At Coventry again we had more than an
hour to wait, and therefore wandered wearily up into the city, and took
another look at its bustling streets, in which there seems to be a good
emblem of what England itself really is,--with a great deal of antiquity
in it, and which is now chiefly a modification of the old. The new
things are based and supported on the sturdy old things, and often
limited and impeded by them; but this antiquity is so massive that there
seems to be no means of getting rid of it without tearing society to
pieces.
July 2d.--To-day I shall set out on my return to Liverpool, leaving my
family here.
TO THE LAKES.
July 4th.--I left Leamington on Monday, shortly after twelve, having been
accompanied to the railway station by U---- and J-----, whom I sent away
before the train started. While I was waiting, a rather gentlemanly,
well-to-do, English-looking man sat down by me, and began to talk of the
Crimea, of human affairs in general, of God and his Providence, of the
coming troubles of the world, and of spiritualism, in a strange free way
for an Englishman, or, indeed, for any man. It was easy to see that he
was an enthusiast of some line or other. He being bound for Birmingham
and I for Rugby, we soon had to part; but he asked my name, and told me
his own, which I did not much attend to, and immediately forgot.
[Here follows a long account of a visit to Lichfield and Uttoxeter,
condensed in "Our Old Home.
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