inevitably be mobbed. He then remarked that he did not like "Blithedale" so well as the other books. He spoke of Bulwer, and said that when he saw him he concluded it was better never to see an author, for he generally disappointed us; that Bulwer was an entirely made-up man in appearance, effeminate and finical,--flowing curls and curling mustachios, and elaborate and formal manners. I told him I should expect just such a looking person in Bulwer, from reading all his first novels, so very inferior to "The Caxtons" and "My Novel." November 6. MY DEAREST FATHER,--Last Sunday was a day that seemed to be dropped from heaven. I immediately thought that this was the Sunday for Chester. . . . So we sent to Mr. Squarey, who returned word that he would meet us at the depot at nine. We did not pick him out from all others for a companion to the Cathedral, but his wife first requested us to go with them, and so we were, in a certain way, bound not to go without, them. It was very affecting to me when I came suddenly upon the Cathedral. . . . Every "Amen" was slow, solemn, full music, which had a wonderful effect. It was like the melodious assent of all nature and mankind to the preceding prayer,--"So be it!" . . . Una and Julian, especially Julian, suffered much ennui during the sermon; and Una wrote the other day in one of her letters that "it was very tegeuse" (her first attempt at spelling "tedious") "for there was hardly anything in it." Julian inadvertently gaped aloud, which so startled Mr. Hawthorne that he exclaimed, "Good God!" thus making the matter much worse; but as even I, who sat next him, did not hear him, I presume that the same great spaces which took up the canon's voice disposed of Mr. Hawthorne's exclamation. I am sorry the children were obliged to stay through the sermon, as it rather spoiled the effect of the preceding service. It would have been far better to have had another of David's Psalms chanted. While listening to those of the morning lesson, I thought how marvelous it was that these Psalms, sung by the Jewish king and poet to his harp three thousand years ago, should now be a portion of the religious service of nearly all Christendom; so many organs grandly accompanying thousands of voices in praising God in his very words, as the worthiest which man has yet uttered. And they are indeed worthy; and in this stately old Cathedral with its manifold associations they sounded grander, more touching, more eloquent than ever, borne up from the points of the flaming pinnacles, on solemn organ-tones, to God. This united worship affected me very deeply, it is so long since I have been to church,--hardly once since Una was born! You know I always loved to go to church, always supplying by my imagination what I did not find. . . . I think that the English Church is the merest petrifaction now. It has not the fervor and unction of the Roman Catholic even (that is dead enough, and will be dead soon).