The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844

But here am I, walking stoutly and merrily along, unincumbered with luggage or care; and because I do not care what the next day or hour may bring forth, every thing seems to turn up just as I would have it if I had the ordering of events. I shall not pause to offer any philosophical conjectures as to the reason why we are invariably disappointed in our conclusions, (excepting they are mathematical ones) concerning the future; merely asking the amiable reader whether he ever knew such an anticipation to be exactly realized. I shall not stop to make any such conjectures, because I should only get deeper into the dark, and I am in deep enough for comfort now; and secondly, it is against my principles. I am living out of doors, and make mention only of things out of doors.

But I trudge stoutly forward, whistling as I go; making myself as agreeable as possible to myself and to every body whom I meet; on jocose terms with every thing; decidedly agricultural in my tastes and pursuits, at every farmer’s house where I happen to put up for the night: at one place in search of employment as a day-laborer; at another, an artist; by turns every thing. Is not this the way to travel? My steps wander where they choose; and if I keep on to the end of the earth, what will it matter? I will go to the north; assume the dress, language and manners of those who dwell within the frozen circle; I will become a Greenlander; I will go and preach the religion of Mohammed to the inhabitants of Patagonia; I will brush up the gods of Rome; dust that old mythology; compound and simplify the whole into a good, comfortable, believable system, and proclaim Olympian Jove in the deserts of Amazonia. I will be a Turk, an Indian, a Pirate; I will be any thing. What do I care, and who shall say me nay? This sensation of freedom is too delicious to be interrupted by any companionship. And for my part, I want no better companions than this wind, which free as I am, blows against my cheek, and those clouds, that fly in unending succession over my head. O! ye blue chariots of the Thunderer! whither hurry ye so rapidly? Over hill and valley, and countries and cities of men, ye fly unheeding; and borne forward on the swift pinions of the wind, ye speed on your mission afar! What to you are states, and kingdoms, or land or ocean? Furiously driving in black armies to meet opposing armies, or singly floating in that waveless sea of blue, your existence is above the earth; men look up to you with wonder or terror, but your glance is never downward. Onward ye wander, in your unbounded career, at your own free will. Nothing bounds my career or my will. Fleecy ears! if ye would sustain the form of a mortal, triumphantly would you and I sail over the heads of men! Softly, obedient to the impulse of chance, would we glide over continent and sea, and explore the mysteries of undiscovered islands and climes; calmly would I look down on the strife or toil of human passions, and calmly would we ride on forever, through night and day! But if the clouds are not, the earth is, mine—and I am my own! There are none to molest or make me afraid with the useless importunities or warnings of friendship. My destiny is my own; and it is pleasant not to care what I may be or do. Pleasure is now; sorrow is prospective; and life will be only pleasure, because I let the past and the future go, and crowd as many happy thoughts as possible into the present moment.

What a spacious plain of the world! Dotted with habitations and with men of all colors, and customs, and conditions! Every one thinks he possesses a soul; and in virtue thereof, he considers himself entitled to set up as an independent existence, and endeavors to move in a little path of his own. But in fact, he plods humbly along, and repeats with patient toil the example of labor and unspeculating perseverance that his fathers have set him. A vast multitude, they darken the land! Mighty hopes and aspirations swell each small bosom. Each imagines that his designs are peculiar, and for him in particular was every thing mainly made. An unceasing rush of footsteps and clash of voices! And must I be confounded in the crowd? Let me preserve my individuality in the desert! If I were not an insect, it might be different; but as I am no larger than other men, I will not daily measure myself by their standard; I will forget in solitude the littleness of my stature.

