PARTRIDGE MANORS AND ROUGH 

 SHOOTING 



Bright, beautiful, glorious June ! 



I have often been asked which of the four 

 seasons I like the best ; my answer has ever been 

 the same : " The hunting, shooting, fishing, and 

 racing." One season I detest (the very name of it 

 gives me the cold shivers) — the London one; de- 

 fend me from that ; for if there is a particular time 

 which is calculated to make " Paterfamilias " miser- 

 able and more out of humour than another, it is 

 that abominable period of shopping, dinners, even- 

 ing parties, operas, theatres, concerts, flirtations, 

 flower-shows, and the dusty Row, with its danger- 

 ous holes. 



I hate the formality — the snobbism of the 

 " little village." I begin to think Napoleon I. was 

 right when he said we were " a nation of shop- 

 keepers." I do not mind a good dinner, when I 

 can get one ; but there is the rub, I never do get a 

 good dinner ; the English do not know how to dine. 

 After twenty years' residence on the Continent, I 

 have come to the conclusion that John Bull is 



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