Doings of Gotham — seven Columbia Spy columns, 1844

Doings of Gotham — seven Columbia Spy columns, 1844 All seven Columbia Spy columns, published May 18–July 6, 1844, are included as local historical reading text. These are newspaper texts, not private correspondence. Original publication and letter dates differ and are retained in the readings. Typography is simplified and the newspaper’s pointing-hand separators are represented by asterisks. This is not a page facsimile; modern website commentary and double-bracketed corrections are omitted. LETTER 1 Correspondence of the Spy. NEW-YORK. May 14, 1844. It will give me much pleasure, gentlemen, to comply with your suggestions, and, by dint of a weekly epistle, keep you au fait to a certain portion of the doings of Gotham. And here if, in the beginning, for “certain” you read “uncertain,” you will the more readily arrive at my design. For, in fact, I must deal chiefly in gossip — in gossip, whose empire is unlimited, whose influence is universal, whose devotees are legion: — in gossip which is the true safety-valve of society — engrossing at least seven-eights of the whole waking existence of Mankind. It has been never better defined than by Basil, who calls it “talk for talk's sake,” nor more thoroughly comprehended than by Lady Wortley Montague, who made it a profession and a purpose. Although coextensive with the world, it is well known, however, to have neither beginning, middle, nor end. Thus, of the gossiper it was not acutely said that “he commences his discourse by jumping in medias res.” Herein it was Jeremy Taylor who deceived himself. For, clearly, your gossiper begins not at all. He is begun. He is already begun. He is always begun. In the matter of end he is indeterminate, and by these things shall you know him to be of the Cæsars — porphyrogenitus — born in the purple — a gossiper of the “right vein” — of the true blood — of the blue blood — of the sangre azula. As for law, he is cognizant of but one, and that negative — the invariable absence of all. And, for his road, were it as straight as the Appia, and as broad as “that which leadeth to destruction,” nevertheless would he be malcontent without a frequent hop-skip-and-jump, over the hedges, into the tempting pastures of digression beyond. Thus, although my avowed purpose be Gotham, I shall not be expected to give up the privilege of touching, when it suits me, de omnibus rebus et quibusdam aliis — upon everything and something besides. We are not yet over the bustle of the first of May. “Keep moving” have been the watchwords for the last fortnight. The man who, in New-York, should be so bold as not to peregrinate on the first, would, beyond doubt, attain immortality as “The Great Unmoved” — a title applied by Horne, the author of “Orion,” to one of his heroes, Akineros , the type of the spirt of Apathy. Talking of Horne — I regard his epic as the noblest of modern days. An indisputably great man. You have, perhaps, seen his “New Spirit of the Age,” lately reprinted in this country by the Harpers. Of a host of the British literati he speaks frankly and fearlessly — as a man — and as a man who “does his own thinking.” For this there will be, doubtless, an attempt at proscription. Indeed it has already commenced. I quote from a letter of the poet's now lying before me: — “If you have seen ‘The New Spirit of the Age’ you will readily understand that a great many critics here, and some authors, are far from pleased with me. The attacks and jeers in Magazines and Newspapers (though several have treated me very fairly) are nearly all written by friends of the angry parties, or influenced by them. Perhaps I may say a word on this point in the second edition now preparing.” I have been roaming far and wide over this island of Mannahatta. Some portions of its interior have a certain air of rocky sterility which may impress some imaginations as simply dreary — to me it conveys the sublime. Trees are few; but some of the shrubbery is execeedingly picturesque. Not l