Western Characters | Page 3

revealing, through the limpid wave, the
golden sands which lie beneath. Anon, the errant channels are united in
one current--life assumes a purpose, a direction--but the waters are yet
pure, and mirror on their face the thousand forms and flashing colors of
Creation's beauty--as happy boyhood, rapidly perceptive of all
loveliness, gives forth, in radiant 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