an enormous benefit.

XIX. RECOLLECTIONS FROM ABROAD

I know of nothing more delightful for a well-read American than
to visit the scenes in Great Britain with which he has become
familiar in his reading. No matter how rapidly he may travel,
if he goes over the places made memorable by Sir Walter Scott
in the "Waverley Novels," and in his poems, he will have had
impressions, thrills, and educational results which will be a
pleasure for the rest of his life. The same is true of an ardent
admirer of Dickens or of Thackeray, in following the footsteps
of their heroes and heroines. I gained a liberal education and
lived over again the reading and studies of a lifetime in my visits
to England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. I also had much the
same experience of vivifying and spiritualizing my library in
France, Italy, Germany, Belgium, and Holland.

London is always most hospitable and socially the most delightful
of cities. While Mr. Gladstone was prime minister and more in
the eyes of the world than any statesman of any country, a dinner
was given to him with the special object of having me meet him.
The ladies and gentlemen at the dinner were all people of note.
Among them were two American bishops. The arrangement made by
the host and hostess was that when the ladies left the dining-room
I should take the place made vacant alongside Mr. Gladstone, but
one of the American bishops, who in his younger days was a famous
athlete, made a flying leap for that chair and no sooner landed
than he at once proposed to Mr. Gladstone this startling question:
"As the bishop of the old Catholic Church in Germany does not
recognize the authority of the pope, how can he receive absolution?"--and
some other abstruse theological questions. This at once
aroused Mr. Gladstone, who, when once started, was stopped with
difficulty, and there was no pause until the host announced that
the gentlemen should join the ladies. I made it a point at the
next dinner given for me to meet Mr. Gladstone that there should
be no American bishops present.

At another time, upon arriving at my hotel in London from New York,
I found a note from Lord Rosebery saying that Mr. Gladstone was
dining with Lady Rosebery and himself that evening, and there
would be no other guests, and inviting me to come. I arrived early
and found Mr. Gladstone already there. While the custom in London
society then was for the guests to be late, Mr. Gladstone was