Page:Letters from Abroad to Kindred at Home (Volume 1).djvu/88

Rh this view. It is melancholy, portentous, better suited, I should think, to the genius of Byron. I have seen sublime sights in my life, a midnight thunder-storm at Niagara and a "gallant breeze" on the seashore, but I never saw so spirit-stirring a spectacle as this immense city with its indefinite boundaries and its dull fight Here are nearly two millions of human beings, with their projects, pursuits, hopes, and despairs, their strifes, friendships, and rivalries, their loves and hates, their joys and anguish, some steeped to the lips in poverty, others encumbered with riches, some treading on the confines of Heaven, others in the abysses of sin, and all sealed with the teal of immortality.

dinner-hour in London, my dear C., is from six to eight I think we have received no invitation later than for half past seven. You know the London—the English world, is divided into castes, and our letters have obtained access for us to families that never come together here in social life. We have dined with the suburban gentry, people who, enjoying an income of as many pounds as our country gentleman has dollars, give you a family-dinner of two or three dishes with some simple dessert. For such a dinner, one of our country ladies would be apt to make an apology; the mortifying truth is, that hospitality does not run so much into eating and drinking here, as with us. Everything is of the best quality and served in the best manner, but time