Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1888-12-28
THE FRENCH cREoLEs.
Some Of the Peculiarities of This sirnpl
Minded PeouJe

Some Of the Peculiarities of This Simple
Minded People.
The French creoles of the lower class are a
hand to mouth class of people, purchasing
the stick of wood today and the handful of
herbs that are to cook and season their DO
tage, filling their small market baskets with
innumerable pinches of this, that and the
other, laying in a few sous of sugar and cof-
fee at time, and-going next day, for 365
days in the year, and doing identically the
same thing, in saecula saculorum. Dislike to
the accumulation of household goods, to we'll
stored cellars and pantries, to generous
abundance. to picturesque profusion, to the
essentials of a large handed hospitality even
within the narrow limits of their neighbour
hood acquaintance, an ant like economy and
abstemiousness, curious juxtaposition of
eternal self restraint and passion for sensa-
tions, colors, Sounds perfumes, fantastic SEN
sualities, an instinct for microscopic money
getting welded to an instinct that has filed
New Orleans with noble institutions for the
poor, the blind, the sick, the world weary; a
passion for novels and for splendid churches, a
fond endurance of rigors of cold and hunger
for the brilliant af1orescence of carene-
prenant and Carnival, a voluntary exile from
all laughter and joy that their feet may
twinkle a night or two on the mirrored floors
of the masque balls down in Charities and
Royal streets; such are the fragments Of
sweet and bitter herbs that go make up
part.of the paradox of creole character and
communicate to it an indefinable piquancy
and strangeness by their thick bars of light
and shadow.
The chief charm of this character is o
touching gentleness and benignity that blends
all other characteristics and permeates tho
whole constitution of the native creole. There
is something elegiac, tender, dreamy about
the race, remnant or recollection Of earlier
and better days, an aroma of exile coming
from old colonial times, when SO many emil =
grated from the gay fatherland to the track
less wilderness of Louisiana, seeking their
fortunes. Disappointment seems to have i'm
pressed itself as trait of heredity on their
spiritual make up; a brooding languor has
spread from the luxurious climate through
the limbs and constitutions of the imni-
grants, the adventurous spirit Of the mar
velous brothers Bienville, Iberville and Sau-
vale, laid under perpetual embargo by
Chinese wall of swamp, bayou and bogue,
has sunk into curious psychological numb
ness and content with surroundings; geogra-
ply, exploration, literature, research, travel
beyond the inevitable transit to France once
in lifetime) are unknown luxuries to these
lotus eating folk, and in their way they are
as still in their sunny corner as the sun
loving alligator that haunts their streams.
The CUSTOMS games and sports of these
exiles are full of "reminiscences of the father
land, mingled with odd accretions and after
growths, clinging conservatism, a poetic
susceptibility. There are songs and Christ
mas customs smacking of Gascony, Provence,
Champagne, San Domingo, Franche-C omte,
such as linger in Canada and form touching
links with the folk over the sea.-James A.
Harrison in Autrefois.