London, British Museum, August 23, 1865.

Dear Friend: After awaiting your letter a long time, in Paris, it finally arrived, written while you were in the heart of the Tyrol. I have been here for about six weeks. I was here during the concluding days of the season. I went to some terrible dinners, and two or three of the last balls.

It seems to me that lord Palmerston has aged perceptibly, notwithstanding his success at the elections, and I feel that it is more than doubtful whether he will be in any condition to engage in the next campaign. At his retirement, there will be, doubtless, a fine crisis.

I have just spent three days at the home of his probable successor, Mr. Gladstone, who did not amuse me, but who interested me, for it is always a pleasure for me to observe the varieties of human nature. Here they are so unlike ours, that it is inexplicable how, in a ten hours’ journey, one finds the featherless bipeds to be so utterly different from those in Paris.

Mr. Gladstone seemed to me to be in some respects a man of genius, in others a child. In him are the elements of the child, the statesman, and the lunatic. Staying at his house were five or six curates or deans, and every morning the guests of the castle were entertained with a short prayer in common. I was not present on a Sunday, which must be something extraordinary.

What seemed to me preferable to all the rest was a sort of badly baked roll which is removed from the oven at breakfast-time, and which one finds it difficult to digest during the rest of the day. Besides this there is the hard civrn, that is the ale of Wales, which is celebrated.

You know, of course, that red hair is the only kind fashionable at the moment. It appears that nothing is easier to have in this country, and I doubt whether it is dyed.

For a month no one has been in town. There is not a single horse in Rotten Row, but I am contented enough to be in a great city in this state of lethargy. I have taken advantage of it to see the lions. Yesterday I went to the Crystal Palace, and spent an hour looking at a chimpanzee almost as tall as a ten-year-old child, and in his actions so like a child that I felt humiliated by his unquestionable relationship. Among other peculiarities, I observed the calculation of the animal in setting in motion a heavy swing, and in waiting to leap upon it until it had attained its greatest speed. I doubt whether all children would have exhibited as much talent for observation.

While here I have written a long article on the History of Caesar, which does not entirely displease me; in it there is mental pabulum, as they say in academic style, and next week I shall return to Paris to read it to the Journal des Savants. It is not quite impossible that I may find you there. I am beginning to have enough of London.

At one time I had an idea of going to Scotland, but there I should have fallen among the hunters, a race which I abhor.

A newspaper had in its telegraphic items the news that Ponsard was dying. Since then I have seen no mention of him, and my letters, even academic ones, make no reference to him. I am quite interested in the matter; it may be, however, only a false report.

Good-bye, dear friend. Write to me in Paris, where I shall be soon, and keep me informed of your movements. Come back from the Tyrol, I pray you, with green stockings, but I defy you to bring back legs the size of those of the mountaineers.