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. I asked him, at last, if he were not So and So. " From this time forward continued a perpetual round of social engagements.
I supposed it to hold some pretty gimcrack, sent as a pleasant parting token of remembrance. With us three things were best: grapes, oranges, and especially oysters, of which we had provided a half barrel in the shell. 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 went to a luncheon at LHouse, not far from our residence. No doubt we should feel worse without the boats; still they are dreadful tell-tales. They are not considered in place in a wellkept lawn. Knowing as a secret crossword. It is considered useful as " a pick me up, " and it serves an admirable purpose in the social system. After this Awent to a musical party, dined with the V-s, and had a good time among American friends. With the other gifts came a small tin box, about as big as a common round wooden match box. 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.
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. 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. 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. All this may sound a little extravagant, but I am giving my impressions without any intentional exaggeration. A lively, wholesome, and encouraging discourse, such as it would do many a forlorn New England congregation good to hear. There are plenty of such houses all over England, where there are no 11 Injins " to shoot. 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. No, " he said, " I am Prince Christian. " The porches with oval lookouts, common in Essex County, have been said to answer a similar purpose. Everybody knows that secrete crossword. He had placed the Royal box at our disposal, so we invited our friends the P-s to go with us, and we all enjoyed the evening mightily. To be sure, the poor wretches in the picture were on a raft, but to think of fifty people in one of these open boats!
You will surely die, eating such cold stuff, " said a lady to my companion. 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 pharmacopœia upon my troublesome enemy, from bicarbonate of soda and Vichy water to arsenic and dynamite. It is made in Providence, Rhode Island, and I had to go to London to find it. We left Boston on the 29th of April, 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. Everybody knows that secrete crossword puzzle crosswords. 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. The horse I was about to see win was not unworthy of being named with the renowned champion of my earlier day. Lesser grandeurs do not find us very impressible.
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. How thoroughly England is groomed! All the usual provisions for comfort made by sea-going experts we had attended to. " Well, you don't love kings, then. " I could not help remembering 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. A special tug came to take us off: on it were the American consul, Mr. Russell, the viceconsul, Mr. Sewall, Dr. N-, and Mr. R-, who came on behalf of our as yet unseen friend, Mr. W-, of Brighton, England. Copyright, 1887, by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. In the brief account of my first visit to England, more than half a century ago, I mentioned the fact that I want to the famous Derby race at Epsom. We wonder to which of these two impressions Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes inclined, if he went last Wednesday to Epsom! 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. We made the acquaintance of several imps and demons, who were got up wonderfully well.
Here are some of my first impressions of England as seen from the carriage and from the cars. Whole days passed without our seeing a single sail. We Americans are a little shy of confessing that any title or conventional grandeur makes an impression upon us. This was a surprise, and a most welcome one, and Aand her kind friend busied themselves at once about the arrangements. When " My Lord and Sir Paul" came into the Club which Goldsmith tells us of, the hilarity of the evening was instantly checked. I apologized for my error. " House full of pretty things. In the afternoon we both went together to the Abbey. 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. I think it probable that I had as much enjoyment in forming one of the great mob in 1834 as I did among the grandeurs in 1886, but the last is pleasanter to remember and especially to tell of. 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! After the race we had a luncheon served us, a comfortable and substantial one, which was very far from unwelcome. I will not try to enumerate, still less to describe, the various entertainments to which we were invited, and many of which we attended.
A few years since Mr. Gladstone was induced by Lord Granville and Lord Wolverton to run down to Epsom on the Derby day. 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. 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. On the following Sunday I went to Westminster Abbey to hear a sermon from Canon Harford on A Cheerful Life. — They are off, — not yet distinguishable, at least to me. I noticed that here as elsewhere the short grass was starred with daisies. I know my danger, — does not Lord Byron say, "I have even been accused of writing puffs for Warren's blacking"?
A painter like Paul Veronese finds a palace like this not too grand for his banqueting scenes. This did not look much like rest, but this was only a slight prelude to what was to follow. Still, we were planning to make the best of them, when Dr. and Mrs. Priestley suggested that we should receive company at their house. Yet nobody can be more agreeable, even to young persons, than one of these precious old dowagers. It was no sooner announced in the papers that I was going to England than I began to hear of preparations to welcome me. A secretary was evidently a matter of immediate necessity. Certainly, nothing in Prince Albert Edward suggests any aggressive weapons or tendencies. After the first night and part of the second, I never lay down at all while at sea. It was no common race that I went to see in 1834.
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. Those are Archer's colors, and the beautiful bay Ormonde flashes by the line, winner of the Derby of 1886. I am disappointed in the trees, so far; I have not seen one large tree as yet. On Saturday, May 8th, we first caught a glimpse of the Irish coast, and at half past four in the afternoon wo reached the harbor of Queenstown. I simplified matters for her by giving her a set of formulæ as a base to start from, and she proved very apt at the task of modifying each particular letter to suit its purpose. The pool, as I afterwards learned, fell to the lot of the Turkish Ambassador. I could not help comparing some of the ancient cathedrals and abbey churches to so many old cheeses.
In the afternoon we went to our minister's to see the American ladies who had been presented at the drawing-room.
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