said; "but he must be contemplative, grave, simple. He is a good
subject. I wish to make him look like an Archimedes."

If Gibson admired Stephenson, however, he did not wholly admire
Stephenson's railways. The England he had left was the England of
mail-coaches. In Italy, he had learnt to travel by carriage, after
the fashion of the country; but these new whizzing locomotives,
with their time-tables, and their precision, and their inscrutable
mysteries of shunts and junctions, were quite too much for his
simple, childish, old-world habits. He had a knack of getting out
too soon or too late, which often led him into great confusion.
Once, when he wanted to go to Chichester, he found himself landed
at Portsmouth, and only discovered his mistake when, on asking the
way to the cathedral, he was told there was no cathedral in the
town at all. Another story of how he tried to reach Wentworth,
Lord Fitzwilliam's place, is best told in his own words. "The
train soon stopped at a small station, and, seeing some people get
out, I also descended; when, in a moment, the train moved on--
faster and faster--and left me standing on the platform. I walked
a few paces backward and forward in disagreeable meditation. 'I
wish to Heaven,' thought I to myself, 'that I was on my way back to
Rome with a postboy.' Then I observed a policeman darting his eyes
upon me, as if he would look me through. Said I to the fellow,
'Where is that cursed train gone to? It's off with my luggage and
here am I.' The man asked me the name of the place where I took my
ticket. 'I don't remember,' said I. 'How should I know the name
of any of these places?--it's as long as my arm. I've got it
written down somewhere.' 'Pray, sir,' said the man, after a little
pause, 'are you a foreigner?' 'No,' I replied, 'I am not a
foreigner; I'm a sculptor.'"