The Arabia Touched At Halifax; And As The Touch Extended From 11 A.M.
To 6 P.M. We Had
An opportunity of seeing a good deal of that
colony; not quite sufficient to justify me at this critical age
In
writing a chapter of travels in Nova Scotia, but enough perhaps to
warrant a paragraph. It chanced that a cousin of mine was then in
command of the troops there, so that we saw the fort with all the
honors. A dinner on shore was, I think, a greater treat to us even
than this. We also inspected sundry specimens of the gold which is
now being found for the first time in Nova Scotia, as to the glory
and probable profits of which the Nova Scotians seemed to be fully
alive. But still, I think the dinner on shore took rank with us as
the most memorable and meritorious of all that we did and saw at
Halifax. At seven o'clock on the morning but one after that we
were landed at Boston.
At Boston I found friends ready to receive us with open arms,
though they were friends we had never known before. I own that I
felt myself burdened with much nervous anxiety at my first
introduction to men and women in Boston. I knew what the feeling
there was with reference to England, and I knew also how impossible
it is for an Englishman to hold his tongue and submit to dispraise
of England. As for going among a people whose whole minds were
filled with affairs of the war, and saying nothing about the war, I
knew that no resolution to such an effect could be carried out. If
one could not trust one's self to speak, one should have stayed at
home in England. I will here state that I always did speak out
openly what I thought and felt, and that though I encountered very
strong - sometimes almost fierce - opposition, I never was subjected
to anything that was personally disagreeable to me.
In September we did not stay above a week in Boston, having been
fairly driven out of it by the musquitoes. I had been told that I
should find nobody in Boston whom I cared to see, as everybody was
habitually out of town during the heat of the latter summer and
early autumn; but this was not so. The war and attendant turmoils
of war had made the season of vacation shorter than usual, and most
of those for whom I asked were back at their posts. I know no
place at which an Englishman may drop down suddenly among a
pleasanter circle of acquaintance, or find himself with a more
clever set of men, than he can do at Boston. I confess that in
this respect I think that but few towns are at present more
fortunately circumstanced than the capital of the Bay State, as
Massachusetts is called, and that very few towns make a better use
of their advantages. Boston has a right to be proud of what it has
done for the world of letters. It is proud; but I have not found
that its pride was carried too far.
Boston is not in itself a fine city, but it is a very pleasant
city. They say that the harbor is very grand and very beautiful.
It certainly is not so fine as that of Portland, in a nautical
point of view, and as certainly it is not as beautiful. It is the
entrance from the sea into Boston of which people say so much; but
I did not think it quite worthy of all I had heard. In such
matters, however, much depends on the peculiar light in which
scenery is seen. An evening light is generally the best for all
landscapes; and I did not see the entrance to Boston harbor by an
evening light. It was not the beauty of the harbor of which I
thought the most, but of the tea which had been sunk there, and of
all that came of that successful speculation. Few towns now
standing have a right to be more proud of their antecedents than
Boston.
But as I have said, it is not specially interesting to the eye;
what new town, or even what simply adult town, can be so? There is
an Atheneum, and a State Hall, and a fashionable street, - Beacon
Street, very like Piccadilly as it runs along the Green Park, - and
there is the Green Park opposite to this Piccadilly, called Boston
Common. Beacon Street and Boston Common are very pleasant.
Excellent houses there are, and large churches, and enormous
hotels; but of such things as these a man can write nothing that is
worth the reading. The traveler who desires to tell his experience
of North America must write of people rather than of things.
As I have said, I found myself instantly involved in discussions on
American politics and the bearing of England upon those politics.
"What do you think, you in England - what do you believe will be the
upshot of this war?" That was the question always asked in those
or other words. "Secession, certainly," I always said, but not
speaking quite with that abruptness. "And you believe, then, that
the South will beat the North?" I explained that I personally had
never so thought, and that I did not believe that to be the general
idea. Men's opinions in England, however, were too divided to
enable me to say that there was any prevailing conviction on the
matter. My own impression was, and is, that the North will, in a
military point of view, have the best of the contest - will beat the
South; but that the Northerners will not prevent secession, let
their success be what it may. Should the North prevail after a two
years' conflict, the North will not admit the South to an equal
participation of good things with themselves, even though each
separate rebellious State should return suppliant, like a prodigal
son, kneeling on the floor of Congress, each with a separate rope
of humiliation round its neck.
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