[FOREST WALKS IN THE WEST.]
BY THE 'HERMIT OF THE PRAIRIES.'
It is strange that men should prefer to live in cities. If there were any pleasantness conceivable in the perpetual clamor and strife of tongues, or in sharpening one's face by frequent contact with the crowd, or in receiving a thousand ideas daily of which only one can be retained, the preference would not be so unaccountable. But much communion with men does not tend to soften the heart; and a multitude of ideas, like a surfeit of food, will not digest. How much more delightful to pass one's life in the country, where the multifarious noises and confusion of the town die away before they reach half way to him, and only the higher voices, the voices of the higher men, fall on his ear! At intervals, to continue the figure, one of these voices utters a thought which the heavens, or the earth, or the human mind has been ransacked to find; and he sits down in quiet to incorporate it with his own brain, without having his nerves jarred with the same thought repeated in an hundred different tones, and with a thousand modifications. All is tranquillity around him and within him. He is not hourly jostled by hardening avarice, or ambition, or self-idolatry, in any of its forms. He converses with himself, and the nobler spirits that have lived, or that do live; and if he is not a happier, and does not die a better man than the denizen of the metropolis, it must be that there is something radically defective in his nature. This thought is naturally suggested by the country through which I am passing. I don't know that interminable woods are a necessary accompaniment of rural life; but if they were, and when they are, it would be and is so much the better for those whose tastes, like mine, incline that way. Not exactly that I would live in the woods, either, but yet not so far from them that I could not sometimes lose myself in them.
Ohio, the State of 'the Beautiful River,' has as yet woodland enough to satisfy the most extravagant desire. I have been travelling many days along this untrodden highway; the giant trees almost constantly interlocking their branches over head, except when the enclosed ten-acre lot of stumps, and the block-house dwelling of some hardy emigrant break the monotony. And I expect it will be the same for several weeks to come, until I emerge into daylight on the borders of some prairie. I hope those weeks will be many; for it is really pleasant, plodding along with no company but these tall beeches and maples, and no conversation save such as the birds and I, each in our own language, hold with one another. I have learned some new movements in music too; for when the little choristers do me the honor to stop and examine my physical appearance, and when they express their surprise, or pleasure, or indignation, by interrogatory trills, or by angry chromatic passages of unimaginable rapidity, always accompanied by appropriate gesticulation, it would be exceedingly impolitic in me not to answer in numbers and melody. I am afraid they do not understand me; or else they doubt my word, when I assure them of the kindest treatment, if they will indulge me with a nearer view of their wings and eyes.
The mind is bewildered when it tries to think of the solitude that has reigned here; how in winter and summer, year after year, farther back than the imagination can reach, these trees have grown, wrestled with the whirlwind, and fallen; how those clouds have given their rain, the sun his light, and the flowers their fragrance, alone! Forms, colors, and sounds of beauty and sweetness have sprung up and lived here, when there was no eye or ear to receive them, and be made happy. Nature has put on her robe of grace; has breathed her pleasant odors on every breeze; has tenderly cherished her delicate plants; and has most beautifully decked herself, as though for the embrace of man. Truly may we ask, 'For whom were all these things made? If for man, why was this waste?' It cannot be; and certainly not for any inferior being. If it is mortifying to think that all things were not made to minister unto us; that we are but a part of the great machine, a principal, though not an indispensable one; that the happiness of birds and all animals is as important in the view of the Giver of Happiness, as ours; it is nevertheless pleasant to feel that we are connected with the lower orders of existences by a kind of fellow-feeling, in that we both partake of common pleasures, and that no bounty which has been given to one has not also been given to the other.
