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diff --git a/old/esstr10h.htm b/old/esstr10h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c07cb3a --- /dev/null +++ b/old/esstr10h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,6790 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII"> +<title>Essays of Travel</title> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">Essays of Travel, by Robert Louis Stevenson</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Essays of Travel, by Robert Louis Stevenson +(#30 in our series by Robert Louis Stevenson) + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Essays of Travel + +Author: Robert Louis Stevenson + +Release Date: August, 1996 [EBook #627] +[This file was first posted on July 3, 1996] +[Most recently updated: September 2, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII +</pre> +<p> +<a name="startoftext"></a> +Transcribed from the 1905 Chatto & Windus edition by David Price, +email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +ESSAYS OF TRAVEL<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Contents<br> +<br> +THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT: FROM THE CLYDE TO SANDY HOOK<br> + THE SECOND CABIN<br> + EARLY IMPRESSION<br> + STEERAGE IMPRESSIONS<br> + STEERAGE TYPES<br> + THE SICK MAN<br> + THE STOWAWAYS<br> + PERSONAL EXPERIENCE AND REVIEW<br> + NEW YORK<br> +COCKERMOUTH AND KESWICK<br> + COCKERMOUTH<br> + AN EVANGELIST<br> + ANOTHER<br> + LAST OF SMETHURST<br> +AN AUTUMN EFFECT<br> +A WINTER’S WALK IN CARRICK AND GALLOWAY<br> +FOREST NOTES -<br> + ON THE PLAINS<br> + IN THE SEASON<br> + IDLE HOURS<br> + A PLEASURE-PARTY<br> + THE WOODS IN SPRING<br> + MORALITY<br> +A MOUNTAIN TOWN IN FRANCE<br> +RANDOM MEMORIES: ROSA QUO LOCORUM<br> +THE IDEAL HOUSE<br> +DAVOS IN WINTER<br> +HEALTH AND MOUNTAINS<br> +ALPINE DIVERSION<br> +THE STUMULATION OF THE ALPS<br> +ROADS<br> +ON THE ENJOYMENT OF UNPLEASANT PLACES<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER I - THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +THE SECOND CABIN<br> +<br> +<br> +I first encountered my fellow-passengers on the Broomielaw in Glasgow. +Thence we descended the Clyde in no familiar spirit, but looking askance +on each other as on possible enemies. A few Scandinavians, who +had already grown acquainted on the North Sea, were friendly and voluble +over their long pipes; but among English speakers distance and suspicion +reigned supreme. The sun was soon overclouded, the wind freshened +and grew sharp as we continued to descend the widening estuary; and +with the falling temperature the gloom among the passengers increased. +Two of the women wept. Any one who had come aboard might have +supposed we were all absconding from the law. There was scarce +a word interchanged, and no common sentiment but that of cold united +us, until at length, having touched at Greenock, a pointing arm and +a rush to the starboard now announced that our ocean steamer was in +sight. There she lay in mid-river, at the Tail of the Bank, her +sea-signal flying: a wall of bulwark, a street of white deck-houses, +an aspiring forest of spars, larger than a church, and soon to be as +populous as many an incorporated town in the land to which she was to +bear us.<br> +<br> +I was not, in truth, a steerage passenger. Although anxious to +see the worst of emigrant life, I had some work to finish on the voyage, +and was advised to go by the second cabin, where at least I should have +a table at command. The advice was excellent; but to understand +the choice, and what I gained, some outline of the internal disposition +of the ship will first be necessary. In her very nose is Steerage +No. 1, down two pair of stairs. A little abaft, another companion, +labelled Steerage No. 2 and 3, gives admission to three galleries, two +running forward towards Steerage No. 1, and the third aft towards the +engines. The starboard forward gallery is the second cabin. +Away abaft the engines and below the officers’ cabins, to complete +our survey of the vessel, there is yet a third nest of steerages, labelled +4 and 5. The second cabin, to return, is thus a modified oasis +in the very heart of the steerages. Through the thin partition +you can hear the steerage passengers being sick, the rattle of tin dishes +as they sit at meals, the varied accents in which they converse, the +crying of their children terrified by this new experience, or the clean +flat smack of the parental hand in chastisement.<br> +<br> +There are, however, many advantages for the inhabitant of this strip. +He does not require to bring his own bedding or dishes, but finds berths +and a table completely if somewhat roughly furnished. He enjoys +a distinct superiority in diet; but this, strange to say, differs not +only on different ships, but on the same ship according as her head +is to the east or west. In my own experience, the principal difference +between our table and that of the true steerage passenger was the table +itself, and the crockery plates from which we ate. But lest I +should show myself ungrateful, let me recapitulate every advantage. +At breakfast we had a choice between tea and coffee for beverage; a +choice not easy to make, the two were so surprisingly alike. I +found that I could sleep after the coffee and lay awake after the tea, +which is proof conclusive of some chemical disparity; and even by the +palate I could distinguish a smack of snuff in the former from a flavour +of boiling and dish-cloths in the second. As a matter of fact, +I have seen passengers, after many sips, still doubting which had been +supplied them. In the way of eatables at the same meal we were +gloriously favoured; for in addition to porridge, which was common to +all, we had Irish stew, sometimes a bit of fish, and sometimes rissoles. +The dinner of soup, roast fresh beef, boiled salt junk, and potatoes, +was, I believe, exactly common to the steerage and the second cabin; +only I have heard it rumoured that our potatoes were of a superior brand; +and twice a week, on pudding-days, instead of duff, we had a saddle-bag +filled with currants under the name of a plum-pudding. At tea +we were served with some broken meat from the saloon; sometimes in the +comparatively elegant form of spare patties or rissoles; but as a general +thing mere chicken-bones and flakes of fish, neither hot nor cold. +If these were not the scrapings of plates their looks belied them sorely; +yet we were all too hungry to be proud, and fell to these leavings greedily. +These, the bread, which was excellent, and the soup and porridge which +were both good, formed my whole diet throughout the voyage; so that +except for the broken meat and the convenience of a table I might as +well have been in the steerage outright. Had they given me porridge +again in the evening, I should have been perfectly contented with the +fare. As it was, with a few biscuits and some whisky and water +before turning in, I kept my body going and my spirits up to the mark.<br> +<br> +The last particular in which the second cabin passenger remarkably stands +ahead of his brother of the steerage is one altogether of sentiment. +In the steerage there are males and females; in the second cabin ladies +and gentlemen. For some time after I came aboard I thought I was +only a male; but in the course of a voyage of discovery between decks, +I came on a brass plate, and learned that I was still a gentleman. +Nobody knew it, of course. I was lost in the crowd of males and +females, and rigorously confined to the same quarter of the deck. +Who could tell whether I housed on the port or starboard side of steerage +No. 2 and 3? And it was only there that my superiority became +practical; everywhere else I was incognito, moving among my inferiors +with simplicity, not so much as a swagger to indicate that I was a gentleman +after all, and had broken meat to tea. Still, I was like one with +a patent of nobility in a drawer at home; and when I felt out of spirits +I could go down and refresh myself with a look of that brass plate.<br> +<br> +For all these advantages I paid but two guineas. Six guineas is +the steerage fare; eight that by the second cabin; and when you remember +that the steerage passenger must supply bedding and dishes, and, in +five cases out of ten, either brings some dainties with him, or privately +pays the steward for extra rations, the difference in price becomes +almost nominal. Air comparatively fit to breathe, food comparatively +varied, and the satisfaction of being still privately a gentleman, may +thus be had almost for the asking. Two of my fellow-passengers +in the second cabin had already made the passage by the cheaper fare, +and declared it was an experiment not to be repeated. As I go +on to tell about my steerage friends, the reader will perceive that +they were not alone in their opinion. Out of ten with whom I was +more or less intimate, I am sure not fewer than five vowed, if they +returned, to travel second cabin; and all who had left their wives behind +them assured me they would go without the comfort of their presence +until they could afford to bring them by saloon.<br> +<br> +Our party in the second cabin was not perhaps the most interesting on +board. Perhaps even in the saloon there was as much good-will +and character. Yet it had some elements of curiosity. There +was a mixed group of Swedes, Danes, and Norsemen, one of whom, generally +known by the name of ‘Johnny,’ in spite of his own protests, +greatly diverted us by his clever, cross-country efforts to speak English, +and became on the strength of that an universal favourite - it takes +so little in this world of shipboard to create a popularity. There +was, besides, a Scots mason, known from his favourite dish as ‘Irish +Stew,’ three or four nondescript Scots, a fine young Irishman, +O’Reilly, and a pair of young men who deserve a special word of +condemnation. One of them was Scots; the other claimed to be American; +admitted, after some fencing, that he was born in England; and ultimately +proved to be an Irishman born and nurtured, but ashamed to own his country. +He had a sister on board, whom he faithfully neglected throughout the +voyage, though she was not only sick, but much his senior, and had nursed +and cared for him in childhood. In appearance he was like an imbecile +Henry the Third of France. The Scotsman, though perhaps as big +an ass, was not so dead of heart; and I have only bracketed them together +because they were fast friends, and disgraced themselves equally by +their conduct at the table.<br> +<br> +Next, to turn to topics more agreeable, we had a newly-married couple, +devoted to each other, with a pleasant story of how they had first seen +each other years ago at a preparatory school, and that very afternoon +he had carried her books home for her. I do not know if this story +will be plain to southern readers; but to me it recalls many a school +idyll, with wrathful swains of eight and nine confronting each other +stride-legs, flushed with jealousy; for to carry home a young lady’s +books was both a delicate attention and a privilege.<br> +<br> +Then there was an old lady, or indeed I am not sure that she was as +much old as antiquated and strangely out of place, who had left her +husband, and was travelling all the way to Kansas by herself. +We had to take her own word that she was married; for it was sorely +contradicted by the testimony of her appearance. Nature seemed +to have sanctified her for the single state; even the colour of her +hair was incompatible with matrimony, and her husband, I thought, should +be a man of saintly spirit and phantasmal bodily presence. She +was ill, poor thing; her soul turned from the viands; the dirty tablecloth +shocked her like an impropriety; and the whole strength of her endeavour +was bent upon keeping her watch true to Glasgow time till she should +reach New York. They had heard reports, her husband and she, of +some unwarrantable disparity of hours between these two cities; and +with a spirit commendably scientific, had seized on this occasion to +put them to the proof. It was a good thing for the old lady; for +she passed much leisure time in studying the watch. Once, when +prostrated by sickness, she let it run down. It was inscribed +on her harmless mind in letters of adamant that the hands of a watch +must never be turned backwards; and so it behoved her to lie in wait +for the exact moment ere she started it again. When she imagined +this was about due, she sought out one of the young second-cabin Scotsmen, +who was embarked on the same experiment as herself and had hitherto +been less neglectful. She was in quest of two o’clock; and +when she learned it was already seven on the shores of Clyde, she lifted +up her voice and cried ‘Gravy!’ I had not heard this +innocent expletive since I was a young child; and I suppose it must +have been the same with the other Scotsmen present, for we all laughed +our fill.<br> +<br> +Last but not least, I come to my excellent friend Mr. Jones. It +would be difficult to say whether I was his right-hand man, or he mine, +during the voyage. Thus at table I carved, while he only scooped +gravy; but at our concerts, of which more anon, he was the president +who called up performers to sing, and I but his messenger who ran his +errands and pleaded privately with the over-modest. I knew I liked +Mr. Jones from the moment I saw him. I thought him by his face +to be Scottish; nor could his accent undeceive me. For as there +is a <i>lingua franca</i> of many tongues on the moles and in the feluccas +of the Mediterranean, so there is a free or common accent among English-speaking +men who follow the sea. They catch a twang in a New England Port; +from a cockney skipper, even a Scotsman sometimes learns to drop an +<i>h</i>; a word of a dialect is picked up from another band in the +forecastle; until often the result is undecipherable, and you have to +ask for the man’s place of birth. So it was with Mr. Jones. +I thought him a Scotsman who had been long to sea; and yet he was from +Wales, and had been most of his life a blacksmith at an inland forge; +a few years in America and half a score of ocean voyages having sufficed +to modify his speech into the common pattern. By his own account +he was both strong and skilful in his trade. A few years back, +he had been married and after a fashion a rich man; now the wife was +dead and the money gone. But his was the nature that looks forward, +and goes on from one year to another and through all the extremities +of fortune undismayed; and if the sky were to fall to-morrow, I should +look to see Jones, the day following, perched on a step-ladder and getting +things to rights. He was always hovering round inventions like +a bee over a flower, and lived in a dream of patents. He had with +him a patent medicine, for instance, the composition of which he had +bought years ago for five dollars from an American pedlar, and sold +the other day for a hundred pounds (I think it was) to an English apothecary. +It was called Golden Oil, cured all maladies without exception; and +I am bound to say that I partook of it myself with good results. +It is a character of the man that he was not only perpetually dosing +himself with Golden Oil, but wherever there was a head aching or a finger +cut, there would be Jones with his bottle.