Fox in Kentucky to discover the heroic and sentimental qualities of the
breed among its highland fastnesses of the Great Smoky and Cumberland
Mountains. Here again formulas sprang up and so stifled the free growth
of observation that, though a multitude of stories has been written
about the mountains, almost all of them may be resolved into themes as
few in number as those which succeeded nearer Tidewater: how a stranger
man comes into the mountains, loves the flower of all the native
maidens, and clashes with the suspicions or jealousies of her
neighborhood; how two clans have been worn away by a long vendetta until
only one representative of each clan remains and the two forgive and
forget among the ruins; how a band of highlanders defend themselves
against the invading minions of a law made for the nation at large but
hardly applicable to highland circumstances; how the mountain virtues in
some way or other prove superior to the softer virtues--almost vices by
comparison--of the world of plains and cities. These formulas, however,
resulted from another cause than the popular complacency which hated to
be disturbed in Virginia and Louisiana. The mountain people,
inarticulate themselves, have uniformly been seen from the outside and
therefore have been studied in their surface peculiarities more often
than in their deeper traits of character. And, having once entered the
realm of legend, they continue to be known by the half-dozen
distinguishing features which in legend are always enough for any type.

In the North and West, of course, much the same process went on as in
the South among the local colorists, conditioned by the same demands and
pressures. Because the territory was wider, however, in the expanding
sections, the types of character there were somewhat less likely to be
confined to one locality than in the section which for a time had a ring
drawn round it by its past and by the difficulty of emerging from it;
and because the career of North and West was not definitely interrupted