| Because the door is apt to slam, which would be exceedingly unpleasant, and might suggest the idea that you went out in a passion—valued as | 4 |
| If it did not slam, it might still make a creaking noise—valued as | 2 |
| Supposing it to make no noise at all, the impression is conveyed that you are going away never to return, whereas you have no such intention, | 1 |
| Chances of your causing a noise to disturb the company on opening the door when you return, | 2 |
| Probable loss of character by conveying the notion, that you are peremptory and abrupt in manners, | 3 |
| Giving the parties remaining the option of shutting, or not, as suits their fancy, | 2 |
| That by leaving the door open, you do not commit yourself to a determinate act, | 2 |
| — | |
| 16 |
FOR SHUTTING.
| That a cold wind may not blow into the room; but this is not probable, for it will be easy for those remaining in the apartment to rise and shut the door themselves, | 1 |
| That by a faint possibility you may give offence by leaving the door open, | 1 |
| That you may prevent persons outside overhearing what is said; this of small account, for people should not speak about things they do not wish to be repeated, | 1 |
| — | |
| 3 |
Deducting 3 from 16, 13 remain. Result—balance of 13-19ths in favour of not shutting the door. Nothing, therefore, could be more clearly demonstrated than that the Scotch are strongly justified in leaving the door open when they quit an apartment. Doubts, indeed, may be entertained as to the values arbitrarily put on the respective items in the account: but to venture into this remote part of the inquiry would be to plunge us into the depths of metaphysics. Even supposing we were to make the matter as clear as the sun at noonday, there would still be sceptics. On shewing the above arithmetical calculation, for example, to an English lady, who has for a number of years studied Scotch character and manners, she, with a degree of bluntness that was exceedingly startling, gave it as her unqualified opinion, that the whole thing was a piece of nonsense; and that the only reason, as far as she could observe, why the Scotch do not shut the door, is that they have never been taught that it is consistent with good-manners to do so. The audacity of some people is really wonderful!
EDFOU AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD.
There is something extremely pleasant in the general regularity with which the picture of Egypt unfolds itself on either hand like a double panorama as you descend the Nile. When moving in the opposite direction, against the perpetual current, you are sometimes compelled to creep slowly on, tugged by a tight-strained rope at the rate of seven or eight miles a day; whilst anon a wind rises unexpectedly, and carries you with bewildering speed through forty or fifty miles of scenery. But the masts being taken down, and the sails folded for the rest of the voyage, and the oars put out, you begin to calculate with tolerable certainty on the rate of progress; for though violent contrary winds do frequently blow during part of a day, it is almost always possible to make up for lost time in the hours that neighbour on sunset before and after. Well-seasoned Nile-travellers confirm our experience; and as we had rowed and floated within a calculated time from Assouan to Ombos, and from Ombos to Silsilis, so did we proceed to Edfou, and to the stations beyond, with few exceptions of obstinately adverse weather.
True, some portions of the view are missed during the hours of night-travelling; but these have most probably been seen during the ascent. Besides, though the scenery of the Nile is certainly not monotonous enough to weary the eye, yet there is a general sameness in its details, a want of those bold, original features which in other countries stamp the character of particular localities. Two parallel lines of mountains ever within sight of each other, now advancing towards the river through a sea of verdure in promontories, always nearly with the same level outline, now receding in semicircular sweeps; a narrow flat plain, loaded with crops and palm-groves, and intersected by canals and dikes, sometimes equally divided by a tortuous stream of vast breadth, but sometimes thrown, as it were, all to one side, east or west; occasionally a long line of precipices descending sheer into the very water; once only a regular defile with rocks on either hand; islands in the river, sandbanks, broad, winding reaches—such, in a few words, is a description of Egypt. It is the variety of colour produced by that mighty painter, the sun, that gives all the beauty to the landscape; and of this it is almost impossible to convey an idea. The chaste loveliness of the dawn, the majestic splendour of noon, and the marvellous glories of the sunset-hour—the thousand hues that glow and tremble, and melt and mingle around through all the scenes of this great drama of light—words have not yet been invented to describe.
And then the night! Who can sit down and recall and count over the impressions which fly like a troop of fairies over the thrilling senses at that mystic hour, when the skirts of retiring day have ceased to flutter above the western hills, and the moon casts down her pale, melancholy glances on the silent scene, and the stars—our guardian angels, according to some—seem to stoop nearer and nearer to the earth as slumber deepens, as if to press golden kisses upon the eyelids of those whom they watch and love! In all countries these hours are beautiful; but in Egypt—let those who doubt come and witness all that we beheld, and which is indescribable, on the evening that we left the neighbourhood of Silsilis on our way to Edfou—on that calm, placid river, over which brooded a silence interrupted only by the alternate songs of the crews of the two boats as they leisurely pulled with the current.