Part 22

This should be classed among useful oddities. Its style is somewhat _over-abundant_—but we believe the book a valuable addition to our very small amount of accurate knowledge in regard to Texas. The author, who is one of the Society of Friends, assures us that he has no lands in Texas to sell, although he has lived three years in the country, and that, too, on the frontiers—that he made one of a party of four who explored the province in 1830, from side to side, and from settlement to settlement, during the space of six months,—and that, in 1835, he had the curiosity to spend six months more in examining the improvements made throughout every locality, “in order that none should be able to detect a falsehood, or prove a material error which could either mislead, or seriously injure those who may put confidence in this work.” For ourselves we are inclined to place great faith in the statements of Mr. Edward, and regard his book with a most favorable eye. It is an octavo of 336 pages, embracing, in detail, highly interesting accounts of the People, the Geographical Features, the Climate, the Savages, the Timber, the Water, &c. of Texas. Much information in regard to Mexico, is included in the body of the work, and, in an Appendix, we have a copy of the Mexican Constitution. We give, by way of extract, a flattering little picture of Texian comfort and abundance.

The people _en masse_ can have a living, and that plentifully too, of animal food, both of beef and pork, of venison and bear meat, besides a variety of fish and fowl, upon easier terms at present, especially the wild game, than any other people, in any other district of North America; which must continue to be the case, for one of the best reasons in the world—at least in Texas: as the wild animals decrease, the domesticated ones will increase!

And, as they have not commenced, except in a few cases (comparatively speaking) upon the border lands of the Gulf, to export corn, they have by just dropping the seed and afterwards stowing away the increase, more bread stuff than they well know sometimes what to do with, it being out of the question to feed their hogs on it, except they were to raise them on such food altogether, which would be a pity, while they have so much mast in the woods, and so many roots in the prairies.

And, as their milch cattle increase in numbers, and that very frequently too faster than they can attend to their milking, they have more, as to family use, much more milk, than they know how to dispose of, except they are well stocked with farrow sows, or have around them pet mustang colts.

With these three main stays of a farmer's life, come, by very little more exertion than just the picking and gathering in, those condiments and relishes, which not only garnish the table, but replenish the appetite, from a source of such plentiful variegation, as the gardens and the fields, the woods and the waters, of a Texas country!

INKLINGS OF ADVENTURE.

_Inklings of Adventure. By the Author of Pencillings by the Way. New York: Saunders and Otley._

These volumes are inscribed “to the distinguished American orator and statesman, Edward Everett,” and are introduced by a Preface over the signature of N. P. Willis, in which “the papers which are to follow,” are said to record some passages in the life of a certain Philip Slingsby. Mr. W. assures us that although his name stands in the title-page of the book as its author, (which, upon reference, we find not to be the case) he can only take to himself that share of the praise or blame which may attach [be attached] to it as a literary composition. Most assuredly (setting all this _badinage_ aside, which may possibly have a fuller meaning than lies upon its surface) we can see no reason for praising or blaming Mr. Willis _except_ in his character of literateur, for any thing to be found in the volumes before us. We cannot sufficiently express our disgust at that unscrupulous indelicacy which is in the habit of deciding upon the literary merits of this gentleman by a reference to his private character and manners, and feel, indeed, a species of indignation in the thought, that when we propose to say a few words, without any such reference, about the present “_Inklings of Adventure_,” we are proposing a course of indisputable originality.

Subjoined is the Table of Contents. Pedlar Karl—Niagara; Lake Ontario; The St. Lawrence—The Cherokee's Threat—F. Smith—Edith Linsey (including Frost and Flirtation; Love and Speculation; A Digression; and Scenery and a Scene)—Scenes of Fear (containing the Disturbed Vigil; the Mad Senior; and the Lunatic's Skate)—Incidents on the Hudson—The Gipsey of Sardis—Tom Fane and I—Larks in Vacation (embracing Driving Stanhope _pro. tem._; Saratoga Springs; and Mrs. Captain Thompson)—A Log in the Archipelago—and Miscellaneous Papers (being the Revenge of the Signor Basil; Love and Diplomacy; Minute Philosophies; and the Mad-house of Palermo.)

