"stuck up;" and if they can get the reputation of being able to
mow more grass, or pitch more hay, or chop and pile more wood, or
cradle more grain, than any of their neighbors, their ambition is
satisfied. There is no dignity of life in their homes. They cook
and eat and live in the same room, and sometimes sleep there, if
there should be room enough for a bed. There is no family life
that is not associated with work, and no thought of any life that
is not connected with bodily labor; and if they sit down five
minutes, either at home or at church, they go to sleep. Their
highest intellectual exercise is that which is called out by the
process of swapping horses, and the selling of their weekly
product of eggs and butter at the highest market price. They
invariably call their wives--"the old woman," or "she;" and if
they should stumble into saying, "my dear," in the presence of a
neighbor, they would blush at being self-convicted of unjustifiable
politeness and unpardonable weakness.

These men have learned to read, but they rarely read any thing,
except the weekly newspaper, taken exclusively for the probate
notices. The only books in their houses are the Bible and two
or three volumes forced upon them at unguarded moments by
book-agents, who made the most of internal wood-cuts, and external
Dutch metal to place them in possession of the "History of the
World," or the "Lives of the Presidents," or some other production
equally extensive and comprehensive. There is no exhibition of
taste about their dwellings. Every thing is brought down to the
hard standard of use. If their wives should desire a border for
flowers, they regard them as very silly, and look upon their
attempts to "fix up things" as a great waste of labor. They never
go out with their wives to mingle in the social life of their