On entering the great door, I found myself at once in a saloon, or
ball-room, 130 feet in length, 60 in breadth, and 50 in height,
in which there is a gallery supported by 32 marble pillars of the
Corinthian order; lustres are suspended from the ceiling, and, in
niches in the wall, there are twelve white marble statues, which were
originally intended for Letitia Bonaparte, and which the Wiesbaden
people extol by saying that they cost about 1200_l._
Branching from this great assembly-room, there are several smaller
apartments, which in England would be called hells, or gambling-rooms.
The back of the Cursaal looks into a sort of parade, upon which, after
dinner, hundreds of visiters sit in groups, to drink cheap coffee,
listen to a band of most excellent cheap music, and admire, instead of
swans, an immense number of snail-gobbling ducks and ducklings, which,
swimming about a pond, shaded by weeping willows and acacias, come when
they are called, and, ducklike, of course eat whatever is thrown to
them.
Beyond this pond, which is within fifty yards of the Cursaal, there
is a nice shrubbery, particularly pleasing to the stranger from the
reflection, that at very great trouble, and at considerable expense, it
has been planted, furnished with benches, and tastefully adorned by the
inhabitants of Wiesbaden, for the gratification of their guests. From
it a long shady walk, running by the side of a stream of water, extends
for about two miles, to the ruins of the castle of Sonneburg.
Among the buildings of Wiesbaden, the principal ones, after the
Cursaal and theatre, are the Schlosschen, containing a public library
and museum, the hotels of the Four Seasons, the Eagle, the Rose, the
Schutzenhof, and the Englischen Hof.
The churches are small, and seem adapted in size to the old, rather
than to the new town. By far the greatest proportion of the inhabitants
are Protestants, and their place of worship is scarcely big enough to
hold them. At the southern extremity of the town there exists a huge
pile of rubbish, with several high modern walls in ruins.
It appears that, a few years ago, the Catholics at Wiesbaden determined
on building a church, which was to vie in magnificence with the
Cursaal, and other gaudy specimens of the new town.
Eighty thousand florins were accordingly raised by subscription, and
the huge edifice was actually finished, the priests were shaved, and
everything was ready for the celebration of mass, when, à propos to
nothing, "_occidit una domus!_" down it came thundering to the ground!
Whether it was blown up by subterranean heat, or burst by the action of
frost,--whether it was the foundation, or the fine arched roof which
gave way, are points which at Wiesbaden are still argued with acrimony
and eagerness; and, to this day, men's mouths are seen quite full of
jagged consonants, as they condemn or defend the architect of the
building--poor, unfortunate Mr. Schrumpf!
After having made myself acquainted with the geography of Wiesbaden,
I arose one morning at half-past five o'clock to see the visiters
drinking the waters. The scene was really an odd one. The long
parade, at one extremity of which stood smoking and fuming the great
Koch-brunnen, was seen crowded with respectably-dressed people, of both
sexes, all walking (like so many watchmen, carrying lanterns), with
glasses in their hands, filled, half filled, or quarter filled, with
the medicine, which had been delivered to them from the brunnen so
scalding hot, that they dared not even sip it, as they walked, until
they had carried it for a considerable time.
It requires no little dexterity to advance in this way, without
spilling one's medicine, to say nothing of burning or slopping it
over one's fellow patients. Every person's eye, therefore, whatever
might be the theme of his conversation, was instantly fixed upon his
glass; some few carried the thing along with elegance, but I could
not help remarking that the greater proportion of people walked with
their backs up, and were evidently very little at their ease. A band
of Wind-instruments was playing, and an author, a native of Wiesbaden,
in describing this scene, has sentimentally exclaimed--"_Thousands of
glasses are drunk by the sound of music!_"
Four or five young people, protected by a railing, are employed the
whole morning in filling, as fast as they can stoop down to the
brunnen to do so, the quantities of glasses, which, from hands in
all directions, are extending towards them; but so excessively hot
is the cauldron, that the greater proportion of these glasses were,
I observed, cracked by it, and several I saw fall to pieces when
delivered to their owners. Not wishing to appear eccentric, which, in
this amphibious picture any one is who walks about the parade without a
glass of scalding hot water in his hand, I purchased a goblet, and the
first dip it got cracked it from top to bottom.
