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+Project Gutenberg's Our Hundred Days in Europe, by Oliver Wendell Holmes
+#28 in our series by Oliver Wendell Holmes
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+Title: Our Hundred Days in Europe
+
+Author: Oliver Wendell Holmes
+
+Release Date: January, 2005 [EBook #7322]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on April 13, 2003]
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+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
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+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OUR HUNDRED DAYS IN EUROPE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Tonya Allen, Eric Eldred, Charles Franks
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES AT THE AGE OF 82. From a painting
+by Sarah W. Whitman]
+
+OUR HUNDRED DAYS IN EUROPE
+
+BY
+
+OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES
+
+
+
+To
+
+MY DAUGHTER AMELIA
+
+(MRS. TURNER SARGENT)
+
+MY FAITHFUL AND DEVOTED COMPANION
+
+THIS OUTLINE OF OUR SUMMER EXCURSION
+
+IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+INTRODUCTORY
+
+A PROSPECTIVE VISIT
+
+
+
+OUR HUNDRED DAYS IN EUROPE.
+
+CHAPTER
+
+I. THE VOYAGE.--LIVERPOOL.--CHESTER.--LONDON.--EPSOM
+
+II. EPSOM.--LONDON.--WINDSOR
+
+III. LONDON.--ISLE OF WIGHT.--CAMBRIDGE.--OXFORD.--YORK.--EDINBURGH
+
+IV. STRATFORD-ON-AVON.--GREAT MALVERN.--TEWKESBURY.--BATH.--SALISBURY.
+--STONEHENGE
+
+V. STONEHENGE.--SALISBURY.--OLD SARUM.--BEMERTON.--BRIGHTON
+
+VI. LONDON
+
+VII. BOULOGNE.--PARIS.--LONDON.--LIVERPOOL.--THE HOMEWARD PASSAGE
+
+VIII. GENERAL IMPRESSIONS.--MISCELLANEOUS OBSERVATIONS
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES AT THE AGE OF 82. From a painting by Sarah W.
+Whitman
+
+ROBERT BROWNING
+
+MAGDALEN COLLEGE, OXFORD
+
+SALISBURY CATHEDRAL
+
+PLACE DE LA CONCORDE
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY.
+
+A PROSPECTIVE VISIT.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After an interval of more than fifty years, I propose taking a second
+look at some parts of Europe. It is a Rip Van Winkle experiment which I
+am promising myself. The changes wrought by half a century in the
+countries I visited amount almost to a transformation. I left the
+England of William the Fourth, of the Duke of Wellington, of Sir Robert
+Peel; the France of Louis Philippe, of Marshal Soult, of Thiers, of
+Guizot. I went from Manchester to Liverpool by the new railroad, the
+only one I saw in Europe. I looked upon England from the box of a
+stage-coach, upon France from the coupe of a diligence, upon Italy from
+the cushion of a carrozza. The broken windows of Apsley House were still
+boarded up when I was in London. The asphalt pavement was not laid in
+Paris. The Obelisk of Luxor was lying in its great boat in the Seine, as
+I remember it. I did not see it erected; it must have been an exciting
+scene to witness, the engineer standing underneath, so as to be crushed
+by the great stone if it disgraced him by falling in the process. As for
+the dynasties which have overlaid each other like Dr. Schliemann's
+Trojan cities, there is no need of moralizing over a history which
+instead of Finis is constantly ending with What next?
+
+With regard to the changes in the general conditions of society and the
+advance in human knowledge, think for one moment what fifty years have
+done! I have often imagined myself escorting some wise man of the past
+to our Saturday Club, where we often have distinguished strangers as our
+guests. Suppose there sat by me, I will not say Sir Isaac Newton, for he
+has been too long away from us, but that other great man, whom Professor
+Tyndall names as next to him in intellectual stature, as he passes along
+the line of master minds of his country, from the days of Newton to our
+own,--Dr. Thomas Young, who died in 1829. Would he or I be the listener,
+if we were side by side? However humble I might feel in such a presence,
+I should be so clad in the grandeur of the new discoveries, inventions,
+ideas, I had to impart to him that I should seem to myself like the
+ambassador of an Emperor. I should tell him of the ocean steamers, the
+railroads that spread themselves like cobwebs over the civilized and
+half-civilized portions of the earth, the telegraph and the telephone,
+the photograph and the spectroscope. I should hand him a paper with the
+morning news from London to read by the electric light, I should startle
+him with a friction match, I should amaze him with the incredible truths
+about anesthesia, I should astonish him with the later conclusions of
+geology, I should dazzle him by the fully developed law of the
+correlation of forces, I should delight him with the cell-doctrine, I
+should confound him with the revolutionary apocalypse of Darwinism. All
+this change in the aspects, position, beliefs, of humanity since the
+time of Dr. Young's death, the date of my own graduation from college!
+
+I ought to consider myself highly favored to have lived through such a
+half century. But it seems to me that in walking the streets of London
+and Paris I shall revert to my student days, and appear to myself like a
+relic of a former generation. Those who have been born into the
+inheritance of the new civilization feel very differently about it from
+those who have lived their way into it. To the young and those
+approaching middle age all these innovations in life and thought are as
+natural, as much a matter of course, as the air they breathe; they form
+a part of the inner framework of their intelligence, about which their
+mental life is organized. To men and women of more than threescore and
+ten they are external accretions, like the shell of a mollusk, the
+jointed plates of an articulate. This must be remembered in reading
+anything written by those who knew the century in its teens; it is not
+likely to be forgotten, for the fact betrays itself in all the writer's
+thoughts and expressions.
+
+The story of my first visit to Europe is briefly this: my object was to
+study the medical profession, chiefly in Paris, and I was in Europe
+about two years and a half, from April, 1833, to October, 1835. I sailed
+in the packet ship Philadelphia from New York for Portsmouth, where we
+arrived after a passage of twenty-four days. A week was spent in
+visiting Southampton, Salisbury, Stonehenge, Wilton, and the Isle of
+Wight. I then crossed the Channel to Havre, from which I went to Paris.
+In the spring and summer of 1834 I made my principal visit to England
+and Scotland. There were other excursions to the Rhine and to Holland,
+to Switzerland and to Italy, but of these I need say nothing here. I
+returned in the packet ship Utica, sailing from Havre, and reaching New
+York after a passage of forty-two days.
+
+A few notes from my recollections will serve to recall the period of my
+first visit to Europe, and form a natural introduction to the
+experiences of my second. I take those circumstances which happen to
+suggest themselves.
+
+After a short excursion to Strasbourg, down the Rhine, and through
+Holland, a small steamer took us from Rotterdam across the Channel, and
+we found ourselves in the British capital.
+
+The great sight in London is--London. No man understands himself as an
+infinitesimal until he has been a drop in that ocean, a grain of sand on
+that sea-margin, a mote in its sunbeam, or the fog or smoke which stands
+for it; in plainer phrase, a unit among its millions.
+
+I had two letters to persons in England: one to kind and worthy Mr.
+Petty Vaughan, who asked me to dinner; one to pleasant Mr. William
+Clift, conservator of the Hunterian Museum, who asked me to tea.
+
+To Westminster Abbey. What a pity it could not borrow from Paris the
+towers of Notre Dame! But the glory of its interior made up for this
+shortcoming. Among the monuments, one to Rear Admiral Charles Holmes, a
+descendant, perhaps, of another namesake, immortalized by Dryden in the
+"Annus Mirabilis" as
+
+  "the Achates of the general's fight."
+
+He accompanied Wolfe in his expedition which resulted in the capture of
+Quebec. My relative, I will take it for granted, as I find him in
+Westminster Abbey. Blood is thicker than water,--and warmer than marble,
+I said to myself, as I laid my hand on the cold stone image of the once
+famous Admiral.
+
+To the Tower, to see the lions,--of all sorts. There I found a "poor
+relation," who made my acquaintance without introduction. A large
+baboon, or ape,--some creature of that family,--was sitting at the open
+door of his cage, when I gave him offence by approaching too near and
+inspecting him too narrowly. He made a spring at me, and if the keeper
+had not pulled me back would have treated me unhandsomely, like a
+quadrumanous rough, as he was. He succeeded in stripping my waistcoat of
+its buttons, as one would strip a pea-pod of its peas.
+
+To Vauxhall Gardens. All Americans went there in those days, as they go
+to Madame Tussaud's in these times. There were fireworks and an
+exhibition of polar scenery. "Mr. Collins, the English PAGANINI,"
+treated us to music on his violin. A comic singer gave us a song, of
+which I remember the line,
+
+  "You'll find it all in the agony bill."
+
+This referred to a bill proposed by Sir Andrew Agnew, a noted Scotch
+Sabbatarian agitator.
+
+To the opera to hear Grisi. The king, William the Fourth, was in his
+box; also the Princess Victoria, with the Duchess of Kent. The king
+tapped with his white-gloved hand on the ledge of the box when he was
+pleased with the singing.--To a morning concert and heard the real
+Paganini. To one of the lesser theatres and heard a monologue by the
+elder Mathews, who died a year or two after this time. To another
+theatre, where I saw Listen in Paul Pry. Is it not a relief that I am
+abstaining from description of what everybody has heard described?
+
+To Windsor. Machinery to the left of the road. Recognized it instantly,
+by recollection of the plate in "Rees's Cyclopedia," as Herschel's great
+telescope.--Oxford. Saw only its outside. I knew no one there, and no
+one knew me.--Blenheim,--the Titians best remembered of its objects on
+exhibition. The great Derby day of the Epsom races. Went to the race
+with a coach-load of friends and acquaintances. Plenipotentiary, the
+winner, "rode by P. Connelly." So says Herring's picture of him, now
+before me. Chestnut, a great "bullock" of a horse, who easily beat the
+twenty-two that started. Every New England deacon ought to see one Derby
+day to learn what sort of a world this is he lives in. Man is a sporting
+as well as a praying animal.
+
+Stratford-on-Avon. Emotions, but no scribbling of name on
+walls.--Warwick. The castle. A village festival, "The Opening of the
+Meadows," a true exhibition of the semi-barbarism which had come down
+from Saxon times.--Yorkshire. "The Hangman's Stone." Story told in my
+book called the "Autocrat," etc. York Cathedral.--Northumberland.
+Alnwick Castle. The figures on the walls which so frightened my man John
+when he ran away from Scotland in his boyhood. Berwick-on-Tweed. A
+regatta going on; a very pretty show. Scotland. Most to be remembered,
+the incomparable loveliness of Edinburgh.--Sterling. The view of the
+Links of Forth from the castle. The whole country full of the romance of
+history and poetry. Made one acquaintance in Scotland, Dr. Robert Knox,
+who asked my companion and myself to breakfast. I was treated to five
+entertainments in Great Britain: the breakfast just mentioned; lunch
+with Mrs. Macadam,--the good old lady gave me bread, and not a stone;
+dinner with Mr. Vaughan; one with Mr. Stanley, the surgeon; tea with Mr.
+Clift,--for all which attentions I was then and am still grateful, for
+they were more than I had any claim to expect. Fascinated with
+Edinburgh. Strolls by Salisbury Crag; climb to the top of Arthur's Seat;
+delight of looking up at the grand old castle, of looking down on
+Holyrood Palace, of watching the groups on Calton Hill, wandering in the
+quaint old streets and sauntering on the sidewalks of the noble avenues,
+even at that time adding beauty to the new city. The weeks I spent in
+Edinburgh are among the most memorable of my European experiences. To
+the Highlands, to the Lakes, in short excursions; to Glasgow, seen to
+disadvantage under gray skies and with slippery pavements. Through
+England rapidly to Dover and to Calais, where I found the name of M.
+Dessein still belonging to the hotel I sought, and where I read Sterne's
+"Preface Written in a Desobligeante," sitting in the vehicle most like
+one that I could find in the stable. From Calais back to Paris, where I
+began working again.
+
+All my travelling experiences, including a visit to Switzerland and
+Italy in the summer and autumn of 1835, were merely interludes of my
+student life in Paris. On my return to America, after a few years of
+hospital and private practice, I became a Professor in Harvard
+University, teaching Anatomy and Physiology, afterwards Anatomy alone,
+for the period of thirty-five years, during part of which time I paid
+some attention to literature, and became somewhat known as the author of
+several works in prose and verse which have been well received. My
+prospective visit will not be a professional one, as I resigned my
+office in 1882, and am no longer known chiefly as a teacher or a
+practitioner.
+
+BOSTON, _April_, 1886.
+
+
+
+
+OUR HUNDRED DAYS IN EUROPE
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I.
+
+
+I begin this record with the columnar, self-reliant capital letter to
+signify that there is no disguise in its egoisms. If it were a chapter
+of autobiography, this is what the reader would look for as a matter of
+course. Let him consider it as being such a chapter, and its egoisms
+will require no apology.
+
+I have called the record _our_ hundred days, because I was
+accompanied by my daughter, without the aid of whose younger eyes and
+livelier memory, and especially of her faithful diary, which no fatigue
+or indisposition was allowed to interrupt, the whole experience would
+have remained in my memory as a photograph out of focus.
+
+We left Boston on the 29th of April, 1886, and reached New York on the
+29th of August, four months of absence in all, of which nearly three
+weeks were taken up by the two passages; one week was spent in Paris,
+and the rest of the time in England and Scotland.
+
+No one was so much surprised as myself at my undertaking this visit. Mr.
+Gladstone, a strong man for his years, is reported as saying that he is
+too old to travel, at least to cross the ocean, and he is younger than I
+am,--just four months, to a day, younger. It is true that Sir Henry
+Holland came to this country, and travelled freely about the world,
+after he was eighty years old; but his pitcher went to the well once too
+often, and met the usual doom of fragile articles. When my friends asked
+me why I did not go to Europe, I reminded them of the fate of Thomas
+Parr. He was only twice my age, and was getting on finely towards his
+two hundredth year, when the Earl of Arundel carried him up to London,
+and, being feasted and made a lion of, he found there a premature and
+early grave at the age of only one hundred and fifty-two years. He lies
+in Westminster Abbey, it is true, but he would probably have preferred
+the upper side of his own hearth-stone to the under side of the slab
+which covers him.
+
+I should never have thought of such an expedition if it had not been
+suggested by a member of my family that I should accompany my daughter,
+who was meditating a trip to Europe. I remembered how many friends had
+told me I ought to go; among the rest, Mr. Emerson, who had spoken to me
+repeatedly about it. I had not seen Europe for more than half a century,
+and I had a certain longing for one more sight of the places I
+remembered, and others it would be a delight to look upon. There were a
+few living persons whom I wished to meet. I was assured that I should be
+kindly received in England. All this was tempting enough, but there was
+an obstacle in the way which I feared, and, as it proved, not without
+good reason. I doubted whether I could possibly breathe in a narrow
+state-room. In certain localities I have found myself liable to attacks
+of asthma, and, although I had not had one for years, I felt sure that I
+could not escape it if I tried to sleep in a state-room.
+
+I did not escape it, and I am glad to tell my story about it, because it
+excuses some of my involuntary social shortcomings, and enables me to
+thank collectively all those kind members of the profession who trained
+all the artillery of the pharmacopoeia upon my troublesome enemy, from
+bicarbonate of soda and Vichy water to arsenic and dynamite. One costly
+contrivance, sent me by the Reverend Mr. Haweis, whom I have never duly
+thanked for it, looked more like an angelic trump for me to blow in a
+better world than what I believe it is, an inhaling tube intended to
+prolong my mortal respiration. The best thing in my experience was
+recommended to me by an old friend in London. It was Himrod's asthma
+cure, one of the many powders, the smoke of which when burning is
+inhaled. It is made in Providence, Rhode Island, and I had to go to
+London to find it. It never failed to give at least temporary relief,
+but nothing enabled me to sleep in my state-room, though I had it all to
+myself, the upper berth being removed. After the first night and part of
+the second, I never lay down at all while at sea. The captain allowed me
+to have a candle and sit up in the saloon, where I worried through the
+night as I best might. How could I be in a fit condition to accept the
+attention of my friends in Liverpool, after sitting up every night for
+more than a week; and how could I be in a mood for the catechizing of
+interviewers, without having once lain down during the whole return
+passage? I hope the reader will see why I mention these facts. They
+explain and excuse many things; they have been alluded to, sometimes
+with exaggeration, in the newspapers, and I could not tell my story
+fairly without mentioning them. I got along well enough as soon as I
+landed, and have had no return of the trouble since I have been back in
+my own home. I will not advertise an assortment of asthma remedies for
+sale, but I assure my kind friends I have had no use for any one of them
+since I have walked the Boston pavements, drank, not the Cochituate, but
+the Belmont spring water, and breathed the lusty air of my native
+northeasters.
+
+My companion and I required an attendant, and we found one of those
+useful androgynous personages known as _courier-maids_, who had
+travelled with friends of ours, and who was ready to start with us at a
+moment's warning. She was of English birth, lively, short-gaited,
+serviceable, more especially in the first of her dual capacities. So far
+as my wants were concerned, I found her zealous and active in providing
+for my comfort.
+
+It was no sooner announced in the papers that I was going to England
+than I began to hear of preparations to welcome me. An invitation to a
+club meeting was cabled across the Atlantic. One of my countrywomen who
+has a house in London made an engagement for me to meet friends at her
+residence. A reverend friend, who thought I had certain projects in my
+head, wrote to me about lecturing: where I should appear, what fees I
+should obtain, and such business matters. I replied that I was going to
+England to spend money, not to make it; to hear speeches, very possibly,
+but not to make them; to revisit scenes I had known in my younger days;
+to get a little change of my routine, which I certainly did; and to
+enjoy a little rest, which I as certainly did not, at least in London.
+In a word, I wished a short vacation, and had no thought of doing
+anything more important than rubbing a little rust off and enjoying
+myself, while at the same time I could make my companion's visit
+somewhat pleasanter than it would be if she went without me. The visit
+has answered most of its purposes for both of us, and if we have saved a
+few recollections which our friends can take any pleasure in reading,
+this slight record may be considered a work of supererogation.
+
+The Cephalonia was to sail at half past six in the morning, and at that
+early hour a company of well-wishers was gathered on the wharf at East
+Boston to bid us good-by. We took with us many tokens of their
+thoughtful kindness; flowers and fruits from Boston and Cambridge, and a
+basket of champagne from a Concord friend whose company is as
+exhilarating as the sparkling wine he sent us. With the other gifts came
+a small tin box, about as big as a common round wooden match box. I
+supposed it to hold some pretty gimcrack, sent as a pleasant parting
+token of remembrance. It proved to be a most valued daily companion,
+useful at all times, never more so than when the winds were blowing hard
+and the ship was struggling with the waves. There must have been some
+magic secret in it, for I am sure that I looked five years younger after
+closing that little box than when I opened it. Time will explain its
+mysterious power.
+
+All the usual provisions for comfort made by seagoing experts we had
+attended to. Impermeable rugs and fleecy shawls, head-gear to defy the
+rudest northeasters, sea-chairs of ample dimensions, which we took care
+to place in as sheltered situations as we could find,--all these were a
+matter of course. Everybody stays on deck as much as possible, and lies
+wrapped up and spread out at full length on his or her sea-chair, so
+that the deck looks as if it had a row of mummies on exhibition. Nothing
+is more comfortable, nothing, I should say, more indispensable, than a
+hot-water bag,--or rather, _two_ hot-water bags; for they will
+burst sometimes, as I found out, and a passenger who has become intimate
+with one of these warm bosom friends feels its loss almost as if it were
+human.
+
+Passengers carry all sorts of luxuries on board, in the firm faith that
+they shall be able to profit by them all. Friends send them various
+indigestibles. To many all these well-meant preparations soon become a
+mockery, almost an insult. It is a clear case of _Sic(k) vos non
+vobis_. The tougher neighbor is the gainer by these acts of kindness;
+the generosity of a sea-sick sufferer in giving away the delicacies
+which seemed so desirable on starting is not ranked very high on the
+books of the recording angel. With us three things were best: grapes,
+oranges, and especially oysters, of which we had provided a half barrel
+in the shell. The "butcher" of the ship opened them fresh for us every
+day, and they were more acceptable than anything else.
+
+Among our ship's company were a number of family relatives and
+acquaintances. We formed a natural group at one of the tables, where we
+met in more or less complete numbers. I myself never missed; my
+companion, rarely. Others were sometimes absent, and sometimes came to
+time when they were in a very doubtful state, looking as if they were
+saying to themselves, with Lear,--
+
+  "Down, thou climbing sorrow,
+  Thy element's below."
+
+As for the intellectual condition of the passengers, I should say that
+faces were prevailingly vacuous, their owners half hypnotized, as it
+seemed, by the monotonous throb and tremor of the great sea-monster on
+whose back we were riding. I myself had few thoughts, fancies, emotions.
+One thing above all struck me as never before,--the terrible solitude of
+the ocean.
+
+  "So lonely 'twas that God himself
+  Scarce seemed there to be."
+
+Whole days passed without our seeing a single sail. The creatures of the
+deep which gather around sailing vessels are perhaps frightened off by
+the noise and stir of the steamship. At any rate, we saw nothing more
+than a few porpoises, so far as I remember.
+
+No man can find himself over the abysses, the floor of which is paved
+with wrecks and white with the bones of the shrieking myriads of human
+beings whom the waves have swallowed up, without some thought of the
+dread possibilities hanging over his fate. There is only one way to get
+rid of them: that which an old sea-captain mentioned to me, namely, to
+keep one's self under opiates until he wakes up in the harbor where he
+is bound. I did not take this as serious advice, but its meaning is that
+one who has all his senses about him cannot help being anxious. My old
+friend, whose beard had been shaken in many a tempest, knew too well
+that there is cause enough for anxiety.
+
+What does the reader suppose was the source of the most ominous thought
+which forced itself upon my mind, as I walked the decks of the mighty
+vessel? Not the sound of the rushing winds, nor the sight of the
+foam-crested billows; not the sense of the awful imprisoned force which
+was wrestling in the depths below me. The ship is made to struggle with
+the elements, and the giant has been tamed to obedience, and is manacled
+in bonds which an earthquake would hardly rend asunder. No! It was the
+sight of the _boats_ hanging along at the sides of the deck,--the
+boats, always suggesting the fearful possibility that before another day
+dawns one may be tossing about in the watery Sahara, shelterless,
+fireless, almost foodless, with a fate before him he dares not
+contemplate. No doubt we should feel worse without the boats; still they
+are dreadful tell-tales. To all who remember Gericault's Wreck of the
+Medusa,--and those who have seen it do not forget it,--the picture the
+mind draws is one it shudders at. To be sure, the poor wretches in the
+painting were on a raft, but to think of fifty people in one of these
+open boats! Let us go down into the cabin, where at least we shall not
+see them.
+
+The first morning at sea revealed the mystery of the little round tin
+box. The process of _shaving_, never a delightful one, is a very
+unpleasant and awkward piece of business when the floor on which one
+stands, the glass in which he looks, and he himself are all describing
+those complex curves which make cycles and epicycles seem like
+simplicity itself. The little box contained a reaping machine, which
+gathered the capillary harvest of the past twenty-four hours with a
+thoroughness, a rapidity, a security, and a facility which were a
+surprise, almost a revelation. The idea of a guarded cutting edge is an
+old one; I remember the "Plantagenet" razor, so called, with the
+comb-like row of blunt teeth, leaving just enough of the edge free to do
+its work. But this little affair had a blade only an inch and a half
+long by three quarters of an inch wide. It had a long slender handle,
+which took apart for packing, and was put together with the greatest
+ease. It was, in short, a lawn-mower for the masculine growth of which
+the proprietor wishes to rid his countenance. The mowing operation
+required no glass, could be performed with almost reckless boldness, as
+one cannot cut himself, and in fact had become a pleasant amusement
+instead of an irksome task. I have never used any other means of shaving
+from that day to this. I was so pleased with it that I exhibited it to
+the distinguished tonsors of Burlington Arcade, half afraid they would
+assassinate me for bringing in an innovation which bid fair to destroy
+their business. They probably took me for an agent of the manufacturers;
+and so I was, but not in their pay nor with their knowledge. I
+determined to let other persons know what a convenience I had found the
+"Star Razor" of Messrs. Kampf, of New York, without fear of reproach for
+so doing. I know my danger,--does not Lord Byron say, "I have even been
+accused of writing puffs for Warren's blacking"? I was once offered pay
+for a poem in praise of a certain stove polish, but I declined. It is
+pure good-will to my race which leads me to commend the Star Razor to
+all who travel by land or by sea, as well as to all who stay at home.
+
+With the first sight of land many a passenger draws a long sigh of
+relief. Yet everybody knows that the worst dangers begin after we have
+got near enough to see the shore, for there are several ways of landing,
+not all of which are equally desirable. On Saturday, May 8th, we first
+caught a glimpse of the Irish coast, and at half past four in the
+afternoon we reached the harbor of Queenstown. A tug came off, bringing
+newspapers, letters, and so forth, among the rest some thirty letters
+and telegrams for me. This did not look much like rest, but this was
+only a slight prelude to what was to follow. I was in no condition to go
+on shore for sight-seeing, as some of the passengers did.
+
+We made our way through the fog towards Liverpool, and arrived at 1.30,
+on Sunday, May 9th. A special tug came to take us off: on it were the
+American consul, Mr. Russell, the vice-consul, Mr. Sewall, Dr. Nevins,
+and Mr. Rathbone, who came on behalf of our as yet unseen friend, Mr.
+Willett, of Brighton, England. Our Liverpool friends were meditating
+more hospitalities to us than, in our fatigued condition, we were equal
+to supporting. They very kindly, however, acquiesced in our wishes,
+which were for as much rest as we could possibly get before any attempt
+to busy ourselves with social engagements. So they conveyed us to the
+Grand Hotel for a short time, and then saw us safely off to the station
+to take the train for Chester, where we arrived in due season, and soon
+found ourselves comfortably established at the Grosvenor Arms Hotel. A
+large basket of Surrey primroses was brought by Mr. Rathbone to my
+companion. I had set before me at the hotel a very handsome floral harp,
+which my friend's friend had offered me as a tribute. It made melody in
+my ears as sweet as those hyacinths of Shelley's, the music of whose
+bells was so
+
+  "delicate, soft, and intense,
+  It was felt like an odor within the sense."
+
+At Chester we had the blissful security of being unknown, and were left
+to ourselves. Americans know Chester better than most other old towns in
+England, because they so frequently stop there awhile on their way from
+Liverpool to London. It has a mouldy old cathedral, an old wall, partly
+Roman, strange old houses with overhanging upper floors, which make
+sheltered sidewalks and dark basements. When one sees an old house in
+New England with the second floor projecting a foot or two beyond the
+wall of the ground floor, the country boy will tell him that "them
+haouses was built so th't th' folks upstairs could shoot the Injins when
+they was tryin' to git threew th' door or int' th' winder." There are
+plenty of such houses all over England, where there are no "Injins" to
+shoot. But the story adds interest to the somewhat lean traditions of
+our rather dreary past, and it is hardly worth while to disturb it. I
+always heard it in my boyhood. Perhaps it is true; certainly it was a
+very convenient arrangement for discouraging an untimely visit. The oval
+lookouts in porches, common in our Essex County, have been said to
+answer a similar purpose, that of warning against the intrusion of
+undesirable visitors. The walk round the old wall of Chester is
+wonderfully interesting and beautiful. At one part it overlooks a wide
+level field, over which the annual races are run. I noticed that here as
+elsewhere the short grass was starred with daisies. They are not
+considered in place in a well-kept lawn. But remembering the cuckoo song
+in "Love's Labour's Lost," "When daisies pied ... do paint the meadows
+with delight," it was hard to look at them as unwelcome intruders.
+
+The old cathedral seemed to me particularly mouldy, and in fact too
+high-flavored with antiquity. I could not help comparing some of the
+ancient cathedrals and abbey churches to so many old cheeses. They have
+a tough gray rind and a rich interior, which find food and lodging for
+numerous tenants who live and die under their shelter or their
+shadow,--lowly servitors some of them, portly dignitaries others, humble
+holy ministers of religion many, I doubt not,--larvae of angels, who
+will get their wings by and by. It is a shame to carry the comparison so
+far, but it is natural enough; for Cheshire cheeses are among the first
+things we think of as we enter that section of the country, and this
+venerable cathedral is the first that greets the eyes of great numbers
+of Americans.
+
+We drove out to Eaton Hall, the seat of the Duke of Westminster, the
+many-millioned lord of a good part of London. It is a palace,
+high-roofed, marble-columned, vast, magnificent, everything but
+homelike, and perhaps homelike to persons born and bred in such
+edifices. A painter like Paul Veronese finds a palace like this not too
+grand for his banqueting scenes. But to those who live, as most of us
+do, in houses of moderate dimensions, snug, comfortable, which the
+owner's presence fills sufficiently, leaving room for a few visitors, a
+vast marble palace is disheartening and uninviting. I never get into a
+very large and lofty saloon without feeling as if I were a weak solution
+of myself,--my personality almost drowned out in the flood of space
+about me. The wigwam is more homelike than the cavern. Our wooden houses
+are a better kind of wigwam; the marble palaces are artificial caverns,
+vast, resonant, chilling, good to visit, not desirable to live in, for
+most of us. One's individuality should betray itself in all that
+surrounds him; he should _secrete_ his shell, like a mollusk; if he
+can sprinkle a few pearls through it, so much the better. It is best,
+perhaps, that one should avoid being a duke and living in a
+palace,--that is, if he has his choice in the robing chamber where souls
+are fitted with their earthly garments.
+
+One of the most interesting parts of my visit to Eaton Hall was my tour
+through the stables. The Duke is a famous breeder and lover of the turf.
+Mr. Rathbone and myself soon made the acquaintance of the chief of the
+stable department. Readers of Homer do not want to be reminded that
+_hippodamoio_, horse-subduer, is the genitive of an epithet applied
+as a chief honor to the most illustrious heroes. It is the last word of
+the last line of the Iliad, and fitly closes the account of the funeral
+pageant of Hector, the tamer of horses. We Americans are a little shy of
+confessing that any title or conventional grandeur makes an impression
+upon us. If at home we wince before any official with a sense of
+blighted inferiority, it is by general confession the clerk at the hotel
+office. There is an excuse for this, inasmuch as he holds our destinies
+in his hands, and decides whether, in case of accident, we shall have to
+jump from the third or sixth story window. Lesser grandeurs do not find
+us very impressible. There is, however, something about the man who
+deals in horses which takes down the spirit, however proud, of him who
+is unskilled in equestrian matters and unused to the horse-lover's
+vocabulary. We followed the master of the stables, meekly listening and
+once in a while questioning. I had to fall back on my reserves, and
+summoned up memories half a century old to gain the respect and win the
+confidence of the great horse-subduer. He showed us various fine
+animals, some in their stalls, some outside of them. Chief of all was
+the renowned Bend Or, a Derby winner, a noble and beautiful bay,
+destined in a few weeks to gain new honors on the same turf in the
+triumph of his offspring Ormonde, whose acquaintance we shall make
+by-and-by.
+
+The next day, Tuesday, May 11th, at 4.25, we took the train for London.
+We had a saloon car, which had been thoughtfully secured for us through
+unseen, not unsuspected, agencies, which had also beautified the
+compartment with flowers.
+
+Here are some of my first impressions of England as seen from the
+carriage and from the cars.--How very English! I recall Birket Foster's
+Pictures of English Landscape,--a beautiful, poetical series of views,
+but hardly more poetical than the reality. How thoroughly England _is
+groomed_! Our New England out-of-doors landscape often looks as if it
+had just got out of bed, and had not finished its toilet. The glowing
+green of everything strikes me: green hedges in place of our
+rail-fences, always ugly, and our rude stone-walls, which are not
+wanting in a certain look of fitness approaching to comeliness, and are
+really picturesque when lichen-coated, but poor features of landscape as
+compared to these universal hedges. I am disappointed in the trees, so
+far; I have not seen one large tree as yet. Most of those I see are of
+very moderate dimensions, feathered all the way up their long slender
+trunks, with a lop-sided mop of leaves at the top, like a wig which has
+slipped awry. I trust that I am not finding everything _couleur de
+rose_; but I certainly do find the cheeks of children and young
+persons of such brilliant rosy hue as I do not remember that I have ever
+seen before. I am almost ready to think this and that child's face has
+been colored from a pink saucer. If the Saxon youth exposed for sale at
+Rome, in the days of Pope Gregory the Great, had complexions like these
+children, no wonder that the pontiff exclaimed, Not _Angli_, but
+_angeli_! All this may sound a little extravagant, but I am giving
+my impressions without any intentional exaggeration. How far these first
+impressions may be modified by after-experiences there will be time
+enough to find out and to tell. It is better to set them down at once
+just as they are. A first impression is one never to be repeated; the
+second look will see much that was not noticed before, but it will not
+reproduce the sharp lines of the _first proof_, which is always
+interesting, no matter what the eye or the mind fixes upon. "I see men
+as trees walking." That first experience could not be mended. When
+Dickens landed in Boston, he was struck with the brightness of all the
+objects he saw,--buildings, signs, and so forth. When I landed in
+Liverpool, everything looked very dark, very dingy, very massive, in the
+streets I drove through. So in London, but in a week it all seemed
+natural enough.
+
+We got to the hotel where we had engaged quarters, at eleven o'clock in
+the evening of Wednesday, the 12th of May. Everything was ready for
+us,--a bright fire blazing and supper waiting. When we came to look at
+the accommodations, we found they were not at all adapted to our needs.
+It was impossible to stay there another night. So early the next morning
+we sent out our courier-maid, a dove from the ark, to find us a place
+where we could rest the soles of our feet. London is a nation of
+something like four millions of inhabitants, and one does not feel easy
+without he has an assured place of shelter. The dove flew all over the
+habitable districts of the city,--inquired at as many as twenty houses.
+No roosting-place for our little flock of three. At last the good angel
+who followed us everywhere, in one shape or another, pointed the
+wanderer to a place which corresponded with all our requirements and
+wishes. This was at No. 17 Dover Street, Mackellar's Hotel, where we
+found ourselves comfortably lodged and well cared for during the whole
+time we were in London. It was close to Piccadilly and to Bond Street.
+Near us, in the same range, were Brown's Hotel and Batt's Hotel, both
+widely known to the temporary residents of London.
+
+We were but partially recovered from the fatigues and trials of the
+voyage when our arrival pulled the string of the social shower-bath, and
+the invitations began pouring down upon us so fast that we caught our
+breath, and felt as if we should be smothered. The first evening saw us
+at a great dinner-party at our well-remembered friend Lady Harcourt's.
+Twenty guests, celebrities and agreeable persons, with or without
+titles. The tables were radiant with silver, glistening with choice
+porcelain, blazing with a grand show of tulips. This was our "baptism of
+fire" in that long conflict which lasts through the London season. After
+dinner came a grand reception, most interesting, but fatiguing to
+persons hardly as yet in good condition for social service. We lived
+through it, however, and enjoyed meeting so many friends, known and
+unknown, who were very cordial and pleasant in their way of receiving
+us.
+
+It was plain that we could not pretend to answer all the invitations
+which flooded our tables. If we had attempted it, we should have found
+no time for anything else. A secretary was evidently a matter of
+immediate necessity. Through the kindness of Mrs. Pollock, we found a
+young lady who was exactly fitted for the place. She was installed in
+the little room intended for her, and began the work of accepting with
+pleasure and regretting our inability, of acknowledging the receipt of
+books, flowers, and other objects, and being very sorry that we could
+not subscribe to this good object and attend that meeting in behalf of a
+deserving charity,--in short, writing almost everything for us except
+autographs, which I can warrant were always genuine. The poor young lady
+was almost tired out sometimes, having to stay at her table, on one
+occasion, so late as eleven in the evening, to get through her day's
+work. I simplified matters for her by giving her a set of formulae as a
+base to start from, and she proved very apt at the task of modifying
+each particular letter to suit its purpose.
+
+From this time forward continued a perpetual round of social
+engagements. Breakfasts, luncheons, dinners, teas, receptions with
+spread tables, two, three, and four deep of an evening, with receiving
+company at our own rooms, took up the day, so that we had very little
+time for common sight-seeing.
+
+Of these kinds of entertainments, the breakfast, though pleasant enough
+when the company is agreeable, as I always found it, is the least
+convenient of all times and modes of visiting. You have already
+interviewed one breakfast, and are expecting soon to be coquetting with
+a tempting luncheon. If one had as many stomachs as a ruminant, he would
+not mind three or four serious meals a day, not counting the tea as one
+of them. The luncheon is a very convenient affair: it does not require
+special dress; it is informal; it is soon over, and may be made light or
+heavy, as one chooses. The afternoon tea is almost a necessity in London
+life. It is considered useful as "a pick me up," and it serves an
+admirable purpose in the social system. It costs the household hardly
+any trouble or expense. It brings people together in the easiest
+possible way, for ten minutes or an hour, just as their engagements or
+fancies may settle it. A cup of tea at the right moment does for the
+virtuous reveller all that Falstaff claims for a good sherris-sack, or
+at least the first half of its "twofold operation:" "It ascends me into
+the brain; dries me there all the foolish and dull and crudy vapors
+which environ it; makes it apprehensive, quick, forgetive, full of
+nimble, fiery and delectable shapes, which delivered over to the voice,
+the tongue, which is the birth, becomes excellent wit."
+
+But it must have the right brain to work upon, and I doubt if there is
+any brain to which it is so congenial and from which it brings so much
+as that of a first-rate London old lady. I came away from the great city
+with the feeling that this most complex product of civilization was
+nowhere else developed to such perfection. The octogenarian Londoness
+has been in society,--let us say the highest society,--all her days. She
+is as tough as an old macaw, or she would not have lasted so long. She
+has seen and talked with all the celebrities of three generations, all
+the beauties of at least half a dozen decades. Her wits have been kept
+bright by constant use, and as she is free of speech it requires some
+courage to face her. Yet nobody can be more agreeable, even to young
+persons, than one of these precious old dowagers. A great beauty is
+almost certainly thinking how she looks while one is talking with her;
+an authoress is waiting to have one praise her book; but a grand old
+lady, who loves London society, who lives in it, who understands young
+people and all sorts of people, with her high-colored recollections of
+the past and her grand-maternal interests in the new generation, is the
+best of companions, especially over a cup of tea just strong enough to
+stir up her talking ganglions.
+
+A breakfast, a lunch, a tea, is a circumstance, an occurrence, in social
+life, but a dinner is an event. It is the full-blown flower of that
+cultivated growth of which those lesser products are the buds. I will
+not try to enumerate, still less to describe, the various entertainments
+to which we were invited, and many of which we attended. Among the
+professional friends I found or made during this visit to London, none
+were more kindly attentive than Dr. Priestley, who, with his charming
+wife, the daughter of the late Robert Chambers, took more pains to carry
+out our wishes than we could have asked or hoped for. At his house I
+first met Sir James Paget and Sir William Gull, long well known to me,
+as to the medical profession everywhere, as preeminent in their several
+departments. If I were an interviewer or a newspaper reporter, I should
+be tempted to give the impression which the men and women of distinction
+I met made upon me; but where all were cordial, where all made me feel
+as nearly as they could that I belonged where I found myself, whether
+the ceiling were a low or a lofty one, I do not care to differentiate my
+hosts and my other friends. _Fortemque Gyan fortemque Cloanthum_,
+--I left my microscope and my test-papers at home.
+
+Our friends, several of them, had a pleasant way of sending their
+carriages to give us a drive in the Park, where, except in certain
+permitted regions, the common numbered vehicles are not allowed to
+enter. Lady Harcourt sent her carriage for us to go to her sister's,
+Mrs. Mildmay's, where we had a pleasant little "tea," and met one of the
+most agreeable and remarkable of those London old ladies I have spoken
+of. For special occasions we hired an unnumbered carriage, with
+professionally equipped driver and footman.
+
+Mrs. Bloomfield Moore sent her carriage for us to take us to a lunch at
+her house, where we met Mr. Browning, Sir Henry and Lady Layard, Oscar
+Wilde and his handsome wife, and other well-known guests. After lunch,
+recitations, songs, etc. House full of pretty things. Among other
+curiosities a portfolio of drawings illustrating Keeley's motor, which,
+up to this time, has manifested a remarkably powerful _vis
+inertice_, but which promises miracles. In the evening a grand
+reception at Lady Granville's, beginning (for us, at least) at eleven
+o'clock. The house a palace, and A---- thinks there were a thousand
+people there. We made the tour of the rooms, saw many great personages,
+had to wait for our carriage a long time, but got home at one o'clock.
+
+English people have queer notions about iced-water and ice-cream. "You
+will surely die, eating such cold stuff," said a lady to my companion.
+"Oh, no," she answered, "but I should certainly die were I to drink your
+two cups of strong tea." I approved of this "counter" on the teacup, but
+I did not think either of them was in much danger.
+
+The next day Rev. Mr. Haweis sent his carriage, and we drove in the
+Park. In the afternoon we went to our Minister's to see the American
+ladies who had been presented at the drawing-room. After this, both of
+us were glad to pass a day or two in comparative quiet, except that we
+had a room full of visitors. So many persons expressed a desire to make
+our acquaintance that we thought it would be acceptable to them if we
+would give a reception ourselves. We were thinking how we could manage
+it with our rooms at the hotel, which were not arranged so that they
+could be thrown together. Still, we were planning to make the best of
+them, when Dr. and Mrs. Priestley suggested that we should receive our
+company at their house. This was a surprise, and a most welcome one, and
+A---- and her kind friend busied themselves at once about the
+arrangements.
+
+We went to a luncheon at Lansdowne House, Lord Rosebery's residence, not
+far from our hotel. My companion tells a little incident which may
+please an American six-year-old: "The eldest of the four children,
+Sibyl, a pretty, bright child of six, told me that she wrote a letter to
+the Queen. I said, 'Did you begin, Dear Queen?' 'No,' she answered, 'I
+began, Your Majesty, and signed myself, Your little humble servant,
+Sibyl.'" A very cordial and homelike reception at this great house,
+where a couple of hours were passed most agreeably.
+
+On the following Sunday I went to Westminster Abbey to hear a sermon
+from Canon Harford on A Cheerful Life. A lively, wholesome, and
+encouraging discourse, such as it would do many a forlorn New England
+congregation good to hear. In the afternoon we both went together to the
+Abbey. Met our Beverly neighbor, Mrs. Vaughan, and adopted her as one of
+our party. The seats we were to have were full, and we had to be stowed
+where there was any place that would hold us. I was smuggled into a
+stall, going through long and narrow passages, between crowded rows of
+people, and found myself at last with a big book before me and a set of
+official personages around me, whose duties I did not clearly
+understand. I thought they might be mutes, or something of that sort,
+salaried to look grave and keep quiet. After service we took tea with
+Dean Bradley, and after tea we visited the Jerusalem Chamber. I had been
+twice invited to weddings in that famous room: once to the marriage of
+my friend Motley's daughter, then to that of Mr. Frederick Locker's
+daughter to Lionel Tennyson, whose recent death has been so deeply
+mourned. I never expected to see that Jerusalem in which Harry the
+Fourth died, but there I found myself in the large panelled chamber,
+with all its associations. The older memories came up but vaguely; an
+American finds it as hard to call back anything over two or three
+centuries old as a sucking-pump to draw up water from a depth of over
+thirty-three feet and a fraction. After this A---- went to a musical
+party, dined with the Vaughans, and had a good time among American
+friends.
+
+The next evening we went to the Lyceum Theatre to see Mr. Irving. He had
+placed the Royal box at our disposal, so we invited our friends the
+Priestleys to go with us, and we all enjoyed the evening mightily.
+Between the scenes we went behind the curtain, and saw the very curious
+and admirable machinery of the dramatic spectacle. We made the
+acquaintance of several imps and demons, who were got up wonderfully
+well. Ellen Terry was as fascinating as ever. I remembered that once
+before I had met her and Mr. Irving behind the scenes. It was at the
+Boston Theatre, and while I was talking with them a very heavy piece of
+scenery came crashing down, and filled the whole place with dust. It was
+but a short distance from where we were standing, and I could not help
+thinking how near our several life-dramas came to a simultaneous
+_exeunt omnes_.
+
+A long visit from a polite interviewer, shopping, driving, calling,
+arranging about the people to be invited to our reception, and an
+agreeable dinner at Chelsea with my American friend, Mrs. Merritt,
+filled up this day full enough, and left us in good condition for the
+next, which was to be a very busy one.
+
+In the Introduction to these papers, I mentioned the fact that more than
+half a century ago I went to the famous Derby race at Epsom. I
+determined, if possible, to see the Derby of 1886, as I had seen that of
+1834. I must have spoken of this intention to some interviewer, for I
+find the following paragraph in an English sporting newspaper, "The
+Field," for May 29th, 1886:--
+
+"The Derby has always been the one event in the racing year which
+statesmen, philosophers, poets, essayists, and _litterateurs_
+desire to see once in their lives. A few years since Mr. Gladstone was
+induced by Lord Granville and Lord Wolverton to run down to Epsom on the
+Derby day. The impression produced upon the Prime Minister's sensitive
+and emotional mind was that the mirth and hilarity displayed by his
+compatriots upon Epsom race-course was Italian rather than English in
+its character. On the other hand, Gustave Dore, who also saw the Derby
+for the first and only time in his life, exclaimed, as he gazed with
+horror upon the faces below him, _Quelle scene brutale!_ We wonder
+to which of these two impressions Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes inclined, if
+he went last Wednesday to Epsom! Probably the well-known, etc., etc.--Of
+one thing Dr. Holmes may rest finally satisfied: the Derby of 1886 may
+possibly have seemed to him far less exciting than that of 1834; but
+neither in 1834 nor in any other year was the great race ever won by a
+better sportsman or more honorable man than the Duke of Westminster."
+
+My desire to see the Derby of this year was of the same origin and
+character as that which led me to revisit many scenes which I
+remembered. I cared quite as much about renewing old impressions as
+about getting new ones. I enjoyed everything which I had once seen all
+the more from the blending of my recollections with the present as it
+was before me.
+
+The Derby day of 1834 was exceedingly windy and dusty. Our party, riding
+on the outside of the coach, was half smothered with the dust, and
+arrived in a very deteriorated condition, but recompensed for it by the
+extraordinary sights we had witnessed. There was no train in those days,
+and the whole road between London and Epsom was choked with vehicles of
+all kinds, from four-in-hands to donkey-carts and wheelbarrows. My
+friends and I mingled freely in the crowds, and saw all the "humours" of
+the occasion. The thimble-riggers were out in great force, with their
+light, movable tables, the cups or thimbles, and the "little jokers,"
+and the coachman, the sham gentleman, the country greenhorn, all
+properly got up and gathered about the table. I think we had "Aunt
+Sally," too,--the figure with a pipe in her mouth, which one might shy a
+stick at for a penny or two and win something, I forget what. The
+clearing the course of stragglers, and the chasing about of the
+frightened little dog who had got in between the thick ranks of
+spectators, reminded me of what I used to see on old "artillery
+election" days.
+
+It was no common race that I went to see in 1834. "It is asserted in the
+columns of a contemporary that Plenipotentiary was absolutely the best
+horse of the century." This was the winner of the race I saw so long
+ago. Herring's colored portrait, which I have always kept, shows him as
+a great, powerful chestnut horse, well deserving the name of "bullock,"
+which one of the jockeys applied to him. "Rumor credits Dr. Holmes," so
+"The Field" says, "with desiring mentally to compare his two Derbies
+with each other." I was most fortunate in my objects of comparison. The
+horse I was about to see win was not unworthy of being named with the
+renowned champion of my earlier day. I quote from a writer in the
+"London Morning Post," whose words, it will be seen, carry authority
+with them:--
+
+"Deep as has hitherto been my reverence for Plenipotentiary, Bay
+Middleton, and Queen of Trumps from hearsay, and for Don John, Crucifix,
+etc., etc., from my own personal knowledge, I am inclined to award the
+palm to Ormonde as the best three-year-old I have ever seen during close
+upon half a century's connection with the turf."
+
+Ormonde, the Duke of Westminster's horse, was the son of that other
+winner of the Derby, Bend Or, whom I saw at Eaton Hall.
+
+Perhaps some coeval of mine may think it was a rather youthful idea to
+go to the race. I cannot help that. I was off on my first long vacation
+for half a century, and had a right to my whims and fancies. But it was
+one thing to go in with a vast crowd at five and twenty, and another
+thing to run the risks of the excursion at more than thrice that age. I
+looked about me for means of going safely, and could think of nothing
+better than to ask one of the pleasantest and kindest of gentlemen, to
+whom I had a letter from Mr. Winthrop, at whose house I had had the
+pleasure of making his acquaintance. Lord Rosebery suggested that the
+best way would be for me to go in the special train which was to carry
+the Prince of Wales. First, then, I was to be introduced to his Royal
+Highness, which office was kindly undertaken by our very obliging and
+courteous Minister, Mr. Phelps. After this all was easily arranged, and
+I was cared for as well as if I had been Mr. Phelps himself. On the
+grand stand I found myself in the midst of the great people, who were
+all very natural, and as much at their ease as the rest of the world.
+The Prince is of a lively temperament and a very cheerful aspect,--a
+young girl would call him "jolly" as well as "nice." I recall the story
+of "Mr. Pope" and his Prince of Wales, as told by Horace Walpole. "Mr.
+Pope, you don't love princes." "Sir, I beg your pardon." "Well, you
+don't love kings, then." "Sir, I own I love the lion best before his
+claws are grown." Certainly, nothing in Prince Albert Edward suggests
+any aggressive weapons or tendencies. The lovely, youthful-looking,
+gracious Alexandra, the always affable and amiable Princess Louise, the
+tall youth who sees the crown and sceptre afar off in his dreams, the
+slips of girls so like many school misses we left behind us,--all these
+grand personages, not being on exhibition, but off enjoying themselves,
+just as I was and as other people were, seemed very much like their
+fellow-mortals. It is really easier to feel at home with the highest
+people in the land than with the awkward commoner who was knighted
+yesterday. When "My Lord and Sir Paul" came into the Club which
+Goldsmith tells us of, the hilarity of the evening was instantly
+checked. The entrance of a dignitary like the present Prince of Wales
+would not have spoiled the fun of the evening. If there is any one
+accomplishment specially belonging to princes, it is that of making the
+persons they meet feel at ease.
+
+The grand stand to which I was admitted was a little privileged
+republic. I remember Thackeray's story of his asking some simple
+question of a royal or semi-royal personage whom he met in the courtyard
+of an hotel, which question his Highness did not answer, but called a
+subordinate to answer for him. I had been talking some time with a tall,
+good-looking gentleman, whom I took for a nobleman to whom I had been
+introduced. Something led me to think I was mistaken in the identity of
+this gentleman. I asked him, at last, if he were not So and So. "No," he
+said, "I am Prince Christian." You are a Christian prince, anyhow, I
+said to myself, if I may judge by your manners.
+
+I once made a similar mistake in addressing a young fellow-citizen of
+some social pretensions. I apologized for my error.
+
+"No offence," he answered.
+
+_Offence_ indeed! I should hope not. But he had not the "_maniere
+de prince_", or he would never have used that word.
+
+I must say something about the race I had taken so much pains to see.
+There was a preliminary race, which excited comparatively little
+interest. After this the horses were shown in the paddock, and many of
+our privileged party went down from the stand to look at them. Then they
+were brought out, smooth, shining, fine-drawn, frisky, spirit-stirring
+to look upon,--most beautiful of all the bay horse Ormonde, who could
+hardly be restrained, such was his eagerness for action. The horses
+disappear in the distance.--They are off,--not yet distinguishable, at
+least to me. A little waiting time, and they swim into our ken, but in
+what order of precedence it is as yet not easy to say. Here they come!
+Two horses have emerged from the ruck, and are sweeping, rushing,
+storming, towards us, almost side by side. One slides by the other, half
+a length, a length, a length and a half. Those are Archer's colors, and
+the beautiful bay Ormonde flashes by the line, winner of the Derby of
+1886. "The Bard" has made a good fight for the first place, and comes in
+second. Poor Archer, the king of the jockeys! He will bestride no more
+Derby winners. A few weeks later he died by his own hand.
+
+While the race was going on, the yells of the betting crowd beneath us
+were incessant. It must have been the frantic cries and movements of
+these people that caused Gustave Dore to characterize it as a brutal
+scene. The vast mob which thronged the wide space beyond the shouting
+circle just round us was much like that of any other fair, so far as I
+could see from my royal perch. The most conspicuous object was a man on
+an immensely tall pair of stilts, stalking about among the crowd. I
+think it probable that I had as much enjoyment in forming one of the
+great mob in 1834 as I had among the grandeurs in 1886, but the last is
+pleasanter to remember and especially to tell of.
+
+After the race we had a luncheon served us, a comfortable and
+substantial one, which was very far from unwelcome. I did not go to the
+Derby to bet on the winner. But as I went in to luncheon, I passed a
+gentleman standing in custody of a plate half covered with sovereigns.
+He politely asked me if I would take a little paper from a heap there
+was lying by the plate, and add a sovereign to the collection already
+there. I did so, and, unfolding my paper, found it was a blank, and
+passed on. The pool, as I afterwards learned, fell to the lot of the
+Turkish Ambassador. I found it very windy and uncomfortable on the more
+exposed parts of the grand stand, and was glad that I had taken a shawl
+with me, in which I wrapped myself as if I had been on shipboard. This,
+I told my English friends, was the more civilized form of the Indian's
+blanket. My report of the weather does not say much for the English May,
+but it is generally agreed upon that this is a backward and unpleasant
+spring.
+
+After my return from the race we went to a large dinner at Mr. Phelps's
+house, where we met Mr. Browning again, and the Lord Chancellor
+Herschell, among others. Then to Mrs. Cyril Flower's, one of the most
+sumptuous houses in London; and after that to Lady Rothschild's, another
+of the private palaces, with ceilings lofty as firmaments, and walls
+that might have been copied from the New Jerusalem. There was still
+another great and splendid reception at Lady Dalhousie's, and a party at
+Mrs. Smith's, but we were both tired enough to be willing to go home
+after what may be called a pretty good day's work at enjoying ourselves.
+
+We had been a fortnight in London, and were now inextricably entangled
+in the meshes of the golden web of London social life.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+
+The reader who glances over these papers, and, finding them too full of
+small details and the lesser personal matters which belong naturally to
+private correspondences, turns impatiently from them, has my entire
+sympathy and good-will. He is not one of those for whom these pages are
+meant. Having no particular interest in the writer or his affairs, he
+does not care for the history of "the migrations from the blue bed to
+the brown" and the many Mistress Quicklyisms of circumstantial
+narrative. Yet all this may be pleasant reading to relatives and
+friends.
+
+But I must not forget that a new generation of readers has come into
+being since I have been writing for the public, and that a new
+generation of aspiring and brilliant authors has grown into general
+recognition. The dome of Boston State House, which is the centre of my
+little universe, was glittering in its fresh golden pellicle before I
+had reached the scriptural boundary of life. It has lost its lustre now,
+and the years which have dulled its surface have whitened the dome of
+that fragile structure in which my consciousness holds the session of
+its faculties. Time is not to be cheated. It is easy to talk of
+perennial youth, and to toy with the flattering fictions which every
+ancient personage accepts as true so far as he himself is concerned, and
+laughs at as foolish talk when he hears them applied to others. When, in
+my exulting immaturity, I wrote the lines not unknown to the reading
+public under the name of "The Last Leaf", I spoke of the possibility
+that I myself might linger on the old bough until the buds and blossoms
+of a new spring were opening and spreading all around me. I am not as
+yet the solitary survivor of my literary contemporaries, and,
+remembering who my few coevals are, it may well be hoped that I shall
+not be. But I feel lonely, very lonely, in the pages through which I
+wander. These are new names in the midst of which I find my own. In
+another sense I am very far from alone. I have daily assurances that I
+have a constituency of known and unknown personal friends, whose
+indulgence I have no need of asking. I know there are readers enough who
+will be pleased to follow me in my brief excursion, _because I am
+myself_, and will demand no better reason. If I choose to write for
+them, I do no injury to those for whom my personality is an object of
+indifference. They will find on every shelf some publications which are
+not intended for them, and which they prefer to let alone. No person is
+expected to help himself to everything set before him at a public table.
+I will not, therefore, hesitate to go on with the simple story of our
+Old World experiences.
+
+Thanks to my Indian blanket,--my shawl, I mean,--I found myself nothing
+the worse for my manifold adventures of the 27th of May. The cold wind
+sweeping over Epsom downs reminded me of our own chilling easterly
+breezes; especially the northeasterly ones, which are to me less
+disagreeable than the southeasterly. But the poetical illusion about an
+English May,--
+
+  "Zephyr with Aurora playing,
+  As he met her once a-Maying,"--
+
+and all that, received a shrewd thrust. Zephyr ought to have come in an
+ulster, and offered Aurora a warm petticoat. However, in spite of all
+difficulties, I brought off my recollections of the Derby of 1886 in
+triumph, and am now waiting for the colored portrait of Ormonde with
+Archer on his back,--Archer, the winner of five Derby races, one of
+which was won by the American horse Iroquois. When that picture, which I
+am daily expecting, arrives, I shall have it framed and hung by the side
+of Herring's picture of Plenipotentiary, the horse I saw win the Derby
+in 1834. These two, with an old portrait of the great Eclipse, who, as
+my engraving of 1780 (Stubbs's) says, "was never beat, or ever had
+occation for Whip or Spur," will constitute my entire sporting gallery.
+I have not that vicious and demoralizing love of horse-flesh which makes
+it next to impossible to find a perfectly honest hippophile. But a racer
+is the realization of an ideal quadruped,--
+
+  "A pard-like spirit, beautiful and swift;"
+
+so ethereal, so bird-like, that it is no wonder that the horse about
+whom those old story-tellers lied so stoutly,--telling of his running a
+mile in a minute,--was called Flying Childers.
+
+The roses in Mrs. Pfeiffer's garden were hardly out of flower when I
+lunched with her at her pretty villa at Putney. There I met Mr.
+Browning, Mr. Holman Hunt, Mrs. Ritchie, Miss Anna Swanwick, the
+translator of Aschylus, and other good company, besides that of my
+entertainer.
+
+One of my very agreeable experiences was a call from a gentleman with
+whom I had corresponded, but whom I had never met. This was Mr. John
+Bellows, of Gloucester, publisher, printer, man of letters, or rather of
+words; for he is the author of that truly remarkable little manual, "The
+Bona Fide Pocket Dictionary of the French and English Languages." To the
+review of this little book, which is dedicated to Prince Lucien
+Bonaparte, the "London Times" devoted a full column. I never heard any
+one who had used it speak of it except with admiration. The modest
+Friend may be surprised to find himself at full length in my pages, but
+those who know the little miracle of typography, its conciseness,
+completeness, arrangement, will not wonder that I was gratified to see
+the author, who sent it to me, and who has written me most interesting
+letters on the local antiquities of Gloucester and its neighborhood.
+
+We lunched that day at Lady Camperdown's, where we were happy to meet
+Miss Frances Power Cobbe. In the afternoon we went by invitation to a
+"tea and talk" at the Reverend Mr. Haweis's, at Chelsea. We found the
+house close packed, but managed to get through the rooms, shaking
+innumerable hands of the reverend gentleman's parishioners and other
+visitors. It was very well arranged, so as not to be too fatiguing, and
+we left the cordial gathering in good condition. We drove home with
+Bishop and Mrs. Ellicott.
+
+After this Sir James Paget called, and took me to a small and early
+dinner-party; and A---- went with my secretary, the young lady of whom I
+have spoken, to see "Human Nature," at Drury Lane Theatre.
+
+On the following day, after dining with Lady Holland (wife of Sir Henry,
+niece of Macaulay), we went across the street to our neighbor's, Lady
+Stanley's. There was to be a great meeting of schoolmistresses, in whose
+work her son, the Honorable Lyulph Stanley, is deeply interested. Alas!
+The schoolma'ams were just leaving as we entered the door, and all we
+saw of them was the trail of their descending robes. I was very sorry
+for this, for I have a good many friends among our own schoolmistresses,
+--friends whom I never saw, but know through the kind words they have
+addressed to me.
+
+No place in London looks more reserved and exclusive than Devonshire
+House, standing back behind its high wall, extending along Piccadilly.
+There is certainly nothing in its exterior which invites intrusion. We
+had the pleasure of taking tea in the great house, accompanying our
+American friend, Lady Harcourt, and were graciously received and
+entertained by Lady Edward Cavendish. Like the other great houses, it is
+a museum of paintings, statues, objects of interest of all sorts. It
+must be confessed that it is pleasanter to go through the rooms with one
+of the ladies of the household than under the lead of a liveried
+servant. Lord Hartington came in while we were there. All the men who
+are distinguished in political life become so familiar to the readers of
+"Punch" in their caricatures, that we know them at sight. Even those who
+can claim no such public distinction are occasionally the subjects of
+the caricaturist, as some of us have found out for ourselves. A good
+caricature, which seizes the prominent features and gives them the
+character Nature hinted, but did not fully carry out, is a work of
+genius. Nature herself is a remorseless caricaturist, as our daily
+intercourse with our fellow men and women makes evident to us, and as is
+curiously illustrated in the figures of Charles Lebrun, showing the
+relations between certain human faces and those of various animals.
+Hardly an English statesman in bodily presence could be mistaken by any
+of "Punch's" readers.
+
+On the same day that we made this quiet visit we attended a great and
+ceremonious assembly. There were two parts in the programme, in the
+first of which I was on the stage _solus_,--that is, without my
+companion; in the second we were together. This day, Saturday, the 29th
+of May, was observed as the Queen's birthday, although she was born on
+the 24th. Sir William Harcourt gave a great dinner to the officials of
+his department, and later in the evening Lady Rosebery held a reception
+at the Foreign Office. On both these occasions everybody is expected to
+be in court dress, but my host told me I might present myself in
+ordinary evening dress. I thought that I might feel awkwardly among so
+many guests, all in the wedding garments, knee-breeches and the rest,
+without which I ventured among them. I never passed an easier evening in
+any company than among these official personages. Sir William took me
+under the shield of his ample presence, and answered all my questions
+about the various notable personages at his table in a way to have made
+my fortune if I had been a reporter. From the dinner I went to Mrs.
+Gladstone's, at 10 Downing Street, where A---- called for me. She had
+found a very small and distinguished company there, Prince Albert Victor
+among the rest. At half past eleven we walked over to the Foreign Office
+to Lady Rosebery's reception.
+
+Here Mr. Gladstone was of course the centre of a group, to which I was
+glad to add myself. His features are almost as familiar to me as my own,
+for a photograph of him in his library has long stood on my revolving
+bookcase, with a large lens before it. He is one of a small circle of
+individuals in whom I have had and still have a special personal
+interest. The year 1809, which introduced me to atmospheric existence,
+was the birth-year of Gladstone, Tennyson, Lord Houghton, and Darwin. It
+seems like an honor to have come into the world in such company, but it
+is more likely to promote humility than vanity in a common mortal to
+find himself coeval with such illustrious personages. Men born in the
+same year watch each other, especially as the sands of life begin to run
+low, as we can imagine so many damaged hour-glasses to keep an eye on
+each other. Women, of course, never know who are their contemporaries.
+
+Familiar to me as were the features of Mr. Gladstone, I looked upon him
+with astonishment. For he stood before me with epaulets on his shoulders
+and a rapier at his side, as military in his aspect as if he had been
+Lord Wolseley, to whom I was introduced a short time afterwards. I was
+fortunate enough to see and hear Mr. Gladstone on a still more memorable
+occasion, and can afford to leave saying what were my impressions of the
+very eminent statesman until I speak of that occasion.
+
+A great number of invitations had been given out for the reception at
+Lady Rosebery's,--over two thousand, my companion heard it said.
+Whatever the number was, the crowd was very great,--so great that one
+might well feel alarmed for the safety of any delicate person who was in
+the _pack_ which formed itself at one place in the course of the
+evening. Some obstruction must have existed _a fronte_, and the
+_vis a tergo_ became fearful in its pressure on those who were
+caught in the jam. I began thinking of the crushes in which I had been
+caught, or which I had read and heard of: the terrible time at the
+execution of Holloway and Haggerty, where some forty persons were
+squeezed or trampled to death; the Brooklyn Theatre and other similar
+tragedies; the crowd I was in at the unveiling of the statue on the
+column of the Place Vendome, where I felt as one may suppose Giles Corey
+did when, in his misery, he called for "more weight" to finish him. But
+there was always a _deus ex machina_ for us when we were in
+trouble. Looming up above the crowd was the smiling and encouraging
+countenance of the ever active, always present, always helpful Mr.
+Smalley. He cleared a breathing space before us. For a short time it was
+really a formidable wedging together of people, and if a lady had
+fainted in the press, she might have run a serious risk before she could
+have been extricated. No more "marble halls" for us, if we had to
+undergo the _peine forte et dure_ as the condition of our presence!
+We were both glad to escape from this threatened asphyxia, and move
+freely about the noble apartments. Lady Rosebery, who was kindness
+itself, would have had us stay and sit down in comfort at the
+supper-table, after the crowd had thinned, but we were tired with all we
+had been through, and ordered our carriage. _Ordered our carriage!_
+
+  "I can call spirits from the vasty deep." ...
+  _But will they come when you do call for them?_"
+
+The most formidable thing about a London party is getting away from it.
+"C'est le _dernier_ pas qui coute." A crowd of anxious persons in
+retreat is hanging about the windy door, and the breezy stairway, and
+the airy hall.
+
+A stentorian voice, hard as that of Rhadamanthus, exclaims,--
+
+"Lady Vere de Vere's carriage stops the way!"
+
+If my Lady Vere de Vere is not on hand, and that pretty quickly, off
+goes her carriage, and the stern voice bawls again,--
+
+"Mrs. Smith's carriage stops the way!"
+
+Mrs. Smith's particular Smith may be worth his millions and live in his
+marble palace; but if Mrs. Smith thinks her coachman is going to stand
+with his horses at that door until she appears, she is mistaken, for she
+is a minute late, and now the coach moves on, and Rhadamanthus calls
+aloud,--
+
+"Mrs. Brown's carriage stops the way!"
+
+Half the lung fevers that carry off the great people are got waiting for
+their carriages.
+
+I know full well that many readers would be disappointed if I did not
+mention some of the grand places and bring in some of the great names
+that lend their lustre to London society. We were to go to a fine
+musical party at Lady Rothschild's on the evening of the 30th of May. It
+happened that the day was Sunday, and if we had been as punctilious as
+some New England Sabbatarians, we might have felt compelled to decline
+the tempting invitation. But the party was given by a daughter of
+Abraham, and in every Hebrew household the true Sabbath was over. We
+were content for that evening to shelter ourselves under the old
+dispensation.
+
+The party, or concert, was a very brilliant affair. Patti sang to us,
+and a tenor, and a violinist played for us. How we two Americans came to
+be in so favored a position I do not know; all I do know is that we were
+shown to our places, and found them very agreeable ones. In the same row
+of seats was the Prince of Wales, two chairs off from A----'s seat.
+Directly in front of A---- was the Princess of Wales, "in ruby velvet,
+with six rows of pearls encircling her throat, and two more strings
+falling quite low;" and next her, in front of me, the startling presence
+of Lady de Grey, formerly Lady Lonsdale, and before that Gladys Herbert.
+On the other side of the Princess sat the Grand Duke Michael of Russia.
+
+As we are among the grandest of the grandees, I must enliven my sober
+account with an extract from my companion's diary:--
+
+"There were several great beauties there, Lady Claude Hamilton, a
+queenly blonde, being one. Minnie Stevens Paget had with her the pretty
+Miss Langdon, of New York. Royalty had one room for supper, with its
+attendant lords and ladies. Lord Rothschild took me down to a long table
+for a sit-down supper,--there were some thirty of us. The most superb
+pink orchids were on the table. The [Thane] of ---- sat next me, and how
+he stared before he was introduced! ... This has been the finest party
+we have been to, sitting comfortably in such a beautiful ball-room,
+gazing at royalty in the flesh, and at the shades of departed beauties
+on the wall, by Sir Joshua and Gainsborough. It was a new experience to
+find that the royal lions fed upstairs, and mixed animals below!"
+
+A visit to Windsor had been planned, under the guidance of a friend
+whose kindness had already shown itself in various forms, and who,
+before we left England, did for us more than we could have thought of
+owing to any one person. This gentleman, Mr. Willett, of Brighton,
+called with Mrs. Willett to take us on the visit which had been arranged
+between us.
+
+Windsor Castle, which everybody knows, or can easily learn, all about,
+is one of the largest of those huge caverns in which the descendants of
+the original cave men, when they have reached the height of human
+grandeur, delight to shelter themselves. It seems as if such a great
+hollow quarry of rock would strike a chill through every tenant, but
+modern improvements reach even the palaces of kings and queens, and the
+regulation temperature of the castle, or of its inhabited portions, is
+fixed at sixty-five degrees of Fahrenheit. The royal standard was not
+floating from the tower of the castle, and everything was quiet and
+lonely. We saw all we wanted to,--pictures, furniture, and the rest. My
+namesake, the Queen's librarian, was not there to greet us, or I should
+have had a pleasant half-hour in the library with that very polite
+gentleman, whom I had afterwards the pleasure of meeting in London.
+
+After going through all the apartments in the castle that we cared to
+see, or our conductress cared to show us, we drove in the park, along
+the "three-mile walk," and in the by-roads leading from it. The
+beautiful avenue, the open spaces with scattered trees here and there,
+made this a most delightful excursion. I saw many fine oaks, one about
+sixteen feet of honest girth, but no one which was very remarkable. I
+wished I could have compared the handsomest of them with one in Beverly,
+which I never look at without taking my hat off. This is a young tree,
+with a future before it, if barbarians do not meddle with it, more
+conspicuous for its spread than its circumference, stretching not very
+far from a hundred feet from bough-end to bough-end. I do not think I
+saw a specimen of the British _Quercus robur_ of such consummate
+beauty. But I know from Evelyn and Strutt what England has to boast of,
+and I will not challenge the British oak.
+
+Two sensations I had in Windsor park, or forest, for I am not quite sure
+of the boundary which separates them. The first was the lovely sight of
+the _hawthorn_ in full bloom. I had always thought of the hawthorn
+as a pretty shrub, growing in hedges; as big as a currant bush or a
+barberry bush, or some humble plant of that character. I was surprised
+to see it as a tree, standing by itself, and making the most delicious
+roof a pair of young lovers could imagine to sit under. It looked at a
+little distance like a young apple-tree covered with new-fallen snow. I
+shall never see the word hawthorn in poetry again without the image of
+the snowy but far from chilling canopy rising before me. It is the very
+bower of young love, and must have done more than any growth of the
+forest to soften the doom brought upon man by the fruit of the forbidden
+tree. No wonder that
+
+  "In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of
+  love,"
+
+with the object of his affections awaiting him in this boudoir of
+nature. What a pity that Zekle, who courted Huldy over the apples she
+was peeling, could not have made love as the bucolic youth does, when
+
+  "Every shepherd tells his tale
+  Under the hawthorn in the dale!"
+
+(I will have it _love_-tale, in spite of Warton's comment.) But
+I suppose it does not make so much difference, for love transmutes the
+fruit in Huldy's lap into the apples of the Hesperides.
+
+In this way it is that the associations with the poetry we remember come
+up when we find ourselves surrounded by English scenery. The great poets
+build temples of song, and fill them with images and symbols which move
+us almost to adoration; the lesser minstrels fill a panel or gild a
+cornice here and there, and make our hearts glad with glimpses of
+beauty. I felt all this as I looked around and saw the hawthorns in full
+bloom, in the openings among the oaks and other trees of the forest.
+Presently I heard a sound to which I had never listened before, and
+which I have never heard since:--
+
+Coooo--coooo!
+
+Nature had sent one cuckoo from her aviary to sing his double note for
+me, that I might not pass away from her pleasing show without once
+hearing the call so dear to the poets. It was the last day of spring. A
+few more days, and the solitary voice might have been often heard; for
+the bird becomes so common as to furnish Shakespeare an image to fit
+"the skipping king:"--
+
+  "He was but as the cuckoo is in June,
+  Heard, not regarded."
+
+For the lyric poets the cuckoo is "companion of the spring," "darling of
+the spring;" coming with the daisy, and the primrose, and the blossoming
+sweet-pea. Where the sound came from I could not tell; it puzzled
+Wordsworth, with younger eyes than mine, to find whence issued
+
+     "that cry
+  Which made me look a thousand ways
+  In bush, and tree, and sky."
+
+Only one hint of the prosaic troubled my emotional delight: I could not
+help thinking how capitally the little rogue imitated the cuckoo clock,
+with the sound of which I was pretty well acquainted.
+
+On our return from Windsor we had to get ready for another great dinner
+with our Minister, Mr. Phelps. As we are in the habit of considering our
+great officials as public property, and as some of my readers want as
+many glimpses of high life as a decent regard to republican
+sensibilities will permit, I will borrow a few words from the diary to
+which I have often referred:--
+
+"The Princess Louise was there with the Marquis, and I had the best
+opportunity of seeing how they receive royalty at private houses. Mr.
+and Mrs. Phelps went down to the door to meet her the moment she came,
+and then Mr. Phelps entered the drawing-room with the Princess on his
+arm, and made the tour of the room with her, she bowing and speaking to
+each one of us. Mr. Goschen took me in to dinner, and Lord Lorne was on
+my other side. All of the flowers were of the royal color, red. It was a
+grand dinner.... The Austrian Ambassador, Count Karoli, took Mrs. Phelps
+in [to dinner], his position being higher than that of even the Duke [of
+Argyll], who sat upon her right."
+
+It was a very rich experience for a single day: the stately abode of
+royalty, with all its manifold historical recollections, the magnificent
+avenue of forest trees, the old oaks, the hawthorn in full bloom, and
+the one cry of the cuckoo, calling me back to Nature in her spring-time
+freshness and glory; then, after that, a great London dinner-party at a
+house where the kind host and the gracious hostess made us feel at home,
+and where we could meet the highest people in the land,--the people whom
+we who live in a simpler way at home are naturally pleased to be with
+under such auspices. What of all this shall I remember longest? Let me
+not seem ungrateful to my friends who planned the excursion for us, or
+to those who asked us to the brilliant evening entertainment, but I feel
+as Wordsworth felt about the cuckoo,--he will survive all the other
+memories.
+
+  "And I can listen to thee yet,
+     Can lie upon the plain
+  And listen, till I do beget
+     That golden time again."
+
+Nothing is more hackneyed than an American's description of his feelings
+in the midst of the scenes and objects he has read of all his days, and
+is looking upon for the first time. To each of us it appears in some
+respects in the same way, but with a difference for every individual. We
+may smile at Irving's emotions at the first sight of a distinguished
+Englishman on his own soil,--the ingenious Mr. Roscoe, as an earlier
+generation would have called him. Our tourists, who are constantly going
+forward and back between England and America, lose all sense of the
+special distinctions between the two countries which do not bear on
+their personal convenience. Happy are those who go with unworn,
+unsatiated sensibilities from the New World to the Old; as happy, it may
+be, those who come from the Old World to the New, but of that I cannot
+form a judgment.
