en spent, for much the larger part, in small
American towns--Salem, the Boston of forty years ago, Concord, Lenox,
West Newton--and he had led exclusively what one may call a
village-life. This is evident, not at all directly and superficially,
but by implication and between the lines, in his desultory history of
his foreign years. In other words, and to call things by their names,
he was exquisitely and consistently provincial. I suggest this fact
not in the least in condemnation, but, on the contrary, in support of
an appreciative view of him. I know nothing more remarkable, more
touching, than the sight of this odd, youthful--elderly mind,
contending so late in the day with new opportunities for learning old
things, and on the whole profiting by them so freely and gracefully.
The Note-Books are provincial, and so, in a greatly modified degree,
are the sketches of England, in _Our Old Home_; but the beauty and
delicacy of this latter work are so interwoven with the author's air
of being remotely outside of everything he describes, that they count
for more, seem more themselves, and finally give the whole thing the
appearance of a triumph, not of initiation, but of the provincial
point of view itself.

I shall not attempt to relate in detail the incidents of his residence
in England. He appears to have enjoyed it greatly, in spite of the
deficiency of charm in the place to which his duties chiefly confined
him. His confinement, however, was not unbroken, and his published
journals consist largely of minute accounts of little journeys and
wanderings, with his wife and his three children, through the rest of
the country; together with much mention of numerous visits to London,
a city for whose dusky immensity and multitudinous interest he
professed the highest relish. His Note-Books are of the same cast as
the two volumes of his American Diaries, of which, I have given some
account--chiefly occupied with external matters, with the accidents
of daily life, with observations made during the long walks (often
with his son), which formed his most valued pastime. His office,
moreover, though Liverpool was not a delectable home, furnished him
with entertainment as well as occupation, and it may almost be said
that during these years he saw more of his fellow-countrymen, in the
shape of odd wanderers, petitioners, and inquirers of every kind, than
he had ever done in his native land. The paper entitled "Consular
Experiences,"