Two things, for all his skepticism, he could never bring himself to admit formally, both obvious: first, that the so-called culture of Puritan New England was largely imaginary, that civilization was actually introduced into the region by anti-Puritans, and second, that when Transcendentalism came in, the leadership of Puritanism passed from New England and went to the South and Middle West. To admit the truth of either proposition was psychically impossible to a man of his romantic feelings. Each, baldly stated, seemed to flout the local Holy Ghost. And yet both were true, and their proofs were visible at a glance. The first, I daresay, will never be granted formally, or even heard patiently, by any genuine New Englander. Only a short while ago Walter Prichard Eaton, a very able Puritan, was arguing eloquently that his blue-nosed ancestors were really lovers of beauty, nay, downright artists--and offering the charming old houses on Nantucket Island as exhibits. Unfortunate examples, alas, alas! The houses on Nantucket were not built until the Puritan theocracy was completely demoralized and impotent--until Boston had a theatre, and was already two-thirds of the way to hell. And if they were actually built by Puritans at all, then it was by Puritans who had gone out into the wide, wide word and savored its dreadful and voluptuous marvels--Puritans who had come back from the Eastern seas with gaudy silks in their sea-chests, and the perfume of strange gals upon their whiskers, and a new glitter to their eyes.