Dieppe and New Haven route at night, and returning
by another; and the contrasts I speak of were impressed upon me anew.
Everything here in and about Paris was in the green and bloom of
spring, and seemed to me very lovely; but my first glance at an English
landscape made it all seem pale and flat. We went up from New Haven
to London in the morning, and feasted our eyes all the way. The French
foliage is thin, spindling, sparse; the grass is thin and light in
color--in contrast. The English trees are massive, solid in substance
and color; the grass is thick, and green as emerald; the turf is like
the heaviest Wilton carpet. The whole effect is that of vegetable
luxuriance and solidity, as it were a tropical luxuriance, condensed and
hardened by northern influences. If my eyes remember well, the French
landscapes are more like our own, in spring tone, at least; but the
English are a revelation to us strangers of what green really is, and
what grass and trees can be. I had been told that we did well to see
England before going to the Continent, for it would seem small and only
pretty afterwards. Well, leaving out Switzerland, I have seen nothing in
that beauty which satisfies the eye and wins the heart to compare with
England in spring. When we annex it to our sprawling country which lies
out-doors in so many climates, it will make a charming little retreat
for us in May and June, a sort of garden of delight, whence we shall
draw our May butter and our June roses. It will only be necessary to put
it under glass to make it pleasant the year round.

When we passed within the hanging smoke of London town, threading our
way amid numberless railway tracks, sometimes over a road and sometimes
under one, now burrowing into the ground, and now running along among
the chimney-pots,--when we came into the pale light and the thickening
industry of a London day, we could but at once contrast Paris.
Unpleasant weather usually reduces places to an equality of
disagreeableness. But Paris, with its wide streets, light, handsome
houses, gay windows and smiling little parks and fountains, keeps up
a tolerably pleasant aspect, let the weather do its worst. But London,
with its low, dark, smutty brick houses and insignificant streets,
settles down hopelessly into the dumps when the weather is bad. Even
with the sun doing its best on the eternal cloud of smoke, it is dingy
and gloomy enough, and so dirty, after spick-span, shining Paris. And