se, and looks like a
steeple without a church to it. It is the most beautiful thing of the
kind I ever saw, and I have made out, or think I have, nearly every one
of the figures that's carved on it.

I think I shall like the Scotch people very much, but just now there is
one thing about them that stands up as high above their other good
points as the castle does above the rest of the city, and that is the
feeling they have for anybody who has done anything to make his
fellow-countrymen proud of him. A famous Scotchman cannot die without
being pretty promptly born again in stone or bronze, and put in some
open place with seats convenient for people to sit and look at him. I
like this; glory ought to begin at home.

_Letter Number Twenty-one_

EDINBURGH

Jone being just as lively on his legs as he ever was in his life,
thanks to the waters of Buxton, and I having the rheumatism now only in
my arm, which I don't need to walk with, we have gone pretty much all
over Edinburgh, and a great place it is to walk in, so far as variety
goes. Some of the streets are so steep you have to go up steps if you
are walking, and about a mile around if you are driving. I never get
tired wandering about the Old Town with its narrow streets and awfully
tall houses, with family washes hanging out from every story.

The closes are queer places. They are very like little villages set
into the town as if they was raisins in a pudding. You get to them by
alleys or tunnels, and when you are inside you find a little
neighborhood that hasn't anything more to do with the next close, a
block away, than one country village has with another.

We went to see John Knox's house, and although Mr. Knox was pretty hard
on vanities and frivolities, he didn't mind having a good house over
his head, with woodwork on the walls and ceilings that wasn't any more
necessary than the back buttons on his coat.

We have been reading hard since we have been in Edinburgh, and whenever
Mr. Knox and Mary Queen of Scots come together, I take Mary's side
without asking questions. I have no doubt Mr. Knox was a good man, but
if meddling in other people's business gave a person the right to have
a monument, the top of his would be the first thing travellers would
see when they come near Edinburgh.

When we went to Holyrood Palace it struck me that Mary Queen of Scots
deserved a better house. Of course, it wasn't built for her, but I
don't care very much for th