Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete

N >> Nathaniel Hawthorne >> Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete

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I saw in an American paper yesterday, that an opera, still unfinished,
had been written on the story of The Scarlet Letter, and that several
scenes of it had been performed successfully in New York. I should think
it might possibly succeed as an opera, though it would certainly fail as
a play.

LONDON.

September 24th.--On Saturday, at half past three o'clock, I left
Liverpool by the London and Northwest Railway for London. Mrs.
Blodgett's table had been thinned by several departures during the
week. . . . . My mind had been considerably enlivened, and my sense of
American superiority renewed, by intercourse with these people; and there
is no danger of one's intellect becoming a standing pool in such society.
I think better of American shipmasters, too, than I did from merely
meeting them in my office. They keep up a continual discussion of
professional matters, and of all things having any reference to their
profession; the laws of insurance, the rights of vessels in foreign
ports, the authority and customs of vessels of war with regard to
merchantmen, etc.,--with stories and casual anecdotes of their
sea-adventures, gales, shipwrecks, icebergs, and collisions of vessels,
and hair-breadth escapes. Their talk runs very much on the sea, and on
the land as connected with the sea; and their interest does not seem to
extend very far beyond the wide field of their professional concerns.

Nothing remarkable occurred on the journey to London. The greater part
of the way there were only two gentlemen in the same compartment with me;
and we occupied each our corner, with little other conversation than in
comparing watches at the various stations. I got out of the carriage
only once, at Rugby, I think, and for the last seventy or eighty miles
the train did not stop. There was a clear moon the latter part of the
journey, and the mist lay along the ground, looking very much like a
surface of water. We reached London at about ten, and I found S-----
expecting me.

Yesterday the children went with Fanny to the Zoological Gardens; and,
after sending them off, S----- and I walked to Piccadilly, and there took
a cab for Kensington Gardens. It was a delightful day,--the best of all
weather, the real English good weather,--more like an Indian summer than
anything else within my experience; a mellow sunshine, with great warmth
in it,--a soft, balmy air, with a slight haze through it. If the sun
made us a little too warm, we had but to go into the shade to be
immediately refreshed. The light of these days is very exquisite, so
gently bright, without any glare,--a veiled glow. In short, it is the
kindliest mood of Nature, and almost enough to compensate for chill and
dreary months. Moreover, there is more of such weather here than the
English climate has ever had credit for.

Kensington Gardens form an eminently beautiful piece of artificial
woodland and park scenery. The old palace of Kensington, now inhabited
by the Duchess of Inverness, stands at one extremity; an edifice of no
great mark, built of brick, covering much ground, and low in proportion
to its extent. In front of it, at a considerable distance, there is a
sheet of water; and in all directions there are vistas of wide paths
among noble trees, standing in groves, or scattered in clumps; everything
being laid out with free and generous spaces, so that you can see long
streams of sunshine among the trees, and there is a pervading influence
of quiet and remoteness. Tree does not interfere with tree; the art of
man is seen conspiring with Nature, as if they had consulted together how
to make a beautiful scene, and had taken ages of quiet thought and tender
care to accomplish it. We strolled slowly along these paths, and
sometimes deviated from them, to walk beneath the trees, many of the
leaves of which lay beneath our feet, yellow and brown, and with a
pleasant smell of vegetable decay. These were the leaves of
chestnut-trees; the other trees (unless elms) have yet, hardly begun to
shed their foliage, although you can discern a sober change of line in
the woodland masses; and the trees individualize themselves by assuming
each its own tint, though in a very modest way. If they could have
undergone the change of an American autumn, it would have been like
putting on a regal robe. Autumn often puts one on in America, but it is
apt to be very ragged.

