Fayette County herald. [volume] (Washington [Washington Court House], Fayette County, O. [Ohio]) 1860-1???, 1872-01-04
Boston Notions,

Boston is a sort of Mecca for a
literary man. There is an aroma of
learning in its atmosphere, look of
profound rehectiveness in its build
ings, an antique and historical crook
to it's streets, smack of pedantry in
its relics. We always tread the lanes
of the old town-wbich is almost as
European as in the colonial days with
a feeling that between New York and
Boston we have done what Jean
Ingelow's hero in Mopsa did, travelled
backward through time rather than
through space. For, with all its rep
utation for radicalism, Boston is the
most conservative city on the CONT
nent It is not conservative in the
dead and stagnant way; but ag-
gressively and energetically conserva
tive. Other cities stand still But
Boston contends for the antique, and
affects a conservative hauteUr more
and more. The radicalism of Boston
| is the result Of its individualism In
an air so full Of ideas there could not
but be radicals and come-outers. But
the undertone Of society and of feel
| ing is stiff1y conservative. No where
do people pride themselves so much
on the wall of reserve which they
| build about them as in the Hub City.
| Beacon street hill with its aristocratic
houses lifts itself up in frowning state
illness, an immense bump of self-es-
TEEN, warning the stranger that he
must expect little of human fellowship
or of brotherhood from 'good so,
ciety," unless he comes backed by
| gilt dyed iptroductions, and is able
to pass satisfactorily through the pre-,
scribed red-tape routine which guards
the sacredness of the old families which
descended from the grand. old, round
heads of the May flower How
brusquely the old ancestors would
have broken through such extreme
conventionality
And yet this aristocratic Boston
has established the most democratic
free library in the world, from the
shelves of which the pauper may take
the best books, and has invented the
flower charity by which every poor
hospital pauper may share their en-
i Ijoyment The denizens of Beacon
street will do anything for poor
man except speak to him if he is not
properly introduced.
And to man who does not care a
fig for Beacon street. whose heart
cheer can not be damped by any men S
hauteur, Boston is the most delight
ful of cities. Because it is not like
any other city. It is the fashion to
be literary in Boston. Bostonians
could not even enjoy their beloved
Common if the botanical names were
not painted on tin signs and tackled
upon the trees. And they seek to be
different from other cities. Boston is
always original. It does not do any
thing because it is done in any other
city, but it does many things because
they are not done elsewhere.
Few people who have not been to
; Boston reflect that this originality
) this freshness, this piquancy, this lit.
erary character, is given to the city
= by a single class of its people. Ninety
e nine people in a hundred in Boston
2 are just as commonplace as ninety
nine people in a hundred in any other
place Low theaters find support il
Boston as elsewhere, and there is
sensation preacher on his % wn hook
I whose ridiculous lecture on ridicu
n lous subject has been delivered fab.
! ulous number of times, and still draw:
larger and larger houses. All Bostor
> is not literary.
g But literary Boston is most de
b lightful. There is an air of high cul
+, ture even about business circles. W.
y once heard a Boston merchant say
: that he would rather live in New York
For" said he, 'there one man is q
P good as another. If a man succeeds
a in New York, they don't ask whethe
|. he has graduated at Harvard or not
d And in saying this he unwittingl
said: ''In New York money is every
thing; in Boston culture is also con
a sidered."
" And of all Boston notions this
is the Hearth and Home,
A Judge in Pennsylvania has el
Is joined Catholic Bishop from remo'
- inU a oriest from his uastOrRto