Their owners sometimes built in order
to surpass a neighbor in grandeur, and to this day great estates
are encumbered by the debts thus incurred in vain show. The heir
to such a property was reared in a pomp and luxury undreamed of
by the frugal young planter of Virginia. Of working for a
livelihood, in the sense in which Washington knew it, the young
Englishman of great estate would never dream.
The Atlantic is a broad sea and even in our own day, when instant
messages flash across it and man himself can fly from shore to
shore in less than a score of hours, it is not easy for those on
one strand to understand the thought of those on the other. Every
community evolves its own spirit not easily to be apprehended by
the onlooker. The state of society in America was vitally
different from that in England. The plain living of Virginia was
in sharp contrast with the magnificence and ease of England. It
is true that we hear of plate and elaborate furniture, of
servants in livery, and much drinking of Port and Madeira, among
the Virginians: They had good horses. Driving, as often they did,
with six in a carriage, they seemed to keep up regal style.
Spaces were wide in a country where one great landowner, Lord
Fairfax, held no less than five million acres.
Pages:
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39