Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. I.djvu/355

 living acquaintance with the manifold forms of life, had now become mine, had become so in an unusual degree. Did I not now wander free—free as few could be, in the great, free, new world, free to see and to become acquainted with whatever I chose? Was I not free and unfettered as a bird? My soul had wings, and the whole world was mine! Precisely because I am so alone, that I go so solitarily, relying on God's providence, through the great wide world, and become associate with it,—precisely this it is which gives me such an unspeakable feeling of vigour and joy; and that I do not positively know whither I would go, or what I would do during my solitary wanderings; this makes me ever ready to set out on my journeys of discovery, and every thing within me be so particularly new and invigorating.

I was not, however, on this occasion, wholly without an object; I knew that at some distance from Maçon there was a beautiful new cemetery, called Rose-hill Cemetery, and I was now bent upon finding it. In the meantime as the road which I had taken seemed to lead down to the quiet sea, I determined to make inquiries after Rose-hill at a dwelling which I saw upon a height not far from the road. It was one of those white, well-built, and comfortable frame-houses which one so often sees in the rural districts of America. I knocked at the door, and it was opened, but by a person who almost shocked me; it was a young lady, tolerably handsome, but with an appearance of such a horridly bad temper that—it quite troubled me. She looked thoroughly annoyed and worn out, and bade me, crossly enough, to go as far as the road went, or till it parted. I went, almost astonished on so beautiful a morning, amid such beautiful, youthfully fresh scenes, to meet with so perfectly inharmonious a human temper. Ah! human feelings, dispositions, and tempers are every where the same, and can everywhere embitter life; in every new paradise can close the gates of paradise. But