The shades of evening tinge the green of the fields with a darker hue; and the young farmer goes wearily and yet lightly homeward. Lightly, for he leaves behind him labor and trouble, and his fair-haired wife will greet him with her constant and love-lit smile. Cheerily will the small family draw around their board, covered with the simple and satisfying products of their own soil. And when all care is ended, when night is duskily stealing over the earth, he and his bride will sit down alone in their cottage door, in the red light of the western clouds. Over all the dim landscape there are no sights or sounds; and in themselves there are no feelings but those of contentment and love. In his strong palm her soft hand, on his broad breast reclining her head, their hearts are filled and overflow with sweet thoughts and gentle words of present happiness. Fair prospects also of the future rise up before them. Many years crowned with prosperity they see in store for them; and in each one, many an evening like this, of deep confiding love. Hour after hour, into the deepening night, their low tones and slow words murmur on brokenly; and they know of nothing in all the world that is wanting to their blessedness. What if the dream should last all their life? It may; or if this passes away, another will take its place. The question then seems to be, whether it is better to live in a delusion and be happy, or to wake and be miserable? Whether it is profitable for a man to walk joyfully through life, covering and coloring over every defect in human nature that he may love it, and keep within him a contented heart, or industriously spy out its deformities, and hate it and himself for possessing it? If nature is in reality naked and rugged, happy is he whose imagination can throw over her a robe of grace. Most happy he who can see in his fellow-creatures such qualities that he can love them. For me, I will love sterner scenes and sterner thoughts. Human beauty is an illusion; and it does not become the sober wisdom of manhood to be deceived by it. The young farmer and his young wife may be happy; and so may those who find delight in the crowded hall where taste and beauty meet; where are the sounds of clear-ringing, girlish voices, and many glancing feet, and the innumerable light of maiden’s eyes, and heavy folds of auburn hair, and the flush of thought and emotion continually passing over fair faces, with the swell of music that thrills, and the air laden with fragrance that intoxicates. Or in the still twilight, by the side of her whose every note makes his pulse to tremble with the breathing of song, and the incense of flowers, and forgetfulness of the world, to feel the thought stealing over his heart that perhaps he is not uncared for. It is sweet, but vain; sweet and vain as the smiling, blushing slumber of a young girl. Dream on! dream on! for if you can always sleep, what will matter to you the storms and confusion without?

But as for me, I cannot sleep. Every thing my eye rests on is harsh and ungraceful, because, having passed through the seven-times heated furnace, I must look through the covering and see the reality.

MOONLIGHT ON THE RIVER AND PRAIRIE

Wearily I mount this steep eminence, and on its bald summit take off my hat, that I may feel the cool breeze. It comes fresh with the dew that it has snatched in its flight from the bosom of Lake Superior. It rolls over the tall grass of the prairie, which bends beneath its weight, sighs by me, and seems to cling to me as it passes, and moves on toward the arid plains of the South. The Ohio sweeps down in calmness and majesty. With its surface of quicksilver, and the little waves dancing up in gladness, and its heavy dull wash, it rolls along its mighty mass of waters, hastening to pour itself into the mightier mass of the Mississippi. Occasionally a giant tree, torn from its place, and cast root and branch into the flood, comes booming down, and glides swiftly past on its long, long race. Pleasantly the ripples break over the prostrate monarch of the forest that is lodged against the beach, and projects, branchless and barkless, into the stream; and mournfully the worn trunk sways up and down, as though tired of this rocking which has continued the same year after year; weary, and desiring to be at rest. Floods come rushing down upon floods with heavy tread, glance successively under the moonlight that is poured into the channel before me, and then are forced forward into the darkness of the future. But every wave seems as full of joy as though for it alone was the moonlight sent, and as though there were not unnumbered millions of waves to succeed it. Every little wave leaps up as it comes under the light, and smiles toward the round-faced orb above, who seems to smile back upon it. Thou small thing, thou art a fool! The queen, in the beam of whose countenance thou disportest thyself, is altogether deceitful and loves thee not. She has smiled as kindly on thousands who have gone before thee, and will upon thousands who shall come after thee. And more than all, she would send down just as bright and loving a glance, if thou and all thy race had never existed. How then canst thou say, ‘I love her,’ or, ‘she loves me?’

