Part 9

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 Hoccanum, at the foot of Mount Holyoke, and that of Pascommuc, lying below Mount Tom, remind the traveller how the possessors have been displaced from this fair land, and how their descendants must be mourning their lost Quonnecticut. Such sympathies soon wither away, however, amid the stir and loveliness of the sunny village.

We had letters of introduction to some of the inhabitants of Northampton, and knew that our arrival was expected; but we little anticipated such eagerness of hospitality as we were met with. The stage was stopped by a gentleman who asked for me. It was Mr. Bancroft, the historian, then a resident of Northampton. He cordially welcomed us as his guests, and ordered the stage up the hill to his house; such a house! It stood on a lofty terrace, and its balcony overlooked first the garden, then the orchard stretching down the slope, then the delicious village, and the river with its meadows, while opposite rose Mount Holyoke. Far off in the valley to the left lay Hadley, half hidden among trees; and on the hills, still farther to the left, was Amherst, with its college buildings conspicuous on the height.

All was in readiness for us, the spacious rooms with their cool arrangements (it was the 7th of August), and the ladies of the family with their ready merry welcome. It was past noon when we arrived, and before the early dinner hour we were as much at home as if we had been acquainted for months. The American mirth, common everywhere, was particularly hearty in this house; and as for us, we were intoxicated with the beauty of the scene. From the balcony we gazed as if it was presently to melt before our eyes. This day, I remember, we first tasted green corn, one of the most delicious of vegetables, and by some preferred to green peas. The greatest drawback is the way in which it is necessary to eat it. The cob, eight or ten inches long, is held at both ends, and, having been previously sprinkled with salt, is nibbled and sucked from end to end till all the grains are got out. It looks awkward enough: but what is to be done? Surrendering such a vegetable from considerations of grace is not to be thought of.

After dinner we walked in the blooming garden till summoned within doors by callers. My host had already discovered my taste for rambling, and determined to make me happy during my short visit by driving me about the country. He liked nothing better himself. His historical researches had stored his memory with all the traditions of the valley, of the state, and, I rather think, of the whole of New-England. I find the entries in my journal of this and the next two days the most copious of any during my travels.

Mr. Bancroft drove me to Amherst this afternoon. He explained to me the construction of the bridge we passed, which is of a remarkably cheap, simple, and safe kind for a wooden one. He pointed out to me the seats and arrangements of the villages we passed through, and amused and interested me with many a tale of the old Indian wars. He surprised me by the light he threw on the philosophy of society in the United States; a light drawn from history, and shed into all the present relations of races and parties to each other. I had before been pleased with what I knew of the spirit of Mr. Bancroft's History of the United States, which, however, had not then extended beyond the first volume. I now perceived that he was well qualified, in more ways than one, for his arduous task.

We mounted the steep hill on which Amherst stands, and stopped before the red brick buildings of the college. When the horse was disposed of, Mr. Bancroft left me to look at the glorious view, while he went in search of some one who would be our guide about the college. In a minute he beckoned me in, with a smile of great delight, and conducted me into the lecture-room where Professor Hitchcock was lecturing. In front of the lecturer was a large number of students, and on either hand as many as forty or fifty girls. These girls were from a neighbouring school, and from the houses of the farmers and mechanics of the village. The students appeared quite as attentive as if they had had the room to themselves. We found that the admission of girls to such lectures as they could understand (this was on geology) was a practice of some years' standing, and that no evil had been found to result from it. It was a gladdening sight, testifying both to the simplicity of manners and the eagerness for education. I doubt whether such a spectacle is to be seen out of New-England.

The professor showed us the Turkey Tracks, the great curiosity of the place; and distinct and gigantic indeed they were, deeply impressed in the imbedded stone. Professor Hitchcock's name is well known among geologists from his highly-praised work, A Report on the Geology, Mineralogy, Botany, and Zoology of Massachusetts. We ascended to the observatory, whence we saw a splendid variety of the view I had been admiring all day, and we pronounced this college an enviable residence.

It is a Presbyterian college, and is flourishing, as Presbyterian colleges of New-England do, under the zeal of professors who are not content with delivering courses of lectures, but who work with the students, as much like companions as teachers. The institution had been at work only ten years, and at this time it contained two hundred and forty undergraduates, a greater number than any in the state, except, perhaps, Harvard.

