wear to his young eyes, and how his heart must leap within him!"

"Yes, Basil; it's all very pleasing, and thank you for bringing me. But
if you don't think of any other New York delights to show me, do let us
go and sit in Leonard's office till he comes, and then get out into the
country as soon as possible."

Basil defended himself against the imputation that he had been trying to
show New York to his wife, or that he had any thought but of whiling away
the long morning hours, until it should be time to go to Leonard. He
protested that a knowledge of Europe made New York the most uninteresting
town in America, and that it was the last place in the world where he
should think of amusing himself or any one else; and then they both
upbraided the city's bigness and dullness with an enjoyment that none but
Bostonians can know. They particularly derided the notion of New York's
being loved by any one. It was immense, it was grand in some ways, parts
of it were exceedingly handsome; but it was too vast, too coarse, too
restless. They could imagine its being liked by a successful young man of
business, or by a rich young girl, ignorant of life and with not too nice
a taste in her pleasures; but that it should be dear to any poet or
scholar, or any woman of wisdom and refinement, that they could not
imagine. They could not think of any one's loving New York as Dante loved
Florence, or as Madame de Stael loved Paris, or as Johnson loved black,
homely, home-like London. And as they twittered their little dispraises,
the giant Mother of Commerce was growing more and more conscious of
herself, waking from her night's sleep and becoming aware of her fleets
and trains, and the myriad hands and wheels that throughout the whole sea
and land move for her, and do her will even while she sleeps. All about
the wedding-journeyers swelled the deep tide of life back from its
night-long ebb. Broadway had filled her length with people; not yet the