 | THE LORGNETTE. The lorgnette, or, Studies of the town |  |
4. THE LORGNETTE.
JUNE 24, 1850. NEW-YORK. SECOND SERIES—NO. 4.
`Critics must excuse me, if I compare them to certain animals called
asses, who, by gnawing vines, originally taught the great advantage of
pruning them.'
—Shenstone.
`I have writ me here a letter to her; and here another to Page's wife;
who even now gave me good eyes too, examined my parts with most
judicious eyelids.'
—Falstaff.
Among the noticeable things of the epoch, Fritz,
as worthy of my hap-hazard chronicle as the conquest
of Cuba, which was no conquest, or the unrolling
of a Boston princess, who proved only a dry
bituminous man, is the climacteric of negation;—
viz., a spring, that has been no spring.
The saucy winter, which we in town were making
contempt in dudgeon,—has bridged over all that
time that used to be spring with clouds, and has
landed us plump in sultry summer, having taken
toll in catarrhs. And as the town ladies are now
making out their balance sheets of the winter's
strategy, and `laying their course' for the summer,
let me too trespass on your patience in filing
away my papers, and in making an easy conscience
anent my correspondents. It is good now
and then, as Webster says, to take a squint at the
chart, and the compass, and to make sure that
good steerage-way can be gained.
The first letter for my file, appears to be from
a lady, and is filled with eloquent regrets over the
present conventional arrangement of the town
marriages. It is feelingly written, and possesses
a pathos of expression, which altogether redeems
its carelessness of style. But I must beg leave to
forego its publication; the griefs enumerated are
too common, and too real, to be ventured on lightly;
beside which, there is an air of likelihood in
my complainant's story, that I greatly fear, would
subject me to the imputation of personality.
Moreover, in such cases, I am led to understand,
as well by common report, as by much personal
observation, that the private consolation of a friend
sympathy: and I am credibly informed that not a
few young wives, who have bargained themselves
away after the marriage price-current, have forgotten
all the odium of the contract, in the caresses
of a sympathetic companion. It is delightful to
contemplate the sweet offices of friendship, coming
to the relief of an enslaved woman, and redeeming
an affectionate heart from the legal tyranny of a
husband, by the dalliance of private and disinterested
attentions. My warm-hearted correspondent
can therefore hardly be reckoned without hope;
and if she feels grievously the bonds of an enslaving
wedlock, I commend to her two sufficient and
ripe sources of consolation,—a religious endurance,
or a town-lover. It is a hard case, surely, when a
young woman of tender feelings (and who ever
heard of any other?) finds herself, by virtue of our
conventional rules of property and position, forced
upon a husband, with whom she can have no feelings
in common; but the town, with a most reasonable
compassion, takes pity on such, and yields
to them the free enjoyment of those delightsome
intrigues, which though exotic of origin, are found
to have wonderful ease of acclimation. I dare say
that with a little furbishing of my own pen, the
plaintive letter of my correspondent might be
tears from the eyes of more than one of my readers;
and if a cool afternoon should be mercifully
vouchsafed us in the city, the coming month, you
may possibly hear farther from Arabella.
A snarling correspondent has addressed me quite
a long letter, in a dashing style, prefacing very
much verbal criticism, with a few generous compliments.
Speaking in general praise of the pure
English of my papers, he declaims lustily against
some lapses in my orthography; but keeps up my
good temper, by sneering in the same breath, at
Dr. Webster. Now I am no apologist for the innovations
of our great lexicographer, and do not rest
my quickness in reform, upon spelling traveler
with a single I; but if one is to be condemned, it
is pleasant to be condemned in respectable company.
If I were to hazard a guess as to the character
of this correspondent, I should set him down for
some punctilious old bachelor, mightily critical in
small matters, and a deep student of his lexicon;
and who withal, is as much of a connoisseur in
brandies and pronunciation, as he is in dress or in
grammar. Such pleasant old gentlemen take excessive
pleasure in being annoyed, and in finding
matter for condemnation; they are nothing if not
no ill-will; and the man who will never
impugn their authority, and never refuse them `a
choice in the packs,' will be sure of their good-nature.
