Western Characters | Page 3

smiles, the glad impressions of unfaded youth.
Yet sorrow cometh even to the happiest. Misfortune is as stern a leveller as Death; and early youth, with all its noble aspirations, gorgeous visions, never to be realized, must often plunge, like the placid river over a foaming cataract, down the precipice of affliction--even while its current, though nearing the abyss, flow softly as "the waters of Shiloah." It may be the death of a mother, whom the bereaved half deemed immortal--some disappointment, like the falsehood of one dearly loved--some rude shock, as the discovery of a day-dream's hollowness; happy, thrice happy! if it be but one of these, and not the descent from innocence to sin!
But life rolls on, as does the river, though its wave no longer flows in placid beauty, nor reveals the hidden things beneath. The ripples are now whirling eddies, and a hundred angry currents chafe along the rocks, as thought and feeling fret against the world, and waste their strength in vain repining or impatient irritation. Tranquillity returns no more; and though the waters seem not turbid, there is a shadow in their depths--their transparency is lost.
Tributaries, great and small, flow in--accessions of experience to the man, of weight and volume to the river; and, with force augmented, each rolls on its current toward the ocean. A character, a purpose, is imparted to the life, as to the stream, and usefulness becomes an element of being. The river is a chain which links remotest latitudes, as through the social man relations are established, binding alien hearts: the spark of thought and feeling, like the fluid of the magnet, brings together distant moral zones.
On it rushes--through the rapids, where the life receives an impulse--driven forward--haply downward--among rocks and dangerous channels, by the motives of ambition, by the fierce desire of wealth, or by the goad of want! But soon the mad career abates, for the first effect of haste is agitation, and the master-spell of power is calmness. Happy are they, who learn this lesson early--for, thence, the current onward flows, a tranquil, noiseless, but resistless, tide. Manhood, steady and mature, with its resolute but quiet thoughts, its deep, unwavering purposes, and, more than all, its firm, profound affections, is passing thus, between the shores of Time--not only working for itself a channel broad and clear, but bearing on its bosom, toward Eternity, uncounted wealth of hopes.
But in the middle of its course, its character is wholly changed; a flood pours in, whose waters hold, suspended, all impurities. A struggle, brief but turbulent, ensues: the limpid wave of youth is swallowed up. Some great success has been achieved; unholy passions are evoked, and will not be allayed; thenceforward there is no relenting; and, though the world--nay! Heaven itself!--pour in, along its course, broad tributaries of reclaiming purity, the cloud upon the waters can never be dispelled. The marl and dross of Earth, impalpable, but visibly corrupting, pervade the very nature; and only when the current ceases, will its primitive transparency return.
Still it hurries onward, with velocity augmented, as it nears its term. Yet its breadth is not increased; the earth suspended in its waters, like the turbid passions of the human soul, prevents expansion;[1] for, in man's career through time, the heart grows wider only in the pure.
Along the base of cliffs and highlands--through the deep alluvions of countless ages--among stately forests and across extended plains, it flows without cessation. Beyond full manhood, character may change no more--as, below its mighty tributaries, the river is unaltered. Its full development is reached among rich plantations, waving fields, and swarming cities; while, but the journey of a day beyond, it rushes into Eternity, leaving a melancholy record, as it mingles with the waters of the great gulf, even upon the face of Oblivion.
--Within the valley of this river, time will see a population of two hundred millions; and here will be the seat of the most colossal power Earth has yet contained. The heterogeneous character of the people is of no consequence: still less, the storms of dissension, which now and then arise, to affright the timid and faithless. The waters of all latitudes could not be blended in one element, and purified, without the tempests and cross-currents, which lash the ocean into fury. Nor would a stagnant calmness, blind attachment to the limited horizon of a homestead, or the absence of all irritation or attrition, ever make one people of the emigrants from every clime.
And, when this nation shall have become thoroughly homogeneous--when the world shall recognise the race, and, above this, the power of the race--will there be no interest in tracing through the mists of many generations, the outlines of that foundation on which is built the mighty fabric? Even the infirmities and vices of the men