192 AN OCTOBER ABROAD. 



only chip by chip, or grain by grain, that ruin ap- 

 proaches. The timber also lasts an incredibly long 

 time. Beneath one of the arched ways, in the Ches- 

 ter wall above referred to, I saw timbers that must 

 have been in place five or six hundred years. The 

 i>eams in the old houses, also fully exposed to the 

 weather, seem incapable of decay ; those dating from 

 Shakespeare's time being apparently as firm as ever. 



I noticed that the characteristic aspect of the clouds 

 in England was different from ours soft, fleecy, 

 vapory, indistinguishable never the firm, compact, 

 sharply-defined, deeply-dyed masses and fragments, 

 so common in our own sky. It rains easily but 

 slowly. The average rain-fall of London is less than 

 that of New York, and yet it doubtless rains ten days 

 in the former to one in the latter. Storms accompa- 

 nied with thunder are rare ; while the crashing, 

 wrenching, explosive thunder-gusts so common with 

 us, deluging the earth and convulsing the heavens, 

 are seldom known. 



In keeping with this elemental control and moder- 

 ation, I found the character and manners of the peo- 

 ple gentler and sweeter than I had been led to 

 believe they were. No loudness, brazenness, imper- 

 tinence; no oaths, no swaggering, no leering at 

 women, no irreverence, no flippancy, no bullying, no 

 insolence of porters, or clerks, or conductors, no im- 

 portunity of boot-blacks or newsboys, no omnivorous- 

 ness of hackmen at least, comparatively none all 

 of which an American is apt to notice and I hope 



