Talking of books and authors with his fictional traveling companion (I. F. = Imaginary Friend), the Captain discovers two diamonds of fine writing in the otherwise forgettable form of "newspaper rubbish." One such "gem" is the lovely image of a new moon as a "coronet of pearl on the brow of evening." Another item praised by our Captain of U. S. Dragoons as a "gem" of newspaper writing is the letter Nathaniel Parker Willis wrote to the unknown new owner of his home at "Glenmary" near Owego, New York. Although the prairie dialogue is obviously contrived, both newspaper items are from the summer of 1843 and thus appropriate chronologically to the time of Cooke's present march, the 1843 escort of Santa Fe traders.
"I read the other day in the [Louisville] Journal, a very pretty account of a ramble or voyage to the Falls of St. Anthony. I even remember an idea, or sentence— 'a new and virgin moon was just hung out like a coronet of pearl on the brow of evening.' "
I. F. "Beautiful!"
"We frequently meet with a gem amid newspaper rubbish. It sends a
modest ray to tremble a moment in a troubled atmosphere, and then
vanish forever."
I. F. "May not the figure apply also to books?
I read one a long time ago called the Vestal,
which pleased me very much; but never have I
seen it since, or heard it spoken of. An author
of renown writes on the same subject—borrows
largely, for what the world knows—and produces 'The Last Days of
Pompeii,' which the
world is fully prepared to laud in advance!"
"Here is another newspaper gem: N. P. W.'s
letter about Glenmary."
I. F. "Yes: by-the-by, he has imparted of
late a spicy flavor to the National Intelligencer,
which must have increased its readers, if not
subscribers."
"Willis has an inexhaustible fund of novelty
and originality in him; he is a sparkling and polished writer—but often
of nonsense."
--Scenes Beyond the Western Border, September 1851; and
Scenes and Adventures in the Army
As the Captain correctly reports, the "new and virgin moon" image is from the sketch of a trip to St. Anthony's Falls which originally appeared in the Louisville
Journal over the pseudonym "Will the Rover." (The occasion of the "new and virgin moon" is a
steamboat tour of Lake St. Croix, at sunset.) At
Fulton History I found the sketch reprinted in the New York
American for the Country 1843, Thursday, August 3, 1843. Below, an excerpt highlighting the relevant passage:
A correspondent of the Louisville Journal, who has been on a trip to St. Anthony’s Falls, thus describes what he saw: . . .
At the Falls of St. Anthony you may spend half a day in contemplating the whole width of a mighty river tumbling in sheets and columns of foam over mammoth piles of rock; above, as calm and unruffled as an infant’s brow, till it falls over the precipice with deafening roar into the boiling whirlpools below, veiled with a drapery of mist, through which now faintly and now in fall resplendence shines the crescent rainbow, coming and departing like the gorgeous colors of the dying dolphin, while after battling its way in a phalanx of waves among gorged and gurgling channels, the huge cataract is split in twain by a giant island of rock, where the foot of man has never ventured; around whose adamantine sides it sweeps in arrow-like speed, untamed and untiring in its ocean march. Swallow Cave in Carver’s celebrated tract is well worth an exploration . . .
But I have spun a much longer yarn than I anticipated or your readers may relish. I shall therefore waive a description of elk hunting and trout fishing, by merely hinting to “the hunters of Kentucky,” that if they still have any Boone blood in them for the chase, or any of the Isaac Walton in their fingers’ ends for the angle, puckachee (or put out) to the land of the setting sun.—This recalls to mind the sunset on St. Croix, with which I’ll bring my roving to a finis. It was on my return, aboard of the General Brooke chartered by a pleasure party at St. Louis. Leaving the Mississippi, the polite captain (Throckmorton) made a run of 30 miles up this lovely lake to gratify the company. Unfortunately it was just at tea time, and few enjoyed the charming, enchanting scene. The fine brass band had just finished the heart-touching tune of “Home, sweet Home,” and the echoes of the bugle still floated in silvery sounds over the waters; the new and virgin moon was just hung out like a coronet of pearl on the brow of evening, and the whole western horizon was burnished with a blazonry of purple and gold—not a breath of air so much as dimpled the broad blue bosom of the lake on which fell the mingled glories of the upper firmament converting it into a molten sea of sapphire! Tell me not of Italian skies: here was a picture painted on the canvass of an American sky by the pencil of the Great Architect of nature which no artist could copy, not country surpass. As I paced the deck I felt a holy rapture which choked my heart with “words too big for utterance” till the wizzard harper of the Alps came to my relief, and with the pilgrim Harold I exclaimed:
Clear, placid Leman! thy contrasted lake,
With the wild world I dwelt in, is a thing
Which warns me, with its stillness, to forsake
Earth's troubled waters for a purer spring.
