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 THE HOUSE WHERE THE ARKANSAS LEGISLATURE WAS HELD IN 1835.

buoyancy, of expansion,—when the love of change and adventure, the weariness of the conventionalities of civilized life, the attractions of a future of unknown possibilities, were drawing many of the ablest and most ambitious of the nation's youth to the distant West. Their hopes were often chimerical; but of their abilities and their energy there can be no doubt. They sought the West, conscious of their strength, burning with ambition, each dreaming that he would be the master-spirit of the new empire that was springing from the wilderness. When they found that instead of being unquestioned leaders among ignorant frontiersmen they were pitted against foemen