Various - Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 12, No. 31, October, 1873

The affluents of the Little and Great Yok (so the Youghiogheny is locally called) are still stocked with trout, while a gentleman of Oakland has abundance of the fish artificially breeding in his "ladders," and sells the privilege of netting them at a dollar the pound. As for the wild fish, we were informed by a sharp boy who volunteered to show us the chalybeate spring, and who guided us through the woods barefoot, making himself ill with "sarvice" berries as he went,—we were instructed by this naturalist that the trout were eaten away from the streams "by the alligators." This we regarded as a sun-myth, or some other form of aboriginal superstition, until we were informed by several of the gravest and most trustworthy gentlemen of several different localities on the mountains that there really is a creature infesting these streams supposed by them to be a young alligator, reaching a length of twelve inches, and doubtless subsisting on fish. An alligator as a mountain-reptile had not entered into our conception: can these voracious saurians, playing in the alpine affluents of the Mississippi, possibly be identical with the vast and ugly beasts of the lower bayous and the Gulf? We leave the identification for some reptile-loving philosopher.

Descending the western slope of the mountains, we prick up our attention, although the grade is gradual and easy. We know that we are coming to the crowning glory of the ride, the region celebrated for its more than Arcadian beauty, and consecrated by the earliest glories of our war—by the mountain Iliad of McClellan, the initial action at Philippi, and the prompt trampling out of West Virginia secession by the victories of Cheat River. This tameless, mountain-lapped, hemlock-tinted river had long been our fancied cynosure. "Each mortal has his Carcassonne," said, after a French poet, the late lamented John R. Thompson, using the term for what is long desired and never attained; and Mr. Matthew Arnold, in writing of a "French Eton," says, "Whatever you miss, do not miss seeing Carcassonne." As Carcassonne exists in French landscape, exists in the tourist's mind and desire, a standard of beauty and historic suggestion, such to us had become this swart and noble river. Now it happens that Thompson has left a description, in his most polished prose, of glorious Cheat River. As our own powers of description are very inferior, we make no scruple of borrowing, or, as Reade calls it, "jewel-setting:" "The grandest achievement of the engineer (whose name, Benjamin H. Latrobe, should always be stated in connection with the road) is to be found, however, in the region of Cheat River, where to the unscientific eye it would appear almost impossible that a road-bed could ever have been built. For two miles beyond Rowlesburg, where the Cheat River is crossed on a massive bridge of iron, there is a continuous succession of marvels in railway-work, of which the Tray Run viaduct is a dream of lightness and grace, yet so firm in its welded strength that thousands of tons of merchandise pass over it daily without causing, the slightest oscillation of its airy arches. Here, too, the wonders of mechanical skill are placed in striking juxtaposition with the wonders of Nature, whose obduracy has been so signally overcome. The sense of security was heightened in our case by a furious storm which burst upon us. We were seated on the fender or' cow-catcher,' watching the majestic marshaling of the thunder-clouds over the mountain-tops, and enjoying to the full the excitement of the moment, when suddenly the wind blew a terrific gust, filling the air with dust and dry leaves, and threatening to carry us individually over the precipice. The train was stopped, and we sought shelter in the comfortable car, which then moved on through the driving floods that continued to descend for half an hour, forming cataracts on every side of us. But the water ran off harmlessly from the solid track, and our engine bade defiance to the tempest, which hurled huge branches of the trees into the angry abyss beneath. The triumph of Science over Nature was complete; and as the sinking sun threw a glow over the Glades where the clouds had parted, I think my companions caught some inspirations of the 'Poetry of the Rail-way.'"

At Grafton we have choice of two routes: one, to Wheeling, leads us by the beautiful scenery of the Tygart, where the Valley River Falls are laughing and glistening all day and all night, and by the stupendous Bollman bridge at Bellaire, almost two miles long, to Wheeling. But we continue on a straight course to Cincinnati, having promised ourselves to see the contrast between the City of Monuments and the Metropolis of Pork. Grafton offers us the accommodations of another of the company's hotels, where, as at Cumberland, we are daintily and tenderly fed. At Parkersburg we find another superb bridge, over a mile in length; at Athens an imposing insane asylum, to take care of us if all these engineering wonders have deprived us of our senses; and finally in Cincinnati, just a day after our departure from Baltimore, the gleam of the Ohio River and the fulfillment of our intention.

November 1, 18–. It is just three years to-day since I began to keep this journal. I am so glad now that I persisted in doing so, in spite of the temptations that have often assailed me to throw it aside. How else could I realize, bring home to myself, these past three years, strong and vivid as my remembrance of them is? No effort of mere recollection could have preserved for me as this book has done a record of my struggles and failures, and of my victories. Yes, I write the word proudly, victories , for I have been beyond my hopes successful. How well I remember my dear mother's distress at my queer notions, as she called them—her entreaties, her tender illogical protests against my making myself "conspicuous"! Dear mother! I can see now that it was very natural she should have disliked and dreaded my becoming a "strong-minded woman," for anything narrower than her ideas of a woman's education and sphere one cannot imagine. She was an excellent specimen of the old-fashioned mother and wife, and I believe sincerely thought her whole duty in life and the intention of her creation was "to suckle fools and chronicle small beer."

Let me see: yes, here it is at the very beginning—November 1, 18–. How faded the ink looks! Let me read it: "To-day I told mother I meant to attend a course of medical lectures: we had a scene, and she called in Cousin Jane to reason with me. How I detest Cousin Jane! She is nothing but a mass of orthodox dogmatism. Of course we quarreled over it, and she ended by telling me I was disgracing the family, and was no true woman. Well, we shall see which of us has the truer comprehension of a woman's sphere."

It is three years since I wrote that. Those lectures were my first step, and, like all first steps, cost me more of a struggle than anything I have done since. As I look back over these three years, I see that every hope and aspiration I then cherished has been more than realized. I can trace the steady progress of my intellect. I can go back to the days when I started to earn my own living—when I thought it a great thing to have gained a few dollars by my own labor. Yes, I am very glad to have this record of the past: it makes me strong and hopeful of the future. I have never regretted my decision to make an independent life for myself. I have sought only to do that for which Nature had gifted me, and from which nothing but custom and prejudice debarred me; and in claiming my own position I am conscious of having helped other women, and of having led the way for those who may be less courageous than I am.

All this might sound very conceited and self-confident to any one who should read it, but I do not write to be read by other eyes than my own: my journal is the reflex of my thoughts and feelings; so I may be frank with myself. And why should I not be proud of my independence, as well as any other human creature?