It makes no more
impression than you can well account to yourself for, and you rather
wonder that it does not make more. The reason must be that the architect
has not "builded better than he knew." He felt no power higher and wiser
than himself, making him its instrument. He reckoned upon and contrived
all his effects with malice aforethought, and therefore missed the
crowning glory,--that being a happiness which God, out of his pure grace,
mixes up with only the simple-hearted, best efforts of men.
October 3d.--I again went into the city yesterday forenoon, to settle
about the passages to Lisbon, taking J----- with me. From Hungerford
Bridge we took the steamer to London Bridge, that being an easy and
speedy mode of accomplishing distances that take many footsteps through
the crowded thoroughfares. After leaving the steamer-office, we went
back through the Strand, and, crossing Waterloo Bridge, walked a good way
on to the Surrey side of the river; a coarse, dingy, disagreeable suburb,
with shops apparently for country produce, for old clothes, second-hand
furniture, for ironware, and other things bulky and inelegant. How many
scenes and sorts of life are comprehended within London! There was much
in the aspect of these streets that reminded me of a busy country village
in America on an immensely magnified scale.
Growing rather weary anon, we got into an omnibus, which took us as far
as the Surrey Zoological Gardens, which J----- wished very much to see.
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