TH^ MAKING OF AN AMERICAN 7I 



hospitality of the people made little need for 

 houses of public entertainment. 



It was the better side of the Southern life that 

 Wilson was unable to see ; for whatever else they 

 were the Southerners were a people of aristo- 

 cratic traditions, and a man who came among 

 them an unintroduced stranger taking subscrip- 

 tions for a book which most of them knew and 

 asked little about, naturally enough did not see 

 the best that was here, any more than he had 

 done in New England. "As to the character of 

 the North Carolinians," he added, "were I to 

 judge of it by the specimens I met with in tav- 

 erns, I should pronounce them to be the most ig- 

 norant, debased, indolent and dissipated portion 

 of the Union. But I became acquainted with a 

 few such noble exceptions, that, for their sakes, 

 I am willing to believe that they are all better 

 than they seemed to be." Here is merely an ex- 

 ample of the truth that every chance traveler 

 must remember — it is the scum of society, as well 

 as of other things, that is always seen the easiest, 

 because it floats on the surface. Wilson was a 

 man whom his best friends found of the "genus 

 irritahile," and any discourtesy or inattention 

 shown to him he deeply resented and was slow 

 to forget. Under the influence of the tempera- 

 mental effects of some real or supposed slight he 

 undoubtedly saw the darker side of things. It is 

 not strange then that after several unanswered 

 requests for lists of probable subscribers to his 

 "Ornithology" he should declare the Southern 

 people to be cursed with an "abject and disgrace- 



