Complete Prose Works
vital scene to the low splash of waves--new stars steadily, noiselessly
rising in the east.
As I cross the Delaware, one of the deck-hands, F. R., tells me how
a woman jump'd overboard and was drown'd a couple of hours since. It
happen'd in mid-channel--she leap'd from the forward part of the boat,
which went over her. He saw her rise on the other side in the swift
running water, throw her arms and closed hands high up, (white hands
and bare forearms in the moonlight like a flash,) and then she sank. (I
found out afterwards that this young fellow had promptly jump'd in, swam
after the poor creature, and made, though unsuccessfully, the bravest
efforts to rescue her; but he didn't mention that part at all in telling
me the story.)
SWALLOWS ON THE RIVER
_Sept. 3_--Cloudy and wet, and wind due east; air without palpable fog,
but very heavy with moisture--welcome for a change. Forenoon, crossing
the Delaware, I noticed unusual numbers of swallows in flight, circling,
darting, graceful beyond description, close to the water. Thick, around
the bows of the ferry-boat as she lay tied in her slip, they flew; and
as we went out I watch'd beyond the pier-heads, and across the broad
stream, their swift-winding loop-ribands of motion, down close to it,
cutting and intersecting. Though I had seen swallows all my life, seem'd
as though I never before realized their peculiar beauty and character in
the landscape. (Some time ago, for an hour, in a huge old country barn,
watching these birds flying, recall'd the 22d book of the Odyssey, where
Ulysses slays the suitors, bringing things to _eclaircissement_, and
Minerva, swallow-bodied, darts up through the spaces of the hall, sits
high on a beam, looks complacently on the show of slaughter, and feels
in her element, exulting, joyous.)
BEGIN A LONG JAUNT WEST
The following three or four months (Sept. to Dec. '79) I made quite a
western journey, fetching up at Denver, Colorado, and penetrating the
Rocky Mountain region enough to get a good notion of it all. Left
West Philadelphia after 9 o'clock one night, middle of September, in a
comfortable sleeper. Oblivious of the two or three hundred miles across
Pennsylvania; at Pittsburgh in the morning to breakfast. Pretty good
view of the city and Birmingham--fog and damp, smoke, coke-furnaces,
flames, discolor'd wooden houses, and vast collections of coal-barges.
Presently a bit of fine region, West Virginia, the Panhandle, and
crossing the river, the Ohio. By day through the latter State--then
Indiana--and so rock'd to slumber for a second night, flying like
lightning through Illinois.
IN THE SLEEPER
What a fierce weird pleasure to lie in my berth at night in the
luxurious palace-car, drawn by the mighty Baldwin--embodying, and
filling me, too, full of the swiftest motion, and most resistless
strength! It is late, perhaps midnight or after--distances join'd like
magic--as we speed through Harrisburg, Columbus, Indianapolis. The
element of danger adds zest to it all. On we go, rumbling and flashing,
with our loud whinnies thrown out from time to time, or trumpet-blasts,
into the darkness. Passing the homes of men, the farms, barns,
cattle--the silent villages. And the car itself, the sleeper, with
curtains drawn and lights turn'd down--in the berths the slumberers,
many of them women and children--as on, on, on, we fly like lightning
through the night--how strangely sound and sweet they sleep! (They say
the French Voltaire in his time designated the grand opera and a ship of
war the most signal illustrations of the growth of humanity's and art's
advance beyond primitive barbarism. Perhaps if the witty philosopher
were here these days, and went in the same car with perfect bedding and
feed from New York to San Francisco, he would shift his type and sample
to one of our American sleepers.)
MISSOURI STATE
We should have made the run of 960 miles from Philadelphia to St. Louis
in thirty-six hours, but we had a collision and bad locomotive smash
about two-thirds of the way, which set us back. So merely stopping over
night that time in St. Louis, I sped on westward. As I cross'd Missouri
State the whole distance by the St. Louis and Kansas City Northern
Railroad, a fine early autumn day, I thought my eyes had never looked on
scenes of greater pastoral beauty. For over two hundred miles successive
rolling prairies, agriculturally perfect view'd by Pennsylvania and New
Jersey eyes, and dotted here and there with fine timber. Yet fine as the
land is, it isn't the finest portion; (there is a bed of impervious clay
and hard-pan beneath this section that holds water too firmly, "drowns
the land in wet weather, and bakes it in dry," as a cynical farmer told
me.) South are some richer tracts, though perhaps the beauty-spots of
the State are the northwestern counties. Altogether, I am clear, (now,
and from what I have seen and learn'd since,) that Missouri, in climate,
soil, relative situation, wheat, grass, mines, railroads, and every
important materialistic respect, stands in the front rank of the Union.
Of Missouri averaged politically and socially I have heard all sorts of
talk, some pretty severe--but I should have no fear myself of getting
along safely and comfortably anywhere among the Missourians. They raise
a good deal of tobacco. You see at this time quantities of the light
greenish-gray leaves pulled and hanging out to dry on temporary
frameworks or rows of sticks. Looks much like the mullein familiar to
eastern eyes.
