A Rebel's Recollections

Nonfiction, Religion & Spirituality, New Age, History, Fiction & Literature
Cover of the book A Rebel's Recollections by George Cary Eggleston, Library of Alexandria
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: George Cary Eggleston ISBN: 9781465504586
Publisher: Library of Alexandria Publication: March 8, 2015
Imprint: Language: English
Author: George Cary Eggleston
ISBN: 9781465504586
Publisher: Library of Alexandria
Publication: March 8, 2015
Imprint:
Language: English

It was a very beautiful and enjoyable life that the Virginians led in that ancient time, for it certainly seems ages ago, before the war came to turn ideas upside down and convert the picturesque commonwealth into a commonplace, modern state. It was a soft, dreamy, deliciously quiet life, a life of repose, an old life, with all its sharp corners and rough surfaces long ago worn round and smooth. Everything fitted everything else, and every point in it was so well settled as to leave no work of improvement for anybody to do. The Virginians were satisfied with things as they were, and if there were reformers born among them, they went elsewhere to work changes. Society in the Old Dominion was like a well rolled and closely packed gravel walk, in which each pebble has found precisely the place it fits best. There was no giving way under one's feet, no uncomfortable grinding of loose materials as one walked about over the firm and long-used ways of the Virginian social life. Let me hasten to say that I do not altogether approve of that life by any means. That would be flat blasphemy against the god Progress, and I have no stomach for martyrdom, even of our modern, fireless sort. I frankly admit in the outset, therefore, that the Virginians of that old time, between which and the present there is so great a gulf fixed, were idle people. I am aware that they were, when I lived among them, extravagant for the most part, and in debt altogether. It were useless to deny that they habitually violated all the wise precepts laid down in the published writings of Poor Richard, and set at naught the whole gospel of thrift. But their way of living was nevertheless a very agreeable one to share or to contemplate, the more because there was nothing else like it anywhere in the land. A whole community, with as nearly as possible nothing to do, is apt to develop a considerable genius for enjoyment, and the Virginians, during somewhat more than two centuries of earnest and united effort in that direction, had partly discovered and partly created both a science and an art of pleasant living. Add to idleness and freedom from business cares a climate so perfect that existence itself is a luxury within their borders, and we shall find no room for wonder that these people learned how to enjoy themselves. What they learned, in this regard, they remembered too. Habits and customs once found good were retained, I will not say carefully,—for that would imply effort, and the Virginians avoided effort always,—but tenaciously. The Virginians were born conservatives, constitutionally opposed to change. They loved the old because it was old, and disliked the new, if for no better reason, because it was new; for newness and rawness were well-nigh the same in their eyes.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

It was a very beautiful and enjoyable life that the Virginians led in that ancient time, for it certainly seems ages ago, before the war came to turn ideas upside down and convert the picturesque commonwealth into a commonplace, modern state. It was a soft, dreamy, deliciously quiet life, a life of repose, an old life, with all its sharp corners and rough surfaces long ago worn round and smooth. Everything fitted everything else, and every point in it was so well settled as to leave no work of improvement for anybody to do. The Virginians were satisfied with things as they were, and if there were reformers born among them, they went elsewhere to work changes. Society in the Old Dominion was like a well rolled and closely packed gravel walk, in which each pebble has found precisely the place it fits best. There was no giving way under one's feet, no uncomfortable grinding of loose materials as one walked about over the firm and long-used ways of the Virginian social life. Let me hasten to say that I do not altogether approve of that life by any means. That would be flat blasphemy against the god Progress, and I have no stomach for martyrdom, even of our modern, fireless sort. I frankly admit in the outset, therefore, that the Virginians of that old time, between which and the present there is so great a gulf fixed, were idle people. I am aware that they were, when I lived among them, extravagant for the most part, and in debt altogether. It were useless to deny that they habitually violated all the wise precepts laid down in the published writings of Poor Richard, and set at naught the whole gospel of thrift. But their way of living was nevertheless a very agreeable one to share or to contemplate, the more because there was nothing else like it anywhere in the land. A whole community, with as nearly as possible nothing to do, is apt to develop a considerable genius for enjoyment, and the Virginians, during somewhat more than two centuries of earnest and united effort in that direction, had partly discovered and partly created both a science and an art of pleasant living. Add to idleness and freedom from business cares a climate so perfect that existence itself is a luxury within their borders, and we shall find no room for wonder that these people learned how to enjoy themselves. What they learned, in this regard, they remembered too. Habits and customs once found good were retained, I will not say carefully,—for that would imply effort, and the Virginians avoided effort always,—but tenaciously. The Virginians were born conservatives, constitutionally opposed to change. They loved the old because it was old, and disliked the new, if for no better reason, because it was new; for newness and rawness were well-nigh the same in their eyes.

More books from Library of Alexandria

Cover of the book A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba by George Cary Eggleston
Cover of the book The Secrets of Potsdam by George Cary Eggleston
Cover of the book Mysteries of the Qabalah by George Cary Eggleston
Cover of the book Christmas in Legend and Story: A Book for Boys and Girls by George Cary Eggleston
Cover of the book The Honour of Savelli: A Romance by George Cary Eggleston
Cover of the book The Haute Noblesse: A Novel by George Cary Eggleston
Cover of the book Civilization and Beyond: Learning From History by George Cary Eggleston
Cover of the book Angel Agnes: the Heroine of the Yellow Fever Plague in Shreveport by George Cary Eggleston
Cover of the book Bell's Cathedrals: A Short Account of Romsey Abbey, A Description of the Fabric and Notes on the History of the Convent of Ss. Mary & Ethelfleda by George Cary Eggleston
Cover of the book Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving by George Cary Eggleston
Cover of the book The Motor Girls at Lookout Beach in Quest of The Runaways by George Cary Eggleston
Cover of the book The Swastika: The Earliest Known Symbol and Its Migration with Observations on the Migration of Certain Industries in Prehistoric Times by George Cary Eggleston
Cover of the book Shorty McCabe by George Cary Eggleston
Cover of the book Ardath by George Cary Eggleston
Cover of the book The Uttermost Farthing: A Savant's Vendetta by George Cary Eggleston
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy