Unless he is a man of the
broadest and most democratic tendencies, to whom culture and the
polish of society is as nothing beside humanity, and unless he
returns, as faithfully as the village birds to their nests, to his
summer home year after year, he cannot see very far below the
surfaces of villages of which Pembroke is typical. Quite naturally,
when the surfaces are broken by some unusual revelation of a
strongly serrate individuality, and the tale thereof is told
at his dinner-table with an accompaniment of laughter and
exclamation-points, he takes that case for an isolated and by no
means typical one, when, if the truth were told, the village windows
are full of them as he passes by.
However, this state of things must necessarily exist, and has
existed, in villages which, like Pembroke, have not been brought much
in contact with outside influences, and have not been studied or
observed at all by people not of their kind by birth or long
familiarity. In towns which have increased largely in population, and
have become more or less assimilated with a foreign element, these
characters do not exist in such a large measure, are more isolated in
reality, and have, consequently, less claim to be considered types.
But there have been, and are to-day in New England, hundreds of
villages like Pembroke, where nearly every house contains one or more
characters so marked as to be incredible, though a writer may be
prevented, for obvious reasons, from mentioning names and proving
facts.
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