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[page 597:]
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DOINGS OF GOTHAM.
New York
May 14, 1844.
It will give me much pleasure, gentlemen, to comply
with your suggestions and, by dint of a weekly epistle, keep you au
fait to a certain portion of the doings of Gotham. And here if, in
the beginning, for "certain" you read "uncertain," you will the more
readily
arrive at my design. For, in fact, I must deal chiefly in gossip — in
gossip,
whose empire is unlimited, whose influence is universal, whose devotees
are legion; — in gossip which is the true safety-valve of society —
engrossing
at least seven-eights of the whole waking existence of mankind. It has
been never better defined than by Basil, who calls it "talk for talk's
sake," nor more thoroughly comprehended than by Lady Wortley Montague,
who made it a profession and a purpose. Although coextensive with the
world,
it is well known, however, to have neither beginning, middle, nor end.
Thus, of the gossiper it was not acutely said that "he commences his
discourse
by jumping in medics res." Herein it was Jeremy Taylor who
deceived
himself. For, clearly, your gossiper begins not at all. He is begun. He
is already begun. He is always begun. In the matter of end he is
indeterminate,
and by these things shall you know him to be of the Caesars —
porphyrogenitus
— born in the purple — a gossiper of the "right vein" — of the true
blood
— of the blue blood — of the sangre azala. As for law, he is
cognizant
of but one, and that negative — the invariable absence of all. And, for
his road, were it as straight as the Appia, and as broad as "that which
leadeth to destruction," nevertheless would he be malcontent without a
frequent hopskip-and-jump over the hedges, into the tempting pastures
of
digression beyond. Thus, although my avowed purpose be Gotham, I shall
not be expected to give up the privilege of touching, when it suits me,
de omnibus rebus et quibusdam aliis — upon
everything and something
besides.
We are not yet over the bustle of the
first of May.
"Keep Moving" have been the watchwords for the last fortnight. The man
who, in New York, should be so bold as not to peregrinate on the first,
would, beyond doubt, attain immortality as "The Great Unmoved" — a
title
applied by Home, the author of "Orion," to one of his heroes, Akineros
[[Akinetos]], the type of the spirt of Apathy.
Talking of Horne — I regard his epic
as the noblest
of modern days. An indisputably great man. You have, perhaps, seen his
"New Spirit of the Age," lately reprinted in this country by the
Harpers.
Of a host of the British literati he speaks frankly and
fearlessly
— as a man — and as a man who "does his own thinking." For this there
will
be, doubtless, an attempt at proscription. Indeed it has already
commenced.
I quote from a letter of the poet's now lying before me: — "If you have
seen 'The New Spirit of the Age' you will readily understand that a
great
many critics here, and some authors, are far from pleased with me. The
attacks and jeers in Magazines and Newspapers (though several have
treated
me very fairly) are nearly all written by friends of the angry parties,
or influenced by them. Perhaps I may say a word on this point in the
second
edition now preparing."
I have been roaming far and wide over
this island
of Mannahatta. Some portions of its interior have a certain air of
rocky
sterility which may impress some imaginations as simply dreary — to
me it conveys the sublime. Trees are few; but some of the shrubbery is
execeedingly picturesque. Not less so are the prevalent shanties of the
Irish squatters. I have one of these tabernacles (I use the
term
primitively) at present in the eye of my mind. It is, perhaps, nine
feet
by six, with a pigsty applied externally, by way both of portico and
support.
The whole fabric (which is of mud) has been erected in somewhat too
obvious
an imitation of the Tower of Pisa. A dozen rough planks, "pitched"
together,
form the roof. The door is a barrel on end. There is a garden, too; and
this is encircled by a ditch at one point, a large stone at another, a
bramble at a third. A dog and a cat are inevitable in these
habitations;
and, apparently, there are no dogs and no cats more entirely happy.
On the eastern or "Sound" face of
Mannahatta (why do we persist in de-euphonizing the
true
names?) are some of
the most picturesque sites for villas to be found within the limits of
Christendom. These localities, however, are neglected — unimproved. The
old mansions upon them (principally wooden) are suffered to remain
unrepaired,
and present a melancholy spectacle of decrepitude. In fact, these
magnificent
places are doomed. The spirit of Improvement has withered them with its
acrid breath. Streets are already "mapped" through them, and they are
no
longer suburban residences, but "town-lots." In some thirty years every
noble cliff will be a pier, and the whole island will be densely
desecrated
by buildings of brick, with portentous facades of brown-stone,
or
brown-stonn, as the Gothamites have it.
The fountain in the Park is in so
much good, as it
fulfils its design. That at the Bowling-Green is an absurdity — and is
it for this reason that it has been pronounced sublime? The idea, you
know,
— the original conception was rusticity — Nature, in short. The water
was
designed to fall and flow naturally, over natural rocks. And how has
this
design been carried into execution? By piling some hundred nearly
rectangular
cubes of stone, into one nearly rectangular cube. The whole has much
the
air of a small country jail in a hard thunder shower.
For the present, vale et valete. Editors
of the "Columbia Spy."
P.
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