Papers from Overlook-House

V.

THE IMAGE-MAKER

VI.

THE CLOUDS

VII.

THE PROTECTOR DYING

VIII.

THE INDIAN DREAM-CELL

In Pearl-run valley, not far from the noise and crowded streets of our great Metropolis, the original forests, and a few unsightly rural dwellings, have given place to a large number of those pleasant homes, which citizens of wealth or of comfortable means, have erected for their summer abodes. Hence the hills around are dotted with costly mansions, and unpretending cottages.

It is a sight inspiring happiness to look on these dwellings in the spring. You have evidence that so many families, released from the city are rejoicing in the pure invigorating air, in the sunshine and shadows, in the rooms associated with so much ease and tranquility.

Can it be that any one can be found who is void of all sympathy with the natural world? All who seek these rural homes, at the established season, are supposed – if we are the correct exponents of common opinion, – to take wings from the city, for those cool and shady nests, under the influence of love for the country?

Of course, when the spring arrives, all who have led a fashionable career for the winter, have a sudden and marvellous restoration to their senses. Like those whom some friendly magician has freed from the enchantments of an evil genius, they are restored to a healthy judgment. They then perceive the folly of the life which they have led. The absurdity of denominating as society, crowded assemblies, where conversation bears the relation to interchange of thought, such as becomes intelligent creatures, which wilted and fallen leaves sustain to those of the beautiful and nutritious plant from which they have been torn, – where trifles and external polish are accepted in the place of the best qualities which can commend others to our esteem, – where friendships are formed, not links of human creatures with affectionate qualities to one another, but to fashion, whose representatives they are, – friendships to be dissolved, as easily as the melting of the Pyramids of frozen cream, all these facts become, as soon as the air is heated in spring, some of the most clear of all possible demonstrations. Then they long for a more reasonable life. All that true poets or wise moralists have taught of the rural home, asserts its power over the memory. All vulgar glare becomes utterly distasteful. Simplicity of life, amid a nature that summons man to cast off artificial follies, has a powerful fascination. They have been poor city puppets too long. Let them now be true men and women, where all things are so true and real. Hence they hasten to the country.

Let us be thankful that any influences, even those of fashion, draw so many of our citizens from the towns to the country-places. Let us be thankful, that the great river of city-life, – hurrying on so madly, and tossing its stained waves crowned with bubbles that pain the eye, has its side eddies, and throws off great branches for far away shades, where the waters are at rest, and where innumerable small streams unite their efforts to purify that which has so long been so turbid.

Minds and hearts will touch one another in the rural scene. The limited number of associates will foster some more depths of mutual interest. The Sunday in the country, the rural church, the gathering of the congregation from green lanes, and winding roads, and not from streets sacred to pomp and vanity, to business, and to glaring sin, God so visible in all his glorious works, perhaps a Pastor trained by his labors among plain people during the winter, to speak the Word with greater simplicity, these are not influences which exist only in appearance. Men ask why make life such a vain and foolish dream? I trust the day will come, when many families of cultivated minds, will reside all the year in our country-places. From such social circles influences must go forth, to transform no inconsiderable portion of what is called the society of the town. The necessary association of the two classes, will prove of inestimable benefit to each.

If you passed along Pearl-run valley, and left the more cultivated region, which we have described, the scene changed, and you found yourself in wild places.

There were steep cliffs, with endless masses of broken stone beneath, as if a Giant McAdam, ages ago had been meditating the formation of a great road, like that we pigmies build on a smaller scale, in these degenerate days. And there were mountains where you could scarcely detect any proof that the hand of man had disturbed the primeval forests.

These you could ascend by winding paths, and attain elevations, where half the world seemed to lie beneath your feet. Well do I remember such an ascent with a sister, who had been a few hours before, with me in the crowded city.

Our time was limited. What we could see of the glorious scenes around us, must be accomplished late in the afternoon. The sun had gone down while we were climbing up the side of the mountain. We had never been in such deep shadows. For the first time in our lives, we knew what was the awful grandeur of solitude. Our existence seemed more sublime for the solemn awe.

As we hastened on to reach a vast rock, from whose summit we were assured, the view was one of surpassing beauty, we met some children, wild in appearance, barefooted, seeking cattle that found pasturage in an open space, scarcely perceptible to the eye, that, at a distance, could take in the whole aspect of the mountain. But one of these little creatures in her kindness added, with surpassing power the effect of the wilderness.

"Take care," she said, "you may be lost." We, in the vast mountain where we could be lost!

What a sound for ears so lately filled with the noise of the crowded city! Oh child! what human study could have taught the greatest genius in our land, to speak and add to the solemn power, of that most memorable time, of two awed and enthusiastic wanderers!

