ii were taken. Yet with
all my much increased reverence for the Greeks, it seems more plain than
ever that they had hardly anything of the peculiar devotional feeling of
Christianity.

"Rome, which I loved before above all the earth, now delights me more
than ever;--though at this moment there is rain falling that would not
discredit Oxford Street. The depth, sincerity and splendor that there
once was in the semi-paganism of the old Catholics comes out in St.
Peter's and its dependencies, almost as grandly as does Greek and Roman
Art in the Forum and the Vatican Galleries. I wish you were here: but,
at all events, hope to see you and your Wife once more during this
summer.

"Yours,
"JOHN STERLING."

At Paris, where he stopped a day and night, and generally through his
whole journey from Marseilles to Havre, one thing attended him: the
prevailing epidemic of the place and year; now gone, and nigh forgotten,
as other influenzas are. He writes to his Father: "I have not yet met a
single Frenchman, who could give me any rational explanation _why_
they were all in such a confounded rage against us. Definite causes of
quarrel a statesman may know how to deal with, inasmuch as the removal
of them may help to settle the dispute. But it must be a puzzling task
to negotiate about instincts; to which class, as it seems to me, we
must have recourse for an understanding of the present abhorrence which
everybody on the other side of the Channel not only feels, but makes a
point to boast of, against the name of Britain. France is slowly arming,
especially with Steam, _en attendant_ a more than possible contest, in
which they reckon confidently on the eager co-operation of the Yankees;
as, _vice versa_, an American told me that his countrymen do on that of
France. One person at Paris (M. ---- whom you know) provoked me to
tell him that 'England did not want another battle of Trafalgar; but if
France did, she might compel England to gratify her.'"--After a couple
of pleasant and profitable months, he was safe home again in the first
days of June; and saw Falmouth not under gray iron skies, and whirls of
March dust, but bright with summer opulence and the roses coming out.

It was what I call his "_fifth_ peregrinity;" his fifth and last. He
soon afterwards came up to London; spent a couple of weeks, with all his
old vivacity, among us here. The AEs