JOTTINGS ABROAD.

BY J. R. CHANDLER.

It is undoubtedly pleasant in the midst of the weakening influences of an August day, to sit, sub tegmani fagi, and read of the sports of the watering places—the wonders of Niagara, or the discoveries of those summer travelers who, turning aside from the beaten paths, or common haunts of fashion, explore the hidden, and develop the unknown. Most agreeable is it to mingle the mental sherbet of our summer’s retirement with such timely ingredients. Herein our brethren of the daily press seem to have an advantage over us of the monthly issues, as, day by day, they prepare their ever welcome table, and are never compelled to speak of an elevated thermometer, while

Milk comes frozen in the pails,

And Dick, the shepherd, blows his nails.

Waiving this advantage, or to speak more correctly, yielding to this disadvantage, we purpose laying upon our table, and for our readers who dine later than the common class, a single dish, composed of gleanings from the flower-gardens and the stubble-fields, in a late visitation among the “wise men of the East.”

We say nothing of a rest which we set up for a short time in New York, because the continual clatter in that Babel of this land would prevent ordinary ears (and ours are of no extraordinary length) from hearing any thing worth presenting here, and the dust, which seemed to be moving in solid masses from corner to corner, rendered quite necessary to comfort and to future speculation hermetically closed eyes.

The next stage was Springfield, Mass., where we saw and conversed with Grace Greenwood—a Grace for which we were appropriately grateful. She was cultivating ideas for future use, and gathering thoughts to sustain her fame and secure the admiration of others. She was successful, undoubtedly.

But Springfield has of itself, as well as in itself, attractions of no ordinary character. The regular tourist will, of course, visit and describe the Armory, in which are stored about one hundred thousand stand of arms, all rendered nearly useless, by the introduction, since they were manufactured, of percussion caps, instead of the old flint and steel process of igniting the charge. In these days every thing must be done quickly. A rail-road of a hundred miles in length, and five millions cost, was constructed between two cities, because it would carry passengers in one hour’s time less than one already in use. And here the ignition of the powder by the spark from the flint, which seemed to measure the shortest imaginable space, we had almost said point of time, was deemed, and undoubtedly is, too slow a process for destroying human life; and so another agent is applied, whose operation is electric, and makes the intention and the act instantaneous. These guns thus put into coventry, must have cost nearly twelve hundred thousand dollars—a sum, the interest of which we wish we had to pay contributors, literary and artistic, to Graham’s Magazine.

Because the genius of our people is connected with the fact, we will just add, that at this place, as at other of the armories of the General Government, all the parts of the muskets are so constructed as to suit any one musket of the million that may be made. No single part is particular; no screw has a special gun; no spring, clasp, or brace, is intended to suit one, or two, or twenty, but each part of any musket will answer for the same part of any others without alteration of any kind. This looks like the perfection of mechanism, and the machinery used looks as if it were made by and for such perfection.

No one who visits in Springfield will neglect the large public cemetery; it is worth a visit of miles—and it requires the travel of miles, for it is large. Good taste and ingenuity are manifested in all its parts; and the buried, if they have a consciousness of their whereabout, must be satisfied to await, in that beautiful retreat, the summons which shall call together the separated bones, and clothe them anew with the incorruptible, in which they are to stand and be judged.

And the living will learn in this beautiful city of the dead, to contemplate the only certainty of their lives, and to see the slow approach of their dissolution, without that shock which the Golgothas and Aceldamas of other times were sure to impart to the delicate and sensitive.

I know that the cynic loves to point to the ornamented grave-yard, or the magnificent cemetery, as the exhibition of the pride of the living—the vanity of the survivors. And I dare not say, that even with the chastened, holy feelings which grief ensures, some particle of human vanity may not mingle, and that the monument which professes to record the virtues of the dead, may not, indeed, betoken the pride of the living.

But suppose it does—admit the charge, and what then? The pride of the living is shown where no future error of the lauded will belie or disgrace the memorial, and where the self-esteem which is gratified in the erection of the cenotaph, will never be wounded by the ingratitude of the one that sleeps beneath. Let vanity have its hour if it uses the time to praise the virtuous, and make death less repulsive; and pride which beautifies where dead men’s bones and all manner of uncleanliness once were found, commends itself to forgiveness, if it may not command our approval.

Has any one ever thought of this? All know and applaud the movement which develops and displays the virtues and beauties of our nature. But who has thought it worth while to commend the undertaking that makes the errors and deformities of our character minister to taste and refinement! The polished marble scarcely requires genius to give it a sightly and ornamental position; it is beautiful wherever found, but true taste and true skill are requisite to give symmetry and collective beauty to rough ashlars in an ornamental tenement.