The next day was a busy one. We were called away from gazing from the balcony after breakfast, the carriage being at the door. Two more carriages joined us in the village, and we proceeded in the direction of Mount Holyoke. Our road lay through rich unfenced cornfields and meadows where the mowers were busy. There was a great contrast between the agriculture here and in other parts of the state. Here an annual inundation spares much of the toil of the tiller. It seems as if little more were necessary than to throw in the seed and reap the produce; while, in less-favoured regions, the farmer may be seen ploughing round the rocks which protrude from the soil, and bestowing infinite pains on his stony fields. The carriages conveyed us a good way up the far-famed hill. When it became too steep for the horses, we alighted, and found the ascent easy enough. There are rude but convenient ladders, broad and strong, at difficult turns of the path, and large stones and roots of trees afford a firm footing in the intervals. The most wayward imagination could not conjure up the idea of danger, and children may be led to the top in perfect safety.

On the summit is a building which affords shelter in case of rain, and lemonade and toddy in case of thirst. There is a fine platform of rock on which the traveller may rest himself while he looks around over a space of sixty miles in almost every direction. The valley is the most attractive object, the full river coiling through the meadows, and the spires of village churches being clustered at intervals along its banks; but smokes rise on the hillsides, from the Green Mountains in the north to the fading distance beyond Springfield in the south. To the east the view extends nearly to New-Haven (Connecticut), seventy miles off. Mount Holyoke is eleven hundred feet above the river.

While I was absorbed in the contemplation of this landscape I was tapped on the shoulder. When I turned a shipmate stood smiling behind me. She highly enjoyed the odd meeting on this pinnacle, and so did we. The face of a pleasant shipmate is welcome everywhere, but particularly in a scene which contrasts so strongly with those in which we have lived together, as a mountain-top with the cabin of a ship. Some person who loves contrast has entered a remarkable set of names in the album on Mount Holyoke as having just visited the spot, Hannah More, Lord Byron, Martin Luther, &c.

We returned by a shorter, but equally pretty road to dinner; and presently after, as we were not at all tired, we set off again for the Sugarloaf, ten miles up the valley. We had a warm ride and a laborious scramble up the Sugarloaf; but we were rewarded by a view which I think finer than the one we saw in the morning, though not so various. It commanded the whole valley with its entire circle of hills. White dots of buildings on the hillsides spoke of civilization; Amherst, with its red buildings, glowed in the sun; and the river below was of a dark gray, presenting a perfect reflection of its fringed banks, of the ox-team on the margin, and of boys fishing among the reeds. Smokes rose where brush was burning, indicating the foundation of new settlements. In one of these places which was pointed out to me an accident had happened the preceding spring, which affords another hint of what the hearts of emigrant mothers have sometimes to bear. A child of two years old wandered away one afternoon from its parents' side, and was missing when the day's work was done. The family and neighbours were out in the woods for hours with torches, but they only lost their own way without discovering the little one. In the morning it was found, at a considerable distance from home, lying under a bush as if asleep. It was dead, however: the cold of the night had seized it, and it was quite stiff.

The sun set as we returned homeward with all speed, having to dress for an evening party. While the bright glow was still lingering in the valley, and the sky was beginning to melt from crimson to the pale seagreen of evening, I saw something sailing in the air like a glistening golden balloon. I called the attention of my party to it just in time. It burst in a broad flash and shower of green fire. It was the most splendid meteor I ever saw. We pitied a quiet-looking couple whom we met jogging along in a dearborn, and whose backs had, of course, been turned to the spectacle. They must have wondered at the staring and commotion among our party. I saw an unusual number of falling-stars before we reached home.

The parties, on all the three evenings when I was at Northampton, were like the village parties throughout New-England. There was an over proportion of ladies, almost all of whom were pretty and all well dressed. There was a good deal of party spirit among the gentlemen, and great complaints of religious bigotry from the ladies. One inhabitant of the place, the son of a Unitarian clergyman, was going to leave it, chiefly on account, he told me, of the treatment his family received from their Calvinistic neighbours. While he was at home they got on pretty well; but he had to go from home sometimes, and could not bear to leave his wife to such treatment as she met with in his absence. This was the worst case I heard of; but instances of a bigotry nearly as outrageous reminded me painfully of similar cases of pious cruelty at home. The manners towards strangers in these social meetings are perfectly courteous, gay, and friendly. I had frequent occasion to wonder why a foreign Unitarian was esteemed so much less dangerous a person than a native.

