ining Heraclitus of his time, whose very smile
had a grimness in it more ominous than his scowl. Poor man! Dyspeptic on
a diet of oatmeal porridge; kept wide awake by crowing cocks; drummed
out of his wits by long-continued piano-pounding; sharp of speech, I
fear, to his high-strung wife, who gave him back as good as she got! I
hope I am mistaken about their everyday relations, but again I say, poor
man!--for all his complaining must have meant real discomfort, which a
man of genius feels not less, certainly, than a common mortal.

I made a second visit to the place where he lived, but I saw nothing
more than at the first. I wanted to cross the threshold over which he
walked so often, to see the noise-proof room in which he used to write,
to look at the chimney-place down which the soot came, to sit where he
used to sit and smoke his pipe, and to conjure up his wraith to look in
once more upon his old deserted dwelling. That vision was denied me.

After visiting Chelsea we drove round through Regent's Park. I suppose
that if we use the superlative in speaking of Hyde Park, Regent's Park
will be the comparative, and Battersea Park the positive, ranking them
in the descending grades of their hierarchy. But this is my conjecture
only, and the social geography of London is a subject which only one who
has become familiarly acquainted with the place should speak of with any
confidence. A stranger coming to our city might think it made little
difference whether his travelling Boston acquaintance lived in Alpha
Avenue or in Omega Square, but he would have to learn that it is farther
from one of these places to the other, a great deal farther, than it is
from Beacon Street, Boston, to Fifth Avenue, New York.

An American finds it a little galling to be told that he must not drive
in his _numbered_ hansom or four-wheeler except in certain portions
of Hyde Park. If he is rich enough to keep his own carriage, or if he
will pay the extra price of a vehicle not vulgarized by being on the
numbered list, he may drive anywhere that his Grace or his Lordship
does, and perhaps have a mean sense of satisfaction at finding himself
in the charmed circle of exclusive "gigmanity." It is a pleasure to meet
none but well-dressed and well-mannered people, in well-appointed
equipages. In the high road of our own country, one is liable to fall in
with people and conveyances that it is far from a pleasure to meet. I
was once driving in an open car