North Country

“ Making a good recovery, he set off in May to sledge across North Greenland through snow and over it, and over snow-arched crevasses, often, in cloudy weather, travelling in grey space with nothing visible beyond a foot or two around him. After fifty-seven days' journey to the north-east and along Peary Channel, the northern boundary of the mainland, he left the inland ice for a strange country dotted with snowdrifts and mostly of red sandstone, in which murmuring streams, roaring waterfalls, and the song of snow-buntings formed an agreeable change from the silence of the desert of snow. ”

“ We are in latitude 55° North, and between us and the Arctic lies an unknown country, which supports but a few hundred Indian trappers and the fur-traders of the Ancient Company in their little posts, clinging like swallows' nests to the river banks. The wheat-plains to the south of us are so fertile and accessible that the tide of immigration has stopped south of where we stand. ”

“ At the rising and setting of the sun, I took the bearing of the road by the course of the stream that I had crossed, and found that I was traveling to the northwest, instead of the north or northeast, to one of which latter points I wished to direct my march. Having perceived the country in which I now was to be thickly peopled, I remained in my resting place until late at night, when returning to the road and crossing it, I took once more to the woods, with the stars for my guides, and steered for the northeast. ”

“ Now a very common trait in books of both kinds is the author's fondness for pointing out the differences between the people of the southern part of a particular country and the people living in the northern part. You are familiar with the distinction. The inhabitants of the south are hot-headed, amorous, given to mandolin playing, and lacking in political genius. The people of the north are phlegmatic, practical, averse to love-making, unimaginative, readers of the Bible, and tenacious of their rights. ”

“ Southern men are not favorably disposed towards Northern improvements in any department, no matter whether it be trade, commerce, or agriculture: hence they have no such farms South as they have North, even in portions of their country where the soil is equally susceptible of improvement. ”

“ To get a fair and satisfactory view of the Plain, our route must be to the west side. The east is steep, broken, and thin in depth of soil; the north is, to a large extent, shingly; the west and centre are decidedly the cream of the country. ”

“ It has had its forts within the Arctic Circle; it has successfully exploited a country larger than the United States. The Red River Valley, the Saskatchewan Valley, and British Columbia, are now belted by a great railway, and given to the plough; but in the far north life is much the same as it was a hundred years ago. ”

“ Because in our five years' Texas experience we met this monster of the human heart in shapes and phases, deeper, darker, and more vile than we had ever dreamed of before, or could have dreamed if we had never seen Texas. There this barbarous element assumes a more lawless and criminal form than in any other country we ever saw. There it hesitates not at doing personal violence to its object. And so much the more as they value human life less than other people. ”

“ In the first place, there were no broken roads at this season, except on the routes of inland trade; much of the intermediate country is a wilderness, where one must camp many nights in the snow; food was very scarce, the Lapps having hardly enough for their own necessities, and the delays at every place where guides and reindeer must be changed, would have prolonged the journey far beyond the time which I had allotted to the North. ”

“ Not one great country can be named, from the polar regions in the north to New Zealand in the south, in which the aborigines do not tattoo themselves. ”

“ Numerous were the invitations to stop, which I received from the officers. “Why not stay with us, sir; what can a gentleman want to go among black Republicans and Yankees for.” It is quite obvious that my return to the Northern States is regarded with some suspicion; but I am bound to say that my explanation of the necessity of the step was always well received, and satisfied my Southern friends that I had no alternative. A special correspondent, whose letters cannot [49] get out of the country in which he is engaged, can scarcely fulfil the purpose of his mission ”

“ And if the Malad is a good valley, we can go further north to those not quite so good; and the further we go north the less good characteristics are connected with the valleys, except in the articles of fish, water, and, in some instances, timber ”

“ My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here;
My heart's in the Highlands, a-chasing the deer;
Chasing the wild deer, and following the roe;
My heart's in the Highlands wherever I go.
Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the north,
The birth-place of valour, the country of worth;
Wherever I wander, wherever I rove,
The hills of the Highlands for ever I love.
Farewell to the mountains high cover'd with snow;
Farewell to the straths and green valleys below,
Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods;
Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods.
My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here; ”

