40 CLIMATE, SKASox^j &€. Part I. 



now. Arrived at Philadelphia in the 

 evening. 

 Jan. 14. Same weather. 



15. Same weather. The question eagerly 

 put to me by every one in Philadelphia, 

 is : *' Don't you think the city greatly 

 improved ?" They seem to me to con- 

 found augmentatiGn with improvement. — 

 It alw-a^'s was a fine city, since 1 first- 

 knew it ; and it is very greatly augment- 

 ed. It has, I believe, nearly doubled its 

 extent and number of houses since the 

 year 1799. But, ';fter being, for so long 

 a time, familiar with London, every other 

 place appears little. After living within 

 a fQ\Y hundreds of yards of V/estminster 

 Hall and the Abbey Church and the 

 Bridge, and looking from my own windows 

 into St. James's Park, all other buildings 

 - and spots appear mean and insignificant. 

 I went to-day to see the house I former- 

 ly occupied. How small ! It is always 

 thus : the words large and small are car- 

 ried about with us in our minds, and we 

 forget real dimensions. The idea, siich 

 as it teas received^ remains during our ab- 

 sence from the object. When 1 returned 

 to England, in 1800, after an absence from 

 the country parts of it, of sixteen years, 

 the trees, the hedges, even the parks 

 and woods, seemed so small ! It made 

 me laugh to hear little gutters, that I 

 could jump over, called Rivers I The 

 Thames was but a " Creek /" But, v.hen. 

 in about a month after my arrival in Lon- 

 don, I went to Farnham, the place of my 

 birth, what was my surprise ! Every 

 thing was become so pitifnlly small ! I 

 ' bad to cross, in my post-chaise, the lon<r 