It will be seen that a great many of these papers (we believe all of them) have been published before. It is not our design, therefore, to speak of them in detail. Perhaps an outline of some individual sketch, with an occasional reference to others, will be found to impart a sufficient idea of the general character of the whole. We open the book at random, and here are six or seven pages with the running title of _Niagara_. It will be a matter of some interest to see how a poet (one whom we _know_ to be such) will think it proper to handle a subject so momentous.

Mr. Willis—Mr. Slingsby we mean—commences by _dating_ his visit to the Falls, with reference not to any positive or acknowledged æra, but, relatively, to an æra in his personal experience. He does not say I went in 1810—or in 1820. “It was in my senior vacation,” says he, “and I was bound to Niagara for the first time.” We are thus slyly made acquainted with a trio of items, which, when duly considered, are to give weight and character to the subsequent details. We are informed, firstly—that Mr. Slingsby has been to college—secondly, and presumptively, that he {598} graduated, (it is his senior vacation) and thirdly, that he has since paid other visits to Niagara, (he is on his way thither for the _first_ time.) But in the narration of a trip to the great waterfall, some wit, some repartee, has been thought indispensable, and wit cannot so effectively be displayed, as by means of a foil. Our author, therefore, has a companion, and describes him. He is an ugly fellow, of course—seven feet high, ill-dressed, solemn, and sensible. We now see the advantage of all this—and are prepared for the Rembrandtities of contrast. To enjoy them in perfection we must imagine Mr. Slingsby (whom we never saw) as a delicate little gentleman, with a pretty face and figure—fair, funny, fanciful, fashionable, and frisky.

The friends leaving Buffalo cross the outlet of Lake Erie at the ferry, and take horses on the northern bank of the Niagara for the Falls. Mr. Slingsby during the ride, is now lost in admiration of the “noble stream hurrying on headlong to its fearful leap, as broad as the Hellespont, and as blue as the sky,” and now excessively merry at the expense of his ally and foil, “who rides along,” we are told, “like the man of rags you see paraded on an ass in the carnival.” Thus the narrative proceeds in a vein of mingled sentiment and _very-good-joke_. Let us give another example of this. “The river,” says Mr. Slingsby, “now broke into rapids foaming furiously, and the subterranean thunder increased like a succession of earthquakes, each louder than the last. [A bull.] I had never heard a sound so broad and universal. It was impossible not to suspend the breath, and feel absorbed, to the exclusion of all other thoughts, in the great phenomenon with which the earth seemed trembling to its centre. A tall misty cloud, changing its shape continually, as it felt the shocks of the air, rose up before us, and with our eyes fixed upon it, and our horses at a hard gallop, we found ourselves unexpectedly in front of a large white——hotel!”

Having eaten dinner at the large white hotel, Job Smith, the foil, is made to utter some of his solemn drolleries, forcing Mr. Slingsby [oh the quiz!] to leave the table and walk with a smile towards the window. A belle, Miss ——, is thus discovered, and introduced. Of her, “every soul of the fifteen millions of inhabitants between us and the Gulf of Mexico have heard.” She is, moreover, “one of those miracles of nature that occur, perhaps, once in the rise and fall of an empire.” Besides all this, she is “kind, playful, unaffected, and radiantly, gloriously beautiful.” Mr. Slingsby, therefore, adopts her as foil No. 2, for a species of sentimental gallantry—Job Smith being only foil No. 1, for light wit. It must now be seen at a glance that our author can hardly fail to make a decided hit of his visit to Niagara.

