# The Homes of the New World/Letter XX.

LETTER XX.
Cape May, New Jersey, Aug. 2.
I spent last Saturday and Sunday at a beautiful country-seat near Philadelphia, among beautiful, rare flowers, priucipally Mexican, with their splendid fiery colouring, and flocks of humming-birds, which fluttered amongst them, dipping their delicate, long bills into the flower-cups. A real feast it was, of lovely natural objects out of doors; and within doors, everything ornamented, rich, beautiful, aristocratic, but too exclusive, at least for my taste, and with too little in it of really “high life.”
I write to you to-day from the sea-side, with the great free ocean heaving up towards the sands opposite my window, and just before me, in the midst of the waves, a scene of the most democratic-republican character. But I must, however, tell you something about my visit to the beautiful villa, because I was there present at the marriage-feast of the maize, and saw the wedding-dress, and I must tell you something about it.
The maize is of the class diœcia. The male flower developes itself in a spiked head which is placed aloft on the top of the strong green plant, somewhat like the sea-reed with us, only much thicker in stem and in leaf. This ​head of male-flowers waves merrily in the wind, quite like a bon vivant, and scatters abroad his pollen like a cloud. Lower down, and enclosed in the stem, is placed the ear of maize-corn, enveloped in pale-green sheaths, which at the season of the blossoming open themselves a little at the top, in order to give room for a tuft of brilliant silky thread, varying in all the colours of the rainbow, but principally of violet and gold. It does not come very far out, and withdraws itself again after the ear, by means of it, has saluted the air and the light, like some of those small white plumes upon the pistils of the rye and wheat with us. These grand silky tufts were just now out, and I broke off one of these heads, and carefully unwrapped the one green garment after another. Seven green coverings did I thus remove, each inner one becoming of a still softer tint and still finer texture than the preceding, the nearer they approached the ear. Most cautiously did I remove the last pale green covering, and a spirally enwrapped veil of brilliant, white, silky thread streamed softly down from the rich, pearly ear; most lovely, most inexpressibly rich and pure! Each corn-pearl had its silken-thread, all were turned to one side, and wound round the ear, and united themselves at the top, where they pressed towards the light, and received colouring from its rays.
A spirit of worship arose in my soul at the sight of that hidden but now revealed glory, and I could not but recall the words of the Saviour; “Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed as one of these!” It was infinitely beautiful, and I wished that you could have seen it with me.
I must mention among the flowers the tiger-lily, on account of its unusual splendour. In the evening I saw a moth fluttering over the flowers, which was so like a humming-bird in its manner of flying and sipping from the flowers, with a short beak-like proboscis, as it fluttered ​on the wing, that I was for a moment uncertain whether it belonged to the class of birds or of butterflies till I came near, and saw the four legs. I cannot learn its name. Some maintain that it is called “Lady's-bird.”
In a general way, gentlemen and ladies in this country know but very little about natural objects, except simply as regards use and pleasure. This ignorance, especially in the South, and in the midst of this affluent animal and vegetable world, seems to me really lamentable. Human beings ought, indeed, to enjoy Nature in another way than oxen and butterflies; they should, as the lords of creation, reverence themselves and their Creator, by contemplating His works with intelligent minds, learning their meaning, and, as priests and priestesses of Nature, explaining her wisdom and interpreting her song of praise. It would be a worthy occupation for people of “high life;” and “high life” in the New World becomes an empty idea, if it does not teach itself to sing a new “high song,” higher than Solomon's, higher than Odin's and Wala's, but in the same spirit.