<br> +<br> +If he had one taste more strongly than another, it was to study character. +Many an hour have we two walked upon the deck dissecting our neighbours +in a spirit that was too purely scientific to be called unkind; whenever +a quaint or human trait slipped out in conversation, you might have +seen Jones and me exchanging glances; and we could hardly go to bed +in comfort till we had exchanged notes and discussed the day’s +experience. We were then like a couple of anglers comparing a +day’s kill. But the fish we angled for were of a metaphysical +species, and we angled as often as not in one another’s baskets. +Once, in the midst of a serious talk, each found there was a scrutinising +eye upon himself; I own I paused in embarrassment at this double detection; +but Jones, with a better civility, broke into a peal of unaffected laughter, +and declared, what was the truth, that there was a pair of us indeed.<br> +<br> +<br> +EARLY IMPRESSIONS<br> +<br> +<br> +We steamed out of the Clyde on Thursday night, and early on the Friday +forenoon we took in our last batch of emigrants at Lough Foyle, in Ireland, +and said farewell to Europe. The company was now complete, and +began to draw together, by inscrutable magnetisms, upon the decks. +There were Scots and Irish in plenty, a few English, a few Americans, +a good handful of Scandinavians, a German or two, and one Russian; all +now belonging for ten days to one small iron country on the deep.<br> +<br> +As I walked the deck and looked round upon my fellow-passengers, thus +curiously assorted from all northern Europe, I began for the first time +to understand the nature of emigration. Day by day throughout +the passage, and thenceforward across all the States, and on to the +shores of the Pacific, this knowledge grew more clear and melancholy. +Emigration, from a word of the most cheerful import, came to sound most +dismally in my ear. There is nothing more agreeable to picture +and nothing more pathetic to behold. The abstract idea, as conceived +at home, is hopeful and adventurous. A young man, you fancy, scorning +restraints and helpers, issues forth into life, that great battle, to +fight for his own hand. The most pleasant stories of ambition, +of difficulties overcome, and of ultimate success, are but as episodes +to this great epic of self-help. The epic is composed of individual +heroisms; it stands to them as the victorious war which subdued an empire +stands to the personal act of bravery which spiked a single cannon and +was adequately rewarded with a medal. For in emigration the young +men enter direct and by the shipload on their heritage of work; empty +continents swarm, as at the bo’s’un’s whistle, with +industrious hands, and whole new empires are domesticated to the service +of man.<br> +<br> +This is the closet picture, and is found, on trial, to consist mostly +of embellishments. The more I saw of my fellow-passengers, the +less I was tempted to the lyric note. Comparatively few of the +men were below thirty; many were married, and encumbered with families; +not a few were already up in years; and this itself was out of tune +with my imaginations, for the ideal emigrant should certainly be young. +Again, I thought he should offer to the eye some bold type of humanity, +with bluff or hawk-like features, and the stamp of an eager and pushing +disposition. Now those around me were for the most part quiet, +orderly, obedient citizens, family men broken by adversity, elderly +youths who had failed to place themselves in life, and people who had +seen better days. Mildness was the prevailing character; mild +mirth and mild endurance. In a word, I was not taking part in +an impetuous and conquering sally, such as swept over Mexico or Siberia, +but found myself, like Marmion, ‘in the lost battle, borne down +by the flying.’<br> +<br> +Labouring mankind had in the last years, and throughout Great Britain, +sustained a prolonged and crushing series of defeats. I had heard +vaguely of these reverses; of whole streets of houses standing deserted +by the Tyne, the cellar-doors broken and removed for firewood; of homeless +men loitering at the street-corners of Glasgow with their chests beside +them; of closed factories, useless strikes, and starving girls. +But I had never taken them home to me or represented these distresses +livingly to my imagination.<br> +<br> +A turn of the market may be a calamity as disastrous as the French retreat +from Moscow; but it hardly lends itself to lively treatment, and makes +a trifling figure in the morning papers. We may struggle as we +please, we are not born economists. The individual is more affecting +than the mass. It is by the scenic accidents, and the appeal to +the carnal eye, that for the most part we grasp the significance of +tragedies. Thus it was only now, when I found myself involved +in the rout, that I began to appreciate how sharp had been the battle. +We were a company of the rejected; the drunken, the incompetent, the +weak, the prodigal, all who had been unable to prevail against circumstances +in the one land, were now fleeing pitifully to another; and though one +or two might still succeed, all had already failed. We were a +shipful of failures, the broken men of England. Yet it must not +be supposed that these people exhibited depression. The scene, +on the contrary, was cheerful. Not a tear was shed on board the +vessel. All were full of hope for the future, and showed an inclination +to innocent gaiety. Some were heard to sing, and all began to +scrape acquaintance with small jests and ready laughter.<br> +<br> +The children found each other out like dogs, and ran about the decks +scraping acquaintance after their fashion also. ‘What do +you call your mither?’ I heard one ask. ‘Mawmaw,’ +was the reply, indicating, I fancy, a shade of difference in the social +scale. When people pass each other on the high seas of life at +so early an age, the contact is but slight, and the relation more like +what we may imagine to be the friendship of flies than that of men; +it is so quickly joined, so easily dissolved, so open in its communications +and so devoid of deeper human qualities. The children, I observed, +were all in a band, and as thick as thieves at a fair, while their elders +were still ceremoniously manoeuvring on the outskirts of acquaintance. +The sea, the ship, and the seamen were soon as familiar as home to these +half-conscious little ones. It was odd to hear them, throughout +the voyage, employ shore words to designate portions of the vessel. +‘Go ‘way doon to yon dyke,’ I heard one say, probably +meaning the bulwark. I often had my heart in my mouth, watching +them climb into the shrouds or on the rails, while the ship went swinging +through the waves; and I admired and envied the courage of their mothers, +who sat by in the sun and looked on with composure at these perilous +feats. ‘He’ll maybe be a sailor,’ I heard one +remark; ‘now’s the time to learn.’ I had been +on the point of running forward to interfere, but stood back at that, +reproved. Very few in the more delicate classes have the nerve +to look upon the peril of one dear to them; but the life of poorer folk, +where necessity is so much more immediate and imperious, braces even +a mother to this extreme of endurance. And perhaps, after all, +it is better that the lad should break his neck than that you should +break his spirit.<br> +<br> +And since I am here on the chapter of the children, I must mention one +little fellow, whose family belonged to Steerage No. 4 and 5, and who, +wherever he went, was like a strain of music round the ship. He +was an ugly, merry, unbreeched child of three, his lint-white hair in +a tangle, his face smeared with suet and treacle; but he ran to and +fro with so natural a step, and fell and picked himself up again with +such grace and good-humour, that he might fairly be called beautiful +when he was in motion. To meet him, crowing with laughter and +beating an accompaniment to his own mirth with a tin spoon upon a tin +cup, was to meet a little triumph of the human species. Even when +his mother and the rest of his family lay sick and prostrate around +him, he sat upright in their midst and sang aloud in the pleasant heartlessness +of infancy.<br> +<br> +Throughout the Friday, intimacy among us men made but a few advances. +We discussed the probable duration of the voyage, we exchanged pieces +of information, naming our trades, what we hoped to find in the new +world, or what we were fleeing from in the old; and, above all, we condoled +together over the food and the vileness of the steerage. One or +two had been so near famine that you may say they had run into the ship +with the devil at their heels; and to these all seemed for the best +in the best of possible steamers. But the majority were hugely +contented. Coming as they did from a country in so low a state +as Great Britain, many of them from Glasgow, which commercially speaking +was as good as dead, and many having long been out of work, I was surprised +to find them so dainty in their notions. I myself lived almost +exclusively on bread, porridge, and soup, precisely as it was supplied +to them, and found it, if not luxurious, at least sufficient. +But these working men were loud in their outcries. It was not +‘food for human beings,’ it was ‘only fit for pigs,’ +it was ‘a disgrace.’ Many of them lived almost entirely +upon biscuit, others on their own private supplies, and some paid extra +for better rations from the ship. This marvellously changed my +notion of the degree of luxury habitual to the artisan. I was +prepared to hear him grumble, for grumbling is the traveller’s +pastime; but I was not prepared to find him turn away from a diet which +was palatable to myself. Words I should have disregarded, or taken +with a liberal allowance; but when a man prefers dry biscuit there can +be no question of the sincerity of his disgust.<br> +<br> +With one of their complaints I could most heartily sympathise. +A single night of the steerage had filled them with horror. I +had myself suffered, even in my decent-second-cabin berth, from the +lack of air; and as the night promised to be fine and quiet, I determined +to sleep on deck, and advised all who complained of their quarters to +follow my example. I dare say a dozen of others agreed to do so, +and I thought we should have been quite a party. Yet, when I brought +up my rug about seven bells, there was no one to be seen but the watch. +That chimerical terror of good night-air, which makes men close their +windows, list their doors, and seal themselves up with their own poisonous +exhalations, had sent all these healthy workmen down below. One +would think we had been brought up in a fever country; yet in England +the most malarious districts are in the bedchambers.<br> +<br> +I felt saddened at this defection, and yet half-pleased to have the +night so quietly to myself. The wind had hauled a little ahead +on the starboard bow, and was dry but chilly. I found a shelter +near the fire-hole, and made myself snug for the night.<br> +<br> +The ship moved over the uneven sea with a gentle and cradling movement. +The ponderous, organic labours of the engine in her bowels occupied +the mind, and prepared it for slumber. From time to time a heavier +lurch would disturb me as I lay, and recall me to the obscure borders +of consciousness; or I heard, as it were through a veil, the clear note +of the clapper on the brass and the beautiful sea-cry, ‘All’s +well!’ I know nothing, whether for poetry or music, that +can surpass the effect of these two syllables in the darkness of a night +at sea.<br> +<br> +The day dawned fairly enough, and during the early part we had some +pleasant hours to improve acquaintance in the open air; but towards +nightfall the wind freshened, the rain began to fall, and the sea rose +so high that it was difficult to keep ones footing on the deck. +I have spoken of our concerts. We were indeed a musical ship’s +company, and cheered our way into exile with the fiddle, the accordion, +and the songs of all nations. Good, bad, or indifferent - Scottish, +English, Irish, Russian, German or Norse, - the songs were received +with generous applause. Once or twice, a recitation, very spiritedly +rendered in a powerful Scottish accent, varied the proceedings; and +once we sought in vain to dance a quadrille, eight men of us together, +to the music of the violin. The performers were all humorous, +frisky fellows, who loved to cut capers in private life; but as soon +as they were arranged for the dance, they conducted themselves like +so many mutes at a funeral. I have never seen decorum pushed so +far; and as this was not expected, the quadrille was soon whistled down, +and the dancers departed under a cloud. Eight Frenchmen, even +eight Englishmen from another rank of society, would have dared to make +some fun for themselves and the spectators; but the working man, when +sober, takes an extreme and even melancholy view of personal deportment. +A fifth-form schoolboy is not more careful of dignity. He dares +not be comical; his fun must escape from him unprepared, and above all, +it must be unaccompanied by any physical demonstration. I like +his society under most circumstances, but let me never again join with +him in public gambols.