This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing
To waft me from distraction; once I loved
Torn Ocean's roar, but thy soft murmuring
Sounds sweet as if a Sister's voice reproved,
That I with stern delights should e'er have been so moved.
[Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto 3.85]
WILL THE ROVER.
This looks like the same "Will the Rover" who published
Rambles in Chili, identified in
World Cat and elsewhere as
George Prince (1817-1907).
One newspaper notice compared Rambles in Chili "to Melville's Typee" for popular appeal.
The Lincoln (Thomaston, Me.) Miscellany is publishing an original and highly interesting Work entitled “Rambles in Chili, and life among the Araucanian Indians,” by an anonymous author. * * * We can heartily pronounce it a work of rare merit. It combines richness of description with thrilling incidents and marvellous adventures; and abounds in well painted delineations of manners and customs, useful observations of society, and accurate geographical history. The unobtrusive interblending of' a racy humor with the general flow of the narrative, will give it a popularity but little inferior to “Melville's Typee." The Araucanians are an independent race of Indians, inhabiting the southern part of Chili, whom the Spaniards have never yet conquered; and any account 0t them cannot tail of being highly interesting. The work is likely to be widely read.
[Norfolk County Journal. --Rambles in Chili
Archival note,
Maine Historical Society:
George Prince (1817-1907), born in Thomaston, Maine, began as a merchant in that town but, enticed by the sea, ran off to serve on a whaling ship in the Pacific. He proceeded to serve in the Chilean army and navy and, upon his return stateside, accepted an appointment as a midshipman in the U.S. Navy. After some years working in marine insurance in Bath, he served as a captain in Company K, the first Maine cavalry, in the Civil War from 1861-62, until injury brought his war career to an end. He became a second-class clerk in the pension office in Washington, D.C., where he stayed until his move to Boston in 1879 and finally back to Thomaston, where he lived until his death. In his later years Prince wrote several stories and articles about his region of Maine, most notably a piece in which he proved that George Waymouth discovered the Georges River.
The second "newspaper gem" is better known, Willis's letter about Glenmary. It
is a gem, as you can see. From
The New Mirror, Saturday, July 29, 1843:
NEIGHBOURHOOD OF GLENMARY.
We present you this picture, dear reader, as if it were the portrait of a friend—and it is like announcing to you that our friend is for sale, to tell you (purely in the way of advertisement) that Glenmary may he bought. This is but one of the chance nooks in its neighhourhood, and a sweeter knot of scenery was never tied together with the thread of a brook. When we left it last summer we addressed the following letter to the unknown purchaser and next occupant of Glenmary.
Sir—In selling you the dew and sunshine ordained to fall hereafter on this bright spot of earth—the waters on their way to this sparkling brook—the tints mixed for the flowers of that enamelled meadow, and the songs hidden to he sung in coming summers by the feathery builders in Glenmary, I know not whether to wonder more at the omnipotence of money, or at my own impertinent audacity toward Nature. How you can buy the right to exclude at will every other creature made in God's image from sitting by this brook, treading on that carpet of flowers, or lying listening to the birds in the shade of these glorious trees—how I can sell it you, is a mystery not understood by the Indian, and dark, I must say, to me.
" Lord of the soil," is a title which conveys your privileges hut poorly. You are master of waters flowing at this moment, perhaps, in a river of Judea, or floating in clouds over some spicy island of the tropics, hound hither after many changes. There are lilies and violets ordered for you in millions, acres of sunshine in daily instalments, and dew nightly in proportion. There are throats to he tuned with song, and wings to he painted with red and gold, blue and yellow ; thousands of them, and all tributaries to you. Your corn is ordered to he sheathed in silk, and lifted high to the sun. Your grain is to be duly bearded and stemmed. There is perfume distilling for your clover, and juices for your grasses and fruits. Ice will he here for your wine, shade for your refreshment at noon, breezes and showers and snowflakes; all in their season, and all "deeded to you for forty dollars the acre! Gods! what a copyhold of property for a fallen world!
Mine has been hut a short lease of this lovely and well, endowed domain, (the duration of a smile of fortune, five years, scarce longer than a five-act play;) but as in a play we sometimes live through a life, it seems to me that I have lived a life at Glenmary. Allow me this, and then you must allow me the privilege of those who, at the close of life, leave something hehind them: that of writing out my will. Though I depart this life, I would fain, like others, extend my ghostly hand into the future; and if wings are to he borrowed or stolen where I go, you may rely on my hovering around and haunting you, in visitations not restricted hy cock-crowing.