I went from Philadelphia with Professor Hart and his wife, on a beautiful July day, to Cape May; and beautiful was our journey upon the mirror-like Delaware, with its green, idyllian, beautiful shores. During the day I read Mr. Clay's “Annals” of the Swedish Colony upon these shores, and experienced heartfelt delight in glancing from the historical idyll to those scenes, where it had existed in peace and in piety. The temerity and the war-like dispositions of two of the leaders, Printz and Rising, were the cause of disturbances which ultimately led to the overthrow of the colony; but the people themselves were peaceful and contented. The names which they gave to different places. New Götheborg, Elfsborg, &c., prove the affection which they bore to the mother country. And how enchanted they were with the New World, is shown by the name of Paradise Point, which they bestowed upon a ​point where they landed on the shore of the Delaware; and by many anecdotes preserved by their Swedish annalist, Campanius. Here in the Vineland of the old Sagas did the Swedes find again the wild vine, and many glorious fruits which they mention. Here, amid these beautiful, sunbright hills and fields, they lived happily, even though under a foreign sway; “for,” says the chronicle, “the new government was mild and just towards them; but it caused them to forget their mother country.” The memory of that first colony upon these shores is, however, like the fresh verdure which covers them. I contemplated them with affection. Peace and freedom had been planted here by the people of Sweden.
In the evening we reached Cape May and the sea.
And now for the republic among the billows; not at all “high life,” excepting as regards certain feelings. It is now about ten o'clock in the morning; a very parti-coloured scene presents itself on the shore at an early hour; many hundreds, in fact more than a thousand people, men, women, and children, in red, blue, and yellow dresses; dresses of all colours and shapes—but the blouse-shape being the basis of every costume, however varied,—pantaloons and yellow straw hats with broad brims and adorned with bright red ribbon, go out into the sea in crowds, and leap up and down in the heaving waves, or let them dash over their heads, amid great laughter and merriment. Carriages and horses drive out into the waves, gentlemen ride into them, dogs swim about; white and black people, horses and carriages, and dogs—all are there, one amongst another, and just before them great fishes, porpoises lift up their heads, and sometimes take a huge leap, very likely because they are so amused at seeing human beings leaping about in their own element.
It is, as I have said, a republic among the billows, more equal and more fraternised than any upon dry land; because the sea, the great, mighty sea, treats all alike, ​roars around all and over all with such a superiority of power, that it is not worth any one's while to set themselves up in opposition to it, or to be as anything beside it; the sea dashes over them all, dashes them all about, enlivens them all, caresses them all, purifies them all, unites them all.
Among the citizens in the billows you must particularly notice one couple, a citizen in grand flame-coloured attire, and a citizeness in a brown, cabbage-butterfly-striped woollen gown. The citizeness distinguishes herself by her propensity to withdraw from the crowd to some solitary place, by her wish to be independent, and her inability to keep her footing against the waves; and these waves hurl her pitilessly enough upon a sandbank, where she is left alone to her own powers and a trident (a three-grained fork), with which she endeavours to keep herself firm on the ground, but in vain; while the citizen goes back to take out his wife. This couple are Professor Hart and the undersigned. Presently you might see me rise up out of the water, tired of struggling with the waves and being dashed on the bank—now sitting upon it like a sea-mew, surrounded by white-crested, tumultuous billows—now contemplating the ocean and infinite space, and now that parti-coloured company among the waves by the shore,—very unlike that in the Capitol of Washington! Here human beings do not appear great, nor remarkable in any way, and more like ungraceful, clumsy beasts than the lords and ladies of creation, because the garments in which they are attired are not designed to set off beauty.
I was at first almost frightened at the undertaking and the company, and at the unlovely, apparent rudeness of this kind of republic; but I longed for the strength of the sea, and thought, “We are all as nothing before our Lord, all of us sinners, poor wretches all of us!” And I went out among the rest. And though I am not yet as much at home among the waves as I see many others are, yet I ​am already enchanted with this wild bath, and hope to derive much good from it. It gives me a peculiar impression of a something at once grand and delightful; the waves come on like a giant, strong, but at the same time kind, gentle and mighty, almost like a god, at least, like the power of a god, full of health-giving life, so that when I feel them sweeping over me, I involuntarily seem to think that it would not be hard to die amid them. But be not afraid, my child; you may depend upon it that I will take care of myself; and here there are others who would also take care of me, for even here I have kind friends, although, in order to be at peace, I do not by any means court their civilities, but keep at a distance from them. This is not quite in accordance with my disposition, and it really is painful to me to turn this unfriendly side to those who make advances towards me in kindness, but I must endeavour to gain a little strength for the coming campaign,—I must have silence and repose,—I must rest a little.
