Travels in England in 1782 by Karl Philipp Moritz
page 21 of 185 (11%)
page 21 of 185 (11%)
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sauce made of flour and butter. This, I assure you, is the usual
method of dressing vegetables in England. The slices of bread and butter, which they give you with your tea, are as thin as poppy leaves. But there is another kind of bread and butter usually eaten with tea, which is toasted by the fire, and is incomparably good. You take one slice after the other and hold it to the fire on a fork till the butter is melted, so that it penetrates a number of slices at once: this is called toast. The custom of sleeping without a feather-bed for a covering particularly pleased me. You here lie between two sheets: underneath the bottom sheet is a fine blanket, which, without oppressing you, keeps you sufficiently warm. My shoes are not cleaned in the house, but by a person in the neighbourhood, whose trade it is; who fetches them every morning, and brings them back cleaned; for which she receives weekly so much. When the maid is displeased with me, I hear her sometimes at the door call me "the German"; otherwise in the family I go by the name of "the Gentleman." I have almost entirely laid aside riding in a coach, although it does not cost near so much as it does at Berlin; as I can go and return any distance not exceeding an English mile for a shilling, for which I should there at least pay a florin. But, moderate as English fares are, still you save a great deal, if you walk or go on foot, and know only how to ask your way. From my lodging to the Royal Exchange is about as far as from one end of Berlin to the other, and from the Tower and St. Catharine's, where the ships arrive in the Thames, as far again; and I have already walked this |
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