As I think of leaving town next week, I decided to pay one more visit to the Exhibition in order to see the portions of it which I had omitted when there before. So taking Brooks with me, I spent four hours in examining the American department, the Machinery generally, and the Cants of India, Russia, and Belgium. I looked also at the arms and the glass in the English department. But the result only convinced me of the folly of such an attempt. The proportions of such a display are too vast for any person but a confirmed idler, to whom the whole thing is of no real use. The single branch of machinery would task a student several months. I came away convinced I had learned nothing and despairing of all further efforts. I was moreover pretty well fatigued by incessant motion for so long and by my walk home. Towards evening I sat with my daughter who has been unwell for a day or two back. Mr and Mrs Lodge paid us a visit after dinner.165