Buckle on civilization, and
I reflected upon the subject. Being in a great assembly, once or twice,
listening to abolitionist orators, lay and clerical, and hearing their
vile assaults on personal character, their vulgar and reckless ridicule
of fifteen States of our Union, their affected, oracular way of saying
the most trite things as though they were aphorisms, but reminding me of
the piles of short stuff which you see round a saw-mill, and hearing the
great throng applaud and shout, I asked myself whether we have really
made any decided advances in civilization since the Hebrew Commonwealth.
I really doubted whether those orators could have collected an audience
of Hebrews even in the wilderness. Under the "Judges," the people were,
at times, low enough to enjoy such drivelling. The willingness at the
North to hear these men, and to applaud them, gave me a low idea of the
state of society.'
"'But,' said I, 'confess now that you found specimens of cultivated life
there such as you never saw surpassed.'
"'I did,' said he, 'many times. And I must tell you,' he added, 'of my
enjoyment in looking on your pastures in autumn,--the sun shining aslant
upon them of an afternoon,--and in noticing what shades of scarlet and
crimson were given to the picture by the whortleberry leaves, which, I
found, contributed most to the coloring of the landscape.
Pages:
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276