social intercourse; and this lack tends to break down most of the
barriers which a strict convention usually establishes for the
protection, not only of sex and caste, but of its own tastes and
prejudices. Lacking the resources of superior wealth, population,
and civilization, the frontier people are naturally required to
throw the doors open as widely as possible, in order to obtain that
intercourse with their fellows which is, perhaps, the first great
craving of humanity. As a matter of necessity, there is little
discrimination exercised in the admission of their guests. A specious
outside, agreeable manners, cleverness and good humor, will soon
make their way into confidence, without requiring other guaranties
for the moral of the stranger. The people are naturally frank and
hospitable; for the simple reason that these qualities of character
are essential for procuring them that intercourse which they crave.
The habits are accessible, the restraints few, the sympathies are
genial, active, easily aroused, and very confiding. It follows,
naturally, that they are frequently wronged and outraged, and just
as naturally that their resentments are keen, eager, and vindictive.
The self-esteem, if not watchful, is revengeful; and society sanctions
promptly the fierce redress--that wild justice of revenge--which
punishes without appeal to law, with its own right hand, the
treacherous guest who has abused the unsuspecting confidence which
welcomed him to a seat upon the sacred hearth. In this brief portrait
of the morale of society, upon our frontiers, you will find the
materiel from which this story has been drawn, and its justification,
as a correct delineation of border life in one of its more settled
phases in the new states. The social description of Charlemont
exhibits, perhaps, a THIRD advance in our forest civilization, from
the original settlement.