It is difficult so far to watch both printer, and
proof-reader, as to give to all my papers accuracy
of orthography, or infallibility of language. The
most I can hope for, is to carry my meaning straight,
and pointedly; and this, with due respect for Mr.
Snarl, seems to me a higher object, than punctilious
observance of the dicta of grammarians. Our
language is one of progress, and is in the constant
receipt of new accessions from the phraseology of
science, and the introduction of foreign habit; and
the art of its use now-a-days, seems to me to consist,
not so much in strict observance of old formularies,
as in such a management of its material,
as shall enable it to keep pace with the growth of
modern inquiry, without impairing the force and
integrity of the old English idiom. I know no
reason why the social inquirer should be debarred
from the use of occasional descriptive terms, not to
be found in the dictionaries, any more than the
chemist, or the geologist. But the privilege, if
used, must be used with daintiness, and in the
conviction that the term employed is the most full,
that could be found.
Words, it is said, follow upon the sense, and play
the lacquey to the thought. `Verba non invita
sequentur.' This I should think eminently true of
the many elegant writers who are now swarming
on the town; and words do play such queer antics
to keep up with their notions, that a plain man is
lost in the pursuit of their meaning; and in a short
time, there can be little doubt of a demand for an
elegant dictionary as interpreter, edited by an elegant
compiler. It is needless to say that I have
scrupulously endeavored to avoid interference with
our elegant men, who belong to the newspapers and
monthly magazines; and whatever may be said
against me by my enemies, I shall try hard to
avoid the odium of being condemned for an `elegant
writer.'
As for my correspondent, I will do him the credit
of saying, that his letter is well put together, and
that he has shown himself a critic of smart capacity.
He will very likely quarrel with so homely language;
but I want he should understand that I
have a sneaking fondness for homeliness, (not of
women, but of words.) And it is no little object
with me, in the prosecution of these Studies of the
Town, to catch hold of the strong, old-fashioned
the cultivated delicacy of modern paragraphing.
I want to bring back to daylight some of those
homely, Saxon utterances, which, though they are
not tricked off with the furbelows of modern
haberdashery, carry on their backs such a burden
of strong sense, and such width of meaning, as
would split the muslin, and crack the corsets of
our belle language. And I must say that it has
been with a happy surprise that I have seen the
public welcome, and commend the homeliness of
my words; and accept as good coin, the old-fashioned,
plain speaking, which does not dodge
the matter at issue with rhetorical prettinesses, but
plants a right-down, honest, fisticuff blow, in the
very face and eyes of the matter.
A third correspondent thinks I should make a far
better preacher than clown; and advises me to forego
all attempts at pleasantry, and content myself
with giving sober advice to the town. I strongly
suspect the fellow of being a bit of a buffoon himself;
and if I might judge from his letter, think
the bells would become him, much better than the
surplice. With due credit, however, to his sagacity,
I shall be sober, as I find subjects demanding
soberness, and not kill my pleasantry (as I fear my
correspondent sometimes does,) by giving it too vigorous
for a laughing Democritus of Abdera, or a sighing
Heraclitus of Ephesus; and with regard to giving
rules of action, and laying down a plan, as the
same correspondent proposes, I may refer to Socrates'
reply to Cleander, in Lord Hardwicke's Athenian
Letters; he was not confident, he said,
as yet, of the best course to be pursued; but he
was quite confident that what he condemned was
wrong; and he chose rather to go where certainty
led him, than to lose himself in the mists of doubt
and difficulty.
I cannot in a better connection, allude to a graceful
letter which has been sent me in a late number
of the Literary World. The kind writer has given
me much more praise than was deserved, but has
unfortunately dampened it with a very odious objection
to my sincerity. The flattery I could have
forborne, better than I can bear the disapproval.
