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This letter, my Dear Sir, is addressed to you from
the loveliest region of this state, and from the “Garden
of Eden” of this loveliest region. Maury county, (pronounced
here Murry,) you must know, is the gem of
Tennessee. It contains the most beautiful hills, the
clearest brooks, the prettiest vales, the stateliest trees,
the handsomest native parks, the richest farms, the
wealthiest planters, the most intelligent population, the
best seminaries of learning, and the loveliest ladies of all
Tennessee; at least the good people of Maury say so,
and who should know so well as they, pray? They also
boast of having given a President to the United States,
and its greatest astronomer to it—Lieutenant Maury,
of the Observatory at Washington. So far as my experience
goes, I am ready to endorse all the good folks
say; for Ashwood, which is the setting in the ring of
Maury, and where I now am, is enough in itself to give
grace to a much more inferior country. I will describe
Ashwood to you.

Fancy yourself, Mr. —, (where you may be in person
whenever you take it into your ambulatory brain to
ramble this way,) seated in our roomy and luxurious
carriage, by my side, if you are not too stout, and don't
fill up too large a space, for, of all things, I love to ride
comfortably; or by Isabel's side,—but then she is so

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handsome, I dare say you would rather sit opposite to
her, where you could watch the intelligent play of her
beautiful features; or, perhaps, better still, imagine yourself
on horseback, riding by our window, with no object
to obstruct your view of the country; this will be best,
after all—especially as you are supposed to be traveling
to see and print the country; for I conceive that everything
is viewed by an editor—typically—not as it really
is, but how it will look in type—how many squares or
paragraphs it will make! Fancy yourself thus á cheval,
and riding by our coach windows as we sally forth from
the village of Columbia, with its one broad, rocky, sidewalkless
street. On your right you will not fail to notice
the former cottage abode of the late President Polk, and
on the left, the plain residence of Madame, his aged
mother, to both of which I have before drawn your attention.

A few minutes farther will bring you opposite the
castellated edifice known far and near as the Columbia
Institute, where I had “the honors” paid me the day
before, and where is preserved a conservatory of loveliness,
each virgin flower awaiting her turn of annual
transplanting into the great wilderness of the world.
Ah, girls! if you knew the storms and clouds, the sadnesses
and sorrows, the cares and anguishes, the biting
frosts and chilling winds that wither the heart and blight
the spirit in the open world, you would hug your present
shelter, and long linger,—dreading and shrinking
to go forth,—within its protecting and safe embrace!

This reflection is supposed to be made by yourself,
Mr. —, in the philosophical mood which becomes an
editor en voyage to see the earth he lives upon. After

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losing sight of the Institute, you will come to the top of
the hill, and glance back to take a parting look of the
village of Columbia, which is nestled picturesquely amid
trees, with a tower or two peering above them, on the
banks of the romantic Duck! Yes, Mr. —, the classic,
and erudite, and scholastic Columbia is situated on the
“Duck river.” “What is in a name?” you ask—

“Duck, or Doddle, or Dunkins, or Dumplins; all very
good names in their way, if they mean good. A rose by
any other name would no doubt smell like a rose.”
Suppose a rose were called “Quashee,” would you name
your lovely daughter Quashee? Ah, Mr. —, can you
fancy your smiling babe looking as sweet with the name
of Quashee indelibly fixed upon her, as she now does?
One of these days, we have no doubt that the refined
polish of the Columbians will lead them to see the affinity
between Duck and Quashee, and at least adorn their
rock-cliffed river with a more euphonious name.

