Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 by Various

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For nearly a mile beyond the two gorges, a chain of low hills, over
which the road runs, extends below the loftier summits on the southern
side of the canon. The northern side becomes, in consequence, a deep
glen, as the cliffs which form its wall rise abruptly from the level of
the creek. This glen is filled with bushes, and in it, thus protected
from the wind, the Mormon militia had their winter-quarters. The huts
they occupied had been constructed by digging circular holes in the
ground, over which were piled boughs in the same manner as the poles of
an Indian lodge. Around these boughs willow-twigs were plaited, and the
entire hut was finally thatched with straw, grass, or bark. Many of
them had chimneys built of sod and stones, like those which had been
improvised at Camp Scott. An open spot, a few hundred feet below the
beginning of the glen, was the site of the head-quarters of the command.
Here the huts were built around a square, in the centre of which was
planted a tall pine flag-pole. The scenery at this point is exceedingly
picturesque. Out of a tangle of willows, alders, hawthorn, and wild
cherry-trees spring the bold sandstone cliffs, in every crevice of which
cedars and fir-trees cling to the jagged points of rock. On the other
side of the canon a sheet of rich verdure, all summer long, rolls up
the mountain to its very summit. Down the glen ripples the little creek
underneath an arch of fragrant shrubs twined with the slender tendrils
of wild hop-vines. The whole number of huts was about one hundred and
fifty, and they could accommodate, on an average, fifteen men apiece.

The troops did not emerge from Emigration Canon into the Salt Lake
Valley until the morning of the 26th. In the mean while, thirty or forty
civilians had reached the city from the camp, and were quartered, like
the Commissioners, in their own vehicles. The Mormons favored no one,
except the Governor and his intimate associates, with any species of
accommodation. Their demeanor was in every respect like that of a
conquered people toward foreign invaders. During the week preceding the
26th, two or three hundred of those on Lake Utah received permission
to go up to the city, and they alone, of the whole Mormon community,
witnessed the ingress of the army.

It was one of the most extraordinary scenes that have occurred in
American history. All day long, from dawn till after sunset, the troops
and trains poured through the city, the utter silence of the streets
being broken only by the music of the military bands, the monotonous
tramp of the regiments, and the rattle of the baggage-wagons. Early in
the morning, the Mormon guard had forced all their fellow-religionists
into the houses, and ordered them not to make their appearance during
the day. The numerous flags, which had been flying from staffs on the
public buildings during the previous week, were all struck. The only
visible groups of spectators were on the corners near Brigham Young's
residence, and consisted almost entirely of Gentile civilians. The
stillness was so profound, that, during the intervals between the
passage of the columns, the monotonous gurgle of the city-creek struck
on every ear. The Commissioners rode with the General's staff. The
troops crossed the Jordan and encamped two miles from the city on a
dusty meadow by the river-bank.

The orders under which General Johnston was acting directed him to
establish not more than three military posts within the Territory. One
of these was already fixed at Fort Bridger, and the question where the
others should be located was now no less important to the Mormons
than to the army. The secret of the success of Mormonism is its
exclusiveness, and of this fact the leaders of the sect are fully aware.
Accordingly, they now put forth most strenuous efforts to secure the
removal of the troops to as great a distance as possible from their
settlements. But, wholly without regard to any understanding which they
might have had with the Governor, General Johnston, after a careful
_reconnaissance_, selected Cedar Valley, on the western rim of Lake
Utah, separated from it only by a range of bluffs,--about equidistant
from Salt Lake City and Provo,--for his permanent camp. The army moved
southward from the city on the 29th, but so slowly that it did not reach
the Valley till the 6th of July. Not a field was encroached upon, not a
house molested, not a person harmed or insulted, by troops that had been
so harassed and vituperated by a people now entirely at their mercy. By
their strict subordination they entitled themselves to the respect of
the country as well as to the gratitude of the Mormons.

[To be continued.]

OUR SKATER BELLE.

Along the frozen lake she comes
In linking crescents, light and fleet;
The ice-imprisoned Undine hums
A welcome to her little feet.

I see the jaunty hat, the plume
Swerve bird-like in the joyous gale,--
The cheeks lit up to burning bloom,
The young eyes sparkling through the veil.

The quick breath parts her laughing lips,
The white neck shines through tossing curls;
Her vesture gently sways and dips,
As on she speeds in shell-like whorls.

Men stop and smile to see her go;
They gaze, they smile in pleased surprise;
They ask her name; they long to show
Some silent friendship in their eyes.

