder-storms, omens of evil ? Yet no one
really dreamed of what was coming. Some said, it will
be a short struggle and soon over, and many slept.
284 PARTING [1861
"What need to tell the still familiar story. The Guns of
Sumter awoke the North, and their echo reached even
quiet Staten Island, where the Lotos is the common
food of the inhabitants. "Winthrop came to his mother
and friends, as soon as he heard of the call for troops,
to say that he and his brother William had decided to
join the Seventh Kegiinent, and they both, only sons
of their mother, marched away on April 17th, gayly,
yet gravely too, as became good soldiers. He said to
his mother at parting, " I do not take this step lightly,"
and to his uncle Theodore Woolsey he wrote, " I go
to put an end to slavery."
How few then felt the real nature of the conflict, or
prophesied the agony almost to death, that was to
come for our Mother Country, when she wept for her
children, both for those who deserted her, and for
those who gave her their li ves ! How little those who
saw those beautiful boys march away on that April
morning, down the crowded streets of New York ring-
ing with shouts and bright with flags, dreamed how
many of them would never see another opening spring !
Some of them, doubtless, viewed their departure as a
frolic, but with many it was a serious step, undertaken
thoughtfully, knowing, yet not knowing, ah 1 that they
were doing. Eobert Shaw was with them, and many
more, who afterwards did the noblest things, were
the foremost that day to make the only decision that
could have been made by manly and patriotic young
men. But how little we knew ! How could our Coun-
try, after so many years of peace and prosperity, lying
half asleep in her own waving cornfields, how could she
see, until her eyes were touched with fire by the dark
angel ! Some had listened to the clank of chains, but
JET. 32] THE "SEVENTH." 285
they were few. Even the great man who said, "Irre-
pressible conflict," said also, " It will be a six weeks'
affair." Most people thought that the struggle would
be short and sharp, that the North would overthrow
Secession with the wind of its advance, nor deemed
how terribly in earnest was the South in its delusion,
how the desire for Secession had become a " fixed idea,"
and one of the strongest that the world has known,
which would need other logic than that of Time and
Eeason to overthrow it, which would destroy a gener-
ation of men, burn up the gains of half a century, and
bring sorrow to every hearth in the land, so that the
nations would hold their breath with wonder. There
were "great searchings of heart," there were warn-
ings too, if there had been skill to read them, but per-
haps it was better not to know. Though all were
patriots in those days, what heart would not have
failed that had pictured the length and depth and
breadth of the chasm, and the ranks upon ranks of
our best and bravest that were to leap into that gulf,
ere it should be closed! It is slowly closing, thank
heaven! and a new life is springing up around its
scarred and ragged sides; but ah! let North and
South, East and "West, never forget the lessons of
that day.
In the brilliant papers on the " March of the Seventh
Eegiment," and " Washington as a Camp," written by
Theodore Winthrop for the Atlantic Monthly, we can
find a better story of their bright, boyish life than can
be told to-day in any other words than his own. They
were a crowd of willing, eager, inexperienced youths,
who were to be tried, when their short month of ser-
286 THE "SEVENTH." [1861
vice was over, by harder ordeals, and not to be found
wanting.
When the Seventh Regiment returned, Winthrop
was not among them. So ardent was he, that he
could not bear to turn his back even for a moment
upon the scene of conflict, and rather than do nothing,
and not be in the midst of things, he staid behind as
Military Secretary to Gen. Butler, at Fortress Monroe,
hoping to find some place for himself at the front.
The following letters were received from him while in
Camp and at Fortress Monroe.
Extract.
" We drill now constantly. It is a fine eight,
our camp and its work. Washington makes it the
fashion. But Billy and 1 both want to be where
we can make sure of the hard work of the campaign.
The Seventh, with careful secrecy be it said, has as
yet but little stomach for real service. . . . They
would fight well enough, but half the men in it
fancy themselves Hannibals, and fit to lead armies,
not to march in ranks. They have the faults and
the merits of volunteers, and sigh for their home-
comforts quite too much, though with plenty of
good material. I got the Field Artillery many
thanks; it was what 1 wanted. Give my love to
George Curtis, and say I will write to him to-mor-
row. Also to Gay, and ask him to do what he can
for me in his cavalry or elsewhere. I want to get
into the army. My chance is good, but who knows ?
" In haste,
WINTHROP."
^T. 32] THE "SEVENTH." 287
" CAMP CAMEHON, Near Washington, May 10th, 1861.
"DEAR MOTHER, I have been disabled from writ-
ing for several days by an inflamed eye. I had used
it too much in writing in the Capitol by imperfect
light, and the smoke of a guard fire on a wet night
finished me. So, for a few days, I was invalided,
and took refuge in town with a friend. He is an
old soldier, and a fellow of infinite experience, and
I have had a capital time with him. At camp
things go on in order, and all our friends look
finely.
" Mr. Fiske sent me a letter to Seward. I have
seen him twice, and am more than ever convinced
of his capability to do his part in the crisis. You
have read his masterly letters to Dayton. That is
the only ground to take, as you know I have be-
lieved from the first. Seward and the others avow
that they did not anticipate this total defection of
one side, nor the total adhesion of the other, and
so at first we were paralyzed. Now, everything
will advance as fast as it can.
"Mr. Seward gave me a letter to Cameron. 1
hope to get a Captaincy in the new army. But
who can say? there are a dozen applications to one
place. I shall manage somehow to see service.
Active service for the army now collected here is
hardly likely just yet, unless we are attacked,
which we do not expect. Perhaps there will be
before long an attack on Harper's Ferry. Great
military movements southward will not take place
before fall, so the chiefs say. For we are regiments,
288 FORTRESS MONROE. [1861
and not an array as yet, and we must move in an
impregnable body, to reclaim the country."
The following, Winthrop's Good-Bye to the Seventh
Regiment, is taken from " Washington as a Camp."
" Here I must cut short my story. So Good-bye
to the Seventh, and thanks for the fascinating
month I have passed in their society. In this
pause of the war, our camp-life has been to me as
brilliant as a permanent picnic.
" Good-bye to Company I, and all the fine fellows,
rough and smooth, cool old hands, and recruits ver-
dant but ardent ! Good-bye to our Lieutenants, to
whom I owe much kindness ! Good-bye, the Or-
derly, so peremptory on parade, so indulgent off!
Good-bye, everybody ! And so, in haste, I close."
