opinions are half affectation, and the other half dyspepsia. Mr.
Leverett speaks of Mr. Cockerel as a "strident savage," but he
declares he finds him most diverting. He says there is nothing in
which we can't find a certain entertainment, if we only look at it
in the right way, and that we have no business with either hating or
loving; we ought only to strive to understand. To understand is to
forgive, he says. That is very pretty, but I don't like the
suppression of our affections, though I have no desire to fix mine
upon Mr. Leverett. He is very artistic, and talks like an article
in some review, he has lived a great deal in Paris, and Mr. Cockerel
says that is what has made him such an idiot. That is not
complimentary to you, dear Louisa, and still less to your brilliant
brother; for Mr. Cockerel explains that he means it (the bad effect
of Paris) chiefly of the men. In fact, he means the bad effect of
Europe altogether. This, however, is compromising to mamma; and I
am afraid there is no doubt that (from what I have told him) he
thinks mamma also an idiot. (I am not responsible, you know--I have
always wanted to go home.) If mamma knew him, which she doesn't,
for she always closes her eyes when I pass on his arm, she would
think him disgusting. Mr. Leverett, however, tells me he is nothing
to what we shall see yet. He is from Philadelphia (Mr. Cockerel);
he insists that we shall go and see Philadelphia, but mamma says she
saw it in 1855, and it was then affreux. Mr. Cockerel says that
mamma is evidently not familiar with the march of improvement in
this country; he speaks of 1855 as if it were a hundred years ago.
Mamma says she knows it goes only too fast--it goes so fast that it
has time to do nothing well; and then Mr. Cockerel, who, to do him
justice, is perfectly good-natured, remarks that she had better wait
till she has been ashore and seen the improvements. Mamma rejoins
that she sees them from here, the improvements, and that they give