In describing the taste of the mineral water of Wiesbaden, were I to
say, that, while drinking it, one hears in one's ears the cackling of
hens, and that one sees feathers flying before one's eyes, I should
certainly grossly exaggerate; but when I declare that it exactly
resembles very hot chicken broth, I only say what Dr. Granville
said, and what in fact everybody says, and must say, respecting it;
and certainly I do wonder why the common people should be at the
inconvenience of making bad soup, when they can get much better from
Nature's great stock-pot--the Koch-brunnen of Wiesbaden. At all periods
of the year, summer or winter, the temperature of this broth remains
the same, and when one reflects that it has been bubbling out of the
ground, and boiling over, in the very same state, certainly from the
time of the Romans, and probably from the time of the flood, it is
really astonishing to think what a most wonderful apparatus there must
exist below, what an inexhaustible stock of provisions to ensure such
an everlasting supply of broth, always formed of exactly the same eight
or ten ingredients--always salted to exactly the same degree, and
always served up at exactly the same heat.
One would think that some of the particles in the recipe would be
exhausted; in short, to speak metaphorically, that the chickens would
at last be boiled to rags, or that the fire would go out for want of
coals; but the oftener one reflects on these sorts of subjects, the
oftener is the old-fashioned observation forced upon the mind, that let
a man go where he will, Omnipotence is never from his view!
As leaning against one of the columns of the arcade under which the
band was playing, I stood with my medicine in my hand, gazing upon the
strange group of people, who with extended glasses were crowding and
huddling round the Koch-brunnen, each eagerly trying to catch the eye
of the young water-dippers, I could not help feeling, as I had felt at
Langen-Schwalbach, whether it could be possible for any prescription
to be equally beneficial to such differently made patients. To repeat
all the disorders which it is said most especially to cure, would be
very nearly to copy the sad list of ailments to which our creaky frames
are subject. The inhabitants of Wiesbaden rant, the hotel-keepers rave,
about the virtues of this medicine. Stories are most gravely related
of people crawling to Wiesbaden and running home. In most of the great
lodging-houses crutches are triumphantly displayed, as having belonged
to people who left them behind.
It is good they say for the stomach--good for the skin--good for
ladies of all possible ages--for all sorts and conditions of men. It
lulls pain--therefore it is good, they say, for people going out of
this world, yet equally good is it, they declare, for those whose
fond parents earnestly wish them to come in. For a head-ache, drink,
the inn-keepers exclaim, at the Koch-brunnen! For gout in the heels,
soak the body, the doctors say, in the chicken-broth!--in short, the
valetudinarian, reclining in his carriage, has scarcely entered the
town than, say what he will of himself, the inhabitants all seem to
agree in repeating--"_Benè, benè respondere; dignus es entrare nostro
docto corpore!_"
However, there would be no end in stating what the Wiesbaden water is
said to be good for; a much simpler course is to explain, that doctors
do agree in saying that it is _not_ good for complaints where there is
any disposition to inflammation or regular fever, and that it changes
consumption into--death.
By about seven o'clock, the vast concourse of people who had visited
the Koch-Brunnen had imbibed about as much of the medicine as they
could hold, and accordingly, like swallows, almost simultaneously
departing, the parade was deserted; the young water-dippers had also
retired to rest, and every feature in the picture vanished, except the
smoking, misty fumes of the water, which now, no longer in request,
boiled and bubbled by itself, as it flowed into the drains, by which it
eventually reached the Rhine.
The first act of the entertainment being thus over, in about a quarter
of an hour the second commenced; in short, so soon as the visiters,
retiring to their rooms, could divest or denude themselves of their
garments, I saw stalking down the long passage of my lodging-house one
heavy German gentleman after another whose skull-cap, dressing-gown,
and slippers, plainly indicated that he was proceeding to the bath.
In a short time, lady after lady, in similar dishabille, was seen
following the same course. Silence, gravity, and incognito were the
order of the day; and though I bowed as usual in meeting these
undressed people, yet the polite rule is, not, as at other moments, to
accompany the inclination with a gentle smile, but to dilute it with a
look which cannot be too solemn or too sad.
There was something to my mind so very novel in bathing in broth, that
I resolved to try the experiment, particularly as it was the only means
I had of following the crowd. Accordingly, retiring to my room, in a
minute or two I also, in my slippers and black dressing-gown, was to
be seen, staff in hand, mournfully walking down the long passage, as
slowly and as gravely as if I had been in such a procession all my
life. An infirm elderly lady was just before me--some lighter-sounding
footsteps were behind me--but without raising our eyes from the ground,
we all moved on just as if we had been corpses gliding or migrating
from one churchyard to another.
