But it
seems as if everything must be turned upside down rather than for one
moment more to tolerate such suffering, such bestiality. There have
been one or two individual cases that went before the courts that
really make it almost wicked ever to smile again. . . . As Mr. Hawthorne
delays to go to London, London is beginning to come to him, for Mr.
Holland says he must inevitably be mobbed in England. Two Londoners
called lately,--one a Mr. William Jerdan, about seventy years old, a
literary man, who for fifty years has been familiar with the best
society in London, and knows everybody for whom one cares to ask. He
is a perfect mine of rich memories. He pleased me mightily, and made
me think of Dr. Johnson. Rose sat on his knee, and gazed with
unwinking, earnest eyes into his face. He said he never saw anything
like it except the gaze of Talleyrand (whom he knew very well). He
said that Talleyrand undertook to look at a man and not allow a man to
look into him,--he always fixed such a glance as that upon one.
Imperturbably, baby continued to gaze, without any smile; and he kept
dodging from her and making funny contortions, but she was not in the
least moved. "Why," he exclaimed, "you would be an admirable judge,
and I should not like to be the fellow who would take sentence from
your Lordship when you get on your black cap!" At last she smiled
confidingly at him. "There," he said, "now I have it! She loves me,
she loves me!" At eight they left us for London, intending not to
shoot through that night, but sleep at Birmingham, halfway.
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