The few remaining " last letters," full of life and ac-
tivity, come from Fortress Monroe and cover a period
of less than two weeks more.
"Fortress Monroe, May 31st, 1861.
" DEAR L., Thanks for your kind letter and the
hamper. I saw Gen. Butler at Washington. He
invited me here when the Seventh should return,
and here am I, acting as his Military Sec'y pro tern.
He will find me something to do. He is a charac-
ter, and really was the man who saved Washington
by devising the march to Annapolis a place which
nobody had ever heard of.
#!T. 32] LAST LETTERS. 289
" By Liberty ! bat it is worth something to be
here at this moment, in the center of the center !
Here we scheme the schemes ! Here we take the
secession flags, the arms, the prisoners ! Here we
liberate the slaves virtually. I write at ten p. M.
We have just had a long examination of a pom-
pous Virginian, secessionist and slave owner, who
came under safe conduct to demand back his twenty
niggers who had run over to us. Half of his slaves
he had smuggled over to Alabama for sale a week
ago. But he was not lively enough with the sec-
ond score. He said, with a curious mock pathos
'One boy, sir, staid behind, sir, and I said to him,
John, they're all gone, John, and you can go if you
like; I can't hold you. No, master, says John, I'll
stay by you, master, till I die ! But, sir, in the
morning John was gone, and he'd taken my best
horse with him ! Now, Colonel,' said the old chap,
half pleading and half demanding, ' I'm an invalid,
and you have got two of my boys, young boys, sir,
not over twelve no use to you except perhaps to
black a gentleman's boots. I would like them
very much, sir, if you would spare them. In fact,
Colonel, sir, I ought to have my property back.'
" It would have done Gay's heart good to have
heard what Gen. Butler said, when this customer
was dismissed. Then we had an earnest, simple
fellow, black as the ace of spades, with whites
of eyes like holes in his head, and sunshine seen
through; who had run away from the batteries at
Yorktown, and came to tell what they were doing
290 LAST LETTERS. [1861
there. It is prime, and growing primer all the
time. I wish I could write more, but I am at
hard work most of the day. In the afternoon I
ride about, and the sentries present arms, though
I am still in my uniform of a private. I left Billy
in Washington. It broke my heart to leave the
boy, but 1 shall work with him again. Dearest
love to all in the house and region,
" Yours,
"T. W."
" HEADQUABTEBS DEPT. OF VIRGINIA,
"Fortress Monroe, June 1st, 1861.
" MY DEAR MOTHER, Somehow I find myself
here on Gen. Butler's staff, acting military sec-
retary at present, and here I shall stay, if the
business remains as intensely interesting as now.
Billy also writes me from Washington that I am
to be appointed First Lieutenant in the Army.
My rank as Secretary is, I suppose, Captain or
perhaps Major, so you see I am in the line of pro-
motion. Please write to me here, dear mother,
at once. I cannot take time to write, for things
thicken all the while. We shall not have fight-
ing, but the preparations are busy. All the man-
uscripts in the drawer and the trunk please pre-
serve with care, as they must make my fortune
when I am a half-pay officer, with no arms or legs.
Lively work presently. Address me for the present
simply T. W., Care Maj.-Gen. Butler, Fortress Mon
roe, Virginia."
JET- 32] LAST LETTERS. 291
"Fortress Monroe, June 9th, 1861.
" MY DEAR MOTHER, Every day brings fresh
activity arid fresh responsibility. You would
smile to see your mild son commanding regi-
ments, rowing officers, careering about the camp
and the limited range of our debatable country
on dragoon horses, carrying steamers and tugs
over seas, and in short doing the aide-de-camp
broadly. It is grand, and stirs me up to my
fullest. I seize a moment to scribble a line be-
fore a movement, the most important thus far,
of our campaign. We march to-night in two de-
tachments, to endeavor to surround and capture
a detachment of the Secession Army, estimated at
from three or four hundred to twenty-five hundred.
If we find them where we expect, we shall bag
some. If we meet them on the way we shall have
a sharp scrimmage, or half a battle. If I come
back safe, I will send you my notes of the Plan
of Attack, part made up from the General's notes,
part from my own fancies. We march at midnight
to attack, eight miles hence, at dawn. We hope
to bring in field-pieces, prisoners, horses, and burn
a church or so. If I don't come back, dear mother,
dear love to everybody. General Butler has treated
me with great kindness and confidence and so have
all the officers.
"Yours ever,
"THEO. WlNTHROP."
292 GREAT BETHEL. [1861
Copy, in Winthrop s Handwriting, of one of Gen.
Butler s Orders.
" Major Winthrop, acting on my staff, will report
on board the Steamer Yankee, and communicate the
details of my orders for operations on Back river
to the officer in command. The commander of the
Yankee will proceed up Back river to the officer in
command of the troops there, under Major Win-
throp's directions ; he being fully informed of the
movement intended.
" BEN. F. BUTLER,
" Maj.-Gen. Commanding."
The plan of this reconnoissance under Gen. Butler
may have been good, but it was executed hastily and
without experience. Winthrop was not at all obliged,
as secretary or staff officer, to have anything to do with
it, but his ardent spirit could not stay behind, and he
got leave to accompany the expedition as a volunteer.
In the darkness, two companies of our troops fired
upon each other and alarmed the enemy. Finding a
battery and detachment of the enemy at Great Bethel
the party were about to be driven back " when Major
Winthrop," as said by Gen Magruder, "was distinctly
seen for some time, leading a body of men to the
charge, and had mounted a log, and was waving his
sword and shouting to his men to ' Come on,' when a
North Carolina drummer boy borrowed a gun, leaped
on to the battery, and shot him deliberately in the
breast. He fell nearer to the enemy's works than any
other man went during the fight.* The battery was
* His body was left in the hands of the enemy.
JE*. 32] GREAT BETHEL. 293
constructed and served by Maj. Randolph, and the
battle was fought principally by North Carolina troops "
(Gen. Magruder, in command at Yorktown).
PRESS ACCOUNTS.
N. Y. Evening Post. "Major Winthrop was shot
by a Louisiana rifleman, while heading a vigorous
charge. He fell mortally wounded in the arms of
a Vermont volunteer."