With Professor Hart and his wife I get on excellently; they are quiet, kind, earnest people; they let me do as I like. I have a nice little room near theirs, with a fine view over the ocean, which here, without islands or rocks, rolls up unimpeded upon the low sandy shore; I hear its roar day and night from my open window, for I have, for several months, slept with my window open and the Venetian shutters closed, as people do here generally. I rest and enjoy myself, as I have not hitherto done in this country. The restless mind however labours still, writes romances and dramas, the scenes of which are all laid in Sweden, although the scenes here have given life to them; but I live for Sweden in all that I do and all that I imagine.
Now are you also, my Agatha, by the sea, and bathing in the salt waves. Oh! may the quiet bathing at Marstrand revive and invigorate you as much as I feel ​these wild ocean-bathings invigorate me! These would not however suit you; they are too powerful.
August 10th.—How beautiful it is to be here; how pleasant to pause from going out to see things, from the excitement of hearing, and learning, and from social life and conversation! How good it is to be alone, to be silent and quiet! And the sea! the sea! that grand, glorious sea, how soothing and refreshing it is to contemplate it, to listen to it, to bathe in it! I sit every morning, after my breakfast of coffee, Carolina rice, and an egg, by the sea-side, under a leafy alcove, with a book in my hand, and gaze out over the sea, and into the vast expanse of sky; see the porpoises in flocks following the line of the coast, and hear the great waves breaking and roaring at my feet. The porpoises amuse me particularly; they go for the most part in couples, and pop their heads up out of the sea as if to say “good morning,” making a curve of their bodies, so that the upper part is visible above the surface of the water; after this curved movement, made slowly and with a certain method in it, they plunge their heads down again and vanish in the waves, but are soon seen up again doing the same as before. They are large fishes, I should imagine about two ells long, and seem in form not to be unlike our largest salmon, and they have a something very grave in their movements, as they thus offer us their salutations from the deep; sometimes however they give great leaps.
Do you know why I sit with a book in my hand while I am looking out on all this? It is that people may think I am reading, and thus be prevented from interrupting me; excepting for this, I should have no peace. And I am become nervous to that degree by the incessant talk of strangers, and the repetition of ever-recurring questions, that my heart begins to beat if any one only sits down on the same bench with me, lest they should begin to talk to me; therefore, whenever this occurs ​I fix my eyes immediately on my book. In the mornings however my leafy drawing-room is tolerably free from people, and interesting porpoises are sometimes the only living creatures that I see.
I have had some rich hours here nevertheless, by the actual reading of a book lately published, the fourth part of Örsted's “Aanden i Naturen” in which he still further develops, as I besought of him to do in Copenhagen, those germs of thought which lie hidden in his glorious little work, “Ofver förnuftlagarnas enhet uti hela universum.” Never shall I forget the delight which thrilled through me the morning on which I first read this little work, which Örsted had given to me, and when the consciousness that it was equally applicable to the whole higher human intelligence, flashed through my soul like lightning! It was early in the morning, but I could not resist going to Örsted and telling him my delight and my presage. That morning, and the conversations which thence ensued between the amiable old man and myself during the winter which I spent in Copenhagen, and the rich hours which they afforded me, I lived over again here whilst I have been reading this new work of Örsted's, and during the glorious prospects which have opened to me even beyond the horizon, which has been indicated by this noble, scientific man. But Örsted has done his work in a large manner; and whilst he has determined that which is known certainly, and that which, in all probability, may be taken for granted, he has left the field open for still further research and deduction, by the guidance of those laws and analogies which he has pointed out. How I rejoice in the thoughts of being able, on my return to Denmark, to see again this estimable old, but youthful-minded, man.
