"True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home."
Dr. Arnold, too,—who lived, as his family still live, here,—diffused the same ennobling and animating spirit among those who knew him in private, as through the sphere of his public labors.
Miss Martineau has here a charming residence; it has been finished only a few months, but all about it is in unexpectedly fair order, and promises much beauty after a year or two of growth. Here we found her restored to full health and activity, looking, indeed, far better than she did when in the United States. It was pleasant to see her in this home, presented to her by the gratitude of England for her course of energetic and benevolent effort, and adorned by tributes of affection and esteem from many quarters. From the testimony of those who were with her in and since her illness, her recovery would seem to be of as magical quickness and sure progress as has been represented. At the house of Miss Martineau I saw Milman, the author, I must not say poet,—a specimen of the polished, scholarly man of the world.
We passed one most delightful day in a visit to Langdale,—the scene of "The Excursion,"—and to Dungeon-Ghyll Force. I am finishing my letter at Carlisle on my way to Scotland, and will give a slight sketch of that excursion, and one which occupied another day, from Keswick to Buttermere and Crummock Water, in my next.
LETTER III.
Westmoreland.—Langdale.—Dungeon-Ghyll Force.—Keswick.—Carlisle.—Branxholm.—Scott.—Burns.
I have too long delayed writing up my journal.—Many interesting observations slip from recollection if one waits so many days: yet, while travelling, it is almost impossible to find an hour when something of value to be seen will not be lost while writing.
I said, in closing my last, that I would write a little more about Westmoreland; but so much, has happened since, that I must now dismiss that region with all possible brevity.
The first day of which I wished to speak was passed in visiting Langdale, the scene of Wordsworth's "Excursion." Our party of eight went in two of the vehicles called cars or droskas,—open carriages, each drawn by one horse. They are rather fatiguing to ride in, but good to see from. In steep and stony places all alight, and the driver leads the horse: so many of these there are, that we were four or five hours in going ten miles, including the pauses when we wished to look.
The scenes through which we passed are, indeed, of the most wild and noble character. The wildness is not savage, but very calm. Without recurring to details, I recognized the tone and atmosphere of that noble poem, which was to me, at a feverish period in my life, as pure waters, free breezes, and cold blue sky, bringing a sense of eternity that gave an aspect of composure to the rudest volcanic wrecks of time.
We dined at a farm-house of the vale, with its stone floors, old carved cabinet (the pride of a house of this sort), and ready provision of oaten cakes. We then ascended a near hill to the waterfall called Dungeon-Ghyll Force, also a subject touched by Wordsworth's Muse. You wind along a path for a long time, hearing the sound of the falling water, but do not see it till, descending by a ladder the side of the ravine, you come to its very foot. You find yourself then in a deep chasm, bridged over by a narrow arch of rock; the water falls at the farther end in a narrow column. Looking up, you see the sky through a fissure so narrow as to make it look very pure and distant. One of our party, passing in, stood some time at the foot of the waterfall, and added much to its effect, as his height gave a measure by which to appreciate that of surrounding objects, and his look, by that light so pale and statuesque, seemed to inform the place with the presence of its genius.
Our circuit homeward from this grand scene led us through some lovely places, and to an outlook upon the most beautiful part of Westmoreland. Passing over to Keswick we saw Derwentwater, and near it the Fall of Lodore. It was from Keswick that we made the excursion of a day through Borrowdale to Buttermere and Crummock Water, which I meant to speak of, but find it impossible at this moment. The mind does not now furnish congenial colors with which to represent the vision of that day: it must still wait in the mind and bide its time, again to emerge to outer air.
At Keswick we went to see a model of the Lake country which gives an excellent idea of the relative positions of all objects. Its maker had given six years to the necessary surveys and drawings. He said that he had first become acquainted with the country from his taste for fishing, but had learned to love its beauty, till the thought arose of making this model; that while engaged in it, he visited almost every spot amid the hills, and commonly saw both sunrise and sunset upon them; that he was happy all the time, but almost too happy when he saw one section of his model coming out quite right, and felt sure at last that he should be quite successful in representing to others the home of his thoughts. I looked upon him as indeed an enviable man, to have a profession so congenial with his feelings, in which he had been so naturally led to do what would be useful and pleasant for others.
Passing from Keswick through a pleasant and cultivated country, we paused at "fair Carlisle," not voluntarily, but because we could not get the means of proceeding farther that day. So, as it was one in which
"The sun shone fair on Carlisle wall,"
we visited its Cathedral and Castle, and trod, for the first time, in some of the footsteps of the unfortunate Queen of Scots.
