The Pioneers of Kentucky [pp. 103-109]

TIlE PIONEERS OF KENTUCKY.
population approkimated on either hand morally and politi cally, as the States do geographically, it is not true. We are
aware that a petit-m(aitre notion of the same kinid prevails
among- the dilletante aristocracy of the Atlantic shlore, which,
from the emasculating inflllence of a prevalent effeminacyT, can
see nothing in the silmple, unimutilated majesty of nature,
moral or physical, either attractive or inspiring; who pronounce
evervthlin to be found in the cities of their abode as v'tlqar and
outr;; and who, like the London cockney in his Anicericaii
travels, cannot admire the MIississippi River, because it does not
resemble the Tlc(mes; nor the broad western forest, because it
is not like St. James's Park or Windsor Forest; nor thle ma.nly
and heroic form of the western pioneer, because it is "'too dem
huge" to bear any resemblance to the "dwarfing cities' pale
abortions." As marvellous as was the birth of AMinerva in the
chroniicles of ancient mythology, a greater marvel, not of myth
but of fict, has been witnessed in the birth and growthl of the
new states or societies of America. Tlhe emig,rants or pioneers
who sold their sterile estates in Virginia, Maryland, and North
Carolina., and sought richer lands, or broader possessions for
occulpation and herita,e in the beautiful valleys of tlhe Ohio,
the Klentucky, and the Cumberland, were not more barbarians
in the countries of tlheir adoption, than they had been in those
of their nativity, but were, in all respects, types of the civilization left behind. They carried with them tlhe cultivation,
social lhabits, religious, moral a nd politi(cal princil)les in -which
the- had been nurtured, and made themi the pl'(eCdelts and
basis of action, private and public, in the new homes of their
choice; and hence was seen a phenomenon more magiical, and
not less supernatural, or less in accordance with the laws of
ordinary expectation, than the growth of the armed men firom
the dragons teeth sown by Cudimus, of States andl comDiunnities,
with constitutions and forms of government surpassilig the
ideals of antiquity, if not even the con-crete forms of' ilodern
States, springing up with the suddenness of a necromnantic vision, not upol the ruins of the primiitive forest,, l)ut side t)by side
with, aud under the very shelter of its trees. It is true, thlese
States and comnuitinities imav have lacked( that elecienat of social
homog(eneousness wNhich only comes by tiime; tlhey nmay have
been (leficient in fine houses and ornamented grouldls, and( other
symbols of advanced civ-ilization; tlhey may have lI.cked tailors
and /)o(tis.tes, barbers, v(ilets de c/ianlibe, and dealers iii purples
and fine linens, in unguents and spices; they maiy lave had- all
the faiults which spring fromg isolation of positioii, fromn necessary self reliance, firon sparseness of population, frioin inlperfect
means of commrunication, fiomn remoteness froi (cntres of
society and commierce; but still their condition wais not thlit of
barbtarli.sll, nor aI state even pioximate to it. The A)bb1)6 Peigord, to call 3M. De Talleyrand by his proper, as well as more
104