But I must now tell you about my life at Cape May. I pass my mornings in company with the sea and the porpoises. When the tide comes in—as for instance this ​morning at half-past ten—and the waves advance farther and farther on the sands, I attire myself in bathing costume, and thus go out into the sea, but before the great crowd assembles there, and let myself be washed over by the waves, most frequently having hold of Professor Hart's hand, sometimes in company with a lively Quaker lady, a niece of Lucretia Mott; sometimes also alone, for I have now become quite expert in wrestling with the waves, and in keeping my balance in them. One remains in the water about a quarter of an hour, and it feels so pleasant that one is quite sorry to come out. After this bathing, I go to my chamber, write a little whilst my hair dries, drink a glass of good ice-cold milk, with a piece of excellent wheaten bread, and then lie down on my bed for an hour, where, hushed by the great cradle-song of the sea, I fall asleep directly as lightly and pleasantly as, I imagine, little children slumber to their mother's lullaby.
When I wake, I dress myself quickly for dinner. The dinner hour is two, and a noisy scene it is! There sit, in a large light hall, at two tables, about three hundred persons, whilst a thundering band is playing, waited upon by a regiment of somewhat above forty negroes, who march in and manœuvre to the sound of a bell, and make as much noise as they possibly can make with dishes and plates and such-like things, and that is not a little. They come marching in two and two, each one carrying a dish or bowl in his hands. Ring! says a little bell held aloft by the steward, and the dish-bearers halt. Ring! says the little bell again, and they turn themselves to the table, each one standing immoveably in his place. Ring! And they scrape their feet forward on the floor with a shrill sound, which would make me ready to jump up, if the whole of their serving were not a succession of scraping and shrill sounds and clamour, so that it would be impossible to escape from their noisy sphere. The dinners ​are, for the most part, very good, and the dishes less highly seasoned than I have been accustomed to find them at American tables, and especially at the hotels. Although I here always find a deficiency of vegetables, yet I am fond of one which is called squash, and which is the flesh of a species of very common gourd here, boiled and served up much in the style of our cabbage, and which is eaten with meat. It is white, somewhat insipid, but soft and agreeable, rather like spinach; it is here universally eaten; so also are tomatoes, a very savoury and delicately acid fruit, which is eaten as salad. Of the second course I dare not venture to eat anything but sago pudding or custard, a kind of egg-cream in cups, and am glad that these are always to be had here.
One standing dish at American tables at this season is the so-called “sweet corn.” It is the entire corn ear of a peculiar kind of maize, which ripens early. It is boiled in water and served whole; it is eaten with butter, and tastes like French petit pois—they scrape off the grains with a knife, or cut them out from the stem. Some people take the whole stem and gnaw them out with their teeth: two gentlemen do so who sit opposite Professor Hart and myself at table, and whom we call “the sharks,” because of their remarkable ability in gobbling up large and often double portions of everything which comes to table, and it really troubles me to see how their wide mouths, furnished with able teeth, ravenously grind up the beautiful white pearly maize ears, which I saw so lately in their wedding attire, and which are now massacred, and disappear down the ravenous throats of the sharks. When I see that, I am convinced that if eating is not a regularly consecrated act, and is it not so in the intention of the grace before meat?—then it is a low and animal transaction, unworthy of man and unworthy of nature.