+
+On the first day of June we called by appointment upon Mr. Peel, the
+Speaker of the House of Commons, and went through the Houses of
+Parliament. We began with the train-bearer, then met the housekeeper,
+and presently were joined by Mr. Palgrave. The "Golden Treasury" stands
+on my drawing-room table at home, and the name on its title-page had a
+familiar sound. This gentleman is, I believe, a near relative of
+Professor Francis Turner Palgrave, its editor.
+
+Among other things to which Mr. Palgrave called our attention was the
+death-warrant of Charles the First. One name in the list of signers
+naturally fixed our eyes upon it. It was that of John Dixwell. A lineal
+descendant of the old regicide is very near to me by family connection,
+Colonel Dixwell having come to this country, married, and left a
+posterity, which has resumed the name, dropped for the sake of safety at
+the time when he, Goffe, and Whalley, were in concealment in various
+parts of New England.
+
+We lunched with the Speaker, and had the pleasure of the company of
+Archdeacon Farrar. In the afternoon we went to a tea at a very grand
+house, where, as my companion says in her diary, "it took full six men
+in red satin knee-breeches to let us in." Another grand personage asked
+us to dine with her at her country place, but we were too full of
+engagements. In the evening we went to a large reception at Mr. Gosse's.
+It was pleasant to meet artists and scholars,--the kind of company to
+which we are much used in our aesthetic city. I found our host as
+agreeable at home as he was when in Boston, where he became a favorite,
+both as a lecturer and as a visitor.
+
+Another day we visited Stafford House, where Lord Ronald Gower, himself
+an artist, did the honors of the house, showing us the pictures and
+sculptures, his own included, in a very obliging and agreeable way. I
+have often taken note of the resemblances of living persons to the
+portraits and statues of their remote ancestors. In showing us the
+portrait of one of his own far-back progenitors, Lord Ronald placed a
+photograph of himself in the corner of the frame. The likeness was so
+close that the photograph might seem to have been copied from the
+painting, the dress only being changed. The Duke of Sutherland, who had
+just come back from America, complained that the dinners and lunches had
+used him up. I was fast learning how to sympathize with him.
+
+Then to Grosvenor House to see the pictures. I best remember
+Gainsborough's beautiful Blue Boy, commonly so called, from the color of
+his dress, and Sir Joshua's Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse, which
+everybody knows in engravings. We lunched in clerical company that day,
+at the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol's, with the Archbishop of York,
+the Reverend Mr. Haweis, and others as guests. I told A---- that she was
+not sufficiently impressed with her position at the side of an
+archbishop; she was not _crumbling bread_ in her nervous
+excitement. The company did not seem to remember Sydney Smith's remark
+to the young lady next him at a dinner-party: "My dear, I see you are
+nervous, by your crumbling your bread as you do. _I_ always crumble
+bread when I sit by a bishop, and when I sit by an archbishop I crumble
+bread with both hands." That evening I had the pleasure of dining with
+the distinguished Mr. Bryce, whose acquaintance I made in our own
+country, through my son, who has introduced me to many agreeable persons
+of his own generation, with whose companionship I am glad to mend the
+broken and merely fragmentary circle of old friendships.
+
+The 3d of June was a memorable day for us, for on the evening of that
+day we were to hold our reception. If Dean Bradley had proposed our
+meeting our guests in the Jerusalem Chamber, I should hardly have been
+more astonished. But these kind friends meant what they said, and put
+the offer in such a shape that it was impossible to resist it. So we
+sent out our cards to a few hundreds of persons,--those who we thought
+might like invitations. I was particularly desirous that many members of
+the medical profession whom I had not met, but who felt well disposed
+towards me, should be at this gathering. The meeting was in every
+respect a success. I wrote a prescription for as many baskets of
+champagne as would be consistent with the well-being of our guests, and
+such light accompaniments as a London company is wont to expect under
+similar circumstances. My own recollections of the evening, unclouded by
+its festivities, but confused by its multitudinous succession of
+introductions, are about as definite as the Duke of Wellington's alleged
+monosyllabic description of the battle of Waterloo. But A---- writes in
+her diary: "From nine to twelve we stood, receiving over three hundred
+people out of the four hundred and fifty we invited." As I did not go to
+Europe to visit hospitals or museums, I might have missed seeing some of
+those professional brethren whose names I hold in honor and whose
+writings are in my library. If any such failed to receive our cards of
+invitation, it was an accident which, if I had known, I should have
+deeply regretted. So far as we could judge by all we heard, our
+unpretentious party gave general satisfaction. Many different social
+circles were represented, but it passed off easily and agreeably. I can
+say this more freely, as the credit of it belongs so largely to the care
+and self-sacrificing efforts of Dr. Priestley and his charming wife.
+
+I never refused to write in the birthday book or the album of the
+humblest schoolgirl or schoolboy, and I could not refuse to set my name,
+with a verse from one of my poems, in the album of the Princess of
+Wales, which was sent me for that purpose. It was a nice new book, with
+only two or three names in it, and those of musical composers,--
+Rubinstein's, I think, was one of them,--so that I felt honored by
+the great lady's request. I ought to describe the book, but I only
+remember that it was quite large and sumptuously elegant, and that
+I copied into it the last verse of a poem of mine called "The Chambered
+Nautilus," as I have often done for plain republican albums.
+
+The day after our simple reception was notable for three social events
+in which we had our part. The first was a lunch at the house of Mrs.
+Cyril Flower, one of the finest in London,--Surrey House, as it is
+called. Mr. Browning, who seems to go everywhere, and is one of the
+vital elements of London society, was there as a matter of course. Miss
+Cobbe, many of whose essays I have read with great satisfaction, though
+I cannot accept all her views, was a guest whom I was very glad to meet
+a second time.
+
+In the afternoon we went to a garden-party given by the Princess Louise
+at Kensington Palace, a gloomy-looking edifice, which might be taken
+for a hospital or a poorhouse. Of all the festive occasions which I
+attended, the garden-parties were to me the most formidable. They are
+all very well for young people, and for those who do not mind the
+nipping and eager air, with which, as I have said, the climate of
+England, no less than that of America, falsifies all the fine things the
+poets have said about May, and, I may add, even June. We wandered about
+the grounds, spoke with the great people, stared at the odd ones, and
+said to ourselves,--at least I said to myself,--with Hamlet,
+
+  "The air bites shrewdly, it is very cold."
+
+[Illustration: Robert Browning.]
+
+The most curious personages were some East Indians, a chocolate-colored
+lady, her husband, and children. The mother had a diamond on the side of
+her nose, its setting riveted on the inside, one might suppose; the
+effect was peculiar, far from captivating. A---- said that she should
+prefer the good old-fashioned nose-ring, as we find it described and
+pictured by travellers. She saw a great deal more than I did, of course.
+I quote from her diary: "The little Eastern children made their native
+salaam to the Princess by prostrating themselves flat on their little
+stomachs in front of her, putting their hands between her feet, pushing
+them aside, and kissing the print of her feet!"
+
+I really believe one or both of us would have run serious risks of
+catching our "death o' cold," if we had waited for our own carriage,
+which seemed forever in coming forward. The good Lady Holland, who was
+more than once our guardian angel, brought us home in hers. So we got
+warmed up at our own hearth, and were ready in due season for the large
+and fine dinner-party at Archdeacon Farrar's, where, among other guests,
+were Mrs. Phelps, our Minister's wife, who is a great favorite alike
+with Americans and English, Sir John Millais, Mr. Tyndall, and other
+interesting people.
+
+I am sorry that we could not have visited Newstead Abbey. I had a letter
+from Mr. Thornton Lothrop to Colonel Webb, the present proprietor, with
+whom we lunched. I have spoken of the pleasure I had when I came
+accidentally upon persons with whose name and fame I had long been
+acquainted. A similar impression was that which I received when I found
+myself in the company of the bearer of an old historic name. When my
+host at the lunch introduced a stately-looking gentleman as Sir Kenelm
+Digby, it gave me a start, as if a ghost had stood before me. I
+recovered myself immediately, however, for there was nothing of the
+impalpable or immaterial about the stalwart personage who bore the name.
+I wanted to ask him if he carried any of his ancestor's "powder of
+sympathy" about with him. Many, but not all, of my readers remember that
+famous man's famous preparation. When used to cure a wound, it was
+applied to the weapon that made it; the part was bound up so as to bring
+the edges of the wound together, and by the wondrous influence of the
+sympathetic powder the healing process took place in the kindest
+possible manner. Sir Kenelm, the ancestor, was a gallant soldier, a
+grand gentleman, and the husband of a wonderfully beautiful wife, whose
+charms he tried to preserve from the ravages of time by various
+experiments. He was also the homoeopathist of his day, the Elisha
+Perkins (metallic tractors) of his generation. The "mind cure" people
+might adopt him as one of their precursors.
+
+I heard a curious statement which was illustrated in the person of one
+of the gentlemen we met at this table. It is that English sporting men
+are often deaf on one side, in consequence of the noise of the frequent
+discharge of their guns affecting the right ear. This is a very
+convenient infirmity for gentlemen who indulge in slightly aggressive
+remarks, but when they are hit back never seem to be conscious at all of
+the _riposte_,--the return thrust of the fencer.
+
+Dr. Allchin called and took me to a dinner, where I met many
+professional brothers, and enjoyed myself highly.
+
+By this time every day was pledged for one or more engagements, so that
+many very attractive invitations had to be declined. I will not follow
+the days one by one, but content myself with mentioning some of the more
+memorable visits. I had been invited to the Rabelais Club, as I have
+before mentioned, by a cable message. This is a club of which the late
+Lord Houghton was president, and of which I am a member, as are several
+other Americans. I was afraid that the gentlemen who met,
+
+  "To laugh and shake in Rabelais's easy chair,"
+
+might be more hilarious and demonstrative in their mirth than I, a sober
+New Englander in the superfluous decade, might find myself equal to. But
+there was no uproarious jollity; on the contrary, it was a pleasant
+gathering of literary people and artists, who took their pleasure not
+sadly, but serenely, and I do not remember a single explosive guffaw.
+
+Another day, after going all over Dudley House, including Lady Dudley's
+boudoir, "in light blue satin, the prettiest room we have seen," A----
+says, we went, by appointment, to Westminster Abbey, where we spent two
+hours under the guidance of Archdeacon Farrar. I think no part of the
+Abbey is visited with so much interest as Poets' Corner. We are all
+familiarly acquainted with it beforehand. We are all ready for "O rare
+Ben Jonson!" as we stand over the place where he was planted standing
+upright, as if he had been dropped into a post-hole. We remember too
+well the foolish and flippant mockery of Gay's "Life is a Jest." If I
+were dean of the cathedral, I should be tempted to alter the _J_ to
+a _G_. Then we could read it without contempt; for life _is_ a
+gest, an achievement,--or always ought to be. Westminster Abbey is too
+crowded with monuments to the illustrious dead and those who have been
+considered so in their day to produce any other than a confused
+impression. When we visit the tomb of Napoleon at the Invalides, no
+side-lights interfere with the view before us in the field of mental
+vision. We see the Emperor; Marengo, Austerlitz, Waterloo, Saint Helena,
+come before us, with him as their central figure. So at Stratford,--the
+Cloptons and the John a Combes, with all their memorials, cannot make us
+lift our eyes from the stone which covers the dust that once breathed
+and walked the streets of Stratford as Shakespeare.
+
+Ah, but here is one marble countenance that I know full well, and knew
+for many a year in the flesh! Is there an American who sees the bust of
+Longfellow among the effigies of the great authors of England without
+feeling a thrill of pleasure at recognizing the features of his native
+fellow-countryman in the Valhalla of his ancestral fellow-countrymen?
+There are many memorials in Poets' Corner and elsewhere in the Abbey
+which could be better spared than that. Too many that were placed there
+as luminaries have become conspicuous by their obscurity in the midst of
+that illustrious company. On the whole, the Abbey produces a distinct
+sense of being overcrowded. It appears too much like a lapidary's
+store-room. Look up at the lofty roof, which we willingly pardon for
+shutting out the heaven above us,--at least in an average London day;
+look down at the floor and think of what precious relics it covers; but
+do not look around you with the hope of getting any clear, concentrated,
+satisfying effect from this great museum of gigantic funereal bricabrac.
+Pardon me, shades of the mighty dead! I had something of this feeling,
+but at another hour I might perhaps be overcome by emotion, and weep, as
+my fellow-countryman did at the grave of the earliest of his ancestors.
+I should love myself better in that aspect than I do in this coldblooded
+criticism; but it suggested itself, and as no flattery can soothe, so no
+censure can wound, "the dull, cold ear of death."
+
+Of course we saw all the sights of the Abbey in a hurried way, yet with
+such a guide and expositor as Archdeacon Farrar our two hours' visit was
+worth a whole day with an undiscriminating verger, who recites his
+lesson by rote, and takes the life out of the little mob that follows
+him round by emphasizing the details of his lesson, until "Patience on a
+monument" seems to the sufferer, who knows what he wants and what he
+does not want, the nearest emblem of himself he can think of. Amidst all
+the imposing recollections of the ancient edifice, one impressed me in
+the inverse ratio of its importance. The Archdeacon pointed out the
+little holes in the stones, in one place, where the boys of the choir
+used to play marbles, before America was discovered, probably,--
+centuries before, it may be. It is a strangely impressive glimpse
+of a living past, like the _graffiti_ of Pompeii. I find it
+is often the accident rather than the essential which fixes my attention
+and takes hold of my memory. This is a tendency of which I suppose I
+ought to be ashamed, if we have any right to be ashamed of those
+idiosyncrasies which are ordered for us. It is the same tendency which
+often leads us to prefer the picturesque to the beautiful. Mr. Gilpin
+liked the donkey in a forest landscape better than the horse. A touch of
+imperfection interferes with the beauty of an object and lowers its
+level to that of the picturesque. The accident of the holes in the stone
+of the noble building, for the boys to play marbles with, makes me a boy
+again and at home with them, after looking with awe upon the statue of
+Newton, and turning with a shudder from the ghastly monument of Mrs.
+Nightingale.
+
+What a life must be that of one whose years are passed chiefly in and
+about the great Abbey! Nowhere does Macbeth's expression "dusty death"
+seem so true to all around us. The dust of those who have been lying
+century after century below the marbles piled over them,--the dust on
+the monuments they lie beneath; the dust on the memories those monuments
+were raised to keep living in the recollection of posterity,--dust,
+dust, dust, everywhere, and we ourselves but shapes of breathing dust
+moving amidst these objects and remembrances! Come away! The good
+Archdeacon of the "Eternal Hope" has asked us to take a cup of tea with
+him. The tea-cup will be a cheerful substitute for the funeral urn, and
+a freshly made infusion of the fragrant leaf is one of the best things
+in the world to lay the dust of sad reflections.
+
+It is a somewhat fatiguing pleasure to go through the Abbey, in spite of
+the intense interest no one can help feeling. But my day had but just
+begun when the two hours we had devoted to the visit were over. At a
+quarter before eight, my friend Mr. Frederick Locker called for me to go
+to a dinner at the Literary Club. I was particularly pleased to dine
+with this association, as it reminded me of our own Saturday Club, which
+sometimes goes by the same name as the London one. They complimented me
+with a toast, and I made some kind of a reply. As I never went prepared
+with a speech for any such occasion, I take it for granted that I
+thanked the company in a way that showed my gratitude rather than my
+eloquence. And now, the dinner being over, my day was fairly begun.
+
+This was to be a memorable date in the record of the year, one long to
+be remembered in the political history of Great Britain. For on this
+day, the 7th of June, Mr. Gladstone was to make his great speech on the
+Irish question, and the division of the House on the Government of
+Ireland Bill was to take place. The whole country, to the corners of its
+remotest colony, was looking forward to the results of this evening's
+meeting of Parliament. The kindness of the Speaker had furnished me with
+a ticket, entitling me to a place among the "distinguished guests,"
+which I presented without modestly questioning my right to the title.
+
+The pressure for entrance that evening was very great, and I, coming
+after my dinner with the Literary Club, was late upon the ground. The
+places for "distinguished guests" were already filled. But all England
+was in a conspiracy to do everything possible to make my visit
+agreeable. I did not take up a great deal of room,--I might be put into
+a seat with the ambassadors and foreign ministers. And among them I was
+presently installed. It was now between ten and eleven o'clock, as
+nearly as I recollect. The House had been in session since four o'clock.
+A gentleman was speaking, who was, as my unknown next neighbor told me,
+Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, a leading member, as we all know, of the
+opposition. When he sat down there was a hush of expectation, and
+presently Mr. Gladstone rose to his feet. A great burst of applause
+welcomed him, lasting more than a minute. His clean-cut features, his
+furrowed cheeks, his scanty and whitened hair, his well-shaped but not
+extraordinary head, all familiarized by innumerable portraits and
+emphasized in hundreds of caricatures, revealed him at once to every
+spectator. His great speech has been universally read, and I need only
+speak of the way in which it was delivered. His manner was forcible
+rather than impassioned or eloquent; his voice was clear enough, but
+must have troubled him somewhat, for he had a small bottle from which he
+poured something into a glass from time to time and swallowed a little,
+yet I heard him very well for the most part. In the last portion of his
+speech he became animated and inspiriting, and his closing words were
+uttered with an impressive solemnity: "Think, I beseech you, think well,
+think wisely, think not for a moment, but for the years that are to
+come, before you reject this bill."
+
+After the burst of applause which followed the conclusion of Mr.
+Gladstone's speech, the House proceeded to the division on the question
+of passing the bill to a second reading. While the counting of the votes
+was going on there was the most intense excitement. A rumor ran round
+the House at one moment that the vote was going in favor of the second
+reading. It soon became evident that this was not the case, and
+presently the result was announced, giving a majority of thirty against
+the bill, and practically overthrowing the liberal administration. Then
+arose a tumult of applause from the conservatives and a wild confusion,
+in the midst of which an Irish member shouted, "Three cheers for the
+Grand Old Man!" which were lustily given, with waving of hats and all
+but Donnybrook manifestations of enthusiasm.
+
+I forgot to mention that I had a very advantageous seat among the
+diplomatic gentlemen, and was felicitating myself on occupying one of
+the best positions in the House, when an usher politely informed me that
+the Russian Ambassador, in whose place I was sitting, had arrived, and
+that I must submit to the fate of eviction. Fortunately, there were some
+steps close by, on one of which I found a seat almost as good as the one
+I had just left.
+
+It was now two o'clock in the morning, and I had to walk home, not a
+vehicle being attainable. I did not know my way to my headquarters, and
+I had no friend to go with me, but I fastened on a stray gentleman, who
+proved to be an ex-member of the House, and who accompanied me to 17
+Dover Street, where I sought my bed with a satisfying sense of having
+done a good day's work and having been well paid for it.
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+
+On the 8th of June we visited the Record Office for a sight of the
+Domesday Book and other ancient objects of interest there preserved. As
+I looked at this too faithful memorial of an inexorable past, I thought
+of the battle of Hastings and all its consequences, and that reminded me
+of what I have long remembered as I read it in Dr. Robert Knox's "Races
+of Men." Dr. Knox was the monoculous Waterloo surgeon, with whom I
+remember breakfasting, on my first visit to England and Scotland. His
+celebrity is less owing to his book than to the unfortunate connection
+of his name with the unforgotten Burke and Hare horrors. This is his
+language in speaking of Hastings: "... that bloody field, surpassing far
+in its terrible results the unhappy day of Waterloo. From this the Celt
+has recovered, but not so the Saxon. To this day he feels, and feels
+deeply, the most disastrous day that ever befell his race; here he was
+trodden down by the Norman, whose iron heel is on him yet.... To this
+day the Saxon race in England have never recovered a tithe of their
+rights, and probably never will."
+
+The Conqueror meant to have a thorough summing up of his stolen
+property. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says,--I quote it at second
+hand,--"So very straitly did he cause the survey to be made, that there
+was not a single hyde, nor a yardland of ground, nor--it is shameful to
+say what he thought no shame to do--was there an ox or a cow, or a pig
+passed by, and that was not down in the accounts, and then all these
+writings were brought to him." The "looting" of England by William and
+his "twenty thousand thieves," as Mr. Emerson calls his army, was a
+singularly methodical proceeding, and Domesday Book is a searching
+inventory of their booty, movable and immovable.
+
+From this reminder of the past we turned to the remembrances of home;
+A---- going to dine with a transplanted Boston friend and other ladies
+from that blessed centre of New England life, while I dined with a party
+of gentlemen at my friend Mr. James Russell Lowell's.
+
+I had looked forward to this meeting with high expectations, and they
+were abundantly satisfied. I knew that Mr. Lowell must gather about him,
+wherever he might be, the choicest company, but what his selection would
+be I was curious to learn. I found with me at the table my own
+countrymen and his, Mr. Smalley and Mr. Henry James. Of the other
+guests, Mr. Leslie Stephen was my only old acquaintance in person; but
+Du Maurier and Tenniel I have met in my weekly "Punch" for many a year;
+Mr. Lang, Mr. Oliphant, Mr. Townsend, we all know through their
+writings; Mr. Burne-Jones and Mr. Alma Tadema, through the frequent
+reproductions of their works in engravings, as well as by their
+paintings. If I could report a dinner-table conversation, I might be
+tempted to say something of my talk with Mr. Oliphant. I like well
+enough conversation which floats safely over the shallows, touching
+bottom at intervals with a commonplace incident or truism to push it
+along; I like better to find a few fathoms of depth under the surface;
+there is a still higher pleasure in the philosophical discourse which
+calls for the deep sea line to reach bottom; but best of all, when one
+is in the right mood, is the contact of intelligences when they are off
+soundings in the ocean of thought. Mr. Oliphant is what many of us call
+a mystic, and I found a singular pleasure in listening to him. This
+dinner at Mr. Lowell's was a very remarkable one for the men it brought
+together, and I remember it with peculiar interest. My entertainer holds
+a master-key to London society, and he opened the gate for me into one
+of its choicest preserves on that evening.
+
+I did not undertake to renew my old acquaintance with hospitals and
+museums. I regretted that I could not be with my companion, who went
+through the Natural History Museum with the accomplished director,
+Professor W. H. Flower. One old acquaintance I did resuscitate. For the
+second time I took the hand of Charles O'Byrne, the celebrated Irish
+giant of the last century. I met him, as in my first visit, at the Royal
+College of Surgeons, where I accompanied Mr. Jonathan Hutchinson. He was
+in the condition so longed for by Sydney Smith on a very hot day;
+namely, with his flesh taken off, and sitting, or rather standing, in
+his bones. The skeleton measures eight feet, and the living man's height
+is stated as having been eight feet two, or four inches, by different
+authorities. His hand was the only one I took, either in England or
+Scotland, which had not a warm grasp and a hearty welcome in it.
+
+A---- went with Boston friends to see "Faust" a second time, Mr. Irving
+having offered her the Royal box, and the polite Mr. Bram Stoker serving
+the party with tea in the little drawing-room behind the box; so that
+she had a good time while I was enjoying myself at a dinner at Sir Henry
+Thompson's, where I met Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Browning, and other
+distinguished gentlemen. These dinners of Sir Henry's are well known for
+the good company one meets at them, and I felt myself honored to be a
+guest on this occasion.
+
+Among the pleasures I had promised myself was that of a visit to
+Tennyson, at the Isle of Wight. I feared, however, that this would be
+rendered impracticable by reason of the very recent death of his younger
+son, Lionel. But I learned from Mr. Locker-Lampson, whose daughter Mr.
+Lionel Tennyson had married, that the poet would be pleased to see me at
+his place, Farringford; and by the kind intervention of Mr.
+Locker-Lampson, better known to the literary world as Frederick Locker,
+arrangements were made for my daughter and myself to visit him. I
+considered it a very great favor, for Lord Tennyson has a poet's
+fondness for the tranquillity of seclusion, which many curious explorers
+of society fail to remember. Lady Tennyson is an invalid, and though
+nothing could be more gracious than her reception of us both, I fear it
+may have cost her an effort which she would not allow to betray itself.
+Mr. Hallam Tennyson and his wife, both of most pleasing presence and
+manners, did everything to make our stay agreeable. I saw the poet to
+the best advantage, under his own trees and walking over his own domain.
+He took delight in pointing out to me the finest and the rarest of his
+trees,--and there were many beauties among them. I recalled my morning's
+visit to Whittier at Oak Knoll, in Danvers, a little more than a year
+ago, when he led me to one of his favorites, an aspiring evergreen which
+shot up like a flame. I thought of the graceful American elms in front
+of Longfellow's house and the sturdy English elms that stand in front of
+Lowell's. In this garden of England, the Isle of Wight, where everything
+grows with such a lavish extravagance of greenness that it seems as if
+it must bankrupt the soil before autumn, I felt as if weary eyes and
+overtasked brains might reach their happiest haven of rest. We all
+remember Shenstone's epigram on the pane of a tavern window. If we find
+our "warmest welcome at an inn," we find our most soothing companionship
+in the trees among which we have lived, some of which we may ourselves
+have planted. We lean against them, and they never betray our trust;
+they shield us from the sun and from the rain; their spring welcome is a
+new birth, which never loses its freshness; they lay their beautiful
+robes at our feet in autumn; in winter they "stand and wait," emblems of
+patience and of truth, for they hide nothing, not even the little
+leaf-buds which hint to us of hope, the last element in their triple
+symbolism.
+
+This digression, suggested by the remembrance of the poet under his
+trees, breaks my narrative, but gives me the opportunity of paying a
+debt of gratitude. For I have owned many beautiful trees, and loved many
+more outside of my own leafy harem. Those who write verses have no
+special claim to be lovers of trees, but so far as one is of the
+poetical temperament he is likely to be a tree-lover. Poets have, as a
+rule, more than the average nervous sensibility and irritability. Trees
+have no nerves. They live and die without suffering, without
+self-questioning or self-reproach. They have the divine gift of silence.
+They cannot obtrude upon the solitary moments when one is to himself the
+most agreeable of companions. The whole vegetable world, even "the
+meanest flower that blows," is lovely to contemplate. What if creation
+had paused there, and you or I had been called upon to decide whether
+self-conscious life should be added in the form of the existing animal
+creation, and the hitherto peaceful universe should come under the rule
+of Nature as we now know her,
+
+  "red in tooth and claw"?
+
+Are we not glad that the responsibility of the decision did not rest on
+us?
+
+I am sorry that I did not ask Tennyson to read or repeat to me some
+lines of his own. Hardly any one perfectly understands a poem but the
+poet himself. One naturally loves his own poem as no one else can. It
+fits the mental mould in which it was cast, and it will not exactly fit
+any other. For this reason I had rather listen to a poet reading his own
+verses than hear the best elocutionist that ever spouted recite them. He
+may not have a good voice or enunciation, but he puts his heart and his
+inter-penetrative intelligence into every line, word, and syllable. I
+should have liked to hear Tennyson read such lines as
+
+  "Laborious orient ivory, sphere in sphere;"
+
+and in spite of my good friend Matthew Arnold's _in terrorem_, I
+should have liked to hear Macaulay read,
+
+  "And Aulus the Dictator
+    Stroked Auster's raven mane,"
+
+and other good mouthable lines, from the "Lays of Ancient Rome." Not
+less should I like to hear Mr. Arnold himself read the passage
+beginning,--
+
+  "In his cool hall with haggard eyes
+    The Roman noble lay."
+
+The next day Mrs. Hallam Tennyson took A---- in her pony cart to see
+Alum Bay, The Needles, and other objects of interest, while I wandered
+over the grounds with Tennyson. After lunch his carriage called for us,
+and we were driven across the island, through beautiful scenery, to
+Ventnor, where we took the train to Ryde, and there the steamer to
+Portsmouth, from which two hours and a half of travel carried us to
+London.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+My first visit to Cambridge was at the invitation of Mr. Gosse, who
+asked me to spend Sunday, the 13th of June, with him. The rooms in
+Neville Court, Trinity College, occupied by Sir William Vernon Harcourt
+when lecturing at Cambridge, were placed at my disposal. The room I
+slept in was imposing with the ensigns armorial of the Harcourts and
+others which ornamented its walls. I had great delight in walking
+through the quadrangles, along the banks of the Cam, and beneath the
+beautiful trees which border it. Mr. Gosse says that I stopped in the
+second court of Clare, and looked around and smiled as if I were
+bestowing my benediction. He was mistaken: I smiled as if I were
+receiving a benediction from my dear old grandmother; for Cambridge in
+New England is my mother town, and Harvard University in Cambridge is my
+Alma Mater. She is the daughter of Cambridge in Old England, and my
+relationship is thus made clear.
+
+Mr. Gosse introduced me to many of the younger and some of the older men
+of the university. Among my visits was one never to be renewed and never
+to be forgotten. It was to the Master of Trinity, the Reverend William
+Hepworth Thompson. I hardly expected to have the privilege of meeting
+this very distinguished and greatly beloved personage, famous not alone
+for scholarship, or as the successor of Dr. Whewell in his high office,
+but also as having said some of the wittiest things which we have heard
+since Voltaire's _pour encourager les autres_. I saw him in his
+chamber, a feeble old man, but noble to look upon in all "the monumental
+pomp of age." He came very near belonging to the little group I have
+mentioned as my coevals, but was a year after us. Gentle, dignified,
+kindly in his address as if I had been his schoolmate, he left a very
+charming impression. He gave me several mementoes of my visit, among
+them a beautiful engraving of Sir Isaac Newton, representing him as one
+of the handsomest of men. Dr. Thompson looked as if he could not be very
+long for this world, but his death, a few weeks after my visit, was a
+painful surprise to me. I had been just in time to see "the last of the
+great men" at Cambridge, as my correspondent calls him, and I was very
+grateful that I could store this memory among the hoarded treasures I
+have been laying by for such possible extra stretch of time as may be
+allowed me.
+
+My second visit to Cambridge will be spoken of in due season.
+
+While I was visiting Mr. Gosse at Cambridge, A---- was not idle. On
+Saturday she went to Lambeth, where she had the pleasure and honor of
+shaking hands with the Archbishop of Canterbury in his study, and of
+looking about the palace with Mrs. Benson. On Sunday she went to the
+Abbey, and heard "a broad and liberal sermon" from Archdeacon Farrar.
+Our young lady-secretary stayed and dined with her, and after dinner
+sang to her. "A peaceful, happy Sunday," A---- says in her diary,--not
+less peaceful, I suspect, for my being away, as my callers must have got
+many a "not at 'ome" from young Robert of the multitudinous buttons.
+
+On Monday, the 14th of June, after getting ready for our projected
+excursions, we had an appointment which promised us a great deal of
+pleasure. Mr. Augustus Harris, the enterprising and celebrated manager
+of Drury Lane Theatre, had sent us an invitation to occupy a box, having
+eight seats, at the representation of "Carmen." We invited the
+Priestleys and our Boston friends, the Shimminses, to take seats with
+us. The chief singer in the opera was Marie Roze, who looked well and
+sang well, and the evening went off very happily. After the performance
+we were invited by Mr. Harris to a supper of some thirty persons, where
+we were the special guests. The manager toasted me, and I said
+something,--I trust appropriate; but just what I said is as
+irrecoverable as the orations of Demosthenes on the seashore, or the
+sermons of St. Francis to the beasts and birds.
+
+Of all the attentions I received in England, this was, perhaps, the
+least to be anticipated or dreamed of. To be feted and toasted and to
+make a speech in Drury Lane Theatre would not have entered into my
+flightiest conceptions, if I had made out a programme beforehand. It is
+a singularly gratifying recollection. Drury Lane Theatre is so full of
+associations with literature, with the great actors and actresses of the
+past, with the famous beauties who have stood behind the footlights and
+the splendid audiences that have sat before them, that it is an
+admirable nucleus for remembrances to cluster around. It was but a vague
+spot in memory before, but now it is a bright centre for other images of
+the past. That one evening seems to make me the possessor of all its
+traditions from the time when it rose from its ashes, when Byron's poem
+was written and recited, and when the brothers Smith gave us the
+"Address without a Phoenix," and all those exquisite parodies which make
+us feel towards their originals somewhat as our dearly remembered Tom
+Appleton did when he said, in praise of some real green turtle soup,
+that it was almost as good as mock.
+
+With much regret we gave up an invitation we had accepted to go to
+Durdans to dine with Lord Rosebery. We must have felt very tired indeed
+to make so great a sacrifice, but we had to be up until one o'clock
+getting ready for the next day's journey; writing, packing, and
+attending to what we left behind us as well as what was in prospect.
+
+On the morning of Wednesday, June 16th, Dr. Donald Macalister called to
+attend us on our second visit to Cambridge, where we were to be the
+guests of his cousin, Alexander Macalister, Professor of Anatomy, who,
+with Mrs. Macalister, received us most cordially. There was a large
+luncheon-party at their house, to which we sat down in our travelling
+dresses. In the evening they had a dinner-party, at which were present,
+among others, Professor Stokes, President of the Royal Society, and
+Professor Wright. We had not heard much talk of political matters at the
+dinner-tables where we had been guests, but A---- sat near a lady who
+was very earnest in advocating the Irish side of the great impending
+question.
+
+The 17th of June is memorable in the annals of my country. On that day
+of the year 1775 the battle of Bunker's Hill was fought on the height I
+see from the window of my library, where I am now writing. The monument
+raised in memory of our defeat, which was in truth a victory, is almost
+as much a part of the furniture of the room as its chairs and tables;
+outside, as they are inside, furniture. But the 17th of June, 1886, is
+memorable to me above all the other anniversaries of that day I have
+known. For on that day I received from the ancient University of
+Cambridge, England, the degree of Doctor of Letters, "Doctor Litt.," in
+its abbreviated academic form. The honor was an unexpected one; that is,
+until a short time before it was conferred.
+
+Invested with the academic gown and cap, I repaired in due form at the
+appointed hour to the Senate Chamber. Every seat was filled, and among
+the audience were youthful faces in large numbers, looking as if they
+were ready for any kind of outbreak of enthusiasm or hilarity.
+
+The first degree conferred was that of LL.D., on Sir W. A. White,
+G.C.M., G.C.B., to whose long list of appended initials it seemed like
+throwing a perfume on the violet to add three more letters.
+
+When I was called up to receive my honorary title, the young voices were
+true to the promise of the young faces. There was a great noise, not
+hostile nor unpleasant in its character, in answer to which I could
+hardly help smiling my acknowledgments. In presenting me for my degree
+the Public Orator made a Latin speech, from which I venture to give a
+short extract, which I would not do for the world if it were not
+disguised by being hidden in the mask of a dead language. But there will
+be here and there a Latin scholar who will be pleased with the way in
+which the speaker turned a compliment to the candidate before him, with
+a reference to one of his poems and to some of his prose works.
+
+_"Juvat nuper audivisse eum cujus carmen prope primum 'Folium ultimum'
+nominatum est, folia adhuc plura e scriniis suis esse prolaturum.
+Novimus quanta lepore descripserit colloquia illa antemeridiana,
+symposia illa sobria et severa, sed eadem festiva et faceta, in quibus
+totiens mutata persona, modo poeta, modo professor, modo princeps et
+arbiter, loquendi, inter convivas suos regnat."_
+
+I had no sooner got through listening to the speech and receiving my
+formal sentence as Doctor of Letters than the young voices broke out in
+fresh clamor. There were cries of "A speech! a speech!" mingled with the
+title of a favorite poem by John Howard Payne, having a certain amount
+of coincidence with the sound of my name. The play upon the word was not
+absolutely a novelty to my ear, but it was good-natured, and I smiled
+again, and perhaps made a faint inclination, as much as to say, "I hear
+you, young gentlemen, but I do not forget that I am standing on my
+dignity, especially now since a new degree has added a moral cubit to my
+stature." Still the cries went on, and at last I saw nothing else to do
+than to edge back among the silk gowns, and so lose myself and be lost
+to the clamorous crowd in the mass of dignitaries. It was not
+indifference to the warmth of my welcome, but a feeling that I had no
+claim to address the audience because some of its younger members were
+too demonstrative. I have not forgotten my very cordial reception, which
+made me feel almost as much at home in the old Cambridge as in the new,
+where I was born and took my degrees, academic, professional, and
+honorary.
+
+The university town left a very deep impression upon my mind, in which a
+few grand objects predominate over the rest, all being of a delightful
+character. I was fortunate enough to see the gathering of the boats,
+which was the last scene in their annual procession. The show was
+altogether lovely. The pretty river, about as wide as the Housatonic, I
+should judge, as that slender stream winds through "Canoe Meadow," my
+old Pittsfield residence, the gaily dressed people who crowded the
+banks, the flower-crowned boats, with the gallant young oarsmen who
+handled them so skilfully, made a picture not often equalled. The walks,
+the bridges, the quadrangles, the historic college buildings, all
+conspired to make the place a delight and a fascination. The library of
+Trinity College, with its rows of busts by Roubiliac and Woolner, is a
+truly noble hall. But beyond, above all the rest, the remembrance of
+King's College Chapel, with its audacious and richly wrought roof and
+its wide and lofty windows, glowing with old devices in colors which are
+ever fresh, as if just from the furnace, holds the first place in my
+gallery of Cambridge recollections.
+
+I cannot do justice to the hospitalities which were bestowed upon us in
+Cambridge. Professor and Mrs. Macalister, aided by Dr. Donald
+Macalister, did all that thoughtful hosts could do to make us feel at
+home. In the afternoon the ladies took tea at Mr. Oscar Browning's. In
+the evening we went to a large dinner at the invitation of the
+Vice-Chancellor. Many little points which I should not have thought of
+are mentioned in A----'s diary. I take the following extract from it,
+toning down its vivacity more nearly to my own standard:--
+
+"Twenty were there. The Master of St. John's took me in, and the
+Vice-Chancellor was on the other side.... The Vice-Chancellor rose and
+returned thanks after the meats and before the sweets, as usual. I have
+now got used to this proceeding, which strikes me as extraordinary.
+Everywhere here in Cambridge, and the same in Oxford, I believe, they
+say grace and give thanks. A gilded ewer and flat basin were passed,
+with water in the basin to wash with, and we all took our turn at the
+bath! Next to this came the course with the finger-bowls!... Why two
+baths?"
+
+On Friday, the 18th, I went to a breakfast at the Combination Room, at
+which about fifty gentlemen were present, Dr. Sandys taking the chair.
+After the more serious business of the morning's repast was over, Dr.
+Macalister, at the call of the chairman, arose, and proposed my welfare
+in a very complimentary way. I of course had to respond, and I did so in
+the words which came of their own accord to my lips. After my
+unpremeditated answer, which was kindly received, a young gentleman of
+the university, Mr. Heitland, read a short poem, of which the following
+is the title:--
+
+LINES OF GREETING TO DR. OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
+
+AT BREAKFAST IN COMBINATION ROOM, ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE,
+ENGLAND.
+
+I wish I dared quote more than the last two verses of these lines, which
+seemed to me, not unused to giving and receiving complimentary tributes,
+singularly happy, and were so considered by all who heard them. I think
+I may venture to give the two verses referred to:--
+
+  "By all sweet memory of the saints and sages
+    Who wrought among us in the days of yore;
+  By youths who, turning now life's early pages,
+    Ripen to match the worthies gone before:
+
+  "On us, O son of England's greatest daughter,
+    A kindly word from heart and tongue bestow;
+  Then chase the sunsets o'er the western water,
+    And bear our blessing with you as you go."
+
+I need not say that I left the English Cambridge with a heart full of
+all grateful and kindly emotions.
+
+I must not forget that I found at Cambridge, very pleasantly established
+and successfully practising his profession, a former student in the
+dental department of our Harvard Medical School, Dr. George Cunningham,
+who used to attend my lectures on anatomy. In the garden behind the
+quaint old house in which he lives is a large medlar-tree,--the first I
+remember seeing.
+
+On this same day we bade good-by to Cambridge, and took the two o'clock
+train to Oxford, where we arrived at half past five. At this first visit
+we were to be the guests of Professor Max Muller, at his fine residence
+in Norham Gardens. We met there, at dinner, Mr. Herkomer, whom we have
+recently had with us in Boston, and one or two others. In the evening we
+had music; the professor playing on the piano, his two daughters, Mrs.
+Conybeare and her unmarried sister, singing, and a young lady playing
+the violin. It was a very lovely family picture; a pretty house,
+surrounded by attractive scenery; scholarship, refinement, simple
+elegance, giving distinction to a home which to us seemed a pattern of
+all we could wish to see beneath an English roof. It all comes back to
+me very sweetly, but very tenderly and sadly, for the voice of the elder
+of the two sisters who sang to us is heard no more on earth, and a deep
+shadow has fallen over the household we found so bright and cheerful.
+
+Everything was done to make me enjoy my visit to Oxford, but I was
+suffering from a severe cold, and was paying the penalty of too much
+occupation and excitement. I missed a great deal in consequence, and
+carried away a less distinct recollection of this magnificent seat of
+learning than of the sister university.
+
+If one wishes to know the magic of names, let him visit the places made
+memorable by the lives of the illustrious men of the past in the Old
+World. As a boy I used to read the poetry of Pope, of Goldsmith, and of
+Johnson. How could I look at the Bodleian Library, or wander beneath its
+roof, without recalling the lines from "The Vanity of Human Wishes"?
+
+  "When first the college rolls receive his name,
+  The young enthusiast quits his ease for fame;
+  Resistless burns the fever of renown,
+  Caught from the strong contagion of the gown:
+  O'er Bodley's dome his future labors spread,
+  And Bacon's mansion trembles o'er his head."
+
+The last line refers to Roger Bacon. "There is a tradition that the
+study of Friar Bacon, built on an arch over the bridge, will fall when a
+man greater than Bacon shall pass under it. To prevent so shocking an
+accident, it was pulled down many years since." We shall meet with a
+similar legend in another university city. Many persons have been shy of
+these localities, who were in no danger whatever of meeting the fate
+threatened by the prediction.
+
+We passed through the Bodleian Library, only glancing at a few of its
+choicest treasures, among which the exquisitely illuminated missals were
+especially tempting objects of study. It was almost like a mockery to
+see them opened and closed, without having the time to study their
+wonderful miniature paintings. A walk through the grounds of Magdalen
+College, under the guidance of the president of that college, showed us
+some of the fine trees for which I was always looking. One of these, a
+wych-elm (Scotch elm of some books), was so large that I insisted on
+having it measured. A string was procured and carefully carried round
+the trunk, above the spread of the roots and below that of the branches,
+so as to give the smallest circumference. I was curious to know how the
+size of the trunk of this tree would compare with that of the trunks of
+some of our largest New England elms. I have measured a good many of
+these. About sixteen feet is the measurement of a large elm, like that
+on Boston Common, which all middle-aged people remember. From twenty-two
+to twenty-three feet is the ordinary maximum of the very largest trees.
+I never found but one exceed it: that was the great Springfield elm,
+which looked as if it might have been formed by the coalescence from the
+earliest period of growth, of two young trees. When I measured this in
+1837, it was twenty-four feet eight inches in circumference at five feet
+from the ground; growing larger above and below. I remembered this tree
+well, as we measured the string which was to tell the size of its
+English rival. As we came near the end of the string, I felt as I did
+when I was looking at the last dash of Ormonde and The Bard at
+Epsom.--Twenty feet, and a long piece of string left.--Twenty-one.
+--Twenty-two.--Twenty-three.--An extra heartbeat or two.--Twenty-four!
+--Twenty-five and six inches over!!--The Springfield elm may have grown
+a foot or more since I measured it, fifty years ago, but the tree at
+Magdalen stands ahead of all my old measurements. Many of the fine old
+trees, this in particular, may have been known in their younger days to
+Addison, whose favorite walk is still pointed out to the visitor.
+
+I would not try to compare the two university towns, as one might who
+had to choose between them. They have a noble rivalry, each honoring the
+other, and it would take a great deal of weighing one point of
+superiority against another to call either of them the first, except in
+its claim to antiquity.
+
+After a garden-party in the afternoon, a pleasant evening at home, when
+the professor played and his daughter Beatrice sang, and a garden-party
+the next day, I found myself in somewhat better condition, and ready for
+the next move.
+
+[Illustration: Magdalen College, Oxford.]
+
+At noon on the 23d of June we left for Edinburgh, stopping over night at
+York, where we found close by the station an excellent hotel, and where
+the next morning we got one of the best breakfasts we had in our whole
+travelling experience. At York we wandered to and through a flower-show,
+and _did_ the cathedral, as people _do_ all the sights they
+see under the lead of a paid exhibitor, who goes through his lesson like
+a sleepy old professor. I missed seeing the slab with the inscription
+_miserrimus_. There may be other stones bearing this sad
+superlative, but there is a story connected with this one, which sounds
+as if it might be true.
+
+In the year 1834, I spent several weeks in Edinburgh. I was fascinated
+by the singular beauties of that "romantic town," which Scott called his
+own, and which holds his memory, with that of Burns, as a most precious
+part of its inheritance. The castle with the precipitous rocky wall out
+of which it grows, the deep ravines with their bridges, pleasant Calton
+Hill and memorable Holyrood Palace, the new town and the old town with
+their strange contrasts, and Arthur's Seat overlooking all,--these
+varied and enchanting objects account for the fondness with which all
+who have once seen Edinburgh will always regard it.
+
+We were the guests of Professor Alexander Crum Brown, a near relative of
+the late beloved and admired Dr. John Brown. Professor and Mrs. Crum
+Brown did everything to make our visit a pleasant one. We met at their
+house many of the best known and most distinguished people of Scotland.
+The son of Dr. John Brown dined with us on the day of our arrival, and
+also a friend of the family, Mr. Barclay, to whom we made a visit on the
+Sunday following. Among the visits I paid, none was more gratifying to
+me than one which I made to Dr. John Brown's sister. No man could leave
+a sweeter memory than the author of "Rab and his Friends," of "Pet
+Marjorie," and other writings, all full of the same loving, human
+spirit. I have often exchanged letters with him, and I thought how much
+it would have added to the enjoyment of my visit if I could have taken
+his warm hand and listened to his friendly voice. I brought home with me
+a precious little manuscript, written expressly for me by one who had
+known Dr. John Brown from the days of her girlhood, in which his
+character appears in the same lovable and loving light as that which
+shines in every page he himself has written.
+
+On Friday, the 25th, I went to the hall of the university, where I was
+to receive the degree of LL.D. The ceremony was not unlike that at
+Cambridge, but had one peculiar feature: the separate special investment
+of the candidate with the _hood_, which Johnson defines as "an
+ornamental fold which hangs down the back of a graduate." There were
+great numbers of students present, and they showed the same exuberance
+of spirits as that which had forced me to withdraw from the urgent calls
+at Cambridge. The cries, if possible, were still louder and more
+persistent; they must have a speech and they would have a speech, and
+what could I do about it? I saw but one way of pacifying a crowd as
+noisy and long-breathed as that which for about the space of two hours
+cried out, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians!" So I stepped to the front
+and made a brief speech, in which, of course, I spoke of the
+"_perfervidum ingenium Scotorum_." A speech without that would have
+been like that "Address without a Phoenix" before referred to. My few
+remarks were well received, and quieted the shouting Ephesians of the
+warm-brained and warm-hearted northern university. It gave me great
+pleasure to meet my friend Mr. Underwood, now American consul in
+Glasgow, where he has made himself highly esteemed and respected.
+
+In my previous visit to Edinburgh in 1834, I was fond of rambling along
+under Salisbury Crags, and climbing the sides of Arthur's Seat. I had
+neither time nor impulse for such walks during this visit, but in
+driving out to dine at Nidrie, the fine old place now lived in by Mr.
+Barclay and his daughters, we passed under the crags and by the side of
+the great hill. I had never heard, or if I had I had forgotten, the name
+and the story of "Samson's Ribs." These are the columnar masses of rock
+which form the face of Salisbury Crags. There is a legend that one day
+one of these pillars will fall and crush the greatest man that ever
+passes under them. It is said that a certain professor was always very
+shy of "Samson's Ribs," for fear the prophecy might be fulfilled in his
+person. We were most hospitably received at Mr. Barclay's, and the
+presence of his accomplished and pleasing daughters made the visit
+memorable to both of us. There was one picture on their walls, that of a
+lady, by Sir Joshua, which both of us found very captivating. This is
+what is often happening in the visits we make. Some painting by a master
+looks down upon us from its old canvas, and leaves a lasting copy of
+itself, to be stored in memory's picture gallery. These surprises are
+not so likely to happen in the New World as in the Old.
+
+It seemed cruel to be forced to tear ourselves away from Edinburgh,
+where so much had been done to make us happy, where so much was left to
+see and enjoy, but we were due in Oxford, where I was to receive the
+last of the three degrees with which I was honored in Great Britain.
+
+Our visit to Scotland gave us a mere glimpse of the land and its people,
+but I have a very vivid recollection of both as I saw them on my first
+visit, when I made an excursion into the Highlands to Stirling and to
+Glasgow, where I went to church, and wondered over the uncouth ancient
+psalmody, which I believe is still retained in use to this day. I was
+seasoned to that kind of poetry in my early days by the verses of Tate
+and Brady, which I used to hear "entuned in the nose ful swetely,"
+accompanied by vigorous rasping of a huge bass-viol. No wonder that
+Scotland welcomed the song of Burns!
+
+On our second visit to Oxford we were to be the guests of the
+Vice-Chancellor of the university, Dr. Jowett. This famous scholar and
+administrator lives in a very pleasant establishment, presided over by
+the Muses, but without the aid of a Vice-Chancelloress. The hospitality
+of this classic mansion is well known, and we added a second pleasant
+chapter to our previous experience under the roof of Professor Max
+Muller. There was a little company there before us, including the Lord
+Chancellor and Lady Herschell, Lady Camilla Wallop, Mr. Browning, and
+Mr. Lowell. We were too late, in consequence of the bad arrangement of
+the trains, and had to dine by ourselves, as the whole party had gone
+out to a dinner, to which we should have accompanied them had we not
+been delayed. We sat up long enough to see them on their return, and
+were glad to get to bed, after our day's journey from Edinburgh to
+Oxford.
+
+At eleven o'clock on the following day we who were to receive degrees
+met at Balliol College, whence we proceeded in solemn procession to the
+Sheldonian Theatre. Among my companions on this occasion were Mr. John
+Bright, the Lord Chancellor Herschell, and Mr. Aldis Wright. I have an
+instantaneous photograph, which was sent me, of this procession. I can
+identify Mr. Bright and myself, but hardly any of the others, though
+many better acquainted with their faces would no doubt recognize them.
+There is a certain sensation in finding one's self invested with the
+academic gown, conspicuous by its red facings, and the cap with its
+square top and depending tassel, which is not without its accompanying
+satisfaction. One can walk the streets of any of the university towns in
+his academic robes without being jeered at, as I am afraid he would be
+in some of our own thoroughfares. There is a noticeable complacency in
+the members of our Phi Beta Kappa society when they get the pink and
+blue ribbons in their buttonholes, on the day of annual meeting. How
+much more when the scholar is wrapped in those flowing folds, with their
+flaming borders, and feels the dignity of the distinction of which they
+are the symbol! I do not know how Mr. John Bright felt, but I cannot
+avoid the impression that some in the ranks which moved from Balliol to
+the Sheldonian felt as if Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like
+the candidates for the degree of D.C.L.
+
+After my experience at Cambridge and Edinburgh, I might have felt some
+apprehension about my reception at Oxford. I had always supposed the
+audience assembled there at the conferring of degrees was a more
+demonstrative one than that at any other of the universities, and I did
+not wish to be forced into a retreat by calls for a speech, as I was at
+Cambridge, nor to repeat my somewhat irregular proceeding of addressing
+the audience, as at Edinburgh. But when I found that Mr. John Bright was
+to be one of the recipients of the degree I felt safe, for if he made a
+speech I should be justified in saying a few words, if I thought it
+best; and if he, one of the most eloquent men in England, remained
+silent, I surely need not make myself heard on the occasion. It was a
+great triumph for him, a liberal leader, to receive the testimonial of a
+degree from the old conservative university. To myself it was a graceful
+and pleasing compliment; to him it was a grave and significant tribute.
+As we marched through the crowd on our way from Balliol, the people
+standing around recognized Mr. Bright, and cheered him vociferously.
+
+The exercises in the Sheldonian Theatre were more complex and lasted
+longer than those at the other two universities. The candidate stepped
+forward and listened to one sentence, then made another move forward and
+listened to other words, and at last was welcomed to all the privileges
+conferred by the degree of Doctor of Civil Law, which was announced as
+being bestowed upon him. Mr. Bright, of course, was received with
+immense enthusiasm. I had every reason to be gratified with my own
+reception. The only "chaffing" I heard was the question from one of the
+galleries, "Did he come in the One-Hoss Shay?"--at which there was a
+hearty laugh, joined in as heartily by myself. A part of the
+entertainment at this ceremony consisted in the listening to the reading
+of short extracts from the prize essays, some or all of them in the dead
+languages, which could not have been particularly intelligible to a
+large part of the audience. During these readings there were frequent
+_interpellations_, as the French call such interruptions, something
+like these: "That will do, sir!" or "You had better stop, sir!"
+--always, I noticed, with the sir at the end of the remark. With us it
+would have been "Dry up!" or "Hold on!" At last came forward the young
+poet of the occasion, who read an elaborate poem, "Savonarola," which
+was listened to in most respectful silence, and loudly applauded at its
+close, as I thought, deservedly. Prince and Princess Christian were
+among the audience. They were staying with Professor and Mrs. Max
+Muller, whose hospitalities I hope they enjoyed as much as we did. One
+or two short extracts from A----'s diary will enliven my record: "The
+Princess had a huge bouquet, and going down the aisle had to bow both
+ways at once, it seemed to me: but then she has the Guelph spine and
+neck! Of course it is necessary that royalty should have more elasticity
+in the frame than we poor ordinary mortals. After all this we started
+for a luncheon at All Souls, but had to wait (impatiently) for H. R. H.
+to rest herself, while our resting was done standing."
+
+It is a long while since I read Madame d'Arblay's Recollections, but if
+I remember right, _standing_ while royalty rests its bones is one
+of the drawbacks to a maid of honor's felicity.
+
+"Finally, at near three, we went into a great luncheon of some fifty.
+There were different tables, and I sat at the one with royalty. The
+Provost of Oriel took me in, and Mr. Browning was on my other side.
+Finally, we went home to rest, but the others started out again to go to
+a garden-party, but that was beyond us." After all this came a
+dinner-party of twenty at the Vice-Chancellor's, and after that a
+reception, where among others we met Lord and Lady Coleridge, the lady
+resplendent in jewels. Even after London, this could hardly be called a
+day of rest.
+
+The Chinese have a punishment which consists simply in keeping the
+subject of it awake, by the constant teasing of a succession of
+individuals employed for the purpose. The best of our social pleasures,
+if carried beyond the natural power of physical and mental endurance,
+begin to approach the character of such a penance. After this we got a
+little rest; did some mild sight-seeing, heard some good music, called
+on the Max Mullers, and bade them good-by with the warmest feeling to
+all the members of a household which it was a privilege to enter. There
+only remained the parting from our kind entertainer, the
+Vice-Chancellor, who added another to the list of places which in
+England and Scotland were made dear to us by hospitality, and are
+remembered as true homes to us while we were under their roofs.
+
+On the second day of July we left the Vice-Chancellor's, and went to the
+Randolph Hotel to meet our friends, Mr. and Mrs. Willett, from Brighton,
+with whom we had an appointment of long standing. With them we left
+Oxford, to enter on the next stage of our pilgrimage.
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+
+It had been the intention of Mr. Willett to go with us to visit Mr.
+Ruskin, with whom he is in the most friendly relations. But a letter
+from Mr. Ruskin's sister spoke of his illness as being too serious for
+him to see company, and we reluctantly gave up this part of our plan.
+
+My first wish was to revisit Stratford-on-Avon, and as our travelling
+host was guided in everything by our inclinations, we took the cars for
+Stratford, where we arrived at five o'clock in the afternoon. It had
+been arranged beforehand that we should be the guests of Mr. Charles E.
+Flower, one of the chief citizens of Stratford, who welcomed us to his
+beautiful mansion in the most cordial way, and made us once more at home
+under an English roof.
+
+I well remembered my visit to Stratford in 1834. The condition of the
+old house in which Shakespeare was born was very different from that in
+which we see it to-day. A series of photographs taken in different years
+shows its gradual transformation since the time when the old projecting
+angular sign-board told all who approached "The immortal Shakespeare was
+born in this House." How near the old house came to sharing the fortunes
+of Jumbo under the management of our enterprising countryman, Mr.
+Barnum, I am not sure; but that he would have "traded" for it, if the
+proprietors had been willing, I do not doubt, any more than I doubt that
+he would make an offer for the Tower of London, if that venerable
+structure were in the market. The house in which Shakespeare was born is
+the Santa Casa of England. What with my recollections and the
+photographs with which I was familiarly acquainted, it had nothing very
+new for me. Its outside had undergone great changes, but its bare
+interior was little altered.
+
+My previous visit was a hurried one,--I took but a glimpse, and then
+went on my way. Now, for nearly a week I was a resident of
+Stratford-on-Avon. How shall I describe the perfectly ideal beauty of
+the new home in which I found myself! It is a fine house, surrounded by
+delightful grounds, which skirt the banks of the Avon for a considerable
+distance, and come close up to the enclosure of the Church of the Holy
+Trinity, beneath the floor of which lie the mortal remains of
+Shakespeare. The Avon is one of those narrow English rivers in which
+half a dozen boats might lie side by side, but hardly wide enough for a
+race between two rowing abreast of each other. Just here the river is
+comparatively broad and quiet, there being a dam a little lower down the
+stream. The waters were a perfect mirror, as I saw them on one of the
+still days we had at Stratford. I do not remember ever before seeing
+cows walking with their legs in the air, as I saw them reflected in the
+Avon. Along the banks the young people were straying. I wondered if the
+youthful swains quoted Shakespeare to their ladyloves. Could they help
+recalling Romeo and Juliet? It is quite impossible to think of any human
+being growing up in this place which claims Shakespeare as its child,
+about the streets of which he ran as a boy, on the waters of which he
+must have often floated, without having his image ever present. Is it
+so? There are some boys, from eight to ten or a dozen years old, fishing
+in the Avon, close by the grounds of "Avonbank," the place at which we
+are staying. I call to the little group. I say, "Boys, who was this man
+Shakespeare, people talk so much about?" Boys turn round and look up
+with a plentiful lack of intelligence in their countenances. "Don't you
+know who he was nor what he was?" Boys look at each other, but confess
+ignorance.--Let us try the universal stimulant of human faculties. "Here
+are some pennies for the boy that will tell me what that Mr. Shakespeare
+was." The biggest boy finds his tongue at last. "He was a writer,--he
+wrote plays." That was as much as I could get out of the youngling. I
+remember meeting some boys under the monument upon Bunker Hill, and
+testing their knowledge as I did that of the Stratford boys. "What is
+this great stone pillar here for?" I asked. "Battle fought here,--great
+battle." "Who fought?" "Americans and British." (I never hear the
+expression Britishers.) "Who was the general on the American side?"
+"Don' know,--General Washington or somebody."--What is an old battle,
+though it may have settled the destinies of a nation, to the game of
+base-ball between the Boston and Chicago Nines which is to come off
+to-morrow, or to the game of marbles which Tom and Dick are just going
+to play together under the shadow of the great obelisk which
+commemorates the conflict?
+
+The room more especially assigned to me looked out, at a distance of not
+more than a stone's-throw, on the northern aspect of the church where
+Shakespeare lies buried. Workmen were busy on the roof of the transept.
+I could not conveniently climb up to have a talk with the roofers, but I
+have my doubts whether they were thinking all the time of the dust over
+which they were working. How small a matter literature is to the great
+seething, toiling, struggling, love-making, bread-winning,
+child-rearing, death-awaiting men and women who fill this huge,
+palpitating world of ours! It would be worth while to pass a week or a
+month among the plain, average people of Stratford. What is the relative
+importance in human well-being of the emendations of the text of Hamlet
+and the patching of the old trousers and the darning of the old
+stockings which task the needles of the hard-working households that
+fight the battle of life in these narrow streets and alleys? I ask the
+question; the reader may answer it.
+
+Our host, Mr. Flower, is more deeply interested, perhaps, than any other
+individual in the "Shakespeare Memorial" buildings which have been
+erected on the banks of the Avon, a short distance above the Church of
+the Holy Trinity. Under Mr. Flower's guidance we got into one of his
+boats, and were rowed up the stream to the Memorial edifice. There is a
+theatre, in a round tower which has borrowed some traits from the
+octagon "Globe" theatre of Shakespeare's day; a Shakespeare library and
+portrait gallery are forming; and in due time these buildings, of
+stately dimensions and built solidly of brick, will constitute a
+Shakespearean centre which will attract to itself many mementoes now
+scattered about in various parts of the country.
+
+On the 4th of July we remembered our native land with all the
+affectionate pride of temporary exiles, and did not forget to drink at
+lunch to the prosperity and continued happiness of the United States of
+America. In the afternoon we took to the boat again, and were rowed up
+the river to the residence of Mr. Edgar Flower, where we found another
+characteristic English family, with its nine children, one of whom was
+the typical English boy, most pleasing and attractive in look, voice,
+and manner.
+
+I attempt no description of the church, the birthplace, or the other
+constantly visited and often described localities. The noble bridge,
+built in the reign of Henry VII. by Sir Hugh Clopton, and afterwards
+widened, excited my admiration. It was a much finer piece of work than
+the one built long afterwards. I have hardly seen anything which gave me
+a more striking proof of the thoroughness of the old English workmen.
+They built not for an age, but for all time, and the New Zealander will
+have to wait a long while before he will find in any one of the older
+bridges that broken arch from which he is to survey the ruins of London.
+
+It is very pleasant to pick up a new epithet to apply to the poet upon
+whose genius our language has nearly exhausted itself. It delights me to
+speak of him in the words which I have just found in a memoir not yet a
+century old, as "the Warwickshire bard," "the inestimable Shakespeare."
+
+Ever since Miss Bacon made her insane attempt to unearth what is left of
+Shakespeare's bodily frame, the thought of doing reverently and openly
+what she would have done by stealth has been entertained by
+psychologists, artists, and others who would like to know what were his
+cranial developments, and to judge from the conformation of the skull
+and face which of the various portraits is probably the true one. There
+is little doubt that but for the curse invoked upon the person who
+should disturb his bones, in the well-known lines on the slab which
+covers him, he would rest, like Napoleon, like Washington, in a fitting
+receptacle of marble or porphyry. In the transfer of his remains the
+curiosity of men of science and artists would have been gratified, if
+decay had spared the more durable portions of his material structure. It
+was probably not against such a transfer that the lines were
+written,--whoever was their author,--but in the fear that they would be
+carried to the charnel-house.
+
+"In this charnel-house was contained a vast collection of human bones.
+How long they had been deposited there is not easily to be determined;
+but it is evident, from the immense quantity contained in the vault, it
+could have been used for no other purpose for many ages." "It is
+probable that from an early contemplation of this dreary spot
+Shakespeare imbibed that horror of a violation of sepulture which is
+observable in many parts of his writings."
+
+The body of Raphael was disinterred in 1833 to settle a question of
+identity of the remains, and placed in a new coffin of lead, which was
+deposited in a marble sarcophagus presented by the Pope. The
+sarcophagus, with its contents, was replaced in the same spot from which
+the remains had been taken. But for the inscription such a transfer of
+the bones of Shakespeare would have been proposed, and possibly carried
+out. Kings and emperors have frequently been treated in this way after
+death, and the proposition is no more an indignity than was that of the
+exhumation of the remains of Napoleon, or of Andre, or of the author of
+"Home, Sweet Home." But sentiment, a tender regard for the supposed
+wishes of the dead poet, and a natural dread of the consequences of
+violating a dying wish, coupled with the execration of its contemner,
+are too powerful for the arguments of science and the pleadings of art.
+If Shakespeare's body had been embalmed,--which there is no reason that
+I know of to suppose,--the desire to compare his features with the bust
+and the portraits would have been much more imperative. When the body of
+Charles the First was examined, under the direction of Sir Henry
+Halford, in the presence of the Regent, afterwards George the Fourth,
+the face would have been recognized at once by all who were acquainted
+with Vandyke's portrait of the monarch, if the lithograph which comes
+attached to Sir Henry's memoir is an accurate representation of what
+they found. Even the bony framework of the face, as I have had occasion
+to know, has sometimes a striking likeness to what it was when clothed
+in its natural features. As between the first engraved portrait and the
+bust in the church, the form of the bones of the head and face would
+probably be decisive. But the world can afford to live without solving
+this doubt, and leave his perishing vesture of decay to its repose.
+
+After seeing the Shakespeare shrines, we drove over to Shottery, and
+visited the Anne Hathaway cottage. I am not sure whether I ever saw it
+before, but it was as familiar to me as if I had lived in it. The old
+lady who showed it was agreeably communicative, and in perfect keeping
+with the place.
+
+A delightful excursion of ten or a dozen miles carried our party,
+consisting of Mr. and Mrs. Flower, Mr. and Mrs. Willett, with A---- and
+myself, to Compton Wynyate, a most interesting old mansion, belonging to
+the Marquis of Northampton, who, with his daughter-in-law, Lady William
+Compton, welcomed us and showed us all the wonders of the place. It was
+a fine morning, but hot enough for one of our American July days. The
+drive was through English rural scenery; that is to say, it was lovely.
+The old house is a great curiosity. It was built in the reign of Henry
+the Eighth, and has passed through many vicissitudes. The place, as well
+as the edifice, is a study for the antiquarian. Remains of the old moat
+which surrounded it are still distinguishable. The twisted and variously
+figured chimneys are of singular variety and exceptional forms. Compton
+_Wynyate_ is thought to get its name from the vineyards formerly
+under cultivation on the hillsides, which show the signs of having been
+laid out in terraces. The great hall, with its gallery, and its
+hangings, and the long table made from the trunk of a single tree,
+carries one back into the past centuries. There are strange nooks and
+corners and passages in the old building, and one place, a queer little
+"cubby-hole," has the appearance of having been a Roman Catholic chapel.
+I asked the master of the house, who pointed out the curiosities of the
+place most courteously, about the ghosts who of course were tenants in
+common with the living proprietors. I was surprised when he told me
+there were none. It was incredible, for here was every accommodation for
+a spiritual visitant. I should have expected at least one haunted
+chamber, to say nothing of blood-stains that could never be got rid of;
+but there were no legends of the supernatural or the terrible.
+
+Refreshments were served us, among which were some hot-house peaches,
+ethereally delicate as if they had grown in the Elysian Fields and been
+stolen from a banquet of angels. After this we went out on the lawn,
+where, at Lady William Compton's request, I recited one or two poems;
+the only time I did such a thing in England.
+
+It seems as if Compton Wynyate must have been written about in some
+novel or romance,--perhaps in more than one of both. It is the place of
+all others to be the scene of a romantic story. It lies so hidden away
+among the hills that its vulgar name, according to old Camden, was
+"Compton in the Hole." I am not sure that it was the scene of any actual
+conflict, but it narrowly escaped demolition in the great civil war, and
+in 1646 it was garrisoned by the Parliament army.
+
+On the afternoon of July 6th, our hosts had a large garden-party. If
+nothing is more trying than one of these out-of-door meetings on a cold,
+windy, damp day, nothing can be more delightful than such a social
+gathering if the place and the weather are just what we could wish them.
+The garden-party of this afternoon was as near perfection as such a
+meeting could well be. The day was bright and warm, but not
+uncomfortably hot, to me, at least. The company strolled about the
+grounds, or rested on the piazzas, or watched the birds in the aviary,
+or studied rudimentary humanity in the monkey, or, better still, in a
+charming baby, for the first time on exhibition since she made the
+acquaintance of sunshine. Every one could dispose of himself or herself
+as fancy might suggest. I broke away at one time, and wandered alone by
+the side of the Avon, under the shadow of the tall trees upon its bank.
+The whole scene was as poetical, as inspiring, as any that I remember.
+It would be easy to write verses about it, but unwritten poems are so
+much better!
+
+One reminiscence of that afternoon claims precedence over all the rest.
+The reader must not forget that I have been a medical practitioner, and
+for thirty-five years a professor in a medical school. Among the guests
+whom I met in the grounds was a gentleman of the medical profession,
+whose name I had often heard, and whom I was very glad to see and talk
+with. This was Mr. Lawson Tait, F.R.C.S., M.D., of Birmingham. Mr., or
+more properly Dr., Tait has had the most extraordinary success in a
+class of cases long considered beyond the reach of surgery. If I refer
+to it as a scientific _hari kari_, not for the taking but for the
+saving of life, I shall come near enough to its description. This
+operation is said to have been first performed by an American surgeon in
+Danville, Kentucky, in the year 1809. So rash and dangerous did it seem
+to most of the profession that it was sometimes spoken of as if to
+attempt it were a crime. Gradually, however, by improved methods, and
+especially by the most assiduous care in nursing the patient after the
+operation, the mortality grew less and less, until it was recognized as
+a legitimate and indeed an invaluable addition to the resources of
+surgery. Mr. Lawson Tait has had, so far as I have been able to learn,
+the most wonderful series of successful cases on record: namely, one
+hundred and thirty-nine consecutive operations without a single death.
+
+As I sat by the side of this great surgeon, a question suggested itself
+to my mind which I leave the reader to think over. Which would give the
+most satisfaction to a thoroughly humane and unselfish being, of
+cultivated intelligence and lively sensibilities: to have written all
+the plays which Shakespeare has left as an inheritance for mankind, or
+to have snatched from the jaws of death more than a hundred fellow-
+creatures,--almost seven scores of suffering women,--and restored them
+to sound and comfortable existence? It would be curious to get the
+answers of a hundred men and a hundred women, of a hundred young people
+and a hundred old ones, of a hundred scholars and a hundred operatives.
+My own specialty is asking questions, not answering them, and I trust I
+shall not receive a peck or two of letters inquiring of me how I should
+choose if such a question were asked me. It may prove as fertile a
+source of dispute as "The Lady or the Tiger."
+
+It would have been a great thing to pass a single night close to the
+church where Shakespeare's dust lies buried. A single visit by daylight
+leaves a comparatively slight impression. But when, after a night's
+sleep, one wakes up and sees the spire and the old walls full before
+him, that impression is very greatly deepened, and the whole scene
+becomes far more a reality. Now I was nearly a whole week at
+Stratford-on-Avon. The church, its exterior, its interior, the
+birthplace, the river, had time to make themselves permanent images in
+my mind. To effect this requires a certain amount of exposure, as much
+as in the case of a photographic negative.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And so we bade good-by to Stratford-on-Avon and its hospitalities, with
+grateful remembrances of our kind entertainers and all they did for our
+comfort and enjoyment.
+
+Where should we go next? Our travelling host proposed Great Malvern, a
+famous watering-place, where we should find peace, rest, and good
+accommodations. So there we went, and soon found ourselves installed at
+the "Foley Arms" hotel. The room I was shown to looked out upon an
+apothecary's shop, and from the window of that shop stared out upon me a
+plaster bust which I recognized as that of Samuel Hahnemann. I was glad
+to change to another apartment, but it may be a comfort to some of his
+American followers to know that traces of homoeopathy,--or what still
+continues to call itself so,--survive in the Old World, which we have
+understood was pretty well tired of it.
+
+We spent several days very pleasantly at Great Malvern. It lies at the
+foot of a range of hills, the loftiest of which is over a thousand feet
+in height. A---- and I thought we would go to the top of one of these,
+known as the Beacon. We hired a "four-wheeler," dragged by a
+much-enduring horse and in charge of a civil young man. We turned out of
+one of the streets not far from the hotel, and found ourselves facing an
+ascent which looked like what I should suppose would be a pretty steep
+toboggan slide. We both drew back. _"Facilis ascensus,"_ I said to
+myself, _"sed revocare gradum."_ It is easy enough to get up if you
+are dragged up, but how will it be to come down such a declivity? When
+we reached it on our return, the semi-precipice had lost all its
+terrors. We had seen and travelled over so much worse places that this
+little bit of slanting road seemed as nothing. The road which wound up
+to the summit of the Beacon was narrow and uneven. It ran close to the
+edge of the steep hillside,--so close that there were times when every
+one of our forty digits curled up like a bird's claw. If we went over,
+it would not be a fall down a good honest precipice,--a swish through
+the air and a smash at the bottom,--but a tumbling, and a rolling over
+and over, and a bouncing and bumping, ever accelerating, until we
+bounded into the level below, all ready for the coroner. At one sudden
+turn of the road the horse's body projected so far over its edge that
+A---- declared if the beast had been an inch longer he would have
+toppled over. When we got close to the summit we found the wind blowing
+almost a gale. A---- says in her diary that I (meaning her honored
+parent) "nearly blew off from the top of the mountain." It is true that
+the force of the wind was something fearful, and seeing that two young
+men near me were exposed to its fury, I offered an arm to each of them,
+which they were not too proud to accept; A---- was equally attentive to
+another young person; and having seen as much of the prospect as we
+cared to, we were glad to get back to our four-wheeler and our hotel,
+after a perilous journey almost comparable to Mark Twain's ascent of the
+Riffelberg.
+
+At Great Malvern we were deliciously idle. We walked about the place,
+rested quietly, drove into the neighboring country, and made a single
+excursion,--to Tewkesbury. There are few places better worth seeing than
+this fine old town, full of historical associations and monumental
+relics. The magnificent old abbey church is the central object of
+interest. The noble Norman tower, one hundred and thirty-two feet in
+height, was once surmounted by a spire, which fell during divine service
+on Easter Day of the year 1559. The arch of the west entrance is sixteen
+feet high and thirty-four feet wide. The fourteen columns of the nave
+are each six feet and three inches in diameter and thirty feet in
+height. I did not take these measurements from the fabric itself, but
+from the guidebook, and I give them here instead of saying that the
+columns were huge, enormous, colossal, as they did most assuredly seem
+to me. The old houses of Tewkesbury compare well with the finest of
+those in Chester. I have a photograph before me of one of them, in which
+each of the three upper floors overhangs the one beneath it, and the
+windows in the pointed gable above project over those of the fourth
+floor.
+
+I ought to have visited the site of Holme Castle, the name of which
+reminds me of my own origin. "The meaning of the Saxon word 'Holme' is a
+meadow surrounded with brooks, and here not only did the castle bear the
+name, but the meadow is described as the 'Holme,--where the castle
+was.'" The final _s_ in the name as we spell it is a frequent
+addition to old English names, as Camden mentions, giving the name
+Holmes among the examples. As there is no castle at the Holme now, I
+need not pursue my inquiries any further. It was by accident that I
+stumbled on this bit of archaeology, and as I have a good many
+namesakes, it may perhaps please some of them to be told about it. Few
+of us hold any castles, I think, in these days, except those _chateaux
+en Espagne_, of which I doubt not, many of us are lords and masters.
