American Notes

another railroad to Worcester: a pretty New England town, where we had arranged to

d a slight frost had so hardened the roads when we alighted at Worcester, that their furrowed tracks were like ridges of granite. There was the usual aspect of newness on every object, of course. All the buildings looked as if they had been built and painted that morning, and could be taken down on Monday with very little trouble. In the keen evening air, every sharp outline looked a hundred times sharper than ever. The clean cardboard colonnades had no more perspective than a Chinese bridge on a tea-cup, and appeared equally well calculated for use. The razor-like edges of the detached cottages seemed to cut the very wind as it whistled against them, and to send it smarting on its way w

at hand and dotted the distant thread of road, there was a pleasant Sabbath peacefulness on everything, which it was good to feel. It would have been the better for an old church; better still

bly have occupied ten or twelve hours. Fortunately, however, the winter having been unusually mild, the Connecticut River was 'open,' or, in other words, not frozen. The captain of a small steamboat was going to make his first trip for

s across the lower panes; so that it looked like the parlour of a Lilliputian public-house, which had got afloat in a flood or some other water accident, and was drifting nobody knew where. But even in this chamber there was a rocking-chair. It would be impossible to get on anywhere, in America, without a rocking-chair. I am afraid to tell how many feet short this vessel was

masses, carried down the middle of the river by the current, did not exceed a few inches. Nevertheless, we moved onward, dexterously; and being well wrapped up, bade defiance to the weather, and enjoyed the journey. The Connecticut River is a fine stream; and the

nsiderably bigger than our own chimney), we reached Hartford, and straightway repaired to an extremely comfortable hotel:

ould be proved to have kissed his wife on Sunday, was punishable, I believe, with the stocks. Too much of the old Puritan spirit exists in these parts to the present hour; but its influence has not tended, that I know, to make the people less hard in their bargains, or more equal in their dealings. As I never heard of its working that effect any

garden. In the State House is the charter itself. I found the courts of law here, just the same as at Boston; the publi

rom the patients, but for the few words which passed between the former, and the Doctor, in reference to the persons unde

rance, who came sidling up to me from the end of a long passage, and with a

l flourish, sir, upon

ma'am,'

st saw him,

l. He begged me to present his compli

e quite sure that I was serious in my respectful air, she sidled back some paces; sidled for

antediluv

s, that I had suspected as much fr

leasant thing, sir, to be an an

k it was, ma'a

ed and sidled down the gallery in a most extraordinary

, there was a male patient in b

off his night-cap: 'It's all settled at la

hat?' asked

s hand wearily across his forehe

ddenly enlightened. For he

No harm will be done to the others. No harm at all. Those that want to be s

hat his talk was incoherent. Directly he had said these words, he lay down

fter playing on the accordion a march he had composed, he was very

bent, I went to the window, which commanded a beautiful prospect

try you have about the

sly over the notes of his instrument: 'Wel

s ever so taken ab

r a whim,' he said c

t's all!

into it. It's a joke of mine. I like it for a time. You ne

passing through a gallery on our way out, a well-dressed lady, of quiet and composed manners, came up, and pro

interviews like that, with ladies o

es

ubject? Au

ars voices

rophets of these later times, who have professed to do the same; and I

a sentry on the wall with a loaded gun. It contained at that time about two hundred prisoners. A spot was shown me in the sleeping ward, where a watchman was murdered some years since in the dead of nigh

after so very long an imprisonment, she has any

e answered. 'To

nce of obtainin

y-the-bye, is a national answe

o do with it?' I

ey won't

they couldn't get

nor yet the second, but tiring and w

hat eve

tical friends'll do it sometimes. It's

with no little regret on the evening of Friday the 11th, and travelled that night by railroad to New Haven. Upon the way, the guard and I were formally introduced to each other (as we us

his Institution are erected in a kind of park or common in the middle of the town, where they are dimly visible among the shadowing trees. The effect is very like that of an old cathedral yard in England; and when their branches are in full leaf, must be extremely picturesque. Even in the winter time

ly to an English eye it was infinitely less like a steamboat than a huge floating bath. I could hardly persuade myself, indeed, but that the bathing establishment off Westminster Bridge, which I left a b

nd lofty frame, is seen working away like an iron top-sawyer. There is seldom any mast or tackle: nothing aloft but two tall black chimneys. The man at the helm is shut up in a little house in the fore part of the boat (the wheel being connected with the rudder by iron chains, working the whole length of the deck); and the passengers, unless the weather be very fine indeed, usually congregate below. Di

plexities which render the discovery of the gentlemen's cabin, a matter of some difficulty. It often occupies the whole length of the boat (as it did in this case), and has

ay down to sleep; being very much tired with the fatigues of yesterday. But I woke from my nap in time to hurry up, and see Hell Gate, the Hog's Back, the Frying Pan, and other notorious localities, attractive to all readers of famous Diedrich Knickerbocker's History. We were now in a narrow channel, with sloping banks on either side, besprinkled with pleasant villas, and

s: all travelling to and fro: and never idle. Stately among these restless Insects, were two or three large ships, moving with slow majestic pace, as creatures of a prouder kind, disdainful of their puny journeys, and making for the broad sea. Beyond, were shining heights, and islands in the glancing river, and a distance scarcely less blue and bright than the sky it seemed to meet. The city's hum and buzz, the clinking of capstans, the ringing of bells, the barking of