‘Boston, too, my native city,’ I observed, ‘is also alive to the holiday influences. Boston Common I dare say is already white with tents, and the fragrant commerce of the booths is just commencing on the Mall.’
Seatsfield: ‘Yes, Sir; but Boston and Philadelphia both fail in developing the true character-stamp-work (character-stampfen-werk) of the day. To see the Fourth of July in its glory, one should visit New-York. To my senses, which are uncommonly acute, there is a peculiar smell about the Fourth of July in New-York, which differs in toto from that of any other holiday.’
‘In Boston we also have the perfume of lobsters and egg-pop blended with that of orange-peel and pine-apple——’
Seatsfield: ‘That, Sir, is but a feeble rationale of the New-York savor. I have often, in a jocose mood, amused myself with analyzing this odor. I have resolved it into the following elements: lobsters, gunpowder, trampled-grass, wheel-grease, and cigars. It is mainly to these ingredients, grafted upon the other ordinary city smells, that I attribute the Fourth of July smell.’
‘There is one that you have failed to detect; namely, a faint whiff of barn-yards, owing I presume to the strong prevalence of farmers and other rustics from the surrounding country.’ Seatsfield smiled at this, and acknowledged, in a laughing way, an occasional intimation of manure. ‘Graffenburg,’ I observed, ‘is remarkably free from all strong odors; it is a very clean village.’
Seatsfield: ‘That, Sir, is owing to the water: depend upon it, wherever water prevails neatness will ensue. Temperance and cleanliness go hand in hand. The ancients were a filthy race, and they were great wine-bibbers. What a condition of personal and mental nastiness is divulged by Horace in his ‘Iter ad Brundusium;’ yet Horace was a choice specimen of a Roman gentleman.’
‘Have you had any poets among you here? or is the hydropathic system too repugnant to their art?’
Seatsfield: ‘Our countryman, Longfellow, was here not long since. I sat at table with him frequently; but never introduced myself to him.’
‘Do you think highly of his powers?’
Seatsfield: ‘As a prolific generator of novel life-images, no; but as a vivid delineator of the inner-thought principle, as an artistical displayer of the higher subjective mood, he is of the very first class. I honor Longfellow.’