Of
Course I Know That There Were Wicked And Selfish Tyrants In Those
Days, Before The Free Press, The Jury System, And The Folding-Bed
Had Wrought Their Beneficent Influences Upon The Common Mind And
Heart.
Of course they would have sneered at Browning Societies and
improved tenements, and of course they did not care
A penny whether
woman had the ballot or not, so long as man had the bottle; but I
would that the other moderns were enjoying the modern improvements,
and that I were gazing into the cool depths of those deep forests
where there were once good lairs for the wolf and wild boar. I
should like to hear the baying of the hounds and the mellow horns of
the huntsman. I should like to see the royal cavalcade emerging
from one of those wooded glades: monarch and baron bold, proud
prelate, abbot and prior, belted knight and ladye fair, sweeping in
gorgeous array under the arcades of the overshadowing trees, silver
spurs and jewelled trappings glittering in the sunlight, princely
forms bending low over the saddles of the court beauties. Why, oh
why, is it not possible to be picturesque and pious in the same
epoch? Why may not chivalry and charity go hand in hand? It amuses
me to imagine the amazement of the barons, bold and belted knights,
could they be resuscitated for a sufficient length of time to gaze
upon the hydropathic establishments which dot their ancient hunting-
grounds. It would have been very difficult to interest the age of
chivalry in hydropathy.
Such is the fascination of historic association that I am sure, if I
could drag my beloved but conscientious Salemina from some foreign
soup-kitchen which she is doubtless inspecting, I could make even
her mourn the vanished past with me this morning, on the Beacon's
towering head. For Salemina wearies of the age of charity
sometimes, as every one does who is trying to make it a beautiful
possibility.
Chapter XVII. Short stops and long bills.
The manner of my changing from West to North Belvern was this. When
I had been two days at Holly House, I reflected that my sitting-room
faced the wrong way for the view, and that my bedroom was dark and
not large enough to swing a cat in. Not that there was the remotest
necessity of my swinging cats in it, but the figure of speech is
always useful. Neither did I care to occupy myself with the
perennial inspection and purchase of raw edibles, when I wished to
live in an ideal world and paint a great picture. Mrs. Hobbs would
come to my bedside in the morning and ask me if I would like to buy
a fowl. When I looked upon the fowl, limp in death, with its
headless neck hanging dejectedly over the edge of the plate, its
giblets and kidneys lying in immodest confusion on the outside of
itself, and its liver 'tucked under its wing, poor thing,' I never
wanted to buy it.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 43 of 61
Words from 22071 to 22579
of 31509