There was endless amusement to me in observing village manners and ways of thinking. Sometimes I had to wait for explanations of what passed before my eyes, finding myself wholly at fault. At other times I was charmed with the upright simplicity which villagers not only exhibit at home, but carry out with them into the world.

In one Massachusetts village a large party was invited to meet me. At teatime I was busily engaged in conversation with a friend, when the teatray was brought to me by a young person in a plain white gown. After I had helped myself, she still stood just before me for a long while, and was perpetually returning. Again and again I refused more tea, but she still came. Her pertinacity was afterward explained. It was a young lady of the village who wished to see me, and knew that I was going away the next day. She had called on the lady of the house in the afternoon, and begged permission to come in a plain gown as a waiter. She was, of course, invited as a guest, but she would not accept the invitation, and she was allowed to follow her own fancy.

In another village I became acquainted with one of its most useful residents, the schoolmaster, who has a passion for music, and is organist of a church. It was delightful to hear him revelling in his own music, pouring his soul out over his organ. He has been to Rome, and indulged himself with listening to the Miserere. He told me that two monks whom he met in Italy, before reaching Rome, saw him reading his Bible, with a Commentary lying before him. In his own words,

"They told me I had better give over that. 'Give over what?' says I. 'Why, reading your Bible, with that book to help you.' 'Why shouldn't I read in my own Bible?' says I. 'Because the pope won't like it,' said they. 'In my humble opinion,' says I, 'it is far from plain what the pope has to do with my duty and way of improving myself. It's no wish of mine, I'm sure, to speak disrespectfully of the pope, or to interfere with what he chooses to do in his own sphere; but I must save my own soul in the way I think right.' Well, they talked about the Inquisition, and would fain have made me believe I was doing what was very unsafe; so, after a good deal more argument, I settled with myself what I would do. When I got to Rome I put away the Commentary, thinking that that way of reading was not necessary, and might be left to another time; but I went on reading my Bible as usual.

"Well: when Passion Week came I took care to see all that was going forward, and I was in the great square when the pope came out to give the blessing. The square was as full as ever it could hold, and I stood near the middle of it. I found all the people were about to go down on their knees. Now, you know, it is against my principles altogether to go down on my knees before the pope or any man; so I began to think what I should do. I thought the right principle was to pay the same respect to the pope that I would to any sort of chief ruler, but none, in particular, on religious grounds; so I settled to do just what I should do to the President of the United States. So, when the whole crowd dropped on their knees in one moment, there I stood, all alone, in the middle of the square. I knew the pope must see me, and the people about him; but my hope was that the crowd would be so occupied with their own feelings that they would not notice me. Not so, however. One looked at me, and then another, and then it spread, till I thought that the whole crowd was looking at nothing but me. Meantime I was standing with my body bent--about this much--and my hat off, which I held so, above my head. It happened the sun was very hot, and I got a bad headache with keeping my head uncovered; but that was not worth minding. Well, I was glad enough when the people all rose on their feet again. But it was by no means over yet. The pope came down, and walked through the midst of the people; and, as it happened, he came just my way. I was not sorry at the prospect of getting a near view of him, so I just stood still till he came by. The people kept dropping on their knees on either side of him as he approached. Some of them tugged at me to do the same; but, said I, 'Excuse me, I can't.' So, when the old pope came as near to me as I am to you, he stopped, and looked full in my face, while I stood bent, and my hat raised as before, and thinking within myself, 'Now, sir, I am paying you the same respect I would show to the President of the United States, and I can't show any more to any one:' so, after a good look at me, the old gentleman went on and the people near seemed soon to have forgotten all about me. And so I got off."

On the last day of my visit at Northampton I went into the graveyard. Some of the inhabitants smiled at Mr. Bancroft for taking me there, there being no fine monuments, no gardens and plantations, as in more modern cemeteries; but there were things which my host knew I should consider more interesting. There were some sunken, worn, mossy stones, which bore venerable pilgrims' names and pious inscriptions. Several of the original settlers lie here; and their graves, gay with a profusion of the golden rod, and waving with long grass, are more interesting to the traveller than if their remains reposed in a less primitive mode. The stranger is taken by surprise at finding how much stronger are the emotions excited among these resting-places of the pilgrims than by the institutions in which their spirit still lives. Their spirit lives in its faulty as well as its nobler characteristics. I saw here the grave of a young girl, who was as much murdered by fanaticism as Mary Dyar, who was hanged for her Antinomianism in the early days of the colony. The young creature, whose tomb is scarcely yet grass-grown, died of a brain fever brought on by a revival.