If the lady-writer (for she appears no less,) has
formed her opinion upon any fancied knowledge of
personal action, independent of the papers, she has
reasoned upon most false premises; and has no
right to allege that John Timon is not doing as
much as lies in the power of an humble man to do,
for arrest of the follies that are condemned, as well
by voice, and action, as by his pen. For with all
must take the liberty of saying that she is in error;
and I only hope that the individual in her thought,
may wear the honor of fair words from a spirited
lady, with the grateful pride that becomes a
gentleman.
Nor can she suppose, if she be the sensible woman
that she seems, that any scorn of lady indiscretions,
is mark of disrespect for her sex; or that it
is not rather dictated by a higher regard, and a
more loving consideration, than animates the herd
who push their vain flatteries into the ear, and who,
in paying to our town-ladies, the tribute of stale and
unmeaning compliment, reduce them to the level of
their own perverted nature. A fair-minded woman,
who is what God made her, adorned with modesty,
and sublimated by purity, is as inaccessible to
praise, as crystal to lightning. Herself is the best
story of her worth.
And you, Fritz, will have grossly misread these
pages, if you have not caught glimpses of an underlying
reverence for what is reverence-worthy in
the sex, which will have more than balanced any
harshness of expression, or lightness of remark.
There is something too devotional in the esteem felt
by every gentleman for a deserving and beautiful
woman, to permit careless mention, or to provoke
found in our town, would be to reduce us at once
to a state of barbarism, too dreadful to think
upon.
`What are these gentlemen censors doing, to better
the social condition, they lament?' says our
fair querist, with an air of triumph, and with her
hand upon Miss McIntosh's Woman in America.
John Timon presumes to answer—only for himself,
—that he is drawing attention to questions and issues
which have been slept, and dreamed upon, until
they were forgotten; that he is probing an old
ulcer, that so the foul matter may discharge itself,
and nature have a chance for a healthy healing.
He is venturing to test the propriety of what has
been accepted; and to call out defence, where no
defence was thought needful. Believing as he does
that social forms and fashions have much to do
with the spirit, and health of humanity, he has endeavored
to call attention to vices and follies, which
even their lady patrons in their private moods have
long thought over, and deplored. He is kindling
their consciousness of something nobler and better,
that irks with the inaction that weighs it down.
He is hoping to light an impulse to reform, and to
reduce to the actual, the half-uttered regrets over
what is unreal and factitious.
But perhaps it is objected, that the whims of the
time are humored by gentlemen censors, that vapidity
is met by vapidity, and that even men of sense
are apt students if need be, in the artificiality of
converse, and the most stupid of social formalism.
But surely it does not need the penetration of a
woman to perceive, that in this, the man is the
subject, and not the monarch. He must conform
to the ritual: and to maintain his place as a man
of the world, he must bend to the fashion of the
world. As Goldoni wisely says in his comedy, (Le
Smanie—`Chi vuol figurare nel mondo, conviene
che faccia quello che fanno gli altri.'
But as I have more than once hinted in the progress
of these papers,—in social life, woman is the
mistress and man the slave. And yet, as is true
of many principalities, it is not the subject alone,
who suffers. It is the giver of the rule who laments
over wasted time, or wasted words: it is she who
deplores that long array of calls, and counter-calls,
those hideous jams and that education of the dance,
which though well enough in its way, bids fair to
overtop what grace of mind, or play of wit, she
possesses. It is she who shudders over the routine
of that fashion which compels her hours and her
thought; it is she who inwardly detests that omnipotence
of position or caste, which makes her body
fastens her to the ever-revolving wheel of torture.
It is she who finds her thought, and deeper sentiment,
and irrepressible longings nothing, and worse
than nothing, because they are ever tantalized, and
never enjoyed.
The man is of a vagabond order, who can seek
solace in very many ways where the lynx-eye of
propriety cannot see him, nor the claw of morality
catch him; he can live, and enjoy life by stealth,
and reputable disorder; but the woman is hung in
the trammels that she herself has made.