<br> +<br> +But the impulse to sing was strong, and triumphed over modesty and even +the inclemencies of sea and sky. On this rough Saturday night, +we got together by the main deck-house, in a place sheltered from the +wind and rain. Some clinging to a ladder which led to the hurricane +deck, and the rest knitting arms or taking hands, we made a ring to +support the women in the violent lurching of the ship; and when we were +thus disposed, sang to our hearts’ content. Some of the +songs were appropriate to the scene; others strikingly the reverse. +Bastard doggrel of the music-hall, such as, ‘Around her splendid +form, I weaved the magic circle,’ sounded bald, bleak, and pitifully +silly. ‘We don’t want to fight, but, by Jingo, if +we do,’ was in some measure saved by the vigour and unanimity +with which the chorus was thrown forth into the night. I observed +a Platt-Deutsch mason, entirely innocent of English, adding heartily +to the general effect. And perhaps the German mason is but a fair +example of the sincerity with which the song was rendered; for nearly +all with whom I conversed upon the subject were bitterly opposed to +war, and attributed their own misfortunes, and frequently their own +taste for whisky, to the campaigns in Zululand and Afghanistan.<br> +<br> +Every now and again, however, some song that touched the pathos of our +situation was given forth; and you could hear by the voices that took +up the burden how the sentiment came home to each, ‘The Anchor’s +Weighed’ was true for us. We were indeed ‘Rocked on +the bosom of the stormy deep.’ How many of us could say +with the singer, ‘I’m lonely to-night, love, without you,’ +or, ‘Go, some one, and tell them from me, to write me a letter +from home’! And when was there a more appropriate moment +for ‘Auld Lang Syne’ than now, when the land, the friends, +and the affections of that mingled but beloved time were fading and +fleeing behind us in the vessel’s wake? It pointed forward +to the hour when these labours should be overpast, to the return voyage, +and to many a meeting in the sanded inn, when those who had parted in +the spring of youth should again drink a cup of kindness in their age. +Had not Burns contemplated emigration, I scarce believe he would have +found that note.<br> +<br> +All Sunday the weather remained wild and cloudy; many were prostrated +by sickness; only five sat down to tea in the second cabin, and two +of these departed abruptly ere the meal was at an end. The Sabbath +was observed strictly by the majority of the emigrants. I heard +an old woman express her surprise that ‘the ship didna gae doon,’ +as she saw some one pass her with a chess-board on the holy day. +Some sang Scottish psalms. Many went to service, and in true Scottish +fashion came back ill pleased with their divine. ‘I didna +think he was an experienced preacher,’ said one girl to me.<br> +<br> +Is was a bleak, uncomfortable day; but at night, by six bells, although +the wind had not yet moderated, the clouds were all wrecked and blown +away behind the rim of the horizon, and the stars came out thickly overhead. +I saw Venus burning as steadily and sweetly across this hurly-burly +of the winds and waters as ever at home upon the summer woods. +The engine pounded, the screw tossed out of the water with a roar, and +shook the ship from end to end; the bows battled with loud reports against +the billows: and as I stood in the lee-scuppers and looked up to where +the funnel leaned out, over my head, vomiting smoke, and the black and +monstrous top-sails blotted, at each lurch, a different crop of stars, +it seemed as if all this trouble were a thing of small account, and +that just above the mast reigned peace unbroken and eternal.<br> +<br> +<br> +STEERAGE SCENES<br> +<br> +<br> +Our companion (Steerage No. 2 and 3) was a favourite resort. Down +one flight of stairs there was a comparatively large open space, the +centre occupied by a hatchway, which made a convenient seat for about +twenty persons, while barrels, coils of rope, and the carpenter’s +bench afforded perches for perhaps as many more. The canteen, +or steerage bar, was on one side of the stair; on the other, a no less +attractive spot, the cabin of the indefatigable interpreter.<br> +<br> +I have seen people packed into this space like herrings in a barrel, +and many merry evenings prolonged there until five bells, when the lights +were ruthlessly extinguished and all must go to roost.<br> +<br> +It had been rumoured since Friday that there was a fiddler aboard, who +lay sick and unmelodious in Steerage No. 1; and on the Monday forenoon, +as I came down the companion, I was saluted by something in Strathspey +time. A white-faced Orpheus was cheerily playing to an audience +of white-faced women. It was as much as he could do to play, and +some of his hearers were scarce able to sit; yet they had crawled from +their bunks at the first experimental flourish, and found better than +medicine in the music. Some of the heaviest heads began to nod +in time, and a degree of animation looked from some of the palest eyes. +Humanly speaking, it is a more important matter to play the fiddle, +even badly, than to write huge works upon recondite subjects. +What could Mr. Darwin have done for these sick women? But this +fellow scraped away; and the world was positively a better place for +all who heard him. We have yet to understand the economical value +of these mere accomplishments. I told the fiddler he was a happy +man, carrying happiness about with him in his fiddle-case, and he seemed +alive to the fact.<br> +<br> +‘It is a privilege,’ I said. He thought a while upon +the word, turning it over in his Scots head, and then answered with +conviction, ‘Yes, a privilege.’<br> +<br> +That night I was summoned by ‘Merrily danced the Quake’s +wife’ into the companion of Steerage No. 4 and 5. This was, +properly speaking, but a strip across a deck-house, lit by a sickly +lantern which swung to and fro with the motion of the ship. Through +the open slide-door we had a glimpse of a grey night sea, with patches +of phosphorescent foam flying, swift as birds, into the wake, and the +horizon rising and falling as the vessel rolled to the wind. In +the centre the companion ladder plunged down sheerly like an open pit. +Below, on the first landing, and lighted by another lamp, lads and lasses +danced, not more than three at a time for lack of space, in jigs and +reels and hornpipes. Above, on either side, there was a recess +railed with iron, perhaps two feet wide and four long, which stood for +orchestra and seats of honour. In the one balcony, five slatternly +Irish lasses sat woven in a comely group. In the other was posted +Orpheus, his body, which was convulsively in motion, forming an odd +contrast to his somnolent, imperturbable Scots face. His brother, +a dark man with a vehement, interested countenance, who made a god of +the fiddler, sat by with open mouth, drinking in the general admiration +and throwing out remarks to kindle it.<br> +<br> +‘That’s a bonny hornpipe now,’ he would say, ‘it’s +a great favourite with performers; they dance the sand dance to it.’ +And he expounded the sand dance. Then suddenly, it would be a +long, ‘Hush!’ with uplifted finger and glowing, supplicating +eyes, ‘he’s going to play “Auld Robin Gray” +on one string!’ And throughout this excruciating movement, +- ‘On one string, that’s on one string!’ he kept crying. +I would have given something myself that it had been on none; but the +hearers were much awed. I called for a tune or two, and thus introduced +myself to the notice of the brother, who directed his talk to me for +some little while, keeping, I need hardly mention, true to his topic, +like the seamen to the star. ‘He’s grand of it,’ +he said confidentially. ‘His master was a music-hall man.’ +Indeed the music-hall man had left his mark, for our fiddler was ignorant +of many of our best old airs; ‘Logie o’ Buchan,’ for +instance, he only knew as a quick, jigging figure in a set of quadrilles, +and had never heard it called by name. Perhaps, after all, the +brother was the more interesting performer of the two. I have +spoken with him afterwards repeatedly, and found him always the same +quick, fiery bit of a man, not without brains; but he never showed to +such advantage as when he was thus squiring the fiddler into public +note. There is nothing more becoming than a genuine admiration; +and it shares this with love, that it does not become contemptible although +misplaced.<br> +<br> +The dancing was but feebly carried on. The space was almost impracticably +small; and the Irish wenches combined the extreme of bashfulness about +this innocent display with a surprising impudence and roughness of address. +Most often, either the fiddle lifted up its voice unheeded, or only +a couple of lads would be footing it and snapping fingers on the landing. +And such was the eagerness of the brother to display all the acquirements +of his idol, and such the sleepy indifference of the performer, that +the tune would as often as not be changed, and the hornpipe expire into +a ballad before the dancers had cut half a dozen shuffles.<br> +<br> +In the meantime, however, the audience had been growing more and more +numerous every moment; there was hardly standing-room round the top +of the companion; and the strange instinct of the race moved some of +the newcomers to close both the doors, so that the atmosphere grew insupportable. +It was a good place, as the saying is, to leave.<br> +<br> +The wind hauled ahead with a head sea. By ten at night heavy sprays +were flying and drumming over the forecastle; the companion of Steerage +No. 1 had to be closed, and the door of communication through the second +cabin thrown open. Either from the convenience of the opportunity, +or because we had already a number of acquaintances in that part of +the ship, Mr. Jones and I paid it a late visit. Steerage No. 1 +is shaped like an isosceles triangle, the sides opposite the equal angles +bulging outward with the contour of the ship. It is lined with +eight pens of sixteen bunks apiece, four bunks below and four above +on either side. At night the place is lit with two lanterns, one +to each table. As the steamer beat on her way among the rough +billows, the light passed through violent phases of change, and was +thrown to and fro and up and down with startling swiftness. You +were tempted to wonder, as you looked, how so thin a glimmer could control +and disperse such solid blackness. When Jones and I entered we +found a little company of our acquaintances seated together at the triangular +foremost table. A more forlorn party, in more dismal circumstances, +it would be hard to imagine. The motion here in the ship’s +nose was very violent; the uproar of the sea often overpoweringly loud. +The yellow flicker of the lantern spun round and round and tossed the +shadows in masses. The air was hot, but it struck a chill from +its foetor.<br> +<br> +From all round in the dark bunks, the scarcely human noises of the sick +joined into a kind of farmyard chorus. In the midst, these five +friends of mine were keeping up what heart they could in company. +Singing was their refuge from discomfortable thoughts and sensations. +One piped, in feeble tones, ‘Oh why left I my hame?’ which +seemed a pertinent question in the circumstances. Another, from +the invisible horrors of a pen where he lay dog-sick upon the upper-shelf, +found courage, in a blink of his sufferings, to give us several verses +of the ‘Death of Nelson’; and it was odd and eerie to hear +the chorus breathe feebly from all sorts of dark corners, and ‘this +day has done his dooty’ rise and fall and be taken up again in +this dim inferno, to an accompaniment of plunging, hollow-sounding bows +and the rattling spray-showers overhead.<br> +<br> +All seemed unfit for conversation; a certain dizziness had interrupted +the activity of their minds; and except to sing they were tongue-tied. +There was present, however, one tall, powerful fellow of doubtful nationality, +being neither quite Scotsman nor altogether Irish, but of surprising +clearness of conviction on the highest problems. He had gone nearly +beside himself on the Sunday, because of a general backwardness to indorse +his definition of mind as ‘a living, thinking substance which +cannot be felt, heard, or seen’ - nor, I presume, although he +failed to mention it, smelt. Now he came forward in a pause with +another contribution to our culture.<br> +<br> +‘Just by way of change,’ said he, ‘I’ll ask +you a Scripture riddle. There’s profit in them too,’ +he added ungrammatically.<br> +<br> +This was the riddle-<br> +<br> +C and P<br> +Did agree<br> +To cut down C;<br> +But C and P<br> +Could not agree<br> +Without the leave of G;<br> +All the people cried to see<br> +The crueltie<br> +Of C and P.<br> +<br> +Harsh are the words of Mercury after the songs of Apollo! We were +a long while over the problem, shaking our heads and gloomily wondering +how a man could be such a fool; but at length he put us out of suspense +and divulged the fact that C and P stood for Caiaphas and Pontius Pilate.<br> +<br> +I think it must have been the riddle that settled us; but the motion +and the close air likewise hurried our departure. We had not been +gone long, we heard next morning, ere two or even three out of the five +fell sick. We thought it little wonder on the whole, for the sea +kept contrary all night. I now made my bed upon the second cabin +floor, where, although I ran the risk of being stepped upon, I had a +free current of air, more or less vitiated indeed, and running only +from steerage to steerage, but at least not stagnant; and from this +couch, as well as the usual sounds of a rough night at sea, the hateful +coughing and retching of the sick and the sobs of children, I heard +a man run wild with terror beseeching his friend for encouragement. +‘The ship ‘s going down!’ he cried with a thrill of +agony. ‘The ship’s going down!’ he repeated, +now in a blank whisper, now with his voice rising towards a sob; and +his friend might reassure him, reason with him, joke at him - all was +in vain, and the old cry came back, ‘The ship’s going down!’ +There was something panicky and catching in the emotion of his tones; +and I saw in a clear flash what an involved and hideous tragedy was +a disaster to an emigrant ship. If this whole parishful of people +came no more to land, into how many houses would the newspaper carry +woe, and what a great part of the web of our corporate human life would +be rent across for ever!