246 AN OCTOBER ABROAD. 



gether for other purposes than traffic. People actu- 

 ally live in them, and find life sweet and festal. But 

 what does our greatest city, New York, express be- 

 sides commerce or politics, or what other reason has 

 it for its existence ? This is, of course, in a measure 

 the result of the modern worldly and practical business 

 spirit, which more and more animates all nations, and 

 which led Carlyle to say of bis own countrymen that 

 they were becoming daily more " flat, stupid, and 

 mammonish." Yet I am persuaded that in our case 

 it is traceable also to the leanness and depletion of 

 our social and convivial instincts, and to the fact that 

 the material cares of life are more serious and en- 

 grossing with us than with any other people. 



I spent part of a day at Cork, wandering about the 

 town, threading my way through the back streets and 

 alleys, and seeing life reduced to fewer makeshifts 

 than I had ever before dreamed of. I went through, 

 or rather skirted, a kind of second-hand market, where 

 the most sorry and dilapidated articles of clothing 

 and household utensils were offered for sale, and 

 where the cobblers were cobbling up old shoes that 

 would hardly hold together. Then the wretched old 

 women one sees, without any sprinkling of young 

 ones youth and age alike bloomless and unlovely. 



In a meadow on the hills that encompass the 

 city, I found the American dandelion in bloom and 

 some large red clover, and started up some skylarks 

 as I might start up the field sparrows in our own up- 

 lying fields. 



