roofs that stretch along the bay, and rise one above another on the city's
three hills, grouping themselves about the State House, and surmounted by
its India-rubber dome. But, after all, does human weakness crave some
legendary charm, some grace of uncertain antiquity, in the picturesqueness
it sees? I own that the future, to which we are often referred for the
"stuff that dreams are made of," is more difficult for the fancy than the
past, that the airy amplitude of its possibilities is somewhat chilly, and
that we naturally long for the snug quarters of old, made warm by many
generations of life. Besides, Europe spoils us ingenuous Americans, and
flatters our sentimentality into ruinous extravagances. Looking at her
many-storied former times, we forget our own past, neat, compact, and
convenient for the poorest memory to dwell in. Yet an American not
infected with the discontent of travel could hardly approach this superb
city without feeling something of the coveted pleasure in her, without a
reverie of her Puritan and Revolutionary times, and the great names and
deeds of her heroic annals. I think, however, we were well to be rid of
this yearning for a native American antiquity; for in its indulgence one
cannot but regard himself and his contemporaries as cumberers of the
ground, delaying the consummation of that hoary past which will be so
fascinating to a semi-Chinese posterity, and will be, ages hence, the
inspiration of Pigeon-English poetry and romance. Let us make much of our
two hundred and fifty years, and cherish the present as our golden age. We
healthy-minded people in the horse-cars are loath to lose a moment of it,
and are aggrieved that the draw of the bridge should be up, naturally
looking on what is constantly liable to happen as an especial malice of
the fates. All the drivers of the vehicles that clog the draw on either
side have a like sense of personal injury; and apparently it would go hard
with the captain of that leisurely vessel below if he were delivered into
our hands. But this impatience and anger are entirely illusive.