I meant to look for
the children's book-shop, but forgot it, or neglected it, from not
feeling so much interest in a thing near at hand as when it seemed
unattainable.
I watched a man tearing down the brick wall of a house that did not
appear very old; but it surprised me to see how crumbly the brick-work
was, one stroke of his pick often loosening several bricks in a row. It
is my opinion that brick houses, after a moderate term of years, stand
more by habit and courtesy than through any adhesive force of the old
mortar.
I recommenced my wanderings; but I remember nothing else particularly
claiming to be mentioned, unless it be Paternoster Row,--a little,
narrow, darksome lane, in which, it being now dusk in that density of the
city, I could not very well see what signs were over the doors. In this
street, or thereabouts, I got into an omnibus, and, being set down near
Regent's Circus, reached home well wearied.
September 9th.--Yesterday, having some tickets to the Zoological Gardens,
we went thither with the two eldest children. It was a most beautiful
sunny day, the very perfection of English weather,--which is as much as
to say, the best weather in the world, except, perhaps, some few days in
an American October. These gardens are at the end of Regent's Park,
farthest from London, and they are very extensive; though, I think, not
quite worthy of London,--not so good as one would expect them to be,--not
so fine and perfect a collection of beasts, birds, and fishes, as one
might fairly look for, when the greatest metropolis of the world sets out
to have such a collection at all.
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