The Footpath and Highway: Or, Wanderings of an America (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The Footpath and Highway: Or, Wanderings of an America

The press has teemed of late with the works of American tourists, some artistic, some scientific, and others, again, of a more purely literary type. There are, therefore, many readers who will doubtless expect an apology from one who ventures now to place himself and his itinerary before the public, though claiming no eminence in the world of letters and making little pretension to superiority in any particular accomplishment.

But we live in an age when the people are becoming paramount in all things; and the wanderings described in this little volume took place among a people more interesting to the American than any other upon earth.

For forty years, the land from which we have drawn our politi cal, and most of our social institutions, has been undergoing a quiet but important revolution, the tendency of which has been steadily to favor a closer approximation between the habits, feel ings, hopes, and fears of the two great families of the anglo-saxon stock. While the one has advanced in a most brilliant career upon a republican model, the other has been continually soften ing and smoothing down the salient points which chiefly distin guish a limited monarchy from a republic. During these forty years, the United States has gradually lost the character of the daughter of Great Britain. She has assumed in her maturity the novel relationship of a, sister and the reaction of her Opinions, her manners, and her prosperity has come to be felt and. Acknow ledged in the old homestead, with a force which few can appre ciate until they have mingled with the English masses.

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