SUMMARY REVIEW
In a review, then, of this gigantic struggle, we have every reason to be content and confidentno reason to bate one jot of heart or hope. The triumph over Northern treason, achieved by the force of the Government, has been followed by a moral triumph at the polls, no less grand in its significance. The country is not oppressed by the stupendous expenses of the war. The money is all spent at home. It stimulates the productive industry of the country, and the nation is all the time growing rich. The rebels have been disastrously repulsed in two attempts at invasion, and do not hold one inch of Northern soil. One third of the States claimed by them at the outset, are gone from them forever: Maryland, Missouri, Kentucky, are securely in the Union; Virginia we have cut in twonearly one half of its territory, by the will of its inhabitants, now constituting a loyal member of the Union as the new State of West Virginiawhile of its eastern half we securely hold its coast, harbors, and fortresses, and a considerable number of its counties. Tennessee is ours, and cannot, we think, be wrenched away. We have New Orleans, and the uncontrolled possession of the Mississippi rivercutting the territory of the rebels in two, destroying their communications, and giving us a considerable portion of the States bordering that river. In North Carolina and South Carolina we have a hold, from which it will be hard to drive us. On the Atlantic and Gulf coast nearly every fortress is in our possession; there is not a port which is not possessed by us, or else so blockaded that (except in the peculiar case of Wilmington) it is a hazardous affair for any vessel to attempt going in or coming out; and the rebels are utterly unable to raise the blockade of a single port. In fine, they have lost more than one third of their territory forever, and of the remaining portion there is not one considerable subdivision over which in some part the flag of the Union does not securely wave. What title to recognition as an independent power can the Confederate rebels present to the neutral powers of the world?
SKETCHES OF AMERICAN LIFE AND SCENERY
While American tourists are delightedly visiting and minutely describing the most hidden recesses of beauty among the mountains, plains, seas, lakes, and rivers of Europe, there are, close within their reach, innumerable spots well worthy of consideration, and hitherto entirely unknown to the great mass of pleasure and scenery seeking travellers. These fair but hidden gems have become of the more importance that the grand struggle convulsing our country has rendered foreign travel difficult, even when advisable, and has roused within our people a love for their own land, a pride in its loveliness, much more rarely felt before the attempt to dismember and ruin it had awakened dormant patriotism and completed the severance between the recent province and the historically renowned mother country. American painters are worthily illustrating American life and landscape; American poets, and no less poetical prose writers, are singing the forests, skies, flowers, and birds of their native land; and the inquisitive traveller should surely not fail to add his humbler mite in the way of discovery and description. The following sketches are founded upon actual observation, and the delineations of scenery and manners therein contained are strictly in accordance with the personal experience of the author.
I.A SUMMER EXCURSION
'All very well,' said Aunt Sarah; 'I have no doubt the excursion would be charming; but who will accompany you?'
'We do not require an escort; we can take care of each other,'
'Can it be that you, Lucy, a staid married woman of thirty-six, and you, Elsie, a demure young girl of twenty, are suddenly about to enter the ranks of the strong minded?'
'Why, dear aunt,' said Lucy D, 'you would not have us weak minded, would you? I think I heard you say no longer ago than yesterday that half the domestic miseries in this world were due to the weak nerves and feeble intellects of poorly educated women.'
'True; but the technical expression, 'strong minded,' does not mean strong in mindrather the contrary.'
'In other words, strong minded means weak minded, is that it, auntie?' laughed Elsie.
'I see, Aunt Sarah,' said Lucy, 'we shall be forced to call upon you for that most difficult of tasks, a definition. What is meant by the term, 'strong-minded woman'?'
'A monster,' replied Mrs. Sarah Grundy, 'who lectures, speaks in public, wants women to vote, to wear men's garments; in a word, one who would like to upset religion, social life, and the world in general.'
'Well,' dear auntie, 'we surely do not purpose committing any of these enormities; our intentions simply embrace a short excursion of some forty miles in search of fine scenery, health, and a little amusement. We have no confidence in our power to influence the public, even if we thought we had aught to say which they do not already know; we do not see that voting has a very beneficial effect upon men, witness election days; as for their garments, they are too hideously ungraceful for us to covet; in faith, we are of the most orthodox; we confess, we do think social life needs sundry reforms, more charity and forbearance, less detraction and ostentation, etc., etc.; and as for the world in general, we think it very beautiful, and only wish to overlook some few additional miles of its lovely mountains, lakes, and streams.'
'Well, well, girls, young people always can talk faster than old ones; but do you really think it safe for you to venture without escort? You do not even know the name of the place which you wish to visit; you have been informed that on the summit of yonder mountain is a lake, said to be picturesque; but of its cognomen, and of the proper means to reach it, you are utterly ignorant. You will have to ask questions of all sorts of people.'
'Suppose we dobeing women, we will certainly in America receive civil answers.'
'But if some person unknown to you should speak to you?'
'Little danger, dear aunt, of dread unknowns, if we comport ourselves properly; I have travelled much in all kinds of public conveyances, and never yet have been improperly addressed. Did you ever have an adventure of the sort'?
'Once only,' replied Aunt Sarah, 'and then the fault was my own. I was young and giddy; Cousin Nancy was with me, and we were in a rail-car. In a near seat sat a very good-looking young man; Nancy looked toward him once or twice and, meeting his eye, began to giggle: I foolishly joined her; thus encouraged, our young gentleman opened a conversation. Nancy laughed immoderately; but I, being a few years older, soon controlled my silly giggling; and by the tone of my reply speedily silenced our would-be admirer. He turned his back upon us, and, so far as I know, in less than five minutes had forgotten our very existence.'
'Decidedly a case in our favor! And if the boat should blow up, or the car roll down an embankment, in what would we be benefited by the fact of having an escort also to be scalded or have his head broken?'
'Ye maun even then gang your ain gait. I wish you a pleasant journey and a safe return.'
'Thank you, auntie, and you will not call us strong minded?'
'Certainly not, unless I find you merit the appellation.'
The little trunk was soon packed, and one fine July morning the two travellers set off in search of the beautiful lake, whose name is not to be found in the guide books. They knew it was to be looked for in a sharp and peculiar dent in the Shawangunk mountain, which dent, so far as they could judge from the hills near their dwelling on the northern slope of the Highlands, must be nearly opposite Poughkeepsie. Neither map nor gazetteer could they procure; the neighbors could give them no information, and they were forced to proceed with only the above-mentioned meagre stock of knowledge.