Passing next day the Border, we found the mosses all drained, and the very existence of sometime moss-troopers would have seemed problematical, but for the remains of Gilnockie,—the tower of Johnnie Armstrong, so pathetically recalled in one of the finest of the Scottish ballads. Its size, as well as that of other keeps, towers, and castles, whose ruins are reverentially preserved in Scotland, gives a lively sense of the time when population was so scanty, and individual manhood grew to such force. Ten men in Gilnockie were stronger then in proportion to the whole, and probably had in them more of intelligence, resource, and genuine manly power, than ten regiments now of red-coats drilled to act out manoeuvres they do not understand, and use artillery which needs of them no more than the match to go off and do its hideous message.
Farther on we saw Branxholm, and the water in crossing which the Goblin Page was obliged to resume his proper shape and fly, crying, "Lost, lost, lost!" Verily these things seem more like home than one's own nursery, whose toys and furniture could not in actual presence engage the thoughts like these pictures, made familiar as household words by the most generous, kindly genius that ever blessed this earth.
On the coach with us was a gentleman coming from London to make his yearly visit to the neighborhood of Burns, in which he was born. "I can now," said he, "go but once a year; when a boy, I never let a week pass without visiting the house of Burns." He afterward observed, as every step woke us to fresh recollections of Walter Scott, that Scott, with all his vast range of talent, knowledge, and activity, was a poet of the past only, and in his inmost heart wedded to the habits of a feudal aristocracy, while Burns is the poet of the present and the future, the man of the people, and throughout a genuine man. This is true enough; but for my part I cannot endure a comparison which by a breath of coolness depreciates either. Both were wanted; each acted the important part assigned him by destiny with a wonderful thoroughness and completeness. Scott breathed the breath just fleeting from the forms of ancient Scottish heroism and poesy into new,—he made for us the bridge by which we have gone into the old Ossianic hall and caught the meaning just as it was about to pass from us for ever. Burns is full of the noble, genuine democracy which seeks not to destroy royalty, but to make all men kings, as he himself was, in nature and in action. They belong to the same world; they are pillars of the same church, though they uphold its starry roof from opposite sides. Burns was much the rarer man; precisely because he had most of common nature on a grand scale; his humor, his passion, his sweetness, are all his own; they need no picturesque or romantic accessories to give them due relief: looked at by all lights they are the same. Since Adam, there has been none that approached nearer fitness to stand up before God and angels in the naked majesty of manhood than Robert Burns;—but there was a serpent in his field also! Yet but for his fault we could never have seen brought out the brave and patriotic modesty with which he owned it. Shame on him who could bear to think of fault in this rich jewel, unless reminded by such confession.
We passed Abbotsford without stopping, intending to go there on our return. Last year five hundred Americans inscribed their names in its porter's book. A raw-boned Scotsman, who gathered his weary length into our coach on his return from a pilgrimage thither, did us the favor to inform us that "Sir Walter was a vara intelligent mon," and the guide-book mentions "the American Washington" as "a worthy old patriot." Lord safe us, cummers, what news be there!
This letter, meant to go by the Great Britain, many interruptions force me to close, unflavored by one whiff from the smoke of Auld Reekie. More and better matter shall my next contain, for here and in the Highlands I have passed three not unproductive weeks, of which more anon.
LETTER IV.
Edinburgh, Old and New.—Scott and Burns.—Dr. Andrew Combe.—American Re-publishing.—The Bookselling Trade.—The Messrs. Chambers.—De Quincey the Opium-Eater.—Dr. Chalmers.
The beautiful and stately aspect of this city has been the theme of admiration so general that I can only echo it. We have seen it to the greatest advantage both from Calton Hill and Arthur's Seat, and our lodgings in Princess Street allow us a fine view of the Castle, always impressive, but peculiarly so in the moonlit evenings of our first week here, when a veil of mist added to its apparent size, and at the same time gave it the air with which Martin, in his illustrations of "Paradise Lost," has invested the palace which "rose like an exhalation."
On this our second visit, after an absence of near a fortnight in the Highlands, we are at a hotel nearly facing the new monument to Scott, and the tallest buildings of the Old Town. From my windows I see the famous Kirk, the spot where the old Tolbooth was, and can almost distinguish that where Porteous was done to death, and other objects described in the most dramatic part of "The Heart of Mid-Lothian." In one of these tall houses Hume wrote part of his History of England, and on this spot still nearer was the home of Allan Ramsay. A thousand other interesting and pregnant associations present themselves every time I look out of the window.
