Saunterings | Page 8

how beautiful the Thames is there. What splendid trees it
has! the horse-chestnut, now a mass of pink-and-white blossoms, from
its broad base, which rests on the ground, to its high rounded dome; the
hawthorns, white and red, in full flower; the sweeps and glades of
living green,--turf on which you walk with a grateful sense of drawing
life directly from the yielding, bountiful earth,--a green set out and
heightened by flowers in masses of color (a great variety of
rhododendrons, for one thing), to say nothing of magnificent
greenhouses and outlying flower-gardens. Just beyond are Richmond
Hill and Hampton Court, and five or six centuries of tradition and
history and romance. Before you enter the garden, you pass the green.
On one side of it are cottages, and on the other the old village church
and its quiet churchyard. Some boys were playing cricket on the sward,
and children were getting as intimate with the turf and the sweet earth
as their nurses would let them. We turned into a little cottage, which
gave notice of hospitality for a consideration; and were shown, by a
pretty maid in calico, into an upper room,--a neat, cheerful, common
room, with bright flowers in the open windows, and white muslin
curtains for contrast. We looked out on the green and over to the
beautiful churchyard, where one of England's greatest painters,
Gainsborough, lies in rural repose. It is nothing to you, who always
dine off the best at home, and never encounter dirty restaurants and
snuffy inns, or run the gauntlet of Continental hotels, every meal being
an experiment of great interest, if not of danger, to say that this brisk
little waitress spread a snowy cloth, and set thereon meat and bread and
butter and a salad: that conveys no idea to your mind. Because you
cannot see that the loaf of wheaten bread was white and delicate, and
full of the goodness of the grain; or that the butter, yellow as a guinea,
tasted of grass and cows, and all the rich juices of the verdant year, and
was not mere flavorless grease; or that the cuts of roast beef, fat and
lean, had qualities that indicate to me some moral elevation in the
cattle,--high-toned, rich meat; or that the salad was crisp and delicious,
and rather seemed to enjoy being eaten, at least, did n't disconsolately
wilt down at the prospect, as most salad does. I do not wonder that
Walter Scott dwells so much on eating, or lets his heroes pull at the

pewter mugs so often. Perhaps one might find a better lunch in Paris,
but he surely couldn't find this one.

PARIS IN MAY--FRENCH GIRLS--THE EMPEROR AT
LONGCHAMPS
It was the first of May when we came up from Italy. The spring grew
on us as we advanced north; vegetation seemed further along than it
was south of the Alps. Paris was bathed in sunshine, wrapped in
delicious weather, adorned with all the delicate colors of blushing
spring. Now the horse-chestnuts are all in bloom and so is the hawthorn;
and in parks and gardens there are rows and alleys of trees, with
blossoms of pink and of white; patches of flowers set in the light green
grass; solid masses of gorgeous color, which fill all the air with
perfume; fountains that dance in the sunlight as if just released from
prison; and everywhere the soft suffusion of May. Young maidens who
make their first communion go into the churches in processions of
hundreds, all in white, from the flowing veil to the satin slipper; and I
see them everywhere for a week after the ceremony, in their robes of
innocence, often with bouquets of flowers, and attended by their friends;
all concerned making it a joyful holiday, as it ought to be. I hear, of
course, with what false ideas of life these girls are educated; how they
are watched before marriage; how the marriage is only one of
arrangement, and what liberty they eagerly seek afterwards. I met a
charming Paris lady last winter in Italy, recently married, who said she
had never been in the Louvre in her life; never had seen any of the
magnificent pictures or world-famous statuary there, because girls were
not allowed to go there, lest they should see something that they ought
not to see. I suppose they look with wonder at the young American
girls who march up to anything that ever was created, with undismayed
front.
Another Frenchwoman, a lady of talent and the best breeding, recently
said to a friend, in entire unconsciousness that she was saying anything
remarkable, that, when she was seventeen, her great desire was to
marry one of her uncles (a thing not very unusual with the papal
dispensation), in order