One of the picturesque features of the visit was the celebration of Baron Eric's birthday. It was a general holiday, and no work was done on the estate. After breakfast family and guests assembled in front of the old château; the baron, a fine, soldierly-looking man, his wife, the most graceful of women, and the only daughter, a lovely little girl with the well-chiselled Crawford features. The peasants, dressed in their best, assembled in procession in the driveway; one by one, in order of their age or position, they came up the steps, presented the Baroness with a bouquet, bent the knee and kissed the hand of Baron and Baroness. To most of the guests the picture was full of Old-World romance and charm. To one it was an offence. That the granddaughter of her father, the child of her adored sister, should have been placed by fate in this feudal relationship to the men and women by whose labor she lived outraged her democratic soul. The Journal thus describes the days at Lesnian:-- "The Baron talked much last evening, first about his crops, then about other matters. He believes duelling to be the most efficient agency in promoting a polite state of society. Would kill any one whom he suspected of great wrong much sooner than bring him to justice. The law, he says, is slow and uncertain--the decision of the sword much more effectual. The present Government favors duelling. If he should kill some one in a duel, he would have two months of imprisonment only. He despises the English as a nation of merchants. The old German knights seem to be his models. With these barbarous opinions, he seems to be personally an amiable and estimable man. Despises University education, in whose course he might have come in contact with the son of a carpenter, or small shopkeeper--he himself went to a Gymnase, with sons of gentlemen...." "Everything in the Junkerschaft[80] bristles for another war. Oscar von Rabé's room, in which I now write, contains only books of military drill. [80] The Prussian aristocracy. "This day we visited the schoolhouse--session over, air of the room perfectly fetid. Schoolmaster, whom we did not see, a Pole--his sister could speak no German. Tattered primers in German. Visited the Jew, who keeps the only shop in Lesnian. Found a regular country assortment. He very civil. _Gasthaus_ opposite, a shanty, with a beer-glass, coffee-cup and saucer rudely painted on its whitewashed boards. Shoemaker in a damp hovel, with mahogany furniture, quite handsome. He made me a salaam with both hands raised to his head."