From the Easy Chair, Volume 3Curtis, George William
General
From the Easy Chair, Volume 3
Curtis, George William
American essays
And so, as the Easy Chair strolled along, bumped and hustled and
severely looked upon by the eager throng in the narrow street, more
radically reconstructed than any doubtful State, it could not help
feeling that London with Her Majesty's Tower, and Paris with her
deserted Place Louis Quinze, are not the only romantic cities in the
world, and that a city of such rapid and incessant change as New York
offers even some poetic aspects which its elder sisters want. The Easy
Chair has pleaded formerly for some respect towards old historic
buildings, like the old State-house in Boston, for instance, and has
been indignantly laughed at for its pains. It will not deny that,
unabashed by such laughter, it contemplates the old Walton House with
satisfaction. It repairs, also, to the corner of Broad and Pearl
streets, and, reflecting upon General Washington's parting with his
officers, turns its eyes towards Wall Street, and beholds the Grecian
temple which has taken the place of the old City Hall, upon whose
balcony the first predecessor of President Grant was inaugurated. But
the romance of Church Street is of another kind. It is the romance of
striking and sudden change merely, not of historic interest, nor of
personal association. Perhaps the gentle reader may not find it when he
goes there. Then let him carry it.
HISTORIC BUILDINGS
A few months ago the Easy Chair, seeing that changes were making in the
old State-house in Boston, one of the few Revolutionary and truly
historic buildings that remain, modestly ventured to regret it, and to
deplore the rapid disappearance of the venerable relics that had come
down to us from former generations. It suggested, or meant to suggest,
or might, could, would, or should have suggested, and will now, under
correction, suggest that there are very few buildings in New York which
recall that earlier epoch of the country. With a national and pardonable
logic, or association of ideas, the Easy Chair enlarged upon the value
of historical relics, of monuments, of visible traditions; and urged
possibly that it made life a little barer, a little less poetic, here
than it would otherwise be.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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