This text is part of:
Table of Contents:
[9]
were alike charmed as soon as they crossed its threshold; and both bore cordial tribute to the hospitality, heartiness, and refinement which they found wherever they went.
The houses were rich in the appointments already noted.
Host and hostess presided with dignity and grace; and the young women, distinguished by intelligence, style, winsomeness, and often beauty, could play well their part in any society in the world.
Foremost among these last were the daughters of Mr. Appleton, whose names have found a place in books of travel and fiction.
Foreigners felt the charm of this circle, which remained in the memory for half a century as fresh as yesterday's feast.1
Such a society was like that of ancient Athens more than any other modern city can show,—intellectual, consolidated, despotic over individual thought, insisting on uniformity of belief in matters which were related to its interests, and frowning upon novelties which struck at its prestige.
It exists now only in tradition.
The changes wrought by the Civil War and the great increase in numbers have made a new city, no longer provincial, less interesting than it was, but more tolerant, and with no one set to call itself ‘society.’
The families which once controlled city and State, which dictated opinion and put antislavery men in Coventry, have vanished.
If they survive in a few names, they exercise no perceptible influence on the course of events.
It is difficult, with the transformation which has come from devastating fires, from new or widened streets, and the conversion, in whole districts, of dwellings into warehouses, to find old landmarks; but it is harder still to find traces of that society which had cast out Wendell Phillips, well blooded as the best, and which now laid its heavy hand on Sumner, Palfrey, and Dana.
George Ticknor's house, at the corner of Park and Beacon streets, facing the English elms on the Common, was the centre of the literary society of the time.2 He had retired from a professor's
1 A. Gallenga's ‘Episodes of my Second Life.’ Lord Morpeth enjoyed this society very much, as his diary in manuscript shows. Foreigners, however, who were charmed by the good manners and refinement, could not be expected to detect the features which most concern this narrative.
2 He began to live in this house in 1829. A picture of the library is given in the ‘Memorial History of Boston,’ vol. III. p. 662, and in ‘Life’ of Ticknor, vol. i. p. 388. As to visitors at the house, see ‘Life’ of Ticknor, vol. i. p. 391; vol. II. p. 482.
Cambridge, MA. Press of John Wilson and Son. 1877.
Tufts University provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.