555 CHAPTER XIV. SUNDAY IN THE COUNTRY. Sonst stuerzte sich der Himmels-Liebe Kuss Auf mich herab, in ernster Sabbathstille; Da klang so ahndungsvoll des Glockentones Fuelle, Ein unbegreiflich holdes Sehnen Trieb mich durch Wald und Wiesen hinzugehn, Fuehlt' ich mir eine Welt entstehn. Faust. In other days, the kiss of heavenly love descended upon me in the solemn stillness of the Sabbath; then the full-toned bell sounded so fraught with mystic meaning, and a prayer was vivid enjoyment. A longing, inconceivably sweet, drove me forth to wander over wood and plain, and amid a thousand burning tears, I felt a world rise up to me. Hayward's Translation. GOETHE, in his Faust, has given a very lively description of a German multitude bursting out of the city to enjoy an Easter Sunday;-mechanics, students, citizens' daughters, servant-girls, townsmen, beggars, old women ready to tell fortunes, soldiers, and amongst the rest, his hero Faust and his friend Wagner, proceeding to enjoy a country walk. They reach a rising ground; and Faust says "Turn and look back from this rising ground upon the town. From forth the gloomy portal presses a motley crowd. Every one suns himself delightedly to-day. They celebrate the rising of the LORD, for they themselves have arisen: from the dark rooms of mean houses; from the bondage of mechanical drudgery; from the confinement of gables and roofs; from the stifling narrowness of streets; from the venerable gloom of churches-are they raised up to the open light of day. But look! look! how quickly the mass is scattering itself through the gardens and fields; how the river, broad and long, tosses many a merry bark upon its surface; and how this last wherry, overladen almost to sinking, moves off. Even from the farthest paths of the mountain, gay-coloured dresses glance upon us. I hear already the bustle of the village. This is the true heaven of the multitude; big and little are huzzaing joyously. Here I am a man-here I may be one." Making allowance for the difference of national manners, this might serve for a picture of Sunday in the neighbourhood of a large town in England. Human nature is the same everywhere. The girls are looking out for sweethearts; and both mechanics and students are seeking after the best beer and the prettiest girl: Ein starkes bier, ein beitzender Toback, Und eine Mago im Putz dass ist nun mein Geschmack. Strong beer, stinging tobacco, and a girl all in her best,—that is the taste for me," cries one: and so it is here and everywhere. See how the multitudes of our large manufacturing towns, and of London spend their Sundays. They pour out into the country in all directions, but it is not to enjoy the country only. They do enjoy the country; but it is because it heightens their wild delight in smoking, drinking, and flirtation. Who does not know what innumerable haunts there are within five, ten, or even twenty miles round London, to which these classes repair on Sundays: teahouses and tea-gardens, country inns, hedge-alehouses, all the old and noted places where good beer and tobacco, merry company, and noisy politics are to be found? Norwood, Greenwich, Richmond, Hampton-Court, Windsor, the Nore, Herne-Bay, Gravesend, Margate; and those old-fashioned places of resort that Hone gives you glimpses of; such as Copenhagen-House, the Sluice-House, Canonbury, etc.-what swarming votaries have they all.* And what an * The following calculation, made on Whit-Monday 1835, may give some idea of the number of similar pleasure-seekers on a fine summer Sunday. On Monday, immensity of new regions will the railroads that are now beginning to stretch their lines from the metropolis in different directions, lay open-terræ incognita, as it were, to the millions that in the dense and ever-growing mass of monstrous London pant after an outburst into the country. Truly may these say, through the medium of this modern and most providential means of occasional dispersion: To morrow to fresh fields and pastures new! I well remember two ladies of high reputation in the literary world, who, after reading Faust, were inspired with a desire to see how the lower classes amused themselves on a Sunday in this country. It was, they thought, a subject of profitable study. They could not divest themselves of the idea that the people must wonderfully enjoy themselves, in their own way; and perhaps they might imagine that they should be received and complimented, as Faust and his friend Wagner were. Well; the experiment was tried. Another gentleman and myself accompanied them; and of all schemes we hit upon that of going by the steam-packet to Richmond. It was a fine morning in May. Our packet and another sailed from St. Katherine's wharf with crowded decks, and a bright sun over our heads, casting its animating glory upon tower and town, over the majestic river, and the green country to which, anon, we emerged. We swept under bridge after bridge, and saw the mighty metropolis, with its vast wilderness of houses, wharfs, warehouses, and great public buildings, rapidly glide away behind us; above all the towers and spires of churches St. Paul's lifting its solemn dome and glittering cross; and then the villages, splendid villas, and beautiful gardens, with the tall robinias in between eight in the morning