The Press. — London, England, 1853-09-24 00:00:00

Xittratart. TMs Howes if the New World : Impreseinns of America. Fredrika Bremer. London : Hall and Co. THE‘F volumes are not free from mental giddi ness. Miss Bremer has been partly spoiled by the praise she has received. The simplest characters are the soonest misled by noisy admiration, and, as the natural result of their amiable innocence, they take fur more than it is worth the attention whieh in these days is sure to follow any kind of celebrity. The first novels of Miss Bremer charmed us by their freshness and candour. Though ex aggerated in parts. they had nu manner of 'tenoned vanity or pretence : but in this pro duction Fredrika Bremer is herself the pro minent character, and impresses us with an idea of her importance rather than of her good sense. We mil( lady tourists among the pleasantest writers of our day. Their facalties of Aber %ation are lively if not profeemel, and their perception is so quiek, the heart and mind, throbbing in unison. are so readily roused by the eve, that description, thought, and senti anent are commonly blended in every page recording the novel impressions of travel. They spare ns statistic., but they give us emo tion ; and for accuracy of detail we have pano mink grouping and effect. Unluckily. they are apt tee get out of their depth by writing un matters they do not understand, while their susecietibility—pleas ing even is its manes—leads them to dilate and colour strongly whatever relates Immo (Hatay to themselves. Moving iu a narrow sphere, they think little of the distant., while magnitSing what is at hand. The positive faculty in them is ardent, but the comparative weak. Miss Bremer seems to have been intoxicated by the sensation her presence excited in America . '• I feel myself," she writes, a month alter her arrival at New York, tee be drinking neetar, spiritually and bodily. It is a divine drink, but almost too potent " for a weak mortal—at least as an every-day beverage. The excess of social intercourse is also too exciting, however charming and " agreeable it may be." she tells us that till she mune to America she but imperfectly understood the poetry of human action. " I have long had a presenti meutof the romance of life in its infinite great " ness and depth of feeling. Clouds. " however. veiled it for a moment : now, " again. I behold it, and I predict that for its •• perfect daybreak 1 shall have to thank " Amerira. My lift'. also, in and with this " new world assumes a romantic fortu." An explanation of this rupture may perhaps be found On the Oppottite page ; where, speaking of her commencement. of a journey on the Hudson, she rays:—" We had not been long "On board before the captain sent to offer " • Miss Bremer and her friends ' free liassage "by the steamer as well as hy the railway of " the liudsou. And thus. by means of my. " good name and Ameriean politeness, we " sailed down the Iludson in the WArfil, '• summer air." Our trausatlaut oousins will not. we hope. find muse to repreaeli Miss Ilivnier with ingratitude. •• My life." she says. is a daily " warfare against kindness. politeness. and curiosity, duringwhieh 1 often man weary and " worn out ; often. also. 1 feel the wafting in• • fluenee of an extraordinary youthfulness and eijoyment gush through my soul." She writes in another place "My soul hail wings, •• and the whole world was mine." At one tune she is like " a princess iu a fairy tale :" and at another she is moved by inspiration. " One thing 1 kuow,-1 must go there [to New "Orleans', t:oniething within tells me so, • something which 1 must call the inward light, the inward voice, and which guides nu -, " here like a mysterious but absolute power." At the Ilayannah she "bathes in an atm. , - " sphere of salutary regenerating life. I feel " its influence in both soul and body I drink " that wind, that air, as one might drink a renovating elixir of life, and 1 am ready to " look round to see whether any angel "is near, whether any heavenly I'icseue43 THE PRESS. " kits on the crowns of the palms which pro "duce this wonderful life. I call it the breath "of God," &c. Tho air of the States was not less favourable to her exaltation. At New York she sits at a window, " drinking in the " balsamic air, and allowing the breath of a "now life to penetrate my ery being. - And again : " I drink iu this air as I would drink " nectar. and feel it almost like