+
+In another of our excursions we visited a venerable church, where our
+attention was called to a particular monument. It was erected to the
+memory of one of the best of husbands by his "wretched widow," who
+records upon the marble that there never was such a man on the face of
+the earth before, and never will be again, and that there never was
+anybody so miserable as she,--no, never, never, never! These are not the
+exact words, but this is pretty nearly what she declares. The story is
+that she married again within a year.
+
+From my window at the Foley Arms I can see the tower of the fine old
+abbey church of Malvern, which would be a centre of pilgrimages if it
+were in our country. But England is full of such monumental structures,
+into the history of which the local antiquarians burrow, and pass their
+peaceful lives in studying and writing about them with the same innocent
+enthusiasm that White of Selborne manifested in studying nature as his
+village showed it to him.
+
+In our long drives we have seen everywhere the same picturesque old
+cottages, with the pretty gardens, and abundant flowers, and noble
+trees, more frequently elms than any other. One day--it was on the 10th
+of July--we found ourselves driving through what seemed to be a
+gentleman's estate, an ample domain, well wooded and well kept. On
+inquiring to whom this place belonged, I was told that the owner was Sir
+Edmund Lechmere. The name had a very familiar sound to my ears. Without
+rising from the table at which I am now writing, I have only to turn my
+head, and in full view, at the distance of a mile, just across the
+estuary of the Charles, shining in the morning sun, are the roofs and
+spires and chimneys of East Cambridge, always known in my younger days
+as Lechmere's Point. Judge Richard Lechmere was one of our old Cambridge
+Tories, whose property was confiscated at the time of the Revolution. An
+engraving of his handsome house, which stands next to the Vassall house,
+long known as Washington's headquarters, and since not less celebrated
+as the residence of Longfellow, is before me, on one of the pages of the
+pleasing little volume, "The Cambridge of 1776." I take it for granted
+that our Lechmeres were of the same stock as the owner of this property.
+If so, he probably knows all that I could tell him about his colonial
+relatives, who were very grand people, belonging to a little
+aristocratic circle of friends and relatives who were faithful to their
+king and their church. The Baroness Riedesel, wife of a Hessian officer
+who had been captured, was for a while resident in this house, and her
+name, scratched on a window-pane, was long shown as a sight for eyes
+unused to titles other than governor, judge, colonel, and the like. I
+was tempted to present myself at Sir Edmund's door as one who knew
+something about the Lechmeres in America, but I did not feel sure how
+cordially a descendant of the rebels who drove off Richard and Mary
+Lechmere would be received.
+
+From Great Malvern we went to Bath, another place where we could rest
+and be comfortable. The Grand Pump-Room Hotel was a stately building,
+and the bath-rooms were far beyond anything I had ever seen of that
+kind. The remains of the old Roman baths, which appear to have been very
+extensive, are partially exposed. What surprises one all over the Old
+World is to see how deeply all the old civilizations contrive to get
+buried. Everybody seems to have lived in the cellar. It is hard to
+believe that the cellar floor was once the sun surface of the smiling
+earth.
+
+I looked forward to seeing Bath with a curious kind of interest. I once
+knew one of those dear old English ladies whom one finds all the world
+over, with their prim little ways, and their gilt prayer-books, and
+lavender-scented handkerchiefs, and family recollections. She gave me
+the idea that Bath, a city where the great people often congregate, was
+more especially the paradise of decayed gentlewomen. There, she told me,
+persons with very narrow incomes--not _demi-fortunes_, but
+_demi-quart-de-fortunes_--could find everything arranged to
+accommodate their modest incomes. I saw the evidence of this everywhere.
+So great was the delight I had in looking in at the shop-windows of the
+long street which seemed to be one of the chief thoroughfares that,
+after exploring it in its full extent by myself, I went for A----, and
+led her down one side its whole length and up the other. In these shops
+the precious old dears could buy everything they wanted in the most
+minute quantities. Such tempting heaps of lumps of white sugar, only
+twopence! Such delectable cakes, two for a penny! Such seductive scraps
+of meat, which would make a breakfast nourishing as well as relishing,
+possibly even what called itself a dinner, blushing to see themselves
+labelled threepence or fourpence! We did not know whether to smile or to
+drop a tear, as we contemplated these baits hung out to tempt the coins
+from the exiguous purses of ancient maidens, forlorn widows, withered
+annuitants, stranded humanity in every stage of shipwrecked penury. I am
+reminded of Thackeray's "Jack Spiggot." "And what are your pursuits,
+Jack? says I. 'Sold out when the governor died. Mother lives at Bath. Go
+down there once a year for a week. Dreadful slow. Shilling whist.'" Mrs.
+Gaskell's picture of "Cranford" is said to have been drawn from a
+village in Cheshire, but Bath must have a great deal in common with its
+"elegant economies." Do not make the mistake, however, of supposing that
+this splendid watering-place, sometimes spoken of as "the handsomest
+city in Britain," is only a city of refuge for people that have seen
+better days. Lord Macaulay speaks of it as "that beautiful city which
+charms even eyes familiar with the masterpieces of Bramante and
+Palladio." If it is not quite so conspicuous as a fashionable resort as
+it was in the days of Beau Nash or of Christopher Anstey, it has never
+lost its popularity. Chesterfield writes in 1764, "The number of people
+in this place is infinite," and at the present time the annual influx of
+visitors is said to vary from ten to fourteen thousand. Many of its
+public buildings are fine, and the abbey church, dating from 1499, is an
+object of much curiosity, especially on account of the sculptures on its
+western facade. These represent two ladders, with angels going up and
+down upon them,--suggested by a dream of the founder of the church,
+repeating that of Jacob.
+
+On the 14th of July we left Bath for Salisbury. While passing Westbury,
+one of our fellow-passengers exclaimed, "Look out! Look out!" "What is
+it?" "The horse! the horse!" All our heads turned to the window, and all
+our eyes fastened on the figure of a white horse, upon a hillside some
+miles distant. This was not the white horse which Mr. Thomas Hughes has
+made famous, but one of much less archaic aspect and more questionable
+history. A little book which we bought tells us all we care to know
+about it. "It is formed by excoriating the turf over the steep slope of
+the northern escarpment of Salisbury Plain." It was "remodelled" in
+1778, and "restored" in 1873 at a cost of between sixty and seventy
+pounds. It is said that a smaller and ruder horse stood here from time
+immemorial, and was made to commemorate a victory of Alfred over the
+Danes. However that may be, the horse we now see on the hillside is a
+very modern-looking and well-shaped animal, and is of the following
+dimensions: length, 170 feet; height from highest part of back, 128
+feet; thickness of body, 55 feet; length of head, 50 feet; eye, 6 by 8
+feet. It is a very pretty little object as we see it in the distance.
+
+Salisbury Cathedral was my first love among all the wonderful
+ecclesiastical buildings which I saw during my earlier journey. I looked
+forward to seeing it again with great anticipations of pleasure, which
+were more than realized.
+
+Our travelling host had taken a whole house in the Close,--a privileged
+enclosure, containing the cathedral, the bishop's palace, houses of the
+clergy, and a limited number of private residences, one of the very best
+of which was given over entirely into the hands of our party during our
+visit. The house was about as near the cathedral as Mr. Flower's house,
+where we stayed at Stratford-on-Avon, was to the Church of the Holy
+Trinity. It was very completely furnished, and in the room assigned to
+me as my library I found books in various languages, showing that the
+residence was that of a scholarly person.
+
+If one had to name the apple of the eye of England, I think he would be
+likely to say that Salisbury Cathedral was as near as he could come to
+it, and that the white of the eye was Salisbury Close. The cathedral is
+surrounded by a high wall, the gates of which,--its eyelids,--are closed
+every night at a seasonable hour, at which the virtuous inhabitants are
+expected to be in their safe and sacred quarters. Houses within this
+hallowed precinct naturally bring a higher rent than those of the
+unsanctified and unprotected region outside of its walls. It is a realm
+of peace, glorified by the divine edifice, which lifts the least
+imaginative soul upward to the heavens its spire seems trying to reach;
+beautified by rows of noble elms which stretch high aloft, as if in
+emulation of the spire; beatified by holy memories of the good and great
+men who have worn their lives out in the service of the church of which
+it is one of the noblest temples.
+
+For a whole week we lived under the shadow of the spire of the great
+cathedral. Our house was opposite the north transept, only separated by
+the road in front of it from the cathedral grounds. Here, as at
+Stratford, I learned what it was to awake morning after morning and find
+that I was not dreaming, but there in the truth-telling daylight the
+object of my admiration, devotion, almost worship, stood before me. I
+need not here say anything more of the cathedral, except that its
+perfect exterior is hardly equalled in beauty by its interior, which
+looks somewhat bare and cold. It was my impression that there is more to
+study than to admire in the interior, but I saw the cathedral so much
+oftener on the outside than on the inside that I may not have done
+justice to the latter aspect of the noble building.
+
+Nothing could be more restful than our week at Salisbury. There was
+enough in the old town besides the cathedral to interest us,--old
+buildings, a museum, full of curious objects, and the old town itself.
+When I was there the first time, I remember that we picked up a
+guide-book in which we found a verse that has remained in my memory ever
+since. It is an epitaph on a native of Salisbury who died in Venice.
+
+  "Born in the English Venice, thou didst dye
+  Dear Friend, in the Italian Salisbury."
+
+This would be hard to understand except for the explanation which the
+local antiquarians give us of its significance. The Wiltshire Avon flows
+by or through the town, which is drained by brooks that run through its
+streets. These, which used to be open, are now covered over, and thus
+the epitaph becomes somewhat puzzling, as there is nothing to remind one
+of Venice in walking about the town.
+
+While at Salisbury we made several excursions: to Old Sarum; to
+Bemerton, where we saw the residence of holy George Herbert, and visited
+the little atom of a church in which he ministered; to Clarendon Park;
+to Wilton, the seat of the Earl of Pembroke, a most interesting place
+for itself and its recollections; and lastly to Stonehenge. My second
+visit to the great stones after so long an interval was a strange
+experience. But what is half a century to a place like Stonehenge?
+Nothing dwarfs an individual life like one of these massive, almost
+unchanging monuments of an antiquity which refuses to be measured. The
+"Shepherd of Salisbury Plain" was represented by an old man, who told
+all he knew and a good deal more about the great stones, and sheared a
+living, not from sheep, but from visitors, in the shape of shillings and
+sixpences. I saw nothing that wore unwoven wool on its back in the
+neighborhood of the monuments, but sheep are shown straggling among them
+in the photographs.
+
+The broken circle of stones, some in their original position, some
+bending over like old men, some lying prostrate, suggested the thoughts
+which took form in the following verses. They were read at the annual
+meeting, in January, of the class which graduated at Harvard College in
+the year 1829. Eight of the fifty-nine men who graduated sat round the
+small table. There were several other classmates living, but infirmity,
+distance, and other peremptory reasons kept them from being with us. I
+have read forty poems at our successive annual meetings. I will
+introduce this last one by quoting a stanza from the poem I read in
+1851:--
+
+  As one by one is falling
+    Beneath the leaves or snows,
+  Each memory still recalling
+    The broken ring shall close,
+  Till the night winds softly pass
+    O'er the green and growing grass,
+  Where it waves on the graves
+    Of the "Boys of 'Twenty-nine."
+
+  THE BROKEN CIRCLE.
+
+  I stood on Sarum's treeless plain,
+    The waste that careless Nature owns;
+  Lone tenants of her bleak domain,
+    Loomed huge and gray the Druid stones.
+
+  Upheaved in many a billowy mound
+    The sea-like, naked turf arose,
+  Where wandering flocks went nibbling round
+    The mingled graves of friends and foes.
+
+  The Briton, Roman, Saxon, Dane,
+    This windy desert roamed in turn;
+  Unmoved these mighty blocks remain
+    Whose story none that lives may learn.
+
+  Erect, half buried, slant or prone,
+    These awful listeners, blind and dumb,
+  Hear the strange tongues of tribes unknown,
+    As wave on wave they go and come.
+
+  "Who are you, giants, whence and why?"
+    I stand and ask in blank amaze;
+  My soul accepts their mute reply:
+    "A mystery, as are you that gaze.
+
+  "A silent Orpheus wrought the charm
+    From riven rocks their spoils to bring;
+  A nameless Titan lent his arm
+    To range us in our magic ring.
+
+  "But Time with still and stealthy stride,
+    That climbs and treads and levels all,
+  That bids the loosening keystone slide,
+    And topples down the crumbling wall,--
+
+  "Time, that unbuilds the quarried past,
+    Leans on these wrecks that press the sod;
+  They slant, they stoop, they fall at last,
+    And strew the turf their priests have trod.
+
+  "No more our altar's wreath of smoke
+    Floats up with morning's fragrant dew;
+  The fires are dead, the ring is broke,
+    Where stood the many stand the few."
+
+  --My thoughts had wandered far away,
+     Borne off on Memory's outspread wing,
+  To where in deepening twilight lay
+     The wrecks of friendship's broken ring.
+
+  Ah me! of all our goodly train
+     How few will find our banquet hall!
+  Yet why with coward lips complain
+     That this must lean and that must fall?
+
+  Cold is the Druid's altar-stone,
+     Its vanished flame no more returns;
+  But ours no chilling damp has known,--
+     Unchanged, unchanging, still it burns.
+
+  So let our broken circle stand
+     A wreck, a remnant, yet the same,
+  While one last, loving, faithful hand
+     Still lives to feed its altar-flame!
+
+My heart has gone back over the waters to my old friends and my own
+home. When this vision has faded, I will return to the silence of the
+lovely Close and the shadow of the great Cathedral.
+
+
+
+
+V.
+
+
+The remembrance of home, with its early and precious and long-enduring
+friendships, has intruded itself among my recollections of what I saw
+and heard, of what I felt and thought, in the distant land I was
+visiting. I must return to the scene where I found myself when the
+suggestion of the broken circle ran away with my imagination.
+
+The literature of Stonehenge is extensive, and illustrates the weakness
+of archaeologists almost as well as the "Praetorium" of Scott's
+"Antiquary." "In 1823," says a local handbook, "H. Browne, of Amesbury,
+published 'An Illustration of Stonehenge and Abury,' in which he
+endeavored to show that both of these monuments were antediluvian, and
+that the latter was formed under the direction of Adam. He ascribes the
+present dilapidated condition of Stonehenge to the operation of the
+general deluge; for, he adds, 'to suppose it to be the work of any
+people since the flood is entirely monstrous.'"
+
+We know well enough how great stones--pillars and obelisks--are brought
+into place by means of our modern appliances. But if the great blocks
+were raised by a mob of naked Picts, or any tribe that knew none of the
+mechanical powers but the lever, how did they set them up and lay the
+cross-stones, the imposts, upon the uprights? It is pleasant, once in a
+while, to think how we should have managed any such matters as this if
+left to our natural resources. We are all interested in the make-shifts
+of Robinson Crusoe. Now the rudest tribes make cords of some kind, and
+the earliest, or almost the earliest, of artificial structures is an
+earth-mound. If a hundred, or hundreds, of men could drag the huge
+stones many leagues, as they must have done to bring them to their
+destined place, they could have drawn each of them up a long slanting
+mound ending in a sharp declivity, with a hole for the foot of the stone
+at its base. If the stone were now tipped over, it would slide into its
+place, and could be easily raised from its slanting position to the
+perpendicular. Then filling in the space between the mound and two
+contiguous stones, the impost could be dragged up to its position. I
+found a pleasure in working at this simple mechanical problem, as a
+change from the more imaginative thoughts suggested by the mysterious
+monuments.
+
+One incident of our excursion to Stonehenge had a significance for me
+which renders it memorable in my personal experience. As we drove over
+the barren plain, one of the party suddenly exclaimed, "Look! Look! See
+the lark rising!" I looked up with the rest. There was the bright blue
+sky, but not a speck upon it which my eyes could distinguish. Again, one
+called out, "Hark! Hark! Hear him singing!" I listened, but not a sound
+reached my ear. Was it strange that I felt a momentary pang? _Those
+that look out at the windows are darkened, and all the daughters of
+music are brought low._ Was I never to see or hear the soaring
+songster at Heaven's gate,--unless,--unless,--if our mild humanized
+theology promises truly, I may perhaps hereafter listen to him singing
+far down beneath me? For in whatever world I may find myself, I hope I
+shall always love our poor little spheroid, so long my home, which some
+kind angel may point out to me as a gilded globule swimming in the
+sunlight far away. After walking the streets of pure gold in the New
+Jerusalem, might not one like a short vacation, to visit the
+well-remembered green fields and flowery meadows? I had a very sweet
+emotion of self-pity, which took the sting out of my painful discovery
+that the orchestra of my pleasing life-entertainment was unstringing its
+instruments, and the lights were being extinguished,--that the show was
+almost over. All this I kept to myself, of course, except so far as I
+whispered it to the unseen presence which we all feel is in sympathy
+with us, and which, as it seemed to my fancy, was looking into my eyes,
+and through them into my soul, with the tender, tearful smile of a
+mother who for the first time gently presses back the longing lips of
+her as yet unweaned infant.
+
+On our way back from Stonehenge we stopped and took a cup of tea with a
+friend of our host, Mr. Nightingale. His house, a bachelor
+establishment, was very attractive to us by the beauty within and around
+it. His collection of "china," as Pope and old-fashioned people call all
+sorts of earthenware, excited the enthusiasm of our host, whose
+admiration of some rare pieces in the collection was so great that it
+would have run into envy in a less generous nature.
+
+It is very delightful to find one's self in one of these English country
+residences. The house is commonly old, and has a history. It is
+oftentimes itself a record, like that old farmhouse my friend John
+Bellows wrote to me about, which chronicled half a dozen reigns by
+various architectural marks as exactly as if it had been an official
+register. "The stately homes of England," as we see them at Wilton and
+Longford Castle, are not more admirable in their splendors than "the
+blessed homes of England" in their modest beauty. Everywhere one may see
+here old parsonages by the side of ivy-mantled churches, and the
+comfortable mansions where generations of country squires have lived in
+peace, while their sons have gone forth to fight England's battles, and
+carry her flags of war and commerce all over the world. We in America
+can hardly be said to have such a possession as a family home. We
+encamp,--not under canvas, but in fabrics of wood or more lasting
+materials, which are pulled down after a brief occupancy by the
+builders, and possibly their children, or are modernized so that the
+former dwellers in them would never recognize their old habitations.
+
+In my various excursions from Salisbury I was followed everywhere by the
+all-pervading presence of the towering spire. Just what it was in that
+earlier visit, when my eyes were undimmed and my sensibilities unworn,
+just such I found it now. As one drives away from the town, the roofs of
+the houses drop out of the landscape, the lesser spires disappear one by
+one, until the great shaft is left standing alone,--solitary as the
+broken statue of Ozymandias in the desert, as the mast of some mighty
+ship above the waves which have rolled over the foundering vessel. Most
+persons will, I think, own to a feeling of awe in looking up at it. Few
+can look down from a great height without creepings and crispations, if
+they do not get as far as vertigos and that aerial calenture which
+prompts them to jump from the pinnacle on which they are standing. It
+does not take much imagination to make one experience something of the
+same feeling in looking up at a very tall steeple or chimney. To one
+whose eyes are used to Park Street and the Old South steeples as
+standards of height, a spire which climbs four hundred feet towards the
+sky is a new sensation. Whether I am more "afraid of that which is high"
+than I was at my first visit, as I should be on the authority of
+Ecclesiastes, I cannot say, but it was quite enough for me to let my
+eyes climb the spire, and I had no desire whatever to stand upon that
+"bad eminence," as I am sure that I should have found it.
+
+I soon noticed a slight deflection from the perpendicular at the upper
+part of the spire. This has long been observed. I could not say that I
+saw the spire quivering in the wind, as I felt that of Strasburg doing
+when I ascended it,--swaying like a blade of grass when a breath of air
+passes over it. But it has been, for at least two hundred years, nearly
+two feet out of the perpendicular. No increase in the deviation was
+found to exist when it was examined early in the present century. It is
+a wonder that this slight-looking structure can have survived the
+blasts, and thunderbolts, and earthquakes, and the weakening effects of
+time on its stones and timbers for five hundred years. Since the spire
+of Chichester Cathedral fell in 1861, sheathing itself in its tower like
+a sword dropping into its scabbard, one can hardly help looking with
+apprehension at all these lofty fabrics. I have before referred to the
+fall of the spire of Tewkesbury Abbey church, three centuries earlier.
+There has been a good deal of fear for the Salisbury spire, and great
+precautions have been taken to keep it firm, so that we may hope it will
+stand for another five hundred years. It ought to be a "joy forever,"
+for it is a thing of beauty, if ever there were one.
+
+I never felt inclined to play the part of the young enthusiast in
+"Excelsior," as I looked up at the weathercock which surmounts the
+spire. But the man who oils the weathercock-spindle has to get up to it
+in some way, and that way is by ladders which reach to within thirty
+feet of the top, where there is a small door, through which he emerges,
+to crawl up the remaining distance on the outside. "The situation and
+appearance," says one of the guide-books, "must be terrific, yet many
+persons have voluntarily and daringly clambered to the top, even in a
+state of intoxication." Such, I feel sure, was not the state of my most
+valued and exemplary clerical friend, who, with a cool head and steady
+nerves, found himself standing in safety at the top of the spire, with
+his hand upon the vane, which nothing terrestrial had ever looked down
+upon in its lofty position, except a bird, a bat, a sky-rocket, or a
+balloon.
+
+In saying that the exterior of Salisbury Cathedral is more interesting
+than its interior, I was perhaps unfair to the latter, which only yields
+to the surpassing claims of the wonderful structure as seen from the
+outside. One may get a little tired of marble Crusaders, with their
+crossed legs and broken noses, especially if, as one sometimes finds
+them, they are covered with the pencilled autographs of cockney
+scribblers. But there are monuments in this cathedral which excite
+curiosity, and others which awaken the most striking associations. There
+is the "Boy Bishop," his marble effigy protected from vandalism by an
+iron cage. There is the skeleton figure representing Fox (who should
+have been called Goose), the poor creature who starved himself to death
+in trying to imitate the fast of forty days in the wilderness. Since
+this performance has been taken out of the list of miracles, it is not
+so likely to be repeated by fanatics. I confess to a strong suspicion
+that this is one of the ambulatory or movable stories, like the
+"hangman's stone" legend, which I have found in so many different parts
+of England. Skulls and crossbones, sometimes skeletons or skeleton-like
+figures, are not uncommon among the sepulchral embellishments of an
+earlier period. Where one of these figures is found, the forty-day-fast
+story is likely to grow out of it, as the mistletoe springs from the oak
+or apple tree.
+
+With far different emotions we look upon the spot where lie buried many
+of the Herbert family, among the rest,
+
+  "Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother,"
+
+for whom Ben Jonson wrote the celebrated epitaph. I am almost afraid to
+say it, but I never could admire the line,
+
+  "Lies the subject of all verse,"
+
+nor the idea of Time dropping his hour-glass and scythe to throw a dart
+at the fleshless figure of Death. This last image seems to me about the
+equivalent in mortuary poetry of Roubiliac's monument to Mrs.
+Nightingale in mortuary sculpture,--poor conceits both of them, without
+the suggestion of a tear in the verses or in the marble; but the
+rhetorical exaggeration does not prevent us from feeling that we are
+standing by the resting-place of one who was
+
+  "learn'd and fair and good"
+
+enough to stir the soul of stalwart Ben Jonson, and the names of Sidney
+and Herbert make us forget the strange hyperboles.
+
+History meets us everywhere, as we stray among these ancient monuments.
+Under that effigy lie the great bones of Sir John Cheyne, a mighty man
+of war, said to have been "overthrown" by Richard the Third at the
+battle of Bosworth Field. What was left of him was unearthed in 1789 in
+the demolition of the Beauchamp chapel, and his thigh-bone was found to
+be four inches longer than that of a man of common stature.
+
+The reader may remember how my recollections started from their
+hiding-place when I came, in one of our excursions, upon the name of
+Lechmere, as belonging to the owner of a fine estate by or through which
+we were driving. I had a similar twinge of reminiscence at meeting with
+the name of Gorges, which is perpetuated by a stately monument at the
+end of the north aisle of the cathedral. Sir Thomas Gorges, Knight of
+Longford Castle, may or may not have been of the same family as the
+well-remembered grandiose personage of the New England Pilgrim period.
+The title this gentleman bore had a far more magnificent sound than
+those of his contemporaries, Governor Carver and Elder Brewster. No
+title ever borne among us has filled the mouth quite so full as that of
+"Sir Ferdinando Gorges, Lord Palatine of the Province of Maine," a
+province with "Gorgeana" (late the plantation of Agamenticus) as its
+capital. Everywhere in England a New Englander is constantly meeting
+with names of families and places which remind him that he comes of a
+graft from an old tree on a new stock. I could not keep down the
+associations called up by the name of Gorges. There is a certain
+pleasure in now and then sprinkling our prosaic colonial history with
+the holy water of a high-sounding title; not that a "Sir" before a man's
+name makes him any better,--for are we not all equal, and more than
+equal, to each other?--but it sounds pleasantly. Sir Harry Vane and Sir
+Harry Frankland look prettily on the printed page, as the illuminated
+capital at the head of a chapter in an old folio pleases the eye of the
+reader. Sir Thomas Gorges was the builder of Longford Castle, now the
+seat of the Earl of Radnor, whose family name is Bouverie. Whether our
+Sir Ferdinando was of the Longford Castle stock or not I must leave to
+my associates of the Massachusetts Historical Society to determine.
+
+We lived very quietly at our temporary home in Salisbury Close. A
+pleasant dinner with the Dean, a stroll through the grounds of the
+episcopal palace, with that perpetual feast of the eyes which the
+cathedral offered us, made our residence delightful at the time, and
+keeps it so in remembrance. Besides the cathedral there were the very
+lovely cloisters, the noble chapter-house with its central pillar,--this
+structure has been restored and rejuvenated since my earlier visit,--and
+there were the peaceful dwellings, where I insist on believing that only
+virtue and happiness are ever tenants. Even outside the sacred enclosure
+there is a great deal to enjoy, in the ancient town of Salisbury. One
+may rest under the Poultry Cross, where twenty or thirty generations
+have rested before him. One may purchase his china at the well-furnished
+establishment of the tenant of a spacious apartment of ancient
+date,--"the Halle of John Halle," a fine private edifice built in the
+year 1470, restored and beautified in 1834; the emblazonment of the
+royal arms having been executed by the celebrated architectural artist
+Pugin. The old houses are numerous, and some of them eminently
+picturesque.
+
+Salisbury was formerly very unhealthy, on account of the low, swampy
+nature of its grounds. The Sanitary Reform, dating from about thirty
+years ago, had a great effect on the condition of the place. Before the
+drainage the annual mortality was twenty-seven in the thousand; since
+the drainage twenty in the thousand, which is below that of Boston. In
+the Close, which is a little Garden of Eden, with no serpent in it that
+I could hear of, the deaths were only fourteen in a thousand. Happy
+little enclosure, where thieves cannot break through and steal, where
+Death himself hesitates to enter, and makes a visit only now and then at
+long intervals, lest the fortunate inhabitants should think they had
+already reached the Celestial City!
+
+[Illustration: Salisbury Cathedral.]
+
+It must have been a pretty bitter quarrel that drove the tenants of the
+airy height of Old Sarum to remove to the marshy level of the present
+site of the cathedral and the town. I wish we could have given more time
+to the ancient fortress and cathedral town. This is one of the most
+interesting historic localities of Great Britain. We looked from
+different points of view at the mounds and trenches which marked it as a
+strongly fortified position. For many centuries it played an important
+part in the history of England. At length, however, the jealousies of
+the laity and the clergy, a squabble like that of "town and gown," but
+with graver underlying causes, broke up the harmony and practically
+ended the existence of the place except as a monument of the past. It
+seems a pity that the headquarters of the Prince of Peace could not have
+managed to maintain tranquillity within its own borders. But so it was;
+and the consequence followed that Old Sarum, with all its grand
+recollections, is but a collection of mounds and hollows,--as much a
+tomb of its past as Birs Nimroud of that great city, Nineveh. Old Sarum
+is now best remembered by its long-surviving privilege, as a borough, of
+sending two members to Parliament. The farcical ceremony of electing two
+representatives who had no real constituency behind them was put an end
+to by the Reform Act of 1832.
+
+Wilton, the seat of the Earl of Pembroke, within an easy drive's
+distance from Salisbury, was the first nobleman's residence I saw in my
+early visit. Not a great deal of what I then saw had survived in my
+memory. I recall the general effect of the stately mansion and its
+grounds. A picture or two of Vandyke's had not quite faded out of my
+recollection. I could not forget the armor of Anne de Montmorenci,--not
+another Maid of Orleans, but Constable of France,--said to have been
+taken in battle by an ancestor of the Herberts. It was one of the first
+things that made me feel I was in the Old World. Miles Standish's sword
+was as far back as New England collections of armor carried us at that
+day. The remarkable gallery of ancient sculptures impressed me at the
+time, but no one bust or statue survived as a distinct image. Even the
+beautiful Palladian bridge had not pictured itself on my mental tablet
+as it should have done, and I could not have taken my oath that I had
+seen it. But the pretty English maidens whom we met on the day of our
+visit to Wilton,--daughters or granddaughters of a famous inventor and
+engineer,--still lingered as vague and pleasing visions, so lovely had
+they seemed among the daisies and primroses. The primroses and daisies
+were as fresh in the spring of 1886 as they were in the spring of 1833,
+but I hardly dared to ask after the blooming maidens of that early
+period.
+
+One memory predominates over all others, in walking through the halls,
+or still more in wandering through the grounds, of Wilton House. Here
+Sir Philip Sidney wrote his "Arcadia," and the ever youthful presence of
+the man himself rather than the recollection of his writings takes
+possession of us. There are three young men in history whose names
+always present themselves to me in a special companionship: Pico della
+Mirandola, "the Phoenix of the Age" for his contemporaries; "the
+Admirable Crichton," accepting as true the accounts which have come down
+to us of his wonderful accomplishments; and Sidney, the Bayard of
+England, "that glorious star, that lively pattern of virtue and the
+lovely joy of all the learned sort, ... born into the world to show unto
+our age a sample of ancient virtue." The English paragon of excellence
+was but thirty-two years old when he was slain at Zutphen, the Italian
+Phoenix but thirty-one when he was carried off by a fever, and the
+Scotch prodigy of gifts and attainments was only twenty-two when he was
+assassinated by his worthless pupil. Sir Philip Sidney is better
+remembered by the draught of water he gave the dying soldier than by all
+the waters he ever drew from the fountain of the Muses, considerable as
+are the merits of his prose and verse. But here, where he came to cool
+his fiery spirit after the bitter insult he had received from the Earl
+of Leicester; here, where he mused and wrote, and shaped his lofty plans
+for a glorious future, he lives once more in our imagination, as if his
+spirit haunted the English Arcadia he loved so dearly.
+
+The name of Herbert, which we have met with in the cathedral, and which
+belongs to the Earls of Pembroke, presents itself to us once more in a
+very different and very beautiful aspect. Between Salisbury and Wilton,
+three miles and a half distant, is the little village of Bemerton, where
+"holy George Herbert" lived and died, and where he lies buried. Many
+Americans who know little else of him recall the lines borrowed from him
+by Irving in the "Sketch-Book" and by Emerson in "Nature." The
+"Sketch-Book" gives the lines thus:--
+
+  "Sweet day, so pure, so calm, so bright,
+    The bridal of the earth and sky."
+
+In other versions the fourth word is _cool_ instead of _pure_,
+and _cool_ is, I believe, the correct reading. The day when we
+visited Bemerton was, according to A----'s diary, "perfect." I was
+struck with the calm beauty of the scene around us, the fresh greenness
+of all growing things, and the stillness of the river which mirrored the
+heavens above it. It must have been this reflection which the poet was
+thinking of when he spoke of the bridal of the earth and sky. The river
+is the Wiltshire Avon; not Shakespeare's Avon, but the southern stream
+of the same name, which empties into the British Channel.
+
+So much of George Herbert's intellectual and moral character repeat
+themselves in Emerson that if I believed in metempsychosis I should
+think that the English saint had reappeared in the American philosopher.
+Their features have a certain resemblance, but the type, though an
+exceptional and fine one, is not so very rare. I found a portrait in the
+National Gallery which was a good specimen of it; the bust of a near
+friend of his, more intimate with him than almost any other person, is
+often taken for that of Emerson. I see something of it in the portrait
+of Sir Philip Sidney, and I doubt not that traces of a similar mental
+resemblance ran through the whole group, with individual characteristics
+which were in some respects quite different. I will take a single verse
+of Herbert's from Emerson's "Nature,"--one of the five which he
+quotes:--
+
+       "Nothing hath got so far
+  But man hath caught and kept it as his prey;
+       His eyes dismount the highest star:
+       He is in little all the sphere.
+  Herbs gladly cure our flesh because that they
+       Find their acquaintance there."
+
+Emerson himself fully recognizes his obligations to "the beautiful
+psalmist of the seventeenth century," as he calls George Herbert. There
+are many passages in his writings which sound as if they were
+paraphrases from the elder poet. From him it is that Emerson gets a word
+he is fond of, and of which his imitators are too fond:--
+
+  "Who sweeps a room as for thy laws
+  Makes that and the action _fine_."
+
+The little chapel in which Herbert officiated is perhaps half as long
+again as the room in which I am writing, but it is four or five feet
+narrower,--and I do not live in a palace. Here this humble servant of
+God preached and prayed, and here by his faithful and loving service he
+so endeared himself to all around him that he has been canonized by an
+epithet no other saint of the English Church has had bestowed upon him.
+His life as pictured by Izaak Walton is, to borrow one of his own lines,
+
+  "A box where sweets compacted lie;"
+
+and I felt, as I left his little chapel and the parsonage which he
+rebuilt as a free-will offering, as a pilgrim might feel who had just
+left the holy places at Jerusalem.
+
+Among the places which I saw in my first visit was Longford Castle, the
+seat of the Earl of Radnor. I remembered the curious triangular
+building, constructed with reference to the doctrine of the Trinity, as
+churches are built in the form of the cross. I remembered how the
+omnipresent spire of the great cathedral, three miles away, looked down
+upon the grounds about the building as if it had been their next-door
+neighbor. I had not forgotten the two celebrated Claudes, Morning and
+Evening. My eyes were drawn to the first of these two pictures when I
+was here before; now they turned naturally to the landscape with the
+setting sun. I have read my St. Ruskin with due reverence, but I have
+never given up my allegiance to Claude Lorraine. But of all the fine
+paintings at Longford Castle, no one so much impressed me at my recent
+visit as the portrait of Erasmus by Hans Holbein. This is one of those
+pictures which help to make the Old World worth a voyage across the
+Atlantic. Portraits of Erasmus are not uncommon; every scholar would
+know him if he met him in the other world with the look he wore on
+earth. All the etchings and their copies give a characteristic
+presentation of the spiritual precursor of Luther, who pricked the false
+image with his rapier which the sturdy monk slashed with his broadsword.
+What a face it is which Hans Holbein has handed down to us in this
+wonderful portrait at Longford Castle! How dry it is with scholastic
+labor, how keen with shrewd scepticism, how worldly-wise, how conscious
+of its owner's wide-awake sagacity! Erasmus and Rabelais,--Nature used
+up all her arrows for their quivers, and had to wait a hundred years and
+more before she could find shafts enough for the outfit of Voltaire,
+leaner and keener than Erasmus, and almost as free in his language as
+the audacious creator of Gargantua and Pantagruel.
+
+I have not generally given descriptions of the curious objects which I
+saw in the great houses and museums which I visited. There is, however,
+a work of art at Longford Castle so remarkable that I must speak of it.
+I was so much struck by the enormous amount of skilful ingenuity and
+exquisite workmanship bestowed upon it that I looked up its history,
+which I found in the "Beauties of England and Wales." This is what is
+there said of the wonderful steel chair: "It was made by Thomas Rukers
+at the city of Augsburgh, in the year 1575, and consists of more than
+130 compartments, all occupied by groups of figures representing a
+succession of events in the annals of the Roman Empire, from the landing
+of Aneas to the reign of Rodolphus the Second." It looks as if a life
+had gone into the making of it, as a pair or two of eyes go to the
+working of the bridal veil of an empress.
+
+Fifty years ago and more, when I was at Longford Castle with my two
+companions, who are no more with us, we found there a pleasant, motherly
+old housekeeper, or attendant of some kind, who gave us a draught of
+home-made ale and left a cheerful remembrance with us, as, I need hardly
+say, we did with her, in a materialized expression of our good-will. It
+always rubbed very hard on my feelings to offer money to any persons who
+had served me well, as if they were doing it for their own pleasure. It
+may have been the granddaughter of the kindly old matron of the year
+1833 who showed us round, and possibly, if I had sunk a shaft of
+inquiry, I might have struck a well of sentiment. But
+
+  "Take, O boatman, thrice thy fee,"
+
+carried into practical life, is certain in its financial result to the
+subject of the emotional impulse, but is less sure to call forth a
+tender feeling in the recipient. One will hardly find it worth while to
+go through the world weeping over his old recollections, and paying gold
+instead of silver and silver instead of copper to astonished boatmen and
+bewildered chambermaids.
+
+On Sunday, the 18th of July, we attended morning service at the
+cathedral. The congregation was not proportioned to the size of the
+great edifice. These vast places of worship were built for ages when
+faith was the rule and questioning the exception. I will not say that
+faith has grown cold, but it has cooled from white heat to cherry red or
+a still less flaming color. As to church attendance, I have heard the
+saying attributed to a great statesman, that "once a day is Orthodox,
+but twice a day is Puritan." No doubt many of the same class of people
+that used to fill the churches stay at home and read about evolution or
+telepathy, or whatever new gospel they may have got hold of. Still the
+English seem to me a religious people; they have leisure enough to say
+grace and give thanks before and after meals, and their institutions
+tend to keep alive the feelings of reverence which cannot be said to be
+distinctive of our own people.
+
+In coming out of the cathedral, on the Sunday I just mentioned, a
+gentleman addressed me as a fellow-countryman. There is something,--I
+will not stop now to try and define it,--but there is something by which
+we recognize an American among the English before he speaks and betrays
+his origin. Our new friend proved to be the president of one of our
+American colleges; an intelligent and well-instructed gentleman, of
+course. By the invitation of our host he came in to visit us in the
+evening, and made himself very welcome by his agreeable conversation.
+
+I took great delight in wandering about the old town of Salisbury. There
+are no such surprises in our oldest places as one finds in Chester, or
+Tewkesbury, or Stratford, or Salisbury, and I have no doubt in scores or
+hundreds of similar places which I have never visited. The best
+substitute for such rambles as one can take through these mouldy
+boroughs (or burrows) is to be found in such towns as Salem,
+Newburyport, Portsmouth. Without imagination, Shakespeare's birthplace
+is but a queer old house, and Anne Hathaway's home a tumble-down
+cottage. With it, one can see the witches of Salem Village sailing out
+of those little square windows, which look as if they were made on
+purpose for them, or stroll down to Derby's wharf and gaze at
+"Cleopatra's Barge," precursor of the yachts of the Astors and Goulds
+and Vanderbilts, as she comes swimming into the harbor in all her gilded
+glory. But it must make a difference what the imagination has to work
+upon, and I do not at all wonder that Mr. Ruskin would not wish to live
+in a land where there are no old ruins of castles and monasteries. Man
+will not live on bread only; he wants a great deal more, if he can get
+it,--frosted cake as well as corn-bread; and the New World keeps the
+imagination on plain and scanty diet, compared to the rich traditional
+and historic food which furnishes the banquets of the Old World.
+
+What memories that week in Salisbury and the excursions from it have
+left in my mind's picture gallery! The spire of the great cathedral had
+been with me as a frequent presence during the last fifty years of my
+life, and this second visit has deepened every line of the impression,
+as Old Mortality refreshed the inscriptions on the tombstones of the
+Covenanters. I find that all these pictures which I have brought home
+with me to look at, with
+
+  "that inward eye
+  Which is the bliss of solitude,"
+
+are becoming clearer and brighter as the excitement of overcrowded days
+and weeks gradually calms down. I can _be_ in those places where I
+passed days and nights, and became habituated to the sight of the
+cathedral, or of the Church of the Holy Trinity, at morning, at noon, at
+evening, whenever I turned my eyes in its direction. I often close my
+eyelids, and startle my household by saying, "Now I am in Salisbury," or
+"Now I am in Stratford." It is a blessed thing to be able, in the
+twilight of years, to illuminate the soul with such visions. The
+Charles, which flows beneath my windows, which I look upon between the
+words of the sentence I am now writing, only turning my head as I sit at
+my table,--the Charles is hardly more real to me than Shakespeare's
+Avon, since I floated on its still waters, or strayed along its banks
+and saw the cows reflected in the smooth expanse, their legs upward, as
+if they were walking the skies as the flies walk the ceiling. Salisbury
+Cathedral stands as substantial in my thought as our own King's Chapel,
+since I slumbered by its side, and arose in the morning to find it still
+there, and not one of those unsubstantial fabrics built by the architect
+of dreams.
+
+On Thursday, the 22d of July, we left Salisbury for Brighton, where we
+were to be guests at Arnold House, the residence of our kind host. Here
+we passed another delightful week, with everything around us to
+contribute to our quiet comfort and happiness. The most thoughtful of
+entertainers, a house filled with choice works of art, fine paintings,
+and wonderful pottery, pleasant walks and drives, a visitor now and
+then, Mr. and Mrs. Goldwin Smith among the number, rest and peace in a
+magnificent city built for enjoyment,--what more could we have asked to
+make our visit memorable? Many watering-places look forlorn and desolate
+in the intervals of "the season." This was not the time of Brighton's
+influx of visitors, but the city was far from dull. The houses are very
+large, and have the grand air, as if meant for princes; the shops are
+well supplied; the salt breeze comes in fresh and wholesome, and the
+noble esplanade is lively with promenaders and Bath chairs, some of them
+occupied by people evidently ill or presumably lame, some, I suspect,
+employed by healthy invalids who are too lazy to walk. I took one
+myself, drawn by an old man, to see how I liked it, and found it very
+convenient, but I was tempted to ask him to change places and let me
+drag him.
+
+With the aid of the guide-book I could describe the wonders of the
+pavilion and the various changes which have come over the great
+watering-place. The grand walks, the two piers, the aquarium, and all
+the great sights which are shown to strangers deserve full attention
+from the tourist who writes for other travellers, but none of these
+things seem to me so interesting as what we saw and heard in a little
+hamlet which has never, so far as I know, been vulgarized by sightseers.
+We drove in an open carriage,--Mr. and Mrs. Willett, A----, and
+myself,--into the country, which soon became bare, sparsely settled, a
+long succession of rounded hills and hollows. These are the South Downs,
+from which comes the famous mutton known all over England, not unknown
+at the table of our Saturday Club and other well-spread boards. After a
+drive of ten miles or more we arrived at a little "settlement," as we
+Americans would call it, and drove up to the door of a modest parsonage,
+where dwells the shepherd of the South Down flock of Christian
+worshippers. I hope that the good clergyman, if he ever happens to see
+what I am writing, will pardon me for making mention of his hidden
+retreat, which he himself speaks of as "one of the remoter nooks of the
+old country." Nothing I saw in England brought to my mind Goldsmith's
+picture of "the man to all the country dear," and his surroundings, like
+this visit. The church dates, if I remember right, from the thirteenth
+century. Some of its stones show marks, as it is thought, of having
+belonged to a Saxon edifice. The massive leaden font is of a very great
+antiquity. In the wall of the church is a narrow opening, at which the
+priest is supposed to have sat and listened to the confession of the
+sinner on the outside of the building. The dead lie all around the
+church, under stones bearing the dates of several centuries. One
+epitaph, which the unlettered Muse must have dictated, is worth
+recording. After giving the chief slumberer's name the epitaph adds,--
+
+  "Here lies on either side, the remains of each of his former wives."
+
+Those of a third have found a resting-place close by, behind him.
+
+It seemed to me that Mr. Bunner's young man in search of Arcady might
+look for it here with as good a chance of being satisfied as anywhere I
+can think of. But I suppose that men and women and especially boys,
+would prove to be a good deal like the rest of the world, if one lived
+here long enough to learn all about them. One thing I can safely
+say,--an English man or boy never goes anywhere without his fists. I saw
+a boy of ten or twelve years, whose pleasant face attracted my
+attention. I said to the rector, "That is a fine-looking little fellow,
+and I should think an intelligent and amiable kind of boy." "Yes," he
+said, "yes; he can strike from the shoulder pretty well, too. I had to
+stop him the other day, indulging in that exercise." Well, I said to
+myself, we have not yet reached the heaven on earth which I was fancying
+might be embosomed in this peaceful-looking hollow. Youthful angels can
+hardly be in the habit of striking from the shoulder. But the well-known
+phrase, belonging to the pugilist rather than to the priest, brought me
+back from the ideal world into which my imagination had wandered.
+
+Our week at Brighton was passed in a very quiet but most enjoyable way.
+It could not be otherwise with such a host and hostess, always arranging
+everything with reference to our well-being and in accordance with our
+wishes. I became very fond of the esplanade, such a public walk as I
+never saw anything to compare with. In these tranquil days, and long,
+honest nights of sleep, the fatigues of what we had been through were
+forgotten, the scales showed that we were becoming less ethereal every
+day, and we were ready for another move.
+
+We bade good-by to our hosts with the most grateful and the warmest
+feeling towards them, after a month of delightful companionship and the
+experience of a hospitality almost too generous to accept, but which
+they were pleased to look upon as if we were doing them a favor.
+
+On the 29th of July we found ourselves once more in London.
+
+
+
+
+VI.
+
+
+We found our old quarters all ready and awaiting us. Mrs. Mackellar's
+motherly smile, Sam's civil bow, and the rosy cheeks of many-buttoned
+Robert made us feel at home as soon as we crossed the threshold.
+
+The dissolution of Parliament had brought "the season" abruptly to an
+end. London was empty. There were three or four millions of people in
+it, but the great houses were for the most part left without occupants
+except their liveried guardians. We kept as quiet as possible, to avoid
+all engagements. For now we were in London for London itself, to do
+shopping, to see sights, to be our own master and mistress, and to live
+as independent a life as we possibly could.
+
+The first thing we did on the day of our arrival was to take a hansom
+and drive over to Chelsea, to look at the place where Carlyle passed the
+larger part of his life. The whole region about him must have been
+greatly changed during his residence there, for the Thames Embankment
+was constructed long after he removed to Chelsea. We had some little
+difficulty in finding the place we were in search of. Cheyne (pronounced
+"Chainie") Walk is a somewhat extended range of buildings. Cheyne Row is
+a passage which reminded me a little of my old habitat, Montgomery
+Place, now Bosworth Street. Presently our attention was drawn to a
+marble medallion portrait on the corner building of an ordinary-looking
+row of houses. This was the head of Carlyle, and an inscription informed
+us that he lived for forty-seven years in the house No. 24 of this row
+of buildings. Since Carlyle's home life has been made public, he has
+appeared to us in a different aspect from the ideal one which he had
+before occupied. He did not show to as much advantage under the
+Boswellizing process as the dogmatist of the last century, dear old Dr.
+Johnson. But he remains not the less one of the really interesting men
+of his generation, a man about whom we wish to know all that we have a
+right to know.
+
+The sight of an old nest over which two or three winters have passed is
+a rather saddening one. The dingy three-story brick house in which
+Carlyle lived, one in a block of similar houses, was far from
+attractive. It was untenanted, neglected; its windows were unwashed, a
+pane of glass was broken; its threshold appeared untrodden, its whole
+aspect forlorn and desolate. Yet there it stood before me, all covered
+with its associations as an ivy-clad tower with its foliage. I wanted to
+see its interior, but it looked as if it did not expect a tenant and
+would not welcome a visitor. Was there nothing but this forbidding
+house-front to make the place alive with some breathing memory? I saw
+crossing the street a middle-aged woman,--a decent body, who looked as
+if she might have come from the lower level of some not opulent but
+respectable household. She might have some recollection of an old man
+who was once her neighbor. I asked her if she remembered Mr. Carlyle.
+Indeed she did, she told us. She used to see him often, in front of his
+house, putting bits of bread on the railing for the birds. He did not
+like to see anything wasted, she said. The merest scrap of information,
+but genuine and pleasing; an instantaneous photograph only, but it makes
+a pretty vignette in the volume of my reminiscences. There are many
+considerable men in every generation of mankind, but not a great number
+who are personally interesting,--not a great many of whom we feel that
+we cannot know too much; whose foibles, even, we care to know about;
+whose shortcomings we try to excuse; who are not models, but whose
+special traits make them attractive. Carlyle is one of these few, and no
+revelations can prevent his interesting us. He was not quite finished in
+his parental existence. The bricklayer's mortar of his father's calling
+stuck to his fingers through life, but only as the soil he turned with
+his ploughshare clung to the fingers of Burns. We do not wish either to
+have been other than what he was. Their breeding brings them to the
+average level, carries them more nearly to the heart, makes them a
+simpler expression of our common humanity. As we rolled in the cars by
+Ecclefechan, I strained my eyes to take in every point of the landscape,
+every cottage, every spire, if by any chance I could find one in that
+lonely region. There was not a bridge nor a bit of masonry of any kind
+that I did not eagerly scrutinize, to see if it were solid and honest
+enough to have been built by Carlyle's father. Solitary enough the
+country looked. I admired Mr. Emerson's devotion in seeking his friend
+in his bare home among what he describes as the "desolate heathery
+hills" about Craigenputtock, which were, I suppose, much like the region
+through which we were passing.
+
+It is one of the regrets of my life that I never saw or heard Carlyle.
+Nature, who seems to be fond of trios, has given us three dogmatists,
+all of whom greatly interested their own generation, and whose
+personality, especially in the case of the first and the last of the
+trio, still interests us,--Johnson, Coleridge, and Carlyle. Each was an
+oracle in his way, but unfortunately oracles are fallible to their
+descendants. The author of "Taxation no Tyranny" had wholesale opinions,
+and pretty harsh ones, about us Americans, and did not soften them in
+expression: "Sir, they are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful
+for anything we allow them short of hanging." We smile complacently when
+we read this outburst, which Mr. Croker calls in question, but which
+agrees with his saying in the presence of Miss Seward, "I am willing to
+love all mankind _except an American_."
+
+A generation or two later comes along Coleridge, with his circle of
+reverential listeners. He says of Johnson that his fame rests
+principally upon Boswell, and that "his _bow-wow_ manner must have
+had a good deal to do with the effect produced." As to Coleridge
+himself, his contemporaries hardly know how to set bounds to their
+exaltation of his genius. Dibdin comes pretty near going into rhetorical
+hysterics in reporting a conversation of Coleridge's to which he
+listened: "The auditors seemed to be wrapt in wonder and delight, as one
+observation more profound, or clothed in more forcible language, than
+another fell from his tongue.... As I retired homeward I thought a
+SECOND JOHNSON had visited the earth to make wise the sons of men." And
+De Quincey speaks of him as "the largest and most spacious intellect,
+the subtlest and most comprehensive, in my judgment, that has yet
+existed amongst men." One is sometimes tempted to wish that the
+superlative could be abolished, or its use allowed only to old experts.
+What are men to do when they get to heaven, after having exhausted their
+vocabulary of admiration on earth?
+
+Now let us come down to Carlyle, and see what he says of Coleridge. We
+need not take those conversational utterances which called down the
+wrath of Mr. Swinburne, and found expression in an epigram which
+violates all the proprieties of literary language. Look at the
+full-length portrait in the Life of Sterling. Each oracle denies his
+predecessor, each magician breaks the wand of the one who went before
+him. There were Americans enough ready to swear by Carlyle until he
+broke his staff in meddling with our anti-slavery conflict, and buried
+it so many fathoms deep that it could never be fished out again. It is
+rather singular that Johnson and Carlyle should each of them have
+shipwrecked his sagacity and shown a terrible leak in his moral
+sensibilities on coming in contact with American rocks and currents,
+with which neither had any special occasion to concern himself, and
+which both had a great deal better have steered clear of.
+
+But here I stand once more before the home of the long-suffering,
+much-laboring, loud-complaining Heraclitus of his time, whose very smile
+had a grimness in it more ominous than his scowl. Poor man! Dyspeptic on
+a diet of oatmeal porridge; kept wide awake by crowing cocks; drummed
+out of his wits by long-continued piano-pounding; sharp of speech, I
+fear, to his high-strung wife, who gave him back as good as she got! I
+hope I am mistaken about their everyday relations, but again I say, poor
+man!--for all his complaining must have meant real discomfort, which a
+man of genius feels not less, certainly, than a common mortal.
+
+I made a second visit to the place where he lived, but I saw nothing
+more than at the first. I wanted to cross the threshold over which he
+walked so often, to see the noise-proof room in which he used to write,
+to look at the chimney-place down which the soot came, to sit where he
+used to sit and smoke his pipe, and to conjure up his wraith to look in
+once more upon his old deserted dwelling. That vision was denied me.
+
+After visiting Chelsea we drove round through Regent's Park. I suppose
+that if we use the superlative in speaking of Hyde Park, Regent's Park
+will be the comparative, and Battersea Park the positive, ranking them
+in the descending grades of their hierarchy. But this is my conjecture
+only, and the social geography of London is a subject which only one who
+has become familiarly acquainted with the place should speak of with any
+confidence. A stranger coming to our city might think it made little
+difference whether his travelling Boston acquaintance lived in Alpha
+Avenue or in Omega Square, but he would have to learn that it is farther
+from one of these places to the other, a great deal farther, than it is
+from Beacon Street, Boston, to Fifth Avenue, New York.
+
+An American finds it a little galling to be told that he must not drive
+in his _numbered_ hansom or four-wheeler except in certain portions
+of Hyde Park. If he is rich enough to keep his own carriage, or if he
+will pay the extra price of a vehicle not vulgarized by being on the
+numbered list, he may drive anywhere that his Grace or his Lordship
+does, and perhaps have a mean sense of satisfaction at finding himself
+in the charmed circle of exclusive "gigmanity." It is a pleasure to meet
+none but well-dressed and well-mannered people, in well-appointed
+equipages. In the high road of our own country, one is liable to fall in
+with people and conveyances that it is far from a pleasure to meet. I
+was once driving in an open carriage, with members of my family, towards
+my own house in the country town where I was then living. A cart drawn
+by oxen was in the road in front of us. Whenever we tried to pass, the
+men in it turned obliquely across the road and prevented us, and this
+was repeated again and again. I could have wished I had been driving in
+Hyde Park, where clowns and boors, with their carts and oxen, do not
+find admittance. Exclusiveness has its conveniences.
+
+The next day, as I was strolling through Burlington Arcade, I saw a
+figure just before me which I recognized as that of my townsman, Mr.
+Abbott Lawrence. He was accompanied by his son, who had just returned
+from a trip round the planet. There are three grades of recognition,
+entirely distinct from each other: the meeting of two persons of
+different countries who speak the same language,--an American and an
+Englishman, for instance; the meeting of two Americans from different
+cities, as of a Bostonian and a New Yorker or a Chicagonian; and the
+meeting of two from the same city, as of two Bostonians.
+
+The difference of these recognitions may be illustrated by supposing
+certain travelling philosophical instruments, endowed with intelligence
+and the power of speech, to come together in their wanderings,--let us
+say in a restaurant of the Palais Royal. "Very hot," says the talking
+Fahrenheit (Thermometer) from Boston, and calls for an ice, which he
+plunges his bulb into and cools down. In comes an intelligent and
+socially disposed English Barometer. The two travellers greet each
+other, not exactly as old acquaintances, but each has heard very
+frequently about the other, and their relatives have been often
+associated. "We have a good deal in common," says the Barometer. "Of the
+same blood, as we may say; quicksilver is thicker than water." "Yes,"
+says the little Fahrenheit, "and we are both of the same mercurial
+temperament." While their columns are dancing up and down with laughter
+at this somewhat tepid and low-pressure pleasantry, there come in a New
+York Reaumur and a Centigrade from Chicago. The Fahrenheit, which has
+got warmed up to _temperate_, rises to _summer heat_, and even
+a little above it. They enjoy each other's company mightily. To be sure,
+their scales differ, but have they not the same freezing and the same
+boiling point? To be sure, each thinks his own scale is the true
+standard, and at home they might get into a contest about the matter,
+but here in a strange land they do not think of disputing. Now, while
+they are talking about America and their own local atmosphere and
+temperature, there comes in a second Boston Fahrenheit. The two of the
+same name look at each other for a moment, and rush together so eagerly
+that their bulbs are endangered. How well they understand each other!
+Thirty-two degrees marks the freezing point. Two hundred and twelve
+marks the boiling point. They have the same scale, the same fixed
+points, the same record: no wonder they prefer each other's company!
+
+I hope that my reader has followed my illustration, and finished it off
+for himself. Let me give a few practical examples. An American and an
+Englishman meet in a foreign land. The Englishman has occasion to
+mention his weight, which he finds has gained in the course of his
+travels. "How much is it now?" asks the American. "Fourteen stone. How
+much do you weigh?" "Within four pounds of two hundred." Neither of them
+takes at once any clear idea of what the other weighs. The American has
+never thought of his own, or his friends', or anybody's weight in
+_stones_ of fourteen pounds. The Englishman has never thought of
+any one's weight in _pounds_. They can calculate very easily with a
+slip of paper and a pencil, but not the less is their language but half
+intelligible as they speak and listen. The same thing is in a measure
+true of other matters they talk about. "It is about as large a space as
+the Common," says the Boston man. "It is as large as St. James's Park,"
+says the Londoner. "As high as the State House," says the Bostonian, or
+"as tall as Bunker Hill Monument," or "about as big as the Frog Pond,"
+where the Londoner would take St. Paul's, the Nelson Column, the
+Serpentine, as his standard of comparison. The difference of scale does
+not stop here; it runs through a great part of the objects of thought
+and conversation. An average American and an average Englishman are
+talking together, and one of them speaks of the beauty of a field of
+corn. They are thinking of two entirely different objects: one of a
+billowy level of soft waving wheat, or rye, or barley; the other of a
+rustling forest of tall, jointed stalks, tossing their plumes and
+showing their silken epaulettes, as if every stem in the ordered ranks
+were a soldier in full regimentals. An Englishman planted for the first
+time in the middle of a well-grown field of Indian corn would feel as
+much lost as the babes in the wood. Conversation between two Londoners,
+two New Yorkers, two Bostonians, requires no foot-notes, which is a
+great advantage in their intercourse.
+
+To return from my digression and my illustration. I did not do a great
+deal of shopping myself while in London, being contented to have it done
+for me. But in the way of looking in at shop windows I did a very large
+business. Certain windows attracted me by a variety in unity which
+surpassed anything I have been accustomed to. Thus one window showed
+every conceivable convenience that could be shaped in ivory, and nothing
+else. One shop had such a display of magnificent dressing-cases that I
+should have thought a whole royal family was setting out on its travels.
+I see the cost of one of them is two hundred and seventy guineas.
+Thirteen hundred and fifty dollars seems a good deal to pay for a
+dressing-case.
+
+On the other hand, some of the first-class tradesmen and workmen make no
+show whatever. The tailor to whom I had credentials, and who proved
+highly satisfactory to me, as he had proved to some of my countrymen and
+to Englishmen of high estate, had only one small sign, which was placed
+in one of his windows, and received his customers in a small room that
+would have made a closet for one of our stylish merchant tailors. The
+bootmaker to whom I went on good recommendation had hardly anything
+about his premises to remind one of his calling. He came into his
+studio, took my measure very carefully, and made me a pair of what we
+call Congress boots, which fitted well when once on my feet, but which
+it cost more trouble to get into and to get out of than I could express
+my feelings about without dangerously enlarging my limited vocabulary.
+
+Bond Street, Old and New, offered the most inviting windows, and I
+indulged almost to profligacy in the prolonged inspection of their
+contents. Stretching my walk along New Bond Street till I came to a
+great intersecting thoroughfare, I found myself in Oxford Street. Here
+the character of the shop windows changed at once. Utility and
+convenience took the place of show and splendor. Here I found various
+articles of use in a household, some of which were new to me. It is very
+likely that I could have found most of them in our own Boston Cornhill,
+but one often overlooks things at home which at once arrest his
+attention when he sees them in a strange place. I saw great numbers of
+illuminating contrivances, some of which pleased me by their arrangement
+of reflectors.
+
+Bryant and May's safety matches seemed to be used everywhere. I procured
+some in Boston with these names on the box, but the label said they were
+made in Sweden, and they diffused vapors that were enough to produce
+asphyxia. I greatly admired some of Dr. Dresser's water-cans and other
+contrivances, modelled more or less after the antique, but I found an
+abundant assortment of them here in Boston, and I have one I obtained
+here more original in design and more serviceable in daily use than any
+I saw in London. I should have regarded Wolverhampton, as we glided
+through it, with more interest, if I had known at that time that the
+inventive Dr. Dresser had his headquarters in that busy-looking town.
+
+One thing, at least, I learned from my London experience: better a small
+city where one knows all it has to offer, than a great city where one
+has no disinterested friend to direct him to the right places to find
+what he wants. But of course there are some grand magazines which are
+known all the world over, and which no one should leave London without
+entering as a looker-on, if not as a purchaser.
+
+There was one place I determined to visit, and one man I meant to see,
+before returning. The place was a certain book-store or book-shop, and
+the person was its proprietor, Mr. Bernard Quaritch. I was getting very
+much pressed for time, and I allowed ten minutes only for my visit. I
+never had any dealings with Mr. Quaritch, but one of my near relatives
+had, and I had often received his catalogues, the scale of prices in
+which had given me an impression almost of sublimity. I found Mr.
+Bernard Quaritch at No. 15 Piccadilly, and introduced myself, not as one
+whose name he must know, but rather as a stranger, of whom he might have
+heard through my relative. The extensive literature of catalogues is
+probably little known to most of my readers. I do not pretend to claim a
+thorough acquaintance with it, but I know the luxury of reading good
+catalogues, and such are those of Mr. Quaritch. I should like to deal
+with him; for if he wants a handsome price for what he sells, he knows
+its value, and does not offer the refuse of old libraries, but, on the
+other hand, all that is most precious in them is pretty sure to pass
+through his hands, sooner or later.
+
+"Now, Mr. Quaritch," I said, after introducing myself, "I have ten
+minutes to pass with you. You must not open a book; if you do I am lost,
+for I shall have to look at every illuminated capital, from the first
+leaf to the colophon." Mr. Quaritch did not open a single book, but let
+me look round his establishment, and answered my questions very
+courteously. It so happened that while I was there a gentleman came in
+whom I had previously met,--my namesake, Mr. Holmes, the Queen's
+librarian at Windsor Castle. My ten minutes passed very rapidly in
+conversation with these two experts in books, the bibliopole and the
+bibliothecary. No place that I visited made me feel more thoroughly that
+I was in London, the great central mart of all that is most precious in
+the world.
+
+_Leave at home all your guineas, ye who enter here_, would be a
+good motto to put over his door, unless you have them in plenty and can
+spare them, in which case _Take all your guineas with you_ would be
+a better one. For you can here get their equivalent, and more than their
+equivalent, in the choicest products of the press and the finest work of
+the illuminator, the illustrator, and the binder. You will be sorely
+tempted. But do not be surprised when you ask the price of the volume
+you may happen to fancy. You are not dealing with a _bouquiniste_
+of the Quais, in Paris. You are not foraging in an old book-shop of New
+York or Boston. Do not suppose that I undervalue these dealers in old and
+rare volumes. Many a much-prized rarity have I obtained from Drake and
+Burnham and others of my townsmen, and from Denham in New York; and
+in my student years many a choice volume, sometimes even an Aldus or
+an Elzevir, have I found among the trumpery spread out on the parapets
+of the quays. But there is a difference between going out on the Fourth
+of July with a militia musket to shoot any catbird or "chipmunk" that
+turns up in a piece of woods within a few miles of our own cities, and
+shooting partridges in a nobleman's preserves on the First of September.
+I confess to having felt a certain awe on entering the precincts made
+sacred by their precious contents. The lord and master of so many
+_Editiones Principes_, the guardian of this great nursery full of
+_incunabula_, did not seem to me like a simple tradesman. I felt that
+I was in the presence of the literary purveyor of royal and imperial
+libraries, the man before whom millionaires tremble as they calculate,
+and billionaires pause and consider. I have recently received two of Mr.
+Quaritch's catalogues, from which I will give my reader an extract or two,
+to show him what kind of articles this prince of bibliopoles deals in.
+
+Perhaps you would like one of those romances which turned the head of
+Don Quixote. Here is a volume which will be sure to please you. It is on
+one of his lesser lists, confined principally to Spanish and Portuguese
+works:--
+
+"Amadis de Gaula ... folio, gothic letter, FIRST EDITION, unique ... red
+morocco super extra, _double_ with olive morocco, richly gilt,
+tooled to an elegant Grolier design, gilt edges ... in a neat case."
+
+A pretty present for a scholarly friend. A nice old book to carry home
+for one's own library. Two hundred pounds--one thousand dollars--will
+make you the happy owner of this volume.
+
+But if you would have also on your shelves the first edition of the
+"Cronica del famoso cabaluero cid Ruy Diaz Campadero," not "richly
+gilt," not even bound in leather, but in "cloth boards," you will have
+to pay two hundred and ten pounds to become its proprietor. After this
+you will not be frightened by the thought of paying three hundred
+dollars for a little quarto giving an account of the Virginia
+Adventurers. You will not shrink from the idea of giving something more
+than a hundred guineas for a series of Hogarth's plates. But when it
+comes to Number 1001 in the May catalogue, and you see that if you would
+possess a first folio Shakespeare, "untouched by the hand of any modern
+renovator," you must be prepared to pay seven hundred and eighty-five
+pounds, almost four thousand dollars, for the volume, it would not be
+surprising if you changed color and your knees shook under you. No doubt
+some brave man will be found to carry off that prize, in spite of the
+golden battery which defends it, perhaps to Cincinnati, or Chicago, or
+San Francisco. But do not be frightened. These Alpine heights of
+extravagance climb up from the humble valley where shillings and
+sixpences are all that are required to make you a purchaser.
+
+One beauty of the Old World shops is that if a visitor comes back to the
+place where he left them fifty years before, he finds them, or has a
+great chance of finding them, just where they stood at his former visit.
+In driving down to the old city, to the place of business of the
+Barings, I found many streets little changed. Temple Bar was gone, and
+the much-abused griffin stood in its place. There was a shop close to
+Temple Bar, where, in 1834, I had bought some brushes. I had no
+difficulty in finding Prout's, and I could not do less than go in and
+buy some more brushes. I did not ask the young man who served me how the
+old shopkeeper who attended to my wants on the earlier occasion was at
+this time. But I thought what a different color the locks these brushes
+smooth show from those that knew their predecessors in the earlier
+decade!
+
+I ought to have made a second visit to the Tower, so tenderly spoken of
+by Artemus Ward as "a sweet boon," so vividly remembered by me as the
+scene of a personal encounter with one of the animals then kept in the
+Tower menagerie. But the project added a stone to the floor of the
+underground thoroughfare which is paved with good intentions.
+
+St. Paul's I must and did visit. The most striking addition since I was
+there is the massive monument to the Duke of Wellington. The great
+temple looked rather bare and unsympathetic. Poor Dr. Johnson, sitting
+in semi-nude exposure, looked to me as unhappy as our own half-naked
+Washington at the national capital. The Judas of Matthew Arnold's poem
+would have cast his cloak over those marble shoulders, if he had found
+himself in St. Paul's, and have earned another respite. We brought away
+little, I fear, except the grand effect of the dome as we looked up at
+it. It gives us a greater idea of height than the sky itself, which we
+have become used to looking upon.
+
+A second visit to the National Gallery was made in company with A----.
+It was the repetition of an attempt at a draught from the Cup of
+Tantalus. I was glad of a sight of the Botticellis, of which I had heard
+so much, and others of the more recently acquired paintings of the great
+masters; of a sweeping glance at the Turners; of a look at the
+well-remembered Hogarths and the memorable portraits by Sir Joshua. I
+carried away a confused mass of impressions, much as the soldiers that
+sack a city go off with all the precious things they can snatch up,
+huddled into clothes-bags and pillow-cases. I am reminded, too, of Mr.
+Galton's composite portraits; a thousand glimpses, as one passes through
+the long halls lined with paintings, all blending in one not unpleasing
+general effect, out of which emerges from time to time some single
+distinct image.
+
+In the same way we passed through the exhibition of paintings at the
+Royal Academy. I noticed that A---- paid special attention to the
+portraits of young ladies by John Sargent and by Collier, while I was
+more particularly struck with the startling portrait of an ancient
+personage in a full suit of wrinkles, such as Rembrandt used to bring
+out with wonderful effect. Hunting in couples is curious and
+instructive; the scent for this or that kind of game is sure to be very
+different in the two individuals.
+
+I made but two brief visits to the British Museum, and I can easily
+instruct my reader so that he will have no difficulty, if he will follow
+my teaching, in learning how not to see it. When he has a spare hour at
+his disposal, let him drop in at the Museum, and wander among its books
+and its various collections. He will know as much about it as the fly
+that buzzes in at one window and out at another. If I were asked whether
+I brought away anything from my two visits, I should say, Certainly I
+did. The fly sees some things, not very intelligently, but he cannot
+help seeing them. The great round reading-room, with its silent
+students, impressed me very much. I looked at once for the Elgin
+Marbles, but casts and photographs and engravings had made me familiar
+with their chief features. I thought I knew something of the sculptures
+brought from Nineveh, but I was astonished, almost awe-struck, at the
+sight of those mighty images which mingled with the visions of the
+Hebrew prophets. I did not marvel more at the skill and labor expended
+upon them by the Assyrian artists than I did at the enterprise and
+audacity which had brought them safely from the mounds under which they
+were buried to the light of day and the heart of a great modern city. I
+never thought that I should live to see the Birs Nimroud laid open, and
+the tablets in which the history of Nebuchadnezzar was recorded spread
+before me. The Empire of the Spade in the world of history was founded
+at Nineveh by Layard, a great province added to it by Schliemann, and
+its boundary extended by numerous explorers, some of whom are diligently
+at work at the present day. I feel very grateful that many of its
+revelations have been made since I have been a tenant of the travelling
+residence which holds so many secrets in its recesses.
+
+There is one lesson to be got from a visit of an hour or two to the
+British Museum,--namely, the fathomless abyss of our own ignorance. One
+is almost ashamed of his little paltry heartbeats in the presence of the
+rushing and roaring torrent of Niagara. So if he has published a little
+book or two, collected a few fossils, or coins, or vases, he is crushed
+by the vastness of the treasures in the library and the collections of
+this universe of knowledge.
+
+I have shown how not to see the British museum; I will tell how to see
+it.
+
+Take lodgings next door to it,--in a garret, if you cannot afford
+anything better,--and pass all your days at the Museum during the whole
+period of your natural life. At threescore and ten you will have some
+faint conception of the contents, significance, and value of this great
+British institution, which is as nearly as any one spot the _noeud
+vital_ of human civilization, a stab at which by the dagger of
+anarchy would fitly begin the reign of chaos.
+
+On the 3d of August, a gentleman, Mr. Wedmore, who had promised to be my
+guide to certain interesting localities, called for me, and we took a
+hansom for the old city. The first place we visited was the Temple, a
+collection of buildings with intricate passages between them, some of
+the edifices reminding me of our college dormitories. One, however, was
+a most extraordinary exception,--the wonderful Temple church, or rather
+the ancient part of it which is left, the round temple. We had some
+trouble to get into it, but at last succeeded in finding a slip of a
+girl, the daughter of the janitor, who unlocked the door for us. It
+affected my imagination strangely to see this girl of a dozen years old,
+or thereabouts, moving round among the monuments which had kept their
+place there for some six or seven hundred years; for the church was
+built in the year 1185, and the most recent of the crusaders' monuments
+is said to date as far back as 1241. Their effigies have lain in this
+vast city, and passed unharmed through all its convulsions. The Great
+Fire must have crackled very loud in their stony ears, and they must
+have shaken day and night, as the bodies of the victims of the Plague
+were rattled over the pavements.
+
+Near the Temple church, in a green spot among the buildings, a plain
+stone laid flat on the turf bears these words: "Here lies Oliver
+Goldsmith." I believe doubt has been thrown upon the statement that
+Goldsmith was buried in that place, but, as some poet ought to have
+written,
+
+  Where doubt is disenchantment
+  'Tis wisdom to believe.
+
+We do not "drop a tear" so often as our Della Cruscan predecessors, but
+the memory of the author of the "Vicar of Wakefield" stirred my feelings
+more than a whole army of crusaders would have done. A pretty rough set
+of filibusters they were, no doubt.
+
+The whole group to which Goldsmith belonged came up before me, and as
+the centre of that group the great Dr. Johnson; not the Johnson of the
+"Rambler," or of "The Vanity of Human Wishes," or even of "Rasselas,"
+but Boswell's Johnson, dear to all of us, the "Grand Old Man" of his
+time, whose foibles we care more for than for most great men's virtues.
+Fleet Street, which he loved so warmly, was close by. Bolt Court,
+entered from it, where he lived for many of his last years, and where he
+died, was the next place to visit. I found Fleet Street a good deal like
+Washington Street as I remember it in former years. When I came to the
+place pointed out as Bolt Court, I could hardly believe my eyes that so
+celebrated a place of residence should be entered by so humble a
+passageway. I was very sorry to find that No. 3, where he lived, was
+demolished, and a new building erected in its place. In one of the other
+houses in this court he is said to have labored on his dictionary. Near
+by was a building of mean aspect, in which Goldsmith is said to have at
+one time resided. But my kind conductor did not profess to be well
+acquainted with the local antiquities of this quarter of London.
+
+If I had a long future before me, I should like above all things to
+study London with a dark lantern, so to speak, myself in deepest shadow
+and all I wanted to see in clearest light. Then I should want time,
+time, time. For it is a sad fact that sight-seeing as commonly done is
+one of the most wearying things in the world, and takes the life out of
+any but the sturdiest or the most elastic natures more efficiently than
+would a reasonable amount of daily exercise on a treadmill. In my
+younger days I used to find that a visit to the gallery of the Louvre
+was followed by more fatigue and exhaustion than the same amount of time
+spent in walking the wards of a hospital.
+
+Another grand sight there was, not to be overlooked, namely, the
+Colonial Exhibition. The popularity of this immense show was very great,
+and we found ourselves, A---- and I, in the midst of a vast throng, made
+up of respectable and comfortable looking people. It was not strange
+that the multitude flocked to this exhibition. There was a jungle, with
+its (stuffed) monsters,--tigers, serpents, elephants; there were
+carvings which may well have cost a life apiece, and stuffs which none
+but an empress or a millionairess would dare to look at. All the arts of
+the East were there in their perfection, and some of the artificers were
+at their work. We had to content ourselves with a mere look at all these
+wonders. It was a pity; instead of going to these fine shows tired,
+sleepy, wanting repose more than anything else, we should have come to
+them fresh, in good condition, and had many days at our disposal. I
+learned more in a visit to the Japanese exhibition in Boston than I
+should have learned in half a dozen half-awake strolls through this
+multitudinous and most imposing collection of all
+
+  "The gorgeous East with richest hand
+  Showers on her kings,"
+
+and all the masterpieces of its wonder-working artisans.
