otherwise appear naked and severe.

Another characteristic, traceable to the same source, the stern reality
of his life, is the pioneer's gravity.

The agricultural population of this country are, at the best, not a
cheerful race. Though they sometimes join in festivities, it is but
seldom; and the wildness of their dissipation is too often in proportion
to its infrequency. There is none of the serene contentment--none of
that smiling enjoyment--which, according to travellers like Howitt,
distinguishes the tillers of the ground in other lands. _Sedateness_ is
a national characteristic, but the gravity of the pioneer is quite
another thing; it includes pride and personal dignity, and indicates a
stern, unyielding temper. There is, however, nothing morose in it: it is
its aspect alone, which forbids approach; and that only makes more
conspicuous the heartiness of your reception, when once the shell is
broken. Acquainted with the character, you do not expect him to _smile_
much; but now and then he _laughs_: and that laugh is round, free, and
hearty. You know at once that he enjoys it, you are convinced that he is
a firm friend and "a good hater."

It is not surprising, with a character such as I have described, that
the pioneer is not gregarious, that he is, indeed, rather solitary.
Accordingly, we never find a genuine specimen of the class, among the
emigrants, who come in shoals and flocks, and pitch their tents in
"colonies;" who lay out towns and cities, projected upon paper, and call
them New Boston, New Albany, or New Hartford, before one log is placed
upon another; nor are there many of the unadulterated stock among that
other class, who come from regions further south, and christen their
towns, classically, Carthage, Rome, or Athens: or, patriotically, in
commemoration of some Virginian worthy, some Maryland sharpshooter, or
"Jersey blue."

The real pioneer never emigrates gregariously; he does not wish to be
within "halloo" of his nearest neighbor; he is no city-builder; and, if
he does project a town, he christens it by some such name as Boonville
or Clarksville, in memory of a noted pioneer: or Jacksonville or
Waynesville, to commemorate some "old hero" who was celebrated for good
fighting.[73] And the reason why the outlandish and _outre_ so much
predominate in the names of western towns and cities, must be sought in
the fact referred to above, that the western man is not essentially a
town-projector