University of Virginia Library

4. LETTER IV.

My Dear Doctor: Your letters, like yourself, travel
in the best of company. What should come with
your last, but a note from our friend Stetson of the
Astor, forwarding a letter which a traveller had left in
the bronze vase, with “something enclosed which feels
like a key.” “A key,” quotha! Attar of jasmine,
subtle as the breath of the prophet from Constantinople
by private hand! No less! The small gilt bottle,
with its cubical edge and cap of parchment, lies breathing
before me. I think you were not so fortunate as
to meet Bartlett, the draughtsman of the American scenery—the
best of artists in his way, and the pleasantest
of John Bulls, any way. He travelled with me a summer
here, making his sketches, and has since been
sent by the same enterprising publisher (Virtue, of
Ivy Lane), to sketch in the Orient. (“Stand by,” as
Jack says, for something glorious from that quarter.)
Well—pottering about the Bezestein, he fell in with
my old friend Mustapha, the attar-merchant, who lifted
the silk curtains for him, and over sherbet and
spiced coffee in the inner divan, questioned him of
America—a country which, to Mustapha's fancy, is as
far beyond the moon as the moon is beyond the gilt
tip of the seraglio. Bartlett told him the sky was
round in that country, and the women faint and exquisite
as his own attar. Upon which Mustapha took his
pipe from his mouth, and praised Allah. After stroking
the smoke out of his beard, and rolling his idea
over the whites of his eyes for a few minutes, the old
merchant pulled from under his silk cushion, a visiting-card,
once white, but stained to a deep orange with
the fingering of his fat hand, unctuous from bath-hour
to bath-hour with the precious oils he traffics in.
When Bartlett assured him he had seen me in America
(it was the card I had given the old Turk at parting,
that he might remember my name), he settled the
curtains which divide the small apartment from the
shop, and commanding his huge Ethiopian to watch
the door, entered into a description of our visit to the
forbidden recesses of the slave-market, of his purchase
(for me), of the gipsy Maimuna, and some other
of my six weeks' adventures in his company—for
Mustapha and I, wherever it might lie in his fat body,
had a nerve in unison. We mingled like two drops
of the oil of roses. At parting, he gave Bartlett this
small bottle of jasmine, to be forwarded to me, with
much love, at his convenience; and with the perfume
of it in my nostrils, and the corpulent laugh of old
Mustapha ringing in my ear, I should find it difficult
at this moment, to say how much of me is under this
bridge in Tioga, North America. I am not sure that
my letter should not be dated “attar-shop, near the seraglio”
for there, it seems to me, I am writing.

“Tor-mentingest growin' time, aint it!” says a neighbor,
leaning over the bridge at this instant, and little
thinking that on that breath of his I travelled from the
Bosphorus to the Susquehannah. Really, they talk
of steamers, but there is no travelling conveyance like
an interruption. A minute since, I was in the capital
of the Palæologi, smoking a narghile in the Turk's
shop. Presto! here I am in the county of Tiog'; sitting
under a bridge, with three swallows and a lobster
(not three lobsters at a swallow—as you are very likely
to read it in your own careless way), and no outlay
for coals or canvass. Now, why should not this be reduced
to a science—like steam! I'll lend the idea to
the cause of knowledge. If a man may travel from
Turkey to New York on a passing remark, what might
be done on a long sermon? At present the agent is
irregular, so was steam. The performance of the
journey, at present, is compulsory. So was travelling
by steam before Fulton. The discoveries in animal
magnetism justify the most sanguine hopes on the subject,
and “open up,” as Mr. Bulwer would express it,
a vast field of novel discovery.

The truth is (I have been sitting a minute thinking
it over), the chief obstacle and inconvenience in travelling
is the prejudice in favor of taking the body with
us. It is really a preposterous expense. Going abroad
exclusively for the benefit of the mind, we are at no
little trouble, in the first place, to provide the means
for the body's subsistence on the journey (the mind
not being subject to “charges”) and then, besides trailing
after us through ruins and galleries, a companion
who takes no enjoyment in pictures or temples, and is
perpetually incommoded by our enthusiasm, we undergo
endless vexation and annoyance with the care of
his baggage. Blessed be Providence, the mind is independent
of boots and linen. When the system
above hinted at is perfected, we can leave our box-coats
at home, item pantaloons for all weathers, item cravats,
flannels, and innumerable hose. I shall use my portmanteau
to send eggs to market, with chickens in the
two carpet-bags. My body I shall leave with the dairy-woman,
to be fed at milking-time. Probably, however,
in the progress of knowledge, there will be some
discovery by which it can be closed in the absence
of the mind, like a town-house when the occupant is

in the country—blinds down, and a cobweb over the
keyhole.

