I seem to have embarked, by way of getting to the Milburns'
party--there is a party at the Milburns' and some of us
are going--upon an analysis of social principles in Elgin,
an adventure of difficulty, as I have once or twice
hinted, but one from which I cannot well extricate myself
without at least leaving a clue or two more for the use
of the curious. No doubt these rules had their nucleus
in the half-dozen families, among whom we may count the
shadowy Plummers, who took upon themselves for Fox County,
by the King's pleasure, the administration of justice,
the practice of medicine and of the law, and the performance
of the charges of the Church of England a long time ago.
Such persons would bring their lines of demarcation with
them, and in their new milieu of backwoods settlers and
small traders would find no difficulty in drawing them
again. But it was a very long time ago. The little knot
of gentry-folk soon found the limitations of their new
conditions; years went by in decades, aggrandizing none
of them. They took, perforce, to the ways of the country,
and soon nobody kept a groom but the Doctor, and nobody
dined late but the Judge. There came a time when the
Sheriff's whist club and the Archdeacon's port became a
tradition to the oldest inhabitant. Trade flourished,
education improved, politics changed.
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