University of Virginia Library

2. CHAPTER II.

I can realize very sensibly the power of the
patent glorifiers to which I have alluded; for I
once borrowed of a political friend the optics he
had used in travelling through the state, with a
view to qualify himself to illustrate, by apt local
allusions, a speech he intended making, preparatory
to his nomination for some highly-dignified office
in the gift of the people—an office in which he
expected to have an opportunity to sacrifice his
private feelings to the public good, by accepting a
pecuniary compensation of considerable amount.
After his object was attained, he had of course no
further use for his magic glasses; and, by his kind
leave, I obtained their invaluable aid for a tour of
observation, certain that I should now be able to
give the most fascinating and satisfactory accounts
of all I saw and heard. But my usual ill fortune
pursued me, and all my hopes of writing travels,
with which no fault could be found, were nipped

in the bud by an accident which I shall now proceed
to describe.

All my preparations for this journey, so fraught
with pleasurable anticipations, had been made with
unusual care. My travelling-basket (an old and
tried friend, somewhat the worse for wear) was
supplied with two or three capacious note-books—
not French toys, “shell of tortoise, clasped with
gold,” but real, serviceable journalizers. The old
lumber-wagon, with a pair of plough-horses,
equipped in working-harness, to withstand the corduroy
and swamp-holes, received me and my luggage;
and with a veil of green sarcenet closely
drawn to save my precious eyes,—precious especially,
because without their aid the generosity
of my friend would be of no avail,—I commenced
my journey. I deferred placing in their appropriate
position the instruments which were to make me
the most popular of sight-seers, until I should have
reached new localities, where the force of habit
would not be likely to diminish their power. Old
Dobbin and Dagon jogged along at their usual pace,
and I occupied myself for some time in completing
our little internal arrangements, and ascertaining, by
the most rigid ransacking of my treacherous memory,
that nothing essential to the success of my undertaking
had been left behind.

These cares being disposed of, and the immediate
vicinity of our village passed, I drew forth my
treasures, and prepared a note-book for actual service.

The first look was cast in my lap, as charity
begins at home. There lay my simple basket and
note-book, each faded tint renewed, each time-worn
corner reburnished; while about the edges
of both played a prismatic halo—an edging of
rainbow; such (only more brilliant) as will sometimes
be the effect of that bewitched condition of
the eyes, which is the consequence of over-dosing
with quinine. So dazzling was the whole, that I
carefully drew down my veil before I ventured to
look abroad in the sunshine.

At first the view by the road-side seemed scarcely
altered from my old habit of seeing with my own
eyes; but I soon found this was to be ascribed to
the green veil, which softened all hues to a sort of
neutral tint, leaving very little brightness to the
brightest, and adding several not very pleasing
shades to the darker ones. I could not help wondering
whether some foreign travellers might not
thoughtlessly have equipped themselves with sarcenet
veils for their American tour—but to my story.

No sooner was the envious shade removed, than
a scene of wonders opened upon me. We were
passing over Snake Hill,—an elevation which had
always before appeared to me covered with stunted
oak bushes, relieved at intervals by a huge stump
or a girdled tree. What was my surprise to find
its gently-swelling sides planted with luxurious
sugar-maples and lofty elms, with fantastic arbors
formed here and there amid their stately trunks by

garlands of honey-suckle and eglantine, so closely
interlaced, that no ray of the fervid sun penetrated
their flowery depths, even at high noon! The only
vestige I could discover of the wild oak growth
which I had supposed to characterize this region,
was to be found in the most delicately-fancied
garden-chairs, which abounded in these shady
bowers, and of which the gnarled roots and twisted
branches of the native tree furnished the material.
As we proceeded slowly over the Macadamized
road whose broad bosom courted the tread of our
delighted steeds, I could discern youths and maidens
habited with the simplicity of Arcadia, and the
taste of Madame Vestris, “tending a few sheep,”
at picturesque intervals in the grove. Such, with
little variation, was the aspect presented by what
we have always considered as oak-openings!

