"] miles--
northwards for six hundred; and the sympathy of our Lombard Street
friends at parting is exalted a hundredfold by a sort of visionary
sympathy with the yet slumbering sympathies which in so vast a
succession we are going to awake.
Liberated from the embarrassments of the city, and issuing into the
broad uncrowded avenues of the northern suburbs, we soon begin to enter
upon our natural pace of ten miles an hour. In the broad light of the
summer evening, the sun, perhaps, only just at the point of setting, we
are seen from every storey of every house. Heads of every age crowd to
the windows; young and old understand the language of our victorious
symbols; and rolling volleys of sympathising cheers run along us,
behind us, and before us. The beggar, rearing himself against the wall,
forgets his lameness--real or assumed--thinks not of his whining trade,
but stands erect, with bold exulting smiles, as we pass him. The
victory has healed him, and says, Be thou whole! Women and children,
from garrets alike and cellars, through infinite London, look down or
look up with loving eyes upon our gay ribbons and our martial laurels;
sometimes kiss their hands; sometimes hang out, as signals of
affection, pocket-handkerchiefs, aprons, dusters, anything that, by
catching the summer breezes, will express an aerial jubilation.
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