In no other way can
we account for the venerable air that is already gathering around
American annals. When the mind reverts to the earliest days of
colonial history, the period seems remote and obscure, the thousand
changes that thicken along the links of recollections, throwing
back the origin of the nation to a day so distant as seemingly to
reach the mists of time; and yet four lives of ordinary duration
would suffice to transmit, from mouth to mouth, in the form of
tradition, all that civilized man has achieved within the limits
of the republic. Although New York alone possesses a population
materially exceeding that of either of the four smallest kingdoms
of Europe, or materially exceeding that of the entire Swiss
Confederation, it is little more than two centuries since the Dutch
commenced their settlement, rescuing the region from the savage
state. Thus, what seems venerable by an accumulation of changes
is reduced to familiarity when we come seriously to consider it
solely in connection with time.
This glance into the perspective of the past will prepare the reader
to look at the pictures we are about to sketch, with less surprise
than he might otherwise feel; and a few additional explanations may
carry him back in imagination to the precise condition of society
that we desire to delineate.
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