There were a good many well-dressed people scattered through the
grounds,--young men and girls, husbands with their wives and children,
nursery-maids and little babes playing about in the grass. Anybody might
have entered the gardens, I suppose; but only well-dressed people were
there not, of the upper classes, but shop-keepers, clerks, apprentices,
and respectability of that sort. It is pleasant to think that the people
have the freedom, and therefore the property, of parks like this, more
beautiful and stately than a nobleman can keep to himself. The extent of
Kensington Gardens, when reckoned together with Hyde Park, from which it
is separated only by a fence of iron rods, is very great, comprising
miles of greensward and woodland. The large artificial sheet of water,
called the Serpentine River, lies chiefly in Hyde Park, but comes
partly within the precincts of the gardens. It is entitled to
honorable mention among the English lakes, being larger than some that
are world-celebrated,--several miles long, and perhaps a stone's-throw
across in the widest part. It forms the paradise of a great many ducks
of various breeds, which are accustomed to be fed by visitors, and come
flying from afar, touching the water with their wings, and quacking
loudly when bread or cake is thrown to them. I bought a bun of a little
hunchbacked man, who kept a refreshment-stall near the Serpentine, and
bestowed it pied-meal on these ducks, as we loitered along the bank. We
left the park by another gate, and walked homeward, till we came to
Tyburnia, and saw the iron memorial which marks where the gallows used to
stand. Thence we turned into Park Lane, then into Upper Grosvenor
Street, and reached Hanover Square sooner than we expected.

In the evening I walked forth to Charing Cross, and thence along the
Strand and Fleet Street, where I made no new discoveries, unless it were
the Mitre Tavern. I mean to go into it some day. The streets were much
thronged, and there seemed to be a good many young people,--lovers, it is
to be hoped,--who had spent the day together, and were going innocently
home. Perhaps so,--perhaps not.

September 25th.--Yesterday forenoon J----- and I walked out, with no very
definite purpose; but, seeing a narrow passageway from the Strand down to
the river, we went through it, and gained access to a steamboat, plying
thence to London Bridge. The fare was a halfpenny apiece, and the boat
almost too much crowded for standing-room. This part of the river
presents the water-side of London in a rather pleasanter aspect than
below London Bridge,--the Temple, with its garden, Somerset House,--and
generally, a less tumble-down and neglected look about the buildings;
although, after all, the metropolis does not see a very stately face in
its mirror. I saw Alsatia betwixt the Temple and Blackfriar's Bridge.
Its precincts looked very narrow, and not particularly distinguishable,
at this day, from the portions of the city on either side of it. At
London Bridge we got aboard of a Woolwich steamer, and went farther down
the river, passing the Custom-House and the Tower, the only prominent
objects rising out of the dreary range of shabbiness which stretches
along close to the water's edge.

From this remote part of London we walked towards the heart of the city;
and, as we went, matters seemed to civilize themselves by degrees, and
the streets grew crowded with cabs, omnibuses, drays, and carts. We
passed, I think, through Whitechapel, and, reaching St. Paul's, got into
an omnibus, and drove to Regent Street, whence it was but a step or two
home.

In the afternoon, at four o'clock, S----- and I went to call on the
American Ambassador and Miss L------. The lady was not at home, but we
went in to see Mr. ------ and were shown into a stately drawing-room, the
furniture of which was sufficiently splendid, but rather the worse for
wear,--being hired furniture, no doubt. The ambassador shortly appeared,
looking venerable, as usual,--or rather more so than usual,--benign, and
very pale. His deportment towards ladies is highly agreeable and
prepossessing, and he paid very kind attention to S-----, thereby quite
confirming her previous good feeling towards him. She thinks that he is
much changed since she saw him last, at dinner, at our house,--more
infirm, more aged, and with a singular depression in his manner. I, too,
think that age has latterly come upon him with great rapidity. He said
that Miss L------ was going home on the 6th of October, and that he
himself had long purposed going, but had received despatches which
obliged him to put off his departure. The President, he said, had just
written, requesting him to remain till April, but this he was determined
not to do. I rather think that he does really wish to return, and not
for any ambitious views concerning the Presidency, but from an old man's
natural desire to be at home, and among his own people.

S----- spoke to him about an order from the Lord Chamberlain for
admission to view the two Houses of Parliament; and the ambassador drew
from his pocket a colored silk handkerchief, and made a knot in it, in
order to remind himself to ask the Lord Chamberlain. The homeliness of
this little incident has a sort of propriety and keeping with much of
Mr. ------'s manner, but I would rather not have him do so before English
people. He arranged to send a close carriage for us to come and see him
socially this evening. After leaving his house we drove round Hyde Park,
and thence to Portland Place, where we left cards for Mrs. Russell
Sturgis; thence into Regent's Park, thence home. U---- and J-----
accompanied us throughout these drives, but remained in the carriage
during our call on Mr. ------. In the evening I strolled out, and walked
as far as St. Paul's,--never getting enough of the bustle of London,
which may weary, but can never satisfy me. By night London looks wild
and dreamy, and fills me with a sort of pleasant dread. It was a clear
evening, with a bright English moon,--that is to say, what we Americans
should call rather dim.