She glances not; she passes on;
Her steely footfall quicker rings;
She guesses not the benison
Which follows her on noiseless wings.

Smooth be her ways, secure her tread
Along the devious lines of life,
From grace to grace successive led,
A noble maiden, nobler wife!

THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE.

WHAT HE SAID, WHAT HE HEARD, AND WHAT HE SAW.

I don't know whether our literary or professional people are more
amiable than they are in other places, but certainly quarrelling is out
of fashion among them. This could never be, if they were in the habit of
secret anonymous puffing of each other. That is the kind of underground
machinery, which manufactures false reputations and genuine hatreds. On
the other hand, I should like to know if we are not at liberty to have
a good time together, and say the pleasantest things we can think of to
each other, when any of us reaches his thirtieth or fortieth or fiftieth
or eightieth birthday.

We don't have "scenes," I warrant you, on these occasions. No "surprise"
parties! You understand these, of course. In the rural districts, where
scenic tragedy and melodrama cannot be had, as in the city, at the
expense of a quarter and a white pocket-handkerchief, emotional
excitement has to be sought in the dramas of real life. Christenings,
weddings, and funerals, especially the latter, are the main dependence;
but babies, brides, and deceased citizens cannot be had at a day's
notice. Now, then, for a surprise-party!

A bag of flour, a barrel of potatoes, some strings of onions, a basket
of apples, a big cake and many little cakes, a jug of lemonade, a purse
stuffed with bills of the more modest denominations, may, perhaps,
do well enough for the properties in one of these private theatrical
exhibitions. The minister of the parish, a tender-hearted, quiet,
hard-working man, living on a small salary, with many children,
sometimes pinched to feed and clothe them, praying fervently every day
to be blest in his "basket and store," but sometimes fearing he asks
amiss, to judge by the small returns, has the first _role_,--not,
however, by his own choice, but forced upon him. The minister's wife, a
sharp-eyed, unsentimental body, is first lady; the remaining parts by
the rest of the family. If they only had a play-bill, it would run
thus:--

ON TUESDAY NEXT

WILL BE PRESENTED

THE AFFECTING SCENE

CALLED

THE SURPRISE-PARTY,

OR

THE OVERCOME FAMILY;

WITH THE FOLLOWING STRONG CAST OF CHARACTERS:

_The Rev. Mr. Overcome_, by the Clergyman of this Parish.

_Mrs. Overcome_, by his estimable lady.

_Masters Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John Overcome_.

_Misses Dorcas, Tabitha, Rachel, and Hannah Overcome_, by their
interesting children.

_Peggy_, by the female help.

The poor man is really grateful;--it is a most welcome and unexpected
relief. He tries to express his thanks,--his voice falters,--he
chokes,--and bursts into tears. _That_ is the great effect of the
evening. The sharp-sighted lady cries a little with one eye, and counts
the strings of onions, and the rest of the things, with the other. The
children stand ready for a spring at the apples. The female help weeps
after the noisy fashion of untutored handmaids.

Now this is all very well as charity, but do let the kind visitors
remember they get their money's worth. If you pay a quarter for _dry
crying_, done by a second-rate actor, how much ought you to pay for real
hot, wet tears, out of the honest eyes of a gentleman who is not acting,
but sobbing in earnest?

All I meant to say, when I began, was, that this was _not_ a
surprise-party where I read these few lines that follow:--

We will not speak of years to-night;
For what have years to bring,
But larger floods of love and light
And sweeter songs to sing?

We will not drown in wordy praise
The kindly thoughts that rise;
If friendship owns one tender phrase,
He reads it in our eyes.

We need not waste our schoolboy art
To gild this notch of time;
Forgive me, if my wayward heart
Has throbbed in artless rhyme.

Enough for him the silent grasp
That knits us hand in hand,
And he the bracelet's radiant clasp
That locks our circling band.

Strength to his hours of manly toil!
Peace to his starlit dreams!
Who loves alike the furrowed soil,
The music-haunted streams!

Sweet smiles to keep forever bright
The sunshine on his lips,
And faith, that sees the ring of light
Round Nature's last eclipse!

----One of our boarders has been talking in such strong language that I
am almost afraid to report it. However, as he seems to be really honest
and is so very sincere in his local prejudices, I don't believe anybody
will be very angry with him.