N. T. Tribune, June 16th, 1861. " I made a recon-
noissance with Maj. Winthrop about twelve o'clock
in the day, and can testify to his bravery and dar-
ing. He was very much exhausted, having wanted
for sleep, food, and water; and the day had turned
out very hot. We stuck our heads out of some un-
derbrush, and instantly there was a shower of balls
rained upon us, which compelled us to withdraw
a few paces. Major Winthrop laid himself behind
a tree, saying, if he could only sleep for five min-
utes he would be all right. He remarked as he
did this, that he was going to see the inside of that
intrench ment before he went back to the fortress
his manner being that of cool, ordinary conversa-
tion. He continued self-possessed and cool through-
out the whole engagement up to the time when he re-
ceived his death wound, which happened by the side
of Lieut. Herringen, Company E., who remained
with him and cared for him till life had fled."
N. T. Tribune, June 17th. "The gallantry of
Maj. Winthrop is the subject of universal admira-
tion both with the federal and the rebel forces.
294 GREAT BETHEL. [1861
The rebel riflemen in the pits before Big Bethel
state that they several times took deliberate aim
at him, as he was all the time conspicuous at the
head of the advancing federal troops, loudly cheer-
ing them on to the assault.
" Lieut. Greble, a brave officer of the Eegular
Army, educated at West Point, was also killed in
the same engagement, with several other soldiers."
The Fortress Monroe correspondent of the Boston
Journal says of Major Winthrop: "On going out
upon a somewhat hazardous expedition a few days
since, he laughingly handed me his keys and his
pocket- valuables, telling me to take care of them
if he did not return. From that enterprise he re-
turned in safety, and immediately entered with
singular zeal into the projected expedition to the
Bethel. This scheme was a favorite of his; in pre-
paring for it he devoted his whole energy on
Saturday and Sunday, first giving me more ela-
borate instructions for the disposition of his affairs,
in case he should fall, than before, and in a manner
which impressed me with the idea that he believed
he should not return. He last used his pen to write
to his mother, but before the letter was mailed he
was no more. He was slain very nearly at the
time, nay possibly after the time, when the order
for retreat was given, and while fighting with des-
perate energy, almost under the guns of the Rebel
battery with a Sharp's rifle which he carried with
him. No truer, braver man ever fell on the field
JET. 32] GREAT BETHEL. 295
of battle." This correspondent gives on another
day the notes of Winthrop from which he says the
plan of the movement was formed. He then says :
"this was the last instruction that the battery at
Big Bethel was not to be attacked unless success
was certain as I happen to know, having been
present at the time, given by General Butler to
Major Winthrop. ' Be as brave as you please,'
said the General, ' but run no risks.'
'""Be bold, be bold but not too bold,"
" ' shall be our motto,' responded Winthrop, and
upon instructions of which the foregoing are the
substance, the two expeditions started. The object
of a surprise was entirely defeated by Colonel Ben-
dix's blunder, yet in defiance of all the rules of war
they kept on : they destroyed the Little Bethel, and
then, it seems to me, somebody, entirely on his own
responsibility, decided to proceed to attack Big
Bethel. But even this would appear to be scarcely
improper
I have yet to meet an intelligent and competent
officer who does not believe that the place might
have easily been taken. This might have been
accomplished first, by turning it upon our right,
as Mr. Winthrop was attempting to do when he
fell. That attempt might have succeeded. To use
the language of Colonel Levy of Louisiana as nearly
as I remember it, ' Had you had a hundred men as
brave as Winthrop, and one to lead when he
fell, I should be in Fortress Monroe a prisoner of
war to-night.' Second, it might have been ac-
296 GREAT BETHEL. [1861
complished still more easily upon the left. Captain
Haggerty had discovered this, had suggested it to
General Pierce, had after some difficulty secured
General Townshend's co-operation, when this plan
was defeated by the gross blunder of whoever was
in command of Townshend's left a Captain, I be-
lieve, in allowing three companies to become de-
tached from the main body by a thicket. From
this circumstance, Townshend was led to believe,
as he saw the bayonets of his own men glistening-
through the foliage, that he was outflanked. He
retreated and that was the end of the battle."
Whether this account of the battle by a civilian is
correct or not, it is certain that somebody "blundered,
if not almost everybody, and "Wmthrop alone could
not have retrieved the day, even if he had lived. Still,
many thought it possible. The accounts of the battle
by the Secessionists, though they vary in many respects
from ours, agree with them in giving him the honors
of the day. In an article in the Richmond Despatch
for June 25th, 1861, which describes the battle mi-
nutely, there is this remark " as far as my observation
extended, he (Winthrop) was the only one of the ene-
my who exhibited even an approximation to courage
during the whole day." This of course is absurd, but
it is evident that the moment of his fall was a critical
one, and that a total rout immediately followed it.
His body was left in the hands of the enemy, and was
buried by them the day after the battle. So great was
the eagerness of the people to obtain trophies of their
first victory, that his watch, sword and pistol had been
32T. 32] LETTERS. 297
already distributed through the country, when, with
a flag of truce, a request was made for his personal
property. The watch, which had been sent to North
Carolina, to the mother of a soldier, was returned in
the course of a month, by Colonel Hill, of the Confed-
erate Army, to General Butler, who sent it at once to
the family of Major Winthrop. The watch was re-
turned to Colonel Hill by Mr. Archibald McLean, who
writes to him thus, " I trouble you with this long ex-
planation of my agency in bringing the watch away,
lest it might be supposed I was indifferent as to the
-value, innocent (perhaps) members of the deceased's
family might place upon a relict of one, who though
an enemy of ours, was held dear by them."
The following letters were sent by General Butler,
who also wrote a long and elaborate letter of condo-
lence, to Mrs. Winthrop.
Letter to Mrs. Francis B. Winthrop, Staten Island.
" HEADQUARTEBS DEPT. OP VIBGINIA, ETC., i
"fortress Monroe, July 6th, 1861. 1
" MY DEAE MADAM, I send you with this the watch
of your son, Major Winthrop, with copies of letters,
showing how it came into my hands, and a letter of
a Mr. McLean to Col. Hill of North Carolina account-
ing for the delay in returning it. Col. Hill's letter,
improper as it is in its tone, is another proof of the
admiration and respect your son's gallantry won even
from his enemies,
" With warmest good wishes, I remain,
"Your obedient Servant,
F. BUTLER."
298 LETTERS. [1861
" HEADQUABTEBS YORKTOWN, \
" July 5th, 1861. J
"GEN'L B. F. BUTLER.
"Oomm'ing Fort Monroe and Suburbs.
