Their travelling party included Mr. Ralph Morris, a bachelor brother of Mrs. Sackville. Mr. Morris was a man of intelligence and extreme kindness of disposition, a little irritable, and when the sky was clouded, and the wind blew from the wrong quarter, somewhat whimsical.
As we hope that our young readers will conceive a friendship for Edward and Julia, before they part with them, they may have a natural curiosity to know whether they were brown or fair, and all the etceteras of personal appearance. Edward was tall for his age, (twelve) and stout built, with the rich ruddy complexion and vigorous muscle of an English boy. His eyes were large and dark, and beaming with the bright and laughing spirit within: his hair was a mass of fair clustering curls, which he, from a boyish dread of effeminacy, had in vain tried to subdue by the discipline of comb and brush. His teeth were fine and white, and with as little prompting from his mother as could be expected, he kept them with remarkable neatness. His mouth was distinguished by nothing but an expression of frankness and good temper. His nose, (a feature seldom moulded by the graces) his nose, we are sorry to confess, was rather thick and quite unclassical. His character and manners preserved all the frankness and purity of childhood, with a little of that chivalrous spirit which is such a grace to dawning manhood. For the rest, we will leave him to speak for himself.
The sister's person was extremely delicate and symmetrical, with too little of the Hebe beauty for childhood, but full of grace and gentillesse.
Her complexion was not as rich as her brother's; but it had an ever-varying hue, which indicated the sensibility that sometimes suddenly swelled the veins of her clear open brow, lit up her hazel eyes with electrifying brilliancy, and played in sweet dimples about her mouth; in short, though she was not beautiful, she had an expression of purity, truth, and gentleness, far more attractive than mere beauty; an expression that was once happily described by a French lady, who said to Mrs. Sackville, “when your daughter smiles, it seems to me, that it is frankness and virtue that smile.”
We are well aware that young people do not like to be harangued about scenery; therefore, though our travellers sailed up the Hudson, we shall resist every temptation to describe its beautiful features, features as well known and loved as the familiar face of a friend; neither will we detain them on the scarcely less beautiful Mohawk, though we are sure they are not rebels against nature, and that their hearts would dilate if we had the power to present to their imaginations this lovely stream, winding through the valley it enriches, as it looked to the eyes of our young travellers, brimfull from recent rains, reflecting in its living mirror the verdant banks, the overhanging trees, the richly-wooded hills, and the clear heaven.
It would be impossible to record the exclamations of the children. “It is a perfect picture, mother, all the way,” said Julia.
“I like every thing but these dronish farmers,” said Edward. “See, papa,” he continued, (not, perhaps, unwilling to display his agricultural observation) “see, that groupe of men, black and white, all leaning on their hoes, and staring at us, and they will stand and look just so, until the next carriage comes along, while their corn is trying in vain to shoot above the weeds that choke it. They seem to have no more soul than the clods they stand upon. I wish some of the farmers on the cold desolate hills of New-England had this fine soil.”
“My dear Ned,” replied Mr. Sackville, “I do not wonder at your indignation. I have myself been marvelling, that, as a poet says, ‘Nature should waste her wonders on such men;’ but there is compensation every where, or, as your mother would say, there ‘are divers gifts.’ The man born to the inheritance of cold and sterile hills, is compelled to be industrious, frugal, vigorous, and resolute to live, and thus the advantages of his moral condition are more than an equivalent for the physical advantages of a fine soil or climate, or both.”
“Ah, well, papa,” replied Edward, “if I had my choice, I should take this fine soil on the Mohawk, and cultivate it with the mountain virtues, industry, resolution, &c. and I might make a paradise here.”