New Orleans

“ To the casual observer, the quaint, narrow, little alley that lies in the heart of the city is no more than any other of the numerous divisions of streets in which New Orleans delights. But to the idle wanderer, or he whose mission down its four squares of much trodden stones, is an aimless one,—whose eyes unforced to bend to the ground in thought of sordid ways and means, can peer at will into its quaint corners. ”

“ The winter climate of New Orleans is delightful, and many persons leave New England's cruel east winds to breathe its soft air and rejoice in its sunshine. These pale-faced invalids are strangely grouped in the quaint old streets with the peculiar people of the city, and add another to the many types already there. The New Orleans market furnishes, perhaps, the best opportunity for the ethnological student, for there strange motley groups are always to be found. Even the cries are in the quaint voices of a foreign city, and it seems almost impossible to imagine that one is in America. ”

“ Is this strange New Orleans which grows up under Mr. Cable's wand our own New Orleans? It is; and yet it is something more. It is such a city as a wanderer sees by night in his dreams, who has left the shores of the Father of Waters for the icy winds and snow-shrouded scenes of some far-Northern winter ”

“ There is probably no city in the United States that has so many benevolent institutions as New Orleans, in proportion to its population. Certainly it has not an equal in those voluntary contributions, which are sometimes required to answer the immediate calls of distress. Here are assembled a mixed multitude, composed of almost every nation and tongue, from the frozen to the torrid zone, and, whether it be the sympathy of strangers, or the influence of the sunny south, their purses open and their hearts respond, like those of brothers, to the demands of charity. ”

“ From every part of the State the gentlemen planters loved to congregate in New Orleans, perfect masters of their limbs, their faculties, their weapons, and their horses, not knowing fear or embarrassment, living their thoughts and passions spontaneously out, their tall forms aflush with bold sensibility, the rich strength and grace of the thoroughbred pointing their elastic motions. And in the parlor, the ball-room, at fashionable resorts, on the promenades, the women were the peers of the men in their intensity of being, their fondness of adventure, their courage, brilliance, and piquancy. ”

“ Beautiful, peaceful, fragrant.
The peculiar, brooding charm that is New Orleans, the New Orleans of the vieux Carré—the old French and Spanish quarter—permeated this, the home of Mesdemoiselles Bébé and Roxanne Dumontel. The artist turned quickly at the sound of footsteps under the echoing arch behind him that opened on the street. ”

“ If you are a lover of the Terpsichorean art, you will fold New Orleans, par excellence, the town to your taste.
I knew the capacities of New Orleans to afford pleasure. I was acquainted with the sources of enjoyment, yet I sought them not. After a long interval of country life I entered the city without a thought of its gaieties—a rare event in the life even of the most sedate. The masquerades, the quadroon-balls, the drama, the sweet strains of the Opera, had lost their attractions for me. No amusement could amuse me at that moment. One thought alone had possession of my heart—Aurore! ”

“ But these scars have long since healed, and New Orleans, despite plagues and wars, has held her position as Queen City of the South and one of the great metropoli of America, with a population now of 250,000, which is rapidly increasing. While New Orleans is famous for the romance with which her history is invested, for her immense importance as an export city, and also for the beauty of her parks and magnificence of her private residences, the curiosity of strangers is no less attracted by her cemeteries, which are unlike those of any others in the world. ”

“ The spires of New Orleans rise above the underwood and semi-tropical vegetation of this swamp. Nearer to the city lies a marshy plain, in which flocks of cattle, up to the belly in the soft earth are floundering among the clumps of vegetation. The nearer approach to New Orleans by rail lies through a suburb of exceedingly broad lanes, lined on each side by rows of miserable mean one-storied houses, inhabited, if I am to judge from the specimens I saw, by a miserable and sickly population. ”

