There we may
find trace of the Elizabethan Age--idioms lost from English
literature and American speech long ago. There we may see the
American home life as it went on more than a hundred years ago.
We may see hanging on the wall the long muzzle-loading rifle of
an earlier day. We may see the spinning-wheel and the loom. The
women still make in part the clothing for their families, and the
men still make their own household furniture, their own farming
implements, their own boots.
This overhanging frontier of America is a true survival of the
days of Drake as well as of the days of Boone. The people are at
once godly and savage. They breed freely; they love their homes;
they are ever ready for adventure; they are frugal, abstemious,
but violent and strong. They carry on still the half-religious
blood feuds of the old Scotch Highlands or the North of Ireland,
whence they came. They reverence good women. They care little for
material accumulations. They believe in personal ease and
personal independence. With them life goes on not in the slow
monotony of reiterated performance, but in ragged profile, with
large exertions followed by large repose.
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