After Italy and Holland, perhaps side by side with Holland or before it, England—the southern portion of it—is the most charmingly individual country in Europe. For the sake of the walk, the evening was so fine, we decided to leave the train at Maidenhead and walk the remaining distance, some five or six miles. It was ideal. The sun was going down and breaking through diaphanous clouds in the west, which it tinted and gilded. The English hedges and copses were delicately tinted with new life. English robins were on the grass; sheep, cows; over one English hamlet and another smoke was curling and English crows or rooks were gaily cawing, cheered at the thought of an English spring.
As gay as children, Barfleur and I trudged the yellow English road. Now and then we passed through a stile and cut diagonally across a field where a path was laid for the foot of man. Every so often we met an English laborer, his trousers gripped just below the knee by the customary English strap. Green and red; green and red; (such were the houses and fields) with new spring violets, apple trees in blossom, and peeping steeples over sloping hillsides thrown in for good measure. I felt—what shall I say I felt?—not the grandeur of Italy, but something so delicate and tender, so reminiscent and aromatic—faintly so—of other days and other fames, that my heart was touched as by music. Near Bridgely Level we encountered Wilkins going home from his work, a bundle of twigs under his arm, a pruning hook at his belt, his trousers strapped after the fashion of his class.
“Well, Wilkins!” I exclaimed.
“W’y, ’ow do you do, sir, Mr. Dreiser? Hi’m glad to see you again, Hi am,” touching his cap. “Hi ’opes as ’ow you’ve had a pleasant trip.”
“Very, Wilkins, very,” I replied grandiosely. Who cannot be grandiose in the presence of the fixed conditions of old England. I asked after his work and his health and then Barfleur gave him some instructions for the morrow. We went on in a fading light—an English twilight. And when we reached the country house it was already aglow in anticipation of this visit. Hearth fires were laid. The dining-room, reception-hall, and living-room were alight. Dora appeared at the door, quite as charming and rosy in her white apron and cap as the day I left, but she gave no more sign that I was strange or had been absent than as if I had not been away.
“Now we must make up our minds what particular wines we want for dinner. I have an excellent champagne of course; but how about a light Burgundy or a Rhine wine? I have an excellent Assmanshäuser.”
“I vote for the light Burgundy,” I said.
“Done. I will speak to Dora now.”
And while he went to instruct Dora, I went to look after all my belongings in order to bring them finally together for my permanent departure. After a delicious dinner and one of those comfortable, reminiscent talks that seem naturally to follow the end of the day, I went early to bed.
When the day came to sail I was really glad to be going home, although on the way I had quarreled so much with my native land for the things which it lacks and which Europe apparently has.