At Home And Abroad; Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe. Margaret Fuller
people talk about it as if it were the only indispensable thing, and see what I saw in Chicago. An elderly lady from Philadelphia, who had been visiting her sons in the West, arrived there about one o'clock on a hot Sunday noon. She rang the bell and requested a room immediately, as she wanted to get ready for afternoon service. Some delay occurring, she expressed great regret, as she had ridden all night for the sake of attending church. She went to church, neither having dined nor taken any repose after her journey."—Manuscript Notes.
CHAPTER III.
ROCK RIVER.—OREGON.—ANCIENT INDIAN VILLAGE.—GANYMEDE TO HIS EAGLE.—WESTERN FOURTH OF JULY CELEBRATION.—WOMEN IN THE WEST.—KISHWAUKIE.—BELVIDERE.—FAREWELL.
In the afternoon of this day we reached the Rock River, in whose neighborhood we proposed to make some stay, and crossed at Dixon's Ferry.
This beautiful stream flows full and wide over a bed of rocks, traversing a distance of near two hundred miles, to reach the Mississippi. Great part of the country along its banks is the finest region of Illinois, and the scene of some of the latest romance of Indian warfare. To these beautiful regions Black Hawk returned with his band "to pass the summer," when he drew upon himself the warfare in which he was finally vanquished. No wonder he could not resist the longing, unwise though its indulgence might be, to return in summer to this home of beauty.
Of Illinois, in general, it has often been remarked, that it bears the character of country which has been inhabited by a nation skilled like the English in all the ornamental arts of life, especially in landscape-gardening. The villas and castles seem to have been burnt, the enclosures taken down, but the velvet lawns, the flower-gardens, the stately parks, scattered at graceful intervals by the decorous hand of art, the frequent deer, and the peaceful herd of cattle that make picture of the plain, all suggest more of the masterly mind of man, than the prodigal, but careless, motherly love of Nature. Especially is this true of the Rock River country. The river flows sometimes through these parks and lawns, then betwixt high bluffs, whose grassy ridges are covered with fine trees, or broken with crumbling stone, that easily assumes the forms of buttress, arch, and clustered columns. Along the face of such crumbling rocks, swallows' nests are clustered, thick as cities, and eagles and deer do not disdain their summits. One morning, out in the boat along the base of these rocks, it was amusing, and affecting too, to see these swallows put their heads out to look at us. There was something very hospitable about it, as if man had never shown himself a tyrant near them. What a morning that was! Every sight is worth twice as much by the early morning light. We borrow something of the spirit of the hour to look upon them.
The first place where we stopped was one of singular beauty, a beauty of soft, luxuriant wildness. It was on the bend of the river, a place chosen by an Irish gentleman, whose absenteeship seems of the wisest kind, since, for a sum which would have been but a drop of water to the thirsty fever of his native land, he commands a residence which has all that is desirable, in its independence, its beautiful retirement, and means of benefit to others.
His park, his deer-chase, he found already prepared; he had only to make an avenue through it. This brought us to the house by a drive, which in the heat of noon seemed long, though afterwards, in the cool of morning and evening, delightful. This is, for that part of the world, a large and commodious dwelling. Near it stands the log-cabin where its master lived while it was building, a very ornamental accessory.
In front of the house was a lawn, adorned by the most graceful trees. A few of these had been taken out to give a full view of the river, gliding through banks such as I have described. On this bend the bank is high and bold, so from, the house or the lawn the view was very rich and commanding. But if you descended a ravine at the side to the water's edge, you found there a long walk on the narrow shore, with a wall above of the richest hanging wood, in which they said the deer lay hid. I never saw one but often fancied that I heard them rustling, at daybreak, by these bright, clear waters, stretching out in such smiling promise where no sound broke the deep and blissful seclusion, unless now and then this rustling, or the splash of some fish a little gayer than the others; it seemed not necessary to have any better heaven, or fuller expression of love and freedom, than in the mood of Nature here.
Then, leaving the bank, you would walk far and yet farther through long, grassy paths, full of the most brilliant, also the most delicate flowers. The brilliant are more common on the prairie, but both kinds loved this place.
Amid the grass of the lawn, with a profusion of wild strawberries, we greeted also a familiar love, the Scottish harebell, the gentlest and most touching form of the flower-world.
The master of the house was absent, but with a kindness beyond thanks had offered us a resting-place there. Here we were taken care of by a deputy, who would, for his youth, have been assigned the place of a page in former times, but in the young West, it seems, he was old enough for a steward. Whatever be called his function, he did the honors of the place so much in harmony with it, as to leave the guests free to imagine themselves in Elysium. And the three days passed here were days of unalloyed, spotless happiness.
There was a peculiar charm in coming here, where the choice of location, and the unobtrusive good taste of all the arrangements, showed such intelligent appreciation of the spirit of the scene, after seeing so many dwellings of the new settlers, which showed plainly that they had no thought beyond satisfying the grossest material wants. Sometimes they looked attractive, these little brown houses, the natural architecture of the country, in the edge of the timber. But almost always, when you came near the slovenliness of the dwelling, and the rude way in which objects around it were treated, when so little care would have presented a charming whole, were very repulsive. Seeing the traces of the Indians, who chose the most beautiful sites for their dwellings, and whose habits do not break in on that aspect of Nature under which they were born, we feel as if they were the rightful lords of a beauty they forbore to deform. But most of these settlers do not see it at all; it breathes, it speaks in vain to those who are rushing into its sphere. Their progress is Gothic, not Roman, and their mode of cultivation will, in the course of twenty, perhaps ten years, obliterate the natural expression of the country.
This is inevitable, fatal; we must not complain, but look forward to a good result. Still, in travelling through this country, I could not but be struck with the force of a symbol. Wherever the hog comes, the rattlesnake disappears; the omnivorous traveller, safe in its stupidity, willingly and easily makes a meal of the most dangerous of reptiles, and one which the Indian looks on with a mystic awe. Even so the white settler pursues the Indian, and is victor in the chase. But I shall say more upon the subject by and by.
While we were here, we had one grand thunder-storm, which added new glory to the scene.
One beautiful feature was the return of the pigeons every afternoon to their home. At this time they would come sweeping across the lawn, positively in clouds, and with a swiftness and softness of winged motion more beautiful than anything of the kind I ever knew. Had I been a musician, such as Mendelssohn, I felt that I could have improvised a music quite peculiar, from the sound they made, which should have indicated all the beauty over which their wings bore them. I will here insert a few lines left at this house on parting, which feebly indicate some of the features.
THE WESTERN EDEN
.
Familiar to the childish mind were tales
Of rock-girt isles amid a desert sea,
Where unexpected stretch the flowery vales
To soothe the shipwrecked sailor's misery.
Fainting, he lay upon a sandy shore,
And fancied that all hope of life was o'er;
But let him patient climb the frowning wall,
Within, the orange glows beneath the palm-tree tall,
And