I May Presume That
He Was Ruined In His Circumstances By The Strong Hand Of The
Northern Army.
But he seemed in no wise to be unhappy about his
ruin.
He spoke with some scorn of the martial law in Missouri, but
I felt that it was esteemed a small matter by him that his furniture
was seized and sold. No men love money with more eager love than
these Western men, but they bear the loss of it as an Indian bears
his torture at the stake. They are energetic in trade, speculating
deeply whenever speculation is possible; but nevertheless they are
slow in motion, loving to loaf about. They are slow in speech,
preferring to sit in silence, with the tobacco between their teeth.
They drink, but are seldom drunk to the eye; they begin at it early
in the morning, and take it in a solemn, sullen, ugly manner,
standing always at a bar; swallowing their spirits, and saying
nothing as they swallow it. They drink often, and to great excess;
but they carry it off without noise, sitting down and ruminating
over it with the everlasting cud within their jaws. I believe that
a stranger might go into the West, and passing from hotel to hotel
through a dozen of them, might sit for hours at each in the large
everlasting public hall, and never have a word addressed to him. No
stranger should travel in the Western States, or indeed in any of
the States, without letters of introduction.
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