The cover image was repaired by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

CONTENTS.

[1]

TRAVELLING SKETCHES.

THE FAMILY THAT GOES ABROAD BECAUSE IT'S THE THING TO DO.

That men and women should leave their homes at the end of summer and go somewhere,—though it be only to Margate,—has become a thing so fixed that incomes the most limited are made to stretch themselves to fit the rule, and habits the most domestic allow themselves to be interrupted and set at naught. That we gain much in health there can be no doubt. Our ancestors, with their wives and children, could do without their autumn tour; but our ancestors did not work so hard as we work. And we gain much also in general[6] knowledge, though such knowledge is for the most part superficial, and our mode of acquiring it too often absurd. But the English world is the better for the practice. "Home-staying youths have ever homely wits," and we may fairly suppose that our youths are less homely in this particular after they have been a day or two in Paris, and a week or two in Switzerland, and up and down the Rhine, than they would have been had they remained in their London lodgings through that month of September,—so weary to those who are still unable to fly away during that most rural of months.

Upon the whole we are proud of our travelling; but yet we must own that, as a nation of travellers, we have much to learn; and it always seems that the travelling English family which goes abroad because it's the thing to do, with no clearly defined object as to the pleasure to be obtained or the delights to be expected,—with hardly a defined idea of the place to be visited, has, as a class,[7] more to learn than any other class of tourists.

In such family arrangements daughters of course predominate. Sons can travel alone or with their own friends. This arrangement they generally prefer, and for it they are always able to give substantial reasons, in which their mammas may, or may not, put implicit confidence. Daughters can travel alone too occasionally, as I hope to be able to show by-and-by in a sketch of that much abused but invaluable English lady, the Unprotected Female Tourist. But such feminine independence is an exception to the rule, and daughters are generally willing to submit themselves to that paternal and maternal guidance from which the adult male tourist so stoutly revolts. Paterfamilias of course is there, paying the bills, strapping up the cloaks, scolding the waiters, obeying, but not placidly obeying, the female behests to which he is subject, and too frequently fretting uncomfortably beneath the burden of the day, the heat and the dust, the absence of his[8] slippers, and the gross weight of his too-matured proportions. And he has, too, other inward grievances of which he can say nothing to any ear. Something of the salt of youth is left to him,—something of the spirit, though but little of the muscle,—and he thinks of his boys who are far afield, curtailed in their exploits by no petticoats, abridged by no stiff proprieties; and he wishes that he was with them, feeling that his trammels are heavy. The mother, of course, is there, kind to all her party, but too often stiff and hard to all beyond it, anxious that papa should have his comforts, anxious that her girls should see everything, but afraid to let them see too much, sometimes a little cross when the work becomes too hard or the pace of the pony is too rough, somewhat dowdy in her cotton dress, and ill-suited to the hat which she wears. She possesses every virtue under the sun. Of human beings she is the least selfish. Her heart is full of love, and all who know her dote upon her. At home[9] she is charming, at home she is graceful and sweet to be seen. But on her travels things do not go easily with her, and her temper will sometimes become ruffled. The daughters are determined to do the thing well, to see everything, to be stopped by no English prejudices, to be at their ease, or at any rate look as though they were; to talk French boldly in spite of their little slips; to wear their dresses jauntily, and make the best of themselves; to have all their eyes open, and carry home with them something from every day's work. Who will say that they are wrong? Nay, who will not declare that they are right in all this? But they overdo the thing in their intense desire to utilize every moment; they are, alas, sometimes a little ashamed of papa and mamma; and as they return down the Rhine, having begun in Switzerland, and done Baden Baden, Frankfort, and Homburg on their way, their dresses are not quite so jaunty, nor their gloves so neat, nor their hats in such perfect[10] trim, as when those articles were inspected on the evening before they left home. That resolve to make the best of themselves has been somewhat forgotten during the stern realities of their journeys. A French girl will remember her crinoline and her ribbons throughout every moment of her long day's work,—will think of them through it all, preserving herself that she may preserve them, if they were worth a thought at the beginning. If she is minded to end dowdily, she will begin dowdily. But the trouble of such continued care is too much for an English girl. She lapses first into indifference, and from indifference to aversion; till at last she takes an absolute pride in the absence of those little prettinesses which she had at first been determined to maintain so stoutly. Who has not seen her at the Dover railway station on her return home, as she stands there grasping with one hand an Alpine stock and an umbrella, while she leans listlessly on the other, regardless of the torn extremities of her gloves and[11] the battered form of her hat?

Such is the family that goes abroad because it is the thing to do. The spirit that instigates them to roam afield is no hankering after fashion. The father and mother, and daughters also, of the family of which I speak, are well aware that such tourings are too common to confer fashion or distinction. The days in which we heard that—

are well nigh over, and are certainly over for such sensible people as I am describing. It is not fashion that they seek, nor is it chiefly amusement. Paterfamilias, when he starts, knows that he will not be amused, and already wishes that the journey was over, and that he could be back at his club. Mamma dreads it somewhat, and has more of misgiving than of pleasant anticipation. She has not much of happiness when papa is cross, and he is usually cross when he[12] is uncomfortable. And then the people at the inns are so often uncivil; and she fears the beds! And the girls look for no unalloyed satisfaction. They know that they have hard work before them, and the dread of those slips in their French is not pleasant to them. But it is the thing to do. Not to have seen Florence, Rome, Munich, and Dresden, not to be at home as regards the Rhine, not to have ridden over the Gemmi or to have talked to Alpine climbers at Zermatt, is to be behind the world. And then there is so much to be done in Europe! Ars longa, vita brevis. Last year papa wouldn't move,—that is, he wouldn't move beyond Cromer. Carry is, alas! twenty-nine; Fanny is twenty-seven; even Sophie,—the childish Sophie,—is twenty-four. Under such circumstances, who can dare to think of ease, or even of pleasure? Years are flowing by, and the realities of life,—still doubtful realities, but with so much of pain in the doubt!—are coming on. Who can say how soon the income arising from paternal energy[13] may be at an end, and that the modest means of pensioned age may render all such work impracticable? It is imperative that the places be seen, that the lions be killed and ticked off as difficulties done with and overcome. What may be the exact balance of advantage to any of them when the tour is over, neither Carry nor Fanny stops to inquire; but they put their heads together and determine that the thing must be arranged. They feel that they are right. "It is education," says Fanny, with her eyes glittering. "Home-staying youths have ever homely wits," says Sophie, thinking perhaps too much of her own advantage in point of years. "I will talk to papa in earnest," says Carry, with resolute mildness. She does talk to papa in earnest, conscious that she is thereby doing her duty; and thus the family goes abroad, because it is the thing to do.

In the old days,—days, let us say, that are now some hundred and fifty years old,—young Englishmen used to travel for their education; but it[14] entered into the minds of those who sent them that they should see something of the society of the countries which they visited. And in such travelling time was given for such intercourse. But with the ordinary English tourist, and especially with the ordinary English tourist family, there is no such attempt now, no hope of any such good fortune. Carry and Fanny mean to talk French boldly, but they intend to do so in railway carriages, at hotel dinners, and to the guides and waiters. No preparation is made for any attempt at social intercourse. Letters of introduction are not obtained, nor is there time allowed for any sojourn which would make an entrance into society possible. That does not come even into Fanny's programme, though Fanny is enthusiastic. Scenery, pictures, architecture, and a limited but minute geographical inquiry, are the points to which it is intended that attention shall be given. And of these much is learned. A true love of scenery is common to almost all who will take[15] the trouble to seek it. I think that it is, at any rate, common to all English men and women. Of pictures the knowledge acquired is most frequently what may be called dead knowledge. Carry soon learns to know a Rubens from a Raphael, and almost learns to know a Titian from a Tintoretto. She stores her memory with facts as to individual pictures, remembers dates, and can tell you who was the teacher of whom. She is sometimes a little restless and mildly impatient during her labours in the galleries, and rejoices often when the hard day's work is done and the custodian bids her depart. But her toils have not been barren, and she enjoys after a fashion what she has learned. Architecture comes easier, as the time given to it is necessarily less, and the attention may be more vaguely applied. But, on that account, less is carried away, and the memories of the cathedral have dwindled to nothing, while the positions of the world-famous pictures are still remembered. As to the geography, it[16] comes unsought, and remains unappreciated; but it is not on that account the less valuable. How few of our young ladies can define the position of Warsaw; while so many know accurately that of Wiesbaden!

Many accusations have been made against travelling English families, touching that peculiarity of theirs in going hither and thither without an attempt to see and know the people of the countries they visit; and it is alleged, and truly alleged, that Frenchmen and Germans coming here do make efforts to come among us and see us, and learn of what like we are. But I think that we can defend ourselves on that score. We travel among Frenchmen and Germans in bulk, while they come among us by twos and threes. Our twos and our threes see as much of them as they see of us. With them families do not go abroad because it is the thing to do. How many an Englishman stays in Paris two days to see the city; whereas no Frenchman comes to London[17] for such a flying visit, unless he be a commis voyageur, or has some business in hand.

The family that travels because it is the thing to do, is, I am sure, in the right. Fanny understood her point when she said that it was education. It is education; but if one can judge from the faces, voices, and manners of the persons undergoing it, it is not often pleasure. The work has been too hard, the toil too unremitting, the endeavour to make the most of the short six weeks too unrelenting, to allow of much of the softness of summer enjoyment. The stern Fanny, who, as she has gone on her way, has made the foreign Bradshaw all her own, has allowed no rest to her weary father, no ease to her over-driven mother. "If we don't do Munich now, we shall never do it," she has said with energy. And thus the sullen father and the despairing mother have been dragged along further dusty railroads, to another hot city of pictures, in which Paterfamilias found nothing to comfort him but the beer, and mamma[18] no alleviation but the excessive punctuality and neatness of the washerwoman.

