The stream is as good as at ...

The stream is as good as at first; the little rubbish it collects in the turnings is easily moved away.
The stream is as good as at first; the little rubbish it collects in the turnings is easily moved away.

Quotes from the same author

Business, you know, may bring you money, but friendship hardly ever does.
Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.
There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart.
A sick child is always the mother's property; her own feelings generally make it so.
But are they all horrid, are you sure they are all horrid? [Referring to Gothic novels, fashionable in England at the beginning of the 19th century, but frowned upon in polite society.]