“ But yesterday we received a visit from an old resident of thirty years' standing, who in the course of a conversation summed up his opinion of New Orleans with the phrase: "New Orleans is a city where it is impossible to make a home for one's self without marrying. I have tried for thirty years to make a home here, and failed." And this observation set us to meditating whether this were, indeed owing to any peculiarity of the city, or to that vague longing for the quiet comforts of a household which all bachelors fell as life creeps by and each succeeding winter adds its frost to their beards. ”

“ There is a great temptation to regard New Orleans through the romance of its past; and the most interesting occupation of the idler is to stroll about in the French part of the town, search the shelves of French and Spanish literature in the second-hand book-shops, try to identify the historic sites and the houses that are the seats of local romances, and observe the life in the narrow streets and alleys that, except for the presence of the colored folk, recall the quaint picturesqueness of many a French provincial town. ”

“ When I said I was struck with New Orleans, it was then with the air of its population. Never did I behold such a mass of bold, daring, reckless fellows as swaggered on every side. The fiery Frenchman, the determined-looking Yankee, the dark-browed Spaniard, the Camanche and the half-caste, the Mulatto, the Texan, the Negro, the Cuban, and the Creole, were all here, and all seemed picked specimens of their race.
The least acute of observers could not fail to see that it was a land where a quick eye, a steady foot, and a strong hand were requisites of every-day life. ”

“ One pictures New Orleans as a city of men in white, with white hats as well as white clothes, men smoking heavy, black cigars, or sauntering idly in the company of exotic-looking ladies; a city of wide open streets and white houses, of many open-air cafés and garden theatres and luxuriant parks, a place certainly of fashion and gayety and elegant living. ”

“ Since the war New Orleans has been transformed from the likeness of a quiet old French city like Orleans which gave it name, to the appearance of a new French city with pretty relics here and there, and strong cosmopolitan attachments. The great river which sweeps in splendid curves past this city has compelled the streets to conform to some extent to its shores, but the consequence is a charming disposition of streets to both those who hate crooked streets, and those who hate straight ones. ”

“ And so, bravely hoping for better times, and striving to bring them about, New Orleans in her poverty, as once in the palmy days of prosperity, holds high revel at this season of pleasure, and hospitably opens her gates to friend and to stranger. ”

“ Sir, it is notorious, that from the recent possession by the United States of Louisiana, and the certainty that New Orleans must soon be the emporium of an immense western commerce, that city has become more the resort of the young, the adventurous, the enterprising and the rash among the mercantile men of our country, than any other city in the Union ”

“ Two distinct cities, then, are there in New Orleans. Each has its Exchange distinct from the other—a distinct municipal court and public offices—each has its centre of fashionable resort—its favourite promenade for the flaneurs, of which the South-western metropolis can boast a large crowd—its own theatres, ballrooms, hotels, and cafés. In fact, a walk of a few paces transports one into quite a different world. The crossing of Canal Street is like being transferred from Broadway to the Boulevards. ”

“ In truth, New Orleans is a great metropolis, more of a city than places of much greater population either in Europe or America. In passing through its streets you feel that you are not in a provincial town. Its shops exhibit the richest goods, of best workmanship. Palace-like hotels appear in every street. Luxurious cafés invite you into their elegant saloons. ”

“ New Orleans is the most cosmopolitan of provincial cities. Its comparative isolation has secured the development of provincial traits and manners, has preserved the individuality of the many races that give it color, morals, and character, while its close relations with France—an affiliation and sympathy which the late war has not altogether broken—and the constant influx of Northern men of business and affairs have given it the air of a metropolis. ”

“ There is something here of the atmosphere of New Orleans, something of the pungent odor and nerve-soothing softness, but the Charlestonian is reposeful and the Creole is nervous and staccato.
You feel that here is a corner where things need not change, where evolution is not worship, where the strenuous life is not considered and may be thought a trifle vulgar. ”

