The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 eBook
Various
waistcoats, wander slowly about the streets, with a
certain familiarity of deportment, as if each one
were everybody’s grandfather. I have frequently
observed, in old English towns, that Old Age comes
forth more cheerfully, and genially into the sunshine
than among ourselves, where the rush, stir, bustle,
and irreverent energy of youth are so preponderant,
that the poor, forlorn grandsires begin to doubt whether
they have a right to breathe in such a world any longer,
and so hide their silvery heads in solitude.
Speaking of old men, I am reminded of the scholars
of the Boston Charity-School, who walk about in antique,
long-skirted blue coats, and knee-breeches, and with
bands at their necks,—perfect and grotesque
pictures of the costume of three centuries ago.
On the morning of our departure, I looked from the
parlor-window of the Peacock into the market-place,
and beheld its irregular square already well-covered
with booths, and more in process of being put up, by
stretching tattered sail-cloth on poles. It was
market-day. The dealers were arranging their
commodities, consisting chiefly of vegetables, the
great bulk of which seemed to be cabbages. Later
in the forenoon there was a much greater variety of
merchandise: basket-work, both for fancy and
use; twig-brooms, beehives, oranges, rustic attire;
all sorts of things, in short, that are commonly sold
at a rural fair. I heard the lowing of cattle,
too, and the bleating of sheep, and found that there
was a market for cows, oxen, and pigs, in another
part of the town. A crowd of towns-people and
Lincolnshire yeomen elbowed one another in the square;
Mr. Punch was squeaking in one corner, and a vagabond
juggler tried to find space for his exhibition in
another: so that my final glimpse of Boston was
calculated to leave a livelier impression than my former
ones. Meanwhile the tower of Saint Botolph’s
looked benignantly down; and I fancied that it was
bidding me farewell, as it did Mr. Cotton, two or
three hundred years ago, and telling me to describe
its venerable height, and the town beneath it, to
the people of the American city, who are partly akin,
if not to the living inhabitants of Old Boston, yet
to some of the dust that lies in its churchyard.
One thing more. They have a Bunker Hill in the
vicinity of their town; and (what could hardly be
expected of an English community) seem proud to think
that their neighborhood has given name to our first
and most widely celebrated and best-remembered battle-field.
* * * *
*
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF A STRENGTH-SEEKER.
“There goes the smallest fellow in our class.”
I was crossing one of the paths that intersect the
college green of old Harvard when this remark fell
upon my ears. Looking up, I saw two stalwart
Freshmen on their way to recitation, one of whom had
called the other’s attention to my humble self
by this observation, reminding me of a distinction
which I did not covet.