After dinner I again sit with my book in my hand, and contemplate the sea, and enjoy the life-giving sea-breeze. ​Some bathing again takes place towards half-past five, when the tide again rises, and occasionally I also take a second bath, but in a general way I find that once a day is sufficient, because the wrestling with the waves makes bathing fatiguing. I mostly about that time take a walk, and sometimes call on people who have visited me, either in this great hotel where we are, or in some of the small cottages scattered about. When it gets dark, and it gets dark early here, I walk backwards and forwards in the upper piazza, which runs round our hotel—the Columbia House—and contemplate the glorious spectacle produced by the lightning, and the unusual eruptions of light with which the heavens have favoured us every evening since I have been here, without thunder being audible. The one half of the vault of heaven during these wonderful lightning-exhibitions will be perfectly clear and starlight; over the other half rests a dense cloud, and from its extremities, and from various parts of it, flash forth eruptions of light such as I never saw before; fountains of fire seem to spring forth at various points, at others they flash and sparkle as from the burning of some highly inflammable substance; gulfs open full of brilliant and coloured flames, which leap hither and thither; and from the edges of the cloud where it appears thin and grey, spears and wedge-like flashes are sent forth incessantly, while towards the horizon, where the cloud seems to melt into the sea, it is illumined by far-extended and mild gleams of lightning. In short it is an exhibition of celestial fire-works, which are always new, astonishing, and, to me, enchanting. We have had two magnificent thunder-storms, when the lightnings flashed and crossed each other over the ocean, so that it was a really grand spectacle. The weather just now is perfectly calm, and the days and nights are uninterruptedly delicious and beautiful. We have frequently music and earthly fireworks on the beach opposite our hotel, so that we do not ​experience any want of cheerful amusement. To the same category belong the cavalcades of gentlemen and ladies on the beach, driving about in light, little carriages, the crowds of pedestrians wandering along the shore, seeking and finding Cape May diamonds, small, clear crystals, which, when cut, present a remarkably clear and beautiful water. Later in the evening, when the moon rises, Professor Hart and myself may often be seen among the pedestrians; for I like to hear him develope his thoughts on the subject of education; I like to hear his method of awakening, and from year to year anew awakening and keeping alive the attention of the boys, and calling forth their peculiar faculties into full self-consciousness and activity. His theory and his practice in this respect seem to me excellent; and the progress of his school, and the ability and the cleverness of the boys in their various ways when they leave the school, testify to the correctness of the principle and the excellence of the method.
The roar of the sea is generally lower in the evening than in the day, the slumbrous light of the moon seems to lull the restless billows, and their song is one of repose. Sometimes I go to a little distance inland, and listen to the whispering of the maize in the evening breeze—a quiet, soothing sound! Thus approach night and sleep to the great cradle-song of the sea. Thus pass the days with little variation, and I only wish that I could prolong each twofold. It is said that the number of bathers here is from two to three thousand persons.
“Miss ——, may I have the pleasure of taking a bath with you, or of bathing you?” is an invitation which one often hears at this place from a gentleman to a lady, just as at a ball the invitation is to a quadrille or a waltz, and I have never heard the invitation refused, neither do I see anything particularly unbecoming in these bathing-dances, although they look neither beautiful nor charming, in particular that tour in the dance in which the gentleman ​teaches the lady to float, which, however, is not a thing to be despised in case of shipwreck.
Very various are the scenes which on all sides present themselves in the bathing-republic. Here a young, handsome couple, in elegant bathing attire, go dancing out into the wild waves holding each other by the hand, and full of the joy and the courage of life, ready to meet anything, the great world's sea and all its billows! There again is an elderly couple in grey garments holding each other steadily by the two hands, and popping up and down in the waves, just as people dip candles, with solemn aspects and merely observant to keep their footing, and doing all for the benefit of health. Here is a young, smiling mother, bearing before her her little, beautiful boy, a naked Cupid, not yet a year old, who laughs and claps his little hands for joy as the wild waves dash over him. Just by is a fat grandmother with a life-preserver round her body, and half sitting on the sands in evident fear of being drowned for all that, and when the waves come rolling onward catching hold of some of her leaping and laughing great children and grandchildren who dance around her. Here a graceful young girl who now, for the first time, bathes in the sea, flies before the waves into the arms of father or mother, in whose embrace it may dash over her; there is a groupe of wild young women holding each other by the hand, dancing around and screaming aloud every time a wave dashes over their heads, and there in front of them is a yet wilder swarm of young men, who dive and plunge about like fishes, much to the amazement of the porpoises (as I presume) who, here and there, pop their huge heads out of the billows, but which again disappear as a couple of large dogs rush forward through the water towards them in the hope of a good prize. Sometimes when one expects a wave to come dashing over one, it brings with it a great force of ladies and gentlemen, whom it has borne along with it, and one has then to take care ​of one's life. Three life-boats are continually rowing about outside this scene during the bathing season in order to be at hand in case of accident. Nevertheless, scarcely a year passes without some misfortune occurring during the bathing season, principally from the want of circumspection in the bathers themselves who venture out too far when they are not expert swimmers. The impulse of the waves in the ebb is stronger than in the flowing tide, and it literally sucks them out into the great deep; and I cannot in such case but think upon the legend of our mythology, about “the false Ran” which hungers for human life, and drags his prey down into his bosom. There is no other danger on this coast; porpoises are not dangerous, and of sharks there are none excepting at the dinner-table.