But, at last, they are at home,—the penance is over, and the true pleasure begins. They have done the work and have garnered the wages. Papa is sufficiently happy in feeling that he cannot be again taken away from his dressing-room and cellar, at any rate, for ten months; and mamma, as she once more creeps into her own bed, thanks God that she has been enabled to go through her duty. Carry and Fanny hide their travelling gear with some little feeling of shame, and, as they toil at their journals for the first week of their return, take pride in thinking that they have seen at any rate as much as their neighbours.

[19]

THE MAN WHO TRAVELS ALONE.

Men who travel alone may be divided into two classes. There is the man who cannot get a companion, and the man who does not want one. There is also, between these two solitary men, an intermediate solitary man, who travels alone because he cannot find the companion that would exactly suit him. But, whatever may be the cause of his solitude, the man who travels alone is not, I think, to be envied.

If he be a studious, thoughtful man, taking delight in museums and houses of assembly, given to chemistry and the variations of European politics, fond of statistics and well-instructed in stuffed vermin, he may be as happy travelling[20] alone as he would be alone in his library; but such a man is exceptional, and I am not now speaking of him. He is a student and not a tourist. He is going to school and not out for a holiday. The man who travels alone, with whom we have to do, is one who goes abroad for a little health, for a good deal of recreation if he can find it, and for the pleasure of looking about him and seeing the world. The improvement in health he may find; but the recreation will be doubtful, unless he be one by nature averse to gregarious habits.

When we see such a one,—and such a one is often seen straying along the Rhine or wandering listlessly among the mountains,—we always suppose him to be alone because he cannot help it. We are never kind enough to give him credit for a choice for solitude; and we avoid him sedulously because we have it in our power to give him that one thing that he wants. Such is the human nature of tourists, which in this respect is very like[21] to the human nature of people who stay at home. We like to have at our houses those whom it is difficult to obtain, and do not care to entertain those who are always ready to come to us.

It must be admitted that the ill-nature of tourist parties in this respect is justified to a great degree by the experienced results of any exceptional good-nature into which soft-hearted persons may be occasionally betrayed. Who among us that has been thus soft-hearted on an occasion has not repented in sackcloth and ashes? The solitary tourist when once taken up can hardly be dropped; he appears, and reappears, and comes up again till the original friends of the original good-natured sinner become gloomy and sullen and talk of strong measures. Whispers of an enforced separation are murmured about, and Jones, who has picked the man up, and who "found that there was something in him" as they sat next each other in a railway carriage, is made to understand by Smith and Walker, that unless he can contrive[22] to drop Mr. Robinson, he must be dropped himself. It is not so easy to drop Mr. Robinson. The paths of Switzerland, and the roads into Italy, are open to all the world.

Poor Robinson! we will cling to him for a while, and endeavour to show the nature of the misery which he suffers. At home he is an honest fellow, and those who know him best say that he is a gentleman. He is quite equal to the men whom he meets on his tour, and who look down upon him because of his solitude. The time will probably come when he will be no longer alone, when he will have a wife and children, and a house into which Jones would think it a blessing to be admitted.

But at present Robinson is alone, and has known himself to be thrown aside by the men whose society he coveted. He had come out on his tour with much compunction, dreading his solitude, believing in his heart of hearts that it would be better for him to go with his sisters to[23] Broadstairs. But he had accused himself of being unmanly, he had buckled on his armour in the shape of a Murray's guide, a vocabulary, and a Bradshaw, and had started by the Ostend boat, assuring himself that many others had done the same before him, and had returned home proudly to tell the tale of their wanderings. On the railway to Cologne he had picked up with Jones, and for twenty-four hours the prospects of a blessed union had cheered him. He had followed the friends to their hotel with some half-word of excuse. He had sat by Smith at the first dinner, dividing Smith from a pretty young countrywoman, and had found Smith to be somewhat unpleasant. Had he understood his game he would have taken himself to the other side of Smith. Wanting to gain much, he should have surrendered something. In the evening he had smoked with Jones, whose good-nature had not as yet been outraged. Then had Walker and Smith roundly brought their friend to task, and Jones having asked the poor[24] fellow which way he meant to travel on the morrow, had plainly told him that he and his party intended to take another route.

Some chance reader of these words may, perhaps, one day have felt such rebuke, and be able to understand its harshness. "Ah, yes! very well," said Robinson. "Then I dare say we shall not meet again. I couldn't very well alter my plan now." There was a dash of manliness about him, and he could show some gallantry before the traitor friend who had become his foe. But when he went up to his room, the tears were almost in his eyes, and as he turned into bed, he resolved that on the morrow he would betake himself home.

But on the morrow his heart was higher, and he persevered. He saw the three odious men as they started from the inn door, and was able to perceive that they were not gentlemen. Smith he thought he had seen behind a counter. As for Walker, he had caught Walker tripping with his hs, and was glad to be rid of him. Before his breakfast was[25] over he had taught himself almost to believe that he had dropped the equivocal party, and had told himself that he should be very careful how he selected his acquaintance.

But not the less was he very melancholy, and at the end of the second day from that morning had fallen into a dreary state of misanthropy. Ideas had begun to float through his brain which he believed to be philosophical, but which all tended to the no-good-in-anything school of thought. He had assumed a constrained look of contempt, and would hardly notice the waiter, as he declined one after another the dishes brought to him at dinner. In the evening he roamed about moodily in the twilight, asking himself psychological questions about suicide; not, indeed, intending to kill himself, but having a fancy for the subject as one of great interest. He thought that he might, perhaps, have killed himself had he not felt that his doing so would be deleterious to his sisters. As for Jones, or Smith, or Walker, in his present[26] mood he would not have spoken to them. He was in love with solitude, and would have been severe to any Jones or any Walker who might have intruded upon him.

But on the next day he makes another effort, having encountered our friend Paterfamilias, with his wife and three daughters, upon a Rhine steamboat. Like a prudent young man in such circumstances, he first speaks a word to the father, and the father admits the word graciously. Fathers so situated are always oblivious of their daughters, and never remember that they, when young men, used to make similar attempts. But mothers never forget, and with accurate measures of mental yard and foot, take inventory of all comers, weighing every gesture, and knowing the value of every stitch in the man's garment, and of every tone in the man's voice. The stitches and tones belonging to Robinson were not much in his favour. When a man is at discount with himself he is usually below par with all the world beside. When in the[27] course of a couple of hours Robinson had remarked to Sophie,—the youthful Sophie,—that the Rhine was the monarch of rivers, the mother speaks a cautious word to Carry, the eldest daughter, and just as misanthropy was giving place to a genial love for all his kind under a pleasant smile on Sophie's mouth, the whole family whisk themselves away, and our friend is again alone.

He has Childe Harold in his pocket, and the labour of learning a stanza or two by heart carries him on into Switzerland. In ascending the Rigi he again comes across Jones and Walker. Alas for human nature, he is only too happy to be recognized by those whom he had assured himself that he despised! A civil word half spoken by a panting voice, a nod of recognition which could hardly not have been given, draws him once more into their social circle, and he forgets the counter, and the doubtful hs, and the bearishness of the obdurate Smith. If they will only open their arms to him, and let him be one of them! A fear[28] comes upon him that they may suspect him to be impecunious, and he adapts his conversation to the idea, striving to make it apparent, by words carefully turned for the purpose, that he is quite another sort of person than that. Walker sees the attempt, and measures the man accordingly,—but measures him wrongly. Poor Robinson has been mean,—is mean; he has sunk beneath the weight of his solitude to a lowness that is not natural to him; but he has not the meanness of which they suspect him. "If you let that man hang on to you any longer, he'll be borrowing money of you," says Smith. Jones remarks that it takes two men to play at that game; but on the following morning the three friends, having necessarily been domiciled with Robinson on the top of the mountain that night, are careful to descend without him, and the poor wretch knows that he has again been dropped. The trio, as they descend the hill, are very merry withal respecting the Robinson difficulty, indulging that joy of ascendancy which[29] naturally belongs to us when we have discovered anyone low enough to require our assistance.

Along the lakes and over the mountains goes the wretched man, still in solitude. He tells himself in moments of sober earnest that he has made a mistake, and has subjected himself to great misery in attempting to obtain alone delights which by their very nature require companionship. Robinson is not a student. He cares nothing for minerals, and knows nothing of botany. Neither the social manners of the people among whom he is wandering, nor the formation of the earth's crust in those parts, are able to give him that excitement which he requires. The verdure of the Alps, the peaks of the mountains, the sun rising through the mists, would give him pleasure if he had with him another soul to whom he could exclaim in the loving intimacy of free intercourse, "By George, Tom, that is jolly! It's all very well talking of Cumberland, but one must come to Switzerland to see that." Every man cannot be a Childe[30] Harold; and even to be a Childe Harold one must begin by a stout determination to be unhappy, and to put up with it. In his own lodgings in London Robinson has lived a good deal alone, and, though he has not liked it, he has put up with it. It has been the business of his life. But he has it not in him to travel alone and to enjoy it. If, indeed, the Foreign Office in Whitehall had entrusted him with a letter or even a teapot, to carry to the Foreign Office at Vienna, he would have executed his mission with manly fidelity, and would have suffered nothing on the journey. The fact that he had a teapot to convey would have been enough for his support. But then work is always so much easier than play.

But he goes on wearily, and still makes an effort or two. As he falls down into Italy, looking with listless, unseeing eyes at all the prettinesses of the Ticino, he comes upon another Robinson, and there is a chance for him. But he has unconsciously learned and despised his own littleness,[31] and in that other lonely one he fears to find one as small, or it may be smaller than himself. He gathers his toga round him, in the shape of knapsack and walking-stick, with somewhat of dignity, and looks at his brother with suspicious eye. His brother makes some faint effort at fraternization, such as he had made before, and then Robinson,—our Robinson,—is off. He wants a companion sorely, but he does not want one who shall be so low in the world's reckoning as to want him. So he passes on, and having at last tramped out with weary feet his six weeks of wretched vacation, he returns home rejoicing to think that on the morrow he shall be back amidst the comforts of his desk and stool, and the society of his fellow-labourers.

