Dickens, born and raised in London, was among the first to perceive the wonder of the change and to contrast it graphically with what had been and still was. In such places as St. Alban’s, Marlowe, Canterbury, Oxford, and others, I could see what the old life must have been like when the stage-coach ruled and made the principal highways lively with traffic. Here in Canterbury and elsewhere there were inns sacred to the characters of Dickens; and you could see how charming that world must have appeared to a man who felt that it was passing. He saw it in its heyday, and he recorded it as it could not have been recorded before and can never be again. He saw also the charm of simple English life--the native love of cleanly pots and pans and ordered dooryards; and that, fortunately, has not changed. I cannot think of any one doing England as Dickens did it until there is something new to be done--the old spirit manifested in a new way. From Shakespeare to Dickens the cry is long; from Dickens to his successors it may be longer still. I was a bit perturbed on leaving Canterbury to realize that on the morrow at this same time I should catch my first glimpse of Paris. The clerk at the station who kept my bags for me noted that I came from New York and told me he had a brother in Wisconsin, and that he liked it very much out there. I said, “I suppose you will be coming to America yourself, one of these days?” “Oh, yes,” he said; “the big chances are out there. I’ll either go to Canada or Wisconsin.” “Well, there are plenty of states to choose from,” I said. “A lot of people have gone from this place,” he replied. It rained hard on the way to Dover; but when I reached there it had ceased, and I even went so far as to leave my umbrella in the train. When I early discovered my loss I reported it at once to the porter who was carrying my belongings. “Don’t let that worry you,” he replied, in the calmest and most assuring of English tones. “They always look through the trains. You’ll find it in the parcel-room.” Sure enough, when I returned there it was behind the clerk’s desk; and it was handed to me promptly. If I had not had everything which I had lost, barring one stick, promptly returned to me since I had been in England, I should not have thought so much of this; but it confirmed my impression that I was among a people who are temperamentally honest.