One word as to luggage. Let no traveller encumber himself or herself with a trunk on the Continent. A valise or a carpet bag that can be carried in the hand, will hold enough. Four or five changes of linen, and one dress, besides the travelling costume, are all sufficient. Washing can be done in a few hours anywhere. A lady had better wear a dress of strong dark stuff, and have a black silk for a change. She will need no more, even if months are spent abroad. Even in England a trunk is a nuisance; for luggage cannot be checked, and continual care is necessary. In some remote stations even labels cannot be had, and porters are scarce. I have known passengers, when no porters came to take their trunks to the van, compelled to thrust them into the carriage at the last moment. The better plan is to have only what can be carried under your own eye.
Reader, did it ever strike you that there are many theories touching this soul of ours which are generally accepted as truths, without any thought whatever on the subject; so universally accepted, indeed, that it is considered a waste of time to think upon them at all; but which, upon a thorough investigation, might possibly lose some of their old-time infallibility, and the consideration of which might well repay the trouble, by opening a field of thought at once interesting and instructive?
Such there are, and in this province alone are we of this day and generation entirely controlled by the opinions of those over whose dust centuries have rolled. We may speculate freely upon religion, and, while all must acknowledge that true religion is not progressive, new schemes of salvation spring almost daily into life from the brains of heretical thinkers, in their bold presumption stamping with error the simple faith of the primitive Christians. We may peer into the arcana of science and boldly question the theories of the learned of all ages. We may exhaust our mental powers upon points of political economy and the science of government; and even the domain of ethics may be fearlessly invaded and crowded with doubt. But into the unpretending pathway that leads to the secret nooks of the soul, to the foundations of all spiritual excellence, few feet may stray, and even those only to follow the beaten track worn by the feet of those olden thinkers whose very names have long since passed into oblivion, lest by their deviations they should outrage some of those universal prejudices, whose only claim to consideration is their traditionary origin.