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.