Wilmington Daily Commercial

Edinboro' People.

A STEP BACK TO THE SCOTTISH CAPITAL—AT THE FRIENDS' MEETING—SOME OF THE ACTIVE BRITISH WOMEN—THE BANQUET AT DERBY—A COMPARISON OF FARE.

From the Commercial's Special Correspondent.

Cologne, Seventh Month 13th.

Will you go back with us a week, and return to that most interesting of cities, noble old Edinburgh?

How sweet are peace and calm, after tumult! So we found them, on First-day morning last, in that region of the Old Town called the Pleasance; where, following up the clean, hard-paved streets, we came to the ivy-covered stone meeting-house of the Friends, and went in and sat down among them in the sweet silence. Not more than forty persons were present; young, vigorous-looking men, and one or two noble, gray-haired patriarchs; with sweet-voiced women in pretty dress, but not the style that our Friends at home wear.

A prayer and three short sermons were given, in which the coming of strange faces among them, was alluded to, and a feeling that though outwardly unknown to each other, yet that we all must be looking to the same fount or we would not be met together, and therefore, that there was a fellowship between us.

After a very long meeting, we arose and the friends came and spoke to us in the kindest and most sincere manner, and we told them how their greeting and sympathy were like the voice of pleasant waters in a desert land, and they asked us home to dinner and to tea, and introduced us to each other, and we did the same, and when they found we came from Wilmington, you should have seen the mild eyes of dear Jane Wigham brighten, as she said, 'then you know dear Thomas Garrett.' We were in correspondence with him for thirty years, and we have his photograph at our house.' I do not know whether that did not influence us to accept the invitation to tea for that evening; for we went, and never were strangers met with greater hospitality. We could not get seated in the comfortable, really elegant library, there were so many questions to ask and answer, so many pictures, books and relics to examine, and the two women, Jane and her daughter Eliza, who is a leading woman in all the benevolent enterprises in the city, so we found afterward, were so charming in their conversation that we lived a long time in the hurried hours we spent there. Then their Scottish tea, of sweet cakes in great variety, and bread and butter ready spread in delicate thin slices, and the tall hissing urn, and tea-pot covered with an embroidered cap. It was half-past nine when we sat down to tea, and there was no gas lighted!

They talked in the most familiar manner of Americans, and spoke the names we love to hear, with reverence and the kindliest feeling. William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Samuel J. May, Frederick Douglass and many others have all been welcome guests at their houses and their pictures and host of others that we have seen and know were in their albums or hung upon their walls. Friend Garrett was brought out and made one of us: how natural looked his face, and under marked in small gilt letters, 'E. Garrett, Photographer.' They could tell us stories of him that we had never heard, Eliza is much interested in the elevation of woman; she told with much pride of the efforts made a year ago, in which she took a prominent part, by which Phebe Wynd and Flora Stevenson, two excellent and competent women, were placed on the school directors' ticket, for the city of Edinburgh, and were elected, running far ahead of their ticket. Elizabeth Nicole, a friend we met at meeting was elected at the same time, director of a parish school.

She considered it a great triumph, and we thought so too; not many cities in America would do so much: our favorite, Dr. Donaldson who gave us such a beautiful welcome the evening before, and whose speech is very correctly given in the 'Review' sent to Wilmington, helped very materially in the matter. His interests were enlisted, and he is a man who, 'knowing the right dares defend it.' We had another pleasant call not far from Jane Wigham's, that some of you may be interested in hearing of.

At Newington House, one of the handsomest residences of Edinburgh, lives Duncan McLaren, the M. P. for that city. His wife is the sister of John Bright, and the cousin of dear friends in Wilmington, through whose kindness we had the direction, and by whose invitation we called. The host and hostess were in London, but we were graciously received by the son, who was kind enough to give us the London address, and to entertain us very happily for some time.

The house and grounds have much the appearance that I should judge a fine English mansion to have; they were certainly beautiful and elegant.

These pleasant little episodes, with some others of like character, make us remember Edinburgh with delight. You should have seen the noble looking Highlanders in their picturesque dress, playing the bagpipes at the Reception on 7th day evening! eye and ear were both feasted, and will long retain the impression. Then the warm, hearty reception that we got there, and in Ireland too, it is enough to stir the blood in a mummy. Not that there is any particular aptness in that comparison, only that we are nearly as black as mummies, and the cuticle has peeled off largely too, after the sea voyage.