September 26th.--Yesterday, at eleven, I walked towards Westminster
Abbey, and as I drew near the Abbey bells were clamorous for joy, chiming
merrily, musically, and, obstreperously,--the most rejoicing sound that
can be conceived; and we ought to have a chime of bells in every American
town and village, were it only to keep alive the celebration of the
Fourth of July. I conjectured that there might have been another victory
over the Russians, that perhaps the northern side of Sebastopol had
surrendered; but soon I saw the riddle that these merry bells were
proclaiming. There were a great many private carriages, and a large
concourse of loungers and spectators, near the door of the church that
stands close under the eaves of the Abbey. Gentlemen and ladies, gayly
dressed, were issuing forth, carriages driving away, and others drawing
up to the door in their turn; and, in short, a marriage had just been
celebrated in the church, and this was the wedding-party. The last time
I was there, Westminster was flinging out its great voice of joy for a
national triumph; now, for the happy union of two lovers. What a mighty
sympathizer is this old Abbey!

It is pleasant to recognize the mould and fashion of English features
through the marble of many of the statues and busts in the Abbey, even
though they may be clad in Roman robes. I am inclined to think them, in
many cases, faithful likenesses; and it brings them nearer to the mind,
to see these original sculptures,--you see the man at but one remove, as
if you caught his image in a looking-glass. The bust of Gay seemed to me
very good,--a thoughtful and humorous sweetness in the face. Goldsmith
has as good a position as any poet in the Abbey, his bust and tablet
filling the pointed arch over a door that seems to lead towards the
cloisters. No doubt he would have liked to be assured of so conspicuous
a place. There is one monument to a native American, "Charles Wragg,
Esq., of South Carolina,"--the only one, I suspect, in Westminster Abbey,
and he acquired this memorial by the most un-American of qualities, his
loyalty to his king. He was one of the refugees leaving America in 1777,
and being shipwrecked on his passage the monument was put up by his
sister. It is a small tablet with a representation of Mr. Wragg's
shipwreck at the base. Next to it is the large monument of Sir
Cloudesley Shovel, which I think Addison ridicules,--the Admiral, in a
full-bottomed wig and Roman dress, but with a broad English face,
reclining with his head on his hand, and looking at you with great
placidity. I stood at either end of the nave, and endeavored to take in
the full beauty and majesty of the edifice; but apparently was not in a
proper state of mind, for nothing came of it. It is singular how like an
avenue of overarching trees are these lofty aisles of a cathedral.

Leaving the Abbey about one o'clock, I walked into the city as far
as Grace Church Street, and there called on the American Consul,
General ------, who had been warmly introduced to me last year by a
letter from the President. I like the General; a kindly and honorable
man, of simple manners and large experience of life. Afterwards I called
on Mr. Oakford, an American connected in business with Mr. Crosby, from
whom I wanted some information as to the sailing of steamers from
Southampton to Lisbon. Mr. Crosby was not in town. . . . .

At eight o'clock Mr. ------ sent his carriage, according to previous
arrangement, to take us to spend the evening socially. Miss L------
received us with proper cordiality, and looked quite becomingly,--more
sweet and simple in aspect than when I have seen her in full dress.
Shortly the ambassador appeared, and made himself highly agreeable; not
that he is a brilliant conversationist, but his excellent sense and
good-humor, and all that he has seen and been a part of, are sufficient
resources to draw upon. We talked of the Queen, whom he spoke of with
high respect; . . . . of the late Czar, whom he knew intimately while
minister to Russia,--and he quite confirms all that has been said about
the awful beauty of his person. Mr. ------'s characterization of him was
quite favorable; he thought better of his heart than most people, and
adduced his sports with a school of children,--twenty of whom, perhaps,
he made to stand rigidly in a row, like so many bricks,--then, giving one
a push, would laugh obstreperously to see the whole row tumble down. He
would lie on his back, and allow the little things to scramble over him.
His Majesty admitted Mr. ------ to great closeness of intercourse, and
informed him of a conspiracy which was then on foot for the Czar's
murder. On the evening, when the assassination was to take place, the
Czar did not refrain from going to the public place where it was to be
perpetrated, although, indeed, great precautions had been taken to
frustrate the schemes of the conspirators. Mr. ------ said, that, in
case the plot had succeeded, all the foreigners, including himself, would
likewise have been murdered, the native Russians having a bitter hatred
against foreigners. He observed that he had been much attached to the
Czar, and had never joined in the English abuse of him. His sympathies,
however, are evidently rather English than Russian, in this war.
Speaking of the present emperor, he said that Lord Heytebury, formerly
English ambassador in Russia, lately told him that he complimented the
Czar Nicholas on the good qualities of his son, saying that he was
acknowledged by all to be one of the most amiable youths in the world.
"Too amiable, I fear, for his position," answered the Czar. "He has too
much of his mother in him."

