We returned to London on the 13th of August by the same route we had
followed in going from London to Paris. Our passage was rough, as
compared to the former one, and some of the passengers were seasick. We
were both fortunate enough to escape that trial of comfort and
self-respect.
I can hardly separate the story of the following week from that of the
one before we went to Paris. We did a little more shopping and saw a few
more sights. I hope that no reader of mine would suppose that I would
leave London without seeing Madame Tussaud's exhibition. Our afternoon
drives made us familiar with many objects which I always looked upon
with pleasure. There was the obelisk, brought from Egypt at the expense
of a distinguished and successful medical practitioner, Sir Erasmus
Wilson, the eminent dermatologist and author of a manual of anatomy
which for many years was my favorite text-book. There was "The
Monument," which characterizes itself by having no prefix to its generic
name. I enjoyed looking at and driving round it, and thinking over
Pepys's lively account of the Great Fire, and speculating as to where
Pudding Lane and Pie Corner stood, and recalling Pope's lines which I
used to read at school, wondering what was the meaning of the second
one:--
"Where London's column, pointing to the skies
Like a tall bully, lifts its head and lies."
The week passed away rapidly enough, and we made ready for our
departure. It was no easy matter to get a passage home, but we had at
last settled it that we would return in the same vessel in which we had
at first engaged our passage to Liverpool, the Catalonia. But we were
fortunate enough to have found an active and efficient friend in our
townsman, Mr. Montgomery Sears, who procured staterooms for us in a much
swifter vessel, to sail on the 21st for New York, the Aurania.
Our last visitor in London was the faithful friend who had been the
first to welcome us, Lady Harcourt, in whose kind attentions I felt the
warmth of my old friendship with her admired and honored father and her
greatly beloved mother. I had recently visited their place of rest in
the Kensal Green Cemetery, recalling with tenderest emotions the many
years in which I had enjoyed their companionship.
On the 19th of August we left London for Liverpool, and on our arrival
took lodgings at the Adelphi Hotel.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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