The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1880-09-09
Old.Fashioned Southerners.

1t was my fortune, not long since, to
spend fortnight in the centre or one OF
these isolated districts. The family with
whom | boarded seemed a curious re-
production of colonial life. 1t consisted
of father, mother and two daughters.
They were people of marked intelligence,
but their habits and modes of thought
were those of revolutionary times The
father, fine specimen of hale age, called
himself estingly ga blue line federalist.'
Their stock quotations were from Bos-
we'll and Pepys, and although they were
familiar with literature up to the begin
ming of the century, they seemed quite
unaware that anything had been written
since. I happened one day to speak of
Dombey and Son, when Mrs - said
that she chad heard it was very well
written" After that | confined myself
to Shakespeare and DR.. johnson. Mr..
- assured me that he and his friends
had been vehemently opposed to the or
dinance of secession, but had been car
ried away by the tide. If we can trust
evidence of this kind, there were no
original secessonists in the South, but
each man was hurried along against his
Judgment by the pressure of all the rest.
| have no doubt, though, that my friend
spoke the truth, for he IS a brave, sim
pie soul. In all matters of political his
tory his knowledge was accurate and his
congratulations broad. | do not know
that ever heard man talk as well ON
the subject. On everything connected
with physical science his ideas were
those of a child He accounted for
heavy rain by saying that ga cloud
struck the side OF the mountain and
bursted." | noticed that any attempt
to explain natural phenomena was dis
tasteful to him as bordering on irrever-
ence. He had in his employ number
of negroes as farm hands, and told me
he was convinced that, from an econon-
ical point of view, free labor was much
to be preferred to slave. The war
had ruined him, but in the last two
years he had begun to recover, and in
ten years he hoped to be much better
off than ever. This from man of
seventy AlOuctI tS-tiltitNN HUI
not reached him." Fortunately Sher-
mans advance guard had not reached
him, either, before the resembling Of tie
order for subsisting on the country So
the old house and irregular out buildings
stood as they had been built sixty years
ago. The house was a hideous rectan-
guar brick structure, with Greclan
/ portico in front and rear But it had
such an air of being firmly rooted in the
ground, its original incongruities had
been so harmonlzed by time and by the
vines and struggling rose bushes growing
on it, it had so much honesty and so
little sentimentalism, that its ugliness
was not displeasing. Within, not bit
of modern furniture or modern orna-
mentation, or a modern book or maya
zine, was to be seen. SCOTS novels
were apparently the last thing out.
Mr.. - told r4e that he had read them
aloud to his family six times.
The young ladies were rather more
than pretty, and they and their father
would have appeared to marked advan-
tage in any society. In their manners
there was no restlessness and no effort,
but mixture OF dignity and careless
bonhomie that is quite Undesirable and
altogether charming. The perfection of
their physical health, which made ride
of twenty miles on horseback a matter
of indifference, was apparent IN every
free, natural movement. Fine health,
which in the North gives rise to eXuber-
ant animal spirits and desire for bodily
exertion, in the South seems to result in
a well-balanced nervous organization and
a sound physical basis, quite superior to
the necessity for daily exercise. These
people were entirely different from the
conventional idea of Southerners, and
instance them to show that there are
here and there families in the South in
which the old type of life and the old
fashioned love of the country survives.
September Atlantic.
To KEEP OUT FLIES lady writes