<br> +<br> +The next morning when I came on deck I found a new world indeed. +The wind was fair; the sun mounted into a cloudless heaven; through +great dark blue seas the ship cut a swath of curded foam. The +horizon was dotted all day with companionable sails, and the sun shone +pleasantly on the long, heaving deck.<br> +<br> +We had many fine-weather diversions to beguile the time. There +was a single chess-board and a single pack of cards. Sometimes +as many as twenty of us would be playing dominoes for love. Feats +of dexterity, puzzles for the intelligence, some arithmetical, some +of the same order as the old problem of the fox and goose and cabbage, +were always welcome; and the latter, I observed, more popular as well +as more conspicuously well done than the former. We had a regular +daily competition to guess the vessel’s progress; and twelve o’clock, +when the result was published in the wheel-house, came to be a moment +of considerable interest. But the interest was unmixed. +Not a bet was laid upon our guesses. From the Clyde to Sandy Hook +I never heard a wager offered or taken. We had, besides, romps +in plenty. Puss in the Corner, which we had rebaptized, in more +manly style, Devil and four Corners, was my own favourite game; but +there were many who preferred another, the humour of which was to box +a person’s ears until he found out who had cuffed him.<br> +<br> +This Tuesday morning we were all delighted with the change of weather, +and in the highest possible spirits. We got in a cluster like +bees, sitting between each other’s feet under lee of the deck-houses. +Stories and laughter went around. The children climbed about the +shrouds. White faces appeared for the first time, and began to +take on colour from the wind. I was kept hard at work making cigarettes +for one amateur after another, and my less than moderate skill was heartily +admired. Lastly, down sat the fiddler in our midst and began to +discourse his reels, and jigs, and ballads, with now and then a voice +or two to take up the air and throw in the interest of human speech.<br> +<br> +Through this merry and good-hearted scene there came three cabin passengers, +a gentleman and two young ladies, picking their way with little gracious +titters of indulgence, and a Lady-Bountiful air about nothing, which +galled me to the quick. I have little of the radical in social +questions, and have always nourished an idea that one person was as +good as another. But I began to be troubled by this episode. +It was astonishing what insults these people managed to convey by their +presence. They seemed to throw their clothes in our faces. +Their eyes searched us all over for tatters and incongruities. +A laugh was ready at their lips; but they were too well-mannered to +indulge it in our hearing. Wait a bit, till they were all back +in the saloon, and then hear how wittily they would depict the manners +of the steerage. We were in truth very innocently, cheerfully, +and sensibly engaged, and there was no shadow of excuse for the swaying +elegant superiority with which these damsels passed among us, or for +the stiff and waggish glances of their squire. Not a word was +said; only when they were gone Mackay sullenly damned their impudence +under his breath; but we were all conscious of an icy influence and +a dead break in the course of our enjoyment.<br> +<br> +<br> +STEERAGE TYPES<br> +<br> +<br> +We had a fellow on board, an Irish-American, for all the world like +a beggar in a print by Callot; one-eyed, with great, splay crow’s-feet +round the sockets; a knotty squab nose coming down over his moustache; +a miraculous hat; a shirt that had been white, ay, ages long ago; an +alpaca coat in its last sleeves; and, without hyperbole, no buttons +to his trousers. Even in these rags and tatters, the man twinkled +all over with impudence like a piece of sham jewellery; and I have heard +him offer a situation to one of his fellow-passengers with the air of +a lord. Nothing could overlie such a fellow; a kind of base success +was written on his brow. He was then in his ill days; but I can +imagine him in Congress with his mouth full of bombast and sawder. +As we moved in the same circle, I was brought necessarily into his society. +I do not think I ever heard him say anything that was true, kind, or +interesting; but there was entertainment in the man’s demeanour. +You might call him a half-educated Irish Tigg.<br> +<br> +Our Russian made a remarkable contrast to this impossible fellow. +Rumours and legends were current in the steerages about his antecedents. +Some said he was a Nihilist escaping; others set him down for a harmless +spendthrift, who had squandered fifty thousand roubles, and whose father +had now despatched him to America by way of penance. Either tale +might flourish in security; there was no contradiction to be feared, +for the hero spoke not one word of English. I got on with him +lumberingly enough in broken German, and learned from his own lips that +he had been an apothecary. He carried the photograph of his betrothed +in a pocket-book, and remarked that it did not do her justice. +The cut of his head stood out from among the passengers with an air +of startling strangeness. The first natural instinct was to take +him for a desperado; but although the features, to our Western eyes, +had a barbaric and unhomely cast, the eye both reassured and touched. +It was large and very dark and soft, with an expression of dumb endurance, +as if it had often looked on desperate circumstances and never looked +on them without resolution.<br> +<br> +He cried out when I used the word. ‘No, no,’ he said, ‘not +resolution.’<br> +<br> +‘The resolution to endure,’ I explained.<br> +<br> +And then he shrugged his shoulders, and said, <i>‘Ach, ja,’</i> +with gusto, like a man who has been flattered in his favourite pretensions. +Indeed, he was always hinting at some secret sorrow; and his life, he +said, had been one of unusual trouble and anxiety; so the legends of +the steerage may have represented at least some shadow of the truth. +Once, and once only, he sang a song at our concerts; standing forth +without embarrassment, his great stature somewhat humped, his long arms +frequently extended, his Kalmuck head thrown backward. It was +a suitable piece of music, as deep as a cow’s bellow and wild +like the White Sea. He was struck and charmed by the freedom and +sociality of our manners. At home, he said, no one on a journey +would speak to him, but those with whom he would not care to speak; +thus unconsciously involving himself in the condemnation of his countrymen. +But Russia was soon to be changed; the ice of the Neva was softening +under the sun of civilisation; the new ideas, ‘<i>wie eine feine</i> +<i>Violine</i>,’ were audible among the big empty drum notes of +Imperial diplomacy; and he looked to see a great revival, though with +a somewhat indistinct and childish hope.<br> +<br> +We had a father and son who made a pair of Jacks-of-all-trades. +It was the son who sang the ‘Death of Nelson’ under such +contrarious circumstances. He was by trade a shearer of ship plates; +but he could touch the organ, and led two choirs, and played the flute +and piccolo in a professional string band. His repertory of songs +was, besides, inexhaustible, and ranged impartially from the very best +to the very worst within his reach. Nor did he seem to make the +least distinction between these extremes, but would cheerily follow +up ‘Tom Bowling’ with ‘Around her splendid form.’<br> +<br> +The father, an old, cheery, small piece of man-hood, could do everything +connected with tinwork from one end of the process to the other, use +almost every carpenter’s tool, and make picture frames to boot. +‘I sat down with silver plate every Sunday,’ said he, ‘and +pictures on the wall. I have made enough money to be rolling in +my carriage. But, sir,’ looking at me unsteadily with his +bright rheumy eyes, ‘I was troubled with a drunken wife.’ +He took a hostile view of matrimony in consequence. ‘It’s +an old saying,’ he remarked: ‘God made ’em, and the +devil he mixed ’em.’<br> +<br> +I think he was justified by his experience. It was a dreary story. +He would bring home three pounds on Saturday, and on Monday all the +clothes would be in pawn. Sick of the useless struggle, he gave +up a paying contract, and contented himself with small and ill-paid +jobs. ‘A bad job was as good as a good job for me,’ +he said; ‘it all went the same way.’ Once the wife +showed signs of amendment; she kept steady for weeks on end; it was +again worth while to labour and to do one’s best. The husband +found a good situation some distance from home, and, to make a little +upon every hand, started the wife in a cook-shop; the children were +here and there, busy as mice; savings began to grow together in the +bank, and the golden age of hope had returned again to that unhappy +family. But one week my old acquaintance, getting earlier through +with his work, came home on the Friday instead of the Saturday, and +there was his wife to receive him reeling drunk. He ‘took +and gave her a pair o’ black eyes,’ for which I pardon him, +nailed up the cook-shop door, gave up his situation, and resigned himself +to a life of poverty, with the workhouse at the end. As the children +came to their full age they fled the house, and established themselves +in other countries; some did well, some not so well; but the father +remained at home alone with his drunken wife, all his sound-hearted +pluck and varied accomplishments depressed and negatived.<br> +<br> +Was she dead now? or, after all these years, had he broken the chain, +and run from home like a schoolboy? I could not discover which; +but here at least he was out on the adventure, and still one of the +bravest and most youthful men on board.<br> +<br> +‘Now, I suppose, I must put my old bones to work again,’ +said he; ‘but I can do a turn yet.’<br> +<br> +And the son to whom he was going, I asked, was he not able to support +him?<br> +<br> +‘Oh yes,’ he replied. ‘But I’m never happy +without a job on hand. And I’m stout; I can eat a’most +anything. You see no craze about me.’<br> +<br> +This tale of a drunken wife was paralleled on board by another of a +drunken father. He was a capable man, with a good chance in life; +but he had drunk up two thriving businesses like a bottle of sherry, +and involved his sons along with him in ruin. Now they were on +board with us, fleeing his disastrous neighbourhood.<br> +<br> +Total abstinence, like all ascetical conclusions, is unfriendly to the +most generous, cheerful, and human parts of man; but it could have adduced +many instances and arguments from among our ship’s company. +I was, one day conversing with a kind and happy Scotsman, running to +fat and perspiration in the physical, but with a taste for poetry and +a genial sense of fun. I had asked him his hopes in emigrating. +They were like those of so many others, vague and unfounded; times were +bad at home; they were said to have a turn for the better in the States; +a man could get on anywhere, he thought. That was precisely the +weak point of his position; for if he could get on in America, why could +he not do the same in Scotland? But I never had the courage to +use that argument, though it was often on the tip of my tongue, and +instead I agreed with him heartily adding, with reckless originality, +‘If the man stuck to his work, and kept away from drink.’<br> +<br> +‘Ah!’ said he slowly, ‘the drink! You see, that’s +just my trouble.’<br> +<br> +He spoke with a simplicity that was touching, looking at me at the same +time with something strange and timid in his eye, half-ashamed, half-sorry, +like a good child who knows he should be beaten. You would have +said he recognised a destiny to which he was born, and accepted the +consequences mildly. Like the merchant Abudah, he was at the same +time fleeing from his destiny and carrying it along with him, the whole +at an expense of six guineas.<br> +<br> +As far as I saw, drink, idleness, and incompetency were the three great +causes of emigration, and for all of them, and drink first and foremost, +this trick of getting transported overseas appears to me the silliest +means of cure. You cannot run away from a weakness; you must some +time fight it out or perish; and if that be so, why not now, and where +you stand? <i>Coelum non animam</i>. Change Glenlivet for +Bourbon, and it is still whisky, only not so good. A sea-voyage +will not give a man the nerve to put aside cheap pleasure; emigration +has to be done before we climb the vessel; an aim in life is the only +fortune worth the finding; and it is not to be found in foreign lands, +but in the heart itself.<br> +<br> +Speaking generally, there is no vice of this kind more contemptible +than another; for each is but a result and outward sign of a soul tragically +ship-wrecked. In the majority of cases, cheap pleasure is resorted +to by way of anodyne. The pleasure-seeker sets forth upon life +with high and difficult ambitions; he meant to be nobly good and nobly +happy, though at as little pains as possible to himself; and it is because +all has failed in his celestial enterprise that you now behold him rolling +in the garbage. Hence the comparative success of the teetotal +pledge; because to a man who had nothing it sets at least a negative +aim in life. Somewhat as prisoners beguile their days by taming +a spider, the reformed drunkard makes an interest out of abstaining +from intoxicating drinks, and may live for that negation. There +is something, at least, <i>not to be done</i> each day; and a cold triumph +awaits him every evening.