The kind Boston friend who has favored me with
his commentary, will find a range given to his observations
before he shall have smoked through the
present paper: and the gentleman of Wall-street,
who has so pertinently commended some study of
the morals of that portion of the town, shall not
long remain a neglected suitor.
A long letter, which wears a strangely clerical
air, takes occasion to commend some of my religious
observations, and proffers most excellent advice,
for which I would express myself even more
grateful than I am needful. The letter gives me
good occasion to drop a word or two upon the topic
generally; and to declare at the outset against the
justice of an evening paper, which has condemned
must not be supposed for a moment, that John
Timon intended to throw contempt either on Religion
or Religious teachers; self-respect, if no worthier
motive, would utterly forbid. He is not one
of those leveling philosophers who seek to drag
down great things, by treating them as if they were
little; nor has he any wish, like some overfond,
intellective Doctors, to strand the mysteries of the
Godhead, upon the low beach of Humanity. Nor,
on the other hand, has he any squamishness in
broaching the topic; nor does he believe that either
church officers or offices, in white or black, looking
east or west, are too sacred for an honest and
homely handling in the types of the times. I see
no very good reason for thinking, that absurdity is
any the less absurdity because it slips from a pulpit,
or that extravagance is the more tolerable or
worshipful, because it is hung with a surplice, or
kept afloat with a fish-bladder.
Whatever may be the rights or the duties of Doctors,
I would venture to suggest, as I would suggest
to any sort of men, that they be careful to understand
what they write about, or what they talk about. It
is scarcely to be supposed that any man, not familiar
with the Rochester spirits, should be very effective in
condemnation of the drama, who does not know a
Nor is it reasonably to be hoped, that a person
should be very pointed in his condemnation of
Rousseau, who has never read a line of Emile.
The Swiss writer was bad enough it is true; but he
had one or two capital qualities; he generally knew
precisely what he was attempting to deny, and did
not affect to know, that of which he was palpably
ignorant.
Although conservative in the main points, John
Timon would not like to avow himself a special
friend to the Calvinistic rack, whereby Christian
opinions are stretched into good pastoral form, and
a host of us condemned in a twinkling, to the great
discredit of the final Judgment. Nor am I one of
those who think that ceremonial is a very good
substitute for earnestness, or that all of genuine devotion
can be slipped out of the soul on Wordsworth's
lyrics, warmed with a watery-eyed sensibility.
Least of all, would I be disposed to join
forces with those intensely religious ones, who go
about, to dress the bruises that the Devil inflicts on
our poor sinning nature, with bulky bandages of
Hope, and plenty of the hard, dry lint of Faith, but
who are very apt to leave at home, the healing oil
of Charity.
I much rather would side with old Dr. South,
of his way toward the being a good Christian,
wheresoever he lives, or whatsoever he is called.'
But lest you be weary with my sermonizing,
Fritz, of which you shall have no more, until your
early apples are ripe, I shall sum up with a little line
of admonition from St. Austin; which will suit both
the High Doctors and the Low, and the Westminster
catechizers, as well as the creed-men:—Ubi
charitas, ibi humilitas; ubi humilitas, ibi pax!
A BOOST FOR BOSTONIANS.
`Boost;—to lift, or raise by pushing; to push up. [A common vulgar
word in New England.']
—Dr. Webster.
`Voyez un peu l'habile homme, avec son benêt d'Aristote.'
—Le
Medecin Malgre Lui.
It is pleasant to have within a radius of two or
three hundred miles of our town, such a sampler
of manners, morals and politics as the city of Boston.