But perhaps it is not so. When I look again, each one of the great multitude appears aware of its own insignificance. Jostled, confined, crowded and confused, they go tumbling by, regardless of all above or below, and engrossed with their own fleeting existence. Not remembering whence they came, they take no thought of the present, and are utterly careless of the future. For what would it profit? Their business, and it is business enough, is to dispute and fight with each other for room to move in. All thoughts as to whither they are hastening, must be doubtful, angry and despairing; and care of any thing present, except what concerns the present instant, would be useless. Therefore they resign themselves to be drawn onward and downward unresistingly; and therein are they wise. But whether joyful, or despairing, or not feeling at all, the waters roll by, an unceasing flood; and with their rushing dull roar in my ear, my eye rests on a scene of beauty and quietness. Far away to the northward and westward, and still farther away, stretches an immense plain. Rolling hillocks, like the waves of the sea after a storm, and at long intervals, a few stunted shrubs, alone diversify the prospect. Vast, unmeasured, Nature’s unenclosed meadow, the prairie, is spread out! The tall grass waves gently and rustlingly to the breeze; and down upon it settles the moonlight, in a dim silver-gossamer veil, like that which to the mind’s eye is thrown over the mountains and ruins and castles of the Old World, by the high-born daring and graces of chivalry, the wand of Genius, and the lapse of solemn years. With the same painful feeling of boundlessness, of vastness that will not be grasped by the imagination, that one feels in sailing on the ocean, there is also an air of still, stern desolation brooding upon the plain. It may be that at some former day, the punishment of fire swept over it, consuming its towering offspring, and laying bare and scorching its bosom; and now the proud sufferer, naked and chained, endures the summer’s heat and the winter’s storms, with no sighing herbage or wailing tree to tell to the winds its wo.

A single snow-white cloud slumbers and floats far up in the heavens; the moon is gliding slowly down the western arch; and the vast dome, studded with innumerable brilliants, ‘fretted with golden fires,’ rests its northern and western edge on the plain, its southern on blue mountain-tops, its eastern on the forests, and shuts us, the river, the prairie, the moon and I, together and alone. And here will we dwell together alone! Sweet companions will ye be to me; and standing here on this eminence, I promise to love you. I promise to come here often, and to hold communion with you. I will put away all thoughts of sorrow, all swellings of bitterness, from my mind. Contentedly, calmly, unheedingly, will we let the years pass by; for what will it matter to us? Oh! ye are dear to me! Your voice is not heard, yet comes there constantly to my ear the murmur of your song. You speak to me in music and poetry; and while I listen, my thoughts revert only with shuddering to the vain world I have left behind. Thus let us converse always. This vaulted firmament which shuts down upon us now, let it be immoveable, and enclose us forever; here let the wanderings of the wanderer cease, and here will we live together and alone!

And we have lived here many years. The lessons of my constant companions have calmed and elevated me to a gentler and better spirit. From them I have learned humility as well as self-reliance; while from the history of the actions and thoughts of men in past ages, I have learned perhaps something of the machinery of human nature. The forms of the noblest of preceding generations, and the shapes of beauty which their imaginations have conceived and made to live, visit me at my bidding. But among all the pictures that daily rise up before my eyes, the brightest, the most beautiful, the most loved, are the sweet faces of the friends of my early years. There are no regrets or repinings when I look back now; it must be that it has all been for the best, that every thing is for the best, and I am at peace. The recollection of madness and folly, of a life useless, of energies wasted, do not disturb the calmness of my soul. The error has been great, but I feel it; and in the next state of existence I shall be wiser and more active. If I have wantonly and recklessly turned away from the offered happiness of society and of the world, it has, in the end, been better for me, for I have found another, a purer and more lasting.

Thus I look cheerfully on, and see the sands of my life run out. They fall faster and faster, as their number is diminished, and time flies by me with constantly accelerating speed. ‘Oh, my days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle!’—the last one I see but a little distance before me; it will soon be here; and I shall step forth with a joyful, courageous heart, into the indistinct, dimly-revealed future!

