Yesterday was a dark, turbid day. I staid at home and wrote a long letter to Mrs Gorham. Sunday in London is perfectly quiet. The stillness of the streets is remarkable, and more striking from the contrast with the six week days which are noisy & bustling enough. Capt. Wormeley called and Mr...

Yesterday, Christmas day, we went in the morning to the Church of the Foundlings where the music is good, the preaching “mediocre.” The services were long and the execrable creed of St. Athanasius formed a part. What an insult to God and Man the reciting of this blasphemous relic of barbarous...

I have been hoping for some time past to get away from London before the fine season was quite over. It is now decided that we go to Edinburgh. I am overjoyed at the thought. I shall see Scotland, I shall hear the “sweet Doric” of her spoken tongue, and in the home of Burns and Walter Scott do...

We have been to-day at Leslie’s house in Pine Apple Row. Being admitted to his painting room we saw the Coronation picture in a very unfinished state but promising well. The moment chosen is the taking of the Sacrament. The Queen, divested of her crown and ornaments, her dress concealed by an...

Visited the London Docks—St. Katherine’s the London & the West India.—Gave me the best idea I have yet had of the immense trade & wealth of London. It is the heart of the civilized world & receives & propels the “vital fluid” which circulates through the whole body—And what a...

Mr Coolidge, Mrs Searle & myself visited the Thames Tunnel. I called at Chester Terrace in Regent’s Park for Mrs Searle & we went by way of the New Road to Bishopsgate St. where Mr Coolidge joined us about half past three P.M. when we proceeded to the Tunnel. After paying the usual fee we...

Yesterday we visited the Tower. There is no place in England better worth seeing when we remember all that it’s old grey walls have seen. An American should feel the influence of the grand recollections attached to the Tower of London even more than an Englishman. Our common origin connects us as...

On Wednesday we went accompanied by Mr Ashburner, to the Oriental Club. He conducted us through all that part of the building open to strangers and explained to me the system of Club Life—a thing very perfect in it’s way. Whether this way is as good in it’s results as it is certainly well adapted...

I have been a day & a half in London and it will take me many days to recover from the effects of my voyage. I feel badly & look badly, thin, pale & sunburnt. Three large mirrors in our drawing room, & three more in my bed-chamber leave me no doubt on this subject. I cannot get...

I began a journal at Sea which my severe sufferings made me lay aside. It comprised only the events of a few days, the rest of the time being lost by incessant sickness.— I sailed, in company with Mr & Mrs Aspinwall of N. York from New York, Wednesday 20th June. My daughter remains at Staten...