University of Virginia Library

26. CHAPTER XXVI.

The encounter with Mr. Sibthorpe seems to
have been the last incident worthy of record in
this our summer tour; at least I find nothing further
in my note-book or my memory. Showers
and sunshine there were, I dare say, but we cannot
chronicle all the smiles and tears of this changeful
life.

The impression left by the journey was, on the
whole, a pleasant one, and I returned, as I always
have returned from similar travels in the West,
with an increased liking for the people. There is
after all so much kindness, simplicity and trustfulness—one
catches so many glimpses of the lovelier
aspect of our common nature—that much that is
uncouth is forgotten, and much that is offensive is
pardoned. One sees the rougher sort of people in
their best light, and learns to own the “tie of brotherhood.”
The perception of faults and deficiencies,
narrow prejudices and vulgar pride, in those

who have had but little opportunity for mental
improvement, awakens, under the circumstances,
something that approaches at least the right tone of
feeling—a desire for the improvement of these coheirs
of life and its trials and its hopes. They are
a most interesting people, and although they were
originally composed of very incongruous gleanings
from the older states and from foreign lands, they
are fast acquiring, under the pressure of circumstances
and by their own native energy, a distinct
and commanding character.

The backwoodsman, though much has been said
and written about him, is perhaps, after all, but imperfectly
understood. His character, his habits, his
faults, his virtues, his points of peculiarity, of superiority,
of inferiority, are very striking, but it is not
easy to describe them concisely. He is a being at
once calculating and impetuous—penurious and
prodigal—indolent and laborious—rough and
kindly—passionate and forgiving; vowing revenge
to-day, and to-morrow doing a kindness to his
declared enemy. He will make his wife a drudge
without compunction; but his old mother must
have a warm corner, and the privilege of knitting
or doing nothing, as she chooses. He will, likely
enough, give his father a short answer if he attempts
to interfere with the ordering of business,
but the old man will never lack any of his accustomed
comforts while his son is able to earn them.
His temper is hasty, and his sentiments are not

very refined, but his sense of duty is strong, his
sympathies awake unbidden, and his intuitive
knowledge of “the humanities” is above all college
learning.

He left his birthplace discouraged by untoward
fortune, disgusted by the treachery of a friend, or
perhaps “smit with the rage canine of dying rich.”
He came to the West with a dream of boundless
liberty and universal good faith; a vision of affluence
to be acquired with rapidity by the sole aid of
his strong arm and the axe which seems like a part
of it. He did not stop to investigate each step of
the process. The glorious result filled the mind's
eye, and cast into the shades such dull, old-fashioned
drawbacks as computation, reason, experience.

We are all apt to forget at times that though the
laws which govern the course of human events may
seem occasionally to relax or to be eluded, they are
in fact immutable and impartial. The same conditions
that have ever stood obstinately in the path
of the aspirant, are now attached to the acquisition
of wealth. To rub a lamp—to turn a ring on
one's finger—or to follow the course of the setting
sun—these are all easy; but they can win only
such riches as serve to gild the turrets of air-built
castles.

Our backwoodsman is disappointed in many
things. He discovers that whoever will not shut
himself out from all intercourse with human kind,
must endure much restraint and practise much forbearance.

He finds that wherever man is associated
in any degree with his fellow-man, there is selfishness,
but he fails to recognize this fault in himself.
A short trial convinces him that wealth must here,
as elsewhere, be purchased by patient toil, and that
long-protracted illness will empty the purse even in
the golden West.

At first these things depress him excessively, and
he is apt to conclude that all is naught. He forgets
the disagreeables which drove him from his old
abode at the East, and magnifying the evils around
him, his disordered imagination figures the wide
West as a mere trap. He is ready to give up all
and flee, choosing rather to encounter those ills of
which habit has softened the asperity, than those
whose sharpness is rendered more acute by contrast
with the soft flatteries of fancy.

After a while the horizon begins to clear. It is
not easy to get away, and necessity is often a kind
friend. Our emigrant is becoming better acquainted
with his neighbors, and, in his turn, acquiring
their confidence and their good-will. He gets rid
of the ague, or at least learns how he may avoid it.

His wife has found a little circle within whose
round the social cup of tea may be enjoyed, with
the aid of its best sweetener—commérage. He has
a good crop, and it brings him a good price. He
is elected constable, or path-master, or perhaps even
town-clerk if he be fortunately of the scribes.

Now he begins to acknowledge the advantages

of an unworn soil, and of the universal freshness
and newness of the world around him. He finds
it pleasant to be among the magnates, even of a
township of twenty families. He feels a degree of
pride in the reflection that he is at least an atom of
the great rolling mass which is destined to spread
the benefits of civilization and Christianity over
this immense expanse of bountiful soil. He forgets
after a time his ancient prejudices, and almost his
attachments homeward, and imbibes that Western
feeling so striking to the new comer.

