SOUNDS. 
131 
prime lot, which will get far among the hills before it 
gets slacked. These rags in bales, of all hues and 
qualities, the lowest condition to which cotton and linen 
descend, the final result of dress, — of patterns which 
are now no longer cried up, unless it be in Milwaukie, 
as those splendid articles, English, French, or American 
prints, ginghams, muslins, &c., gathered from all quar¬ 
ters both of fashion and poverty, going to become 
paper of one color or a few shades only, on which for¬ 
sooth will be written tales of real life, high and low, 
and founded on fact! This closed car smells of salt 
fish, the strong New England and commercial scent, re¬ 
minding me of the Grand Banks and the fisheries. 
Who has not seen a salt fish, thoroughly cured for this 
world, so that nothing can spoil it, and putting the per¬ 
severance of the saints to the blush ? with which you 
may sweep or pave the streets, and split your kindlings, 
and the teamster shelter himself and his lading against 
sun wind and rain behind it, — and the trader, as a 
Concord trader once did, hang it up by his door for a 
sign when he commences business, until at last his old¬ 
est customer cannot tell surely whether it be animal, 
vegetable, or mineral, and yet it shall be as pure as a 
snowflake, and if it be put into a pot and boiled, will 
come out an excellent dun fish for a Saturday’s dinner. 
Next Spanish hides, with the tails still preserving their 
twist and the angle of elevation they had when the 
oxen that wore them were careering over the pampas 
of the Spanish main, — a type of all obstinacy, and 
evincing how almost hopeless and incurable are all con¬ 
stitutional vices. I confess, that practically speaking, 
when I have learned a man’s real disposition, I have no 
hopes of changing it for the better or worse in this state of 