+
+One of the last visits we paid before leaving London for a week in Paris
+was to the South Kensington Museum. Think of the mockery of giving one
+hour to such a collection of works of art and wonders of all kinds! Why
+should I consider it worth while to say that we went there at all? All
+manner of objects succeeded each other in a long series of dissolving
+views, so to speak, nothing or next to nothing having a chance to leave
+its individual impress. In the battle for life which took place in my
+memory, as it always does among the multitude of claimants for a
+permanent hold, I find that two objects came out survivors of the
+contest. The first is the noble cast of the column of Trajan, vast in
+dimensions, crowded with history in its most striking and enduring form;
+a long array of figures representing in unquestioned realism the
+military aspect of a Roman army. The second case of survival is thus
+described in the catalogue: "An altar or shrine of a female saint,
+recently acquired from Padua, is also ascribed to the same sculptor
+[Donatello]. This very valuable work of art had for many years been used
+as a drinking-trough for horses. A hole has been roughly pierced in it."
+I thought the figure was the most nearly perfect image of heavenly
+womanhood that I had ever looked upon, and I could have gladly given my
+whole hour to sitting--I could almost say kneeling--before it in silent
+contemplation. I found the curator of the Museum, Mr. Soden Smith,
+shared my feelings with reference to the celestial loveliness of this
+figure. Which is best, to live in a country where such a work of art is
+taken for a horse-trough, or in a country where the products from the
+studio of a self-taught handicraftsman, equal to the shaping of a
+horse-trough and not much more, are put forward as works of art?
+
+A little time before my visit to England, before I had even thought of
+it as a possibility, I had the honor of having two books dedicated to me
+by two English brother physicians. One of these two gentlemen was Dr.
+Walshe, of whom I shall speak hereafter; the other was Dr. J. Milner
+Fothergill. The name Fothergill was familiar to me from my boyhood. My
+old townsman, Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse, who died in 1846 at the age of
+ninety-two, had a great deal to say about his relative Dr. John
+Fothergill, the famous Quaker physician of the last century, of whom
+Benjamin Franklin said, "I can hardly conceive that a better man ever
+existed." Dr. and Mrs. Fothergill sent us some beautiful flowers a
+little before we left, and when I visited him he gave me a medallion of
+his celebrated kinsman.
+
+London is a place of mysteries. Looking out of one of the windows at the
+back of Dr. Fothergill's house, I saw an immense wooden blind, such as
+we have on our windows in summer, but reaching from the ground as high
+as the top of the neighboring houses. While admitting the air freely, it
+shut the property to which it belonged completely from sight. I asked
+the meaning of this extraordinary structure, and learned that it was put
+up by a great nobleman, of whose subterranean palace and strange
+seclusion I had before heard. Common report attributed his unwillingness
+to be seen to a disfiguring malady with which he was said to be
+afflicted. The story was that he was visible only to his valet. But a
+lady of quality, whom I met in this country, told me she had seen him,
+and observed nothing to justify it. These old countries are full of
+romances and legends and _diableries_ of all sorts, in which truth
+and lies are so mixed that one does not know what to believe. What
+happens behind the high walls of the old cities is as much a secret as
+were the doings inside the prisons of the Inquisition.
+
+Little mistakes sometimes cause us a deal of trouble. This time it was
+the presence or absence of a single letter which led us to fear that an
+important package destined to America had miscarried. There were two
+gentlemen unwittingly involved in the confusion. On inquiring for the
+package at Messrs. Low, the publishers, Mr. Watts, to whom I thought it
+had been consigned, was summoned. He knew nothing about it, had never
+heard of it, was evidently utterly ignorant of us and our affairs. While
+we were in trouble and uncertainty, our Boston friend, Mr. James R.
+Osgood, came in. "Oh," said he, "it is Mr. Watt you want, the agent of a
+Boston firm," and gave us the gentleman's address. I had confounded Mr.
+Watt's name with Mr. Watts's name. "W'at's in a name?" A great deal
+sometimes. I wonder if I shall be pardoned for quoting six lines from
+one of my after-dinner poems of long ago:--
+
+  --One vague inflection spoils the whole with doubt,
+  One trivial letter ruins all, left out;
+  A knot can change a felon into clay,
+  A not will save him, spelt without the k;
+  The smallest word has some unguarded spot,
+  And danger lurks in i without a dot.
+
+I should find it hard to account for myself during our two short stays
+in London in the month of August, separated by the week we passed in
+Paris. The ferment of continued over-excitement, calmed very much by our
+rest in the various places I have mentioned, had not yet wholly worked
+itself off. There was some of that everlasting shopping to be done.
+There were photographs to be taken, a call here and there to be made, a
+stray visitor now and then, a walk in the morning to get back the use of
+the limbs which had been too little exercised, and a drive every
+afternoon to one of the parks, or the Thames Embankment, or other
+locality. After all this, an honest night's sleep served to round out
+the day, in which little had been effected besides making a few
+purchases, writing a few letters, reading the papers, the Boston "Weekly
+Advertiser" among the rest, and making arrangements for our passage
+homeward. The sights we saw were looked upon for so short a time, most
+of them so very superficially, that I am almost ashamed to say that I
+have been in the midst of them and brought home so little. I remind
+myself of my boyish amusement of _skipping stones_,--throwing a
+flat stone so that it shall only touch the water, but touch it in half a
+dozen places before it comes to rest beneath the smooth surface. The
+drives we took showed us a thousand objects which arrested our
+attention. Every street, every bridge, every building, every monument,
+every strange vehicle, every exceptional personage, was a show which
+stimulated our curiosity. For we had not as yet changed our Boston eyes
+for London ones, and very common sights were spectacular and dramatic to
+us. I remember that one of our New England country boys exclaimed, when
+he first saw a block of city dwellings, "Darn it all, who ever see
+anything like that 'are? Sich a lot o' haousen all stuck together!" I
+must explain that "haousen" used in my early days to be as common an
+expression in speaking of houses among our country-folk as its phonetic
+equivalent ever was in Saxony. I felt not unlike that country-boy.
+
+In thinking of how much I missed seeing, I sometimes have said to
+myself, Oh, if the carpet of the story in the Arabian Nights would only
+take me up and carry me to London for one week,--just one short
+week,--setting me down fresh from quiet, wholesome living, in my usual
+good condition, and bringing me back at the end of it, what a different
+account I could give of my experiences! But it is just as well as it is.
+Younger eyes have studied and will study, more instructed travellers
+have pictured and will picture, the great metropolis from a hundred
+different points of view. No person can be said to know London. The most
+that any one can claim is that he knows something of it. I am now just
+going to leave it for another great capital, but in my concluding pages
+I shall return to Great Britain, and give some of the general
+impressions left by what I saw and heard in our mother country.
+
+
+
+
+VII.
+
+
+Straitened as we were for time, it was impossible to return home without
+a glimpse, at least, of Paris. Two precious years of my early manhood
+were spent there under the reign of Louis Philippe, king of the French,
+_le Roi Citoyen_. I felt that I must look once more on the places I
+knew so well,--once more before shutting myself up in the world of
+recollections. It is hardly necessary to say that a lady can always find
+a little shopping, and generally a good deal of it, to do in Paris. So
+it was not difficult to persuade my daughter that a short visit to that
+city was the next step to be taken.
+
+We left London on the 5th of August to go _via_ Folkestone and
+Boulogne. The passage across the Channel was a very smooth one, and
+neither of us suffered any inconvenience. Boulogne as seen from the
+landing did not show to great advantage. I fell to thinking of Brummel,
+and what a satisfaction it would have been to treat him to a good
+dinner, and set him talking about the days of the Regency. Boulogne was
+all Brummel in my associations, just as Calais was all Sterne. I find
+everywhere that it is a distinctive personality which makes me want to
+linger round a spot, more than an important historical event. There is
+not much worth remembering about Brummel; but his audacity, his starched
+neckcloth, his assumptions and their success, make him a curious subject
+for the student of human nature.
+
+Leaving London at twenty minutes before ten in the forenoon, we arrived
+in Paris at six in the afternoon. I could not say that the region of
+France through which we passed was peculiarly attractive. I saw no fine
+trees, no pretty cottages, like those so common in England. There was
+little which an artist would be tempted to sketch, or a traveller by the
+railroad would be likely to remember.
+
+The place where we had engaged lodgings was Hotel d'Orient, in the Rue
+Daunou. The situation was convenient, very near the Place Vendome and
+the Rue de la Paix. But the house was undergoing renovations which made
+it as unpresentable as a moulting fowl. Scrubbing, painting of blinds,
+and other perturbing processes did all they could to make it
+uncomfortable. The courtyard was always sloppy, and the whole condition
+of things reminded me forcibly of the state of Mr. Briggs's household
+while the mason was carrying out the complex operations which began with
+the application of "a little compo." (I hope all my readers remember Mr.
+Briggs, whose adventures as told by the pencil of John Leech are not
+unworthy of comparison with those of Mr. Pickwick as related by
+Dickens.) Barring these unfortunate conditions, the hotel was
+commendable, and when in order would be a desirable place of temporary
+residence.
+
+It was the dead season of Paris, and everything had the air of suspended
+animation. The solitude of the Place Vendome was something oppressive; I
+felt, as I trod its lonely sidewalk, as if I were wandering through
+Tadmor in the Desert. We were indeed as remote, as unfriended,--I will
+not say as melancholy or as slow,--as Goldsmith by the side of the lazy
+Scheldt or the wandering Po. Not a soul did either of us know in that
+great city. Our most intimate relations were with the people of the
+hotel and with the drivers of the fiacres. These last were a singular
+looking race of beings. Many of them had a dull red complexion, almost
+brick color, which must have some general cause. I questioned whether
+the red wine could have something to do with it. They wore glazed hats,
+and drove shabby vehicles for the most part; their horses would not
+compare with those of the London hansom drivers, and they themselves
+were not generally inviting in aspect, though we met with no incivility
+from any of them. One, I remember, was very voluble, and over-explained
+everything, so that we became afraid to ask him a question. They were
+fellow-creatures with whom one did not naturally enter into active
+sympathy, and the principal point of interest about the fiacre and its
+arrangements was whether the horse was fondest of trotting or of
+walking. In one of our drives we made it a point to call upon our
+Minister, Mr. McLane, but he was out of town. We did not bring a single
+letter, but set off exactly as if we were on a picnic.
+
+While A---- and her attendant went about making their purchases, I
+devoted myself to the sacred and pleasing task of reviving old memories.
+One of the first places I visited was the house I lived in as a student,
+which in my English friend's French was designated as "Noomero sankont
+sank Roo Monshure ler Pranse." I had been told that the whole region
+thereabout had been transformed by the creation of a new boulevard. I
+did not find it so. There was the house, the lower part turned into a
+shop, but there were the windows out of which I used to look along the
+Rue Vaugirard,--_au troisieme_ the first year, _au second_ the
+second year. Why should I go mousing about the place? What would the
+shopkeeper know about M. Bertrand, my landlord of half a century ago; or
+his first wife, to whose funeral I went; or his second, to whose bridal
+I was bidden?
+
+I ought next to have gone to the hospital La Pitie, where I passed much
+of my time during those two years. But the people there would not know
+me, and my old master's name, Louis, is but a dim legend in the wards
+where he used to teach his faithful band of almost worshipping students.
+Besides, I have not been among hospital beds for many a year, and my
+sensibilities are almost as impressible as they were before daily habit
+had rendered them comparatively callous.
+
+How strange it is to look down on one's venerated teachers, after
+climbing with the world's progress half a century above the level where
+we left them! The stethoscope was almost a novelty in those days. The
+microscope was never mentioned by any clinical instructor I listened to
+while a medical student. _Nous avons change tout cela_ is true of
+every generation in medicine,--changed oftentimes by improvement,
+sometimes by fashion or the pendulum-swing from one extreme to another.
+
+On my way back from the hospital I used to stop at the beautiful little
+church St. Etienne du Mont, and that was one of the first places to
+which I drove after looking at my student-quarters. All was just as of
+old. The tapers were burning about the tomb of St. Genevieve. Samson,
+with the jawbone of the ass, still crouched and sweated, or looked as if
+he did, under the weight of the pulpit. One might question how well the
+preacher in the pulpit liked the suggestion of the figure beneath it.
+The sculptured screen and gallery, the exquisite spiral stairways, the
+carved figures about the organ, the tablets on the walls,--one in
+particular relating the fall of two young girls from the gallery, and
+their miraculous protection from injury,--all these images found their
+counterpart in my memory. I did not remember how very beautiful is the
+stained glass in the _charniers_, which must not be overlooked by
+visitors.
+
+It is not far from St. Etienne du Mont to the Pantheon. I cannot say
+that there is any odor of sanctity about this great temple, which has
+been consecrated, if I remember correctly, and, I will not say
+desecrated, but secularized from time to time, according to the party
+which happened to be uppermost. I confess that I did not think of it
+chiefly as a sacred edifice, or as the resting-place, more or less
+secure, of the "_grands hommes_" to whom it is dedicated. I was
+thinking much more of Foucault's grand experiment, one of the most
+sublime visible demonstrations of a great physical fact in the records
+of science. The reader may not happen to remember it, and will like,
+perhaps, to be reminded of it. Foucault took advantage of the height of
+the dome, nearly three hundred feet, and had a heavy weight suspended by
+a wire from its loftiest point, forming an immense pendulum,--the
+longest, I suppose, ever constructed. Now a moving body tends to keep
+its original plane of movement, and so the great pendulum, being set
+swinging north and south, tended to keep on in the same direction. But
+the earth was moving under it, and as it rolled from west to east the
+plane running through the north and south poles was every instant
+changing. Thus the pendulum appeared to change its direction, and its
+deviation was shown on a graduated arc, or by the marks it left in a
+little heap of sand which it touched as it swung. This experiment on the
+great scale has since been repeated on the small scale by the aid of
+other contrivances.
+
+My thoughts wandered back, naturally enough, to Galileo in the Cathedral
+at Pisa. It was the swinging of the suspended lamp in that edifice which
+set his mind working on the laws which govern the action of the
+pendulum. While he was meditating on this physical problem, the priest
+may have been holding forth on the dangers of meddling with matters
+settled by Holy Church, who stood ready to enforce her edicts by the
+logic of the rack and the fagot. An inference from the above remarks is
+that what one brings from a church depends very much on what he carries
+into it.
+
+The next place to visit could be no other than the Cafe Procope. This
+famous resort is the most ancient and the most celebrated of all the
+Parisian cafes. Voltaire, the poet J. B. Rousseau, Marmontel, Sainte
+Foix, Saurin, were among its frequenters in the eighteenth century. It
+stands in the Rue des Fosses-Saint Germain, now Rue de l'Ancienne
+Comedie. Several American students, Bostonians and Philadelphians,
+myself among the number, used to breakfast at this cafe every morning. I
+have no doubt that I met various celebrities there, but I recall only
+one name which is likely to be known to most or many of my readers. A
+delicate-looking man, seated at one of the tables, was pointed out to me
+as Jouffroy. If I had known as much about him as I learned afterwards, I
+should have looked at him with more interest. He had one of those
+imaginative natures, tinged by constitutional melancholy and saddened by
+ill health, which belong to a certain class of poets and sentimental
+writers, of which Pascal is a good example, and Cowper another. The
+world must have seemed very cruel to him. I remember that when he was a
+candidate for the Assembly, one of the popular cries, as reported by the
+newspapers of the time, was _A bas le poitrinaire!_ His malady soon
+laid him low enough, for he died in 1842, at the age of forty-six. I
+must have been very much taken up with my medical studies to have
+neglected my opportunity of seeing the great statesmen, authors,
+artists, orators, and men of science outside of the medical profession.
+Poisson, Arago, and Jouffroy are all I can distinctly recall, among the
+Frenchmen of eminence whom I had all around me.
+
+The Cafe Procope has been much altered and improved, and bears an
+inscription telling the date of its establishment, which was in the year
+1689. I entered the cafe, which was nearly or quite empty, the usual
+breakfast hour being past.
+
+_Garcon! Une tasse de cafe._
+
+If there is a river of _mneme_ as a counterpart of the river
+_lethe_, my cup of coffee must have got its water from that stream
+of memory. If I could borrow that eloquence of Jouffroy which made his
+hearers turn pale, I might bring up before my readers a long array of
+pallid ghosts, whom these walls knew well in their earthly habiliments.
+Only a single one of those I met here still survives. The rest are
+mostly well-nigh forgotten by all but a few friends, or remembered
+chiefly in their children and grandchildren.
+
+"How much?" I said to the garcon in his native tongue, or what I
+supposed to be that language. "_Cinq sous_," was his answer. By the
+laws of sentiment, I ought to have made the ignoble sum five francs, at
+least. But if I had done so, the waiter would undoubtedly have thought
+that I had just come from Charenton. Besides, why should I violate the
+simple habits and traditions of the place, where generation after
+generation of poor students and threadbare Bohemians had taken their
+morning coffee and pocketed their two lumps of sugar? It was with a
+feeling of virile sanity and Roman self-conquest that I paid my five
+sous, with the small additional fraction which I supposed the waiter to
+expect, and no more.
+
+So I passed for the last time over the threshold of the Cafe Procope,
+where Voltaire had matured his plays and Piron sharpened his epigrams;
+where Jouffroy had battled with his doubts and fears; where, since their
+time,--since my days of Parisian life,--the terrible storming youth,
+afterwards renowned as Leon Michel Gambetta, had startled the quiet
+guests with his noisy eloquence, till the old _habitues_ spilled
+their coffee, and the red-capped students said to each other, _"Il ira
+loin, ce gaillard-la!"_
+
+But what to me were these shadowy figures by the side of the group of my
+early friends and companions, that came up before me in all the
+freshness of their young manhood? The memory of them recalls my own
+youthful days, and I need not go to Florida to bathe in the fountain of
+Ponce de Leon.
+
+I have sometimes thought that I love so well the accidents of this
+temporary terrestrial residence, its endeared localities, its precious
+affections, its pleasing variety of occupation, its alternations of
+excited and gratified curiosity, and whatever else comes nearest to the
+longings of the natural man, that I might be wickedly homesick in a
+far-off spiritual realm where such toys are done with. But there is a
+pretty lesson which I have often meditated, taught, not this time by the
+lilies of the field, but by the fruits of the garden. When, in the June
+honeymoon of the seasons, the strawberry shows itself among the bridal
+gifts, many of us exclaim for the hundredth time with Dr. Boteler,
+"Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God never
+did." Nature, who is God's handmaid, does not attempt a rival berry. But
+by and by a little woolly knob, which looked and saw with wonder the
+strawberry reddening, and perceived the fragrance it diffused all
+around, begins to fill out, and grow soft and pulpy and sweet; and at
+last a glow comes to its cheek, and we say the peach is ripening. When
+Nature has done with it, and delivers it to us in its perfection, we
+forget all the lesser fruits which have gone before it. If the flavor of
+the peach and the fragrance of the rose are not found in some fruit and
+flower which grow by the side of the river of life, an earth-born spirit
+might be forgiven for missing them. The strawberry and the pink are very
+delightful, but we could be happy without them.
+
+So, too, we may hope that when the fruits of our brief early season of
+three or four score years have given us all they can impart for our
+happiness; when "the love of little maids and berries," and all other
+earthly prettinesses, shall "soar and sing," as Mr. Emerson sweetly
+reminds us that they all must, we may hope that the abiding felicities
+of our later life-season may far more than compensate us for all that
+have taken their flight.
+
+I looked forward with the greatest interest to revisiting the Gallery of
+the Louvre, accompanied by my long-treasured recollections. I retained a
+vivid remembrance of many pictures, which had been kept bright by seeing
+great numbers of reproductions of them in photographs and engravings.
+
+The first thing which struck me was that the pictures had been
+rearranged in such a way that I could find nothing in the place where I
+looked for it. But when I found them, they greeted me, so I fancied,
+like old acquaintances. The meek-looking "Belle Jardiniere" was as
+lamb-like as ever; the pearly nymph of Correggio invited the stranger's
+eye as frankly as of old; Titian's young man with the glove was the
+calm, self-contained gentleman I used to admire; the splashy Rubenses,
+the pallid Guidos, the sunlit Claudes, the shadowy Poussins, the moonlit
+Girardets, Gericault's terrible shipwreck of the Medusa, the exquisite
+home pictures of Gerard Douw and Terburg,--all these and many more have
+always been on exhibition in my ideal gallery, and I only mention them
+as the first that happen to suggest themselves. The Museum of the Hotel
+Cluny is a curious receptacle of antiquities, many of which I looked at
+with interest; but they made no lasting impression, and have gone into
+the lumber-room of memory, from which accident may, from time to time,
+drag out some few of them.
+
+After the poor unsatisfactory towers of Westminster Abbey, the two
+massive, noble, truly majestic towers of Notre Dame strike the traveller
+as a crushing contrast. It is not hard to see that one of these grand
+towers is somewhat larger than the other, but the difference does not
+interfere with the effect of the imposing front of the cathedral.
+
+I was much pleased to find that I could have entrance to the Sainte
+Chapelle, which was used, at the time of my earlier visit, as a
+storehouse of judicial archives, of which there was a vast accumulation.
+
+With the exception of my call at the office of the American Legation, I
+made but a single visit to any person in Paris. That person was M.
+Pasteur. I might have carried a letter to him, for my friend Mrs.
+Priestley is well acquainted with him, but I had not thought of asking
+for one. So I presented myself at his headquarters, and was admitted
+into a courtyard, where a multitude of his patients were gathered. They
+were of various ages and of many different nationalities, every one of
+them with the vague terror hanging over him or her. Yet the young people
+seemed to be cheerful enough, and very much like scholars out of school.
+I sent my card in to M. Pasteur, who was busily engaged in writing, with
+his clerks or students about him, and presently he came out and greeted
+me. I told him I was an American physician, who wished to look in his
+face and take his hand,--nothing more. I looked in his face, which was
+that of a thoughtful, hard-worked student, a little past the grand
+climacteric,--he was born in 1822. I took his hand, which has performed
+some of the most delicate and daring experiments ever ventured upon,
+with results of almost incalculable benefit to human industries, and the
+promise of triumph in the treatment of human disease which prophecy
+would not have dared to anticipate. I will not say that I have a full
+belief that hydrophobia--in some respects the most terrible of all
+diseases--is to be extirpated or rendered tractable by his method of
+treatment. But of his inventive originality, his unconquerable
+perseverance, his devotion to the good of mankind, there can be no
+question. I look upon him as one of the greatest experimenters that ever
+lived, one of the truest benefactors of his race; and if I made my due
+obeisance before princes, I felt far more humble in the presence of this
+great explorer, to whom the God of Nature has entrusted some of her most
+precious secrets.
+
+There used to be--I can hardly think it still exists--a class of
+persons who prided themselves on their disbelief in the reality of any
+such distinct disease as hydrophobia. I never thought it worth while to
+argue with them, for I have noticed that this disbelief is only a
+special manifestation of a particular habit of mind. Its advocates will
+be found, I think, most frequently among "the long-haired men and the
+short-haired women." Many of them dispute the efficacy of vaccination.
+Some are disciples of Hahnemann, some have full faith in the mind-cure,
+some attend the seances where flowers (bought from the nearest florist)
+are materialized, and some invest their money in Mrs. Howe's Bank of
+Benevolence. Their tendency is to reject the truth which is generally
+accepted, and to accept the improbable; if the impossible offers itself,
+they deny the existence of the impossible. Argument with this class of
+minds is a lever without a fulcrum.
+
+I was glad to leave that company of--patients, still uncertain of their
+fate,--hoping, yet pursued by their terror: peasants bitten by mad
+wolves in Siberia; women snapped at by their sulking lap-dogs in London;
+children from over the water who had been turned upon by the irritable
+Skye terrier; innocent victims torn by ill-conditioned curs at the doors
+of the friends they were meaning to visit,--all haunted by the same
+ghastly fear, all starting from sleep in the same nightmare.
+
+If canine rabies is a fearful subject to contemplate, there is a sadder
+and deeper significance in _rabies humana_; in that awful madness
+of the human race which is marked by a thirst for blood and a rage for
+destruction. The remembrance of such a distemper which has attacked
+mankind, especially mankind of the Parisian sub-species, came over me
+very strongly when I first revisited the Place Vendome. I should have
+supposed that the last object upon which Parisians would, in their
+wildest frenzy, have laid violent hands would have been the column with
+the figure of Napoleon at its summit. We all know what happened in 1871.
+An artist, we should have thought, would be the last person to lead the
+iconoclasts in such an outrage. But M. Courbet has attained an
+immortality like that of Erostratus by the part he took in pulling down
+the column. It was restored in 1874. I do not question that the work of
+restoration was well done, but my eyes insisted on finding a fault in
+some of its lines which was probably in their own refracting media.
+Fifty years before an artist helped to overthrow the monument to the
+Emperor, a poet had apostrophized him in the bitterest satire since the
+days of Juvenal:--
+
+  "Encor Napoleon! encor sa grande image!
+    Ah! que ce rude et dur guerrier
+  Nous a coute de sang et de pleurs et d'outrage
+    Pour quelques rameaux de laurier!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  "Eh bien! dans tous ces jours d'abaissement, de peine,
+    Pour tous ces outrages sans nom,
+  Je n'ai jamais charge qu'un etre de ma haine,...
+    Sois maudit, O Napoleon!"
+
+After looking at the column of the Place Vendome and recalling these
+lines of Barbier, I was ready for a visit to the tomb of Napoleon. The
+poet's curse had helped me to explain the painter's frenzy against the
+bronze record of his achievements and the image at its summit. But I
+forgot them both as I stood under the dome of the Invalides, and looked
+upon the massive receptacle which holds the dust of the imperial exile.
+Two things, at least, Napoleon accomplished: he opened the way for
+ability of all kinds, and he dealt the death-blow to the divine right of
+kings and all the abuses which clung to that superstition. If I brought
+nothing else away from my visit to his mausoleum, I left it impressed
+with what a man can be when fully equipped by nature, and placed in
+circumstances where his forces can have full play. "How infinite in
+faculty! ... in apprehension how like a god!" Such were my reflections;
+very much, I suppose, like those of the average visitor, and too
+obviously having nothing to require contradiction or comment.
+
+Paris as seen by the morning sun of three or four and twenty and Paris
+in the twilight of the superfluous decade cannot be expected to look
+exactly alike. I well remember my first breakfast at a Parisian cafe in
+the spring of 1833. It was in the Place de la Bourse, on a beautiful
+sunshiny morning. The coffee was nectar, the _flute_ was ambrosia,
+the _brioche_ was more than good enough for the Olympians. Such an
+experience could not repeat itself fifty years later. The first
+restaurant at which we dined was in the Palais Royal. The place was hot
+enough to cook an egg. Nothing was very excellent nor very bad; the wine
+was not so good as they gave us at our hotel in London; the enchanter
+had not waved his wand over our repast, as he did over my earlier one in
+the Place de la Bourse, and I had not the slightest desire to pay the
+garcon thrice his fee on the score of cherished associations.
+
+We dined at our hotel on some days, at different restaurants on others.
+One day we dined, and dined well, at the old Cafe Anglais, famous in my
+earlier times for its turbot. Another day we took our dinner at a very
+celebrated restaurant on the boulevard. One sauce which was served us
+was a gastronomic symphony, the harmonies of which were new to me and
+pleasing. But I remember little else of superior excellence. The garcon
+pocketed the franc I gave him with the air of having expected a
+napoleon.
+
+Into the mysteries of a lady's shopping in Paris I would not venture to
+inquire. But A---- and I strolled together through the Palais Royal in
+the evening, and amused ourselves by staring at the glittering windows
+without being severely tempted. Bond Street had exhausted our
+susceptibility to the shop-window seduction, and the napoleons did not
+burn in the pockets where the sovereigns had had time to cool.
+
+Nothing looked more nearly the same as of old than the bridges. The Pont
+Neuf did not seem to me altered, though we had read in the papers that
+it was in ruins or seriously injured in consequence of a great flood.
+The statues had been removed from the Pont Royal, one or two new bridges
+had been built, but all was natural enough, and I was tempted to look
+for the old woman, at the end of the Pont des Arts, who used to sell me
+a bunch of violets, for two or three sous,--such as would cost me a
+quarter of a dollar in Boston. I did not see the three objects which a
+popular saying alleges are always to be met on the Pont Neuf: a priest,
+a soldier, and a white horse.
+
+The weather was hot; we were tired, and did not care to go to the
+theatres, if any of them were open. The pleasantest hours were those of
+our afternoon drive in the Champs Elysees and the Bois de Boulogne,--or
+"the Boulogne Woods," as our American tailor's wife of the old time
+called the favorite place for driving. In passing the Place de la
+Concorde, two objects in especial attracted my attention,--the obelisk,
+which was lying, when I left it, in the great boat which brought it from
+the Nile, and the statue of Strasbourg, all covered with wreaths and
+flags. How like children these Parisians do act; crying "A Berlin, a
+Berlin!" and when Berlin comes to Paris, and Strasbourg goes back to her
+old proprietors, instead of taking it quietly, making all this parade of
+patriotic symbols, the display of which belongs to victory rather than
+to defeat!
+
+I was surprised to find the trees in the Bois de Boulogne so well grown:
+I had an idea that they had been largely sacrificed in the time of the
+siege. Among the objects which deserve special mention are the shrieking
+parrots and other birds and the yelping dogs in the grounds of the
+Society of Acclimatization,--out of the range of which the visitor will
+be glad to get as soon as possible. A fountain visited by newly married
+couples and their friends, with a restaurant near by, where the bridal
+party drink the health of the newly married pair, was an object of
+curiosity. An unsteadiness of gait was obvious in some of the feasters.
+At one point in the middle of the road a maenad was flinging her arms
+about and shrieking as if she were just escaped from a madhouse. But the
+drive in the Bois was what made Paris tolerable. There were few fine
+equipages, and few distinguished-looking people in the carriages, but
+there were quiet groups by the wayside, seeming happy enough; and now
+and then a pretty face or a wonderful bonnet gave variety to the
+somewhat _bourgeois_ character of the procession of fiacres.
+
+[Illustration: Place de la Concorde]
+
+I suppose I ought to form no opinion at all about the aspect of Paris,
+any more than I should of an oyster in a month without an _r_ in
+it. We were neither of us in the best mood for sight-seeing, and Paris
+was not sitting up for company; in fact, she was "not at home."
+Remembering all this, I must say that the whole appearance of the city
+was dull and dreary. London out of season seemed still full of life;
+Paris out of season looked vacuous and torpid. The recollection of the
+sorrow, the humiliation, the shame, and the agony she had passed through
+since I left her picking her way on the arm of the Citizen King, with
+his old _riflard_ over her, rose before me sadly, ominously, as I
+looked upon the high board fence which surrounded the ruins of the
+Tuileries. I can understand the impulse which led the red caps to make a
+wreck of this grand old historical building. "Pull down the nest," they
+said, "and the birds will not come back." But I shudder when I think
+what "the red fool-fury of the Seine" has done and is believed capable
+of doing. I think nothing has so profoundly impressed me as the story of
+the precautions taken to preserve the Venus of Milo from the brutal
+hands of the mob. A little more violent access of fury, a little more
+fiery declamation, a few more bottles of _vin bleu_, and the
+Gallery of the Louvre, with all its treasures of art, compared with
+which the crown jewels just sold are but pretty pebbles, the market
+price of which fairly enough expresses their value,--much more, rather,
+than their true value,--that noble gallery, with all its masterpieces
+from the hands of Greek sculptors and Italian painters, would have been
+changed in a single night into a heap of blackened stones and a pile of
+smoking cinders.
+
+I love to think that now that the people have, or at least think they
+have, the power in their own hands, they will outgrow this form of
+madness, which is almost entitled to the name of a Parisian endemic.
+Everything looked peaceable and stupid enough during the week I passed
+in Paris. But among all the fossils which Cuvier found in the Parisian
+basin, nothing was more monstrous than the _poissardes_ of the old
+Revolution, or the _petroleuses_ of the recent Commune, and I fear
+that the breed is not extinct. An American comes to like Paris as warmly
+as he comes to love England, after living in it long enough to become
+accustomed to its ways, and I, like the rest of my countrymen who
+remember that France was our friend in the hour of need, who remember
+all the privileges and enjoyments she has freely offered us, who feel
+that as a sister republic her destinies are of the deepest interest to
+us, can have no other wish than for her continued safety, order, and
+prosperity.
+
+We returned to London on the 13th of August by the same route we had
+followed in going from London to Paris. Our passage was rough, as
+compared to the former one, and some of the passengers were seasick. We
+were both fortunate enough to escape that trial of comfort and
+self-respect.
+
+I can hardly separate the story of the following week from that of the
+one before we went to Paris. We did a little more shopping and saw a few
+more sights. I hope that no reader of mine would suppose that I would
+leave London without seeing Madame Tussaud's exhibition. Our afternoon
+drives made us familiar with many objects which I always looked upon
+with pleasure. There was the obelisk, brought from Egypt at the expense
+of a distinguished and successful medical practitioner, Sir Erasmus
+Wilson, the eminent dermatologist and author of a manual of anatomy
+which for many years was my favorite text-book. There was "The
+Monument," which characterizes itself by having no prefix to its generic
+name. I enjoyed looking at and driving round it, and thinking over
+Pepys's lively account of the Great Fire, and speculating as to where
+Pudding Lane and Pie Corner stood, and recalling Pope's lines which I
+used to read at school, wondering what was the meaning of the second
+one:--
+
+  "Where London's column, pointing to the skies
+  Like a tall bully, lifts its head and lies."
+
+The week passed away rapidly enough, and we made ready for our
+departure. It was no easy matter to get a passage home, but we had at
+last settled it that we would return in the same vessel in which we had
+at first engaged our passage to Liverpool, the Catalonia. But we were
+fortunate enough to have found an active and efficient friend in our
+townsman, Mr. Montgomery Sears, who procured staterooms for us in a much
+swifter vessel, to sail on the 21st for New York, the Aurania.
+
+Our last visitor in London was the faithful friend who had been the
+first to welcome us, Lady Harcourt, in whose kind attentions I felt the
+warmth of my old friendship with her admired and honored father and her
+greatly beloved mother. I had recently visited their place of rest in
+the Kensal Green Cemetery, recalling with tenderest emotions the many
+years in which I had enjoyed their companionship.
+
+On the 19th of August we left London for Liverpool, and on our arrival
+took lodgings at the Adelphi Hotel.
+
+The kindness with which I had been welcomed, when I first arrived at
+Liverpool, had left a deep impression upon my mind. It seemed very
+ungrateful to leave that noble city, which had met me in some of its
+most esteemed representatives with a warm grasp of the hand even before
+my foot had touched English soil, without staying to thank my new
+friends, who would have it that they were old friends. But I was
+entirely unfit for enjoying any company when I landed. I took care,
+therefore, to allow sufficient time in Liverpool, before sailing for
+home, to meet such friends, old and recent, as cared to make or renew
+acquaintance with me. In the afternoon of the 20th we held a reception,
+at which a hundred visitors, more or less, presented themselves, and we
+had a very sociable hour or two together. The Vice-Consul, Mr. Sewall,
+in the enforced absence of his principal, Mr. Russell, paid us every
+attention, and was very agreeable. In the evening I was entertained at a
+great banquet given by the Philomathean Society. This flourishing
+institution enrolls among its members a large proportion of the most
+cultivated and intelligent gentlemen of Liverpool. I enjoyed the meeting
+very highly, listened to pleasant things which were said about myself,
+and answered in the unpremeditated words which came to my lips and were
+cordially received. I could have wished to see more of Liverpool, but I
+found time only to visit the great exhibition, then open. The one class
+of objects which captivated my attention was the magnificent series of
+models of steamboats and other vessels. I did not look upon them with
+the eye of an expert, but the great number and variety of these
+beautiful miniature ships and boats excited my admiration.
+
+On the 21st of August we went on board the Aurania. Everything was done
+to make us comfortable. Many old acquaintances, friends, and family
+connections were our fellow-passengers. As for myself, I passed through
+the same trying experiences as those which I have recorded as
+characterizing my outward passage. Our greatest trouble during the
+passage was from fog. The frequency of collisions, of late years, tends
+to make everybody nervous when they hear the fog-whistle shrieking. This
+sound and the sight of the boats are not good for timid people.
+Fortunately, no one was particularly excitable, or if so, no one
+betrayed any special uneasiness.
+
+On the evening of the 27th we had an entertainment, in which Miss
+Kellogg sang and I read several poems. A very pretty sum was realized
+for some charity,--I forget what,--and the affair was voted highly
+successful. The next day, the 28th, we were creeping towards our harbor
+through one of those dense fogs which are more dangerous than the old
+rocks of the sirens, or Scylla and Charybdis, or the much-lied-about
+maelstrom.
+
+On Sunday, the 29th of August, my birthday, we arrived in New York. In
+these days of birthday-books our chronology is not a matter of secret
+history, in case we have been much before the public. I found a great
+cake had been made ready for me, in which the number of my summers was
+represented by a ring of raisins which made me feel like Methuselah. A
+beautiful bouquet which had been miraculously preserved for the occasion
+was for the first time displayed. It came from Dr. Beach, of Boston,
+_via_ London. Such is the story, and I can only suppose that the
+sweet little cherub who sits up aloft had taken special charge of it, or
+it would have long ago withered.
+
+We slept at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, which we found fresh, sweet,
+bright,--it must have been recently rejuvenated, I thought. The next day
+we took the train for New Haven, Springfield, and Boston, and that night
+slept in our own beds, thankful to find ourselves safe at home after our
+summer excursion, which had brought us so many experiences delightful to
+remember, so many friendships which have made life better worth living.
+
+In the following section I shall give some of the general impressions
+which this excursion has left in my memory, and a few suggestions
+derived from them.
+
+
+
+
+VIII.
+
+
+My reader was fairly forewarned that this narrative was to be more like
+a chapter of autobiography than the record of a tourist. In the language
+of philosophy, it is written from a subjective, not an objective, point
+of view. It is not exactly a "Sentimental Journey," though there are
+warm passages here and there which end with notes of admiration. I
+remind myself now and then of certain other travellers: of Benjamin of
+Tudela, going from the hospitalities of one son of Abraham to another;
+of John Buncle, finding the loveliest of women under every roof that
+sheltered him; sometimes, perhaps, of that tipsy rhymester whose record
+of his good and bad fortunes at the hands of landlords and landladies is
+enlivened by an occasional touch of humor, which makes it palatable to
+coarse literary feeders. But in truth these papers have many of the
+characteristics of private letters written home to friends. They
+_are_ written for friends, rather than for a public which cares
+nothing about the writer. I knew that there were many such whom it would
+please to know where the writer went, whom he saw and what he saw, and
+how he was impressed by persons and things.
+
+If I were planning to make a tour of the United Kingdom, and could
+command the service of all the wise men I count or have counted among my
+friends, I would go with such a retinue summoned from the ranks of the
+living and the dead as no prince ever carried with him. I would ask Mr.
+Lowell to go with me among scholars, where I could be a listener; Mr.
+Norton to visit the cathedrals with me; Professor Gray to be my
+botanical oracle; Professor Agassiz to be always ready to answer
+questions about the geological strata and their fossils; Dr. Jeffries
+Wyman to point out and interpret the common objects which present
+themselves to a sharp-eyed observer; and Mr. Boyd Dawkins to pilot me
+among the caves and cairns. Then I should want a better pair of eyes and
+a better pair of ears, and, while I was reorganizing, perhaps a quicker
+apprehension and a more retentive memory; in short, a new outfit, bodily
+and mental. But Nature does not care to mend old shoes; she prefers a
+new pair, and a young person to stand in them.
+
+What a great book one could make, with such aids, and how many would
+fling it down, and take up anything in preference, provided only that it
+were short enough; even this slight record, for want of something
+shorter!
+
+Not only did I feel sure that many friends would like to read our
+itinerary, but another motive prompted me to tell the simple story of
+our travels. I could not receive such kindness, so great evidences of
+friendly regard, without a strong desire, amounting to a positive
+necessity, for the expression of my grateful sense of all that had been
+done for us. Individually, I felt it, of course, as a most pleasing
+experience. But I believed it to have a more important significance as
+an illustration of the cordial feeling existing between England and
+America. I know that many of my countrymen felt the attentions paid to
+me as if they themselves shared them with me. I have lived through many
+strata of feeling in America towards England. My parents, full-blooded
+Americans, were both born subjects of King George III. Both learned in
+their early years to look upon Britons as the enemies of their country.
+A good deal of the old hostility lingered through my boyhood, and this
+was largely intensified by the war of 1812. After nearly half a century
+this feeling had in great measure subsided, when the War of Secession
+called forth expressions of sympathy with the slaveholding States which
+surprised, shocked, and deeply wounded the lovers of liberty and of
+England in the Northern States. A new generation is outgrowing that
+alienation. More and more the older and younger nations are getting to
+be proud and really fond of each other. There is no shorter road to a
+mother's heart than to speak pleasantly to her child, and caress it, and
+call it pretty names. No matter whether the child is something
+remarkable or not, it is _her_ child, and that is enough. It may be
+made too much of, but that is not its mother's fault. If I could believe
+that every attention paid me was due simply to my being an American, I
+should feel honored and happy in being one of the humbler media through
+which the good-will of a great and generous country reached the heart of
+a far-off people not always in friendly relations with her.
+
+I have named many of the friends who did everything to make our stay in
+England and Scotland agreeable. The unforeseen shortening of my visit
+must account for many disappointments to myself, and some, it may be, to
+others.
+
+First in the list of lost opportunities was that of making my bow to the
+Queen. I had the honor of receiving a card with the invitation to meet
+Her Majesty at a garden-party, but we were travelling when it was sent,
+and it arrived too late.
+
+I was very sorry not to meet Mr. Ruskin, to whom Mr. Norton had given me
+a note of introduction. At the time when we were hoping to see him it
+was thought that he was too ill to receive visitors, but he has since
+written me that he regretted we did not carry out our intention. I
+lamented my being too late to see once more two gentlemen from whom I
+should have been sure of a kind welcome,--Lord Houghton and Dean
+Stanley, both of whom I had met in Boston. Even if I had stayed out the
+whole time I had intended to remain abroad, I should undoubtedly have
+failed to see many persons and many places that I must always feel sorry
+for having missed. But as it is, I will not try to count all that I
+lost; let me rather be thankful that I met so many friends whom it was a
+pleasure to know personally, and saw so much that it is a pleasure to
+remember.
+
+I find that many of the places I most wish to see are those associated
+with the memory of some individual, generally one of the generations
+more or less in advance of my own. One of the first places I should go
+to, in a leisurely tour, would be Selborne. Gilbert White was not a
+poet, neither was he a great systematic naturalist. But he used his eyes
+on the world about him; he found occupation and happiness in his daily
+walks, and won as large a measure of immortality within the confines of
+his little village as he could have gained in exploring the sources of
+the Nile. I should make a solemn pilgrimage to the little town of Eyam,
+in Derbyshire, where the Reverend Mr. Mompesson, the hero of the plague
+of 1665, and his wife, its heroine and its victim, lie buried. I should
+like to follow the traces of Cowper at Olney and of Bunyan at Elstow. I
+found an intense interest in the Reverend Mr. Alger's account of his
+visit to the Vale of Llangollen, where Lady Eleanor Butler and Miss
+Ponsonby passed their peaceful days in long, uninterrupted friendship.
+Of course the haunts of Burns, the home of Scott, the whole region made
+sacred by Wordsworth and the group to which he belongs would be so many
+shrines to which I should make pilgrimages.
+
+I own, also, to having something of the melodramatic taste so notable in
+Victor Hugo. I admired the noble facade of Wells cathedral and the grand
+old episcopal palace, but I begged the bishop to show me the place where
+his predecessor, Bishop Kidder, and his wife, were killed by the falling
+chimney in the "Great Storm."--I wanted to go to Devizes, and see the
+monument in the market-place, where Ruth Pierce was struck dead with a
+lie in her mouth,--about all which I had read in early boyhood. I
+contented myself with a photograph of it which my friend, Mr. Willett,
+went to Devizes and bought for me.
+
+There are twenty different Englands, every one of which it would be a
+delight to visit, and I should hardly know with which of them to begin.
+
+The few remarks I have to make on what I saw and heard have nothing
+beyond the value of first impressions; but as I have already said, if
+these are simply given, without pretending to be anything more, they are
+not worthless. At least they can do little harm, and may sometimes amuse
+a reader whom they fail to instruct. But we must all beware of hasty
+conclusions. If a foreigner of limited intelligence were whirled through
+England on the railways, he would naturally come to the conclusion that
+the chief product of that country is _mustard_, and that its most
+celebrated people are Mr. Keen and Mr. Colman, whose great advertising
+boards, yellow letters on a black ground, and black letters on a yellow
+ground, stare the traveller in the face at every station.
+
+Of the climate, as I knew it in May and the summer months, I will only
+say that if I had any illusions about May and June in England, my
+fireplace would have been ample evidence that I was entirely
+disenchanted. The Derby day, the 26th of May, was most chilly and
+uncomfortable; at the garden-party at Kensington Palace, on the 4th of
+June, it was cold enough to make hot drinks and warm wraps a comfort, if
+not a necessity. I was thankful to have passed through these two ordeals
+without ill consequences. Drizzly, or damp, or cold, cloudy days were
+the rule rather than the exception, while we were in London. We had some
+few hot days, especially at Stratford, in the early part of July. In
+London an umbrella is as often carried as a cane; in Paris _"un homme
+a para-pluie"_ is, or used to be, supposed to carry that useful
+article because he does not keep and cannot hire a carriage of some
+sort. He may therefore be safely considered a person, and not a
+personage.
+
+The soil of England does not seem to be worn out, to judge by the
+wonderful verdure and the luxuriance of vegetation. It contains a great
+museum of geological specimens, and a series of historical strata which
+are among the most instructive of human records. I do not pretend to
+much knowledge of geology. The most interesting geological objects in
+our New England that I can think of are the great boulders and the
+scratched and smoothed surface of the rocks; the fossil footprints in
+the valley of the Connecticut; the trilobites found at Quincy. But the
+readers of Hugh Miller remember what a variety of fossils he found in
+the stratified rocks of his little island, and the museums are full of
+just such objects. When it comes to underground historical relics, the
+poverty of New England as compared with the wealth of Old England is
+very striking. Stratum after stratum carries the explorer through the
+relics of successive invaders. After passing through the characteristic
+traces of different peoples, he comes upon a Roman pavement, and below
+this the weapons and ornaments of a tribe of ancient Britons. One cannot
+strike a spade into the earth, in Great Britain, without a fair chance
+of some surprise in the form of a Saxon coin, or a Celtic implement, or
+a Roman fibula. Nobody expects any such pleasing surprise in a New
+England field. One must be content with an Indian arrowhead or two, now
+and then a pestle and mortar, or a stone pipe. A top dressing of
+antiquity is all he can look for. The soil is not humanized enough to be
+interesting; whereas in England so much of it has been trodden by human
+feet, built on in the form of human habitations, nay, has been itself a
+part of preceding generations of human beings, that it is in a kind of
+dumb sympathy with those who tread its turf. Perhaps it is not literally
+true that
+
+  One half her soil has walked the rest
+  In poets, heroes, martyrs, sages;
+
+but so many of all these lie within it that the whole mother island is a
+_campo santo_ to all who can claim the same blood as that which
+runs in the veins of her unweaned children.
+
+The flora and fauna of a country, as seen from railroad trains and
+carriages, are not likely to be very accurately or exhaustively studied.
+I spoke of the trees I noticed between Chester and London somewhat
+slightingly. But I did not form any hasty opinions from what happened to
+catch my eye. Afterwards, in the oaks and elms of Windsor Park, in the
+elms of Cambridge and Oxford and Salisbury, in the lindens of Stratford,
+in the various noble trees, including the cedar of Lebanon, in which
+Tennyson very justly felt a pride as their owner, I saw enough to make
+me glad that I had not uttered any rash generalizations on the strength
+of my first glance. The most interesting comparison I made was between
+the New England and the Old England elms. It is not necessary to cross
+the ocean to do this, as we have both varieties growing side by side in
+our parks,--on Boston Common, for instance. It is wonderful to note how
+people will lie about big trees. There must be as many as a dozen trees,
+each of which calls itself the "largest elm in New England." In my
+younger days, when I never travelled without a measuring-tape in my
+pocket, it amused me to see how meek one of the great swaggering elms
+would look when it saw the fatal measure begin to unreel itself. It
+seemed to me that the leaves actually trembled as the inexorable band
+encircled the trunk in _the smallest place it could find_, which is
+the only safe rule. The English elm (_Ulmus campestris_) as we see
+it in Boston comes out a little earlier perhaps, than our own, but the
+difference is slight. It holds its leaves long after our elms are bare.
+It grows upward, with abundant dark foliage, while ours spreads,
+sometimes a hundred and twenty feet, and often droops like a weeping
+willow. The English elm looks like a much more robust tree than ours,
+yet they tell me it is very fragile, and that its limbs are constantly
+breaking off in high winds, just as happens with our native elms. Ours
+is not a very long-lived tree; between two and three hundred years is, I
+think, the longest life that can be hoped for it. Since I have heard of
+the fragility of the English elm, which is the fatal fault of our own, I
+have questioned whether it can claim a greater longevity than ours.
+There is a hint of a typical difference in the American and the
+Englishman which I have long recognized in the two elms as compared to
+each other. It may be fanciful, but I have thought that the compactness
+and robustness about the English elm, which are replaced by the long,
+tapering limbs and willowy grace and far-spreading reach of our own,
+might find a certain parallelism in the people, especially the females
+of the two countries.
+
+I saw no horse-chestnut trees equal to those I remember in Salem, and
+especially to one in Rockport, which is the largest and finest I have
+ever seen; no willows like those I pass in my daily drives.
+
+On the other hand, I think I never looked upon a Lombardy poplar equal
+to one I saw in Cambridge, England. This tree seems to flourish in
+England much more than with us.
+
+I do not remember any remarkable beeches, though there are some very
+famous ones, especially the Burnham beeches.
+
+No apple-trees I saw in England compare with one next my own door, and
+there are many others as fine in the neighborhood.
+
+I have spoken of the pleasure I had in seeing by the roadside primroses,
+cowslips, and daisies. Dandelions, buttercups, hawkweed looked much as
+ours do at home. Wild roses also grew at the roadside,--smaller and
+paler, I thought, than ours.
+
+I cannot make a chapter like the famous one on Iceland, from my own
+limited observation: _There are no snakes in England._ I can say
+that I found two small caterpillars on my overcoat, in coming from Lord
+Tennyson's grounds. If they had stayed on his premises, they might
+perhaps have developed into "purple emperors," or spread "the tiger
+moth's deep damasked wings" before the enraptured eyes of the noble
+poet. These two caterpillars and a few house-flies are all I saw, heard,
+or felt, by day or night, of the native fauna of England, except a few
+birds,--rooks, starlings, a blackbird, and the larks of Salisbury Plain
+just as they rose; for I lost sight of them almost immediately. I
+neither heard nor saw the nightingales, to my great regret. They had
+been singing at Oxford a short time before my visit to that place. The
+only song I heard was that which I have mentioned, the double note of
+the cuckoo.
+
+England is the paradise of horses. They are bred, fed, trained, groomed,
+housed, cared for, in a way to remind one of the Houyhnhnms, and
+strikingly contrasting with the conditions of life among the wretched
+classes whose existence is hardly more tolerable than that of those
+_quasi_-human beings under whose name it pleased the fierce
+satirist to degrade humanity. The horses that are driven in the hansoms
+of London are the best I have seen in any public conveyance. I cannot
+say as much of those in the four-wheelers.
+
+Broad streets, sometimes, as in Bond Street, with narrow sidewalks;
+_islands_ for refuge in the middle of many of them; deep areas;
+lofty houses; high walls; plants in the windows; frequent open spaces;
+policemen at near intervals, always polite in my experience,--such are
+my recollections of the quarter I most frequented.
+
+Are the English taller, stouter, lustier, ruddier, healthier, than our
+New England people? If I gave my impression, I should say that they are.
+Among the wealthier class, tall, athletic-looking men and stately,
+well-developed women are more common, I am compelled to think, than with
+us. I met in company at different times five gentlemen, each of whom
+would be conspicuous in any crowd for his stature and proportions. We
+could match their proportions, however, in the persons of well-known
+Bostonians. To see how it was with other classes, I walked in the Strand
+one Sunday, and noted carefully the men and women I met. I was surprised
+to see how many of both sexes were of low stature. I counted in the
+course of a few minutes' walk no less than twenty of these little
+people. I set this experience against the other. Neither is convincing.
+The anthropologists will settle the question of man in the Old and in
+the New World before many decades have passed.
+
+In walking the fashionable streets of London one can hardly fail to be
+struck with the well-dressed look of gentlemen of all ages. The special
+point in which the Londoner excels all other citizens I am conversant
+with is the hat. I have not forgotten Beranger's
+
+  "_Quoique leurs chapeaux soient bien laids_
+  *** ***! moi, j'aime les Anglais;"
+
+but in spite of it I believe in the English hat as the best thing of its
+ugly kind. As for the Englishman's feeling with reference to it, a
+foreigner might be pardoned for thinking it was his fetich, a North
+American Indian for looking at it as taking the place of his own
+medicine-bag. It is a common thing for the Englishman to say his prayers
+into it, as he sits down in his pew. Can it be that this imparts a
+religious character to the article? However this may be, the true
+Londoner's hat is cared for as reverentially as a High-Church altar. Far
+off its coming shines. I was always impressed by the fact that even with
+us a well-bred gentleman in reduced circumstances never forgets to keep
+his beaver well brushed, and I remember that long ago I spoke of the hat
+as the _ultimum moriens_ of what we used to call gentility,--the
+last thing to perish in the decay of a gentleman's outfit. His hat is as
+sacred to an Englishman as his beard to a Mussulman.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In looking at the churches and the monuments which I saw in London and
+elsewhere in England, certain resemblances, comparisons, parallels,
+contrasts, and suggestions obtruded themselves upon my consciousness. We
+have one steeple in Boston which to my eyes seems absolutely perfect:
+that of the Central Church, at the corner of Newbury and Berkeley
+streets. Its resemblance to the spire of Salisbury had always struck me.
+On mentioning this to the late Mr. Richardson, the very distinguished
+architect, he said to me that he thought it more nearly like that of the
+Cathedral of Chartres. One of our best living architects agreed with me
+as to its similarity to that of Salisbury. It does not copy either
+exactly, but, if it had twice its actual dimensions, would compare well
+with the best of the two, if one is better than the other.
+Saint-Martin's-in-the-Fields made me feel as if I were in Boston. Our
+Arlington Street Church copies it pretty closely, but Mr. Gilman left
+out the columns. I could not admire the Nelson Column, nor that which
+lends monumental distinction to the Duke of York. After Trajan's and
+that of the Place Vendome, each of which is a permanent and precious
+historical record, accounting sufficiently for its existence, there is
+something very unsatisfactory in these nude cylinders. That to the Duke
+of York might well have the confession of the needy knife grinder as an
+inscription on its base. I confess in all honesty that I vastly prefer
+the monument commemorating the fire to either of them. That _has_ a
+story to tell and tells it,--with a lie or two added, according to Pope,
+but it tells it in language and symbol.
+
+As for the kind of monument such as I see from my library window
+standing on the summit of Bunker Hill, and have recently seen for the
+first time at Washington, on a larger scale, I own that I think a
+built-up obelisk a poor affair as compared with an Egyptian monolith of
+the same form. It was a triumph of skill to quarry, to shape, to
+transport, to cover with expressive symbols, to erect, such a stone as
+that which has been transferred to the Thames Embankment, or that which
+now stands in Central Park, New York. Each of its four sides is a page
+of history, written so as to endure through scores of centuries. A
+built-up obelisk requires very little more than brute labor. A child can
+shape its model from a carrot or a parsnip, and set it up in miniature
+with blocks of loaf sugar. It teaches nothing, and the stranger must go
+to his guide-book to know what it is there for. I was led into many
+reflections by a sight of the Washington Monument. I found that it was
+almost the same thing at a mile's distance as the Bunker Hill Monument
+at half a mile's distance; and unless the eye had some means of
+measuring the space between itself and the stone shaft, one was about as
+good as the other. A mound like that of Marathon or that at Waterloo, a
+cairn, even a shaft of the most durable form and material, are fit
+memorials of the place where a great battle was fought. They seem less
+appropriate as monuments to individuals. I doubt the durability of these
+piecemeal obelisks, and when I think of that vast inverted pendulum
+vibrating in an earthquake, I am glad that I do not live in its shadow.
+The Washington Monument is more than a hundred feet higher than
+Salisbury steeple, but it does not look to me so high as that, because
+the mind has nothing to climb by. But the forming taste of the country
+revels in superlatives, and if we could only have the deepest artesian
+well in the world sunk by the side of the tallest column in all
+creation, the admiring, not overcritical patriot would be happier than
+ever was the Athenian when he looked up at the newly erected Parthenon.
+
+I made a few miscellaneous observations which may be worth recording.
+One of these was the fact of the repetition of the types of men and
+women with which I was familiar at home. Every now and then I met a new
+acquaintance whom I felt that I had seen before. Presently I identified
+him with his double on the other side. I had found long ago that even
+among Frenchmen I often fell in with persons whose counterparts I had
+known in America. I began to feel as if Nature turned out a batch of
+human beings for every locality of any importance, very much as a
+workman makes a set of chessmen. If I had lived a little longer in
+London, I am confident that I should have met myself, as I did actually
+meet so many others who were duplicates of those long known to me.
+
+I met Mr. Galton for a few moments, but I had no long conversation with
+him. If he should ask me to say how many faces I can visually recall, I
+should have to own that there are very few such. The two pictures which
+I have already referred to, those of Erasmus and of Dr. Johnson, come up
+more distinctly before my mind's eye than almost any faces of the
+living. My mental retina has, I fear, lost much of its sensitiveness.
+Long and repeated exposure of an object of any kind, in a strong light,
+is necessary to fix its image.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Among the gratifications that awaited me in England and Scotland was
+that of meeting many before unseen friends with whom I had been in
+correspondence. I have spoken of Mr. John Bellows. I should have been
+glad to meet Mr. William Smith, the Yorkshire antiquary, who has sent me
+many of his antiquarian and biographical writings and publications. I do
+not think I saw Mr. David Gilmour, of Paisley, whose "Paisley Folk" and
+other writings have given me great pleasure. But I did have the
+satisfaction of meeting Professor Gairdner, of Glasgow, to whose
+writings my attention was first called by my revered instructor, the
+late Dr. James Jackson, and with whom I had occasionally corresponded. I
+ought to have met Dr. Martineau. I should have visited the Reverend
+Stopford Brooke, who could have told me much that I should have liked to
+hear of dear friends of mine, of whom he saw a great deal in their hours
+of trial. The Reverend Mr. Voysey, whose fearless rationalism can hardly
+give him popularity among the conservative people I saw most of, paid me
+the compliment of calling, as he had often done of sending me his
+published papers. Now and then some less known correspondent would
+reveal himself or herself in bodily presence. Let most authors beware of
+showing themselves to those who have idealized them, and let readers not
+be too anxious to see in the flesh those whom they have idealized. When
+I was a boy, I read Miss Edgeworth's "L'Amie Inconnue." I have learned
+to appreciate its meaning in later years by abundant experiences, and I
+have often felt unwilling to substitute my real for my imaginary
+presence. I will add here that I must have met a considerable number of
+persons, in the crowd at our reception and elsewhere, whose names I
+failed to hear, and whom I consequently did not recognize as the authors
+of books I had read, or of letters I had received. The story of my
+experience with the lark accounts for a good deal of what seemed like
+negligence or forgetfulness, and which must be, not pardoned, but sighed
+over.
+
+I visited several of the well-known clubs, either by special invitation,
+or accompanied by a member. The Athenaeum was particularly attentive,
+but I was unable to avail myself of the privileges it laid freely open
+before me during my stay in London. Other clubs I looked in upon were:
+the Reform Club, where I had the pleasure of dining at a large party
+given by the very distinguished Dr. Morell Mackenzie; the Rabelais, of
+which, as I before related, I have been long a member, and which was one
+of the first places where I dined; the Saville; the Savage; the St.
+George's. I saw next to nothing of the proper club-life of London, but
+it seemed to me that the Athenaeum must be a very desirable place of
+resort to the educated Londoner, and no doubt each of the many
+institutions of this kind with which London abounds has its special
+attractions.
+
+My obligations to my brethren of the medical profession are too numerous
+to be mentioned in detail. Almost the first visit I paid was one to my
+old friend and fellow-student in Paris, Dr. Walter Hayle Walshe. After
+more than half a century's separation, two young friends, now old
+friends, must not expect to find each other just the same as when they
+parted. Dr. Walshe thought he should have known me; my eyes are not so
+good as his, and I would not answer for them and for my memory. That he
+should have dedicated his recent original and ingenious work to me,
+before I had thought of visiting England, was a most gratifying
+circumstance. I have mentioned the hospitalities extended to me by
+various distinguished members of the medical profession, but I have not
+before referred to the readiness with which, on all occasions, when
+professional advice was needed, it was always given with more than
+willingness, rather as if it were a pleasure to give it. I could not
+have accepted such favors as I received had I not remembered that I, in
+my time, had given my services freely for the benefit of those of my own
+calling. If I refer to two names among many, it is for special reasons.
+Dr. Wilson Fox, the distinguished and widely known practitioner, who
+showed us great kindness, has since died, and this passing tribute is
+due to his memory. I have before spoken of the exceptional favor we owed
+to Dr. and Mrs. Priestley. It enabled us to leave London feeling that we
+had tried, at least, to show our grateful sense of all the attentions
+bestowed upon us. If there were any whom we overlooked, among the guests
+we wished to honor, all such accidental omissions will be pardoned, I
+feel sure, by those who know how great and bewildering is the pressure
+of social life in London.
+
+I was, no doubt, often more or less confused, in my perceptions, by the
+large number of persons whom I met in society. I found the
+dinner-parties, as Mr. Lowell told me I should, very much like the same
+entertainments among my home acquaintances. I have not the gift of
+silence, and I am not a bad listener, yet I brought away next to nothing
+from dinner-parties where I had said and heard enough to fill out a
+magazine article. After I was introduced to a lady, the conversation
+frequently began somewhat in this way:--
+
+"It is a long time since you have been in this country, I believe?"
+
+"It is a _very_ long time: fifty years and more."
+
+"You find great changes in London, of course, I suppose?"
+
+"Not so great as you might think. The Tower is where I left it. The
+Abbey is much as I remember it. Northumberland House with its lion is
+gone, but Charing Cross is in the same old place. My attention is drawn
+especially to the things which have not changed,--those which I
+remember."
+
+That stream was quickly dried up. Conversation soon found other springs.
+I never knew the talk to get heated or noisy. Religion and politics
+rarely came up, and never in any controversial way. The bitterest
+politician I met at table was a quadruped,--a lady's dog,--who refused a
+desirable morsel offered him in the name of Mr. Gladstone, but snapped
+up another instantly on being told that it came from Queen Victoria. I
+recall many pleasant and some delightful talks at the dinner-table; one
+in particular, with the most charming woman in England. I wonder if she
+remembers how very lovely and agreeable she was? Possibly she may be
+able to identify herself.
+
+People--the right kind of people--meet at a dinner-party as two ships
+meet and pass each other at sea. They exchange a few signals; ask each
+other's reckoning, where from, where bound; perhaps one supplies the
+other with a little food or a few dainties; then they part, to see each
+other no more. But one or both may remember the hour passed together all
+their days, just as I recollect our brief parley with the brig
+Economist, of Leith, from Sierra Leone, in mid ocean, in the spring of
+1833.
+
+I am very far from despising the science of gastronomy, but if I wished
+to institute a comparison between the tables of England and America, I
+could not do it without eating my way through the four seasons. I will
+say that I did not think the bread from the bakers' shops was so good as
+our own. It was very generally tough and hard, and even the muffins were
+not always so tender and delicate as they ought to be. I got impatient
+one day, and sent out for some biscuits. They brought some very
+excellent ones, which we much preferred to the tough bread. They proved
+to be the so-called "seafoam" biscuit from New York. The potatoes never
+came on the table looking like new fallen snow, as we have them at home.
+We were surprised to find both mutton and beef overdone, according to
+our American taste. The French talk about the Briton's "_bifteck
+saignant_," but we never saw anything cooked so as to be, as we
+should say, "rare." The tart is national with the English, as the pie is
+national with us. I never saw on an English table that excellent
+substitute for both, called the Washington pie, in memory of him whom we
+honor as first in pies, as well as in war and in the hearts of his
+countrymen.
+
+The truth is that I gave very little thought to the things set before
+me, in the excitement of constantly changing agreeable companionship. I
+understand perfectly the feeling of the good liver in Punch, who
+suggests to the lady next him that their host has one of the best cooks
+in London, and that it might therefore be well to defer all conversation
+until they adjourned to the drawing-room. I preferred the conversation,
+and adjourned, indefinitely, the careful appreciation of the
+_menu_. I think if I could devote a year to it, I might be able to
+make out a graduated scale of articles of food, taking a well-boiled
+fresh egg as the unit of gastronomic value, but I leave this scientific
+task to some future observer.
+
+The most remarkable piece of European handiwork I remember was the steel
+chair at Longford Castle. The most startling and frightful work of man I
+ever saw or expect to see was another specimen of work in steel, said to
+have been taken from one of the infernal chambers of the Spanish
+Inquisition. It was a complex mechanism, which grasped the body and the
+head of the heretic or other victim, and by means of many ingeniously
+arranged screws and levers was capable of pressing, stretching,
+piercing, rending, crushing, all the most sensitive portions of the
+human body, one at a time or many at once. The famous Virgin, whose
+embrace drove a hundred knives into the body of the poor wretch she took
+in her arms, was an angel of mercy compared to this masterpiece of
+devilish enginery.
+
+Ingenuity is much better shown in contrivances for making our daily life
+more comfortable. I was on the lookout for everything that promised to
+be a convenience. I carried out two things which seemed to be new to the
+Londoners: the Star Razor, which I have praised so freely, and still
+find equal to all my commendations; and the mucilage pencil, which is a
+very handy implement to keep on the writer's desk or table. I found a
+contrivance for protecting the hand in drawing corks, which all who are
+their own butlers will appreciate, and luminous match-boxes which really
+shine brightly in the dark, and that after a year's usage; whereas one
+professing to shine by night, which I bought in Boston, is only visible
+by borrowed light. I wanted a very fine-grained hone, and inquired for
+it at a hardware store, where they kept everything in their line of the
+best quality. I brought away a very pretty but very small stone, for
+which I paid a large price. The stone was from Arkansas, and I need not
+have bought in London what would have been easily obtained at a dozen or
+more stores in Boston. It was a renewal of my experience with the
+seafoam biscuit. "Know thyself" and the things about thee, and "Take the
+good the gods provide thee," if thou wilt only keep thine eyes open, are
+two safe precepts.
+
+Who is there of English descent among us that does not feel with Cowper,
+
+  "England, with all thy faults, I love thee still"?
+
+Our recently naturalized fellow-citizens, of a different blood and
+different religion, must not suppose that we are going to forget our
+inborn love for the mother to whom we owe our being. Protestant England
+and Protestant America are coming nearer and nearer to each other every
+year. The interchange of the two peoples is more and more frequent, and
+there are many reasons why it is likely to continue increasing.
+
+Hawthorne says in a letter to Longfellow, "Why don't you come over,
+being now a man of leisure and with nothing to keep you in America? If I
+were in your position, I think I should make my home on this side of the
+water,--though always with an indefinite and never-to-be-executed
+intention to go back and die in my native land. America is a good land
+for young people, but not for those who are past their prime. ... A man
+of individuality and refinement can certainly live far more comfortably
+here--provided he has the means to live at all--than in New England. Be
+it owned, however, that I sometimes feel a tug at my very heart-strings
+when I think of my old home and friends." This was written from
+Liverpool in 1854.
+
+We must not forget that our fathers were exiles from their dearly loved
+native land, driven by causes which no longer exist. "Freedom to worship
+God" is found in England as fully as in America, in our day. In placing
+the Atlantic between themselves and the Old World civilizations they
+made an enormous sacrifice. It is true that the wonderful advance of our
+people in all the arts and accomplishments which make life agreeable has
+transformed the wilderness into a home where men and women can live
+comfortably, elegantly, happily, if they are of contented disposition;
+and without that they can be happy nowhere. What better provision can be
+made for a mortal man than such as our own Boston can afford its wealthy
+children? A palace on Commonwealth Avenue or on Beacon Street; a
+country-place at Framingham or Lenox; a seaside residence at Nahant,
+Beverly Farms, Newport, or Bar Harbor; a pew at Trinity or King's
+Chapel; a tomb at Mount Auburn or Forest Hills; with the prospect of a
+memorial stained window after his lamented demise,--is not this a pretty
+programme to offer a candidate for human existence?
+
+Give him all these advantages, and he will still be longing to cross the
+water, to get back to that old home of his fathers, so delightful in
+itself, so infinitely desirable on account of its nearness to Paris, to
+Geneva, to Rome, to all that is most interesting in Europe. The less
+wealthy, less cultivated, less fastidious class of Americans are not so
+much haunted by these longings. But the convenience of living in the Old
+World is so great, and it is such a trial and such a risk to keep
+crossing the ocean, that it seems altogether likely that a considerable
+current of re-migration will gradually develop itself among our people.
+
+Some find the climate of the other side of the Atlantic suits them
+better than their own. As the New England characteristics are gradually
+superseded by those of other races, other forms of belief, and other
+associations, the time may come when a New Englander will feel more as
+if he were among his own people in London than in one of our seaboard
+cities. The vast majority of our people love their country too well and
+are too proud of it to be willing to expatriate themselves. But going
+back to our old home, to find ourselves among the relatives from whom we
+have been separated for a few generations, is not like transferring
+ourselves to a land where another language is spoken, and where there
+are no ties of blood and no common religious or political traditions. I,
+for one, being myself as inveterately rooted an American of the
+Bostonian variety as ever saw himself mirrored in the Frog Pond, hope
+that the exchanges of emigrants and re-migrants will be much more evenly
+balanced by and by than at present. I hope that more Englishmen like
+James Smithson will help to build up our scientific and literary
+institutions. I hope that more Americans like George Peabody will call
+down the blessings of the English people by noble benefactions to the
+cause of charity. It was with deep feelings of pride and gratitude that
+I looked upon the bust of Longfellow, holding its place among the
+monuments of England's greatest and best children. I see with equal
+pleasure and pride that one of our own large-hearted countrymen has
+honored the memory of three English poets, Milton, and Herbert, and
+Cowper, by the gift of two beautiful stained windows, and with still
+ampler munificence is erecting a stately fountain in the birthplace of
+Shakespeare. Such acts as these make us feel more and more the truth of
+the generous sentiment which closes the ode of Washington Allston,
+"America to Great Britain:" We are one!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I have told our story with the help of my daughter's diary, and often
+aided by her recollections. Having enjoyed so much, I am desirous that
+my countrymen and countrywomen should share my good fortune with me. I
+hesitated at first about printing names in full, but when I remembered
+that we received nothing but the most overflowing hospitality and the
+most considerate kindness from all we met, I felt sure that I could not
+offend by telling my readers who the friends were that made England a
+second home to us. If any one of them is disturbed by such reference as
+I have made to him or to her, I most sincerely apologize for the liberty
+I have taken. I am far more afraid that through sheer forgetfulness I
+have left unmentioned many to whom I was and still remain under
+obligations.
+
+If I were asked what I think of people's travelling after the commonly
+accepted natural term of life is completed, I should say that everything
+depends on constitution and habit. The old soldier says, in speaking of
+crossing the Beresina, where the men had to work in the freezing stream
+constructing the bridges, "Faut du temperament pour cela!" I often
+thought of this expression, in the damp and chilly weather which not
+rarely makes English people wish they were in Italy. I escaped unharmed
+from the windy gusts at Epsom and the nipping chill of the Kensington
+garden-party; but if a score of my contemporaries had been there with
+me, there would not improbably have been a funeral or two within a week.
+If, however, the super-septuagenarian is used to exposures, if he is an
+old sportsman or an old officer not retired from active service, he may
+expect to elude the pneumonia which follows his footsteps whenever he
+wanders far from his fireside. But to a person of well-advanced years
+coming from a counting-room, a library, or a studio, the risk is
+considerable, unless he is of hardy natural constitution; any other will
+do well to remember, "Faut du temperament pour cela!"
+
+Suppose there to be a reasonable chance that he will come home alive,
+what is the use of one's going to Europe after his senses have lost
+their acuteness, and his mind no longer retains its full measure of
+sensibilities and vigor? I should say that the visit to Europe under
+those circumstances was much the same thing as the _petit
+verre_,--the little glass of Chartreuse, or Maraschino, or Curacoa,
+or, if you will, of plain Cognac, at the end of a long banquet. One has
+gone through many courses, which repose in the safe recesses of his
+economy. He has swallowed his coffee, and still there is a little corner
+left with its craving unappeased. Then comes the drop of liqueur,
+_chasse-cafe_, which is the last thing the stomach has a right to
+expect. It warms, it comforts, it exhales its benediction on all that
+has gone before. So the trip to Europe may not do much in the way of
+instructing the wearied and overloaded intelligence, but it gives it a
+fillip which makes it feel young again for a little while.
+
+Let not the too mature traveller think it will change any of his habits.
+It will interrupt his routine for a while, and then he will settle down
+into his former self, and be just what he was before. I brought home a
+pair of shoes I had made in London; they do not fit like those I had
+before I left, and I rarely wear them. It is just so with the new habits
+I formed and the old ones I left behind me.
