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there was an excellent crop of clover; but as the trees are
numerous, and highly beautiful, and several commodious
seats are placed beneath their shade, it is, spite of the long
grass, a very agreeable retreat from heat and dust. It was
rarely, however, that I saw any of these seats occupied; the
Americans have either no leisure, or no inclination for those
moments of délassement that all other people, I believe,
indulge in. Even their drams, so universally taken by rich
and poor, are swallowed standing, and, excepting at church,
they never have the air of leisure or repose. This pretty
Washington Square is surrounded by houses on three sides,
but (lasso!) has a prison on the fourth; it is, nevertheless,
the nearest approach to a London square that is to be found
in Philadelphia.

One evening, while the rest of my party went to visit
some objects which I had before seen, I agreed to await
their return in this square, and sat down under a magnificent
catalpa, which threw its fragrant blossoms in all direc-
tions; the other end of the bench was occupied by a young
lady, who was employed in watching the gambols of a little
boy. There was something in her manner of looking at
me, and exchanging a smile when her young charge per-
formed some extraordinary feat of activity on the grass,
that persuaded me she was not an American. I do not
remember who spoke first, but we were presently in a full
flow of conversation. She spoke English with elegant cor-
rectness, but she was a German, and with an ardour of
feeling which gave her a decidedly foreign air in Phila-
delphia, she talked to me of her country, of all she had
left, and of all she had found, or rather of all she had not
found, for thus ran her lament:--

"They do not love music, Oh no! and they never amuse
themselves--no; and their hearts are not warm, at least
they seem not so to strangers; and they have no ease, no

-237-

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Publication Information: Book Title: Domestic Manners of the Americans. Contributors: Frances M. Trollope - author. Publisher: A. A. Knopf. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 1904. Page Number: 237.
    
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