After losing sight of the village, you will find yourself
pacing smoothly along a level and broad pike, not
roughened by even a pebble to disturb the even roll of
the carriage wheels. The fields on one side are green
and undulating—on the other is a fine wood. In a few
minutes a dark brown villa meets your eye, some distance
from the road, on the left hand, with a neat gate-way
opening into a well-kept carriage-way, that sweeps handsomely
round a lawn up to its portico. The grounds
are ornamented, well kept, and neatly enclosed, and the
whole place has an air of scholarly seclusion, combined
with the most enviable domestic comfort. This is the
abode of the Right Rev. Bishop Otey, of the Tennessee
Diocese of the American Episcopal Church. This

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residence is the seat of true clerical hospitality. Bishop
Otey is indeed the reverend father in God of all his
clergy, who look up to him with a filial love, combined
with a fraternal confidence, that speaks volumes for the
traits of character of a Bishop, who can command such
voluntary affection. Bishop Otey stands among the very
first Prelates of the Church, which his piety and learning
so eminently adorn. If you will turn your eyes in
that direction, you will discover him in a brown linen
coat, and home-made trowsers, and an old straw hat,
working amid his shrubbery. That bright-eyed young
girl, with a shade hat in her hand, and a cloud of sunny
hair, is his youngest daughter, the pride of her father's
heart, who has recently laid beneath the green earth two
still more beautiful ones. It is only the hope of the
Christian that can strengthen and bind up the heart
broken by such heavy strokes as these. Calm and holy
confidence in a life beyond the stars, where the severed
here shall entwine in each other's embrace, holy lip to
holy lip, loving heart to loving heart,—can only lend endurance
to separations in this. Without this sure and
steadfast hope, what a bottomless pit of crushed affections
would the grave be?

The road now divides a green and verdant landscape,
more woodland than field, but made up of both, with
here and there a tenement of some small proprietor.
You are pleased with the beauty of the trees, the height
and majesty of the silver-trunked sycamore, overshadowing
some rock-bound crystal spring, or by the graceful
bendings of a group of willows bordering a rivulet; or
by the breadth of the broad-armed oak on the sunny hillside;
or by the feathering and stately elegance of the

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Indian salex; or the columnar altitude of the poplar,
marking the site of some hidden cottage.

I see you gaze with admiration into the sun-dappled
forests, whose broad patches of light and shade look like
scenes in Claude Lorraines's pictures, and remind you
of them. You wonder at the green sward beneath the
trees being so green and soft, as if it had been the work
of trained English gardeners; when the extent of these
lawn like forests convinces you that they are as nature's
gardening left them. I see you stretch your neck to see
where the deer are. They seldom come near the road,
and in the vicinity of towns are rarely seen now. There
are few or no deer in this county of Maury, but those
that are tamed and kept for gentle adornment to the vicinage
of some villa.

Did you ever trot over a smoother road, sir? For the
last three miles, not a stone the size of your watch seal
has been encountered by the polished wheel-tire. Does
not the stately span of mules move with a truly equinine
bravery and speed? I see by your eye, as you are watching
their pace, that you mean to have a pair for Broad
street, or whatever other avenue you Philadelphia gentlemen
make a fashionable driving thoroughfare. The colonel
offers you a cigar out of the window. Don't refuse it,
Mr. —. They were brought from Havana by the tiger-captain,
and are pronounced nonpareil. I love to see a
gentleman smoke who knows how to smoke; but, bless
me! when they do not know how, what filthy work they
make of it! The awkward way they embrace the cigar
with the unskilled lips, as if it were an unusually large
stick of bitter barley candy—the jaundice-colored exudations
of juice, which must be expectorated twice in every

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minute—the—but enough: if these may not be written
about by pens polite, how can the spectacle be endured
as it is by hundreds of polite eyes and polite nerves
daily?

Oh! ye monstrosities of smokers—ye caricaturists of
a cigarilian luxury—ye unsuccessful imitators of the
inimitable!—chew tobacco at once, but don't—don't join
together in one operation what was ever intended to be
kept asunder. I see you smoke your cigar like a true
smoker, Mr. —. You use it as familiarly as the jockey
his whip, or the fine lady her fan. You handle it as
delicately as if it were made of gossamer, yet puff it as
vigorously as if it were of the consistency of gutta percha.
You do not so much smoke as inspire and exhale azurely—
as if it were as natural to you as to breathe ordinarily.
You never remove it from your mouth, save to laugh, for
you converse with it as if it incommoded you no more
than your lips or teeth, and then you touch it delicately
and regard it affectionately. An admirably finished and
endurable smoker! Such smoking is not unlawful, and
can never be indicted as nuisable. Colonel, please
hand Mr. — another cigar.

p613-205

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