“ In the woods yonder, on the other side of the lake, is a trusty escort to ride to Cape Girardeau, where a boat is waiting to take you to New Orleans. In New Orleans is a ship ready to sail the moment mademoiselle puts her foot upon its deck, and in a little more than a month you will be in Paris, among friends who will receive you with outstretched arms, surrounded by every luxury, living the life of grande dame as you ought to live, among the great nobles where you rightfully belong, and not in this rude, rough country among Indians and boors. ”

“ The passing of the old order has a hundred conspicuous manifestations in New Orleans, perhaps because there is a legend for every old house, a tragedy for every shadow, a romantic blood-stain on every pavement. The Absinthe House takes in lodgers. The Cabildo, the ancient Spanish city hall, is a museum. ”

“ The crescent-formed site of the city on the Mississippi is beautiful, and it has some handsome streets and markets, and splendid houses surrounded with trees and shrubs, like other American cities. The French and older portions of the city have a more bald and business-like character; but New Orleans is beyond everything else a business and trading city, and it is far behind the other large cities of the United States as regards institutions for a higher intellectual and moral culture. ”

“ New Orleans has long been known as a “very gay city,” but has not so good a reputation for its morality, into which French levity is strongly infused. This, however, it is said, decreases in proportion as the Anglo-American people obtain sway in the city. And their influence grows even here rapidly. The French population, on the contrary, does not increase, and their influence is on the decline. Nor have I heard the most favourable testimony given to the commercial morality of New Orleans. ”

“ The first work he secured in New Orleans was on the staff of the Daily Item, one of the minor journals, where he read proof, clipped exchanges, wrote editorials, and occasionally contributed a translation, or some bit of original work in the shape of what came to be known as his “Fantastics.” Meanwhile he was rejoicing in the change of residence, for the old, dusty, unpaved squalid New Orleans of the ’70’s—the city crushed into inanition by war, poverty, pestilence, and the frenzy of carpet-bagger misrule—was far more sympathetic to his tastes than the prosperous growing town he had abandoned. ”

“ New Orleans is not looked upon as a provincial city—it never was one. It is a true metropolis, and ever has been, from the time when it was the head-quarters and commercial depot of the gulf pirates, to the present hour. ”

“ My friends, there are thousands of people in this city of New Orleans to whom society gives the ten commandments of God with all the nots rubbed out! Ah! good gentlemen! if God sends the poor weakling to purgatory for leaving the right path, where ought some of you to go who strew it with thorns and briers! ”

“ Among the cities of America, New Orleans enjoys a special reputation. The important position it holds as the key to the great valley of the Mississippi, of whose commerce it is the natural entrepôt as well as décharge—its late rapid growth and aggrandisement—all combine to render the “Crescent City” one of the most interesting places in the world, and by far the most interesting in the United States.
A variety of other circumstances have contributed to invest New Orleans with a peculiar character in the eyes of the American people. ”

“ New Orleans is the commercial capital of that richest country in the world, through which the Mississippi and its tributaries flow. This city is unhealthy during the warm season, but enjoys a most excellent situation for commerce and trade. The introduction of steam boats has contributed greatly to the growth of New Orleans, by affording an expeditious mode of communicating with its back country. Its inhabitants are a mixed race of French, Americans, Spaniards, and Germans. ”

“ The inhabitants, after all, were not mainly engaged in the business of pleasure, but in honest trade, and they increase ever. New Orleans is the metropolis of the South, and has a vast and growing commerce which is rendered picturesque by the glamour of that abundance of Nature in the midst of which she is founded. ”

“ Six years later another fire equally destructive, completed the work of blotting out the French town, and the old New Orleans we now know is the Spanish city which arose in its place: a city not of wood but of adobe or brick, stuccoed and tinted, of arcaded walks, galleries, jalousies, ponderous doors, and inner courts with carriage entrances from the street, and, behind, the most charming and secluded gardens. Also, owing to premiums offered by Baron Carondelet, the governor, tile roofs came into vogue, so that the city became comparatively fireproof. ”