Bound on a visit to —— Hall in Lancashire, I left the coach at Preston. The landlady of the Red Lion became very suddenly anxious that I should not take cold when she found out the destination of her post-chaise. I arrived just after sunset at my friend’s lodge, and ordering the postillion to a walk, drove leisurely through the gathering twilight to the Hall. It was a mile of winding road through the peculiarly delicious scenery of an English park, the game visible in every direction, and the glades and woods disposed with that breadth and luxuriance of taste that make the country houses of England palaces in Arcadia. Anxious as I had been to meet my friend, whose hospitality I had before experienced in Italy, I was almost sorry when the closely-shaven sward and glancing lights informed me that my twilight drive was near its end.
An arrival in a strange house in England seems, to a foreigner, almost magical. The absence of all the bustle consequent on the same event abroad, the silence, respectfulness, and self-possession of the servants, the ease and expedition with which he is installed in a luxurious room, almost with his second breath under the roof—his portmanteau unstrapped, his toilet laid out, his dress shoes and stockings at his feet, and the fire burning as if he had sat by it all day—it is like the golden facility of a dream. “Dinner at seven!” are the only words he has heard, and he finds himself (some three minutes having elapsed since he was on the road) as much at home as if he had lived there all his life, and pouring the hot water into his wash-basin with the feeling that comfort and luxury in this country are very much matters of course.
The bell rings for dinner, and the new-comer finds his way to the drawing-room. He has not seen his host, perhaps, for a year; but his _entrée_ is anything but a scene. A cordial shake of the hand, a simple inquiry after his health, while the different members of the family collect in the darkened room, and the preference of his arm by the lady of the house to walk into dinner, are all that would remind him that he and his host had ever parted. The soup is criticised, the weather “resumed,” as the French have it, gravity prevails, and the wine that he used to drink is brought him without question by the remembering butler. The stranger is an object of no more attention than any other person, except in the brief “glad to see you,” and the accompanying just perceptible nod with which the host drinks wine with him; and, not even in the _abandon_ of after-dinner conversation, are the mutual reminiscences of the host and his friend suffered to intrude on the indifferent portion of the company. The object is the general enjoyment, and you are not permitted to monopolize the sympathies of the hour. You thus escape the aversion with which even a momentary favorite is looked upon in society, and in your turn you are not neglected, or bored with a sensation, on the arrival of another. In what other country is civilization carried to the same rational perfection?