After descending a long well-staircase, I came to a door, which I no
sooner opened, than, of its own accord, it slammed after me exactly as,
five seconds before, it had closed upon the old lady who had preceded
me, and I now found myself in an immense building, half filled with
steam.
A narrow passage or aisle conducted me down the middle, on each side
of me there being a series of doors opening into the baths, which, to
my very great astonishment, I observed, were all open at top, being
separated from each other by merely a half-inch boarded partition, not
seven feet high!
Into several of these cells there was literally nothing but the steam
to prevent people in the houses of the opposite side of the street
from looking--a very tall man in one bath could hardly help peeping
into the next, and in the roof or loft above the ceiling there were
several loop-holes, through which any one might have had a bird's-eye
view of the whole unfledged scene. The arrangement, or rather want of
arrangement, was altogether most astonishing; and as I walked down
the passage, my first exclamation to myself was, "Well, thank Heaven,
this would not do in England!" To this remark the Germans would of
course say, that low, half-inch scantling is quite sufficient among
well-bred people, whatever coarser protection might be requisite among
us English; but though this argument may sound triumphant, yet delicacy
is a subject which is not fit for noisy discussion. Like the bloom
on fruit, it is a subject that does not bear touching; and if people
of their own accord do not feel that the scene I have described is
indelicate, it is quite impossible to prove it to them, and therefore
"the less said is the soonest mended."
As I was standing in the long passage, occupying myself with the above
reflections, a nice, healthy old woman, opening a door, beckoned to me
to advance, and accordingly with her I entered the little cell. Seeing
I was rather infirm, and a stranger, she gave me, with two towels,
a few necessary instructions,--such as that I was to remain in the
mixture about thirty-five minutes, and beneath the fluid to strike with
my arms and legs as strenuously as possible.
The door was now closed, and my dressing-gown being carefully hung upon
a peg (a situation I much envied it), I proceeded, considerably against
my inclination, to introduce myself to my new acquaintance, whose face,
or surface, was certainly very revolting; for a white, thick, dirty,
greasy scum, exactly resembling what would be on broth, covered the top
of the bath. But all this, they say, is exactly as it should be, and,
indeed, German bathers at Wiesbaden actually insist on its appearance,
as it proves, they argue, that the bath has not been used by any one
else. In most places, in ordering a warm bath, it is necessary to
wait till the water be heated, but at Wiesbaden the springs are so
exceedingly hot, that the baths are obliged to be filled over-night,
in order to be _cool_ enough in the morning; and the dirty scum I have
mentioned is the required proof that the water has, during that time,
been undisturbed.
Resolving not to be bullied by the ugly face of my antagonist, I
entered my bath, and in a few seconds I lay horizontally, calmly
soaking, like my neighbours. Generally speaking, a dead silence
prevailed; occasionally an old man was heard to cough,--sometimes a
young woman was gently heard to sneeze,--and two or three times there
was a sudden heavy splash in the cell adjoining mine, which proceeded
from the leg of a great awkward German Frau, kicking, by mistake,
above, instead of (as I was vigorously doing) beneath the fluid. Every
sigh that escaped was heard, and whenever a patient extricated him or
herself from the mess, one could hear puffing and rubbing as clearly as
if one had been assisting at the operation.
In the same mournful succession in which they had arrived, the
bathers, in due time, ascended, one after another, to their rooms,
where they were now permitted to eat--what they had certainly well
enough earned--their breakfast. As soon as mine was concluded, I
voted it necessary to clean my head, for from certain white particles
which float throughout the bath, as thickly as, and indeed very much
resembling, the mica in granite, I found that my hair was in a sticky
state, in which I did not feel disposed it should remain. I ought,
however, most explicitly to state, that the operation I here imposed
upon myself was an act of eccentricity, forming no part of the regular
system of the Wiesbaden bathers--indeed, I should say that the art of
cleaning the hair is not anywhere much encouraged among Germans, who,
perhaps with reason, rather pride themselves in despising any sort of
occupation or accomplishment which can at all be called--superficial.
