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I am striding across the Common to Park Square, hurrying to catch the 5:02 train. The trees of the Mall are shaking their heavy tears upon me. Drays thunder afar off. Bells tinkle. How simple, quiet, almost village-like this city of my vision seems in contrast with the Boston of today with its diabolic subways, its roaring overhead trains, its electric cars and its streaming automobiles!
To English eyes the oldest and most honourable of the smaller American towns must seem in a manner primitive and rustic; the shabby, straggling, village-quality appears marked in them, and their social tone is not unnaturally inferred to bear the village stamp. Village-like they are, and it would be no gross incivility to describe them as large, respectable, prosperous, democratic villages.
About the hour of noon, upon a pleasant day of the spring following, he might have been seen to turn from the paved streets of the "City of Brotherly Love," and to enter, and walk briskly along, a grassy thoroughfare of Spring Garden a village-like suburb.
And that tender face and lively blush, which painted excessive, vulgar happiness! Evidently her mind was still slumbering and her heart inactive. And those replies, so village-like, so common! “Why should I deceive myself?” he exclaimed; “I guess the secret, too late! My mysterious nymph is simply feeding geese!”
The village-like little capital was all greenery and roses and sunshine and bird-song and light-hearted laughter, and he felt, with a glow, that it was good to be back. In the five years of his absence he had grown quite tall for his age, with a certain dignity and self-possession of bearing acquired from becoming accustomed to depend upon himself.
The whole country was full of a village-like gossip which caused every man to think that he was a judge of character, when he was not even a judge of facts. In most matters we were humble imitators of the English. All their mistakes and misjudgments we adopted except such as impaired our good opinion of ourselves.
The houses in this part of Hammerville were older than those of the more crowded streets, indeed it looked as if the place had started as a village at the first and then on second thoughts had grown out at one side into a busy town, while the other side remained sleepy and village-like, each abode having its own garden and orchard in the rear.
When I reached the village-like town of Villefranche, I perceived a movement of men and women like that of bees around a hive. I chanced to arrive on the day of the local fair, when everybody expects to make some money, from the peasant proprietor or the metayer who brings in his corn or cattle, to the small shopkeeper who lives upon the agriculturist.
After two or three miles of ascent the road sloped downward, and it was not long before I entered a very neat and trim little town, which, however, was altogether village-like. This was Cadouin, and in the centre stood its venerable Romanesque church. I entered the building, which was silent and very dim; not a soul was there but myself.
In other respects, the English town is more village-like than either of the American ones.
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