Most of us are Robinsons. We are so far lucky indeed, the greater number of us, that we need not be solitary Robinsons. We have our friends, and are better advised than to attempt the enjoyment of our tours alone. But as to our capacity[32] for doing so, or our conduct if we should attempt it, I doubt whether many of us would be much stronger than he was.

[33]

THE UNPROTECTED FEMALE TOURIST.

The unprotected female tourist is generally a much stronger-minded individual than the solitary male traveller, and has a higher purpose, a better courage, and a greater capacity for meeting and conquering the difficulties of the road. The poor fellow, indeed, whose solitary journey we described the other day, had no purpose, unless a vague idea of going where amusement would come to him, rather than of seeking it by any effort of his own, may be called a purpose; but the unprotected female knows what she is about; she has something to do and she does it; she has a defined plan from which nothing moves her; the discomfort of a day will not turn her aside; nor[34] will she admit of any social overtures till she has formed a judgment of their value, and has fair reason to believe that she will receive at any rate as much as she gives. The unprotected female, as she knows and uses the strength of her weakness, so does she perceive and measure the weakness of her strength. She cannot be impetuous, and impulsive, and kitten-like, as may girls who can retreat at once behind their mother's crinoline or under their father's umbrella, should a cloud be seen in the distance or the need for shelter be felt.

How or under what influences the unprotected female commences her tour, who can tell? It will usually be found, if inquiry be made as to her family, that she has a brother, or a father, or a mother; that she need not be an unprotected female tourist, had she not elected that line as the best for her pleasure or her profit. She is seldom very young;—but neither is she very old. The lady whose age would admit of her travelling alone without[35] remark rarely chooses to do so; and when she does, she is not the lady whom we all know as the unprotected female. The unprotected female must be pretty, or must at least possess feminine graces which stand in lieu of prettiness, and which can put forward a just and admitted claim for personal admiration. She is not rich, and travels generally with economy; but she is rarely brought to a shift for money, and her economies conceal themselves gracefully and successfully. She learns the value of every franc, of every thaler, of every zwansiger as she progresses, and gets more change out of her sovereigns than any Englishman will do. She allows herself but few self-indulgences, and controls her appetites. She can enjoy a good dinner as well as her brother could do; but she can go without her dinner with a courageous persistence of which her brother knows nothing. She never pays through the nose in order that people indifferent to her may think her great or generous, though she pays always sufficient to[36] escape unsatisfactory noises and to prevent unpleasant demands. Her dress is quiet and yet attractive; her clothes fit her well; and if, as one is prone to suspect, they are in great part the work of her own hand, she must be an industrious woman, able to go to her needle at night after the heat and dust of the day are over. Her gloves are never worn at the finger-ends; her hat is never shapeless, nor are her ribbons ever soiled; the folds of her not too redundant drapery are never misarranged, confused, or angular. She never indulges in bright colours, and is always the same, and always neat; and they who know her best believe that if she were called out of her room by fire in the middle of the night, she would come forth calm, in becoming apparel, and ready to take an active part in the emergency without any infringement on feminine propriety. She is never forward, nor is she ever bashful. A bashful woman could not play her game, and a forward woman immediately[37] encounters sorrow when she attempts to play it. She can decline all overtures of acquaintanceship without giving offence, and she can glide into intimacies without any apparent effort. She can speak French with fluency and with much more than average accuracy, and probably knows something of German and Italian. Without such accomplishments as these let no woman undertake the part of an unprotected female tourist. She can converse on almost any subject; and, if called on to do so, can converse without any subject. As she becomes experienced in her vocation she learns and remembers all the routes of travelling. She is acquainted with and can explain all galleries, cathedrals, and palaces. She knows the genealogies of the reigning kings, and hardly loses herself among German dukes. She understands politics, and has her opinion about the Emperor, the King of Prussia, and the Pope. And she can live with people who know much more than herself, or much less, without betraying the difference between[38] herself and them. She can be gay with the gay, and enjoy that; or dull with the dull, and seem to enjoy that. What man as he travels learns so much, works so hard, uses so much mental power, takes so much trouble in all things, as she does? She is never impatient, never exacting, never cross, never conquered, never triumphant, never humble, never boastful, never ill, never in want of assistance. If she fall into difficulties she escapes from them without a complaint. If she be ill-used she bears it without a murmur; if disappointed,—as must so often be the case with her,—she endures her cross and begins again with admirable assiduity. Yet she is only an unprotected female, and they who meet her on her travels are too apt to declare that she is an old soldier.

Unprotected female tourists, such as I have described, are not very numerous; but there are enough of them to form a class by themselves. From year to year, as we make our autumn[39] excursions, we see perhaps one of them, and perhaps a second. We meet the same lady two or three times, making with her a pleasant acquaintance, and then passing on. The farther we go afield the more likely we are to encounter her. She is always to be met with on the Nile; she is quite at home at Constantinople; she goes frequently to Spain; you will probably find her in Central America; but her head-quarters are perhaps at Jerusalem. She prefers the saddle to any other mode of travelling, and can sit on horseback for any number of hours without flinching. For myself, I have always liked the company of the unprotected female, and have generally felt something like the disruption of a tender friendship when circumstances have torn me from her.

But why is she what she is? As to the people that one ordinarily meets when travelling, no one stops to inquire why they are what they are. Mr. and Mrs. Thompson have come together,[40] naturally enough; and, naturally enough, there are three or four Miss Thompsons. And when young Mr. Thompson turns up alone, no one thinks very much about him. But one is driven to think why Miss Thompson is there at Cairo all by herself. You go to the Pyramids with her, and you find her to be very pleasant. She sits upon her donkey as though she had been born sitting on a donkey; and through dust and heat and fleas and Arabs she makes herself agreeable as though nothing were amiss with her. You find yourself talking to her of your mother, your sister, or your friend,—but not of your wife or sweetheart. But of herself, excepting as regards her life at Cairo, she says nothing to you. You ask yourself many questions about her.

Why is she alone? and how is it possible that a girl whose dress fits her so nicely should not[41] have "a nearer one and dearer one yet than all other?"

But you may take it for granted that she has not; or if she has, that he is no better than he should be;—that his nature is such as to have driven her to think solitude better than his company. Love of independence has probably made the unprotected female tourist what she is;—that and the early acquired knowledge that such independence in a woman requires very special training. She has probably said to herself that she would rise above the weakness of her sex,—driven, perhaps, to that resolve by some special grief which, as a woman, she has incurred. She is something of a Bohemian, but a Bohemian with a regret that Bohemianism should be necessary to her. She will not be hindered by her petticoats from seeing what men see, and from enjoying that which Nature seems to bring within a man's reach so easily, but which is so difficult to a woman. That there might be something more blessed than[42] that independence she is ready enough to admit to herself. Where is the woman that does not admit it? But she will not admit that a woman should live for that hope alone; and therefore she is riding with you to the Pyramids,—others of course accompanying you,—and talking to you with that studied ease which is intended to show that, though she is an unprotected female, she knows what she is about, and can enjoy herself without any fear of you, or of Mrs. Grundy. You find her to be very clever, and then think her to be very pretty; and if,—which may probably be the case,—you are in such matters a fool, you say a word or two more than you ought to do, and the unprotected female shows you that she can protect herself.

But Miss Thompson is wrong for all this, and I think it will be admitted that I have made the best of Miss Thompson's case. The line which she has taken up is one which it is impossible that a woman should follow with ultimate satisfaction.[43] She cannot unsex herself or rid herself of the feeling that admiration is accorded to her as a pretty woman. She has probably intended,—honestly intended,—to be quit of that feeling, and to move about the world as though, for her, men and women were all the same, as though no more flirting were possible, and love-making were a thing simply good to be read of in novels. But if so, why has she been so careful with her gloves, and her hat, and all her little feminine belongings? It has been impossible to her not to be a woman. The idea and remembrance of her womanly charms have always been there, always present to her mind. Unmarried men are to her possible lovers and possible husbands,—as she is also a possible wife to any unmarried man,—and also a possible love. Though she may have devoted herself to celibacy with her hand on the altar, she cannot banish from her bosom the idea which, despite herself, almost forms itself into a hope. We will not ask as to her past life; but[44] for the future she will be what she is,—only till the chance comes to her of being something better. It is that free life which she leads,—which she leads in all innocency,—which makes it impossible for her to be true to the resolution she has made for herself. Such a woman cannot talk to men without a consciousness that intimacy may lead to love, or the pretence of love, or the dangers of love. Nor, it may be said, can any unmarried woman do so. And therefore it is that they do not go about the world unprotected, either at home or abroad. Therefore it is that the retreat behind mamma's ample folds or beneath papa's umbrella is considered to be so salutary.

You, my friend, with your quick, impulsive, and, allow me to say, meaningless expression of admiration, received simply the rebuke which you deserved. Then there was an end of that, and Miss Thompson, being somewhat used to such misadventures, thought but little of it afterwards. She has to do those things when the necessity[45] comes upon her. But it does happen, sometimes, that the unprotected female,—who has a heart, though other women will say that she has none,—is touched, and listens, and hopes, and at last almost thinks that she has found out her mistake. The cold exterior glaze of the woman is pricked through, and there comes a scratch upon the stuff beneath. A tone in her voice will quaver as though everything were not easy with her. She will forget for the moment her prudence, and the usual precautions of her life, and will dream of retiring within the ordinary pale of womanhood. She will think that to cease to be an unprotected female may be sweet, and for a while she will be soft, and weak, and wavering. But with unprotected females such ideas have to pass away very fleetly. I am afraid it must be said that let a woman once be an unprotected female, so she must remain to the end. Who knows the man that has taken an unprotected female to his bosom and made her the mistress of his home, and the[46] chief priestess of his household gods? And if any man have done so, what have his friends said of him and his adventure?