Before I quit the subject of bathing, I may as well at once observe,
that one of my principal reasons for selecting the apartments I
occupied at the Englischen Hof was, that the window of my sitting-room
looked into the horse-bath, which was immediately beneath them. Three
or four times a-day, horses, lame or chest-foundered, were brought to
this spot. As the water was hot, the animals, on first being led into
it, seemed much frightened, splashing, and violently pawing with their
fore-feet an if to cool it, but being at last more accustomed to the
strange sensation, they very quickly seemed exceedingly to enjoy it.
Their bodies being entirely covered, the halter was then tied to a
post, and they were thus left to soak for half or three-quarters of an
hour. The heat seemed to heighten the circulation of their blood, and
nothing could look more animated than their heads, as, peeping out of
the hot fluid, they shook their dripping manes and snorted at every
carriage, and horse, which they heard passing.
The price paid for each bathing of each horse is eighteen kreuzers, and
this trifling fact always appeared to me to be the most satisfactory
proof I could meet with of the curative properties of the Wiesbaden
baths: for though it is, of course, the interest of the inhabitants to
insist on their efficacy, yet the poor peasant would never, I think,
continue for a fortnight to pay sixpence a-day, unless he knew, by
experience of some sort or other, that his animal would really derive
benefit.
One must not, however carry the moral too far; for even if it be
admitted that these baths cure in horses strains and other effects of
_over-work_, it does not follow that they are to be equally beneficial
in gout, and other human complaints, which we all know are the effects
of _under-work_, or want of exercise.
For more than half an hour I had been indolently watching this
amphibious scene, when the landlord entering my room said, that the
Russian Prince G----n wished to speak to me on some business; and the
information was scarcely communicated, when I perceived his Highness
standing at the threshold of my door. With the attention due to his
rank, I instantly begged he would do me the honour to walk in; and,
after we had sufficiently bowed to each other, and I had prevailed upon
my guest to sit down, I gravely requested him, as I stood before him,
to be so good as to state in what way I could have the good fortune to
render him any service. The Prince very briefly replied, that he had
called upon me, considering that I was the person in the hotel best
capable (he politely inclined his head) of informing him by what route
it would be most advisable for him to proceed to London, it being his
wish to visit my country.
In order at once to solve this very simple problem, I silently unfolded
and spread out upon the table my map of Europe; and each of us, as we
leant over it, placing a fore-finger on or near Wiesbaden--(our eyes
being fixed upon Dover)--we remained in this reflecting attitude for
some seconds, until the Prince's finger first solemnly began to trace
its route. In doing this I observed that his Highness's hand kept
swerving far into the Netherlands; so, gently pulling it by the thumb
towards Paris, I used as much force as I thought decorous, to induce it
to advance in a straight line; however, finding my efforts ineffectual,
I ventured, with respectful astonishment, to ask, "Why travel by so
uninteresting a route?"
The Prince at once acknowledged that the road I had recommended would,
by visiting Paris, afford him the greatest pleasure, but he frankly
told me that no Russian, not even a personage of his rank, could enter
that capital without first obtaining a written permission from the
Emperor!!!
These words were no sooner uttered than I felt my fluent civility
suddenly begin to coagulate; the attention I paid my guest became
forced and unnatural--I was no longer at my ease; and though I bowed,
strained, and endeavoured to be, if possible, more respectful, than
ever, yet I really could hardly prevent my lips from muttering aloud,
that I had sooner die a homely English peasant than live to be a
Russian Prince! In short, his Highness's words acted upon my mind
like thunder upon beer; and, moreover, I could almost have sworn that
I was an old lean wolf, contemptuously observing a bald ring rubbed by
the collar from the neck of a sleek, well-fed mastiff dog; however,
recovering myself, I managed to give as much information as it was
in my humble power to afford, and my noble guest then taking his
departure, I returned to my open window, to give vent in solitude (as I
gazed upon the horse-bath) to my own reflections upon the subject.
Although the petty rule of my life has been never to trouble myself
about what the world calls "politics"--(a fine word, by-the-by, much
easier expressed than understood)--yet, I must own, I am always happy
when I see a nation enjoying itself, and melancholy when I observe any
large body of people suffering pain or imprisonment. But of all sorts
of imprisonment, that of the mind is, to my taste, the most cruel; and,
therefore, when I consider over what immense dominions the Emperor of
Russia presides, and how he governs, I cannot help sympathizing most
sincerely with those innocent sufferers who have the misfortune to be
born his subjects; for if a Russian Prince be not freely permitted to
go to Paris, in what a melancholy state of slavery and debasement must
exist the minds of what we call the lower classes?