" SIR, I have the honor herewith to send the watch
of young Winthrop, who fell while gallantly leading a
party in the vain attempt to subjugate a free people.
The accompanying letter will explain to you the cause
of the delay in the return of the watch.
" Bespectfully,
"D. H. HILL,
"Commanding Post."
" HEADQUABTEBS DEPT. OF VIBGINIA, )
"fortress Monroe, July 6th, 1861. J
"CoL. D. H. HILL.
"Commanding Post at Yorktown.
" SIR, I have the honor to own receipt of the watch
of Major Winthrop, who lost his life in the service of
his country, against the rebels to her government.
The explanations of the delay are quite satisfactory.
The trinket will be forwarded to his mother, with the
letter accompanying it. She will take a very different
view of her son's duties and services from that fore-
shadowed by your letter. I must beg your attention,
as I did that of your predecessor at Yorktown, to the
fact, that my official title is, 'Major-General Com-
manding the Department of Virginia.'
" I have the honor to be, very respectfully,
"Your obedient servant,
F. BUTLER."
From the New York Tribune.
"On Monday morning, June 17th, 1861, William
Winthrop, and Theodore Weston his brother-in-
En. 32] HIS BURIAL. 299
law, accompanied by Lieut. Butler, the aid of
General Butler, proceeded with a flag of truce to
Great Bethel. Word having been transmitted to
the intrenchments, officially, of their errand, Col.
Magruder appeared with his staff, and formally
received the party. The body was then escorted
to a house, by two companies of Southern troops.
Col. Magruder tendered the party an escort as far
as our lines, but this was declined. Lieut. Butler
and Mr. Winthrop were received with the utmost
courtesy by the secession officers, and every facil-
ity was given them. They were received with
military honors on returning to Fortress Monroe,
and arrived in New York with a military escort on
June 19th. On Friday there was a military funeral,
the Seventh Kegiment acting as a guard of honor."
He wore at the time of his death, and was buried
in, the gray uniform of the Seventh Eegiment of New
York. His body was also received at New Haven with
military honors and followed to the grave by the stu-
dents of Yale, and crowds of his fellow citizens. The
whole town was deeply and sincerely moved. He was
laid in the family burial plot in the New Haven Ceme-
tery. An address was delivered by Prof. Porter of Yale
College (now President), and the peaceful and scholarly
old town put on mourning for her son, and gave him
all the honor she could bestow. He had once said to
his mother, " When I die, put a granite cross over
my grave." This wish was held sacred, and in due
time a very beautiful one, designed by Upjohn, was
placed upon the spot, sculptured with the endless cord,
300 THE END. [1861
the emblem of eternity, but having no inscription save
his name and the date and place of his death.
He was left beneath the shadow of the old ehns he
loved so well, and under the tender care of his Alma
Mater. His age was thirty-two years and nine months
when he fell
Was it a fitting end ? Was it just that all this gayety
and energy, this genius and hope, should have been
quenched by a chance shot, that the heart beating with
life, youth and patriotism should be stilled so soon,
that his military and literary fame should have been
ended when just begun ? He might have been a leader,
he might have been the historian or the novelist
of those stirring days. So full of vitality, that when
the telegram came Missing it seemed incredible ; it
seemed impossible, in those living, glowing June days.
Some felt even that he threw away his life, so intoler-
able did it seem that all should be over in one brief
moment. Was it a fitting end? Ah! had he heard
his country's call and not obeyed it, where was he?
Could he have done otherwise? It was not done,
lightly; his love for his country was a passion, his
words were no empty phrases, he took his life in his
hand for her sake, he proved his sincerity. And the
effect of his death was worthy of the sacrifice. He was
idealized, worshiped by the young men of that day,
he was the representative man of the hour. He showed,
as he says in " John Brent," " how easy it is for noble
souls to be noble," and his example to our young
men was worth even such a life as his, and such as
the noble lives that followed after. " We rather seem
the dead, that staid behind ! "
^T. 32] THE LOSS. 301
"What price was Ellsworth's, young and brave ?
How weigh the gift that Lyon gave ?
Or count the cost of Winthrop's grave ?
"Then Freedom sternly said, I shun
No strife nor pang beneath the sun
Where human rights are staked and won."
(WhUtier).
"When all the hopes of the lovely life of Eobert
Shaw were "buried with his niggers," were not the
fair white daisies that sprung from his grave, symbols
that his pure life and holy death would bring forth
the flower, last to blossom, of freedom for that race
for whom he died ! Winthrop's was the first, but how
far from the last precious life * that our Mother Land
was called to sacrifice ! And when we think of the
love that was felt for her, the reality of the patriotism
that burned in so many hearts, the clasping of hands
and warming of young souls, one would almost wish
not for those days to return, ah no ! but that some-
thing might again kindle a spark of that passion in
the cold hearts of the men of to-day ! Perhaps it only
slumbers, and our Mother's children -would again
spring to their feet if a foe from without or within
should lift its head to endanger her life or her peace.
May it be so. And when she calls again the Hero soul,
and says, "Here is your opportunity; prove your de-
votion to the truth you have professed ! While others
skulk and hide, you must forget self, and toil, and die,
if you are called to do it. Life may be given in many
* The last officer who fell in the Civil War was Brigadier-Gen'l
Frederic Winthrop, own cousin of Theodore Winthrop, who was
killed in the battle of Seven Pines, before Richmond, and was
a brave and valuable General.
302 THE GAIN. [1861
ways, but a man can give after all, no more, no less,
than his life. Prove then your truth ! Give me your
life ! " will there not be many a brave heart to reply,
" Be it unto me even as Thou wilt ? "
And truly it made amends for all, and shall be so
world without end, to feel, as our people felt then,
that our Country was something real, something worth
living for, worth dying for, to have those thoughts
stirring in every heart to which Lowell has given ex-
pression in the close of his noble Commemoration Ode.
" Oh Beautiful ! my country ! ours once more !
Smoothing thy gold of war-dishevelled hair
O'er such sweet brows as never other wore.
And letting thy set lips
Freed from wrath's pale eclipse
The rosy edges of their smile lay bare.
" What words divine of lover or of poet
Could tell our love and make thee know it,
Among the nations bright beyond compare ?
What were our lives without thee ?
What all our lives to save thee ?
We reck not what we gave thee !
We will not dare to doubt thee !
But ask whatever else, and we will dare ! "
INDEX.
INDEX.
