University of Virginia Library

LETTER XXVI.

Once more in my own room, at my own desk and
escritoire, with familiar objects, I resume my pen to address
you. How much what one writes depends for its
character upon the place in which it is penned? To
write at ease, I must have everything about me that I
have been accustomed to. I must have my light arranged
in just such a way, so that a soft radiance, mellowing
everything in the room, shall fall upon my paper,
just distinctly enough for me to see, yet not strong enough
to distract my attention by glare. I must have perfect
quiet, too. I can write best by lamp-light, a shaded
lamp, with the light thrown softly upon the paper. In a
rainy day my thoughts flow freest. I must have an old-fashioned
goose-quill. I cannot accustom myself to a
steel pen. It trips me up, and I have an awkward way
of bearing on when I write that a steel pen won't yield
to with sufficient flexibility. Half the people in this
country write on ruled paper. This is my abhorrence!
I don't stop to notice lines, and so if I can't get any but
ruled paper, I write as often between the lines as on
them. I was taught, fortunately, to write straight at
school; and so were all my schoolmates; and, till lately,
I supposed everybody could write on unruled paper.

But when I was last in Nashville, I went to three book
stores on an unsuccessful search for unruled letter paper.
“We don't keep it—it is hardly ever called for—everybody
buys the ruled,” were the answers we received: but
at length I have obtained some by sending away for it.
The colonel says he has seen letters both from Henry
Clay and Daniel Webster written on lines. This is no
doubt owing to the accident of not having unruled paper
by them. It is school-boyish to follow this habit. Certainly
no young lady ought to be considered educated
until she can write a letter on paper without ruled lines.

My last epistle left me just on the eve of departing
from the Springs. Well, we did leave the following
morning, taking up our line of travel, in the same imposing
caravanish manner in which we had come.

Towards evening, after a cool day's ride through the
forest, before described, we reached the little town of
Mount Pleasant, which is situated amid the loveliest
scenery possible. Here we remained all night, putting
up with indifferent accommodations. This village ought
to be the prettiest in the state. But its population
seems to have no taste or pride. They let enormous
hogs, with noses like ploughshares, turn up their streets,
which the rain converts into bog holes; they neglect to
paint, or, at least, white-wash their fences; they pay no
attention to the neatness of their front yards; they are
without passable side-walks, and destitute of shade trees.
Why, if the scores of idlers we saw lounging about the
shops and tavern, would go to work for a week, in earnest,
they might make their town truly a Mount Pleasant,
and double the value of it.

How dirty some of these Western towns are kept. I

feel as if I wanted to take up the people and show them
the New England villages, as they show children London.
I am told the citizens are intelligent and highly
respectable; how then can they sit down in so much untidiness?
Why is it that they don't know that rocks,
barrel hoops, rails, old shoes, old hats, boot legs, rags,
broken crockery, and such trash, disfigure a street, and
would mar the finest avenue that ever ran through a village?
The worst of it is, Mr. —, Western people
don't care one fig for the opinion of strangers; while
Northerners live, as you may say, for the eyes of others.
Hence the attention of the one to the looks of everything
about his house and town, and the indifference of the
other to those things.

After leaving Mount Pleasant, our road lay through a
sweet valley, along the margin of a romantic stream.
The scenery was charming. In the course of an hour's
ride, Isabel selected fifty superb sites for villas; for she
has a penchant for looking out pretty places to build upon;
and, for that matter, so have I. But as I am not an
heiress, I fear the only house I shall ever call mine, will
be one of those “mansions” spoken of in the good Book.

About nine o'clock we passed Ashwood school, nestled
beneath the wooded cone of Ken Hill, and were so fortunate
as to meet at the gate the learned Professor of
Belles Lettres, Donald McLeod, Esq., of Glasgow University,—a
gentleman well known in the literary constellation
of our land. He is said to possess one of the
most scholarly minds in this country. How is it that
all Glasgow, and Dublin, and Oxford men that I meet,
are so much better educated than Harvard and Yale men?
Is the American system superficial? One would think

so. The most eloquent scholar I recollect ever to have
seen was a graduate of the University of Dublin. I
have never seen an American, even a Professor, who
could converse fluently in Latin, or write Greek prose
with facility; yet I have seen many from the above Universities
do both. As for the young men here in the
West, their education is scarcely deserving of the name.
There is not a college in Tennessee of much higher rank
than a New England Academy, and ambitious young
men, after taking degrees at these Western “Colleges,”
go to Harvard, and enter Sophomore. Perhaps a senior
Harvard man would have to enter low at Oxford! Who
knows? The education of girls West is far beyond that
of the youths. Expense is not taken into account where
a daughter is to be educated; but fathers seem to think
money is thrown away in educating boys. Tennessee
has no common school system in operation, and in her
capital, hundreds of children are growing up wholly
ignorant.

