All The Odious Incivility Of The Republican Servant Has
Been Banished.
He is his own master, standing on his own
threshold, and finds no need to assert his equality by
Rudeness.
He is delighted to see you, and bids you sit down on his battered
bench without dreaming of any such apology as an English cottier
offers to a Lady Bountiful when she calls. He has worked out his
independence, and shows it in every easy movement of his body. He
tells you of it unconsciously in every tone of his voice. You will
always find in his cabin some newspaper, some book, some token of
advance in education. When he questions you about the old country
he astonishes you by the extent of his knowledge. I defy you not
to feel that he is superior to the race from whence he has sprung
in England or in Ireland. To me I confess that the manliness of
such a man is very charming. He is dirty, and, perhaps, squalid.
His children are sick and he is without comforts. His wife is
pale, and you think you see shortness of life written in the faces
of all the family. But over and above it all there is an
independence which sits gracefully on their shoulders, and teaches
you at the first glance that the man has a right to assume himself
to be your equal. It is for this position that the laborer works,
bearing hard words and the indignity of tyranny; suffering also too
often the dishonest ill usage which his superior power enables the
master to inflict.
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