A spirit, we may add, the same, or
not materially differing from that, which, at an earlier period of human
history, though in a condition of society not dissimilar, begot the
practices denominated, by a most licentious courtesy, those of chivalry.
But, of whatever stuff the _morale_ of this people may have been made
up, it is not less certain than natural that the mixture was still
incoherent--the parts had not yet grown together. Though ostensibly in
the pursuit of the same interest and craft, they had anything but a like
fortune, and the degree of concert and harmony which subsisted between
them was but shadowy and partial. A mass so heterogeneous in its origin
and tendency might not so readily amalgamate. Strife, discontent, and
contention, were not unfrequent; and the laborers at the same
instrument, mutually depending on each other, not uncommonly came to
blows over it. The successes of any one individual--for, as yet, their
labors were unregulated by arrangement, and each worked on his own
score--procured for him the hate and envy of some of the company, while
it aroused the ill-disguised dissatisfaction of all; and nothing was of
more common occurrence, than, when striking upon a fruitful and
productive section, even among those interested in the discovery, to
find it a disputed dominion.
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