In the open square between us and the Old Town is to be the terminus of the railroad, but as the building will be masked with trees, it is thought it will not mar the beauty of the place; yet Scott could hardly have looked without regret upon an object that marks so distinctly the conquest of the New over the Old, and, appropriately enough, his statue has its back turned that way. The effect of the monument to Scott is pleasing, though without strict unity of thought or original beauty of design. The statue is too much hid within the monument, and wants that majesty of repose in the attitude and drapery which a sitting figure should have, and which might well accompany the massive head of Scott. Still the monument is an ornament and an honor to the city. This is now the fourth that has been erected within two years to commemorate the triumphs of genius. Monuments that have risen from the same idea, and in such quick succession, to Schiller, to Goethe, to Beethoven, and to Scott, signalize the character of the new era still more happily than does the railroad coming up almost to the foot of Edinburgh Castle.
The statue of Burns has been removed from the monument erected in his honor, to one of the public libraries, as being there more accessible to the public. It is, however, entirely unworthy its subject, giving the idea of a smaller and younger person, while we think of Burns as of a man in the prime of manhood, one who not only promised, but was, and with a sunny glow and breadth, of character of which this stone effigy presents no sign.
A Scottish gentleman told me the following story, which would afford the finest subject for a painter capable of representing the glowing eye and natural kingliness of Burns, in contrast to the poor, mean puppets he reproved.
Burns, still only in the dawn of his celebrity, was invited to dine with one of the neighboring so-called gentry (unhappily quite void of true gentle blood). On arriving he found his plate set in the servants' room!! After dinner he was invited into a room where guests were assembled, and, a chair being placed for him at the lower end of the board, a glass of wine was offered, and he was requested to sing one of his songs for the entertainment of the company. He drank off the wine, and thundered forth in reply his grand song, "For a' that and a' that," with which it will do no harm to refresh the memories of our readers, for we doubt there may be, even in Republican America, those who need the reproof as much, and with far less excuse, than had that Scottish company.
"Is there, for honest poverty,
That hangs his head, and a' that?
The coward slave, we pass him by,
We dare be poor for a' that!
For a' that, and a' that,
Our toils obscure, and a' that,
The rank is but the guinea's stamp,
The man's the gowd for a' that.
"What tho' on hamely fare we dine,
Wear hoddin gray, and a' that;
Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine,
A man 's a man for a' that!
For a' that, and a' that,
Their tinsel show, and a' that,
The honest man, though, e'er sae poor
Is king o' men for a' that.
"Ye see yon birkie, ca'd a lord,
Wha struts, and stares, and a' that;
Tho' hundreds worship at his word,
He's but a coof for a' that;
For a' that, and a' that,
His ribbon, star, and a' that,
The man of independent mind,
He looks and laughs at a' that.
"A prince can make a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, and a' that;
But an honest man's aboon his might
Guid faith, he maunna fa' that!
For a' that, and a' that,
Their dignities, and a' that,
The pith o' sense and pride o' worth
Are higher ranks than a' that.
"Then let us pray that, come it may,
As come it will for a' that,
That sense and worth, o'er a' the earth,
May bear the gree, and a' that;
For a' that, and a' that,
It's coming yet for a' that,
That man to man, the wide warld o'er,
Shall brothers be for a' that."
We have seen all the stock lions. The Regalia people still crowd to see, though the old natural feelings from which they so long lay hidden seem almost extinct. Scotland grows English day by day. The libraries of the Advocates, Writers to the Signet, &c., are fine establishments. The University and schools are now in vacation; we are compelled by unwise postponement of our journey to see both Edinburgh and London at the worst possible season. We should have been here in April, there in June. There is always enough to see, but now we find a majority of the most interesting persons absent, and a stagnation in the intellectual movements of the place.
We had, however, the good fortune to find Dr. Andrew Combe, who, though a great invalid, was able and disposed for conversation at this time. I was impressed with great and affectionate respect by the benign and even temper of his mind, his extensive and accurate knowledge, accompanied, as such should naturally be, by a large and intelligent liberality. Of our country he spoke very wisely and hopefully, though among other stories with which we, as Americans, are put to the blush here, there is none worse than that of the conduct of some of our publishers toward him. One of these stories I had heard in New York, but supposed it to be exaggerated till I had it from the best authority. It is of one of our leading houses who were publishing on their own account and had stereotyped one of his works from an early edition. When this work had passed through other editions and he had for years been busy in reforming and amending it, he applied to this house to republish from the later and better edition. They refused. In vain he urged that it was not only for his own reputation as an author that he was anxious, but for the good of the great country through which writings on such, important subjects were to be circulated, that they might have the benefit of his labors and best knowledge. Such arguments on the stupid and mercenary tempers of those addressed fell harmless as on a buffalo's hide might a gold-tipped arrow. The book, they thought, answered THEIR purpose sufficiently, for IT SELLS. Other purpose for a book they knew none. And as to the natural rights of an author over the fruits of his mind, the distilled essence of a life consumed in the severities of mental labor, they had never heard of such a thing. His work was in the market, and he had no more to do with it, that they could see, than the silkworm with the lining of one of their coats.