Acapulco, Bay and town of, 130.
Achilles, 258.
Acropolis of Athens, 51-52.
Adams, Mt., 7.
Adirondacks. 260.
Admetus, 26.
Alcestis, 26.
Alabama, 289.
Alma Mater, 300.
Alps compared with Oregon
Mts., 154.
Alston, Washington, Picture of
St. Peter and the Angel, 6.
Alvoord, Major, U. S. A., 145-
146.
America disgraced, 197.
Ames, Fisher, 28.
Amsterdam, its resemblance to
New York, 63.
Andes, Heart of the, 260.
Angelo, Michael, 231.
Annapolis, 288.
Argos, 54,
Argolis, 51.
Armstrong, in "John Brent,"
275-276.
Army, U. S. A., Headquarters,
in Oregon, 142.
Arnold, Dr., 18.
Arthur's Seat, atEdinboro', 7.
Aspinwall, town of, 127, 93-121.
Aspinwall, William H., 43, 46,
48, 72, 73, 75, 80, 86, 172.
Astoria, Oregon, 138.
Athens, 50 ; view of, 54; plain of,
51; Acropolis, 51.
Atlantic Monthly, 274, 278, 285.
Atlantis, 161.
Avignon, 46.
B.
Back River, 292.
Bannack Indians, 162.
Bar Harbor, 192.
Barracks, U. S. Army, 145.
Bath Donkeys, 39.
Beachy Head, 32.
Bellington Bay, 188.
Bendix, Colonel, 295.
Beaecia, 135.
Bergamo, 58.
Berkeleian Scholarship, Yale
College, 20.
Big Bethel, 295.
Billup, Jane, 274.
Blue Mts., 162.
Boca Chica, 175.
Bogota, 119.
Boise'e, Fort, 162.
Bonneville, Colonel, 142-3.
Bonticue, Mrs., 10-11.
Boston, 155.
Boston Journal, Correspondent
of, on Winthrop, 294.
Both, J., painter, 6.
Boulevards, Paris, 44.
Brent, Captain, 143, 144, 161.
Brescia, 58,
Bridger, Fort, 161.
" Brightly's Orphan," 274, 277.
Brothertoft Manor, 277.
Bulwer's "Last of the Barons,"
14.
Bungay, George, 278,
Burns, Kobert, 14.
Burnt Eiver Mts., 162.
Butler, Benjamin F., Major
Gen'L, 286, 288, 289, 290,
letters of, 297, 298. Order
of, 292.
306
INDEX.
Butler, Bishop, Works, 17.
Butler, Lieut., Aid of Gen'l
Butler, 299.
C.
Caledonia Bay, 178;Kiver, 181.
California, 22, 25, 124, 130,
140, 143; the steamer, 113;
mines, 150.
Cameron, Simon, Sec'y of War,
287.
Campanile di San Marco, 56.
"Canoe and Saddle," 161, 162,
281.
Canoe Voyage, 158.
Carbonari, 12.
Carlyle, Thomas, 25, 26.
Carnival in Panama, 106.
Cartagena, 174, 175, 179, 189.
Cascade Mts., 144, 150, 161.
Cascades of the Columbia Riv-
er, 143, 145.
Cavour, 13, 197.
"Cecil Dreeme," 274, 277, 281.
Chagres River, 94, 123; town
of, 95.
Chamounix, 61, 63.
Chaqunque, 186.
Charing Cross to the Bank, 34.
Chatsworth, 38.
ChehallisMt., 154.
Cheronsea, 55.
Chico and Atrato Mines, 116.
Chime're, French Steamer, 184.
Chinook Jargon, 155-161.
Church, Frederic E., 91, 260,
283.
Cithseron, 55.
Civil War, 1, 279, 280.
Civita Vecchia, 48.
Class of 1848, Yale College, 15.
Claude Lorraine Sunsets, 57.
Clitheroe, Ellen, 276.
Coal Mines of Bellington Bay,
158.
Coire, 59.
Coleridge, 18.
Coleville, Fort and Rapids, 148.
College Themes, 15.
Collyer, Robert, 83.
Colorado Springs, 282.
Colton, Rev. Henry, 20.
Columbia River, 75, 137, 138,
140, 142; Cascades of the,
143, 145; Flood of the, 147.
Columbia, Upper, 101.
Columbia, the Steamer, 137.
Commemoration Ode, 302.
Commencement Oration, 16.
Confederate Army, 297.
Confirmation, 20.
Constantinople, 55.
Cordillera, 179, 187.
Corinth, 54.
Cormayeur, village of, 60.
Cowlitz, town and River, 139,
155.
Cramont, the, 60.
Crimean War, 197.
Critique by Prof. Nichol, 278,
279.
Cru9es Road, 122.
Curtis, George William, 278,
283, 286.
Cyane, Sloop of War, 173, 176,
188, 189.
D.
Dalles of the Columbia, 143,
145, 146, 148, 160.
Dangerous Climb, A, 62.
Daphne, pass and monastery
of, 54.
Darien Expedition, 172.
Dayton, Seward's letters to, 287.
Death of Winthrop's Father,
19.
Densdeth, 274.
Diabolo Mountain, 136.
Diomed, 50.
Disappointment in ^Love, 205.
Dismissed from Yale College,
19.
Donation Law of Oregon, 151.
Don Fulano, 273, 281.
Don Quixote, 63.
Dosoris, Long Island, 3.
Dwight, Elizabeth Woolsey, 3.
Dwight, Theodore, 6.
Dwight, Timothy, 3.
INDEX.
307
E. -
East Kock, 7, 61.
Edict of Nantes, 4.
Edinboro', 35.
Edwards, Jonathan, 5, 19.
"Edwin Brothertoft," 274, 277.
Egina, 51.
Elensis, 51.
Emigration of 1843, 153.
England, 197, 280.
English Engineers, 186.
English Fleet, 51; Inns, 38;
Parks, 39.
Espiegle, H. M. Brig, 184, 189.
Etna, 50.
Eubcea, 53.
Euston Square, E. E. Sta., 34.
Exhibition, Great, of 1851, 81.
F.
Far West, 5.
Field Artillery, 281
Fields, James T., 278.
Fingal's Cave, 36.
Fisheries, Salmon, 149.
Fiske, Oliver, 287.
Florence, 57.
Foster, Dwight, 27, 77.
Foster, Mr., 27.
Fords, 156.
