climatic conditions are plainly evil, such talk does not go on. So,
granting that we have bad days not a few, that the east wind takes

us by the throat, that the mists get at our joints, that the sun
hides his glory too often and too long, it is plain that the result

of all comes to good, that it engenders a mood of zest under the
most various aspects of heaven, keeps an edge on our appetite for

open-air life.
I, of course, am one of the weaklings who, in grumbling at the

weather, merely invite compassion. July, this year, is clouded and
windy, very cheerless even here in Devon; I fret and shiver and

mutter to myself something about southern skies. Pshaw! Were I the
average man of my years, I should be striding over Haldon, caring

not a jot for the heavy sky, finding a score of compensations for
the lack of sun. Can I not have patience? Do I not know that, some

morning, the east will open like a bursting bud into warmth and
splendour, and the azure depths above will have only the more solace

for my starved anatomy because of this protracted disappointment?
XV

I have been at the seaside--enjoying it, yes, but in what a
doddering, senile sort of way! Is it I who used to drink the strong

wind like wine, who ran exultingly along the wet sands and leapt
from rock to rock, barefoot, on the slipperyseaweed, who breasted

the swelling breaker, and shouted with joy as it buried me in
gleaming foam? At the seaside I knew no such thing as bad weather;

there were but changes of eager mood and full-blooded life. Now, if
the breeze blow too roughly, if there come a pelting shower, I must

look for shelter, and sit with my cloak about me. It is but a new
reminder that I do best to stay at home, travelling only in

reminiscence.
At Weymouth I enjoyed a hearty laugh, one of the good things not

easy to get after middle age. There was a notice of steamboats
which ply along the coast, steamboats recommended to the public as

being "REPLETE WITH LAVATORIES AND A LADIES' SALOON." Think how
many people read this without a chuckle!

XVI
In the last ten years I have seen a good deal of English inns in

many parts of the country, and it astonishes me to find how bad they
are. Only once or twice have I chanced upon an inn (or, if you

like, hotel) where I enjoyed any sort of comfort. More often than
not, even the beds are unsatisfactory--either pretentiously huge and

choked with drapery, or hard and thinly accoutred. Furnishing is
uniformly hideous, and there is either no attempt at ornament (the

safest thing) or a villainous taste thrusts itself upon one at every
turn. The meals, in general, are coarse and poor in quality, and

served with gross slovenliness.
I have often heard it said that the touring cyclist has caused the

revival of wayside inns. It may be so, but the touring cyclist
seems to be very easily satisfied. Unless we are greatly deceived

by the old writers, an English inn used to be a delightfulresort,
abounding in comfort, and supplied with the best of food; a place,

too, where one was sure of welcome at once hearty and courteous.
The inns of to-day, in country towns and villages, are not in that

good old sense inns at all; they are merely public-houses. The
landlord's chief interest is the sale of liquor. Under his roof you

may, if you choose, eat and sleep, but what you are expected to do
is to drink. Yet, even for drinking, there is no decent

accommodation. You will find what is called a bar-parlour, a stuffy
and dirty room, with crazy chairs, where only the sodden dram-gulper

could imagine himself at ease. Should you wish to write a letter,
only the worst pen and the vilest ink is forthcoming; this, even in

the "commercial room" of many an inn which seems to depend upon the
custom of travelling tradesmen. Indeed, this whole business of

innkeeping is incredibly mismanaged. Most of all does the common
ineptitude or brutality enrage one when it has possession of an old

and picturesque house, such as reminds you of the best tradition, a
house which might be made as comfortable as house can be, a place of

rest and mirth.
At a public-house you expect public-house manners, and nothing

better will meet you at most of the so-called inns or hotels. It
surprises me to think in how few instances I have found even the

pretence of civility. As a rule, the landlord and landlady are
either contemptuously superior or boorishly familiar; the waiters

and chambermaids do their work with an indifference which only
softens to a condescending interest at the moment of your departure,

when, if the tip be thought insufficient, a sneer or a muttered
insult speeds you on your way. One inn I remember, where, having to

go in and out two or three times in a morning, I always found the
front door blocked by the portly forms of two women, the landlady

and the barmaid, who stood there chatting and surveying the street.
Coming from within the house, I had to call out a request for

passage; it was granted with all deliberation, and with not a
syllable of apology. This was the best "hotel" in a Sussex market

town.
And the food. Here, beyond doubt, there is grave degeneracy. It is

impossible to suppose that the old travellers by coach were
contented with entertainment such as one gets nowadays at the table

of a country hotel. The cooking is wont to be wretched; the quality
of the meat and vegetables worse than mediocre. What! Shall one

ask in vain at an English inn for an honest chop or steak? Again
and again has my appetite been frustrated with an offer of mere

sinew and scrag. At a hotel where the charge for lunch was five
shillings, I have been sickened with pulpy potatoes and stringy

cabbage. The very joint--ribs or sirloin, leg or shoulder--is
commonly a poor, underfed, sapless thing, scorched in an oven; and

as for the round of beef, it has as good as disappeared--probably
because it asks too much skill in the salting. Then again one's

breakfast bacon; what intolerable stuff, smelling of saltpetre, has
been set before me when I paid the price of the best smoked

Wiltshire! It would be mere indulgence of the spirit of grumbling
to talk about poisonous tea and washy coffee; every one knows that

these drinks cannot be had at public tables; but what if there be
real reason for discontent with one's pint of ale? Often, still,

that draught from the local brewery is sound and invigorating, but
there are grievous exceptions, and no doubt the tendency is here, as

in other things--a falling off, a carelessness, if not a calculating
dishonesty. I foresee the day when Englishmen will have forgotten

how to brew beer; when one's only safety will lie in the draught
imported from Munich.

XVII
I was taking a meal once at a London restaurant--not one of the

great eating-places to which men most resort, but a small
establishment on the same model in a quiet neighbourhood--when there

entered, and sat down at the next table, a young man of the working
class, whose dress betokened holiday. A glance told me that he felt

anything but at ease; his mind misgave him as he looked about the
long room and at the table before him; and when a waiter came to

offer him the card, he stared blankly in sheepish confusion. Some
strange windfall, no doubt, had emboldened him to enter for the

first time such a place as this, and now that he was here, he
heartily wished himself out in the street again. However, aided by

the waiter's suggestions, he gave an order for a beef-steak and
vegetables. When the dish was served, the poor fellow simply could

not make a start upon it; he was embarrassed by the display of
knives and forks, by the arrangement of the dishes, by the sauce

bottles and the cruet-stand, above all, no doubt, by the assembly of
people not of his class, and the unwonted experience of being waited

upon by a man with a long shirt-front. He grew red; he made the
clumsiest and most futile efforts to transport the meat to his

plate; food was there before him, but, like a very Tantalus, he was
forbidden to enjoy it. Observing with all discretion, I at length

saw him pull out his pocket handkerchief, spread it on the table,
and, with a sudden effort, fork the meat off the dish into this

receptacle. The waiter, aware by this time of the customer's
difficulty, came up and spoke a word to him. Abashed into anger,

the young man roughly asked what he had to pay. It ended in the
waiter's bringing a newspaper, wherein he helped to wrap up meat and

vegetables. Money was flung down, and the victim of a mistaken
ambition hurriedlydeparted, to satisfy his hunger amid less

unfamiliar surroundings.
It was a striking and unpleasantillustration of social differences.