It is here, Sir! right here!--said the little deformed gentleman,--in
this old new city of Boston,--this remote provincial corner of a
provincial nation, that the Battle of the Standard is fighting, and was
fighting before we were born, and will be fighting when we are dead
and gone,--please God! The _battle_ goes on everywhere throughout
civilization; but here, here, here! is the broad white flag flying which
proclaims, first of all, peace and good-will to men, and, next to
that, the absolute, unconditional spiritual liberty of each individual
immortal soul! The three-hilled city against the seven-hilled-city! That
is it, Sir,--nothing less than that; and if you know what that means, I
don't think you'll ask for anything more. I swear to you, Sir, I believe
that these two centres of civilization are just exactly the two points
that close the circuit in the battery of our planetary intelligence! And
I believe there are spiritual eyes looking out from Uranus and unseen
Neptune,--ay, Sir, from the systems of Sirius and Arcturus and
Aldebaran, and as far as that faint stain of sprinkled worlds confluent
in the distance that we call the nebula of Orion,--looking on, Sir, with
what organs I know not, to see which are going to melt in that fiery
fusion, the accidents and hindrances of humanity or man himself,
Sir,--the stupendous abortion, the illustrious failure that he is,
if the three-hilled city does not ride down and trample out the
seven-hilled city!

----Steam's up!--said the young man John, so called, in a low
tone.--Three hundred and sixty-five tons to the square inch. Let him
blow her off, or he'll bu'st his b'iler.

The divinity-student took it calmly, only whispering that he thought
there was a little confusion of images between a galvanic battery and a
charge of cavalry.

But the Koh-i-noor--the gentleman, you remember, with a very large
_diamond_ in his shirt-front--laughed his scornful laugh, and made as if
to speak.

Sail in, Metropolis!--said that same young man John, by name. And then,
in a lower tone, not meaning to be heard,--Now, then, Ma'am Allen!

But he _was_ heard,--and the Koh-i-noor's face turned so white with
rage, that his blue-black moustache and beard looked fearful, seen
against it. He grinned with wrath, and caught at a tumbler, as if
he would have thrown it or its contents at the speaker. The young
Marylander fixed his clear, steady eye upon him, and laid his hand on
his arm, carelessly almost, but the Jewel found it was held so that he
could not move it. It was of no use. The youth was his master in muscle,
and in that deadly Indian hug in which men wrestle with their eyes;
--over in five seconds, but breaks one of their two backs, and is good
for three-score years and ten;--one trial enough,--settles the whole
matter,--just as when two feathered songsters of the barnyard, game and
dunghill, come together,--after a jump or two at each other, and a few
sharp kicks, there is the end of it; and it is, _Apres vous, Monsieur_,
in all the social relations with the beaten party for all the rest of
his days.

I cannot philosophically account for the Koh-i-noor's wrath. For though
a cosmetic is sold, bearing the name of the lady to whom reference
was made by the young person John, yet, as it is publicly asserted in
respectable prints that this cosmetic is _not a dye_, I see no reason
why he should have felt offended by any suggestion that he was indebted
to it or its authoress. I have no doubt that there are certain
exceptional complexions to which the purple tinge, above alluded to, is
natural. Nature is fertile in variety. I saw an albiness in London once,
for six-pence, (including the inspection of a stuffed boa-constrictor,)
who looked as if she had been boiled in milk. A young Hottentot of my
acquaintance had his hair all in little pellets of the size of marrowfat
peas. One of my own classmates has undergone a singular change of late
years,--his hair losing its original tint, and getting a remarkable
discolored look; and another has ceased to cultivate any hair at all
over the vertex or crown of the head. So I am perfectly willing to
believe that the purple-black of the Koh-i-noor's moustache and whiskers
is constitutional and not pigmentary. But I can't think why he got so
angry.

The intelligent reader will understand that all this pantomime of the
threatened onslaught and its suppression passed so quickly that it was
all over by the time the other end of the table found out there was a
disturbance; just as a man chopping wood half a mile off may be seen
resting on his axe at the instant you hear the last blow he struck. So
you will please to observe that the Little Gentleman was not interrupted
during the time implied by these _ex-post-facto_ remarks of mine, but
for some ten or fifteen seconds only.

He did not seem to mind the interruption at all, for he started again.
The "Sir" of his harangue was no doubt addressed to myself more than
anybody else, but he often uses it in discourse as if he were talking
with some imaginary opponent.

----America, Sir,--he exclaimed,--is the only place where man is
full-grown!

