Home as Found - James Fenimore Cooper (ebook reader wifi txt) 📗

laying claims to an outward show of

equality, that he secretly knows, however, is the result of the

peculiar circumstances in which he is placed. In short, the state of

society is favourable to the claims of mere animal force, and

unfavourable to those of the higher qualities.

 

This period may be termed, perhaps, the happiest of the first century

of a settlement. The great cares of life are so engrossing and

serious, that small vexations are overlooked, and the petty

grievances that would make us seriously uncomfortable in a more

regular state of society, are taken as matters of course, or laughed

at as the regular and expected incidents of the day. Good-will

abounds; neighbour comes cheerfully to the aid of neighbour; and life

has much of the reckless gaiety, careless association, and buoyant

merriment of childhood. It is found that they who have passed through

this probation, usually look back to it with regret, and are fond of

dwelling on the rude scenes and ridiculous events that distinguish

the history of a new settlement, as the hunter is known to pine for

the forest.

 

To this period of fun, toil, neighbourly feeling and adventure,

succeeds another, in which society begins to marshal itself, and the

ordinary passions have sway. Now it is, that we see the struggles for

place, the heart-burnings and jealousies of contending families, and

the influence of mere money. Circumstances have probably established

the local superiority of a few beyond all question, and the

conditioese serves as a goal for the rest to aim at. The learned

professions, the ministry included, or what, by courtesy, are so

called, take precedence, as a matter of course, next to wealth,

however, when wealth is at all supported by appearances. Then

commence those gradations of social station, that set institutions at

defiance, and which as necessarily follow civilization, as tastes and

habits are a consequence of indulgence.

 

This is, perhaps, the least inviting condition of society that

belongs to any country that can claim to be free and removed from

barbarism. The tastes are too uncultivated to exercise any essential

influence; and when they do exist, it is usually with the pretension

and effort that so commonly accompany infant knowledge. The struggle

is only so much the more severe, in consequence of the late _pele

mele_, while men lay claim to a consideration that would seem beyond

their reach, in an older and more regulated community. It is during

this period that manners suffer the most, since they want the nature

and feeling of the first condition, while they are exposed to the

rudest assaults of the coarse-minded and vulgar; for, as men usually

defer to a superiority that is long established, there being a charm

about antiquity that is sometimes able to repress the passions, in

older communities the marshalling of time quietly regulates what is

here the subject of strife.

 

What has just been said, depends on a general and natural principle,

perhaps; but the state of society we are describing has some features

peculiar to itself. The civilization of America, even in its older

districts, which supply the emigrants to the newer regions, is

unequal; one state possessing a higher level than another. Coming as

it does, from different parts of this vast country, the population of

a new settlement, while it is singularly homogenous for the

circumstances, necessarily brings with it its local peculiarities. If

to these elements be added a sprinkling of Europeans of various

nations and conditions, the effects of the commingling, and the

temporary social struggles that follow, will occasion no surprise.

 

The third and last condition of society in a "new country," is that

in which the influence of the particular causes enumerated ceases,

and men and things come within the control of more general and

regular laws. The effect, of course, is to leave the community

possession of a civilization that conforms to that of the whole

region, be it higher or be it lower, and with the division into

castes that are more or less rigidly maintained, according to

circumstances.

 

The periods, as the astronomers call the time taken in a celestial

revolution, of the two first of these epochs in the history of a

settlement, depend very much on its advancement in wealth and in

numbers. In some places, the pastoral age, or that of good

fellowship, continues for a whole life, to the obvious retrogression

of the people, in most of the higher qualities, but to their manifest

advantage, however, in the pleasures of the time being; while, in

others, it passes away rapidly, like the buoyant animal joys, that

live their time, between fourteen and twenty.

 

The second period is usually of longer duration, the migratory habits

of the American people keeping society more unsettled than might

otherwise prove to be the case. It may be said never to cease

entirely until the great majority of the living generation are

natives of the region, knowing no other means of comparison than

those under which they have passed their days. Even when this is the

case, there is commonly so large an infusion of the birds of passage,

men who are adventurers in quest of advancement, and who live without

the charities of a neighbourhood, as they may be said almost to live

without a home, that there is to be found, for a long time, a middle

state of society, during which it may well be questioned whether a

community belongs to the second or to the third of the periods named.

 

