Island after island we passed, all fairly shaped and clustering in a friendly way, but with little variety of vegetation.  In the afternoon the weather became foggy, and we could not proceed after dark.  That was as dull an evening as ever fell.

The next morning the fog still lay heavy, but the captain took me out in his boat on an exploring expedition, and we found the remains of the old English fort on Point St. Joseph’s.  All around was so wholly unmarked by anything but stress of wind and weather, the shores of these islands and their woods so like one another, wild and lonely, but nowhere rich and majestic, that there was some charm, in the remains of the garden, the remains even of chimneys and a pier.  They gave feature to the scene.

Here I gathered many flowers, but they were the same as at Mackinaw.

The captain, though he had been on this trip hundreds of times, had never seen this spot, and never would but for this fog, and his desire to entertain me.  He presented a striking instance how men, for the sake of getting a living, forget to live.  It is just the same in the most romantic as the most dull and vulgar places.  Men get the harness on so fast, that they can never shake it off, unless they guard against this danger from the very first.  In Chicago, how many men live who never find time to see the prairies, or learn anything unconnected with the business of the day, or about the country they are living in!

So this captain, a man of strong sense and good eyesight, rarely found time to go off the track or look about him on it.  He lamented, too, that there had been no call which, induced him to develop his powers of expression, so that he might communicate what he had seen for the enjoyment or instruction of others.

This is a common fault among the active men, the truly living, who could tell what life is.  It should not be so.  Literature should not be left to the mere literati,—­eloquence to the mere orator; every Caesar should be able to write his own commentary.  We want a more equal, more thorough, more harmonious development, and there is nothing to hinder the men of this country from it, except their own supineness, or sordid views.

When the weather did clear, our course up the river was delightful.  Long stretched before us the island of St. Joseph’s, with its fair woods of sugar-maple.  A gentleman on board, who belongs to the Fort at the Sault, said their pastime was to come in the season of making sugar, and pass some time on this island,—­the days at work, and the evening in dancing and other amusements.  Work of this kind done in the open air, where everything is temporary, and every utensil prepared on the spot, gives life a truly festive air.  At such times, there is labor and no care,—­energy with gayety, gayety of the heart.

I think with the same pleasure of the Italian vintage, the Scotch harvest-home, with its evening dance in the barn, the Russian cabbage-feast even, and our huskings and hop-gatherings.  The hop-gatherings, where the groups of men and girls are pulling down and filling baskets with the gay festoons, present as graceful pictures as the Italian vintage.