Mr. —:

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My Dear Sir,—There is probably no purgatory on
earth (for purgatories abound in this world) so effectually
conducive to penitence and repentance as a watering
place. If good cannot come out of evil, nor light out of
darkness, nor laughter out of sorrow, neither can any
thing interesting proceed from a watering place. Nevertheless,
I have to fly to my pen for solace. I have read
till reading is insufferably tiresome—I have walked till
I could walk no longer—I have talked till I am tired
hearing my own voice and the voices of others—I have
jumped the rope till I have blistered the soles of my
feet, and made my hands burn—I have drunk the waters
until I shall never bear to hear water mentioned again—
I have danced under the trees, and looked on in the old
dancing-room, till dancing is worn out—I have yawned
till I have nearly put my jaws out—and I have sat till
I could hardly keep my eyes open, looking at the trees,
the hot walks, the listlessly-wandering-about people, that
look as if they could take laudanum, hang themselves,
or cut their throats, “just as lief do it as not,” if it
were not so impolite and wicked to shock people's nerves
by perpetrating such dreadful things! I have slept till
my eyes won't hold any more sleep, and are swelled and
red like two pink pin-cushions. I have rolled ninepins

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till I have nearly broken my arm with the heavy balls;
and it is too hot to sew, to knit, to net, to do any thing
but write! This I can do when all other things fail.
I can write off a headache, write away care, and bury
miserable thoughts in the dark depths of my inkstand.
Therefore, Mr. —, I fly to my escritoire for relief
from the tedium which everywhere surrounds me.

It is just half-past twelve in the morning. Let me
describe to you what I see from the open window, before
which I write. Directly in front is a broad lawn, intersected
in every possible direction by foot-paths, some of
which lead to the dining room, others to the bowling
alley, others to cottages and cabins, others from these to
the springs. This lawn is now hotly waving in the undulations
of the heated atmosphere. The sides and roofs
of the cabins are also trembling with the quick waves
of rarified air, vibrating along their sun-heated superficies.
A solitary negress, in a blue frock,—for most of them
dress in blue check,—is slowly gliding along the path
from the spring, with a jar of water balanced upon her
head, for her mistress. She is singing in a low, musical,
unintelligible tone. She is the only moving object visible.
At the foot of the lawn runs, in a shadowy coolness, a
brawling brook, now flowing like a melting mirror over
a smooth, flat rock—now gurgling in a dozen mimic falls
of white foam—now rushing hoarsely between narrow
channels—and now whirling and hissing in eddying
circles about the roots of a tree that have temporarily
dammed its progress.

Beyond this romantic brook, the sight of which is
enough to cool a fever, ascends irregularly a green bank,
dotted with beech and birch trees, to the summit of a

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ridge, along which winds the road by which we came to
the Springs. The whole scene before us is rustic, quiet,
and wild, and would have been pronounced a perfect
wood-scene by good old Izaak Walton; for not even
trout are wanting. There sits an elderly lawyer, with
his back against an oak, a long rod in his hand, the hook
at the extremity of which has been baitless for the last
hour, while the angler sleeps with his mouth wide open;
and I fancy I hear his sonorous snore mingling not unharmoniously
with the guttural noise of the brook. Not
many paces from him is stretched, in ponderous length,
a huge brown horse, his head a little cast to one side, as
if he were eagerly listening; but it is all a deception; a
little closer scrutiny will show you that his large eyes
are both shut, and that he is also as sound asleep as
the old lawyer, only he doesn't hold his mouth open.
Brutes always sleep, I have observed, with dignity. An
eastern sage has said that men and beasts are on a level
when they sleep! There is, doubtless, something deep
lying under this observation, if we could think it out;
but it would take other heads to do that! The bowling
alley is in full sight. Its thunder is silent—its thunderbolts
repose. The negro boy who sets up is now lying
down upon the broad of his back, in the sun, and seems
to be enjoying sleep as only an African can. On the
benches are stretched gentlemen in various picturesque
attitudes, some sleeping, others smoking, and idly conversing.
The air is so still, the buzzing of the flies is
heard in the sunny air, like the distant murmur of a
busy spinning-wheel. The mosquitoes are the only things
that seem to be taking time by the fore-lock. There,
under an opposite gallery, reclines a fat gentleman in an

