The Word Home, said to be peculiar to the English.—Propriety of the Assertion questioned.—Comfort.—Curious Conveniences.—Pocket-fender.—Hunting-razors. There are two words in their language on which these people pride themselves, and which they say cannot be translated. Home is the one, by which an Englishman means his house. As the meaning is precisely the same whether it be expressed by one word or by two, and the feeling associated therewith is the same also, the advantage seems wholly imaginary; for assuredly this meaning can be conveyed in any language without any possible ambiguity. In general, when a remark of this kind is made to me, if I do not perceive 181its truth, I rather attribute it to my own imperfect conception than to any fallacy in the assertion; but when this was said to me, I recollected the exquisite lines of Catullus, and asked if they were improved in the English translation:
O quid solutis est beatius curis,
Cum mens onus reponit, ac peregrino
Labore fessi, venimus larem ad nostrum
Desideratoque acquiescimus lecto?
We may with truth say that our word solar[14] is untranslatable, for the English have not merely no equivalent term, but no feeling correspondent to it. That reverence for the seat of our ancestors, which with us is almost a religion, is wholly unknown here. But how can it be otherwise in a land where there is no pride of blood, and where men who would be puzzled to trace the 182place of their grandfather’s birth, are not unfrequently elevated to a level with the grandees!
14.  Solar is the floor of a house. Hidalgo de solar conocido, is the phrase used for a man of old family.—Tr.
The other word is comfort; it means all the enjoyments and privileges of home, or which, when abroad, makes us feel no want of home; and here I must confess that these proud islanders have reason for their pride. In their social intercourse and their modes of life they have enjoyments which we never dream of. Saints and philosophers teach us that they who have the fewest wants are the wisest and the happiest; but neither philosophers nor saints are in fashion in England. It is recorded of some old Eastern tyrant, that he offered a reward for the discovery of a new pleasure;—in like manner this nation offers a perpetual reward to those who will discover new wants for them, in the readiness wherewith they purchase any thing, if the seller will but assure them that it is exceedingly convenient. For instance, in 183the common act of drawing a cork, a common screw was thought perfectly sufficient for the purpose from the time when bottles were invented, till within the last twenty years. It was then found somewhat inconvenient to exert the arm, that the wine was spoilt by shaking, and that the neck of the bottle might come off: to prevent these evils and this danger, some ingenious fellow adapted the mechanical screw, and the cork was extracted by the simple operation of turning a lever. Well, this lasted for a generation, till another artificer discovered, with equal ingenuity, that it was exceedingly unpleasant to dirt the fingers by taking ............