y most readers in this country,
through the earlier novels of Cooper, their great delineator; and,
second, because, as we have intimated, our business is chiefly with
those, whose footprints have been stamped upon the country, and whose
influence is traceable in its civilization. We, therefore, now desire to
direct attention to the other sub-division--the genuine "settler;" the
firm, unflinching, permanent emigrant, who entered the country to till
the land and to possess it, for himself and his descendants.

And, in the first place, let us inquire what motives could induce men to
leave regions, where the axe had been at work for many years--where the
land was reduced to cultivation, and the forest reclaimed from the wild
beast and the wilder savage--where civilization had begun to exert its
power, and society had assumed a legal and determined shape--to depart
from all these things, seeking a new home in an inhospitable
wilderness, where they could only gain a footing by severe labor,
constant strife, and sleepless vigilance? To be capable of doing all
this, from _any_ motive, a man must be a strange compound of qualities;
but that compound, strange as it is, has done, and is doing, more to
reclaim the west, and change the wilderness into a garden, than all
other causes combined.

A prominent trait in the character of the genuine American, is the
desire "to better his condition"--a peculiarity which sometimes embodies
itself in the disposition to forget the good old maxim, "Let well-enough
alone," and not unfrequently leads to disaster and suffering. A thorough
Yankee--using that word as the English do, to indicate national, not
sectional, character--is never satisfied with doing well; he always
underrates his gains and his successes; and, though to others he may be
boastful enough, and may, even truly, rate the profits of his enterprise
by long strings of "naught," he is always whispering to himself, "I
ought to do better." If he sees any one accumulating property faster
than himself, he becomes emulous and discontented--he is apt to think,
unless he goes more rapidly than any one else, that he is not moving at
all. If he can find no one of his neighbors advancing toward fortune,
with longer strides than he, he will imagine some successful
"speculator," to whom he will compare himself, and chafe at his
inferiority to a figment of his own fancy. If he possessed "a million a
minute," he would cast about for some profi