The genuine Bostonian is satisfied.  He rises moderately early, goes to business without any especial haste, dresses comfortably, talks deliberately, lunches freely, and goes home to his family at plausible hours.  He would like to have the world made better, but is not going to make himself sick in trying to cure the moral ailments of others.

The genuine Bostonian is, for the most part, pleased with himself, has confidence that the big elm will last another hundred years, keeps his patriotism fresh by an occasional walk near the meat market under Faneuil Hall, and reads the “Atlantic Monthly.”  We believe there is less fidgeting in Boston than in any city of the country.  We think that the average of human life must be longer there than in most cities.  Dyspepsia is a rarity; for when a mutton chop is swallowed of a Bostonian it gives up, knowing that there is no need of fighting against such inexorable digestion.

The ladies of Boston have more color in their cheeks than those of many cities, and walk as though they would live to get round the next corner.  It is not so fashionable to be delicate.  They are robust in mind and always ready for an argument.  State what you consider an indisputable proposition, and they will say:  “Yes, but then—­” They are not afraid to attack the theology of a minister, or the jurisprudence of a lawyer, or the pharmacy of a doctor.  If you do not look out, the Boston woman will throw off her shawl and upset your logic in a public meeting.

We like the men and women of Boston.  They have opinions about everything—­some of them adverse to your own, but even in that case so well expressed that, in admiration for the rhetoric, you excuse the divergence of sentiment.  We never found a half-and-half character in Boston.  The people do not wait till they see which way the smoke of their neighbors’ chimneys blows before they make up their own minds.

The most conspicuous book on the parlor table of the hotels of other cities is a book of engravings or a copy of the Bible.  In some of the Boston hotels, the prominent book on the parlor table is “Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary.”  You may be left in doubt about the Bostonian’s character, but need not doubt his capacity to parse a sentence, or spell without any resemblance of blunder the word “idiosyncrasy.”

Boston, having made up its mind, sticks to it.  Many years ago it decided that the religious societies ought to hold a public anniversary in June, and it never wavers.  New York is tired of these annual demonstrations, and goes elsewhere; but in the early part of every June, Boston puts its umbrella under its arm and starts for Tremont Temple, or Music Hall, determined to find an anniversary, and finds it.  You see on the stage the same spectacles that shone on the speakers ten years ago, and the same bald heads, for the solid men of Boston got in the way of wearing their hair thin in front a quarter of a century ago, and all the solid men of Boston will, for the next century, wear their hair thin in front.