There, conversation is an art of life, instinct
is refined by birth, religion is sublimed by intellect;
the Opera is cultivated with extravagance,
French pretence is confined to the kitchen, education
supplies nerve to the feeble, dignity conceals
weakness, yellow flannel covers the babe, genius
riots at the Town and Country Club, and Egyptian
instruction of the learned. It is pleasant to leave
from time to time the brick and dust of New York,
its stifling heat, and crimson fronts, its sad foolery
of Perrine pavements, and everlasting omnibuses,
to stroll through the clean and Sunday-like streets
of our sister city, to lose one's self under the shadow
of Faneuil Hall, or to snuff the air (by permission)
of Beacon, or Mt. Vernon—those Pisgah heights,
from whose houses Puritan infancy looks forth exultingly
upon its land of promise—the Boston
Common. Say what we will, Fritz, of that tidy
Eastern sea-port, Boston is altogether a nice place;
its weather is nice; its laws nice; its Juries nice;
its churches nice; its gentlemen nice; its literature
is nice; its taste is nice, and they have a nice
Religion.
More than all, its ladies are eminently nice. Far
be it from me, Fritz, a merely humble Republican,
to assume any intimate knowledge of the habits,
or private peculiarities of those whose birth, accomplishments,
air, and dignity, place them beyond
an ordinary man's observation. Boston princesses
are not easily laid hold of, and when unwrapped,
may turn out only a swaddled man. But even station
does not forbid a certain knowledge of excellencies,
and they must console themselves, as they
mention.
Boston ladies are not so remarkable for beauty,
as for accomplishments; nor do the graces of their
persons often outshadow the attractions of their
mind. All those minor arts for the cultivation of
natural grace, which are so assiduously cultivated
by New Yorkers, are entirely discarded by Bostonians.
They talk better than they smile; they ride
better than they dance, and they walk better than
they waltz. French coiffeurs and modistes are not
receivable; and will not make polka partners, even
at the most retired of watering-places. The Boston
lady is not much upon the public thoroughfares;
she may venture into Washington street,
but it is only for her shopping, and her morning
stroll upon the heights above the Common, is
simply hygienic; her luxury of display will be in
a ride to Roxbury, or a pretty `straw' at the
church.
The Boston lady talks always like a connoisseur
about paintings; and though her opinions of the
new Athenæum gallery, are modulated somewhat
by the names, and reputations of the owners, they
are nevertheless, curt, recherchés, and decisive.
She is not given to any of the prettinesses of Puseyism,
reckoning them among such vanities as
admirer of Holy Families, of which
she finds a full supply in the newly-opened stock.
She is much more tenacious of head-dress, than of
foot-dress; and though not especially coy in the
matter of ankles, she studies very little the graces
of a chaussure à son pied.
The Boston lady is intellectual; and with all
her ruddiness of cheek, and robustness of form, she
is not a stranger to libraries, or to lectures, and her
opinions are far more apt to show the aplomb of a
woman, than the delicacy of a girl. She is a lover
of mystics, and a good patroness of Boston genius.
She occasionally dabbles herself in the ink, and
here and there, a touchy, testy letter in the Boston
Transcript, shows traces of a feminine hand, joined
to a masculine judgment. As her age ripens (and
even Boston fogs cannot always preserve freshness)
she may turn her faculties to the elaboration of a
stately paper, for that stateliest of Journals, the
North American Review. And there are those, as
I am informed on good authority, whose energy and
literary perseverance, are sometimes equal to a perusal
of that extraordinary Paper.
The Boston lady has friends at Cambridge;
either a nephew who is a rising man in the University,
or a cousin who is making a stir in Divinity,
or an acquaintance, or quasi lover, who is a pattern
of a scholar, or a Pindar of a poet. She encourages
the Opera, more particularly if the piece has
been applauded in the Cambridge circles, and echoed
by the Transcript. Nothing in her view, could
be more exquisite than the performance on the
night of the late high prices. Commendation was
general; and telegraphic, finger announcements of
the price of seats, ran around the house as so many
proofs of the genial and characteristic appreciation.
The Boston lady does not affect French; or, rather,
she reckons it a school-day accomplishment,
with which she does not often sully her lip in society.
