[Liverpool—Tuesday, 14 June 1859]
After a long draught of sleep on Mrs Blodget’s most comfortable bed we started early Tuesday morning for Chester. It was my first look at an English first class car and I fear I felt inclined to swell & appear nabob-ish but alack! Alack! how all present things dwindled before the picturesque Antiquity of Chester. We attended service in the Cathedral sitting over the graves of our ancestors. Roman inscriptions are still found here and are distinctly decipherable. These can be spoken of and recorded but the beauty, the beauty—that can only be embalmed where all that is fairest and most perishable becomes immortal.
Passed the evening with our good old ladies and the cat and the artificial flowers in the best drawing-room. We can get servants here if we choose, for home.
Drove from Chester in the morning of Tuesday to Eaton-Hall one of the seats of the Marquis of Westminster the richest and meanest man in England if we may believe the “on dits”—but from a Rev. Mr Hesketh whom we met in the cars returning to Liverpool I gathered that it might be he had gained this unpleasant reputation from his peculiar economics. He gives much to the poor but denies his butler. The Hall is many miles in extent. As we walked across the park to meet our carriage a flock of deer started to fly but soon repenting because of our manifestly peaceable intentions we had a close look at the graceful creatures. The steward who showed us the place seemed quite pleased at the kind of interest we displayed and although it was not a show day carried us to the stables. I admired the tile floor very much whereat the old man answered very proudly “Yes, ma’am the tiles was made square on purpose for us ma’am, they are very endurable ma’am.”