And so the unprotected female goes on wandering still farther afield, increasing in cleverness every year, and ever acquiring new knowledge; but increasing also in hardness, and in that glaze of which I have spoken, till at last one is almost driven to confess, when one's wife and daughters declare her to be an old soldier, that one's wife and daughters are not in justice liable to contradiction.

[47]

THE UNITED ENGLISHMEN WHO TRAVEL FOR FUN.

The United Englishmen who travel for fun are great nuisances to other tourists, are great nuisances to the towns they visit and the scenes they disturb, are often nuisances in a small way to the police, are nuisances to people saying their prayers in churches, are nuisances to visitors in picture galleries, are nuisances to the ordinary travellers of the day, and are nuisances to the world at large—except the innkeepers and the railway companies; but they generally achieve their own object, and have what the Americans call a good time of it. A United Englishman travelling for fun should not be over twenty-five[48] years of age, but up to that age what he does, though he be a nuisance, should be forgiven him. Though we ourselves may be annoyed by the freaks of such travellers, shocked by their utter disregard of apparel, stunned by their noises, and ashamed of them as our countrymen, yet we are well pleased that our sons should be among their number, and are conscious that amidst all that energetic buffoonery and wild effrontery, education is going on, and that much is being learned, though the recipient of the learning would himself be ashamed to own any such fact to himself.

The men of whom I am now speaking are generally gentlemen by birth,—who have been educated or missed being educated, as education is obtained or missed by the sons of English gentlemen,—are pleasant fellows who have learned to love each other at school or college, and have nothing about them that is mean or in itself ignoble; but they are young of their age, men for[49] whom nature has hitherto done more than art, who have hardly as yet learned to think, and are still enjoying all the irresponsible delights of boyhood at a time of life at which others less fortunate are already immersed in the grievous cares of earning their bread. I do not know that any country except England produces such a crop. We see United Frenchmen on their travels; but they are discreet, well dressed, anticipating the life of middle age rather than adhering to the manners of boyhood,—much given to little attentions to women, and very decorous in their language. And young German tourists are encountered everywhere, though more often alone than in union; but the German tourist is almost always a German student. Life is a serious thing to him, and he is resolved that he will not lose this most precious period of it. United Germans, rough in their pleasures, and noisy in their demonstrations, may no doubt be found; but they are to be found in their own cities, at[50] their universities, among their own people. It does not come in their way to go forth and exhibit their rowdiness among strangers. And as to Americans, who has ever seen a young American? An American who travels at eighteen, travels because he is blasé with the world at home, tired of democratic politics, and anxious to see whether anything may still be gleaned from European manners to improve the not yet perfected institutions of his own country. Among tourists of the order of United Englishmen an American young man is altogether out of his element. He will attempt sometimes to live as they live, but will soon retire, disgusted partly by them and partly by his own incompetence. I have known an American who could be loud, and jolly, and frolicsome, and yet carry himself like a gentleman through it all; but I have never known a young American who could do so.

Englishmen of the class in question are boys for a more protracted period of their life, and[51] remain longer in a state of hobbledehoyhood, than the youths probably of any other nation. They are nurtured on the cold side of the wall, and come slowly to maturity; but the fruit, which is only half ripe at the end of summer, is the fruit that we keep for our winter use. I do not know that much has been lost in life by him who, having been a boy at twenty, is still a young man at forty. But even in England we are changing all this now-a-days, and by a liberal use of the hot-water pipes of competition are in a way to force our fruit into the market as early as any other people. Let us hope that what we gain in time may not be lost in flavour.

But we have not yet advanced so far as to put down the bands of United Englishmen who travel for fun. Who does not know the look of the band, and cannot at a glance swear to their vocation? The smallest number of such a party is three, and it does not often exceed five. They are dressed very much alike. The hat, whatever[52] be its exact shape, is chosen with the purpose of setting all propriety instantly at defiance. No other description can be given of it. To say that it is a slouch hat, or a felt hat, or a Tom-and-Jerry hat, conveys no idea of the hat in question. The most discreet Low Church parson may wear a slouch hat, and may look in it as discreet and as Low Church as he does in his economically preserved chimney-pot at home. But the United English tourist batters his hat, and twists it, and sits on it, and rumples and crumples it, till it is manifestly and undeniably indicative of its owner. And having so completed its manufacture he obtrudes it upon the world with a remarkable ingenuity. In a picture gallery he will put it on the head of a bust of Apollo; in a church he will lay it down on the railing of the altar, or he will carry it on high on the top of his stick, so that all men may see it and know its owner by the sign. Sitting in public places he will chuck it up and catch it, and at German[53] beer-gardens he will spread it carefully in the middle of the little table intended for the glasses. He never keeps it on his head when he should take it off,—because he is a gentleman; but he rarely keeps it on his head when that is the proper place for it,—because he is a United Englishman who travels for fun. He wears a suit of grey clothes, the coat being a shooting coat, and the trousers, if he be loud in his vocation, being exchanged for knickerbockers. And it is remarkable that the suit in which you will see him will always strike you as that which he had procured for last year's tour, and that he is economically wearing it to shreds on the present occasion. But this is not so. The clothes were new when he left London; but he has been assiduous with his rumpling and crumpling here as he has been with his hat, and at the expiration of his first week out he is able to boast to himself that he has, at any rate, got rid of the gloss. He wears flannel shirts, and in warm weather goes about without a cravat. He carries[54] in his portmanteau a dress-coat, waistcoat, and trousers, which are of no use to him, as who would think of asking such a man to dinner? But, as he abhors the extra package which a decent hat would make needful, he is to be seen in Paris, Vienna, or Florence with that easily-recognized covering for his head which I have above described. He has a bludgeon usually in his hand, and often a pipe in his mouth. He knows nothing of gloves, but is very particular as to the breadth and strength of his shoes. He often looks to be very dirty; but his morning tub is a religious ceremony, and, besides that, he bathes whenever he comes across a spot which, from its peculiar difficulties, is more than ordinarily inappropriate for the exercise.

These tourists for fun are known well by all that large class of men who are engaged in supplying the wants of summer travellers. No one ever doubts their solvency; no innkeeper ever refuses them admittance; no station-master[55] or captain of a steamboat ever takes them for other than they are. They are not suspected, but known; and therefore a certain tether is allowed to them which is not to be exceeded. They are looked after good-humouredly, and are so restrained that they shall not be made to feel the restraint if the feeling can be spared them. "Three mad Englishmen! They're all right. I've got my eye on them. They won't do any harm?" That seems to be the ordinary language which is held about them by those to whom falls the duty of watching them and supplying their wants. The waiters were very good-natured to them, patting them, as it were on the back, and treating them much as though they were children. But it is understood that they must have wherewithal to eat and to drink well, and that their bells must be answered if any quiet is to be preserved in the houses. Sometimes there will be a row, and the English pride will flare up and conceive itself to have been insulted. The United[56] Englishman who travels for fun has a great idea of his country's power, and resents violently any uncourteous interference with his vagaries. But it is so generally known that the "mad Englishman" is all right, and that he won't do any real harm if an eye be kept on him, that such rows seldom end disastrously.

These united tourists often quarrel among themselves, but their quarrels do not come to much. Green tells White that Brown is the most ill-tempered, evil-minded, cross-grained brute that was ever born, that he thought so before and that now he knows it; that he was a fool to come abroad with such a beast, and that he was absolutely, finally, and irrevocably resolved that never, under any circumstances, will he speak to the man again. The party will be broken up, but he cannot help that. There will be difficulty about the division of money, but he cannot help that. Yes; it is true that he is fond of Brown's sister, but neither can he help that. It has always[57] been his wonder that such a sister should have such a brother. Only for Mary Brown he never would have come abroad with this pig of a fellow. The quarrel while it rages is very hot, and Brown tells White that Green is the greatest ass under the sun. Nevertheless the quarrel is made up before breakfast on the following morning, and the three men go on together without much remembrance of the language which they had used.

I have said that most of us would like to see our sons go out on such parties, and I think that we should be right in sending them. The United Englishmen who travel for fun rarely get into much evil. They do not get drunk, nor do they gamble at the public tables. And undoubtedly they learn much, though it seems that they are always averse to learn anything. How education is accomplished or of what it consists, who yet has been able to explain to us? That by far the greater portion of our education is involuntary[58] all men will probably admit. We learn to speak, to walk, to express our emotions, and to control such expression; to be grave and gay, and to understand the necessity of alternating between the two, by copying others unconsciously. We exercise a thousand arts which we do not know how we acquired, and the more we see of the world the more do we learn of such arts,—even though we are not aware of the process. That our friends Brown, Green, and White might have learned more than they did learn on that tour of theirs, may be true enough; but for all that, they do not come back as empty as they went.

And they have had this merit,—that they have in truth enjoyed what they have done. Little clouds there have been,—such as that quarrel between Brown and his future brother-in-law; but they have been passing mists which have hardly served to disturb the sunshine of their tour. Together they started, together they have been over mountains and through cities, performing feats which,[59] in their own judgments, are little short of marvellous, and together they return at the end of their holiday satisfied with themselves and with the world at large. They have seen pictures and walked through cathedrals; but, above all, they have stood upon the slopes of the hills and have looked at the mountains. They have listened to the little rivers as they tumbled, and have laid their hands upon the edges of mighty rocks; they have smelt the wild thyme as it gave out its fragrance beneath their feet, and have peered wondering through the blue crevasses of the glacier. They have sat in the sweet gloom of the evening and have watched the surface of the lake as it lay beneath them without a ripple, and have waited there till the curtain of night has hid the water from their view. Then they have thrown themselves idly on their backs, and have counted the stars in the firmament over their head, wondering at the beauty of the heavens. They have said little perhaps to each other of the romance of such[60] moments, of the poetry, which has filled their hearts; but the romance and the poetry have been there; and they have brought home with them a feeling for beauty which will last them through their lives, in spite of their crumpled hats, their big bludgeons, their short pipes, and their now almost indecent knickerbockers.

[61]

THE ART TOURIST.

