Others are placed in the adjacent
villages, where they look only upon houses as in the rest of the year,
with no change of objects but what a remove to any new street in London
might have given them. The same set of acquaintances still settle
together, and the form of life is not otherwise diversified than by
doing the same things in a different place. They pay and receive visits
in the usual form, they frequent the walks in the morning, they deal
cards at night, they attend to the same tattle, and dance with the same
partners; nor can they, at their return to their former habitation,
congratulate themselves on any other advantage, than that they have
passed their time like others of the same rank; and have the same right
to talk of the happiness and beauty of the country, of happiness which
they never felt, and beauty which they never regarded.
To be able to procure its own entertainments, and to subsist upon its
own stock, is not the prerogative of every mind. There are indeed
understandings so fertile and comprehensive, that they can always feed
reflection with new supplies, and suffer nothing from the preclusion of
adventitious amusements; as some cities have within their own walls
enclosed ground enough to feed their inhabitants in a siege.
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