A shipwreck has lately occurred not far from Cape May, which has crushed the hope of many a heart, and has made a deep impression upon thousands of minds in the North-Eastern States.
One stormy night during July, a brig was stranded upon a rock on the coast of New Jersey. This brig conveyed to her native land the Marchioness Ossoli (Margaret Fuller), the object of so much conversation and so much blame, of so much admiration, of so much attention in the New England States, and with her came her husband, the Marchese Ossoli, and their little boy. They all perished, after having seen death approach for four hours; whilst the waves dashed to pieces the vessel which had borne them hither. As I recollect I mentioned to you Margaret Fuller's letter to the Spring's from Gibraltar, in which she spoke of her presentiment of evil, of the captain's death, &c.
After the death of the captain, the first-mate took the command of the vessel. He seems to have been an expert seaman, and so certainly calculated on bringing his ship safe into port, that the evening before the disaster occurred ​he assured the passengers that on the morrow they should be in New York. All, therefore, went to rest, and were woke in the early dawn by the vessel being aground. The helmsman had mistaken one beacon in these roads for another. They were not far from land, and the waves were running towards the land, so that several of the passengers had themselves lashed to planks, and thus came to shore although half dead. This mode of saving her life was offered to Margaret Fuller, but she refused it; she would not be saved without her husband and her child.
Before her embarkation from Italy, she wrote to one of her friends in America, “I have a presentiment that some great change in my fate is at hand. I feel the approach of a crisis. Ossoli was warned by a fortune-teller in his youth to beware of the sea, and this is his first great voyage; but if a misfortune should happen, I shall perish with my husband and my child.” And now the moment which had been foreshadowed to her was come, and she would perish with her beloved ones!
A sailor took the little boy, and bound him to a plank together with a little Italian girl, and threw himself into the sea with them, in the hope of saving them. They told Margaret Fuller that they had safely neared the shore. They told her that Ossoli also was saved. And then it was that she consented also to be lashed to a plank. She never reached the shore. A wave had washed Ossoli from the deck into the deep; the corpse of neither has ever been found; but the little boy was found upon a reef of sand still lashed with the little Italian girl to the plank, but both were dead.
“A quick death and a short death-struggle!” had always been Margaret Fuller's prayer. It had been fulfilled, and she was, and she is, with her beloved ones.
But her mother and her sisters who came to meet her at New York,—their sorrow almost approaches to ​despair; they had anticipated this meeting with so much anxiety and much joy; they wished to make her so happy! And that little boy,—everything was ready for him, his little bed, his chair, his table! Rebecca S., who saw Margaret Fuller's mother, writes to me that she looks like one who will never smile again; she seems crushed. Among those who perished in the wreck was also the brother of Charles Sumner, that young man who went to Petersburg and presented an acorn to the Emperor Nicholas.
I do not find in such works of Margaret Fuller's as I have read, any remarkable genius, nothing of which betrays that extraordinary power which distinguished her in conversation. Her talent as an author seems to me no way striking; nevertheless a large-minded, noble spirit shows itself in her writings and this caused her often to deplore, and filled her with indignation against that which she knew was not noble in her countrymen and her native land. She is rather the critic than the enthusiast. I have inscribed on my memory, from her volume called, “A Summer on the Lakes,” these words—
“He who courageously determines to accomplish a noble undertaking, whatever opposition he may experience, cannot fail in the end of winning thereby something valuable.”
