University of Virginia Library

129. LETTER CXXIX.

The last phaeton dashed away and my chaise
advanced to the door. A handsome boy, in a kind of
page's dress, immediately came to the window, addressed
me by name, and informed me that his grace was
out deer-shooting, but that my room was prepared,
and he was ordered to wait on me. I followed him
through a hall lined with statues, deers' horns, and
armor, and was ushered into a large chamber, looking
out on a park, extending with its lawns and woods
to the edge of the horizon. A more lovely view never
feasted human eye.

“Who is at the castle?” I asked, as the boy busied
himself in unstrapping my portmanteau.

“Oh, a great many, sir.” He stopped in his occupation
and began counting on his fingers. “There's
Lord Aberdeen, and Lord Claud Hamilton and Lady
Harriette Hamilton (them's his lordship's two step-children,
you know, sir), and the Dutchess of Richmond
and Lady Sophia Lennox, and Lady Keith, and
Lord Mandeville and Lord Aboyne, and Lord Stormont
and Lady Stormont, and Lord Morton and Lady
Morton, and Lady Alicia, and — and — and —
twenty more, sir.”

“Twenty more lords and ladies?”

“No, sir! that's all the nobility.”

“And you can't remember the names of the others?”

“No, sir.”

He was a proper page. He could not trouble his
memory with the names of commoners.

“And how many sit down to dinner?”

“Above thirty, sir, besides the duke and dutchess.”

“That will do.” And off tripped my slender gentleman
with his laced jacket, giving the fire a terrible
stir-up in his way out, and turning back to inform me
that the dinner hour was seven precisely.

It was a mild, bright afternoon, quite warm for the
end of an English September, and with a fire in the
room, and a soft sunshine pouring in at the windows,
a seat by the open casement was far from disagreeable.
I passed the time till the sun set, looking out on
the park. Hill and valley lay between my eye and the
horizon; sheep fed in picturesque flocks; and small
fallow deer grazed near them; the trees were planted,
and the distant forest shaped by the hand of taste; and
broad and beautiful as was the expanse taken in by the
eye, it was evidently one princely possession. A mile
from the castle wall, the shaven sward extended in a
carpet of velvet softness, as bright as emerald, studded
by clumps of shrubbery, like flowers wrought
elegantly on tapestry; and across it bounded occasionaly
a hare, and the pheasants fed undisturbed near
the thickets, or a lady with flowing riding-dress and
flaunting feather, dashed into sight upon her fleet
blood-palfrey, and was lost the next moment in the
woods, or a boy put his pony to its mettle up the
ascent, or a gamekeeper idled into sight with his gun
in the hollow of his arm, and his hounds at his heels
— and all this little world of enjoyment and luxury,
and beauty, lay in the hand of one man, and was
created by his wealth in these northern wilds of Scotland,
a day's journey almost from the possession of

another human being. I never realized so forcibly the
splendid result of wealth and primogeniture.

The sun set in a blaze of fire among the pointed
firs crowning the hills, and by the occasional prance
of a horse's feet on the gravel, and the roll of rapid
wheels, and now and then a gay laugh and merry
voices, the different parties were returning to the
castle. Soon after a loud gong sounded through the
gallery, the signal to dress, and I left my musing occupation
unwillingly to make my toilet for an appearance
in a formidable circle of titled aristocrats,
not one of whom I had ever seen, the duke himself a
stranger to me, except through the kind letter of invitation
lying upon the table.

I was sitting by the fire imaging forms and faces
for the different persons who had been named to me,
when there was a knock at the door, and a tall, white-haired
gentleman, of noble physiognomy, but singularly
cordial address, entered, with the broad red riband
of a duke across his breast, and welcomed me most
heartily to the castle. The gong sounded at the next
moment, and, in our way down, he named over his
other guests, and prepared me in a measure for the
introductions which followed. The drawing-room
was crowded like a soirée. The dutchess, a very tall
and very handsome woman, with a smile of the most
winning sweetness, received me at the door, and I was
presented successively to every person present. Dinner
was announced immediately, and the difficult
question of precedence being sooner settled than I had
ever seen it before in so large a party, we passed
through files of servants to the dining-room.

