University of Virginia Library

7. CHAPTER VII.

I know it is time to say something of our own
selves. In our first attempt at Western sketches,
that good reader for whose eye I write dwelt, I am
sure, longer and more kindly upon what interested
us personally, than upon the more elaborate parts of
our simple narrative. And when after many trials
(of patience) and many hardships (in a small way)
we emerged from the dark precincts of the loggery
into the bright atmosphere of the “framed house”
—exchanged worm-eaten beams for a plastered
ceiling—and miniature Rocky Mountains for a
tiled hearth—and succeeded in excluding the pigs,
and discovered some amiable traits in the neighbors—I
know that one kind heart rejoiced with
us, and found a benevolent satisfaction in prophesying
still better times for the future.

Better times did come—that is, they would have

come, if there had been good times any where.
Better times—so far as our own personal accommodation
was concerned—did come; and the sojourn
in the log-house, though “ugly and venomous”
enough while it lasted, fulfilled yet the sweet
uses of such things, by giving to very humble
arrangements a charm which they would have
lacked if we had come into possession of the new
abode directly from the city.

The children in particular, to whose minds the
present is every thing, and to whom five months is
“a little forever,” considered the new house as the
realization of the most romantic dreams of fancy.
They could imagine nothing more convenient or
more elegant. One of them, a tolerably intelligent
child of six years old, had been snapping one of
those detonating “mottoes” which usually scatter
French sugar-plums and French sentiment together
upon the carpet. She desired an explanation of the
two short lines, which, oddly enough for such a
purpose, ran thus:—

I could make intelligible the general drift of the
wise saw wrapt in this poetical guise readily
enough; but when I tried to explain familiarly the
word “palace” my efforts were fruitless. All my
descriptions of a large and elegant mansion elicited
but one exclamation, and we could never get beyond
that:

“What! nicer than our house?”

Blessed simplicity of youth! Why do we not
strive to perpetuate it? Why are almost our first
practical lessons those of fastidiousness and empty
pride—that “living for the eyes of others” which
has been so long the censure of the wise?

To desire perfection in every thing—to prize
grace, delicacy, beauty, elegance, and even splendor,
as gratifications of taste, and as aids to mental
refinement, is rational and commendable. To make
these things, and others that money can purchase,
the ground of distinctions in society and the excuse
for a haughty exclusion of our less fortunate fellow-creatures
is surely contemptible and unworthy of a
reflecting and accountable being.

I fear those of us who can subscribe to this sentiment
do not always act in consistency with it.
Republican simplicity, though so evidently the dictate
of our real interest and the foundation of our
true dignity, is scarcely thought of, except on one
day in every year, when it serves to round a period
for the orator. Yet not one of us is ignorant that
no republic has ever survived the universal prevalence
of luxurious habits and the blind and weak
pride, which seems to be their inevitable consequence.
Ought we not to consider ourselves as
giving a stab to the land we love and the institutions

we venerate whenever we leap forward in the
race of petty emulation in mere outward show?

But I set out to say something of self—“the
theme on which all are eloquent but none agreeable.”
To live comparatively alone is apt enough
to make one dreadfully egotistical—but there is
absolutely nothing to tell. Hopelessly humdrum
has been our course of life. Not an event darkens
our doors once a year. We seem omitted in the
general revolution of human affairs. The world
goes round without us, and if we try to “run in”
as children do while others are jumping the rope,
we are sure to get a rap over the knuckles, if nothing
worse.

One solitary incident—a momentary glimpse of
the busy world, where I was so much out of
place, so staring, so rustic, so brusque, so oblivious
of the bienséances, that I had the satisfaction of
being called “Mrs. Rip Van Winkle” more than
once—this and this alone gave a ripple to “life's
dull stream.” It was a marvellous pretty ripple—not
only breaking the monotony of the said stream, but
throwing back so many cheerful gleams—giving
occasion to so many agreeable reflections—that the
mere remembrance will serve to brighten the lonely
hours of a long winter or two at the very least.

