Atlantic States -- Description and travel; Kemble, Fanny, 1809-1893; United States -- Social life and customs -- 1783-1865
Our breakfast, which was extremely comfortable and clean, was served to
us in our private room; a singular favour: one, I hope, which will
become a custom as the country is travelled through by greater numbers.
Before breakfast, D---- had been taking a walk about the pretty village,
and trying to beg, borrow, or steal some flowers for me. The master of
the inn, however, succeeded better than she did; for he presently made
his appearance with a very beautiful and fragrant nosegay, which I
found, to my utter dismay, had been levied from a gentleman's private
garden in my name. My horror was excessive at this, and was scarcely
diminished when I discovered, upon enquiry, that they had been gathered
from Mr. ----'s garden; that gentleman having large property and a fine
residence here. He was not in Canandaigua himself; but, as we drove
past his house, I left cards for his lady, who must have thought my
demand on her green-house one of the greatest impertinencies extant. It
was nine o'clock when we left Canandaigua: we were all a little done up
with our two previous days; and it was unanimously settled that we
should proceed only to Rochester, a distance of between thirty and forty
miles, which we accomplished by two o'clock.
Rochester, upon whose site, I understand, twenty years ago there stood
hardly a house, is now a large and populous manufacturing town. The
progress of life in this country is amazing. From day to day the
wilderness becomes inhabited, peopled, civilised; and where yesterday
the majestic woods were standing, and the silent waters gliding in all
the solemn solitude of unexplored nature, to-day the sound of the forge
and anvil is heard, the busy feet of men pass and repass, their mingled
voices resound, their dwellings arise; the wheels of a thousand
mechanical miracles clash, creak, and jar; the vapours of a thousand
steam-engines mingle with the hitherto lonely clouds; and the huge fins
of a thousand steam-boats beat the waters, carrying over their hitherto
undisturbed surface the vast produce of industry. The labours, the arts,
the knowledge, the wealth, the wonders of education and civilisation! It
is something that fills one with admiration, in the old, and eke the
new, sense of the word.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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