British settlers endured a comfortless, unornamented frontier existence that other peoples improved upon

Evidence

It is a moral, hard, unloving, unlovely, unrelieved, unbeautified, grinding life. These people live in a discomfort and lack of ease and refinement which seems only possible to people of British stock. A “foreigner” fills his cabin with ingenuities and elegancies, and a Hawaiian or South Sea Islander makes his grass house both pretty and tasteful. — Isabella L. Bird, A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains, 71

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: The observation that non-British settlers made more of frontier dwellings echoes the civilizational-comparison thread in the immodesty/dress article’s cross-cultural contrasts.
• XREF: Connects to traveler-account literature on American frontier domesticity contrasted with immigrant ingenuity. — connects to: Pioneer settlers lived in grinding poverty without basic comforts or proper clothing. — Isabella L. Bird, A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains, 67; British settlers endured frontier discomfort that foreigners improved with elegance. — Isabella L. Bird, A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains, 155

Broader Connections

• British settlers endured frontier discomfort that foreigners improved with elegance. #corroborates (0.97) — Isabella L. Bird, A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains, 155