O! it was sweet to see again the old, familiar
faces,—to hear once more the well-known voices,
whose tones were music in years long past, and
had lost none of their power to charm! to meet

the glance of ancient friendship—to clasp the kind
hand that has so often traced lines of cheering comfort
for our solitude—to find affection still warm
in the bosom of venerable age—to read in the eyes
of a younger race that tenderness for the long absent
had not been forgotten in the training of their guileless
hearts—and to feel that in spite of absence,
change, sorrow, and disappointment, our own hearts
were still capable of a thrill of grateful pleasure in
answer to all the kindness lavished upon the returning
wanderers! In the enthusiasm of the moment
I was almost tempted to think years of trial in the
cold atmosphere of a strange land had been repaid
by the delight of that visit.

It was during this crowded dream of enjoyment
that I made the discovery of a change in my own
views, which may be ascribed according to the
reader's humor—to natural simplicity or rudeness
—to want of means or want of taste—to indolence
or an enforced philosophy;—for I will plead guilty
to any thing but a disposition to undervalue advantages
which I do not possess.

It was a change in my estimate of the splendid
accessories which are so much an object of desire
and ambition among the inhabitants of our cities.
I can refer easily to the time when these things
wore to me the same enchanting aspect which they
seem now to present to their possessors, and still
more to those who can scarcely hope ever to become
their possessors. I too thought large and elegant

houses, trains of servants, and imposing equipages,
if not the constituents of happiness, at least most
potent auxiliaries to earthly bliss. In my darker
estimate of country life, the want of these things—
the certainty that they would never be transplanted
to these remote shades, so that I could even take
the spectator's (often the best) part of the show—
formed one prominent item of my desponding prognostics.

After several years spent among the plainest people,
living in the plainest manner—people whose
very wishes reached not beyond the most ordinary
comforts and decencies of life—what would naturally
be the effect of a return to scenes of comparative
splendor, toward which early impressions
had inspired me with respect, if not with envy?
Would the contrast in externals be the most striking?
Would the decorated drawing-room, the
delicately fancied carriage with its well-trained
horses—the triumph of Parisian art in costume—
would these be likely to awaken the longing sigh
of the dweller in the wilderness?

They were beautiful and in some respects desirable,
it is true. We do not grow so obtuse as
not to appreciate in some degree the elegances of
life. But the true attraction lay in the aspect of
society itself—in the thousand graces of manner
which are unknown in ruder atmospheres; in the
refinement of sentiment; in the display of thoroughbred
intellectual power; in the moral and not the

physical contrast which is exhibited between life
in the city and life in the woods; in the people
and not in their style of living. The magnificent
edifices of the great city awake in no low degree
the admiration of the exiles; but her painters, her
sculptors, her musicians, her men of letters, her
poets, her preachers—her monuments of genius
and of art—these filled the soul even to the pain
of pleasure, and in these lay the points of difference
which alone appeared, for the time, worthy of
notice.

So great has been the power of habit in simplifying
our wants and reducing their number, that
many things which are considered essential to
comfort among those who make modes of life a
study and a science, appeared to us absolutely
cumbersome and harassing. Mr. Edgeworth is
said to have collected, in his family mansion at
Edgeworthtown, so many ingenious contrivances
to spare his visitors every kind of trouble, that
people were puzzled and put to great inconvenience
by the multiplication of conveniences. It seemed
to me that some of our city friends had fallen into
a kindred error. They have secured so many of
the comforts and luxuries of life, that life is itself
expended in the solicitudes attendant upon such
extensive and costly arrangements. In our country,
where good domestic service is scarcely a thing
within the limits of hope, every new necessity for
the aid of such people seems to entail a new slavery

on the proprietor, and to multiply his cares, his
risks and his vexations much mere rapidly than his
enjoyments.

I see thee smiling, O reader!—but I care not.
I really believe that both for myself and my children,
I shall never cease to bless the training that
has procured us some little insight into even an
“enforced philosophy.” So smile on, and be careful
that thou err not through too lavish and too
unsympathizing use of the gifts of an all-beneficent
Providence.