a pleasant in " toxication." _ Thu people, particularly the gentlemen of America, excite in her as much enthusiasm as the climate. "If I were younger. and if my "life's purpose were less decided than it now " is, I confess that there is here and there one "of these American gentlemen with their " energy, their cordiality, and chivalric spirit " who might bo dangerous to my heart." The portrait of the gentleman at whose house she was first entertained is sketched so very fancifully as hardly to escape burlesque. His taste is exquisite. " Within the house there " prevails a certain darkness of tone; and all " the woodwork of the furniture is brown ; the " daylight even is dusk, yet nevertheless clear, " or, more properly, full of light—a 'tort of im " ',rimmed sunshine something warm and deep; •• it seemed to me like a reflection of the taan's "ow•n brows eyes. - lie was of tacit urn disposition, hut his silence was as expressive as Lord Ilurleigh's celebrated shake of the head : —" Ho is silent, but one of those silent " persons from whom one seems to hear• pro " found wisdom though not a word is said. I sate beside my silent friend, but the music of " whose soul I Jun always conscious of, though "he speaks nut a word." In the face of the negro servant who waited at table she " read " a whole volume of the inner life of the " family." Divination is among the gifts of genius, but we doubt whether any ono ever understood so much from silence, or read so much in a face before. We notice these passages only as they afford a key to the spirit m which the whole work is written. Essential peculiarities of mind or style may be characterised. but hardly come further within the pale of criticism. Smooth ness is not tw o be expected in originality. Some kind of fault or irregularity is to be looked for in every mind with decided bias. We must take the gold with its inevitable alloy. Each character, or class of character, looks at the world through its own medium. While the poet's eye, in - a tine frenzy rolling," heightens every colour of creation, the Quaker regards all nature as dressed in drab. It is because Miss Bremer views the society and institu tions of the States under the same aspect as its climate and homes, that we direct atten tion to her susceptible optimism. Her descriptions, penned under this influence, are vivid and amusing ; but her reflections, as they are chiefly emotional, are entitled to little regard. In her sketches of American life all the elements of intellectual and moral being are curiously jumbled together. "Chaos is come again." Such social fabrics as these seem built on sand which is perpetually shifting. Every sect which for its abstuslity or vice has been driven out of the Old World finds refuge in the New. It can boast congregations of every shape of Tfunscendeutalism, Phalans teriam, Oweuism, Pantheism, and Deism ; of Quakers and Shakers ; of Swedenborgiaus anti Methodists ; of Millenuiumists and Clay-eaters ; but from her book one might imagine that the Christian faith, as exhibited in the Scriptures, and embodied in our Church. was unknown in the States. We must follow her pin to show this iu detail. The first • great spirit of the age" to whom she W AZ& introduced was Wakio Emer son : He seCJIIS to we an knierirtio Thorala, a h.. It, his own strong, powerful 111101 M. would trilltshirie Cite mirid. mek• ing for law and itasittrutson &wryly withal lets bream. Strong anti pure, svlf-eolleeted moil calm. Jut at the mule t into &utast oval. he t.itt s fort It thou his traiisve• n. lents' pniut of %iris aphoristus ou Maitre 31A history. on tiod (whom he 4104'11mA n•gar.l Ns :1 personal tlod. kit Hs a sitperitir soul In harmony with laws and on i n n. ertneising hien or their works horn th.• of 11..