mental labor? Far from it. But look at the difference here: after dinner
here one is as light as a gossamer. One walks with pleasure, reads with
pleasure, writes with pleasure--nay, there is the supper-bell going at
ten o'clock, and plenty of eaters, too. Let lord mayors and aldermen
look to it, this fact of the extraordinary increase of appetite in
Belgium, and, instead of steaming to Blackwall, come a little further to
Antwerp.

Of ancient architectures in the place, there is a fine old Port de
Halle, which has a tall, gloomy, bastille look; a most magnificent
town-hall, that has been sketched a thousand of times, and opposite
it, a building that I think would be the very model for a Conservative
club-house in London. Oh! how charming it would be to be a great
painter, and give the character of the building, and the numberless
groups round about it. The booths lighted up by the sun, the
market-women in their gowns of brilliant hue, each group having a
character and telling its little story, the troops of men lolling in all
sorts of admirable attitudes of ease round the great lamp. Half a dozen
light-blue dragoons are lounging about, and peeping over the artist as
the drawing is made, and the sky is more bright and blue than one sees
it in a hundred years in London.

The priests of the country are a remarkably well-fed and respectable
race, without that scowling, hang-dog look which one has remarked
among reverend gentlemen in the neighboring country of France. Their
reverences wear buckles to their shoes, light-blue neck-cloths, and
huge three-cornered hats in good condition. To-day, strolling by the
cathedral, I heard the tinkling of a bell in the street, and beheld
certain persons, male and female, suddenly plump down on their knees
before a little procession that was passing. Two men in black held a