Hence a division, which never can be reconciled. Both classes have receded from the true nature of humanity, in the two opposite directions, that they no longer even comprehend the one the tastes of the other, and scarce have a desire or a hope in common; for what the poor man most desires, a sufficiency for his mere wants, physical and moral, the rich man can not comprehend, never having known to be without it; while the artificial nothings, for which the capitalist strives and wrestles to the last, would be to his workman mere syllabub and flummery to the tired and hungry hunter. In those days the enjoyments, and, in a great measure, the tastes, of all men were alike, from the highest to the lowest--the same sports pleased them, the same viands, for the most part, nourished, the same liquors enlivened them. Fresh meat was an unusual luxury to the noble, yet not an impossible indulgence to the lowest vassal; wine and beer were the daily, the sole, beverages of all, differing only, and that not very widely, in degree. The same love of flowers, processions, out-of-door amusements, dances on the greensward, suppers in the shade, were common to all, constantly enjoyed by all. Now, it is certain, the enjoyments, the luxuries of the one class--nay, the very delicacy of their tables, if attainable, would be utterly distasteful to the other; and the rich soups, the delicate-made dishes, the savor of the game, and the purity of the light French and Rhenish wines, which are the _ne plus ultra_ of the rich man's splendid board, would be even more distasteful to the man of the million, than would be his beans and bacon and fire-fraught whisky to the palate of the gaudy millionaire. Throughout their progress, therefore, a thousand picturesque adventures befell our party, a thousand romantic scenes were presented by their halts for the noon-day repose, the coming meal, or the nightly hour of rest, which never could now occur, unless to some pleasure-party, purposely masquerading, and aping the romance of other days. Sometimes, when no convent, castle, hostelry, or hermitage, lay on the day's route, the harbingers would select some picturesque glen and sparkling fountain; and, when the party halted at the spot, an extempore pavilion would be found pitched, of flags and pennoncelles, outspread on a lattice-work of lances, with war-cloaks spread for cushions, and flasks and _bottiaus_ cooling in the spring, and pasties and boar's meat, venison and game, plates of silver and goblets of gold, spread on the grass, amid pewter-platters and drinking-cups of horn, a common feast for man and master, partaken with the same appetite, hallowed by the same grace, enlivened by the same minstrelsy and music, and enjoyed no less by the late-enfranchised serfs, than by the high-born nobles to whom they owed their freedom.