ue to this day to practise: they usually came due west from
their former homes, and were sure to select, as nearly as possible, a
new one in the same parallel, and with surroundings as nearly like
those they had left as possible. With the North Carolinian, good
spring-water, and pine-knots for his fire, were the _sine qua
non_. These secured, he went to work with the assiduity and
perseverance of a beaver to build his house and open his fields. The
Virginians, less particular, but more ambitious, sought the best lands
for grain and tobacco; consequently they were more diffused, and their
improvements, from their superior wealth, were more imposing.

Wealth in all communities is comparative, and he who has only a few
thousand dollars, where no one else has so much, is the rich man, and
ever assumes the rich man's prerogatives and bearing. All experience
has proved that as a man estimates himself, so in time will the
community esteem him; and he who assumes to lead or dictate will soon
be permitted to do so, and will become the first in prominence and
influence in his neighborhood, county, or State. Greatness commences
humbly and progresses by assumption. The humble ruler of a
neighborhood, like a pebble thrown into a pond, will continue to
increase the circle of his influence until it reaches the limits of
his county. The fathers speak of him, the children hear of him, his
name is a household word; if he but assumes enough, in time he becomes
the great man of the county; and if with impudence he unites a modicum
of talent, well larded with a cunning deceit, it will not be long
before he is Governor or member of Congress. It is not surprising,
then, that in nearly every one of these communities the great man was
a Virginian. It has been assumed by the Virginians that they have
descended from a superior race, and this may be true as regards many
families whose ancestors were of Norman descent; but it is not true of
the mass of her population; and for one descendant from the nobility
and gentry of the mother country, there are thousands of pure
Anglo-Saxon blood. It was certainly true, from the character and
abilities of her public men, in her colonial condition and in the
earlier days of the republic, she had a right to assume a superiority;
but this, I fancy, was more the result of her peculiar institutions
than of any superiority of race or greater purity of blood. I am far,
however, from underrating the influence of blo