My Dear Mr. —:

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In my last letter I took you, will you nill you, on a
journey to my forest-emburied home. Landing you
safely upon the pier, at the gate which enters the lawn
of live-oaks, that stretches between the house and the
beautiful expanse of water in front, I gave you a warm
and hospitable welcome. The same welcome I will joyfully
extend to any of your friends, who think enough of
me to turn out of the way of the great Father of Waters,
to seek me out amid the heart of this lovely region of the
South.

I will describe to you my home, or rather, as you have
been here, (haven't you?) I will imagine you writing a
description of what you saw home to your wife in some
such sort as follows:

“Dear Wife:—This epistle is written at `Illewalla,'
or `Lover's Lake,' which is the translation of the soft
Indian name. It is the romantic and charming home of
my old correspondent, `Kate, of the Needles.' I cannot,
with my prosaic pen, begin to present to your mind's eye
the peculiar beauty of this retreat. On my way up from
New Orleans to Louisville, I determined to stop and see
my fair friend, in her own home; and having obtained
the direction, I embarked at New Orleans on board the
steamer `Dr. Beattie,' for Thibodeaux.

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“We steamed up the Mississippi to Donaldsonville,
eighty miles, and thence diverged into a narrow stream,
called Bayou Lafourche. Along this winding water we
sailed thirty miles more, through a lovely land of groves,
sugar-fields, meadows, villas, and villages. At Thibodeaux,
I embarked upon another bayou, crossing the level
country, and two hours after the rising moon, reached
the abode of Kate, situated picturesquely on the green
shore of a small Indian lake, that one can row around in
an hour. The shores are fringed by noble trees, and bordered
by a belt of the purest sand. Silence and beauty
reign there. One fine feature of this land is, that the
forests have natural lawns, beneath like the leveled sward
of an English park. Hence it is pleasant to roam on
foot or ride through them, and one can gallop all around
the lake amid the forest trees without checking bridle.
This lake is fed by a living fountain in its pellucid depths,
and so clear are its waters, that the trout, pickerel, and
other angler's finning game, can be seen darting far beneath
the surface in glittering lines; while, in the stillness
of the night, their splashing leaps at intervals break
the starry silence.

“At length, I approached the house. Vases of large
size, containing rare West Indian plants, stood on each
side of the spacious steps, filling the air with delicious
odors. Crossing the noble piazza, which was broad
enough for a company of soldiers, fourteen abreast, to
march round upon it, I, as the chief guest, was ushered
by `Kate' into a wide and high hall adorned with exquisite
statuary and noble pictures. The drawing-room
opened into it. This was furnished with light and elegant
furniture, chiefly of Indian-cane and rosewood.

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Everything had that undenfiable air of taste and comfort, without
garish show, which a poetic mind loves to dwell in.

“I passed a delightful evening. I felt perfectly at
home. Col. C., the husband of Kate, seemed to vie with
her in making me feel so. The library opened from the
drawing-room, and when I say its walls were wholly concealed
by carved oaken cases, filled from floor to ceiling
with all the wealth of a real scholar's book-treasures in
all tongues, you will understand how elegant and tempting
a place it is.

“My sleeping apartment opened from this pleasant
library, and also looked out upon the lawn. So delightfully
situated, I could not resist the temptations which environed
me. Instead of retiring, I lingered till midnight
in the library, gazing over the rare volumes which then,
for the first time, met my eye; and when I resolved to
go to bed, a glimpse of the lake through my window,
shimmering in starry brightness, chained me to it for half
an hour, listening to the leaping fish, the distant notes
of a mocking bird, or contemplating the calm beauty of
the scene. It was past midnight when I sought my pillow,
thankful to the Creator of the world that there
lingered yet on earth many such fragments of our Lost
Paradise in Eden; and inwardly determining to find soon
for myself such a piece of paradise as this one, and under
my own oaks, dwell at peace, far from the roar of the
drays of commerce, and the din of town.

There, Mr. —, there is your letter!—You certainly
describe pretty well, but permit me to say, that I have
no objections to your letter, except that you did not say

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one word about my babe! Now if you were a bachelor,
I could easily account for this silence; for it is, to be
sure, beneath the dignity of old bachelors to allude to
such subjects. But as you are a married man, and have,
I don't know how many, roguish mouths to kiss and feed,
your silence is quite shocking. The truth is, Mr. —,
you have never forgiven me for taking a husband; now I
can assure you I can write just as well, as when I was a
spinster, and perhaps a great deal better; for I shall be
able to draw on my husband's fine mind for ideas when
my poor brain runs shallow.

Now that you and my dear thousand friends know
where I am, and all about my home, I will, for the rest
of my “Needles,” say little more about it. I only wish
you all to know that I am charmingly situated, happy
as I deserve to be, and only wish that all for whom I take
such pleasure in writing these letters, were as happy.
Home is heaven's type. What place this side heaven,
besides “home,” a home of love and confidence, resembles
the Paradise above? Jesus, to express his desolateness,
said touchingly, “I have not where to lay my
head!”