LAWRENCE AND TOPEKA, KANSAS
We thought of stopping in Kansas City, but when we got there we found
a train ready and a crowd of hospitable Kansians to take us on to
Lawrence, to which I proceeded. I shall not soon forget my good days
in L., in company with Judge Usher and his sons, (especially John and
Linton,) true westerners of the noblest type. Nor the similar days in
Topeka. Nor the brotherly kindness of my RR. friends there, and the
city and State officials. Lawrence and Topeka are large, bustling,
half-rural, handsome cities. I took two or three long drives about the
latter, drawn by a spirited team over smooth roads.
THE PRAIRIES (_and an Undeliver'd Speech_)
At a large popular meeting at Topeka--the Kansas State Silver Wedding,
fifteen or twenty thousand people--I had been erroneously bill'd
to deliver a poem. As I seem'd to be made much of, and wanted to be
good-natured, I hastily pencill'd out the following little speech.
Unfortunately, (or fortunately,) I had such a good time and rest, and
talk and dinner, with the U. boys, that I let the hours slip away and
didn't drive over to the meeting and speak my piece. But here it is just
the same:
"My friends, your bills announce me as giving a poem; but I have no
poem--have composed none for this occasion. And I can honestly say I am
now glad of it. Under these skies resplendent in September beauty--amid
the peculiar landscape you are used to, but which is new to me--these
interminable and stately prairies--in the freedom and vigor and sane
enthusiasm of this perfect western air and autumn sunshine--it seems
to me a poem would be almost an impertinence. But if you care to have a
word from me, I should speak it about these very prairies; they impress
me most, of all the objective shows I see or have seen on this, my first
real visit to the West. As I have roll'd rapidly hither for more than
a thousand miles, through fair Ohio, through bread-raising Indiana and
Illinois--through ample Missouri, that contains and raises everything;
as I have partially explor'd your charming city during the last two
days, and, standing on Oread hill, by the university, have launch'd my
view across broad expanses of living green, in every direction--I have
again been most impress'd, I say, and shall remain for the rest of my
life most impress'd, with that feature of the topography of your western
central world--that vast Something, stretching out on its own unbounded
scale, unconfined, which there is in these prairies, combining the real
and ideal, and beautiful as dreams.
"I wonder indeed if the people of this continental inland West know how
much of first-class _art_ they have in these prairies--how original and
all your own--how much of the influences of a character for your future
humanity, broad, patriotic, heroic and new? how entirely they tally on
land the grandeur and superb monotony of the skies of heaven, and the
ocean with its waters? how freeing, soothing, nourishing they are to the
soul?
"Then is it not subtly they who have given us our leading modern
Americans, Lincoln and Grant?--vast-spread, average men--their
foregrounds of character altogether practical and real, yet (to those
who have eyes to see) with finest backgrounds of the ideal, towering
high as any. And do we not see, in them, foreshadowings of the future
races that shall fill these prairies?
"Not but what the Yankee and Atlantic States, and every other
part--Texas, and the States flanking the south-east and the Gulf of
Mexico--the Pacific shore empire--the Territories and Lakes, and the
Canada line (the day is not yet, but it will come, including Canada
entire)--are equally and integrally and indissolubly this Nation, the
_sine qua non_ of the human, political and commercial New World. But
this favor'd central area of (in round numbers) two thousand miles
square seems fated to be the home both of what I would call America's
distinctive ideas and distinctive realities."
ON TO DENVER--A FRONTIER INCIDENT
The jaunt of five or six hundred miles from Topeka to Denver took me
through a variety of country, but all unmistakably prolific, western,
American, and on the largest scale. For a long distance we follow the
line of the Kansas river, (I like better the old name, Kaw,) a stretch
of very rich, dark soil, famed for its wheat, and call'd the Golden
Belt--then plains and plains, hour after hour--Ellsworth county, the
centre of the State--where I must stop a moment to tell a characteristic
story of early days--scene the very spot where I am passing--time 1868.
In a scrimmage at some public gathering in the town, A. had shot
B. quite badly, but had not kill'd him. The sober men of Ellsworth
conferr'd with one another and decided that A. deserv'd punishment. As
they wished to set a good example and establish their reputation the
reverse of a Lynching town, they open an informal court and bring both
men before them for deliberate trial. Soon as this trial begins the
wounded man is led forward to give his testimony. Seeing his enemy
in durance and unarm'd, B. walks suddenly up in a fury and shoots A.
through the head--shoots him dead. The court is instantly adjourn'd, and
its unanimous members, without a word of debate, walk the murderer B.
out, wounded as he is, and hang him.
In due time we reach Denver, which city I fall in love with from the
first, and have that feeling confirm'd, the longer I stay there. One of
my pleasantest days was a jaunt, via Platte cañon, to Leadville.
AN HOUR ON KENOSHA SUMMIT
Jottings from the Rocky Mountains, mostly pencill'd during a day's trip
over the South Park RR., returning from Leadville, and especially the
hour we were detain'd, (much to my satisfaction,) at Kenosha summit. As
afternoon advances, novelties, far-reaching splendors, accumulate under
the bright sun in this pure air. But I had better commence with the day.
The confronting of Platte cañon just at dawn, after a ten miles' ride in
early darkness on the rail from Denver--the seasonable stoppage at
the entrance of the cañon, and good breakfast of eggs, trout, and nice
griddle-cakes--then as we travel on, and get well in the gorge, all the
wonders, beauty, savage power of the scene--the wild stream of water,