While the tide water Virginians were already practicing all the arts and wiles known to the highest English civilization; were sending their sons to be educated in England; receiving brocaded silks and powdered wigs from England; and dancing the minuet at the Williamsburg balls with the families of the noblemen sent over to govern the Colony, Piedmont, Virginia, was still a dense forest, the abode of Indians and wild animals. It was not strange, then, that the Piedmont Virginians never arrived at the opulent manner of living adopted by those on James and York rivers, who, tradition tells us, went to such excess in high living, as to have "hams boiled in champagne," and of whom other traditions have been handed down amusing and interesting. Although the latter were in advance of the Piedmont Virginians in wealth and social advantages, they were not superior to them in honor, virtue, or kindness and hospitality. It has been remarked that, "when natural scenery is picturesque there is in the human character something to correspond; impressions made on the retina are really made on the soul, and the mind becomes what it contemplates." The same author continues: "A man is not only _like_ what he sees, but he _is_ what he sees. The noble old Highlander has mountains in his soul, whose towering peaks point heavenward; and lakes in his bosom, whose glassy surface reflects the skies; and foaming cataracts in his heart to beautify the mountain side and irrigate the vale; and evergreen firs and mountain pines that show life and verdure even under winter skies!" "On the other hand," he writes, "the wandering nomad has a desert in his heart; its dead level reflects heat and hate; a sullen, barren plain--no goodness, no beauty, no dancing wave of joy, no gushing rivulet of love, no verdant hope. And it is an interesting fact that those who live in countries where natural scenery inspires the soul, and where the necessities of life bind to a permanent home, are always patriotic and high minded; and those who dwell in the desert are always pusillanimous and groveling!" If what this author writes be true, and the character of the Piedmont Virginians accords with the scenery around them, how their hearts must be filled with gentleness and charity inspired by the landscape which stretches far and fades in softness against the sky! How must their minds be filled with noble aspirations suggested by the "everlasting mountains!" How their souls must be filled with thoughts of heaven, as they look upon the glorious sunsets bathing the mountains in "rose-colored light;" with the towering peaks ever pointing heavenward and seeming to say: "Behold the glory of a world beyond!"[5] Beneath the shadow of the "Peaks" were many happy homes and true hearts, and among these memory recalls none more vividly than "Otterburn" and its inmates.