<br> +<br> +We had one on board with us, whom I have already referred to under the +name Mackay, who seemed to me not only a good instance of this failure +in life of which we have been speaking, but a good type of the intelligence +which here surrounded me. Physically he was a small Scotsman, +standing a little back as though he were already carrying the elements +of a corporation, and his looks somewhat marred by the smallness of +his eyes. Mentally, he was endowed above the average. There +were but few subjects on which he could not converse with understanding +and a dash of wit; delivering himself slowly and with gusto like a man +who enjoyed his own sententiousness. He was a dry, quick, pertinent +debater, speaking with a small voice, and swinging on his heels to launch +and emphasise an argument. When he began a discussion, he could +not bear to leave it off, but would pick the subject to the bone, without +once relinquishing a point. An engineer by trade, Mackay believed +in the unlimited perfectibility of all machines except the human machine. +The latter he gave up with ridicule for a compound of carrion and perverse +gases. He had an appetite for disconnected facts which I can only +compare to the savage taste for beads. What is called information +was indeed a passion with the man, and he not only delighted to receive +it, but could pay you back in kind.<br> +<br> +With all these capabilities, here was Mackay, already no longer young, +on his way to a new country, with no prospects, no money, and but little +hope. He was almost tedious in the cynical disclosures of his +despair. ‘The ship may go down for me,’ he would say, +‘now or to-morrow. I have nothing to lose and nothing to +hope.’ And again: ‘I am sick of the whole damned performance.’ +He was, like the kind little man, already quoted, another so-called +victim of the bottle. But Mackay was miles from publishing his +weakness to the world; laid the blame of his failure on corrupt masters +and a corrupt State policy; and after he had been one night overtaken +and had played the buffoon in his cups, sternly, though not without +tact, suppressed all reference to his escapade. It was a treat +to see him manage this: the various jesters withered under his gaze, +and you were forced to recognise in him a certain steely force, and +a gift of command which might have ruled a senate.<br> +<br> +In truth it was not whisky that had ruined him; he was ruined long before +for all good human purposes but conversation. His eyes were sealed +by a cheap, school-book materialism. He could see nothing in the +world but money and steam-engines. He did not know what you meant +by the word happiness. He had forgotten the simple emotions of +childhood, and perhaps never encountered the delights of youth. +He believed in production, that useful figment of economy, as if it +had been real like laughter; and production, without prejudice to liquor, +was his god and guide. One day he took me to task - novel cry +to me - upon the over-payment of literature. Literary men, he +said, were more highly paid than artisans; yet the artisan made threshing-machines +and butter-churns, and the man of letters, except in the way of a few +useful handbooks, made nothing worth the while. He produced a +mere fancy article. Mackay’s notion of a book was <i>Hoppus’s +Measurer</i>. Now in my time I have possessed and even studied +that work; but if I were to be left to-morrow on Juan Fernandez, Hoppus’s +is not the book that I should choose for my companion volume.<br> +<br> +I tried to fight the point with Mackay. I made him own that he +had taken pleasure in reading books otherwise, to his view, insignificant; +but he was too wary to advance a step beyond the admission. It +was in vain for me to argue that here was pleasure ready-made and running +from the spring, whereas his ploughs and butter-churns were but means +and mechanisms to give men the necessary food and leisure before they +start upon the search for pleasure; he jibbed and ran away from such +conclusions. The thing was different, he declared, and nothing +was serviceable but what had to do with food. ‘Eat, eat, +eat!’ he cried; ‘that’s the bottom and the top.’ +By an odd irony of circumstance, he grew so much interested in this +discussion that he let the hour slip by unnoticed and had to go without +his tea. He had enough sense and humour, indeed he had no lack +of either, to have chuckled over this himself in private; and even to +me he referred to it with the shadow of a smile.<br> +<br> +Mackay was a hot bigot. He would not hear of religion. I +have seen him waste hours of time in argument with all sorts of poor +human creatures who understood neither him nor themselves, and he had +had the boyishness to dissect and criticise even so small a matter as +the riddler’s definition of mind. He snorted aloud with +zealotry and the lust for intellectual battle. Anything, whatever +it was, that seemed to him likely to discourage the continued passionate +production of corn and steam-engines he resented like a conspiracy against +the people. Thus, when I put in the plea for literature, that +it was only in good books, or in the society of the good, that a man +could get help in his conduct, he declared I was in a different world +from him. ‘Damn my conduct!’ said he. ‘I +have given it up for a bad job. My question is, “Can I drive +a nail?”’ And he plainly looked upon me as one who was insidiously +seeking to reduce the people’s annual bellyful of corn and steam-engines.<br> +<br> +It may be argued that these opinions spring from the defect of culture; +that a narrow and pinching way of life not only exaggerates to a man +the importance of material conditions, but indirectly, by denying him +the necessary books and leisure, keeps his mind ignorant of larger thoughts; +and that hence springs this overwhelming concern about diet, and hence +the bald view of existence professed by Mackay. Had this been +an English peasant the conclusion would be tenable. But Mackay +had most of the elements of a liberal education. He had skirted +metaphysical and mathematical studies. He had a thoughtful hold +of what he knew, which would be exceptional among bankers. He +had been brought up in the midst of hot-house piety, and told, with +incongruous pride, the story of his own brother’s deathbed ecstasies. +Yet he had somehow failed to fulfil himself, and was adrift like a dead +thing among external circumstances, without hope or lively preference +or shaping aim. And further, there seemed a tendency among many +of his fellows to fall into the same blank and unlovely opinions. +One thing, indeed, is not to be learned in Scotland, and that is the +way to be happy. Yet that is the whole of culture, and perhaps +two-thirds of morality. Can it be that the Puritan school, by +divorcing a man from nature, by thinning out his instincts, and setting +a stamp of its disapproval on whole fields of human activity and interest, +leads at last directly to material greed?<br> +<br> +Nature is a good guide through life, and the love of simple pleasures +next, if not superior, to virtue; and we had on board an Irishman who +based his claim to the widest and most affectionate popularity precisely +upon these two qualities, that he was natural and happy. He boasted +a fresh colour, a tight little figure, unquenchable gaiety, and indefatigable +goodwill. His clothes puzzled the diagnostic mind, until you heard +he had been once a private coachman, when they became eloquent and seemed +a part of his biography. His face contained the rest, and, I fear, +a prophecy of the future; the hawk’s nose above accorded so ill +with the pink baby’s mouth below. His spirit and his pride +belonged, you might say, to the nose; while it was the general shiftlessness +expressed by the other that had thrown him from situation to situation, +and at length on board the emigrant ship. Barney ate, so to speak, +nothing from the galley; his own tea, butter, and eggs supported him +throughout the voyage; and about mealtime you might often find him up +to the elbows in amateur cookery. His was the first voice heard +singing among all the passengers; he was the first who fell to dancing. +From Loch Foyle to Sandy Hook, there was not a piece of fun undertaken +but there was Barney in the midst.<br> +<br> +You ought to have seen him when he stood up to sing at our concerts +- his tight little figure stepping to and fro, and his feet shuffling +to the air, his eyes seeking and bestowing encouragement - and to have +enjoyed the bow, so nicely calculated between jest and earnest, between +grace and clumsiness, with which he brought each song to a conclusion. +He was not only a great favourite among ourselves, but his songs attracted +the lords of the saloon, who often leaned to hear him over the rails +of the hurricane-deck. He was somewhat pleased, but not at all +abashed, by this attention; and one night, in the midst of his famous +performance of ‘Billy Keogh,’ I saw him spin half round +in a pirouette and throw an audacious wink to an old gentleman above.<br> +<br> +This was the more characteristic, as, for all his daffing, he was a +modest and very polite little fellow among ourselves.<br> +<br> +He would not have hurt the feelings of a fly, nor throughout the passage +did he give a shadow of offence; yet he was always, by his innocent +freedoms and love of fun, brought upon that narrow margin where politeness +must be natural to walk without a fall. He was once seriously +angry, and that in a grave, quiet manner, because they supplied no fish +on Friday; for Barney was a conscientious Catholic. He had likewise +strict notions of refinement; and when, late one evening, after the +women had retired, a young Scotsman struck up an indecent song, Barney’s +drab clothes were immediately missing from the group. His taste +was for the society of gentlemen, of whom, with the reader’s permission, +there was no lack in our five steerages and second cabin; and he avoided +the rough and positive with a girlish shrinking. Mackay, partly +from his superior powers of mind, which rendered him incomprehensible, +partly from his extreme opinions, was especially distasteful to the +Irishman. I have seen him slink off with backward looks of terror +and offended delicacy, while the other, in his witty, ugly way, had +been professing hostility to God, and an extreme theatrical readiness +to be shipwrecked on the spot. These utterances hurt the little +coachman’s modesty like a bad word.<br> +<br> +<br> +THE SICK MAN<br> +<br> +<br> +One night Jones, the young O’Reilly, and myself were walking arm-in-arm +and briskly up and down the deck. Six bells had rung; a head-wind +blew chill and fitful, the fog was closing in with a sprinkle of rain, +and the fog-whistle had been turned on, and now divided time with its +unwelcome outcries, loud like a bull, thrilling and intense like a mosquito. +Even the watch lay somewhere snugly out of sight.<br> +<br> +For some time we observed something lying black and huddled in the scuppers, +which at last heaved a little and moaned aloud. We ran to the +rails. An elderly man, but whether passenger or seaman it was +impossible in the darkness to determine, lay grovelling on his belly +in the wet scuppers, and kicking feebly with his outspread toes. +We asked him what was amiss, and he replied incoherently, with a strange +accent and in a voice unmanned by terror, that he had cramp in the stomach, +that he had been ailing all day, had seen the doctor twice, and had +walked the deck against fatigue till he was overmastered and had fallen +where we found him.<br> +<br> +Jones remained by his side, while O’Reilly and I hurried off to +seek the doctor. We knocked in vain at the doctor’s cabin; +there came no reply; nor could we find any one to guide us. It +was no time for delicacy; so we ran once more forward; and I, whipping +up a ladder and touching my hat to the officer of the watch, addressed +him as politely as I could -<br> +<br> +‘I beg your pardon, sir; but there is a man lying bad with cramp +in the lee scuppers; and I can’t find the doctor.’<br> +<br> +He looked at me peeringly in the darkness; and then, somewhat harshly, +‘Well, <i>I</i> can’t leave the bridge, my man,’ said +he.<br> +<br> +‘No, sir; but you can tell me what to do,’ I returned.<br> +<br> +‘Is it one of the crew?’ he asked.<br> +<br> +‘I believe him to be a fireman,’ I replied.<br> +<br> +I dare say officers are much annoyed by complaints and alarmist information +from their freight of human creatures; but certainly, whether it was +the idea that the sick man was one of the crew, or from something conciliatory +in my address, the officer in question was immediately relieved and +mollified; and speaking in a voice much freer from constraint, advised +me to find a steward and despatch him in quest of the doctor, who would +now be in the smoking-room over his pipe.<br> +<br> +One of the stewards was often enough to be found about this hour down +our companion, Steerage No. 2 and 3; that was his smoking-room of a +night. Let me call him Blackwood. O’Reilly and I rattled +down the companion, breathing hurry; and in his shirt-sleeves and perched +across the carpenters bench upon one thigh, found Blackwood; a neat, +bright, dapper, Glasgow-looking man, with a bead of an eye and a rank +twang in his speech. I forget who was with him, but the pair were +enjoying a deliberate talk over their pipes. I dare say he was +tired with his day’s work, and eminently comfortable at that moment; +and the truth is, I did not stop to consider his feelings, but told +my story in a breath.<br> +<br> +‘Steward,’ said I, ‘there’s a man lying bad +with cramp, and I can’t find the doctor.’<br> +<br> +He turned upon me as pert as a sparrow, but with a black look that is +the prerogative of man; and taking his pipe out of his mouth -<br> +<br> +‘That’s none of my business,’ said he. ‘I +don’t care.’<br> +<br> +I could have strangled the little ruffian where he sat. The thought +of his cabin civility and cabin tips filled me with indignation. +I glanced at O’Reilly; he was pale and quivering, and looked like +assault and battery, every inch of him. But we had a better card +than violence.<br> +<br> +‘You will have to make it your business,’ said I, ‘for +I am sent to you by the officer on the bridge.’<br> +<br> +Blackwood was fairly tripped. He made no answer, but put out his +pipe, gave me one murderous look, and set off upon his errand strolling. +From that day forward, I should say, he improved to me in courtesy, +as though he had repented his evil speech and were anxious to leave +a better impression.<br> +<br> +When we got on deck again, Jones was still beside the sick man; and +two or three late stragglers had gathered round, and were offering suggestions. +One proposed to give the patient water, which was promptly negatived. +Another bade us hold him up; he himself prayed to be let lie; but as +it was at least as well to keep him off the streaming decks, O’Reilly +and I supported him between us. It was only by main force that +we did so, and neither an easy nor an agreeable duty; for he fought +in his paroxysms like a frightened child, and moaned miserably when +he resigned himself to our control.