We Know That In England A
Newly-Made Rich Man Cannot, By Taking Thought And Spending Money,
Obtain Even The Same-Looking Furniture As A Gentleman.
The
complicated character of an English establishment allows room for
subtle distinctions between that which is comme il faut, and that
which is not.
All such refinements are unknown in the East; the
Pasha and the peasant have the same tastes. The broad cold marble
floor, the simple couch, the air freshly waving through a shady
chamber, a verse of the Koran emblazoned on the wall, the sight and
the sound of falling water, the cold fragrant smoke of the
narghile, and a small collection of wives and children in the inner
apartments - these, the utmost enjoyments of the grandee, are yet
such as to be appreciable by the humblest Mussulman in the empire.
But its gardens are the delight, the delight and the pride of
Damascus. They are not the formal parterres which you might expect
from the Oriental taste; they rather bring back to your mind the
memory of some dark old shrubbery in our northern isle, that has
been charmingly un - "kept up" for many and many a day. When you
see a rich wilderness of wood in decent England, it is like enough
that you see it with some soft regrets. The puzzled old woman at
the lodge can give small account of "the family." She thinks it is
"Italy" that has made the whole circle of her world so gloomy and
sad.
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