When such a cemetery is established, it is natural that the private and parishional burying-places should yield up the dead, and be devoted to the more active business of life; and hence we see in various departments of this ground, old moss-grown stones that have followed the dust whose history they record, and who stand among the newly-carved pillars and slabs now become representatives not less of the taste than of the people of other times.

Wandering in the lower part of the town, near the railroad dépôt, I saw on the main street, a lot newly broken up for building. It had been the burying-ground of some church or family. One old stone was laid aside. It recorded the name of a virtuous woman, who died more than two hundred years ago. This is the antiquity of our country, and the existence of a grave-stone of that date is a part of the marvel of the present time. I was about to copy the record, but I saw some one watching me, and as I shrunk from being gazed at, I ceased from the labor. I might have brought away a part of the words, though nothing but an artist could have caught and conveyed the form of the letters, if that could be called form which was almost formless. Surely every age has its literature; and perhaps every location claims its peculiar style. Certainly the literature of the early part of the seventeenth century in Springfield had some striking peculiarities. I do not remember seeing previously the word pietously, which, if I mistake not, was on that stone—and that, too, without the necessity of rhythm. Yet most beautifully did the uncouth rhyme and shapeless sculpture of that stone, convey to the readers, the merits of a woman who lived in Springfield when that town was a wilderness, and whose virtues made that “wilderness blossom like the rose.”

From Springfield to Brattleboro’, Vt., is only three hours’ ride; but he who enters the smallest inn of an interior village in a drenching storm at night, and leaves it the next morning before the mists that night and the storm engendered have climbed up the mountain sides, and gone to mingle with the world of misty fogs above, can have but little to say of persons or places, excepting, indeed, that he may acknowledge that a clean bed and a well-supplied and well attended table exceeded the promise of the house; and that the quiet, orderly, self-respecting deportment of mechanics employed in the neighborhood, illustrate the fact elsewhere derivable, that idleness, champagne, and white gloves, are not necessary to the character of a good republican citizen.

Here is the celebrated water cure establishment of Dr. Woeselhooffer—and it is stated that cures are really by water effected. Some oblong wicker vessels, which were visible in the baggage car of the train, seemed to intimate that entire dependence is not placed on water by every one in this village, though we have seldom seen a place more liberally supplied with the pure element.

In looking along the sea-shore of Massachusetts, one is struck with the spirit of these times as contrasted with those of other years. Jutting out upon the bold, rocky promontories, are seen the beautiful summer residences of the wealthy, while each stream, formerly kept open and clear by law for the ascent and descent of migratory fish, is now dammed and swollen, to augment water power. Whole towns, cities indeed, are spread out upon the inclined surfaces, that only a few years back were deemed unfit for cultivation, and consequently unworthy of consideration, while at the entrance to each port and harbor is seen some old fort, which, fifty years ago, would, in the midst of profound peace, bristle with the glittering bayonet of men-at-arms; and each morning and evening pour out the formal thunder that bespeaks the character of the fortress and the rank of its commander. Now the façade is trodden by the horse and cow that are seeking fresh pasture, and the ramparts are broken by the borrowing of the material for some neighboring cottage or factory; and within, where the stately tread of the sentinel showed order and produced propriety, the absence of all monitions of war, and the dilapidation of all barracks and tenements show that men have come to think of peace as the proper state of society, and to regard war as such a remote contingency that the expenditures necessary for defense may be postponed to the time when defense may be suggested by aggression. We do not profess to be members of the peace party, but we should strangely mistake the signs of the times if we did not understand that they indicated a settled confidence of peace at home, not unsustained by the belief that no nation of the earth has the least desire to run their heads against the people of this country. It is the agreement of the people of the United States as to the value and importance of republican institutions, which gives invincibility to our arms; and foreign powers are wise enough to inquire not how many forts stand in front of seaboard towns, but how many hearts in town and country beat for the land and its institutions. Forts may be demolished by force, or betrayed by treason, but no combination of foreign power could tread out the institutions of this country, no considerable number of citizens be found faithless to the nation. Other people know this and do not ask for ramparts and armaments. Our own people know, and feel secure in the patriotic vigor of each and of all.

Massachusetts is a great country of villages, if, indeed, it would not be more correct to say, that nearly all of New England is a suburb of Boston. There are no townships of unoccupied lands in Massachusetts, and where, a few years prior, a stream gushed out of a swamp, turgid with the colors of the leaves and roots steeped in its waters, new villages take the place of the swamp, and the stream is seen busy with the people grinding at the mill, while from each steeple another is visible; each school-house is within sight of its like, and the well-leaved trees scarcely conceal from the inhabitants of one village the white and green of the cottages of the next town. Where such a population is found one scarcely looks for large forms or extensive homesteads; each rood of ground serves to contain and maintain its man, and the intellect of each is kept bright by the constant collision of mind with mind, and the constant necessity of vigilance to prevent encroachments or to secure the advantages of a bargain.

