George Ticknor, Life, letters and journals of George Ticknor
George Hillard, Ed.

[390] some curious old family papers. The rest of it we spent in the saloon very agreeably, some of it very gayly.

Saturday, August 8.—Off with Milnes—after an early breakfast—for London, where, having two or three hours to spare, I went to see the Great Eastern, which Twisleton, Lord Stanhope, and sundry other persons have urged me very much to see, as one of the wonders of the time. . . . . At four o'clock I met Mr. Sturgis by appointment at the railroad station, near Waterloo Bridge, and came with him seventeen miles, to pass Sunday at his place near Walton. . . . . Finding Weybridge to be only two and a half miles from here, I drove over there and returned Mrs. Austin's call, but was sorry to find her away from home for a couple of days. I should have liked one more talk with her. . . .

August 10.—. . . . I came to London in an early train this morning. The weather was brilliant when I left Walton, all fog when I arrived forty minutes later. Not caring to go myself all the way to Rutland Gate, I drove to the Athenaeum for my breakfast, and despatched my servant thence for my letters. At eleven I was at the station of Kings Cross, and took my place for Bolton Percy, where I arrived—one hundred and eighty-three miles-just at five o'clock. The journey was rendered more than commonly agreeable by the fact that I came in the same carriage with a Mr. Norman, his wife and daughter, and a son fresh from Eton, who are neighbors of Mildmay, and whom Mildmay had invited to dine to meet me. Mr. Norman is much of a scholar, a man of large fortune, and Mildmay had told me that he had been very sorry he could not come to dinner, as he liked my book; a fact he did not at all conceal from me. We had a good time, and parted great friends. . . . .

I was most heartily received by Mr.Harcourt and Mrs. Harcourt,¹ both looking just as they did last year. It is a most comfortable place; a fine old rambling house, with a rich lawn,—which they are just now shaving, though it looks, in Milton's phrase, close shaven already,and on one side of it an ancient picturesque church, such as you often see standing just in the right place to ornament an English landscape. . . . . In the evening we had most cheerful talk on all sorts of matters, for few persons have more richly stored minds than Mr. Harcourt . . . .

Tuesday, August 11.—After a cheerful breakfast Mr. Harcourt and I, at eleven o'clock, got into the train for York, and arrived there in twenty minutes. The old city looked natural, but its streets and