As a sovereign remedy for this lamentable political disorder, many
very sensible people in England prescribe, I know, that we ought to
have recourse to arms. I must confess, however, it seems to me that
one of the greatest political errors England could commit would be
to declare, or to join in declaring war against Russia; in short,
that an appeal to brute force would, at this moment, be at once most
unscientifically to stop an immense moral engine, which, if left to
its work, is quite powerful enough, without bloodshed, to gain for
humanity, at no expense at all, its object. The individual who is, I
conceive to overthrow the Emperor of Russia--who is to direct his own
legions against himself--who is to do what Napoleon at the head of his
Great Army failed to effect, is the little child, who, lighted by the
single wick of a small lamp, sits at this moment perched above the
great steam-press of our "Penny Magazine," feeding it, from morning
till night, with blank paper, which, at almost every pulsation of the
engine, comes out stamped on both sides with engravings, and with
pages of plain, useful, harmless knowledge, which, by making the lower
orders acquainted with foreign lands--foreign production's--various
states of society, &c., tend practically to inculcate "Glory to God
in the highest, and on earth peace--good will towards men." It has
already been stated, that what proceeds from this press is now greedily
devoured by the people of Europe; indeed, even at Berlin, we know it
can hardly be reprinted fast enough.
This child, then,--"this sweet little cherub that sits up, aloft," is
the only army that an enlightened country like ours should, I humbly
think, deign to oppose to one who reigns in darkness--who trembles at
day-light, and whose throne rests upon ignorance and despotism. Compare
this mild, peaceful, intellectual policy, with the dreadful, savage
alternative of going to war, and the difference must surely be evident
to every one. In the former case, we calmly enjoy, first of all, the
pleasing reflection, that our country is generously imparting to the
nations of Europe the blessings she is tranquilly deriving from the
purification and civilization of her own mind;--far from wishing to
exterminate, we are gradually illuminating, the Russian peasant--we
are mildly throwing a gleam of light upon the fetters of the Russian
Prince; and surely every well-disposed person must see, that, if we
will only have patience, the result of this noble, temperate conduct
must produce all that reasonable beings can desire. But, on the other
hand, if we appeal to arms--if, losing our temper and our head, we
endeavour (as the bear is taught to dance) to civilize the Emperor
of Russia by hard blows, we instantly consolidate all the tottering
elements of his dominions; we give life, energy, and loyalty to his
army; we avert the thoughts of his princes from their own dishonour;
we inflame the passions, instead of awakening the sober judgment of
his subjects, and thus throwing away both our fulcrum and our lever,
by resorting to main strength, we raise the savage not only to a level
with ourselves, but actually make ourselves decidedly his inferior;
for Napoleon's history ought surely sufficiently to instruct us, that
the weapons of this northern Prince of Darkness--(his climate and
his legions)--even if we had an army, we ought not, in prudence, to
attack; but the fact is, our pacific policy has been to try to exist
without an army,--in the opinion of all military men we have even
disarmed ourselves too much, and, in this situation, suddenly to change
our system, and without arms or armour to attack one who is almost
invulnerable, would be most irrationally to paralyze our own political
machinery.
If, by its moral assistance, we wisely intend, under the blessings
of Heaven, to govern and be governed, we surely ought not from anger
to desert, its standard; and, on the other hand, it must be equally
evident that before we determine on civilizing the Emperor of Russia,
by trying the barbarous experiment of whether his troops or ours can,
without shrinking, eat most lead, it would be prudent to create an
army, as well as funds able to maintain it; for--
"Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel; but, being in,
Bear it, that the opposer may beware of thee!"
* * * * *
Being desirous to observe the way in which a Sunday evening was passed
in Germany, at seven o'clock on that day I followed a crowd of people
into the theatre, and found the house so full, that I had great
difficulty in obtaining a seat. The performance was a complete surprise
to me; for though ages ago, when I was young, I had been in the habit
of regularly attending for years together an Italian theatre, yet never
having before witnessed a German opera, I did not know it was possible
so completely to adapt the sounds of music to every varying thought and
sentiment in a play; in short, the words of the play, and the notes of
the orchestra, were as nearly as possible fac-similes of each other;
demi-semi-quavers, crotchets, and minims being made most ingeniously
to mimic, not only exclamations, but marks of admiration, notes of
interrogation, colons, and full stops.
