In the moral, emotional, heroic, and human
growths, (the main of a race in my opinion,) something of this kind
has certainly taken place in Boston. The New England metropolis of
to-day may be described as sunny, (there is something else that makes
warmth, mastering even winds and meteorologies, though those are
not to be sneez'd at,) joyous, receptive, full of ardor, sparkle, a
certain element of yearning, magnificently tolerant, yet not to be
fool'd; fond of good eating and drinking--costly in costume as its
purse can buy; and all through its best average of houses, streets,
people, that subtle something (generally thought to be climate, but
it is not--it is something indefinable in the _race_, the turn of
its development) which effuses behind the whirl of animation, study,
business, a happy and joyous public spirit, as distinguish'd from a
sluggish and saturnine one. Makes me think of the glints we get (as in
Symonds's books) of the jolly old Greek cities. Indeed there is a
good deal of the Hellenic in B., and the people are getting handsomer
too--padded out, with freer motions, and with color in their faces.
I never saw (although this is not Greek) so many _fine-looking
gray-hair'd women_. At my lecture I caught myself pausing more
than once to look at them, plentiful everywhere through the
audience--healthy and wifely and motherly, and wonderfully charming
and beautiful--I think such as no time or land but ours could show.
MY TRIBUTE TO FOUR POETS
_April 16_.
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