How strange it is that the intense excitement of the soul, among such scenes, is such a healthy peace – never the over-wrought exertion of the mind! The intense activity within us does not subside into tranquility. It is elevated to a peace. If you would have true enjoyment there, God, – the Infinite Father, – our immortality – the world our Redeemer has promised us, must be placed side by side with every impression.

Our forests are strangely primeval solitudes, when you reflect what tribes of Indians have resided in them. That wild people have left there no traces of their existence. You often seem to be one of a few, who alone have ever disturbed the Sabbath rest of very holy places.

Why did not the aboriginal inhabitants leave us in letters carved on the rocks, traditions, which our learned and ingenious men could interpret? We know not what we have lost in our deprivation of wonderful mysteries. We wander by great oaks, and stony places unconscious of powers that linger there. The lore of demons and of spirits that plagued or comforted the Indians is lost to us.

Yet, let us not be unjust as though the civilization which has superseded the rude Indian life, had given us no romantic substitutes for these powers which agitated the barbarian. And especially let us be just to the genius of those who came over from the wilds of Germany, as well as those who had their intellect brightened by the illumination of Plymouth Rock. The imaginations of the two, were, indeed, very diverse in their nature. They differed as the stiff gowns and ample pantaloons, all so quaintly made, from the paint and skins which made the array of the savage.

I am by no means insensible to the poetry which speaks to us in the horse-shoe, nailed to the door to keep away witches, whose fears were the more suggestive, because no one ever described the full power of the mischief they were able to accomplish; and to the mysterious art medicinal, rivalling in wisdom many of the celebrated systems of the schools, whereby the muttering of strange words could cure a fever and ague, – and where a nail that had pierced the foot was safely wrapped up and laid up the chimney as a preventive of lock-jaw. The world is not so prosaic as some would imagine.

I am happy, however, in being able to rescue one important tradition from oblivion.

In one of the mountains of which I have spoken, which has been courteous enough to retain its place, and ancient habits, notwithstanding the airs and encroachments of the adjoining settlements, was a spot – well known to some favored few of the Indian tribes. It was a mysterious place.

At the side of a large rock was a small cell. It was hollowed on its stony side almost as if it had been a work of art. A little ledge that stood across it, afforded a rude seat.

Tradition goes back to the wife of an Indian king, centuries ago, who first acquired a knowledge of the virtues of the place, and availed herself of the acquisition in a very happy manner.

It is a comfort and a sorrow to know how human nature has been the same in all ages. Wives and husbands have had many virtues and failings in common, whether they dwelt in primeval days in the Alleghany Mountains or in Broadway in New York.

The Indian Queen had, it appears, great difficulty in preserving a salutary discipline in the wigwam. Her lord – yet not her master – she had never assented to that peculiar precedence in the marriage contract, had been inclined to low company – that is to company that might be good enough in itself, but was entirely too low for the royalty of the realm. These fellows, white traders, who would prowl about to waylay his Majesty, keeping respectfully out of sight of the Queen, were by no means school-masters abroad for the benefit of the red man.

Even the queen, for some reason which it is difficult to conjecture, did not object to the introduction of large quantities of fire-water into the palace. She always took charge of it, however, and for that reason, no doubt, felt that it would be used in a judicious manner.

But at last the king was unwise enough to set up as a reformer; not under the instigation of the white men, – but indirectly, through their influence. There is nothing new under the sun. We now abound in men and women, who are in advance of their age. A man of mere genius, in these days, is a helpless creature; sure to be laid up like old lumber in a house, in some out of the way place of deposit. But if he should only have a moderate disorder of the brain, – have circumstances to occur, which would produce the effect which according to Bishop Warburton was the result of the earthquake in his day, "widening the crack in old Will Winston's noddle," – then particularly if he can be mad after a method, he is sure to form a society, and to be well fed and famous.

There was also in our kingly Indian reformer, one disagreeable quality, – by no means unknown in an enlightened philosophical head of associations. In all his projects, he was himself a central object. He differed from some of our reformers in one respect. He was not crazy for notoriety.

Among other things which he learnt from these good-for-nothing white scamps, who were in such disfavor with the queen, fellows who had traveled all around the world to little purpose, – sifting with wonderful skill all useless and bad knowledge from the good, and casting away the good as chaff, was a piece of information concerning the social relations of some of his royal cousins in distant lands.

They gave him a glowing picture of a great chief who had a great host of wives. Our king had informed one of his friends, that he thought that the introduction of this custom on our American strand, would be a most desirable improvement. And one day, under the influence of fire-water, which in opening his heart, proved how good a fellow he was, he suggested the theory to the queen.

