And I asked them to take
a duster and dust around a little where the nobilities had mainly
lodged and promenaded; but they considered that that would be
hardly worth while, and would moreover be a rather grave departure
from custom, and therefore likely to make talk. A departure from
custom--that settled it; it was a nation capable of committing any
crime but that. The servants said they would follow the fashion,
a fashion grown sacred through immemorial observance; they would
scatter fresh rushes in all the rooms and halls, and then the
evidence of the aristocratic visitation would be no longer visible.
It was a kind of satire on Nature: it was the scientific method,
the geologic method; it deposited the history of the family in
a stratified record; and the antiquary could dig through it and
tell by the remains of each period what changes of diet the family
had introduced successively for a hundred years.
The first thing we struck that day was a procession of pilgrims.
It was not going our way, but we joined it, nevertheless; for it
was hourly being borne in upon me now, that if I would govern
this country wisely, I must be posted in the details of its life,
and not at second hand, but by personal observation and scrutiny.
This company of pilgrims resembled Chaucer's in this: that it
had in it a sample of about all the upper occupations and professions
the country could show, and a corresponding variety of costume.
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