England had not sunk. I stood my ground; and in an hour we came
running, bounding, and rolling towards the narrow mouth of the
Folkstone pier heads.
LETTER XLIX
LONDON.
MY DEAR: -
Our last letters from home changed all our plans. We concluded to
hurry away by the next steamer, if at that late hour we could get
passage. We were all in a bustle. The last shoppings for aunts,
cousins, and little folks were to be done by us all. The Palais Royal
was to be rummaged; bronzes, vases, statuettes, bonbons,
playthings - all that the endless fertility of France could show - was
to be looked over for the "folks at home."
You ought to have seen our rooms at night, the last evening we spent
in Paris. When the whole gleanings of a continental tour were brought
forth for packing, and compared with the dimensions of original
trunks - ah, what an hour was that! Who should reconcile these
incongruous elements - bronzes, bonnets, ribbons and flowers, plaster
casts, books, muslins and laces - elements as irreconcilable as fate
and freedom; who should harmonize them? And I so tired!
"Ah," said Jladame B., "it is all quite easy; you must have a packer."
"A packer?"
"Yes. He will come, look at your things, provide whatever may be
necessary, and pack them all."
So said, so done. The man came, saw, conquered; he brought a trunk,
twine, tacks, wrapping paper, and I stood by in admiration while he
folded dresses, arranged bonnets, caressingly enveloped flowers in
silk paper, fastened refractory bronzes, and muffled my plaster
animals with reference to the critical points of ears and noses, - in
short, reduced the whole heterogeneous assortment to place and
proportion, shut, locked, corded, labelled, handed me the keys, and it
was done. The charge for all this was quite moderate.
How we sped across the channel C. relates. We are spending a few very
pleasant days with our kind friends, the L.'s, in London.
ON BOARD THE ARCTIC, Wednesday, September 7.
On Thursday, September 1, we reached York, and visited the beautiful
ruins of St. Mary's Abbey, and the magnificent cathedral. How
individual is every cathedral! York is not like Westminster, nor like
Strasbourg, nor Cologne, any more than Shakspeare is like Milton, or
Milton like Homer. In London I attended morning service in
Westminster, and explored its labyrinths of historic memories. The
reading of the Scriptures in the English tongue, and the sound of the
chant, affected me deeply, in contrast with the pictorial and dramatic
effects of Romanism in continental churches.
As a simple matter of taste, Protestantism has made these buildings
more impressive by reducing them to a stricter unity. The multitude of
shrines, candlesticks, pictures, statues, and votive offerings, which
make the continental churches resemble museums, are constantly at
variance with the majestic grandeur of the general impression. Therein
they typify the church to which they belong, which has indeed the
grand historic basis and framework of Christianity, though overlaid
with extraneous and irrelevant additions.
