University of Virginia Library

1. FOREST LIFE.

1. CHAPTER I.

If any body may be excused for writing a book,
it is the dweller in the wilderness; and this must, I
think, be evident to all who give the matter a moment's
reflection. My neighbor, Mrs. Rower, says,
indeed, that there are books enough in the world,
and one too many; but it will never do to consult
the neighbors, since what is said of a prophet is
doubly true of an author. Indeed, it is of very
little use to consult any body. What is written
from impulse is generally the most readable, and
this fact is an encouragement to those who are conscious
of no particular qualification beyond a desire
to write. People write because they cannot help
it. The heart longs for sympathy, and when it
cannot be found close at hand, will seek it the
world over. We never tell our thoughts but with

the hope of an echo in the thoughts of others.
We set forth in the most attractive guise the treasures
of our fancy, because we hope to warm into
life imaginations like our own. If the desire for
sympathy could lie dormant for a time, there would
be no more new books, and we should find leisure
to read those already written.

This accounts for a second attempt to delineate
some of the very ordinary scenes, manners and customs
of Western Life. No wild adventures,—no
blood-curdling hazards,—no romantic incidents,—
could occur within my limited and sober sphere.
No new lights have appeared above my narrow
horizon. Common-place all, yet I must tell it.
Those who have been accustomed to live in the
midst of a wide circle of pleasant acquaintance,—
and another, a dearer though narrower circle of beloved
friends,—where every taste finds its appropriate
gratification, and every feeling of affection its
warm response,—can scarcely be expected to appreciate
the yearning with which the dweller in the
far distant wilderness looks back upon the land of
his early love; the land of society, of conversation,
of that collision of differing yet kindred minds,—
without which the best of us become stupid,—the
land of churches, of books, of music, of pictures,—
of all that can delight the imagination as well as
all that ministers to our better nature.

Those only whom fate or a wayward choice has
removed from these advantages can describe the

aspect which they wear when viewed from an almost
hopeless distance; or the sense of alienation,
of isolation, of loneliness, which is apt to beset the
heart or the imagination of the emigrant in moments
of depression, or long hours of ill health. I have
sometimes smiled to detect myself indulging feelings
nearly akin to those which Cowper ascribes to
the “gentle savage” who was carried to England,
and then most unmercifully returned to his island.
He fancies Omai
And we might be disposed to ask just such questions,
if an ocean, instead of two or three inland
seas, rolled between us and our ancient home.

Every thing that awakens associations connected
with the cherished idea—grown doubly dear by
the aid of time and distance—is hailed with a
strange pleasure. Faces that we have viewed with
indifference in the company of those we loved,
bring with them to the wilderness the impress of
those beloved looks, and win from us at once some
share of the liking which belongs of right only to
the friends whose image is called up by their presence.
The man whom we have passed in the
streets a thousand times, without knowing or
caring to know his name, if he enter our cot by
accident to inquire his way to “the West,” is
hailed as a friend, and plied with questions, as if it
were probable that, in those crowded thoroughfares,

his objects of interest should have been the same
with ours. As the earth is perfumed with the fragrance
of the rose which has reposed on its bosom,
so the most trivial occurrence seems important
when it is entwined with a reminiscence of all we
have loved and left.

Is it surprising then that those, who are shut out
from almost every thing that taste or habit has endeared,
should desire to link themselves with the
absent by describing the objects around them, the
affairs which form their occupation, the people
with whom they associate, the modes of life which
contrast so oddly with the customs of the older
world? There is, to be sure, but little to be told;
but that little, being told, renews in some degree
the bond of union with those from whom we are
separated at an almost impossible distance. It
helps too to give some degree of distinctness to
the ideas that our friends have formed of our condition;
and if the view should frighten some to
whom certain ameliorations of existence are of the
last importance, it may console others, who are able
to perceive that humble quiet is of itself a great
good, even though much else that is desirable be
lacking.

