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Litchfield July 18^th. 1859.
My dear Fanny. Here is one of the turns of the wheel of
fortune. I fell out of my dukedom at Trentham this morning
and here I am a vulgar lodger at an inn in Litchfield
to night. The fame of the Cathedral seduced me from
a direct journey to London, and I am glad of it. It is
a noble monument— Gothic from top to bottom, inside
and out, four hundred feet long— and its three
spires, oh how delicately they are chiseled— There
such saints and martyrs and Kings, all in effigy
in living or dead as dead. How quaint they made
such things five hundred years ago, you shall one
day see— Such delicate tracery, stone cut and
wrought into lace! Alas that the days of delicious
art are gone with the sunset of blind bigoted
faith. Monarchy has left us pyramids, and super-
stitious temples, the wonders of all ages— Is Freedom
to give nothing In to admire. Is truth to give us
only the unsatisfying pleasures of the spiritual sense?
It is sad to think of it. But after all rail roads
and steam engines avail more than pyramids and
the Electric art teaches faster and far more widely
than temples—The Seward family are extinct here
and I have found only one who person who knew them.
He followed Anna Seward to the grave in 1809 — Her
monument also preserves her memory here —
Dr. Johnson is to Bethlehem what Shakespeare is
to Avon — Carved in stone of colossal size he

sits in the public square directly fronting the
well preserved three storied house in which he
was born. His fame is enough for a town even as
neat and pretty as this. How tidy the Englishman.
I feel tonight almost like one of them — as I see
them after their days work, filling the streets
careless whether on the side walk or the
carriage way for all is clear alike–