e were two), in the fireplace were as bright
as your scissors!

"Broek is certainly a curiosity. It is unique, but the impression left
upon me is not, on the whole, agreeable. I should not be contented to
live there. It is too ridiculously and uncomfortably nice. Fancy a lady
always dressed throughout the day in her best evening-party dress, and
say if she could move about with that ease which she would like. Such,
however, must be the feeling of the inhabitants of Broek; they must be in
perpetual fear, not only of soiling or deranging their clothes merely,
but their very streets every step they take. But good-bye to Broek. I
would not have missed seeing it but do not care to see it again."

Holland, which he had never visited before, interested him greatly, but
he could not help saying: "One feels in Holland like being in a ship,
constantly liable to spring a leak."

Hamburg he found more to his taste:--

"_September 26._ Hamburg, you may remember, was nearly destroyed by fire
in 1842. It is now almost rebuilt and in a most splendid style of
architecture. I am much prepossessed in its favor. We have taken up our
quarters at the Victoria Hotel, one of the splendid new hotels of the
city. I find the season so far advanced in these northern regions that I
am thinking of giving up my journey farther north. My matters in London
will demand all my spare time."

"_September 30._ The windows of my hotel look out upon the Alster Basin,
a beautiful sheet of water, three sides of which are surrounded with
splendid houses. Boats and swans are gliding over the glassy surface,
giving, with the well-dressed promenaders along the shores, an air of
gayety and liveliness to the scene."

It will not be necessary to follow the traveller step by step during this
visit to Europe. He did not go to Sweden and Russia, as he had at first
planned, for he learned that the Emperor of Russia was in the South, and
that nothing could be accomplished in his absence. He, therefore,
returned to London from Hamburg. He was respectfully received everywhere
and his invention was recognized as being one of great merit and
simplicity, but it takes time for anything new to make its way. This is,
perhaps, best summed up in the words of Charles T. Fleischmann, who at
that time was agent of the United States Patent Office, and was
travelling through Europe collecting information on agriculture,
education, and the arts. He was a good friend of Morse's and a