University of Virginia Library

46. CHAPTER XLVI.

One must come quite away from the conveniences
and refined indulgences of civilized life to know any
thing about them. To be always inundated with comforts,
is but too apt to make us proud, selfish, and ungrateful.
The mind's health, as well as the body's, is
promoted by occasional privation or abstinence. Many
a sour-faced grumbler I wot of, would be marvellously
transformed by a year's residence in the woods, or even
in a Michigan village of as high pretensions as Montacute.
If it were not for casting a sort of dishonour
on a country life, turning into a magnificent “beterinhaus”
these

I should be disposed to recommend a course of Michigan
to the Sybarites, the puny exquisites, the world-worn
and sated Epicureans of our cities. If I mistake
not, they would make surprising advances in philosophy
in the course of a few months' training. I should not
be severe either. I should not require them to come
in their strictly natural condition as featherless bipeds.
I would allow them to bring many a comfort—nay,
even some real luxuries; books, for instance, and a
reasonable supply of New-York Safety-Fund notes,
the most tempting form which “world's gear” can
possibly assume for our western, wild-cat wearied eyes.
I would grant to each Neophyte a ready-made loggery,
a garden fenced with tamarack poles, and every facility
and convenience which is now enjoyed by the better
class of our settlers, yet I think I might after all hope
to send home a reasonable proportion of my subjects
completely cured, sane for life.

I have in the course of these detached and desultory
chapters, hinted at various deficiencies and peculiarities,
which strike, with rather unpleasant force, the new resident
in the back-woods; but it would require volumes
to enumerate all the cases in which the fastidiousness,
the taste, the pride, the self-esteem of the refined child
of civilization, must be wounded by a familiar intercourse
with the persons among whom he will find himself
thrown, in the ordinary course of rural life. He
is continually reminded in how great a variety of particulars
his necessities, his materials for comfort, and

his sources of pain, are precisely those of the humblest
of his neighbours. The humblest, did I say? He will
find that he has no humble neighbours. He will very
soon discover, that in his new sphere, no act of kindness,
no offer of aid, will be considered as any thing
short of insult, if the least suspicion of condescension
peep out. Equality, perfect and practical, is the sine
qua non; and any appearance of a desire to avoid this
rather trying fraternization, is invariably met by a
fierce and indignant resistance. The spirit in which
was conceived the motto of the French revolution,
“La fraternité ou la mort,” exists in full force among
us, though modified as to results. In cities we bestow
charity—in the country we can only exchange kind
offices, nominally at least. If you are perfectly well
aware that your nearest neighbour has not tasted meat
in a month, nor found in his pocket the semblance of a
shilling to purchase it, you must not be surprised,
when you have sent him a piece, to receive for reply,

“Oh! your pa wants to change, does he? Well,
you may put it down.” And this without the remotest
idea that the time for repayment ever will arrive, but
merely to avoid saying, “I thank you,” a phrase especially
eschewed, so far as I have had opportunity to
observe.

This same republican spirit is evinced rather amusingly,
in the reluctance to admire, or even to approve,
any thing like luxury or convenience which is not in
common use among the settlers. Your carpets are
spoken of as “one way to hide dirt;” your mahogany
tables, as “dreadful plaguy to scour;” your kitchen
conveniences, as “lumberin' up the house for nothin';”

and so on to the end of the chapter. One lady informed
me, that if she had such a pantry full of “dishes,”
under which general term is included every variety of
china, glass and earthenware, she should set up store,
and “sell them off pretty quick,” for she would not “be
plagued with them.” Another, giving a slighting
glance at a French mirror of rather unusual dimensions,
larger by two-thirds, I verity believe, than she
had ever seen, remarked, “that would be quite a nice
glass, if the frame was done over.”

Others take up the matter reprovingly. They “do n't
think it right to spend money so;” they think too, that
“pride never did nobody no good;” and some will go
so far as to suggest modes of disposing of your superfluities.

“Any body that's got so many dresses, might afford
to give away half on 'em;” or, “I should think you'd
got so much land, you might give a poor man a lot,
and never miss it.” A store of any thing, however
simple or necessary, is, as I have elsewhere observed,
a subject of reproach, if you decline supplying whomsoever
may be deficient.

This simplification of life, this bringing down the
transactions of daily intercourse to the original principles
of society, is neither very eagerly adopted, nor
very keenly relished, by those who have been accustomed
to the politer atmospheres. They rebel most
determinedly, at first. They perceive that the operation
of the golden rule, in circumstances where it is
all give on one side, and all take on the other, must
necessarily be rather severe; and they declare manfully
against all impertinent intrusiveness. But, sooth

to say, there are in the country so many ways of being
made uncomfortable by one's most insignificant enemy,
that it is soon discovered that warfare is even more
costly than submission.

