We have had pleasant glimpses of several American friends this summer--of Kate Hillard for instance, who, by the bye narrowly escaped a bad accident just at our door--the harness broke & the cab came down on the horse & frightened him so that he bolted--struck the cab against a lamp-post (happily, else it would have been worse)--overturned them & it--but when they crawled out no worse harm was done than a few cuts from the glass--& Kate & her friend behaved very pluckily, & we had a pleasant evening together after all. Then there was Arthur Peterson, looking much as in the old Philadelphia days: and Emma & Annie Lazarus--who, owing to some letters of introduction from James the novelist, have had a very gay time indeed--been quite lionized--and last, not least, Mr. Dalton Dorr, the curator of the Pennsylvania Museum in Fairmount Park--whom we all liked much. He is enjoying his visit here with all his heart--is a great enthusiast for our old Gothic Cathedrals, and for everything beautiful--but says there is nothing such a source of unceasing wonder & delight as riding about London & over the bridges &c on the top of an omnibus watching the endless flow of people--it is indeed a kind of human Mississippi or Niagara.
The young folks are busy packing up to start for the seaside. Herby wants a background for a picture in which green turf & trees and all the richness of vegetation come down to the very edge of the sea and I seem to remember such a place near Lynn Regis, where I was thirty years ago, when my eldest child was born, so they are going to look it up. We hear the heat is very tremendous in America this year. I hope you are as well as ever able to stand it & enjoy it? I wonder where you are. Friendly greetings to Mr. & Mrs. Whitman & Hattie & Jessie & the Staffords. Love to you, dear Friend, from us all.
My little book on Mary Lamb just out--will send you a copy in a day or two.
Long & long does it seem since I have had any word or sign from you. I hope all goes well & that you have had a pleasant, refreshing summer trip somewhere. All goes on much as usual with us.
_Hythe. Kent. Oct. 21._ Not having felt very well the last month or two, and Giddy also seeming to need a little bracing up, we came down to this ancient town by the sea--one of the Cinque Ports--on Wednesday, and much we like it--a fine open sea--a delicious "briny odour"--and inland much that is curious and interesting--for this part of the Kentish Coast--so near to France--has innumerable old castles, forts, moats, traces everywhere of centuries of warfare and of means of defence against our great neighbour. It is a fine hilly, woody country, too, and very picturesque these gray massive ruins, many of them used now as farm houses, look. The men of Kent are very proud of their country and are reckoned a fine race--tall, muscular, ruddy-complexioned, and often too with thick, tawny-red beards--curious how in our little island the differences of race-stock are still so discernible--keep along this same coast to the west only about a couple of hundred miles & you come to such a different type--dark--blackest and Cornish men.--I get a nice letter now & then from John Burroughs. I also saw this summer two women doctors who were very kind & good friends to my darling Bee--Drs. Pope--twin sisters from Boston, whom it did me good to see. They work hard--have a good practice--& say they don't know what a day's illness means so far as they themselves are concerned. They tell me also that the women doctors are doing capital work in America--and that one of them, who was with dear Beatrice at the Penn. Med. Col., Dr. Alice Bennett, is the efficient head of the woman's department of a large lunatic asylum. We are getting on in England too--but the field where English women doctors find the most work & the best position is India, where as the women are not allowed by their male relatives to be attended by men, the mortality was immense.--Herby has taken a better studio than our house afforded--both as to light & size--& finds the advantage great. I expect he is having a delightful walk this brilliant morning with the "Hampstead Tramps"--of whom I think I have told you. They often walk fifteen miles or so on Sunday morning.