I like this mode of disposing of dead bodies; but it
would be still better to burn them and scatter the ashes, instead of
hoarding them up,--to scatter them over wheat-fields or flowerbeds.
Besides these antique halls, we wandered through saloons of antediluvian
animals, some set up in skeletons, others imprisoned in solid stone; also
specimens of still extant animals, birds, reptiles, shells, minerals,--
the whole circle of human knowledge and guess-work,--till I wished that
the whole Past might be swept away, and each generation compelled to bury
and destroy whatever it had produced, before being permitted to leave the
stage. When we quit a house, we are expected to make it clean for the
next occupant; why ought we not to leave a clean world for the next
generation? We did not see the library of above half a million of
volumes; else I suppose I should have found full occasion to wish that
burnt and buried likewise. In truth, a greater part of it is as good as
buried, so far as any readers are concerned. Leaving the Museum, we
sauntered home. After a little rest, I set out for St. John's Wood, and
arrived thither by dint of repeated inquiries. It is a pretty suburb,
inhabited by people of the middling class. U---- met me joyfully, but
seemed to have had a good time with Mrs. Oakford and her daughter; and,
being pressed to stay to tea, I could not well help it. Before tea I sat
talking with Mrs. Oakford and a friend of hers, Miss Clinch, about the
Americans and the English, especially dwelling on the defects of the
latter,--among which we reckoned a wretched meanness in money
transactions, a lack of any embroidery of honor and liberality in their
dealings, so that they require close watching, or they will be sure to
take you at advantage.
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