Gradually it had dawned upon him that this last, silent figure,
traced through Virginia, was closely linked by blood and speech
with the common people of England, and, moulded perhaps by the
influences of feudalism, was still strikingly unchanged; that now it
was the most distinctively national remnant on American soil, and
symbolized the development of the continent, and that with it must
go the last suggestions of the pioneers, with their hardy physiques,
their speech, their manners and customs, their simple architecture
and simple mode of life. It was soon plain to him, too, that a
change was being wrought at last-the change of destruction. The
older mountaineers, whose bewildered eyes watched the noisy
signs of an unintelligible civilization, were passing away. Of the
rest, some, sullen and restless, were selling their homesteads and
following the spirit of their forefathers into a new wilderness;
others, leaving their small farms in adjacent valleys to go to ruin,
were gaping idly about the public works, caught up only too easily
by the vicious current of the incoming tide. In a century the
mountaineers must be swept away, and their ignorance of the
tragic forces at work among them gave them an unconscious
pathos that touched Clayton deeply.
As he grew to know them, their historical importance yielded to a
genuine interest in the people themselves.
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