It is said, that the wary queen, in her distress and perplexity at this theory, sought for one of the wonder-workers of her tribe, and learnt from him the secret powers of this cell. There she placed her royal spouse, who slept until he was sober enough to dream a wise dream. The consequence was his reformation. After this, it is also said, that the queen attained such domestic power, that a warrior who slept under their roof one night, was heard to inquire of one of his tribe, whether in case the people should go out on the war-path, the woman would be the great warrior.

It is also reported, that the spirit of the Indian queen often haunts the cell, and has some secret power to allure chosen way-farers there to rest, and have the dreams which belong to the place. The great peculiarity of the mysterious power here exerted on the dreamer, was this, – that he was compelled in his dreams, to follow a course contrary to his habits and nature, and to learn some of the results of a new course of conduct.

Over the cell were jutting rocks, which threw down as the sun was over them, strange shadows, making the most mysterious letters. Curious wild vines, with grotesque leaves, grew above it, having a fragrance like that of poppies, but of greater intensity. Some fir trees near, blended their murmurs with the hum of the wild-bees, and with a rill whose waters passed over a rock, covered with green weeds, and fell into a small dead pool, whose issues crept silently away amid innumerable roots. Opposite, on a mountain, was a circle composed of various objects, which, as you gazed seemed to move round with ever increasing rapidity, and to exercise a mesmeric power in causing tranquility, and a state of repose in which you were prepared for a control, extraneous to your own mind. The sides of the cell receded slightly inwards, in gentle curves, in such a way that you were tempted to recline, and lean your head for rest on the moss-covered hollows of the rock.

One of the inhabitants of our valley, whose name was Eugene Cranmer, had left the hill-side where he had a luxurious mansion, and had wandered into the wild region, that contained this mysterious cell.

He was well pleased to see the general air of comfort, as he strolled along; for it disquieted him to look on men who were very poor, inasmuch as he had a vague sense that he was called on for some exertion in their behalf. The poor seemed to him to mar the general aspect of the world, as some unfortunate error in the taste of an artist, will mar the general beauty of his picture. He wished all to be at peace, and have enough to eat and put on; for the world, in such a state, seemed to be a suitable place for a man who had attained great prosperity; and who had the undefined impression that his life would be extended a few hundred years, before he would be under the unhappy alternative of passing to a good place in a better country. He provided well in his house for himself; and of course he felt that such a care was all that was essential for the comfort of his family.

His mother in his early life had indulged him to excess, and acted on the principle, that all who came near him, would regard it as the most reasonable thing in the world, that it must be their study and highest happiness to gratify his inclination.

Our hero, – for it is pleasant thus to designate him, and to recognize the superiority of such a man, – had climbed the ascent of the mountain, and reached the place of the mystic cell. A peculiar agitation of the vines above it, and sounds as of a bird complaining of an intruder near its rest, drew his attention to the recess. He determined to seat himself and rest awhile, before he returned to his home. No sooner had this been attempted, than he wondered at the luxury of the sheltered nook. He had an undefined feeling, that after all, the natural world, providing on such an occasion such a place for his rest, was perhaps, not so inattentive to human wants, as he had frequently imagined. The walk he had enjoyed, the exhilarating air of the mountain, and the composing influences around him, had thrown him into a state of more than common good humor. He had fewer thoughts about himself; some dreamy recollections, and he went rapidly to sleep.

Then he dreamed dreams. First he saw a strange reptile crawl along the paths by which he had ascended to the cell. An odious object, deformed, it looked as if it bore deadly venom in its fang. It was also obvious that the creature had faculties to be developed. At one moment it seemed ready to put forth its strength to attain the new gifts, – to call into exercise powers that slumbered in its frame.

Its indolence, and anger at the stirring of inward strife by nature, caused it to assume a torpid indifference.

Suddenly a stream of quivering light fell upon it. A bright dove descended, and the radiance increased as it drew nigh, with silver wings; and part of the lustre of its plumage was as of wrought gold. It hovered over the creature, whom all its resplendent rays could not render even less repulsive.

Then came a strange transformation. On a sudden all that repelled the eye was gone. The creature glorified, assumed a place amid the objects of beauty that adorn the world.

And what was a cause of surprise, he who saw all in the vision, and witnessed the transformation, had now no other sentiment toward the transformed and glorious, but love. No association existed in his mind, to recall, with any disgust, what it once had been. His thoughts ever rested on the dove and its pure rays, on the indescribable beauty of the creature as he now beheld it, new-created in excellence. The deepest darkness of oblivion, spreading as far as the east is from the west, interposed between what it had been, and was now, could not have blotted out the disgust of the former unsightly appearance more thoroughly from his impressions. He could gladly have placed it in his bosom. Its beauty, he felt sure, would be perpetual memories, each ever being a new joy like a star rushing on into its place of brightness in the evening, gladdening all on which its beams can rest.