Whitehall
(though Harness had warned me that we could not come that way, and that
we must leave our carriage at the Carlton Terrace steps, and walk across
the park to the little passage which leads straight into Downing
Street). Down Whitehall, however, we attempted to go, and were of course
turned back by the police. We then retraced our route to the Carlton
steps, and here, with the two children, Anne, and the footman, I made my
way through the crowd; but oh, what a way! and what a crowd! When we got
down into the park, the only clear space was the narrow line left open
for the carriages, and some of them were passing at a rapid trot, just
as we found our way into their road, and the dense wall of human beings
we had squeezed through closed behind us. I assure you, Harriet, the
children were not half a foot from one of those huge carriage-horses,
nor was there any means of retreat; the living mass behind us was as
compact as brick and mortar. We took a favorable moment, and, rushing
across the road into the protecting arms of some blessed, benevolent
policemen, who were keeping the line, were seized, and dragged, and
pushed, and pulled, and finally made way for, through the crowd on the
other side, and then ran, without stopping, till we reached our
destination; but the peril of the children, and the exertion of
extricating them and ourselves from such a situation, had been such
that, on reaching Harness's rooms, I shook so that I could hardly stand,
and the imperturbable Anne actually burst into tears. So much for the
delights of sight-seeing.

As for me, you know I would not go to the end of the street to see the
finest thing in the universe; but, in the first place, I had promised,
and in the next, I was so miserably out of spirits that, though I could
not bear to go out, I could not bear to stay at home; but certainly, my
detestation of running after a sight was never more heartily confirmed.

The concourse was immense, but I was much surprised at the entire want
of excitement and enthusiasm in the vast multitude who thronged and all
but choked up the Queen's way. All hats were lifted, but there was not a
hatful of cheers, and the whole thing produced a disagreeable effect of
coldness, indifference, or constraint.

Harness said it was nineteenth-century breeding, which was too exquisite
to allow even of the mob's shouting. He is a Tory. T---- M----, who is a
very warm Whig, thought the silence spoke of Paisley