Mr. Greeley, the more I look at this subject, the more I must maintain, in opposition to your views, that the publisher cannot, if a mere tradesman, be a man of honor. It is impossible in the nature of things. He must have some idea of the nature and value of literary labor, or he is wholly unfit to deal with its products. He cannot get along by occasional recourse to paid critics or readers; he must himself have some idea what he is about. One partner, at least, in the firm, must be a man of culture. All must understand enough to appreciate their position, and know that he who, for his sordid aims, circulates poisonous trash amid a great and growing people, and makes it almost impossible for those whom Heaven has appointed as its instructors to do their office, are the worst of traitors, and to be condemned at the bar of nations under a sentence no less severe than false statesmen and false priests. This matter should and must be looked to more conscientiously.
Dr. Combe, repelled by all this indifference to conscience and natural equity in the firm who had taken possession of his work, applied to others. But here he found himself at once opposed by the invisible barrier that makes this sort of tyranny so strong and so pernicious. "It was the understanding among the trade that they were not to interfere with one another; indeed, they could have no chance," &c., &c. When at last he did get the work republished in another part of the country less favorable for his purposes, the bargain made as to the pecuniary part of the transaction was in various ways so evaded, that, up to this time, he has received no compensation from that widely-circulated work, except a lock of Spurzheim's hair!!
I was pleased to hear the true view expressed by one of the Messrs. Chambers. These brothers have worked their way up to wealth and influence by daily labor and many steps. One of them is more the business man, the other the literary curator of their Journal. Of this Journal they issue regularly eighty thousand copies, and it is doing an excellent work, by awakening among the people a desire for knowledge, and, to a considerable extent, furnishing them with good materials. I went over their fine establishment, where I found more than a hundred and fifty persons, in good part women, employed, all in well-aired, well-lighted rooms, seemingly healthy and content. Connected with the establishment is a Savings Bank, and evening instruction in writing, singing, and arithmetic. There was also a reading-room, and the same valuable and liberal provision we had found attached to some of the Manchester warehouses. Such accessories dignify and gladden all kinds of labor, and show somewhat of the true spirit of human brotherhood in the employer. Mr. Chambers said he trusted they should never look on publishing chiefly as business, or a lucrative and respectable employment, but as the means of mental and moral benefit to their countrymen. To one so wearied and disgusted as I have been by vulgar and base avowals on such subjects, it was very refreshing to hear this from the lips of a successful publisher.
Dr. Combe spoke with high praise of Mr. Hurlbart's book, "Human Rights and their Political Guaranties," which was published at the Tribune office. He observed that it was the work of a real thinker, and extremely well written. It is to be republished here. Dr. Combe said that it must make its way slowly, as it could interest those only who were willing to read thoughtfully; but its success was sure at last.
He also spoke with, great interest and respect of Mrs. Farnham, of whose character and the influence she has exerted on the female prisoners at Sing Sing he had heard some account.
A person of a quite different character and celebrity is De Quincey, the English Opium-Eater, and who lately has delighted us again with the papers in Blackwood headed "Suspiria de Profundis." I had the satisfaction, not easily attainable now, of seeing him for some hours, and in the mood of conversation. As one belonging to the Wordsworth, and Coleridge constellation, (he too is now seventy-six years of age,) the thoughts and knowledge of Mr. De Quincey lie in the past; and oftentimes he spoke of matters now become trite to one of a later culture. But to all that fell from his lips, his eloquence, subtile and forcible as the wind, full and gently falling as the evening dew, lent a peculiar charm. He is an admirable narrator, not rapid, but gliding along like a rivulet through a green meadow, giving and taking a thousand little beauties not absolutely required to give his story due relief, but each, in itself, a separate boon.
I admired, too, his urbanity, so opposite to the rapid, slang, Vivian-Greyish style current in the literary conversation of the day. "Sixty years since," men had time to do things better and more gracefully than now.
