to push it along; I like better to find a few fathoms of depth under the surface; there is a still higher pleasure in the philosophical discourse which calls for the deep sea line to reach bottom; but best of all, when one is in the right mood, is the contact of intelligences when they are off soundings in the ocean of thought.  Mr. Oliphant is what many of us call a mystic, and I found a singular pleasure in listening to him.  This dinner at Mr. Lowell’s was a very remarkable one for the men it brought together, and I remember it with peculiar interest.  My entertainer holds a master-key to London society, and he opened the gate for me into one of its choicest preserves on that evening.

I did not undertake to renew my old acquaintance with hospitals and museums.  I regretted that I could not be with my companion, who went through the Natural History Museum with the accomplished director, Professor W. H. Flower.  One old acquaintance I did resuscitate.  For the second time I took the hand of Charles O’Byrne, the celebrated Irish giant of the last century.  I met him, as in my first visit, at the Royal College of Surgeons, where I accompanied Mr. Jonathan Hutchinson.  He was in the condition so longed for by Sydney Smith on a very hot day; namely, with his flesh taken off, and sitting, or rather standing, in his bones.  The skeleton measures eight feet, and the living man’s height is stated as having been eight feet two, or four inches, by different authorities.  His hand was the only one I took, either in England or Scotland, which had not a warm grasp and a hearty welcome in it.

A——­ went with Boston friends to see “Faust” a second time, Mr. Irving having offered her the Royal box, and the polite Mr. Bram Stoker serving the party with tea in the little drawing-room behind the box; so that she had a good time while I was enjoying myself at a dinner at Sir Henry Thompson’s, where I met Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Browning, and other distinguished gentlemen.  These dinners of Sir Henry’s are well known for the good company one meets at them, and I felt myself honored to be a guest on this occasion.

Among the pleasures I had promised myself was that of a visit to Tennyson, at the Isle of Wight.  I feared, however, that this would be rendered impracticable by reason of the very recent death of his younger son, Lionel.  But I learned from Mr. Locker-Lampson, whose daughter Mr. Lionel Tennyson had married, that the poet would be pleased to see me at his place, Farringford; and by the kind intervention of Mr. Locker-Lampson, better known to the literary world as Frederick Locker, arrangements were made for my daughter and myself to visit him.  I considered it a very great favor, for Lord Tennyson has a poet’s fondness for the tranquillity of seclusion, which many curious explorers of society fail to remember.  Lady Tennyson is an invalid, and though nothing could be more gracious than her reception of us both, I fear it may have