Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. I.djvu/217

 the United States of North America. They were nevertheless most numerous in the north, and there they have left the strongest impression of their spirit.

When I contemplate that Puritan community as it exists in our time, about two centuries after its first establishment, it seems to me that there are two main springs within its impulsive heart; the one is a tendency towards the ideal of moral life, the other impels it to conquer the earth, that is to say, the material power and products of life. The men of the New World, and pre-eminently the men of New England, (humourously called Yankees) have a passion for acquisition, and for this object think nothing of labour—even the hardest—and nothing of trouble; nay, to travel half over the world to do a good stroke of business, is a very little thing. The Viking element in the Yankee's nature, and which he perhaps originally inherited from the Scandinavian Vikings, compels him incessantly to work, to undertake, to accomplish something which tends either to his own improvement or that of others. For when he has improved himself, he thinks, if not before, of employing his pound for the public good. He gets money, but only to spend. He puts it by, but not for selfish purposes. Public spirit is the animating principle of his life, and he prefers to leave behind him the name of an esteemed and beloved citizen rather than a large property. He likes to leave that which he has acquired to some institution or benevolent establishment, which thenceforth commonly bears his name. And I know those whose benevolence is so pure that they slight even this reward.

The moral ideal of man and of society seems to be clearly understood here, and all the more clearly in those northern states which have derived their population from the old colonies. From conversation with sensible idealists among my friends as well as from the attention I have given to the spirit of public life here, I have