With Dr. Chalmers we passed a couple of hours. He is old now, but still full of vigor and fire. We had an opportunity of hearing a fine burst of indignant eloquence from him. "I shall blush to my very bones," said he, "if the Chaarrch"—(sound these two rr's with as much burr as possible and you will get at an idea of his mode of pronouncing that unweariable word)—"if the Chaarrch yields to the storm." He alluded to the outcry now raised against the Free Church by the Abolitionists, whose motto is, "Send back the money," i.e. money taken from the American slaveholders. Dr. Chalmers felt that, if they did not yield from conviction, they must not to assault. His manner of speaking on this subject gave me an idea of the nature of his eloquence. He seldom preaches now.
A fine picture was presented by the opposition of figure and lineaments between a young Indian, son of the celebrated Dwarkanauth Tagore, who happened to be there that morning, and Dr. Chalmers, as they were conversing together. The swarthy, half-timid, yet elegant face and form of the Indian made a fine contrast with the florid, portly, yet intellectually luminous appearance of the Doctor; half shepherd, half orator, he looked a Shepherd King opposed to some Arabian story-teller.
I saw others in Edinburgh of a later date who haply gave more valuable as well as fresher revelations of the spirit, and whose names may be by and by more celebrated than those I have cited; but for the present this must suffice. It would take a week, if I wrote half I saw or thought in Edinburgh, and I must close for to-day.
LETTER V.
Perth.—Travelling by Coach.—Loch Leven.—Queen Mary.—Loch Katrine.—The Trosachs.—Rowardennan.—A Night on Ben Lomond.—Scotch Peasantry.
I was obliged to stop writing at Edinburgh before the better half of my tale was told, and must now begin there again, to speak of an excursion into the Highlands, which occupied about a fortnight.
We left Edinburgh, by coach for Perth, and arrived there about three in the afternoon. I have reason to be very glad that I visit this island before the reign of the stage-coach is quite over. I have been constantly on the top of the coach, even one day of drenching rain, and enjoy it highly. Nothing can be more inspiring than this swift, steady progress over such smooth roads, and placed so high as to overlook the country freely, with the lively flourish of the horn preluding every pause. Travelling by railroad is, in my opinion, the most stupid process on earth; it is sleep without the refreshment of sleep, for the noise of the train makes it impossible either to read, talk, or sleep to advantage. But here the advantages are immense; you can fly through this dull trance from one beautiful place to another, and stay at each during the time that would otherwise be spent on the road. Already the artists, who are obliged to find their home in London, rejoice that all England is thrown open to them for sketching-ground, since they can now avail themselves of a day's leisure at a great distance, and with choice of position, whereas formerly they were obliged to confine themselves to a few "green, and bowery" spots in the neighborhood of the metropolis. But while in the car, it is to me that worst of purgatories, the purgatory of dulness.
Well, on the coach we went to Perth, and passed through Kinross, and saw Loch Leven, and the island where Queen Mary passed those sorrowful months, before her romantic escape under care of the Douglas. As this unhappy, lovely woman stands for a type in history, death, time, and distance do not destroy her attractive power. Like Cleopatra, she has still her adorers; nay, some are born to her in each new generation of men. Lately she has for her chevalier the Russian Prince Labanoff, who has spent fourteen years in studying upon all that related to her, and thinks now that he can make out a story and a picture about the mysteries of her short reign, which shall satisfy the desire of her lovers to find her as pure and just as she was charming. I have only seen of his array of evidence so much, as may be found in the pages of Chambers's Journal, but that much does not disturb the original view I have taken of the case; which is, that from a princess educated under the Medici and Guise influence, engaged in the meshes of secret intrigue to favor the Roman Catholic faith, her tacit acquiescence, at least, in the murder of Darnley, after all his injurious conduct toward her, was just what was to be expected. From a poor, beautiful young woman, longing to enjoy life, exposed both by her position and her natural fascinations to the utmost bewilderment of flattery, whether prompted by interest or passion, her other acts of folly are most natural, and let all who feel inclined harshly to condemn her remember to
"Gently scan your brother man,
Still gentler sister woman."
Surely, in all the stern pages of life's account-book there is none on which a more terrible price is exacted for every precious endowment. Her rank and reign only made her powerless to do good, and exposed her to danger; her talents only served to irritate her foes and disappoint her friends. This most charming of women was the destruction of her lovers: married three times, she had never any happiness as a wife, but in both the connections of her choice found that she had either never possessed or could not retain, even for a few weeks, the love of the men she had chosen, so that Darnley was willing to risk her life and that of his unborn child to wreak his wrath upon Rizzio, and after a few weeks with Bothwell she was heard "calling aloud for a knife to kill herself with." A mother twice, and of a son and daughter, both the children were brought forth in loneliness and sorrow, and separated from her early, her son educated to hate her, her daughter at once immured in a convent. Add the eighteen years of her imprisonment, and the fact that this foolish, prodigal world, when there was in it one woman fitted by her grace and loveliness to charm all eyes and enliven all fancies, suffered her to be shut up to water with her tears her dull embroidery during all the full rose-blossom of her life, and you will hardly get beyond this story for a tragedy, not noble, but pallid and forlorn.