Forest Journey, 128.
Fort Hall, 143.
Fort Point, 136.
Fort Wadsworth, view from, 78.
Fountain's Abbey, 37.
Fortress Monroe, 286, 288, 290,
295, 297.
Fragments, 167, 168, 169.
France, 197.
Frankfort, 63.
Franklin, Benjamin, 3.
Fremont Presidential Cam-
paign, 260.
French language, study of, 64,
97.
French Eevolutions, 25.
G.
Garibaldi, 13.
Gay, Sidney Howard, 283, 286.
Genealogy, 4.
Geneva, 63; journey to, 81, 82.
Genoa, 48.
Glencoe, pass of, 37.
Gloucester Cathedral, 39.
Golden Gate, 131.
Goldsmith's "History of Eng-
land," 11.
Gold Trains, 109, 110.
Grande Eonde Valley of, 1G2.
Great Bethel, 2, 292, 299.
Greble, Lieutenant, U. S. A.,
294.
Greece, travels in, 51-55; Isle
of, 51; wild flowers of, 53.
Grote's "Hist, of Greece," 26.
Gulf of Spezia, 58.
H.
Haddon Hall, 38.
Haggerty, Captain, 296.
Hamilton, Sir William, 35.
Hand Car, journey on. 126,
127.
Harper's Ferry, 287.
Hatteras Hurricane, 174.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 6, 281,
274.
Hayti, 174.
Head of Puget Sound, 156.
Health, Failure of, 16.
Heeren's "Asia," 23.
Helicon, 55.
Hemlocks, the, 282.
Herringen, Lieut. Company
E., 293.
Hill, Colonel D. H., 297.
Hitchcock, General, 103, 142.
Hitchcock, Henry, 27, 163,
264.
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 6.
Holcomb, Mr., 183, 184, 188,
189.
Hollins, Captain, 173, 174, 179,
188, 189.
Hood, Mt., 139, 147, 161, 152.
Hill. Colonel, Letter of, 298.
Hudson's Bay Co., 142, 154.
156.
Hudson Eiver, 24, 275, 277.
308
INDEX.
Huguenots, 4.
Humboldt, Town of, 137.
Hunt, Family in Paris, 46; Bich-
ard, 43, 44, 45, 46; William,
43, 45.
Hyde Park, 33.
Hymettus, 52.
I.
Ikapoose Mountain, 153.
Illissus, 285.
Indian Battle ground, 138; Fish-
eries, 158; Folk Lore, 161;
Lodges, 155; Murder, 180;
Trail, 184.
Indians, of the Columbia, 149 ;
of the Isthmus, 179.
Inland Journey, 114; 115, 116,
117.
Inoosquamish Language, 157.
Irrepressible Conflict, 285.
Italy's Dawn, 197.
Italian Journey, 55-58; Skies,
57; Lakes, Tour of, 58.
Isthmus, Backbone of the, 177.
Isthmus Canal Survey, 172.
Isthmus life, 161.
Italy, United, 13.
Ivy stems, 38.
J.
Jacobite old Lady, 35.
Jackson, Mr., 156.
Jackson's Prairie, 155.
Janiculum, Mt., 48.
Japanese, 180.
Jay's Treaty, 28.
Jesuit Exiles, 118.
Joaquin Biver, 135.
"John Brent," 163, 273, 274,
275, 277, 279, 300.
John Bull, 36.
John Day's Eiver, 161.
Johnson, William Templeton,
191.
Johnson, Samuel William, Pres.
of Columbia College, 6.
Jones, Sir Wm. , ' 'Sacontala, ' ' 23.
Journey with Capt. Brent re-
linquished, 146.
Jupiter Pan Hellonus, Temple
of, 51.
Jupiter Olympus, Temple of, 52.
K.
Kansas, 197, 260.
Kensett, Mr. J., 91.
Kindergarten, 10,
Kirkstall Abbey, 38.
Kyrle, Mr., the Man of Boss, 40.
Laconia, 51.
La Popa, 176.
Landing treasure from Steam-
ship Oregon, 108.
Laramie, Fort, 163.
Law, George, his company, 74.
Lectures, Two, on Adventure,
and Fine Arts in America,
191.
Legation, Sec'y of, 43.
Leghorn, 48.
Legion of Honor, 45.
Levy, Colonel, of Louisiana, 293.
"Life in the Open Air, " 260, 274.
Lind, Jenny, 25.
Little Bethel, 293.
Lispenard, Anthony, 4; Cor-
nelia, 4; Leonard, 4.
Llanos of the Isthmus, 102.
London, 81, 82; driving in, 42.
Long Island Families, 4.
Long Wharf, 8.
Louisiana Bifleman, 293.
Louis Philippe's portrait, 46.
Louvre, The, 44, 45.
"Love and Skates," 274, 277.
Lowell, James Bussell, 274,302.
Lowlands, 37.
Lucca, Baths of, 58.
Luggernel Alley, 282.
Lung' Arno, 8.
Lydian Measures, 280.
M.
McLean's letter, extract, 297.
Magruder, General, 292, 293.
Maine, Tour in, 260; Lakes of,
261.
INDEX.
309
Malaprops, 211.
Malta, 51.
Manitou, 282.
Manzanilla Island, 123.
Marathon, 52; Plain of, 53, 224.
Marble Faun, 281.
Margaret, 276.
Marietta, Ohio, 15, 19.
Marston, John, 4; Alice, 4.
Mary Darner, 278.
Mazzini, 13.
Megara, 54.
Melrose, 35.
Memphremagog, 262.
Merchants of New York, 3.
Merle d'Aubigne, 83.
Messina, 50.
Mexico, 22, 136.
Milan Cathedral, 58.
Mill's Logic, 21.
Miller, Jouquin, 274.
Milrnan's Nala and Damayanta,
23.
Miltiades, Trophies of, 65.
Mines of California and Oregon,
150.
Modern Painters, 23.
Mona Passage, 173.
Mont Blanc, Tour of, 60; view
of, 60.
Monte Kosa, Tour of, 60.
Monterey, 130, 131.
Monticello, 155.
Morea, 53.
Morley's, 33.
Mormons, 143,
Mosquito Question, 42.
Mound Prairies, 156.
Mount Desert, 191, 192, 260.
Murray, John, 47.
N.
Naples, 2, 50.
Napoleon I., 87.
Napoleon, Louis, 25, 46, 197.