Having made an appointment with Miss —— to accompany her in the morning behind the sheet of the Fall, Mr. Slingsby goes to bed. Getting up at daybreak, however, he determines upon paying a solitary visit to the cataract. But Job (that droll fellow!) has anticipated him in this manœuvre, and “the angular outline of his tall gaunt figure, stretching up from Table Rock in strong relief against the white body of the spray,” is the first object that meets Mr. Slingby's eye as he descends. We have now his first impressions of Niagara. These are, in general terms, awe, and intense admiration, mingled with a little disappointment. We cut short the impressions (herein following the author's example) for the sake of some witticisms at the expense of Mr. Smith. It may be best to copy a page or two with a view of showing the pervading air with which the narrative is conducted.

“A _nice_ fall, as an Englishman would say, my dear Job.”

“Awful!”

Halleck the American poet (a better one never “strung pearls”) has written some admirable verses on Niagara, describing its effect on the different individuals of a mixed party, among whom was a tailor. The sea of incident that has broken over me in years of travel, has washed out of my memory all but the two lines descriptive of its impression upon Snip:

“The tailor made one single note— Gods! what a place to sponge a coat!”

“Shall we go to breakfast, Job?”

“How slowly and solemnly they drop into the abysm!”

It was not an original remark of Mr. Smith's. Nothing is so surprising to the observer as the extraordinary deliberateness with which the waters of Niagara take their tremendous plunge. All hurry and foam and fret, till they reach the smooth limit of the curve,—and then the laws of gravitation seem suspended, and, like Cæsar, they pause and determine, since it is inevitable, to take the death leap with becoming dignity.

“Shall we go to breakfast, Job?” I was obliged to raise my voice to be heard, to a pitch rather exhausting for a empty stomach.

His eyes remained fixed upon the shifting rainbows bending and vanishing in the spray. There was no moving him, and I gave in for another five minutes.

“Do you think it probable, Job, that the waters of Niagara strike on the axis of the world?”

No answer.

“Job!”

“What?”

“Do you think his Majesty's half of the cataract is finer than ours?”

“Much.”

“For _water_, merely, perhaps. But look at the delicious verdure on the American shore, the glorious trees, the massed foliage, the luxuriant growth even to the very rim of the ravine! By Jove! it seems to me things grow better in a republic. Did you ever see a more barren and scraggy shore than the one you stand upon?”

“How exquisitely” said Job, soliloquizing “that small green island divides the fall! What a rock it must be founded on, not to have been washed away in the ages that these waters have split against it!”

“I'll lay you a bet it is washed away before the year two thousand—payable in any currency with which we may then be conversant.”

“Don't trifle!”

“With time or geology do you mean? Is'nt it perfectly clear, from the looks of that ravine, that Niagara has _backed up_ all the way from Lake Ontario? These rocks are not adamant, and the very precipice you stand on has cracked, and looks ready for the plunge. It must gradually wear back to Lake Erie, and then there will be a sweep I should like to live long enough to see. The instantaneous junction of two seas, with a difference of two hundred feet in their levels will be a spectacle—eh, Job?”

“Tremendous!”

“Do you intend to wait and see it, or will you come to breakfast?”

He was immovable. I left him on the rock, went up to the hotel and ordered mutton-chops and coffee, and when they were on the table, gave two of the waiters a dollar each to bring him up _nolens-volens_. He arrived in a great rage, but with a good appetite, and we finished our breakfast just in time to meet Miss ——, as she stepped like Aurora from her chamber.

{599} The adventure beneath the sheet is now detailed. The party descend to the bottom of the precipice at the side of the Fall—equip themselves in dresses of coarse linen—and proceed. The guide going first, takes the right hand of Miss ——, Mr. Slingsby is honored with the left, and Job brings up the rear. The usual difficulties of wind and water are encountered and surmounted, and the chamber behind the sheet finally attained in safety. The same medley of tone, however, still prevails. For example—“Whatever sister of Arethusa inhabits there,” says Mr. Slingsby, “we could but congratulate her on the beauty of her abode. A lofty and well lighted hall, shaped like a long pavilion, extended as far as we could see through the spray, and with the two objections, that you could not have heard a pistol at your ear for the noise, and that the floor was somewhat precipitous, one could scarce imagine a more agreeable retreat for a gentleman who was disgusted with the world, and subject to dryness of the skin. In one respect it resembled the enchanted dwelling of the Witch of Atlas, where Shelley tells us,

Th' invisible rain did ever sing A silver music on the mossy lawn.

