My Life Work

on with the firm that employed me at the end of 1859, and to start off for a lengthened tour in America at the beginning of 1860. I sailed in an old screw steamer early in January, which took eighteen days to go to New York. We had very bad weather most of the time, bitterly cold, dark, and gloomy, and sometimes the deck was covered with ice. There were only forty passengers, and most of us were very sick, and till the last week of the voyage hardly came to know one another. My recollection of that voyage is one of intense dreariness, but on approaching America the bright blue sky and cheerful sunshine raised our spirits, as the floating driftweed did to Columbus when he approached the Western world (to compare small things with great)! and I well remember the exhilaration caused by the dazzling atmosphere when we reached New York. My first plunge into the eager commercial life of the Western Metropolis was a kind of revelation?the splendour of the streets, and warehouses, the enormous traffic, the extraordinary energy of the people, amazed me. The hotels seemed palatial, though now they are quite eclipsed by far more luxurious creations. In those days the Astor House and Fifth Avenue were the leading hotels ; but these pale beside the Waldorf and Manhattan houses to-day. Hard frost and an intensely clear sky then prevailed in the Northern States, a wonderful contrast to the grimy atmosphere of Liverpool. The effect was almost intoxicating. I then began to real... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.