Such were the bootless, best thoughts I had while looking at the dull blood-stain and blocked-up secret stair of Holyrood, at the ruins of Loch Leven castle, and afterward at Abbotsford, where the picture of Queen Mary's head, as it lay on the pillow when severed from the block, hung opposite to a fine caricature of "Queen Elizabeth dancing high and disposedly." In this last the face is like a mask, so frightful is the expression of cold craft, irritated, vanity, and the malice of a lonely breast in contrast with the attitude and elaborate frippery of the dress. The ambassador looks on dismayed; the little page can scarcely control the laughter which swells his boyish cheeks. Such can win the world which, better hearts (and such Mary's was, even if it had a large black speck in it) are most like to lose.
That was a most lovely day on which we entered Perth, and saw in full sunshine its beautiful meadows, among them the North-Inch, the famous battle-ground commemorated in "The Fair Maid of Perth," adorned with graceful trees like those of the New England country towns. In the afternoon we visited the modern Kinfauns, the stately home of Lord Grey. The drive to it is most beautiful, on the one side the Park, with noble heights that skirt it, on the other through a belt of trees was seen the river and the sweep of that fair and cultivated country. The house is a fine one, and furnished with taste, the library large, and some good works in marble. Among the family pictures one arrested my attention,—the face of a girl full of the most pathetic sensibility, and with no restraint of convention upon its ardent, gentle expression. She died young.
Returning, we were saddened, as almost always on leaving any such place, by seeing such swarms of dirty women and dirtier children at the doors of the cottages almost close by the gate of the avenue. To the horrors and sorrows of the streets in such places as Liverpool, Glasgow, and, above all, London, one has to grow insensible or die daily; but here in the sweet, fresh, green country, where there seems to be room for everybody, it is impossible to forget the frightful inequalities between the lot of man and man, or believe that God can smile upon a state of things such as we find existent here. Can any man who has seen these things dare blame the Associationists for their attempt to find prevention against such misery and wickedness in our land? Rather will not every man of tolerable intelligence and good feeling commend, say rather revere, every earnest attempt in that direction, nor dare interfere with any, unless he has a better to offer in its place?
Next morning we passed on to Crieff, in whose neighborhood we visited Drummond Castle, the abode, or rather one of the abodes, of Lord Willoughby D'Eresby. It has a noble park, through which you pass by an avenue of two miles long. The old keep is still ascended to get the fine view of the surrounding country; and during Queen Victoria's visit, her Guards were quartered there. But what took my fancy most was the old-fashioned garden, full of old shrubs and new flowers, with its formal parterres in the shape of the family arms, and its clipped yew and box trees. It was fresh from a shower, and now glittering and fragrant in bright sunshine.
This afternoon we pursued our way, passing through the plantations of Ochtertyre, a far more charming place to my taste than Drummond Castle, freer and more various in its features. Five or six of these fine places lie in the neighborhood of Crieff, and the traveller may give two or three days to visiting them with a rich reward of delight. But we were pressing on to be with the lakes and mountains rather, and that night brought us to St. Fillan's, where we saw the moon shining on Loch Earn.
All this region, and that of Loch Katrine and the Trosachs, which we reached next day, Scott has described exactly in "The Lady of the Lake"; nor is it possible to appreciate that poem, without going thither, neither to describe the scene better than he has done after you have seen it. I was somewhat disappointed in the pass of the Trosachs itself; it is very grand, but the grand part lasts so little while. The opening view of Loch Katrine, however, surpassed, expectation. It was late in the afternoon when we launched our little boat there for Ellen's isle.
The boatmen recite, though not con molto espressione, the parts of the poem which describe these localities. Observing that they spoke of the personages, too, with the same air of confidence, we asked if they were sure that all this really happened. They replied, "Certainly; it had been told from father to son through so many generations." Such is the power of genius to interpolate what it will into the regular log-book of Time's voyage.
Leaving Loch Katrine the following day, we entered Rob Roy's country, and saw on the way the house where Helen MacGregor was born, and Rob Roy's sword, which is shown in a house by the way-side.
