isfied look
about them; they seem to say they know a 'thing or two' others have no
wot of--as though the day, more confidential when few were by, told them
some capital secrets the sleepers never heard of, and they made this
pestilential habit a reason for eating the breakfast of a Cossack, as
if the consumption of victuals was a cardinal virtue. Civilised differs
from savage life as much by the regulation of time as by any other
feature. I see no objection to your red man, who probably can't go
to breakfast till he has caught a bear, being up betimes; but for the
gentleman who goes to bed with the conviction that hot rolls and coffee,
tea and marmalade, bloaters and honey, ham, muffins, and eggs await
him at ten o'clock--for him, I say, these absurd vagabondisms are an
insufferable affectation, and a most unwarrantable liberty with the
peace and privacy of a household.

Meanwhile, old Colonel Muddleton is parading below; and here we must
leave him for another chapter.

CHAPTER XIV. THE CHASE

I wish any one would explain to me why it is that the tastes and
pursuits of nations are far more difficult of imitation than their
languages or institutions. Nothing is more common than to find Poles
and Russians speaking half the tongues of Europe like natives. Germans
frequently attain to similar excellence; and some Englishmen have the
gift also. In the same way it would not be difficult to produce many
foreigners well acquainted with all the governmental details of the
countries they have visited--the policy, foreign and domestic;
the statistics of debt and taxation; the religious influences; the
resources, and so forth. Indeed, in our days of universal travel, this
kind of information has more or less become general, while the tastes
and habits, which appear so much more easily acquired, are the subjects
of the most absurd mistakes, or the most blundering imitation. To
instance what I mean, who ever saw any but a Hungarian dance the mazurka
with even tolerable grace? Who ever saw waltzing except among the
Austrians? Who ever beheld 'toilette' out of France? So it is, however.
Some artificial boundary drawn with a red line on a map by the hand
of Nesselrode or Talleyrand, some pin stuck down in the chart by the
fingers of Metternich, decides the whole question, and says, 'Thus far
shalt thou dance and no farther. Beyond this there are no _pates de
Perigord_. Here begin pipes and tobacco; there end macaroni and music.