stranger would be received and welcomed; Christmas would be kept in
hearty English fashion; young men from a neighboring estate would
ride over through the darkening woods to court, or dance, or play
the fiddle, like Patrick Henry or Thomas Jefferson; and these simple
events were all that made a ripple on the placid stream. Much time was
given to sports, rough, hearty, manly sports, with a spice of danger,
and these, with an occasional adventurous dash into the wilderness,
kept them sound and strong and brave, both in body and mind. There was
nothing languid or effeminate about the Virginian planter. He was a
robust man, quite ready to fight or work when the time came, and well
fitted to deal with affairs when he was needed. He was a free-handed,
hospitable, generous being, not much given to study or thought, but
thoroughly public-spirited and keenly alive to the interests of
Virginia. Above all things he was an aristocrat, set apart by the
dark line of race, color, and hereditary servitude, as proud as the
proudest Austrian with his endless quarterings, as sturdy and vigorous
as an English yeoman, and as jealous of his rights and privileges
as any baron who stood by John at Runnymede. To this aristocracy,
careless and indolent, given to rough pleasures and indifferent to the
finer and higher sides of life, the call came, as it comes to all men
sooner or later, and in response they gave their country soldiers,
statesmen, and jurists of the highest order, and fit for the great
work they were asked to do. We must go back to Athens to find another
instance of a society so small in numbers, and yet capable of such an
outburst of ability and force. They were of sound English stock, with
a slight admixture of the Huguenots, the best blood of France; and
although for a century and a half they had seemed to stagnate in
the New World, they were strong, fruitful, and effective beyond the
measure of ordinary races when the hour of peril and trial was at
hand.