Nauplia, 54.
Navy, Sec'y of, 180.
New England, 3, 5, 8; Dame
School, 9.
New Granada, 177.
New Haven, 7, 8, 12, 15, 86, 191.
New Haven Cemetery, 299.
New Haven, England, 32.
New York, 3, 4, 7, 13, 73, 113,
118, 119, 124, 132, 172, 173,
189, 264, 275, 284.
New Rochelle, Settlement of, 4.
Nez Perce'es Indians, 162.
Niagara Falls, 76.
Nice, 58.
Nichol, Prof. John, on Win-
throp's writings, 278, 279.
Nisqually, Fort, 155, 157, 160.
North Carolina, 297; drummer,
292.
North East Trades, The, 173.
0.
Ogden, Governor, 143, 149, 154.
Ohio, 15; the Steamer, 124.
Old Olive Trees, 53.
Olympia, 156.
Onofrio, St., Church of, 49.
Oregon, 140, 149, 154; Land
Ownership, 141 ; Beauty of,
147; Mines, 150; Women
of, 152; Lumber Trade of,
137; Old Settlers in, 151.
Oxford, 40, 281.
P.
Pacific Coast, 138, 140; Mail
S.S. Co., 72, 92, 94; Ocean,
21, 184, 187, 190.
Padiham, 276.
Padua, 56.
Paley's Works, 17.
Panama, 92, 93, 125, 176; Cli-
mate of, 100, 101, 106; Cos-
tumein Churches, 113 ;Life,
94, 97, 98, 99: Kuins, 102;
Suburbs, 103 ;R.K. Co., 172.
Parks and Seats, English, 39.
Paris, 43, 46; Rue 1' University
64.
Parnassus, 55.
Parsons, Theophilus, 278.
Pedro Gomez, 75.
Pellico, Silvio, 13.
310
INDEX.
Penonom^, 117.
Pentelicus, 52.
Percy's Beliques, 14.
Pericles, 52.
Peru, 22.
Pestallozzi, 10.
Peter Parley's Geography, 11.
Pfaffers, Baths of, 60.
Piazza di San Marco, 56.
Pickwick Club, 39.
Pierce, General, 296.
Pigeon English, 155.
Pike County Men, 153.
Pindar, 25.
Piraeus, 9, 51.
Pisa, 58.
Pistoja, 58.
Poems, Early, Dash, Dash!
66; Northern Lights, 67;
Defeat, 68; Waiting, 69;
Fragments, 70, 71; On the
Beach, 78; Doubt, 80; Na-
poleon at St. Helena, 87;
Katherine Teresa, 88 ; Frag-
ment, 90; Moonlight, 164;
Forest Fire, 165; Fire Up,
165; Prose Fragment, 166;
Fragments, 167, 168; The
East and the West, 169;
192; 193; 194; 195; Frag-
ments, 263. Love, To One
I Know, 265; Homage, 266;
Love Comes, 267; Song,
268; Her Voice, 269; Son-
net, Sonnet, 270; Hopes,
271 ; Finis, 272 ; Two Worlds,
Part I., Grief, 198-206 ; Part
II., Departure, 206-227;
Part HI., Passion, 227-
243; Part IV., Penance,
243-251; Part V., Love,
251-259.
Porter, Prof., of Yale, 16, 299.
Portland, Oregon, 137, 139, 142,
150, 154.
Port Oxford, 138.
Presbyterians, Old School, 3.
President, The Ship, 175.
Press Notices, 293, 294, 295,
Puget Sound, 155.
"Punch," The London, 42.
Puritans, The, 4.
Q.
Quinippiac Eiver, 7.
E.
Eailroad, The great Pacific, 15G.
Bainer, Mt., 139, 156, 157; Towu
of, 139.
Eaphael, 228, 230.
Bed School House, 262.
Bed wood trees, 137.
Bevolutionary War, 5, 275.
Bhine Eiver, 59; Valley, 60.
"Eichmond Dispatch," 296.
Eipon, 38.
Bip Van Winkle, 161.
Biviera di Ponente, 58.
Bobespierre, 25.
Borne, Capitol of, 48; Carnival
of, 47; Campagna of, 48;
Forum of, 48; Modern, 49.
"Bowing against Tide," 282.
Bowse, Samuel, his portrait of
Winthrop, 265.
Bugby, 41.
Buskin, 18, 41.
Sacramento Biver, 135.
Salamis, 51 ; Bay of, 54.
Salem, 150, 152.
Salmon-feasting, 160; falls, 162.
Salt Lake, 160, 162; City, 143;
valley, 162.
Salute, Church of, 56.
San Diego, 130.
San Francisco, City of, 130;
Bay of, 131; activity of,
132; climate of, 133; sub-
urbs of, 134.
San Giorgio, 56.
San Miguel, 177, Gulf of, 187.
San Stefano, 48.
"Sartor Besartus," 25.
Seward's letters to Dayton, 287.
Scholarships. 17, 18.
Schools at Nijon, etc., 83.
INDEX.
311
School of Mr. Silas French,
13, 19.
Scotland, 36.
Scottsburg, 149, 153.
Scott, Sir Walter, 14, 35.
Sea Kings, 4.
Secession Army, 291.
Seventh Regiment, The, 284;
March of the, 285; Re-
turn of, 286; Guard of the,
299.
Seward, William H., 287.
Shaw, Francis George, 283.
Shaw, Robert G., 284, 301.
Sheffield, 35.
Ship Canal, Prospecting for,
181, 182, 183.
Shoshonee Indians, 162.
Sicily, 50; Siena, 57.
Skerrett, Peter, 277.
Skye, Island of, 36.
Smallpox, attack of, 145.
Snake River, 162.
Society for- Prevention of Cru-
elty to Children, 4.
South Pass, 162.
Southey, Robert, 14, 18.
Spanish Commerce, Old, 178.
Spenser's "Faerie Queen," 14.
Spliigen Pass, 59.
Staffa, Island of, 36.
Staten Island, 65, 72, 74, 92,
191, 284.
Steers Flotsam, 282.
Steilacoon, U. S. Fort, 157.
Stirling Castle, 37.
Stoningers, The, 282.
St. Catherine's Light, 32.
St. Gervais, Baths of, 62.
St. Helen's, Mount, 138, 139,
150, 154, 156.
St. Louis, 143, 160, 262, 264.
St. Nicholas Magazine, 282.