+
+But am I not glad, for my own sake, that I went? Certainly I have every
+reason to be, and I feel that the visit is likely to be a great source
+of happiness for my remaining days. But there is a higher source of
+satisfaction. If the kindness shown me strengthens the slenderest link
+that binds us in affection to that ancestral country which is, and I
+trust will always be to her descendants, "dear Mother England," that
+alone justifies my record of it, and to think it is so is more than
+reward enough. If, in addition, this account of our summer experiences
+is a source of pleasure to many friends, and of pain to no one, as I
+trust will prove to be the fact, I hope I need never regret giving to
+the public the pages which are meant more especially for readers who
+have a personal interest in the writer.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Our Hundred Days in Europe
+by Oliver Wendell Holmes
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OUR HUNDRED DAYS IN EUROPE ***
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+Project Gutenberg's Our Hundred Days in Europe, by Oliver Wendell Holmes
+#28 in our series by Oliver Wendell Holmes
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
+copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
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+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: Our Hundred Days in Europe
+
+Author: Oliver Wendell Holmes
+
+Release Date: January, 2005 [EBook #7322]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on April 13, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-Latin-1
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OUR HUNDRED DAYS IN EUROPE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Tonya Allen, Eric Eldred, Charles Franks
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES AT THE AGE OF 82. From a painting
+by Sarah W. Whitman]
+
+OUR HUNDRED DAYS IN EUROPE
+
+BY
+
+OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES
+
+
+
+To
+
+MY DAUGHTER AMELIA
+
+(MRS. TURNER SARGENT)
+
+MY FAITHFUL AND DEVOTED COMPANION
+
+THIS OUTLINE OF OUR SUMMER EXCURSION
+
+IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+INTRODUCTORY
+
+A PROSPECTIVE VISIT
+
+
+
+OUR HUNDRED DAYS IN EUROPE.
+
+CHAPTER
+
+I. THE VOYAGE.--LIVERPOOL.--CHESTER.--LONDON.--EPSOM
+
+II. EPSOM.--LONDON.--WINDSOR
+
+III. LONDON.--ISLE OF WIGHT.--CAMBRIDGE.--OXFORD.--YORK.--EDINBURGH
+
+IV. STRATFORD-ON-AVON.--GREAT MALVERN.--TEWKESBURY.--BATH.--SALISBURY.
+--STONEHENGE
+
+V. STONEHENGE.--SALISBURY.--OLD SARUM.--BEMERTON.--BRIGHTON
+
+VI. LONDON
+
+VII. BOULOGNE.--PARIS.--LONDON.--LIVERPOOL.--THE HOMEWARD PASSAGE
+
+VIII. GENERAL IMPRESSIONS.--MISCELLANEOUS OBSERVATIONS
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES AT THE AGE OF 82. From a painting by Sarah W.
+Whitman
+
+ROBERT BROWNING
+
+MAGDALEN COLLEGE, OXFORD
+
+SALISBURY CATHEDRAL
+
+PLACE DE LA CONCORDE
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY.
+
+A PROSPECTIVE VISIT.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After an interval of more than fifty years, I propose taking a second
+look at some parts of Europe. It is a Rip Van Winkle experiment which I
+am promising myself. The changes wrought by half a century in the
+countries I visited amount almost to a transformation. I left the
+England of William the Fourth, of the Duke of Wellington, of Sir Robert
+Peel; the France of Louis Philippe, of Marshal Soult, of Thiers, of
+Guizot. I went from Manchester to Liverpool by the new railroad, the
+only one I saw in Europe. I looked upon England from the box of a
+stage-coach, upon France from the coupé of a diligence, upon Italy from
+the cushion of a carrozza. The broken windows of Apsley House were still
+boarded up when I was in London. The asphalt pavement was not laid in
+Paris. The Obelisk of Luxor was lying in its great boat in the Seine, as
+I remember it. I did not see it erected; it must have been an exciting
+scene to witness, the engineer standing underneath, so as to be crushed
+by the great stone if it disgraced him by falling in the process. As for
+the dynasties which have overlaid each other like Dr. Schliemann's
+Trojan cities, there is no need of moralizing over a history which
+instead of Finis is constantly ending with What next?
+
+With regard to the changes in the general conditions of society and the
+advance in human knowledge, think for one moment what fifty years have
+done! I have often imagined myself escorting some wise man of the past
+to our Saturday Club, where we often have distinguished strangers as our
+guests. Suppose there sat by me, I will not say Sir Isaac Newton, for he
+has been too long away from us, but that other great man, whom Professor
+Tyndall names as next to him in intellectual stature, as he passes along
+the line of master minds of his country, from the days of Newton to our
+own,--Dr. Thomas Young, who died in 1829. Would he or I be the listener,
+if we were side by side? However humble I might feel in such a presence,
+I should be so clad in the grandeur of the new discoveries, inventions,
+ideas, I had to impart to him that I should seem to myself like the
+ambassador of an Emperor. I should tell him of the ocean steamers, the
+railroads that spread themselves like cobwebs over the civilized and
+half-civilized portions of the earth, the telegraph and the telephone,
+the photograph and the spectroscope. I should hand him a paper with the
+morning news from London to read by the electric light, I should startle
+him with a friction match, I should amaze him with the incredible truths
+about anesthesia, I should astonish him with the later conclusions of
+geology, I should dazzle him by the fully developed law of the
+correlation of forces, I should delight him with the cell-doctrine, I
+should confound him with the revolutionary apocalypse of Darwinism. All
+this change in the aspects, position, beliefs, of humanity since the
+time of Dr. Young's death, the date of my own graduation from college!
+
+I ought to consider myself highly favored to have lived through such a
+half century. But it seems to me that in walking the streets of London
+and Paris I shall revert to my student days, and appear to myself like a
+relic of a former generation. Those who have been born into the
+inheritance of the new civilization feel very differently about it from
+those who have lived their way into it. To the young and those
+approaching middle age all these innovations in life and thought are as
+natural, as much a matter of course, as the air they breathe; they form
+a part of the inner framework of their intelligence, about which their
+mental life is organized. To men and women of more than threescore and
+ten they are external accretions, like the shell of a mollusk, the
+jointed plates of an articulate. This must be remembered in reading
+anything written by those who knew the century in its teens; it is not
+likely to be forgotten, for the fact betrays itself in all the writer's
+thoughts and expressions.
+
+The story of my first visit to Europe is briefly this: my object was to
+study the medical profession, chiefly in Paris, and I was in Europe
+about two years and a half, from April, 1833, to October, 1835. I sailed
+in the packet ship Philadelphia from New York for Portsmouth, where we
+arrived after a passage of twenty-four days. A week was spent in
+visiting Southampton, Salisbury, Stonehenge, Wilton, and the Isle of
+Wight. I then crossed the Channel to Havre, from which I went to Paris.
+In the spring and summer of 1834 I made my principal visit to England
+and Scotland. There were other excursions to the Rhine and to Holland,
+to Switzerland and to Italy, but of these I need say nothing here. I
+returned in the packet ship Utica, sailing from Havre, and reaching New
+York after a passage of forty-two days.
+
+A few notes from my recollections will serve to recall the period of my
+first visit to Europe, and form a natural introduction to the
+experiences of my second. I take those circumstances which happen to
+suggest themselves.
+
+After a short excursion to Strasbourg, down the Rhine, and through
+Holland, a small steamer took us from Rotterdam across the Channel, and
+we found ourselves in the British capital.
+
+The great sight in London is--London. No man understands himself as an
+infinitesimal until he has been a drop in that ocean, a grain of sand on
+that sea-margin, a mote in its sunbeam, or the fog or smoke which stands
+for it; in plainer phrase, a unit among its millions.
+
+I had two letters to persons in England: one to kind and worthy Mr.
+Petty Vaughan, who asked me to dinner; one to pleasant Mr. William
+Clift, conservator of the Hunterian Museum, who asked me to tea.
+
+To Westminster Abbey. What a pity it could not borrow from Paris the
+towers of Notre Dame! But the glory of its interior made up for this
+shortcoming. Among the monuments, one to Rear Admiral Charles Holmes, a
+descendant, perhaps, of another namesake, immortalized by Dryden in the
+"Annus Mirabilis" as
+
+  "the Achates of the general's fight."
+
+He accompanied Wolfe in his expedition which resulted in the capture of
+Quebec. My relative, I will take it for granted, as I find him in
+Westminster Abbey. Blood is thicker than water,--and warmer than marble,
+I said to myself, as I laid my hand on the cold stone image of the once
+famous Admiral.
+
+To the Tower, to see the lions,--of all sorts. There I found a "poor
+relation," who made my acquaintance without introduction. A large
+baboon, or ape,--some creature of that family,--was sitting at the open
+door of his cage, when I gave him offence by approaching too near and
+inspecting him too narrowly. He made a spring at me, and if the keeper
+had not pulled me back would have treated me unhandsomely, like a
+quadrumanous rough, as he was. He succeeded in stripping my waistcoat of
+its buttons, as one would strip a pea-pod of its peas.
+
+To Vauxhall Gardens. All Americans went there in those days, as they go
+to Madame Tussaud's in these times. There were fireworks and an
+exhibition of polar scenery. "Mr. Collins, the English PAGANINI,"
+treated us to music on his violin. A comic singer gave us a song, of
+which I remember the line,
+
+  "You'll find it all in the agony bill."
+
+This referred to a bill proposed by Sir Andrew Agnew, a noted Scotch
+Sabbatarian agitator.
+
+To the opera to hear Grisi. The king, William the Fourth, was in his
+box; also the Princess Victoria, with the Duchess of Kent. The king
+tapped with his white-gloved hand on the ledge of the box when he was
+pleased with the singing.--To a morning concert and heard the real
+Paganini. To one of the lesser theatres and heard a monologue by the
+elder Mathews, who died a year or two after this time. To another
+theatre, where I saw Listen in Paul Pry. Is it not a relief that I am
+abstaining from description of what everybody has heard described?
+
+To Windsor. Machinery to the left of the road. Recognized it instantly,
+by recollection of the plate in "Rees's Cyclopedia," as Herschel's great
+telescope.--Oxford. Saw only its outside. I knew no one there, and no
+one knew me.--Blenheim,--the Titians best remembered of its objects on
+exhibition. The great Derby day of the Epsom races. Went to the race
+with a coach-load of friends and acquaintances. Plenipotentiary, the
+winner, "rode by P. Connelly." So says Herring's picture of him, now
+before me. Chestnut, a great "bullock" of a horse, who easily beat the
+twenty-two that started. Every New England deacon ought to see one Derby
+day to learn what sort of a world this is he lives in. Man is a sporting
+as well as a praying animal.
+
+Stratford-on-Avon. Emotions, but no scribbling of name on
+walls.--Warwick. The castle. A village festival, "The Opening of the
+Meadows," a true exhibition of the semi-barbarism which had come down
+from Saxon times.--Yorkshire. "The Hangman's Stone." Story told in my
+book called the "Autocrat," etc. York Cathedral.--Northumberland.
+Alnwick Castle. The figures on the walls which so frightened my man John
+when he ran away from Scotland in his boyhood. Berwick-on-Tweed. A
+regatta going on; a very pretty show. Scotland. Most to be remembered,
+the incomparable loveliness of Edinburgh.--Sterling. The view of the
+Links of Forth from the castle. The whole country full of the romance of
+history and poetry. Made one acquaintance in Scotland, Dr. Robert Knox,
+who asked my companion and myself to breakfast. I was treated to five
+entertainments in Great Britain: the breakfast just mentioned; lunch
+with Mrs. Macadam,--the good old lady gave me bread, and not a stone;
+dinner with Mr. Vaughan; one with Mr. Stanley, the surgeon; tea with Mr.
+Clift,--for all which attentions I was then and am still grateful, for
+they were more than I had any claim to expect. Fascinated with
+Edinburgh. Strolls by Salisbury Crag; climb to the top of Arthur's Seat;
+delight of looking up at the grand old castle, of looking down on
+Holyrood Palace, of watching the groups on Calton Hill, wandering in the
+quaint old streets and sauntering on the sidewalks of the noble avenues,
+even at that time adding beauty to the new city. The weeks I spent in
+Edinburgh are among the most memorable of my European experiences. To
+the Highlands, to the Lakes, in short excursions; to Glasgow, seen to
+disadvantage under gray skies and with slippery pavements. Through
+England rapidly to Dover and to Calais, where I found the name of M.
+Dessein still belonging to the hotel I sought, and where I read Sterne's
+"Preface Written in a Désobligeante," sitting in the vehicle most like
+one that I could find in the stable. From Calais back to Paris, where I
+began working again.
+
+All my travelling experiences, including a visit to Switzerland and
+Italy in the summer and autumn of 1835, were merely interludes of my
+student life in Paris. On my return to America, after a few years of
+hospital and private practice, I became a Professor in Harvard
+University, teaching Anatomy and Physiology, afterwards Anatomy alone,
+for the period of thirty-five years, during part of which time I paid
+some attention to literature, and became somewhat known as the author of
+several works in prose and verse which have been well received. My
+prospective visit will not be a professional one, as I resigned my
+office in 1882, and am no longer known chiefly as a teacher or a
+practitioner.
+
+BOSTON, _April_, 1886.
+
+
+
+
+OUR HUNDRED DAYS IN EUROPE
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I.
+
+
+I begin this record with the columnar, self-reliant capital letter to
+signify that there is no disguise in its egoisms. If it were a chapter
+of autobiography, this is what the reader would look for as a matter of
+course. Let him consider it as being such a chapter, and its egoisms
+will require no apology.
+
+I have called the record _our_ hundred days, because I was
+accompanied by my daughter, without the aid of whose younger eyes and
+livelier memory, and especially of her faithful diary, which no fatigue
+or indisposition was allowed to interrupt, the whole experience would
+have remained in my memory as a photograph out of focus.
+
+We left Boston on the 29th of April, 1886, and reached New York on the
+29th of August, four months of absence in all, of which nearly three
+weeks were taken up by the two passages; one week was spent in Paris,
+and the rest of the time in England and Scotland.
+
+No one was so much surprised as myself at my undertaking this visit. Mr.
+Gladstone, a strong man for his years, is reported as saying that he is
+too old to travel, at least to cross the ocean, and he is younger than I
+am,--just four months, to a day, younger. It is true that Sir Henry
+Holland came to this country, and travelled freely about the world,
+after he was eighty years old; but his pitcher went to the well once too
+often, and met the usual doom of fragile articles. When my friends asked
+me why I did not go to Europe, I reminded them of the fate of Thomas
+Parr. He was only twice my age, and was getting on finely towards his
+two hundredth year, when the Earl of Arundel carried him up to London,
+and, being feasted and made a lion of, he found there a premature and
+early grave at the age of only one hundred and fifty-two years. He lies
+in Westminster Abbey, it is true, but he would probably have preferred
+the upper side of his own hearth-stone to the under side of the slab
+which covers him.
+
+I should never have thought of such an expedition if it had not been
+suggested by a member of my family that I should accompany my daughter,
+who was meditating a trip to Europe. I remembered how many friends had
+told me I ought to go; among the rest, Mr. Emerson, who had spoken to me
+repeatedly about it. I had not seen Europe for more than half a century,
+and I had a certain longing for one more sight of the places I
+remembered, and others it would be a delight to look upon. There were a
+few living persons whom I wished to meet. I was assured that I should be
+kindly received in England. All this was tempting enough, but there was
+an obstacle in the way which I feared, and, as it proved, not without
+good reason. I doubted whether I could possibly breathe in a narrow
+state-room. In certain localities I have found myself liable to attacks
+of asthma, and, although I had not had one for years, I felt sure that I
+could not escape it if I tried to sleep in a state-room.
+
+I did not escape it, and I am glad to tell my story about it, because it
+excuses some of my involuntary social shortcomings, and enables me to
+thank collectively all those kind members of the profession who trained
+all the artillery of the pharmacopoeia upon my troublesome enemy, from
+bicarbonate of soda and Vichy water to arsenic and dynamite. One costly
+contrivance, sent me by the Reverend Mr. Haweis, whom I have never duly
+thanked for it, looked more like an angelic trump for me to blow in a
+better world than what I believe it is, an inhaling tube intended to
+prolong my mortal respiration. The best thing in my experience was
+recommended to me by an old friend in London. It was Himrod's asthma
+cure, one of the many powders, the smoke of which when burning is
+inhaled. It is made in Providence, Rhode Island, and I had to go to
+London to find it. It never failed to give at least temporary relief,
+but nothing enabled me to sleep in my state-room, though I had it all to
+myself, the upper berth being removed. After the first night and part of
+the second, I never lay down at all while at sea. The captain allowed me
+to have a candle and sit up in the saloon, where I worried through the
+night as I best might. How could I be in a fit condition to accept the
+attention of my friends in Liverpool, after sitting up every night for
+more than a week; and how could I be in a mood for the catechizing of
+interviewers, without having once lain down during the whole return
+passage? I hope the reader will see why I mention these facts. They
+explain and excuse many things; they have been alluded to, sometimes
+with exaggeration, in the newspapers, and I could not tell my story
+fairly without mentioning them. I got along well enough as soon as I
+landed, and have had no return of the trouble since I have been back in
+my own home. I will not advertise an assortment of asthma remedies for
+sale, but I assure my kind friends I have had no use for any one of them
+since I have walked the Boston pavements, drank, not the Cochituate, but
+the Belmont spring water, and breathed the lusty air of my native
+northeasters.
+
+My companion and I required an attendant, and we found one of those
+useful androgynous personages known as _courier-maids_, who had
+travelled with friends of ours, and who was ready to start with us at a
+moment's warning. She was of English birth, lively, short-gaited,
+serviceable, more especially in the first of her dual capacities. So far
+as my wants were concerned, I found her zealous and active in providing
+for my comfort.
+
+It was no sooner announced in the papers that I was going to England
+than I began to hear of preparations to welcome me. An invitation to a
+club meeting was cabled across the Atlantic. One of my countrywomen who
+has a house in London made an engagement for me to meet friends at her
+residence. A reverend friend, who thought I had certain projects in my
+head, wrote to me about lecturing: where I should appear, what fees I
+should obtain, and such business matters. I replied that I was going to
+England to spend money, not to make it; to hear speeches, very possibly,
+but not to make them; to revisit scenes I had known in my younger days;
+to get a little change of my routine, which I certainly did; and to
+enjoy a little rest, which I as certainly did not, at least in London.
+In a word, I wished a short vacation, and had no thought of doing
+anything more important than rubbing a little rust off and enjoying
+myself, while at the same time I could make my companion's visit
+somewhat pleasanter than it would be if she went without me. The visit
+has answered most of its purposes for both of us, and if we have saved a
+few recollections which our friends can take any pleasure in reading,
+this slight record may be considered a work of supererogation.
+
+The Cephalonia was to sail at half past six in the morning, and at that
+early hour a company of well-wishers was gathered on the wharf at East
+Boston to bid us good-by. We took with us many tokens of their
+thoughtful kindness; flowers and fruits from Boston and Cambridge, and a
+basket of champagne from a Concord friend whose company is as
+exhilarating as the sparkling wine he sent us. With the other gifts came
+a small tin box, about as big as a common round wooden match box. I
+supposed it to hold some pretty gimcrack, sent as a pleasant parting
+token of remembrance. It proved to be a most valued daily companion,
+useful at all times, never more so than when the winds were blowing hard
+and the ship was struggling with the waves. There must have been some
+magic secret in it, for I am sure that I looked five years younger after
+closing that little box than when I opened it. Time will explain its
+mysterious power.
+
+All the usual provisions for comfort made by seagoing experts we had
+attended to. Impermeable rugs and fleecy shawls, head-gear to defy the
+rudest northeasters, sea-chairs of ample dimensions, which we took care
+to place in as sheltered situations as we could find,--all these were a
+matter of course. Everybody stays on deck as much as possible, and lies
+wrapped up and spread out at full length on his or her sea-chair, so
+that the deck looks as if it had a row of mummies on exhibition. Nothing
+is more comfortable, nothing, I should say, more indispensable, than a
+hot-water bag,--or rather, _two_ hot-water bags; for they will
+burst sometimes, as I found out, and a passenger who has become intimate
+with one of these warm bosom friends feels its loss almost as if it were
+human.
+
+Passengers carry all sorts of luxuries on board, in the firm faith that
+they shall be able to profit by them all. Friends send them various
+indigestibles. To many all these well-meant preparations soon become a
+mockery, almost an insult. It is a clear case of _Sic(k) vos non
+vobis_. The tougher neighbor is the gainer by these acts of kindness;
+the generosity of a sea-sick sufferer in giving away the delicacies
+which seemed so desirable on starting is not ranked very high on the
+books of the recording angel. With us three things were best: grapes,
+oranges, and especially oysters, of which we had provided a half barrel
+in the shell. The "butcher" of the ship opened them fresh for us every
+day, and they were more acceptable than anything else.
+
+Among our ship's company were a number of family relatives and
+acquaintances. We formed a natural group at one of the tables, where we
+met in more or less complete numbers. I myself never missed; my
+companion, rarely. Others were sometimes absent, and sometimes came to
+time when they were in a very doubtful state, looking as if they were
+saying to themselves, with Lear,--
+
+  "Down, thou climbing sorrow,
+  Thy element's below."
+
+As for the intellectual condition of the passengers, I should say that
+faces were prevailingly vacuous, their owners half hypnotized, as it
+seemed, by the monotonous throb and tremor of the great sea-monster on
+whose back we were riding. I myself had few thoughts, fancies, emotions.
+One thing above all struck me as never before,--the terrible solitude of
+the ocean.
+
+  "So lonely 'twas that God himself
+  Scarce seemed there to be."
+
+Whole days passed without our seeing a single sail. The creatures of the
+deep which gather around sailing vessels are perhaps frightened off by
+the noise and stir of the steamship. At any rate, we saw nothing more
+than a few porpoises, so far as I remember.
+
+No man can find himself over the abysses, the floor of which is paved
+with wrecks and white with the bones of the shrieking myriads of human
+beings whom the waves have swallowed up, without some thought of the
+dread possibilities hanging over his fate. There is only one way to get
+rid of them: that which an old sea-captain mentioned to me, namely, to
+keep one's self under opiates until he wakes up in the harbor where he
+is bound. I did not take this as serious advice, but its meaning is that
+one who has all his senses about him cannot help being anxious. My old
+friend, whose beard had been shaken in many a tempest, knew too well
+that there is cause enough for anxiety.
+
+What does the reader suppose was the source of the most ominous thought
+which forced itself upon my mind, as I walked the decks of the mighty
+vessel? Not the sound of the rushing winds, nor the sight of the
+foam-crested billows; not the sense of the awful imprisoned force which
+was wrestling in the depths below me. The ship is made to struggle with
+the elements, and the giant has been tamed to obedience, and is manacled
+in bonds which an earthquake would hardly rend asunder. No! It was the
+sight of the _boats_ hanging along at the sides of the deck,--the
+boats, always suggesting the fearful possibility that before another day
+dawns one may be tossing about in the watery Sahara, shelterless,
+fireless, almost foodless, with a fate before him he dares not
+contemplate. No doubt we should feel worse without the boats; still they
+are dreadful tell-tales. To all who remember Géricault's Wreck of the
+Medusa,--and those who have seen it do not forget it,--the picture the
+mind draws is one it shudders at. To be sure, the poor wretches in the
+painting were on a raft, but to think of fifty people in one of these
+open boats! Let us go down into the cabin, where at least we shall not
+see them.
+
+The first morning at sea revealed the mystery of the little round tin
+box. The process of _shaving_, never a delightful one, is a very
+unpleasant and awkward piece of business when the floor on which one
+stands, the glass in which he looks, and he himself are all describing
+those complex curves which make cycles and epicycles seem like
+simplicity itself. The little box contained a reaping machine, which
+gathered the capillary harvest of the past twenty-four hours with a
+thoroughness, a rapidity, a security, and a facility which were a
+surprise, almost a revelation. The idea of a guarded cutting edge is an
+old one; I remember the "Plantagenet" razor, so called, with the
+comb-like row of blunt teeth, leaving just enough of the edge free to do
+its work. But this little affair had a blade only an inch and a half
+long by three quarters of an inch wide. It had a long slender handle,
+which took apart for packing, and was put together with the greatest
+ease. It was, in short, a lawn-mower for the masculine growth of which
+the proprietor wishes to rid his countenance. The mowing operation
+required no glass, could be performed with almost reckless boldness, as
+one cannot cut himself, and in fact had become a pleasant amusement
+instead of an irksome task. I have never used any other means of shaving
+from that day to this. I was so pleased with it that I exhibited it to
+the distinguished tonsors of Burlington Arcade, half afraid they would
+assassinate me for bringing in an innovation which bid fair to destroy
+their business. They probably took me for an agent of the manufacturers;
+and so I was, but not in their pay nor with their knowledge. I
+determined to let other persons know what a convenience I had found the
+"Star Razor" of Messrs. Kampf, of New York, without fear of reproach for
+so doing. I know my danger,--does not Lord Byron say, "I have even been
+accused of writing puffs for Warren's blacking"? I was once offered pay
+for a poem in praise of a certain stove polish, but I declined. It is
+pure good-will to my race which leads me to commend the Star Razor to
+all who travel by land or by sea, as well as to all who stay at home.
+
+With the first sight of land many a passenger draws a long sigh of
+relief. Yet everybody knows that the worst dangers begin after we have
+got near enough to see the shore, for there are several ways of landing,
+not all of which are equally desirable. On Saturday, May 8th, we first
+caught a glimpse of the Irish coast, and at half past four in the
+afternoon we reached the harbor of Queenstown. A tug came off, bringing
+newspapers, letters, and so forth, among the rest some thirty letters
+and telegrams for me. This did not look much like rest, but this was
+only a slight prelude to what was to follow. I was in no condition to go
+on shore for sight-seeing, as some of the passengers did.
+
+We made our way through the fog towards Liverpool, and arrived at 1.30,
+on Sunday, May 9th. A special tug came to take us off: on it were the
+American consul, Mr. Russell, the vice-consul, Mr. Sewall, Dr. Nevins,
+and Mr. Rathbone, who came on behalf of our as yet unseen friend, Mr.
+Willett, of Brighton, England. Our Liverpool friends were meditating
+more hospitalities to us than, in our fatigued condition, we were equal
+to supporting. They very kindly, however, acquiesced in our wishes,
+which were for as much rest as we could possibly get before any attempt
+to busy ourselves with social engagements. So they conveyed us to the
+Grand Hotel for a short time, and then saw us safely off to the station
+to take the train for Chester, where we arrived in due season, and soon
+found ourselves comfortably established at the Grosvenor Arms Hotel. A
+large basket of Surrey primroses was brought by Mr. Rathbone to my
+companion. I had set before me at the hotel a very handsome floral harp,
+which my friend's friend had offered me as a tribute. It made melody in
+my ears as sweet as those hyacinths of Shelley's, the music of whose
+bells was so
+
+  "delicate, soft, and intense,
+  It was felt like an odor within the sense."
+
+At Chester we had the blissful security of being unknown, and were left
+to ourselves. Americans know Chester better than most other old towns in
+England, because they so frequently stop there awhile on their way from
+Liverpool to London. It has a mouldy old cathedral, an old wall, partly
+Roman, strange old houses with overhanging upper floors, which make
+sheltered sidewalks and dark basements. When one sees an old house in
+New England with the second floor projecting a foot or two beyond the
+wall of the ground floor, the country boy will tell him that "them
+haouses was built so th't th' folks upstairs could shoot the Injins when
+they was tryin' to git threew th' door or int' th' winder." There are
+plenty of such houses all over England, where there are no "Injins" to
+shoot. But the story adds interest to the somewhat lean traditions of
+our rather dreary past, and it is hardly worth while to disturb it. I
+always heard it in my boyhood. Perhaps it is true; certainly it was a
+very convenient arrangement for discouraging an untimely visit. The oval
+lookouts in porches, common in our Essex County, have been said to
+answer a similar purpose, that of warning against the intrusion of
+undesirable visitors. The walk round the old wall of Chester is
+wonderfully interesting and beautiful. At one part it overlooks a wide
+level field, over which the annual races are run. I noticed that here as
+elsewhere the short grass was starred with daisies. They are not
+considered in place in a well-kept lawn. But remembering the cuckoo song
+in "Love's Labour's Lost," "When daisies pied ... do paint the meadows
+with delight," it was hard to look at them as unwelcome intruders.
+
+The old cathedral seemed to me particularly mouldy, and in fact too
+high-flavored with antiquity. I could not help comparing some of the
+ancient cathedrals and abbey churches to so many old cheeses. They have
+a tough gray rind and a rich interior, which find food and lodging for
+numerous tenants who live and die under their shelter or their
+shadow,--lowly servitors some of them, portly dignitaries others, humble
+holy ministers of religion many, I doubt not,--larvae of angels, who
+will get their wings by and by. It is a shame to carry the comparison so
+far, but it is natural enough; for Cheshire cheeses are among the first
+things we think of as we enter that section of the country, and this
+venerable cathedral is the first that greets the eyes of great numbers
+of Americans.
+
+We drove out to Eaton Hall, the seat of the Duke of Westminster, the
+many-millioned lord of a good part of London. It is a palace,
+high-roofed, marble-columned, vast, magnificent, everything but
+homelike, and perhaps homelike to persons born and bred in such
+edifices. A painter like Paul Veronese finds a palace like this not too
+grand for his banqueting scenes. But to those who live, as most of us
+do, in houses of moderate dimensions, snug, comfortable, which the
+owner's presence fills sufficiently, leaving room for a few visitors, a
+vast marble palace is disheartening and uninviting. I never get into a
+very large and lofty saloon without feeling as if I were a weak solution
+of myself,--my personality almost drowned out in the flood of space
+about me. The wigwam is more homelike than the cavern. Our wooden houses
+are a better kind of wigwam; the marble palaces are artificial caverns,
+vast, resonant, chilling, good to visit, not desirable to live in, for
+most of us. One's individuality should betray itself in all that
+surrounds him; he should _secrete_ his shell, like a mollusk; if he
+can sprinkle a few pearls through it, so much the better. It is best,
+perhaps, that one should avoid being a duke and living in a
+palace,--that is, if he has his choice in the robing chamber where souls
+are fitted with their earthly garments.
+
+One of the most interesting parts of my visit to Eaton Hall was my tour
+through the stables. The Duke is a famous breeder and lover of the turf.
+Mr. Rathbone and myself soon made the acquaintance of the chief of the
+stable department. Readers of Homer do not want to be reminded that
+_hippodamoio_, horse-subduer, is the genitive of an epithet applied
+as a chief honor to the most illustrious heroes. It is the last word of
+the last line of the Iliad, and fitly closes the account of the funeral
+pageant of Hector, the tamer of horses. We Americans are a little shy of
+confessing that any title or conventional grandeur makes an impression
+upon us. If at home we wince before any official with a sense of
+blighted inferiority, it is by general confession the clerk at the hotel
+office. There is an excuse for this, inasmuch as he holds our destinies
+in his hands, and decides whether, in case of accident, we shall have to
+jump from the third or sixth story window. Lesser grandeurs do not find
+us very impressible. There is, however, something about the man who
+deals in horses which takes down the spirit, however proud, of him who
+is unskilled in equestrian matters and unused to the horse-lover's
+vocabulary. We followed the master of the stables, meekly listening and
+once in a while questioning. I had to fall back on my reserves, and
+summoned up memories half a century old to gain the respect and win the
+confidence of the great horse-subduer. He showed us various fine
+animals, some in their stalls, some outside of them. Chief of all was
+the renowned Bend Or, a Derby winner, a noble and beautiful bay,
+destined in a few weeks to gain new honors on the same turf in the
+triumph of his offspring Ormonde, whose acquaintance we shall make
+by-and-by.
+
+The next day, Tuesday, May 11th, at 4.25, we took the train for London.
+We had a saloon car, which had been thoughtfully secured for us through
+unseen, not unsuspected, agencies, which had also beautified the
+compartment with flowers.
+
+Here are some of my first impressions of England as seen from the
+carriage and from the cars.--How very English! I recall Birket Foster's
+Pictures of English Landscape,--a beautiful, poetical series of views,
+but hardly more poetical than the reality. How thoroughly England _is
+groomed_! Our New England out-of-doors landscape often looks as if it
+had just got out of bed, and had not finished its toilet. The glowing
+green of everything strikes me: green hedges in place of our
+rail-fences, always ugly, and our rude stone-walls, which are not
+wanting in a certain look of fitness approaching to comeliness, and are
+really picturesque when lichen-coated, but poor features of landscape as
+compared to these universal hedges. I am disappointed in the trees, so
+far; I have not seen one large tree as yet. Most of those I see are of
+very moderate dimensions, feathered all the way up their long slender
+trunks, with a lop-sided mop of leaves at the top, like a wig which has
+slipped awry. I trust that I am not finding everything _couleur de
+rose_; but I certainly do find the cheeks of children and young
+persons of such brilliant rosy hue as I do not remember that I have ever
+seen before. I am almost ready to think this and that child's face has
+been colored from a pink saucer. If the Saxon youth exposed for sale at
+Rome, in the days of Pope Gregory the Great, had complexions like these
+children, no wonder that the pontiff exclaimed, Not _Angli_, but
+_angeli_! All this may sound a little extravagant, but I am giving
+my impressions without any intentional exaggeration. How far these first
+impressions may be modified by after-experiences there will be time
+enough to find out and to tell. It is better to set them down at once
+just as they are. A first impression is one never to be repeated; the
+second look will see much that was not noticed before, but it will not
+reproduce the sharp lines of the _first proof_, which is always
+interesting, no matter what the eye or the mind fixes upon. "I see men
+as trees walking." That first experience could not be mended. When
+Dickens landed in Boston, he was struck with the brightness of all the
+objects he saw,--buildings, signs, and so forth. When I landed in
+Liverpool, everything looked very dark, very dingy, very massive, in the
+streets I drove through. So in London, but in a week it all seemed
+natural enough.
+
+We got to the hotel where we had engaged quarters, at eleven o'clock in
+the evening of Wednesday, the 12th of May. Everything was ready for
+us,--a bright fire blazing and supper waiting. When we came to look at
+the accommodations, we found they were not at all adapted to our needs.
+It was impossible to stay there another night. So early the next morning
+we sent out our courier-maid, a dove from the ark, to find us a place
+where we could rest the soles of our feet. London is a nation of
+something like four millions of inhabitants, and one does not feel easy
+without he has an assured place of shelter. The dove flew all over the
+habitable districts of the city,--inquired at as many as twenty houses.
+No roosting-place for our little flock of three. At last the good angel
+who followed us everywhere, in one shape or another, pointed the
+wanderer to a place which corresponded with all our requirements and
+wishes. This was at No. 17 Dover Street, Mackellar's Hotel, where we
+found ourselves comfortably lodged and well cared for during the whole
+time we were in London. It was close to Piccadilly and to Bond Street.
+Near us, in the same range, were Brown's Hotel and Batt's Hotel, both
+widely known to the temporary residents of London.
+
+We were but partially recovered from the fatigues and trials of the
+voyage when our arrival pulled the string of the social shower-bath, and
+the invitations began pouring down upon us so fast that we caught our
+breath, and felt as if we should be smothered. The first evening saw us
+at a great dinner-party at our well-remembered friend Lady Harcourt's.
+Twenty guests, celebrities and agreeable persons, with or without
+titles. The tables were radiant with silver, glistening with choice
+porcelain, blazing with a grand show of tulips. This was our "baptism of
+fire" in that long conflict which lasts through the London season. After
+dinner came a grand reception, most interesting, but fatiguing to
+persons hardly as yet in good condition for social service. We lived
+through it, however, and enjoyed meeting so many friends, known and
+unknown, who were very cordial and pleasant in their way of receiving
+us.
+
+It was plain that we could not pretend to answer all the invitations
+which flooded our tables. If we had attempted it, we should have found
+no time for anything else. A secretary was evidently a matter of
+immediate necessity. Through the kindness of Mrs. Pollock, we found a
+young lady who was exactly fitted for the place. She was installed in
+the little room intended for her, and began the work of accepting with
+pleasure and regretting our inability, of acknowledging the receipt of
+books, flowers, and other objects, and being very sorry that we could
+not subscribe to this good object and attend that meeting in behalf of a
+deserving charity,--in short, writing almost everything for us except
+autographs, which I can warrant were always genuine. The poor young lady
+was almost tired out sometimes, having to stay at her table, on one
+occasion, so late as eleven in the evening, to get through her day's
+work. I simplified matters for her by giving her a set of formulae as a
+base to start from, and she proved very apt at the task of modifying
+each particular letter to suit its purpose.
+
+From this time forward continued a perpetual round of social
+engagements. Breakfasts, luncheons, dinners, teas, receptions with
+spread tables, two, three, and four deep of an evening, with receiving
+company at our own rooms, took up the day, so that we had very little
+time for common sight-seeing.
+
+Of these kinds of entertainments, the breakfast, though pleasant enough
+when the company is agreeable, as I always found it, is the least
+convenient of all times and modes of visiting. You have already
+interviewed one breakfast, and are expecting soon to be coquetting with
+a tempting luncheon. If one had as many stomachs as a ruminant, he would
+not mind three or four serious meals a day, not counting the tea as one
+of them. The luncheon is a very convenient affair: it does not require
+special dress; it is informal; it is soon over, and may be made light or
+heavy, as one chooses. The afternoon tea is almost a necessity in London
+life. It is considered useful as "a pick me up," and it serves an
+admirable purpose in the social system. It costs the household hardly
+any trouble or expense. It brings people together in the easiest
+possible way, for ten minutes or an hour, just as their engagements or
+fancies may settle it. A cup of tea at the right moment does for the
+virtuous reveller all that Falstaff claims for a good sherris-sack, or
+at least the first half of its "twofold operation:" "It ascends me into
+the brain; dries me there all the foolish and dull and crudy vapors
+which environ it; makes it apprehensive, quick, forgetive, full of
+nimble, fiery and delectable shapes, which delivered over to the voice,
+the tongue, which is the birth, becomes excellent wit."
+
+But it must have the right brain to work upon, and I doubt if there is
+any brain to which it is so congenial and from which it brings so much
+as that of a first-rate London old lady. I came away from the great city
+with the feeling that this most complex product of civilization was
+nowhere else developed to such perfection. The octogenarian Londoness
+has been in society,--let us say the highest society,--all her days. She
+is as tough as an old macaw, or she would not have lasted so long. She
+has seen and talked with all the celebrities of three generations, all
+the beauties of at least half a dozen decades. Her wits have been kept
+bright by constant use, and as she is free of speech it requires some
+courage to face her. Yet nobody can be more agreeable, even to young
+persons, than one of these precious old dowagers. A great beauty is
+almost certainly thinking how she looks while one is talking with her;
+an authoress is waiting to have one praise her book; but a grand old
+lady, who loves London society, who lives in it, who understands young
+people and all sorts of people, with her high-colored recollections of
+the past and her grand-maternal interests in the new generation, is the
+best of companions, especially over a cup of tea just strong enough to
+stir up her talking ganglions.
+
+A breakfast, a lunch, a tea, is a circumstance, an occurrence, in social
+life, but a dinner is an event. It is the full-blown flower of that
+cultivated growth of which those lesser products are the buds. I will
+not try to enumerate, still less to describe, the various entertainments
+to which we were invited, and many of which we attended. Among the
+professional friends I found or made during this visit to London, none
+were more kindly attentive than Dr. Priestley, who, with his charming
+wife, the daughter of the late Robert Chambers, took more pains to carry
+out our wishes than we could have asked or hoped for. At his house I
+first met Sir James Paget and Sir William Gull, long well known to me,
+as to the medical profession everywhere, as preëminent in their several
+departments. If I were an interviewer or a newspaper reporter, I should
+be tempted to give the impression which the men and women of distinction
+I met made upon me; but where all were cordial, where all made me feel
+as nearly as they could that I belonged where I found myself, whether
+the ceiling were a low or a lofty one, I do not care to differentiate my
+hosts and my other friends. _Fortemque Gyan fortemque Cloanthum_,
+--I left my microscope and my test-papers at home.
+
+Our friends, several of them, had a pleasant way of sending their
+carriages to give us a drive in the Park, where, except in certain
+permitted regions, the common numbered vehicles are not allowed to
+enter. Lady Harcourt sent her carriage for us to go to her sister's,
+Mrs. Mildmay's, where we had a pleasant little "tea," and met one of the
+most agreeable and remarkable of those London old ladies I have spoken
+of. For special occasions we hired an unnumbered carriage, with
+professionally equipped driver and footman.
+
+Mrs. Bloomfield Moore sent her carriage for us to take us to a lunch at
+her house, where we met Mr. Browning, Sir Henry and Lady Layard, Oscar
+Wilde and his handsome wife, and other well-known guests. After lunch,
+recitations, songs, etc. House full of pretty things. Among other
+curiosities a portfolio of drawings illustrating Keeley's motor, which,
+up to this time, has manifested a remarkably powerful _vis
+inertice_, but which promises miracles. In the evening a grand
+reception at Lady Granville's, beginning (for us, at least) at eleven
+o'clock. The house a palace, and A---- thinks there were a thousand
+people there. We made the tour of the rooms, saw many great personages,
+had to wait for our carriage a long time, but got home at one o'clock.
+
+English people have queer notions about iced-water and ice-cream. "You
+will surely die, eating such cold stuff," said a lady to my companion.
+"Oh, no," she answered, "but I should certainly die were I to drink your
+two cups of strong tea." I approved of this "counter" on the teacup, but
+I did not think either of them was in much danger.
+
+The next day Rev. Mr. Haweis sent his carriage, and we drove in the
+Park. In the afternoon we went to our Minister's to see the American
+ladies who had been presented at the drawing-room. After this, both of
+us were glad to pass a day or two in comparative quiet, except that we
+had a room full of visitors. So many persons expressed a desire to make
+our acquaintance that we thought it would be acceptable to them if we
+would give a reception ourselves. We were thinking how we could manage
+it with our rooms at the hotel, which were not arranged so that they
+could be thrown together. Still, we were planning to make the best of
+them, when Dr. and Mrs. Priestley suggested that we should receive our
+company at their house. This was a surprise, and a most welcome one, and
+A---- and her kind friend busied themselves at once about the
+arrangements.
+
+We went to a luncheon at Lansdowne House, Lord Rosebery's residence, not
+far from our hotel. My companion tells a little incident which may
+please an American six-year-old: "The eldest of the four children,
+Sibyl, a pretty, bright child of six, told me that she wrote a letter to
+the Queen. I said, 'Did you begin, Dear Queen?' 'No,' she answered, 'I
+began, Your Majesty, and signed myself, Your little humble servant,
+Sibyl.'" A very cordial and homelike reception at this great house,
+where a couple of hours were passed most agreeably.
+
+On the following Sunday I went to Westminster Abbey to hear a sermon
+from Canon Harford on A Cheerful Life. A lively, wholesome, and
+encouraging discourse, such as it would do many a forlorn New England
+congregation good to hear. In the afternoon we both went together to the
+Abbey. Met our Beverly neighbor, Mrs. Vaughan, and adopted her as one of
+our party. The seats we were to have were full, and we had to be stowed
+where there was any place that would hold us. I was smuggled into a
+stall, going through long and narrow passages, between crowded rows of
+people, and found myself at last with a big book before me and a set of
+official personages around me, whose duties I did not clearly
+understand. I thought they might be mutes, or something of that sort,
+salaried to look grave and keep quiet. After service we took tea with
+Dean Bradley, and after tea we visited the Jerusalem Chamber. I had been
+twice invited to weddings in that famous room: once to the marriage of
+my friend Motley's daughter, then to that of Mr. Frederick Locker's
+daughter to Lionel Tennyson, whose recent death has been so deeply
+mourned. I never expected to see that Jerusalem in which Harry the
+Fourth died, but there I found myself in the large panelled chamber,
+with all its associations. The older memories came up but vaguely; an
+American finds it as hard to call back anything over two or three
+centuries old as a sucking-pump to draw up water from a depth of over
+thirty-three feet and a fraction. After this A---- went to a musical
+party, dined with the Vaughans, and had a good time among American
+friends.
+
+The next evening we went to the Lyceum Theatre to see Mr. Irving. He had
+placed the Royal box at our disposal, so we invited our friends the
+Priestleys to go with us, and we all enjoyed the evening mightily.
+Between the scenes we went behind the curtain, and saw the very curious
+and admirable machinery of the dramatic spectacle. We made the
+acquaintance of several imps and demons, who were got up wonderfully
+well. Ellen Terry was as fascinating as ever. I remembered that once
+before I had met her and Mr. Irving behind the scenes. It was at the
+Boston Theatre, and while I was talking with them a very heavy piece of
+scenery came crashing down, and filled the whole place with dust. It was
+but a short distance from where we were standing, and I could not help
+thinking how near our several life-dramas came to a simultaneous
+_exeunt omnes_.
+
+A long visit from a polite interviewer, shopping, driving, calling,
+arranging about the people to be invited to our reception, and an
+agreeable dinner at Chelsea with my American friend, Mrs. Merritt,
+filled up this day full enough, and left us in good condition for the
+next, which was to be a very busy one.
+
+In the Introduction to these papers, I mentioned the fact that more than
+half a century ago I went to the famous Derby race at Epsom. I
+determined, if possible, to see the Derby of 1886, as I had seen that of
+1834. I must have spoken of this intention to some interviewer, for I
+find the following paragraph in an English sporting newspaper, "The
+Field," for May 29th, 1886:--
+
+"The Derby has always been the one event in the racing year which
+statesmen, philosophers, poets, essayists, and _littérateurs_
+desire to see once in their lives. A few years since Mr. Gladstone was
+induced by Lord Granville and Lord Wolverton to run down to Epsom on the
+Derby day. The impression produced upon the Prime Minister's sensitive
+and emotional mind was that the mirth and hilarity displayed by his
+compatriots upon Epsom race-course was Italian rather than English in
+its character. On the other hand, Gustave Doré, who also saw the Derby
+for the first and only time in his life, exclaimed, as he gazed with
+horror upon the faces below him, _Quelle scène brutale!_ We wonder
+to which of these two impressions Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes inclined, if
+he went last Wednesday to Epsom! Probably the well-known, etc., etc.--Of
+one thing Dr. Holmes may rest finally satisfied: the Derby of 1886 may
+possibly have seemed to him far less exciting than that of 1834; but
+neither in 1834 nor in any other year was the great race ever won by a
+better sportsman or more honorable man than the Duke of Westminster."
+
+My desire to see the Derby of this year was of the same origin and
+character as that which led me to revisit many scenes which I
+remembered. I cared quite as much about renewing old impressions as
+about getting new ones. I enjoyed everything which I had once seen all
+the more from the blending of my recollections with the present as it
+was before me.
+
+The Derby day of 1834 was exceedingly windy and dusty. Our party, riding
+on the outside of the coach, was half smothered with the dust, and
+arrived in a very deteriorated condition, but recompensed for it by the
+extraordinary sights we had witnessed. There was no train in those days,
+and the whole road between London and Epsom was choked with vehicles of
+all kinds, from four-in-hands to donkey-carts and wheelbarrows. My
+friends and I mingled freely in the crowds, and saw all the "humours" of
+the occasion. The thimble-riggers were out in great force, with their
+light, movable tables, the cups or thimbles, and the "little jokers,"
+and the coachman, the sham gentleman, the country greenhorn, all
+properly got up and gathered about the table. I think we had "Aunt
+Sally," too,--the figure with a pipe in her mouth, which one might shy a
+stick at for a penny or two and win something, I forget what. The
+clearing the course of stragglers, and the chasing about of the
+frightened little dog who had got in between the thick ranks of
+spectators, reminded me of what I used to see on old "artillery
+election" days.
+
+It was no common race that I went to see in 1834. "It is asserted in the
+columns of a contemporary that Plenipotentiary was absolutely the best
+horse of the century." This was the winner of the race I saw so long
+ago. Herring's colored portrait, which I have always kept, shows him as
+a great, powerful chestnut horse, well deserving the name of "bullock,"
+which one of the jockeys applied to him. "Rumor credits Dr. Holmes," so
+"The Field" says, "with desiring mentally to compare his two Derbies
+with each other." I was most fortunate in my objects of comparison. The
+horse I was about to see win was not unworthy of being named with the
+renowned champion of my earlier day. I quote from a writer in the
+"London Morning Post," whose words, it will be seen, carry authority
+with them:--
+
+"Deep as has hitherto been my reverence for Plenipotentiary, Bay
+Middleton, and Queen of Trumps from hearsay, and for Don John, Crucifix,
+etc., etc., from my own personal knowledge, I am inclined to award the
+palm to Ormonde as the best three-year-old I have ever seen during close
+upon half a century's connection with the turf."
+
+Ormonde, the Duke of Westminster's horse, was the son of that other
+winner of the Derby, Bend Or, whom I saw at Eaton Hall.
+
+Perhaps some coeval of mine may think it was a rather youthful idea to
+go to the race. I cannot help that. I was off on my first long vacation
+for half a century, and had a right to my whims and fancies. But it was
+one thing to go in with a vast crowd at five and twenty, and another
+thing to run the risks of the excursion at more than thrice that age. I
+looked about me for means of going safely, and could think of nothing
+better than to ask one of the pleasantest and kindest of gentlemen, to
+whom I had a letter from Mr. Winthrop, at whose house I had had the
+pleasure of making his acquaintance. Lord Rosebery suggested that the
+best way would be for me to go in the special train which was to carry
+the Prince of Wales. First, then, I was to be introduced to his Royal
+Highness, which office was kindly undertaken by our very obliging and
+courteous Minister, Mr. Phelps. After this all was easily arranged, and
+I was cared for as well as if I had been Mr. Phelps himself. On the
+grand stand I found myself in the midst of the great people, who were
+all very natural, and as much at their ease as the rest of the world.
+The Prince is of a lively temperament and a very cheerful aspect,--a
+young girl would call him "jolly" as well as "nice." I recall the story
+of "Mr. Pope" and his Prince of Wales, as told by Horace Walpole. "Mr.
+Pope, you don't love princes." "Sir, I beg your pardon." "Well, you
+don't love kings, then." "Sir, I own I love the lion best before his
+claws are grown." Certainly, nothing in Prince Albert Edward suggests
+any aggressive weapons or tendencies. The lovely, youthful-looking,
+gracious Alexandra, the always affable and amiable Princess Louise, the
+tall youth who sees the crown and sceptre afar off in his dreams, the
+slips of girls so like many school misses we left behind us,--all these
+grand personages, not being on exhibition, but off enjoying themselves,
+just as I was and as other people were, seemed very much like their
+fellow-mortals. It is really easier to feel at home with the highest
+people in the land than with the awkward commoner who was knighted
+yesterday. When "My Lord and Sir Paul" came into the Club which
+Goldsmith tells us of, the hilarity of the evening was instantly
+checked. The entrance of a dignitary like the present Prince of Wales
+would not have spoiled the fun of the evening. If there is any one
+accomplishment specially belonging to princes, it is that of making the
+persons they meet feel at ease.
+
+The grand stand to which I was admitted was a little privileged
+republic. I remember Thackeray's story of his asking some simple
+question of a royal or semi-royal personage whom he met in the courtyard
+of an hotel, which question his Highness did not answer, but called a
+subordinate to answer for him. I had been talking some time with a tall,
+good-looking gentleman, whom I took for a nobleman to whom I had been
+introduced. Something led me to think I was mistaken in the identity of
+this gentleman. I asked him, at last, if he were not So and So. "No," he
+said, "I am Prince Christian." You are a Christian prince, anyhow, I
+said to myself, if I may judge by your manners.
+
+I once made a similar mistake in addressing a young fellow-citizen of
+some social pretensions. I apologized for my error.
+
+"No offence," he answered.
+
+_Offence_ indeed! I should hope not. But he had not the "_manière
+de prince_", or he would never have used that word.
+
+I must say something about the race I had taken so much pains to see.
+There was a preliminary race, which excited comparatively little
+interest. After this the horses were shown in the paddock, and many of
+our privileged party went down from the stand to look at them. Then they
+were brought out, smooth, shining, fine-drawn, frisky, spirit-stirring
+to look upon,--most beautiful of all the bay horse Ormonde, who could
+hardly be restrained, such was his eagerness for action. The horses
+disappear in the distance.--They are off,--not yet distinguishable, at
+least to me. A little waiting time, and they swim into our ken, but in
+what order of precedence it is as yet not easy to say. Here they come!
+Two horses have emerged from the ruck, and are sweeping, rushing,
+storming, towards us, almost side by side. One slides by the other, half
+a length, a length, a length and a half. Those are Archer's colors, and
+the beautiful bay Ormonde flashes by the line, winner of the Derby of
+1886. "The Bard" has made a good fight for the first place, and comes in
+second. Poor Archer, the king of the jockeys! He will bestride no more
+Derby winners. A few weeks later he died by his own hand.
+
+While the race was going on, the yells of the betting crowd beneath us
+were incessant. It must have been the frantic cries and movements of
+these people that caused Gustave Doré to characterize it as a brutal
+scene. The vast mob which thronged the wide space beyond the shouting
+circle just round us was much like that of any other fair, so far as I
+could see from my royal perch. The most conspicuous object was a man on
+an immensely tall pair of stilts, stalking about among the crowd. I
+think it probable that I had as much enjoyment in forming one of the
+great mob in 1834 as I had among the grandeurs in 1886, but the last is
+pleasanter to remember and especially to tell of.
+
+After the race we had a luncheon served us, a comfortable and
+substantial one, which was very far from unwelcome. I did not go to the
+Derby to bet on the winner. But as I went in to luncheon, I passed a
+gentleman standing in custody of a plate half covered with sovereigns.
+He politely asked me if I would take a little paper from a heap there
+was lying by the plate, and add a sovereign to the collection already
+there. I did so, and, unfolding my paper, found it was a blank, and
+passed on. The pool, as I afterwards learned, fell to the lot of the
+Turkish Ambassador. I found it very windy and uncomfortable on the more
+exposed parts of the grand stand, and was glad that I had taken a shawl
+with me, in which I wrapped myself as if I had been on shipboard. This,
+I told my English friends, was the more civilized form of the Indian's
+blanket. My report of the weather does not say much for the English May,
+but it is generally agreed upon that this is a backward and unpleasant
+spring.
+
+After my return from the race we went to a large dinner at Mr. Phelps's
+house, where we met Mr. Browning again, and the Lord Chancellor
+Herschell, among others. Then to Mrs. Cyril Flower's, one of the most
+sumptuous houses in London; and after that to Lady Rothschild's, another
+of the private palaces, with ceilings lofty as firmaments, and walls
+that might have been copied from the New Jerusalem. There was still
+another great and splendid reception at Lady Dalhousie's, and a party at
+Mrs. Smith's, but we were both tired enough to be willing to go home
+after what may be called a pretty good day's work at enjoying ourselves.
+
+We had been a fortnight in London, and were now inextricably entangled
+in the meshes of the golden web of London social life.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+
+The reader who glances over these papers, and, finding them too full of
+small details and the lesser personal matters which belong naturally to
+private correspondences, turns impatiently from them, has my entire
+sympathy and good-will. He is not one of those for whom these pages are
+meant. Having no particular interest in the writer or his affairs, he
+does not care for the history of "the migrations from the blue bed to
+the brown" and the many Mistress Quicklyisms of circumstantial
+narrative. Yet all this may be pleasant reading to relatives and
+friends.
+
+But I must not forget that a new generation of readers has come into
+being since I have been writing for the public, and that a new
+generation of aspiring and brilliant authors has grown into general
+recognition. The dome of Boston State House, which is the centre of my
+little universe, was glittering in its fresh golden pellicle before I
+had reached the scriptural boundary of life. It has lost its lustre now,
+and the years which have dulled its surface have whitened the dome of
+that fragile structure in which my consciousness holds the session of
+its faculties. Time is not to be cheated. It is easy to talk of
+perennial youth, and to toy with the flattering fictions which every
+ancient personage accepts as true so far as he himself is concerned, and
+laughs at as foolish talk when he hears them applied to others. When, in
+my exulting immaturity, I wrote the lines not unknown to the reading
+public under the name of "The Last Leaf", I spoke of the possibility
+that I myself might linger on the old bough until the buds and blossoms
+of a new spring were opening and spreading all around me. I am not as
+yet the solitary survivor of my literary contemporaries, and,
+remembering who my few coevals are, it may well be hoped that I shall
+not be. But I feel lonely, very lonely, in the pages through which I
+wander. These are new names in the midst of which I find my own. In
+another sense I am very far from alone. I have daily assurances that I
+have a constituency of known and unknown personal friends, whose
+indulgence I have no need of asking. I know there are readers enough who
+will be pleased to follow me in my brief excursion, _because I am
+myself_, and will demand no better reason. If I choose to write for
+them, I do no injury to those for whom my personality is an object of
+indifference. They will find on every shelf some publications which are
+not intended for them, and which they prefer to let alone. No person is
+expected to help himself to everything set before him at a public table.
+I will not, therefore, hesitate to go on with the simple story of our
+Old World experiences.
+
+Thanks to my Indian blanket,--my shawl, I mean,--I found myself nothing
+the worse for my manifold adventures of the 27th of May. The cold wind
+sweeping over Epsom downs reminded me of our own chilling easterly
+breezes; especially the northeasterly ones, which are to me less
+disagreeable than the southeasterly. But the poetical illusion about an
+English May,--
+
+  "Zephyr with Aurora playing,
+  As he met her once a-Maying,"--
+
+and all that, received a shrewd thrust. Zephyr ought to have come in an
+ulster, and offered Aurora a warm petticoat. However, in spite of all
+difficulties, I brought off my recollections of the Derby of 1886 in
+triumph, and am now waiting for the colored portrait of Ormonde with
+Archer on his back,--Archer, the winner of five Derby races, one of
+which was won by the American horse Iroquois. When that picture, which I
+am daily expecting, arrives, I shall have it framed and hung by the side
+of Herring's picture of Plenipotentiary, the horse I saw win the Derby
+in 1834. These two, with an old portrait of the great Eclipse, who, as
+my engraving of 1780 (Stubbs's) says, "was never beat, or ever had
+occation for Whip or Spur," will constitute my entire sporting gallery.
+I have not that vicious and demoralizing love of horse-flesh which makes
+it next to impossible to find a perfectly honest hippophile. But a racer
+is the realization of an ideal quadruped,--
+
+  "A pard-like spirit, beautiful and swift;"
+
+so ethereal, so bird-like, that it is no wonder that the horse about
+whom those old story-tellers lied so stoutly,--telling of his running a
+mile in a minute,--was called Flying Childers.
+
+The roses in Mrs. Pfeiffer's garden were hardly out of flower when I
+lunched with her at her pretty villa at Putney. There I met Mr.
+Browning, Mr. Holman Hunt, Mrs. Ritchie, Miss Anna Swanwick, the
+translator of Æschylus, and other good company, besides that of my
+entertainer.
+
+One of my very agreeable experiences was a call from a gentleman with
+whom I had corresponded, but whom I had never met. This was Mr. John
+Bellows, of Gloucester, publisher, printer, man of letters, or rather of
+words; for he is the author of that truly remarkable little manual, "The
+Bona Fide Pocket Dictionary of the French and English Languages." To the
+review of this little book, which is dedicated to Prince Lucien
+Bonaparte, the "London Times" devoted a full column. I never heard any
+one who had used it speak of it except with admiration. The modest
+Friend may be surprised to find himself at full length in my pages, but
+those who know the little miracle of typography, its conciseness,
+completeness, arrangement, will not wonder that I was gratified to see
+the author, who sent it to me, and who has written me most interesting
+letters on the local antiquities of Gloucester and its neighborhood.
+
+We lunched that day at Lady Camperdown's, where we were happy to meet
+Miss Frances Power Cobbe. In the afternoon we went by invitation to a
+"tea and talk" at the Reverend Mr. Haweis's, at Chelsea. We found the
+house close packed, but managed to get through the rooms, shaking
+innumerable hands of the reverend gentleman's parishioners and other
+visitors. It was very well arranged, so as not to be too fatiguing, and
+we left the cordial gathering in good condition. We drove home with
+Bishop and Mrs. Ellicott.
+
+After this Sir James Paget called, and took me to a small and early
+dinner-party; and A---- went with my secretary, the young lady of whom I
+have spoken, to see "Human Nature," at Drury Lane Theatre.
+
+On the following day, after dining with Lady Holland (wife of Sir Henry,
+niece of Macaulay), we went across the street to our neighbor's, Lady
+Stanley's. There was to be a great meeting of schoolmistresses, in whose
+work her son, the Honorable Lyulph Stanley, is deeply interested. Alas!
+The schoolma'ams were just leaving as we entered the door, and all we
+saw of them was the trail of their descending robes. I was very sorry
+for this, for I have a good many friends among our own schoolmistresses,
+--friends whom I never saw, but know through the kind words they have
+addressed to me.
+
+No place in London looks more reserved and exclusive than Devonshire
+House, standing back behind its high wall, extending along Piccadilly.
+There is certainly nothing in its exterior which invites intrusion. We
+had the pleasure of taking tea in the great house, accompanying our
+American friend, Lady Harcourt, and were graciously received and
+entertained by Lady Edward Cavendish. Like the other great houses, it is
+a museum of paintings, statues, objects of interest of all sorts. It
+must be confessed that it is pleasanter to go through the rooms with one
+of the ladies of the household than under the lead of a liveried
+servant. Lord Hartington came in while we were there. All the men who
+are distinguished in political life become so familiar to the readers of
+"Punch" in their caricatures, that we know them at sight. Even those who
+can claim no such public distinction are occasionally the subjects of
+the caricaturist, as some of us have found out for ourselves. A good
+caricature, which seizes the prominent features and gives them the
+character Nature hinted, but did not fully carry out, is a work of
+genius. Nature herself is a remorseless caricaturist, as our daily
+intercourse with our fellow men and women makes evident to us, and as is
+curiously illustrated in the figures of Charles Lebrun, showing the
+relations between certain human faces and those of various animals.
+Hardly an English statesman in bodily presence could be mistaken by any
+of "Punch's" readers.
+
+On the same day that we made this quiet visit we attended a great and
+ceremonious assembly. There were two parts in the programme, in the
+first of which I was on the stage _solus_,--that is, without my
+companion; in the second we were together. This day, Saturday, the 29th
+of May, was observed as the Queen's birthday, although she was born on
+the 24th. Sir William Harcourt gave a great dinner to the officials of
+his department, and later in the evening Lady Rosebery held a reception
+at the Foreign Office. On both these occasions everybody is expected to
+be in court dress, but my host told me I might present myself in
+ordinary evening dress. I thought that I might feel awkwardly among so
+many guests, all in the wedding garments, knee-breeches and the rest,
+without which I ventured among them. I never passed an easier evening in
+any company than among these official personages. Sir William took me
+under the shield of his ample presence, and answered all my questions
+about the various notable personages at his table in a way to have made
+my fortune if I had been a reporter. From the dinner I went to Mrs.
+Gladstone's, at 10 Downing Street, where A---- called for me. She had
+found a very small and distinguished company there, Prince Albert Victor
+among the rest. At half past eleven we walked over to the Foreign Office
+to Lady Rosebery's reception.
+
+Here Mr. Gladstone was of course the centre of a group, to which I was
+glad to add myself. His features are almost as familiar to me as my own,
+for a photograph of him in his library has long stood on my revolving
+bookcase, with a large lens before it. He is one of a small circle of
+individuals in whom I have had and still have a special personal
+interest. The year 1809, which introduced me to atmospheric existence,
+was the birth-year of Gladstone, Tennyson, Lord Houghton, and Darwin. It
+seems like an honor to have come into the world in such company, but it
+is more likely to promote humility than vanity in a common mortal to
+find himself coeval with such illustrious personages. Men born in the
+same year watch each other, especially as the sands of life begin to run
+low, as we can imagine so many damaged hour-glasses to keep an eye on
+each other. Women, of course, never know who are their contemporaries.
+
+Familiar to me as were the features of Mr. Gladstone, I looked upon him
+with astonishment. For he stood before me with epaulets on his shoulders
+and a rapier at his side, as military in his aspect as if he had been
+Lord Wolseley, to whom I was introduced a short time afterwards. I was
+fortunate enough to see and hear Mr. Gladstone on a still more memorable
+occasion, and can afford to leave saying what were my impressions of the
+very eminent statesman until I speak of that occasion.
+
+A great number of invitations had been given out for the reception at
+Lady Rosebery's,--over two thousand, my companion heard it said.
+Whatever the number was, the crowd was very great,--so great that one
+might well feel alarmed for the safety of any delicate person who was in
+the _pack_ which formed itself at one place in the course of the
+evening. Some obstruction must have existed _a fronte_, and the
+_vis a tergo_ became fearful in its pressure on those who were
+caught in the jam. I began thinking of the crushes in which I had been
+caught, or which I had read and heard of: the terrible time at the
+execution of Holloway and Haggerty, where some forty persons were
+squeezed or trampled to death; the Brooklyn Theatre and other similar
+tragedies; the crowd I was in at the unveiling of the statue on the
+column of the Place Vendome, where I felt as one may suppose Giles Corey
+did when, in his misery, he called for "more weight" to finish him. But
+there was always a _deus ex machina_ for us when we were in
+trouble. Looming up above the crowd was the smiling and encouraging
+countenance of the ever active, always present, always helpful Mr.
+Smalley. He cleared a breathing space before us. For a short time it was
+really a formidable wedging together of people, and if a lady had
+fainted in the press, she might have run a serious risk before she could
+have been extricated. No more "marble halls" for us, if we had to
+undergo the _peine forte et dure_ as the condition of our presence!
+We were both glad to escape from this threatened asphyxia, and move
+freely about the noble apartments. Lady Rosebery, who was kindness
+itself, would have had us stay and sit down in comfort at the
+supper-table, after the crowd had thinned, but we were tired with all we
+had been through, and ordered our carriage. _Ordered our carriage!_
+
+  "I can call spirits from the vasty deep." ...
+  _But will they come when you do call for them?_"
+
+The most formidable thing about a London party is getting away from it.
+"C'est le _dernier_ pas qui coute." A crowd of anxious persons in
+retreat is hanging about the windy door, and the breezy stairway, and
+the airy hall.
+
+A stentorian voice, hard as that of Rhadamanthus, exclaims,--
+
+"Lady Vere de Vere's carriage stops the way!"
+
+If my Lady Vere de Vere is not on hand, and that pretty quickly, off
+goes her carriage, and the stern voice bawls again,--
+
+"Mrs. Smith's carriage stops the way!"
+
+Mrs. Smith's particular Smith may be worth his millions and live in his
+marble palace; but if Mrs. Smith thinks her coachman is going to stand
+with his horses at that door until she appears, she is mistaken, for she
+is a minute late, and now the coach moves on, and Rhadamanthus calls
+aloud,--
+
+"Mrs. Brown's carriage stops the way!"
+
+Half the lung fevers that carry off the great people are got waiting for
+their carriages.
+
+I know full well that many readers would be disappointed if I did not
+mention some of the grand places and bring in some of the great names
+that lend their lustre to London society. We were to go to a fine
+musical party at Lady Rothschild's on the evening of the 30th of May. It
+happened that the day was Sunday, and if we had been as punctilious as
+some New England Sabbatarians, we might have felt compelled to decline
+the tempting invitation. But the party was given by a daughter of
+Abraham, and in every Hebrew household the true Sabbath was over. We
+were content for that evening to shelter ourselves under the old
+dispensation.
+
+The party, or concert, was a very brilliant affair. Patti sang to us,
+and a tenor, and a violinist played for us. How we two Americans came to
+be in so favored a position I do not know; all I do know is that we were
+shown to our places, and found them very agreeable ones. In the same row
+of seats was the Prince of Wales, two chairs off from A----'s seat.
+Directly in front of A---- was the Princess of Wales, "in ruby velvet,
+with six rows of pearls encircling her throat, and two more strings
+falling quite low;" and next her, in front of me, the startling presence
+of Lady de Grey, formerly Lady Lonsdale, and before that Gladys Herbert.
+On the other side of the Princess sat the Grand Duke Michael of Russia.
+
+As we are among the grandest of the grandees, I must enliven my sober
+account with an extract from my companion's diary:--
+
+"There were several great beauties there, Lady Claude Hamilton, a
+queenly blonde, being one. Minnie Stevens Paget had with her the pretty
+Miss Langdon, of New York. Royalty had one room for supper, with its
+attendant lords and ladies. Lord Rothschild took me down to a long table
+for a sit-down supper,--there were some thirty of us. The most superb
+pink orchids were on the table. The [Thane] of ---- sat next me, and how
+he stared before he was introduced! ... This has been the finest party
+we have been to, sitting comfortably in such a beautiful ball-room,
+gazing at royalty in the flesh, and at the shades of departed beauties
+on the wall, by Sir Joshua and Gainsborough. It was a new experience to
+find that the royal lions fed upstairs, and mixed animals below!"
+
+A visit to Windsor had been planned, under the guidance of a friend
+whose kindness had already shown itself in various forms, and who,
+before we left England, did for us more than we could have thought of
+owing to any one person. This gentleman, Mr. Willett, of Brighton,
+called with Mrs. Willett to take us on the visit which had been arranged
+between us.
+
+Windsor Castle, which everybody knows, or can easily learn, all about,
+is one of the largest of those huge caverns in which the descendants of
+the original cave men, when they have reached the height of human
+grandeur, delight to shelter themselves. It seems as if such a great
+hollow quarry of rock would strike a chill through every tenant, but
+modern improvements reach even the palaces of kings and queens, and the
+regulation temperature of the castle, or of its inhabited portions, is
+fixed at sixty-five degrees of Fahrenheit. The royal standard was not
+floating from the tower of the castle, and everything was quiet and
+lonely. We saw all we wanted to,--pictures, furniture, and the rest. My
+namesake, the Queen's librarian, was not there to greet us, or I should
+have had a pleasant half-hour in the library with that very polite
+gentleman, whom I had afterwards the pleasure of meeting in London.
+
+After going through all the apartments in the castle that we cared to
+see, or our conductress cared to show us, we drove in the park, along
+the "three-mile walk," and in the by-roads leading from it. The
+beautiful avenue, the open spaces with scattered trees here and there,
+made this a most delightful excursion. I saw many fine oaks, one about
+sixteen feet of honest girth, but no one which was very remarkable. I
+wished I could have compared the handsomest of them with one in Beverly,
+which I never look at without taking my hat off. This is a young tree,
+with a future before it, if barbarians do not meddle with it, more
+conspicuous for its spread than its circumference, stretching not very
+far from a hundred feet from bough-end to bough-end. I do not think I
+saw a specimen of the British _Quercus robur_ of such consummate
+beauty. But I know from Evelyn and Strutt what England has to boast of,
+and I will not challenge the British oak.
+
+Two sensations I had in Windsor park, or forest, for I am not quite sure
+of the boundary which separates them. The first was the lovely sight of
+the _hawthorn_ in full bloom. I had always thought of the hawthorn
+as a pretty shrub, growing in hedges; as big as a currant bush or a
+barberry bush, or some humble plant of that character. I was surprised
+to see it as a tree, standing by itself, and making the most delicious
+roof a pair of young lovers could imagine to sit under. It looked at a
+little distance like a young apple-tree covered with new-fallen snow. I
+shall never see the word hawthorn in poetry again without the image of
+the snowy but far from chilling canopy rising before me. It is the very
+bower of young love, and must have done more than any growth of the
+forest to soften the doom brought upon man by the fruit of the forbidden
+tree. No wonder that
+
+  "In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of
+  love,"
+
+with the object of his affections awaiting him in this boudoir of
+nature. What a pity that Zekle, who courted Huldy over the apples she
+was peeling, could not have made love as the bucolic youth does, when
+
+  "Every shepherd tells his tale
+  Under the hawthorn in the dale!"
+
+(I will have it _love_-tale, in spite of Warton's comment.) But
+I suppose it does not make so much difference, for love transmutes the
+fruit in Huldy's lap into the apples of the Hesperides.
+
+In this way it is that the associations with the poetry we remember come
+up when we find ourselves surrounded by English scenery. The great poets
+build temples of song, and fill them with images and symbols which move
+us almost to adoration; the lesser minstrels fill a panel or gild a
+cornice here and there, and make our hearts glad with glimpses of
+beauty. I felt all this as I looked around and saw the hawthorns in full
+bloom, in the openings among the oaks and other trees of the forest.
+Presently I heard a sound to which I had never listened before, and
+which I have never heard since:--
+
+Coooo--coooo!
+
+Nature had sent one cuckoo from her aviary to sing his double note for
+me, that I might not pass away from her pleasing show without once
+hearing the call so dear to the poets. It was the last day of spring. A
+few more days, and the solitary voice might have been often heard; for
+the bird becomes so common as to furnish Shakespeare an image to fit
+"the skipping king:"--
+
+  "He was but as the cuckoo is in June,
+  Heard, not regarded."
+
+For the lyric poets the cuckoo is "companion of the spring," "darling of
+the spring;" coming with the daisy, and the primrose, and the blossoming
+sweet-pea. Where the sound came from I could not tell; it puzzled
+Wordsworth, with younger eyes than mine, to find whence issued
+
+     "that cry
+  Which made me look a thousand ways
+  In bush, and tree, and sky."
+
+Only one hint of the prosaic troubled my emotional delight: I could not
+help thinking how capitally the little rogue imitated the cuckoo clock,
+with the sound of which I was pretty well acquainted.
+
+On our return from Windsor we had to get ready for another great dinner
+with our Minister, Mr. Phelps. As we are in the habit of considering our
+great officials as public property, and as some of my readers want as
+many glimpses of high life as a decent regard to republican
+sensibilities will permit, I will borrow a few words from the diary to
+which I have often referred:--
+
+"The Princess Louise was there with the Marquis, and I had the best
+opportunity of seeing how they receive royalty at private houses. Mr.
+and Mrs. Phelps went down to the door to meet her the moment she came,
+and then Mr. Phelps entered the drawing-room with the Princess on his
+arm, and made the tour of the room with her, she bowing and speaking to
+each one of us. Mr. Goschen took me in to dinner, and Lord Lorne was on
+my other side. All of the flowers were of the royal color, red. It was a
+grand dinner.... The Austrian Ambassador, Count Karoli, took Mrs. Phelps
+in [to dinner], his position being higher than that of even the Duke [of
+Argyll], who sat upon her right."
+
+It was a very rich experience for a single day: the stately abode of
+royalty, with all its manifold historical recollections, the magnificent
+avenue of forest trees, the old oaks, the hawthorn in full bloom, and
+the one cry of the cuckoo, calling me back to Nature in her spring-time
+freshness and glory; then, after that, a great London dinner-party at a
+house where the kind host and the gracious hostess made us feel at home,
+and where we could meet the highest people in the land,--the people whom
+we who live in a simpler way at home are naturally pleased to be with
+under such auspices. What of all this shall I remember longest? Let me
+not seem ungrateful to my friends who planned the excursion for us, or
+to those who asked us to the brilliant evening entertainment, but I feel
+as Wordsworth felt about the cuckoo,--he will survive all the other
+memories.
+
+  "And I can listen to thee yet,
+     Can lie upon the plain
+  And listen, till I do beget
+     That golden time again."
+
+Nothing is more hackneyed than an American's description of his feelings
+in the midst of the scenes and objects he has read of all his days, and
+is looking upon for the first time. To each of us it appears in some
+respects in the same way, but with a difference for every individual. We
+may smile at Irving's emotions at the first sight of a distinguished
+Englishman on his own soil,--the ingenious Mr. Roscoe, as an earlier
+generation would have called him. Our tourists, who are constantly going
+forward and back between England and America, lose all sense of the
+special distinctions between the two countries which do not bear on
+their personal convenience. Happy are those who go with unworn,
+unsatiated sensibilities from the New World to the Old; as happy, it may
+be, those who come from the Old World to the New, but of that I cannot
+form a judgment.
