doubter. The busy hum of multitudes, the
shouts of revelry, the rumbling equipages of fashion, the rattling of
accursed carts, and all the spirit-grieving sounds of brawling commerce,
were unknown in the settlement of New Amsterdam. The grass grew quietly in
the highways--the bleating sheep and frolicksome calves sported about the
verdant ridge, where now the Broadway loungers take their morning
stroll--the cunning fox or ravenous wolf skulked in the woods, where now
are to be seen the dens of Gomez and his righteous fraternity of
money-brokers--and flocks of vociferous geese cackled about the fields,
where now the great Tammany wigwam and the patriotic tavern of Martling
echo with the wranglings of the mob.

In these good times did a true and enviable equality of rank and property
prevail, equally removed from the arrogance of wealth, and the servility
and heart-burnings of repining poverty--and what in my mind is still more
conducive to tranquillity and harmony among friends, a happy equality of
intellect was likewise to be seen. The minds of the good burghers of New
Amsterdam seemed all to have been cast in one mould, and to be those
honest, blunt minds, which, like certain manufactures, are made by the
gross, and considered as exceedingly good for common use.

Thus it happens that your true dull minds are generally preferred for
public employ, and especially promoted to city honors; your keen
intellects, like razors, being considered too sharp for common service. I
know that it is common to rail at the unequal distribution of riches, as
the great source of jealousies, broils, and heart-breakings; whereas, for
my part, I verily believe it is the sad inequality of intellect that
prevails, that embroils communities more than anything else; and I have
remarked that your knowing people, who are so much wiser than anybody
else, are eternally keeping society in a ferment. Happily for New
Amsterdam, nothing of the kind was known within its walls--the very words
of learning, education, taste, and talents were unheard of--a bright
genius was an animal unknown, and a blue-stocking lady would have been
regarded with as much wonder as a horned frog or a fiery dragon. No man in
fact seemed to know more than his neighbor, nor any man to know more than
an honest man ought to know, who has nobody's business to mind but his
own; the parson and the council clerk were the only men that could read in
the community, and the sage Van Twi