About this Book

Excerpt from Evert Augustus Duyckinck, His Life, Writings and Influence: A Memoir

New York was then in a transition state and just entering upon the new cosmopolitan erauwhich was in some respects a matter of disappointment as well as of pride to men who were, like Duyckinck, born in the old provincial New York which ended with the completion of the Erie Canal and the virtual annexation of the great West in 1885, and who had grown up in what may be called the middle age of New York, from 1826 to 1850, during which the city had become the business metropolis of the country. The third stage of growth was a little too fast and too far for the comfort of many of the old residents, and when, in 1850, the Knickerbocker city, proud of her Croton water, her great daily papers, and her extending railways, established her own line of steamers to Europe, and started her own fleets to the Golden Gate of California, the fear was expressed that the new city was outgrowing her history and its landmarks, and falling into the hands of a new multitude, most of whose half million of people knew little and cared less for the old fathers of Manhattan. Mr. Duyckinck had much of the old fashioned sentiment, yet he kept up with the new progress, and at heart he was quite modern in his love of liberality in literature and politics as well as in religion.

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