The class of art tourists is very numerous, and of all tourists the art tourist is, I think, the most indefatigable. He excels the tourist in search of knowledge both in length of hours and in assiduity while he is at his work. The art tourist now described is not the man or woman who goes abroad to learn to paint, or to buy pictures and gems, or to make curious art investigations. Such travellers are necessarily few in number, and set about their work as do other people of business. They are not tourists at all in the now accepted meaning of the word. Our art tourist is he,—or quite as often she,—who flies from gallery to gallery, spending hours and often days in each, with a[62] strong determination to get up conscientiously the subject of pictures. Sculpture and architecture come also within the scope of the labours of the art tourist, but not to such an extent as to influence them materially. Pictures are the ever present subject of the English art tourist's thoughts, and to them and their authors he devotes himself throughout his holiday with that laborious perseverance which distinguishes the true Briton as much in his amusement as in his work. He is studying painters rather than pictures,—certainly not pictures alone as things pleasing in themselves. A picture, of which the painter is avowedly unknown, is to such a one a thing of almost no interest whatever,—unless in the more advanced period of his study he should venture to attempt to read the riddle and should take upon himself to name the unknown. And this work of the art tourist, though it may lead to a true love of pictures, does in no wise arise from any such feeling. And, indeed, it is quite[63] compatible with an entire absence of any such predilection. Men become learned in pictures without caring in the least for their beauty or their ugliness, just as other men become learned in the laws, without any strong feeling either as to their justice or injustice. The lawyer looks probably for a return for his labours in a comfortable income, and the art tourist looks for his return in that sort of reputation which is now attached to the knowledge of the history of painting.

The first great object of the art tourist is to be able to say, without reference to any card, guide-book, or affixed name, and with some approach to correctness, who painted the picture then before him; and his next great object is to be able to declare the date of that painter's working, the country in which he lived, the master who taught him, the school which he founded, the name of his mistress or wife, the manner of his death, and the galleries in which[64] his chief works are now to be found.

As regards the first object,—that of knowing the painter from his work,—the art tourist soon obtains many very useful guides to his memory. Indeed, it is on guides to his memory that he depends altogether. When he has progressed so far that he can depend on his judgment instead of his memory, he has ceased to be an art tourist, and has become a connoisseur. The first guide to memory is the locality of the picture. He knows that Raphaels are rife at Florence, Titians at Venice, Vandykes at Genoa, Guidos at Bologna, Van Eykes and Memlings in Flanders, and Rembrandts and Paul Potters in Holland. Pictures have been too much scattered about to make this knowledge alone good for much; but joined to other similar aids, it is a powerful assistance, and prevents mistakes which in an old art tourist would be disgraceful. Next to this, probably, he acquires a certain, though not very accurate idea of dates, which supplies him with information[65] from the method and manner of the picture. If he is placed before a work of some early Tuscan painter,—Orcagna, or the like,—he will know that it is not the work of some comparatively modern painter of the same country,—such as Andrea del Sarto;—and so he progresses. Then the old masters themselves were very liberal in the aids which they gave to memory by repeating their own work,—as, indeed, are some of their modern followers, who love to produce the same faces year after year upon their canvas,—I will not say usque ad nauseam, for how can we look on a pretty face too often? The old masters delighted to paint their own wives or their own mistresses,—the women, in short, whom they loved best and were most within their reach, guided perhaps by some idea of economy in saving the cost of a model; and this peculiarity on their part is a great assistance to art tourists. He or she must be a very young art tourist who does not know the Murillo face,[66] or the two Rubens faces, or the special Raphael face, or the Leonardo da Vinci face, or the Titian head and neck, or the Parmigianino bunch of hair, or the Correggio forehead and fingers. All this is a great assistance, and gives hope to an art tourist in a field of inquiry so wide that there could hardly be any hope without such aid. And then these good-natured artists had peculiar tricks with them, which give further most valuable help to the art tourist in his work. Jacobo Bassano paints people ever cringing towards the ground, and consequently a Jacobo Bassano can be read by a young art tourist in an instant. Claude Lorraine delighted to insert a man carrying a box. That vilest of painters, Guercino, rejoices in turbans. Schalken painted even scenes by candle-light, so that he was called Della Notte. Jan Steen usually greets us with a portrait of himself in a state of drunkenness. Adrian van Ostade seldom omits a conical-shaped hat, or Teniers a red cap and[67] a peculiar figure, for which the art tourist always looks immediately when he thinks of discovering this artist. All these little tricks of the artist, and many more of the same kind, the art tourist soon learns, much to his own comfort.

And then he progresses to a kind of knowledge which comes somewhat nearer to art criticism, but which does not yet amount to the exercise of any judgment on his own part. He learns to perceive the peculiar manner of certain artists who painted peculiarly; and though by the knowledge he so attains he may be led into error,—as when he takes a Lancret for a Watteau,—still the error is never disgracefully erroneous. He knows at once the girl by Greuze, with her naked shoulder and her head on one side; he knows at once the old woman by Denner, the little wrinkles on whose face, as he looks at them through his magnifying glass, seem to be so very soft. The unnatural sunshine of[68] Claude he knows, and the natural sunshine of Cuyp. The blotches of Rembrandt and the smoothness of Carlo Dolci are to him as A, B, C. The romantic rocks and trees of Salvator Rosa do not certainly represent nature,—to which they bear no resemblance,—but to him they represent Salvator Rosa very adequately. The pietistic purity of Fra Angelico strikes him forcibly, and the stiff grace of Perugino; though, when he advances as far as this, he is somewhat prone to make mistakes. And he learns to note the strong rough work of the brush of Paul Veronese, and the beautiful blue hills of Titian's backgrounds. He distinguishes between the graceful dignity of a Venetian nobleman and the manly bearing of a Florentine citizen; and he recognizes the spears of Paolo Uccello, who painted battles; and the beards of Taddeo Gaddi, who painted saints; and the long-visaged virgins with fair hair, by Sandro Botticelli. And he will gradually come to perceive how those long-visaged,[69] fair-haired virgins grew out of the first attempts at female dignity by Cimabue, and how they progressed into the unnatural grace of Raphael, and then descended into the meretricious inanities of which Raphael's power and Raphael's falseness were the forerunners.

And so the art tourist goes on till he really knows something about painting,—even whether he have a taste or no,—and becomes proud of himself and his subject. That second object of which I have spoken, and which has reference to the life of the painter, he of course acquires from books. And it may be remarked that the popularity of this kind of knowledge has become so strong that much of the information is given in the ordinary guide-books. We do not much care to know who taught Christopher Wren to be an architect, or whence Mozart learned the art of music, or even how Canova became a sculptor. But it is essential to the art tourist, to the youngest tyro in art touring, that he should[70] know that Titian was the scholar of Bellini, and Raphael of Perugino, and Vandyke of Rubens. The little intricacies of the schooling,—how this man migrated from one school to another, and how the great pernicious schools of art at last formed themselves, destroying individual energy,—these come afterwards. But to the diligent art tourist they do come. And it is delightful to hear the contests on the subject of art tourists who have formed themselves, one on Kugler and another on Waagen; who have read the old work of Vasari, or have filled themselves with a widely-extended mass of art information from the late excellent book by Mr. Wornum.

The upshot of all this has been the creation of a distinct and new subject of investigation and study. Men and women get up painting as other men and women get up botany, or entomology, or conchology, and a very good subject painting is for the purpose. It is innocent,[71] pretty, and cheap;—for I take the fact of the tour to be given as a matter of course. It leads its pursuers to nothing disagreeable, and is as open to women as to men. And it leads to very little boring of other people who are not tourists, which, perhaps, is its greatest advantage; for though the art tourist will sometimes talk to you of pictures, what is that to the persecution which you are called on to endure in inspecting cupboards full of pickled snakes or legions of drawers full of empty egg-shells? The work of an art tourist must at least be more attractive than the unalluring task of collecting postage-stamps and monograms. And, above all, let it be remembered that if it so chance that the art tourist have an eye in his head, he may at last become a lover of art.

The work of the art tourist begins about the middle of September, is carried on hotly for that and the next three months, and then completes its season at Rome in Easter. It[72] flourishes, however, only in autumn, as the normal art tourist is one who is either away from his business for his holiday, or whose period of travelling is dependent on some such person. The work is begun at the Louvre, for the disciple in this school of learning will never condescend to use our own National Gallery, though for the purposes of such learning our own is perhaps the best gallery in the world. He begins in the Louvre; and, indeed, in the tribune of that gallery, under the influence of the great picture by Paul Veronese, which is probably the most marvellous piece of painting in the world, the resolution to get up painting is often taken by the young scholar. Then the galleries of Italy are seen—Venice, Bologna, Florence, Rome, and perhaps Naples; Antwerp and Bruges probably come next; and then Dresden, Munich, and Vienna. By this time the art tourist is no longer a tyro, but, stored with much knowledge, burns for the acquisition of more. He pines[73] after Madrid and Seville, and steals a day or two from some year's holiday for Amsterdam and the Hague. He works hard and conscientiously at his galleries, as though he could turn aside in idleness from no wall, on which pictures are hung, without dishonesty.

And then how the subject swells before him when he takes to fresco-painting, and begins to despise easel pictures! He penetrates to Assisi, and declares the Campo Santo at Pisa to be the centre of the world of Art! He expatiates to you with vigour on the chapel in the Carmine, and turns from you in disgust when he finds that you don't know what that chapel is, or where that chapel may be.

There is an old saying, which the world still holds to be very true, but which is, nevertheless, I think, very false: "Whatever you do, do well." Now there are many things which are worth doing which cannot be done well without the devotion of a lifetime, and which certainly are not worth such[74] devotion as that. Billiards is a pretty game, but to play billiards well is a dangerous thing. And chess is a beautiful game; but they who play chess really well can rarely do much else. Art tourists are in this danger, that it is quite possible they may teach themselves to think that they should do their art touring so well as to make that the one pleasurable pursuit of their lives. After all, it is but a collecting of dead leaves, unless the real aptitude and taste be there.

