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.