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Distant vessels, and the far-off, just visible trailing smoke of an inward bound steamer; more plainly, ships, brigs, schooners, in sight, most of them with every sail set to the firm and steady wind. The attractions, fascinations there are in sea and shore! How one dwells on their simplicity, even vacuity! What is it in us, arous'd by those indirections and directions?
To these I must not omit adding the honesty of the essential bulk of the people everywhere yet with all the seething fury and contradiction of their natures more arous'd than the Atlantic's waves in wildest equinox. In that Old World were everywhere heard underground rumblings, that died out, only to again surely return.
The whole scene, with what it arous'd, memories of my young days there half a century ago, the vast kitchen and ample fireplace and the sitting-room adjoining, the plain furniture, the meals, the house full of merry people, my grandmother Amy's sweet old face in its Quaker cap, my grandfather "the Major," jovial, red, stout, with sonorous voice and characteristic physiognomy, with the actual sights themselves, made the most pronounc'd half-day's experience of my whole jaunt.
Clouds flitted swiftly in the sky, like bodies of armed men coming up to battle at the call of their leader's trumpet. A thick rain-drop fell now and then, while occasionally hoarse mutterings of thunder sounded in the distance; yet the slumberer was not arous'd. It was strange that Wild Frank did not awake. Perhaps his ocean life had taught him to rest undisturbed amid the jarring of elements.
If there is, as doubtless there is, an unnameable something behind oratory, a fund within or atmosphere without, deeper than art, deeper even than proof, that unnameable constitutional something Elias Hicks emanated from his very heart to the hearts of his audience, or carried with him, or probed into, and shook and arous'd in them a sympathetic germ, probably rapport, lurking in every human eligibility, which no book, no rule, no statement has given or can give inherent knowledge, intuition not even the best speech, or best put forth, but launch'd out only by powerful human magnetism: Unheard by sharpest ear unformed in clearest eye, or cunningest mind, Nor lore, nor fame, nor happiness, nor wealth, And yet the pulse of every heart and life throughout the world, incessantly, Which you and I, and all, pursuing ever, ever miss; Open, but still a secret the real of the real an illusion; Costless, vouchsafed to each, yet never man the owner; Which poets vainly seek to put in rhyme historians in prose; Which sculptor never chisel'd yet, nor painter painted; Which vocalist never sung, nor orator nor actor ever utter' d.
Ah, let us rather proclaim that the slightest song-tune, the countless ephemera of passions arous'd by orators and tale-tellers, are more dense, more weighty than the engines there in the great factories, or the granite blocks in their foundations.
Indeed, so thoroughly was I recover'd that, waking early next morning, and finding my sweet nurse asleep from sheer weariness, in a corner of the hut, I stagger'd up from my bed of dried bracken, and out into the pure air. Rare it was to stand and drink it in like wine. A footstep arous'd me. 'Twas Mistress Delia: and turning, I held out my hand.
It arous'd and brought out and decided undream'd-of depths of emotion. It has given me my most fervent views of the true ensemble and extent of the States.
Now is arriv'd Jerusalem's fatal hour, When she and sacrifice must be no more: Long against Heav'n had'st thou, rebellious town, Thy public trumpets of defiance blown; Didst open wars against thy Lord maintain, And all his messengers of peace have slain: And now the hour of his revenge is come, Thy weeks are finish'd, and thy slumb'ring doom, Which long has laid in the divine decree, Is now arous'd from his dull lethargy; His army's rais'd, and his commission seal'd, His order's given, and cannot be repeal'd: And now thy people, temple, altars all Must in one total dissolution fall.
The war must be carried on. I would willingly go in the ranks myself if I thought it would profit more than as at present, and I don't know sometimes but I shall, as it is. Then there is certainly a strange, deep, fervid feeling form'd or arous'd in the land, hard to describe or name; it is not a majority feeling, but it will make itself felt.
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