ng common-sense which is New England's
strong point. Here is hinted, also, that philosophic humor which is the
one ray lightening her intense realism.

As indefinable as it is delightful, it comes with a lightning flash of
wit into the dry, theological conversation of the preacher, relieves
with its sharp hits the spread-eagle speech of the country orator,
brightens with its apt allusions the more refined periods of the
lecturer, flits charmingly in and out of the sympathetic essays of
Holmes, keeps us in a perpetual chuckle over the mirthful pages of
Irving, and embodies itself in the quaint good-nature of an indolent,
contemplative Sam Lawson.

For nowhere is this genial quality found in such purity as among the
true, rustic Yankees, whose clear-cut, homely phrases and sharp
localisms are not as entirely extinct as is supposed. Country life has a
way all its own of preserving the best traits of a people, and in more
than one old-fashioned farm-house, and among the haymakers in more than
one sunny meadow, may be heard the witty expressions and strong
metaphors which led Dickens to say, "In shrewdness of remark and a
certain cast-iron quaintness the Yankee people unquestionably take the
lead."

In the country, too, as if growing and blossoming under the influence
of the warm, unobstructed sunshine, is the sturdy growth of genuineness,
hearty, cooperative sympathy, and cheery hospitality, the latter having
its highest exponent in New England's distinctive festival,
Thanksgiving. The dear old holiday may well be called the cradle of New
England graces, for it bears much the same relation to the development
of her social traits that the old Greek and Roman games bore in
developing characteristics of strength and bravery.

To return to the criticism of foreigners. The absence of historic
records and relics in New England has often been a matter of contempt,
and an amusing story is told by J. T. Fields of a stiff, conventional
Englishman who called on the poet Longfellow at one of his busiest
hours, and scanning him closely, gravely remarked: "We were doing the
sights, sir, and as there are no ruins in New England, we decided to
come and see you!"

We smile at the strange idea, but is there not in it a tacit admission
that New England's men and women of letters are her best
characteristics? Is it not to her glory that hers is _not_ a country of
ruins but one of noble, earnest, _living_ men and women?--men like Dr.
Hal