James Parton, The life of Horace Greeley

[349] they are interesting. The mind of that man is a “study,” who, when he has passed through two hundred miles of the enchanting rural scenery of England, and sits down to write a letter about it, begins by describing the construction of the railroad, continues by telling us that much of the land he saw is held at five hundred dollars per acre, that two-thirds of it was “in grass,” that there are fewer fruit-trees on the two hundred miles of railroad between Liverpool and London, than on the forty miles of the Harlem railroad north of White Plains, that the wooded grounds looked meager and scanty, and that the western towns of America ought to take warning from this fact and preserve some portions of the primeval forest, which, once destroyed, can never be renewed by cultivation in their original grandeur. “The eye sees what it brought with it the means of seeing,” and these practical observations are infinitely more welcome than affected sentiment, or even than genuine sentiment inadequately expressed. Besides, the suggestion with regard to the primeval forests is good and valuable. On his arrival in London, Mr. Greeley drove to the house of Mr. John Chapman, the well-known publisher, with whom he resided during his stay in the metropolis.

On the first of May the Great Exhibition was opened, and our traveler saw the show both within and without the Crystal Palace. The day was a fine one—for England. He thought the London sunshine a little superior in brilliancy to American moonlight; and wondered how the government could have the conscience to tax such light. The royal procession, he says, was not much; a parade of the New York Firemen or Odd Fellows could beat it; but then it was a new thing to see a Queen, a court, and an aristocracy doing honor to industry. He was glad to see the queen in the pageant, though he could not but feel that her vocation was behind the intelligence of the age, and likely to go out of fashion at no distant day; but not through her fault. He could not see, however, what the Master of the Buck-hounds, the Groom of the Stole, the Mistress of the Robes, and “such uncouth fossils,” had to do with a grand exhibition of the fruits of industry. The Mistress of the Robes made no robes; the Ladies of the Bed-chamber did nothing with beds but sleep on them. The posts of honor nearest the Queen's person ought to have been confided to the descendants of Watt and Arkwright,