He straightened himself up, as he spoke, standing on the top round of
his high chair, I suppose, and so presented the larger part of his
little figure to the view of the boarders.

It was next to impossible to keep from laughing. The commentary was so
strange an illustration of the text!

I thought it was time to put in a word; for I have lived in foreign
parts, and am more or less cosmopolitan.

I doubt if we have more practical freedom in America than they have in
England,--I said.--An Englishman thinks as he likes in religion and
politics. Mr. Martineau speculates as freely as ever Dr. Channing did,
and Mr. Bright is as independent as Mr. Seward.

Sir,--said he,--it isn't what a man thinks or says, but when and where
and to whom he thinks and says it. A man with a flint and steel striking
sparks over a wet blanket is one thing, and striking them over a
tinder-box is another. The free Englishman is born under protest; he
lives and dies under protest,--a tolerated, but not a welcome fact. Is
not _free-thinker_ a term of reproach in England? The same idea in
the soul of an Englishman who struggled up to it and still holds it
_antagonistically_, and in the soul of an American to whom it is
congenital and spontaneous, and often unrecognized, except as an element
blended with _all_ his thoughts, a natural movement, like the drawing of
his breath or the beating of his heart, is a very different thing. You
may teach a quadruped to walk on his hind legs, but he is always wanting
to be on all-fours. Nothing that can be taught a growing youth is like
the atmospheric knowledge he breathes from his infancy upwards. The
American baby sucks in freedom with the milk of the breast at which he
hangs.

----That's a good joke,--said the young fellow John,--considerin' it
commonly belongs to a female Paddy.

I thought--I will not be certain--that Little Boston winked, as if he
had been hit somewhere,--as I have no doubt Dr. Darwin did when the
_wooden-spoon_ suggestion upset his theory about why, etc. If he winked,
however, he did not dodge.

A lively comment!--he said.--But Rome, in her great founder, sucked the
blood of empire out of the dugs of a brute, Sir! The Milesian wet-nurse
is only a convenient vessel through which the American infant gets the
life-blood of this virgin soil, Sir, that is making man over again, on
the sunset pattern! You don't think what we are doing and going to
do here. Why, Sir, while commentators are bothering themselves with
interpretation of prophecies, _we have got_ the new heavens and the new
earth over us and under us! Was there ever anything in Italy, I should
like to know, like a Boston sunset?

----This time there was a laugh, and the little man himself almost
smiled.

Yes,--Boston sunsets;--perhaps they're as good in some other places,
but I know 'em best here. Anyhow, the American skies are different from
anything they see in the Old World. Yes, and the rocks are different,
and the soil is different, and everything that comes out of the soil,
from grass up to Indians, is different. And now that the provisional
races are dying out----

----What do you mean by the _provisional_ races, Sir?--said the
divinity-student, interrupting him.

Why, the aboriginal bipeds, to be sure,--he answered,--the red-crayon
sketch of humanity laid on the canvas before the colors for the real
manhood were ready.

I hope they will come to something yet,--said the divinity-student.

Irreclaimable, Sir,--irreclaimable!--said the little
gentleman.--Cheaper to breed white men than domesticate a nation of red
ones. When you can get the bitter out of the partridge's thigh, you
can make an enlightened commonwealth of Indians. A provisional race,
Sir,--nothing more. Exhaled carbonic acid for the use of vegetation,
kept down the bears and catamounts, enjoyed themselves in scalping and
being scalped, and then passed away or are passing away, according to
the programme.

Well, Sir, these races dying out, the white man has to acclimate
himself. It takes him a good while; but he will come all right
by-and-by, Sir,--as sound as a woodchuck,--as sound as a musquash!

A new nursery, Sir, with Lake Superior and Huron and all the rest of
'em for wash-basins! A new race, and a whole new world for the new-born
human soul to work in! And Boston is the brain of it, and has been any
time these hundred years! That's all I claim for Boston,--that it is the
thinking centre of the continent, and therefore of the planet.

----And the grand emporium of modesty,--said the divinity-student, a
little mischievously.

Oh, don't talk to me of modesty!--answered Little Boston,--I'm past
that! There isn't a thing that was ever said or done in Boston, from
pitching the tea overboard to the last ecclesiastical lie it tore into
tatters and flung into the dock, that wasn't thought very indelicate by
some fool or tyrant or bigot, and all the entrails of commercial
and spiritual conservatism are twisted into colics as often as this
revolutionary brain of ours has a fit of thinking come over it.--No,
Sir,--show me any other place that is, or was since the megalosaurus
has died out, where wealth and social influence are so fairly divided
between the stationary and the progressive classes! Show me any
other place where every other drawing-room is not a chamber of the
Inquisition, with papas and mammas for inquisitors,--and the cold
shoulder, instead of the "dry pan and the gradual fire," the punishment
of "heresy"!

