Retrospect of Western Travel, Volume 2 (of 2)

Some of the most extraordinary instances I met with of persons growing mentally awry were among the scholars who are thinly sprinkled through the Southern and Western settlement...

It was undergoing its worst persecutions just before I entered Boston for the winter. I had resolved some time before, that, having heard every species of abuse of Garrison, I o...

The lessons here were no more satisfactory than elsewhere as to any enlargement or accuracy of thought in the pupils. I doubt whether the means of reaching their wants have yet...

I was at this time slightly acquainted with three or four abolitionists, and I was distrusted by most or all of the body who took any interest in me at all. My feelings were ver...

The next morning, the 8th, I was up in time to see the scramble for milk that was going on at the wooding-place. The moment we drew to the land and the plank was put out, the st...

Dr. Charming bore admirably the wrath he drew upon himself by breaking silence on the slavery question. Popular hatred and the censure of men whom he respected were a totally ne...

The persons who saw the falling stars of the 14th of November, 1833, were few; but the sight was described to me by more than one. It was seen chiefly by masters of steamboats,...

A dark pine hill at the end of this pass is the signal of the traveller's approach to the Notch. We walked up a long ascent, the road overhanging a ravine, where rocks were capr...

"When these great objects shall come seriously to occupy our minds, the union will be secure, for its centre will be sound, and its attraction on the surrounding parts irresisti...

In the afternoon we came in sight of New Madrid, in the State of Missouri; a scattered small place, on a green tableland. We sighed to think how soon our wonderful voyage would...

As the cold weather approached, it became necessary for Mr. P. to remove southward. It was a weary journey over the Alleghanies into Ohio, but it had to be performed. Every arra...

The business of the house is carried on by the pupils as far as possible, and mechanical arts are taught with care and diligence; but the rule of the establishment is to improve...

The exercises were relieved by music four times during the morning; and then everybody talked, and many changed places, and the intervals were made as refreshing as possible. Ye...

I have told enough to show what comes of compromise. There is no need to lengthen out my story of persecutions. I will just mention that the last news from Missouri that I saw w...

At Elizabethtown the next morning she refused breakfast with the utmost cheerfulness; but our friend Mr. L. invited her to sit down with us, which she did with a good grace. At...

The year following John Harvard's bequest the Cambridge printing-press was set up, the only press in America north of Mexico. The General Court appointed licensers of this press...

In the Ohio river, a few miles below Marietta, there is a beautiful island, finely wooded, but now presenting a dismal picture of ruin. This island was purchased, about thirty-f...

"That it was full of monsters who devoured canoes as well as men; that the devil stopped its passage, and sunk all those who ventured to approach the place where he stood; and t...

It is true that the deaf from birth are deficient in one sense only, while they are possessed of four; but the one in which they are deficient is, beyond all estimate, the most...

The dusky race was in my mind's eye as we followed the windings of the river through the rich valley from Springfield to Northampton. The very names of the places, the hamlet of...

Many prizes of books were given by the gentlemen on the platform, and the ceremony closed with an address from the pulpit which was true, and, in some respects, beautiful, but w...

On a December morning you are awakened by the domestic scraping at your hearth. Your anthracite fire has been in all night; and now the ashes are carried away, more coal is put...

... "Another sign of our times, also marked by an analogous political movement, is the new importance given to the single person. Everything that tends to insulate the individua...

Before visiting Mount Auburn I had seen the Catholic cemetery at New-Orleans, and the contrast was remarkable enough. I never saw a city churchyard, however damp and neglected,...

Out of this matter of mutual opinion arises a cheering emotion, both to the retrospective traveller and to the thinker among the tombs. Each foreign companion of the one, and ea...