He now feels disposed to look around him and
inquire what is the best mode of supplying some
of the deficiencies of his new condition, and the
first requisite that presents itself is union, concert
with his neighbors, whose interests are in this
matter identical with his own. When this becomes
an object, a phantom starts up which is but too apt
to thwart all efforts for the general good—Politics.

I may be almost alone in my view of this subject.
The habit of taking a personal share in the government
has so many charms as well as so many advantages,
that it is difficult to make our countrymen
believe it may encroach upon the attention
due to other and perhaps more imperious duties.
Yet this is the conclusion to which I have come
after some opportunity for observation.

If it be true—as who can doubt!—that “Two
elements seem to be comprised in the great fact
which we call civilization—two circumstances

necessary to its existence—the progress of society
and the progress of individuals,—the amelioration
of the social system and the expansion of the mind
and faculties of man” [1] —it appears to me that we
are as yet occupied only on the incipient steps toward
civilization. We are busying ourselves exclusively
on one of the paths to national greatness
and happiness, and neglecting another which claims
our best efforts. To borrow an appropriate figure
from the soil, we are “laying out work” upon a
road which needs but little mending, while we
have not even “opened” another which is equally
necessary and far more pleasant. The entire attention
of the public mind—beyond that desire for
acquisition which is at least excusable in people
who began with very little of this world's goods—
is occupied with petty politics; a struggle of partisanship—a
scramble for small offices which the
frequency of elections is continually throwing open
for competition, thus engrossing the attention which
ought to be occupied with nobler objects, as the
paras scattered among the crowd in Constantinople
serve to withdraw all interest from the sultan himself,
the grand centre of wealth and honor.

The part which every one feels it alike his duty
and his privilege to take in public affairs has undeniably
a very favorable influence in awakening
the intelligence and enlarging the perceptions of
our people, as to matters of practical and immediate

utility. This has been often observed, and must
indeed be obvious, as the natural effect of constant
practice. But the good effect ends here. To place
a particular candidate in office is the single aim,
not to ascertain his real fitness for the place. If
the man of our choice will vote as we wish, and
act as we think he ought, upon certain points of
local interest, we inquire no further. He can write
his name, and what more do we need? With us
knowledge is not power, but the contrary. There
is even a strong prejudice against educated people,
perhaps because they are comparatively so few that
they cannot exert collective influence, but rather
stand in the position of exclusives. They incur
the suspicion of not being willing to yield to the
impulse of the crowd. Education will not make a
man honest, say we; it is more likely to make him
proud. It will make him none the better road-commissioner,
or supervisor, or even school-inspector;
for, as said our friend Mr.—,touching the question
of a candidate for this latter office, “We don't
want great scholars; we want plain farmers, like
ourselves.” It is on this plan that most of our
teachers are examined and pronounced fit for the
business, as witness our district schools, in many
of which the teacher is not even required to spell
tolerably. “This gear must be amended,” but the
time does not seem yet to have arrived.

Some efforts are undoubtedly making towards
intellectual advancement, but they are few and

feeble. They have as yet taken no hold on the
affections of the people. They shine however like
faint lights in a dark place, showing the gloom
which surrounds them, yet affording encouragement
to those who are anxiously watching their increase,
and hoping to see their puny rays grow brighter and
brighter till the coming of the perfect day. Among
the young there are many who have caught glimpses
of the pure light, and who long for more. We may
at least hope that manhood will not find them
ingulfed like their sires in the vortex of petty
politics.

It is difficult to obtain any hearing for this view
of things. To set up our own puny acquisitions
as the universal standard,—to decide that nothing
beyond what we ourselves know can be worth
learning,—to acknowledge nothing as good which
we do not ourselves possess,—is but too natural
to us all, and most of all natural to those who have
almost every thing to learn. The forming stages
of every infant society are found to be peculiarly
prone to fanaticism of some kind, and ours just now
is a utilitarian fanaticism of the narrowest and
most short-sighted description. Whatever cannot
evidently be turned to account to-day, is rejected
as worthless and unprofitable. We leave the future
to take care of itself. We certainly are fanatics in
politics; perhaps I shall be told that I am equally
so in the importance which I attach to the pursuit
of literature.

I cannot but think that our apathy on this subject
arises in part from the idea which seems to float in
the moral atmosphere of life in this region, and to
be imbibed instinctively by all, that if our political
condition be but right, nothing else can be wrong;
—if we have only liberty enough, nothing can be
lacking in the essentials of happiness. Another
cause may perhaps be sought in the migratory
habits alluded to in another part of this work. Intellectual
pleasures are the solace of the quiet fireside—the
deep shade at noon—of the twilight
hour. Repose is their element. They belong to
a love of home, and this is yet a feeling almost
unknown to the mass of Western settlers. They
are in unison with a quiet and rational, not an exciting
and feverish pursuit of happiness, and those
who have cultivated them most successfully, have
ever borne testimony to their power of alleviating
the ills of life, as well as of adding grace and refinement
to its pleasures.