The Lansing state Republican. [volume] (Lansing, Mich.) 1855-1874, 1861-11-20
THE YANKEE As HE Is.

The Yankee character has wanted neither
mics in the persons OF those unskIil:ul painter,
who have given to it that hardness, snguiarit,
and wait OF proper perspective which in truth
belonged, not TO their subject, but to their OWL
niggard and unskiul pencil New England
WAS not so much a colony OF the mother country
as Hagar driven forth into the wilderness. The
little sell exiled band, which came here in l62O
came, not 10 seek gold, but to found democ
racy. They came that they might have rhe priv
iiese to work aud pray, to sit upon hard benches
and listen to painful preachers as they would,
Yea, even unto The thirty seventhy, il the spirit
SO wi!ed II. And surely il the Greek might
boast his Thermopyl@ where three hund, ed men
| felh IN resisting the Persian, We may well be
proud of our Plymouth rock, where a handful
OF men, women and children, not merely faced.
but vanquIshed winter, famine, the wilderness,
aud yet more invisible stOrye that drew them
back to the green island far away. These found
no lotus growing upon the surly shore, the taste
OF which could make them forget their little ma
tive Ithaca; nor we're they 50 wanting in faith
as to burn their ship, but could see the fair west
wind belly the homew ard sail, and then turn un
repinlng to grapple with she terrible u known.
As want was the prime toe these hardy exc
dists had to fOrtify themselves against, SO ir is
wearing cut the stock. The wounds of the old
warfare we're long healing, and any cast wicd OF
hard times put Dew ache in every one Of them.
Thrift was the first lesson in their hornbook,
pointed out, letter after letter, by the hard Gu.
ger Of the hard schOOlmsster, necessity Meth
er we're those plump, rosy -giied Euglishmen that
came hither, but hard-fsce, attra0llious, earn.
est-eyed race, stiff from long wrestling with the
Lord in prayer, and who taught Satan to dread
the new Puritan hug. Add Two hundred years
Influence OF soil, climate and exposure, with its
necessary result OF idOsyncracies, aud we have
the present Yankee, full Of expedlents, halt
master OF all trades, inventive in all but the beau.
tiful, fui Of shifts, not yet capable Of cOmtolt,
armed at all points against the old enemy hunger,
good st patching not so careful for what s best
AS what will do, with clasp to his purse, and a
button to bis pocket, not skilled u build against
time, as in the old countries, but against sore
pressing need, accustomed to move the world
with no support bus his own two feet, and no
lever but his own forecast. A strange hybrid
indeed did circumstance beget, here in the new
world, upon the Puritan stock, and the earth
never before saw such mystic practicalism, such
niggard geniality, such closefsted generosity,
such calculating fanatacism, such csst-irOn en-.
tbusiasm, such sour faced humor. He will make
hsihS OUT OF anything. lie Will invent new
trades as well as tools. His brain is his capital,
aud he will get education at all risks. Put him
on Juan Fernandex, and he would make spell
ing book fret and Q salt pan afterwards. Yet,
after all, thin speculative Jonathan is more like
The Englshman Of two centuries ago than John
Bull himself is. John Bull has suffered the idea
oi the Invisible to be very much fattened out Of
him. Jonathan is still conscious that he lives in
the world of the unseen ~ we'll az the seen. To
move John you must make your fulcrum of solid
beer and pudding; an abstract Idea will do for
kussei LOsceI.