But this does not answer the question: 'What were flowers, and trees, and running brooks made for?' It will not do to say, for the sole behoof of man; for then I might reiterate: 'Why this waste of centuries in profitless vegetation? The Greeks would give an answer without hesitation; and so would the poet. And since we have not even a conjecture to make, I am sure we cannot do better than to adopt a pleasant hypothesis, and firmly believe in the Spirit of Poetry; that trees were no more designed merely to live, prepare the way for their successors, and die, than man was to propagate his species and die; but that flowers, trees, and all plants are in themselves, as possessing some sort of vitality, of sufficient importance in the scale of existences to render it supposable that a world might be made for, and inhabited only by plants, and that a world so inhabited would not be altogether useless, either. If this thought ever entered the heads of our pioneers and wood-cutters, habit has lamentably blunted their susceptibilities.
I have been building a pretty extensive castle in the air in these woods; such a castle as it seems to me I should like to live in. The embellishments of course are supplied by fancy, but the materials and situation are furnished by the condition of this pleasant family, who with the heartiest welcome have thrown open their door to me, while for an hour I repose in the shade. It seems to be a very pleasant family. The head of it is a young man, perhaps a year or two older than myself, with the sparkle of health and contentment in his eye; a noble, manly form; and a face constantly full of exultation. He seems proud of his own strength, of his victory over thousands of mighty trees; proud of himself, and most of all, of his young wife. These two, together with a matron, who may be his mother, form the group. Their history is the history of thousands of families with whose rude tenements this vast Valley is sparsely dotted. They were born and fitted by early education for their situation in life, in the State of New York. They were betrothed three years ago, and have been married but half of one. After much consultation between the lovers, it was determined that he should seek a home in the wilds of the West. So he set out, not knowing whither he should go, and not following the guidance of any particular star; and he stopped by accident, he says, on this, the best tract of land between the Alleghany and Rocky Mountains; which is as much as to say, 'the best the sun shines on.' Having settled the boundaries of the farm to suit himself, he erected a shanty of bark, provided himself with a few of the most indispensable articles of food, and went whistling to work.
In the course of a few months, a space of several acres was cleared from the timber, which was burned as fast as cut down; a crop of wheat was put into the ground; and the walls of a house built up of hewn logs, so substantial as to be, if not bomb-proof, at least wind and age-proof. When winter came on, he left his new-founded city to take care of itself; marked the trees as he went out, that he might be able to find his way in again; cut down one here and there, so as to make the passage of a wagon imaginable; and departed for home. In the spring he was married; and with as many implements and necessaries of household and farm use as could be compressed into a reasonably small space, and stored away in their caravansary, and with as many domestic animals as could be expected, from their known peculiarities of disposition, to submit to be driven or led without opposition, he started on his 'move,' and introduced his mother and fair bride to their new home. Not 'fair' bride, exactly, but lovely. With a perfect form, one which in another sphere of life would have been admired as voluptuous; with the hue of health on her cheek, the light of innocence in her eye, and the smile of youth on her lips; the lovely bride, leaning on the strong arm of her husband, passed mile after mile through the shades of the forest, without casting 'one longing look behind;' entered into the house which had been constructed with more strength than skill for her; and set herself to work with a woman's tact to adorn the bare walls, and scatter over the barn-like dwelling the charms and comforts of home. She has succeeded in all her labors, and her husband has succeeded in all his. But after all, are not their position and prospects dreary enough? And is it not strange that both should be so happy, dwelling here, out of reach of the eyes and sympathies of the rest of the world?
It is strange; and so I sit myself down by the side of the young wife, look in the same direction that she looks, and try to make objects appear the same to my eyes that they do to her's. How great a difference in the picture is made by a little alteration in the position of the inspector! It is not strange now that she should be happy; for her future is as bright as is ever set before mortal eyes. The harsh features of the landscape are covered with a soft and verdant carpet; golden wealth and peace smile in the distance; the inequalities and roughness of the road are as nothing, for her feet are strong and light; and if there are but two of them to journey together, those two hearts will be only the more closely knit to each other. It is on the whole such a prospect, that I do not wonder at her for being perfectly happy. And yet I was ready to exclaim, 'How preposterous to suppose that she can be contented!' Or, if I was not ready to say so, it was only speculatively, and without exactly understanding how, that I admitted the possibility.