One of the most exquisitely beautiful natural objects I know is the Spring, a mile above Rainbow Fall. Out of a rocky ledge, sloping up some ten feet above the river, burst several springs of absolutely crystal water, powerfully bubbling up like small geysers, and together forming instantly a splendid stream, which falls into the Missouri. So perfectly transparent is the water that the springs seem to have a depth of only fifteen inches; they are fifteen feet deep. In them grow flat-leaved plants of vivid green, shades from lightest to deepest emerald, and when the sunlight strikes into their depths the effect is exquisitely beautiful. Mingled with the emerald are maroon colors that heighten the effect. The vigor of the outburst, the volume of water, the transparency, the play of sunlight on the lovely colors, give one a positively new sensation.
I have left no room to speak of the road of ninety-eight miles through the canon of the Missouri and the canon of the Prickly-Pear to Helena—about 1400 feet higher than Great Falls. It is a marvellously picturesque road, following the mighty river, winding through crags and precipices of trap-rock set on end in fantastic array, and wild mountain scenery. On the route are many pleasant places, openings of fine valleys, thriving ranches, considerable stock and oats, much laud ploughed and cultivated. The valley broadens out before we reach Helena and enter Last Chance Gulch, now the main street of the city, out of which millions of gold have been taken.
At Helena we reach familiar ground. The 21st was a jubilee day for the city and the whole Territory. Cannon, bells, whistles, welcomed the train and the man, and fifteen thousand people hurrahed; the town was gayly decorated; there was a long procession, speeches and music in the Opera-house in the afternoon, and fireworks, illumination, and banquet in the evening. The reason of the boundless enthusiasm of Helena was in the fact that the day gave it a new competing line to the East, and opened up the coal, iron, and wheat fields of north Montana.
VIII.—ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL TOPICS. MINNESOTA AND WISCONSIN.
A visitor at a club in Chicago was pointed out a table at which usually lunched a hundred and fifty millions of dollars! This impressive statement was as significant in its way as the list of the men, in the days of Emerson, Agassiz, and Longfellow, who dined together as the Saturday Club in Boston. We cannot, however, generalize from this that the only thing considered in the North-west is money, and that the only thing held in esteem in Boston is intellect.
The chief concerns in the North-west are material, and the making of money, sometimes termed the “development of resources,” is of the first importance. In Minneapolis and St. Paul, social position is more determined by money than it is in most Eastern cities, and this makes social life more democratic, so far as traditions and family are concerned. I desire not to overstate this, for money is potent everywhere; but I should say that a person not devoted to business, or not succeeding in it, but interested rather in intellectual pursuits—study, research, art (not decorative), education, and the like—would find less sympathy there than in Eastern cities of the same size and less consideration. Indeed, I was told, more than once, that the spirit of plutocracy is so strong in these cities as to make a very disagreeable atmosphere for people who value the higher things in life more than money and what money only will procure, and display which is always more or less vulgar. But it is necessary to get closer to the facts than this statement.
The materialistic spirit is very strong in the West; of necessity it is, in the struggle for existence and position going on there, and in the unprecedented opportunities for making fortunes. And hence arises a prevailing notion that any education is of little value that does not bear directly upon material success. I should say that the professions, including divinity and the work of the scholar and the man of letters, do not have the weight there that they do in some other places. The professional man, either in the college or the pulpit, is expected to look alive and keep up with the procession. Tradition is weak; it is no objection to a thing that it is new, and in the general strain “sensations” are welcome. The general motto is, “Be alive; be practical.” Naturally, also, wealth recently come by desires to assert itself a little in display, in ostentatious houses, luxurious living, dress, jewellery, even to the frank delight in the diamond shirt-stud.
But we are writing of Americans, and the Americans are the quickest people in the world to adapt themselves to new situations. The Western people travel much, at home and abroad, and they do not require a very long experience to know what is in bad taste. They are as quick as anybody—I believe they gave us the phrase—to “catch on” to quietness and a low tone. Indeed, I don’t know but they would boast that if it is a question of subdued style, they can beat the world. The revolution which has gone all over the country since the Exposition of 1876 in house-furnishing and decoration is quite as apparent in the West as in the East. The West has not suffered more than the East from eccentricities of architecture in the past twenty years. Violations of good taste are pretty well distributed, but of new houses the proportion of handsome, solid, good structures is as large in the West as in the East, and in the cities I think the West has the advantage in variety. It must be frankly said that if the Easterner is surprised at the size, cost, and palatial character of many of their residences, he is not less surprised by the refinement and good taste of their interiors. There are cases where money is too evident, where the splendor has been ordered, but there are plenty of other cases where individual taste is apparent, and love of harmony and beauty. What I am trying to say is that the East undervalues the real refinement of living going along with the admitted cost and luxury in the West. The art of dining is said to be a test of civilization—on a certain plane. Well, dining, in good houses (I believe that is the phrase), is much the same East and West as to appointments, service, cuisine, and talk, with a trifle more freedom and sense of newness in the West. No doubt there is a difference in tone, appreciable but not easy to define. It relates less to the things than the way the things are considered. Where a family has had “things” for two or three generations they are less an object than an unregarded matter of course; where things and a manner of living are newly acquired, they have more importance in themselves. An old community, if it is really civilized (I mean a state in which intellectual concerns are paramount), values less and less, as an end, merely material refinement. The tendency all over the United States is for wealth to run into vulgarity.