Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/416

Rh It is a joy to me to hear and to see that a presentiment of this is beginning to find its way into the universal mind of this country, both among men and women; and I expect that this higher development will be accomplished on American soil; and I will now conclude this subject with the words of an American author, “The darkness of the mothers casts its shadow over their children; and cloud and darkness must rest upon their descendants until their day begins to dawn over the hills.”

And now let me speak of the American people. The traveller who finds in the United States a great uniformity and resemblance among the people there, has looked merely on the exterior. There is really a great, a too great uniformity in speech, manners, and dress (for a little costume, delicately expressive of individuality belongs to a fully developed character); one travels from one end of the Union to the other and hears the same questions about Jenny Lind; the same phraseology at the commencement of conversation; the same “last thoughts of Weber” on the piano. After this, however, an attentive observer soon remarks that there is no lack of character and individuality; and I have nowhere felt, as here, the distance between one human being and another, nor have seen anywhere so great a difference between man and man, wholly irrespective of caste, rank, uniform, outward circumstances. Here is the Transcendentalist, who treads the earth as though he were a god, who calls upon men to become gods, and from the beauty of his demeanour and his character, we are induced to think more highly of human nature; and here is the Clay-eater, who lives in the forest, without school or church, sometimes without a home, and who impelled by a morbid appetite, eats clay until demoniacally dragged downward by its oppressive power, he finds in it his grave; here is the Spiritualist, who lives on bread and water and fruit, who is nourished by the light, that he may preserve