Country life -- England; England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century
they observe, and copy all that can add to the embellishment of their
abodes, and the value and productiveness of their gardens and estates.
If many acquire a relish only for Newmarket, and the gaming club, and a
strong distaste for the quiet enjoyments of the country; many, on the
other hand, come down to their estates after a season of hurry and
over-excitement, with a fresh feeling for the beauty and repose of their
country abodes. The possessors of great houses and estates, invite a
party to spend the recess, or especially the shooting season, with them.
Thus the world of fashion is broken up and scattered from the metropolis
into a multitude of lesser circles, and into every corner of the empire.
I can conceive nothing which bears on its surface the aspect of the
perfection of human society, so much as this assembling of a choice
party of those who have nothing to do but to enjoy life, in the house of
some hospitable wealthy man, in some one of the terrestrial paradises of
this kingdom,--far off, in some retired vale of England, where the
country and its manners remain almost as simple and picturesque as they
did ages ago. In some fine Elizabethan mansion, some splendid baronial
castle, as Warwick, Alnwick, or Raby; or in some rich old abbey; amid
woods and parks, or seated on one of our wild coasts; or amid the
mountains of Wales or Scotland, with all their beautiful scenery, rocks,
hanging cliffs, dashing waterfalls, rapid rivers, and fairy wildernesses
around them. Here, assembled from the crush and rush of London in its
fulness, with new books and new music brought down with them; with
plenty of topics suggested by the incidents of the past season in the
saloons of the fashionable, and in Parliament; with every luxury before
them; with fine shrubberies and parks, and with every vehicle and
facility for riding and driving through field or forest, or sailing on
river or ocean; if people are not happy in such circumstances, where is
the fault?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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