It was a large and very lofty hall, supported at the
ends by marble columns, within which was stationed
a band of music, playing delightfully. The walls
were lined with full-length family pictures, from old
knights in armor to the modern dukes in kilt of the
Gordon plaid; and on the sideboards stood services
of gold plate, the most gorgeously massive, and the
most beautiful in workmanship I have ever seen.
There were, among the vases, several large coursingcups,
won by the duke's hounds, of exquisite shape and
ornament.

I fell into my place between a gentleman and a very
beautiful woman, of perhaps twenty-two, neither of
whose names I remembered, though I had but just
been introduced. The duke probably anticipated as
much, and as I took my seat he called out to me, from
the top of the table, that I had upon my right, Lady
— , “the most agreeable woman in Scotland.” It
was unnecessary to say that she was the most lovely.

I have been struck everywhere in England with
the beauty of the higher classes, and as I looked
around me upon the aristocratic company at the table,
I thought I never had seen “heaven's image double-stamped
as man and noble” so unequivocally clear.
There were two young men and four or five young
ladies of rank — and five or six people of more decided
personal attractions could scarcely be found; the style
of form and face at the same time being of that cast
of superiority which goes by the expressive name of
“thoroughbred.” There is a striking difference in
this respect between England and the countries of the
continent — the paysans of France and the contadini
of Italy being physically far superior to their degenerate
masters; while the gentry and nobility of England
differ from the peasantry in limb and feature as
the racer differs from the dray-horse, or the greyhound
from the cur. The contrast between the manners
of English and French gentlemen is quite as
striking. The empressment, the warmth, the shrug
and gesture of the Parisian; and the working eyebrow,
dilating or contracting eye, and conspirator-like
action of the Italian in the most common conversation,
are the antipodes of English high breeding. I should
say a North American Indian, in his more dignified
phrase, approached nearer to the manner of an English
nobleman than any other person. The calm repose
of person and feature, the self-possession under
all circumstances, that incapability of surprise or
dereglément, and that decision about the slightest
circumstance, and the apparent certainty that he is
acting absolutely comme it faut, is equally “gentlemanlike”
and Indianlike. You can not astonish an
English gentleman. If a man goes into a fit at his
side, or a servant drops a dish upon his shoulder, or he
hears that the house is on fire, he sets down his wine-glass
with the same deliberation. He has made up
his mind what to do in all possible cases, and he does it.
He is cold at a first introduction, and may bow stiffly
(which he always does) in drinking wine with you, but
it is his manner; and he would think an Englishman
out of his senses, who should bow down to his very
plate and smile as a Frenchman does on a similar occasion.
Rather chilled by this, you are a little astonished
when the ladies have left the table, and he
closes his chair up to you, to receive an invitation to
pass a month with him at his country-house, and to
discover that at the very moment he bowed so coldly
he was thinking how he should contrive to facilitate
your plans for getting to him or seeing the country to
advantage on the way.

The band ceased playing when the ladies left the
table, the gentlemen closed up, conversation assumed
a merrier cast, coffee and chasse-café were brought in
when the wines began to be circulated more slowly;
and at eleven, there was a general move to the drawing-room.
Cards, tea, and music, filled up the time
till twelve, and then the ladies took their departure
and the gentlemen sat down to supper. I got to bed
somewhere about two o'clock; and thus ended an
evening which I had anticipated as stiff and embarrassing,
but which is marked in my tablets as one of
the most social and kindly I have had the good fortune
to record on my travels. I have described it, and
shall describe others minutely — and I hope there is
no necessity of reminding any one that my apology
for thus disclosing scenes of private life has been
already made. Their interest as sketches by an
American of the society that most interests Americans,
and the distance at which they are published,
justify them, I would hope, from any charge of indelicacy.