We found this hotel very comfortable, and might doubtless have made it
luxurious, had we chosen to go to five times the expense of similar
luxuries in America; but we merely ordered comfortable things, and so
came off at no very extravagant rate,--and with great honor, at all
events, in the estimation of the waiter.
During the afternoon we found lodgings, and established ourselves in them
before dark.
This English custom of lodgings, of which we had some experience at Rhyl
last year, has its advantages; but is rather uncomfortable for strangers,
who, in first settling themselves down, find that they must undertake all
the responsibility of housekeeping at an instant's warming, and cannot
get even a cup of tea till they have made arrangements with the grocer.
Soon, however, there comes a sense of being at home, and by our exclusive
selves, which never can be attained at hotels nor boarding-houses. Our
house is well situated and respectably furnished, with the dinginess,
however, which is inseparable from lodging-houses,--as if others had used
these things before and would use them again after we had gone,--a
well-enough adaptation, but a lack of peculiar appropriateness; and I
think one puts off real enjoyment from a sense of not being truly fitted.
July 1st.--On Friday I took the rail with J----- for Coventry. It was a
bright and very warm day, oppressively so, indeed; though I think that
there is never in this English climate the pervading warmth of an
American summer day.
Pages:
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199