The History of Western Travel. Harriet MartineauЧитать онлайн книгу.
pretty partners, while all the black servants of the house ranged their laughing faces in the rear. The music of the ballroom came to us mingling with the prolonged bursts of thunder; and other and grander strains rose from the river, where two large steamboats, with their lights, moved like constellations on the water, conveying a regiment from Pennsylvania which was visiting the soldiery of New-York State. They sent up rockets into the murky sky, and poured new blasts of music from their band as they passed our promontory. Every moment the lightning burst; now illuminating the interior of a mass of clouds; now quivering from end to end of heaven; now shedding broad livid gleams, which suddenly revealed a solitary figure on the terrace, a sloop on the waters, and every jutting point of rock. Still the dance went on till the hour struck which abruptly called the youths away from their partners, and bade them hie to their tents.
On returning from the cemetery we found Mr. and Mrs. Kemble, from the opposite side of the river, waiting to offer us their hospitality; and we agreed to visit them in the afternoon. Mr. Kemble's boat awaited us at the landing-place by three o'clock, and we rowed about some time before landing on the opposite bank, so irresistible is the temptation to linger in this scene of magical beauty. The Catholic chapel of Coldspring is well placed on a point above the river; and the village, hidden from West Point by a headland, is pretty. From Mr. Kemble's we were to be treated with a visit to the Indian Fall, and were carried within half a mile of it by water. We followed the brawling brook for that distance, when we saw the glistening of the column of water through the trees. No fall can be prettier for its size, which is just small enough to tempt one to climb. A gentleman of our party made the attempt; but the rocks were too slippery with wet weed, and he narrowly escaped a tumble of twenty feet into the dark pool below. The boys, after bringing us branches of the black cherry, clustered with the fruit, found a safe and dry way up, and appeared waving their green boughs in triumph at the top of the rocks. The tide had risen so that the river was brimming full as we returned, and soft with the mountain shadows; but we landed at West Point in time to see the sun set twice, as it happened. At the landing-place we stood to see it drop behind the mountain; but just after we had bidden it good-night, I saw that a meditative cadet, lying at length upon a rock, was still basking in the golden light, and I ran up the steep to the piazza. There, in a gap between two summits, was the broad disk, as round as ever; and once more we saw it sink in a tranquillity almost as grand as the stormy splendour of the preceding night. Then ensued the evening parade, guitar music in the hotel, and dancing in the camp.
This evening a lady and her daughter steamed down from Fishkill with a request to us to spend a few days there; and a clergyman steamed up from New-York with an invitation from Doctor Hosack to visit him and his family at Hyde Park. We could not do both; and there was some difficulty in contriving to do either, anxiously as we desired it; but we presently settled that Fishkill must be given up, and that we must content ourselves with two days at Hyde Park.
The next morning I experienced a sensation which I had often heard of, but never quite believed in; the certainty that one has wakened in another world. Those who have travelled much know that a frequent puzzle, on waking from sound sleep in new places, is to know where one is; even in what country of the world. This night I left my window open close to my head, so that I could see the stars reflected in the river. When I woke the scene was steeped in the light of the sunrise, and as still as death. Its ineffable beauty was all; I remarked no individual objects; but my heart stood still with an emotion which I should be glad to think I may feel again whenever I really do enter a new scene of existence. It was some time before my senses were separately roused; during the whole day I could not get rid of the impression that I had seen a vision; and even now I can scarcely look back upon the scene as the very same which, at other hours, I saw clouded with earth-drawn vapours, and gilded by the common sun.
At eleven o'clock we left West Point; and I am glad that we felt sure at the time that we should visit it again; a design which we did not accomplish, as the place was ravaged by scarlet fever at the season of the next year that we had fixed for our visit. Mr. Livingston, who had just returned from his French mission, was on board the boat. My letters of introduction to him were at the bottom of my trunk; but we did not put off becoming acquainted till I could get at them.
Mr. Livingston's name is celebrated and honoured in England (as over all Europe), through its connexion with the Louisiana Code, this gentleman's great work. He was born and educated in the state of New-York. While pursuing his studies at Princeton College in 1779 and 1780, he was subject to strange interruptions, the professors being repeatedly driven from their chairs by incursions of the enemy, and their scholars on such occasions forming a corps to go out and fight. The library was scattered, the philosophical apparatus destroyed, and the college buildings shared with troops quartered in the establishment; yet young Livingston left college a good scholar. He was a member of the fourth Congress, and there made himself remarkable by his exertions to ameliorate the criminal code of the United States, then as sanguinary as those of the Old World. In 1801 he returned to the practice of his profession of the law in New-York, but was not long permitted to decline public life. He was appointed attorney of the state of New-York, and mayor of the city. He remained in the city, in the discharge of his duties, while the yellow fever drove away every one who could remove. He nearly died of the disease, and was ruined in his private affairs by his devotion to the public service. In 1804 he resigned his offices, and retired to Louisiana (then a new acquisition of the United States) to retrieve his fortunes; and from thence he discharged all his obligations, paying his debts, with interest upon them, to the last farthing. He was deprived, by a mistake of President Jefferson's, of an immense property which he had acquired there, and was involved in expensive litigation of many years' duration. The law decided in his favour, and the controversy ended in a manner the most honourable to both parties; in a reciprocation of hearty good-will.
During the invasion of Louisiana by the British Mr. Livingston took a prominent part in the defence of the state; and, when it was over, undertook, with two coadjutors, the formidable task of simplifying its laws, entangled as they were with Spanish prolixities, and all manner of unnecessary and unintelligible provisions. His system was adopted, and has been in use ever since. In 1820 the system of municipal law was revised at New-Orleans under the superintendence of Mr. Livingston, and his amendments were put in practice in 1823. He was at the same time engaged, without assistance, in preparing his celebrated penal code. When it was all ready for the press, in 1824, he sat up late one night to ascertain finally the correctness of the fair copy; and, having finished, retired to rest in a state of calm satisfaction at his great work being completed. He was awakened by a cry of fire. The room where he had been employed was burning, and every scrap of his papers was consumed. Not a note or memorandum was saved.
He appeared to be stunned for the hour; but, before the day closed, he had begun his labours again, and he never relaxed till, in two years from the time of the fire, he presented his work to the legislature of Louisiana, improved by the reconsideration which he had been compelled to give it. Men of all countries who understand jurisprudence seem to think that no praise of this achievement can be excessive.
He afterward represented Louisiana in both Houses of Congress; became Secretary of State in 1831; and, in 1833, minister to France. His was a busy life, of doing, suffering, and, we may confidently add, enjoying; for his was a nature full of simplicity, modesty, and benevolence. His industry is of itself exhilarating to contemplate.
During the whole preceding year I had heard Mr. Livingston's name almost daily in connexion with his extremely difficult negotiations between the United States and France, or, rather, between President Jackson and Louis Philippe. I had read his despatches (some of which were made public that were never designed to be so), and had not been quite satisfied as to their straightforwardness, but concluded, on the whole, that he had done as much as human wits could well do in so absurd, and perplexed, and dangerous a quarrel, where the minister had to manage the temper of his own potentate as well as baffle the policy of the European monarch. A desire for peace and justice was evident through the whole of Mr. Livingston's correspondence; and under all, a strong wish to get home. Here he was, now ploughing his way up his own beloved river, whose banks were studded with the country-seats of a host of his relations. He came to me on the upper deck, and sat looking very placid with his staff between his knees, and his strong, observing countenance melting into an expression of pleasure when he described to me his enjoyment