That rich life with all its sufferings, yearnings, presentiments and hopes, is now at an end, has passed from the earth.
| “ | But she won what earth of best could give her, |
| | Love, the mother's name, and—last, a grave!”—Tegnér. |
From Margaret Fuller's letters I could believe that the highest object of her life was gained in her happiness as a mother; all her soul seemed to have centered in that. She had been described to me as not sufficiently feminine; she seems to me almost too much so; too ​much concentered in that one phasis of her heing. Well for her, in the meantime, who went hence with her heart's fulness of love, and went with those whom she loved most.
August 12th.—All continues to be delicious and good! The sea, the heavens and their grand show, the warlike games of Valhalla which take place every evening, in which heroes and heroic maidens hurl their flaming spears; the embraces of the sea during the day; the song of the sea at night; freedom, peace in the open air—ah! how glorious is all this!
Professor Hart enjoys the bathing and the life here as much as I do, and little Morgan flits about like a seagull, now on the shore and now in the water, bare-legged and brown, and as happy as a free lad can possibly be on the sea-shore. But poor Mrs. Hart derives benefit neither from bathing nor yet from the sea air, and becomes every day paler and paler, and can hardly eat anything but a little boiled rice; I believe that she lives principally, and is sustained by her husband's and her son's enjoyment of life, and will not leave this place for their sakes.
I have derived pleasure from my acquaintance with an amiable family, or rather two brother-families from Philadelphia, who live in a cottage near here, for the benefit of sea-bathing. Mr. F., the elder, is the minister of an Unitarian congregation in Philadelphia, one of the noblest, purest human beings whom God ever created, true, fervent, and full of love, but so absorbed by his Anti-slavery feelings that his life and his mind suffer in consequence, and I believe that he would, with the greatest pleasure, suffer death if, by that means, slavery could be abolished. And his lovely daughter would gladly suffer with him, a Valkyria in soul and bearing, a glorious young girl who is her father's happiness as he is hers. This grief for slavery would have made an end of the noble minister's life had not his daughter enlivened him every ​day with new joy and fascination. She is blonde and blue, like the Scandinavian “maiden” of our songs; and considerably resembles a Swede. The wife of the second brother is a brunette, delicate, beautiful, witty, charming as a Frenchwoman, a great contrast to the fair “Sköldmö,” but most delightful. She is the happy mother of three clever lads. The Valkyria has three brothers. The two families live together in beautiful family love. That which I see in this country of most beautiful and best is family-life and nature, as well as the public institutions which are the work of Christian love.
Among the novelties here, at the present moment, are some Indians who have pitched their tent in the neighbourhood of the hotels on the shore, and there weave baskets and fans according to Indian taste, with other small wares which they sell to——anybody who will buy them. The men are half-blood Indians, but the women true squaws, with black, wild elf-locks, and strong features. They are ugly, but the children are pretty, with splendid eyes and as wild as little wild beasts.
There is a “hop” every week in one of the hotels, that is, a kind of ball, which I suppose, differs only from other balls by people hopping about with less ceremony. I have not had the heart to leave the companionship of the sea and the moonlight to go to a ball and see human beings hopping about; neither have we here been without scenes of a less lively character. We have had a great battle in one hotel between the black servants and the white gentlemen, which has caused some bloody heads. The greatest share of blame falls upon a gentleman who owns slaves. He will be obliged to leave. There have been two attempts at murder in another hotel, but which were prevented in time. The blame of these is laid upon a negro, but still more upon the landlady's treatment of her domestics in this hotel. N.B.—All the waiters here are negroes or mulattoes.
​A sail which I have had to-day in a pleasure-yacht, belonging to an agreeable young man, a Mr. B., who invited me and some other of the company on board his vessel, has given me the greatest desire to return home in a sailing vessel, if I could only spare the time for it. Sailing vessels are so infinitely more beautiful and more poetical than steam vessels. On board the latter one never hears the song of the wind or the billows, because of the noise caused by the machinery, and one can enjoy no sea-air which is free from the fumes of the chimney or the kitchen. Steam-boats are excellent in the rivers, but on the sea—the sailing-ship for ever!
