FROM LONDON TO NEW YORK. 



dwelling-places, the abodes of men drawn together for 

 other purposes than traffic. People actually live in 

 them, and find life sweet and festal. But what does 

 our greatest city, New York, express besides commerce 

 or politics, or what other reason has it for its existence ? 

 This is, of course, in a measure the result of the mod- 

 ern worldly and practical business spirit, which more 

 and more animates all nations, and which led Carlvle 

 to say of his 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 in- 

 stincts, and to the fact that the material cares of life 

 are more serious and engrossing 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 encomoass the citv, I 

 found the American dandelion in bloom, and some 

 large red clover, and started up some skylarks as I 



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