It is lucky for Witches and Naiads that they are not subject to rheumatism.”

It will not be difficult to foretell, from the general air of the narration (as observed up to this date) in what manner Mr. Slingsby will think it incumbent upon him to wind it up. He will give it a melo-dramatic finale? Most assuredly. The lady is adventurous, and has walked over a narrow ledge, which has broken with her weight. The guide seizes Mr. Slingsby by the shoulder. He turns—and “what is his horror” at beholding Miss —— standing far in behind the sheet, upon the last visible point of rock, with the water pouring over her in torrents, and a “gulf of foam” between the lady and the gentleman, which the gentleman “can in no way understand how she has passed over.” This gulf is six feet across, and, of course, says Mr. Slingsby, “it was impossible to jump it.” [We have jumped one and twenty feet six inches ourselves, but then we are no Mr. Slingsby, and never could make a joke about Niagara.] That gentleman does not jump, but he does something nevertheless. He “fixes his eyes upon the lovely form standing like a spirit in the misty shroud of the spray,” and endeavors “to sustain her upon her dangerous foot-hold—_by the intensity of his gaze_.” He may possibly, however, with this end in view, have made use of an eye-glass.

There being nothing better to be done, the guide having absconded, and the lady being upon the eve of destruction, our friend Job, and his legs, are brought into requisition. He stands upon one edge of “the foaming gulf,” and stretches himself across to the other. Miss —— is so kind as to make use of him as a bridge. The guide returns with a rope, pulls up the bridge by means of a running-noose around one of its legs—and the “Visit to _Niagara_” terminates with an Io Pean in honor of the “foaming gulf,” the “supernatural strength” of Mr. Smith, and the “intensity of the gaze” of the devoted Mr. Slingsby.

The paper of which we have just given an outline will afford a very fair conception of the usual merits and demerits of the sketches of Mr. Willis. Here are many comparatively long passages of a force, or delicacy, or beauty—shall we say unsurpassed by any similar passages in any writer of English? We shall not say too much if we do. The bantering humor interspersed is of the best order. Who can read the endeavor (quoted above) of Mr. Slingsby to get Mr. Smith to his breakfast, without feeling at once impressed with a keen sense of the mingled wit, broad drollery, dramatic effect, and gentlemanly _insouciance_ of the whole affair? The final question of Mr. S. (after amusing his friend with the idea of a junction, some hundred years hence, between Ontario and Erie)—“Do you intend to wait and see it, or will you come to breakfast?”—is inimitably brought about—very quiet, and very quizzical. The catastrophe of the two waiters, and the arrival in a great rage, but with a good appetite, of Mr. Smith, is a palpable hit not to be attained, and not to be appreciated by the rabble. Of force, we have abundant specimens in such sentences, as “Job flounced up, like a snake touched with a torpedo, and sprang to the window”—“I can imagine the surprise of the gentle element, after sleeping away a se'nnight of moonlight in the peaceful bosom of Lake Erie, at finding itself of a sudden in such a coil”—or “As far down towards Lake Ontario as the eye can reach, the immense volumes of water rise like huge monsters to the light, boiling and flashing out in rings of foam, with an appearance of vexation and rage that I have seen in no other cataract of the world.” The little sentence, “Whatever sister of Arethusa inhabits there, we could but congratulate her upon the beauty of her abode,” is, among many other similar things, sufficient evidence of a rare delicacy of expression—and we feel at once that writer to be a poet—an Idealist—who tells us “that Miss —— in her uncouth habiliments, looked like a fairy in disguise,” and that the sheet of Niagara is “what a child might imagine the arch of the sky to be where it bends over the edge of the horizon.”

