`` Perhaps , '' cried the hopeful New Year -- `` perhaps I shall see that happy day . '' `` I doubt whether it be so close at hand , '' answered the Old Year , gravely smiling . `` You will soon grow weary of looking for that blessed consummation , and will turn for amusement -- as has frequently been my own practice -- to the affairs of some sober little city like this of Salem . Here we sit on the steps of the new city-hall which has been completed under my administration , and it would make you laugh to see how the game of politics of which the Capitol at Washington is the great chess-board is here played in miniature . Burning Ambition finds its fuel here ; here patriotism speaks boldly in the people 's behalf and virtuous economy demands retrenchment in the emoluments of a lamplighter ; here the aldermen range their senatorial dignity around the mayor 's chair of state and the common council feel that they have liberty in charge . In short , human weakness and strength , passion and policy , man 's tendencies , his aims and modes of pursuing them , his individual character and his character in the mass , may be studied almost as well here as on the theatre of nations , and with this great advantage -- that , be the lesson ever so disastrous , its Liliputian scope still makes the beholder smile . '' `` Have you done much for the improvement of the city ? '' asked the New Year . `` Judging from what little I have seen , it appears to be ancient and time-worn . '' `` I have opened the railroad , '' said the elder Year , `` and half a dozen times a day you will hear the bell which once summoned the monks of a Spanish convent to their devotions announcing the arrival or departure of the cars . Old Salem now wears a much livelier expression than when I first beheld her . Strangers rumble down from Boston by hundreds at a time . New faces throng in Essex street . Railroad-hacks and omnibuses rattle over the pavements . There is a perceptible increase of oyster-shops and other establishments for the accommodation of a transitory diurnal multitude . But a more important change awaits the venerable town . An immense accumulation of musty prejudices will be carried off by the free circulation of society . A peculiarity of character of which the inhabitants themselves are hardly sensible will be rubbed down and worn away by the attrition of foreign substances . Much of the result will be good ; there will likewise be a few things not so good . Whether for better or worse , there will be a probable diminution of the moral influence of wealth , and the sway of an aristocratic class which from an era far beyond my memory has held firmer dominion here than in any other New England town . ''
The Old Year , having talked away nearly all of her little remaining breath , now closed her book XXXXX chronicles , and was about to take her departure , but her sister detained her a while longer by inquiring the contents of the huge bandbox which she was so painfully lugging along with her .
at by for in of on over than that to