century it seemed just as likely that the _Santa Casa_ of Loretto should
take a new flight and descend on the point, as that the improvement that
has actually been made should in truth occur at that out-of-the-way place.
It required, indeed, the keen eye of a railroad projector to bring this
spot in connection with anything; nor could it be done without having
recourse to the water by which it is almost surrounded. Using the last, it
is true, means have been found to place it in a line between two of the
great marts of the country, and thus to put an end to all its seclusion,
its simplicity, its peculiarities, and we had almost said, its happiness.

It is to us ever a painful sight to see the rustic virtues rudely thrown
aside by the intrusion of what are termed improvements. A railroad is
certainly a capital invention for the traveller, but it may be questioned
if it is of any other benefit than that of pecuniary convenience to the
places through which it passes. How many delightful hamlets, pleasant
villages, and even tranquil county towns, are losing their primitive
characters for simplicity and contentment, by the passage of these fiery
trains, that drag after them a sort of bastard elegance, a pretension that
is destructive of peace of mind, and an uneasy desire in all who dwell by
the way-side, to pry into the mysteries of the whole length and breadth of
the region it traverses!

We are writing of the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and
nineteen. In that day, Oyster Pond was, in one of the best acceptations of
the word, a rural district. It is true that its inhabitants were
accustomed to the water, and to the sight of vessels, from the two-decker
to the little shabby-looking craft that brought ashes from town, to
meliorate the sandy lands of Suffolk. Only five years before, an English
squadron had lain in Gardiner's Bay, here pronounced 'Gar'ner's,' watching
the Race, or eastern outlet of the Sound, with a view to cut off the trade