"By no means," replied my husband. "I think that it would be a very good thing."
So much and no more of the conversation Dr. Howe repeated to me. We soon heard that Miss Florence was devoting herself to the study of her predilection; and when, years after this time, the Crimean war broke out, we were among the few who were not astonished at the undertaking which made her name world famous.
Just before our final embarkation for America, we passed a few days with the same friends at Lea Hurst, a pretty country seat near Malvern. There we met the well-known historian, Henry Hallam, celebrated also as the father of Tennyson's lamented Arthur. "Martin Chuzzlewit" had recently appeared, and I remember that Mr. Hallam read aloud with much amusement the famous transcendental episode beginning, "To be introduced to a Pogram by a Hominy." Mr. Hallam asked me whether talk of this sort was ever heard in transcendental circles in America. I was obliged to confess that the caricature was not altogether without foundation.
Soon after reaching London for the second time, we were invited to visit Dr. and Mrs. Fowler at Salisbury. The doctor was much interested in anthropology and kindred topics, and my husband found in him a congenial friend. The house was a modest one, but the housekeeping was generous and tasteful. As Salisbury was a cathedral town, the prominent people of the place naturally belonged to the Anglican Church. At the Fowlers' hospitable board we met the bishop, the dean, the rector, and the curate.
I attended several services in the beautiful cathedral, and enjoyed very much a visit to Stonehenge, which we made in company with our hosts, in a carriage drawn by two small mules. I inquired why they used mules in preference to horses, and was told that it was to avoid the tax imposed upon the latter. Stonehenge was in the district of Old Sarum, once a rotten borough, as certain places in England were termed which, with little or no population, had yet the right to be represented in Parliament. Dr. Fowler was familiar with the ancient history of the place, which, as we saw it, contained nothing but an area of desolate sand. The wonderful Druidical stones of Stonehenge commanded our attention. They are too well known to need description. Our host could throw no light upon their history, which belongs, one must suppose, with that of kindred constructions in Brittany.
Bishop Denison, at the time of our visit, was still saddened by the loss of a beloved wife. He invited us to a dinner at which his sister, Miss Denison, presided. The dean and his wife were present, the Fowlers, and one or two other guests. To my surprise, the bishop gave me his arm and conducted me to the table, where he seated me on his right. Mrs. Fowler afterwards remarked to me, "How charming it was of the bishop to take you in to dinner. As an American you have no rank, and are therefore exempt from all questions of precedence."
Mrs. Fowler once described to me an intimate little dinner with the poet Rogers, for which he had promised to provide just enough, and no more. Each dish exactly matched the three convives. Half of a chicken sufficed for the roast. As his usual style of entertainment was very elegant, he probably derived some amusement from this unnecessary economy.
We left Salisbury with regret, Dr. Fowler giving Dr. Howe a parting injunction to visit Rotherhithe workhouse, where he himself had seen an old woman who was blind, deaf, and crippled. My husband made this visit, and wrote an account of it to Dr. Fowler.[2] He read this to me before sending it. In the mischief of which I was then full to overflowing, I wrote a humorous travesty of Dr. Howe's letter in rhyme, but when I showed it to him, I was grieved to see how much he seemed pained at my frivolity.
Dear Sir, I went south:
As far as Portsmouth,
And found a most charming old woman,
Delightfully void
Of all that's enjoyed
By the animal vaguely called human.
She has but one jaw,
Has teeth like a saw,
Her ears and her eyes I delight in:
The one could not hear
Tho' a cannon were near,
The others are holes with no sight in.