How monotonous, how dull, prosy, inconvenient, everything seemed after our plunge into modern life!
We told old Virginia about all the enterprise we had seen, and how she was left far behind everybody and everything, urging her to join at once the "march of material progress."
But the Mother of States persisted in sitting contentedly over her old-fashioned wood fire with brass andirons, and, while thus musing, these words fell slowly and distinctly from her lips:
"They call me 'old fogy,' and tell me I must get out of my old ruts and come into the 'advanced age.' But I don't care about their 'advanced age,' their water-pipes and elevators. Give me the right sort of men and women—God-loving, God-serving men and women. Men brave, courteous, true; women sensible, gentle, and retiring.
"Have not my plantation homes furnished warriors, statesmen, and orators, acknowledged great by the world? I make it a rule to 'keep on hand' men equal to emergencies. Had I not Washington, Patrick Henry, Light-Horse Harry Lee, and others, ready for the first Revolution? and if there comes another,—which God forbid!—have I not plenty more just like them?"
Here she laughed with delight as she called over their names: "Robert Lee, Jackson, Joe Johnstone, Stuart, Early, Floyd, Preston, the Breckinridges, Scott, and others like them, brave and true as steel. Ha! ha! I know of what stuff to make men! And if my old 'ruts and grooves' produce men like these, should they be abandoned? Can any 'advanced age' produce better?
"Then there are my soldiers of the Cross. Do I not yearly send out a faithful band to be a 'shining light,' and spread the Gospel North, South, East, West, even into foreign lands? Is not the only Christian paper in Athens, Greece, the result of the love and labor of one of my soldiers?[2]
"And can I not send out men of science, as well as warriors, statesmen, and orators? There is Maury on the seas, showing the world what a man of science can do. If my 'old-fogy' system has produced men like these, must it be abandoned?"
Here the old Mother of States settled herself back in her chair, a smile of satisfaction resting on her face, and she ceased to think of change.