Produced by Tonya Allen, Eric Eldred, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team [Illustration: OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES AT THE AGE OF 82. From a painting by Sarah W. Whitman] OUR HUNDRED DAYS IN EUROPE BY OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES To MY DAUGHTER AMELIA (MRS. TURNER SARGENT) MY FAITHFUL AND DEVOTED COMPANION THIS OUTLINE OF OUR SUMMER EXCURSION IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED CONTENTS. * * * * * INTRODUCTORY A PROSPECTIVE VISIT OUR HUNDRED DAYS IN EUROPE. CHAPTER I. THE VOYAGE.--LIVERPOOL.--CHESTER.--LONDON.--EPSOM II. EPSOM.--LONDON.--WINDSOR III. LONDON.--ISLE OF WIGHT.--CAMBRIDGE.--OXFORD.--YORK.--EDINBURGH IV. STRATFORD-ON-AVON.--GREAT MALVERN.--TEWKESBURY.--BATH.--SALISBURY. --STONEHENGE V. STONEHENGE.--SALISBURY.--OLD SARUM.--BEMERTON.--BRIGHTON VI. LONDON VII. BOULOGNE.--PARIS.--LONDON.--LIVERPOOL.--THE HOMEWARD PASSAGE VIII. GENERAL IMPRESSIONS.--MISCELLANEOUS OBSERVATIONS LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS * * * * * OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES AT THE AGE OF 82. From a painting by Sarah W. Whitman ROBERT BROWNING MAGDALEN COLLEGE, OXFORD SALISBURY CATHEDRAL PLACE DE LA CONCORDE INTRODUCTORY. A PROSPECTIVE VISIT. * * * * * After an interval of more than fifty years, I propose taking a second look at some parts of Europe. It is a Rip Van Winkle experiment which I am promising myself. The changes wrought by half a century in the countries I visited amount almost to a transformation. I left the England of William the Fourth, of the Duke of Wellington, of Sir Robert Peel; the France of Louis Philippe, of Marshal Soult, of Thiers, of Guizot. I went from Manchester to Liverpool by the new railroad, the only one I saw in Europe. I looked upon England from the box of a stage-coach, upon France from the coupé of a diligence, upon Italy from the cushion of a carrozza. The broken windows of Apsley House were still boarded up when I was in London. The asphalt pavement was not laid in Paris. The Obelisk of Luxor was lying in its great boat in the Seine, as I remember it. I did not see it erected; it must have been an exciting scene to witness, the engineer standing underneath, so as to be crushed by the great stone if it disgraced him by falling in the process. As for the dynasties which have overlaid each other like Dr. Schliemann's Trojan cities, there is no need of moralizing over a history which instead of Finis is constantly ending with What next?