Page:Margaret Fuller Ossoli (Higginson).djvu/239

Rh amplified for her “Tribune” letters; but for myself, I always find the first note-book more interesting. “Memory,” says the poet Gray, “is ten times worse than a lead pencil,” and it is really of more value to know what struck a traveler at the outset than what was afterwards added to his knowledge. Nothing tests one’s habits of mind and independence of character like the first glimpse of a foreign country; and it must be remembered that Europe was far more foreign to Americans forty years ago than to-day. Omitting a few preliminary passages, the note-book goes on as follows, being here printed precisely as it is written; the exact dates being rarely given in it, but the time being the latter part of August, 1846, and thenceforward: —

“Went to the Paradise-street chapel to hear James Martineau. His over-intellectual appearance. His conservative tendencies, liberality only in spots. Mr. Ireland, a most liberal man, a devout reader of the ‘Dial.’ His early record of Waldo [Emerson]. Delight at seeing these impressions confirmed by the stand he has taken since. Mr. Ireland, declining all stimulants on the most ultra ground, takes four or five strong cups of tea, which he does not need. — Monday morning. Mechanics’ Institute, — method of instruction — seventeen hundred pupils. Provision for the girls. Fine building bought for them, at seven thousand pounds. Woman nominally, not really, at the head. Royal Institute. Series of works of early Italian art collected by Roscoe. Statue of Roscoe by Chantrey.

“Afternoon. Sweet place on the banks of the Mer-