I see yet his expression of pity, not wholly (yet perhaps sufficiently) softened to polite interest, when consulted as to the best way in which to visit Alkmaar to see the cheese market.

That any one staying at The Hague--and more, at the Oude Doelen--should wish to see traffic in cheese at a provincial town still strikes his wise head as tragic, although it happens every week.

I honour him for it and for the exquisite tact with which he retains his opinion and allows you to have yours.
A poet landlord and an operatic head waiter, what are they when all is said beside a friendly hotel porter?
He is the _Deus ex machina_ indeed.

The praises of the hotel porter have yet to be sung.

O Switzerland! the poet might begin (not, probably, a landlord poet) O Switzerland--I give but a bald paraphrase of the spirited original--O Switzerland, thou land of peaks and cow bells, of wild strawberries and nonconformist conventions, of grasshoppers and climbing dons, thou hast strange limitations! Thou canst produce no painter, thou possessest no navy; but thou makest the finest hotel porters in the world.