The conclusion of the Vienna negociations appeared
to excite some surprise. "I had no idea," an officer observed to me, "that
public opinion was so strong in England as to be able to compel a minister
of such strong Russian proclivities as Lord Aberdeen to go to war with his
old friend Nicholas." The arrangements at Balaklava excited very general
condemnation; people were fond of quoting the saying attributed to a
Russian officer, "You have an army of lions led by asses."
The Americans are always anxious to know what opinion a stranger has
formed of their country, and I would be asked thirty times on one evening,
"How do you like America?" Fortunately, the kindness which I met with
rendered it impossible for me to give any but a satisfactory reply.
English literature was a very general topic of conversation, and it is
most gratifying to find how our best English works are "familiar in their
mouths as household words." Some of the conversation on literature was of
a very brilliant order. I heard very little approximation to either wit or
humour, and badinage is not cultivated, or excelled in, to the same
extent as in England.
On one occasion I was asked to exhibit a collection of autographs, and the
knowledge of English literature possessed by the Americans was shown by
the information they had respecting not only our well-known authors, but
those whose names have not an extended reputation even with us.
