an imprisonment, she has any thought or hope of ever regaining her
liberty?’
‘Oh dear yes,’ he answered. ‘To be sure she has.’
‘She has no chance of obtaining it, I suppose?’
‘Well, I don’t know:’ which, by-the-bye, is a national answer.
‘Her friends mistrust her.’
‘What have THEY to do with it?’ I naturally inquired.
‘Well, they won’t petition.’
‘But if they did, they couldn’t get her out, I suppose?’
‘Well, not the first time, perhaps, nor yet the second, but tiring
and wearying for a few years might do it.’
‘Does that ever do it?’
‘Why yes, that’ll do it sometimes. Political friends’ll do it
sometimes. It’s pretty often done, one way or another.’
I shall always entertain a very pleasant and grateful recollection
of Hartford. It is a lovely place, and I had many friends there,
whom I can never remember with indifference. We left it with no
little regret on the evening of Friday the 11th, and travelled that
night by railroad to New Haven. Upon the way, the guard and I were
formally introduced to each other (as we usually were on such
occasions), and exchanged a variety of small-talk. We reached New
Haven at about eight o’clock, after a journey of three hours, and
put up for the night at the best inn.
New Haven, known also as the City of Elms, is a fine town. Many of
its streets (as its ALIAS sufficiently imports) are planted with
rows of grand old elm-trees; and the same natural ornaments
surround Yale College, an establishment of considerable eminence
and reputation. The various departments of this Institution are
erected in a kind of park or common in the middle of the town,
where they are dimly visible among the shadowing trees. The effect
is very like that of an old cathedral yard in England; and when
their branches are in full leaf, must be extremely picturesque.
Even in the winter time, these groups of well-grown trees,
clustering among the busy streets and houses of a thriving city,
have a very quaint appearance: seeming to bring about a kind of
compromise between town and country; as if each had met the other
half-way, and shaken hands upon it; which is at once novel and
pleasant.
Page 54
Dickens, Charles – American Notes for General Circulation
After a night’s rest, we rose early, and in good time went down to
the wharf, and on board the packet New York FOR New York. This was
the first American steamboat of any size that I had seen; and
certainly to an English eye it was infinitely less like a steamboat
than a huge floating bath. I could hardly persuade myself, indeed,
but that the bathing establishment off Westminster Bridge, which I
left a baby, had suddenly grown to an enormous size; run away from
home; and set up in foreign parts as a steamer. Being in America,
too, which our vagabonds do so particularly favour, it seemed the
more probable.
The great difference in appearance between these packets and ours,
is, that there is so much of them out of the water: the main-deck
being enclosed on all sides, and filled with casks and goods, like
any second or third floor in a stack of warehouses; and the
promenade or hurricane-deck being a-top of that again. A part of
the machinery is always above this deck; where the connecting-rod,
in a strong and lofty frame, is seen working away like an iron topsawyer.
There is seldom any mast or tackle: nothing aloft but two
tall black chimneys. The man at the helm is shut up in a little
house in the fore part of the boat (the wheel being connected with
the rudder by iron chains, working the whole length of the deck);
and the passengers, unless the weather be very fine indeed, usually
congregate below. Directly you have left the wharf, all the life,
and stir, and bustle of a packet cease. You wonder for a long time
how she goes on, for there seems to be nobody in charge of her; and
when another of these dull machines comes splashing by, you feel
quite indignant with it, as a sullen cumbrous, ungraceful,