To-morrow is Thanksgiving Day. We are going to observe it in memory of the fatherland. Mr. Bright will dine with us by his own invitation, not knowing it was a festival day with us. He has long been projecting a visit, and finally proposed coming this week. He will remain all night, as Sandheys is on the other side of Liverpool, and his mamma does not wish him to cross the river [usually foggy] in the dark. The English people, the ladies and gentlemen with whom we have become acquainted, are very lovely and affectionate and friendly. They seem lifelong acquaintances. I suppose there is no society in the world that can quite compare to this. It is all stereotyped, crystallized, with the repose and quiet in it of an immovable condition of caste. There is such a simplicity, such an ease, such an entire cordiality, such sweetness, that it is really beautiful to see. It is only when looking at the matter outside--or rather out of it--that one can see any disadvantage or unloveliness. It is a deep and great question,--this about rank. Birth and wealth often are causes of the superior cultivation and refinement that are found with them. In this old civilization there seems to be no jealousy, no effort to alter position. . . . Provided that the lowest orders could be redeemed from the brutal misery in which they are plunged, there could be a little more enjoyment in contemplating and mingling with the higher. But it seems as if everything must be turned upside down rather than for one moment more to tolerate such suffering, such bestiality. There have been one or two individual cases that went before the courts that really make it almost wicked ever to smile again. . . . As Mr. Hawthorne delays to go to London, London is beginning to come to him, for Mr. Holland says he must inevitably be mobbed in England. Two Londoners called lately,--one a Mr. William Jerdan, about seventy years old, a literary man, who for fifty years has been familiar with the best society in London, and knows everybody for whom one cares to ask. He is a perfect mine of rich memories. He pleased me mightily, and made me think of Dr. Johnson. Rose sat on his knee, and gazed with unwinking, earnest eyes into his face. He said he never saw anything like it except the gaze of Talleyrand (whom he knew very well). He said that Talleyrand undertook to look at a man and not allow a man to look into him,--he always fixed such a glance as that upon one. Imperturbably, baby continued to gaze, without any smile; and he kept dodging from her and making funny contortions, but she was not in the least moved. "Why," he exclaimed, "you would be an admirable judge, and I should not like to be the fellow who would take sentence from your Lordship when you get on your black cap!" At last she smiled confidingly at him. "There," he said, "now I have it! She loves me, she loves me!" At eight they left us for London, intending not to shoot through that night, but sleep at Birmingham, halfway.