+
+On the first day of June we called by appointment upon Mr. Peel, the
+Speaker of the House of Commons, and went through the Houses of
+Parliament. We began with the train-bearer, then met the housekeeper,
+and presently were joined by Mr. Palgrave. The "Golden Treasury" stands
+on my drawing-room table at home, and the name on its title-page had a
+familiar sound. This gentleman is, I believe, a near relative of
+Professor Francis Turner Palgrave, its editor.
+
+Among other things to which Mr. Palgrave called our attention was the
+death-warrant of Charles the First. One name in the list of signers
+naturally fixed our eyes upon it. It was that of John Dixwell. A lineal
+descendant of the old regicide is very near to me by family connection,
+Colonel Dixwell having come to this country, married, and left a
+posterity, which has resumed the name, dropped for the sake of safety at
+the time when he, Goffe, and Whalley, were in concealment in various
+parts of New England.
+
+We lunched with the Speaker, and had the pleasure of the company of
+Archdeacon Farrar. In the afternoon we went to a tea at a very grand
+house, where, as my companion says in her diary, "it took full six men
+in red satin knee-breeches to let us in." Another grand personage asked
+us to dine with her at her country place, but we were too full of
+engagements. In the evening we went to a large reception at Mr. Gosse's.
+It was pleasant to meet artists and scholars,--the kind of company to
+which we are much used in our aesthetic city. I found our host as
+agreeable at home as he was when in Boston, where he became a favorite,
+both as a lecturer and as a visitor.
+
+Another day we visited Stafford House, where Lord Ronald Gower, himself
+an artist, did the honors of the house, showing us the pictures and
+sculptures, his own included, in a very obliging and agreeable way. I
+have often taken note of the resemblances of living persons to the
+portraits and statues of their remote ancestors. In showing us the
+portrait of one of his own far-back progenitors, Lord Ronald placed a
+photograph of himself in the corner of the frame. The likeness was so
+close that the photograph might seem to have been copied from the
+painting, the dress only being changed. The Duke of Sutherland, who had
+just come back from America, complained that the dinners and lunches had
+used him up. I was fast learning how to sympathize with him.
+
+Then to Grosvenor House to see the pictures. I best remember
+Gainsborough's beautiful Blue Boy, commonly so called, from the color of
+his dress, and Sir Joshua's Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse, which
+everybody knows in engravings. We lunched in clerical company that day,
+at the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol's, with the Archbishop of York,
+the Reverend Mr. Haweis, and others as guests. I told A---- that she was
+not sufficiently impressed with her position at the side of an
+archbishop; she was not _crumbling bread_ in her nervous
+excitement. The company did not seem to remember Sydney Smith's remark
+to the young lady next him at a dinner-party: "My dear, I see you are
+nervous, by your crumbling your bread as you do. _I_ always crumble
+bread when I sit by a bishop, and when I sit by an archbishop I crumble
+bread with both hands." That evening I had the pleasure of dining with
+the distinguished Mr. Bryce, whose acquaintance I made in our own
+country, through my son, who has introduced me to many agreeable persons
+of his own generation, with whose companionship I am glad to mend the
+broken and merely fragmentary circle of old friendships.
+
+The 3d of June was a memorable day for us, for on the evening of that
+day we were to hold our reception. If Dean Bradley had proposed our
+meeting our guests in the Jerusalem Chamber, I should hardly have been
+more astonished. But these kind friends meant what they said, and put
+the offer in such a shape that it was impossible to resist it. So we
+sent out our cards to a few hundreds of persons,--those who we thought
+might like invitations. I was particularly desirous that many members of
+the medical profession whom I had not met, but who felt well disposed
+towards me, should be at this gathering. The meeting was in every
+respect a success. I wrote a prescription for as many baskets of
+champagne as would be consistent with the well-being of our guests, and
+such light accompaniments as a London company is wont to expect under
+similar circumstances. My own recollections of the evening, unclouded by
+its festivities, but confused by its multitudinous succession of
+introductions, are about as definite as the Duke of Wellington's alleged
+monosyllabic description of the battle of Waterloo. But A---- writes in
+her diary: "From nine to twelve we stood, receiving over three hundred
+people out of the four hundred and fifty we invited." As I did not go to
+Europe to visit hospitals or museums, I might have missed seeing some of
+those professional brethren whose names I hold in honor and whose
+writings are in my library. If any such failed to receive our cards of
+invitation, it was an accident which, if I had known, I should have
+deeply regretted. So far as we could judge by all we heard, our
+unpretentious party gave general satisfaction. Many different social
+circles were represented, but it passed off easily and agreeably. I can
+say this more freely, as the credit of it belongs so largely to the care
+and self-sacrificing efforts of Dr. Priestley and his charming wife.
+
+I never refused to write in the birthday book or the album of the
+humblest schoolgirl or schoolboy, and I could not refuse to set my name,
+with a verse from one of my poems, in the album of the Princess of
+Wales, which was sent me for that purpose. It was a nice new book, with
+only two or three names in it, and those of musical composers,--
+Rubinstein's, I think, was one of them,--so that I felt honored by
+the great lady's request. I ought to describe the book, but I only
+remember that it was quite large and sumptuously elegant, and that
+I copied into it the last verse of a poem of mine called "The Chambered
+Nautilus," as I have often done for plain republican albums.
+
+The day after our simple reception was notable for three social events
+in which we had our part. The first was a lunch at the house of Mrs.
+Cyril Flower, one of the finest in London,--Surrey House, as it is
+called. Mr. Browning, who seems to go everywhere, and is one of the
+vital elements of London society, was there as a matter of course. Miss
+Cobbe, many of whose essays I have read with great satisfaction, though
+I cannot accept all her views, was a guest whom I was very glad to meet
+a second time.
+
+In the afternoon we went to a garden-party given by the Princess Louise
+at Kensington Palace, a gloomy-looking edifice, which might be taken
+for a hospital or a poorhouse. Of all the festive occasions which I
+attended, the garden-parties were to me the most formidable. They are
+all very well for young people, and for those who do not mind the
+nipping and eager air, with which, as I have said, the climate of
+England, no less than that of America, falsifies all the fine things the
+poets have said about May, and, I may add, even June. We wandered about
+the grounds, spoke with the great people, stared at the odd ones, and
+said to ourselves,--at least I said to myself,--with Hamlet,
+
+  "The air bites shrewdly, it is very cold."
+
+[Illustration: Robert Browning.]
+
+The most curious personages were some East Indians, a chocolate-colored
+lady, her husband, and children. The mother had a diamond on the side of
+her nose, its setting riveted on the inside, one might suppose; the
+effect was peculiar, far from captivating. A---- said that she should
+prefer the good old-fashioned nose-ring, as we find it described and
+pictured by travellers. She saw a great deal more than I did, of course.
+I quote from her diary: "The little Eastern children made their native
+salaam to the Princess by prostrating themselves flat on their little
+stomachs in front of her, putting their hands between her feet, pushing
+them aside, and kissing the print of her feet!"
+
+I really believe one or both of us would have run serious risks of
+catching our "death o' cold," if we had waited for our own carriage,
+which seemed forever in coming forward. The good Lady Holland, who was
+more than once our guardian angel, brought us home in hers. So we got
+warmed up at our own hearth, and were ready in due season for the large
+and fine dinner-party at Archdeacon Farrar's, where, among other guests,
+were Mrs. Phelps, our Minister's wife, who is a great favorite alike
+with Americans and English, Sir John Millais, Mr. Tyndall, and other
+interesting people.
+
+I am sorry that we could not have visited Newstead Abbey. I had a letter
+from Mr. Thornton Lothrop to Colonel Webb, the present proprietor, with
+whom we lunched. I have spoken of the pleasure I had when I came
+accidentally upon persons with whose name and fame I had long been
+acquainted. A similar impression was that which I received when I found
+myself in the company of the bearer of an old historic name. When my
+host at the lunch introduced a stately-looking gentleman as Sir Kenelm
+Digby, it gave me a start, as if a ghost had stood before me. I
+recovered myself immediately, however, for there was nothing of the
+impalpable or immaterial about the stalwart personage who bore the name.
+I wanted to ask him if he carried any of his ancestor's "powder of
+sympathy" about with him. Many, but not all, of my readers remember that
+famous man's famous preparation. When used to cure a wound, it was
+applied to the weapon that made it; the part was bound up so as to bring
+the edges of the wound together, and by the wondrous influence of the
+sympathetic powder the healing process took place in the kindest
+possible manner. Sir Kenelm, the ancestor, was a gallant soldier, a
+grand gentleman, and the husband of a wonderfully beautiful wife, whose
+charms he tried to preserve from the ravages of time by various
+experiments. He was also the homoeopathist of his day, the Elisha
+Perkins (metallic tractors) of his generation. The "mind cure" people
+might adopt him as one of their precursors.
+
+I heard a curious statement which was illustrated in the person of one
+of the gentlemen we met at this table. It is that English sporting men
+are often deaf on one side, in consequence of the noise of the frequent
+discharge of their guns affecting the right ear. This is a very
+convenient infirmity for gentlemen who indulge in slightly aggressive
+remarks, but when they are hit back never seem to be conscious at all of
+the _riposte_,--the return thrust of the fencer.
+
+Dr. Allchin called and took me to a dinner, where I met many
+professional brothers, and enjoyed myself highly.
+
+By this time every day was pledged for one or more engagements, so that
+many very attractive invitations had to be declined. I will not follow
+the days one by one, but content myself with mentioning some of the more
+memorable visits. I had been invited to the Rabelais Club, as I have
+before mentioned, by a cable message. This is a club of which the late
+Lord Houghton was president, and of which I am a member, as are several
+other Americans. I was afraid that the gentlemen who met,
+
+  "To laugh and shake in Rabelais's easy chair,"
+
+might be more hilarious and demonstrative in their mirth than I, a sober
+New Englander in the superfluous decade, might find myself equal to. But
+there was no uproarious jollity; on the contrary, it was a pleasant
+gathering of literary people and artists, who took their pleasure not
+sadly, but serenely, and I do not remember a single explosive guffaw.
+
+Another day, after going all over Dudley House, including Lady Dudley's
+boudoir, "in light blue satin, the prettiest room we have seen," A----
+says, we went, by appointment, to Westminster Abbey, where we spent two
+hours under the guidance of Archdeacon Farrar. I think no part of the
+Abbey is visited with so much interest as Poets' Corner. We are all
+familiarly acquainted with it beforehand. We are all ready for "O rare
+Ben Jonson!" as we stand over the place where he was planted standing
+upright, as if he had been dropped into a post-hole. We remember too
+well the foolish and flippant mockery of Gay's "Life is a Jest." If I
+were dean of the cathedral, I should be tempted to alter the _J_ to
+a _G_. Then we could read it without contempt; for life _is_ a
+gest, an achievement,--or always ought to be. Westminster Abbey is too
+crowded with monuments to the illustrious dead and those who have been
+considered so in their day to produce any other than a confused
+impression. When we visit the tomb of Napoleon at the Invalides, no
+side-lights interfere with the view before us in the field of mental
+vision. We see the Emperor; Marengo, Austerlitz, Waterloo, Saint Helena,
+come before us, with him as their central figure. So at Stratford,--the
+Cloptons and the John a Combes, with all their memorials, cannot make us
+lift our eyes from the stone which covers the dust that once breathed
+and walked the streets of Stratford as Shakespeare.
+
+Ah, but here is one marble countenance that I know full well, and knew
+for many a year in the flesh! Is there an American who sees the bust of
+Longfellow among the effigies of the great authors of England without
+feeling a thrill of pleasure at recognizing the features of his native
+fellow-countryman in the Valhalla of his ancestral fellow-countrymen?
+There are many memorials in Poets' Corner and elsewhere in the Abbey
+which could be better spared than that. Too many that were placed there
+as luminaries have become conspicuous by their obscurity in the midst of
+that illustrious company. On the whole, the Abbey produces a distinct
+sense of being overcrowded. It appears too much like a lapidary's
+store-room. Look up at the lofty roof, which we willingly pardon for
+shutting out the heaven above us,--at least in an average London day;
+look down at the floor and think of what precious relics it covers; but
+do not look around you with the hope of getting any clear, concentrated,
+satisfying effect from this great museum of gigantic funereal bricabrac.
+Pardon me, shades of the mighty dead! I had something of this feeling,
+but at another hour I might perhaps be overcome by emotion, and weep, as
+my fellow-countryman did at the grave of the earliest of his ancestors.
+I should love myself better in that aspect than I do in this coldblooded
+criticism; but it suggested itself, and as no flattery can soothe, so no
+censure can wound, "the dull, cold ear of death."
+
+Of course we saw all the sights of the Abbey in a hurried way, yet with
+such a guide and expositor as Archdeacon Farrar our two hours' visit was
+worth a whole day with an undiscriminating verger, who recites his
+lesson by rote, and takes the life out of the little mob that follows
+him round by emphasizing the details of his lesson, until "Patience on a
+monument" seems to the sufferer, who knows what he wants and what he
+does not want, the nearest emblem of himself he can think of. Amidst all
+the imposing recollections of the ancient edifice, one impressed me in
+the inverse ratio of its importance. The Archdeacon pointed out the
+little holes in the stones, in one place, where the boys of the choir
+used to play marbles, before America was discovered, probably,--
+centuries before, it may be. It is a strangely impressive glimpse
+of a living past, like the _graffiti_ of Pompeii. I find it
+is often the accident rather than the essential which fixes my attention
+and takes hold of my memory. This is a tendency of which I suppose I
+ought to be ashamed, if we have any right to be ashamed of those
+idiosyncrasies which are ordered for us. It is the same tendency which
+often leads us to prefer the picturesque to the beautiful. Mr. Gilpin
+liked the donkey in a forest landscape better than the horse. A touch of
+imperfection interferes with the beauty of an object and lowers its
+level to that of the picturesque. The accident of the holes in the stone
+of the noble building, for the boys to play marbles with, makes me a boy
+again and at home with them, after looking with awe upon the statue of
+Newton, and turning with a shudder from the ghastly monument of Mrs.
+Nightingale.
+
+What a life must be that of one whose years are passed chiefly in and
+about the great Abbey! Nowhere does Macbeth's expression "dusty death"
+seem so true to all around us. The dust of those who have been lying
+century after century below the marbles piled over them,--the dust on
+the monuments they lie beneath; the dust on the memories those monuments
+were raised to keep living in the recollection of posterity,--dust,
+dust, dust, everywhere, and we ourselves but shapes of breathing dust
+moving amidst these objects and remembrances! Come away! The good
+Archdeacon of the "Eternal Hope" has asked us to take a cup of tea with
+him. The tea-cup will be a cheerful substitute for the funeral urn, and
+a freshly made infusion of the fragrant leaf is one of the best things
+in the world to lay the dust of sad reflections.
+
+It is a somewhat fatiguing pleasure to go through the Abbey, in spite of
+the intense interest no one can help feeling. But my day had but just
+begun when the two hours we had devoted to the visit were over. At a
+quarter before eight, my friend Mr. Frederick Locker called for me to go
+to a dinner at the Literary Club. I was particularly pleased to dine
+with this association, as it reminded me of our own Saturday Club, which
+sometimes goes by the same name as the London one. They complimented me
+with a toast, and I made some kind of a reply. As I never went prepared
+with a speech for any such occasion, I take it for granted that I
+thanked the company in a way that showed my gratitude rather than my
+eloquence. And now, the dinner being over, my day was fairly begun.
+
+This was to be a memorable date in the record of the year, one long to
+be remembered in the political history of Great Britain. For on this
+day, the 7th of June, Mr. Gladstone was to make his great speech on the
+Irish question, and the division of the House on the Government of
+Ireland Bill was to take place. The whole country, to the corners of its
+remotest colony, was looking forward to the results of this evening's
+meeting of Parliament. The kindness of the Speaker had furnished me with
+a ticket, entitling me to a place among the "distinguished guests,"
+which I presented without modestly questioning my right to the title.
+
+The pressure for entrance that evening was very great, and I, coming
+after my dinner with the Literary Club, was late upon the ground. The
+places for "distinguished guests" were already filled. But all England
+was in a conspiracy to do everything possible to make my visit
+agreeable. I did not take up a great deal of room,--I might be put into
+a seat with the ambassadors and foreign ministers. And among them I was
+presently installed. It was now between ten and eleven o'clock, as
+nearly as I recollect. The House had been in session since four o'clock.
+A gentleman was speaking, who was, as my unknown next neighbor told me,
+Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, a leading member, as we all know, of the
+opposition. When he sat down there was a hush of expectation, and
+presently Mr. Gladstone rose to his feet. A great burst of applause
+welcomed him, lasting more than a minute. His clean-cut features, his
+furrowed cheeks, his scanty and whitened hair, his well-shaped but not
+extraordinary head, all familiarized by innumerable portraits and
+emphasized in hundreds of caricatures, revealed him at once to every
+spectator. His great speech has been universally read, and I need only
+speak of the way in which it was delivered. His manner was forcible
+rather than impassioned or eloquent; his voice was clear enough, but
+must have troubled him somewhat, for he had a small bottle from which he
+poured something into a glass from time to time and swallowed a little,
+yet I heard him very well for the most part. In the last portion of his
+speech he became animated and inspiriting, and his closing words were
+uttered with an impressive solemnity: "Think, I beseech you, think well,
+think wisely, think not for a moment, but for the years that are to
+come, before you reject this bill."
+
+After the burst of applause which followed the conclusion of Mr.
+Gladstone's speech, the House proceeded to the division on the question
+of passing the bill to a second reading. While the counting of the votes
+was going on there was the most intense excitement. A rumor ran round
+the House at one moment that the vote was going in favor of the second
+reading. It soon became evident that this was not the case, and
+presently the result was announced, giving a majority of thirty against
+the bill, and practically overthrowing the liberal administration. Then
+arose a tumult of applause from the conservatives and a wild confusion,
+in the midst of which an Irish member shouted, "Three cheers for the
+Grand Old Man!" which were lustily given, with waving of hats and all
+but Donnybrook manifestations of enthusiasm.
+
+I forgot to mention that I had a very advantageous seat among the
+diplomatic gentlemen, and was felicitating myself on occupying one of
+the best positions in the House, when an usher politely informed me that
+the Russian Ambassador, in whose place I was sitting, had arrived, and
+that I must submit to the fate of eviction. Fortunately, there were some
+steps close by, on one of which I found a seat almost as good as the one
+I had just left.
+
+It was now two o'clock in the morning, and I had to walk home, not a
+vehicle being attainable. I did not know my way to my headquarters, and
+I had no friend to go with me, but I fastened on a stray gentleman, who
+proved to be an ex-member of the House, and who accompanied me to 17
+Dover Street, where I sought my bed with a satisfying sense of having
+done a good day's work and having been well paid for it.
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+
+On the 8th of June we visited the Record Office for a sight of the
+Domesday Book and other ancient objects of interest there preserved. As
+I looked at this too faithful memorial of an inexorable past, I thought
+of the battle of Hastings and all its consequences, and that reminded me
+of what I have long remembered as I read it in Dr. Robert Knox's "Races
+of Men." Dr. Knox was the monoculous Waterloo surgeon, with whom I
+remember breakfasting, on my first visit to England and Scotland. His
+celebrity is less owing to his book than to the unfortunate connection
+of his name with the unforgotten Burke and Hare horrors. This is his
+language in speaking of Hastings: "... that bloody field, surpassing far
+in its terrible results the unhappy day of Waterloo. From this the Celt
+has recovered, but not so the Saxon. To this day he feels, and feels
+deeply, the most disastrous day that ever befell his race; here he was
+trodden down by the Norman, whose iron heel is on him yet.... To this
+day the Saxon race in England have never recovered a tithe of their
+rights, and probably never will."
+
+The Conqueror meant to have a thorough summing up of his stolen
+property. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says,--I quote it at second
+hand,--"So very straitly did he cause the survey to be made, that there
+was not a single hyde, nor a yardland of ground, nor--it is shameful to
+say what he thought no shame to do--was there an ox or a cow, or a pig
+passed by, and that was not down in the accounts, and then all these
+writings were brought to him." The "looting" of England by William and
+his "twenty thousand thieves," as Mr. Emerson calls his army, was a
+singularly methodical proceeding, and Domesday Book is a searching
+inventory of their booty, movable and immovable.
+
+From this reminder of the past we turned to the remembrances of home;
+A---- going to dine with a transplanted Boston friend and other ladies
+from that blessed centre of New England life, while I dined with a party
+of gentlemen at my friend Mr. James Russell Lowell's.
+
+I had looked forward to this meeting with high expectations, and they
+were abundantly satisfied. I knew that Mr. Lowell must gather about him,
+wherever he might be, the choicest company, but what his selection would
+be I was curious to learn. I found with me at the table my own
+countrymen and his, Mr. Smalley and Mr. Henry James. Of the other
+guests, Mr. Leslie Stephen was my only old acquaintance in person; but
+Du Maurier and Tenniel I have met in my weekly "Punch" for many a year;
+Mr. Lang, Mr. Oliphant, Mr. Townsend, we all know through their
+writings; Mr. Burne-Jones and Mr. Alma Tadema, through the frequent
+reproductions of their works in engravings, as well as by their
+paintings. If I could report a dinner-table conversation, I might be
+tempted to say something of my talk with Mr. Oliphant. I like well
+enough conversation which floats safely over the shallows, touching
+bottom at intervals with a commonplace incident or truism to push it
+along; I like better to find a few fathoms of depth under the surface;
+there is a still higher pleasure in the philosophical discourse which
+calls for the deep sea line to reach bottom; but best of all, when one
+is in the right mood, is the contact of intelligences when they are off
+soundings in the ocean of thought. Mr. Oliphant is what many of us call
+a mystic, and I found a singular pleasure in listening to him. This
+dinner at Mr. Lowell's was a very remarkable one for the men it brought
+together, and I remember it with peculiar interest. My entertainer holds
+a master-key to London society, and he opened the gate for me into one
+of its choicest preserves on that evening.
+
+I did not undertake to renew my old acquaintance with hospitals and
+museums. I regretted that I could not be with my companion, who went
+through the Natural History Museum with the accomplished director,
+Professor W. H. Flower. One old acquaintance I did resuscitate. For the
+second time I took the hand of Charles O'Byrne, the celebrated Irish
+giant of the last century. I met him, as in my first visit, at the Royal
+College of Surgeons, where I accompanied Mr. Jonathan Hutchinson. He was
+in the condition so longed for by Sydney Smith on a very hot day;
+namely, with his flesh taken off, and sitting, or rather standing, in
+his bones. The skeleton measures eight feet, and the living man's height
+is stated as having been eight feet two, or four inches, by different
+authorities. His hand was the only one I took, either in England or
+Scotland, which had not a warm grasp and a hearty welcome in it.
+
+A---- went with Boston friends to see "Faust" a second time, Mr. Irving
+having offered her the Royal box, and the polite Mr. Bram Stoker serving
+the party with tea in the little drawing-room behind the box; so that
+she had a good time while I was enjoying myself at a dinner at Sir Henry
+Thompson's, where I met Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Browning, and other
+distinguished gentlemen. These dinners of Sir Henry's are well known for
+the good company one meets at them, and I felt myself honored to be a
+guest on this occasion.
+
+Among the pleasures I had promised myself was that of a visit to
+Tennyson, at the Isle of Wight. I feared, however, that this would be
+rendered impracticable by reason of the very recent death of his younger
+son, Lionel. But I learned from Mr. Locker-Lampson, whose daughter Mr.
+Lionel Tennyson had married, that the poet would be pleased to see me at
+his place, Farringford; and by the kind intervention of Mr.
+Locker-Lampson, better known to the literary world as Frederick Locker,
+arrangements were made for my daughter and myself to visit him. I
+considered it a very great favor, for Lord Tennyson has a poet's
+fondness for the tranquillity of seclusion, which many curious explorers
+of society fail to remember. Lady Tennyson is an invalid, and though
+nothing could be more gracious than her reception of us both, I fear it
+may have cost her an effort which she would not allow to betray itself.
+Mr. Hallam Tennyson and his wife, both of most pleasing presence and
+manners, did everything to make our stay agreeable. I saw the poet to
+the best advantage, under his own trees and walking over his own domain.
+He took delight in pointing out to me the finest and the rarest of his
+trees,--and there were many beauties among them. I recalled my morning's
+visit to Whittier at Oak Knoll, in Danvers, a little more than a year
+ago, when he led me to one of his favorites, an aspiring evergreen which
+shot up like a flame. I thought of the graceful American elms in front
+of Longfellow's house and the sturdy English elms that stand in front of
+Lowell's. In this garden of England, the Isle of Wight, where everything
+grows with such a lavish extravagance of greenness that it seems as if
+it must bankrupt the soil before autumn, I felt as if weary eyes and
+overtasked brains might reach their happiest haven of rest. We all
+remember Shenstone's epigram on the pane of a tavern window. If we find
+our "warmest welcome at an inn," we find our most soothing companionship
+in the trees among which we have lived, some of which we may ourselves
+have planted. We lean against them, and they never betray our trust;
+they shield us from the sun and from the rain; their spring welcome is a
+new birth, which never loses its freshness; they lay their beautiful
+robes at our feet in autumn; in winter they "stand and wait," emblems of
+patience and of truth, for they hide nothing, not even the little
+leaf-buds which hint to us of hope, the last element in their triple
+symbolism.
+
+This digression, suggested by the remembrance of the poet under his
+trees, breaks my narrative, but gives me the opportunity of paying a
+debt of gratitude. For I have owned many beautiful trees, and loved many
+more outside of my own leafy harem. Those who write verses have no
+special claim to be lovers of trees, but so far as one is of the
+poetical temperament he is likely to be a tree-lover. Poets have, as a
+rule, more than the average nervous sensibility and irritability. Trees
+have no nerves. They live and die without suffering, without
+self-questioning or self-reproach. They have the divine gift of silence.
+They cannot obtrude upon the solitary moments when one is to himself the
+most agreeable of companions. The whole vegetable world, even "the
+meanest flower that blows," is lovely to contemplate. What if creation
+had paused there, and you or I had been called upon to decide whether
+self-conscious life should be added in the form of the existing animal
+creation, and the hitherto peaceful universe should come under the rule
+of Nature as we now know her,
+
+  "red in tooth and claw"?
+
+Are we not glad that the responsibility of the decision did not rest on
+us?
+
+I am sorry that I did not ask Tennyson to read or repeat to me some
+lines of his own. Hardly any one perfectly understands a poem but the
+poet himself. One naturally loves his own poem as no one else can. It
+fits the mental mould in which it was cast, and it will not exactly fit
+any other. For this reason I had rather listen to a poet reading his own
+verses than hear the best elocutionist that ever spouted recite them. He
+may not have a good voice or enunciation, but he puts his heart and his
+inter-penetrative intelligence into every line, word, and syllable. I
+should have liked to hear Tennyson read such lines as
+
+  "Laborious orient ivory, sphere in sphere;"
+
+and in spite of my good friend Matthew Arnold's _in terrorem_, I
+should have liked to hear Macaulay read,
+
+  "And Aulus the Dictator
+    Stroked Auster's raven mane,"
+
+and other good mouthable lines, from the "Lays of Ancient Rome." Not
+less should I like to hear Mr. Arnold himself read the passage
+beginning,--
+
+  "In his cool hall with haggard eyes
+    The Roman noble lay."
+
+The next day Mrs. Hallam Tennyson took A---- in her pony cart to see
+Alum Bay, The Needles, and other objects of interest, while I wandered
+over the grounds with Tennyson. After lunch his carriage called for us,
+and we were driven across the island, through beautiful scenery, to
+Ventnor, where we took the train to Ryde, and there the steamer to
+Portsmouth, from which two hours and a half of travel carried us to
+London.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+My first visit to Cambridge was at the invitation of Mr. Gosse, who
+asked me to spend Sunday, the 13th of June, with him. The rooms in
+Neville Court, Trinity College, occupied by Sir William Vernon Harcourt
+when lecturing at Cambridge, were placed at my disposal. The room I
+slept in was imposing with the ensigns armorial of the Harcourts and
+others which ornamented its walls. I had great delight in walking
+through the quadrangles, along the banks of the Cam, and beneath the
+beautiful trees which border it. Mr. Gosse says that I stopped in the
+second court of Clare, and looked around and smiled as if I were
+bestowing my benediction. He was mistaken: I smiled as if I were
+receiving a benediction from my dear old grandmother; for Cambridge in
+New England is my mother town, and Harvard University in Cambridge is my
+Alma Mater. She is the daughter of Cambridge in Old England, and my
+relationship is thus made clear.
+
+Mr. Gosse introduced me to many of the younger and some of the older men
+of the university. Among my visits was one never to be renewed and never
+to be forgotten. It was to the Master of Trinity, the Reverend William
+Hepworth Thompson. I hardly expected to have the privilege of meeting
+this very distinguished and greatly beloved personage, famous not alone
+for scholarship, or as the successor of Dr. Whewell in his high office,
+but also as having said some of the wittiest things which we have heard
+since Voltaire's _pour encourager les autres_. I saw him in his
+chamber, a feeble old man, but noble to look upon in all "the monumental
+pomp of age." He came very near belonging to the little group I have
+mentioned as my coevals, but was a year after us. Gentle, dignified,
+kindly in his address as if I had been his schoolmate, he left a very
+charming impression. He gave me several mementoes of my visit, among
+them a beautiful engraving of Sir Isaac Newton, representing him as one
+of the handsomest of men. Dr. Thompson looked as if he could not be very
+long for this world, but his death, a few weeks after my visit, was a
+painful surprise to me. I had been just in time to see "the last of the
+great men" at Cambridge, as my correspondent calls him, and I was very
+grateful that I could store this memory among the hoarded treasures I
+have been laying by for such possible extra stretch of time as may be
+allowed me.
+
+My second visit to Cambridge will be spoken of in due season.
+
+While I was visiting Mr. Gosse at Cambridge, A---- was not idle. On
+Saturday she went to Lambeth, where she had the pleasure and honor of
+shaking hands with the Archbishop of Canterbury in his study, and of
+looking about the palace with Mrs. Benson. On Sunday she went to the
+Abbey, and heard "a broad and liberal sermon" from Archdeacon Farrar.
+Our young lady-secretary stayed and dined with her, and after dinner
+sang to her. "A peaceful, happy Sunday," A---- says in her diary,--not
+less peaceful, I suspect, for my being away, as my callers must have got
+many a "not at 'ome" from young Robert of the multitudinous buttons.
+
+On Monday, the 14th of June, after getting ready for our projected
+excursions, we had an appointment which promised us a great deal of
+pleasure. Mr. Augustus Harris, the enterprising and celebrated manager
+of Drury Lane Theatre, had sent us an invitation to occupy a box, having
+eight seats, at the representation of "Carmen." We invited the
+Priestleys and our Boston friends, the Shimminses, to take seats with
+us. The chief singer in the opera was Marie Roze, who looked well and
+sang well, and the evening went off very happily. After the performance
+we were invited by Mr. Harris to a supper of some thirty persons, where
+we were the special guests. The manager toasted me, and I said
+something,--I trust appropriate; but just what I said is as
+irrecoverable as the orations of Demosthenes on the seashore, or the
+sermons of St. Francis to the beasts and birds.
+
+Of all the attentions I received in England, this was, perhaps, the
+least to be anticipated or dreamed of. To be fêted and toasted and to
+make a speech in Drury Lane Theatre would not have entered into my
+flightiest conceptions, if I had made out a programme beforehand. It is
+a singularly gratifying recollection. Drury Lane Theatre is so full of
+associations with literature, with the great actors and actresses of the
+past, with the famous beauties who have stood behind the footlights and
+the splendid audiences that have sat before them, that it is an
+admirable nucleus for remembrances to cluster around. It was but a vague
+spot in memory before, but now it is a bright centre for other images of
+the past. That one evening seems to make me the possessor of all its
+traditions from the time when it rose from its ashes, when Byron's poem
+was written and recited, and when the brothers Smith gave us the
+"Address without a Phoenix," and all those exquisite parodies which make
+us feel towards their originals somewhat as our dearly remembered Tom
+Appleton did when he said, in praise of some real green turtle soup,
+that it was almost as good as mock.
+
+With much regret we gave up an invitation we had accepted to go to
+Durdans to dine with Lord Rosebery. We must have felt very tired indeed
+to make so great a sacrifice, but we had to be up until one o'clock
+getting ready for the next day's journey; writing, packing, and
+attending to what we left behind us as well as what was in prospect.
+
+On the morning of Wednesday, June 16th, Dr. Donald Macalister called to
+attend us on our second visit to Cambridge, where we were to be the
+guests of his cousin, Alexander Macalister, Professor of Anatomy, who,
+with Mrs. Macalister, received us most cordially. There was a large
+luncheon-party at their house, to which we sat down in our travelling
+dresses. In the evening they had a dinner-party, at which were present,
+among others, Professor Stokes, President of the Royal Society, and
+Professor Wright. We had not heard much talk of political matters at the
+dinner-tables where we had been guests, but A---- sat near a lady who
+was very earnest in advocating the Irish side of the great impending
+question.
+
+The 17th of June is memorable in the annals of my country. On that day
+of the year 1775 the battle of Bunker's Hill was fought on the height I
+see from the window of my library, where I am now writing. The monument
+raised in memory of our defeat, which was in truth a victory, is almost
+as much a part of the furniture of the room as its chairs and tables;
+outside, as they are inside, furniture. But the 17th of June, 1886, is
+memorable to me above all the other anniversaries of that day I have
+known. For on that day I received from the ancient University of
+Cambridge, England, the degree of Doctor of Letters, "Doctor Litt.," in
+its abbreviated academic form. The honor was an unexpected one; that is,
+until a short time before it was conferred.
+
+Invested with the academic gown and cap, I repaired in due form at the
+appointed hour to the Senate Chamber. Every seat was filled, and among
+the audience were youthful faces in large numbers, looking as if they
+were ready for any kind of outbreak of enthusiasm or hilarity.
+
+The first degree conferred was that of LL.D., on Sir W. A. White,
+G.C.M., G.C.B., to whose long list of appended initials it seemed like
+throwing a perfume on the violet to add three more letters.
+
+When I was called up to receive my honorary title, the young voices were
+true to the promise of the young faces. There was a great noise, not
+hostile nor unpleasant in its character, in answer to which I could
+hardly help smiling my acknowledgments. In presenting me for my degree
+the Public Orator made a Latin speech, from which I venture to give a
+short extract, which I would not do for the world if it were not
+disguised by being hidden in the mask of a dead language. But there will
+be here and there a Latin scholar who will be pleased with the way in
+which the speaker turned a compliment to the candidate before him, with
+a reference to one of his poems and to some of his prose works.
+
+_"Juvat nuper audivisse eum cujus carmen prope primum 'Folium ultimum'
+nominatum est, folia adhuc plura e scriniis suis esse prolaturum.
+Novimus quanta lepore descripserit colloquia illa antemeridiana,
+symposia illa sobria et severa, sed eadem festiva et faceta, in quibus
+totiens mutata persona, modo poeta, modo professor, modo princeps et
+arbiter, loquendi, inter convivas suos regnat."_
+
+I had no sooner got through listening to the speech and receiving my
+formal sentence as Doctor of Letters than the young voices broke out in
+fresh clamor. There were cries of "A speech! a speech!" mingled with the
+title of a favorite poem by John Howard Payne, having a certain amount
+of coincidence with the sound of my name. The play upon the word was not
+absolutely a novelty to my ear, but it was good-natured, and I smiled
+again, and perhaps made a faint inclination, as much as to say, "I hear
+you, young gentlemen, but I do not forget that I am standing on my
+dignity, especially now since a new degree has added a moral cubit to my
+stature." Still the cries went on, and at last I saw nothing else to do
+than to edge back among the silk gowns, and so lose myself and be lost
+to the clamorous crowd in the mass of dignitaries. It was not
+indifference to the warmth of my welcome, but a feeling that I had no
+claim to address the audience because some of its younger members were
+too demonstrative. I have not forgotten my very cordial reception, which
+made me feel almost as much at home in the old Cambridge as in the new,
+where I was born and took my degrees, academic, professional, and
+honorary.
+
+The university town left a very deep impression upon my mind, in which a
+few grand objects predominate over the rest, all being of a delightful
+character. I was fortunate enough to see the gathering of the boats,
+which was the last scene in their annual procession. The show was
+altogether lovely. The pretty river, about as wide as the Housatonic, I
+should judge, as that slender stream winds through "Canoe Meadow," my
+old Pittsfield residence, the gaily dressed people who crowded the
+banks, the flower-crowned boats, with the gallant young oarsmen who
+handled them so skilfully, made a picture not often equalled. The walks,
+the bridges, the quadrangles, the historic college buildings, all
+conspired to make the place a delight and a fascination. The library of
+Trinity College, with its rows of busts by Roubiliac and Woolner, is a
+truly noble hall. But beyond, above all the rest, the remembrance of
+King's College Chapel, with its audacious and richly wrought roof and
+its wide and lofty windows, glowing with old devices in colors which are
+ever fresh, as if just from the furnace, holds the first place in my
+gallery of Cambridge recollections.
+
+I cannot do justice to the hospitalities which were bestowed upon us in
+Cambridge. Professor and Mrs. Macalister, aided by Dr. Donald
+Macalister, did all that thoughtful hosts could do to make us feel at
+home. In the afternoon the ladies took tea at Mr. Oscar Browning's. In
+the evening we went to a large dinner at the invitation of the
+Vice-Chancellor. Many little points which I should not have thought of
+are mentioned in A----'s diary. I take the following extract from it,
+toning down its vivacity more nearly to my own standard:--
+
+"Twenty were there. The Master of St. John's took me in, and the
+Vice-Chancellor was on the other side.... The Vice-Chancellor rose and
+returned thanks after the meats and before the sweets, as usual. I have
+now got used to this proceeding, which strikes me as extraordinary.
+Everywhere here in Cambridge, and the same in Oxford, I believe, they
+say grace and give thanks. A gilded ewer and flat basin were passed,
+with water in the basin to wash with, and we all took our turn at the
+bath! Next to this came the course with the finger-bowls!... Why two
+baths?"
+
+On Friday, the 18th, I went to a breakfast at the Combination Room, at
+which about fifty gentlemen were present, Dr. Sandys taking the chair.
+After the more serious business of the morning's repast was over, Dr.
+Macalister, at the call of the chairman, arose, and proposed my welfare
+in a very complimentary way. I of course had to respond, and I did so in
+the words which came of their own accord to my lips. After my
+unpremeditated answer, which was kindly received, a young gentleman of
+the university, Mr. Heitland, read a short poem, of which the following
+is the title:--
+
+LINES OF GREETING TO DR. OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
+
+AT BREAKFAST IN COMBINATION ROOM, ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE,
+ENGLAND.
+
+I wish I dared quote more than the last two verses of these lines, which
+seemed to me, not unused to giving and receiving complimentary tributes,
+singularly happy, and were so considered by all who heard them. I think
+I may venture to give the two verses referred to:--
+
+  "By all sweet memory of the saints and sages
+    Who wrought among us in the days of yore;
+  By youths who, turning now life's early pages,
+    Ripen to match the worthies gone before:
+
+  "On us, O son of England's greatest daughter,
+    A kindly word from heart and tongue bestow;
+  Then chase the sunsets o'er the western water,
+    And bear our blessing with you as you go."
+
+I need not say that I left the English Cambridge with a heart full of
+all grateful and kindly emotions.
+
+I must not forget that I found at Cambridge, very pleasantly established
+and successfully practising his profession, a former student in the
+dental department of our Harvard Medical School, Dr. George Cunningham,
+who used to attend my lectures on anatomy. In the garden behind the
+quaint old house in which he lives is a large medlar-tree,--the first I
+remember seeing.
+
+On this same day we bade good-by to Cambridge, and took the two o'clock
+train to Oxford, where we arrived at half past five. At this first visit
+we were to be the guests of Professor Max Müller, at his fine residence
+in Norham Gardens. We met there, at dinner, Mr. Herkomer, whom we have
+recently had with us in Boston, and one or two others. In the evening we
+had music; the professor playing on the piano, his two daughters, Mrs.
+Conybeare and her unmarried sister, singing, and a young lady playing
+the violin. It was a very lovely family picture; a pretty house,
+surrounded by attractive scenery; scholarship, refinement, simple
+elegance, giving distinction to a home which to us seemed a pattern of
+all we could wish to see beneath an English roof. It all comes back to
+me very sweetly, but very tenderly and sadly, for the voice of the elder
+of the two sisters who sang to us is heard no more on earth, and a deep
+shadow has fallen over the household we found so bright and cheerful.
+
+Everything was done to make me enjoy my visit to Oxford, but I was
+suffering from a severe cold, and was paying the penalty of too much
+occupation and excitement. I missed a great deal in consequence, and
+carried away a less distinct recollection of this magnificent seat of
+learning than of the sister university.
+
+If one wishes to know the magic of names, let him visit the places made
+memorable by the lives of the illustrious men of the past in the Old
+World. As a boy I used to read the poetry of Pope, of Goldsmith, and of
+Johnson. How could I look at the Bodleian Library, or wander beneath its
+roof, without recalling the lines from "The Vanity of Human Wishes"?
+
+  "When first the college rolls receive his name,
+  The young enthusiast quits his ease for fame;
+  Resistless burns the fever of renown,
+  Caught from the strong contagion of the gown:
+  O'er Bodley's dome his future labors spread,
+  And Bacon's mansion trembles o'er his head."
+
+The last line refers to Roger Bacon. "There is a tradition that the
+study of Friar Bacon, built on an arch over the bridge, will fall when a
+man greater than Bacon shall pass under it. To prevent so shocking an
+accident, it was pulled down many years since." We shall meet with a
+similar legend in another university city. Many persons have been shy of
+these localities, who were in no danger whatever of meeting the fate
+threatened by the prediction.
+
+We passed through the Bodleian Library, only glancing at a few of its
+choicest treasures, among which the exquisitely illuminated missals were
+especially tempting objects of study. It was almost like a mockery to
+see them opened and closed, without having the time to study their
+wonderful miniature paintings. A walk through the grounds of Magdalen
+College, under the guidance of the president of that college, showed us
+some of the fine trees for which I was always looking. One of these, a
+wych-elm (Scotch elm of some books), was so large that I insisted on
+having it measured. A string was procured and carefully carried round
+the trunk, above the spread of the roots and below that of the branches,
+so as to give the smallest circumference. I was curious to know how the
+size of the trunk of this tree would compare with that of the trunks of
+some of our largest New England elms. I have measured a good many of
+these. About sixteen feet is the measurement of a large elm, like that
+on Boston Common, which all middle-aged people remember. From twenty-two
+to twenty-three feet is the ordinary maximum of the very largest trees.
+I never found but one exceed it: that was the great Springfield elm,
+which looked as if it might have been formed by the coalescence from the
+earliest period of growth, of two young trees. When I measured this in
+1837, it was twenty-four feet eight inches in circumference at five feet
+from the ground; growing larger above and below. I remembered this tree
+well, as we measured the string which was to tell the size of its
+English rival. As we came near the end of the string, I felt as I did
+when I was looking at the last dash of Ormonde and The Bard at
+Epsom.--Twenty feet, and a long piece of string left.--Twenty-one.
+--Twenty-two.--Twenty-three.--An extra heartbeat or two.--Twenty-four!
+--Twenty-five and six inches over!!--The Springfield elm may have grown
+a foot or more since I measured it, fifty years ago, but the tree at
+Magdalen stands ahead of all my old measurements. Many of the fine old
+trees, this in particular, may have been known in their younger days to
+Addison, whose favorite walk is still pointed out to the visitor.
+
+I would not try to compare the two university towns, as one might who
+had to choose between them. They have a noble rivalry, each honoring the
+other, and it would take a great deal of weighing one point of
+superiority against another to call either of them the first, except in
+its claim to antiquity.
+
+After a garden-party in the afternoon, a pleasant evening at home, when
+the professor played and his daughter Beatrice sang, and a garden-party
+the next day, I found myself in somewhat better condition, and ready for
+the next move.
+
+[Illustration: Magdalen College, Oxford.]
+
+At noon on the 23d of June we left for Edinburgh, stopping over night at
+York, where we found close by the station an excellent hotel, and where
+the next morning we got one of the best breakfasts we had in our whole
+travelling experience. At York we wandered to and through a flower-show,
+and _did_ the cathedral, as people _do_ all the sights they
+see under the lead of a paid exhibitor, who goes through his lesson like
+a sleepy old professor. I missed seeing the slab with the inscription
+_miserrimus_. There may be other stones bearing this sad
+superlative, but there is a story connected with this one, which sounds
+as if it might be true.
+
+In the year 1834, I spent several weeks in Edinburgh. I was fascinated
+by the singular beauties of that "romantic town," which Scott called his
+own, and which holds his memory, with that of Burns, as a most precious
+part of its inheritance. The castle with the precipitous rocky wall out
+of which it grows, the deep ravines with their bridges, pleasant Calton
+Hill and memorable Holyrood Palace, the new town and the old town with
+their strange contrasts, and Arthur's Seat overlooking all,--these
+varied and enchanting objects account for the fondness with which all
+who have once seen Edinburgh will always regard it.
+
+We were the guests of Professor Alexander Crum Brown, a near relative of
+the late beloved and admired Dr. John Brown. Professor and Mrs. Crum
+Brown did everything to make our visit a pleasant one. We met at their
+house many of the best known and most distinguished people of Scotland.
+The son of Dr. John Brown dined with us on the day of our arrival, and
+also a friend of the family, Mr. Barclay, to whom we made a visit on the
+Sunday following. Among the visits I paid, none was more gratifying to
+me than one which I made to Dr. John Brown's sister. No man could leave
+a sweeter memory than the author of "Rab and his Friends," of "Pet
+Marjorie," and other writings, all full of the same loving, human
+spirit. I have often exchanged letters with him, and I thought how much
+it would have added to the enjoyment of my visit if I could have taken
+his warm hand and listened to his friendly voice. I brought home with me
+a precious little manuscript, written expressly for me by one who had
+known Dr. John Brown from the days of her girlhood, in which his
+character appears in the same lovable and loving light as that which
+shines in every page he himself has written.
+
+On Friday, the 25th, I went to the hall of the university, where I was
+to receive the degree of LL.D. The ceremony was not unlike that at
+Cambridge, but had one peculiar feature: the separate special investment
+of the candidate with the _hood_, which Johnson defines as "an
+ornamental fold which hangs down the back of a graduate." There were
+great numbers of students present, and they showed the same exuberance
+of spirits as that which had forced me to withdraw from the urgent calls
+at Cambridge. The cries, if possible, were still louder and more
+persistent; they must have a speech and they would have a speech, and
+what could I do about it? I saw but one way of pacifying a crowd as
+noisy and long-breathed as that which for about the space of two hours
+cried out, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians!" So I stepped to the front
+and made a brief speech, in which, of course, I spoke of the
+"_perfervidum ingenium Scotorum_." A speech without that would have
+been like that "Address without a Phoenix" before referred to. My few
+remarks were well received, and quieted the shouting Ephesians of the
+warm-brained and warm-hearted northern university. It gave me great
+pleasure to meet my friend Mr. Underwood, now American consul in
+Glasgow, where he has made himself highly esteemed and respected.
+
+In my previous visit to Edinburgh in 1834, I was fond of rambling along
+under Salisbury Crags, and climbing the sides of Arthur's Seat. I had
+neither time nor impulse for such walks during this visit, but in
+driving out to dine at Nidrie, the fine old place now lived in by Mr.
+Barclay and his daughters, we passed under the crags and by the side of
+the great hill. I had never heard, or if I had I had forgotten, the name
+and the story of "Samson's Ribs." These are the columnar masses of rock
+which form the face of Salisbury Crags. There is a legend that one day
+one of these pillars will fall and crush the greatest man that ever
+passes under them. It is said that a certain professor was always very
+shy of "Samson's Ribs," for fear the prophecy might be fulfilled in his
+person. We were most hospitably received at Mr. Barclay's, and the
+presence of his accomplished and pleasing daughters made the visit
+memorable to both of us. There was one picture on their walls, that of a
+lady, by Sir Joshua, which both of us found very captivating. This is
+what is often happening in the visits we make. Some painting by a master
+looks down upon us from its old canvas, and leaves a lasting copy of
+itself, to be stored in memory's picture gallery. These surprises are
+not so likely to happen in the New World as in the Old.
+
+It seemed cruel to be forced to tear ourselves away from Edinburgh,
+where so much had been done to make us happy, where so much was left to
+see and enjoy, but we were due in Oxford, where I was to receive the
+last of the three degrees with which I was honored in Great Britain.
+
+Our visit to Scotland gave us a mere glimpse of the land and its people,
+but I have a very vivid recollection of both as I saw them on my first
+visit, when I made an excursion into the Highlands to Stirling and to
+Glasgow, where I went to church, and wondered over the uncouth ancient
+psalmody, which I believe is still retained in use to this day. I was
+seasoned to that kind of poetry in my early days by the verses of Tate
+and Brady, which I used to hear "entuned in the nose ful swetely,"
+accompanied by vigorous rasping of a huge bass-viol. No wonder that
+Scotland welcomed the song of Burns!
+
+On our second visit to Oxford we were to be the guests of the
+Vice-Chancellor of the university, Dr. Jowett. This famous scholar and
+administrator lives in a very pleasant establishment, presided over by
+the Muses, but without the aid of a Vice-Chancelloress. The hospitality
+of this classic mansion is well known, and we added a second pleasant
+chapter to our previous experience under the roof of Professor Max
+Müller. There was a little company there before us, including the Lord
+Chancellor and Lady Herschell, Lady Camilla Wallop, Mr. Browning, and
+Mr. Lowell. We were too late, in consequence of the bad arrangement of
+the trains, and had to dine by ourselves, as the whole party had gone
+out to a dinner, to which we should have accompanied them had we not
+been delayed. We sat up long enough to see them on their return, and
+were glad to get to bed, after our day's journey from Edinburgh to
+Oxford.
+
+At eleven o'clock on the following day we who were to receive degrees
+met at Balliol College, whence we proceeded in solemn procession to the
+Sheldonian Theatre. Among my companions on this occasion were Mr. John
+Bright, the Lord Chancellor Herschell, and Mr. Aldis Wright. I have an
+instantaneous photograph, which was sent me, of this procession. I can
+identify Mr. Bright and myself, but hardly any of the others, though
+many better acquainted with their faces would no doubt recognize them.
+There is a certain sensation in finding one's self invested with the
+academic gown, conspicuous by its red facings, and the cap with its
+square top and depending tassel, which is not without its accompanying
+satisfaction. One can walk the streets of any of the university towns in
+his academic robes without being jeered at, as I am afraid he would be
+in some of our own thoroughfares. There is a noticeable complacency in
+the members of our Phi Beta Kappa society when they get the pink and
+blue ribbons in their buttonholes, on the day of annual meeting. How
+much more when the scholar is wrapped in those flowing folds, with their
+flaming borders, and feels the dignity of the distinction of which they
+are the symbol! I do not know how Mr. John Bright felt, but I cannot
+avoid the impression that some in the ranks which moved from Balliol to
+the Sheldonian felt as if Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like
+the candidates for the degree of D.C.L.
+
+After my experience at Cambridge and Edinburgh, I might have felt some
+apprehension about my reception at Oxford. I had always supposed the
+audience assembled there at the conferring of degrees was a more
+demonstrative one than that at any other of the universities, and I did
+not wish to be forced into a retreat by calls for a speech, as I was at
+Cambridge, nor to repeat my somewhat irregular proceeding of addressing
+the audience, as at Edinburgh. But when I found that Mr. John Bright was
+to be one of the recipients of the degree I felt safe, for if he made a
+speech I should be justified in saying a few words, if I thought it
+best; and if he, one of the most eloquent men in England, remained
+silent, I surely need not make myself heard on the occasion. It was a
+great triumph for him, a liberal leader, to receive the testimonial of a
+degree from the old conservative university. To myself it was a graceful
+and pleasing compliment; to him it was a grave and significant tribute.
+As we marched through the crowd on our way from Balliol, the people
+standing around recognized Mr. Bright, and cheered him vociferously.
+
+The exercises in the Sheldonian Theatre were more complex and lasted
+longer than those at the other two universities. The candidate stepped
+forward and listened to one sentence, then made another move forward and
+listened to other words, and at last was welcomed to all the privileges
+conferred by the degree of Doctor of Civil Law, which was announced as
+being bestowed upon him. Mr. Bright, of course, was received with
+immense enthusiasm. I had every reason to be gratified with my own
+reception. The only "chaffing" I heard was the question from one of the
+galleries, "Did he come in the One-Hoss Shay?"--at which there was a
+hearty laugh, joined in as heartily by myself. A part of the
+entertainment at this ceremony consisted in the listening to the reading
+of short extracts from the prize essays, some or all of them in the dead
+languages, which could not have been particularly intelligible to a
+large part of the audience. During these readings there were frequent
+_interpellations_, as the French call such interruptions, something
+like these: "That will do, sir!" or "You had better stop, sir!"
+--always, I noticed, with the sir at the end of the remark. With us it
+would have been "Dry up!" or "Hold on!" At last came forward the young
+poet of the occasion, who read an elaborate poem, "Savonarola," which
+was listened to in most respectful silence, and loudly applauded at its
+close, as I thought, deservedly. Prince and Princess Christian were
+among the audience. They were staying with Professor and Mrs. Max
+Müller, whose hospitalities I hope they enjoyed as much as we did. One
+or two short extracts from A----'s diary will enliven my record: "The
+Princess had a huge bouquet, and going down the aisle had to bow both
+ways at once, it seemed to me: but then she has the Guelph spine and
+neck! Of course it is necessary that royalty should have more elasticity
+in the frame than we poor ordinary mortals. After all this we started
+for a luncheon at All Souls, but had to wait (impatiently) for H. R. H.
+to rest herself, while our resting was done standing."
+
+It is a long while since I read Madame d'Arblay's Recollections, but if
+I remember right, _standing_ while royalty rests its bones is one
+of the drawbacks to a maid of honor's felicity.
+
+"Finally, at near three, we went into a great luncheon of some fifty.
+There were different tables, and I sat at the one with royalty. The
+Provost of Oriel took me in, and Mr. Browning was on my other side.
+Finally, we went home to rest, but the others started out again to go to
+a garden-party, but that was beyond us." After all this came a
+dinner-party of twenty at the Vice-Chancellor's, and after that a
+reception, where among others we met Lord and Lady Coleridge, the lady
+resplendent in jewels. Even after London, this could hardly be called a
+day of rest.
+
+The Chinese have a punishment which consists simply in keeping the
+subject of it awake, by the constant teasing of a succession of
+individuals employed for the purpose. The best of our social pleasures,
+if carried beyond the natural power of physical and mental endurance,
+begin to approach the character of such a penance. After this we got a
+little rest; did some mild sight-seeing, heard some good music, called
+on the Max Müllers, and bade them good-by with the warmest feeling to
+all the members of a household which it was a privilege to enter. There
+only remained the parting from our kind entertainer, the
+Vice-Chancellor, who added another to the list of places which in
+England and Scotland were made dear to us by hospitality, and are
+remembered as true homes to us while we were under their roofs.
+
+On the second day of July we left the Vice-Chancellor's, and went to the
+Randolph Hotel to meet our friends, Mr. and Mrs. Willett, from Brighton,
+with whom we had an appointment of long standing. With them we left
+Oxford, to enter on the next stage of our pilgrimage.
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+
+It had been the intention of Mr. Willett to go with us to visit Mr.
+Ruskin, with whom he is in the most friendly relations. But a letter
+from Mr. Ruskin's sister spoke of his illness as being too serious for
+him to see company, and we reluctantly gave up this part of our plan.
+
+My first wish was to revisit Stratford-on-Avon, and as our travelling
+host was guided in everything by our inclinations, we took the cars for
+Stratford, where we arrived at five o'clock in the afternoon. It had
+been arranged beforehand that we should be the guests of Mr. Charles E.
+Flower, one of the chief citizens of Stratford, who welcomed us to his
+beautiful mansion in the most cordial way, and made us once more at home
+under an English roof.
+
+I well remembered my visit to Stratford in 1834. The condition of the
+old house in which Shakespeare was born was very different from that in
+which we see it to-day. A series of photographs taken in different years
+shows its gradual transformation since the time when the old projecting
+angular sign-board told all who approached "The immortal Shakespeare was
+born in this House." How near the old house came to sharing the fortunes
+of Jumbo under the management of our enterprising countryman, Mr.
+Barnum, I am not sure; but that he would have "traded" for it, if the
+proprietors had been willing, I do not doubt, any more than I doubt that
+he would make an offer for the Tower of London, if that venerable
+structure were in the market. The house in which Shakespeare was born is
+the Santa Casa of England. What with my recollections and the
+photographs with which I was familiarly acquainted, it had nothing very
+new for me. Its outside had undergone great changes, but its bare
+interior was little altered.
+
+My previous visit was a hurried one,--I took but a glimpse, and then
+went on my way. Now, for nearly a week I was a resident of
+Stratford-on-Avon. How shall I describe the perfectly ideal beauty of
+the new home in which I found myself! It is a fine house, surrounded by
+delightful grounds, which skirt the banks of the Avon for a considerable
+distance, and come close up to the enclosure of the Church of the Holy
+Trinity, beneath the floor of which lie the mortal remains of
+Shakespeare. The Avon is one of those narrow English rivers in which
+half a dozen boats might lie side by side, but hardly wide enough for a
+race between two rowing abreast of each other. Just here the river is
+comparatively broad and quiet, there being a dam a little lower down the
+stream. The waters were a perfect mirror, as I saw them on one of the
+still days we had at Stratford. I do not remember ever before seeing
+cows walking with their legs in the air, as I saw them reflected in the
+Avon. Along the banks the young people were straying. I wondered if the
+youthful swains quoted Shakespeare to their ladyloves. Could they help
+recalling Romeo and Juliet? It is quite impossible to think of any human
+being growing up in this place which claims Shakespeare as its child,
+about the streets of which he ran as a boy, on the waters of which he
+must have often floated, without having his image ever present. Is it
+so? There are some boys, from eight to ten or a dozen years old, fishing
+in the Avon, close by the grounds of "Avonbank," the place at which we
+are staying. I call to the little group. I say, "Boys, who was this man
+Shakespeare, people talk so much about?" Boys turn round and look up
+with a plentiful lack of intelligence in their countenances. "Don't you
+know who he was nor what he was?" Boys look at each other, but confess
+ignorance.--Let us try the universal stimulant of human faculties. "Here
+are some pennies for the boy that will tell me what that Mr. Shakespeare
+was." The biggest boy finds his tongue at last. "He was a writer,--he
+wrote plays." That was as much as I could get out of the youngling. I
+remember meeting some boys under the monument upon Bunker Hill, and
+testing their knowledge as I did that of the Stratford boys. "What is
+this great stone pillar here for?" I asked. "Battle fought here,--great
+battle." "Who fought?" "Americans and British." (I never hear the
+expression Britishers.) "Who was the general on the American side?"
+"Don' know,--General Washington or somebody."--What is an old battle,
+though it may have settled the destinies of a nation, to the game of
+base-ball between the Boston and Chicago Nines which is to come off
+to-morrow, or to the game of marbles which Tom and Dick are just going
+to play together under the shadow of the great obelisk which
+commemorates the conflict?
+
+The room more especially assigned to me looked out, at a distance of not
+more than a stone's-throw, on the northern aspect of the church where
+Shakespeare lies buried. Workmen were busy on the roof of the transept.
+I could not conveniently climb up to have a talk with the roofers, but I
+have my doubts whether they were thinking all the time of the dust over
+which they were working. How small a matter literature is to the great
+seething, toiling, struggling, love-making, bread-winning,
+child-rearing, death-awaiting men and women who fill this huge,
+palpitating world of ours! It would be worth while to pass a week or a
+month among the plain, average people of Stratford. What is the relative
+importance in human well-being of the emendations of the text of Hamlet
+and the patching of the old trousers and the darning of the old
+stockings which task the needles of the hard-working households that
+fight the battle of life in these narrow streets and alleys? I ask the
+question; the reader may answer it.
+
+Our host, Mr. Flower, is more deeply interested, perhaps, than any other
+individual in the "Shakespeare Memorial" buildings which have been
+erected on the banks of the Avon, a short distance above the Church of
+the Holy Trinity. Under Mr. Flower's guidance we got into one of his
+boats, and were rowed up the stream to the Memorial edifice. There is a
+theatre, in a round tower which has borrowed some traits from the
+octagon "Globe" theatre of Shakespeare's day; a Shakespeare library and
+portrait gallery are forming; and in due time these buildings, of
+stately dimensions and built solidly of brick, will constitute a
+Shakespearean centre which will attract to itself many mementoes now
+scattered about in various parts of the country.
+
+On the 4th of July we remembered our native land with all the
+affectionate pride of temporary exiles, and did not forget to drink at
+lunch to the prosperity and continued happiness of the United States of
+America. In the afternoon we took to the boat again, and were rowed up
+the river to the residence of Mr. Edgar Flower, where we found another
+characteristic English family, with its nine children, one of whom was
+the typical English boy, most pleasing and attractive in look, voice,
+and manner.
+
+I attempt no description of the church, the birthplace, or the other
+constantly visited and often described localities. The noble bridge,
+built in the reign of Henry VII. by Sir Hugh Clopton, and afterwards
+widened, excited my admiration. It was a much finer piece of work than
+the one built long afterwards. I have hardly seen anything which gave me
+a more striking proof of the thoroughness of the old English workmen.
+They built not for an age, but for all time, and the New Zealander will
+have to wait a long while before he will find in any one of the older
+bridges that broken arch from which he is to survey the ruins of London.
+
+It is very pleasant to pick up a new epithet to apply to the poet upon
+whose genius our language has nearly exhausted itself. It delights me to
+speak of him in the words which I have just found in a memoir not yet a
+century old, as "the Warwickshire bard," "the inestimable Shakespeare."
+
+Ever since Miss Bacon made her insane attempt to unearth what is left of
+Shakespeare's bodily frame, the thought of doing reverently and openly
+what she would have done by stealth has been entertained by
+psychologists, artists, and others who would like to know what were his
+cranial developments, and to judge from the conformation of the skull
+and face which of the various portraits is probably the true one. There
+is little doubt that but for the curse invoked upon the person who
+should disturb his bones, in the well-known lines on the slab which
+covers him, he would rest, like Napoleon, like Washington, in a fitting
+receptacle of marble or porphyry. In the transfer of his remains the
+curiosity of men of science and artists would have been gratified, if
+decay had spared the more durable portions of his material structure. It
+was probably not against such a transfer that the lines were
+written,--whoever was their author,--but in the fear that they would be
+carried to the charnel-house.
+
+"In this charnel-house was contained a vast collection of human bones.
+How long they had been deposited there is not easily to be determined;
+but it is evident, from the immense quantity contained in the vault, it
+could have been used for no other purpose for many ages." "It is
+probable that from an early contemplation of this dreary spot
+Shakespeare imbibed that horror of a violation of sepulture which is
+observable in many parts of his writings."
+
+The body of Raphael was disinterred in 1833 to settle a question of
+identity of the remains, and placed in a new coffin of lead, which was
+deposited in a marble sarcophagus presented by the Pope. The
+sarcophagus, with its contents, was replaced in the same spot from which
+the remains had been taken. But for the inscription such a transfer of
+the bones of Shakespeare would have been proposed, and possibly carried
+out. Kings and emperors have frequently been treated in this way after
+death, and the proposition is no more an indignity than was that of the
+exhumation of the remains of Napoleon, or of André, or of the author of
+"Home, Sweet Home." But sentiment, a tender regard for the supposed
+wishes of the dead poet, and a natural dread of the consequences of
+violating a dying wish, coupled with the execration of its contemner,
+are too powerful for the arguments of science and the pleadings of art.
+If Shakespeare's body had been embalmed,--which there is no reason that
+I know of to suppose,--the desire to compare his features with the bust
+and the portraits would have been much more imperative. When the body of
+Charles the First was examined, under the direction of Sir Henry
+Halford, in the presence of the Regent, afterwards George the Fourth,
+the face would have been recognized at once by all who were acquainted
+with Vandyke's portrait of the monarch, if the lithograph which comes
+attached to Sir Henry's memoir is an accurate representation of what
+they found. Even the bony framework of the face, as I have had occasion
+to know, has sometimes a striking likeness to what it was when clothed
+in its natural features. As between the first engraved portrait and the
+bust in the church, the form of the bones of the head and face would
+probably be decisive. But the world can afford to live without solving
+this doubt, and leave his perishing vesture of decay to its repose.
+
+After seeing the Shakespeare shrines, we drove over to Shottery, and
+visited the Anne Hathaway cottage. I am not sure whether I ever saw it
+before, but it was as familiar to me as if I had lived in it. The old
+lady who showed it was agreeably communicative, and in perfect keeping
+with the place.
+
+A delightful excursion of ten or a dozen miles carried our party,
+consisting of Mr. and Mrs. Flower, Mr. and Mrs. Willett, with A---- and
+myself, to Compton Wynyate, a most interesting old mansion, belonging to
+the Marquis of Northampton, who, with his daughter-in-law, Lady William
+Compton, welcomed us and showed us all the wonders of the place. It was
+a fine morning, but hot enough for one of our American July days. The
+drive was through English rural scenery; that is to say, it was lovely.
+The old house is a great curiosity. It was built in the reign of Henry
+the Eighth, and has passed through many vicissitudes. The place, as well
+as the edifice, is a study for the antiquarian. Remains of the old moat
+which surrounded it are still distinguishable. The twisted and variously
+figured chimneys are of singular variety and exceptional forms. Compton
+_Wynyate_ is thought to get its name from the vineyards formerly
+under cultivation on the hillsides, which show the signs of having been
+laid out in terraces. The great hall, with its gallery, and its
+hangings, and the long table made from the trunk of a single tree,
+carries one back into the past centuries. There are strange nooks and
+corners and passages in the old building, and one place, a queer little
+"cubby-hole," has the appearance of having been a Roman Catholic chapel.
+I asked the master of the house, who pointed out the curiosities of the
+place most courteously, about the ghosts who of course were tenants in
+common with the living proprietors. I was surprised when he told me
+there were none. It was incredible, for here was every accommodation for
+a spiritual visitant. I should have expected at least one haunted
+chamber, to say nothing of blood-stains that could never be got rid of;
+but there were no legends of the supernatural or the terrible.
+
+Refreshments were served us, among which were some hot-house peaches,
+ethereally delicate as if they had grown in the Elysian Fields and been
+stolen from a banquet of angels. After this we went out on the lawn,
+where, at Lady William Compton's request, I recited one or two poems;
+the only time I did such a thing in England.
+
+It seems as if Compton Wynyate must have been written about in some
+novel or romance,--perhaps in more than one of both. It is the place of
+all others to be the scene of a romantic story. It lies so hidden away
+among the hills that its vulgar name, according to old Camden, was
+"Compton in the Hole." I am not sure that it was the scene of any actual
+conflict, but it narrowly escaped demolition in the great civil war, and
+in 1646 it was garrisoned by the Parliament army.
+
+On the afternoon of July 6th, our hosts had a large garden-party. If
+nothing is more trying than one of these out-of-door meetings on a cold,
+windy, damp day, nothing can be more delightful than such a social
+gathering if the place and the weather are just what we could wish them.
+The garden-party of this afternoon was as near perfection as such a
+meeting could well be. The day was bright and warm, but not
+uncomfortably hot, to me, at least. The company strolled about the
+grounds, or rested on the piazzas, or watched the birds in the aviary,
+or studied rudimentary humanity in the monkey, or, better still, in a
+charming baby, for the first time on exhibition since she made the
+acquaintance of sunshine. Every one could dispose of himself or herself
+as fancy might suggest. I broke away at one time, and wandered alone by
+the side of the Avon, under the shadow of the tall trees upon its bank.
+The whole scene was as poetical, as inspiring, as any that I remember.
+It would be easy to write verses about it, but unwritten poems are so
+much better!
+
+One reminiscence of that afternoon claims precedence over all the rest.
+The reader must not forget that I have been a medical practitioner, and
+for thirty-five years a professor in a medical school. Among the guests
+whom I met in the grounds was a gentleman of the medical profession,
+whose name I had often heard, and whom I was very glad to see and talk
+with. This was Mr. Lawson Tait, F.R.C.S., M.D., of Birmingham. Mr., or
+more properly Dr., Tait has had the most extraordinary success in a
+class of cases long considered beyond the reach of surgery. If I refer
+to it as a scientific _hari kari_, not for the taking but for the
+saving of life, I shall come near enough to its description. This
+operation is said to have been first performed by an American surgeon in
+Danville, Kentucky, in the year 1809. So rash and dangerous did it seem
+to most of the profession that it was sometimes spoken of as if to
+attempt it were a crime. Gradually, however, by improved methods, and
+especially by the most assiduous care in nursing the patient after the
+operation, the mortality grew less and less, until it was recognized as
+a legitimate and indeed an invaluable addition to the resources of
+surgery. Mr. Lawson Tait has had, so far as I have been able to learn,
+the most wonderful series of successful cases on record: namely, one
+hundred and thirty-nine consecutive operations without a single death.
+
+As I sat by the side of this great surgeon, a question suggested itself
+to my mind which I leave the reader to think over. Which would give the
+most satisfaction to a thoroughly humane and unselfish being, of
+cultivated intelligence and lively sensibilities: to have written all
+the plays which Shakespeare has left as an inheritance for mankind, or
+to have snatched from the jaws of death more than a hundred fellow-
+creatures,--almost seven scores of suffering women,--and restored them
+to sound and comfortable existence? It would be curious to get the
+answers of a hundred men and a hundred women, of a hundred young people
+and a hundred old ones, of a hundred scholars and a hundred operatives.
+My own specialty is asking questions, not answering them, and I trust I
+shall not receive a peck or two of letters inquiring of me how I should
+choose if such a question were asked me. It may prove as fertile a
+source of dispute as "The Lady or the Tiger."
+
+It would have been a great thing to pass a single night close to the
+church where Shakespeare's dust lies buried. A single visit by daylight
+leaves a comparatively slight impression. But when, after a night's
+sleep, one wakes up and sees the spire and the old walls full before
+him, that impression is very greatly deepened, and the whole scene
+becomes far more a reality. Now I was nearly a whole week at
+Stratford-on-Avon. The church, its exterior, its interior, the
+birthplace, the river, had time to make themselves permanent images in
+my mind. To effect this requires a certain amount of exposure, as much
+as in the case of a photographic negative.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And so we bade good-by to Stratford-on-Avon and its hospitalities, with
+grateful remembrances of our kind entertainers and all they did for our
+comfort and enjoyment.
+
+Where should we go next? Our travelling host proposed Great Malvern, a
+famous watering-place, where we should find peace, rest, and good
+accommodations. So there we went, and soon found ourselves installed at
+the "Foley Arms" hotel. The room I was shown to looked out upon an
+apothecary's shop, and from the window of that shop stared out upon me a
+plaster bust which I recognized as that of Samuel Hahnemann. I was glad
+to change to another apartment, but it may be a comfort to some of his
+American followers to know that traces of homoeopathy,--or what still
+continues to call itself so,--survive in the Old World, which we have
+understood was pretty well tired of it.
+
+We spent several days very pleasantly at Great Malvern. It lies at the
+foot of a range of hills, the loftiest of which is over a thousand feet
+in height. A---- and I thought we would go to the top of one of these,
+known as the Beacon. We hired a "four-wheeler," dragged by a
+much-enduring horse and in charge of a civil young man. We turned out of
+one of the streets not far from the hotel, and found ourselves facing an
+ascent which looked like what I should suppose would be a pretty steep
+toboggan slide. We both drew back. _"Facilis ascensus,"_ I said to
+myself, _"sed revocare gradum."_ It is easy enough to get up if you
+are dragged up, but how will it be to come down such a declivity? When
+we reached it on our return, the semi-precipice had lost all its
+terrors. We had seen and travelled over so much worse places that this
+little bit of slanting road seemed as nothing. The road which wound up
+to the summit of the Beacon was narrow and uneven. It ran close to the
+edge of the steep hillside,--so close that there were times when every
+one of our forty digits curled up like a bird's claw. If we went over,
+it would not be a fall down a good honest precipice,--a swish through
+the air and a smash at the bottom,--but a tumbling, and a rolling over
+and over, and a bouncing and bumping, ever accelerating, until we
+bounded into the level below, all ready for the coroner. At one sudden
+turn of the road the horse's body projected so far over its edge that
+A---- declared if the beast had been an inch longer he would have
+toppled over. When we got close to the summit we found the wind blowing
+almost a gale. A---- says in her diary that I (meaning her honored
+parent) "nearly blew off from the top of the mountain." It is true that
+the force of the wind was something fearful, and seeing that two young
+men near me were exposed to its fury, I offered an arm to each of them,
+which they were not too proud to accept; A---- was equally attentive to
+another young person; and having seen as much of the prospect as we
+cared to, we were glad to get back to our four-wheeler and our hotel,
+after a perilous journey almost comparable to Mark Twain's ascent of the
+Riffelberg.
+
+At Great Malvern we were deliciously idle. We walked about the place,
+rested quietly, drove into the neighboring country, and made a single
+excursion,--to Tewkesbury. There are few places better worth seeing than
+this fine old town, full of historical associations and monumental
+relics. The magnificent old abbey church is the central object of
+interest. The noble Norman tower, one hundred and thirty-two feet in
+height, was once surmounted by a spire, which fell during divine service
+on Easter Day of the year 1559. The arch of the west entrance is sixteen
+feet high and thirty-four feet wide. The fourteen columns of the nave
+are each six feet and three inches in diameter and thirty feet in
+height. I did not take these measurements from the fabric itself, but
+from the guidebook, and I give them here instead of saying that the
+columns were huge, enormous, colossal, as they did most assuredly seem
+to me. The old houses of Tewkesbury compare well with the finest of
+those in Chester. I have a photograph before me of one of them, in which
+each of the three upper floors overhangs the one beneath it, and the
+windows in the pointed gable above project over those of the fourth
+floor.
+
+I ought to have visited the site of Holme Castle, the name of which
+reminds me of my own origin. "The meaning of the Saxon word 'Holme' is a
+meadow surrounded with brooks, and here not only did the castle bear the
+name, but the meadow is described as the 'Holme,--where the castle
+was.'" The final _s_ in the name as we spell it is a frequent
+addition to old English names, as Camden mentions, giving the name
+Holmes among the examples. As there is no castle at the Holme now, I
+need not pursue my inquiries any further. It was by accident that I
+stumbled on this bit of archaeology, and as I have a good many
+namesakes, it may perhaps please some of them to be told about it. Few
+of us hold any castles, I think, in these days, except those _châteaux
+en Espagne_, of which I doubt not, many of us are lords and masters.