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arm-chair, and doing his best to get to sleep, in order to
forget that he is at these horrid Springs. Now he slaps
at a mosquito with his right hand, then he hits at another
with his left, his eyes both shut all the while; now he
brings his fleshy palm down upon his forehead, with a
slap loud enough to wake the ancient lawyer with the
fishing-rod; and now he grumbles out a half-choked
oath, and throws his great red silk-handkerchief over his
face. But I see they bite through this, for he kicks out
his short legs in a kind of frenzy of desperation. I can
see the Etna-like tip of his nose pointing upwards underneath
the handkerchief, a fair mark for a sharp proboscis.
A shrewd mosquito has found the place vulnerable,
and the victim, seizing the end of his nose, wrings
it as if he were wringing off the head of a chicken; at
the same time being bitten on the knee, the fat gentleman
roars and kicks fiercely out, and the chair, which
was never manufactured for such trials of strength as
this, refuses longer to sustain him in his freaks, and dissolves
into its primitive parts, every round and leg ungluing
and separating from its bed, and letting him down
bodily amid the wreck like a huge globe fallen from its
sphere. What a change! Presto, how the Springs are
alive! The crash, heard all around, starts fifty sleepers,
one hundred and fifty idlers, two hundred dozers, black
and white, and all run to the scene of disaster, to see
what has happened; for, at the Springs, an incident is
worth five hundred dollars, Mr. —, if it is worth a
dime. The fat gentleman finds himself the cynosure of
all eyes, and the butt of all possible inquiries of—

“What is it? How did it happen? Who's hurt or killed?
Bless me, my dear sir, are any of your bones broken?”

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The latter inquiry could never have been satisfactorily
responded to by the fat gentleman, as, without doubt, he
had lost sight of his bones many years before, underneath
the masses of superincumbent flesh which lay larded
eight fingers deep thereupon.

There is no describing the effect this little incident has
produced upon the whole circle of animated life. The
bowlers, once aroused, are playing at mimic thunder
again—the ancient barrister has shut his huge mouth,
opened his eyes, put on his spectacles, and resumed his
occupation of fishing for subaqueous clients. The old
brown horse has thrust out his two fore-legs on the grass,
and pulled himself heavily up from his haunches to his
hoofs, and begun to crop the sward. The cabins, lately
so quiet, resound with the laughter of young girls, and
the octave voices of ladies calling to their maids to prepare
them for dinner, for the hour of this important
event is at hand. In half an hour the dancing-room
will be filled with beaux and belles, papas and mammas,
buzzing, and walking, and gazing, and waiting for the
dinner-bell. We shall have a dinner, such as it may be,
but luxurious enough for people who will leave pleasant
homes to go to watering-places!

Ten o'clock, P. M.

The day is past; and as it is our last day at the
Springs, therefore rejoice with me, Mr. —. I am impatient
to be back once more to my dear, familiar room,
with its thousand and one comforts. I want to see my
pet deer, my doves, my squirrel, my flowers, my books,
my own looking-glass, for I don't look like myself
in these at the Springs, which look as if they had been

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made while a stiff breeze was rippling across their molter,
surface.

I write to the measure of the dance in the hall, and
the merry jingle of violins and castanets. The young
folks are enjoying themselves while they are young.
The happiest persons I saw in the ball-room, however,
were the blacks. You who live in a free State, have no
idea of the privileges this class are permitted in a slave
State by the white people. They stand in the doors and
otherwise vacant places of the ball-room, and laugh, and
are as much at home as “massa and missis.” They go
and come around or across it as they please; a favored
aunty will even ask you, “Please, missis, stand dis way
little bit, so I can see!” and “missis” complies as
readily as if a lady had asked her.

