It is singular
that the great Art-Exhibition should have come to pass in the rudest
great town in England.
LEAMINGTON.
Lansdowne Cirrus, September 10th.--We have become quite weary of our
small, mean, uncomfortable, and unbeautiful lodgings at Chorlton Road,
with poor and scanty furniture within doors, and no better prospect from
the parlor windows than a mud-puddle, larger than most English lakes, on
a vacant building-lot opposite our house. The Exhibition, too, was fast
becoming a bore; for you must really love a picture, in order to tolerate
the sight of it many times. Moreover, the smoky and sooty air of that
abominable Manchester affected my wife's throat disadvantageously; so, on
a Tuesday morning, we struck our tent and set forth again, regretting to
leave nothing except the kind disposition of Mrs. Honey, our housekeeper.
I do not remember meeting with any other lodging-house keeper who did not
grow hateful and fearful on short acquaintance; but I attribute this, not
so much to the people themselves, as, primarily, to the unfair and
ungenerous conduct of some of their English guests, who feel so sure of
being cheated that they always behave as if in an enemy's country, and
therefore they find it one.
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