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Chapter 9 Schools - Climate - Water Melons - Fourth of

Word Count: 3372    |    Released on: 18/11/2017

Dr. Lock, a gentleman who appears to have liberal and enlarged opinions on the subject of female education. Should his system produce practica

eatures I saw assembled there. One lovely girl of sixteen took her degree in mathematics, and another was examined in moral philosophy. They blushed so sweetly, and l

of Cincinnati for the acquirement of these various branches of education would seldom be sufficient to permit their reaching the eminence in each which their enlightened instructor anticipates. "A quarter's" mathematics, or "two quarters" political economy,

d for some days we feared for his life. The treatment he received was, I have no doubt, judicious, but the quantity of calomel prescribed was enormous. I asked one day how many grains I should prepare, and was told to give half a teaspoon

e e'er

e medical gen

Washington, a physician attended one of our neighbours, and complained that he was himself unwell. "You must take care of yourself, Doctor," said the patient; "I do so," he replied, "I took forty grains of calomel yesterday, and I feel

nkle of the watch-light from many windows he might be sure that disease was busy, and the the "location" might suit him well. Judging, by this criterion, Cincinnati was far from healthy, I began to fear for our health, and determined to leave the city; but, for a considerable time I found it impossible to procure a dwelling out of it. There were many boarding-houses in the vicinity, but they were

hem is extremely unpleasant; the huge fruit is cut into half a dozen sections, of about a foot long, and then, dripping as it is with water, applied to the mouth, from either side of which pour copious streams of the fluid, while, ever and anon, a mouthful of the hard black

cruple to leave their beds with the sun, six days in the week, and, prepared with a mighty basket, to sally forth in search of meat, butter,

n festivals. On the 4th of July, 1776, the declaration of the

y but refrain from spitting on that hallowed day, I should say, that on the 4th of July, at least, they appeared to be an amiable people. It is true that the women have but little to do with the pageantry, the splendour, or the gaiety of the day; but, setting this defect aside, it was indeed a glorious sight to behold a jubilee so heartfelt as this; and had they not the bad taste and bad feeling to utter an annual ora

idea of the language which the gods speak when they are angry. Thomson's description, however, will do: it is hardly possible that words can better paint the spectacl

nds them in nature; but the proportions must be just, and the colouring true. Every thing seems colossal on this great continent; if it rains, if it blows, if it thunders, it is all done fortissimo; but I often felt terror yield to wonder and delight

nati much better if the people had not dealt so very largely in hogs. The immense quantity of business done in this line would ha

ediately, 4,

000 barrels o

certain noble looking sugar-loaf hill, that promised pure air and a fine view, we found the brook we had to cross, at its foot, red with the stream from a pig slaughter house; while our noses, instead of meeting "the thyme that loves the green hill's breast," were greeted by odour

rick buildings are sometimes treated in the same manner. The largest dwelling that I saw in motion was one containing two stories of four rooms each; forty oxen were yoked to it. The first few yards brought down the two stacks of chimneys, but it afterwards went on well. The great difficulties were the first getting it in motion and the stopping exactly in the right place. This

satire, and even of sarcasm, whose kindness of nature and of manner remained perfectly uninjured. In some of his critical notices there is a strength and keenness second to nothing of the kind I have ever read. He is a warm patriot, and so true-hearted an American, that we could not always be of the same opinion on all the subjects we d

in the company, to whom he seemed to trust for the development of his celestial pretensions, and to me he did the honour of addressing most of his terrestrial superiority. The difference between us was, that when he spoke to her, he spoke as to a being who, if not his equal, was at least deserving high distinction; and he gave her smiles,

l length before, and I listened attentively. It was evident that the noble passages which are graven on the hearts of the genuine lovers of poetry had altogether escaped the serious gentle

isms very amusing. Of Pope, he said, "He is so entirely gone by,

e drawing-room; but, on the mention of this poem, the serious gentleman became almost as strongly agitated as when he talked of Don Juan; and I w

e smile spoke as plainly as a smile cou

m, and these, indeed, are found only in

akspear

ed to have found it out! If we must have the abomination of stage plays, l

inly being au

stood he was a very childish writer. Chaucer and Spenser he tied in a couple, and dismissed by saying, that he tho

y conversation I was ever

ects, which I enjoyed in Mr. Flint's family, was an

every American newspaper is more or less a magazine, wherein the merchant may scan while he holds out his hand for an invoice, "Stanzas by Mrs. Hemans," or a garbled extract from Moore's Life of Byron; the lawyer may study his brief faithfully, and yet contrive to pick up the valuable dictum of some American critic, that "Bulwer's novels are decidedly superior to Sir Walter Scott's;" nay, even the auctioneer may find time, as he bustles to his tub, or his tribune, to support his pretensions to polite learning, by glancing his quick eye over the columns, and reading that "Miss Mitford's descriptions are indescr

asted of in the United States; such as it is, the diffusion of it is general e

eir compositions have not that condensation of thought, or that elaborate finish, which the consciousness of writing for the scholar and the man of taste is calculated to give; nor have their dirty blue paper and slovenly types2 the polished elegance that fits a volume for the hand or the eye of the fastidious epicure in literary enjoyment. The first book I bought in America was the "Chronicles of the Cannongate." In asking the price, I was agreeably surprised to hear a dollar and a half named, being about one sixth of what I

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Contents

Chapter 1 Entrance of the Mississippi - Balize Chapter 2 New Orleans - Society - Creoles and Quadroons V Chapter 3 Company on board the Steam Boat - Scenery of the Chapter 4 Departure from Memphis - Ohio River Louisville - Chapter 5 Cincinnati - Forest Farm - Mr. Bullock Chapter 6 Servants - Society - Evening Parties Chapter 7 Market - Museum - Picture Gallery - Academy o Chapter 8 Absence of public and private Amusement - Churche Chapter 9 Schools - Climate - Water Melons - Fourth of Chapter 10 Removal to the country - Walk in the forest - Chapter 11 Religion
Chapter 12 Peasantry, compared to that of England - Early m
Chapter 13 Theatre - Fine Arts - Delicacy - Shaking Qua
Chapter 14 American Spring - Controversy between Messrs. Ow
Chapter 15 Camp-Meeting
Chapter 16 Danger of rural excursions - Sickness
Chapter 17 Departure from Cincinnati - Society on board the
Chapter 18 Departure for the mountains in the Stage - Scene
Chapter 19 Baltimore - Catholic Cathedral - St. Mary's -
Chapter 20 Voyage to Washington - Capitol - City of Washi
Chapter 21 Stonington - Great Falls of the Potomac
Chapter 22 Small Landed Proprietors - Slavery
Chapter 23 Fruits and Flowers of Maryland and Virginia - Co
Chapter 24 Journey to Philadelphia - Chesapeak and Delaware
Chapter 25 Washington Square - American Beauty - Gallery
Chapter 26 Quakers - Presbyterians - Itinerant Methodist
Chapter 27 Return to Stonington - Thunderstorm - Emigrant
Chapter 28 American Cooking - Evening Parties - Dress -
Chapter 29 Literature - Extracts - Fine Arts - Educatio
Chapter 30 Journey to New York
Chapter 31 Reception of Captain Basil Hall's Book in the Un
Chapter 32 Journey to Niagara - Hudson
Chapter 33 Niagara - Arrival at Forsythes
Chapter 34 Return to New York - Conclusion
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