Nebraska, or Colorado, or the Dakotas. Yet it will most assuredly not be Southern in any true sense of the term, for in this country the meridians of longitude have on the whole prevailed over the parallels of latitude.
In Louisiana a Southern civilization has been developed in the lower part of the state, and will probably always dominate it. The Louisianian of this section is quite different from his Western compatriots of the towns on the Texas and Arkansas borders, and he possibly comes nearer to the foreigner's idea of what a Southerner is than any other of the types that have been described. Perhaps this is because most foreigners get their ideas of the South from "Uncle Tom's Cabin." Be this as it may, the typical Louisianian seems to understand the dolce far niente better than the Virginian; he keeps social life going with less trouble than the South Carolinian; he would never think of bustling and working like a Georgian; he would die of the blues if he had to exchange the picturesque contrasts of his chief city and the lower half of his state with the gray-colored uniformity of the life that the North Carolinian has led for generations. But if the Louisianian has enjoyed life, he has not had the wisdom to develop all portions of his interesting commonwealth, and he has never taken a commanding position among his Southern brethren. With him, however, our modest efforts at portraiture must cease.