This communication with the distant world—
this viewless chain—this mental telegraph, more
rapid than electricity itself, has a value beyond all
computation or comparison. It is another vitality
—a newly-explored world of inexhaustible enjoyment;

within, but undisturbed by a world of turmoil
and care. It affords a charm that can make
even society forgotten, at least at times, and which
in fact supplies in some measure its place, by a
magic as potent as that which enabled the sage to
show to Surrey

For those who write are never without a magic
mirror, within which they can discern at pleasure
the shadowy forms of those who are to read.

Here then is another tissue—not without many
a rent and many a seam—of Western sketches;—
more “skimble-skamble stuff” about woods and
wilds, and every-day, plain people,—men who
would “shake a king by the hand,” or perhaps “ask
him the price of the throne he sat on,” without a
misgiving;—and women, who, after conning over
the splendors of the young queen's nuptials, talk
with majestic philosophy of “so much fuss about
nothing!”

In describing those in whose minds this estimate
of worldly advantages is sedulously cherished,
it is difficult to avoid awakening occasionally an
idea that we suppose the present aspect of society
in the new country is susceptible of improvement;
that we may be in favor of adding some finishing
touches to our present degree of civilization and refinement.
To this charge it would be in vain to

plead not guilty; and we shall attempt no disguise.
A portrait, however showily painted, is worth nothing,
if it be not a resemblance. A painter would
show his skill but poorly, who, in his zeal for beautifying
his subject, should leave out a wart, even
though it grew on the tip of one's nose. Equally
unwise is he who exaggerates a wrinkle, or throws
too heavy a shade over a complexion that needs no
deepening. But he must be allowed superlatively
silly, who will quarrel with a portrait which is sufficiently
like, merely because the outline is not
that of another whom he affects to despise, but
whom he secretly considers much handsomer than
himself.

I profess to offer only rambling impressions, not
a sober view, the result of deliberate and discriminating
judgment. This I leave to wiser heads and
more industrious investigators. Women's wisdom is
always laughed at, so that we have no inducement
to be profound, and least of all on themes connected
with political economy, the discussion of which our
master seems to regard among his exclusive rights.
Indeed, we are fairly threatened that, if we persist
in claiming to run neck and neck with the nobler
sex on these subjects, we lose our precious privilege
of irresponsibility.

I, for one, am warned. I adhere deliberately

to fiddle-faddle and its immunities. As I consider
it beyond question that a copy of this incontrovertible
view of the aspect of things in the infancy of
our dear state, will be provided with an especial
crypt in the corner-stone of the great University
buildings, I have however judged it necessary to
be very exact in all things calculated to throw light
on our primitive manners and customs.

I acknowledge at the outset that I have no story
to tell. What follows is like Ariosto's poem in one
respect—“it has neither beginning nor end, further
than any detached period may be said to possess
them.” I should like to carry the resemblance
further, for “he had the art of giving to individual
parts an interest which the work does not possess
as a whole;” but it is only the defects of the great
which it is easy for the little to imitate.

My rambles will, as I foresee, carry me all over
our beautiful state. If, in the course of my wanderings,
I should venture occasionally to lead my
reader to the borders of one of those deep but
waveless little lakes, which abound in this land of
looking-glasses,—lakes which not even the offer
of being transformed into mill-ponds, could bribe
to give a false or a flattering reflection,—and if he
should chance therein to discern features which he
does not admire, I trust I may pass unvisited for
the almost unpardonable sin, when I state that I
have made all due and solicitous inquiry for a pair
of those truly American, and never-sufficiently-to-be-extolled

“glorification-spectacles,” first introduced
and recommended to the world by my
much-respected friend, Major Downing. Numerous
are the communications I have addressed to
the major, both at his principal residence of Downingville,
and at his Washington lodgings; but receiving
no answer, I conclude, knowing the well-principled
punctuality of my friend, that he must
be absent just now, on one of those pieces of secret
service, so many of which are found requisite for
the well-being of these States—perhaps negotiating
with the emperor of Russia for the purchase
of a herd of polar bears, to be trained to eat Florida
Indians; which training, I should think, might be
easily managed, by supplying them for a few
months with other dark-complexioned people, who
might be had at a cheaper rate.