Do I
hear such words from your lips, and you an Englishman?
I would
rather be the poorest tramper on the roads of England, than lord of
all within ten leagues of the shore of the lake of Como, and much
the same say all my countrymen who have visited England, wherever
they now be. Regret the difference! I have ten letters, from as
many countrymen in America, who say they are rich and thriving, and
principal men and merchants; but every night, when their heads are
reposing on their pillows, their souls auslandra, hurrying away to
England, and its green lanes and farm-yards. And there they are
with their boxes on the ground, displaying their looking-glasses
and other goods to the honest rustics and their dames and their
daughters, and selling away and chaffering and laughing just as of
old. And there they are again at nightfall in the hedge alehouses,
eating their toasted cheese and their bread, and drinking the
Suffolk ale, and listening to the roaring song and merry jest of
the labourers. Now, if they regret England so who are in America,
which they own to be a happy country, and good for those of
Piedmont and of Como, how much more must I regret it, when, after
the lapse of so many years, I find myself in Spain, in this
frightful town of Coruna, driving a ruinous trade, and where months
pass by without my seeing a single English face, or hearing a word
of the blessed English tongue.
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