Describes a visit to the Mason family. Transcription: and listened to their talk, occasionally putting in a word or two. They spoke of yachts and ship-building, of smoking, of actresses and of the one dominant idea in Mason ?s skull, the Thames Tunnel. The man is the resident something-or-other there, and has been for twenty years or so; and the fact has rendered him such a paramount nuisance that you wish the river would get in, drown him and Brunel ?s bore all together. He is ignorant beast too, knowing only in facts and figures, hates poor people, loves an obscene jest, and has inordinate
Describes a visit to the Mason family. Transcription: and listened to their talk, occasionally putting in a word or two. They spoke of yachts and ship-building, of smoking, of actresses and of the one dominant idea in Mason ?s skull, the Thames Tunnel. The man is the resident something-or-other there, and has been for twenty years or so; and the fact has rendered him such a paramount nuisance that you wish the river would get in, drown him and Brunel ?s bore all together. He is ignorant beast too, knowing only in facts and figures, hates poor people, loves an obscene jest, and has inordinate conceit. I had to be bored, by seeing furnaces and engines, a desolate garden frowned upon by a great black gasometer, arbours made of shells and four little spirits of fountains blown awry by a bleak wind, a somber sky overhead. I had to go through (and down to) the great, dank, long-cellar-like utilitarian Tunnel, in company with a young man, (whom I felt sorry for, he must have found it so almighty slow,) finally I had to subside into ?ǣCalmet ?s Bible, ? and escape Mason and [Henry] Stokes by going into the women ?s room. But I couldn ?t talk to anybody, we ?d no likings in common. We left by 11, and returned on foot through the dark and squalid Rotherithe streets, and a steady rain. No omnibuses or cabs to be had about there. So my sisters [Naomi and Rosa Gunn] put their dresses over their heads, and glided along in white, each under shelter of a big umbrella; I strode along unwetted in talma, and rather thought ?ǣit served us right. ? 9. Monday. Being out this morning met Wilkins, whom I last saw during my Holmes time in New York. He recognized me, we drank together, and he told me he had been two years in England, but would return to the ere long. Called at Hepburn ?s, unsuccessfully, then home to dinner. To Sam [Gunn] ?s in Title: Thomas Butler Gunn Diaries: Volume 7, page 48, April 8-9, 1855 . 8 April 1855. Gunn, Thomas Butler, 1826-1903
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