17 They have now learned—and we are sharers in the lesson—the wonderful recuperative powers of human nature, among communities as well as with individuals. We have seen the elasticity with which men can accommodate themselves to strange and hard conditions, discover new resources, and supplement their wants with fresh and varying substitutes. One of the most disastrous results of this mistake to the South itself is, that necessity has ploughed up new cotton fields in various parts of the world: Egypt supplants the Sea Islands, Central America promises to be a paradise of cotton, and the rich monopoly is broken up forever. There have been times, indeed, when the expectation of foreign interference seemed probable enough, and specially from two of the leading powers of Europe. To one of these nations we bear a blood relationship, and it is said, a strong family likeness. Yet our common character is worked out on the two sides of the Atlantic into marked differences. Planted in the midst of a large continent, with a boundless horizon of enterprise and an indefinite line of progress, the Saxon nature has here run out perhaps into exaggeration, like a countenance reflected from a convex mirror. While cabined in the little isle across the water, it has become insular in all respects ; its capacities have lost much of their native breadth and its peculiarities have 8
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