Various

“ One who has known New York for a generation or two cannot fail to be struck with its changed appearance as seen from the ferry-boat. It used to lie as low and flat as a whale's back, with perhaps a harpoon sticking out here and there,—to wit, a steeple. The steam elevator has proved quite an Aladdin's Lamp in its magical feats of architecture, by developing a vertical in place of a lateral growth of buildings. The best building-lots are now in the air, and to be had without ground-rent. ”

“ The modern luggage is a type of advanced thought, if not civilization, whether we consider the Saratoga trunk, the Russia-leather satchel, the school-boy's knapsack, or the commercial traveller's double-locked valise. There is "nothing like leather:" men live now in their trunks, and America's proudest contribution to the world is the railway-check.
But my boat bumps on the shore, and I must pass out, to the marching music of the rattling chains and the swashing tide, to my business,—perhaps a "better" one to be "about" than writing these idle observations on a North-River Ferry. ”

“ If one thinks what a companion a book may be in hours of loneliness, what a comforter in weary illness or in sorrow, and, above all, what a blessing in the temporary escape it offers from the every-day trials of existence, which tend to take on huge proportions if one settles down among them, but will look of a very reasonable size to one who comes back to them with sight refreshed after a judicious absence,—if one thinks of all this, the art of playing on the piano or of dancing sinks greatly in importance as compared with the art of reading. ”

“ When did Queen Anne architecture originate, who were its great masters, under what influence did it spring up, what causes led to its decline, and to what source may we trace its sudden and aggressive renaissance? To the student who looks beneath the surface of fashionable art-culture the Queen Anne and Georgian periods seem almost like a mirage, where he sees dimly reflected vistas of city streets lined with tall houses built of red brick, with tiled roofs, long and narrow sash-windows painted white, and outside shutters painted green. ”

“ In summer the excursion-boats add picturesqueness and a festive air to the river, with their gay bunting and bands of music and salutes with bell or steam-whistle, and, above all, their eager throngs of Sunday-school children or the liberated denizens of foul and narrow streets. At times the shipping along the docks and over the bay will blossom with the flags and streamers of all nations, hung fore and aft and extending in fluttering lines down the rigging, imparting a gala aspect to the scene and perhaps thrilling one with patriotic or historic memories. ”

“ Crossing the ferry by night was always a favorite experience with me. In sultry weather one can nearly always get a whiff of freshened air, perhaps from the sea; and the quiet is not less reviving to the heated brain. Nowhere does the night seem more "stilly," or the sense of seclusion more profound, than in the middle of the broad bay on a midsummer night before or after the theatre-goers have crossed. The cities, veiled in moonlight or dim in the star-light, seem to be breathing peacefully in giant slumber. ”

“ It has been said of common sense applied to building that "when and wherever architecture has been practised as a living art, as an outgrowth of the wants of the people who practise it, especially in those periods which are generally reckoned by the educated as the purest, this quality is everywhere recognized. From the rock-hewn cave and rude hut to the stateliest edifice, this principle will be found to exist; and, though a common-sense building may have no artistic beauty, a building which sets common sense at defiance will fail to please the intelligent observer." ”

“ And well they may be, for it is the moment of fate to the poor emigrant as much as for Columbus when he approached the shore of a new world. A new world, indeed, in far more than the geographical sense; a new life, or at least a new attempt to live; old things passed away, and all things to be new—except himself. A great wave of homelessness in the wide world, and perhaps of sickness for the old home, sweeps over the poor exile's heart. All is so strange, and so sternly independent of their forlorn and insignificant selves. ”

“ Abbott exhumed a tooth, worn and washed and sunken deep in the undisturbed drift,—a tooth of a contemporary of the mastodon and of one of the makers of the argillite implements that presupposed him; a man who never got beyond the palæolithic stage,—the earliest rudiments of a culture far beneath any savagery of historic times in the Atlantic States. This silent witness of man's antiquity in America is among the treasures of this museum which are unique and priceless. ”

“ The moonlight stole into little openings, outlined the trees upon the glittering sward, and hovered like a ghost on the path before them. The camp was a somewhat ruinous affair, but had lately been occupied by a party of surveyors. With the blaze of a great fire its interior might have been cheerful, but, as it was, it seemed a ghostly, haunted place, filled with mysterious sounds and shadows. One feeble moon-ray struggled through the foliage of a tall pine-tree, and, reaching down the wide smoke-hole overhead, searched the ashes on the hearthstone with a pallid finger. ”

“ One who can watch this scene of scare and scamper and hair-breadth escape and not believe in a particular Providence must be incorrigibly heterodox.
The tide reaches the outer gate in a state of lively congestion. The person in front of you as you pass the toll-taker's booth is quite sure to have forgotten his ticket, and has to set down his parcels while he fumbles through all his pockets for it. You are sure you hear the inner gate closing. You dash through the ferry-house in the most undignified manner and unphilosophic mood—to find that you have five minutes to spare! ”

“ As a basis for the discussion of so intricate a subject, I will first endeavor to establish the underlying principles of good architecture, using the word style in its broadest sense, expressive of elegance, fitness, and artistic truth,—style proper and style as defined by the antiquarian being two distinct things. It has been argued, and with some show of reason, that the origin of all beauty is in utility; but in architecture, which has other objects besides the gratification of the eye, or even of the understanding, it must be conceded that art holds the second place. ”

“ A whimsical fashion in dress, in equipages, or in the etiquette of society may be tolerated without injury to the national advancement. Such fashions are transitory, springing suddenly into notice and as rapidly passing into oblivion. With architecture it is different: here follies are wrought into durable form. We see an ultra Queen Anne house of to-day, and its quaintness and odd conceits attract our fancy. ”

