To get away from England one must
go to Devonshire or Cornwall. But even here, amid the combes and the
leys, the crags and the quarries, the modern hotel, with its perfect
sanitation and imperfect French, is springing up with the rapidity of
Badraoulbadour's palace. It spoils the primitiveness of the people, and
gives them ideas below their station. They lose their simple manliness
and take tips. They corrupt their autochthonic customs, and drink
champagne cider. The modern hotel is a upas-tree, under whose boughs
poetry withers. One looks to see the ancient ballads lose their blood and
brawn. In time we may expect to find Cornwall producing _vers de
societe_. As thus:--
And shall Trelawney dine?
And shall Trelawney dine?
Then thrice ten thousand Cornish men
Will order in the wine.
In the absence of six-course dinners and newspapers about Home Rule, we
have had to fall back upon literature. We borrowed Zola's latest--from
the rector,--and read it simultaneously, stealing it from one another.
Even the dogs have devoured bits of it. The poodle has taken in most,
being French. She is an elegant, tricksy creature, Miss Plachecki by
name, but called--for short--"Wopsy." Wopsy's back is arranged in beds
like a Dutch garden; she has rosettes of black hair symmetrically
disposed about her hind quarters, and her tail is exactly like a mutton
cutlet in its frill.
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