TRANSLATION FROM CATULLUS

BY REV. GEORGE W. BETHUNESuffenus, whom we both have known so well,No other man in manners can excel;Facetious, courteous, affable, urbane.The world’s approval he is sure to gain.But, would you think it? he has now essayedTo be a bard, and countless verses made;Perhaps ten thousand, perhaps ten times more,For none but he could ever count them o’er;Not scribbled down on scraps, as one does whenIn careless rhymes we only try our pen,But in a gilt-edged book, all richly bound,The writing ornate with a care profound,Rich silken cords to mark each favorite part,The cover, ev’n, a monument of art.Yet as you read, Suffenus, who till thenSeemed the most pleasant of all gentlemen,Becomes offensive as the country boor,Who milks rank goats beside his cottage door,Or digs foul ditches: such a change is wroughtBy rhymes with neither sense nor music fraught.So crazed is he with this same wretched rhyme,That never does he know so blest a timeAs when he writes away, and fondly deemsHe rivals Homer’s god-enraptured dreams;And wonders in his pride, himself to see,The very pattern-pink of poesy.Alas! Suffenus, while I laugh at thee,The world, for aught I know, may laugh at me.It is the madness of each one to prideHimself on that ’twere better far to hide;Nor know the faults in that peculiar sackWhich Æsop says is hanging at his back.

THE PAINTED ROCK

BY CHARLES F. POWELL

The tract of country through which meanders the Tennessee river, for wild, sublime and picturesque scenery, is scarcely surpassed by any in the United States. This river was anciently called the Hogohege, and also Cherokee river: it takes its rise in the mountains of Virginia, in the thirty-seventh degree of latitude, and pursues a course of one thousand miles south and south-west nearly to the thirty-fourth degree of latitude, receiving from both sides large tributary streams. It then changes its direction to the north, circuitously winding until it mingles with the waters of the Ohio, sixty miles from its mouth. There is a place near the summit of the Cumberland mountains, which extends from the great Kenhawa to the Tennessee, where there is a very remarkable ledge of rocks, thirty miles in length and nearly two hundred feet high, showing a perpendicular face to the south-east, which for grandeur and magnificence surpass any fortification of art in the known world. It has been the modern hypothesis, that all the upper branches of the Tennessee formerly forced their way through this stupendous pile.

On the Tennessee, about four hundred and fifty miles from its mouth, and nearly two hundred above what is called Muscle-Shoals, there is another ledge of rocks stretching along the shore to the extent of one mile, with a perpendicular front toward the river, of the most perfect regularity. This ledge varies in height from thirty to three hundred feet, being much the highest at the centre, and diminishing at each end into ragged cliffs of rock and broken land. This variegated surface extends for many miles, affording a constant succession of fanciful and romantic views. The whole rocky formation in this vicinity is composed of a light gray lime-stone, indented with broad dark lines formed by the dripping of the water which falls from the scanty covering of soil on the top to the deep channel below. The thin surface of soil sustains a shabby, stinted growth of fir, oak, and other trees, which seldom grow above the height of tall shrubbery. From the crevices of the rock also may occasionally be seen a tree of diminutive dimensions springing out with scarcely a particle of visible sustenance for its roots. The shrubbery upon the peak of this acclivity presents a curious appearance as it hangs over the ascent, not unlike the bushy eye-brows of a sullen and frowning face. With this ledge of rocks terminate the Cumberland mountains, which cross the State of Tennessee to the margin of the river. The stream here flows nearly west, through a beautiful valley of alluvial land, formed by the Cumberland mountains and a continuation of the Blue Ridge of Virginia. Immediately opposite the termination of the Cumberland mountains commences a broken and rocky surface, which extends along the shore of the river for many miles, presenting the most varied and novel scenery in nature; while the other shore is level, fertile, and mostly in a high state of cultivation, abounding in verdant fields of meadow, corn and tobacco.

The middle portion of the ledge proper, which I have described, rises nearly or quite three hundred feet above the level of the river; a vast wall of solid lime-stone, echoing with never-ceasing moans the gurgling current of the river, which at this place is deep and very rapid; and has worn a series of caves and hollows in the base of the rock, which contribute greatly to this ‘language of the waters.’

