leaving New York ill paved, ill lighted, and indifferently supplied
with a good many necessaries and luxuries of modern civilization.

[This was fifty-six years ago. Times are altered since this letter was
written. New York is neither ill paved nor ill lighted; the municipality
is rich, but neither economical, careful, nor honest, in dealing with
the public moneys. The rapid spread of superficial civilization and
accumulation of easily-got wealth, together with incessant communication
with Europe, have made of the great cities of the New World, centres of
an imperfect but extreme luxury, vying with, and in some respects going
beyond, all that London or Paris presents for the indulgence of tastes
pampered by the oldest civilization of Europe.

One day, after the Croton water had been brought into New York, I was
sitting with the venerable Chancellor Kent at the window of his house in
Union Square, and, pointing to the fountain that sprang up in the midst
of the inclosure, he said, "When I was a boy, much more than half a
century ago, I used to go to the Croton water, and paddle, and fish, and
bathe, and swim, and loiter my time away in the summer days. I cannot go
out there any more for any of these pleasant purposes, but the Croton
water has come here to me." What a ballad Schiller or Goethe would have
made of that! That morning visit to Chancellor Kent has left that pretty
picture in my mind, and the recollection of his last words as he shook
hands with me: "Ay, madam, the secret of life is always to have
excitement enough, and never too much." But he did not give me the
secret of that secret.]

There are, on an average, half a dozen fires in various parts of
the town every night--I mean houses on fire. The sons of all the
gentlemen here are volunteer engineers and firemen, and great is
the delight they take in tearing up and down the streets,
accompanied by red lights, speaking trumpets, and a rushing,
roaring escort of running amateur extinguishers, who make night
hideous with their bawling and bellowing. This evening as I was
observing that we had had no fire to-day, Dall said the weather was
so hot, she thought they must have left off fires for the season.

Speaking of carriages and the devices on the panels of them here,
which appear to be rather fancy pieces than heraldic bearings, my
father said, "I wonder what they do for arms." "Use legs,"