I saw, the other day, a vessel which had been wrecked, and many lives lost, and her cargo of rags, juniper-berries, and bitter almonds, was strewn along the shore.  It seemed hardly worth the while to tempt the dangers of the sea between Leghorn and New York, for the sake of a cargo of juniper-berries and bitter almonds.  America sending to the Old World for her bitters!  Is not the sea-brine,—­is not shipwreck, bitter enough, to make the cup of life go down here?  Yet such, to a great extent, is our boasted commerce; and there are those who style themselves statesmen and philosophers who are so blind as to think that progress and civilization depend on precisely this kind of interchange and activity,—­the activity of flies about a molasses-hogshead.  Very well, observes one, if men were oysters.  And very well, answer I, if men were mosquitoes.

Lieutenant Herndon, whom our Government sent to explore the Amazon, and, it is said, to extend the area of Slavery, observed that there was wanting there “an industrious and active population, who know what the comforts of life are, and who have artificial wants to draw out the great resources of the country.”  But what are the “artificial wants” to be encouraged?  Not the love of luxuries, like the tobacco and slaves of, I believe, his native Virginia, nor the ice and granite and other material wealth of our native New England; nor are “the great resources of a country” that fertility or barrenness of soil which produces these.  The chief want, in every State that I have been into, was a high and earnest purpose in its inhabitants.  This alone draws out “the great resources” of Nature and at last taxes her beyond her resources; for man naturally dies out of her.  When we want culture more than potatoes, and illumination more than sugar-plums, then the great resources of a world are taxed and drawn out, and the result, or staple production, is, not slaves, nor operatives, but men,—­those rare fruits called heroes, saints, poets, philosophers, and redeemers.

* * * * *

=_Elisabeth F. Ellett, 1818-._= (Manual, pp. 484, 490.)

From “Pioneer Women of the West”

=_234._= ESCAPE OF MARY BLEDSOE FROM THE INDIANS.

It was not consistent with Spencer’s chivalrous character to attempt to save himself by leaving his companion to the mercy of the foe.  Bidding her retreat as fast as possible, and encouraging her to keep her seat firmly, he protected her by following more slowly in her rear, with his trusty rifle in his hand.  When the Indians in pursuit came too near, he would raise his weapon as if to fire; and as he was known to be an excellent marksman, the savages were not willing to encounter him, but hastened to the shelter of trees, while he continued his retreat.  In this manner he kept them at bay for some miles, not firing a single shot—­for he knew that his threatening had more effect—­until Mrs. Bledsoe reached a station.  Her life and his own, were, on this occasion, saved by his prudence and presence of mind; for both would have been lost had he yielded to the temptation to fire....