In connection with this reference to our means of intellectual cultivation, I am reminded of an incident illustrative of a faculty commonly attributed to Yankees, that is New Englanders, though there is reason to believe that some other parts of the country are quite as liberally gifted with the qualities of “Yorkshire.” It affords a striking instance of shrewdness on the one side, and of lamentable deficiency of it on the other. This was before the town had exchanged its original simpler mode of regulating its municipal affairs for the form of a city government. On a certain occasion the School Committee became dissatisfied with the master of one of the higher schools, after a brief trial of his qualities, and, as delicately as the subject permitted, 141 requested him to resign his place. The master was not a native of the town, or of the “region round about,” so that it was a mere question of qualifications, real or otherwise, between himself and his employers. He demurred, unless his salary were paid him for the unexpired considerable part of the year for which he alleged himself to have been engaged; but finally consented, if the chairman of the committee would only furnish him with a certificate of honorable discharge. The chairman, at this easy rate of saving the town’s money, wrote it, without suspicion of its effect. Thereupon, the master read it, put it into his pocket, and by virtue of the document, demanded payment of the sum in question. It was paid; and the triumphant master forthwith proceeded—
| “To fresh woods and pastures new.” |
The state of things, in regard to our reading resources, was before the modern facilities for gadding about existed; and 142 while those who find time lying heavy on their hands can now steam it a hundred miles to make a morning-call, journeying was then both more tedious and more expensive, seldom undertaken except as an affair of business, or with the deliberate purpose of a long-concerted visit; and a good part of the day was consumed in travelling half that distance by public conveyance. The consequence was, that people’s pleasures, with their duties, laid mostly at home, or near at hand. Hence family and friendly ties were more closely drawn. The better feelings of our nature were, I think, deeper, than when scattered over a wide but thin social surface; just as the water in a well is more concentrated, than if diffused in the basin of a pond. To some extent, therefore, wholesomely isolated, besides the ordinary round of not very formal visiting parties, there were reading circles, for those who were prompted by intellectual yearnings, frequented 143 by young ladies and gentlemen, married or single, at which passages from the better class of books were read aloud by such of the male members as felt competent to the exercise, by turns. In fact, taking into view the intelligence, the inexpensive accomplishments, and the unaffected manners of the fairly educated among us, it has not fallen to the lot of most persons to meet with any society more really agreeable. St. James’s, however, and the congregation of the successors of those who founded the First Church, who had at length become what was called “liberal,” in contrast with the orthodoxy of the rest of the town, aspired to a higher degree of gentility and accomplishment than the commonalty; and, in evidence that we were not bigoted, my mother would sometimes allow me, when a boy, and desirous of some change, to attend service of an afternoon, at the latter place of public worship with some friends of the family who 144 waited upon its ministrations. Of the diversions of the common people I particularly remember one under the curious name of a “Joppa Jine” (join); to which I allude from the oddity of its name, derived from a part of the town so called by the river-side, when several families of neighbors and friends contributed their respective quota of a common feast, and repaired to the island at the mouth of the river to enjoy a day of leisure and merriment.
In a certain class, the ancient pronunciation of many English words was maintained, doubtless brought by the ancestors of New England families from “home,” and transmitted to their descendants; such as airth for earth, fairm for firm, sartain for certain, pint for point, envy for envy, ax with the broad â for ask, housen for houses, his’n and her’n for his and hers, rare for rear; as, for instance, the horse rares up; and sounding the l in would. Common enough names, too, were clipped or contracted 145 in English fashion. Thus, the names of Norwood and Harwood became Norrod in sound and Harrod in spelling; and the name of Currier, whether with any reference or not to the French Cuir, for leather, was not long since uniformly pronounced Kiah, with the long ī; Thurlow was strangely transformed into Thurrill; and Pierpont, often formerly spelled Pierpoint, with entire neglect of its derivation, was pronounced Pearpint, by old-fashioned people, the first syllable approximating to the original formation of pierre.
In connection with this modification of language, I observe in a daily paper how much a worthy old lady puzzled her minister, for a moment, by inquiring the meaning of “silver shiners for Diana,” in the Bible; but a good deacon, at an evening meeting in the chapel of their house of worship, in our town, sadly disturbed the gravity of the religious assembly, by reading it silver shins for Dinah!
The late Mr. Edward Everett is authority (with me) for the story, that on the occasion of the visit of Washington to New England, in 1789, Parsons was appointed to deliver the address of welcome, on the part of the town, and said to his students, “Well, boys, I am to make this address. Now, go to work and write it, and I will deliver the best.” He chose the one prepared by Adams.