[75]

THE TOURIST IN SEARCH OF KNOWLEDGE.

I think that we all know the tourist in search of knowledge, the tourist who goes abroad determined not to waste a day, who is resolved to bring back with him when he returns from his travels information that shall be at any rate an equivalent to him for the money and time expended. This tourist in search of knowledge no doubt commands our respect in a certain degree. He is a sedulous man, probably exempt from any strong evil proclivities, anxious to do the best he can with his life, imbued with a respectable ambition, and animated by that desire to be better than those around him which generally saves a man[76] from being below the average if it does not suffice to do more for him than that. But, having said so much in praise of tourists of this class, I do not know that there is much more to be said in their favour. Such men are usually bores as regards their effect upon others; and, as regards themselves, they seem in too many cases to have but little capacity for following up the special career which they have proposed to themselves. They are diligent in their inquiries, but have laid down for themselves no course of study. They wish to learn everything, but have too great a faith for learning everything easily. They have seldom realized to themselves how hard is the task of mastering information, and think that in going far afield from their own homes they have found, or are like to find, a royal road to knowledge. And then they have a worse fault than this incorrectness of idea which I have imputed to them. They are apt to forestall the merits which they should in truth never claim till the[77] knowledge has been won, and as seekers for wisdom, assume the graces which others should give them when such acquired wisdom has become the manifest result of their labours.

There are female tourists in search of knowledge as well as male; but a woman has so much more tact than a man, that she is usually able to hide that which is objectionable in her mode of action. Perhaps the middle-aged single lady, or the lady who is not yet middle-aged but fears that she may soon become so, is more prone to belong to this class of travellers than any species of man; but she keeps her investigations somewhat in the background, goes through her heavy reading out of sight, and asks her most pressing questions sotto voce, when she and her hoped-for informant are beyond the hearing of the multitude. The male investigator of Continental facts has no such reticence. He demands the price of wheat with bold voice before a crowd of fellow-travellers; he asks his question as to the population of the[78] country, and then answers it himself with a tone of conscious superiority, and he suggests his doubts as to the political action of the people around him with an air of omniscience that is intended to astonish all that stand within hearing of him.

What a glorious thing is knowledge, and how terrible to us are those lapses of opportunity with which the consciences of most of us are burdened in this respect! And to us who are ignorant, whose lapses in that respect have been too long to have been numerous, how great the man looms who has really used his intellect, and exercised his brain, and stirred his mind! But as he looms large, so does the ignorant man who affects acquirements and prides himself on knowledge which can hardly even be called superficial—as, spread it as thin as he may, he cannot make it cover a surface—appear infinitesimally mean and small! The getter-up of quotations from books which he has never read,—how vile he is to all of us! The man who allows it to be assumed that[79] he can understand a subject or a language till he breaks down, caught in the fact, despised, but pitied through the extent of his misery,—how poor a creature he is in his wretchedness! The tourist in search of knowledge may of course be a man infinitely too strong to fall into any of these pitfalls. He may be modest-minded though ambitious, silent in his search, conscious of his ignorance where he is ignorant, and doubtful of his learning where he is learned. No doubt there are such English tourists,—many of them probably passing from city to city year after year,—with eyes and ears more readily open than their mouths; but not such a one is the tourist of whom we are here speaking. Travellers such as they become liable to no remark, and escape the notice of all observers. But the normal traveller in search of knowledge, with whom all of us who are habitual tourists are well acquainted, is altogether of a different nature. He is the Pharisee among students. He is always thanking God that[80] he is not as those idlers who pass from country to country learning nothing of the institutions of the people among whom they travel,—not as that poor Publican, that lonely traveller, who, standing apart, hardly daring to open his mouth, asks some humble question which shows thoroughly and at once the extent of his ignorance.

Our tourist in search of knowledge,—the tourist who is searching for that which he thinks he has got, but which he never will find,—is seldom a very young man. Nor is he often a man stricken in years. The man over fifty who makes inquiries with eager pretension but with no fixed aptitudes in that direction, after the price of flour and the fluctuations of the population, must be a fool indeed. The tourist now in question will usually be progressing from thirty to forty. He is a severe man in his mien, given to frowning at all puerilities, and especially hostile to his young countrymen who travel for fun, in denouncing whose sins he is prone to put forward his best[81] eloquence. Nor is he much more gracious to young ladies who travel with their mammas, and who sometimes show a tendency to cultivate the acquaintance of those scandalous young British rioters. To the unprotected female tourist he will sometimes unbend, and will find in her a flattering listener, and one who is able to understand and appreciate the depth and breadth of his acquirements. He generally starts from home alone, but will occasionally be found joined for a time to a brother traveller, induced to adopt such company by sympathy in tastes and motives of economy. But sympathy in tastes will not carry the two far together, as, little as may be their capacity for fathoming depths, each will be able to fathom the depth of the other. The tourist in search of knowledge will generally be found dressed in gaiters, in a decorous suit of brown garments, and accompanied by a great coat, rug, and umbrella, carefully packed together with a strap. Now, in these latter days, he has relinquished[82] his chimney-pot, and covered himself with a dark soft felt hat, which must add greatly to his comfort. Indeed, his appearance would be much in his favour, as opposed in its decency to the violent indecency of some of our British tourists, were it not for a certain priggishness of apparel which tells a tale against him and acts terribly to his disfavour. It must, however, be acknowledged of the tourist in search of knowledge that he never misbehaves himself. He is not often to be seen in the churches during the hours of public worship,—for what is there for an inquiring tourist to learn in such places at such times?—but when chance does so place him he disturbs no one, and entails upon the big Swiss, or verger with the cocked hat, no necessity to keep an eye upon him. He is no great frequenter of galleries, preferring the useful to the ornamental in his inquiries; but he makes his little tour of inspection to any art collections that are of especial note, so that he may be able to satisfy himself and his admirers[83] that he has seen everything. Occasionally he will venture on a morsel of art criticism, and then the profundity of his ignorance is delightful to those who feel that, as a tourist in search of knowledge, he is turning up his nose at them. He will generally admire a "Carlo Dolci," and will have some word to say in favour of Salvator Rosa. But he will be found much more frequently in libraries and museums. These will be his hunting-grounds, though it will be out of the power of the ordinary tourist to ascertain what he does there. He is, however, an enduring, conscientious man, and can pass along from shelf to shelf and from one glass-covered repository to another, hardly missing a stuffed bird or an Indian arrow-head. And he will listen with wondrous patience to the details of guides, jotting down figures in a little book, and asking wonder-working questions which no guide can answer. And he looks into municipal matters wherever he goes, learning all details as to mayors, aldermen, and councillors, as to custom[84] duties on provisions, as to import duties on manufactures, as to schools, convents, and gaols, to scholars, mendicants, and criminals. He does not often care much for scenery, but he will be careful to inquire how many passengers the steamboats carry on the lakes, and what average of souls is boarded and lodged at each large hotel that he passes. He would like to know how many eggs are consumed annually, and probably does ask some question as to the amount of soap used in the laundries.

To the romance and transcendental ebullitions of enthusiastic admirers of nature he is altogether hostile, and dislikes especially all quotations from poetry. "Cui bono?" is his motto. To whom will any of these things do any good? Has Dante fed any hungry mouths, or has Shakspeare put clothes on the backs of any but a poor company of players? He will tell you that Byron wasted a fortune, and that Shelley wasted himself. The jingle of rhymes is an injury to him, as is also the[85] scraping of a fiddle. To get up either poetry or music would be out of his line, and he recognizes no utility that does not show itself by figures. So he goes on from town to town, passing quickly through the mountains and by the lakes, and conscientiously performs the task which he had laid out for himself before he started. When he returns home he has never been enticed to the right or to the left. He has spent exactly the number of francs which he had allowed himself. He had ordered breakfast to be ready for him in his home on a certain morning by eight o'clock, and exactly at that hour he appears and is ready for his meal. He has kept his journal every day; and, over and beyond his journal, he has filled a pocket-book so full of figures that even his methodical mind can hardly disentangle them from the crowded pages. He has an idea of publishing an article on the consumption of rye-flour in Pomerania, and is a happy man until he finds that the effort is[86] beyond his power.

But he has had no holiday, and it may be doubted whether such a man wants any holiday; whether the capability of enjoying holiday-time has been vouchsafed to him. To sit on a mountain-side and breathe sweeter air than that which his daily work affords him gives him no delight. Neither the rivers nor the clouds nor the green valleys have been dear to him. But he has worked conscientiously in his vocation, and in the result of that work will be his reward. If his memory serves him, or even if it does not, he will be able to repeat among friends and foes an amount of facts which will show that he has not been a tourist in search of knowledge for nothing.

That such a man has made a mistake in his ideas as to knowledge and in his mode of seeking it may be our opinion and that of some others, and yet may be a very false opinion. And we may certainly confess that any true searching after knowledge must be beneficial, even though[87] the method of the search may to our eyes and in our estimation be ungainly and inefficacious. It is not against the search that protest is here made. It is against the pretence of the man that our battle is waged, against the broad phylacteries worn so openly on the foreheads of utilitarian tourists that our little shafts are pointed. Let the tourist in search of knowledge work hard and despise all holiday-making, and sacrifice himself to statistics, if he have strength and will to do so; but in doing so, let him cease to thank God that he is not as other men are.

[88]

THE ALPINE CLUB MAN.

It would have been easier and much pleasanter to write of the Alpine Club man, and to describe his peculiarities and his glories, if that terrible accident had not happened on the Matterhorn. It is ill jesting while the sad notes of some tragic song are still sounding in our ears. But the Alpine Club man has of late made himself so prominent among English tourists,—has become, with his ropes, his blankets, and his ladders, so well-acknowledged and much-considered an institution, that it would be an omission were he not to be included in our sketches. And, moreover, it may not be amiss to say yet a word or two as to the dangers of Alpine Club pursuits,—a word or[89] two to be added to all those words that have been said in these and other columns on the same subject.