Templeton was properly in this equivocal condition, for while the

third generation of the old settlers were in active life, so many

passers-by came and went, that the influence of the latter nearly

neutralized that of time and the natural order of things. Its

population was pretty equally divided between the descendants of the

earlier inhabitants, and those who flitted like swallows and other

migratory birds. All of those who had originally entered the region

in the pride of manhood, and had been active in converting the

wilderness into the abodes of civilized men, if they had not been

literally gathered to their fathers, in a physical sense had been

laid, the first of their several races, beneath those sods that were

to cover the heads of so many of their descendants. A few still

remained among those who entered the wilderness in young manhood, but

the events of the first period we have designated, and which we have

imperfectly recorded in another work, were already passing into

tradition. Among these original settlers some portion of the feeling

that had distinguished their earliest communion with their neighbours

yet continued, and one of their greatest delights was to talk of the

hardships and privations of their younger days, as the veteran loves

to discourse of his marches, battles, scars, and sieges. It would be

too much to say that these persons viewed the more ephemeral part of

the population with distrust, for their familiarity with changes

accustomed them to new faces; but they had a secret inclination for

each other, preferred those who could enter the most sincerely into

their own feelings, and naturally loved that communion best, where

they found the most sympathy. To this fragment of the community

belonged nearly all there was to be found of that sort of sentiment

which is connected with locality; adventure, with them, supplying the

place of time; while the natives of the spot, wanting in the

recollections that had so many charms for their fathers, were not yet

brought sufficiently within the influence of traditionary interest,

to feel that hallowed sentiment in its proper force. As opposed in

feeling to these relics of the olden time, were the birds of passage

so often named, a numerous and restless class, that, of themselves,

are almost sufficient to destroy whatever there is of poetry, or of

local attachment, in any region where they resort.

 

In Templeton and its adjacent district, however, the two hostile

influences might be said to be nearly equal, the descendants of the

fathers of the country beginning to make a manly stand against the

looser sentiment, or the want of sentiment, that so singularly

distinguishes the migratory bands. The first did begin to consider

the temple in which their fathers had worshipped more hallowed than

strange altars; the sods that covered their fathers' heads more

sacred than the clods that were upturned by the plough; and the

places of their childhood and childish sports dearer than the highway

trodden by a nameless multitude.

 

Such, then, were the elements of the society into which we have now

ushered the reader, and with which it will be our duty to make him

better acquainted, as we proceed in the regular narration of the

incidents of our tale.

 

The return of the Effinghams, after so long an absence, naturally

produced a sensation in so small a place, and visiters began to

appear in the Wigwam as soon as propriety would allow. Many false

rumours prevailed, quite as a matter of course; and Eve, it was

reported, was on the point of being married to no less than three of

the inmates of her father's house, within the first ten days, viz:

Sir George Templemore, Mr. Powis, and Mr. Bragg; the latter story

taking its rise in some precocious hopes that had escaped the

gentleman himself, in the "excitement" of helping to empty a bottle

of bad Breton wine, that was dignified with the name of champagne.

But these tales revived and died so often, in a state of society in

which matrimony is so general a topic with the young of the gentler

sex, that they brought with them their own refutation.

 

The third day, in particular, after the arrival of our party, was a

reception day at the Wigwam; the gentlemen and ladies making it a

point to be at home and disengaged, after twelve o'clock, in order to

do honour to their guests. One of the first who made his appearance

was a Mr. Howel, a bachelor of about the same age as Mr. Effingham,

and a man of easy fortune and quiet habits. Nature had done more

towards making Mr. Howel a gentleman, than either cultivation or

association; for he had passed his entire life, with very immaterial

exceptions, in the valley of Templeton, where, without being what

could be called a student, or a scholar, he had dreamed away his

existence in an indolent communication with the current literature of

the day. He was fond of reading, and being indisposed to contention,

or activity of any sort, his mind had admitted the impressions of

what he perused, as the stone receives a new form by the constant

fall of drops of water. Unfortunately for Mr. Howel, he understood no

language but his mother tongue; and, as all his reading was

necessarily confined to English books, he had gradually, and unknown

to himself, in his moral nature at least, got to be a mere reflection

of those opinions, prejudices, and principles, if such a word can

properly be used for such a state of the mind, that it had suited the

interests or passions of England to promulgate by means of the press.

A perfect _bonne foi_ prevailed in all his notions; and though a very

modest man by nature, so very certain was he that his authority was

always right, that he was a little apt to be dogmatical on such

points as he thought his authors appeared to think settled. Between

John Effingham and Mr. Howel, there were constant amicable skirmishes

in the way of discussion; for, while the latter was so dependent,

limited in knowledge by unavoidable circumstances, and disposed to an

innocent credulity, the first was original in his views, accustomed

to see and think for himself, and, moreover, a little apt to estimate

his own advantages at their full value.

 

"Here comes our good neighbour, and my old school-fellow, Tom Howel."

said Mr. Effingham, looking out at a window, and perceiving the

person mentioned crossing the little lawn in front of the house, by

following a winding foot-path--"as kind-hearted a man, Sir George

Templemore, as exists; one who is really American, for he has

scarcely quitted the county half-a-dozen times in his life, and one

of the honestest fellows of my acquaintance."

 

"Ay," put in John Effingham, "as real an American as any man can be,

who uses English spectacles for all he looks at, English opinions for

all he says, English prejudices for all he condemns, and an English

palate for all he tastes. American, quotha! The man is no more

American than the Times' newspaper, or Charing Cross! He actually

made a journey to New-York last war, to satisfy himself with his own

eyes that a Yankee frigate had really brought an Englishman into

port."

 

"His English predilections will be no fault in my eyes," said the

baronet, smiling--"and I dare say we shall be excellent friends."

 

"I am sure Mr. Howel is a very agreeable man," added Grace--"of all

in your Templeton _coterie_, he is my greatest favourite."

 

"Oh! I foresee a tender intimacy