Mrs. Browning is said to have written Lady Geraldine in a few hours, lying upon a sofa. This is one of the proofs cited that genius does its work as if by inspiration, without great effort. What nonsense! The Agave Americana bursts into flower in a day; but, look you, a hundred years of quiet, unceasing growth, which stopped not night nor day, was the period of labor preceding the miracle—a hundred years, during all of which it drank of the sunshine and the dews. Scott wrote some of his best works in a few weeks, but for a lifetime he never flagged in his work of gathering the fruits of song and story. Burns dashed off "A man's a man for a' that" in a jiffy. Yes, but for how many years were his very heartstrings tingling and his blood boiling at the injustice of hereditary rank! His life is in that song, not a few hours of it.
Guildford, June 17.
A Generous Squire.
The approach to Guildford gives us our first real perfect English lane—so narrow and so bound in by towering hedgerows worthy the name. Had we met a vehicle at some of the prettiest turns there would have been trouble, for, although the lane is not quite as narrow as the pathway of the auld brig, where two wheelbarrows trembled as they met, yet a four-in-hand upon an English lane requires a clear track. Vegetation near Guildford is luxuriant enough to meet our expectations of England. It was at the White Lion we halted, and here came our first experience of quarters for the night. The first dinner en route was a decided success in our fine sitting-room, the American flags, brought into requisition for the first time to decorate the mantel, bringing to all sweet memories of home. During our stroll to-day we stopped at a small village inn before which pretty roses grew, hanging in clusters upon its sides. It was a very small and humble inn indeed, the tile floors sanded, and the furniture of the tap-room only plain wood—there were no chairs, only benches around the table where the hinds sit at night, drinking home-brewed beer, smoking their clay pipes, and discussing not the political affairs of the nation, but the affairs of their little world, bounded by the hall at one end of the estate, and the parsonage at the other. The merits of the gray mare, or the qualities of the last breed of sheep at the home farm, or the new-fangled plough which the squire has been rash enough to order. The landlady told us that she had recently moved from one of the midland towns to this village to secure purer air for the children, who had not been thriving well. Her husband was a gardener and worked for the squire. Two pretty little girls were brought in for us to see, true Saxons, with blue eyes and light colored hair, but with less color in their sweet innocent faces than usual—the result of dirty, crowded Leeds, no doubt—but soon to be changed by the country air. The eldest girl could not have been more than six or seven years old, but when she was given a few pence she went to the next room and brought a sheet of paper upon which were pasted some penny postage stamps. She was going at once to the post office to buy more stamps with her pennies. On inquiring we learned that the Post Office Department receives deposits of a shilling in stamps and allows two and a half per cent. interest I think, upon them, and "the squire" God bless him! had promised all the children upon his estates, which I trust vast, that whenever they saved eleven stamps he would give the last one to complete the shilling. In this way he hopes to instil into the young the importance of beginning early to save something for a rainy day. The still younger girl had also her stamp paper. The English are an improvident race, not given to denying themselves to-day that they may feast later on. "Do not put off till to-morrow what can be done to-day" is generally construed to mean, that the cake may as well be eaten at once, so that upon the whole we were not displeased to see these children trained to accumulate; but nevertheless it did seem pitiful that the dear little lambs, instead of sporting without a care, should have so early to learn that life is to the mass mainly a struggle for subsistence. Civilization is a failure till all this be changed. What a pity the name and address of that squire are mislaid. He evidently feels that property has its duties as well as its rights. The village and the inn and all the surroundings showed that the Hall was, in this instance, as it is in so many others, the centre and source of good influences. "He has a good wife and earnest thinking and working daughters," said one of the party. Surely he has and they do their part or he could not succeed. It was quite safe to infer this, was the verdict. Man is a poor agency for such work, left to himself. It needs woman's patience and glowing sympathy to work improvement in the manners and customs of the rural population. Man may supply the money, which corresponds only to barren faith among the virtues; it is to woman we must look for the harvest—good works.
When we remounted the coach, one regret found loud expression, and as the Scribe writes to-day, he wishes the omission could be remedied. Why did not we give these children a shilling each, with strict injunctions to gorge themselves with taffy and gingerbread, not a penny of it to be saved. A regular spree regardless of consequences! "Oh! it would have made them ill," said one. Well, suppose it did, just think of the legacy left them, a dream for years that they had been brought to death's door by too much taffy! Why, the sweet taste would have lingered in the pretty little mouths till womanhood, and they would have thought about their illness as Conn in the Shaughraun did about his month in jail for taking the squire's horse for a run with the hounds: "Begorra! it was worth it!"
Franklin's Proverb.
It might have given them a taste for dissipation, and they would have ceased to gather stamps, and turned out badly, was the next suggestion. This was seemingly agreed to by the majority, but there was one who wished he had secretly conveyed to the cherubs, at least a six-pence each to be entirely devoted to gormandizing. "Take care of your pence and the pounds will take care of themselves," the Queen Dowager remarked, is one of Ben Franklin's wisest proverbs. There was one at least of her children who had good reason to remember that favorite axiom. During his temporary absence from school, good Mr. Martin had instituted a rule that each one in the class should repeat a proverb before the lessons began. Her offspring was at the foot of the class, from absence it is to be hoped, and as each boy and girl spoke his proverb (they were taught together in those days, much to the advantage of both sexes, for who wanted to be a dunce before pretty and clever A. R.) they had an unfamiliar sound, but when his turn came he innocently gave them his mother's favorite from Franklin. It was like introducing a strange dog into a crowded church. After the uproar had subsided, the teacher said that while it was no doubt a very good proverb, it was not just in place among the sacred proverbs of Solomon. Another story was related of one of the Charioteers who, when told that he ought to sing when the others did in church, struck up, at the top of his shrill piping voice, "Come under my plaidie, the night's going to fa';" when the congregation began the Psalm. His uncle was so convulsed that, notwithstanding the angry glances of many near him, he could not stop the performance in time to prevent an unseemly interruption.
We had done our first day's coaching, and a long day at that, and looking back it is amusing to remember how anxiously we awaited the reports of the ladies of our party; for it was not without grave apprehension that some must fall by the wayside, as it were, as we journeyed on. One who had tried coaching upon this side had informed us that few ladies could stand it; but it was very evident that the spirits and appetites of ours were entirely satisfactory, and they all laughed at the idea that they could not go on forever. The Queen Dowager was quite as fresh as any. It was a shame that general orders consigned to bed at an early hour two of the ladies thought least robust, while the others walked about the suburbs of Guildford until late. We stood in the thickening twilight in front of an ivy-clad residence for some time, and asked each other if anything so exquisite had ever been seen, so full of rest, of home. The next morning all were fresh and happy, without a trace of fatigue—full of yesterday, and quite sure that no other day could equal it. But this was often said: many and many a day was voted the finest yet, only to be eclipsed in its turn by a later, till at last an effort to name our best day led to twenty selections, and ended in the general conclusion that it was impossible to say which had crowded within its hours the rarest treat, for none had all the finest, neither did any lack something of the best. But there is one point upon which a unanimous verdict can always be had from the Gay Charioteers, that to such days in the mass none but themselves can be their parallel.
We ran into a book-shop in the morning and obtained a local guide-book, that we might cull for you the proper quotations therefrom. It consists of 148 pages, mostly given up to notices of the titled people who visited the old town long ago; but who cares about them? Here, however, is something of more interest than all those nobodies. Cobbett says of Guildford, in his "Rural Rides:"