two strayed from the fold of strict allegiance,
the majority were cruel in punishment. They became persecutors for what
they believed was righteousness' sake, and their cruelty was the more
severe because it was based, as they believed, upon a superior morality.
And so they grew, as an American historian has said, to hate the
toleration for which they once fought, to deplore the liberty of
conscience for whose sake they had been ready to face exile. What in
themselves they praised for liberty and toleration, they denounced in
others as carelessness or heresy. So they cultivated a hard habit of
thought; so they esteemed too seriously the efforts they made in
the cause of freedom; so they still exaggerate the importance of the
Revolution, which the passage of time should compel them to regard with
a cold and dispassionate eye.

But if in a certain pitilessness of character the New Englanders are
more English than the English, they still resemble the Puritans of the
seventeenth century in their love of a well-ordered life. It was in
their towns and villages that the old colonial life flourished to the
wisest purpose. The houses which they built, and which still stand, are
the perfection of elegance and comfort. The simplicity of their aspect
is matched by the beauty which confronts you when once you have crossed
the threshold. The columns which flank the porch, the pilasters which
break the monotony of the wooden walls, are but a faint indication of
the elegance within. Like the palaces of the Moors, they reserve the
best of themselves for the interior, and reveal all their beauty only to
their intimates. The light staircases, with turned rails and lyre-shaped
ends; the panelled rooms; the dainty fireplaces, adorned with Dutch
tiles; the English furniture, which has not left its first home; the
spacious apartments, of which the outside gives no warning,--these
impart a quiet dignity, a pleasant refinement, to the colonial houses
which no distance of time or space can impair. There is a house at
Kittery of which the planks were cut out there in the forest, were sent
to England to be carved and shaped, and were then returned to their
native woodland to be fashioned into a house. Thus it belongs to two
worlds, and thus it is emblematic of the New Englanders who dwell about
it, and who, owing their allegiance to a new country, yet retain the
impress of a character which was their ancestors' almost three centuries
ago.