The summit or peak of this ledge in the centre is called ‘The Painted Rock.’ It is so called from the fact of there being, about sixty feet below the highest peak, letters and characters painted in different colors, and evidently drawn by a tutored hand. What is most remarkable, these paintings are upon the perpendicular face of the rock, probably two hundred feet above the river, and in a place where there is no apparent possibility for mortal man to arrive. They are composed of the initials of two persons, together with characters and drawings, some of which are illegible from the river. The first consists of the letters ‘J. W. H.,’ quite well done in dark blue or green paint. The next is ‘A. L. S.,’ done in red, and also a trefoil leaf of clover in green, beside several rude characters and drawings in blue and red. The traveller passing this interesting spot gazes with wonder and astonishment, but is referred to tradition for a history of the circumstances which led to the name of Painted Rock; for the paintings were drawn and the name given, long before the country was permanently settled by the whites. The story handed down is this:

The original possessors of the soil in this part of the country were the tribes of Cherokee and Chicasaw Indians. The country was explored as early as 1745, by a company who had grants of land from the government, and settlements commenced previous to the French war. Of the first-comers of whites there were not more than sixty families, who were either destroyed or driven off before the end of the following year. Some few families had settled at a place not far distant from the Painted Rock, where lived a Cherokee Sagamore, named Shagewana, whose tribe was considered the most inhuman of any in the nation. The top of the rock is flat, and slopes back from the river, and at the base is a large spring surrounded by bushes. Shagewana occupied the summit of the acclivity as his council-ground; and when danger was apprehended from the whites, or when an innovation was made on his limits, he forthwith called his warriors together for consultation, and set fire to faggots and other combustibles as a signal for his neighbors to advance to his aid. The whites settled near the Painted Rock at this time were mostly composed of traders, who had brought various articles of clothing and ornaments to dispose of to the Indians; and under the assurance of the Chicasaws, who rarely commenced the work of destruction on the whites, that they should be unmolested, built up a cluster of huts, and cleared a small territory for the raising of corn and other vegetables.

Shagewana from some cause became incensed toward them, and resolved to burn the buildings and destroy their inhabitants. He called his people together, and the war-cry was sounded throughout the mountains. Taking advantage of the night, they surrounded the settlement, and applying torches to the dwellings, rushed into the midst with tomahawk in hand, and murdered all save two young men, who fought so bravely that they spared their lives in order to torture them with more prolonged sufferings. The names of these young men it is said were Harris and Snelling. They were bound and taken to the rock, where the savages went through a dance, as was their custom after a victory had been achieved; and as day-light advanced, they prepared a feast. Harris and Snelling were placed under keepers, who amused themselves by tormenting their unhappy prisoners in various ways; such as pricking them with their knives, cutting off small pieces of their ears and fingers, and pulling out clumps of their hair. Before the close of the day, the captives feigning sleep, the Indians left them for a moment and went to the spring for water. Thereupon the young men burst their bands and escaped into the bushes. Crawling upon the other side of the rock, and being hotly pursued, it is supposed that they were forced upon a narrow projection, about twelve inches wide, and four feet below the inscription, where with some paint or coloring substance which they carried about them they traced the characters to which we have referred, and which have given the place the name of ‘The Painted Rock.’ The fate of the young men is not positively known; but it is believed that they were discovered and hurled down the precipice.

LINES TO J. T. OF IRELAND

BY THE AUTHOR OF ‘HINTS ON ETIQUETTE.’A heartless flirt! with false and wicked eye,Dost thou not feel thyself a living lie?Dost thou not hear the ‘still small voice’ upbraidThy inmost conscience for the part thou’st played?How mean the wish to victimize that oneWho ne’er had wooed thee, hadst thou not begun!Who mark’d with pain thy saddened gaze on him,Doom’d but to fall a martyr to thy whim;Whose pallid cheek might win a fiend to spare,Or soothe the sorrows that had blanched his hair:Oh, cold-laid plan! drawn on from day to dayTo meet the looks thou failed not to display,Seeking at such a price another’s peace,To feed the cravings of thy vain caprice;Led him to think that thou wert all his own,Then froze his passion with a heart of stone.Lured by thy wiles, he gave that holiest gift,A noble soul, before he saw thy drift;He watched thy bosom heave, he heard thee sigh,Nor deem’d such looks could cover treachery;That one so proud could stoop to simulateThe purest feelings of this earthly state.Yet words were useless, where no sense of blameCould start a tear, nor tinge thy cheek with shame.More merciful than thou to him, he praysNo pangs like his may wound thy lingering days;Implores thy sins to him may be forgiven,And leaves thee to the clemency of Heaven.C. W. Day.