One reason of this is that the system is so intimately
interwoven with domestic arrangements, and associations,
and habits, that, to all Southerners, slaves are necessary
appurtenances in all places. If they see not their own
slaves, they see those of others, and pay no attention to
their goings and comings. The slave will even attend
her mistress with her umbrella or cloak to her pew, and,
leaving them, go out again down the broad aisle, no one
noticing her. I have seen slaves sent from one part of
a church to another, during service, without attracting
observation; nay, even into the pulpit, to restore the
clergyman his pocket-handkerchief, which he had let
fall. But in the North, who would suffer “negroes” to
appear in such places? A Southerner never objects nor
thinks of objecting to the presence of a servant anywhere.
I might travel with Edith in a stage from Memphis
to Savannah, and not a Southern gentleman in it

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would speak of it, or think of it; while from a New England
coach, she would be ejected. Tell me, Mr. —,
why is this so? How is it, as it is certainly the fact,
that the Northern people have a positive dislike for the
negro? But I will not discuss this question.

These Springs have only within a few years attracted
attention. They are embosomed in the depths of a wilderness
far from village, or civilized habitation. The road
by which we reached them after quitting Mount Pleasant,
a pretty and dirty village this side of Ashwood, lay for
twenty-eight miles through a forest, which was scarcely
invaded by the woodman's axe. For fifteen miles we
did not see a habitation. The solitude was grand. The
surface of the country was undulating, and we could see
long vistas into the depths of glens, where I imagined
lay the deer in covert, and where once crouched the wild
beast in his lair. It seemed at every winding in our
road that we should come upon some Indian hunter.
But the red man was not there. Wasted like summer
clouds in the warm sun, he had disappeared before
the sun of civilization. Now and then a squirrel would
cross our path, or a gray-plumed woodpecker startle
the echoes with his busy knocking at the doors of the
insects' homes, in the bark of the trees, for them to
come out and be eaten. Once a huge black snake lay
directly in our path, and would not stir till Charles
lashed him with the whip, when he moved off as deliberately
as if he did not care for us,—a spice of the old
Eden pride of power left in him. Of all things, why
should a serpent have been made use of by Sathanas to
tempt Eve? It were more likely to frighten her. Perhaps,
however, that to Eve, before the Fall, all things

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(all of God's creatures) were beautiful,—for it is sin only
that deforms and brings deformity!

That Eve is not surprised that the serpent has a voice,
is, because she and Adam spoke, and it was natural for
her to suppose, until experience taught her to the contrary,
that all brutes were likewise gifted with speech.
We see her evince no amazement at the vocal powers of
the serpent.

Dear me! if I had been Eve—but nobody knows what
a body would have done, had a body been Eve!—the probability
is, that I should have eaten two apples instead
of one.

The arrival of our cavalcade at the Springs produced
a sensation, as new arrivals always do,—but nobody
seemed to notice its size and variety. Indeed, since we
have been here, quite a dozen of arrivals quite as formidable
in largeness of retinue have occurred. Nay, one
young lady had a wagon bringing up the rear containing
her harp and guitar. Some of the parties brought an
extra wagon for baggage.

Last Saturday, quite a horse troop of lads and lasses,
from the adjacent country, broke in upon us like a foray
of Highlanders upon the lowlands. Some of the young
men, every soul of whom was full six feet tall, brought
their rifles, and the girls an extra pair of shoes for a dance.
Some of the girls were handsome, but bold looking, and
with very fine figures. They actually took possession
of the hall, and danced half the day; and then the young
men went down to a level meadow and passed an hour
shooting at a mark at fifty and eighty yards; and excellent
marksmen, I am told, these Tennesseans are. They
are brave men too! There is a look of quiet resolution

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about them that gives indications of that martial spirit
which the trumpet of war so readily awakes in their
bosoms. General Jackson was not so much one individual
as he was the representative man of Tennessee. All
true born Tennesseans are more or less like him in aspect,
build, courage, and indomitable resolution. They
take a pride in him! They teach their children to imitate
him! His name was the most stirring war-cry used
by the Tennessee legions in Mexico. Not long since
Isabel was at a party where, during the evening, the
bust of General Jackson was brought out and placed
upon a pedestal in the hall. It was hailed with three
cheers by the lads, and crowned with flowers by the
girls, who hand in hand danced around it, and sang with
spirit,

“Hail to the Chief!”

