heir pumps, trip it in
sea-boots, both men and women displaying as much gravity as if attending
the funeral of their friends."

A still more humanising portion of their tastes is their passion for
music. The guitar is heard in every house. Father, mother, and child are
all playing and singing; and, to the praise of their taste be it spoken,
playing nothing but the fandangoes, seguidillas, and ballads of Spain;
the truest, purest, and most touching of all music; well worth all the
_hammered_ harmonies of the German school, and all the long-winded and
laborious bravuras of the Italian. The Spanish music is the most
refined, and yet the most natural, in the world.

We are glad to see this experienced judge of men and things speaking of
the Californians as "a happy people possessing the means of physical
pleasure to the full," even though he qualifies the opinion by their
"knowing no higher kind of enjoyment."

It is true, that the Englishman, who knows what _intellectual_ enjoyment
is, will not abandon that highest, though most toilsome, of all
gratifications, for inferior indulgences; but it would be a fortunate
hour for the Englishman when he could get rid of some portion of the
toil that wears away his life, in exchange for the lighthearted
pleasures and simple occupations of foreign existence. Nor is there any
man who less prefers the dogged round of his cheerless exertions, or who
is more genuinely susceptible of essential enjoyment. We even think that
the cultivated Englishman has a finer relish for enjoyment than the man
of any other country. The caperings of the Frenchman, or the grimaces of
the Italian, have but little connexion with the mind. All foreigners
seem wretched when they have no physical excitement. There is not a more
miserable object on earth, than a Frenchman wandering through the
streets of London on a Sunday, when he can neither see the print shops
in the day, nor go to the play at night. The German is heart-broken for
the same reason, and shrouds himself and his sorrow in double clouds of
smoke. The Italian would worship Diana of Ephesus, or the Great African
Snake, if its pageantry, or puppet-show, would enable him to get through
the day of closed shops and _no_ opera! Yet, contemptible as this
restless hunting after nothings is, it would be fortunate for us if we
could qualify the severity and constancy of our national toil by some
mixture of the lighter pursuits of the Continent.

The ferti