Alertness, generally fine
physique, clear eyes that look straight at you, a singular combination
of reticence and self-possession, with good nature and friendliness--a
prevailing range of according manners, taste and intellect, surely
beyond any elsewhere upon earth--and a palpable outcropping of that
personal comradeship I look forward to as the subtlest, strongest
future hold of this many-item'd Union--are not only constantly visible
here in these mighty channels of men, but they form the rule and
average. To-day, I should say--defiant of cynics and pessimists, and
with a full knowledge of all their exceptions--an appreciative and
perceptive study of the current humanity of New York gives the
directest proof yet of successful Democracy, and of the solution
of that paradox, the eligibility of the free and fully developed
individual with the paramount aggregate. In old age, lame and sick,
pondering for years on many a doubt and danger for this republic of
ours--fully aware of all that can be said on the other side--I find
in this visit to New York, and the daily contact and rapport with its
myriad people, on the scale of the oceans and tides, the best, most
effective medicine my soul has yet partaken--the grandest physical
habitat and surroundings of land and water the globe affords--namely,
Manhattan island and Brooklyn, which the future shall join in one city
--city of superb democracy, amid superb surroundings.
HOURS FOR THE SOUL
_July 22d, 1878_.
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