stic circle, and during early life. It is a deficiency
in the free expression of kindly feelings and sympathetic emotions, and
a want of courtesy in deportment. The causes, which have led to this
result, may easily be traced.

The forefathers of this Nation, to a wide extent, were men who were
driven from their native land, by laws and customs which they believed
to be opposed both to civil and religious freedom. The sufferings they
were called to endure, the subduing of those gentler feelings which bind
us to country, kindred, and home, and the constant subordination of the
passions to stern principle, induced characters of great firmness and
self-control. They gave up the comforts and refinements of a civilized
country, and came, as pilgrims, to a hard soil, a cold clime, and a
heathen shore. They were continually forced to encounter danger,
privations, sickness, loneliness, and death; and all these, their
religion taught them to meet with calmness, fortitude, and submission.
And thus it became the custom and habit of the whole mass, to repress,
rather than to encourage, the expression of feeling.

Persons who are called to constant and protracted suffering and
privation, are forced to subdue and conceal emotion; for the free
expression of it would double their own suffering, and increase the
sufferings of others. Those, only, who are free from care and anxiety,
and whose minds are mainly occupied by cheerful emotions, are at full
liberty to unveil their feelings.

It was under such stern and rigorous discipline, that the first children
in New England were reared; and the manners and habits of parents are
usually, to a great extent, transmitted to children. Thus it comes to
pass, that the descendants of the Puritans, now scattered over every
part of the Nation, are predisposed to conceal the gentler emotions,
while their manners are calm, decided, and cold, rather than free and
impulsive. Of course, there are very many exceptions to these
predominating results.

The causes, to which we may attribute a general want of courtesy in
manners, are certain incidental results of our democratic institutions.
Our ancestors, and their descendants, have constantly been combating the
aristocratic principle, which would exalt one class of men at the
expense of another. They have had to contend with this principle, not
only in civil, but in social, life. Almost every American, in his own
person, as well as in behalf of his class