<br> +<br> +‘O let me lie!’ he pleaded. ‘I’ll no’ +get better anyway.’ And then, with a moan that went to my +heart, ‘O why did I come upon this miserable journey?’<br> +<br> +I was reminded of the song which I had heard a little while before in +the close, tossing steerage: ‘O why left I my hame?’<br> +<br> +Meantime Jones, relieved of his immediate charge, had gone off to the +galley, where we could see a light. There he found a belated cook +scouring pans by the radiance of two lanterns, and one of these he sought +to borrow. The scullion was backward. ‘Was it one +of the crew?’ he asked. And when Jones, smitten with my +theory, had assured him that it was a fireman, he reluctantly left his +scouring and came towards us at an easy pace, with one of the lanterns +swinging from his finger. The light, as it reached the spot, showed +us an elderly man, thick-set, and grizzled with years; but the shifting +and coarse shadows concealed from us the expression and even the design +of his face.<br> +<br> +So soon as the cook set eyes on him he gave a sort of whistle.<br> +<br> +‘<i>It’s only a passenger</i>!’ said he; and turning +about, made, lantern and all, for the galley.<br> +<br> +‘He’s a man anyway,’ cried Jones in indignation.<br> +<br> +‘Nobody said he was a woman,’ said a gruff voice, which +I recognised for that of the bo’s’un.<br> +<br> +All this while there was no word of Blackwood or the doctor; and now +the officer came to our side of the ship and asked, over the hurricane-deck +rails, if the doctor were not yet come. We told him not.<br> +<br> +‘No?’ he repeated with a breathing of anger; and we saw +him hurry aft in person.<br> +<br> +Ten minutes after the doctor made his appearance deliberately enough +and examined our patient with the lantern. He made little of the +case, had the man brought aft to the dispensary, dosed him, and sent +him forward to his bunk. Two of his neighbours in the steerage +had now come to our assistance, expressing loud sorrow that such ‘a +fine cheery body’ should be sick; and these, claiming a sort of +possession, took him entirely under their own care. The drug had +probably relieved him, for he struggled no more, and was led along plaintive +and patient, but protesting. His heart recoiled at the thought +of the steerage. ‘O let me lie down upon the bieldy side,’ +he cried; ‘O dinna take me down!’ And again: ‘O +why did ever I come upon this miserable voyage?’ And yet +once more, with a gasp and a wailing prolongation of the fourth word: +‘I had no <i>call</i> to come.’ But there he was; +and by the doctor’s orders and the kind force of his two shipmates +disappeared down the companion of Steerage No.1 into the den allotted +him.<br> +<br> +At the foot of our own companion, just where I found Blackwood, Jones +and the bo’s’un were now engaged in talk. This last +was a gruff, cruel-looking seaman, who must have passed near half a +century upon the seas; square-headed, goat-bearded, with heavy blond +eyebrows, and an eye without radiance, but inflexibly steady and hard. +I had not forgotten his rough speech; but I remembered also that he +had helped us about the lantern; and now seeing him in conversation +with Jones, and being choked with indignation, I proceeded to blow off +my steam.<br> +<br> +‘Well,’ said I, ‘I make you my compliments upon your +steward,’ and furiously narrated what had happened.<br> +<br> +‘I’ve nothing to do with him,’ replied the bo’s’un. +‘They’re all alike. They wouldn’t mind if they +saw you all lying dead one upon the top of another.’<br> +<br> +This was enough. A very little humanity went a long way with me +after the experience of the evening. A sympathy grew up at once +between the bo’s’un and myself; and that night, and during +the next few days, I learned to appreciate him better. He was +a remarkable type, and not at all the kind of man you find in books. +He had been at Sebastopol under English colours; and again in a States +ship, ‘after the <i>Alabama</i>, and praying God we shouldn’t +find her.’ He was a high Tory and a high Englishman. +No manufacturer could have held opinions more hostile to the working +man and his strikes. ‘The workmen,’ he said, ‘think +nothing of their country. They think of nothing but themselves. +They’re damned greedy, selfish fellows.’ He would +not hear of the decadence of England. ‘They say they send +us beef from America,’ he argued; ‘but who pays for it? +All the money in the world’s in England.’ The Royal +Navy was the best of possible services, according to him. ‘Anyway +the officers are gentlemen,’ said he; ‘and you can’t +get hazed to death by a damned non-commissioned - as you can in the +army.’ Among nations, England was the first; then came France. +He respected the French navy and liked the French people; and if he +were forced to make a new choice in life, ‘by God, he would try +Frenchmen!’ For all his looks and rough, cold manners, I +observed that children were never frightened by him; they divined him +at once to be a friend; and one night when he had chalked his hand and +clothes, it was incongruous to hear this formidable old salt chuckling +over his boyish monkey trick.<br> +<br> +In the morning, my first thought was of the sick man. I was afraid +I should not recognise him, baffling had been the light of the lantern; +and found myself unable to decide if he were Scots, English, or Irish. +He had certainly employed north-country words and elisions; but the +accent and the pronunciation seemed unfamiliar and incongruous in my +ear.<br> +<br> +To descend on an empty stomach into Steerage No. 1, was an adventure +that required some nerve. The stench was atrocious; each respiration +tasted in the throat like some horrible kind of cheese; and the squalid +aspect of the place was aggravated by so many people worming themselves +into their clothes in twilight of the bunks. You may guess if +I was pleased, not only for him, but for myself also, when I heard that +the sick man was better and had gone on deck.<br> +<br> +The morning was raw and foggy, though the sun suffused the fog with +pink and amber; the fog-horn still blew, stertorous and intermittent; +and to add to the discomfort, the seamen were just beginning to wash +down the decks. But for a sick man this was heaven compared to +the steerage. I found him standing on the hot-water pipe, just +forward of the saloon deck house. He was smaller than I had fancied, +and plain-looking; but his face was distinguished by strange and fascinating +eyes, limpid grey from a distance, but, when looked into, full of changing +colours and grains of gold. His manners were mild and uncompromisingly +plain; and I soon saw that, when once started, he delighted to talk. +His accent and language had been formed in the most natural way, since +he was born in Ireland, had lived a quarter of a century on the banks +of Tyne, and was married to a Scots wife. A fisherman in the season, +he had fished the east coast from Fisherrow to Whitby. When the +season was over, and the great boats, which required extra hands, were +once drawn up on shore till the next spring, he worked as a labourer +about chemical furnaces, or along the wharves unloading vessels. +In this comparatively humble way of life he had gathered a competence, +and could speak of his comfortable house, his hayfield, and his garden. +On this ship, where so many accomplished artisans were fleeing from +starvation, he was present on a pleasure trip to visit a brother in +New York.<br> +<br> +Ere he started, he informed me, he had been warned against the steerage +and the steerage fare, and recommended to bring with him a ham and tea +and a spice loaf. But he laughed to scorn such counsels. +‘I’m not afraid,’ he had told his adviser; ‘I’ll +get on for ten days. I’ve not been a fisherman for nothing.’ +For it is no light matter, as he reminded me, to be in an open boat, +perhaps waist-deep with herrings, day breaking with a scowl, and for +miles on every hand lee-shores, unbroken, iron-bound, surf-beat, with +only here and there an anchorage where you dare not lie, or a harbour +impossible to enter with the wind that blows. The life of a North +Sea fisher is one long chapter of exposure and hard work and insufficient +fare; and even if he makes land at some bleak fisher port, perhaps the +season is bad or his boat has been unlucky and after fifty hours’ +unsleeping vigilance and toil, not a shop will give him credit for a +loaf of bread. Yet the steerage of the emigrant ship had been +too vile for the endurance of a man thus rudely trained. He had +scarce eaten since he came on board, until the day before, when his +appetite was tempted by some excellent pea-soup. We were all much +of the same mind on board, and beginning with myself, had dined upon +pea-soup not wisely but too well; only with him the excess had been +punished, perhaps because he was weakened by former abstinence, and +his first meal had resulted in a cramp. He had determined to live +henceforth on biscuit; and when, two months later, he should return +to England, to make the passage by saloon. The second cabin, after +due inquiry, he scouted as another edition of the steerage.<br> +<br> +He spoke apologetically of his emotion when ill. ‘Ye see, +I had no call to be here,’ said he; ‘and I thought it was +by with me last night. I’ve a good house at home, and plenty +to nurse me, and I had no real call to leave them.’ Speaking +of the attentions he had received from his shipmates generally, ‘they +were all so kind,’ he said, ‘that there’s none to +mention.’ And except in so far as I might share in this, +he troubled me with no reference to my services.<br> +<br> +But what affected me in the most lively manner was the wealth of this +day-labourer, paying a two months’ pleasure visit to the States, +and preparing to return in the saloon, and the new testimony rendered +by his story, not so much to the horrors of the steerage as to the habitual +comfort of the working classes. One foggy, frosty December evening, +I encountered on Liberton Hill, near Edinburgh, an Irish labourer trudging +homeward from the fields. Our roads lay together, and it was natural +that we should fall into talk. He was covered with mud; an inoffensive, +ignorant creature, who thought the Atlantic Cable was a secret contrivance +of the masters the better to oppress labouring mankind; and I confess +I was astonished to learn that he had nearly three hundred pounds in +the bank. But this man had travelled over most of the world, and +enjoyed wonderful opportunities on some American railroad, with two +dollars a shift and double pay on Sunday and at night; whereas my fellow-passenger +had never quitted Tyneside, and had made all that he possessed in that +same accursed, down-falling England, whence skilled mechanics, engineers, +millwrights, and carpenters were fleeing as from the native country +of starvation.<br> +<br> +Fitly enough, we slid off on the subject of strikes and wages and hard +times. Being from the Tyne, and a man who had gained and lost +in his own pocket by these fluctuations, he had much to say, and held +strong opinions on the subject. He spoke sharply of the masters, +and, when I led him on, of the men also. The masters had been +selfish and obstructive, the men selfish, silly, and light-headed. +He rehearsed to me the course of a meeting at which he had been present, +and the somewhat long discourse which he had there pronounced, calling +into question the wisdom and even the good faith of the Union delegates; +and although he had escaped himself through flush times and starvation +times with a handsomely provided purse, he had so little faith in either +man or master, and so profound a terror for the unerring Nemesis of +mercantile affairs, that he could think of no hope for our country outside +of a sudden and complete political subversion. Down must go Lords +and Church and Army; and capital, by some happy direction, must change +hands from worse to better, or England stood condemned. Such principles, +he said, were growing ‘like a seed.’<br> +<br> +From this mild, soft, domestic man, these words sounded unusually ominous +and grave. I had heard enough revolutionary talk among my workmen +fellow-passengers; but most of it was hot and turgid, and fell discredited +from the lips of unsuccessful men. This man was calm; he had attained +prosperity and ease; he disapproved the policy which had been pursued +by labour in the past; and yet this was his panacea, - to rend the old +country from end to end, and from top to bottom, and in clamour and +civil discord remodel it with the hand of violence.<br> +<br> +<br> +THE STOWAWAYS<br> +<br> +<br> +On the Sunday, among a party of men who were talking in our companion, +Steerage No. 2 and 3, we remarked a new figure. He wore tweed +clothes, well enough made if not very fresh, and a plain smoking-cap. +His face was pale, with pale eyes, and spiritedly enough designed; but +though not yet thirty, a sort of blackguardly degeneration had already +overtaken his features. The fine nose had grown fleshy towards +the point, the pale eyes were sunk in fat. His hands were strong +and elegant; his experience of life evidently varied; his speech full +of pith and verve; his manners forward, but perfectly presentable. +The lad who helped in the second cabin told me, in answer to a question, +that he did not know who he was, but thought, ‘by his way of speaking, +and because he was so polite, that he was some one from the saloon.’