. . .Till then it could wait. Nobody was going to move away. Everybody was "able to owe his debts." Why bother, then, to make a journey for the settlement of a matter of business which could wait as well as not for next court day to come round? It was so much pleasanter to stay at home, to entertain one's friends, to ride over the plantation, inspecting and directing crop work, to take a gun and go after squirrels or birds or turkeys, to play backgammon or chess or dominoes in the porch, to read the new books that everybody was talking about, or the old ones that Virginians loved more—in brief, there was no occasion for hurry, and the Virginians wasted none of their vital force in that way.

The very houses suggested repose. They had sat still upon their foundations for generations past, and would go on doing so for generations to come. The lawns were the growth of long years, with no touch of recent gardeners' work about them. The trees about the house ground. . . Read More