“ We landed at New Orleans on the 21st of the month, which was the day before the vote on Secession was to be taken in the State of Louisiana. When time is not an important consideration with the traveler, we know of no more delightful voyage than by a first-class steamboat down the "Father of Waters" to the Crescent City—a palace on the waters, in a delicious climate, through a magnificent country in the "Sunny South," sweeping from thirty-seven to thirty degrees north latitude, but ten hundred and forty miles by the meandering river. ”

“ But when they begin to move in a given direction, where great interests are involved, such as the present issues before the country, they move with the steady momentum and perseverance of a mighty avalanche, and what I fear is they will overwhelm the South with ignoble defeat, and I would say, amen, to the suffering and defeat I have pictured if the present difficulties could find no other solution, and that too by peaceable means. ”

“ It is probable that the finest social types in this country have heretofore been found in the South. That this is true, or could be under the dark shadows of an institution so out of harmony with the progressive spirit of the age certainly seems paradoxical. ”

“ Far overhead they could hear the honk of the wild geese flying south and the whistle of wings cutting the air.
They stood for a long time at the gate of the Larabee home whose windows gleamed invitingly. A smell of wood-smoke came from the chimney of the fireplace. The wind stirred in the trees.
"Well, ain't you going to kiss me goodnight," Maxine pouted, putting up her lips.
He thought she couldn't have said it. Nothing so wonderful could happen to a country boy. He hesitated, looking down at her loveliness, her lips a trifle apart, her eyes closed, waiting. ”

“ He was away from the farm at last, had freedom, a job, and a room in town. His third weekly paycheck of twenty-two dollars and fifty cents was in his pocket. He had a girl who some day might give him a kiss, and a dapper little employer, Mike O'Casey, whom he admired beyond all power of expression.
Still he was miserable.
The very eminence of O'Casey was deflating to Peter. How could a country lout with big feet and clumsy red hands ever hope to reach such pinnacles of success? ”

“ But such are the issues of life and death in Texas, and a man is a little nearer death there all the while than in any other country we wot of.
As an example of the jeopardy of human life, and how crime against society maybe committed with impunity in that country, we will give the case of a leading business man in one of the cities of Texas, and a prominent member of a leading religious body (whose name we withhold) , who, some years before the war, had a personal difficulty with a citizen, who had threatened him with personal violence. ”

“ Who that knows the North can ever deny its lure? Wherever you be, it will call and call to you. In the sluggish South you will hear it, will long for the keen tingle of its silver days, the vaster glory of its star-strewn nights. In the city's heart it will come to you till you hunger for its big, clean spaces, its racing rivers, its purple tundras. In the homes of the rich its voice will seek you out, and you will ache for your lonely camp-fire, a sunset splendouring to golden death, the night where the silence clutches and the heavens vomit forth white fire. ”

“ But to Peter Brailsford, impatient with his youth; torn with fear of God, of hell, and of sex; romantic, inexperienced, wistful; anxious to get ahead in the world, yet essentially unworldly; intolerant, rebellious, headstrong; filled with hatreds, jealousies, and a morbid interest in death; saddled with concepts of duty, patriotism, and courage which were fatal to millions of his generation; big, clumsy, lovable; obsessed with the idea that he was only a country boy; almost as supersensitive as Sarah and nearly as lusty as Stud ”

“ As the country now stands, the climate is decidedly unfavorable to agriculture. And unless some plans, on a magnificent scale, can be devised and executed, by which to irrigate that vast and rich country, the main dependence will always have to be, as heretofore, on the flocks [208] and herds. The climate is unseasonable ”

“ The system of forced labor no longer overshadows and oppresses the spirit of progress and improvement there. The inveterate slowness of the country must give way before the advancing step of reform, and as increasing light breaks in, bringing to public view the ponderous follies of the past industrial history of the country, new ideas will be allowed and patronized ”

