University of Virginia Library

LETTER XXXV.

My last “Needle” left me a voyager upon the Mississippi,
on my way to New Orleans, on board one of the
elegant packets that ply between that city and Natchez.
If you have never been a guest on one of these noble
vessels that constantly plow the bosom of the monarch
of waters, you can form no idea of the variety of interest
and entertainment to be drawn from a trip on one of
them. Let me describe the interior scenes of our cabin
the first evening after leaving Natchez. In one corner
of the superbly-lighted saloon was a group composed of
three lovely, dark-eyed Southern girls, a handsome young
man, and an elderly gentleman, with a fine, General
Washington head, who was dressed in a blue coat, white
vest with gilt buttons, and drab pantaloons, terminating
in polished boots—a real fine old Southern gentleman,
with princely manners. They are all engaged in seemingly
very interesting conversation, and the girls laugh
a great deal and merrily, and seem to refer everything
with a charming familiarity, yet respectful affection, to the
snowy headed gentleman, who seems to be in the most admirable
humor. His full, hearty, cheery laugh does one
good to hear, especially when one sees his fine face lighted
up with benevolence and kindliness.

The three girls seem to be teazing him to consent to

some request, while the handsome young man looks on
and enjoys the scene. I don't hear a word they say, but
I know they are all happy, and I sympathize with their
joy. Oh! how many ten thousands of happy groups
there are in all the world as happy, whose voices I not
only do not hear, but whom I do not see, and never shall
see, nor know, (until I get to Heaven,) that they ever
existed! Every hour there is a world full of joy felt by
millions, whose hearts beat like mine, and if all the happy
laughter that at this moment, while I write this line,
could be heard at once thrilling through the air, we
should think all the stars of God were shouting for joy,
and all the music of Heaven to be floating around the
earth! Indeed, this world is a happy world, and if tens
of thousands of hearts in it daily beat
tens of thousands of other hearts bound with all the
delight of joyous life.

I have often thought, when I reflected upon the sweet
and gentle characters of the dear friends I find wherever
I go, and learn to love ere I part from them, that there
must be in this God's good world, in thousands of places
where I never have been, nor ever shall be, glorious
armies of as sweet and gentle, of as intellectual and
loveable ones, whom, if I knew them, one and all, I
should love, and they would love me. I sigh to think
that I live on the same green earth, a life long with a
legion of loving spirits congenial with mine, and never
see them face to face, and that all of us will go down to
the shades of death, ignorant that the others had been
created. But, when I begin to regret this, Christianity

unfolds to my eye of faith, the world of undying life beyond
the tomb; and I console myself with the thought
that “There I shall see them and know them all, and be
known and loved of them! There the veil which separates
us congenial ones in this life will be removed, and
I shall see and know them all; not one of us all will be lost
to the others there!” But my pen is a great truant, Mr.
—. It will not so much follow facts as wander after
thoughts. It is like the “busy bee,”

In the opposite corner of the saloon sits, or rather inclines
a little out of the shade of the chandelier, yet so
that the light falls in soft transparent shadow upon her
transparent features, an invalid lady of thirty years!
Kneeling by her footstool is an Africaness, with a scarlet
kerchief bound about her cripsy brow, who looks up into
the pure intelligent face of the lady with watchful solicitude,
while with a gorgeous fan of peacock's feathers,
she slowly and gently creates a zephyr-like air about
her. There is something in the countenance of the invalid
that is touchingly beautiful. It is a face that looks
as if it were spiritualized by suffering. Her dark, intelligent
eyes, unnaturally large and bright, uneasily wander
about the saloon. The presence of strangers seems to
alarm and distress her. Yet her looks are peaceful,
calm, and resigned, like one whom sorrow hath chastened,
and who hath learned to say to pain, “Thou art
my sister!”

I feel a deep interest in her, and will approach her,

and speak gently to her, and offer my services; for she
seems to be alone, save her faithful attendant.

Hark! pulse-leaping music rolls from a grand piano
through the noble saloon. A tall, graceful, blue-eyed
lady, whom, with her husband, we took on board at a
wood-yard an hour ago, has seated herself at the instrument,
at the solicitation of several gentlemen and ladies,
who seem to know her, for on these Southern boats
everybody seems to know everybody, and feels as much
at home as one their own plantations. What superb
melody her magic fingers draw from the ivory keys! I
cease writing in my note-book to listen to a perfect
April-shower of harmony—sun-shine, rainbows, thunder,
singing birds, and ringing rain drops, all bewilderingly
and joyously heard together! The “fine old Southern
gentleman” first pricked up his ears, and then rose and
advanced; the three graces forgot to tease him, and hung
breathlessly over the piano. The lady commenced singing
Casta Diva. The invalid raised her gloriously
bright eyes, and her pearl-hued cheek flushed with a
tint as delicate as the reflections of a rose-leaf; and with
parted lips she seemed to drink in the melodious waves
of air, and receive them into her very soul. How seraphically
she smiles as she listens! Oh, music is heavenborn!
Music can reach the soul of the dying when it is
deaf to the voice of earthly love! Once I watched at
midnight by the bedside of a loved and dying maiden,
whose brow the day before had been blessed with the
waters of baptism.

