Page:Letters from Abroad to Kindred at Home (Volume 1).djvu/55

52 any other merit; for, without any humble disclaimers which might be made as to the incompetency of the individual—that individual a woman always more or less hampered—what is one month in London? one month among two millions of people!

Coming to the cities of the Old World, as we do, with our national vanities thick upon us, with our scale of measurement graduated by Broadway, the City-Hall, the Battery, and the Boston-Common, we are confounded by the extent of London, by its magnificent parks, its immense structures, by its docks and warehouses, and by all its details of convenience and comfort, and its aggregate of incalculable wealth. We begin with comforting ourselves with the thought "why these people have been at it these two thousand years, and Heaven knows how much longer." By degrees envy melts into self-complacency, and we say "they are our relations;" "our fathers had a hand in it;" we are of the same race, "as our new-planned cities and unfinished towers" shall hereafter prove. Mr. Webster said to me after we had both been two or three weeks here, "What is your impression now of London? my feeling is yet amazement."

I got my best idea of the source of the wealth and power of the country from visiting the docks and warehouses, which we did thoroughly, under the conduct of our very kind countryman, Mr. P. Vaughan, whose uncle, Mr. William Vaughan, had much to do with the suggesting and planning these great works. Do not fear I am about to give you a