I have lately had a visit from some most charming young Quakeresses. No one can imagine anything more lovely than these young girls in their light, delicate, modest attire.
I must introduce to you a contrast to these. I was sitting one morning beneath my leafy alcove, on the sea-shore, with my book in my hand, but my eyes on the sea and the porpoises, when a fat lady, with a countenance like one of our jolliest Stockholm huckster-women, came and seated herself on the same bench at a little distance from me. I had a presentiment of evil, and I fixed my eyes on Wordsworth's Excursion. My neighbour crept towards me, and at length she said,—
“Do you know where Miss Bremer lives?”
“I believe,” said I, “that she lives in Columbia House!”
“Hum!—should be glad to see her!”
A silence. I am silent and look in my book. My neighbour begins again.
“I sent her the other day a packet,—some verses, with the signature, ‘The American Harp,’ and a volume,—and I have not heard a word from her.”
“Ah,” said I, now pushed very closely, “you are ​perhaps ‘The American Harp,’ and it is you that I have to thank for the present!” For here be it known, I had wished not to meet the authoress of a book written in the style of “The Sorrowful Certainties,” because the authoress had mentioned in her epistle, that it had been much praised in the Cape May newspapers, and I could not say anything of it but——possessed!
The good intention of the verses, however, deserved my thanks, and I now gave them quite properly.
“But,” asked the Harp, “have you read the book?”
“No, not yet; I have merely looked into it.”
“Indeed! but read it through; because it is a book which the more it is read the better it is liked; and I have written it all, both prose and verse; it is altogether mine. I have written a deal of verse; and think of bringing out a collection of my poetical works; but it is very expensive to bring out such!”
I said that I supposed it must be so.
“Yes,” said she, “but I write verses very easily, in particular where there is water; and I like to write about water. I am so very fond of water. Is there much water in Sweden?”
“Yes, a great deal,” replied I, “both of sea, and rivers, and lakes.”
“I should like to write there, I should be able to write there very well!” said she. “I should like to write in Sweden!”
I said that the voyage thither was dreadfully difficult and long—it was a thing hardly thought of!
“Ah, but I should not trouble myself about that,” she said; “I am so fond of the water!—and could write a deal in Sweden——See there! now my parasol has fallen! and the handle is broken; yes, that is what I expected. Yesterday I broke my spectacles with the gold frame, and now I must use my silver ones! I am always breaking something!—however I have not yet broken my neck!”
​“Then everything is not lost yet!” said I, laughing; and as I saw Professor Hart coming up the steps to my airy saloon, I hastened to make him acquainted with the ‘American Harp,’ and leaving her to him I vacated the field.
Such harps are to he met with in all countries, but in none do they sound forth with such naïveté as here.
A young poet from the city of the Friends, with a beautiful, dramatic talent, and a head like Byron, and a family of refinement and amiability belong to my agreeable acquaintance here, of whom I would see more, but who all come and go like the waves of the ocean.
August 16th.—There is now an end to my good time! To-day I set off to New York. To-morrow, my friends, the Harts, return to Philadelphia. My companion to New York is a lawyer, an elderly gentleman, very estimable and good-hearted, I believe, but who has the fault of having too good a memory for——verses, and a fancy for repeating, long and often, very prosaic pieces from the German, French, and English authors, which are less amusing to prosaic listeners.
At dinner I exchanged my place, and the sharks who now saw empty seats opposite them, looked about for me with a hungry mien; it seemed to me, as if they felt the want of a living foreground to their feast.
I regret leaving Cape May which is to me so quiet and invigorating; but I must not linger any longer, I have so much yet to see and to learn in this country.
I shall now go and take my last bathe in the sea, and think the while, that you also are bathing in the health-giving waves of the ocean. The waves of the Atlantic Sea and the North Sea flow into the same great bath; and in it thou bathest with me and I with thee!
“Miss Agatha, may I have the pleasure of taking a bathe with you?”
And thus I embrace you heartily, all through the sea!