In all the prophetic visions of a millenium, the chief
obstacle to its progress is the apparently undiminishing
necessity for the root of all evil. Intelligence is
diffusing, law becoming less merciless, ladies driving
hoops, and (I have observed) a visible increase of marriages
between elderly ladies and very young gentlemen—the
last a proof that the affections (as will be
universally true in the millenium) may retain their
freshness in age. But among all these lesser beginnings,
the philanthropist has hitherto despaired, for to
his most curious search, there appeared no symptom
of beginning to live without money. May we not discern
in this system (by which the mind, it is evident,
may perform some of the most expensive functions of
the body), a dream of moneyless millenium—a first
step toward that blessed era when “Biddle and discounts”
will be read of like “Aaron and burnt-offerings”—ceremonies
which once made it necessary for
a high-priest, and an altar at which the innocent sufered
for the guilty, but which shall have passed away
in the blessed progress of the millenium?

If I may make a grave remark to you, dear Doctor,
I think the whole bent and spirit of the age we live in,
is, to make light of matter. Religion, which used to
be seated in the heart, is, by the new light of Channing,
addressed purely to the intellect. The feelings
and passions, which are bodily affections, have less to
do with it than the mind. To eat with science and
drink hard, were once passports to society. To think
shrewdly and talk well, carry it now. Headaches
were cured by pills, which now yield to magnetic
fluid—nothing so subtle. If we travelled once, it
must be by pulling of solid muscle. Rarefield air does
it now better than horses. War has yielded to negotiation.
A strong man is no better than a weak one.
Electro-magnetism will soon do all the work of the
world, and men's muscles will be so much weight—
no more. The amount of it is, that we are gradually
learning to do without our bodies. The next great discovery
will probably be some pleasant contrivance for
getting out of them, as the butterfly sheds his worm.
Then, indeed, having no pockets, and no “corpus” for
your “habeas,” we can dispense with money and its
consequences, and lo! the millenium! Having no
stomachs to care for, there will be much cause of sin
done away, for in most penal iniquities, the stomach
is at the bottom. Think what smoothness will follow
in “the cause of true love”—money coming never between!
It looks ill for your profession, dear Doctor.
We shall have no need of physic. The fee will go to
him who “administers to the mind deceased”—probably
the clergy. (Mem. to put your children in the
church.) I am afraid crowded parties will go out of
fashion—it would be so difficult to separate one's
globule in case of “mixed society”—yet the extrication
of gases might be improved upon. Fancy a
lady and gentleman made “common air” of, by the
mixture of their “oxygen and hydrogen!”

What most pleases me in the prospect of this Swedenborg
order of things, is the probable improvement
in the laws. In the physical age passing away, we
have legislated for the protection of the body, but no
pains or penalties for wounds upon its more sensitive
inhabitant—murder to break the snail's shell, but innocent
pastime to thrust a pin into the snail. In the
new order of things, we shall have penal laws for the
protection of the sensibilities—whether they be touched
through the fancy, the judgment, or the personal
dignity. Those will be days for poets! Critics will
be hanged—or worse. A sneer will be manslaughter.
Ridicule will be a deadly weapon, only justifiable when
used in defence of life. For scandal, imprisonment
from ten to forty years, at the mercy of the court.
All attacks upon honor, honesty, or innocence, capital
crimes. That the London Quarterly ever existed,
will be classed with such historical enormities as the
Inquisition, and torture for witchcraft; and “to be
Lockharted,” will mean, then, what “to be Burked”
means now.

You will say, dear Doctor, that I am the “ancient
mariner” of letter-writers—telling my tale out of all
apropos-ity. But after some consideration, I have
made up my mind, that a man who is at all addicted
to revery, must have one or two escape-valves—a
journal, or a very random correspondence. For reasons
many and good, I prefer the latter; and the best
of those reasons is my good fortune in possessing a
friend like yourself, who is above “proprieties” (prosodically
speaking), and so you have become to me,
what Asia was to Prometheus—

Talking of trout. We emerged from the woods of
Glenmary (you left me there in my last letter), and
rounding the top of the hill, which serves for my sunset
drop-curtain, we ran down a mile to a brook in the
bed of a low valley. It rejoices in no name, that I
could hear of; but, like much that is uncelebrated, it
has its virtues. Leaving William to tie the horse to a
hemlock, and bring on the basket, we started up the
stream, and coming to a cold spring, my friend sat
down to initiate me into the rudiments of preparing
the fly. A very gay-coated gentleman was selected,
rather handsomer than your horse-fly, and whipped
upon a rod quite too taper for a comparison.

“What next?”

“Take a bit of worm out of the tin box, and cover
the barb of the hook!”

