the march of progress. There is nothing in its peaceful
recesses to tempt the cosmopolitan horde which throngs the great cities
of America. The hope of gain is there as small as the opportunity of
gambling. A quiet folk, devoted to fishery and agriculture, is not worth
plundering.

So it is there, if anywhere, that you may surprise the true-born
American, and when you have surprised him, he very much resembles your
own compatriot. His type and gesture are as familiar to you as his
surroundings. Slow of speech and movement, he has not yet acquired the
exhausting, purposeless love of speed which devours the more modern
cities. He goes about his work with a perfect consciousness that there
are four-and-twenty hours in the day. And as he is not the victim of an
undue haste, he has leisure for a gracious civility. It is not for him
to address a stranger with the familiarity characteristic of New York or
Chicago. Though he know it not, and perhaps would resent it if he knew
it, he is profoundly influenced by his origin. He has not lost the high
seriousness, the quiet gravity, which distinguished his ancestors.

His towns, in aspect and sentiment, closely resemble himself.
Portsmouth, for instance, which has not the same reason for
self-consciousness as Salem or Concord, has retained the authentic
features of the mother-land. You might easily match it in Kent or Essex.
The open space in the centre of the town, the Athenaeum--in style, name,
and purpose, alike English--are of another age and country than their
own. There is a look of trim elegance everywhere, which refreshes the
eye; and over the streets there broods an immemorial peace, which even
the echoing clangour of the Navy Yard cannot dispel. The houses, some
of wood, built after the Colonial manner, others of red brick, and of a
grave design, are in perfect harmony with their surroundings. Nothing
is awry: nothing is out of place. And so severely consistent is the
impression of age, that down on the sunlit quay, flanked by the lofty
warehouses, the slope of whose roofs is masked by corbie-steps, you are
surprised not to see riding at anchor the high-prowed galleons of the
seventeenth century.

And, best of all, there is the quiet, simple Church of St John's,
English in feeling as in origin. Though rebuilt a hundred years ago, on
the site of an earlier church, it has remained loyal to its history, and
is the true child of the eighteenth century. Is it not fitting tha