26th
This morning we had a thunder-storm in the midst of a heavy fog—a pure white one like those we call a mist in our country, and bearing no resemblance to the London pea-soup. The lightning flashing through it had an odd and beautiful effect. Later the fog rolled down the mountain to the valleys of lower ranges, leaving only a light mist on the mountains and peak opposite. Through this the sun shone gently, and the dense low-looking forests on those distant heights looked as if lightly powdered. I have been down into the forest again. It is wet, but fresher and greener than ever, and full of sweet smells. The balsam when wet, fills the woods with a fragrance that seems to cry aloud of new vitality. Here and there a great tree has fallen, carrying feebler ones with it. To-day I discovered that the ground is covered in many places by a running shrub, that looks like its name, “ground pine.” And in other places, on rocks, I found a stiff dark-green moss that looked like a mass of tiny stars. There is so much beauty in these woods one can make only so many discoveries a day. This morning after the storm, I went out by the road instead of the trail, and walked down for a mile or more on those dreadful logs. But that wild magnificent avenue, dropping and turning abruptly, lured me on. Suddenly I saw straight ahead for many miles, and at the end of that lofty perspective was a great mountain, powdered with mist; afterward as I stood watching it, entranced, darkening to a deep rich blue. And between my avenue and that far mountain, was only another lofty valley, high above the level, far from the quick impatient sound of cities. I had not before so fully understood—and revelled in—our isolation.
It sometimes appalls me to be so far from a doctor or a chemist shop, but after all what the Adirondacks cannot do for Bertie no man can, and Agatha has a trunk full of physic. And these friendly mountains make disaster and heartbreak seem impossible. That adjective is one of their spirit’s keynotes. The post came very late last night and I spent the earlier morning hours reading the newspapers to Bertie. I do not know why Americans should be blamed for their extremes of wealth and poverty, their proneness, indeed, to rush to extremes of all sorts, when they have such an example in their climate. Imagine, Polly, people dying in New York City of the heat, while up here, not three hundred miles away, and in the same State, we were huddled in furs, a roaring fire in every room. During the past nine days we have had the thermometer at 34° and at 86°, we have had sultry thunder-storms on one day and cold rains on the next. To-day it has been heavy and sullen, but yesterday was full of splendour, with an exhilaration in the air that filled Bertie with life and youth once more. His very cheeks seemed to fill out, and his eyes sparkled as they used to do when his legs would not carry him to the cricket-field fast enough.
By the way, dear, Mr. Rogers came up yesterday with several other men. (The families follow in about a week.) They have been fishing since early morn, regardless of the thunder-storm, but have caught little, as the fish in these lakes have much to eat, and grow cleverer every year. Hunter, the lake-keeper, told me of their ill-luck, but when I expressed sympathy he shrugged his shoulders.
“They like it,” he said; “and them as does’d set and fish all day in a wash-tub.”
But Mr. Rogers arrived quite early yesterday morning, and spent nearly all of the day and evening with us. Bertie, who improves steadily in spite of all climatic vagaries, was delighted to see him, and they exchanged sporting experiences for several hours.
I have not described Mr. Rogers to you, I think. He is what they call in this country a “great publisher,” by which I infer is meant a rich and successful one whose prestige is vastly added to by the fact that he inherited the “great” business, and is not self-made. A young man, an author, who sat at our table on the Oceanic, told me that Mr. Rogers’ firm, and three or four others, set the standard for American literature, and that any book with his hallmark on it would be accepted as literature whether the public bought it or not. He has encouraged, helped to create, as it were, the latter-day distinctive American literature, which Bertie and I have so rebelled against these rainy days, and was one of the first to make fashionable the story of locality and dialect. (I think he ought to be hanged for that.) If you don’t publish with one of these houses, my informant told me, your struggle will be a long one. But all that is not very interesting, not nearly so much so as the man himself He is about fifty-two, I should think, with that tall thin American figure, which when ill-carried is so ungainly and provincial, but very distinguished, if a little stiff, when a man has received the proper training. His face is the coldest I have ever seen; the eyes are grey, the hair and slight moustache nondescript, the features and general outlines finely cut, the whole effect, as I said, cold, and—well, aristocratic. I don’t think I ever used the word before I came to this country, but it is always popping off my pen here. It exactly describes Mr. Rogers. He would put a prince of the blood to the blush; refinement (another great American word), fastidiousness, correctness, the just not self-conscious superiority over ordinary mortals, fairly radiate from him in so many cold steady beams. And his voice is admirably modulated. He is a walking protest against American provincialism, from its various accents to that glorious principle that all men are free and equal, which I once read in the Declaration of Independence. (Dad thought so much of that, and used to say it was the highest expression of the Ideal, put into the purest English that ever had been contributed to the literature of Politics.)
Nevertheless, wherever the source of it may lie, Mr. Rogers is charming. Perhaps it is because while he looks as if mortal woman could not fascinate him, he has an air of troubling himself to entertain her. Occasionally he lets her see that her wiles shake his armour just a trifle and that he does not tighten it up again, but permits her glance to penetrate in search of a heart. You don’t find a heart—at least I speak for myself—but you find all sorts of pleasant spots, and actually experience a sense of flattery when he laughs heartily at one of your sallies, or keeps his cold eyes fixed steadily on yours as you talk, the reflection of a smile in them. I know that he can be sarcastic and sneering, for I overheard a bout between him and my author acquaintance of the Oceanic; therefore, we who are favoured should find a deep satisfaction in basking in the smiles of this austere and fortunate person. And he certainly can say the most charming things and make you want to please him in return.
As he went through the University of Yale and has alluded to a great-grandfather I should know, even if I had not been told, that he is not a “self-made American”—a variety I am still waiting and wanting to meet. It would be so much like the real thing.
When I thought Bertie had talked enough I took Mr. Rogers for a walk in the forest—and, by the way, it was he who called my attention to the ground pine. He was delightfully solicitous lest I get my feet wet, or catch cold; and when you have been watching over some one else for two years, who is, also, quite the centre of all that sort of thing, you find such solicitude rather fascinating. Mr. Rogers is a widower, by the way, and I have heard that American women train their husbands excellently.