Trying to look at Glenmary through your eyes, sir, I see too plainly that I have not shaped my ways as if expecting a successor in my life-time. I did not, I am free to own. I thought to have shuffled off my mortal coil tranquilly here; flitting at last in company with some troop of my autumn leaves, or some bevy of spring blossoms, or with snow in the thaw; my tenants at my hack, as a landlord may say. I have counted on a life-interest in the trees, trimming them accordingly; and in the squirrels and birds, encouraging them to chatter and build and fear nothing; no guns permitted on the premises.* I have had my will of this beautiful stream. I have carved the woods into a shape of my liking. I have propagated the despised sumach and the persecuted hemlock and "pizen laurel." And "no end to the weeds dug up and set out again," as one of my neighhours delivers himself. I have built a bridge over Glenmary brook, which the town looks to have kept up by "the place," and we have plied free ferry over the river, I and my man Tom, till the neighhours, from the daily saving of the two miles round, have got the trick of it. And betwixt the aforesaid Glenmary brook and a certain muddy and plebeian gutter formerly permitted to join company with, and pollute it, I have procured a divorce at much trouble and pains, a guardian duty entailed of course on my successor.
First of all, sir, let me plead for the old trees of Glenmary! Ah! those friendly old trees! The cottage stands belted in with them, a thousand visible from the door, and of stems and branches worthy of the great valley of the Susquehannah. For how much music played without thanks am I indebted to those leaf-organs of changing tone? for how many whisperings of thought breathed like oracles into my ear? for how many new shapes of beauty moulded in the leaves by the wind? for how much companionship, solace and welcome ? Steadfast and constant is the countenance of such friends, God he praised for their staid welcome and sweet fidelity! If I love them better than some things human, it is no fault of ambitiousness in the trees. They stand where they did. But in recoiling from mankind, one may find them the next kindliest things, and he glad of dumb friendship. Spare those old trees, gentle sir !
In the smooth walk which encircles the meadow betwixt that solitary Olympian sugar maple and the margin of the river, dwells a portly and venerable toad; who (if I may venture to bequeath you my friends) must he commended to your kindly consideration. Though a squatter, he was noticed in our first rambles along the stream, five years since, for his ready civility in yielding the way, not hurriedly, however, nor with an obsequiousness unbecoming a republican, but deliberately and just enough; sitting quietly on the grass till our passing by gave him room again on the warm and trodden ground. Punctually after the April cleansing of the walk, this jewelled habitue, from his indifferent lodgings hard by, emerges to take his pleasure in the sun ; and there, at any hour when a gentleman is likely to be abroad, you may find him, patient on his os coccygis, or vaulting to his asylum of high grass. This year, he shows, I am grieved to remark, an ominous obesity, likely to render him obnoxious to the female eye, and, with the thinness of his shape, has departed much of that measured alacrity which first won our regard. He presumes a little on your allowance for old age; and with this pardonable weakness growing upon him, it seems but right that his position and standing should be tenderly made known to any new-comer on the premises. In the cutting of the next grass, slice me not up my fat friend, sir! nor set your cone down heedlessly in his modest domain. He is " mine ancient," and I would fain do him a good turn with you.
For my spoilt family of squirrels, sir, I crave nothing but immunity from powder and shot. They require coaxing to come on the same side of the tree with you, and though saucy to me, I observe that they commence acquaintance invariably with a safe mistrust. One or two of them have suffered, it is true, from too hasty a confidence in my greyhound Maida, but the beauty of that gay fellow was a trap against which nature had furnished them with no warning instinct! (A fact, sir, which would prettily point a moral!) The large hickory on the edge of the lawn, and the black walnut over the shoulder of the flower-garden, have been, through my dynasty, sanctuaries inviolate for squirrels. I pray you, sir, let them not be "reformed out," under your administration.
Of our feathered connections and friends, we are most bound to a pair of Phebe birds and a merry Bob-o' Lincoln, the first occupying the top of the young maple near the door of the cottage, and the latter executing his bravuras upon the clump of alder-bushes in the meadow, though, in common with many a gay-plumaged gallant like himself, his whereabout after dark is a mystery. He comes every year from his rice plantation in Florida to pass the summer at Glenmary. Pray keep him safe from percussion-caps, and let no urchin with a long pole poke down our trusting Phebes; annuals in that same tree for three summers. There are humming-birds, too, whom we have complimented and looked sweet upon, but they cannot be identified from morning to morning. And there is a golden oriole who sings through May on a dog-wood tree by the brook-side, but he has fought shy of our crumbs and coaxing, and let him go! We are mates for his betters, with all his gold livery! With these reservations, sir, I commend the birds to your friendship and kind keeping. And now, sir, I have nothing else to ask, save only your watchfulness over the small nook reserved from this large purchase of seclusion and loveliness. In the shady depths of the small glen above you, among wild.flowers and music, the music of the brook babbling over rocky steps, is a spot sacred to love and memory. Keep it inviolate, and as much of the happiness of Glenmary as we can leave behind, stay with you for recompense!
N. P. W.
* Pardon me—woodcocks. We do shoot woodcocks. Whether it is my natural
enmity to a long bill, or that my bowels for woodcocks are not "bowels
of compassion," these are the sole outlaws of Glenmary.
