Chapter 11

"Nay, I'll come; if I lose a scruple of this sport, let me be oiled
to death with melancholy."--SHAKSPEARE.

The progress of society in America, has been distinguished by several
peculiarities that do not so properly belong to the more regular and
methodical advances of civilization in other parts of the world. On
the one hand, the arts of life, like Minerva, who was struck out of
the intellectual being of her father at a blow, have started full-
grown into existence, as the legitimate inheritance of the colonists,
while, on the other, every thing tends towards settling down into a
medium, as regards quality, a consequence of the community-character
of the institutions. Every thing she had seen that day, had struck
Eve as partaking of this mixed nature, in which, while nothing was
vulgar, little even approached to that high standard, that her
European education had taught her to esteem perfect. In the Wigwam,
however, as her father's cousin had seen fit to name the family
dwelling, there was more of keeping, and a closer attention to the
many little things she had been accustomed to consider essential to
comfort and elegance, and she was better satisfied with her future
home, than with most she had seen since her return to America.

As we have described the interior of this house, in another work,
little remains to be said on the subject, at present; for, while John
Effingham had completely altered its external appearance, its
internal was not much changed. It is true, the cloud-coloured
covering had disappeared, as had that stoop also, the columns of
which were so nobly upheld by their super-structure; the former
having given place to a less obtrusive roof, that was regularly
embattled, and the latter having been swallowed up by a small
entrance tower, that the new architect had contrived to attach to the
building with quite as much advantage to it, in the way of comfort,
as in the way of appearance. In truth, the Wigwam had none of the
more familiar features of a modern American dwelling of its class.
There was not a column about it, whether Grecian, Roman, or Egyptian;
no Venetian blinds; no verandah or piazza; no outside paint, nor gay
blending of colours. On the contrary, it was a plain old structure,
built with great solidity, and of excellent materials, and in that
style of respectable dignity and propriety, that was perhaps a little
more peculiar to our fathers than it is peculiar to their successors,
our worthy selves. In addition to the entrance tower, or porch, on
its northern front, John Effingham had also placed a prettily devised
conceit on the southern, by means of which the abrupt transition from
an inner room to the open air was adroitly avoided. He had, moreover,