No one goes to the south-eastern part of Massachusetts without inquiring at least for the “farm” of Daniel Webster. It was my better lot to visit the place, and to see much of what others have of late read of. Mr. Webster purchased a large farm, which, having been in the same family almost ever since the landing of the Pilgrims, had not been disturbed by those divisions which augmented population and factory privileges effect in other parts of the state, and as the Anglo-Saxon race is remarkable for the desire to add land to land, Mr. W. has yielded to that propensity of his blood, and augmented his domains, by the annexation of two other overgrown or rather undivided farms, so that the public road seems made to divide his land for miles, and to open up for general admiration the beautiful improvements which his taste supports, and his liberality exercises.

I am not going to give any account of Mr. Webster’s place for the benefit of the agricultural society, else would I speak of his gigantic oxen, and his conquest over fell and rocks; else would I describe his swine, that seem, like the ox of the Bible, to know their owner, and to feel the consequence of such domination; else would I tell of the hundred bushels of corn which were brought forth by an acre, which ten years ago seemed to share in the common attributes of the soil of the state, viz., to present in summer the contest between a stratum of paving pebbles and some stunted grass for visibility; a contest which ceased at the approach of cold weather, when, of course, the stone became most prominent, and continued so until the snow for five months buried both parties out of sight.

Mr. Webster is as fond of the ocean as of the land, and he gathers the riches of the deep for his pleasure as well as the fatness of the earth—that is, the wild fowl and the sea fish are as successfully pursued by Mr. W. as are his agricultural objects, so that with his broad land around him, and the deep blue of the sea beyond, he sits, monarch of all he surveys.

There is in the form of Mr. W. something like himself—it is the result of industry—it is immense—it has upon it no finical decoration, no tawdry ornaments, no pretty little hiding-places, but its wide avenues lead to immeasurable oaks and elms, and far and wide useful habitations, luxuriant fields, and lordly herds of cattle speak the great proprietor; and with all Mr. Webster’s intellectual greatness he feels that even in that nook of New England he is among men who can measure his intellect and attainments, and whose respectful salutations and deferential bearing are not due to any indefinable awe for some mysterious power, attainment, or possession, but the result of a just perception of his worth, and a correct appreciation of his mental greatness and political sagacity. Mr. Webster has, of course, a magnificent library—the treasures which great minds have yielded, and a great mind gathered—a library worthy such a man—a library appropriate to such a princely residence. But it is not the only one. Within a short distance, I saw on many shelves, in the extreme building of a frame rope-walk, not four miles from Mr. Webster, a collection of books in seven or eight languages, which would make the mouth of a literary epicure water; beautiful editions of valuable works, curious collections also, and desirable copies, every one of which was familiar to its modest owner, who seemed to know every vein in his rich mine, and to be able to give the exact value of the product of each inch of its contents.

We have said that Massachusetts was the extension of Boston; it is in more ways than in the beauty of residences and the uses of wealth; not the least worthy of notice is the conformity of country with the city in the delicacy of the female mind, and the extent of refined female education, among classes which might in other parts of the country, have escaped the meliorating influences of early discipline in manners, morals, and graces; and the visiter to the villages of Massachusetts, who finds his way into the parlor in all seasons, will be delighted with the enlarged influences of correct education, and the evidences of entire compatibility of the most extensive literary attainment and feminine polish with the discharge or direct supervision of domestic duties.

A New Volume of this Magazine will be commenced in January, in a style commensurate with the liberal and still increasing patronage bestowed upon it. We know that our patrons are fully satisfied with our past exertions to gratify their tastes, and we are equally confident that they will take our word when we assure them that excellent as the present volume has been, the forthcoming one will eclipse it in splendor.

The season is now close at hand for subscribing to literary periodicals, and the formation of new clubs. Let us urge upon those who design patronizing this Magazine, to send in their orders for the new volume at an early day. Although we shall print a large edition of the first numbers, it may, and doubtless will happen—as it did last year—that the supply will be totally exhausted, and disappointments occur in consequence of our inability to furnish complete sets of the numbers. This can be effectually guarded against by an early subscription for the new volume, and we hope our friends and the public generally will bear this suggestion in mind.

We have in course of preparation some exquisite large engravings, suitable for framing, designed as premium gifts to new subscribers, and from which a selection can be made. The particulars will be given in our Prospectus for the new volume, which will shortly appear.