Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1859-05-05
For the YorkviIle Enquirer.
LEISURE SKETCHES.
NUMBER w.
THE INFLUENCE OF PLACES.
BY J. wooD.DAVlDsoN.

THE INFLUENCE OF PLACEs.
In connection with the Py,iognomy Of Places,
I wish to throw out few suggestions on the infu
ence of place upon the character Of the inhabi-
tants. If places have physiognomy, the perma'
uent effects of that is the matter in hand. wish
to push the question to its legitimate conclusions;
because, if places have character in themselves,
it follows that men reared within the influence OF
that character must receive some impression OF it
must become, to some degree. like the places they
inha5it Look at the indigenous II speak relative
ly) dwellers in the Sand Hills around Columbia-
| the regular Sand Hill crackers-and you have an
example of the influence Of that sterile, thirsty,
sun blasted, desolate, and hungry region upon its
inhabitants. They are perfect counterparts Of the
soil they vegetate upon-too lazy to till. They
are uucouth, rawboned, dishgured, squalid, dirty,
cadaverous, dwarfsb, ragged, grum' 7isaged,
scrawny; and look, in every item of their per-.
sonnel, unqualfedly mean. They are in all these
things like the blasted, povertystrcken sand
hills which they dwell on. They do nothing, as
the soil does nothing; and for the same reason
can't. Fail is the fate Of both. Fail is legi-
ible in every ray that lights the pitable faces Of
the Door Sand Hill Cracker. II he could be mo
we'd to more genial soil, he might do something;
but there his doom is matured. And he clings to
to it with an instructive patriotian that finds o
parallel in the wretched Esquimau1-who, cut off
from every apparent luxury and even comfort OF
life, lives suffers, and dies in his desolate snow.
house. The explanation in beth cases, by the way,
is the same-they have become adapted by the
soil to it. and cannot live in better place. But
let us look elsewhere. Compare the mountain
Scot, erect, active, hardy, y,and adventurous, with
the Enelishman of the level part Of the leland,
lymphatio, pblegmato, beefy, and rotnnd. Com
pare the Alpine Swiss with the adjacent valley
dwellers bard by
AN iron race the mountaineering maintain,
Foes to the gentcr genius OF the plain
Compare Beotia. as known to history-cold stol-
id stupid-wth the dashing Thessslian not far
north bat in widely diverse surface. Compare
the Netherlands with France-Genius, some salt
rist darss TO predict hereafter may "eren IN HoL-
LAND rise" But that is aside from my theme
Nv idea is that genius may rise anywhere, but
that the scenographical character Of the locality
will give character to the genius. H0W comes this
influence? In every Uay. The soil determines
the food Of the Inhabitants their occupation, their
habits. So upon soil depend the animals, as food
and assistants of man. The air receives from the
soil something, from the vegetation something
from animal life something-all these operate up
on the life that is maintained within it. But
design my suggestions as 'uggestl0n' merely; and
throw them out with the hope that some one
may be led, thus incidentally to the great science
that the future has in store-the greatest OF uu'
developed sciences 4orphOloSy.
OF other things again.
| COLUMBIA, s. G.