No sooner does the English traveller leave Boston for the north than
he enters what seems a familiar country. The towns which he passes,
the rivers which he crosses, bear names, as I have said, to prove the
faithful devotion the old adventurers felt for their native land. If
they sought their fortune across the ocean, they piously preserved the
memories of other days. Austere as were the early Puritans, bitterly as
they smarted under what they supposed a political grievance, they did
not regard the country of their origin with the fierce hatred which
has sometimes inspired their descendants. The love of the New did not
extinguish the love of the Old England. In Appledore and Portsmouth,
in London and Manchester, in Newcastle and Dover, the ancient sentiment
lives and breathes. And the New Englanders, once proud of their source,
still cherish a pride in their blood, which they have kept pure from the
contamination of the foreigner. Fortunately for itself, New England has
fallen behind in the march of progress. There is nothing in its peaceful
recesses to tempt the cosmopolitan horde which throngs the great cities
of America. The hope of gain is there as small as the opportunity of
gambling. A quiet folk, devoted to fishery and agriculture, is not worth
plundering.
So it is there, if anywhere, that you may surprise the true-born
American, and when you have surprised him, he very much resembles your
own compatriot. His type and gesture are as familiar to you as his
surroundings. Slow of speech and movement, he has not yet acquired the
exhausting, purposeless love of speed which devours the more modern
cities. He goes about his work with a perfect consciousness that there
are four-and-twenty hours in the day. And as he is not the victim of an
undue haste, he has leisure for a gracious civility. It is not for him
to address a stranger with the familiarity characteristic of New York or
Chicago. Though he know it not, and perhaps would resent it if he knew
it, he is profoundly influenced by his origin. He has not lost the high
seriousness, the quiet gravity, which distinguished his ancestors.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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