Rural Economy in New England 369 



Revolution up to 1810, praising the beauty and ease of the life of the 

 rural population. A quotation from Dwight is typical. In a chapter 

 on the Mode of Living of New Englanders, he says: "The means of 

 comfortable living are in New England so abundant, and so easily 

 obtained as to be within the reach of every man who has health, in- 

 dustry, common honesty, and common sense. "^ In another passage 

 he uses such phrases as "comfortable subsistence," "universally 

 easy circumstances, " and "universal prosperity, "^ in describing the 

 life observed in his travels. Surely such expressions do not describe 

 an especially arduous existence; far more do they remind us of the 

 descriptions of that land flowing with milk and honey, the Promised 

 Land of the ancient Hebrews. The apparent lack of agreement 

 between such opinions and the conditions which we have de- 

 scribed in this chapter may be explained by a number of consid- 

 erations. In the first place, we must remember that the stand- 

 ards of measurement used by the writers of that time were not 

 those of today. When they said that living in New England at that 

 time was easy or comfortable, they did not mean absolutely so, but 

 in comparison with conditions of life in some other country, or in New 

 England at some former time. The conditions with which they 

 were most familiar and which they undoubtedly used as a standard 

 of comparison were those of frontier life in this country and of the 

 common people of Europe in the eighteenth century.^ Judged by 

 either of these standards, life was easy and comfortable; judged by 

 our standards, however, it was far different. 



Then, again, we must take into account the fondness of all literary 

 travelers, and President Dwight was no exception, for sweeping 

 generalizations and large, well-sounding, mouth-filling phrases. For 

 the economic historian a few bits of specific information are worth 

 far more as evidence and should be given credence when they are in 

 conflict with the former. Considerable of this specific evidence has 

 been given in previous sections of this chapter."* Even if, however, 



1 Travels, IV. 341. 



2 Ibid., I. XV. 



' As a matter of fact, we find these comparisons specifically made. See Dwight, 

 Travels, II. 254, and American Husbandry, I. 70. 



* See supra pp. 355-365. Such a seemingly unimportant point as the use or 

 lack of shoes and stockings by country people has significance. There is abundant 

 evidence that they did not feel they could afford these articles except as protection 

 against the cold and for especial occasions, such as the Sunday religious services. 

 See Wansey, Journal, p. 71; Harriott, Struggles through Life, II. 54; Lamed, 

 History of Wmdham, II. 388-389; New Hampshire Historical Society Collections. 

 10 vols. 1824-1893. Vol. V. (1837), pp. 226-227. 