The English lady is her pattern of breeding,
as she is her sampler of grace. Her ideas of
free dressing never go beyond Sir Peter Lely, and
would stop far short of his voluptuous beauties,
were they not hallowed by her recollections, or her
reading of Hampton Court. The lusts of the eye,
and the pride of life, are not so much among her
sins, as the sufficiency of the Pharisee. She is no
poor Publican, but by Heaven's bounty a Bostonian.
Her religion is intellectual to a fault, and her
Christian ingenuity revels in theologic conceits.
Between Messrs. Parker and Emerson, a divinity
radiates from every corner of Boston; a mystic intellectism
an occasional scintillation of genius breaks out, as
a signal for a shout, and as a new `star in the
East.'
Following close upon the Opera, the Egyptian
Princess has created one of the periodic fevers of
Boston. It was not allowed to the people of our
town to be the patrons of such a learned, and antiquarian
exposition, as belonged to the unwrapping
of a mummy. The enthusiasm of our sister city
amounted even to romance, and poets made anticipatory
sonnets to the Theban princess. Boston
prudery forgot its blushes in the presence of so old
and august a belle, and came prepared to witness
the unclothing of the high-priestess, without a veil.
The company was worthy of the interest of the
subject. Scientific men, the erudite Agassiz, and
the accomplished Bigelow, with a host of others,
were proud to lend their aid to the unfolding of
that mystery, which, for the time, was to throw
into the shade the lectures of a Hudson, and the
antitheses of a Parker. Day after day, the enlightened
assemblage gazed upon the rapidly diminishing
envelopes, occasionally forgetting their dignity
in an operatic bravura, and only restraining a
shower of bouquets upon both lecturer and princess,
when it was discovered that the mummy was
put his hands in his pockets.
But the Bostonians are too well taught, and too
erudite to be surprised: the metamorphose astonished
no one; and the old, withered, bituminous
Theban was as much a thing of course in the progress
of their inquiry, as a north-easter to their
summer, or a mystery to their faith. Had it been
even a dipped, bituminous crocodile, there would
have been those present, who would have foreseen
it from the beginning, and who would have taught
Mr. Gliddon his hieroglyphics.
Upon the whole, the result was effective; it has
given an admirable topic for disquisition on mysteries
in general, by the Town and Country Club.
The theologians are put upon the alert; and they
will lack their accustomed ingenuity, if they do
not draw from the contradiction of the mummy
case, to the mummy included, a new argument
against the authenticity of the Gospels. The metaphysicians,
too, possessed of the bare fact, that an
undoubted Egyptian princess, bore every appearance
of a man, will easily base upon it some new theory
of objective philosophy, for publication in Mr. Brownson's
Review. The Historical Society of our town
will, without my suggestion, see the propriety of
putting in a claim for the scattered leaves of papyrus,
Theban. A paper should, of course, be prepared,
to be read at the next monthly meeting, showing
with historical accuracy, and with the acumen
characteristic of the Society, what might have been
on the papyrus if it had been longer, as well as
indulging in a few moral reflections upon leathern
belts and bitumen.
But, Boston is our fit rival; as fit as Sparta to
Athens; they will show us a Lycurgus for our
Solon,—a Lysander for our Pericles, and (to their
honor be it spoken) a Spartan mother, for our Aspasia.
Even in the matter of associations, they
can fully match our Historical, with their Horticultural.
Our learned men of the University Hall
are not more zealous, philanthropic, and devotional
in their search after inscriptions, musty pamphlets,
and Dutch breeches, than the old, white cravatted
gentlemen of School street, in their pursuit of vegetable
enormities, and their inquiries concerning
grub-worms and cabbages. Indeed, the assiduity
and earnestness of these vegetable philosophers of
Boston, would quite throw into the shade the chocolate
and stale jokes of our historical doctors.
Boston bugs are classified, and not a chrysalis
can break upon the Common, but the size and color
of the escaping fly will be reported to the Board-As
dressed, and exhibited as the triumphs of Boston
science, acting upon Boston soil.