Mr. McLeod was accompanied by a short, little, foreign-looking
old gentleman, with gray whiskers, and a
demi-military air, who was over-dressed like a French
petit maítre of the ancient school. He was mounted on
a large gray horse, which he managed with a skilled
hand. He was presented to us as “The Compte Meolis.”
He bowed to his saddle bow, and lifted his chapeau with
dignified and smiling politeness, and said he was “our
very humble servant.”

“Meolis,” said I, thoughtfully, “There was a Governor
of Rome of that name, sir?”

“Yes,” he answered; “that is me, at your service,
Miss,” he responded, bowing.

I gazed on him with curiosity, for I now recalled to
mind that General Meolis of Rome, was commander of
the Garde Mobile, which was composed of Knights; and
that he held Rome against the Spanish troops. This
warrior was then, in person, this old Knight of seventy
now before me, riding by the side of the carriage, his
riding whip and bridle in one hand, and his open snuffbox
in the other. As we passed a cart which was discharging
stone, the noise alarmed the old Count's horse,
and he had an opportunity of displaying his admirable
horsemanship, by skillfully restraining the fire of his
animal; but in the caracolling, a paper was released from
the rider's gaping coat pocket, which bursting as it fell,
strewed the ground with candy and bon-bons. Then he
dismounted carefully to gather them up, smiling good
humoredly at the mishap, and telling us that he always
carried them when he went to the school, “pour les enfants.”
We found him social and amusing, and quite
a gallant homme, and really regretted his departure
when he took leave of us at the marble gate-way of Monmouth,
the residence of Mr. A. Polk, where he resides.
When he left us, he bowed to his horse's mane, and
slowly rode up the avenue, as if he regretted to quit
such good company as Isabel and me. Mr. McLeod left
us previously, to call at St. John's Chapel. From the
colonel I learned that the Count was an old French
exile; that he was a nephew of Marshal Ney, and had
been a distinguished officer under Napoleon. That he
had been many years in this country, had taught at
Germantown, and a few years since was invited to take
the chair of Modern Languages in the Columbia Institute;
but that, being now almost too old to teach, Mr.

Polk, with genuine Southern hospitality, has invited him
to become an inmate of his house, where he has given
him a home for life.

The Count is a man of excellent amiability, and a
good deal of simplicity of character; but his friends say,
as his memory of past events fails, he draws a little on
his imagination, and they sometimes run him somewhat
hard upon having said he was at two places on the same
day, which were five hundred miles apart, doing good
fighting at both. But the Count takes the quizzing in
good part, shrugs his shoulders, plies his snuff, smiles
ineffably, and says, “Maybe, jentilmen, I vas mistake
de day. But vera good! You may laugh, I laugh next
time!”

The Count is fond of children, for whom he always
has his pockets full of cakes or candy; he is a good
“churchman,” and occasionally still teaches the French
class en amateur at Ken Hill School. May he live a
thousand years! if his generous host has no objections.

After passing the Ashwood gate and post-office, we
drove rapidly into Columbia, a distance of seven miles;
and by three o'clock in the afternoon, we once more beheld
the roofs and chimneys of Overton Hall towering
above the oaks which environ it. How delightful the
sensation of realizing that one's wanderings have ceased,
and that one is at home again! It is worth enduring
the discomforts of a watering-place a short time, to enjoy
this feeling. Every thing seems to be more beautiful
here than before. And how many changes have
taken place in the few weeks we have been absent! The
peaches have ripened; the apples are becoming rosy
red; a new set of flowers have made their appearance,

and instead of the little eggs which we left in the mocking-bird's
cage are three innocent little things that look
something like mice, on the eve of feathering. Then
the canaries were so glad to see us, sending forth the
wildest and most joyous carols from their tiny throats
for very happiness. The rabbits frisked about us, and
all the dogs, “Tray, Blanche, and Sweetheart,” acted as
if they would shake their tails off with their rough and
gyratory welcomings, running around and around us,
and then around the house, chasing each other in full
race, and tumbling and rolling over the grass, from sheer
excess of spirits. Then the old blind war-horse pricked
up his ears, when he heard my voice, and gave three
great whisks of his heavy tail, ending with a low whine
of joy. But you should have seen my pet deer, the
once wounded invalid. I had no sooner entered the
green paddock where it was, then it came bounding towards
me with long, graceful leaps, and would fairly
have run over me, if I had not stepped aside. As it
was, it gave me a rough and honest-hearted welcome,
rubbing its nose against my shoulder, and almost, nay,
I very believe, the rogue tried to kiss me, but this salutation
I adroitly escaped, and hugged my pet about the
neck in lieu thereof, and patted its shoulder. But this
was too quiet a way of expressing its joy at seeing me
again; so it broke from me, and began to caper about
the paddock, flying around it, then across it at right
angles, then from corner to corner, and then miscellaneously
in every direction, all at once, and finally terminating
this mikra mania by suddenly crouching at
my feet.