And all this forms part of the schooling which I propose
for my spoiled child of refined civilization. And
although many of these remarks and requisitions of
our unpolished neighbours are unreasonable and absurd
enough, yet some of them commend themselves
to our better feelings in such a sort, that we find ourselves
ashamed to refuse what it seemed at first impertinent
to ask; and after the barriers of pride and prejudice
are once broken, we discover a certain satisfaction
in this homely fellowship with our kind, which goes
far towards repaying whatever sacrifices or concessions
we may have been induced to make. This has its
limits of course; and one cannot help observing that
“levelling upwards” is much more congenial to “human
natur',” than levelling downwards. The man who
thinks you ought to spare him a piece of ground for a
garden, because you have more than he thinks you
need, would be far from sharing with his poorer neighbour
the superior advantages of his lot. He would tell
him to work for them as he had done.

But then there are, in the one case, some absolute
and evident superfluities, according to the primitive
estimate of these regions; in the other, none. The
doll of Fortune, who may cast a languid eye on this
homely page, from the luxurious depths of a velvet-cushioned
library-chair, can scarce be expected to
conceive how natural it may be, for those who possess
nothing beyond the absolute requisites of existence, to

look with a certain degree of envy on the extra comforts
which seem to cluster round the path of another;
and to feel as if a little might well be spared, where so
much would still be left. To the tenant of a log-cabin
whose family, whatever be its numbers, must burrow
in a single room, while a bed or two, a chest, a table,
and a wretched handful of cooking utensils, form the
chief materials of comfort, an ordinary house, small
and plain it may be, yet amply supplied, looks like the
very home of luxury. The woman who owns but a suit
a-piece for herself and her children, considers the possession
of an abundant though simple and inexpensive
wardrobe, as needless extravagance; and we must
scarcely blame her too severely, if she should be disposed
to condemn as penurious, any reluctance to supply
her pressing need, though she may have no shadow
of claim on us beyond that which arises from her
being a daughter of Eve. We look at the matter from
opposite points of view. Her light shows her very
plainly, as she thinks, what is our Christian duty; we
must take care that ours does not exhibit too exclusively
her envy and her impertinence.

The inequalities in the distribution of the gifts of
fortune are not greater in the country than in town, but
the country; yet circumstances render them more
offensive to the less-favoured class. The denizens of
the crowded alleys and swarming lofts of our great
cities see, it is true, the lofty mansions, the splendid
equipages of the wealthy—but they are seldom or
never brought into contact or collision with the owners
of these glittering advantages. And the extreme width
of the great gulf between, is almost a barrier, even to

all-reaching envy. But in the ruder stages of society,
where no one has yet begun to expend any thing for
show, the difference lies chiefly in the ordinary requisites
of comfort; and this comes home at once “to
men's business and bosoms.” The keenness of their
appreciation, and the strength of their envy, bear a direct
proportion to the real value of the objects of their
desire; and when they are in habits of entire equality
and daily familiarity with those who own ten or twenty
times as much of the matériel of earthly enjoyment as
themselves, it is surely natural, however provoking,
that they should not be studious to veil their longings
after a share of the good, which has been so bounteously
showered upon their neighbours.

I am only making a sort of apology for the foibles of
my rustic friends. I cannot say that I feel much respect
for any thing which looks like a willingness to
live at others' cost, save as a matter of the last necessity.

I was adverting to a certain unreservedness of
communication on these points, as often bringing
wholesome and much-needed instruction home to those
whom prosperity and indulgence may have rendered
unsympathizing, or neglectful of the kindly feelings
which are among the best ornaments of our nature.

But I am aware that I have already been adventurous,
far beyond the bounds of prudence. To hint
that it may be better not to cultivate too far that haughty
spirit of exclusiveness which is the glory of the fashionable
world, is, I know, hazardous in the extreme. I
have not so far forgotten the rules of the sublime clique
as not to realize, that in acknowledging even a leaning

toward the “vulgar” side, I place myself forever beyond
its pale. But I am now a denizen of the wild
woods—in my view, “no mean city” to own as one's
home; and I feel no ambition to aid in the formation
of a Montacute aristocracy, for which an ample field
is now open, and all the proper materials are at hand.
What lack we? Several of us have as many as three
cows; some few, carpets and shanty-kitchens; and
one or two, piano-fortes and silver tea-sets. I myself,
as dame de la seigneurie, have had secret thoughts of an
astral lamp! but even if I should go so far, I am resolved
not to be either vain-glorious or over-bearing,
although this kind of superiority forms the usual ground
for exclusiveness. I shall visit my neighbours just as
usual, and take care not to say a single word about dipped
candles, if I can possibly help it.