“ Stiles and her counsel, neither of them being for a single instant anything but a woman, took the—what shall I say?—the romantic view of the matter immediately. Romance, gentlemen, breathes its tender and refining influence about the domestic fireside, chastens and sanctifies the atmosphere of home, leads us, we all know, gentlemen, to holier and purer views of life, and nerves us for the bitter struggle of the world. ”

“ At certain hours, when the trains are due, the basket brigade is reinforced by the carpet-bag battalion; and a crowd of home-coming or out-going travellers is a never-ending source of sympathetic and imaginative study to the leisurely looker-on. What an anachronism that word "carpet-bag" has become, by the way! I saw not long ago on the ferry-boat a genuine and literal specimen, which carried back my thoughts for a generation to the day when bags were really made of carpet and the most fastidious social Bourbon did not disdain to carry them. ”

“ One of the mysteries of human nature is that so large a proportion of ferry-passengers appear to take no more notice of the glorious scenes through which they pass twice a day than if it were a tunnel. They will hurry into the cabin in all weathers, seat themselves with their backs to the river, and spend the voyage buried in the newspaper or gazing into vacancy. They do not seem even to appreciate the study of life afforded by their fellow-passengers. ”

“ There is a test of character in the mode of going to the ferry. It is almost impossible not to be in a hurry, such is the swirl of the tide in which you find yourself. In my three years of almost daily transit I never ceased to revere the moral superiority of the admirable few who day after day could proceed with leisurely step and serene brow amid the heated, breathless, tugging, anxious multitude. ”

“ I think we are passing through a sort of saurian epoch in this age of steam. When we have outgrown this clumsy, noisy, perilous agent, and have adjusted ourselves to electricity or some still more subtile and commodious force, we may be able to restore somewhat of the graces of form and motion. And we shall then look back upon the hideous and awkward craft of this day very much as we now gaze upon a reproduction of the misshapen and unwieldy monsters of the palæozoic ages. The river swarms with ferry-boats. Was ever utility attained at so great a sacrifice of taste? ”

“ What is the logical sequence of so anomalous a state of domestic architecture? Shall we sand our floors, and design chairs with high backs to break off the draughts from our rattling sashes, from which we have removed the cords and weights? abandon the equable temperature throughout our dwellings for individual fires unassisted by the furnace or steam-coil? ”

“ She thought during those first few days that she would like to live on there forever, until the novelty wore off and her father's ailings crushed out the new life which the change had given birth to and kept him locked in his own den with his miseries; and even then nature began to pall as a constant and sole companion, and her mind turned with ever-increasing anxiety to the one event which could possibly break this spell of monotony. ”

“ Let us so design our modern buildings as to obtain the best results from diversified industries, almost human machinery, and the refined taste and superior cultivation of our clients, and we shall be carrying out the Queen Anne revival more logically and with more common sense than by aiming simply to attain the quaint and picturesque aspects of earlier work, forgetting the necessities which compelled the builders of the eighteenth century to stop short in their aspirations for a better and truer art. ”

“ The steam-yacht has doubtless a thousand comforts for the owner above the sailing-yacht, but we, whose interest in them is an outside and æsthetic one, cannot help saying, "O Utility, what crimes are committed in thy name!"
There is no beauty, but a deal of attraction, in the great flotillas of linked barges and canal-boats which slowly pass like floating and vulgar Venices. If, as is often the case, they lie across the track, we shall have plenty of opportunity to observe at our leisure their still life. ”

“ Little wonder that she should melt into tears at so undesirable a prospect, that she should pity herself and her luckless fate, and that, when fully realizing the depths of loneliness into which she was to be precipitated for five long, weary months, she should jump at the dismal conclusion that her doll was stuffed with the most inferior variety of saw-dust and wish with lachrymose sincerity that she were dead and buried and out of this world of sorrow. ”

“ Like every other London boarding-house, it was a perfect caravansary of foreigners of almost every nation and every shade of color. At one time, with a Danish landlord and an Irish landlady, we were Norwegians, Swedes, Russians, Spaniards, Germans, Italians, and East Indians. Also we were several Americans, as was proved one notable day. That day we heard the arrival of new-comers in the hall below. We saw not their hue, but we recognized their cry as that of our countrypeople. We are not madly enamoured of our countryman in foreign climes. ”

“ Sure enough, Van was waiting, and the moment he saw me coming up the ravine he quit his munching at the scanty herbage, and, with ears erect and eager eyes, came quickly toward me, whinnying welcome and inquiry at the same instant. Sugar and hard-tack, delicacies he often fancied in prosperous times, he took from my hand even now; he was too truly a gentleman at heart to refuse them when he saw they were all I had to give; but he could not understand why the big colt should have his oats and he, Van, the racer and the hero of two months ago, should starve, and I could not explain it. ”

“ I have always thought that canal-life—by reason of its amphibiousness, its phenomenal slowness, its monotony amid endless change, its solitude amid busy and peopled scenes which it is always touching but never entering—must be a unique existence, a modus vivendi quite apart from other human experiences by land or sea. ”

“ Down comes the hurrying mass, fretting at the manifold obstructions, its component parts struggling together and almost seeming to go over each other's heads. No time now for the small courtesies, or even charities, of life. The sturdy and malodorous beggar knows too well to run alongside with his "Help a poor boy; I'm a stranger in the city." And the man whose abridged and distorted legs are his stock in trade waits for the return-tide to enact his shrewd and pantomimic morality-play by a hurried shuffle up and down the pavement. ”