SOCIETY. 543 



lying open quite to the edge of the rail, and looking like a gay car- 

 pet thrown on the green sward. If the English are an essentially 

 common sense people, they, at least, have a love of flowers in all 

 places, that has something quite romantic in it. 



I reached London only to leave it again in another direction, to 



accept a kind invitation to the country house of Mrs. , the 



distinguished authoress of some charming works of fiction which 

 are widely known in my country, though I shall not transgress Eng- 

 lish propriety by giving you a clew to her real name. 



This place reminded me of home more than any that I have 

 seen in England ; not, indeed, of my own home in the Hudson 

 highlands, with its bold river and mountain scenery, but of the gen- 

 eral features of American cultivated landscape. The house, which 

 is not unlike a country house of good size with us, is situated on a 

 hill which rises gently, but so high above the surrounding country, 

 as to give a wide panorama of field and woodland, such as one sees 

 from a height about Boston and Philadelphia. The approach, and 

 part of the grounds, are bordered with plantations of forest-trees, 

 which, though all planted, have been left to themselves so much as 

 to look quite like our native after-growth at home. The place, too, 

 has not the thorough full-dress air of the great English country 

 places where I have been staying lately, and, both in extent and 

 keeping, is more like a residence on the Hudson. The house sits 

 down quite on a level with the ground, however, so that you can 

 step out of the drawing-room on the soft grass, and stroll to yonder 

 bright flower-garden, grouped round the fountain dancing in the 

 sunshine, as if you were only going out of one room into another. 

 In the library is a great bay-window, and a spacious fire-place set in 

 a deep recess lined with books, suggesting warmth and comfort at 

 once, to both mind and body ; and the air of the whole place, joined 

 to the unaffected and cordial welcome from many kind voices, gave 

 me a feeling of maladie du pays that I had not felt before in England. 



There are no especial wonders of park or palace here, though 

 there is a great deal of quiet beauty, and as I have, perhaps, given 

 you almost a surfeit of great places lately, you will not regret it. I 

 look out of the windows, however, and see in abundance here, as 

 every where, those two evergreens that enrich with their broad 