Among the myriads of elegant and happy homes of
earth, not one was His! There can be no more eloquent
expression of human desolation than His sad words convey.
And to throw a sanctity about earth's homes,
(which were not for Him,) He calls heaven a place of
“homes.” “In my Father's house are many mansions.”
There we shall not be wanderers through the infinite
spaces of the heavens, but shall have homes, where we
can gather around us all the loved and lost of earth!
Let us, therefore, love our earthly homes, and make

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them as much like heaven, in love, as we can, that we
may be better fitted for the heavenly habitations that
adorn the golden streets of “the city of God.” Without
love there can be no true home, without home no
heaven.

A home in the country is the loveliest of all earthly
ones. One is more with nature? One communes with
the stars, the clouds, the trees, the water, the birds!
Man was not made for towns! Adam and Eve were
created and placed in a garden. Cities are the results
of the fall. The first thought of the sinful men after
the flood was, “Go to! Let us build us a city!” If men
had remained in a nomadic state, the race would have
been far better and happier, that is, if cultivated by
arts, letters, and religion. Cities are the effects of sin.
There is no greater truism on record than this, that
“God made the country, and man made the town.”

When I ride out of a morning, instead of threading
my way through crowded and noisy streets, I canter
with joy and freedom along a beautiful lane two miles
long, with waving fields of sugar-cane on either side,
and hedges of Cherokee rose bordering the way, and
shade trees meeting almost over my head, their low and
far-reaching branches sometimes compelling me to stoop
to the pummel, as I dart like a deer beneath. Sometimes,
indeed, I have a race with a deer or stag, which,
caught browsing in the green lane, and seeing me coming,
darts off like an arrow, a challenge which “Buccleugh,”
the name of my handsome brown horse, (though
called “Buck” for short,) never refuses to accept, nor
his mistress either; but we are always beaten, of course,
for the stag seems fairly to fly, and soon loses himself

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to sight in the shady recesses of his native woodland!
Some mornings I rise with the crows, (for they are the
earliest risers of all the winged fowls,) and take a canter
around my Lake, upon the white, hard sand-belt
that enriches it. It is a three miles' complete ride
round, and the only sound heard in the stillness is the
patter of the hoofs of Buck upon the beach. On the
bosom of the Lake float flotillas of wild swans, fleets
of black ducks, and the long-legged heron wades far out
from the shore to catch his morning's breakfast. As I
advance, I awake all the birds, startle the squirrels, and
put life into the groves that border the Lake.

Now is not all this far better than any thing a city
can give? And then I can ride in what costume I
please. I can hang my bonnet on the pommel of the
saddle by the strings and gallop bare-headed; and, if
I want to sing and shout, I can do so, as loud as I
please, and nobody to say a word about “propriety” and
“becomingness,” and all that primness; nobody but
Mr. Echo, who always joins in with me, and shouts as
loud as I! A merry and social solitary gentleman of
the forest he is, who never ventures into cities, but keeps
all his accomplishments for the country; but then he will
always have the last word!

A favorite termination of my ride is a little mound,
green and flower-besprent, about half round the Lake
and close to the water. It is called the grave of
Norkamah and Anama, two Indian lovers of hostile
tribes, who, rather than be separated, walked one moonlight
night, their arms folded about one another, slowly
out into the Lake, singing as they went, their death-song.
This was their doom, to which the chiefs

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condemned them, unless they would cease to love! Cease
to love! How little those stern warriors knew of the
hearts of the young! how little knew what youthful love
is! Cease to love! True love never ceases, Mr. —!
It is immortal! As well might these chiefs say to the
rose-tree, Cease to blossom! to the full fountain, Cease
to flow! to the stars, Cease to shine! as to the young
heart, “Cease to love!”

So they could not cease to love, Norkamah and Anama,
and with hand clasped in hand, and singing, they
walked down in the water. Their song ceased only when
their lips were kissed by the limpid waves that opened
to make within their deep bosom a grave for love!

Hence the Lake is called Illewalla, or Lover's Lake.
Their spirit-forms are said to hover about the place
where, on the banks, their bodies are buried in one
grave, above which the Indian youths and maidens
erected the green mound that now marks the spot. It
is said that on the anniversary of the night of their
death, they are seen coming up out of the water, together,
as they went down into it, arrayed in pure white,
with a star upon each brow, and that they are heard to
sing not their mournful death-song, but a song that tells
of never-dying love! and that all the singing birds take
up the sweet refrain from every tree, and that the whole
shore of the Lake is vocal with

“Love, love, never ceases! Oh, love never dies!”

A pretty idea, Mr. —, and I wish some one of your
talented poetic correspondents would put the words into
a song.

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