"Yours is a strange doctrine," replied his companion, "though I believe it might be as well to practice it."
"Why, if a man carries about in his mind," continued Burrel, "his uncles and aunts, and sisters and brothers, and all the luggage of associations that they bring along with them, he might as well jog on in the old family coach at the rate of forty mortal miles per day, from the town house in Berkeley-square to the country house in Staffordshire. But let a man resolve to forget every thing on earth but the scenes through which he is passing, and he will find as much to interest, and amuse, and excite him--ay, and as much to the purpose of real information, too--between London and Dorchester, as between Paris and the Dardanelles."
His companion smiled, perhaps as much from surprise at the very unexpected tone of his fellow-traveler's tirade, as from any acquiescence in the tirade itself. "Nay, nay," he said, "surely you won't deny that--putting all other advantages out of the question between the two journeys you mention--there is still much more picturesque beauty to be found between Paris and the Dardanelles than between London and Dorchester?"
"I do not know that," replied Burrel. "There may be newer scenery, and perhaps more sublime scenery; but whether the more sublime be calculated to produce a finer or sweeter effect upon a man's heart and mind than softer and gentler pictures, I much doubt, There is something in an English landscape to be found nowhere else--an air of rich, sweet, happy repose--of safe tranquillity and successful industry, that is in itself almost sublime. Let your eye now run over that view as the coach climbs the hill. Where did you ever behold a scene on which sight can so pleasantly repose? The rich scattered wood in front, full of old England's grand primeval oaks. Then look how, bending over a thousand slopes, in the true lines of beauty, the hedgerows wind along, dividing wealthy field from field--now giving skips and glances of fair towns and uplands, and now massing together, till the eye believes them to be deep groves; then that catch of the river, glistening under the hill, while the sunshine streams through the valley, and that broad shadow of some cloud we do not see, passes slowly on--at every change that it effects in the light and shade of the landscape, bringing out some new beauty, as if it itself delighted in the loveliness it produces. Then again cast your eyes up yonder to the village church hanging half way down the hill, with its neat parsonage embowered in tall elms; and looking, as it is, the abode of peace and virtue. As good a man dwells there as the whole world can produce, and a true representative of the great majority of the much-belied English clergy. But say, did you ever see a fairer scene?"
"Seldom, indeed," replied his companion, whose attention, called to the principal points of a purely English picture, found more beauties in it than custom suffered him to see before. "But still," he added, "I am fond of mountain scenery."
"And so am I," replied Burrel. "I am fond of every kind of scenery, from the bold blue mountain, with its purple heath, as bare, as naked, and as wild as the banks of Loch Awe itself can show, to the rich and undulating plains of Champagne, where soft line beyond line of faint and fainter shadows, vanishing away in Claude-like sunshine, are all that mark the wide extent over which the eye can roam. There is such a thing as the economy of admiration; and by husbanding that faculty properly, you will not find a scene in all the world on which you can not afford to bestow some small portion thereof."
The other traveler replied, not a little pleased to find that all the fine sketches which he had been making of his companion's character, during the earlier part of their journey, were as empty as a protocol; and, with the very natural jump which man's heart takes when it finds itself agreeably disappointed in the estimation it had formed of another, perhaps the stranger now felt as much inclined to over-admire his companion, as he had before been disposed to undervalue him. A growing remembrance of his features, too, for some time made him fancy that he had met with an old friend, whose face, like a worn piece of money, though half obliterated by time, was still sufficiently plain to tease memory--one of those provoking recollections, as tenacious as remorse, and intactible as a soufflet. After some further conversation, and one or two thoughtful pauses--in which memory was so busy in digging among the ruins of the past, to see if she could find the name of Burrel, that she would not even let the young traveler's loquacious powers go on, for fear of disturbing her search--he suddenly exclaimed, with that degree of frank simplicity which at once spoke him but little a child of the great world, "Oh! now I remember where it was I saw you before!"
"Where?" demanded Burrel, with a slight smile, which he instantly repressed, lest he should give pain.
But the young stranger was not of a nature to think there could be any thing wrong or absurd in acknowledging whatever he felt, if what he felt were pure and natural. "It was at the door of Lord Ashborough, in Grosvenor-square," he replied, at once. "You were coming out as I was going in to call for his lordship. It was but yesterday; and yet I have been searching through many long years to find out where it was I had seen you before."
"Memory is like the philosophers," replied Burrel, "and often sends out far to seek what she might stumble over at her own door. I now remember your face also, and think I heard you give your name as Captain Delaware."