Stable conditions?

The Boston Athenæum building, as designed by Edward Clarke Cabot with additions by Henry Forbes Bigelow. The first part of the structure was put up in 1847. The institution itself was founded in 1807. It has become more public-friendly in recent years.

”New England is a finished place. Its destiny is that of Florence or Venice, not Milan while the American empire careens onward toward its unpredicted end. . . . It is the first American section to be finished to achieve stability in the conditions of its life. It is the first old civilization, the first permanent civilization in America.’’

Bernard DeVoto (1897-1955), American historian and essayist