Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. I.djvu/134

 is not there to be met with. But beyond the beautiful and the good, seek I for truth and for reality in everything and everywhere. I must also make myself somewhat better acquainted with the five points in the refined life of New York; for I know that there, as in all great cities, is also to be found in the life of the higher class the five ugly and dangerous points. As the first point I reckon the long and tiresome dinners.

New York appears to me outwardly a plodding and busy city without beauty and interest. There are beautiful and quiet parts, with beautiful streets and dwellings; but there the life in the streets is dead. On the Broadway, again, there is an endless tumult and stir, crowd and bustle, and in the city proper, people crowd as if for dear life, and the most detestable fumes poison the air. New York is the last city in the world in which I would live. But it is also to be regarded merely as a vast hotel, a caravanserai both for America and Europe. Besides, it is true that I always felt myself there in such a state of combat and so fatigued, that I had not time to look around for anything beautiful. But, thank heaven! I know Brooklyn, and there I could both live and sleep.

And now let us proceed on our way through the valleys of Connecticut to the small homes of New England, the home-land of the earliest pilgrims.

In the afternoon we reached Hartford. We were invited for the evening to Mrs. Sigourney's, the author of “Pleasant Memories from Pleasant Lands;” and here I shook hands with the whole town I believe,—from the bishop, a handsome old prelate, to the school girl, and played my usual part in society. Mrs. Sigourney, a very kind little sentimentalist, but a very agreeable lady, dressed in green, about fifty years old, with a good motherly demeanour, would perforce keep me with her all night, and I could not go back to my excellent chamber at the hotel, which I would so gladly have done, where I