Page:The Galaxy (New York, Sheldon & Co.) Volume 24 (1877).djvu/352

 THREE EXCURSIONS.

I. differed greatly from each other, but each had an interest of its own. There seemed (as regards the first) a general consensus of opinion as to its being a great pity that a stranger in England should miss the Derby day. Every one assured me that it was the great festival of the English people and the most characteristic of national holidays. This, since it had to do with horseflesh, I could readily believe. Had not the newspapers been filled for weeks with recursive dissertations upon the animals concerned in the ceremony? and was not the event, to the nation at large, only imperceptibly less momentous than the other great question of the day—the fate of empires and the reapportionment of the East? The space allotted to sporting intelligence in a small journal like the "Pall Mall Gazette" had seemed to me for some time past a measure of the hold of such questions upon the British mind. The "Pall Mall Gazette" is a short newspaper; it contains but a single editorial—it is compact and eclectic. But in spite of the fact that it has to count its paragraphs very narrowly, it appears never to grudge the goodly fraction of a page which it so frequently bestows upon the mysteries of Newmarket and of Tattersall's. This, however, is very natural in a country in which in "society" you are liable to make the acquaintance of some such syllogism as the following: You are seated at dinner next a foreign lady, who has on her other hand a native gentleman, by whom she is being instructed in the art of getting the right point of view for looking at English life. I profit by their conversation, and I learn that this point of view is apparently the saddle. "You see, English life," says the gentleman, "is really English country life. It's the country that is the basis of English society. And you see, country life is—well, it's the hunting. It's the hunting that is at the bottom of it all." In other words, "the hunting" is the basis of English society. Duly initiated into this equestrian philosophy, one is prepared for the colossal proportions of the annual pilgrimage to Epsom. This pilgrimage, however, I was assured, though still well worth taking part in, is by no means so picturesque as in former days. It is now performed in a large measure by rail, and the spectacle on the road has lost its ancient brilliancy. The road has been given up more and more to the populace and the strangers, and has ceased to be graced by the presence of ladies. Nevertheless, as a man and a stranger, I was strongly recommended to take it; for the return from the Derby is still, with all abatements, a classic spectacle.

I mounted upon a four-horse coach, a charming coach, with a yellow body and handsome, clean-flanked leaders. I mounted beside the coachman, as I had been told this was the point of vantage. The coach was one of the vehicles of the new fashion—the fashion of public conveyances driven by gentlemen of leisure. There are expensive pastimes which involve benefit to other people, but are a bore to one's self; there are others that are agreeable to one's self, but a nuisance to other people. This amateur coaching has the advantage of being agreeable to every one—the driver and the driven alike. Its expensiveness, moreover, is curtailed by the fact that the seats are sold at prices more than nominal (though by no means high), and the gentlemanly charioteer is therefore not seriously left out of pocket. (On the other hand, it can hardly be supposed that he makes money.) On the Derby day all the coaches that