He means to give them to J-----.
November 28th.--I have grown wofully aristocratic in my tastes, I fear,
since coming to England; at all events, I am conscious of a certain
disgust at going to dine in a house with a small entrance-hall and a
narrow staircase, parlor with chintz curtains, and all other arrangements
on a similar scale. This is pitiable. However, I really do not think I
should mind these things, were it not for the bustle, the affectation,
the intensity, of the mistress of the house. It is certain that a woman
in England is either decidedly a lady or decidedly not a lady. There
seems to be no respectable medium. Bill of fare: broiled soles, half of
a roast pig, a haricot of mutton, stewed oysters, a tart, pears, figs,
with sherry and port wine, both good, and the port particularly so. I
ate some pig, and could hardly resist the lady's importunities to eat
more; though to my fancy it tasted of swill,--had a flavor of the pigsty.
On the parlor table were some poor editions of popular books,
Longfellow's poems and others. The lady affects a literary taste, and
bothered me about my own productions.
A beautiful subject for a romance, or for a sermon, would be the
subsequent life of the young man whom Jesus bade to sell all he had and
give to the poor; and he went away sorrowful, and is not recorded to have
done what he was bid.
December 11th.--This has been a foggy morning and forenoon, snowing a
little now and then, and disagreeably cold.
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