The musical emphasis which accompanied every line throughout the
piece, while it merely astonished me, seemed to be most scientifically
appreciated by the audience, whose countenances of severe attention
were very remarkable; no interruption, however, of any sort took place,
their feelings of approbation or censure being equally mute. In the
various departments of the performance, a great deal of natural talent
was displayed, and whether one attended to the music--to the style of
acting--to the scenery--or even to a dish of devils, which made their
appearance, most strangely garnished with toads, bats, serpents, and
non-descript beings, one could not help admitting that, in spite of
its torpor, there must exist a considerable quantity of latent genius,
imagination, and taste, in the audience itself; indeed, there can be
no fairer criterion of the mental character of any country, than its
own national spectacles, which are of course, and must be, made to
correspond with, and suit, the palates of those who support them. It
is true that that mimic Fashion will occasionally introduce into a
country foreign habits, not suited to its climate. For instance, of
our own fine London opera, Italians say, that without calling upon
the English audience itself to sing, their behaviour quite clearly
proves that they have no real taste for--that they are not capable of
relishing, the foreign musical luxury which by the power of money they
have purchased: in short, they accuse us of listening, when we ought to
be coughing--of talking to each other, when we ought to be breathless,
from attention--and of most barbarously throwing the light of the
theatre upon ourselves instead of on the performers--thus showing that
we prefer looking at tiers of red cheeks and rows of white teeth, to
listening to the soft, simple melody of music. But, whether these
foreign remarks respecting an Italian performance be true or not, in
our own element, in our own English theatres, the accusation of want of
taste does not hold good. The admirers of Shakspeare, Siddons, Kemble,
Kean, O'Neil, &c., cannot complain that the writings of the one, or the
acting of the others, have not reached the hearts of those to whom they
have been directed; in short, without sympathetic talent throughout the
country, those names could never have reached the respective eminences
on which they stand, and thus, though they do honour to the country,
the country can also claim honour from them.
When the pleasing performance I had been witnessing was at an end, on
coming into the open air, I found it was raining. Like myself, most
people were without umbrellas; the rain, however, seemed to have no
effect upon the tide of human bodies that flowed _en masse_ towards the
Cursaal, which, ready lighted up, was waiting for the disgorging of the
theatre. On entering the great door, each person was required to pay
a florin, and as the large room was rapidly very nearly filled, the
band struck up, and dancing most vigorously began. I could now scarcely
believe my eyes, that the performers, so awkwardly attempting to be
active before me, were the identical people whose passive good taste
and genius I had, with so much pleasure, been admiring; for with a more
awkward, clumsy, inelegant set of dancers I certainly never before had
found myself in society. Not only was the execution of their steps
violently bad, but their whole style of dancing was of a texture as
coarse as dowlas, and most especially, in their mode of waltzing, there
was a repetition of vulgar jerks which it was painfully disagreeable to
witness. Leaving, therefore, these dull, heavy, tetotums to spin out
the evening in their own way, I quitted the great room; but no sooner
did I enter the smaller dens than I found that I had fallen from the
frying-pan into the fire, for these "hells" were literally swarming
with inhabitants. In each chamber an immense solitary lamp (having a
circular reflector) hung over the green cloth table, round which, male
and female gamesters, of all ages, were bending, with horrid features
of anxiety; and as the powerful rancid oil light shone upon their
ill-favoured countenances, I could not help with abhorrence leaning
backwards, at seeing a group of fellow-creatures huddled together for
such a base, low-minded object. In passing through the chambers of this
infernal region, I found one worse, if possible, than the other. Under
each lamp, there were, here and there, contrasted with young nibblers,
individual countenances of habitual gamesters, which, as objects of
detestation, many a painter, or rather scene-painter, would have been
exceedingly anxious to sketch; but I was so completely disgusted with
the whole thing, that, as quickly as my staff and two legs could carry
me, swinging the other arm, I took my departure.
In hastily worming my way through the ball-room, I saw there no reason
for changing my opinion; and when I got into the fresh, cool, open air,
though I was fully sensible I had not spent my Sunday evening exactly
as I ought to have done, yet, in the course of my very long life, I
think I never felt more practically disposed to repeat, as in England
we are, thank Heaven, still taught to do--
"REMEMBER THAT THOU KEEP HOLY
THE SABBATH DAY."