+
+In another of our excursions we visited a venerable church, where our
+attention was called to a particular monument. It was erected to the
+memory of one of the best of husbands by his "wretched widow," who
+records upon the marble that there never was such a man on the face of
+the earth before, and never will be again, and that there never was
+anybody so miserable as she,--no, never, never, never! These are not the
+exact words, but this is pretty nearly what she declares. The story is
+that she married again within a year.
+
+From my window at the Foley Arms I can see the tower of the fine old
+abbey church of Malvern, which would be a centre of pilgrimages if it
+were in our country. But England is full of such monumental structures,
+into the history of which the local antiquarians burrow, and pass their
+peaceful lives in studying and writing about them with the same innocent
+enthusiasm that White of Selborne manifested in studying nature as his
+village showed it to him.
+
+In our long drives we have seen everywhere the same picturesque old
+cottages, with the pretty gardens, and abundant flowers, and noble
+trees, more frequently elms than any other. One day--it was on the 10th
+of July--we found ourselves driving through what seemed to be a
+gentleman's estate, an ample domain, well wooded and well kept. On
+inquiring to whom this place belonged, I was told that the owner was Sir
+Edmund Lechmere. The name had a very familiar sound to my ears. Without
+rising from the table at which I am now writing, I have only to turn my
+head, and in full view, at the distance of a mile, just across the
+estuary of the Charles, shining in the morning sun, are the roofs and
+spires and chimneys of East Cambridge, always known in my younger days
+as Lechmere's Point. Judge Richard Lechmere was one of our old Cambridge
+Tories, whose property was confiscated at the time of the Revolution. An
+engraving of his handsome house, which stands next to the Vassall house,
+long known as Washington's headquarters, and since not less celebrated
+as the residence of Longfellow, is before me, on one of the pages of the
+pleasing little volume, "The Cambridge of 1776." I take it for granted
+that our Lechmeres were of the same stock as the owner of this property.
+If so, he probably knows all that I could tell him about his colonial
+relatives, who were very grand people, belonging to a little
+aristocratic circle of friends and relatives who were faithful to their
+king and their church. The Baroness Riedesel, wife of a Hessian officer
+who had been captured, was for a while resident in this house, and her
+name, scratched on a window-pane, was long shown as a sight for eyes
+unused to titles other than governor, judge, colonel, and the like. I
+was tempted to present myself at Sir Edmund's door as one who knew
+something about the Lechmeres in America, but I did not feel sure how
+cordially a descendant of the rebels who drove off Richard and Mary
+Lechmere would be received.
+
+From Great Malvern we went to Bath, another place where we could rest
+and be comfortable. The Grand Pump-Room Hotel was a stately building,
+and the bath-rooms were far beyond anything I had ever seen of that
+kind. The remains of the old Roman baths, which appear to have been very
+extensive, are partially exposed. What surprises one all over the Old
+World is to see how deeply all the old civilizations contrive to get
+buried. Everybody seems to have lived in the cellar. It is hard to
+believe that the cellar floor was once the sun surface of the smiling
+earth.
+
+I looked forward to seeing Bath with a curious kind of interest. I once
+knew one of those dear old English ladies whom one finds all the world
+over, with their prim little ways, and their gilt prayer-books, and
+lavender-scented handkerchiefs, and family recollections. She gave me
+the idea that Bath, a city where the great people often congregate, was
+more especially the paradise of decayed gentlewomen. There, she told me,
+persons with very narrow incomes--not _demi-fortunes_, but
+_demi-quart-de-fortunes_--could find everything arranged to
+accommodate their modest incomes. I saw the evidence of this everywhere.
+So great was the delight I had in looking in at the shop-windows of the
+long street which seemed to be one of the chief thoroughfares that,
+after exploring it in its full extent by myself, I went for A----, and
+led her down one side its whole length and up the other. In these shops
+the precious old dears could buy everything they wanted in the most
+minute quantities. Such tempting heaps of lumps of white sugar, only
+twopence! Such delectable cakes, two for a penny! Such seductive scraps
+of meat, which would make a breakfast nourishing as well as relishing,
+possibly even what called itself a dinner, blushing to see themselves
+labelled threepence or fourpence! We did not know whether to smile or to
+drop a tear, as we contemplated these baits hung out to tempt the coins
+from the exiguous purses of ancient maidens, forlorn widows, withered
+annuitants, stranded humanity in every stage of shipwrecked penury. I am
+reminded of Thackeray's "Jack Spiggot." "And what are your pursuits,
+Jack? says I. 'Sold out when the governor died. Mother lives at Bath. Go
+down there once a year for a week. Dreadful slow. Shilling whist.'" Mrs.
+Gaskell's picture of "Cranford" is said to have been drawn from a
+village in Cheshire, but Bath must have a great deal in common with its
+"elegant economies." Do not make the mistake, however, of supposing that
+this splendid watering-place, sometimes spoken of as "the handsomest
+city in Britain," is only a city of refuge for people that have seen
+better days. Lord Macaulay speaks of it as "that beautiful city which
+charms even eyes familiar with the masterpieces of Bramante and
+Palladio." If it is not quite so conspicuous as a fashionable resort as
+it was in the days of Beau Nash or of Christopher Anstey, it has never
+lost its popularity. Chesterfield writes in 1764, "The number of people
+in this place is infinite," and at the present time the annual influx of
+visitors is said to vary from ten to fourteen thousand. Many of its
+public buildings are fine, and the abbey church, dating from 1499, is an
+object of much curiosity, especially on account of the sculptures on its
+western façade. These represent two ladders, with angels going up and
+down upon them,--suggested by a dream of the founder of the church,
+repeating that of Jacob.
+
+On the 14th of July we left Bath for Salisbury. While passing Westbury,
+one of our fellow-passengers exclaimed, "Look out! Look out!" "What is
+it?" "The horse! the horse!" All our heads turned to the window, and all
+our eyes fastened on the figure of a white horse, upon a hillside some
+miles distant. This was not the white horse which Mr. Thomas Hughes has
+made famous, but one of much less archaic aspect and more questionable
+history. A little book which we bought tells us all we care to know
+about it. "It is formed by excoriating the turf over the steep slope of
+the northern escarpment of Salisbury Plain." It was "remodelled" in
+1778, and "restored" in 1873 at a cost of between sixty and seventy
+pounds. It is said that a smaller and ruder horse stood here from time
+immemorial, and was made to commemorate a victory of Alfred over the
+Danes. However that may be, the horse we now see on the hillside is a
+very modern-looking and well-shaped animal, and is of the following
+dimensions: length, 170 feet; height from highest part of back, 128
+feet; thickness of body, 55 feet; length of head, 50 feet; eye, 6 by 8
+feet. It is a very pretty little object as we see it in the distance.
+
+Salisbury Cathedral was my first love among all the wonderful
+ecclesiastical buildings which I saw during my earlier journey. I looked
+forward to seeing it again with great anticipations of pleasure, which
+were more than realized.
+
+Our travelling host had taken a whole house in the Close,--a privileged
+enclosure, containing the cathedral, the bishop's palace, houses of the
+clergy, and a limited number of private residences, one of the very best
+of which was given over entirely into the hands of our party during our
+visit. The house was about as near the cathedral as Mr. Flower's house,
+where we stayed at Stratford-on-Avon, was to the Church of the Holy
+Trinity. It was very completely furnished, and in the room assigned to
+me as my library I found books in various languages, showing that the
+residence was that of a scholarly person.
+
+If one had to name the apple of the eye of England, I think he would be
+likely to say that Salisbury Cathedral was as near as he could come to
+it, and that the white of the eye was Salisbury Close. The cathedral is
+surrounded by a high wall, the gates of which,--its eyelids,--are closed
+every night at a seasonable hour, at which the virtuous inhabitants are
+expected to be in their safe and sacred quarters. Houses within this
+hallowed precinct naturally bring a higher rent than those of the
+unsanctified and unprotected region outside of its walls. It is a realm
+of peace, glorified by the divine edifice, which lifts the least
+imaginative soul upward to the heavens its spire seems trying to reach;
+beautified by rows of noble elms which stretch high aloft, as if in
+emulation of the spire; beatified by holy memories of the good and great
+men who have worn their lives out in the service of the church of which
+it is one of the noblest temples.
+
+For a whole week we lived under the shadow of the spire of the great
+cathedral. Our house was opposite the north transept, only separated by
+the road in front of it from the cathedral grounds. Here, as at
+Stratford, I learned what it was to awake morning after morning and find
+that I was not dreaming, but there in the truth-telling daylight the
+object of my admiration, devotion, almost worship, stood before me. I
+need not here say anything more of the cathedral, except that its
+perfect exterior is hardly equalled in beauty by its interior, which
+looks somewhat bare and cold. It was my impression that there is more to
+study than to admire in the interior, but I saw the cathedral so much
+oftener on the outside than on the inside that I may not have done
+justice to the latter aspect of the noble building.
+
+Nothing could be more restful than our week at Salisbury. There was
+enough in the old town besides the cathedral to interest us,--old
+buildings, a museum, full of curious objects, and the old town itself.
+When I was there the first time, I remember that we picked up a
+guide-book in which we found a verse that has remained in my memory ever
+since. It is an epitaph on a native of Salisbury who died in Venice.
+
+  "Born in the English Venice, thou didst dye
+  Dear Friend, in the Italian Salisbury."
+
+This would be hard to understand except for the explanation which the
+local antiquarians give us of its significance. The Wiltshire Avon flows
+by or through the town, which is drained by brooks that run through its
+streets. These, which used to be open, are now covered over, and thus
+the epitaph becomes somewhat puzzling, as there is nothing to remind one
+of Venice in walking about the town.
+
+While at Salisbury we made several excursions: to Old Sarum; to
+Bemerton, where we saw the residence of holy George Herbert, and visited
+the little atom of a church in which he ministered; to Clarendon Park;
+to Wilton, the seat of the Earl of Pembroke, a most interesting place
+for itself and its recollections; and lastly to Stonehenge. My second
+visit to the great stones after so long an interval was a strange
+experience. But what is half a century to a place like Stonehenge?
+Nothing dwarfs an individual life like one of these massive, almost
+unchanging monuments of an antiquity which refuses to be measured. The
+"Shepherd of Salisbury Plain" was represented by an old man, who told
+all he knew and a good deal more about the great stones, and sheared a
+living, not from sheep, but from visitors, in the shape of shillings and
+sixpences. I saw nothing that wore unwoven wool on its back in the
+neighborhood of the monuments, but sheep are shown straggling among them
+in the photographs.
+
+The broken circle of stones, some in their original position, some
+bending over like old men, some lying prostrate, suggested the thoughts
+which took form in the following verses. They were read at the annual
+meeting, in January, of the class which graduated at Harvard College in
+the year 1829. Eight of the fifty-nine men who graduated sat round the
+small table. There were several other classmates living, but infirmity,
+distance, and other peremptory reasons kept them from being with us. I
+have read forty poems at our successive annual meetings. I will
+introduce this last one by quoting a stanza from the poem I read in
+1851:--
+
+  As one by one is falling
+    Beneath the leaves or snows,
+  Each memory still recalling
+    The broken ring shall close,
+  Till the night winds softly pass
+    O'er the green and growing grass,
+  Where it waves on the graves
+    Of the "Boys of 'Twenty-nine."
+
+  THE BROKEN CIRCLE.
+
+  I stood on Sarum's treeless plain,
+    The waste that careless Nature owns;
+  Lone tenants of her bleak domain,
+    Loomed huge and gray the Druid stones.
+
+  Upheaved in many a billowy mound
+    The sea-like, naked turf arose,
+  Where wandering flocks went nibbling round
+    The mingled graves of friends and foes.
+
+  The Briton, Roman, Saxon, Dane,
+    This windy desert roamed in turn;
+  Unmoved these mighty blocks remain
+    Whose story none that lives may learn.
+
+  Erect, half buried, slant or prone,
+    These awful listeners, blind and dumb,
+  Hear the strange tongues of tribes unknown,
+    As wave on wave they go and come.
+
+  "Who are you, giants, whence and why?"
+    I stand and ask in blank amaze;
+  My soul accepts their mute reply:
+    "A mystery, as are you that gaze.
+
+  "A silent Orpheus wrought the charm
+    From riven rocks their spoils to bring;
+  A nameless Titan lent his arm
+    To range us in our magic ring.
+
+  "But Time with still and stealthy stride,
+    That climbs and treads and levels all,
+  That bids the loosening keystone slide,
+    And topples down the crumbling wall,--
+
+  "Time, that unbuilds the quarried past,
+    Leans on these wrecks that press the sod;
+  They slant, they stoop, they fall at last,
+    And strew the turf their priests have trod.
+
+  "No more our altar's wreath of smoke
+    Floats up with morning's fragrant dew;
+  The fires are dead, the ring is broke,
+    Where stood the many stand the few."
+
+  --My thoughts had wandered far away,
+     Borne off on Memory's outspread wing,
+  To where in deepening twilight lay
+     The wrecks of friendship's broken ring.
+
+  Ah me! of all our goodly train
+     How few will find our banquet hall!
+  Yet why with coward lips complain
+     That this must lean and that must fall?
+
+  Cold is the Druid's altar-stone,
+     Its vanished flame no more returns;
+  But ours no chilling damp has known,--
+     Unchanged, unchanging, still it burns.
+
+  So let our broken circle stand
+     A wreck, a remnant, yet the same,
+  While one last, loving, faithful hand
+     Still lives to feed its altar-flame!
+
+My heart has gone back over the waters to my old friends and my own
+home. When this vision has faded, I will return to the silence of the
+lovely Close and the shadow of the great Cathedral.
+
+
+
+
+V.
+
+
+The remembrance of home, with its early and precious and long-enduring
+friendships, has intruded itself among my recollections of what I saw
+and heard, of what I felt and thought, in the distant land I was
+visiting. I must return to the scene where I found myself when the
+suggestion of the broken circle ran away with my imagination.
+
+The literature of Stonehenge is extensive, and illustrates the weakness
+of archaeologists almost as well as the "Praetorium" of Scott's
+"Antiquary." "In 1823," says a local handbook, "H. Browne, of Amesbury,
+published 'An Illustration of Stonehenge and Abury,' in which he
+endeavored to show that both of these monuments were antediluvian, and
+that the latter was formed under the direction of Adam. He ascribes the
+present dilapidated condition of Stonehenge to the operation of the
+general deluge; for, he adds, 'to suppose it to be the work of any
+people since the flood is entirely monstrous.'"
+
+We know well enough how great stones--pillars and obelisks--are brought
+into place by means of our modern appliances. But if the great blocks
+were raised by a mob of naked Picts, or any tribe that knew none of the
+mechanical powers but the lever, how did they set them up and lay the
+cross-stones, the imposts, upon the uprights? It is pleasant, once in a
+while, to think how we should have managed any such matters as this if
+left to our natural resources. We are all interested in the make-shifts
+of Robinson Crusoe. Now the rudest tribes make cords of some kind, and
+the earliest, or almost the earliest, of artificial structures is an
+earth-mound. If a hundred, or hundreds, of men could drag the huge
+stones many leagues, as they must have done to bring them to their
+destined place, they could have drawn each of them up a long slanting
+mound ending in a sharp declivity, with a hole for the foot of the stone
+at its base. If the stone were now tipped over, it would slide into its
+place, and could be easily raised from its slanting position to the
+perpendicular. Then filling in the space between the mound and two
+contiguous stones, the impost could be dragged up to its position. I
+found a pleasure in working at this simple mechanical problem, as a
+change from the more imaginative thoughts suggested by the mysterious
+monuments.
+
+One incident of our excursion to Stonehenge had a significance for me
+which renders it memorable in my personal experience. As we drove over
+the barren plain, one of the party suddenly exclaimed, "Look! Look! See
+the lark rising!" I looked up with the rest. There was the bright blue
+sky, but not a speck upon it which my eyes could distinguish. Again, one
+called out, "Hark! Hark! Hear him singing!" I listened, but not a sound
+reached my ear. Was it strange that I felt a momentary pang? _Those
+that look out at the windows are darkened, and all the daughters of
+music are brought low._ Was I never to see or hear the soaring
+songster at Heaven's gate,--unless,--unless,--if our mild humanized
+theology promises truly, I may perhaps hereafter listen to him singing
+far down beneath me? For in whatever world I may find myself, I hope I
+shall always love our poor little spheroid, so long my home, which some
+kind angel may point out to me as a gilded globule swimming in the
+sunlight far away. After walking the streets of pure gold in the New
+Jerusalem, might not one like a short vacation, to visit the
+well-remembered green fields and flowery meadows? I had a very sweet
+emotion of self-pity, which took the sting out of my painful discovery
+that the orchestra of my pleasing life-entertainment was unstringing its
+instruments, and the lights were being extinguished,--that the show was
+almost over. All this I kept to myself, of course, except so far as I
+whispered it to the unseen presence which we all feel is in sympathy
+with us, and which, as it seemed to my fancy, was looking into my eyes,
+and through them into my soul, with the tender, tearful smile of a
+mother who for the first time gently presses back the longing lips of
+her as yet unweaned infant.
+
+On our way back from Stonehenge we stopped and took a cup of tea with a
+friend of our host, Mr. Nightingale. His house, a bachelor
+establishment, was very attractive to us by the beauty within and around
+it. His collection of "china," as Pope and old-fashioned people call all
+sorts of earthenware, excited the enthusiasm of our host, whose
+admiration of some rare pieces in the collection was so great that it
+would have run into envy in a less generous nature.
+
+It is very delightful to find one's self in one of these English country
+residences. The house is commonly old, and has a history. It is
+oftentimes itself a record, like that old farmhouse my friend John
+Bellows wrote to me about, which chronicled half a dozen reigns by
+various architectural marks as exactly as if it had been an official
+register. "The stately homes of England," as we see them at Wilton and
+Longford Castle, are not more admirable in their splendors than "the
+blessed homes of England" in their modest beauty. Everywhere one may see
+here old parsonages by the side of ivy-mantled churches, and the
+comfortable mansions where generations of country squires have lived in
+peace, while their sons have gone forth to fight England's battles, and
+carry her flags of war and commerce all over the world. We in America
+can hardly be said to have such a possession as a family home. We
+encamp,--not under canvas, but in fabrics of wood or more lasting
+materials, which are pulled down after a brief occupancy by the
+builders, and possibly their children, or are modernized so that the
+former dwellers in them would never recognize their old habitations.
+
+In my various excursions from Salisbury I was followed everywhere by the
+all-pervading presence of the towering spire. Just what it was in that
+earlier visit, when my eyes were undimmed and my sensibilities unworn,
+just such I found it now. As one drives away from the town, the roofs of
+the houses drop out of the landscape, the lesser spires disappear one by
+one, until the great shaft is left standing alone,--solitary as the
+broken statue of Ozymandias in the desert, as the mast of some mighty
+ship above the waves which have rolled over the foundering vessel. Most
+persons will, I think, own to a feeling of awe in looking up at it. Few
+can look down from a great height without creepings and crispations, if
+they do not get as far as vertigos and that aerial calenture which
+prompts them to jump from the pinnacle on which they are standing. It
+does not take much imagination to make one experience something of the
+same feeling in looking up at a very tall steeple or chimney. To one
+whose eyes are used to Park Street and the Old South steeples as
+standards of height, a spire which climbs four hundred feet towards the
+sky is a new sensation. Whether I am more "afraid of that which is high"
+than I was at my first visit, as I should be on the authority of
+Ecclesiastes, I cannot say, but it was quite enough for me to let my
+eyes climb the spire, and I had no desire whatever to stand upon that
+"bad eminence," as I am sure that I should have found it.
+
+I soon noticed a slight deflection from the perpendicular at the upper
+part of the spire. This has long been observed. I could not say that I
+saw the spire quivering in the wind, as I felt that of Strasburg doing
+when I ascended it,--swaying like a blade of grass when a breath of air
+passes over it. But it has been, for at least two hundred years, nearly
+two feet out of the perpendicular. No increase in the deviation was
+found to exist when it was examined early in the present century. It is
+a wonder that this slight-looking structure can have survived the
+blasts, and thunderbolts, and earthquakes, and the weakening effects of
+time on its stones and timbers for five hundred years. Since the spire
+of Chichester Cathedral fell in 1861, sheathing itself in its tower like
+a sword dropping into its scabbard, one can hardly help looking with
+apprehension at all these lofty fabrics. I have before referred to the
+fall of the spire of Tewkesbury Abbey church, three centuries earlier.
+There has been a good deal of fear for the Salisbury spire, and great
+precautions have been taken to keep it firm, so that we may hope it will
+stand for another five hundred years. It ought to be a "joy forever,"
+for it is a thing of beauty, if ever there were one.
+
+I never felt inclined to play the part of the young enthusiast in
+"Excelsior," as I looked up at the weathercock which surmounts the
+spire. But the man who oils the weathercock-spindle has to get up to it
+in some way, and that way is by ladders which reach to within thirty
+feet of the top, where there is a small door, through which he emerges,
+to crawl up the remaining distance on the outside. "The situation and
+appearance," says one of the guide-books, "must be terrific, yet many
+persons have voluntarily and daringly clambered to the top, even in a
+state of intoxication." Such, I feel sure, was not the state of my most
+valued and exemplary clerical friend, who, with a cool head and steady
+nerves, found himself standing in safety at the top of the spire, with
+his hand upon the vane, which nothing terrestrial had ever looked down
+upon in its lofty position, except a bird, a bat, a sky-rocket, or a
+balloon.
+
+In saying that the exterior of Salisbury Cathedral is more interesting
+than its interior, I was perhaps unfair to the latter, which only yields
+to the surpassing claims of the wonderful structure as seen from the
+outside. One may get a little tired of marble Crusaders, with their
+crossed legs and broken noses, especially if, as one sometimes finds
+them, they are covered with the pencilled autographs of cockney
+scribblers. But there are monuments in this cathedral which excite
+curiosity, and others which awaken the most striking associations. There
+is the "Boy Bishop," his marble effigy protected from vandalism by an
+iron cage. There is the skeleton figure representing Fox (who should
+have been called Goose), the poor creature who starved himself to death
+in trying to imitate the fast of forty days in the wilderness. Since
+this performance has been taken out of the list of miracles, it is not
+so likely to be repeated by fanatics. I confess to a strong suspicion
+that this is one of the ambulatory or movable stories, like the
+"hangman's stone" legend, which I have found in so many different parts
+of England. Skulls and crossbones, sometimes skeletons or skeleton-like
+figures, are not uncommon among the sepulchral embellishments of an
+earlier period. Where one of these figures is found, the forty-day-fast
+story is likely to grow out of it, as the mistletoe springs from the oak
+or apple tree.
+
+With far different emotions we look upon the spot where lie buried many
+of the Herbert family, among the rest,
+
+  "Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother,"
+
+for whom Ben Jonson wrote the celebrated epitaph. I am almost afraid to
+say it, but I never could admire the line,
+
+  "Lies the subject of all verse,"
+
+nor the idea of Time dropping his hour-glass and scythe to throw a dart
+at the fleshless figure of Death. This last image seems to me about the
+equivalent in mortuary poetry of Roubiliac's monument to Mrs.
+Nightingale in mortuary sculpture,--poor conceits both of them, without
+the suggestion of a tear in the verses or in the marble; but the
+rhetorical exaggeration does not prevent us from feeling that we are
+standing by the resting-place of one who was
+
+  "learn'd and fair and good"
+
+enough to stir the soul of stalwart Ben Jonson, and the names of Sidney
+and Herbert make us forget the strange hyperboles.
+
+History meets us everywhere, as we stray among these ancient monuments.
+Under that effigy lie the great bones of Sir John Cheyne, a mighty man
+of war, said to have been "overthrown" by Richard the Third at the
+battle of Bosworth Field. What was left of him was unearthed in 1789 in
+the demolition of the Beauchamp chapel, and his thigh-bone was found to
+be four inches longer than that of a man of common stature.
+
+The reader may remember how my recollections started from their
+hiding-place when I came, in one of our excursions, upon the name of
+Lechmere, as belonging to the owner of a fine estate by or through which
+we were driving. I had a similar twinge of reminiscence at meeting with
+the name of Gorges, which is perpetuated by a stately monument at the
+end of the north aisle of the cathedral. Sir Thomas Gorges, Knight of
+Longford Castle, may or may not have been of the same family as the
+well-remembered grandiose personage of the New England Pilgrim period.
+The title this gentleman bore had a far more magnificent sound than
+those of his contemporaries, Governor Carver and Elder Brewster. No
+title ever borne among us has filled the mouth quite so full as that of
+"Sir Ferdinando Gorges, Lord Palatine of the Province of Maine," a
+province with "Gorgeana" (late the plantation of Agamenticus) as its
+capital. Everywhere in England a New Englander is constantly meeting
+with names of families and places which remind him that he comes of a
+graft from an old tree on a new stock. I could not keep down the
+associations called up by the name of Gorges. There is a certain
+pleasure in now and then sprinkling our prosaic colonial history with
+the holy water of a high-sounding title; not that a "Sir" before a man's
+name makes him any better,--for are we not all equal, and more than
+equal, to each other?--but it sounds pleasantly. Sir Harry Vane and Sir
+Harry Frankland look prettily on the printed page, as the illuminated
+capital at the head of a chapter in an old folio pleases the eye of the
+reader. Sir Thomas Gorges was the builder of Longford Castle, now the
+seat of the Earl of Radnor, whose family name is Bouverie. Whether our
+Sir Ferdinando was of the Longford Castle stock or not I must leave to
+my associates of the Massachusetts Historical Society to determine.
+
+We lived very quietly at our temporary home in Salisbury Close. A
+pleasant dinner with the Dean, a stroll through the grounds of the
+episcopal palace, with that perpetual feast of the eyes which the
+cathedral offered us, made our residence delightful at the time, and
+keeps it so in remembrance. Besides the cathedral there were the very
+lovely cloisters, the noble chapter-house with its central pillar,--this
+structure has been restored and rejuvenated since my earlier visit,--and
+there were the peaceful dwellings, where I insist on believing that only
+virtue and happiness are ever tenants. Even outside the sacred enclosure
+there is a great deal to enjoy, in the ancient town of Salisbury. One
+may rest under the Poultry Cross, where twenty or thirty generations
+have rested before him. One may purchase his china at the well-furnished
+establishment of the tenant of a spacious apartment of ancient
+date,--"the Halle of John Halle," a fine private edifice built in the
+year 1470, restored and beautified in 1834; the emblazonment of the
+royal arms having been executed by the celebrated architectural artist
+Pugin. The old houses are numerous, and some of them eminently
+picturesque.
+
+Salisbury was formerly very unhealthy, on account of the low, swampy
+nature of its grounds. The Sanitary Reform, dating from about thirty
+years ago, had a great effect on the condition of the place. Before the
+drainage the annual mortality was twenty-seven in the thousand; since
+the drainage twenty in the thousand, which is below that of Boston. In
+the Close, which is a little Garden of Eden, with no serpent in it that
+I could hear of, the deaths were only fourteen in a thousand. Happy
+little enclosure, where thieves cannot break through and steal, where
+Death himself hesitates to enter, and makes a visit only now and then at
+long intervals, lest the fortunate inhabitants should think they had
+already reached the Celestial City!
+
+[Illustration: Salisbury Cathedral.]
+
+It must have been a pretty bitter quarrel that drove the tenants of the
+airy height of Old Sarum to remove to the marshy level of the present
+site of the cathedral and the town. I wish we could have given more time
+to the ancient fortress and cathedral town. This is one of the most
+interesting historic localities of Great Britain. We looked from
+different points of view at the mounds and trenches which marked it as a
+strongly fortified position. For many centuries it played an important
+part in the history of England. At length, however, the jealousies of
+the laity and the clergy, a squabble like that of "town and gown," but
+with graver underlying causes, broke up the harmony and practically
+ended the existence of the place except as a monument of the past. It
+seems a pity that the headquarters of the Prince of Peace could not have
+managed to maintain tranquillity within its own borders. But so it was;
+and the consequence followed that Old Sarum, with all its grand
+recollections, is but a collection of mounds and hollows,--as much a
+tomb of its past as Birs Nimroud of that great city, Nineveh. Old Sarum
+is now best remembered by its long-surviving privilege, as a borough, of
+sending two members to Parliament. The farcical ceremony of electing two
+representatives who had no real constituency behind them was put an end
+to by the Reform Act of 1832.
+
+Wilton, the seat of the Earl of Pembroke, within an easy drive's
+distance from Salisbury, was the first nobleman's residence I saw in my
+early visit. Not a great deal of what I then saw had survived in my
+memory. I recall the general effect of the stately mansion and its
+grounds. A picture or two of Vandyke's had not quite faded out of my
+recollection. I could not forget the armor of Anne de Montmorenci,--not
+another Maid of Orleans, but Constable of France,--said to have been
+taken in battle by an ancestor of the Herberts. It was one of the first
+things that made me feel I was in the Old World. Miles Standish's sword
+was as far back as New England collections of armor carried us at that
+day. The remarkable gallery of ancient sculptures impressed me at the
+time, but no one bust or statue survived as a distinct image. Even the
+beautiful Palladian bridge had not pictured itself on my mental tablet
+as it should have done, and I could not have taken my oath that I had
+seen it. But the pretty English maidens whom we met on the day of our
+visit to Wilton,--daughters or granddaughters of a famous inventor and
+engineer,--still lingered as vague and pleasing visions, so lovely had
+they seemed among the daisies and primroses. The primroses and daisies
+were as fresh in the spring of 1886 as they were in the spring of 1833,
+but I hardly dared to ask after the blooming maidens of that early
+period.
+
+One memory predominates over all others, in walking through the halls,
+or still more in wandering through the grounds, of Wilton House. Here
+Sir Philip Sidney wrote his "Arcadia," and the ever youthful presence of
+the man himself rather than the recollection of his writings takes
+possession of us. There are three young men in history whose names
+always present themselves to me in a special companionship: Pico della
+Mirandola, "the Phoenix of the Age" for his contemporaries; "the
+Admirable Crichton," accepting as true the accounts which have come down
+to us of his wonderful accomplishments; and Sidney, the Bayard of
+England, "that glorious star, that lively pattern of virtue and the
+lovely joy of all the learned sort, ... born into the world to show unto
+our age a sample of ancient virtue." The English paragon of excellence
+was but thirty-two years old when he was slain at Zutphen, the Italian
+Phoenix but thirty-one when he was carried off by a fever, and the
+Scotch prodigy of gifts and attainments was only twenty-two when he was
+assassinated by his worthless pupil. Sir Philip Sidney is better
+remembered by the draught of water he gave the dying soldier than by all
+the waters he ever drew from the fountain of the Muses, considerable as
+are the merits of his prose and verse. But here, where he came to cool
+his fiery spirit after the bitter insult he had received from the Earl
+of Leicester; here, where he mused and wrote, and shaped his lofty plans
+for a glorious future, he lives once more in our imagination, as if his
+spirit haunted the English Arcadia he loved so dearly.
+
+The name of Herbert, which we have met with in the cathedral, and which
+belongs to the Earls of Pembroke, presents itself to us once more in a
+very different and very beautiful aspect. Between Salisbury and Wilton,
+three miles and a half distant, is the little village of Bemerton, where
+"holy George Herbert" lived and died, and where he lies buried. Many
+Americans who know little else of him recall the lines borrowed from him
+by Irving in the "Sketch-Book" and by Emerson in "Nature." The
+"Sketch-Book" gives the lines thus:--
+
+  "Sweet day, so pure, so calm, so bright,
+    The bridal of the earth and sky."
+
+In other versions the fourth word is _cool_ instead of _pure_,
+and _cool_ is, I believe, the correct reading. The day when we
+visited Bemerton was, according to A----'s diary, "perfect." I was
+struck with the calm beauty of the scene around us, the fresh greenness
+of all growing things, and the stillness of the river which mirrored the
+heavens above it. It must have been this reflection which the poet was
+thinking of when he spoke of the bridal of the earth and sky. The river
+is the Wiltshire Avon; not Shakespeare's Avon, but the southern stream
+of the same name, which empties into the British Channel.
+
+So much of George Herbert's intellectual and moral character repeat
+themselves in Emerson that if I believed in metempsychosis I should
+think that the English saint had reappeared in the American philosopher.
+Their features have a certain resemblance, but the type, though an
+exceptional and fine one, is not so very rare. I found a portrait in the
+National Gallery which was a good specimen of it; the bust of a near
+friend of his, more intimate with him than almost any other person, is
+often taken for that of Emerson. I see something of it in the portrait
+of Sir Philip Sidney, and I doubt not that traces of a similar mental
+resemblance ran through the whole group, with individual characteristics
+which were in some respects quite different. I will take a single verse
+of Herbert's from Emerson's "Nature,"--one of the five which he
+quotes:--
+
+       "Nothing hath got so far
+  But man hath caught and kept it as his prey;
+       His eyes dismount the highest star:
+       He is in little all the sphere.
+  Herbs gladly cure our flesh because that they
+       Find their acquaintance there."
+
+Emerson himself fully recognizes his obligations to "the beautiful
+psalmist of the seventeenth century," as he calls George Herbert. There
+are many passages in his writings which sound as if they were
+paraphrases from the elder poet. From him it is that Emerson gets a word
+he is fond of, and of which his imitators are too fond:--
+
+  "Who sweeps a room as for thy laws
+  Makes that and the action _fine_."
+
+The little chapel in which Herbert officiated is perhaps half as long
+again as the room in which I am writing, but it is four or five feet
+narrower,--and I do not live in a palace. Here this humble servant of
+God preached and prayed, and here by his faithful and loving service he
+so endeared himself to all around him that he has been canonized by an
+epithet no other saint of the English Church has had bestowed upon him.
+His life as pictured by Izaak Walton is, to borrow one of his own lines,
+
+  "A box where sweets compacted lie;"
+
+and I felt, as I left his little chapel and the parsonage which he
+rebuilt as a free-will offering, as a pilgrim might feel who had just
+left the holy places at Jerusalem.
+
+Among the places which I saw in my first visit was Longford Castle, the
+seat of the Earl of Radnor. I remembered the curious triangular
+building, constructed with reference to the doctrine of the Trinity, as
+churches are built in the form of the cross. I remembered how the
+omnipresent spire of the great cathedral, three miles away, looked down
+upon the grounds about the building as if it had been their next-door
+neighbor. I had not forgotten the two celebrated Claudes, Morning and
+Evening. My eyes were drawn to the first of these two pictures when I
+was here before; now they turned naturally to the landscape with the
+setting sun. I have read my St. Ruskin with due reverence, but I have
+never given up my allegiance to Claude Lorraine. But of all the fine
+paintings at Longford Castle, no one so much impressed me at my recent
+visit as the portrait of Erasmus by Hans Holbein. This is one of those
+pictures which help to make the Old World worth a voyage across the
+Atlantic. Portraits of Erasmus are not uncommon; every scholar would
+know him if he met him in the other world with the look he wore on
+earth. All the etchings and their copies give a characteristic
+presentation of the spiritual precursor of Luther, who pricked the false
+image with his rapier which the sturdy monk slashed with his broadsword.
+What a face it is which Hans Holbein has handed down to us in this
+wonderful portrait at Longford Castle! How dry it is with scholastic
+labor, how keen with shrewd scepticism, how worldly-wise, how conscious
+of its owner's wide-awake sagacity! Erasmus and Rabelais,--Nature used
+up all her arrows for their quivers, and had to wait a hundred years and
+more before she could find shafts enough for the outfit of Voltaire,
+leaner and keener than Erasmus, and almost as free in his language as
+the audacious creator of Gargantua and Pantagruel.
+
+I have not generally given descriptions of the curious objects which I
+saw in the great houses and museums which I visited. There is, however,
+a work of art at Longford Castle so remarkable that I must speak of it.
+I was so much struck by the enormous amount of skilful ingenuity and
+exquisite workmanship bestowed upon it that I looked up its history,
+which I found in the "Beauties of England and Wales." This is what is
+there said of the wonderful steel chair: "It was made by Thomas Rukers
+at the city of Augsburgh, in the year 1575, and consists of more than
+130 compartments, all occupied by groups of figures representing a
+succession of events in the annals of the Roman Empire, from the landing
+of Æneas to the reign of Rodolphus the Second." It looks as if a life
+had gone into the making of it, as a pair or two of eyes go to the
+working of the bridal veil of an empress.
+
+Fifty years ago and more, when I was at Longford Castle with my two
+companions, who are no more with us, we found there a pleasant, motherly
+old housekeeper, or attendant of some kind, who gave us a draught of
+home-made ale and left a cheerful remembrance with us, as, I need hardly
+say, we did with her, in a materialized expression of our good-will. It
+always rubbed very hard on my feelings to offer money to any persons who
+had served me well, as if they were doing it for their own pleasure. It
+may have been the granddaughter of the kindly old matron of the year
+1833 who showed us round, and possibly, if I had sunk a shaft of
+inquiry, I might have struck a well of sentiment. But
+
+  "Take, O boatman, thrice thy fee,"
+
+carried into practical life, is certain in its financial result to the
+subject of the emotional impulse, but is less sure to call forth a
+tender feeling in the recipient. One will hardly find it worth while to
+go through the world weeping over his old recollections, and paying gold
+instead of silver and silver instead of copper to astonished boatmen and
+bewildered chambermaids.
+
+On Sunday, the 18th of July, we attended morning service at the
+cathedral. The congregation was not proportioned to the size of the
+great edifice. These vast places of worship were built for ages when
+faith was the rule and questioning the exception. I will not say that
+faith has grown cold, but it has cooled from white heat to cherry red or
+a still less flaming color. As to church attendance, I have heard the
+saying attributed to a great statesman, that "once a day is Orthodox,
+but twice a day is Puritan." No doubt many of the same class of people
+that used to fill the churches stay at home and read about evolution or
+telepathy, or whatever new gospel they may have got hold of. Still the
+English seem to me a religious people; they have leisure enough to say
+grace and give thanks before and after meals, and their institutions
+tend to keep alive the feelings of reverence which cannot be said to be
+distinctive of our own people.
+
+In coming out of the cathedral, on the Sunday I just mentioned, a
+gentleman addressed me as a fellow-countryman. There is something,--I
+will not stop now to try and define it,--but there is something by which
+we recognize an American among the English before he speaks and betrays
+his origin. Our new friend proved to be the president of one of our
+American colleges; an intelligent and well-instructed gentleman, of
+course. By the invitation of our host he came in to visit us in the
+evening, and made himself very welcome by his agreeable conversation.
+
+I took great delight in wandering about the old town of Salisbury. There
+are no such surprises in our oldest places as one finds in Chester, or
+Tewkesbury, or Stratford, or Salisbury, and I have no doubt in scores or
+hundreds of similar places which I have never visited. The best
+substitute for such rambles as one can take through these mouldy
+boroughs (or burrows) is to be found in such towns as Salem,
+Newburyport, Portsmouth. Without imagination, Shakespeare's birthplace
+is but a queer old house, and Anne Hathaway's home a tumble-down
+cottage. With it, one can see the witches of Salem Village sailing out
+of those little square windows, which look as if they were made on
+purpose for them, or stroll down to Derby's wharf and gaze at
+"Cleopatra's Barge," precursor of the yachts of the Astors and Goulds
+and Vanderbilts, as she comes swimming into the harbor in all her gilded
+glory. But it must make a difference what the imagination has to work
+upon, and I do not at all wonder that Mr. Ruskin would not wish to live
+in a land where there are no old ruins of castles and monasteries. Man
+will not live on bread only; he wants a great deal more, if he can get
+it,--frosted cake as well as corn-bread; and the New World keeps the
+imagination on plain and scanty diet, compared to the rich traditional
+and historic food which furnishes the banquets of the Old World.
+
+What memories that week in Salisbury and the excursions from it have
+left in my mind's picture gallery! The spire of the great cathedral had
+been with me as a frequent presence during the last fifty years of my
+life, and this second visit has deepened every line of the impression,
+as Old Mortality refreshed the inscriptions on the tombstones of the
+Covenanters. I find that all these pictures which I have brought home
+with me to look at, with
+
+  "that inward eye
+  Which is the bliss of solitude,"
+
+are becoming clearer and brighter as the excitement of overcrowded days
+and weeks gradually calms down. I can _be_ in those places where I
+passed days and nights, and became habituated to the sight of the
+cathedral, or of the Church of the Holy Trinity, at morning, at noon, at
+evening, whenever I turned my eyes in its direction. I often close my
+eyelids, and startle my household by saying, "Now I am in Salisbury," or
+"Now I am in Stratford." It is a blessed thing to be able, in the
+twilight of years, to illuminate the soul with such visions. The
+Charles, which flows beneath my windows, which I look upon between the
+words of the sentence I am now writing, only turning my head as I sit at
+my table,--the Charles is hardly more real to me than Shakespeare's
+Avon, since I floated on its still waters, or strayed along its banks
+and saw the cows reflected in the smooth expanse, their legs upward, as
+if they were walking the skies as the flies walk the ceiling. Salisbury
+Cathedral stands as substantial in my thought as our own King's Chapel,
+since I slumbered by its side, and arose in the morning to find it still
+there, and not one of those unsubstantial fabrics built by the architect
+of dreams.
+
+On Thursday, the 22d of July, we left Salisbury for Brighton, where we
+were to be guests at Arnold House, the residence of our kind host. Here
+we passed another delightful week, with everything around us to
+contribute to our quiet comfort and happiness. The most thoughtful of
+entertainers, a house filled with choice works of art, fine paintings,
+and wonderful pottery, pleasant walks and drives, a visitor now and
+then, Mr. and Mrs. Goldwin Smith among the number, rest and peace in a
+magnificent city built for enjoyment,--what more could we have asked to
+make our visit memorable? Many watering-places look forlorn and desolate
+in the intervals of "the season." This was not the time of Brighton's
+influx of visitors, but the city was far from dull. The houses are very
+large, and have the grand air, as if meant for princes; the shops are
+well supplied; the salt breeze comes in fresh and wholesome, and the
+noble esplanade is lively with promenaders and Bath chairs, some of them
+occupied by people evidently ill or presumably lame, some, I suspect,
+employed by healthy invalids who are too lazy to walk. I took one
+myself, drawn by an old man, to see how I liked it, and found it very
+convenient, but I was tempted to ask him to change places and let me
+drag him.
+
+With the aid of the guide-book I could describe the wonders of the
+pavilion and the various changes which have come over the great
+watering-place. The grand walks, the two piers, the aquarium, and all
+the great sights which are shown to strangers deserve full attention
+from the tourist who writes for other travellers, but none of these
+things seem to me so interesting as what we saw and heard in a little
+hamlet which has never, so far as I know, been vulgarized by sightseers.
+We drove in an open carriage,--Mr. and Mrs. Willett, A----, and
+myself,--into the country, which soon became bare, sparsely settled, a
+long succession of rounded hills and hollows. These are the South Downs,
+from which comes the famous mutton known all over England, not unknown
+at the table of our Saturday Club and other well-spread boards. After a
+drive of ten miles or more we arrived at a little "settlement," as we
+Americans would call it, and drove up to the door of a modest parsonage,
+where dwells the shepherd of the South Down flock of Christian
+worshippers. I hope that the good clergyman, if he ever happens to see
+what I am writing, will pardon me for making mention of his hidden
+retreat, which he himself speaks of as "one of the remoter nooks of the
+old country." Nothing I saw in England brought to my mind Goldsmith's
+picture of "the man to all the country dear," and his surroundings, like
+this visit. The church dates, if I remember right, from the thirteenth
+century. Some of its stones show marks, as it is thought, of having
+belonged to a Saxon edifice. The massive leaden font is of a very great
+antiquity. In the wall of the church is a narrow opening, at which the
+priest is supposed to have sat and listened to the confession of the
+sinner on the outside of the building. The dead lie all around the
+church, under stones bearing the dates of several centuries. One
+epitaph, which the unlettered Muse must have dictated, is worth
+recording. After giving the chief slumberer's name the epitaph adds,--
+
+  "Here lies on either side, the remains of each of his former wives."
+
+Those of a third have found a resting-place close by, behind him.
+
+It seemed to me that Mr. Bunner's young man in search of Arcady might
+look for it here with as good a chance of being satisfied as anywhere I
+can think of. But I suppose that men and women and especially boys,
+would prove to be a good deal like the rest of the world, if one lived
+here long enough to learn all about them. One thing I can safely
+say,--an English man or boy never goes anywhere without his fists. I saw
+a boy of ten or twelve years, whose pleasant face attracted my
+attention. I said to the rector, "That is a fine-looking little fellow,
+and I should think an intelligent and amiable kind of boy." "Yes," he
+said, "yes; he can strike from the shoulder pretty well, too. I had to
+stop him the other day, indulging in that exercise." Well, I said to
+myself, we have not yet reached the heaven on earth which I was fancying
+might be embosomed in this peaceful-looking hollow. Youthful angels can
+hardly be in the habit of striking from the shoulder. But the well-known
+phrase, belonging to the pugilist rather than to the priest, brought me
+back from the ideal world into which my imagination had wandered.
+
+Our week at Brighton was passed in a very quiet but most enjoyable way.
+It could not be otherwise with such a host and hostess, always arranging
+everything with reference to our well-being and in accordance with our
+wishes. I became very fond of the esplanade, such a public walk as I
+never saw anything to compare with. In these tranquil days, and long,
+honest nights of sleep, the fatigues of what we had been through were
+forgotten, the scales showed that we were becoming less ethereal every
+day, and we were ready for another move.
+
+We bade good-by to our hosts with the most grateful and the warmest
+feeling towards them, after a month of delightful companionship and the
+experience of a hospitality almost too generous to accept, but which
+they were pleased to look upon as if we were doing them a favor.
+
+On the 29th of July we found ourselves once more in London.
+
+
+
+
+VI.
+
+
+We found our old quarters all ready and awaiting us. Mrs. Mackellar's
+motherly smile, Sam's civil bow, and the rosy cheeks of many-buttoned
+Robert made us feel at home as soon as we crossed the threshold.
+
+The dissolution of Parliament had brought "the season" abruptly to an
+end. London was empty. There were three or four millions of people in
+it, but the great houses were for the most part left without occupants
+except their liveried guardians. We kept as quiet as possible, to avoid
+all engagements. For now we were in London for London itself, to do
+shopping, to see sights, to be our own master and mistress, and to live
+as independent a life as we possibly could.
+
+The first thing we did on the day of our arrival was to take a hansom
+and drive over to Chelsea, to look at the place where Carlyle passed the
+larger part of his life. The whole region about him must have been
+greatly changed during his residence there, for the Thames Embankment
+was constructed long after he removed to Chelsea. We had some little
+difficulty in finding the place we were in search of. Cheyne (pronounced
+"Chainie") Walk is a somewhat extended range of buildings. Cheyne Row is
+a passage which reminded me a little of my old habitat, Montgomery
+Place, now Bosworth Street. Presently our attention was drawn to a
+marble medallion portrait on the corner building of an ordinary-looking
+row of houses. This was the head of Carlyle, and an inscription informed
+us that he lived for forty-seven years in the house No. 24 of this row
+of buildings. Since Carlyle's home life has been made public, he has
+appeared to us in a different aspect from the ideal one which he had
+before occupied. He did not show to as much advantage under the
+Boswellizing process as the dogmatist of the last century, dear old Dr.
+Johnson. But he remains not the less one of the really interesting men
+of his generation, a man about whom we wish to know all that we have a
+right to know.
+
+The sight of an old nest over which two or three winters have passed is
+a rather saddening one. The dingy three-story brick house in which
+Carlyle lived, one in a block of similar houses, was far from
+attractive. It was untenanted, neglected; its windows were unwashed, a
+pane of glass was broken; its threshold appeared untrodden, its whole
+aspect forlorn and desolate. Yet there it stood before me, all covered
+with its associations as an ivy-clad tower with its foliage. I wanted to
+see its interior, but it looked as if it did not expect a tenant and
+would not welcome a visitor. Was there nothing but this forbidding
+house-front to make the place alive with some breathing memory? I saw
+crossing the street a middle-aged woman,--a decent body, who looked as
+if she might have come from the lower level of some not opulent but
+respectable household. She might have some recollection of an old man
+who was once her neighbor. I asked her if she remembered Mr. Carlyle.
+Indeed she did, she told us. She used to see him often, in front of his
+house, putting bits of bread on the railing for the birds. He did not
+like to see anything wasted, she said. The merest scrap of information,
+but genuine and pleasing; an instantaneous photograph only, but it makes
+a pretty vignette in the volume of my reminiscences. There are many
+considerable men in every generation of mankind, but not a great number
+who are personally interesting,--not a great many of whom we feel that
+we cannot know too much; whose foibles, even, we care to know about;
+whose shortcomings we try to excuse; who are not models, but whose
+special traits make them attractive. Carlyle is one of these few, and no
+revelations can prevent his interesting us. He was not quite finished in
+his parental existence. The bricklayer's mortar of his father's calling
+stuck to his fingers through life, but only as the soil he turned with
+his ploughshare clung to the fingers of Burns. We do not wish either to
+have been other than what he was. Their breeding brings them to the
+average level, carries them more nearly to the heart, makes them a
+simpler expression of our common humanity. As we rolled in the cars by
+Ecclefechan, I strained my eyes to take in every point of the landscape,
+every cottage, every spire, if by any chance I could find one in that
+lonely region. There was not a bridge nor a bit of masonry of any kind
+that I did not eagerly scrutinize, to see if it were solid and honest
+enough to have been built by Carlyle's father. Solitary enough the
+country looked. I admired Mr. Emerson's devotion in seeking his friend
+in his bare home among what he describes as the "desolate heathery
+hills" about Craigenputtock, which were, I suppose, much like the region
+through which we were passing.
+
+It is one of the regrets of my life that I never saw or heard Carlyle.
+Nature, who seems to be fond of trios, has given us three dogmatists,
+all of whom greatly interested their own generation, and whose
+personality, especially in the case of the first and the last of the
+trio, still interests us,--Johnson, Coleridge, and Carlyle. Each was an
+oracle in his way, but unfortunately oracles are fallible to their
+descendants. The author of "Taxation no Tyranny" had wholesale opinions,
+and pretty harsh ones, about us Americans, and did not soften them in
+expression: "Sir, they are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful
+for anything we allow them short of hanging." We smile complacently when
+we read this outburst, which Mr. Croker calls in question, but which
+agrees with his saying in the presence of Miss Seward, "I am willing to
+love all mankind _except an American_."
+
+A generation or two later comes along Coleridge, with his circle of
+reverential listeners. He says of Johnson that his fame rests
+principally upon Boswell, and that "his _bow-wow_ manner must have
+had a good deal to do with the effect produced." As to Coleridge
+himself, his contemporaries hardly know how to set bounds to their
+exaltation of his genius. Dibdin comes pretty near going into rhetorical
+hysterics in reporting a conversation of Coleridge's to which he
+listened: "The auditors seemed to be wrapt in wonder and delight, as one
+observation more profound, or clothed in more forcible language, than
+another fell from his tongue.... As I retired homeward I thought a
+SECOND JOHNSON had visited the earth to make wise the sons of men." And
+De Quincey speaks of him as "the largest and most spacious intellect,
+the subtlest and most comprehensive, in my judgment, that has yet
+existed amongst men." One is sometimes tempted to wish that the
+superlative could be abolished, or its use allowed only to old experts.
+What are men to do when they get to heaven, after having exhausted their
+vocabulary of admiration on earth?
+
+Now let us come down to Carlyle, and see what he says of Coleridge. We
+need not take those conversational utterances which called down the
+wrath of Mr. Swinburne, and found expression in an epigram which
+violates all the proprieties of literary language. Look at the
+full-length portrait in the Life of Sterling. Each oracle denies his
+predecessor, each magician breaks the wand of the one who went before
+him. There were Americans enough ready to swear by Carlyle until he
+broke his staff in meddling with our anti-slavery conflict, and buried
+it so many fathoms deep that it could never be fished out again. It is
+rather singular that Johnson and Carlyle should each of them have
+shipwrecked his sagacity and shown a terrible leak in his moral
+sensibilities on coming in contact with American rocks and currents,
+with which neither had any special occasion to concern himself, and
+which both had a great deal better have steered clear of.
+
+But here I stand once more before the home of the long-suffering,
+much-laboring, loud-complaining Heraclitus of his time, whose very smile
+had a grimness in it more ominous than his scowl. Poor man! Dyspeptic on
+a diet of oatmeal porridge; kept wide awake by crowing cocks; drummed
+out of his wits by long-continued piano-pounding; sharp of speech, I
+fear, to his high-strung wife, who gave him back as good as she got! I
+hope I am mistaken about their everyday relations, but again I say, poor
+man!--for all his complaining must have meant real discomfort, which a
+man of genius feels not less, certainly, than a common mortal.
+
+I made a second visit to the place where he lived, but I saw nothing
+more than at the first. I wanted to cross the threshold over which he
+walked so often, to see the noise-proof room in which he used to write,
+to look at the chimney-place down which the soot came, to sit where he
+used to sit and smoke his pipe, and to conjure up his wraith to look in
+once more upon his old deserted dwelling. That vision was denied me.
+
+After visiting Chelsea we drove round through Regent's Park. I suppose
+that if we use the superlative in speaking of Hyde Park, Regent's Park
+will be the comparative, and Battersea Park the positive, ranking them
+in the descending grades of their hierarchy. But this is my conjecture
+only, and the social geography of London is a subject which only one who
+has become familiarly acquainted with the place should speak of with any
+confidence. A stranger coming to our city might think it made little
+difference whether his travelling Boston acquaintance lived in Alpha
+Avenue or in Omega Square, but he would have to learn that it is farther
+from one of these places to the other, a great deal farther, than it is
+from Beacon Street, Boston, to Fifth Avenue, New York.
+
+An American finds it a little galling to be told that he must not drive
+in his _numbered_ hansom or four-wheeler except in certain portions
+of Hyde Park. If he is rich enough to keep his own carriage, or if he
+will pay the extra price of a vehicle not vulgarized by being on the
+numbered list, he may drive anywhere that his Grace or his Lordship
+does, and perhaps have a mean sense of satisfaction at finding himself
+in the charmed circle of exclusive "gigmanity." It is a pleasure to meet
+none but well-dressed and well-mannered people, in well-appointed
+equipages. In the high road of our own country, one is liable to fall in
+with people and conveyances that it is far from a pleasure to meet. I
+was once driving in an open carriage, with members of my family, towards
+my own house in the country town where I was then living. A cart drawn
+by oxen was in the road in front of us. Whenever we tried to pass, the
+men in it turned obliquely across the road and prevented us, and this
+was repeated again and again. I could have wished I had been driving in
+Hyde Park, where clowns and boors, with their carts and oxen, do not
+find admittance. Exclusiveness has its conveniences.
+
+The next day, as I was strolling through Burlington Arcade, I saw a
+figure just before me which I recognized as that of my townsman, Mr.
+Abbott Lawrence. He was accompanied by his son, who had just returned
+from a trip round the planet. There are three grades of recognition,
+entirely distinct from each other: the meeting of two persons of
+different countries who speak the same language,--an American and an
+Englishman, for instance; the meeting of two Americans from different
+cities, as of a Bostonian and a New Yorker or a Chicagonian; and the
+meeting of two from the same city, as of two Bostonians.
+
+The difference of these recognitions may be illustrated by supposing
+certain travelling philosophical instruments, endowed with intelligence
+and the power of speech, to come together in their wanderings,--let us
+say in a restaurant of the Palais Royal. "Very hot," says the talking
+Fahrenheit (Thermometer) from Boston, and calls for an ice, which he
+plunges his bulb into and cools down. In comes an intelligent and
+socially disposed English Barometer. The two travellers greet each
+other, not exactly as old acquaintances, but each has heard very
+frequently about the other, and their relatives have been often
+associated. "We have a good deal in common," says the Barometer. "Of the
+same blood, as we may say; quicksilver is thicker than water." "Yes,"
+says the little Fahrenheit, "and we are both of the same mercurial
+temperament." While their columns are dancing up and down with laughter
+at this somewhat tepid and low-pressure pleasantry, there come in a New
+York Réaumur and a Centigrade from Chicago. The Fahrenheit, which has
+got warmed up to _temperate_, rises to _summer heat_, and even
+a little above it. They enjoy each other's company mightily. To be sure,
+their scales differ, but have they not the same freezing and the same
+boiling point? To be sure, each thinks his own scale is the true
+standard, and at home they might get into a contest about the matter,
+but here in a strange land they do not think of disputing. Now, while
+they are talking about America and their own local atmosphere and
+temperature, there comes in a second Boston Fahrenheit. The two of the
+same name look at each other for a moment, and rush together so eagerly
+that their bulbs are endangered. How well they understand each other!
+Thirty-two degrees marks the freezing point. Two hundred and twelve
+marks the boiling point. They have the same scale, the same fixed
+points, the same record: no wonder they prefer each other's company!
+
+I hope that my reader has followed my illustration, and finished it off
+for himself. Let me give a few practical examples. An American and an
+Englishman meet in a foreign land. The Englishman has occasion to
+mention his weight, which he finds has gained in the course of his
+travels. "How much is it now?" asks the American. "Fourteen stone. How
+much do you weigh?" "Within four pounds of two hundred." Neither of them
+takes at once any clear idea of what the other weighs. The American has
+never thought of his own, or his friends', or anybody's weight in
+_stones_ of fourteen pounds. The Englishman has never thought of
+any one's weight in _pounds_. They can calculate very easily with a
+slip of paper and a pencil, but not the less is their language but half
+intelligible as they speak and listen. The same thing is in a measure
+true of other matters they talk about. "It is about as large a space as
+the Common," says the Boston man. "It is as large as St. James's Park,"
+says the Londoner. "As high as the State House," says the Bostonian, or
+"as tall as Bunker Hill Monument," or "about as big as the Frog Pond,"
+where the Londoner would take St. Paul's, the Nelson Column, the
+Serpentine, as his standard of comparison. The difference of scale does
+not stop here; it runs through a great part of the objects of thought
+and conversation. An average American and an average Englishman are
+talking together, and one of them speaks of the beauty of a field of
+corn. They are thinking of two entirely different objects: one of a
+billowy level of soft waving wheat, or rye, or barley; the other of a
+rustling forest of tall, jointed stalks, tossing their plumes and
+showing their silken epaulettes, as if every stem in the ordered ranks
+were a soldier in full regimentals. An Englishman planted for the first
+time in the middle of a well-grown field of Indian corn would feel as
+much lost as the babes in the wood. Conversation between two Londoners,
+two New Yorkers, two Bostonians, requires no foot-notes, which is a
+great advantage in their intercourse.
+
+To return from my digression and my illustration. I did not do a great
+deal of shopping myself while in London, being contented to have it done
+for me. But in the way of looking in at shop windows I did a very large
+business. Certain windows attracted me by a variety in unity which
+surpassed anything I have been accustomed to. Thus one window showed
+every conceivable convenience that could be shaped in ivory, and nothing
+else. One shop had such a display of magnificent dressing-cases that I
+should have thought a whole royal family was setting out on its travels.
+I see the cost of one of them is two hundred and seventy guineas.
+Thirteen hundred and fifty dollars seems a good deal to pay for a
+dressing-case.
+
+On the other hand, some of the first-class tradesmen and workmen make no
+show whatever. The tailor to whom I had credentials, and who proved
+highly satisfactory to me, as he had proved to some of my countrymen and
+to Englishmen of high estate, had only one small sign, which was placed
+in one of his windows, and received his customers in a small room that
+would have made a closet for one of our stylish merchant tailors. The
+bootmaker to whom I went on good recommendation had hardly anything
+about his premises to remind one of his calling. He came into his
+studio, took my measure very carefully, and made me a pair of what we
+call Congress boots, which fitted well when once on my feet, but which
+it cost more trouble to get into and to get out of than I could express
+my feelings about without dangerously enlarging my limited vocabulary.
+
+Bond Street, Old and New, offered the most inviting windows, and I
+indulged almost to profligacy in the prolonged inspection of their
+contents. Stretching my walk along New Bond Street till I came to a
+great intersecting thoroughfare, I found myself in Oxford Street. Here
+the character of the shop windows changed at once. Utility and
+convenience took the place of show and splendor. Here I found various
+articles of use in a household, some of which were new to me. It is very
+likely that I could have found most of them in our own Boston Cornhill,
+but one often overlooks things at home which at once arrest his
+attention when he sees them in a strange place. I saw great numbers of
+illuminating contrivances, some of which pleased me by their arrangement
+of reflectors.
+
+Bryant and May's safety matches seemed to be used everywhere. I procured
+some in Boston with these names on the box, but the label said they were
+made in Sweden, and they diffused vapors that were enough to produce
+asphyxia. I greatly admired some of Dr. Dresser's water-cans and other
+contrivances, modelled more or less after the antique, but I found an
+abundant assortment of them here in Boston, and I have one I obtained
+here more original in design and more serviceable in daily use than any
+I saw in London. I should have regarded Wolverhampton, as we glided
+through it, with more interest, if I had known at that time that the
+inventive Dr. Dresser had his headquarters in that busy-looking town.
+
+One thing, at least, I learned from my London experience: better a small
+city where one knows all it has to offer, than a great city where one
+has no disinterested friend to direct him to the right places to find
+what he wants. But of course there are some grand magazines which are
+known all the world over, and which no one should leave London without
+entering as a looker-on, if not as a purchaser.
+
+There was one place I determined to visit, and one man I meant to see,
+before returning. The place was a certain book-store or book-shop, and
+the person was its proprietor, Mr. Bernard Quaritch. I was getting very
+much pressed for time, and I allowed ten minutes only for my visit. I
+never had any dealings with Mr. Quaritch, but one of my near relatives
+had, and I had often received his catalogues, the scale of prices in
+which had given me an impression almost of sublimity. I found Mr.
+Bernard Quaritch at No. 15 Piccadilly, and introduced myself, not as one
+whose name he must know, but rather as a stranger, of whom he might have
+heard through my relative. The extensive literature of catalogues is
+probably little known to most of my readers. I do not pretend to claim a
+thorough acquaintance with it, but I know the luxury of reading good
+catalogues, and such are those of Mr. Quaritch. I should like to deal
+with him; for if he wants a handsome price for what he sells, he knows
+its value, and does not offer the refuse of old libraries, but, on the
+other hand, all that is most precious in them is pretty sure to pass
+through his hands, sooner or later.
+
+"Now, Mr. Quaritch," I said, after introducing myself, "I have ten
+minutes to pass with you. You must not open a book; if you do I am lost,
+for I shall have to look at every illuminated capital, from the first
+leaf to the colophon." Mr. Quaritch did not open a single book, but let
+me look round his establishment, and answered my questions very
+courteously. It so happened that while I was there a gentleman came in
+whom I had previously met,--my namesake, Mr. Holmes, the Queen's
+librarian at Windsor Castle. My ten minutes passed very rapidly in
+conversation with these two experts in books, the bibliopole and the
+bibliothecary. No place that I visited made me feel more thoroughly that
+I was in London, the great central mart of all that is most precious in
+the world.
+
+_Leave at home all your guineas, ye who enter here_, would be a
+good motto to put over his door, unless you have them in plenty and can
+spare them, in which case _Take all your guineas with you_ would be
+a better one. For you can here get their equivalent, and more than their
+equivalent, in the choicest products of the press and the finest work of
+the illuminator, the illustrator, and the binder. You will be sorely
+tempted. But do not be surprised when you ask the price of the volume
+you may happen to fancy. You are not dealing with a _bouquiniste_
+of the Quais, in Paris. You are not foraging in an old book-shop of New
+York or Boston. Do not suppose that I undervalue these dealers in old and
+rare volumes. Many a much-prized rarity have I obtained from Drake and
+Burnham and others of my townsmen, and from Denham in New York; and
+in my student years many a choice volume, sometimes even an Aldus or
+an Elzevir, have I found among the trumpery spread out on the parapets
+of the quays. But there is a difference between going out on the Fourth
+of July with a militia musket to shoot any catbird or "chipmunk" that
+turns up in a piece of woods within a few miles of our own cities, and
+shooting partridges in a nobleman's preserves on the First of September.
+I confess to having felt a certain awe on entering the precincts made
+sacred by their precious contents. The lord and master of so many
+_Editiones Principes_, the guardian of this great nursery full of
+_incunabula_, did not seem to me like a simple tradesman. I felt that
+I was in the presence of the literary purveyor of royal and imperial
+libraries, the man before whom millionaires tremble as they calculate,
+and billionaires pause and consider. I have recently received two of Mr.
+Quaritch's catalogues, from which I will give my reader an extract or two,
+to show him what kind of articles this prince of bibliopoles deals in.
+
+Perhaps you would like one of those romances which turned the head of
+Don Quixote. Here is a volume which will be sure to please you. It is on
+one of his lesser lists, confined principally to Spanish and Portuguese
+works:--
+
+"Amadis de Gaula ... folio, gothic letter, FIRST EDITION, unique ... red
+morocco super extra, _doublé_ with olive morocco, richly gilt,
+tooled to an elegant Grolier design, gilt edges ... in a neat case."
+
+A pretty present for a scholarly friend. A nice old book to carry home
+for one's own library. Two hundred pounds--one thousand dollars--will
+make you the happy owner of this volume.
+
+But if you would have also on your shelves the first edition of the
+"Cronica del famoso cabaluero cid Ruy Diaz Campadero," not "richly
+gilt," not even bound in leather, but in "cloth boards," you will have
+to pay two hundred and ten pounds to become its proprietor. After this
+you will not be frightened by the thought of paying three hundred
+dollars for a little quarto giving an account of the Virginia
+Adventurers. You will not shrink from the idea of giving something more
+than a hundred guineas for a series of Hogarth's plates. But when it
+comes to Number 1001 in the May catalogue, and you see that if you would
+possess a first folio Shakespeare, "untouched by the hand of any modern
+renovator," you must be prepared to pay seven hundred and eighty-five
+pounds, almost four thousand dollars, for the volume, it would not be
+surprising if you changed color and your knees shook under you. No doubt
+some brave man will be found to carry off that prize, in spite of the
+golden battery which defends it, perhaps to Cincinnati, or Chicago, or
+San Francisco. But do not be frightened. These Alpine heights of
+extravagance climb up from the humble valley where shillings and
+sixpences are all that are required to make you a purchaser.
+
+One beauty of the Old World shops is that if a visitor comes back to the
+place where he left them fifty years before, he finds them, or has a
+great chance of finding them, just where they stood at his former visit.
+In driving down to the old city, to the place of business of the
+Barings, I found many streets little changed. Temple Bar was gone, and
+the much-abused griffin stood in its place. There was a shop close to
+Temple Bar, where, in 1834, I had bought some brushes. I had no
+difficulty in finding Prout's, and I could not do less than go in and
+buy some more brushes. I did not ask the young man who served me how the
+old shopkeeper who attended to my wants on the earlier occasion was at
+this time. But I thought what a different color the locks these brushes
+smooth show from those that knew their predecessors in the earlier
+decade!
+
+I ought to have made a second visit to the Tower, so tenderly spoken of
+by Artemus Ward as "a sweet boon," so vividly remembered by me as the
+scene of a personal encounter with one of the animals then kept in the
+Tower menagerie. But the project added a stone to the floor of the
+underground thoroughfare which is paved with good intentions.
+
+St. Paul's I must and did visit. The most striking addition since I was
+there is the massive monument to the Duke of Wellington. The great
+temple looked rather bare and unsympathetic. Poor Dr. Johnson, sitting
+in semi-nude exposure, looked to me as unhappy as our own half-naked
+Washington at the national capital. The Judas of Matthew Arnold's poem
+would have cast his cloak over those marble shoulders, if he had found
+himself in St. Paul's, and have earned another respite. We brought away
+little, I fear, except the grand effect of the dome as we looked up at
+it. It gives us a greater idea of height than the sky itself, which we
+have become used to looking upon.
+
+A second visit to the National Gallery was made in company with A----.
+It was the repetition of an attempt at a draught from the Cup of
+Tantalus. I was glad of a sight of the Botticellis, of which I had heard
+so much, and others of the more recently acquired paintings of the great
+masters; of a sweeping glance at the Turners; of a look at the
+well-remembered Hogarths and the memorable portraits by Sir Joshua. I
+carried away a confused mass of impressions, much as the soldiers that
+sack a city go off with all the precious things they can snatch up,
+huddled into clothes-bags and pillow-cases. I am reminded, too, of Mr.
+Galton's composite portraits; a thousand glimpses, as one passes through
+the long halls lined with paintings, all blending in one not unpleasing
+general effect, out of which emerges from time to time some single
+distinct image.
+
+In the same way we passed through the exhibition of paintings at the
+Royal Academy. I noticed that A---- paid special attention to the
+portraits of young ladies by John Sargent and by Collier, while I was
+more particularly struck with the startling portrait of an ancient
+personage in a full suit of wrinkles, such as Rembrandt used to bring
+out with wonderful effect. Hunting in couples is curious and
+instructive; the scent for this or that kind of game is sure to be very
+different in the two individuals.
+
+I made but two brief visits to the British Museum, and I can easily
+instruct my reader so that he will have no difficulty, if he will follow
+my teaching, in learning how not to see it. When he has a spare hour at
+his disposal, let him drop in at the Museum, and wander among its books
+and its various collections. He will know as much about it as the fly
+that buzzes in at one window and out at another. If I were asked whether
+I brought away anything from my two visits, I should say, Certainly I
+did. The fly sees some things, not very intelligently, but he cannot
+help seeing them. The great round reading-room, with its silent
+students, impressed me very much. I looked at once for the Elgin
+Marbles, but casts and photographs and engravings had made me familiar
+with their chief features. I thought I knew something of the sculptures
+brought from Nineveh, but I was astonished, almost awe-struck, at the
+sight of those mighty images which mingled with the visions of the
+Hebrew prophets. I did not marvel more at the skill and labor expended
+upon them by the Assyrian artists than I did at the enterprise and
+audacity which had brought them safely from the mounds under which they
+were buried to the light of day and the heart of a great modern city. I
+never thought that I should live to see the Birs Nimroud laid open, and
+the tablets in which the history of Nebuchadnezzar was recorded spread
+before me. The Empire of the Spade in the world of history was founded
+at Nineveh by Layard, a great province added to it by Schliemann, and
+its boundary extended by numerous explorers, some of whom are diligently
+at work at the present day. I feel very grateful that many of its
+revelations have been made since I have been a tenant of the travelling
+residence which holds so many secrets in its recesses.
+
+There is one lesson to be got from a visit of an hour or two to the
+British Museum,--namely, the fathomless abyss of our own ignorance. One
+is almost ashamed of his little paltry heartbeats in the presence of the
+rushing and roaring torrent of Niagara. So if he has published a little
+book or two, collected a few fossils, or coins, or vases, he is crushed
+by the vastness of the treasures in the library and the collections of
+this universe of knowledge.
+
+I have shown how not to see the British museum; I will tell how to see
+it.
+
+Take lodgings next door to it,--in a garret, if you cannot afford
+anything better,--and pass all your days at the Museum during the whole
+period of your natural life. At threescore and ten you will have some
+faint conception of the contents, significance, and value of this great
+British institution, which is as nearly as any one spot the _noeud
+vital_ of human civilization, a stab at which by the dagger of
+anarchy would fitly begin the reign of chaos.
+
+On the 3d of August, a gentleman, Mr. Wedmore, who had promised to be my
+guide to certain interesting localities, called for me, and we took a
+hansom for the old city. The first place we visited was the Temple, a
+collection of buildings with intricate passages between them, some of
+the edifices reminding me of our college dormitories. One, however, was
+a most extraordinary exception,--the wonderful Temple church, or rather
+the ancient part of it which is left, the round temple. We had some
+trouble to get into it, but at last succeeded in finding a slip of a
+girl, the daughter of the janitor, who unlocked the door for us. It
+affected my imagination strangely to see this girl of a dozen years old,
+or thereabouts, moving round among the monuments which had kept their
+place there for some six or seven hundred years; for the church was
+built in the year 1185, and the most recent of the crusaders' monuments
+is said to date as far back as 1241. Their effigies have lain in this
+vast city, and passed unharmed through all its convulsions. The Great
+Fire must have crackled very loud in their stony ears, and they must
+have shaken day and night, as the bodies of the victims of the Plague
+were rattled over the pavements.
+
+Near the Temple church, in a green spot among the buildings, a plain
+stone laid flat on the turf bears these words: "Here lies Oliver
+Goldsmith." I believe doubt has been thrown upon the statement that
+Goldsmith was buried in that place, but, as some poet ought to have
+written,
+
+  Where doubt is disenchantment
+  'Tis wisdom to believe.
+
+We do not "drop a tear" so often as our Della Cruscan predecessors, but
+the memory of the author of the "Vicar of Wakefield" stirred my feelings
+more than a whole army of crusaders would have done. A pretty rough set
+of filibusters they were, no doubt.
+
+The whole group to which Goldsmith belonged came up before me, and as
+the centre of that group the great Dr. Johnson; not the Johnson of the
+"Rambler," or of "The Vanity of Human Wishes," or even of "Rasselas,"
+but Boswell's Johnson, dear to all of us, the "Grand Old Man" of his
+time, whose foibles we care more for than for most great men's virtues.
+Fleet Street, which he loved so warmly, was close by. Bolt Court,
+entered from it, where he lived for many of his last years, and where he
+died, was the next place to visit. I found Fleet Street a good deal like
+Washington Street as I remember it in former years. When I came to the
+place pointed out as Bolt Court, I could hardly believe my eyes that so
+celebrated a place of residence should be entered by so humble a
+passageway. I was very sorry to find that No. 3, where he lived, was
+demolished, and a new building erected in its place. In one of the other
+houses in this court he is said to have labored on his dictionary. Near
+by was a building of mean aspect, in which Goldsmith is said to have at
+one time resided. But my kind conductor did not profess to be well
+acquainted with the local antiquities of this quarter of London.
+
+If I had a long future before me, I should like above all things to
+study London with a dark lantern, so to speak, myself in deepest shadow
+and all I wanted to see in clearest light. Then I should want time,
+time, time. For it is a sad fact that sight-seeing as commonly done is
+one of the most wearying things in the world, and takes the life out of
+any but the sturdiest or the most elastic natures more efficiently than
+would a reasonable amount of daily exercise on a treadmill. In my
+younger days I used to find that a visit to the gallery of the Louvre
+was followed by more fatigue and exhaustion than the same amount of time
+spent in walking the wards of a hospital.