I happened to be going the round of several Massachusetts villages when the marvellous account of Sir John Herschel's discoveries in the moon was sent abroad. The sensation it excited was wonderful. As it professed to be a republication from the Edinburgh Journal of Science, it was some time before many persons, except professors of natural philosophy, thought of doubting its truth. The lady of such a professor, on being questioned by a company of ladies as to her husband's emotions at the prospect of such an enlargement of the field of science, excited a strong feeling of displeasure against herself. She could not say that he believed it, and would gladly have said nothing about it; but her inquisitive companions first cross-examined her, and then were angry at her skepticism. A story is going, told by some friends of Sir John Herschel (but whether in earnest or in the spirit of the moon story I cannot tell), that the astronomer has received at the Cape a letter from a large number of Baptist clergymen of the United States, congratulating him on his discovery, informing him that it had been the occasion of much edifying preaching and of prayer-meetings for the benefit of brethren in the newly-explored regions; and beseeching him to inform his correspondents whether science affords any prospects of a method of conveying the Gospel to residents in the moon. However it may be with this story, my experience of the question with regard to the other, "Do you not believe it?" was very extensive.

In the midst of our amusement at credulity like this, we must remember that the real discoveries of science are likely to be more faithfully and more extensively made known in the villages of the United States than in any others in the world. The moon hoax, if advantageously put forth, would have been believed by a much larger proportion of any other nation than it was by the Americans, and they are travelling far faster than any other nation beyond the reach of such deception. Their common and high schools, their lyceums and cheap colleges, are exciting and feeding thousands of minds, which in England would never get beyond the loom or the ploughtail. If few are very learned in the villages of Massachusetts, still fewer are very ignorant; and all have the power and the will to invite the learning of the towns among them, and to remunerate its administration of knowledge. The consequence of this is a state of village society in which only vice and total ignorance need hang the head, while (out of the desolate range of religious bigotry) all honourable tastes are as sure of being countenanced and respected as all kindly feelings are of being reciprocated. I believe most enlightened and virtuous residents in the villages of New-England are eager to acknowledge that the lines have fallen to them in pleasant places.

CAMBRIDGE COMMENCEMENT.

"A good way to continue their memories, while, having the advantage of plural successions, they could not but act something remarkable in such variety of being, and, enjoying the fame of their passed selves, make accumulation of glory unto their last durations."

--SIR THOMAS BROWNE.

The Pilgrim Fathers early testified to the value of education. "When New-England was poor, and they were but few in number, there was a spirit to encourage learning." One of their primary requisitions, first by custom and then by law, was, "That none of the brethren shall suffer so much barbarism in their families as not to teach their children and apprentices so much learning as may enable them perfectly to read the English tongue." They next ordered, "To the end that learning may not be buried in the graves of our forefathers, every township, after the Lord hath increased them to the number of fifty householders, shall appoint one to teach all children to write and read; and where any town shall increase to the number of one hundred families, they shall set up a grammar-school, the masters thereof being able to instruct youth so far as they may be fitted for the University."

This university was Harvard. In 1636 the General Court had voted a sum equal to a year's rate of the whole colony towards the erection of a college. Two years afterward, John Harvard, who arrived at the settlements only to die, left to the infant institution one half of his estate and all his library. The state set apart for the college the rent of a ferry. The wealthiest men of the community gave presents which were thought profuse at the time, and beside their names in the record stand entries of humbler gifts; from each family in the colonies twelvepence, or a peck of corn, or an equivalent in wampum-peag; and from individuals the sums of five shillings, nine shillings, one pound, and two pounds. There were legacies also; from one colonist a flock of sheep; from another cotton cloth worth nine shillings; from others a pewter flagon worth ten shillings, a fruit-dish, a sugar-spoon, a silver-tipped jug, one great salt, one small trencher salt. Afterward the celebrated Theophilus Gale bequeathed his library to the college; and in 1731 Bishop Berkeley, after visiting the institution, presented it with some of the Greek and Latin classics.