If after an eight-days' call the guest wishes to depart, he is pressingly entreated to stay a few days or a week longer, and both guest and host are generally so unwilling to part, that the request is usually granted. The horses are again unharnessed, and the coach taken back to the coachhouse. After a few days the visitor again packs up, and prepares to go ; but the gentleman and lady of the house renew their entreaties, and the compassionate and soft-hearted guest often orders his horses back to their stables for the third or fourth time, and sits down again at the crowded table of liis " agreeable host." We have a Sunday every seven days, the members of a family meet together every month, now and then a dimier party, tea party, or ball is gi^'en, on which occasions the house is turned topsy-turvy, and every nerve is strained for effect. On the other side of the o6th parallel of latitude, it is very different. There, every day is a Sunday or holiday ; there, there are no working days. The doors are never shut, one guest follows another, and festival succeeds to festival. They are always prepared, always ready, always cheerful, and li^e in an unruffled ocean of brotherly sociability.
As working days are banished from their calendar, so are state rooms from their architecture. Saloons usually closed, whose furniture is always kept covered except on grand company occasions, are unknown. All rooms arc reception rooms, and the never-ceasing swarms of welcome guests fill every corner. The hall of the house is generally expressly appropriated to strangers. On some estates there are express houses built for guests. The intimate connexions of a family have often apartments kept always In reserve for them alone at the houses of their relations.-
It Is Impossible that the landlord of an inn can more eagerly look out for guests than a Livonian or Courland nobleman. " Guests ! Guests 1"
is the cry from one end of the house to the other, if a coach is descried from afar. All nin to the windows to see who the strangers are, and whether they are coming this way. The servants all stand at the door ; the host, hostess, and children all fly out to meet the beloved strangers, for see, the coach is coming this way ! It is the good uncle, the dear aunt, the pretty cousin ; the rest of the family are coming by-and-by, and will bring two or three strangers with them. What delight ! They will remain eight days, talk, dance, breakfast, dine, sup, play at cards, ride, shoot an elk, bait a bear — ah, what will they not do !
In a country where nature is so little hospitable, it is a blessing that the people are so much so. Trembling and aching with cold, though wrapt in furs from head to foot, after riding ten miles amid storms and fog, over mars'hes and through forests, accompanied only by the desolate howling of wolves and bears — how the heart rejoices in the kindly homes of man ! How refreshing is this generous solicitude for one's comfort ! After being unfolded, washed, and dressed by the innumerable attendant spirits of the place, how cheerful and pleasant is the warm and populous dining-room! How delightful it is to kiss the fair hand of the lady of the house, and, according to northern custom, to be kissed on the forehead by her ! How one enjo^'s the social tea-table, the snug fire-place, and the comfortable bed ! In countries where there is scarcely one house to every square mile, these comforts are a thousand times more prized than in those where they may be had at every corner. And then all tliis is enjoyed here — gratis! It is the purest, most disinterested hospitahty, that warms, clothes, feeds, and tends you ! You ask civilly, they give gladly. In fact there is a Uttle bit of paradise in this northern comer, which is nowhere else to be found in this selfish Europe.