Chapter 1

----"When that's gone
He shall drink naught but brine."

_Tempest._

While there is less of that high polish in America that is obtained by
long intercourse with the great world, than is to be found in nearly every
European country, there is much less positive rusticity also. There, the
extremes of society are widely separated, repelling rather than attracting
each other; while among ourselves, the tendency is to gravitate towards a
common centre. Thus it is, that all things in America become subject to a
mean law that is productive of a mediocrity which is probably much above
the average of that of most nations; possibly of all, England excepted;
but which is only a mediocrity, after all. In this way, excellence in
nothing is justly appreciated, nor is it often recognised; and the
suffrages of the nation are pretty uniformly bestowed on qualities of a
secondary class. Numbers have sway, and it is as impossible to resist them
in deciding on merit, as it is to deny their power in the ballot-boxes;
time alone, with its great curative influence, supplying the remedy that
is to restore the public mind to a healthful state, and give equally to
the pretender and to him who is worthy of renown, his proper place in the
pages of history.

The activity of American life, the rapidity and cheapness of intercourse,
and the migratory habits both have induced, leave little of rusticity and
local character in any particular sections of the country. Distinctions,
that an acute observer may detect, do certainly exist between the eastern
and the western man, between the northerner and the southerner, the Yankee
and middle states' man; the Bostonian, Manhattanese and Philadelphian; the
Tuckahoe and the Cracker; the Buckeye or Wolverine, and the Jersey Blue.
Nevertheless, the World cannot probably produce another instance of a
people who are derived from so many different races, and who occupy so
large an extent of country, who are so homogeneous in appearance,
characters and opinions. There is no question that the institutions have
had a material influence in producing this uniformity, while they have
unquestionably lowered the standard to which opinion is submitted, by
referring the decisions to the many, instead of making the appeal to the
few, as is elsewhere done. Still, the direction is onward, and though it
may take time to carve on the social column of America that graceful and
ornamental capital which it forms the just boast of Europe to possess,
when the task shall be achieved, the work will stand on a base so broad as
to secure its upright attitude for ages.

Notwithstanding the general character of identity and homogenity that so
strongly marks the picture of American society, exceptions are