London, June 1, 1850.

I have not written before for the reason that, having travelled thirty miles a day, I could not sit down at my desk without falling asleep on the spot. I shall not tell you many of my impressions of the journey, except that most decidedly the English individually are dull, but collectively are an admirable people. All that can be accomplished with money, common sense, and patience, they do; but they have no more conception of the arts than my cat. You would fall in love with the Indian princes. They wear low turbans, bordered all around with immense emerald pendants, and their robes are a mass of satin, cashmere, pearls, and gold! Their complexion is a dark cream colour. They are stunning looking fellows, and are said to be intelligent.

I was interrupted yesterday by a visitor at this point of my letter, and to-day, June 2d, I have not been able to recover the thread of my thoughts. We are going to Hampton Court to avoid the temptations to suicide which the Lord’s Day will not fail to suggest to us. I dined yesterday with a Bishop and a Dean, who made me almost become a Socialist. The Bishop belongs to the school which the Germans call Rationalistic, which means that he does not believe what he teaches, but, in consideration of his ecclesiastical apron of Neapolitan black, lives like a lord on his income of five or six thousand pounds, and spends his time reading Greek.

I have caught cold too, so that I am almost exhausted. Because it is June I am compelled to endure constant exposure to deadly draughts of air.

The women all seem to be made of wax. They wear such enormous bustles that there is room for only one woman to pass on the sidewalk of Regent Street. I spent yesterday morning in the new House of Commons, which is a frightful monstrosity. We had no idea before what could be done with an utter absence of taste and two million pounds sterling. Eating such inordinately good dinners from gold and silver plate, and meeting people who can win fourteen thousand pounds sterling at the Epsom races, I fear will make an out and out Socialist of me. There is, however, no probability of a revolution here. The servility of the lower classes seems strange to our democratic ideas. Every day we see some new evidence of their obsequiousness. The important question is whether they are not happier thus.

Write to me at Lincoln, general delivery. Lincoln is, I think, in Lincolnshire, but I would not swear to it.