innkeepers, &c., with our potentiality! Many Americans give up the delight of travelling in England on account of its expensiveness, or come borne with loud outcries against it, when, if they would forego the distinction of posting, and condescend to the humility of an outside seat (infinitely the pleasantest), they might travel here quite as cheaply as they can by coach at home.[1]
Did the sacrifices that a traveller makes to appearances never strike you as one of the ludicrous fatuities of human conduct, when you consider that his observers do not know whether he be "Giles Jolt" or any other member of the human family?
We had good reason to be satisfied with our position. The coachman had driven twenty years on this same road, and was familiar with every inch of ground; he exchanged salutations with the people by the way, had many professional jokes, and pointed out to us the wayside lions, a seat of Lord Wellington, a hunting-box of George IV., &c. We came through Winchester and Basingstoke, passed many a field covered with the crimson blush of the cinquefoil, and bounded by hedges thick set with flowering shrubs. I trust your grandchildren may see such in our Berkshire. I had written to Miss Mitford my intention of passing the evening with her, and as we approached her residence, which is in a small
- ↑ I should have said, as they could have done at home. The rates of travelling expenses are diminishing at such a rate, that you cannot predicate of this year what was true of the last. What is fixed in United States? A guide-book, written one season, would be in good part useless to the text.
