merica-to-be was at once young and old. There were old towns, old churches, old homes, old families. There was an aristocracy with memories that went back to England, but with

the mountain ranges and resettle there in a vast plain five hundred miles square. However fair the estimate was to the land in actual English possession, that statement was about as far as the imagination of an Englishman accustomed to smaller dimensions could then go, or as big a figure as he could dare to hope his fellow-members of Parliament would believe; for in those days, as to-day, there were not in England or France five square miles of land out of ownership, and very little that was not in the possession of

, and was so delighted with his life as a farmer and a citizen that he could not refrain from making a record of his happy circumstances. This was Michel Guillaume St. John de Crèvec?ur, and his book was the "Letters from an American Farmer," published in London in 1782, though written almost entirely before the outbreak of the Revolution. It is made up of twelve so-called letters addressed to an imaginary English friend.

oice in governing himself seemed almost too good to be true. He had no misconceptions about the hard labor which was necessary to make a farm productive; but he enjoyed work because he knew that he could enjoy the fruits of it, and he enjoyed it all the more because he knew

y rigged before him on the plow, he reckoned the increase of his fields, herds, flocks,-even his hives,-and acknowledged his inferiority "only to the Emperor of China, ploughing as an example to his kingdom." Then, looking beyond his own little acreage, he hinted at future industries. He was tilling the surface; there must be further trea

r my part I had rather admire the ample barn of one of our opulent farmers, who himself felled the first tree in his plantation, and was first founder of his settlement, than study the dimension of the temple of Ceres. I had ra

eral periods, Crèvec?ur was writing about the very midst of the middle period, from 1675 to 1875. First had been a half century when only the strongest spirit of adventure or the strongest desire for freedom could impel men to attempt the conquest of an untried world. Every Englishman who came over and every American born here was conscious of the need of more hands to work, and all were eager for more Englishmen, and yet more, to help in the gigantic undertaking. In the last forty year

and unguarded

m presses a wil

olga and the T

figures of t

ian, Teuton, K

d World's pov

ith them unknown

sions here to st

ley what strange

menace alie

nce the Tower

hite Goddess

e gates ung

e a

row the cluster

led in th

e. America was known to be a land of plenty, and as yet there was more than plenty for all the newcomers from Engla

our sons have now four wives of different nations. He is an American, who, leaving behind him all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced, the new government he obeys, and the new rank he holds. He becomes an American by being received in the broad lap of our great "alma

lar the letters on "John Bartram, Botanist," and "The Snakes and the Humming Bird." In these it is impossible not to feel the resemblances between this early naturalist and his successor, Thoreau (see pp. 222–229). While neither was a scientist in the strict sense of the word, neither was content to dismis

the slovenliness of our houses. Their love to their dame, their incessant, careful attention, and the peculiar songs they address to her while she tediously incubates their eggs, remind me of my duty, could I ever forget it. Their affection to their helpless little ones is a lovely precept; and, in short, the whole economy of what we call the brute creation, is admirable in every circumstance; and vain man, though adorned wi

s were a completely citified set of writers; and they had received little attention in America, partly because Engla

775, he continued in an exalted and confident mood. Whether he was presenting the "provincial situations, manners and customs" of Nantucket and Marthas Vineyard, or of the central Atlantic, or of the Southern colonies, his senses and his judgment were equally satisfied. Industry prevailed. The wilderness was being converted into towns, farms, and highways. "A pleasing uniformity of decent compet

t and William Pinkney and other lawmakers and abolitionists in Maryland and Virginia were to do soon after him. Yet, however sincere he was, he regarded slavery only as an external blemish rather than as a national danger. It was a mistake, but not a menace. It was typical of the America of the future that Crèvec?ur s

ot enlist. And then in the years that followed he learned (the perennial lesson of war time) of the "vanity of human wishes." Unhappily for the moral of the tale, the latter part of his life was far from heroic. In the concluding letter, written quite after the fashion of the most sentimental and unreal eighteenth-century nature lovers, Crèvec?ur decided to abandon the struggle in the war zone and to take up life anew with his family among the Indians in the West. He would forsw

s of the present. But when he said that the American, sprung from Europe but here adopted into a new nation, "ought therefore to love this country much better than that wherein either he or his forefathers were born," he was saying something that has been repeated with new conviction ten thousand times since the outbreak of the Great War. And when he declared that "the American is a new man, who acts upon new principles" he was foreshadowing national policies which the world has been slow to understand. The possibility of a nation's being too proud to fight at the first provocation, and the subordination of na

K L

idual

an American Farmer. Written for the information of a

ble Ed

Ludwig Lewisohn, editor. With pre

ditor. In Ever

hy and

ial Farmer's Letters. New

Post. St. Jean d

the American Revolution (1765–1

AND P

the American colonies in Burk

merican?" and see how far its generali

ing Pot" in the light of this

nature for Crèvec?ur's observa

of primitive life. Compare this essay with the picture of frontier life as presented in "Th

en" and compare with the Crèvec?ur "Letters" in point of

he differences in the America to which Crèv