The Homes of the New World/Letter XV.
LETTER XV.
Maçon, Vineville, May 8th.
My beloved Mamma,—It grieves me much to know that you and Agatha have had a more than usually trying winter. Thank God, however, that it is now past, and that the sunny side of the year is come with its more cheerful prospects. The baths of Marstand will do Agatha good; but we shall never see our poor little friend strong! With regard to the wish which I have now expressed to Agatha, I can merely here repeat that it will not be difficult; and that I am ready to yield it to another from my beloved ones at home.
How well and happy I am among the kind people in this hospitable country, which has become to me like a vast home, mamma has already seen in my letters. I go from home to home in America, and am everywhere received and treated like a child of the house. Besides the excellent effect of this, as regards the health both of soul and body, it affords me an opportunity of becoming acquainted with the domestic life and the homes of the New World—with the innermost life of this hemisphere, in a manner which scarcely any other traveller ever enjoyed, and which is of the highest consequence to me, because it is precisely that which I wished to become familiar with here. But I had scarcely any idea of the degree in which the kindness and the hospitality of this people would respond to this wish. Each family, if it is in anything like easy circumstances, inhabits an entire house; and has besides, generally, a little garden, or at all events a grass plot. The house has one or two parlours on the ground floor, besides eating-room, kitchen, &c. All the chambers are in the upper stories, and there are always one or two (sometimes more) guest-chambers. The guest-chamber, in an American house in the city, is the same thing as for us, in Sweden, to have a guest-chamber in our country-houses. Every house here, whether in town or country, must have its room in which to lodge the stranger. And now if a stranger comes hither from a foreign land, quite alone, and not very large either, it is not a very difficult thing to lodge her in the guest-chamber; and in this way the whole country is one great home, with guest-chambers for mamma's daughter. Finding there the comforts of my own home, finding there motherly mistresses of families; sisters and brothers with whom I have lived and conversed, and live and converse as openly and familiarly as with my own family—all this has made me feel that the kingdom of heaven is not after all so far from earth, at least not from the homes of earth; else otherwise how should one be able to keep up an intercourse with people altogether strangers, as unreservedly and as delightfully as one could with the angels of God?
I am thus now writing to you from a good, beautiful, and happy home, which comprises three generations, old Mr. M. and his wife, still handsome and active: their only son, a highly esteemed banker of Maçon, and his gentle and motherly wife and their children. The whole family is remarkably cordial, earnest and pious, as I often find families in this country to be, and in the practice of morning and evening devotion, which I like much, although I sometimes think that the prayers are too long. The two eldest daughters are handsome, sweet young girls, and sing better than ladies generally do in this country. A quiet sorrow broods over the family from the late decease of a dearly beloved daughter and sister, whose loss seems especially to weigh upon the mother's heart.
I am living here in the midst of a large garden, in which are many rare plants, and I hear the hundred-tongued American mocking bird every morning singing before my window. It is very agreeable to hear, but more singular than charming, and not to compare with our larks and nightingales, any more than the singing voices here are to be compared with those of Sweden. Every land has its own.
There are various features of family life here which I wish were more general with us. To these belong family worship morning and evening and the simple prayer with which the meal is generally sanctified by the father or mother of the family, “O God, bless these Thy gifts to our profit, and us to Thy service!”
With us it is usually the youngest child of the family that says grace before meals if it is said aloud; and this also is beautiful, excepting that in this way it seldom has, or can have the true spirit given to it. Most frequently, however, our form of grace is a silent inclination of the body, but the thought is of nothing but the meal before us. On the contrary, I like better our usages at table than in this country. With us people can enjoy the pleasures of conversation, and they need not think about the dishes, except in so far as enjoying them goes. Everything, with us, is done silently and in due order by the attendants. At a glance from the hostess you are offered a second supply, but this also silently; the dishes come round to the guests, each in his turn, and after that people are not troubled with them. Here it is not so. Here there is an incessant asking and inviting, so that what with asking and inviting, and selecting and answering, there is really no time for the enjoyment of the meal, much less of conversation. Neither is one able to help oneself; but the host or hostess, or aunt or uncle, or some other polite person, or it may be the servants, which here in the south are always negroes, help you, and you seldom get just what you wish for, or as much or as little as you want, and not on that part of the plate where you wish to have it. You are asked, for example—
“Will you have butter?”
“Yes, I thank you.”
And with that comes a piece of butter on the edge of the plate, on which the annoying thought always suggests itself, that it is certainly exactly where the servant put his thumb. Then it goes on:—
“Will you take fish or meat? Chicken or turkey?”
“Chicken, if you please.”
“Have you any choice? The breast, or a wing?”
Then comes, “Will you have pickles?”
“No, I thank you.”
A pause and calm ensues for two minutes. But then somebody on your left discovers that you have no pickles; and pickles come to you from the left. “May I help you to pickles?”
“No, I thank you.”
After a few minutes more somebody on the right sees that you have no pickles, and hastens to offer you the bottle. “Will you not take pickles?”
“No, I thank you.”
You then begin an interesting conversation with your next neighbour; and, just as you are about to ask some question of importance, a person opposite you observes that you are not eating pickles, and the pickle-bottle comes to you across the table, and you are called upon to say once more in self-justification—
“No, I thank you; not any,”—and continue your conversation.