+
+Another grand sight there was, not to be overlooked, namely, the
+Colonial Exhibition. The popularity of this immense show was very great,
+and we found ourselves, A---- and I, in the midst of a vast throng, made
+up of respectable and comfortable looking people. It was not strange
+that the multitude flocked to this exhibition. There was a jungle, with
+its (stuffed) monsters,--tigers, serpents, elephants; there were
+carvings which may well have cost a life apiece, and stuffs which none
+but an empress or a millionairess would dare to look at. All the arts of
+the East were there in their perfection, and some of the artificers were
+at their work. We had to content ourselves with a mere look at all these
+wonders. It was a pity; instead of going to these fine shows tired,
+sleepy, wanting repose more than anything else, we should have come to
+them fresh, in good condition, and had many days at our disposal. I
+learned more in a visit to the Japanese exhibition in Boston than I
+should have learned in half a dozen half-awake strolls through this
+multitudinous and most imposing collection of all
+
+  "The gorgeous East with richest hand
+  Showers on her kings,"
+
+and all the masterpieces of its wonder-working artisans.
+
+One of the last visits we paid before leaving London for a week in Paris
+was to the South Kensington Museum. Think of the mockery of giving one
+hour to such a collection of works of art and wonders of all kinds! Why
+should I consider it worth while to say that we went there at all? All
+manner of objects succeeded each other in a long series of dissolving
+views, so to speak, nothing or next to nothing having a chance to leave
+its individual impress. In the battle for life which took place in my
+memory, as it always does among the multitude of claimants for a
+permanent hold, I find that two objects came out survivors of the
+contest. The first is the noble cast of the column of Trajan, vast in
+dimensions, crowded with history in its most striking and enduring form;
+a long array of figures representing in unquestioned realism the
+military aspect of a Roman army. The second case of survival is thus
+described in the catalogue: "An altar or shrine of a female saint,
+recently acquired from Padua, is also ascribed to the same sculptor
+[Donatello]. This very valuable work of art had for many years been used
+as a drinking-trough for horses. A hole has been roughly pierced in it."
+I thought the figure was the most nearly perfect image of heavenly
+womanhood that I had ever looked upon, and I could have gladly given my
+whole hour to sitting--I could almost say kneeling--before it in silent
+contemplation. I found the curator of the Museum, Mr. Soden Smith,
+shared my feelings with reference to the celestial loveliness of this
+figure. Which is best, to live in a country where such a work of art is
+taken for a horse-trough, or in a country where the products from the
+studio of a self-taught handicraftsman, equal to the shaping of a
+horse-trough and not much more, are put forward as works of art?
+
+A little time before my visit to England, before I had even thought of
+it as a possibility, I had the honor of having two books dedicated to me
+by two English brother physicians. One of these two gentlemen was Dr.
+Walshe, of whom I shall speak hereafter; the other was Dr. J. Milner
+Fothergill. The name Fothergill was familiar to me from my boyhood. My
+old townsman, Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse, who died in 1846 at the age of
+ninety-two, had a great deal to say about his relative Dr. John
+Fothergill, the famous Quaker physician of the last century, of whom
+Benjamin Franklin said, "I can hardly conceive that a better man ever
+existed." Dr. and Mrs. Fothergill sent us some beautiful flowers a
+little before we left, and when I visited him he gave me a medallion of
+his celebrated kinsman.
+
+London is a place of mysteries. Looking out of one of the windows at the
+back of Dr. Fothergill's house, I saw an immense wooden blind, such as
+we have on our windows in summer, but reaching from the ground as high
+as the top of the neighboring houses. While admitting the air freely, it
+shut the property to which it belonged completely from sight. I asked
+the meaning of this extraordinary structure, and learned that it was put
+up by a great nobleman, of whose subterranean palace and strange
+seclusion I had before heard. Common report attributed his unwillingness
+to be seen to a disfiguring malady with which he was said to be
+afflicted. The story was that he was visible only to his valet. But a
+lady of quality, whom I met in this country, told me she had seen him,
+and observed nothing to justify it. These old countries are full of
+romances and legends and _diableries_ of all sorts, in which truth
+and lies are so mixed that one does not know what to believe. What
+happens behind the high walls of the old cities is as much a secret as
+were the doings inside the prisons of the Inquisition.
+
+Little mistakes sometimes cause us a deal of trouble. This time it was
+the presence or absence of a single letter which led us to fear that an
+important package destined to America had miscarried. There were two
+gentlemen unwittingly involved in the confusion. On inquiring for the
+package at Messrs. Low, the publishers, Mr. Watts, to whom I thought it
+had been consigned, was summoned. He knew nothing about it, had never
+heard of it, was evidently utterly ignorant of us and our affairs. While
+we were in trouble and uncertainty, our Boston friend, Mr. James R.
+Osgood, came in. "Oh," said he, "it is Mr. Watt you want, the agent of a
+Boston firm," and gave us the gentleman's address. I had confounded Mr.
+Watt's name with Mr. Watts's name. "W'at's in a name?" A great deal
+sometimes. I wonder if I shall be pardoned for quoting six lines from
+one of my after-dinner poems of long ago:--
+
+  --One vague inflection spoils the whole with doubt,
+  One trivial letter ruins all, left out;
+  A knot can change a felon into clay,
+  A not will save him, spelt without the k;
+  The smallest word has some unguarded spot,
+  And danger lurks in i without a dot.
+
+I should find it hard to account for myself during our two short stays
+in London in the month of August, separated by the week we passed in
+Paris. The ferment of continued over-excitement, calmed very much by our
+rest in the various places I have mentioned, had not yet wholly worked
+itself off. There was some of that everlasting shopping to be done.
+There were photographs to be taken, a call here and there to be made, a
+stray visitor now and then, a walk in the morning to get back the use of
+the limbs which had been too little exercised, and a drive every
+afternoon to one of the parks, or the Thames Embankment, or other
+locality. After all this, an honest night's sleep served to round out
+the day, in which little had been effected besides making a few
+purchases, writing a few letters, reading the papers, the Boston "Weekly
+Advertiser" among the rest, and making arrangements for our passage
+homeward. The sights we saw were looked upon for so short a time, most
+of them so very superficially, that I am almost ashamed to say that I
+have been in the midst of them and brought home so little. I remind
+myself of my boyish amusement of _skipping stones_,--throwing a
+flat stone so that it shall only touch the water, but touch it in half a
+dozen places before it comes to rest beneath the smooth surface. The
+drives we took showed us a thousand objects which arrested our
+attention. Every street, every bridge, every building, every monument,
+every strange vehicle, every exceptional personage, was a show which
+stimulated our curiosity. For we had not as yet changed our Boston eyes
+for London ones, and very common sights were spectacular and dramatic to
+us. I remember that one of our New England country boys exclaimed, when
+he first saw a block of city dwellings, "Darn it all, who ever see
+anything like that 'are? Sich a lot o' haousen all stuck together!" I
+must explain that "haousen" used in my early days to be as common an
+expression in speaking of houses among our country-folk as its phonetic
+equivalent ever was in Saxony. I felt not unlike that country-boy.
+
+In thinking of how much I missed seeing, I sometimes have said to
+myself, Oh, if the carpet of the story in the Arabian Nights would only
+take me up and carry me to London for one week,--just one short
+week,--setting me down fresh from quiet, wholesome living, in my usual
+good condition, and bringing me back at the end of it, what a different
+account I could give of my experiences! But it is just as well as it is.
+Younger eyes have studied and will study, more instructed travellers
+have pictured and will picture, the great metropolis from a hundred
+different points of view. No person can be said to know London. The most
+that any one can claim is that he knows something of it. I am now just
+going to leave it for another great capital, but in my concluding pages
+I shall return to Great Britain, and give some of the general
+impressions left by what I saw and heard in our mother country.
+
+
+
+
+VII.
+
+
+Straitened as we were for time, it was impossible to return home without
+a glimpse, at least, of Paris. Two precious years of my early manhood
+were spent there under the reign of Louis Philippe, king of the French,
+_le Roi Citoyen_. I felt that I must look once more on the places I
+knew so well,--once more before shutting myself up in the world of
+recollections. It is hardly necessary to say that a lady can always find
+a little shopping, and generally a good deal of it, to do in Paris. So
+it was not difficult to persuade my daughter that a short visit to that
+city was the next step to be taken.
+
+We left London on the 5th of August to go _via_ Folkestone and
+Boulogne. The passage across the Channel was a very smooth one, and
+neither of us suffered any inconvenience. Boulogne as seen from the
+landing did not show to great advantage. I fell to thinking of Brummel,
+and what a satisfaction it would have been to treat him to a good
+dinner, and set him talking about the days of the Regency. Boulogne was
+all Brummel in my associations, just as Calais was all Sterne. I find
+everywhere that it is a distinctive personality which makes me want to
+linger round a spot, more than an important historical event. There is
+not much worth remembering about Brummel; but his audacity, his starched
+neckcloth, his assumptions and their success, make him a curious subject
+for the student of human nature.
+
+Leaving London at twenty minutes before ten in the forenoon, we arrived
+in Paris at six in the afternoon. I could not say that the region of
+France through which we passed was peculiarly attractive. I saw no fine
+trees, no pretty cottages, like those so common in England. There was
+little which an artist would be tempted to sketch, or a traveller by the
+railroad would be likely to remember.
+
+The place where we had engaged lodgings was Hôtel d'Orient, in the Rue
+Daunou. The situation was convenient, very near the Place Vendome and
+the Rue de la Paix. But the house was undergoing renovations which made
+it as unpresentable as a moulting fowl. Scrubbing, painting of blinds,
+and other perturbing processes did all they could to make it
+uncomfortable. The courtyard was always sloppy, and the whole condition
+of things reminded me forcibly of the state of Mr. Briggs's household
+while the mason was carrying out the complex operations which began with
+the application of "a little compo." (I hope all my readers remember Mr.
+Briggs, whose adventures as told by the pencil of John Leech are not
+unworthy of comparison with those of Mr. Pickwick as related by
+Dickens.) Barring these unfortunate conditions, the hotel was
+commendable, and when in order would be a desirable place of temporary
+residence.
+
+It was the dead season of Paris, and everything had the air of suspended
+animation. The solitude of the Place Vendome was something oppressive; I
+felt, as I trod its lonely sidewalk, as if I were wandering through
+Tadmor in the Desert. We were indeed as remote, as unfriended,--I will
+not say as melancholy or as slow,--as Goldsmith by the side of the lazy
+Scheldt or the wandering Po. Not a soul did either of us know in that
+great city. Our most intimate relations were with the people of the
+hotel and with the drivers of the fiacres. These last were a singular
+looking race of beings. Many of them had a dull red complexion, almost
+brick color, which must have some general cause. I questioned whether
+the red wine could have something to do with it. They wore glazed hats,
+and drove shabby vehicles for the most part; their horses would not
+compare with those of the London hansom drivers, and they themselves
+were not generally inviting in aspect, though we met with no incivility
+from any of them. One, I remember, was very voluble, and over-explained
+everything, so that we became afraid to ask him a question. They were
+fellow-creatures with whom one did not naturally enter into active
+sympathy, and the principal point of interest about the fiacre and its
+arrangements was whether the horse was fondest of trotting or of
+walking. In one of our drives we made it a point to call upon our
+Minister, Mr. McLane, but he was out of town. We did not bring a single
+letter, but set off exactly as if we were on a picnic.
+
+While A---- and her attendant went about making their purchases, I
+devoted myself to the sacred and pleasing task of reviving old memories.
+One of the first places I visited was the house I lived in as a student,
+which in my English friend's French was designated as "Noomero sankont
+sank Roo Monshure ler Pranse." I had been told that the whole region
+thereabout had been transformed by the creation of a new boulevard. I
+did not find it so. There was the house, the lower part turned into a
+shop, but there were the windows out of which I used to look along the
+Rue Vaugirard,--_au troisième_ the first year, _au second_ the
+second year. Why should I go mousing about the place? What would the
+shopkeeper know about M. Bertrand, my landlord of half a century ago; or
+his first wife, to whose funeral I went; or his second, to whose bridal
+I was bidden?
+
+I ought next to have gone to the hospital La Pitié, where I passed much
+of my time during those two years. But the people there would not know
+me, and my old master's name, Louis, is but a dim legend in the wards
+where he used to teach his faithful band of almost worshipping students.
+Besides, I have not been among hospital beds for many a year, and my
+sensibilities are almost as impressible as they were before daily habit
+had rendered them comparatively callous.
+
+How strange it is to look down on one's venerated teachers, after
+climbing with the world's progress half a century above the level where
+we left them! The stethoscope was almost a novelty in those days. The
+microscope was never mentioned by any clinical instructor I listened to
+while a medical student. _Nous avons changé tout cela_ is true of
+every generation in medicine,--changed oftentimes by improvement,
+sometimes by fashion or the pendulum-swing from one extreme to another.
+
+On my way back from the hospital I used to stop at the beautiful little
+church St. Etienne du Mont, and that was one of the first places to
+which I drove after looking at my student-quarters. All was just as of
+old. The tapers were burning about the tomb of St. Genevieve. Samson,
+with the jawbone of the ass, still crouched and sweated, or looked as if
+he did, under the weight of the pulpit. One might question how well the
+preacher in the pulpit liked the suggestion of the figure beneath it.
+The sculptured screen and gallery, the exquisite spiral stairways, the
+carved figures about the organ, the tablets on the walls,--one in
+particular relating the fall of two young girls from the gallery, and
+their miraculous protection from injury,--all these images found their
+counterpart in my memory. I did not remember how very beautiful is the
+stained glass in the _charniers_, which must not be overlooked by
+visitors.
+
+It is not far from St. Etienne du Mont to the Pantheon. I cannot say
+that there is any odor of sanctity about this great temple, which has
+been consecrated, if I remember correctly, and, I will not say
+desecrated, but secularized from time to time, according to the party
+which happened to be uppermost. I confess that I did not think of it
+chiefly as a sacred edifice, or as the resting-place, more or less
+secure, of the "_grands hommes_" to whom it is dedicated. I was
+thinking much more of Foucault's grand experiment, one of the most
+sublime visible demonstrations of a great physical fact in the records
+of science. The reader may not happen to remember it, and will like,
+perhaps, to be reminded of it. Foucault took advantage of the height of
+the dome, nearly three hundred feet, and had a heavy weight suspended by
+a wire from its loftiest point, forming an immense pendulum,--the
+longest, I suppose, ever constructed. Now a moving body tends to keep
+its original plane of movement, and so the great pendulum, being set
+swinging north and south, tended to keep on in the same direction. But
+the earth was moving under it, and as it rolled from west to east the
+plane running through the north and south poles was every instant
+changing. Thus the pendulum appeared to change its direction, and its
+deviation was shown on a graduated arc, or by the marks it left in a
+little heap of sand which it touched as it swung. This experiment on the
+great scale has since been repeated on the small scale by the aid of
+other contrivances.
+
+My thoughts wandered back, naturally enough, to Galileo in the Cathedral
+at Pisa. It was the swinging of the suspended lamp in that edifice which
+set his mind working on the laws which govern the action of the
+pendulum. While he was meditating on this physical problem, the priest
+may have been holding forth on the dangers of meddling with matters
+settled by Holy Church, who stood ready to enforce her edicts by the
+logic of the rack and the fagot. An inference from the above remarks is
+that what one brings from a church depends very much on what he carries
+into it.
+
+The next place to visit could be no other than the Café Procope. This
+famous resort is the most ancient and the most celebrated of all the
+Parisian cafés. Voltaire, the poet J. B. Rousseau, Marmontel, Sainte
+Foix, Saurin, were among its frequenters in the eighteenth century. It
+stands in the Rue des Fossés-Saint Germain, now Rue de l'Ancienne
+Comédie. Several American students, Bostonians and Philadelphians,
+myself among the number, used to breakfast at this café every morning. I
+have no doubt that I met various celebrities there, but I recall only
+one name which is likely to be known to most or many of my readers. A
+delicate-looking man, seated at one of the tables, was pointed out to me
+as Jouffroy. If I had known as much about him as I learned afterwards, I
+should have looked at him with more interest. He had one of those
+imaginative natures, tinged by constitutional melancholy and saddened by
+ill health, which belong to a certain class of poets and sentimental
+writers, of which Pascal is a good example, and Cowper another. The
+world must have seemed very cruel to him. I remember that when he was a
+candidate for the Assembly, one of the popular cries, as reported by the
+newspapers of the time, was _A bas le poitrinaire!_ His malady soon
+laid him low enough, for he died in 1842, at the age of forty-six. I
+must have been very much taken up with my medical studies to have
+neglected my opportunity of seeing the great statesmen, authors,
+artists, orators, and men of science outside of the medical profession.
+Poisson, Arago, and Jouffroy are all I can distinctly recall, among the
+Frenchmen of eminence whom I had all around me.
+
+The Café Procope has been much altered and improved, and bears an
+inscription telling the date of its establishment, which was in the year
+1689. I entered the cafe, which was nearly or quite empty, the usual
+breakfast hour being past.
+
+_Garçon! Une tasse de café._
+
+If there is a river of _mneme_ as a counterpart of the river
+_lethe_, my cup of coffee must have got its water from that stream
+of memory. If I could borrow that eloquence of Jouffroy which made his
+hearers turn pale, I might bring up before my readers a long array of
+pallid ghosts, whom these walls knew well in their earthly habiliments.
+Only a single one of those I met here still survives. The rest are
+mostly well-nigh forgotten by all but a few friends, or remembered
+chiefly in their children and grandchildren.
+
+"How much?" I said to the garçon in his native tongue, or what I
+supposed to be that language. "_Cinq sous_," was his answer. By the
+laws of sentiment, I ought to have made the ignoble sum five francs, at
+least. But if I had done so, the waiter would undoubtedly have thought
+that I had just come from Charenton. Besides, why should I violate the
+simple habits and traditions of the place, where generation after
+generation of poor students and threadbare Bohemians had taken their
+morning coffee and pocketed their two lumps of sugar? It was with a
+feeling of virile sanity and Roman self-conquest that I paid my five
+sous, with the small additional fraction which I supposed the waiter to
+expect, and no more.
+
+So I passed for the last time over the threshold of the Café Procope,
+where Voltaire had matured his plays and Piron sharpened his epigrams;
+where Jouffroy had battled with his doubts and fears; where, since their
+time,--since my days of Parisian life,--the terrible storming youth,
+afterwards renowned as Léon Michel Gambetta, had startled the quiet
+guests with his noisy eloquence, till the old _habitués_ spilled
+their coffee, and the red-capped students said to each other, _"Il ira
+loin, ce gaillard-là!"_
+
+But what to me were these shadowy figures by the side of the group of my
+early friends and companions, that came up before me in all the
+freshness of their young manhood? The memory of them recalls my own
+youthful days, and I need not go to Florida to bathe in the fountain of
+Ponce de Leon.
+
+I have sometimes thought that I love so well the accidents of this
+temporary terrestrial residence, its endeared localities, its precious
+affections, its pleasing variety of occupation, its alternations of
+excited and gratified curiosity, and whatever else comes nearest to the
+longings of the natural man, that I might be wickedly homesick in a
+far-off spiritual realm where such toys are done with. But there is a
+pretty lesson which I have often meditated, taught, not this time by the
+lilies of the field, but by the fruits of the garden. When, in the June
+honeymoon of the seasons, the strawberry shows itself among the bridal
+gifts, many of us exclaim for the hundredth time with Dr. Boteler,
+"Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God never
+did." Nature, who is God's handmaid, does not attempt a rival berry. But
+by and by a little woolly knob, which looked and saw with wonder the
+strawberry reddening, and perceived the fragrance it diffused all
+around, begins to fill out, and grow soft and pulpy and sweet; and at
+last a glow comes to its cheek, and we say the peach is ripening. When
+Nature has done with it, and delivers it to us in its perfection, we
+forget all the lesser fruits which have gone before it. If the flavor of
+the peach and the fragrance of the rose are not found in some fruit and
+flower which grow by the side of the river of life, an earth-born spirit
+might be forgiven for missing them. The strawberry and the pink are very
+delightful, but we could be happy without them.
+
+So, too, we may hope that when the fruits of our brief early season of
+three or four score years have given us all they can impart for our
+happiness; when "the love of little maids and berries," and all other
+earthly prettinesses, shall "soar and sing," as Mr. Emerson sweetly
+reminds us that they all must, we may hope that the abiding felicities
+of our later life-season may far more than compensate us for all that
+have taken their flight.
+
+I looked forward with the greatest interest to revisiting the Gallery of
+the Louvre, accompanied by my long-treasured recollections. I retained a
+vivid remembrance of many pictures, which had been kept bright by seeing
+great numbers of reproductions of them in photographs and engravings.
+
+The first thing which struck me was that the pictures had been
+rearranged in such a way that I could find nothing in the place where I
+looked for it. But when I found them, they greeted me, so I fancied,
+like old acquaintances. The meek-looking "Belle Jardinière" was as
+lamb-like as ever; the pearly nymph of Correggio invited the stranger's
+eye as frankly as of old; Titian's young man with the glove was the
+calm, self-contained gentleman I used to admire; the splashy Rubenses,
+the pallid Guidos, the sunlit Claudes, the shadowy Poussins, the moonlit
+Girardets, Géricault's terrible shipwreck of the Medusa, the exquisite
+home pictures of Gerard Douw and Terburg,--all these and many more have
+always been on exhibition in my ideal gallery, and I only mention them
+as the first that happen to suggest themselves. The Museum of the Hôtel
+Cluny is a curious receptacle of antiquities, many of which I looked at
+with interest; but they made no lasting impression, and have gone into
+the lumber-room of memory, from which accident may, from time to time,
+drag out some few of them.
+
+After the poor unsatisfactory towers of Westminster Abbey, the two
+massive, noble, truly majestic towers of Notre Dame strike the traveller
+as a crushing contrast. It is not hard to see that one of these grand
+towers is somewhat larger than the other, but the difference does not
+interfere with the effect of the imposing front of the cathedral.
+
+I was much pleased to find that I could have entrance to the Sainte
+Chapelle, which was used, at the time of my earlier visit, as a
+storehouse of judicial archives, of which there was a vast accumulation.
+
+With the exception of my call at the office of the American Legation, I
+made but a single visit to any person in Paris. That person was M.
+Pasteur. I might have carried a letter to him, for my friend Mrs.
+Priestley is well acquainted with him, but I had not thought of asking
+for one. So I presented myself at his headquarters, and was admitted
+into a courtyard, where a multitude of his patients were gathered. They
+were of various ages and of many different nationalities, every one of
+them with the vague terror hanging over him or her. Yet the young people
+seemed to be cheerful enough, and very much like scholars out of school.
+I sent my card in to M. Pasteur, who was busily engaged in writing, with
+his clerks or students about him, and presently he came out and greeted
+me. I told him I was an American physician, who wished to look in his
+face and take his hand,--nothing more. I looked in his face, which was
+that of a thoughtful, hard-worked student, a little past the grand
+climacteric,--he was born in 1822. I took his hand, which has performed
+some of the most delicate and daring experiments ever ventured upon,
+with results of almost incalculable benefit to human industries, and the
+promise of triumph in the treatment of human disease which prophecy
+would not have dared to anticipate. I will not say that I have a full
+belief that hydrophobia--in some respects the most terrible of all
+diseases--is to be extirpated or rendered tractable by his method of
+treatment. But of his inventive originality, his unconquerable
+perseverance, his devotion to the good of mankind, there can be no
+question. I look upon him as one of the greatest experimenters that ever
+lived, one of the truest benefactors of his race; and if I made my due
+obeisance before princes, I felt far more humble in the presence of this
+great explorer, to whom the God of Nature has entrusted some of her most
+precious secrets.
+
+There used to be--I can hardly think it still exists--a class of
+persons who prided themselves on their disbelief in the reality of any
+such distinct disease as hydrophobia. I never thought it worth while to
+argue with them, for I have noticed that this disbelief is only a
+special manifestation of a particular habit of mind. Its advocates will
+be found, I think, most frequently among "the long-haired men and the
+short-haired women." Many of them dispute the efficacy of vaccination.
+Some are disciples of Hahnemann, some have full faith in the mind-cure,
+some attend the séances where flowers (bought from the nearest florist)
+are materialized, and some invest their money in Mrs. Howe's Bank of
+Benevolence. Their tendency is to reject the truth which is generally
+accepted, and to accept the improbable; if the impossible offers itself,
+they deny the existence of the impossible. Argument with this class of
+minds is a lever without a fulcrum.
+
+I was glad to leave that company of--patients, still uncertain of their
+fate,--hoping, yet pursued by their terror: peasants bitten by mad
+wolves in Siberia; women snapped at by their sulking lap-dogs in London;
+children from over the water who had been turned upon by the irritable
+Skye terrier; innocent victims torn by ill-conditioned curs at the doors
+of the friends they were meaning to visit,--all haunted by the same
+ghastly fear, all starting from sleep in the same nightmare.
+
+If canine rabies is a fearful subject to contemplate, there is a sadder
+and deeper significance in _rabies humana_; in that awful madness
+of the human race which is marked by a thirst for blood and a rage for
+destruction. The remembrance of such a distemper which has attacked
+mankind, especially mankind of the Parisian sub-species, came over me
+very strongly when I first revisited the Place Vendôme. I should have
+supposed that the last object upon which Parisians would, in their
+wildest frenzy, have laid violent hands would have been the column with
+the figure of Napoleon at its summit. We all know what happened in 1871.
+An artist, we should have thought, would be the last person to lead the
+iconoclasts in such an outrage. But M. Courbet has attained an
+immortality like that of Erostratus by the part he took in pulling down
+the column. It was restored in 1874. I do not question that the work of
+restoration was well done, but my eyes insisted on finding a fault in
+some of its lines which was probably in their own refracting media.
+Fifty years before an artist helped to overthrow the monument to the
+Emperor, a poet had apostrophized him in the bitterest satire since the
+days of Juvenal:--
+
+  "Encor Napoléon! encor sa grande image!
+    Ah! que ce rude et dur guerrier
+  Nous a couté de sang et de pleurs et d'outrage
+    Pour quelques rameaux de laurier!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  "Eh bien! dans tous ces jours d'abaissement, de peine,
+    Pour tous ces outrages sans nom,
+  Je n'ai jamais chargé qu'un être de ma haine,...
+    Sois maudit, O Napoléon!"
+
+After looking at the column of the Place Vendôme and recalling these
+lines of Barbier, I was ready for a visit to the tomb of Napoleon. The
+poet's curse had helped me to explain the painter's frenzy against the
+bronze record of his achievements and the image at its summit. But I
+forgot them both as I stood under the dome of the Invalides, and looked
+upon the massive receptacle which holds the dust of the imperial exile.
+Two things, at least, Napoleon accomplished: he opened the way for
+ability of all kinds, and he dealt the death-blow to the divine right of
+kings and all the abuses which clung to that superstition. If I brought
+nothing else away from my visit to his mausoleum, I left it impressed
+with what a man can be when fully equipped by nature, and placed in
+circumstances where his forces can have full play. "How infinite in
+faculty! ... in apprehension how like a god!" Such were my reflections;
+very much, I suppose, like those of the average visitor, and too
+obviously having nothing to require contradiction or comment.
+
+Paris as seen by the morning sun of three or four and twenty and Paris
+in the twilight of the superfluous decade cannot be expected to look
+exactly alike. I well remember my first breakfast at a Parisian café in
+the spring of 1833. It was in the Place de la Bourse, on a beautiful
+sunshiny morning. The coffee was nectar, the _flute_ was ambrosia,
+the _brioche_ was more than good enough for the Olympians. Such an
+experience could not repeat itself fifty years later. The first
+restaurant at which we dined was in the Palais Royal. The place was hot
+enough to cook an egg. Nothing was very excellent nor very bad; the wine
+was not so good as they gave us at our hotel in London; the enchanter
+had not waved his wand over our repast, as he did over my earlier one in
+the Place de la Bourse, and I had not the slightest desire to pay the
+garçon thrice his fee on the score of cherished associations.
+
+We dined at our hotel on some days, at different restaurants on others.
+One day we dined, and dined well, at the old Café Anglais, famous in my
+earlier times for its turbot. Another day we took our dinner at a very
+celebrated restaurant on the boulevard. One sauce which was served us
+was a gastronomic symphony, the harmonies of which were new to me and
+pleasing. But I remember little else of superior excellence. The garçon
+pocketed the franc I gave him with the air of having expected a
+napoleon.
+
+Into the mysteries of a lady's shopping in Paris I would not venture to
+inquire. But A---- and I strolled together through the Palais Royal in
+the evening, and amused ourselves by staring at the glittering windows
+without being severely tempted. Bond Street had exhausted our
+susceptibility to the shop-window seduction, and the napoleons did not
+burn in the pockets where the sovereigns had had time to cool.
+
+Nothing looked more nearly the same as of old than the bridges. The Pont
+Neuf did not seem to me altered, though we had read in the papers that
+it was in ruins or seriously injured in consequence of a great flood.
+The statues had been removed from the Pont Royal, one or two new bridges
+had been built, but all was natural enough, and I was tempted to look
+for the old woman, at the end of the Pont des Arts, who used to sell me
+a bunch of violets, for two or three sous,--such as would cost me a
+quarter of a dollar in Boston. I did not see the three objects which a
+popular saying alleges are always to be met on the Pont Neuf: a priest,
+a soldier, and a white horse.
+
+The weather was hot; we were tired, and did not care to go to the
+theatres, if any of them were open. The pleasantest hours were those of
+our afternoon drive in the Champs Elysées and the Bois de Boulogne,--or
+"the Boulogne Woods," as our American tailor's wife of the old time
+called the favorite place for driving. In passing the Place de la
+Concorde, two objects in especial attracted my attention,--the obelisk,
+which was lying, when I left it, in the great boat which brought it from
+the Nile, and the statue of Strasbourg, all covered with wreaths and
+flags. How like children these Parisians do act; crying "À Berlin, à
+Berlin!" and when Berlin comes to Paris, and Strasbourg goes back to her
+old proprietors, instead of taking it quietly, making all this parade of
+patriotic symbols, the display of which belongs to victory rather than
+to defeat!
+
+I was surprised to find the trees in the Bois de Boulogne so well grown:
+I had an idea that they had been largely sacrificed in the time of the
+siege. Among the objects which deserve special mention are the shrieking
+parrots and other birds and the yelping dogs in the grounds of the
+Society of Acclimatization,--out of the range of which the visitor will
+be glad to get as soon as possible. A fountain visited by newly married
+couples and their friends, with a restaurant near by, where the bridal
+party drink the health of the newly married pair, was an object of
+curiosity. An unsteadiness of gait was obvious in some of the feasters.
+At one point in the middle of the road a maenad was flinging her arms
+about and shrieking as if she were just escaped from a madhouse. But the
+drive in the Bois was what made Paris tolerable. There were few fine
+equipages, and few distinguished-looking people in the carriages, but
+there were quiet groups by the wayside, seeming happy enough; and now
+and then a pretty face or a wonderful bonnet gave variety to the
+somewhat _bourgeois_ character of the procession of fiacres.
+
+[Illustration: Place de la Concorde]
+
+I suppose I ought to form no opinion at all about the aspect of Paris,
+any more than I should of an oyster in a month without an _r_ in
+it. We were neither of us in the best mood for sight-seeing, and Paris
+was not sitting up for company; in fact, she was "not at home."
+Remembering all this, I must say that the whole appearance of the city
+was dull and dreary. London out of season seemed still full of life;
+Paris out of season looked vacuous and torpid. The recollection of the
+sorrow, the humiliation, the shame, and the agony she had passed through
+since I left her picking her way on the arm of the Citizen King, with
+his old _riflard_ over her, rose before me sadly, ominously, as I
+looked upon the high board fence which surrounded the ruins of the
+Tuileries. I can understand the impulse which led the red caps to make a
+wreck of this grand old historical building. "Pull down the nest," they
+said, "and the birds will not come back." But I shudder when I think
+what "the red fool-fury of the Seine" has done and is believed capable
+of doing. I think nothing has so profoundly impressed me as the story of
+the precautions taken to preserve the Venus of Milo from the brutal
+hands of the mob. A little more violent access of fury, a little more
+fiery declamation, a few more bottles of _vin bleu_, and the
+Gallery of the Louvre, with all its treasures of art, compared with
+which the crown jewels just sold are but pretty pebbles, the market
+price of which fairly enough expresses their value,--much more, rather,
+than their true value,--that noble gallery, with all its masterpieces
+from the hands of Greek sculptors and Italian painters, would have been
+changed in a single night into a heap of blackened stones and a pile of
+smoking cinders.
+
+I love to think that now that the people have, or at least think they
+have, the power in their own hands, they will outgrow this form of
+madness, which is almost entitled to the name of a Parisian endemic.
+Everything looked peaceable and stupid enough during the week I passed
+in Paris. But among all the fossils which Cuvier found in the Parisian
+basin, nothing was more monstrous than the _poissardes_ of the old
+Revolution, or the _pétroleuses_ of the recent Commune, and I fear
+that the breed is not extinct. An American comes to like Paris as warmly
+as he comes to love England, after living in it long enough to become
+accustomed to its ways, and I, like the rest of my countrymen who
+remember that France was our friend in the hour of need, who remember
+all the privileges and enjoyments she has freely offered us, who feel
+that as a sister republic her destinies are of the deepest interest to
+us, can have no other wish than for her continued safety, order, and
+prosperity.
+
+We returned to London on the 13th of August by the same route we had
+followed in going from London to Paris. Our passage was rough, as
+compared to the former one, and some of the passengers were seasick. We
+were both fortunate enough to escape that trial of comfort and
+self-respect.
+
+I can hardly separate the story of the following week from that of the
+one before we went to Paris. We did a little more shopping and saw a few
+more sights. I hope that no reader of mine would suppose that I would
+leave London without seeing Madame Tussaud's exhibition. Our afternoon
+drives made us familiar with many objects which I always looked upon
+with pleasure. There was the obelisk, brought from Egypt at the expense
+of a distinguished and successful medical practitioner, Sir Erasmus
+Wilson, the eminent dermatologist and author of a manual of anatomy
+which for many years was my favorite text-book. There was "The
+Monument," which characterizes itself by having no prefix to its generic
+name. I enjoyed looking at and driving round it, and thinking over
+Pepys's lively account of the Great Fire, and speculating as to where
+Pudding Lane and Pie Corner stood, and recalling Pope's lines which I
+used to read at school, wondering what was the meaning of the second
+one:--
+
+  "Where London's column, pointing to the skies
+  Like a tall bully, lifts its head and lies."
+
+The week passed away rapidly enough, and we made ready for our
+departure. It was no easy matter to get a passage home, but we had at
+last settled it that we would return in the same vessel in which we had
+at first engaged our passage to Liverpool, the Catalonia. But we were
+fortunate enough to have found an active and efficient friend in our
+townsman, Mr. Montgomery Sears, who procured staterooms for us in a much
+swifter vessel, to sail on the 21st for New York, the Aurania.
+
+Our last visitor in London was the faithful friend who had been the
+first to welcome us, Lady Harcourt, in whose kind attentions I felt the
+warmth of my old friendship with her admired and honored father and her
+greatly beloved mother. I had recently visited their place of rest in
+the Kensal Green Cemetery, recalling with tenderest emotions the many
+years in which I had enjoyed their companionship.
+
+On the 19th of August we left London for Liverpool, and on our arrival
+took lodgings at the Adelphi Hotel.
+
+The kindness with which I had been welcomed, when I first arrived at
+Liverpool, had left a deep impression upon my mind. It seemed very
+ungrateful to leave that noble city, which had met me in some of its
+most esteemed representatives with a warm grasp of the hand even before
+my foot had touched English soil, without staying to thank my new
+friends, who would have it that they were old friends. But I was
+entirely unfit for enjoying any company when I landed. I took care,
+therefore, to allow sufficient time in Liverpool, before sailing for
+home, to meet such friends, old and recent, as cared to make or renew
+acquaintance with me. In the afternoon of the 20th we held a reception,
+at which a hundred visitors, more or less, presented themselves, and we
+had a very sociable hour or two together. The Vice-Consul, Mr. Sewall,
+in the enforced absence of his principal, Mr. Russell, paid us every
+attention, and was very agreeable. In the evening I was entertained at a
+great banquet given by the Philomathean Society. This flourishing
+institution enrolls among its members a large proportion of the most
+cultivated and intelligent gentlemen of Liverpool. I enjoyed the meeting
+very highly, listened to pleasant things which were said about myself,
+and answered in the unpremeditated words which came to my lips and were
+cordially received. I could have wished to see more of Liverpool, but I
+found time only to visit the great exhibition, then open. The one class
+of objects which captivated my attention was the magnificent series of
+models of steamboats and other vessels. I did not look upon them with
+the eye of an expert, but the great number and variety of these
+beautiful miniature ships and boats excited my admiration.
+
+On the 21st of August we went on board the Aurania. Everything was done
+to make us comfortable. Many old acquaintances, friends, and family
+connections were our fellow-passengers. As for myself, I passed through
+the same trying experiences as those which I have recorded as
+characterizing my outward passage. Our greatest trouble during the
+passage was from fog. The frequency of collisions, of late years, tends
+to make everybody nervous when they hear the fog-whistle shrieking. This
+sound and the sight of the boats are not good for timid people.
+Fortunately, no one was particularly excitable, or if so, no one
+betrayed any special uneasiness.
+
+On the evening of the 27th we had an entertainment, in which Miss
+Kellogg sang and I read several poems. A very pretty sum was realized
+for some charity,--I forget what,--and the affair was voted highly
+successful. The next day, the 28th, we were creeping towards our harbor
+through one of those dense fogs which are more dangerous than the old
+rocks of the sirens, or Scylla and Charybdis, or the much-lied-about
+maelstrom.
+
+On Sunday, the 29th of August, my birthday, we arrived in New York. In
+these days of birthday-books our chronology is not a matter of secret
+history, in case we have been much before the public. I found a great
+cake had been made ready for me, in which the number of my summers was
+represented by a ring of raisins which made me feel like Methuselah. A
+beautiful bouquet which had been miraculously preserved for the occasion
+was for the first time displayed. It came from Dr. Beach, of Boston,
+_via_ London. Such is the story, and I can only suppose that the
+sweet little cherub who sits up aloft had taken special charge of it, or
+it would have long ago withered.
+
+We slept at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, which we found fresh, sweet,
+bright,--it must have been recently rejuvenated, I thought. The next day
+we took the train for New Haven, Springfield, and Boston, and that night
+slept in our own beds, thankful to find ourselves safe at home after our
+summer excursion, which had brought us so many experiences delightful to
+remember, so many friendships which have made life better worth living.
+
+In the following section I shall give some of the general impressions
+which this excursion has left in my memory, and a few suggestions
+derived from them.
+
+
+
+
+VIII.
+
+
+My reader was fairly forewarned that this narrative was to be more like
+a chapter of autobiography than the record of a tourist. In the language
+of philosophy, it is written from a subjective, not an objective, point
+of view. It is not exactly a "Sentimental Journey," though there are
+warm passages here and there which end with notes of admiration. I
+remind myself now and then of certain other travellers: of Benjamin of
+Tudela, going from the hospitalities of one son of Abraham to another;
+of John Buncle, finding the loveliest of women under every roof that
+sheltered him; sometimes, perhaps, of that tipsy rhymester whose record
+of his good and bad fortunes at the hands of landlords and landladies is
+enlivened by an occasional touch of humor, which makes it palatable to
+coarse literary feeders. But in truth these papers have many of the
+characteristics of private letters written home to friends. They
+_are_ written for friends, rather than for a public which cares
+nothing about the writer. I knew that there were many such whom it would
+please to know where the writer went, whom he saw and what he saw, and
+how he was impressed by persons and things.
+
+If I were planning to make a tour of the United Kingdom, and could
+command the service of all the wise men I count or have counted among my
+friends, I would go with such a retinue summoned from the ranks of the
+living and the dead as no prince ever carried with him. I would ask Mr.
+Lowell to go with me among scholars, where I could be a listener; Mr.
+Norton to visit the cathedrals with me; Professor Gray to be my
+botanical oracle; Professor Agassiz to be always ready to answer
+questions about the geological strata and their fossils; Dr. Jeffries
+Wyman to point out and interpret the common objects which present
+themselves to a sharp-eyed observer; and Mr. Boyd Dawkins to pilot me
+among the caves and cairns. Then I should want a better pair of eyes and
+a better pair of ears, and, while I was reorganizing, perhaps a quicker
+apprehension and a more retentive memory; in short, a new outfit, bodily
+and mental. But Nature does not care to mend old shoes; she prefers a
+new pair, and a young person to stand in them.
+
+What a great book one could make, with such aids, and how many would
+fling it down, and take up anything in preference, provided only that it
+were short enough; even this slight record, for want of something
+shorter!
+
+Not only did I feel sure that many friends would like to read our
+itinerary, but another motive prompted me to tell the simple story of
+our travels. I could not receive such kindness, so great evidences of
+friendly regard, without a strong desire, amounting to a positive
+necessity, for the expression of my grateful sense of all that had been
+done for us. Individually, I felt it, of course, as a most pleasing
+experience. But I believed it to have a more important significance as
+an illustration of the cordial feeling existing between England and
+America. I know that many of my countrymen felt the attentions paid to
+me as if they themselves shared them with me. I have lived through many
+strata of feeling in America towards England. My parents, full-blooded
+Americans, were both born subjects of King George III. Both learned in
+their early years to look upon Britons as the enemies of their country.
+A good deal of the old hostility lingered through my boyhood, and this
+was largely intensified by the war of 1812. After nearly half a century
+this feeling had in great measure subsided, when the War of Secession
+called forth expressions of sympathy with the slaveholding States which
+surprised, shocked, and deeply wounded the lovers of liberty and of
+England in the Northern States. A new generation is outgrowing that
+alienation. More and more the older and younger nations are getting to
+be proud and really fond of each other. There is no shorter road to a
+mother's heart than to speak pleasantly to her child, and caress it, and
+call it pretty names. No matter whether the child is something
+remarkable or not, it is _her_ child, and that is enough. It may be
+made too much of, but that is not its mother's fault. If I could believe
+that every attention paid me was due simply to my being an American, I
+should feel honored and happy in being one of the humbler media through
+which the good-will of a great and generous country reached the heart of
+a far-off people not always in friendly relations with her.
+
+I have named many of the friends who did everything to make our stay in
+England and Scotland agreeable. The unforeseen shortening of my visit
+must account for many disappointments to myself, and some, it may be, to
+others.
+
+First in the list of lost opportunities was that of making my bow to the
+Queen. I had the honor of receiving a card with the invitation to meet
+Her Majesty at a garden-party, but we were travelling when it was sent,
+and it arrived too late.
+
+I was very sorry not to meet Mr. Ruskin, to whom Mr. Norton had given me
+a note of introduction. At the time when we were hoping to see him it
+was thought that he was too ill to receive visitors, but he has since
+written me that he regretted we did not carry out our intention. I
+lamented my being too late to see once more two gentlemen from whom I
+should have been sure of a kind welcome,--Lord Houghton and Dean
+Stanley, both of whom I had met in Boston. Even if I had stayed out the
+whole time I had intended to remain abroad, I should undoubtedly have
+failed to see many persons and many places that I must always feel sorry
+for having missed. But as it is, I will not try to count all that I
+lost; let me rather be thankful that I met so many friends whom it was a
+pleasure to know personally, and saw so much that it is a pleasure to
+remember.
+
+I find that many of the places I most wish to see are those associated
+with the memory of some individual, generally one of the generations
+more or less in advance of my own. One of the first places I should go
+to, in a leisurely tour, would be Selborne. Gilbert White was not a
+poet, neither was he a great systematic naturalist. But he used his eyes
+on the world about him; he found occupation and happiness in his daily
+walks, and won as large a measure of immortality within the confines of
+his little village as he could have gained in exploring the sources of
+the Nile. I should make a solemn pilgrimage to the little town of Eyam,
+in Derbyshire, where the Reverend Mr. Mompesson, the hero of the plague
+of 1665, and his wife, its heroine and its victim, lie buried. I should
+like to follow the traces of Cowper at Olney and of Bunyan at Elstow. I
+found an intense interest in the Reverend Mr. Alger's account of his
+visit to the Vale of Llangollen, where Lady Eleanor Butler and Miss
+Ponsonby passed their peaceful days in long, uninterrupted friendship.
+Of course the haunts of Burns, the home of Scott, the whole region made
+sacred by Wordsworth and the group to which he belongs would be so many
+shrines to which I should make pilgrimages.
+
+I own, also, to having something of the melodramatic taste so notable in
+Victor Hugo. I admired the noble façade of Wells cathedral and the grand
+old episcopal palace, but I begged the bishop to show me the place where
+his predecessor, Bishop Kidder, and his wife, were killed by the falling
+chimney in the "Great Storm."--I wanted to go to Devizes, and see the
+monument in the market-place, where Ruth Pierce was struck dead with a
+lie in her mouth,--about all which I had read in early boyhood. I
+contented myself with a photograph of it which my friend, Mr. Willett,
+went to Devizes and bought for me.
+
+There are twenty different Englands, every one of which it would be a
+delight to visit, and I should hardly know with which of them to begin.
+
+The few remarks I have to make on what I saw and heard have nothing
+beyond the value of first impressions; but as I have already said, if
+these are simply given, without pretending to be anything more, they are
+not worthless. At least they can do little harm, and may sometimes amuse
+a reader whom they fail to instruct. But we must all beware of hasty
+conclusions. If a foreigner of limited intelligence were whirled through
+England on the railways, he would naturally come to the conclusion that
+the chief product of that country is _mustard_, and that its most
+celebrated people are Mr. Keen and Mr. Colman, whose great advertising
+boards, yellow letters on a black ground, and black letters on a yellow
+ground, stare the traveller in the face at every station.
+
+Of the climate, as I knew it in May and the summer months, I will only
+say that if I had any illusions about May and June in England, my
+fireplace would have been ample evidence that I was entirely
+disenchanted. The Derby day, the 26th of May, was most chilly and
+uncomfortable; at the garden-party at Kensington Palace, on the 4th of
+June, it was cold enough to make hot drinks and warm wraps a comfort, if
+not a necessity. I was thankful to have passed through these two ordeals
+without ill consequences. Drizzly, or damp, or cold, cloudy days were
+the rule rather than the exception, while we were in London. We had some
+few hot days, especially at Stratford, in the early part of July. In
+London an umbrella is as often carried as a cane; in Paris _"un homme
+à para-pluie"_ is, or used to be, supposed to carry that useful
+article because he does not keep and cannot hire a carriage of some
+sort. He may therefore be safely considered a person, and not a
+personage.
+
+The soil of England does not seem to be worn out, to judge by the
+wonderful verdure and the luxuriance of vegetation. It contains a great
+museum of geological specimens, and a series of historical strata which
+are among the most instructive of human records. I do not pretend to
+much knowledge of geology. The most interesting geological objects in
+our New England that I can think of are the great boulders and the
+scratched and smoothed surface of the rocks; the fossil footprints in
+the valley of the Connecticut; the trilobites found at Quincy. But the
+readers of Hugh Miller remember what a variety of fossils he found in
+the stratified rocks of his little island, and the museums are full of
+just such objects. When it comes to underground historical relics, the
+poverty of New England as compared with the wealth of Old England is
+very striking. Stratum after stratum carries the explorer through the
+relics of successive invaders. After passing through the characteristic
+traces of different peoples, he comes upon a Roman pavement, and below
+this the weapons and ornaments of a tribe of ancient Britons. One cannot
+strike a spade into the earth, in Great Britain, without a fair chance
+of some surprise in the form of a Saxon coin, or a Celtic implement, or
+a Roman fibula. Nobody expects any such pleasing surprise in a New
+England field. One must be content with an Indian arrowhead or two, now
+and then a pestle and mortar, or a stone pipe. A top dressing of
+antiquity is all he can look for. The soil is not humanized enough to be
+interesting; whereas in England so much of it has been trodden by human
+feet, built on in the form of human habitations, nay, has been itself a
+part of preceding generations of human beings, that it is in a kind of
+dumb sympathy with those who tread its turf. Perhaps it is not literally
+true that
+
+  One half her soil has walked the rest
+  In poets, heroes, martyrs, sages;
+
+but so many of all these lie within it that the whole mother island is a
+_campo santo_ to all who can claim the same blood as that which
+runs in the veins of her unweaned children.
+
+The flora and fauna of a country, as seen from railroad trains and
+carriages, are not likely to be very accurately or exhaustively studied.
+I spoke of the trees I noticed between Chester and London somewhat
+slightingly. But I did not form any hasty opinions from what happened to
+catch my eye. Afterwards, in the oaks and elms of Windsor Park, in the
+elms of Cambridge and Oxford and Salisbury, in the lindens of Stratford,
+in the various noble trees, including the cedar of Lebanon, in which
+Tennyson very justly felt a pride as their owner, I saw enough to make
+me glad that I had not uttered any rash generalizations on the strength
+of my first glance. The most interesting comparison I made was between
+the New England and the Old England elms. It is not necessary to cross
+the ocean to do this, as we have both varieties growing side by side in
+our parks,--on Boston Common, for instance. It is wonderful to note how
+people will lie about big trees. There must be as many as a dozen trees,
+each of which calls itself the "largest elm in New England." In my
+younger days, when I never travelled without a measuring-tape in my
+pocket, it amused me to see how meek one of the great swaggering elms
+would look when it saw the fatal measure begin to unreel itself. It
+seemed to me that the leaves actually trembled as the inexorable band
+encircled the trunk in _the smallest place it could find_, which is
+the only safe rule. The English elm (_Ulmus campestris_) as we see
+it in Boston comes out a little earlier perhaps, than our own, but the
+difference is slight. It holds its leaves long after our elms are bare.
+It grows upward, with abundant dark foliage, while ours spreads,
+sometimes a hundred and twenty feet, and often droops like a weeping
+willow. The English elm looks like a much more robust tree than ours,
+yet they tell me it is very fragile, and that its limbs are constantly
+breaking off in high winds, just as happens with our native elms. Ours
+is not a very long-lived tree; between two and three hundred years is, I
+think, the longest life that can be hoped for it. Since I have heard of
+the fragility of the English elm, which is the fatal fault of our own, I
+have questioned whether it can claim a greater longevity than ours.
+There is a hint of a typical difference in the American and the
+Englishman which I have long recognized in the two elms as compared to
+each other. It may be fanciful, but I have thought that the compactness
+and robustness about the English elm, which are replaced by the long,
+tapering limbs and willowy grace and far-spreading reach of our own,
+might find a certain parallelism in the people, especially the females
+of the two countries.
+
+I saw no horse-chestnut trees equal to those I remember in Salem, and
+especially to one in Rockport, which is the largest and finest I have
+ever seen; no willows like those I pass in my daily drives.
+
+On the other hand, I think I never looked upon a Lombardy poplar equal
+to one I saw in Cambridge, England. This tree seems to flourish in
+England much more than with us.
+
+I do not remember any remarkable beeches, though there are some very
+famous ones, especially the Burnham beeches.
+
+No apple-trees I saw in England compare with one next my own door, and
+there are many others as fine in the neighborhood.
+
+I have spoken of the pleasure I had in seeing by the roadside primroses,
+cowslips, and daisies. Dandelions, buttercups, hawkweed looked much as
+ours do at home. Wild roses also grew at the roadside,--smaller and
+paler, I thought, than ours.
+
+I cannot make a chapter like the famous one on Iceland, from my own
+limited observation: _There are no snakes in England._ I can say
+that I found two small caterpillars on my overcoat, in coming from Lord
+Tennyson's grounds. If they had stayed on his premises, they might
+perhaps have developed into "purple emperors," or spread "the tiger
+moth's deep damasked wings" before the enraptured eyes of the noble
+poet. These two caterpillars and a few house-flies are all I saw, heard,
+or felt, by day or night, of the native fauna of England, except a few
+birds,--rooks, starlings, a blackbird, and the larks of Salisbury Plain
+just as they rose; for I lost sight of them almost immediately. I
+neither heard nor saw the nightingales, to my great regret. They had
+been singing at Oxford a short time before my visit to that place. The
+only song I heard was that which I have mentioned, the double note of
+the cuckoo.
+
+England is the paradise of horses. They are bred, fed, trained, groomed,
+housed, cared for, in a way to remind one of the Houyhnhnms, and
+strikingly contrasting with the conditions of life among the wretched
+classes whose existence is hardly more tolerable than that of those
+_quasi_-human beings under whose name it pleased the fierce
+satirist to degrade humanity. The horses that are driven in the hansoms
+of London are the best I have seen in any public conveyance. I cannot
+say as much of those in the four-wheelers.
+
+Broad streets, sometimes, as in Bond Street, with narrow sidewalks;
+_islands_ for refuge in the middle of many of them; deep areas;
+lofty houses; high walls; plants in the windows; frequent open spaces;
+policemen at near intervals, always polite in my experience,--such are
+my recollections of the quarter I most frequented.
+
+Are the English taller, stouter, lustier, ruddier, healthier, than our
+New England people? If I gave my impression, I should say that they are.
+Among the wealthier class, tall, athletic-looking men and stately,
+well-developed women are more common, I am compelled to think, than with
+us. I met in company at different times five gentlemen, each of whom
+would be conspicuous in any crowd for his stature and proportions. We
+could match their proportions, however, in the persons of well-known
+Bostonians. To see how it was with other classes, I walked in the Strand
+one Sunday, and noted carefully the men and women I met. I was surprised
+to see how many of both sexes were of low stature. I counted in the
+course of a few minutes' walk no less than twenty of these little
+people. I set this experience against the other. Neither is convincing.
+The anthropologists will settle the question of man in the Old and in
+the New World before many decades have passed.
+
+In walking the fashionable streets of London one can hardly fail to be
+struck with the well-dressed look of gentlemen of all ages. The special
+point in which the Londoner excels all other citizens I am conversant
+with is the hat. I have not forgotten Béranger's
+
+  "_Quoique leurs chapeaux soient bien laids_
+  *** ***! moi, j'aime les Anglais;"
+
+but in spite of it I believe in the English hat as the best thing of its
+ugly kind. As for the Englishman's feeling with reference to it, a
+foreigner might be pardoned for thinking it was his fetich, a North
+American Indian for looking at it as taking the place of his own
+medicine-bag. It is a common thing for the Englishman to say his prayers
+into it, as he sits down in his pew. Can it be that this imparts a
+religious character to the article? However this may be, the true
+Londoner's hat is cared for as reverentially as a High-Church altar. Far
+off its coming shines. I was always impressed by the fact that even with
+us a well-bred gentleman in reduced circumstances never forgets to keep
+his beaver well brushed, and I remember that long ago I spoke of the hat
+as the _ultimum moriens_ of what we used to call gentility,--the
+last thing to perish in the decay of a gentleman's outfit. His hat is as
+sacred to an Englishman as his beard to a Mussulman.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In looking at the churches and the monuments which I saw in London and
+elsewhere in England, certain resemblances, comparisons, parallels,
+contrasts, and suggestions obtruded themselves upon my consciousness. We
+have one steeple in Boston which to my eyes seems absolutely perfect:
+that of the Central Church, at the corner of Newbury and Berkeley
+streets. Its resemblance to the spire of Salisbury had always struck me.
+On mentioning this to the late Mr. Richardson, the very distinguished
+architect, he said to me that he thought it more nearly like that of the
+Cathedral of Chartres. One of our best living architects agreed with me
+as to its similarity to that of Salisbury. It does not copy either
+exactly, but, if it had twice its actual dimensions, would compare well
+with the best of the two, if one is better than the other.
+Saint-Martin's-in-the-Fields made me feel as if I were in Boston. Our
+Arlington Street Church copies it pretty closely, but Mr. Gilman left
+out the columns. I could not admire the Nelson Column, nor that which
+lends monumental distinction to the Duke of York. After Trajan's and
+that of the Place Vendôme, each of which is a permanent and precious
+historical record, accounting sufficiently for its existence, there is
+something very unsatisfactory in these nude cylinders. That to the Duke
+of York might well have the confession of the needy knife grinder as an
+inscription on its base. I confess in all honesty that I vastly prefer
+the monument commemorating the fire to either of them. That _has_ a
+story to tell and tells it,--with a lie or two added, according to Pope,
+but it tells it in language and symbol.
+
+As for the kind of monument such as I see from my library window
+standing on the summit of Bunker Hill, and have recently seen for the
+first time at Washington, on a larger scale, I own that I think a
+built-up obelisk a poor affair as compared with an Egyptian monolith of
+the same form. It was a triumph of skill to quarry, to shape, to
+transport, to cover with expressive symbols, to erect, such a stone as
+that which has been transferred to the Thames Embankment, or that which
+now stands in Central Park, New York. Each of its four sides is a page
+of history, written so as to endure through scores of centuries. A
+built-up obelisk requires very little more than brute labor. A child can
+shape its model from a carrot or a parsnip, and set it up in miniature
+with blocks of loaf sugar. It teaches nothing, and the stranger must go
+to his guide-book to know what it is there for. I was led into many
+reflections by a sight of the Washington Monument. I found that it was
+almost the same thing at a mile's distance as the Bunker Hill Monument
+at half a mile's distance; and unless the eye had some means of
+measuring the space between itself and the stone shaft, one was about as
+good as the other. A mound like that of Marathon or that at Waterloo, a
+cairn, even a shaft of the most durable form and material, are fit
+memorials of the place where a great battle was fought. They seem less
+appropriate as monuments to individuals. I doubt the durability of these
+piecemeal obelisks, and when I think of that vast inverted pendulum
+vibrating in an earthquake, I am glad that I do not live in its shadow.
+The Washington Monument is more than a hundred feet higher than
+Salisbury steeple, but it does not look to me so high as that, because
+the mind has nothing to climb by. But the forming taste of the country
+revels in superlatives, and if we could only have the deepest artesian
+well in the world sunk by the side of the tallest column in all
+creation, the admiring, not overcritical patriot would be happier than
+ever was the Athenian when he looked up at the newly erected Parthenon.
+
+I made a few miscellaneous observations which may be worth recording.
+One of these was the fact of the repetition of the types of men and
+women with which I was familiar at home. Every now and then I met a new
+acquaintance whom I felt that I had seen before. Presently I identified
+him with his double on the other side. I had found long ago that even
+among Frenchmen I often fell in with persons whose counterparts I had
+known in America. I began to feel as if Nature turned out a batch of
+human beings for every locality of any importance, very much as a
+workman makes a set of chessmen. If I had lived a little longer in
+London, I am confident that I should have met myself, as I did actually
+meet so many others who were duplicates of those long known to me.
+
+I met Mr. Galton for a few moments, but I had no long conversation with
+him. If he should ask me to say how many faces I can visually recall, I
+should have to own that there are very few such. The two pictures which
+I have already referred to, those of Erasmus and of Dr. Johnson, come up
+more distinctly before my mind's eye than almost any faces of the
+living. My mental retina has, I fear, lost much of its sensitiveness.
+Long and repeated exposure of an object of any kind, in a strong light,
+is necessary to fix its image.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Among the gratifications that awaited me in England and Scotland was
+that of meeting many before unseen friends with whom I had been in
+correspondence. I have spoken of Mr. John Bellows. I should have been
+glad to meet Mr. William Smith, the Yorkshire antiquary, who has sent me
+many of his antiquarian and biographical writings and publications. I do
+not think I saw Mr. David Gilmour, of Paisley, whose "Paisley Folk" and
+other writings have given me great pleasure. But I did have the
+satisfaction of meeting Professor Gairdner, of Glasgow, to whose
+writings my attention was first called by my revered instructor, the
+late Dr. James Jackson, and with whom I had occasionally corresponded. I
+ought to have met Dr. Martineau. I should have visited the Reverend
+Stopford Brooke, who could have told me much that I should have liked to
+hear of dear friends of mine, of whom he saw a great deal in their hours
+of trial. The Reverend Mr. Voysey, whose fearless rationalism can hardly
+give him popularity among the conservative people I saw most of, paid me
+the compliment of calling, as he had often done of sending me his
+published papers. Now and then some less known correspondent would
+reveal himself or herself in bodily presence. Let most authors beware of
+showing themselves to those who have idealized them, and let readers not
+be too anxious to see in the flesh those whom they have idealized. When
+I was a boy, I read Miss Edgeworth's "L'Amie Inconnue." I have learned
+to appreciate its meaning in later years by abundant experiences, and I
+have often felt unwilling to substitute my real for my imaginary
+presence. I will add here that I must have met a considerable number of
+persons, in the crowd at our reception and elsewhere, whose names I
+failed to hear, and whom I consequently did not recognize as the authors
+of books I had read, or of letters I had received. The story of my
+experience with the lark accounts for a good deal of what seemed like
+negligence or forgetfulness, and which must be, not pardoned, but sighed
+over.
+
+I visited several of the well-known clubs, either by special invitation,
+or accompanied by a member. The Athenaeum was particularly attentive,
+but I was unable to avail myself of the privileges it laid freely open
+before me during my stay in London. Other clubs I looked in upon were:
+the Reform Club, where I had the pleasure of dining at a large party
+given by the very distinguished Dr. Morell Mackenzie; the Rabelais, of
+which, as I before related, I have been long a member, and which was one
+of the first places where I dined; the Saville; the Savage; the St.
+George's. I saw next to nothing of the proper club-life of London, but
+it seemed to me that the Athenaeum must be a very desirable place of
+resort to the educated Londoner, and no doubt each of the many
+institutions of this kind with which London abounds has its special
+attractions.
+
+My obligations to my brethren of the medical profession are too numerous
+to be mentioned in detail. Almost the first visit I paid was one to my
+old friend and fellow-student in Paris, Dr. Walter Hayle Walshe. After
+more than half a century's separation, two young friends, now old
+friends, must not expect to find each other just the same as when they
+parted. Dr. Walshe thought he should have known me; my eyes are not so
+good as his, and I would not answer for them and for my memory. That he
+should have dedicated his recent original and ingenious work to me,
+before I had thought of visiting England, was a most gratifying
+circumstance. I have mentioned the hospitalities extended to me by
+various distinguished members of the medical profession, but I have not
+before referred to the readiness with which, on all occasions, when
+professional advice was needed, it was always given with more than
+willingness, rather as if it were a pleasure to give it. I could not
+have accepted such favors as I received had I not remembered that I, in
+my time, had given my services freely for the benefit of those of my own
+calling. If I refer to two names among many, it is for special reasons.
+Dr. Wilson Fox, the distinguished and widely known practitioner, who
+showed us great kindness, has since died, and this passing tribute is
+due to his memory. I have before spoken of the exceptional favor we owed
+to Dr. and Mrs. Priestley. It enabled us to leave London feeling that we
+had tried, at least, to show our grateful sense of all the attentions
+bestowed upon us. If there were any whom we overlooked, among the guests
+we wished to honor, all such accidental omissions will be pardoned, I
+feel sure, by those who know how great and bewildering is the pressure
+of social life in London.
+
+I was, no doubt, often more or less confused, in my perceptions, by the
+large number of persons whom I met in society. I found the
+dinner-parties, as Mr. Lowell told me I should, very much like the same
+entertainments among my home acquaintances. I have not the gift of
+silence, and I am not a bad listener, yet I brought away next to nothing
+from dinner-parties where I had said and heard enough to fill out a
+magazine article. After I was introduced to a lady, the conversation
+frequently began somewhat in this way:--
+
+"It is a long time since you have been in this country, I believe?"
+
+"It is a _very_ long time: fifty years and more."
+
+"You find great changes in London, of course, I suppose?"
+
+"Not so great as you might think. The Tower is where I left it. The
+Abbey is much as I remember it. Northumberland House with its lion is
+gone, but Charing Cross is in the same old place. My attention is drawn
+especially to the things which have not changed,--those which I
+remember."
+
+That stream was quickly dried up. Conversation soon found other springs.
+I never knew the talk to get heated or noisy. Religion and politics
+rarely came up, and never in any controversial way. The bitterest
+politician I met at table was a quadruped,--a lady's dog,--who refused a
+desirable morsel offered him in the name of Mr. Gladstone, but snapped
+up another instantly on being told that it came from Queen Victoria. I
+recall many pleasant and some delightful talks at the dinner-table; one
+in particular, with the most charming woman in England. I wonder if she
+remembers how very lovely and agreeable she was? Possibly she may be
+able to identify herself.
+
+People--the right kind of people--meet at a dinner-party as two ships
+meet and pass each other at sea. They exchange a few signals; ask each
+other's reckoning, where from, where bound; perhaps one supplies the
+other with a little food or a few dainties; then they part, to see each
+other no more. But one or both may remember the hour passed together all
+their days, just as I recollect our brief parley with the brig
+Economist, of Leith, from Sierra Leone, in mid ocean, in the spring of
+1833.
+
+I am very far from despising the science of gastronomy, but if I wished
+to institute a comparison between the tables of England and America, I
+could not do it without eating my way through the four seasons. I will
+say that I did not think the bread from the bakers' shops was so good as
+our own. It was very generally tough and hard, and even the muffins were
+not always so tender and delicate as they ought to be. I got impatient
+one day, and sent out for some biscuits. They brought some very
+excellent ones, which we much preferred to the tough bread. They proved
+to be the so-called "seafoam" biscuit from New York. The potatoes never
+came on the table looking like new fallen snow, as we have them at home.
+We were surprised to find both mutton and beef overdone, according to
+our American taste. The French talk about the Briton's "_bifteck
+saignant_," but we never saw anything cooked so as to be, as we
+should say, "rare." The tart is national with the English, as the pie is
+national with us. I never saw on an English table that excellent
+substitute for both, called the Washington pie, in memory of him whom we
+honor as first in pies, as well as in war and in the hearts of his
+countrymen.
+
+The truth is that I gave very little thought to the things set before
+me, in the excitement of constantly changing agreeable companionship. I
+understand perfectly the feeling of the good liver in Punch, who
+suggests to the lady next him that their host has one of the best cooks
+in London, and that it might therefore be well to defer all conversation
+until they adjourned to the drawing-room. I preferred the conversation,
+and adjourned, indefinitely, the careful appreciation of the
+_menu_. I think if I could devote a year to it, I might be able to
+make out a graduated scale of articles of food, taking a well-boiled
+fresh egg as the unit of gastronomic value, but I leave this scientific
+task to some future observer.
+
+The most remarkable piece of European handiwork I remember was the steel
+chair at Longford Castle. The most startling and frightful work of man I
+ever saw or expect to see was another specimen of work in steel, said to
+have been taken from one of the infernal chambers of the Spanish
+Inquisition. It was a complex mechanism, which grasped the body and the
+head of the heretic or other victim, and by means of many ingeniously
+arranged screws and levers was capable of pressing, stretching,
+piercing, rending, crushing, all the most sensitive portions of the
+human body, one at a time or many at once. The famous Virgin, whose
+embrace drove a hundred knives into the body of the poor wretch she took
+in her arms, was an angel of mercy compared to this masterpiece of
+devilish enginery.
+
+Ingenuity is much better shown in contrivances for making our daily life
+more comfortable. I was on the lookout for everything that promised to
+be a convenience. I carried out two things which seemed to be new to the
+Londoners: the Star Razor, which I have praised so freely, and still
+find equal to all my commendations; and the mucilage pencil, which is a
+very handy implement to keep on the writer's desk or table. I found a
+contrivance for protecting the hand in drawing corks, which all who are
+their own butlers will appreciate, and luminous match-boxes which really
+shine brightly in the dark, and that after a year's usage; whereas one
+professing to shine by night, which I bought in Boston, is only visible
+by borrowed light. I wanted a very fine-grained hone, and inquired for
+it at a hardware store, where they kept everything in their line of the
+best quality. I brought away a very pretty but very small stone, for
+which I paid a large price. The stone was from Arkansas, and I need not
+have bought in London what would have been easily obtained at a dozen or
+more stores in Boston. It was a renewal of my experience with the
+seafoam biscuit. "Know thyself" and the things about thee, and "Take the
+good the gods provide thee," if thou wilt only keep thine eyes open, are
+two safe precepts.
+
+Who is there of English descent among us that does not feel with Cowper,
+
+  "England, with all thy faults, I love thee still"?
+
+Our recently naturalized fellow-citizens, of a different blood and
+different religion, must not suppose that we are going to forget our
+inborn love for the mother to whom we owe our being. Protestant England
+and Protestant America are coming nearer and nearer to each other every
+year. The interchange of the two peoples is more and more frequent, and
+there are many reasons why it is likely to continue increasing.
+
+Hawthorne says in a letter to Longfellow, "Why don't you come over,
+being now a man of leisure and with nothing to keep you in America? If I
+were in your position, I think I should make my home on this side of the
+water,--though always with an indefinite and never-to-be-executed
+intention to go back and die in my native land. America is a good land
+for young people, but not for those who are past their prime. ... A man
+of individuality and refinement can certainly live far more comfortably
+here--provided he has the means to live at all--than in New England. Be
+it owned, however, that I sometimes feel a tug at my very heart-strings
+when I think of my old home and friends." This was written from
+Liverpool in 1854.
+
+We must not forget that our fathers were exiles from their dearly loved
+native land, driven by causes which no longer exist. "Freedom to worship
+God" is found in England as fully as in America, in our day. In placing
+the Atlantic between themselves and the Old World civilizations they
+made an enormous sacrifice. It is true that the wonderful advance of our
+people in all the arts and accomplishments which make life agreeable has
+transformed the wilderness into a home where men and women can live
+comfortably, elegantly, happily, if they are of contented disposition;
+and without that they can be happy nowhere. What better provision can be
+made for a mortal man than such as our own Boston can afford its wealthy
+children? A palace on Commonwealth Avenue or on Beacon Street; a
+country-place at Framingham or Lenox; a seaside residence at Nahant,
+Beverly Farms, Newport, or Bar Harbor; a pew at Trinity or King's
+Chapel; a tomb at Mount Auburn or Forest Hills; with the prospect of a
+memorial stained window after his lamented demise,--is not this a pretty
+programme to offer a candidate for human existence?
+
+Give him all these advantages, and he will still be longing to cross the
+water, to get back to that old home of his fathers, so delightful in
+itself, so infinitely desirable on account of its nearness to Paris, to
+Geneva, to Rome, to all that is most interesting in Europe. The less
+wealthy, less cultivated, less fastidious class of Americans are not so
+much haunted by these longings. But the convenience of living in the Old
+World is so great, and it is such a trial and such a risk to keep
+crossing the ocean, that it seems altogether likely that a considerable
+current of re-migration will gradually develop itself among our people.
+
+Some find the climate of the other side of the Atlantic suits them
+better than their own. As the New England characteristics are gradually
+superseded by those of other races, other forms of belief, and other
+associations, the time may come when a New Englander will feel more as
+if he were among his own people in London than in one of our seaboard
+cities. The vast majority of our people love their country too well and
+are too proud of it to be willing to expatriate themselves. But going
+back to our old home, to find ourselves among the relatives from whom we
+have been separated for a few generations, is not like transferring
+ourselves to a land where another language is spoken, and where there
+are no ties of blood and no common religious or political traditions. I,
+for one, being myself as inveterately rooted an American of the
+Bostonian variety as ever saw himself mirrored in the Frog Pond, hope
+that the exchanges of emigrants and re-migrants will be much more evenly
+balanced by and by than at present. I hope that more Englishmen like
+James Smithson will help to build up our scientific and literary
+institutions. I hope that more Americans like George Peabody will call
+down the blessings of the English people by noble benefactions to the
+cause of charity. It was with deep feelings of pride and gratitude that
+I looked upon the bust of Longfellow, holding its place among the
+monuments of England's greatest and best children. I see with equal
+pleasure and pride that one of our own large-hearted countrymen has
+honored the memory of three English poets, Milton, and Herbert, and
+Cowper, by the gift of two beautiful stained windows, and with still
+ampler munificence is erecting a stately fountain in the birthplace of
+Shakespeare. Such acts as these make us feel more and more the truth of
+the generous sentiment which closes the ode of Washington Allston,
+"America to Great Britain:" We are one!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I have told our story with the help of my daughter's diary, and often
+aided by her recollections. Having enjoyed so much, I am desirous that
+my countrymen and countrywomen should share my good fortune with me. I
+hesitated at first about printing names in full, but when I remembered
+that we received nothing but the most overflowing hospitality and the
+most considerate kindness from all we met, I felt sure that I could not
+offend by telling my readers who the friends were that made England a
+second home to us. If any one of them is disturbed by such reference as
+I have made to him or to her, I most sincerely apologize for the liberty
+I have taken. I am far more afraid that through sheer forgetfulness I
+have left unmentioned many to whom I was and still remain under
+obligations.
+
+If I were asked what I think of people's travelling after the commonly
+accepted natural term of life is completed, I should say that everything
+depends on constitution and habit. The old soldier says, in speaking of
+crossing the Beresina, where the men had to work in the freezing stream
+constructing the bridges, "Faut du tempérament pour cela!" I often
+thought of this expression, in the damp and chilly weather which not
+rarely makes English people wish they were in Italy. I escaped unharmed
+from the windy gusts at Epsom and the nipping chill of the Kensington
+garden-party; but if a score of my contemporaries had been there with
+me, there would not improbably have been a funeral or two within a week.
+If, however, the super-septuagenarian is used to exposures, if he is an
+old sportsman or an old officer not retired from active service, he may
+expect to elude the pneumonia which follows his footsteps whenever he
+wanders far from his fireside. But to a person of well-advanced years
+coming from a counting-room, a library, or a studio, the risk is
+considerable, unless he is of hardy natural constitution; any other will
+do well to remember, "Faut du tempérament pour cela!"
+
+Suppose there to be a reasonable chance that he will come home alive,
+what is the use of one's going to Europe after his senses have lost
+their acuteness, and his mind no longer retains its full measure of
+sensibilities and vigor? I should say that the visit to Europe under
+those circumstances was much the same thing as the _petit
+verre_,--the little glass of Chartreuse, or Maraschino, or Curaçoa,
+or, if you will, of plain Cognac, at the end of a long banquet. One has
+gone through many courses, which repose in the safe recesses of his
+economy. He has swallowed his coffee, and still there is a little corner
+left with its craving unappeased. Then comes the drop of liqueur,
+_chasse-café_, which is the last thing the stomach has a right to
+expect. It warms, it comforts, it exhales its benediction on all that
+has gone before. So the trip to Europe may not do much in the way of
+instructing the wearied and overloaded intelligence, but it gives it a
+fillip which makes it feel young again for a little while.
+
+Let not the too mature traveller think it will change any of his habits.
+It will interrupt his routine for a while, and then he will settle down
+into his former self, and be just what he was before. I brought home a
+pair of shoes I had made in London; they do not fit like those I had
+before I left, and I rarely wear them. It is just so with the new habits
+I formed and the old ones I left behind me.
+
+But am I not glad, for my own sake, that I went? Certainly I have every
+reason to be, and I feel that the visit is likely to be a great source
+of happiness for my remaining days. But there is a higher source of
+satisfaction. If the kindness shown me strengthens the slenderest link
+that binds us in affection to that ancestral country which is, and I
+trust will always be to her descendants, "dear Mother England," that
+alone justifies my record of it, and to think it is so is more than
+reward enough. If, in addition, this account of our summer experiences
+is a source of pleasure to many friends, and of pain to no one, as I
+trust will prove to be the fact, I hope I need never regret giving to
+the public the pages which are meant more especially for readers who
+have a personal interest in the writer.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Our Hundred Days in Europe
+by Oliver Wendell Holmes
+
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