The Boston Clubs are perhaps worth a note;
there is the Old Suffolk, coming near to our
`Union,' with its lazy, corpulent, dinner-loving
men, who talk slowly, and easily, and who are always
sure their own opinion is the best possible
opinion; who look upon New York with complacency,
and who think it a rising town, and that it
will come, in time, to be a respectable city. There
is the Town and Country Club, once quite promising,
but now given over chiefly to Dial-men, who
rival each other in throwing shadows upon what is
light to other people; and in casting the electric
flashes of their words upon what is made darker for
such lightning.
The Temble, in their new building, numbers the
budding hopes of the Boston nobility;—distinguishable,
in their case, by such exquisiteness of dress
as a Boston man can wear, and by much prattle
about the Traveler's Club, and the Reform Kitchens
of London. They adore Britain, and turn up
their noses at the cholera, because it had no English
run. Their learning is measurable by the
syntax of the Cambridge course, spiced with a
nominal knowledge of Porson's critiques; and their
which governed the construction of the pepper-boxes
on the Royal Academy, and which tolerates
the chalky extravagances of Turner.
As for the Tremont, it would show badly even
beside the New York Club; its evenings are lighted
up with rich talk of horses; and its heroes are they
who have triumphed over the virtue of an actress.
In a town like Boston, where an air of sobriety is
fastened upon the houses, and the streets, the extravagances
of lust are loathsome. Splendor seems
in a measure to legitimate license; but a debauchee
who wears yellow gaiters, and a short-waisted
coat, is even more pitiable, than he is polluted.
But after all, Fritz, this neighbor town of ours,
is a strong town. It has an air of permanence and
civilization which does not belong to our tottling
splendor. In Boston, houses are built, not for sale,
or show, or balls, but for comfortable habitations,
and for homes. Streets are paved, not by demagogue
jobbery, but by authority;—not for fat contracts,
but for service. Municipal laws are made,
not for political capital, but for order; and police
regulations are enforced, not by accident, and
spasms of efficiency, but regularly, and for the public
security.
Their education is not for the display of an evening,
life. Their plans are not laid for the next week,
but for twenty years to come. Even their coachmen
take their fares, not for a full dinner to-day,
but for a good reputation to their stand.
And the analogy obtains even in their literature;
books are written more for soberness, than brilliancy.
They are the result of study, more than of fervid
enthusiasm. Their Sparks, Prescott, and Ticknor,
labor, not so much for pretty complimentary periods
in the Literary Journals, as for a name on
the catalogues of libraries. Boston men have the
power and the gift—to wait. Boston belles (be it
said in parenthesis) have a little of the same.
The New Yorkers may temper their condemnation,
and their sneers by what I have set down;
for it shames them; and yet it is true. It will not
do to throw sarcasm lightly upon the compact and
vigorous manhood of the Massachusetts province.
There belongs to Bostonians a granitic hardness,
that will stand shocks; and that does not lack
either the felspar of Puritanic morality, the sharp,
translucent quartz of education, or the scattered
mica spangles of various accomplishment.
You and I, Fritz, have rambled enough about
the world, to set our opinion free of any town-barriers;
and where worth is to be found, in God's
acknowledge it with a kind grimace, or with a
sneer; with, or without either, I shall hope to survive.
It is said that when Theban Pindar was fined in
a large sum, for abuse of his native city, Athens in
consideration of certain complimentary terms which
the poet had bestowed, discharged the debt. If the
New Yorkers should ostracise John Timon for his
abuse, I trust that the Bostonians will be generous
enough, in view of his praises, to show him Athenian
justice.
And now, my dear Fritz, hoping that this city
sultriness does not reach you,—that your new milk
is not soured with thunder, and that your oat-fields
are fast feathering into blossom, I bid you, for a
fortnight more,—Adieu.
| THE LORGNETTE. The lorgnette, or, Studies of the town | |