But again, at the moment you are waiting for some reply, interesting to you, comes the servant, perhaps the very best daddy in the whole black world, and shoots the pickle-bottle in between you and your conversible neighbour, and with horror you again behold pickles ready to be put upon your plate, so that in the end you find yourself quite overcome by the pickle persecution.
Thus goes on the meal; one incessant bustle of serving, which takes from you all enjoyment of the food. I have at last a regular palpitation of the heart from disquiet and impatience; but that is in great measure my own fault—the fault of my weakness, though something must be allowed to the fault of the custom here, which is not quite in harmony with the higher pleasures of social intercourse. This custom however did not originate in this country. It belongs to England, and must be put down to the account of England. Our mode of taking our meals and our customs at table are more like those of France; and for this I commend us. In one particular, however, it seems to me that the homes of the new world excel those of all other countries, excepting of England, with which they have a close connection, and that is in cleanliness. Our very best homes in Sweden are in this respect seldom so admirable as is usually the case here. For all here is kept neat and clean, from the bed-rooms to the kitchen, and the servants have the same smartness and neatness of attire, the same suavity of manner as the lady and daughters of the house. An American house and home is in many respects the ideal of a home, if I except the apparatus for warming their houses in the Northern States. Everything is to be found there which can make existence fresh, and comfortable, and agreeable, from the bath-room to the little garden, in the town as well as in the country, with its trees, even if they be but few, its beautiful grass-plot and plants, which are frequently trained on trellises on the walls, whence their flowers, wafted by the wind, diffuse their fragrance through the windows. And if here the mistress of the house, especially in the south, has lighter domestic cares than our ladies, as regards housekeeping (for fresh meat and vegetables may be had every day at all seasons in this country, where the year may be reckoned by summers, not by winters, as with us, and which compels us to dry and salt and lay in stores during the living portion of the year, in preparation for the dead), yet has she much to look after and to provide for, so that house and home may be supplied with, not merely the material things, but with those that shall beautify it, and this more especially in the Southern States where all the domestics are of the negro race, which is by nature careless and deficient in neatness. I admire what I saw of the southern ladies and mistresses of families. The young girls, on the contrary, I should like to see a little more active in the house, and more helpful to their mothers in various ways. But it is not the custom; and the parents, from mistaken kindness, seem not to wish their daughters to do anything except amuse themselves, and enjoy liberty and life as much as possible. I believe that they would be happier if they made themselves more useful. The family relationship between parents and children seems to me particularly beautiful, especially as regards the parents towards the children. The beautiful, maternal instinct is inborn in the American women, at least in all its fervent, heart-felt sentiment; and better, more affectionate, family-fathers than the men of America I have seen nowhere in the world. They have in particular a charming weakness for—daughters. And God bless them for it! I hope the daughters may know how to return it with interest.
Now must I bid mamma adieu, as I am going out with the family here to visit some ancient Indian graves; Indian mounds as they are called. They are a sort of barrows, now overgrown with trees, and are the sole memorials which remain here of the original inhabitants of the country, with the exception of the names which they gave to rivers and mountains, and which, for the most part, are still retained. These names are symbolic, and are generally melodious in sound. It is not more than twenty years since the last Indian tribes in Georgia were driven thence by an armed force; and I have heard eye-witnesses relate the scene, how on the morning when they were compelled to leave their huts, their smoking hearths, their graves, and were driven away, men, women, and children, as a defenceless herd, the air was filled with their cry of lamentation! Now no Indians are to be met with in Georgia or Carolina, though in Alabama, the farthest state west, may still be found tribes of Choctas and Chickasas Indians. Lively pic-nics are now held on these ancient Indian mounds.
I have for two nights in succession dreamed most livingly that mamma was here—was come to America to see me. I was very glad of it, but at the same time much surprised, because Agatha was not with her, and I thought in my dream, it is impossible that mamma could leave Agatha alone; “it must be a dream!” And a dream, and a foolish dream it was, certainly, my sweet mamma, but I should be very glad that one part of it were true, namely, that I saw you looking so well and so happy. If I could only see that, then would I have the joy of embracing mamma, not in sleep and in a dream, but in wakeful reality!
To-morrow I set off for Savannah.
Savannah, May 11th.—And here I now am, sweet mamma, after an affectionate parting from the amiable family in Vineville, whom I was sorry to leave. I got rid of a head-ache, as soon as possible, last evening, after the fatiguing day's journey by railway, in the heat of the sun, the smoke and the steam, during which my little basket of bananas was my only comfort and support. Long live the banana!
To-day I have received visits and flowers—among the latter a magnolia grandiflora, a magnificent flower, as noble as it is beautiful, a child of primeval light—and among the former one from a piquant young lady, who was herself married at fourteen years of age—she is now only seventeen, but looks as if she were twenty—and who will carry me off this afternoon on a promenade to Bonaventura—some romantic spot. Her dark romantic eyes have something quite interesting in them.
Later.—I have had a visit from the greatest —— autograph collector in the world, Mr. T., who kindly invited me to his house and home at Savannah! and here comes now my Swiss professor, and will talk to me of poetry and religion, and the spirit of things; and now it is dinner-time and I must think about my body, and therefore I must make an end of all. But first a kiss—on the paper and in spirit to my beloved!