University of Virginia Library

THE BOSTONIAN.

It takes a vast deal to drive a man's habit or his
nature out of him; the English philosopher says
as much in his quaint Latinity. From this it follows,
my dear Fritz, that all you see in New York
are not New Yorkers. Neither tailors, nor hair-dressers,

nor the club-talk, can so transform a man
but that you shall see in him the lees of the ancient.
Indeed, between the Hotels, the Opera-house, and
the street, our town is not a bad point from which
to study the characteristics of the nation.

The people of the Town are not destitute of a
modicum of charity, and look with feelings of
proper Christian benevolence upon all strangers, of
whatever cut; while at the same time they wear
an air of what seems most natural and unconscious
superiority. But I observe that this is so carefully
concealed, that the greater part of strangers, especially
those from the neighbor cities, do not see it
at all; and are apt to flatter themselves into the
belief that they are passing current in the street
throng, as indigenous and unadulterated specimens.
Indeed, none but a Bostonian would ever resent
being taken for a New Yorker; and so carefully do
they of the sister city guard their identity by dress,
action, and speech, that none but the most careless
observer would ever affront them with the charge.

The Bostonian is strongly impressed with the
idea that his city is the particular nucleus of all
that there is great on this side of the Atlantic. He
looks upon other American towns as small planetary
bodies revolving about the centre of Boston
Common, and deriving most of their light, heat,

and strength from Cambridge University, Fanueil
Hall, and Boston Harbor. He affects a wonderful
degree of kinship with the English; and keeps
up the connection by sharp shirt collars, short-waisted
coats, and yellow gaiters. He is apt to
put himself upon English stilts to look down upon
the rest of the American world, which he regards
complacently through an English eye-glass. He
does not so much pity the rest of the American
world, as he patronizes and encourages. His literary
tastes being formed in the focus of western
learning, are naturally correct and profound. He
squats himself upon the Boston formulas of judgment,
from which nothing can shake him, and puts
out his feelers of opinion, as you may have seen a
lazy, bottle-tailed bug try his whereabouts, without
once stirring, by means of his glutinous and manyjointed
antennæ.

He likes to try you in discussion, in the course
of which it will be next to impossible to tell him
anything that he did not previously know; and you
will prove a rare exception, if he does not
tell you many things that you never knew before—unless,
indeed, you have been in Boston.
His stock of praises is uncommonly small, and
principally reserved for home consumption; things
are done well, only in Boston; though they are

sometimes creditably done in other parts of the
world.

His superiority in arts, letters, science, and religion,
of which he will endeavor strenuously to
convince one, is attributable partially to education,
but mainly to his being a Bostonian. Whatever
idea, or system of ideas, whether in polities, arts,
or literature, which had not its beginning, or has
not had its naturalization in Boston, is a fungous
growth upon the great body of American opinion,
which must of necessity wither and perish.

The Bostonian entertains the somewhat singular
notion that whatever he has never observed, is not
worth observing; and that the very few matters
of fact and fancy scattered about the country,
which are unbeknown to Bostonians, are not worth
their knowing. This gives him under all ordinary
circumstances a self-possession, and dignity of address
which is quite remarkable. He does not
conceive it possible that classical scholarship should
thrive at all, out of sight of the belfry of the old
South Church; and such chance citations from
classic authors, as may appear on pages printed in
other parts of the country, he considers filched in
some way out of Boston books. He regards all
those making any profession of learning, out of his
own limits, very much as an under pedagogue will

eye a promising boy of the `first form' who occasionally
hears recitations.

He plumes himself specially on his precision and
exactness; you will never see a Bostonian with the
lower button of his waistcoat uncaught, and he is
uniformly punctual to his dinner hour. Vivacity
he condemns from principle—and the best of all
principle, which is—Boston principle. Even in
religion, he does not recognize the hot zeal of earnest
intention, nor does he run toward the lusts of
ceremonial. He is coy to acknowledge even the
personnel of a Divine Mediation; his dignity does
not like to admit a superior between himself and
the Highest. The comparative chilliness of the
Unitarian faith suits the evenness of his temper;
and when he casts loose from this unique doctrine,
which is to many a pure and holy faith, he runs
inevitably into the iciness of Pantheism.

In politics he is Bostonian. He speaks lightly of
the French, and of French Republicanism, and
indeed of most sorts of Republicanism which are
not reducible immediately or remotely to Boston
Republicanism. He has a very tender charity, too,
for the gross legal tyranny of his ancestral English;
and such of his sympathies as ramify beyond
his Pontine marshes, or the Roxbury plains,

clasp stoutly round the mosses and blotches of
the royal oak of Britain.

In manners he is true to his faith; he walks
stiffly, dances stiffly, and bows stiffly. Like the
Englishman, he assimilates little with those among
whom he may chance to fall: he guards his integrity
by exception. His idea of elegance centres
in precision; and the ease that he possesses is
never more than familiarity. He is, like the Virginian,
usually of an `old family;' whoever heard
of any other sort of families in the Old Dominion,
or the `Cradle of Liberty'?

The Bostonian sneers at the riff-raff of New York
society, and will sometimes put a clever edge upon
his sneers. He is the favorite of such ladies as
love bookish talk, and who will not worry at an
awkward polka. He is quicker at a bargain than
a waltz, and he counts his town-talent a fair offset
to the money and the graces of our belles. A lui
le talent,—à nos femmes la fortune; tout cela peut
se marier. He reads the Boston Atlas, and Boston
books; he sighs for Boston Common; and lunches
on Boston crackers.

All this, it must be understood, my dear Fritz, is
predicated upon such stray specimens as may be
seen here and there wandering down our streets,
or adorning the corners, at our balls. That there

is very much worthiness, that is here unnoted, about
the race which belongs to Boston, the world knows.
And if I were to make a particularity that should
have its point, I would say that the admirable
police, and municipal regulations of the sister city,
its well-ordered pavements and well-swept streets,
are worthy of all commendation, and much copy.
And the Bostonian may well boast, that while our
City Fathers are lazily drinking their tea in sight
of our city desolation, that snug Eastern Seaport is
gaining upon us by forced marches in all the commoner
and most comfortable types of an advanced
civilization.

As for the vagrant Bostonian, with whom I began,
and who brings his doctrinas, and his antiquum
with him, it is sincerely to be hoped that he will
in time fall away from the greatness of his unbelief;
and be willing to credit that eyes, heart, tongue,
and brain have been mercifully vouchsafed to
people in various parts of the world, by the same
kind Providence which has so overstocked Boston
Town.