We came in a row-boat up Loch Katrine, though both on that and Loch Lomond you may go in a hateful little steamer with a squeaking fiddle to play Rob Roy MacGregor O. I walked almost all the way through the pass from Loch Katrine to Loch Lomond; it was a distance of six miles; but you feel as if you could walk sixty in that pure, exhilarating air. At Inversnaid we took boat again to go down Loch Lomond to the little inn of Rowardennan, from which the ascent is made of Ben Lomond, the greatest elevation in these parts. The boatmen are fine, athletic men; one of those with us this evening, a handsome young man of two or three and twenty, sang to us some Gaelic songs. The first, a very wild and plaintive air, was the expostulation of a girl whose lover has deserted her and married another. It seems he is ashamed, and will not even look at her when they meet upon the road. She implores him, if he has not forgotten all that scene of bygone love, at least to lift up his eyes and give her one friendly glance. The sad crooning burden of the stanzas in which she repeats this request was very touching. When the boatman had finished, he hung his head and seemed ashamed of feeling the song too much; then, when we asked for another, he said he would sing another about a girl that was happy. This one was in three parts. First, a tuneful address from a maiden to her absent lover; second, his reply, assuring her of his fidelity and tenderness; third, a strain which expresses their joy when reunited. I thought this boatman had sympathies which would prevent his tormenting any poor women, and perhaps make some one happy, and this was a pleasant thought, since probably in the Highlands, as elsewhere,
"Maidens lend an ear too oft
To the careless wooer;
Maidens' hearts are always soft;
Would that men's were truer!"
I don't know that I quote the words correctly, but that is the sum and substance of a masculine report on these matters.
The first day at Rowardennan not being propitious for ascending the mountain, we went down the lake to sup, and got very tired in various ways, so that we rose very late next morning. Their we found a day of ten thousand for our purpose; but unhappily a large party had come with the sun and engaged all the horses, so that, if we went, it must be on foot. This was something of an enterprise for me, as the ascent is four miles, and toward the summit quite fatiguing; however, in the pride of newly gained health and strength, I was ready, and set forth with Mr. S. alone. We took no guide,—and the people of the house did not advise it, as they ought. They told us afterward they thought the day was so clear that there was no probability of danger, and they were afraid of seeming mercenary about it. It was, however, wrong, as they knew what we did not, that even the shepherds, if a mist comes on, can be lost in these hills; that a party of gentlemen were so a few weeks before, and only by accident found their way to a house on the other side; and that a child which had been lost was not found for five days, long after its death. We, however, nothing doubting, set forth, ascending slowly, and often stopping to enjoy the points of view, which are many, for Ben Lomond consists of a congeries of hills, above which towers the true Ben, or highest peak, as the head of a many-limbed body.
On reaching the peak, the night was one of beauty and grandeur such as imagination never painted. You see around you no plain ground, but on every side constellations or groups of hills exquisitely dressed in the soft purple of the heather, amid which gleam the lakes, like eyes that tell the secrets of the earth and drink in those of the heavens. Peak beyond peak caught from the shifting light all the colors of the prism, and on the farthest, angel companies seemed hovering in their glorious white robes.
Words are idle on such subjects; what can I say, but that it was a noble vision, that satisfied the eye and stirred the imagination in all its secret pulses? Had that been, as afterward seemed likely, the last act of my life, there could not have been a finer decoration painted on the curtain which was to drop upon it.
About four o'clock we began our descent. Near the summit the traces of the path are not distinct, and I said to Mr. S., after a while, that we had lost it. He said, he thought that was of no consequence, we could find oar way down. I thought however it was, as the ground was full of springs that were bridged over in the pathway. He accordingly went to look for it, and I stood still because so tired that I did not like to waste any labor. Soon he called to me that he had found it, and I followed in the direction where he seemed to be. But I mistook, overshot it, and saw him no more. In about ten minutes I became alarmed, and called him many times. It seems he on his side did the same, but the brow of some hill was between us, and we neither saw nor heard one another.
I then thought I would make the best of my way down, and I should find him upon my arrival. But in doing so I found the justice of my apprehension about the springs, as, so soon as I got to the foot of the hills, I would sink up to my knees in bog, and have to go up the hills again, seeking better crossing-places. Thus I lost much time; nevertheless, in the twilight I saw at last the lake and the inn of Rowardennan on its shore.
Between me and it lay direct a high heathery hill, which I afterward found is called "The Tongue," because hemmed in on three sides by a watercourse. It looked as if, could I only get to the bottom of that, I should be on comparatively level ground. I then attempted to descend in the watercourse, but, finding that impracticable, climbed on the hill again and let myself down by the heather, for it was very steep and full of deep holes. With great fatigue I got to the bottom, but when about to cross the watercourse there, it looked so deep in the dim twilight that I felt afraid. I got down as far as I could by the root of a tree, and threw down a stone; it sounded very hollow, and made me afraid to jump. The shepherds told me afterward, if I had, I should probably have killed myself, it was so deep and the bed of the torrent full of sharp stones.
