And At That
Moment I First Seriously Felt The Idea Of Distance, And The Thought
That I Was Now In England, So Very Far From All I Loved, Or Who
Loved Me, Produced In Me Such Sensations As I Have Not Often Felt.
It was perhaps the same with you, my dearest friend, when on our
journey to Hamburg we drove from
Perlsbeg, to your birthplace, the
village of Boberow; where, among the farmers, you again found your
own playmates, one of whom was now become the bailiff of the place.
On your asking them whether they knew you, one and all of them
answered so heartily, "O, yes, yes - why, your are Master Frederic."
The pedantic school-master, you will remember, was not so frank. He
expressed himself in the stiff town phrase of, "He had not the
honour of knowing you, as during your residence in that village,
when a child, he had not been in loco."
I now came through a little place of the name of Ashford, and wished
to reach the small village of Wardlow, which was only three miles
distant, when two men came after me, at a distance, whom I had
already seen at Matlock, who called to me to wait for them. These
were the only foot passengers since Mr. Maud, who had offered to
walk with me.
The one was a saddler, and wore a short brown jacket and an apron,
with a round hat. The other was very decently dressed, but a very
silent man, whereas the saddler was quite talkative.
I listened with astonishment when I heard him begin to speak of
Homer, of Horace, and of Virgil; and still more when he quoted
several passages, by memory, from each of these authors, pronouncing
the words, and laying his emphasis, with as much propriety as I
could possibly have expected, had he been educated at Cambridge or
at Oxford. He advised me not to go to Wardlow, where I should find
bad accommodations, but rather a few miles to Tideswell, where he
lived. This name is, by a singular abbreviation, pronounced Tidsel,
the same as Birmingham is called by the common people Brummidgeham.
We halted at a small ale-house on the road-side, where the saddler
stopped to drink and talk, and from whence he was in no haste to
depart. He had the generosity and honour, however, to pay my share
of the reckoning, because, as he said, he had brought me hither.
At no great distance from the house we came to a rising ground,
where my philosophical saddler made me observe a prospect, which was
perhaps the only one of the kind in England. Below us was a hollow,
not unlike a huge kettle, hollowed out of the surrounding mass of
earth; and at the bottom of it a little valley, where the green
meadow was divided by a small rivulet, that ran in serpentine
windings, its banks graced with the most inviting walks; behind a
small winding, there is just seen a house where one of the most
distinguished inhabitants of this happy vale, a great philosopher,
lives retired, dedicating almost all his time to his favourite
studies. He has transplanted a number of foreign plants into his
grounds. My guide fell into almost a poetic rapture as he pointed
out to me the beauties of this vale, while our third companion, who
grew tired, became impatient at our tediousness.
We were now led by a steep road to the vale, through which we
passed, and then ascended again among the hills on the other side.
Not far from Tideswell our third companion left us, as he lived in a
neighbouring place. As we now at length saw Tideswell lying before
us in the vale, the saddler began to give me an account of his
family, adding, by way of episode, that he never quarrelled with his
wife, nor had ever once threatened her with his fist, much less,
ever lifted it against her. For his own sake, he said, he never
called her names, nor gave her the lie. I must here observe, that
it is the greatest offence you can give any one in England to say to
him, YOU LIE.
To be called a LIAR is a still greater affront, and you ARE A DAMNED
LIAR, is the very acme of vulgar abuse.
Just as in Germany, no one will bear the name of a SCOUNDREL, or
KNAVE, or as in all quarrels, the bestowing such epithets on our
adversary is the signal for fighting, so the term of a LIAR in
England is the most offensive, and is always resented by blows. A
man would never forgive himself, nor be forgiven, who could bear to
be called a LIAR.
Our Jackey in London once looked at me with astonishment, on my
happening to say to him in a joke, you ARE A LIAR. I assure you I
had much to do before I could pacify him.
If one may form a judgment of the character of the whole nation,
from such little circumstances as this, I must say this rooted
hatred of the word liar appears to me to be no bad trait in the
English.
But to return to my travelling companion, who further told me that
he was obliged to earn his livelihood, at some distance from home,
and that he was now returning for the first time, for these two
months, to his family.
He showed me a row of trees near the town which he said his father
had planted, and which, therefore, he never could look at but with
emotion, though he passed them often as he went backwards and
forwards on his little journeys to and from his birthplace. His
father, he added, had once been a rich man, but had expended all his
fortune to support one son. Unfortunately for himself as well as
his family, his father had gone to America and left the rest of his
children poor, notwithstanding which, his memory was still dear to
him, and he was always affected by the sight of these trees.
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