----We think Baltimore is a pretty civilized kind of a village,--said
the young Marylander, good-naturedly.--But I suppose you can't
forgive it for always keeping a little ahead of Boston in point of
numbers,--tell the truth now. Are we not the centre of something?

Ah, indeed, to be sure you are. You are the gastronomic metropolis
of the Union. Why don't you put a canvas-back duck on the top of the
Washington column? Why don't you get that lady off from Battle Monument
and plant a terrapin in her place? Why will you ask for other glories
when you have soft crabs? No, Sir,--you live too well to think as hard
as we do in Boston. Logic comes to us with the salt-fish of Cape Ann;
rhetoric is born of the beans of Beverly; but _you_--if you open your
mouths to speak, Nature stops them with a fat oyster, or offers a slice
of the breast of your divine bird, and silences all your aspirations.

And what of Philadelphia?--said the Marylander.

Oh, Philadelphia?--Waterworks,--killed by the Croton and Cochituate;--
Ben Franklin,--borrowed from Boston;--David Rittenhouse,--made an
orrery;--Benjamin Rush,--made a medical system:--both interesting to
antiquarians;--great Red-river raft of medical students,--spontaneous
generation of professors to match;--more widely known through the
Moyamensing hose-company, and the Wistar parties;--for geological
section of social strata, go to _The Club_.--Good place to live
in,--first-rate market,--tip-top peaches.--What do we know about
Philadelphia, except that the engine-companies are always shooting each
other?

And what do you say to New York?--asked the Koh-i-noor?

A great city, Sir,--replied Little Boston,--a very opulent, splendid
city. A point of transit of much that is remarkable, and of permanence
for much that is respectable. A great money-centre. San Francisco with
the mines above-ground,--and some of 'em under the sidewalks. I have
seen next to nothing _grandiose_, out of New York, in all our cities. It
makes 'em all look paltry and petty. Has many elements of civilization.
May stop where Venice did, though, for aught we know.--The order of its
development is just this:--Wealth; architecture; upholstery; painting;
sculpture. Printing, as a mechanical art,--just as Nicholas Jenson
and the Aldi, who were scholars too, made Venice renowned for it.
Journalism, which is the accident of business and crowded populations,
in great perfection. Venice got as far as Titian and Paul Veronese
and Tintoretto,--great colorists, mark you, magnificent on the
flesh-and-blood side of Art,--but look over to Florence and see who lie
in Santa Croce, and ask out of whose loins Dante sprung!

Oh, yes, to be sure, Venice built her Ducal Palace, and her Church of
St. Mark, and her Casa d' Oro, and the rest of her golden houses; and
Venice had great pictures and good music; and Venice had a Golden Book,
in which all the large tax-payers had their names written;--but all
that did not make Venice the brain of Italy.

I tell you what, Sir,--with all these magnificent appliances of
civilization, it is time we began to hear something from the _jeunesse
doree_ whose names are on the Golden Book of our sumptuous,
splendid, marble-palaced Venice,--something in the higher walks of
literature,--something in the councils of the nation. Plenty of Art, I
grant you, Sir; now, then, for vast libraries, and for mighty scholars
and thinkers and statesmen,--five for every Boston one, as the
population is to ours,--_ten_ to one more properly, in virtue of
centralizing attraction as _the_ alleged metropolis,--and not call our
people provincials, and have to come begging to us to write the lives of
Hendrik Hudson and Gouverneur Morris!

----The little gentleman was on his hobby, exalting his own city at the
expense of every other place. I don't suppose he had been in either of
the cities he had been talking about. I was just going to say something
to sober him down, if I could, when the young Marylander spoke up.

Come, now,--he said,--what's the use of these comparisons? Didn't I
hear this gentleman saying, the other day, that every American owns all
America? If you have really got more brains in Boston than other folks,
as you seem to think, who hates you for it, except a pack of scribbling
fools? If I like Broadway better than Washington Street, what then? I
own them both, as much as anybody owns either. I am an American,--and
wherever I look up and see the stars and stripes overhead, that is home
to me!

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