A PENCIL SKETCH. 255 



connected with the dairy and the market, the table, the drawing- 

 room, and the servants hall. All this was done with a sim 

 plicity and a frankness which showed an absence of all con 

 sciousness of any extraordinary merit in her own department, 

 and which evidently sprang solely from a kind desire to gratify 

 a curiosity on my part, which, I hope, under such circumstances, 

 was not unreasonable. A short hour after this brought us into 

 another relation ; for the dinner-bell summoned us, and this same 

 lady was found presiding over a brilliant circle of the highest 

 rank arid fashion, with an ease, elegance, wit, intelligence, and 

 good-humor, with a kind attention to every one s wants, and an 

 unaffected concern for every one s comfort, which would lead 

 one to suppose that this was her only and her peculiar sphere. 

 Now, I will not say how many mud-puddles we had waded 

 through, and how many dung-heaps we had crossed, and what 

 places we explored, and how every farming topic was discussed ; 

 but I will say, that she pursued her object without any of that 

 fastidiousness and affected delicacy which pass with some 

 persons for refinement, but which in many cases indicate a 

 weak if not a corrupt rnind. The mind which is occupied with 

 concerns and subjects that are worthy to occupy it, thinks very 

 little of accessories which are of no importance. I will say, to 

 the credit of Englishwomen. I speak, of course, of the upper 

 classes, that it seems impossible that there should exist a more 

 delicate sense of propriety than is found universally among 

 them ; and yet you will perceive at once that their good sense 

 teaches them that true delicacy is much more an element of the 

 mind, in the person who speaks or observes, than an attribute of 

 the subject which is spoken about or observed. A friend told 

 me that Canova assured him that, in modelling the wonderful 

 statue of the Three Graces, from real life, he was never at any 

 time conscious of an improper emotion or thought ; and if any 

 man can look at this splendid production, this affecting imbodi- 

 ment of a genius almost creative and divine, with any other 

 emotion than that of the most profound and respectful admira 

 tion, he may well tremble for the utter corruption, within him, 

 of that moral nature which God designed should elevate him 

 above the brute creation. 



Now, I do not say that the lady to whom I have referred was 

 herself the manager of the farm ; that rested entirely with her 



