Upon the whole, therefore, the Squire had very fair reason to
be satisfied that he had ridden his hobby throughout the day without
any other molestation.
The reader, learned in these matters, will perceive that all this was
but a faint shadow of the once gay and fanciful rites of May. The
peasantry have lost the proper feeling for these rites, and have grown
almost as strange to them as the boom of La Mancha were to the customs
of chivalry, in the days of the valorous Don Quixote. Indeed, I
considered it a proof of the discretion with which the Squire rides
his hobby, that he had not pushed the thing any farther, nor attempted
to revive many obsolete usages of the day, which, in the present
matter-of-fact times, would appear affected and absurd. I must say,
though I do it under the rose, the general brawl in which this
festival had nearly terminated, has made me doubt whether these rural
customs of the good old times were always so very loving and innocent
as we are apt to fancy them; and whether the peasantry in those times
were really so Arcadian, as they have been fondly represented. I begin
to fear--
--"Those days were never; airy dream
Sat for the picture, and the poet's hand,
Imparting substance to an empty shade,
Imposed a gay delirium for a truth.
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