“I will. Stay! where are the bits? I see nothing
here but full-length worms, crawling about, with
every one his complement of extremities—not a tail
astray.”

“Bah! pull a bit off!”

“What! you don't mean that I am to pull one of
these squirming unfortunates in two?”

“Certainly!”

“Well, come! that seems to me rather a liberty.
I grant you `my education has been neglected,' but,
my dear F., there is mercy in a guillotine. I had
made up my mind to the death of the fish, but this
preliminary—horror!”

“Come! don't be a woman!”

“I wish I were—I should have a pair of scissors.
Fancy having your leg pulled off, my good fellow. I
say it is due to the poor devil that the operation be as
short as possible. Suppose your thumb slips?”

“Why, the worm feels nothing! Pain is in the
imagination. Stay! I'll do it for you—there?”

What the remainder of the worm felt, I had no opportunity
of observing, as my friend thrust the tin box
into his pocket immediately; but the “bit” which he
dropped into the palm of my hand, gave every symptom
of extreme astonishment, to say the least. The
passing of the barb of the hook three times through
him, seemed rather to increase his vitality, and looked
to me as little like happiness as anything I ever saw
on an excursion of pleasure. Far be it from me, to
pretend to more sensibility than Christopher North, or
Izaak Walton. The latter had his humanities; and
Wilson, of all the men I have ever seen, carries, most
marked in his fine face, the philtre which bewitches
affection. But, emulous as I am of their fame as anglers,
and modest as I should feel at introducing innovations
upon an art so refined, I must venture upon
some less primitive instrument than thumb and finger,
for the dismemberment of worms. I must take
scissors.

I had never seen a trout caught in my life, and I do

not remember at this moment ever having, myself,
caught a fish, of any genus or gender. My first lesson,
of course, was to see the thing done. F. stole
up to the bank of the stream, as if his tread might
wake a naiad, and threw his fly into a circling, black
pool, sparkling with brilliant bubbles, which coiled
away from a small brook-leap in the shade. The
same instant the rod bent, and a glittering spotted
creature rose into the air, swung to his hand, and was
dropped into the basket. Another fling, and a small
trail of the fly on the water, and another followed.
With the third, I felt a curious uneasiness in my elbow,
extending quickly to my wrist—the tingling of a
newborn enthusiasm. F. had taken up the stream,
and with his lips apart, and body bent over, like a mortal
surprising some troop of fays at revel, it was not reasonable
to expect him to remember his pupil. So,
silently I turned down, and at the first pool threw in
my fly. Something bright seemed born at the instant
under it, and the slight tilting pull upon the pole,
took me so much by surprise, that for a second I forgot
to raise it. Up came the bright trout, raining the
silver water from his back, and at the second swing
through the air (for I had not yet learned the sleight
of the fisher to bring him quick to hand), he dropped
into the pool, and was gone. I had already begun to
take his part against myself, and detected a pleased
thrill, at his escape, venturing through my bosom.
I sat down upon a prostrate pine, to new-Shylock my
poor worm. The tin box was in F.'s pocket! Come!
here was a relief. As to the wild-wood worms that
might be dug from the pine-tassels under my feet, I
was incapable of violating their forest sanctuary. I
would fish no more. I had had my pleasure. It is
not like pulling up a stick or a stone, to pull up a resisting
trout. It is a peculiar sensation, unimaginable
till felt. I should like to be an angler very well, but
for the worm in my pocket.

The brook at my feet, and around me, pines of the
tallest lift, by thousands! You may travel through
a forest, and look upon these communicants with the
sky, as trees. But you can not sit still in a forest,
alone, and silent, without feeling the awe of their presence.
Yet the brook ran and sang as merrily, in
their black shadow, as in the open sunshine; and the
woodpecker played his sharp hammer on a tree evergreen
for centuries, as fearlessly as on a shivering
poplar, that will be outlived by such a fish-catcher as
I. Truly, this is a world in which there is small recognition
of greatness. As it is in the forest, so it is
in the town. The very gods would have their toes
trod upon, if they walked without their wings. Yet
let us take honor to ourselves above vegetables. The
pine beneath me has been a giant, with his top in the
clouds, but lies now unvalued on the earth. We recognise
greatness when it is dead. We are prodigal
of love and honor when it is unavailing. We are, in
something, above wood and stubble.

I have fallen into a sad trick, dear Doctor, of preaching
sermons to myself, from these texts of nature.
Sometimes, like other preachers, I pervert the meaning
and forget the context, but revery would lose its
charm if it went by reason. Adieu! Come up to
Glenmary, and catch trout if you will. But I will
have your worms decently drowned before boxed for
use. I can not sleep o'nights, after slipping one of
these harmless creatures out of his own mouth, in a
vain attempt to pull him asunder.