St. Paul's Cathedral, 33.
St. Peter's, at Rome, 49.
Strain, Lieut. Edward, 172,
184, 189, 190.
Stratford-on-Avon, 38.
Streets, Anthony, Leonard, and
Lispenard, 4.
Stump Speeches in Maine, 262;
on Staten Island, 263.
Suisun Bay, 135.
Sumter, Fort, 284.
Summers, Doctor, 146.
Sunium, 51.
Swiss Journey, Second, 74.
Switzerland, 59.
Syria, 224.
T.
Taboga, Island of, 100, 104,
107, 108.
Tacoma, the less, 161.
Tancred, 50, 225.
Tasso, 50, 225.
Tennessee, the Steamer, Loss
of, 131.
Tennyson's Poems, 26.
Thackeray, W. M., 277.
Thermopylae, 55.
Thoreau, Henry, 13, 281
Ticknor & Fields, 282.
Tidal Observations, 157.
Titian, 228.
Titus, Mr. George, 191.
Toad Hill, Staten Island, View
from, 77, 78.
Tolmie, Doctor, 157.
Tomb of the Athenians, 53.
Tongue Point, 138.
Toothaker, Mr., 261.
Tour of Mt. Blanc, 60; Monte
Rosa, 60; Germany, Hol-
land, and Belgium, 63.
Townshend, General, 296.
Tractarian Movement, 41.
Tracy, Mr. Charles, 105, 190,
191, 260.
Trees, 7.
Tribune, The, New York, 293,
297, 298, 299.
Trollope, Anthony, 277.
Tropical night, 122; twilight,
120.
Tropics, The, 92.
Trowbridge, Captain, 157.
Troy, 224.
Tualtin plains, 153.
Turin, 58.
312
INDEX
Twelfth night, 177.
Twentyman, Name of, 37.
Typical Pioneer, 141.
Tyre and Sidon, 19.
U.
Umatilla Eiver, 161.
Umpqua River, 150, 153, 276.
United Italy, 13.
United States, The Steamer, 93.
Unter den Linden, 8.
Upjohn, Richard, 296
Utah Landscape, 162.
Vacation Tour, 76.
Vancouver's Island, 144, 147,
149, 153, 157, 177.
Vandykes in Genoa, 48.
Vatican Museum, The, 49.
Venice, 55, 242.
Vermont, Volunteer, A, 293.
Vernet, Horace, 47.
Veronese, Paul, 228.
Verona and cities of North It-
aly, 57.
Vesuvius, 50.
Via Mala, 59.
Vice Royal Palace, of Carta-
gena, 177.
Victor Emanuel, 13.
Victoria, Vancouver's Island,
157.
Virago, British Man of War,
177, 180.
Virginian Slave Holder, 289.
Voyage to Europe, Second, 80.
W.
Waddy's, Mr., Return, 192,
282.
Wade, Richard, 277.
Waller, Captain, 144.
War, Civil, 1, 279, 280.
Washington, 286, 290.
Washington as a camp, 285,
Watch returned, 297.
Webster's Spelling Book, 11.
Westminster Abbey, 33,
West Point, 294.
Weston, Theodore, 298.
West " Stingy s," 8.
Whittier, J. G., 301.
Willamette River, 139, 141,
142, 276.
Willamette valley, 150,151, 152,
153.
Winchester, 153.
Wine Making, 84.
Wiuthrop's Good-bye, 288.
Winthrop, Charles Archibald,
18.
Winthrop, Rev. Edward, 15, 19.
Winthrop, Francis Bayard, 2,
6, 12; family of, 3.
Winthrop, Mrs. Francis Bay-
ard, 297.
Winthrop, John, First Gov-
ernor of Massachusetts, 2.
Winthrop, John, First Gov-
ernor of Connecticut, 2;
Second Governor of Con-
necticut, 2.
Winthrop, Judge Wait Still, 3.
Winthrop, Professor, at Har-
vard, 3.
Winthrop, Robert Charles, 5.
Winthrop, Theodore, elder
brother, 9.
Winthrop, Theodore, his birth,
2; his father, 2; his de-
scent, 3; his mother, 3;
his family history, 3-6;
first school days, 9; enters
college, 15; Greek compo-
sition, 15: religious expe-
rience, 16; graduation, 16;
his journal begins, 17;
study, 18; his twenty-sec-
ond birthday, 18; first
love, 20; early dreams, 22;
choice of a profession, 28 ;
loss of health, 27; the
remedy, 30; departure for
Europe, 31 ; attache* to the
embassy, 42; home again,
65; manhood, 72; with the
steamship company, 73 ;
a tale of revenge, 75; his
INDEX.
313
Winthrop, Theo., continued.
twenty-third birthday, 80;
in Europe again, 81; first
dreams of authorship, 85,
arrival in Panama, 97;
landing gold, 105 ; the gold
train, 109; excursion into
the interior, 115; discour-
aged, 125; on a hand car,
12f>; starts for San Fran-
cisco, 128-129 ; impressions
of San Francisco, 131; on
the Pacific coast, 138; wild
life, 157; return home,
161; " The Canoe and the
Saddle," 162; with Darien
Expedition; 172; explor-
ing, 183-184; search for
Lieut. Strain, 185; admis-
sion to the New York
Bar, 160; stump speeches,
261-262; Authorship, 273.
his works, 275 ; incomplete
tales, 282; the war, 283;
parting, 284: the Seventh
Regiment, 285; Fortress
Monroe, 288; his last let-
ters, 289, 290-291;. Great
Winthrop, Theo., continued.
Bethel, 292-296; appointed
First Lieut., 290; letters
concerning his watch, 297;
his burial, 299; commem-
oration ode, 302.
Winthrop, Thomas Lindall, 5.
Winthrop, Col. William, 191,
284, 298.
Woolsey, Benjamin, 3.
Woolsey, Elizabeth Dwight, 3.
W r oolsey, Dr. Theodore D, 5,
14, 16, 21, 284.
Woolsey, William Walton, 3.
Woodbury. Conn., 43.
Wooster St., New Haven, 7.
Worcester, Mass., 27.
Wordsworth, William, 18.
Y.
Yale College, 3, 6, 12, 19.
Yale students, 299.
Yamhill County, Oregon, 153.
Yankee, the Steamer, 292.
York, 35.
Yorktown, 295.
Youcalla, 153.
Young, Brigham, 162.
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES
THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
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DATE
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