When we approached the more settled part of
the country, new and glorious views opened upon
us. On every side pillared palaces of painted pine
lined the thronged thoroughfares, while marble and
mosaic marked the mansions of the more wealthy.
Gorgeous peacocks unfurled their flagrant fans in
courts musical with the murmur of magnificent
fountains. Ladies lovelier than light reclined on
lawns of emerald velvet, or loitered languidly at
gilded lattices, lily-hung and lace-shaded, inhaling
delicious perfumes, and listening to lays of love,
warbled to thrilling lutes and silver-voiced lyres.
Here would be seen a benevolent being bestowing

upon a bashful beggar burdens of balmy bounty;
there a conscientious creditor calling back the careless
calculator who had incautiously overpaid his
account. Barristers with beaming eyes were evidently
beseeching their clients to consider before
they leaped into law; physicians prescribing to
their pleased patients delicate diet and amusing excursions,
rather than doleful dumps and odious
doses. Now a band of blooming children sporting,
blossom-wreathed, over the embroidered meadows;
and again, a festive dance of happy villagers,—the
damsels in pink bodices, the gallants in blue shorts,
—threading the green alleys, and flinging flowers
at each other in their fairy flight, at proper intervals
in the music. In short, all seemed like the
visions that hover over the pillows of poets who
write for the opera, or like the still more enchanting
reality of the Cashmerian Saturnalia of roses.

I was sadly loath to leave these delightful localities;
but the modern mode of making tours while
one is sitting stock still, staring at one set of objects,
never suited my taste, and, since observation was
my object, I felt obliged to go on.

The scene became gradually more rural as we
receded from the regions of rare splendor, which
I have been attempting to describe. Cottages now
appeared, roofed with golden thatch, and enriched
with mosses, like silk-plush; every casement was
curtained with veined ivy, satin-leaved, and every
door surrounded with its group of lovely mothers,

and children whom Sir Thomas Lawrence could
not have rendered more bewitchingly beautiful.
Odors of ineffable purity and power filled the transparent
atmosphere; gushing streams of crystal water
sparkled and whispered along beds of silver
sand, on whose borders the sportive infant slaked
his thirst from cups of agate and ivory.

As we stopped, for a moment, to contemplate this
scene, I felt that the heat of the day and the excitement
of my feelings had rendered me inconveniently
thirsty, and I made this an apology for
alighting, and entering one of these poetical paradises,
to ask one of its lovely inmates for—I tried
in vain for a redeeming paraphrase—a drink. I
had only time to cast a hasty glance around at the
exquisite symmetry and neatness with which the
few articles required by a life of Arcadian simplicity
were arranged, when a brimming goblet
of the sparkling water was presented, with a deep
reverence, by a girl of seraphic beauty. After this
refreshment, I had no decent excuse for remaining
longer, and I was preparing to remount the vehicle,
which I then, for the first time, observed to
have been fresh painted and resplendently varnished,
and in short made to correspond in some
degree with the scenery through which it was passing,
while old Dobbin and Dagon had new coats
well brushed, and harness which gave back, at every
point, with interest, the rays of the burning sun.
But ere I had placed my foot on the step, no longer

mud-incrusted, but glowing with Brussels carpet,
a voice from one of those charming mothers arrested
my course.

“Lovely lady!” she began,—and my ears were
too sweetly enchanted to allow of disputing the
propriety of the expression,—“lovely lady, will
you let my Coralie look for one moment at your
glasses?”

Who could hesitate? In an instant the precious
loan of my friend was intrusted to the dimpled
fingers of an infant cherub; in another,—lay
scattered in a million of fragments on the ground!

“Well! I swan!” exclaimed the mamma, giving
a round box on the ear to a dirty little urchin;
“what made you let the little hussy have your
specs?”

I raised my aching eyes to her face, and stood
speechless. Why should I describe the dingy
locks,—the check-apron,—the shoeless feet of
the object of my admiration! Why picture anew
a tumble-down log-house, with its appropriate perfumes
of milk-emptins, bread, and fried onions?
Why speak of Dobbin and Dagon, shorn of their
beams, and lopping down their heads, to crop the
scrub-oaks, which surrounded them, or of the old
wagon, patched and mended more than enough, yet
requiring more patching and mending?

It is needless to dwell on these particulars. It
is painful to tell of log-causeways, now seeming far
rougher than of old, or of rustic maidens, looking

coarse only by contrast with the illusions of the
past. Homeward I took my melancholy way,
resolutely closing my eyes upon prospects of merely
ordinary beauty, which I knew would be, for the
present, divested even of their real charms, and
concluding in my own mind it would be better to
content myself with seeing with my own eyes.
And after all, where would be the use of giving a
very flowery description, unless I could be sure that
such of my readers as might be attracted to see for
themselves could be furnished with patent glorifiers
too? Upon the whole, I have concluded to be satisfied
without pleasing every body.

This journey may have been only a dream, but
if so, it certainly contained, like some other dreams,
much of the “inner life of things.”