“Sing to me, dearest Kate,—sing to me,” she whispered.
“I am dying. Sing to me, and let me hear
your voice the last sound of earth! I feel that my soul

is going alone. Alone, into the void that stretches
between time and eternity. Oh, sing to me as you find
my spirit departing, that my wandering soul may have
some sound of earth to cling to as it launches into that
dread unknown!”

So I sang to her, and her soul took flight on the
wings of the sweet words,

The graceful stranger who had taken her seat at the
piano, soon gathered about her not only all the ladies
and gentlemen in our cabin, but the gentlemen in the
great saloon left their politics to advance and listen,
others laid down their books and newspapers, and even
parties rose from their cards to come nigh her! There
was a perfect jam about the cabin entrance—tiers of heads
beyond tiers of heads! I myself was perfectly entranced
by the syren. Without apparent effort she would pour
and pour, and pour forth from her superbly-shaped throat,
liquid globules of melody, that intoxicated the ear of the
listener with hitherto unknown pleasure. She brought
tears into many eyes by the tenderest pathos, and again
dispelled the tears by successive outbursts of the liveliest
strains of wild, rich, song. Now she would fill all the
saloon with a storm of notes, gorgeous and grand, and
unearthly beyond conception; torrents of music, music,
music, loud, wild, and terrible, seemed to be roaring
around us in one continuous overwhelming cataract; and
when we could bear no more, a sudden and instantaneous

cessation of keys and voice would be succeeded by a soft
gentle, loving air, as simple and clear as that of a bird.
This bird-like air warbled in her throat, would seem to
ascend and ascend, and mount and soar, and still ascend
far upwards, rise higher and higher, higher and higher,
growing sweeter and fainter, ascending, and still ascending,
until, breathless with enchantment, we listened till
we lost the far off voice of the lark-like notes in the
skies—dying away at length into a sacred silence.
Every heart suspended its beating! With lips parted,
eyes raised upwards, and ears intent, stood every one of
the eager and bewitched listeners, as if an angel had
gone singing up into heaven, out of their sight.

A sudden crash of music startles the silence, as if
thunder had burst from the skies upon our heads! It is
one grand sweep of the fingers of the charmer over every
key of the instrument, in an overpowering finale, when,
rising from her seat, she seeks blushingly and modestly
her husband's eye and arm, amid the most rapturous and
prolonged applause.

“Who can she be? It must be Jenny Lind! or it is
certainly Kate Hayes!” said fifty voices. But it was
neither of these! All musical talent, Mr. —, is not
displayed in concert rooms. In private life, among
American ladies, especially among the highly-educated
Southerners, to whom music is a native air, there is as
much talent as is possessed by Miss Lind, or Miss Hayes,
or Madame Parodi. This sweet stranger and noble performer
was a Mrs. W—h, a young married lady, whose
husband's plantation was near the point where they embarked,
not many leagues below Natchez, of which she is
a native. Miss Cole, formerly of New Rochelle, Miss

Watson, of Nashville, and many others, I can name, sing
Casta Diva and a score of other operatic pieces, with as
much effect and feeling as any cantatrice that ever appeared
before a public assembly. America has more
musical talent and skill buried in the retirement of her
Southern plantations, or adorning her Northern drawing-rooms,
than Sweden, Italy, or Germany possess, in all
their valleys and amid all their romantic scenery.

Should circumstances call them to make use of their
talent and genius as a means of support, our ladies could
“beat” Europe in operatic music as our gentlemen have
lately done in yachting. Biscaccianti—withal her Italian
husband's name substituted for her own—is an American
girl, with whom I once met in her school! This intellectual
and soul-full Biscaccianti has not at present her
equal in opera song. She has the key to our joys and
tears. I learn that she has lately sailed for California,
to awaken there the echoes of the “Golden Gate.”
Should it “grate harsh thunder” before her approach, at
the sound of this songstress' silvery voice, it will swing
wide, like Milton's Celestial portal