Page:Letters from Abroad to Kindred at Home (Volume 1).djvu/78

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LONDON.
75

grace. For lunch they give you a cold round of beef, juicy and tender; ham, perfectly cured, perfectly cooked, delicious bread and butter, or, indeed, what you will, and all so neatly served. Oh, my dear C., mortifying contrasts are forced on my ever-home-tuming thoughts![1]

We walked to Eton, and, most fortunately, came upon its classic-play-ground at the moment the boys were let loose upon it. Of course, it was impossible not to recall Gray's doleful prophecy while looking at some former generation of Eton boys, Mrs. —— repeated them :

These shall the fury passions tear,
The vultures of the mind;
Disdainful anger, pallid fear,
And shame that skulks behind;
Or pining love shall waste their youth.
Or jealousy, with rankling tooth,
That inly gnaws the secret heart,
And envy wan, and faded care,
Grim-visaged, comfortless despair,
And sorrow's piercing dart."

This is undoubtedly powerful poetry, but is it the true sentiment? I never liked it, and liked it less than ever when looking at these young creatures, among whom are the future teachers and benefactors of their land; it may be a Collingwood, a Wilber-

  1. What would probably be served for an extempore lunch at anAmerican inn? Bread and butter (probably fresh bread, and possibly not fresh butter), pies, cakes, and sweetmeats. May not the superior muscle and colour of the English be ascribed in part to our different modes of feeding? Our inns improve from season to season, and will, in proportion as our modes of living become more wise and salutary.