ordsworth's home at Grasmere, among the beautiful lakes, but
he was not there. However, we saw his surroundings--the landscape that
inspired some of his poetic dreams, and the dense rows of hollyhocks of
every shade and color, leading from his porch to the gate. The gardener
told us this was his favorite flower. Though it had no special beauty in
itself, taken alone, yet the wonderful combination of royal colors was
indeed striking and beautiful. We saw Harriet Martineau at her country
home as well as at her house in town. As we were obliged to converse
with her through an ear trumpet, we left her to do most of the talking.
She gave us many amusing experiences of her travels in America, and her
comments on the London Convention were rich and racy. She was not an
attractive woman in either manner or appearance, though considered great
and good by all who knew her.

We spent a few days with Thomas Clarkson, in Ipswich. He lived in a very
old house with long rambling corridors, surrounded by a moat, which we
crossed' by means of a drawbridge. He had just written an article
against the colonization scheme, which his wife read aloud to us. He was
so absorbed in the subject that he forgot the article was written by
himself, and kept up a running applause with "hear!" "hear!" the English
mode of expressing approbation. He told us of the severe struggles he
and Wilberforce had gone through in rousing the public sentiment of
England to the demand for emancipation in Jamaica. But their trials were
mild, compared with what Garrison and his coadjutors had suffered in
America.

Having read of all these people, it was difficult to realize, as I
visited them in their own homes from day to day, that they were the same
persons I had so long worshiped from afar!

CHAPTER VI.

HOMEWARD BOUND.

After taking a view of the wonders and surroundings of London we spent a
month in Paris. Fifty years ago there was a greater difference in the
general appearance of things between France and England than now. That
countries only a few hours' journey apart should differ so widely was to
us a great surprise. How changed the sights and sounds! Here was the old
diligence, lumbering along with its various compartments and its
indefinite number of horses, harnessed with rope and leather, sometimes
two, sometimes three abreast, and sometimes one in advance, with an
outrider belaboring the poor beasts without cessation, and the driver
yelling