September 27th.--Yesterday, much earlier than English people ever do such
things, General ------ made us a call on his way to the Consulate, and
sat talking a stricken hour or thereabouts. Scarcely had he gone when
Mrs. Oakford and her daughter came. After sitting a long while, they
took U---- to their house, near St. John's Wood, to spend the night. I
had been writing my journal and official correspondence during such
intervals as these calls left me; and now, concluding these businesses,
S-----, J-----, and I went out and took a cab for the terminus of the
Crystal Palace Railway, whither we proceeded over Waterloo Bridge, and
reached the palace not far from three o'clock. It was a beautifully
bright day, such as we have in wonderful succession this month. The
Crystal Palace gleamed in the sunshine; but I do not think a very
impressive edifice can be built of glass,--light and airy, to be sure,
but still it will be no other than an overgrown conservatory. It is
unlike anything else in England; uncongenial with the English character,
without privacy, destitute of mass, weight, and shadow, unsusceptible of
ivy, lichens, or any mellowness from age.

The train of carriages stops within the domain of the palace, where there
is a long ascending corridor up into the edifice. There was a very
pleasant odor of heliotrope diffused through the air; and, indeed, the
whole atmosphere of the Crystal Palace is sweet with various
flower-scents, and mild and balmy, though sufficiently fresh and cool.
It would be a delightful climate for invalids to spend the winter in; and
if all England could be roofed over with glass, it would be a great
improvement on its present condition.

The first thing we did, before fairly getting into the palace, was to sit
down in a large ante-hall, and get some bread and butter and a pint of
Bass's pale ale, together with a cup of coffee for S-----. This was the
best refreshment we could find at that spot; but farther within we found
abundance of refreshment-rooms, and John Bull and his wife and family at
fifty little round tables, busily engaged with cold fowl, cold beef, ham,
tongue, and bottles of ale and stout, and half-pint decanters of sherry.
The English probably eat with more simple enjoyment than any other
people; not ravenously, as we often do, and not exquisitely and
artificially, like the French, but deliberately and vigorously, and with
due absorption in the business, so that nothing good is lost upon
them. . . . . It is remarkable how large a feature the refreshment-rooms
make in the arrangements of the Crystal Palace.

The Crystal Palace is a gigantic toy for the English people to play with.
The design seems to be to reproduce all past ages, by representing the
features of their interior architecture, costume, religion, domestic
life, and everything that can be expressed by paint and plaster; and,
likewise, to bring all climates and regions of the earth within these
enchanted precincts, with their inhabitants and animals in living
semblance, and their vegetable productions, as far as possible, alive and
real. Some part of the design is already accomplished to a wonderful
degree. The Indian, the Egyptian, and especially the Arabian, courts are
admirably executed. I never saw or conceived anything so gorgeous as the
Alhambra. There are Byzantine and mediaeval representations, too,--
reproductions of ancient apartments, decorations, statues from tombs,
monuments, religious and funereal,--that gave me new ideas of what
antiquity has been. It takes down one's overweening opinion of the
present time, to see how many kinds of beauty and magnificence have
heretofore existed, and are now quite passed away and forgotten; and to
find that we, who suppose that, in all matters of taste, our age is the
very flower-season of the time,--that we are poor and meagre as to many
things in which they were rich. There is nothing gorgeous now. We live
a very naked life. This was the only reflection I remember making, as we
passed from century to century, through the succession of classic,
Oriental, and mediaeval courts, adown the lapse of time,--seeing all
these ages in as brief a space as the Wandering Jew might glance along
them in his memory. I suppose a Pompeian house with its courts and
interior apartments was as faithfully shown as it was possible to do it.
I doubt whether I ever should feel at home in such a house.

