Page:An Epistle to Posterity.djvu/176

Rh the pleasure of seeing him later on at Mr. Cyrus W. Field's, and I think the only hour he thoroughly enjoyed was when he was going to see the monument to Major André.

These differences of temperament are utterly beyond our control. Tennyson and Carlyle could never endure Americans, nor do I believe Disraeli was much more tolerant, although always most polished. But there were hearty friends of ours in London, enough to make a visit there most enjoyable; not only such splendid examples as Sir William Stirling-Maxwell, but innumerable others; and of women, I found in the beautiful Duchess of Westminster (sister to Lord Ronald Gower), in Miss Thackeray, and in Lady Verney, three types which will always stand for the most cordial and the most kindly of friends.

Of literary ladies I was not so fortunate as to see many. The Hon. Mrs. Norton and Miss Thackeray were the only ones whom I knew well. Lady Verney told me that the literary society of London was too busy to go out much, and I fancy this was the truth. George Eliot had published the Spanish Gypsy the year before, and I was determined to see her, but the opportunity never occurred. Mr. Bancroft had given me a letter to Carlyle, and we diligently drove to Cheyne Walk; but the sage was out walking. I think he always was, when Americans called.

But these our failures were far more infrequent than our successes. We saw all the fashionable people that we wished to see, and received that social welcome which warms the heart. And one knows a country better in thus entering its homes, its strongholds, than by merely bowing to a celebrity.

Our little experience of a two months' visit has filled my whole life with a joyous remembrance of England;