• hit:hest truths awl the hight - .t Issurt ...obi. NAV% 1:1111.'1 ,,, /1. • lit. not stall a Man: NMI It. h.nk.. t nwnnl lath loot:rig to that maw. the man 0 1 the wra world. whose tavern h. he. haves. He P•Ap 4 tlin'We'll to the 'mina world: lit tramples firm the givittimse. ot Rom anti m,AWAY' an this 'nth . rural WWII; hc 1M Om: taco tali sot Livtl. • • • Ewa. SATURDAY, eon was the minister of a Unitarian congregation in Boston. and had the courage openly to reoign his ministra• t ion. his church. and the Christian 'faith, when he bad colle t') donbt of its principal doctrines. - - - bliss Bremer has the highest admiration fur this gentleman, who from believing little went on, as was natural, to believing nothing. She thinks it will revive the slumbering Chris. tianity of the Old World to be mused up by " such fresh winds from the Himalaya of heathenism." This " light of the age" was so highly es teemed that one of his female disciples de. clared " If he merely mentions my name I feel " myself ennobled." It is one of his maxims that whoso " would be a man must he a Non " conformist." Of the Transcendentalists we have several notiees. One of their most distinguished lee- turers refused to take a glass of milk fur nourishment, as it approached too nearly to animal food. Some " remarkable men " have started a newspaper at New York under the alluring title of the Spirit 4 the Aye. One of its editors delivered a lecture at New York—of course on Sunday—tat Christian Socialism : - His iiictrine was that which recognises no right but that of involuntarx attraction ; no law of duty but that of the artist's worship of beauty ; no i kid but that of the Pantheist, everywhere, and yet nowhere. - - - • • Miss Bremer duly admired the wonderful eloquence of these spirits of the age, but naively confesses that during their discussions she had a - feeling of wandering among the " clouds, or of being lost in a great wood. She visited the Phalanstery at New Jersey. and found another of America's remarkable men, Charming. setting a good example to the community by sewing hominy-bags : - - I sewed on* hag ; Churning also made another. and maintained that he sewed quieker than I dial. My opinion, however, is, that ray sawing WM* the best. - - At this institution the lady of the president wore a bhOrt tiretol bind pantaloons, which were very becoming tu her tine and pietnresque figure. Two hand some young girls, also, in short dresses or blouses, OA with leathern lianas, and with jaunty little caps elk their heads, which were remarkably becoming, went, ur rather danced, along the footpath before us. lint in spite of these pretty pantalooned ladies. and of Charring, with his " beautiful speaking head," sewing hominy-bags, Miss Bremer is compelled to speak of " the cloudy " state in which the intellect here is at present. •' She was present at a dinner at the Phalan stery, where the waiters consisted of handsome youths and young girls, all with artistically formed wreaths of leaves round their head s. At a ball in the evening the ladies appeared in full bloomer costume. Miss Breiner's friend Marcus was a great admirer of the institution. "He was a self made man," she writes, as we must think very irreverently, " but 1 rather limey our Lord * himself was of "his kind, both in head and heart." The "Shakers" seem a thriving community. Miss Bremer visited one of their settlements, and saw them go through their shaking evolu tions. When she asked the meaning of their Glance, she was told—" Our dance is 80 az - ranged that it may represent to us our duty "and our faith, and thus become to us a vital ising sermon both to soul and body." As in opposition to the Socialists they will admit of only spiritual union between men and women, our curious traveller pressed them with the question, what would become of the world it' their principles prevailed universally, as then the human race would die out ?—to which " Elder Evans replied, that if the world wade " a holy end it could not die too soon.' _ _ In tieorgia she met with a sect which we do not remember to have heard of before : One day I went to see, in the forest. some of the poor people called Clay-eaters these are a kind of wretched white people. found in considerable numbers both in Carolina and Georgia, who live in the woods, without churches. without schools, without hearths. and u nu times also without homes, but vet independent and proud in their own way, and who are atkinevd L y a disrabe.d appetite to eat a ion of unctuous earth. which is found here, until this taste hecomea a passion with them, equally strong with the love of intoxicating liquors; although. by !.low de .et, it consumes its victim, causes the com plexion to become grey. and the isoct,. soon t o mingle with the earth ou which it has nourished its Clay•eaters is the WON giyeiu to these miserable people. No oriv know a whetter they come. and scarcely how they exist. but they and the people called Sandhill people, - psor whites alto live in the barren. sandy tracts of the South= Stales, nuo Intuit ta great amine, hen.