and nine at night, 191 steam-vessels passed through the Pool to and from Margate, Herne-Bay, Sheerness, Southend, the Nore, Gravesend, Woolwich, and Greenwich, including several on their way to and from Scotland, Ireland, and the Continent. Each vessel averaged, at least, 500 persons. The above calculation was made by Mr. Brown, a boat-builder in Wapping, who with his servants, watched them all day. But many passed after nine, swelling the number to upwards of 200; so that more than 100,000 persons must have been afloat in the steamers on Monday, exclusive of the passengers in small boats. Several steam-vessels carried 800 and 900 souls each to the Nore and back, One steam-vessel brought back from Greenwich 1000 persons, another 1300, and a third was actually crowded with 1500 passengers. their new leaves, and covered with their snow-white masses of flowers, in gay succession;-Lambeth, Vauxhall, Chelsea, Battersea, Fulham, Putney, Barnes, Chiswick, Kew, Richmond!—it was a fair and promising scene. The people on board were well-dressed. There were some portly, middle-aged dames, with gold watches at their sides, and clad in richest silks; and there were some as lovely young ones as London could shew. You were sure that there were plenty of the very-well-to-do-in-the-world about you, if there were none of the very refined; substantial tradespeople, that would have the best the world could procure in eating, drinking, and dressing. And there was a knot of Germans too; men with great mustachios and laced coats; and damsels from whose tongues the strong, homely, expressive German speech seemed to fall wondrous softly. It was quite an attractive circumstance: for our fair friends, being just in the fresh fervour of studying "Die Deutche Sprache," and reading Faust, imagined every thing in them interesting, and doubtless fancied them just such characters as Goethe would have drawn much out of. All seemed promising, when lo! we were at Richmond, and every thing had been only orderly, cheerful, and nothing more. Ah well! this was English decorum on a Sunday; if it were not very piquant, it was at least, very commendable. We stepped on shore, lunched, strolled about on the terrace, amid streams of gay people; sat on one of the seats, and gazed over that vast expanse of rich woodland, meads, and villas; wandered down the green meadows towards Petersham and Twickenham, into the woods below the Star-and-Garter, and back to the packet. And now we were destined to see the character of the common people on a Sunday jaunt. The moment the packet began to move, it began to rain, and all the way it rained! rained! rained! The ladies took refuge in the cabin. What a cabin! There were all the sober, orderly throng of the morning, metamorphosed by the power of strong drink into a rackety, roaring, drinking, smoking, insolent, and jammed-together crew. The cabin was crushing full. The stairs were densely packed with people. One of the ladies made a precipitate retreat upon deck, and there, with only the protection of her parasol, stood with the patience of a martyr and the temper of a saint, all the weary length of the voyage, through dripping, drenching, never-ceasing rain! The other, with more fear of her silks and satins, and determined to see what such a crowd was, persisted in staying below. It was an act which only the highest heroism could have maintained. There was a group taking tea at a side-table, all well, very well-dressed people, and holding a conversation of such language! such sentiments! such anecdotes! and accompanied with such bursts of laughter! at what must have stricken people with any sense of decency, dumb! And then there were those spruce youths, so modest in the morning, now drinking pots of porter and smoking cigars. Yes, smoking cigars, though the laws of the cabin, blazoned aloft, proclaimed-"No smoking allowed in the cabin !"-Spite of all cabin, or cabinet, or parliamentary laws, they drank, they smoked, they rolled voluminous clouds from one to another; and when requested to desist, said—"O, certainly! It is perfectly insufferable for people to smoke in such company; they ought to be turned out." And then all laughed together at their own wit. The captain was called, and begged to enforce his own law; and they cried, "O yes, captain! certainly, certainly," and then laughed again; and the captain smiled, and withdrew: for what captain could seriously forbid smoke and drink that were purchased of himself? These drapers' apprentices and shopmen, for such they seemed, gloried in annoying the whole company; and for this purpose, they placed themselves by the open window, so that the draft carried the smoke across all the place. There did but prove to be one real gentleman in the whole troop, who accommodated the lady with a seat-for not a soul besides would stir-and said, as he saw her annoyance; for with all her endurance, this was visible "Madam, what a hell we have got into !" And such, thought I, is a specimen of the populace of the mighty and enlightened London! Truly the schoolmaster has work enough yet before him. It was a party in a parlour, Crammed just as they on land are crammed ; Some sipping punch, some sipping tea, All noisy, and all damned! Our fair friends wished to see the character of the common. |