The minor defects are few. Among these few it is sufficient to specify a too frequent allusion to the “axis of the world,” and the absurdities, gravely narrated, which go to make up the catastrophe of the sketch, in the rescue of the young lady. Upon the whole, we may speak of the mere wording as in every respect worthy of a man of taste and a scholar. With the exception of “_soubriquet_,” written for _sobriquet_, (a very common error) it would be difficult to find any verbal fault, in the present instance, to which a critic would be pardoned for alluding.

But the whole narrative is disfigured, and indeed utterly ruined, by the grievous sin of affectation. It is this sin, and not, we are convinced, any imbecility in the conceptions of Mr. Willis, (with our readers' leave we will drop Mr. Slingsby) which has beguiled him into the egregious folly of writing a long article, in a jocular manner, about the cataract of Niagara. He may say, a pleasant sketch is intended, no more—and that the intention is fulfilled. But the utter want of keeping, consequent upon handling such subject in such manner, is sufficient to convince us at a glance, that his intention, even such as it is, is _not_, in any due degree, fulfilled. The question is not whether the thing pleases, (one who writes as well as Mr. Willis will please _in spite_ of a thousand faults,) but whether, if otherwise handled, it might not have pleased the more. While laughing at the mystification of our friend Job, we are in no proper {600} frame of mind for the grandeur of the fall—and while absorbed in the majesty of the monarch of cataracts, we are aware of an oppressive revulsion of feeling if disturbed for the absurd fripperies and frivolities, or the still more absurd melo-dramatic adventures, of the fop and the woman of fashion. This matter is too obvious for denial. A writer, then, who, in despite of common sense, shall be continually endeavoring to reconcile these obstinate oils and waters of the soul, will be continually laboring at a disadvantage—and this latter point, neglected by gentlemen who should know better, is a point to which the most dunder-headed artizan would not forget to give a proper attention in the making of a pair of breeches, or the building of a pig-stye. If all ethics be not at fault, those mental impressions, however vivid, will be necessarily evanescent, which are deficient in unity. In a word, it may safely be asserted, that a writer neglectful of the _totality of effect_, will fall short of his end, if that end be a remembrance in the “language of his land.” Compositions grossly failing in this essential, have been habitually discharged from the memory of man. And in this essential Mr. Willis invariably fails—we should rather say, this essential Mr. Willis invariably disregards. He seems especially to have fallen into that heresy (now common in literary, although deduced from mere fashionable life) which would brand as a species of Rosa-Matilda-ism any sustained and unmingled severity of sentiment. Never, surely, in whatever light we regard it, was a heresy more untenable. When applied to the brief essay, or short tale, it is ridiculous—and Mr. Willis should remember that he is an essayist, or nothing.

In the particular here pointed out, we have accused our author of affectation. It is a sin of which the public _loudly_ accuse him, and in general terms. When we say the accusation is just, we wish to be understood as speaking positively. In a relative view, the case is different. Mr. Willis is not a jot more entitled to be called “affected,” than nine-tenths of the gentlemen who are in the habit of so calling him—than nine-tenths of the most popular writers in our land. But his affectation, differing from the tone of their own, is in some measure more readily perceptible. It is, however, a positive folly, no doubt, which induces so clever a writer so frequently to disclaim all knowledge of geography and “figures”—to speak bad French in preference to good English—to talk about Niagara being “as _fine a thing_ as I have seen in my travels,” and about having “pic-nic'd from the Simplegades westward”—to think “gave upon the bay” a forcible phrase, merely because it is a Gallicism—to begin a quotation with “Saith well an American poet,” &c. &c.—to delight in such inversions as “She looked loveliest when driving, did Blanche Carroll”—to inform us that “he never looks back in composition,” and to make use of such pretty little expressions on his title-pages as _Pencillings by the Way_, and _Inklings of Adventure_.