In the pool of a fountain, of which there are several beautiful ones
within the palace, besides larger ones in the garden before it, we saw
tropical plants growing,--large water-lilies of various colors, some
white, like our Concord pond-lily, only larger, and more numerously
leafed. There were great circular green leaves, lying flat on the water,
with a circumference equal to that of a centre-table. Tropical trees,
too, varieties of palm and others, grew in immense pots or tubs, but
seemed not to enjoy themselves much. The atmosphere must, after all, be
far too cool to bring out their native luxuriance; and this difficulty
can never be got over at a less expense than that of absolutely stewing
the visitors and attendants. Otherwise, it would be very practicable to
have all the vegetable world, at least, within these precincts.

The palace is very large, and our time was short, it being desirable to
get home early; so, after a stay of little more than two hours, we took
the rail back again, and reached Hanover Square at about six. After tea
I wandered forth, with some thought of going to the theatre, and, passing
the entrance of one, in the Strand, I went in, and found a farce in
progress. It was one of the minor theatres, very minor indeed; but the
pieces, so far as I saw them, were sufficiently laughable. There were
some Spanish dances, too, very graceful and pretty. Between the plays a
girl from the neighboring saloon came to the doors of the boxes, offering
lemonade and ginger-beer to the occupants. A person in my box took a
glass of lemonade, and shared it with a young lady by his side, both
sipping out of the same glass. The audience seemed rather heavy,--not
briskly responsive to the efforts of the performers, but good-natured,
and willing to be pleased, especially with some patriotic dances, in
which much waving and intermingling of the French and English flags was
introduced. Theatrical performances soon weary me of late years; and I
came away before the curtain rose on the concluding piece.

September 28th.--8---- and I walked to Charing Cross yesterday forenoon,
and there took a Hansom cab to St. Paul's Cathedral. It had been a
thick, foggy morning, but had warmed and brightened into one of the
balmiest and sunniest of noons. As we entered the cathedral, the long
bars of sunshine were falling from its upper windows through the great
interior atmosphere, and were made visible by the dust, or mist, floating
about in it. It is a grand edifice, and I liked it quite as much as on
my first view of it, although a sense of coldness and nakedness is felt
when we compare it with Gothic churches. It is more an external work
than the Gothic churches are, and is not so made out of the dim, awful,
mysterious, grotesque, intricate nature of man. But it is beautiful and
grand. I love its remote distances, and wide, clear spaces, its airy
massiveness; its noble arches, its sky-like dome, which, I think, should
be all over light, with ground-glass, instead of being dark, with only
diminutive windows.

We walked round, looking at the monuments, which are so arranged, at the
bases of columns and in niches, as to coincide with the regularity of the
cathedral, and be each an additional ornament to the whole, however
defective individually as works of art. We thought that many of these
monuments were striking and impressive, though there was a pervading
sameness of idea,--a great many Victorys and Valors and Britannias, and a
great expenditure of wreaths, which must have cost Victory a considerable
sum at any florist's whom she patronizes. A very great majority of the
memorials are to naval and military men, slain in Bonaparte's wars; men
in whom one feels little or no interest (except Picton, Abercrombie,
Moore, Nelson, of course, and a few others really historic), they having
done nothing remarkable, save having been shot, nor shown any more brains
than the cannonballs that killed them. All the statues have the dust of
years upon then, strewn thickly in the folds of their marble garments,
and on any limb stretched horizontally, and on their noses, so that the
expression is much obscured. I think the nation might employ people to
brush away the dust from the statues of its heroes. But, on the whole,
it is very fine to look through the broad arches of the cathedral, and
see, at the foot of some distant pillar, a group of sculptured figures,
commemorating some man and deed that (whether worth remembering or not)
the nation is so happy as to reverence. In Westminster Abbey, the
monuments are so crowded, and so oddly patched together upon the walls,
that they are ornamental only in a mural point of view; and, moreover,
the quaint and grotesque taste of many of them might well make the
spectator laugh,--an effect not likely to be produced by the monuments in
St. Paul's. But, after all, a man might read the walls of the Abbey day
after day with ever-fresh interest, whereas the cold propriety of the
cathedral would weary him in due time.