an English Utopia can safely be pronounced perfect without 

 some such modest tribunal to afford vent for that ever-germin- 

 ating desire for battle inherent in the race. 



Their manners were natural, cordial, and full of a light- 

 some heartiness that robed accost with sunshine, — a quietude 

 withal — that rare quality — that irked them not at all — one 

 gathered from their Indian kin-folk. Their knowledge of 

 each other was simply universal— their kin ties almost as gen- 

 eral. These ties were brightened and friendships reknit in 

 the holiday season of the year, the leisure of the long winters, 

 when the far-scattered hewn log houses — small to the eye — 

 were ever found large enough to hold the welcome arrivals, — 

 greeted with a kiss that said, " I am of your blood." These 

 widespread affiliations broke down aught like "caste." Wealth 

 or official position were practically unheeded by a people in no 

 fear of want and unaccustomed to luxuries, who sought their ■ 

 kinswoman and her brood for themselves, not what they had 

 in store. The children and grandchildren of men, however 

 assured in fortune or position, wove anew equalizing ties, 

 seeking out their mates as they came to hand ; hence a genial, 

 not a downward level, putting to shame fine-spun theories of 

 democracy in other lands — spun, not worn. 



This satisfaction of station — as said — grew out of the 

 slight exertion necessary for all the wants of life, with un- 

 limited choice of the finest land on the continent ; the waters 

 alive with fish and aquatic fowl ; rabbits and prairie fowl at 

 times by actual cart-load ; elk not far, and countless buffalo 

 behind, — furnishing meat, bedding, clothing and shoes to any 

 who could muster a cart or go in search ; the woods and 

 plains in season, ripe with delicious wild fruit, for present use 

 or dried for winter, — the whole backed by abundant bread- 

 stuffs. The quota of the farmers along the rivers, whose 

 fertile banks were dotted by windmills, whose great arms 

 staved the inconstant winds, and yoked the fickle couriers to 

 the great car of general plenty. 



Poverty in one sense certainly existed; age and improvi- 

 dence are always with us, but it was not obtrusive, made 