But the best welcome of all was that from the servants.

They flocked around the carriage, every dark
face radiant with smiles, and exhibiting ivory enough
for half a mile of piano-keys placed in a row. Jenny
Lind's reception in New York was a trifle compared with
ours. I thought they would shake our hands off. After I
had been a little while in my room, in came Aunt Winny,
the fat cook, in her Sunday fix, having rigged up to
welcome me, being too particular to come in, in her working
dress. She seemed so glad to see me, and said it so
many times, that I did not at all regret a trip, the return
from which could be productive of so much simple
and hearty joy. She then told me how they had all
missed us, and “'specially the deer, Missy Kate,” she
added, “it acted just like a human a'ter you went away,
and cried a'ter you like a baby, and wouldn't eat noffin'
for de fuss two days, and I had to cook it someat nice,
and coax it, and then 'twouldn't eat till I made Jake put
on your old rainy cloak and old sun hat and come and
stand by me, to make b'lieve it's you, you know, and the
simple t'ing begin to eat right off!”

At the idea of seeing the black imp Jake, her long-heeled,
thick-lipped son, personating me, I burst into a hearty
fit of laughter, but I did not fail to compliment Aunt
Winny's sagacity, and to reward her solicitude for my pet.

All is now as it was before we left. I have Isabel at
her piano again before breakfast, practising Jenny Lind's
songs; the colonel goes galloping a-field ere the dew is
off the grass, and I am at my morning studies in German
as before. There is, however, some prospect that
ere long we shall make another excursion, but not to
any watering-place. The colonel will have to visit New
Orleans to arrange for the sale of his cotton and tobacco,

in October, and he has invited us to accompany him.
The trip will be a delightful one, the first two hundred
miles being down the dark flowing Cumberland, which is
described as one of the most beautiful of Western rivers,
then on the Ohio, and thence launched upon the Mississippi,
we shall keep its mighty current for a thousand
miles. The idea of such a voyage in the superb steamers
that float upon these western waters is pleasant, and I
have no doubt that we shall greatly enjoy ourselves.
Yet I sigh at the prospect of once more quitting our
retreat. But in this world, says the wise man, “Nothing
is in one stay.” Every thing, indeed, is moving.
The earth races round the sun, the moon around the
earth, which rolls around itself; Mars and Jupiter chassé
with Venus, and the sun itself, say the astronomers,
marches at a dignified pace around some unknown centre
of the universe. “Keep moving,” then, being the
watchword of the planets, how can we insignificant
dwellers thereon but follow the example of our betters!
So we shall go to New Orleans.

Whether I write you again before we are en route,
will depend on circumstances. I promised you a letter
from the Hermitage, and this you shall have, if possible,
as next week we ride over there, it being but a short two
hours' gallop across the country.

I am glad to find the Americans received Jenny Lind
with so much enthusiasm. A love for music is common
to men and angels. It allies us to them in sympathies
the more we delight in song. It is a divine talent, and
if we believe the Bible, it will go with us beyond the
grave; for the happy beings in Paradise are represented
as singing now the “Song of the Lamb,” and now the

“New Song,” to the sublime accompaniment of ten
thousand times ten thousand angels striking their harps
of gold, saying:

“Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power,
and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and
glory, and blessing; and every creature which is on the
earth, and under the earth, heard I saying, Blessing, and
honor, and glory, and power be unto Him that sitteth upon
the throne, and unto the Lamb forever;” and they ended
this celestial chorus by casting their glittering crowns
before the throne of Him who liveth forever and ever.

It is a hopeful thing for a nation to rise up as one
man, and do homage to this personification of earthly
music. They do not so much worship her, as recognize
the existence in her of the perfection of that which belongs
to humanity en masse, but is vouchsafed to but
one in a generation. To see them doing homage to her
kindles hope for the elevation of our country, just as
following in the chariot-wheels of a conqueror, with his
garments rolled in blood, would darken hopes of the advancement
of humanity. One thing only is wanting to
complete the halo of glory which encircles the modest
brow of Jenny Lind. It is to consecrate her voice by
singing therewith one Hymn to the Being who endowed
her with it. Let her pour forth in the sacred chaunts
of the princely David, or the queenly Miriam, that thrilling
voice, and our souls would soar on wings of her
songs to the very gates of Paradise. Then, indeed,
would she be able to prove to the world that music is a
“gift of God wherewith to praise Him.”