Page:Letters from Abroad to Kindred at Home (Volume 1).djvu/59

56 has not been open more than twelve years. The price of admission is only one shilling English. This we should think liberal enough in our democratic country. The pleasure is made more exclusive on Sunday by the requisition of a member's ticket, but these are easily obtained. Several were sent us unasked, if you care for such shows, you may then, in addition to the birds and beasts, see the gentry and nobility!

that most of our people, when they arrive in London, go to the Tower and Westminster Abbey, as the sights they have most and longest thirsted for. I have been told that Webster had not been half an hour in London when he took a cab and drove to the Tower; and I liked the boyish feeling still fresh and perceptible, like the little rivulet whose hue marks it distinctly long after it has entered some great river. I have not seen the Tower; not for lack of interest in it, for, ever since in my childhood my heart ached for the hapless state-prisoner that passed its portals, I have longed to see it. We went there at an unfortunate hour; the doors were closed; and I was like a crossed child when I felt that I should never see the Black Prince's armour, nor the axe that dealt the deathblow to Anne Boleyn, nor the prison of Sir Walter Raleigh, nor any of (he Tower's soul-moving treasures. We were admitted within the outer wall, which encloses an area where