We went to Melrose after Edinburgh, and one of the tall men, when he got there, said to the guide in a pompous tone, 'Well, what building is this, Sir?' 'Which Sir?' 'Why this one,' 'Why Sir, this is the Abbey!' in great astonishment; and the tall one raised his glass and squinted through it, and said 'Ah, and for what is it noted?' I did not hear the guide's reply, but I fear it would not do to put down Some of the party were curious to find the oldest grave stone and went peering and scratching among the mossy, grey stones; I forgot what they found, some thing very old though. Every blade of grass and leaf near the spot where the heart of Bruce is said to be buried, was plucked, there wasn't any left for me. The birds build their nests in the richly-carved figures, and twitter and sing a striking union of death with life, and yet not death, for a spirit of beauty and song is certainly there in an enchanted sleep. 'I know not whence the sadness,' but it was there, and the brisk ride and the bright sunlight fully after a time dispelled it. Now Abbotsford is just lovely, as the girls say. Such wonderful curiosities in the armory, great swords, and skulls, and guns, and hatchets, it would put your teeth on edge to see them: there are men in armor, or sticks rather with armour on them of various dates, but you think of the Crusades and Saladin. Heraldic devices, ugly and meaningless, but in the same room are dear Sir Walter's desk and chair, the leather worn by use, and in a case like a coffin with a glass lid, lie his old white hat and clothes, with the neatly-brushed shoes, one of them with a thick inside sole. That pair of shoes I love; there is a whole history of pride and mortification and noble purpose in that inside sole. A fine picture of Scott and his dog Maida hangs over the chimney piece in the drawing room, and from those windows over the terraced garden you look right down on the meadow through which the little river Tweed runs, not a hundred yards away. A pretty little picture of Prince Charlie and a laughable one of Baillie Nicol Jarvie and Meg Mucklembone hang in the library. He must have been a great reader, from the number of books he has left, many of them worn by use. In his study, there are two stories of books, a narrow gallery reached by a slight staircase like we see in Washington and other libraries runs around the wall half way up from it, ascends another small stair to the bedroom above. The guide said that Sir Walter was accustomed to rise early and go down this private stairway to his study, and accomplish a great deal of writing before meeting his guests in the breakfast room.

At Derby we had the banquet, and a royal one it was, in the hall of The Midland Railway Co., and the speeches and the toasts and the superfluous waiting kept us till nearly midnight. Did you ever go to a dinner where there was a 'Toast-master,' and did he stand behind the President's chair, in white gloves, with a mace in his hand, and pound on the table, and say 'Chair, gentlemen,' in a ferocious way every two minutes, just as if he were going frantic? Whether there was any need for it or not, he would dance about, and pound and scream 'Chair, gentlemen,' as if a mob were attacking the President. How they ever got their speeches made thro' his interruptions I cannot tell. An English reporter for some country newspaper sat beside me, and reminded me wonderfully of Mr. Alfred Jingle. He was very communicative, and gave me much information, which I thanked him for at the time, and have forgotten since. He was deeply imbued with the importance of the Midland, and truly it is a grand railway; so smooth and solid, such promptness in the trains, such quiet conductors, such comfortable cars and very rapid travel. Then the hotels that they own are just palaces. The linen and china are of the handsomest quality, the rooms are large and well furnished, and the table superb. Such meats! We are living on two meals a day now and tough beef, so we remember all the more keenly the delights of this table in England and Scotland.

I wish I could give you some of the bills of fare we have had in Belgium and Prussia: one day there were eleven courses counting the toothpicks, and two hours consumed, without getting enough to eat either. They change the plates every time and bring just one thing at once; a little scrap of beans, then a mite of fish, then peas, then fish again, perhaps, and so on. I don't know whether I will go away easy in my mind without enlightening them on the subject of dishwashing, it is such a waste of time and labor to wash so many and change so often. At Brussels I saw the cleanest, nicest kitchen I ever did, long rows of copper pots were ranged on the shelves, according to size and the bright copper lids below them, hung like graduated plates in perfect precision against the wall; remove one and it destroys the harmony of the whole.

As we came down to London, they say we passed within 12 or 15 miles of Charlotte Bronte's house, we came over moors, I know. And at Brussels I actually saw the Pensionnat, with its little dark windows let into the rough white-washed wall, and looking more like a prison or an old factory than a school, where Jane Eyre or Lucy Snow went when a young girl and suffered and learned a great deal too. That word 'suffer' makes me think to tell you that at Derby, among all the speeches made at the banquet, by far the best was by a lady, Mrs. Nelson, a teacher of the freedmen in Texas. She was brief, witty, and pithy, but hinted that she had suffered some, when for months not one white woman addressed her. The English people are much interested in such subjects and applauded her warmly.

E. W.