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40 Youth's Golden Gleam
bridge, Massachusetts, made this entry in his journal:6 "I am delighted with this beautiful city. It seems the work of enchantment"; and in 1834 another Eastern visitor, James Fenno Hoffman, exclaimed:6 "Nothing can be more agreeable than the society one meets in the gay drawing rooms."
Since one English novelist has been quoted, the comment of another no less critical of American manners is pertinent, particularly because it describes Cincinnati at substantially the time Stephen Foster lived there.
Said Charles Dickens in his American Notes,
l843-7 . t .r t .
Cincinnati is a beautiful city;
cheerful, thriving and animated. I have not often seen a place that commends itself so favorably and pleasantly to a stranger at the first glance as tnis does, with its clean houses of red and white, its well paved roads, and footways of bright tile. Nor does it become less prepossessing on a closer acquaintance. The streets are broad and airy, the shops extremely good, the private residences remarkable for their elegance and neatness. There is something of invention and fancy in the varying styles of these latter erections which, after the dull company of the steamboat, is perfectly delightful, as conveying an assurance that there are such qualities |
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