NEW ENGLAND CHARACTERISTICS.
BY LIZZIE M. WHITTLESEY.
“We constantly,” as Ruskin affirms, “recognize things by their least important attributes, and by help of very few of these. We recognize our books by their bindings, our friends by the mere accidents of the body, the sport of climate, and food, and time.”
Applying this principle to New England, we unconsciously recognize her first by her mere outward, incidental properties.
By the waving of her hair in the “Pine-Tree State,” by the frown of her massive brows in the “Granite” and “Green Mountain,” by the glancing brightness of her smile in the “Old Bay,” by her lithe grace of limb in “Little Rhoda,” and her firm step and erect carriage in the “Land of Steady Habits;” while to all alike belong—
“Her clear, warm heaven at noon, the mist that shrouds
Her twilight hills, her cool and starry eves,
The glorious splendor of her sunset clouds,
The rainbow beauty of her forest leaves.”
Next to the physical traits of a friend we are attracted by those of a social nature; and, still keeping the analogy, the same is true of a people, and preëminently so of New England.
The characteristics of our four Northern cities have been thus distinctively classified and labelled:—
Washington stops between the polka and the waltz to ask, “Can you dance?” New York shows us her silks and laces, and politely whispers, “What are you worth?”