I then tried to ascend the hill again, for there was no other way to get off it, but soon sunk down utterly exhausted. When able to get up again and look about me, it was completely dark. I saw far below me a light, that looked about as big as a pin's head, which I knew to be from the inn at Rowardennan, but heard no sound except the rush of the waterfall, and the sighing of the night-wind.
For the first few minutes after I perceived I had got to my night's lodging, such as it was, the prospect seemed appalling. I was very lightly clad,—my feet and dress were very wet,—I had only a little shawl to throw round me, and a cold autumn wind had already come, and the night-mist was to fall on me, all fevered and exhausted as I was. I thought I should not live through the night, or, if I did, live always a miserable invalid. There was no chance to keep myself warm by walking, for, now it was dark, it would be too dangerous to stir.
My only chance, however, lay in motion, and my only help in myself, and so convinced was I of this, that I did keep in motion the whole of that long night, imprisoned as I was on such a little perch of that great mountain. How long it seemed under such circumstances only those can guess who may have been similarly circumstanced. The mental experience of the time, most precious and profound,—for it was indeed a season lonely, dangerous, and helpless enough for the birth of thoughts beyond what the common sunlight will ever call to being,—may be told in another place and time.
For about two hours I saw the stars, and very cheery and companionable they looked; but then the mist fell, and I saw nothing more, except such apparitions as visited Ossian on the hill-side when he went out by night and struck the bosky shield and called to him the spirits of the heroes and the white-armed maids with their blue eyes of grief. To me, too, came those visionary shapes; floating slowly and gracefully, their white robes would unfurl from the great body of mist in which they had been engaged, and come upon me with a kiss pervasively cold as that of death. What they might have told me, who knows, if I had but resigned myself more passively to that cold, spirit-like breathing!
At last the moon rose. I could not see her, but the silver light filled the mist. Then I knew it was two o'clock, and that, having weathered out so much of the night, I might the rest; and the hours hardly seemed long to me more.
It may give an idea of the extent of the mountain to say that, though I called every now and then with all my force, in case by chance some aid might be near, and though no less than twenty men with their dogs were looking for me, I never heard a sound except the rush of the waterfall and the sighing of the night-wind, and once or twice the startling of the grouse in the heather. It was sublime indeed,—a never-to-be-forgotten presentation of stern, serene realities.
At last came the signs of day, the gradual clearing and breaking up; some faint sounds, from I know not what. The little flies, too, arose from their bed amid the purple heather, and bit me; truly they were very welcome to do so. But what was my disappointment to find the mist so thick, that I could see neither lake nor inn, nor anything to guide me. I had to go by guess, and, as it happened, my Yankee method served me well. I ascended the hill, crossed the torrent in the waterfall, first drinking some of the water, which was as good at that time as ambrosia. I crossed in that place because the waterfall made steps, as it were, to the next hill; to be sure they were covered with water, but I was already entirely wet with the mist, so that it did not matter. I then kept on scrambling, as it happened, in the right direction, till, about seven, some of the shepherds found me. The moment they came, all my feverish strength departed, though, if unaided, I dare say it would have kept me up during the day; and they carried me home, where my arrival relieved my friends of distress far greater than I had undergone, for I had had my grand solitude, my Ossianic visions, and the pleasure of sustaining myself while they had only doubt amounting to anguish and a fruitless search through the night.
Entirely contrary to my expectations, I only suffered for this a few days, and was able to take a parting look at my prison, as I went down the lake, with feelings of complacency. It was a majestic-looking hill, that Tongue, with the deep ravines on either side, and the richest robe of heather I have seen anywhere.
Mr. S. gave all the men who were looking for me a dinner in the barn, and he and Mrs. S. ministered to them, and they talked of Burns, really the national writer, and known by them, apparently, as none other is, and of hair-breadth escapes by flood and fell. Afterwards they were all brought up to see me, and it was pleasing indeed to observe the good breeding and good, feeling with which they deported themselves on the occasion. Indeed, this adventure created quite an intimate feeling between us and the people there. I had been much pleased, with them before, in attending one of their dances, on account of the genuine independence and politeness of their conduct. They were willing and pleased to dance their Highland flings and strathspeys for our amusement, and did it as naturally and as freely as they would have offered the stranger the best chair.
All the rest must wait a while. I cannot economize time to keep up my record in any proportion with what happens, nor can I get out of Scotland on this page, as I had intended, without utterly slighting many gifts and graces.