It may well, I think, be made a question whether we are not becoming too chary of human life; whether we do not allow ourselves to be shocked beyond proper measure by the accidental death of a fellow mortal. There are two points of view from which we look at these sudden strokes of fate, which are so distinctly separated in our minds as to turn each calamity into two calamities; and the one calamity or the other will be regarded as the more terrible according to the religious tendencies of the suffering survivor. There is the religious point of view, which teaches us to consider it to be a terrible thing that a man should be called upon to give up his soul without an hour for special preparation; and there is the human point of view, which fills us with an ineffable regret that one well loved should be taken from those who loved him, apparently without a[90] cause,—with nothing, as we may say, to justify the loss of a head so dear. As regards the religious consideration, we know of course that we are constantly praying, with more or less of earnestness, that the evil of sudden death may not come upon us,—as we pray also that battles may not come. But yet, if occasion require it, if the honour of the country seemed to demand it, we do not hesitate about battles. We may say, at least, that we never hesitate on account of the death that must ensue, though we do hesitate with extreme caution on the score of the money that must be spent. And we consider,—if the cause have been good,—that the blood spilt on battle-fields has been well spilt, and that the lives gallantly rendered there have been well rendered. But the carnage there has all been the carnage of sudden death. It may be,—and yet it may hardly be,—that the soldier, knowing the chances of his profession, shall keep himself prepared for the death-dealing blow; but if the soldier[91] on the eve of battle can do so, then why not he who is about to climb among the mountain snows? But, in truth, the subject is one which does not admit of too curious an inquiry. As we pray to be removed from sudden death, so do we pray that we may always be prepared for it. We are going ever with our lives in our hands, knowing that death is common to all of us; and knowing also,—for all of us who ever think do know it,—that to him who dies death must be horrible or blessed, not in accordance with an hour or two of final preparation, but as may be the state of the dying man's parting soul as the final result of the life which he has led. It suits us in some of our religious moods to insist much on the special dangers of sudden death, but they are dangers which come home in reality to very few of us. What parson, though praying perhaps daily against sudden death, believes that his own boy is specially endangered,—specially endangered as regards his soul,—when he stands with his breast[92] right before the bullets of his country's enemy? In war, in commerce, not unfrequently in science, we disregard utterly the perils of sudden death; and if, as regards religion, these perils do not press on us in war and commerce, or in science, neither should they do so in reference to other pursuits. Is there any man with a faith so peculiar as to believe that salvation will be refused to him who perishes among the mountains of Europe because his employment is regarded as an amusement; but that it will be given to the African traveller because his work is to be accounted as a work of necessity? For myself, I do not think that there is a man who so believes.

And as to the human point of view,—that wearing regret which almost melts the heart into a stream of woe when the calamity comes home to oneself,—the argument is nearly the same. The poor mother whose dear gallant boy has fallen in battle, as she thinks of her lad's bright[93] eyes and curling locks, and straight young active limbs, and of all the glories of the young life which she herself gave with so many pangs,—as she remembers all this, she cannot reconcile herself to the need of war, nor unless she be a Spartan, can she teach herself to think that that dear blood has been well shed for the honour of her country. And, should he have fallen from some snowy peak, her judgment of the event will be simply the same. It will be personal regret, not judgment. It is equally impossible that she should console herself in either event by calculating that the balance of advantage to the community of which she is a member is on that side to which courage and the spirit of adventure belong.

In our personal regrets we must all think of our individual cases; but in discussing such a question as belonging to England at large, we can only regard the balance of advantage. And if we find that that spirit of enterprise which cannot have its full swing, or attain its required momentum[94] without the fatality which will attend danger, leads to happy results,—that it makes our men active, courageous, ready in resource, prone to friendship, keen after gratifications which are in themselves good and noble; that it leads to pursuits which are in themselves lovely, and to modes of life which are worthy of admiration, then let us pay the necessary cost of such happy results without repining. That we should, all of us, have a tear of sorrow for those gallant fellows who perished on the Matterhorn is very good;—

But shall it be said among us that no boat is again to be put off from our shores because that one "fatal and perfidious bark" was "built in the eclipse?"

There is a fate infinitely worse than sudden death,—the fate of him who is ever fearing it. "Mors omnibus est communis." We all know it,[95] and it is the excitement coming from that knowledge which makes life pleasant to us. When we hear of a man who is calm and collected under every danger, we know that we hear of a happy man. In hunting, in shooting, in yachting, in all adventures, in all travelling,—I had almost said in love-making itself,—the cream of the charm lies in the danger. But danger will not be danger long if none of the natural results of danger come; and the cream of such amusements would, under such safe circumstances, soon become poor and vapid as skim-milk. I would say that it is to be hoped that that accident on the Matterhorn may not repress the adventurous spirit of a single English mountain-climber, did I not feel so sure that there will be no such repression as to leave no room for hoping.

And now for a word or two about the Alpine Club men, who have certainly succeeded in making their club an institution, clearly to be recognized on the face of the earth. Whether rational or[96] irrational in his work, the Alpine Club man has been successful in his pursuit. A few years since,—how very few it seems to be!—to have gone up Mont Blanc was a feat which almost opened the gates of society to the man who had done it; but Mont Blanc is now hardly more than equal to the golden ball on the top of St. Paul's Cathedral. There will soon be no peak not explored, no summit in Europe that is not accessible, no natural fortress that has not been taken. The Alpine Club will have used up Switzerland, and the present hunting-grounds of these sportsmen will be expended. But money increases quickly, and distances decrease; wings that a few years since were hardly strong enough for a flight over the Channel now carry their owners safely to the Danube and the Nile; Jerusalem and the Jordan are as common to us as were Paris and the Seine to our grandfathers; cigar ships travelling at railway paces will carry new Alpine members to the mountains of Asia and South America, and we[97] shall be longing eagerly in some autumn soon to come for news along the wires from Chimborazo, or for tidings from the exploring party on Dhawalagri.

But, in the meantime, the Alpine Club man still condescends to show himself in Europe, though his condescension is not unmixed with a certain taint of pride. He does not carry himself quite as another man, and has his nose a little in the air, even when he is not climbing. He endeavours to abstain from showing that he despises the man who enjoys his mountains only from the valley; but the attempt is made with too visible an effort, and he is not quite able to bear himself, as though he, as a genuine Alpine Club man, were not, in some sort, a god upon the earth. To have had his feet where our feet have never rested, and can never rest, to have inhaled an air rarer than that which will ever inflate our lungs, to be one of a class permitted to face dangers which to us would be simply suicidal, does give him a[98] conscious divinity of which he is, in his modesty, not quite able to divest himself. He abstains from mountain talk as a scholar abstains from his grammar, or a chemist from his crucibles; but we feel that he is abstaining because of our ignorance; and when, at our instigation, he does speak of mountains, we feel that he talks of them as though they were naught, out of pity to our incompetence.

There are many pursuits among us which are of their own nature so engrossing that he who is wedded to them cannot divorce himself from their influences. Who does not feel that a policeman is always a policeman, enjoying the detection of an imaginary thief in every acquaintance with whom he may exchange a word, and conscious of the possibility of some delightfully-deep criminality in the bosom of each of his dearest friends? The very nature of the man has become impregnated with the aptitudes of his art. How nearly impossible it is for the actor not to be an actor,[99] or for a cricketer who is great in cricket to forget his eleven, or for the billiard-player to cleanse his mind from hazards and canons. And with all such experts there grows up gradually an unconscious feeling that the art in which he is skilful is the one art worthy of a man's energy and of his intellect. To meet a foeman worthy of his steel he will willingly cross to the antipodes; and, as he goes, he pities his fellow-travellers who are cumbering themselves with the troubles of the journey for no purpose worthy of their labour. The genuine Alpine Club man,—he who aspires to any distinction among his colleagues,—is dipped as deeply in the waters of this mania as are the policeman, and the actor, and the cricketer. He climbs but for two months in each year of his life, but he lives his life in those two months. As the days of his thraldom to the ordinary duties of life come to an end,—the days in which he is merely a clergyman in his parish, or a lawyer among his clients, or a clerk at his desk,—his[100] heart grows light and his nostrils almost expand with the expectation of the longed-for mountain air. Then, if you know nothing of mountain-climbing you are nothing to him,—simply nothing. If you are incapable of his exercise you are an unfortunate one, to whom God has not vouchsafed the best gift of physical life; or if you are neglectful, you are as the prodigal son who wasted all his substance. You eat and drink that you may enjoy it, sacrificing for your sensual pleasures muscles that might have made you respectable among climbers, while he,—he eats and drinks solely with reference to the endurance of his limbs and the capacity of his lungs. Knowing all that he abandons and that you enjoy, how should he not become a Pharisee in his vocation, thanking God that he is not as other men are?

But there is very much to be said in favour of this vocation. The hero of the Alpine Club, when at his work, is always a happy man. When he is defeated, his defeat is only an assurance of future[101] enterprise, and when he is victorious his triumph knows no alloy. There is nothing ignoble or sordid in his work. He requires no money reward to instigate him to excellence, as do those who deal in racehorses and run for prizes. His Ascot Cup is a fragment of rock from some pointed peak, his Derby is the glory of having stood where man never stood before him. The occupation which he loves has in it nothing of meanness; it is never tainted with lucre; nor does his secret joy come from the sorrow of another. What father wishes his son to be great as a billiard-player? What father does not fear to see his son too great, even as a cricketer, or on the river? But the Alpine Club entails no such fears. The work is all pure,—pure in its early practice and pure in its later triumphs. Its contact is with nature in her grandest attire, and its associations are with forms that are as suggestive of poetry to the intellect as they are full of beauty for the senses.

[102]

TOURISTS WHO DON'T LIKE THEIR TRAVELS.

