The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and PoliticsVarious
General
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
The journey from Boston to New York has for most persons lost the
excitement of novelty; but excitement of another sort is to be obtained
by choosing a route where mile after mile of the roadway is lined with
wrecks of recent accidents, and the papers sold in the cars brim over
with horrible details of death and maiming in consequence. Nor can it be
considered either wholesome or comfortable to be removed in the middle
of a November night from a warm car to a ferry-boat, and thence to
another train of cars without fire and almost without seats,--the
suggestive apology being, that so many carriages had been "smashed"
lately that the enterprising managers of the road had been obliged to
buy an old excursion-train from another company. Meantime, what became
of the unfortunate women who had no kind companion to purvey for them
blankets and pillows from the mephitic sleeping-car, and cups of hot tea
from unknown sources, Miselle cannot conjecture.
New York at midday, from the standpoint of Fifth Avenue or Central Park,
is a very splendid and attractive place, we shall all agree; but New
York involved in a wilderness of railway station at six o'clock of a
rainy autumn morning is quite the reverse. Cabmen, draymen, porters, all
assume a new ferocity of bearing, horses are more cruelly lashed,
ignorant wayfarers more crushingly snubbed, new trunks more recklessly
smashed, than would be possible at a later hour of the day; and that
large class of persons who may be denominated intermittent gentlemen
fold up their politeness with their travelling-shawls and put it away
for a future occasion.
Solaced by a breakfast and rest, Miselle bade good-bye to her attentive
escort, and set forth alone to view New York with the critical eye of a
Bostonian.
Her first experience was significant; and in the course of a three-mile
drive down Broadway, she had time, while standing in the middle of an
omnibus, where were seated nine young gentlemen, for much complacent
comparison of the manners of the two cities. Indeed, after twelve hours
of attentive study, Miselle discovered but two points of superiority in
the New Babylon over the Modern Athens, and these were chocolate-creams
and policemen: the first were delicious, the last civil.
Six o'clock arrived, and the "Lightning Express," over the Erie Railway,
bore, among other less important freight, Miselle and her fortunes. But,
unfortunately for the interest of this narrative, she had unwittingly
selected an "off-night" for her journey; neither horrible accident nor
raid of bold marauders enlivened the occasion; and undisturbed, the
reckless passengers slept throughout the night, as men have slept who
knew that a scaffold waited for them with the morning's light.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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