第103章

The suburbs of New York are, by the nature of the localities, divided from the city by water. Jersey City and Hoboken are on the other side of the Hudson, and in another State. Williamsburg and Brooklyn are on Long Island, which is a part of the State of New York. But these places are as easily reached as Lambeth is reached from Westminster. Steam ferries ply every three or four minutes;and into these boats coaches, carts, and wagons of any size or weight are driven. In fact, they make no other stoppage to the commerce than that occasioned by the payment of a few cents. Such payment, no doubt, is a stoppage; and therefore it is that Jersey City, Brooklyn, and Williamsburg are, at any rate in appearance, very dull and uninviting. They are, however, very populous. Many of the quieter citizens prefer to live there; and I am told that the Brooklyn tea parties consider themselves to be, in esthetic feeling, very much ahead of anything of the kind in the more opulent centers of the city. In beauty of scenery Staten Island is very much the prettiest of the suburbs of New York. The view from the hillside in Staten Island down upon New York harbor is very lovely. It is the only really good view of that magnificent harbor which I have been able to find. As for appreciating such beauty when one is entering a port from sea or leaving it for sea, I do not believe in any such power. The ship creeps up or creeps out while the mind is engaged on other matters. The passenger is uneasy either with hopes or fears, and then the grease of the engines offends one's nostrils. But it is worth the tourist's while to look down upon New York harbor from the hillside in Staten Island. When I was there Fort Lafayette looked black in the center of the channel, and we knew that it was crowded with the victims of secession. Fort Tompkins was being built to guard the pass--worthy of a name of richer sound; and Fort something else was bristling with new cannon. Fort Hamilton, on Long Island, opposite, was frowning at us; and immediately around us a regiment of volunteers was receiving regimental stocks and boots from the hands of its officers. Everything was bristling with war; and one could not but think that not in this way had New York raised herself so quickly to her present greatness.

But the glory of New York is the Central Park--its glory in the minds of all new Yorkers of the present day. The first question asked of you is whether you have seen the Central Park, and the second is as to what you think of it. It does not do to say simply that it is fine, grand, beautiful, and miraculous. You must swear by cock and pie that it is more fine, more grand, more beautiful, more miraculous than anything else of the kind anywhere. Here you encounter in its most annoying form that necessity for eulogium which presses you everywhere. For in truth, taken as it is at present, the Central Park is not fine, nor grand, nor beautiful.

As to the miracle, let that pass. It is perhaps as miraculous as some other great latter-day miracles.

But the Central Park is a very great fact, and affords a strong additional proof of the sense and energy of the people. It is very large, being over three miles long and about three-quarters of a mile in breadth. When it was found that New York was extending itself, and becoming one of the largest cities of the world, a space was selected between Fifth and Seventh Avenues, immediately outside the limits of the city as then built, but nearly in the center of the city as it is intended to be built. The ground around it became at once of great value; and I do not doubt that the present fashion of Fifth Avenue about Twentieth Street will in course of time move itself up to Fifth Avenue as it looks, or will look, over the Park at Seventieth, Eightieth, and Ninetieth Streets. The great water-works of the city bring the Croton River, whence New York is supplied, by an aqueduct over the Harlem River into an enormous reservoir just above the Park; and hence it has come to pass that there will be water not only for sanitary and useful purposes, but also for ornament. At present the Park, to English eyes, seems to be all road. The trees are not grown up;and the new embankments, and new lakes, and new ditches, and new paths give to the place anything but a picturesque appearance. The Central Park is good for what it will be rather than for what it is. The summer heat is so very great that I doubt much whether the people of New York will ever enjoy such verdure as our parks show.