After all it should be our first object in our autumn tourings to like the business that we have in hand. In all that we do, whether of work or play, this should be a great object with us, seeing that the comfort or discomfort—we may almost say the happiness or unhappiness—of our life depends upon it. But one would suppose that in these vacation rambles of ours, made for the recreation of our health and the delectation of our spirits, there would be no doubt on this head,—no doubt as to our taking due care that our amusement should be to our own liking, and that we so journeyed as to be able to enjoy our journeyings. But there[103] is reason to fear that such enjoyment does not always result from the efforts made. We see, alas, too many of our countrymen struggling through the severe weeks of their annual holiday with much of the agony but with little of the patience of martyrs. We see them thwarted at every turn and cross because they are thwarted. We see them toiling as no money-reward would induce them to toil at home, and toiling with very little of that reward for which they are looking. We see them hot and dusty, ill at ease, out of their element, bored almost past their powers of endurance, so weary with work as to drag along their unhappy limbs in actual suffering, dreading what is to come, and looking back upon what they have accomplished as though to have done the thing, to have got their tour over and finished, was the only gratification of which they were susceptible. And with many tourists this final accomplishment of the imposed task is the only gratification which the task[104] affords. To have been over the railroads of the Continent, to have touched at some of those towns whose names are known so widely, to have been told that such a summit was called by one name and such another summit by another name, to have crossed the mountains and heard the whistle of a steamer on an Italian lake,—to have done these things so that the past accomplishment of them may be garnered like a treasure, is very well;—but oh and alas, the doing of them!—the troubles, the cares, the doubts, the fears! Is it not almost a question whether it would not be better to live at home quietly and unambitiously, without the garnering of any treasure which cannot be garnered without so much discomfort and difficulty? But yet the tourists go. Though the difficulties are great, their ambition is greater. It does not do to confess that you have not seen an Alp or drunk German beer.

[105]

So much may be taken for granted. Whether we are capable of enjoying it or not, the tour has to be made. In all probability many tours have been made. Those who can be allowed to enjoy themselves quietly at home, or eat shrimps through their holiday pleasantly at Ramsgate, are becoming from year to year, not fewer in number, but lower down in the social scale: so that this imperative duty of travelling abroad,—and of doing so year after year,—becomes much extended, and embraces all of us who are considered anybody by those around us. Our wives feel that they owe it to ourselves to enforce from us the performance of so manifest a duty, even when from tenderness of heart they would fain spare us. And we, who are their husbands, cannot deny them when they put before us so plain a truth. Men there are bold enough to stay from church on Sundays, to dine at their clubs without leave, to light cigars in their own parlours, and to insist upon brandy-and-water before they go to bed; but[106] where is the man who can tell his wife and daughters that it is quite unnecessary that they should go up the Rhine?

If this be so,—if the necessity for going be so great, and the power of enjoying the journey be so rare, it must be worth our while to inquire into the matter, with the object of seeing whether the evil may not be in some degree remedied. The necessity which presses upon the tourist is granted; but there may be a question whether the misery of those who suffer cannot be remedied. If we examine the travelling practices of those who do suffer, and see why it is that they do not enjoy their work, we may perhaps get a lesson that shall be serviceable to us.

The great trouble of those who travel and do not like it,—the overpowering parent grief,—is in the language. The unfortunate tourist cannot speak to those among whom he is going. This simply, without the composite additions to the fact which come to him from the state of his[107] own mind upon the subject, would be a misfortune,—a want to be lamented. But the simple misfortune is light, indeed, in comparison with that to which it is increased by those composite additions of his own fabrication. The tourist in question can speak no word of German or Italian, but unfortunately he can speak a word or two of French, and hence comes all his trouble. Not to speak German or Italian is not disgraceful, but to be ignorant of French is, in his eyes, a disgrace. Shall he make his attempts and save himself by his little learning? or shall he remain mute and thus suggest the possibility of positive knowledge? Doubting between the two he vacillates, and can obtain neither the comparative safety of absolute dependence, nor the substantial power of responsible action. For the first fortnight he stumbles along with his broken words, making what effort is in his power; but it seems to himself that from day to day the phrases become more difficult rather[108] than easier, and at last he gives himself up into the hands of some more advanced linguist, revenging himself upon his friends by a solemn and enduring melancholy, as though he were telling every one around him that, in spite of his incapacity to speak French, he had something within him surpassing show.

That this man is making a great mistake is certain enough, but it is a mistake to which he is driven by erroneous public utterances on the subject. It is not true, in fact, that he is in any way disgraced by his ignorance of French; but it is true that he has so been told by those who write and those who talk upon the matter. To speak French well is a great advantage and a charming grace. Not to speak it at all is a great disadvantage, but it is no disgrace. Circumstances with many have not given them opportunity of learning the language; and others have no aptitude for acquiring a foreign tongue. There is no disgrace in this. But there is very[109] deep disgrace in the consciousness of deceit on the subject,—in the self-knowledge possessed by the unfortunate one that he desires to be supposed capable of doing that which he cannot do. It is from this that he becomes sore; and how terribly common are the instances of such soreness!

From year to year we see in our guide-books and volumes of travel the silly boastings which drive silly men and women into this difficulty. Those who inform us how we should travel continually speak to us as though German and Italian were known to most of us, and talking French was as common with us as eating and drinking. But to talk French well is not common to Englishmen; it is in truth a rare accomplishment. And then these informants, armed, let us hope, with true knowledge on their own parts, jeer most unmercifully at us poor tourists who venture to come abroad in our ignorance. We are ridiculed for our dumbness if we are dumb, and for our efforts at speech if we attempt to speak. And then we are talked[110] at, rather than addressed. The accomplished informant who intends to guide us speaks always to some brother as accomplished as himself, and warns this learned brother against the ignorance of the masses. It is not very long since a distinguished contributor to a very distinguished newspaper advised his readers that an Englishman at Rome should never know another Englishman there; and this warning of Britons against other Britons on the Continent is so common that it has reached us all. It means nothing; or, at any rate, should be taken as meaning nothing. Not one amongst twenty of English men or English women who travel, can travel, or should attempt to travel, after the fashion which is intended to be prescribed by these counsellors. A few among us may so live abroad as to become conversant with the inner life of the people with whom they are dwelling,—to know their houses, their sons and their daughters; to see their habits, to talk with them, eat with them,[111] and quarrel with them; but to do this is not and should not be the object of the vacation tourist; and if the vacation tourist cannot save himself from being made miserable by his guide-books and pretentious informants, because he is unable to do that which he never should have regarded as being within his power, he had certainly better remain at home.

To wander along the shores of lakes, to climb up mountains, to visit cities, to see pictures, and stand amidst the architecture of the old or of the new world, is very good, even though the man who does these things can speak no word out of his own language. To speak another language well is very good also, and to speak another language badly is much better than not to speak it at all. All that is required is that there should be no humbug, no pretence, no insincerity, either as regards self or others. Let him whose foreign vocabulary is very limited use it boldly as far as it will go; and let him acknowledge to himself[112] that he is going to see the outside of things, and not the inside. It is not given to any of us to see the inside of many things. Why be discomforted because you cannot learn the mysteries of Italian life, seeing that in all probability you know nothing of the inner life of the man who lives next door to you at home? There is a whole world close to you which you have not inspected. What do you know of the thoughts and feelings of those who inhabit your own kitchen? But in seeing the outer world, which is open to your eye, there may be great joy, almost happiness,—if you will only look at it with sincerity.

There is another grievance, cognate with this grievance of language, which much troubles some tourists,—a grievance which indeed springs altogether from that lack of language. The money of these unlearned ones will not go so far with them as it would do if they could do their bargaining in French with a fluent tongue. The[113] imperious guide-books have not failed to throw into the teeth of monolingual travellers their disadvantages in this respect, and to do all that lay in their power to add a further heavy misery on this head to the other miseries of tourists. No doubt my friend the Italian innkeeper would be more easily pressible—what we generally call more reasonable—in his financial arrangements if you could argue out the question of your bed and supper in good Tuscan; but in this matter, as in all others, you must pay for that which you have not got, and cut your coat according to your cloth. Are you going to be miserable because you, who have to pay your railway fares, cannot travel as cheaply as your friend who has a free ticket wherever he goes? A free ticket is a nice thing; but not having one, you must pay your fare.

But there are other sources of unhappiness, independent of those arising from language, which go far towards robbing the English tourist of the pleasure he has anticipated. He always attempts[114] to do too much, and in his calculations as to space and time forgets that his body is human and that his powers of endurance are limited. With his Bradshaw in his hand and his map before him, he ignores the need of rest, and lays out for himself a scheme of travelling in which there is no leisure, no repose, no acknowledgment on his own part that even sleep is necessary for him. To do all that can be done for the money is the one great object which he has ever in view; to visit as many cities as may possibly be visited in the time, to have run the length of as many railways as can be brought within the compass of his short six weeks, to tick off the different places one after another on his list, as though it were a duty imperative upon him to see them all, and having seen them, to hurry on to new scenes,—this is his plan of action, and with such a plan of action is it possible that he should like his work? Must it not be a certain result of such travelling that the traveller will have but one source of comfort during his[115] journey, and that that will spring from the blessed remembrance that his labours will have an end?

If I may venture to give two words of advice to those of my fellow-countrymen who travel frequently during their vacations, and who feel on self-examination that they have not hitherto in reality liked their tourings, in those two words I will advise them both to affect less and to perform less. What matters it who knows that you cannot speak two words of French together grammatically? All whom it in the least concerns probably do know it. Be content to speak your two words ungrammatically, or, if that be beyond you, be content not to speak them at all. The mountains and valleys will render themselves to you without French. The pictures on the walls will not twit you with your ignorance. Venus and Apollo could not come to you out of their marble, though they were as many-tongued as Mezzofanti; but they will come to you if you[116] speak to them out of your own heart with such language as is at your ready disposal. But, above all things, take your time in discoursing with these works of nature and these works of art. To be able to be happy and at rest among the mountains is better than a capacity for talking French in saloons.

London: Printed by Smith, Elder and Co., Old Bailey, E.C.