“ Now some crops of the country are more successfully raised in the dry seasons, and others in the wet. Cotton is produced in the greatest abundance in a comparatively dry season; corn the reverse. So that, by keeping and observing a critical meteorological record the planter can calculate with a good degree of certainty what crops would promise best from year to year. Thus, we believe, Providence has made it feasible, through science and art, for man to live and prosper in any country or climate under the sun. ”

“ I was in the society of gentlemen whose lives had been passed in all portions of the great north, on the frozen shores of Hudson’s Bay, in the mountain fastnesses of the Chipewyan range, or midst the savage solitudes that lie where, in long, low-lying capes, and ice-piled promontories, the shore of America stretches out to meet the waves of the Northern Ocean. ”

“ Magruder had called to his side for consultation, upon the feasibility of his daring enterprise, his predecessor in command, who laughed him to scorn, as a dreaming fanatic, with more courage than brains. But not being disheartened by Hebert's wet blanket, he prosecuted his plans and purpose to completeness of preparation. Hebert left, and went to [109] some private retreat up country, where he would not be considered by any implication, of word or circumstance, to be partaker in so wild and reckless a scheme. ”

“ After the war I intend giving myself to the legal profession, and shall not return to the pulpit. I am keeping a spotted book. All persons who refuse to go into the army, or evade [82] the conscript law by any dodge or subterfuge whatever, their names shall go down in the spotted book, to receive my special attention after the war, personally, professionally, and politically, and I swear it here and now; they shall be hunted in town, in the city, through the wilderness, out of the country, and peradventure a worse fate may befall them! ”

“ My dear Madam, you defend yourself capitally well, and I perceive you are not only an intelligent lady, and hence, on this score, we fear you in our cause all the more, if disposed on seeming occasion, to do damage, which is liable to come at any time by the accidents of war, but I feel bound to say that I believe that you are a well-meaning lady, though not patriotic toward the country of your adoption. ”

“ If the labor question of that country is ever properly settled and harmonized—in regard to which we are more hopeful than doubtful from [61] recent data—the leading productive interest of Texas will continue to be that of cotton, particularly in the southern-central section. But we think the future will show that the strongest rival interest will be grape culture and wine making. ”

“ On the northern edge of Exmoor, parted from the outer world by a long ridge of wooded hills that die away into a bold headland by the grey sea, there lies a spacious valley—fair even for the West Country, a valley that for its beauty of broad fields and noble trees and old-world villages, may rank among the fairest in all England. ”

“ When it rains it rains. And during the other months of the year the torrents that fall upon the country will aggregate twenty-five to thirty inches. It is not extravagant to affirm that if the water could be utilized in some, as yet undiscovered way, that country would be the finest in the world. ”

“ The impression of the North-west, thus far seen, is that of tremendous energy, material refinement, much open-mindedness, considerable self-appreciation,’ uncommon sagacity in meeting new problems, generous hospitality, the Old Testament notion of possessing this world, rather more recognition of the pecuniary as the only success than exists in the East and South, intense national enthusiasm, and unblushing and most welcome “Americanism.” ”

“ The steamer left the wharf at Cairo, steamed down the river and passed Columbus, Kentucky, and the islands in the river. They had no special histories then, such as stirred the whole country a few months later, not even Island Number Ten, where commenced the first rebel blockade of the river. Nothing of special interest transpired to mar the general pleasure of the voyage. Sometimes one would hear the question of secession quietly mooted; but no excited or angry discussion. There was obviously a terrible thinking going on generally, with all on board ”

“ THE GENIUS OF THE NORTH
It is true that our Northern nature is lofty and strong. Its characteristics may well awaken deep meditation and emotion. When the Goddess of Song has grown up in these surroundings, her view of life is like that mirrored in our lakes, where, between the dark shadows of mountain and trees on the shore, a light-blue sky looks down. Over this mirror the Northern morning and the Northern day, the Northern evening and the Northern night, rise in a glorious beauty. Our Muse kindles a lofty hero's flame, a lofty seer's flame, and always the flame of a lofty immortality. ”