The days at the Springs are passed pretty much alike;—
the three meals being the most important points of
interest. What, with bowling and quaffing the waters,
dancing and walking, sleeping and talking, dressing and
eating, fighting the mosquitoes, and watching what others
do, we manage to kill each day, but are half killed in
our turn. To-morrow we leave. All is excitement
among our party. Dickon is in ecstasies, and when he
runs he turns a somerset at every third step. Charles
looks happy. Philip's serene face shows his content.
Edith expresses herself heartily tired of the place, albeit
she has been the belle here. Do not think, Mr. —,
that the “darker shades” of our party do not find
“reliefs.” Probably there are here two hundred servants,
belonging to the various families. Now as people
generally travel with their body servants, which are of

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a caste superior to the rest, of course at the Springs they
enjoy the elite of the best society of Darkeydom.

The position of each colored individual is indisputably
fixed by that of his master. A servant of the President
of the United States, would of course be recognized as
“fuss class airystokrasy” by his fellow servants. The
richer and more respectable the master, the more respectable
the man or maid. Hence our colored circle is
exceedingly recherché. “It is,” as Edith says, “ob de
highest exstinction.”

If you would take your stand near the spring when
they come down after pitchers of water, you would witness
practical politeness. The courtesy of Samuel, the
coachman of Dr. W— to Mary, the maid of Mrs.
Col. —, as he solicits the honor of filling her pitcher for
her, and placing it on the polished mahogany veneering of
her rounded shoulders of the brightest brown tint, would
edify you. The polite salaams of Jacob to Rachel, the
dressing woman, and of Isaac, the footman, to Rebecca,
the nursery maid, would charm you. But you should
see the aristocracy of the shades dining. After the
masters and mistresses have left the dining hall, the long
table is relaid, and they who whilom served are now
feasted.

I have been twice in to look at them. Not less than
one hundred Ethiopian and Nubian ladies and gemmen
were seated in the places occupied an hour before by
their masters and mistresses. The entrees were conducted
comme il faut. There were servants of “de lower
klass,” scullions and ostlers, boot-blacks, and idlers, to
wait on them. The order, courtesy, civility, and propriety
that were observed at the table, could not have

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been surpassed at a dinner at Windsor Castle: on the
contrary, they were more polite than people at a Royal
dinner. The bowing and handing across the table to the
ladies—the “Shall I help you to a piece of de tender
loin; Missee Cinderella?” “Will you take a purtatur,
Mistress Betty?” “Thank you, Mister Thomas, I will
if you pleases.” “Here is a nice slice of the bres' of
de turkey for you, Missy Arabella.” “Thankee! much
obligated; it berry nice, Mister Napoleon Bonaparte.”
“Ladies and gemmen, here de health of our Massas and
Missesses, and may dey nebber die till dere time come,
an' den lib forebber.”

This toast being drunk in the residue of claret, there
was a more positive set-to upon the viands. And so these
black rogues dine every day! I say to you, truthfully,
Mr. —, the slaves in this state seem to be quite as
well content as their masters; in fact, are only second
to them in all that they enjoy. I am becoming more
and more reconciled to the system; but I don't think I
could charge myself with the responsibility of owning a
slave. Not that I think it wrong. The Bible allows it.
But to feel that a human being was mine! that I was accountable
to him for his happiness and comfort here, and
to God for his soul's weal hereafter! This is, I think,
one of the most responsible features of domestic servitude.
“I feel,” said an intelligent Christian lady to me, “I
feel more deeply the weight of responsibility which the
ownership of the slaves my father has left me, places
upon me, than I do that of my own children. I tremble
at the reflection that God will ask their soul's lives at
my hands!”

The sound of the feet of the dancers has ceased, and

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silence reigns in the hall so lately the scene of merriment.
Night is hushing all sounds. Here and there a star can
be seen, twinkling down through the opening in the trees
The murmur of the brook reaches my ear like an audible
voice. Some sleepless Orpheus is now waking the silence
with an ill-touched flute. Distant laughter of
young men, at cards, or wine, comes from yonder cabin.
A baby is crying in the room next to mine! I hear the
sleepy father's growl, and the patient mother's low
“hush.” A mosquito sings in my ears, and another
bold wretch has bitten me on the hand. These are warnings
for me to retire, especially as we are to make an
early start homeward. So, good-night.

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