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Untitled Article
such marked contrasts . The idler , the lord , the castle , the entailed estate , the hereditary title to honour and power , have no place with us and while all this falls in with the natural course of an Englishman ' s ideas , and seems to him , perhaps , as if it were among- the ordinances of nature , it appears to an American strange and unnatural , if not unreasonable and unjust .
" There is no city m the world , perhaps , which presents , in broader contrast , the extremes of the human condition , than London . Regent ' s Park , Grosvenor square , the whole West end , shows like a city of the gods ; St Giles and Wapping appear like the habitations of devils . Men , women live there , whose aspect , stripped of almost every lineament
of humanity , fills you with horror , and hurries away your involuntary footsteps , as you look at them . In London there are twenty thousand persons , perhaps , who live in all the luxury that their imagination can devise ; and there are twenty thousand , who know not , when they rise in the morning , where they shall lay their heads at night . " The same contrasts , only in less striking forms , appear throughout
England . If you take a journey into the country—no matter in what direction—you will soon find yourself travelling along an extensive park > surrounded by a high wall or hedge , running for miles in length . At a distance , within this magnificent domain , half hidden by emboweringgroves , half seen across the smooth-shaven lawn , you will descry the stately mansion ; a flag , perhaps , floating from its loftiest tower , to show that the lord of the domain is at his castle ; every thing , indeed , indicating that he keeps the state of a prince . You turn aside , perhaps , to visit this abode of grandeur ; you pass through a noble avenue of majestic trees , to the grand portico and portal ; you are courteously admitted—¦ you are taken through ranges of splendid apartments—you find them
tilled with the works of art and the devices of luxury , with paintings and statues , with soft couches , and gorgeous furniture , and costly libraries ; you behold a scene richer , if mere cost is considered , than is often spread forth in the palaces of Oriental magnificence . You are likely enough to retire from this fairy scene , in a mood to muse and meditate ; and it will not be strange , if at every step and turn , you meet with something that urges upon you , in some new form , the very question you are considering . You take up your route again , and a few miles , upon one of the smooth and beautiful roads of England , brings you to a village , which presents another contrast to the splendour that surrounds the nobles of England . I certainly speak of this splendour with no unkind feeling ; it spreads a fairy scene for the eye to dwell upon ; I speak only of the fact . And for another fact of the same nature , en tor the village inn , and listen to the news that is circulating there ; and you will hear it announced , very likely , that the lord of the neighbouring castle is about to come down to the country ; and it will be announced in a tone—I do not say disproportioned to the importance of the event—but yet in a tone , as if to shake the whole country with the anticipated roll of his chariot wheels .
" And now who is this personage , that cannot move without making all this stir and sensation in the country ? He is a person , probably , who is not distinguished either by talent or virtue , or any other merit , from thousands of his countrymen . The consideration in which he is
Untitled Article
604 The Old World and the New .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1836, page 604, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2662/page/16/
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