<br> +<br> +I was not so sure, for to me there was something equivocal in his air +and bearing. He might have been, I thought, the son of some good +family who had fallen early into dissipation and run from home. +But, making every allowance, how admirable was his talk! I wish +you could have heard hin, tell his own stories. They were so swingingly +set forth, in such dramatic language, and illustrated here and there +by such luminous bits of acting, that they could only lose in any reproduction. +There were tales of the P. and O. Company, where he had been an officer; +of the East Indies, where in former years he had lived lavishly; of +the Royal Engineers, where he had served for a period; and of a dozen +other sides of life, each introducing some vigorous thumb-nail portrait. +He had the talk to himself that night, we were all so glad to listen. +The best talkers usually address themselves to some particular society; +there they are kings, elsewhere camp-followers, as a man may know Russian +and yet be ignorant of Spanish; but this fellow had a frank, headlong +power of style, and a broad, human choice of subject, that would have +turned any circle in the world into a circle of hearers. He was +a Homeric talker, plain, strong, and cheerful; and the things and the +people of which he spoke became readily and clearly present to the minds +of those who heard him. This, with a certain added colouring of +rhetoric and rodomontade, must have been the style of Burns, who equally +charmed the ears of duchesses and hostlers.<br> +<br> +Yet freely and personally as he spoke, many points remained obscure +in his narration. The Engineers, for instance, was a service which +he praised highly; it is true there would be trouble with the sergeants; +but then the officers were gentlemen, and his own, in particular, one +among ten thousand. It sounded so far exactly like an episode +in the rakish, topsy-turvy life of such an one as I had imagined. +But then there came incidents more doubtful, which showed an almost +impudent greed after gratuities, and a truly impudent disregard for +truth. And then there was the tale of his departure. He +had wearied, it seems, of Woolwich, and one fine day, with a companion, +slipped up to London for a spree. I have a suspicion that spree +was meant to be a long one; but God disposes all things; and one morning, +near Westminster Bridge, whom should he come across but the very sergeant +who had recruited him at first! What followed? He himself +indicated cavalierly that he had then resigned. Let us put it +so. But these resignations are sometimes very trying.<br> +<br> +At length, after having delighted us for hours, he took himself away +from the companion; and I could ask Mackay who and what he was. +‘That?’ said Mackay. ‘Why, that’s one +of the stowaways.’<br> +<br> +‘No man,’ said the same authority, ‘who has had anything +to do with the sea, would ever think of paying for a passage.’ +I give the statement as Mackay’s, without endorsement; yet I am +tempted to believe that it contains a grain of truth; and if you add +that the man shall be impudent and thievish, or else dead-broke, it +may even pass for a fair representation of the facts. We gentlemen +of England who live at home at ease have, I suspect, very insufficient +ideas on the subject. All the world over, people are stowing away +in coal-holes and dark corners, and when ships are once out to sea, +appearing again, begrimed and bashful, upon deck. The career of +these sea-tramps partakes largely of the adventurous. They may +be poisoned by coal-gas, or die by starvation in their place of concealment; +or when found they may be clapped at once and ignominiously into irons, +thus to be carried to their promised land, the port of destination, +and alas! brought back in the same way to that from which they started, +and there delivered over to the magistrates and the seclusion of a county +jail. Since I crossed the Atlantic, one miserable stowaway was +found in a dying state among the fuel, uttered but a word or two, and +departed for a farther country than America.<br> +<br> +When the stowaway appears on deck, he has but one thing to pray for: +that he be set to work, which is the price and sign of his forgiveness. +After half an hour with a swab or a bucket, he feels himself as secure +as if he had paid for his passage. It is not altogether a bad +thing for the company, who get more or less efficient hands for nothing +but a few plates of junk and duff; and every now and again find themselves +better paid than by a whole family of cabin passengers. Not long +ago, for instance, a packet was saved from nearly certain loss by the +skill and courage of a stowaway engineer. As was no more than +just, a handsome subscription rewarded him for his success: but even +without such exceptional good fortune, as things stand in England and +America, the stowaway will often make a good profit out of his adventure. +Four engineers stowed away last summer on the same ship, the <i>Circassia</i>; +and before two days after their arrival each of the four had found a +comfortable berth. This was the most hopeful tale of emigration +that I heard from first to last; and as you see, the luck was for stowaways.<br> +<br> +My curiosity was much inflamed by what I heard; and the next morning, +as I was making the round of the ship, I was delighted to find the ex-Royal +Engineer engaged in washing down the white paint of a deck house. +There was another fellow at work beside him, a lad not more than twenty, +in the most miraculous tatters, his handsome face sown with grains of +beauty and lighted up by expressive eyes. Four stowaways had been +found aboard our ship before she left the Clyde, but these two had alone +escaped the ignominy of being put ashore. Alick, my acquaintance +of last night, was Scots by birth, and by trade a practical engineer; +the other was from Devonshire, and had been to sea before the mast. +Two people more unlike by training, character, and habits it would be +hard to imagine; yet here they were together, scrubbing paint.<br> +<br> +Alick had held all sorts of good situations, and wasted many opportunities +in life. I have heard him end a story with these words: ‘That +was in my golden days, when I used finger-glasses.’ Situation +after situation failed him; then followed the depression of trade, and +for months he had hung round with other idlers, playing marbles all +day in the West Park, and going home at night to tell his landlady how +he had been seeking for a job. I believe this kind of existence +was not unpleasant to Alick himself, and he might have long continued +to enjoy idleness and a life on tick; but he had a comrade, let us call +him Brown, who grew restive. This fellow was continually threatening +to slip his cable for the States, and at last, one Wednesday, Glasgow +was left widowed of her Brown. Some months afterwards, Alick met +another old chum in Sauchiehall Street.<br> +<br> +‘By the bye, Alick,’ said he, ‘I met a gentleman in +New York who was asking for you.’<br> +<br> +‘Who was that?’ asked Alick.<br> +<br> +‘The new second engineer on board the <i>So-and-so</i>,’ +was the reply.<br> +<br> +‘Well, and who is he?’<br> +<br> +‘Brown, to be sure.’<br> +<br> +For Brown had been one of the fortunate quartette aboard the <i>Circassia</i>. +If that was the way of it in the States, Alick thought it was high time +to follow Brown’s example. He spent his last day, as he +put it, ‘reviewing the yeomanry,’ and the next morning says +he to his landlady, ‘Mrs. X., I’ll not take porridge to-day, +please; I’ll take some eggs.’<br> +<br> +‘Why, have you found a job?’ she asked, delighted.<br> +<br> +‘Well, yes,’ returned the perfidious Alick; ‘I think +I’ll start to-day.’<br> +<br> +And so, well lined with eggs, start he did, but for America. I +am afraid that landlady has seen the last of him.<br> +<br> +It was easy enough to get on board in the confusion that attends a vessel’s +departure; and in one of the dark corners of Steerage No. 1, flat in +a bunk and with an empty stomach, Alick made the voyage from the Broomielaw +to Greenock. That night, the ship’s yeoman pulled him out +by the heels and had him before the mate. Two other stowaways +had already been found and sent ashore; but by this time darkness had +fallen, they were out in the middle of the estuary, and the last steamer +had left them till the morning.<br> +<br> +‘Take him to the forecastle and give him a meal,’ said the +mate, ‘and see and pack him off the first thing to-morrow.’<br> +<br> +In the forecastle he had supper, a good night’s rest, and breakfast; +and was sitting placidly with a pipe, fancying all was over and the +game up for good with that ship, when one of the sailors grumbled out +an oath at him, with a ‘What are you doing there?’ and ‘Do +you call that hiding, anyway?’ There was need of no more; +Alick was in another bunk before the day was older. Shortly before +the passengers arrived, the ship was cursorily inspected. He heard +the round come down the companion and look into one pen after another, +until they came within two of the one in which he lay concealed. +Into these last two they did not enter, but merely glanced from without; +and Alick had no doubt that he was personally favoured in this escape. +It was the character of the man to attribute nothing to luck and but +little to kindness; whatever happened to him he had earned in his own +right amply; favours came to him from his singular attraction and adroitness, +and misfortunes he had always accepted with his eyes open. Half +an hour after the searchers had departed, the steerage began to fill +with legitimate passengers, and the worst of Alick’s troubles +was at an end. He was soon making himself popular, smoking other +people’s tobacco, and politely sharing their private stock delicacies, +and when night came he retired to his bunk beside the others with composure.<br> +<br> +Next day by afternoon, Lough Foyle being already far behind, and only +the rough north-western hills of Ireland within view, Alick appeared +on deck to court inquiry and decide his fate. As a matter of fact, +he was known to several on board, and even intimate with one of the +engineers; but it was plainly not the etiquette of such occasions for +the authorities to avow their information. Every one professed +surprise and anger on his appearance, and he was led prison before the +captain.<br> +<br> +‘What have you got to say for yourself?’ inquired the captain.<br> +<br> +‘Not much,’ said Alick; ‘but when a man has been a +long time out of a job, he will do things he would not under other circumstances.’<br> +<br> +‘Are you willing to work?’<br> +<br> +Alick swore he was burning to be useful.<br> +<br> +‘And what can you do?’ asked the captain.<br> +<br> +He replied composedly that he was a brass-fitter by trade.<br> +<br> +‘I think you will be better at engineering?’ suggested the +officer, with a shrewd look.<br> +<br> +‘No, sir,’ says Alick simply. - ‘There’s few +can beat me at a lie,’ was his engaging commentary to me as he +recounted the affair.<br> +<br> +‘Have you been to sea?’ again asked the captain.<br> +<br> +‘I’ve had a trip on a Clyde steamboat, sir, but no more,’ +replied the unabashed Alick.<br> +<br> +‘Well, we must try and find some work for you,’ concluded +the officer.<br> +<br> +And hence we behold Alick, clear of the hot engine-room, lazily scraping +paint and now and then taking a pull upon a sheet. ‘You +leave me alone,’ was his deduction. ‘When I get talking +to a man, I can get round him.’<br> +<br> +The other stowaway, whom I will call the Devonian - it was noticeable +that neither of them told his name - had both been brought up and seen +the world in a much smaller way. His father, a confectioner, died +and was closely followed by his mother. His sisters had taken, +I think, to dressmaking. He himself had returned from sea about +a year ago and gone to live with his brother, who kept the ‘George +Hotel’ - ‘it was not quite a real hotel,’ added the +candid fellow - ‘and had a hired man to mind the horses.’ +At first the Devonian was very welcome; but as time went on his brother +not unnaturally grew cool towards him, and he began to find himself +one too many at the ‘George Hotel.’ ‘I don’t +think brothers care much for you,’ he said, as a general reflection +upon life. Hurt at this change, nearly penniless, and too proud +to ask for more, he set off on foot and walked eighty miles to Weymouth, +living on the journey as he could. He would have enlisted, but +he was too small for the army and too old for the navy; and thought +himself fortunate at last to find a berth on board a trading dandy. +Somewhere in the Bristol Channel the dandy sprung a leak and went down; +and though the crew were picked up and brought ashore by fishermen, +they found themselves with nothing but the clothes upon their back. +His next engagement was scarcely better starred; for the ship proved +so leaky, and frightened them all so heartily during a short passage +through the Irish Sea, that the entire crew deserted and remained behind +upon the quays of Belfast.<br> +<br> +Evil days were now coming thick on the Devonian. He could find +no berth in Belfast, and had to work a passage to Glasgow on a steamer. +She reached the Broomielaw on a Wednesday: the Devonian had a bellyful +that morning, laying in breakfast manfully to provide against the future, +and set off along the quays to seek employment. But he was now +not only penniless, his clothes had begun to fall in tatters; he had +begun to have the look of a street Arab; and captains will have nothing +to say to a ragamuffin; for in that trade, as in all others, it is the +coat that depicts the man. You may hand, reef, and steer like +an angel, but if you have a hole in your trousers, it is like a millstone +round your neck. The Devonian lost heart at so many refusals. +He had not the impudence to beg; although, as he said, ‘when I +had money of my own, I always gave it.’ It was only on Saturday +morning, after three whole days of starvation, that he asked a scone +from a milkwoman, who added of her own accord a glass of milk. +He had now made up his mind to stow away, not from any desire to see +America, but merely to obtain the comfort of a place in the forecastle +and a supply of familiar sea-fare. He lived by begging, always +from milkwomen, and always scones and milk, and was not once refused. +It was vile wet weather, and he could never have been dry. By +night he walked the streets, and by day slept upon Glasgow Green, and +heard, in the intervals of his dozing, the famous theologians of the +spot clear up intricate points of doctrine and appraise the merits of +the clergy. He had not much instruction; he could ‘read +bills on the street,’ but was ‘main bad at writing’; +yet these theologians seem to have impressed him with a genuine sense +of amusement. Why he did not go to the Sailors’ House I +know not; I presume there is in Glasgow one of these institutions, which +are by far the happiest and the wisest effort of contemporaneous charity; +but I must stand to my author, as they say in old books, and relate +the story as I heard it. In the meantime, he had tried four times +to stow away in different vessels, and four times had been discovered +and handed back to starvation. The fifth time was lucky; and you +may judge if he were pleased to be aboard ship again, at his old work, +and with duff twice a week. He was, said Alick, ‘a devil +for the duff.’ Or if devil was not the word, it was one +if anything stronger.<br> +<br> +The difference in the conduct of the two was remarkable. The Devonian +was as willing as any paid hand, swarmed aloft among the first, pulled +his natural weight and firmly upon a rope, and found work for himself +when there was none to show him. Alick, on the other hand, was +not only a skulker in the brain, but took a humorous and fine gentlemanly +view of the transaction. He would speak to me by the hour in ostentatious +idleness; and only if the bo’s’un or a mate came by, fell-to +languidly for just the necessary time till they were out of sight. ‘I’m +not breaking my heart with it,’ he remarked.<br> +<br> +Once there was a hatch to be opened near where he was stationed; he +watched the preparations for a second or so suspiciously, and then, +‘Hullo,’ said he, ‘here’s some real work +coming - I’m off,’ and he was gone that moment. Again, +calculating the six guinea passage-money, and the probable duration +of the passage, he remarked pleasantly that he was getting six shillings +a day for this job, ‘and it’s pretty dear to the company +at that.’ ‘They are making nothing by me,’ was +another of his observations; ‘they’re making something by +that fellow.’ And he pointed to the Devonian, who was just +then busy to the eyes.<br> +<br> +The more you saw of Alick, the more, it must be owned, you learned to +despise him. His natural talents were of no use either to himself +or others; for his character had degenerated like his face, and become +pulpy and pretentious. Even his power of persuasion, which was +certainly very surprising, stood in some danger of being lost or neutralised +by over-confidence. He lied in an aggressive, brazen manner, like +a pert criminal in the dock; and he was so vain of his own cleverness +that he could not refrain from boasting, ten minutes after, of the very +trick by which he had deceived you. ‘Why, now I have more +money than when I came on board,’ he said one night, exhibiting +a sixpence, ‘and yet I stood myself a bottle of beer before I +went to bed yesterday. And as for tobacco, I have fifteen sticks +of it.’ That was fairly successful indeed; yet a man of +his superiority, and with a less obtrusive policy, might, who knows? +have got the length of half a crown. A man who prides himself +upon persuasion should learn the persuasive faculty of silence, above +all as to his own misdeeds. It is only in the farce and for dramatic +purposes that Scapin enlarges on his peculiar talents to the world at +large.<br> +<br> +Scapin is perhaps a good name for this clever, unfortunate Alick; for +at the bottom of all his misconduct there was a guiding sense of humour +that moved you to forgive him. It was more than half a jest that +he conducted his existence. ‘Oh, man,’ he said to +me once with unusual emotion, like a man thinking of his mistress, ‘I +would give up anything for a lark.’<br> +<br> +It was in relation to his fellow-stowaway that Alick showed the best, +or perhaps I should say the only good, points of his nature. ‘Mind +you,’ he said suddenly, changing his tone, ‘mind you that’s +a good boy. He wouldn’t tell you a lie. A lot of them +think he is a scamp because his clothes are ragged, but he isn’t; +he’s as good as gold.’ To hear him, you become aware +that Alick himself had a taste for virtue. He thought his own +idleness and the other’s industry equally becoming. He was +no more anxious to insure his own reputation as a liar than to uphold +the truthfulness of his companion; and he seemed unaware of what was +incongruous in his attitude, and was plainly sincere in both characters.<br> +<br> +It was not surprising that he should take an interest in the Devonian, +for the lad worshipped and served him in love and wonder. Busy +as he was, he would find time to warn Alick of an approaching officer, +or even to tell him that the coast was clear, and he might slip off +and smoke a pipe in safety. ‘Tom,’ he once said to +him, for that was the name which Alick ordered him to use, ‘if +you don’t like going to the galley, I’ll go for you. +You ain’t used to this kind of thing, you ain’t. But +I’m a sailor; and I can understand the feelings of any fellow, +I can.’ Again, he was hard up, and casting about for some +tobacco, for he was not so liberally used in this respect as others +perhaps less worthy, when Alick offered him the half of one of his fifteen +sticks. I think, for my part, he might have increased the offer +to a whole one, or perhaps a pair of them, and not lived to regret his +liberality. But the Devonian refused. ‘No,’ +he said, ‘you’re a stowaway like me; I won’t take +it from you, I’ll take it from some one who’s not down on +his luck.’<br> +<br> +It was notable in this generous lad that he was strongly under the influence +of sex. If a woman passed near where he was working, his eyes +lit up, his hand paused, and his mind wandered instantly to other thoughts. +It was natural that he should exercise a fascination proportionally +strong upon women. He begged, you will remember, from women only, +and was never refused. Without wishing to explain away the charity +of those who helped him, I cannot but fancy he may have owed a little +to his handsome face, and to that quick, responsive nature, formed for +love, which speaks eloquently through all disguises, and can stamp an +impression in ten minutes’ talk or an exchange of glances. +He was the more dangerous in that he was far from bold, but seemed to +woo in spite of himself, and with a soft and pleading eye. Ragged +as he was, and many a scarecrow is in that respect more comfortably +furnished, even on board he was not without some curious admirers.<br> +<br> +There was a girl among the passengers, a tall, blonde, handsome, strapping +Irishwoman, with a wild, accommodating eye, whom Alick had dubbed Tommy, +with that transcendental appropriateness that defies analysis. +One day the Devonian was lying for warmth in the upper stoke-hole, which +stands open on the deck, when Irish Tommy came past, very neatly attired, +as was her custom.<br> +<br> +‘Poor fellow,’ she said, stopping, ‘you haven’t +a vest.’<br> +<br> +‘No,’ he said; ‘I wish I ‘ad.’<br> +<br> +Then she stood and gazed on him in silence, until, in his embarrassment, +for he knew not how to look under this scrutiny, he pulled out his pipe +and began to fill it with tobacco.<br> +<br> +‘Do you want a match?’ she asked. And before he had +time to reply, she ran off and presently returned with more than one.<br> +<br> +That was the beginning and the end, as far as our passage is concerned, +of what I will make bold to call this love-affair. There are many +relations which go on to marriage and last during a lifetime, in which +less human feeling is engaged than in this scene of five minutes at +the stoke-hole.<br> +<br> +Rigidly speaking, this would end the chapter of the stowaways; but in +a larger sense of the word I have yet more to add. Jones had discovered +and pointed out to me a young woman who was remarkable among her fellows +for a pleasing and interesting air. She was poorly clad, to the +verge, if not over the line, of disrespectability, with a ragged old +jacket and a bit of a sealskin cap no bigger than your fist; but her +eyes, her whole expression, and her manner, even in ordinary moments, +told of a true womanly nature, capable of love, anger, and devotion. +She had a look, too, of refinement, like one who might have been a better +lady than most, had she been allowed the opportunity. When alone +she seemed preoccupied and sad; but she was not often alone; there was +usually by her side a heavy, dull, gross man in rough clothes, chary +of speech and gesture - not from caution, but poverty of disposition; +a man like a ditcher, unlovely and uninteresting; whom she petted and +tended and waited on with her eyes as if he had been Amadis of Gaul. +It was strange to see this hulking fellow dog-sick, and this delicate, +sad woman caring for him. He seemed, from first to last, insensible +of her caresses and attentions, and she seemed unconscious of his insensibility. +The Irish husband, who sang his wife to sleep, and this Scottish girl +serving her Orson, were the two bits of human nature that most appealed +to me throughout the voyage.<br> +<br> +On the Thursday before we arrived, the tickets were collected; and soon +a rumour began to go round the vessel; and this girl, with her bit of +sealskin cap, became the centre of whispering and pointed fingers. +She also, it was said, was a stowaway of a sort; for she was on board +with neither ticket nor money; and the man with whom she travelled was +the father of a family, who had left wife and children to be hers. +The ship’s officers discouraged the story, which may therefore +have been a story and no more; but it was believed in the steerage, +and the poor girl had to encounter many curious eyes from that day forth.<br> +<br> +<br> +PERSONAL EXPERIENCE AND REVIEW<br> +<br> +<br> +Travel is of two kinds; and this voyage of mine across the ocean combined +both. ‘Out of my country and myself I go,’ sings the +old poet: and I was not only travelling out of my country in latitude +and longitude, but out of myself in diet, associates, and consideration. +Part of the interest and a great deal of the amusement flowed, at least +to me, from this novel situation in the world.<br> +<br> +I found that I had what they call fallen in life with absolute success +and verisimilitude. I was taken for a steerage passenger; no one +seemed surprised that I should be so; and there was nothing but the +brass plate between decks to remind me that I had once been a gentleman. +In a former book, describing a former journey, I expressed some wonder +that I could be readily and naturally taken for a pedlar, and explained +the accident by the difference of language and manners between England +and France. I must now take a humbler view; for here I was among +my own countrymen, somewhat roughly clad to be sure, but with every +advantage of speech and manner; and I am bound to confess that I passed +for nearly anything you please except an educated gentleman. The +sailors called me ‘mate,’ the officers addressed me as ‘my +man,’ my comrades accepted me without hesitation for a person +of their own character and experience, but with some curious information. +One, a mason himself, believed I was a mason; several, and among these +at least one of the seaman, judged me to be a petty officer in the American +navy; and I was so often set down for a practical engineer that at last +I had not the heart to deny it. From all these guesses I drew +one conclusion, which told against the insight of my companions. +They might be close observers in their own way, and read the manners +in the face; but it was plain that they did not extend their observation +to the hands.<br> +<br> +To the saloon passengers also I sustained my part without a hitch. +It is true I came little in their way; but when we did encounter, there +was no recognition in their eye, although I confess I sometimes courted +it in silence. All these, my inferiors and equals, took me, like +the transformed monarch in the story, for a mere common, human man. +They gave me a hard, dead look, with the flesh about the eye kept unrelaxed.<br> +<br> +With the women this surprised me less, as I had already experimented +on the sex by going abroad through a suburban part of London simply +attired in a sleeve-waistcoat. The result was curious. I +then learned for the first time, and by the exhaustive process, how +much attention ladies are accustomed to bestow on all male creatures +of their own station; for, in my humble rig, each one who went by me +caused me a certain shock of surprise and a sense of something wanting. +In my normal circumstances, it appeared every young lady must have paid +me some tribute of a glance; and though I had often not detected it +when it was given, I was well aware of its absence when it was withheld. +My height seemed to decrease with every woman who passed me, for she +passed me like a dog. This is one of my grounds for supposing +that what are called the upper classes may sometimes produce a disagreeable +impression in what are called the lower; and I wish some one would continue +my experiment, and find out exactly at what stage of toilette a man +becomes invisible to the well-regulated female eye.<br> +<br> +Here on shipboard the matter was put to a more complete test; for, even +with the addition of speech and manner, I passed among the ladies for +precisely the average man of the steerage. It was one afternoon +that I saw this demonstrated. A very plainly dressed woman was +taken ill on deck. I think I had the luck to be present at every +sudden seizure during all the passage; and on this occasion found myself +in the place of importance, supporting the sufferer. There was +not only a large crowd immediately around us, but a considerable knot +of saloon passengers leaning over our heads from the hurricane-deck. +One of these, an elderly managing woman, hailed me with counsels. +Of course I had to reply; and as the talk went on, I began to discover +that the whole group took me for the husband. I looked upon my +new wife, poor creature, with mingled feelings; and I must own she had +not even the appearance of the poorest class of city servant-maids, +but looked more like a country wench who should have been employed at +a roadside inn. Now was the time for me to go and study the brass +plate.<br> +<br> +To such of the officers as knew about me - the doctor, the purser, and +the stewards - I appeared in the light of a broad joke. The fact +that I spent the better part of my day in writing had gone abroad over +the ship and tickled them all prodigiously. Whenever they met +me they referred to my absurd occupation with familiarity and breadth +of humorous intention. Their manner was well calculated to remind +me of my fallen fortunes. You may be sincerely amused by the amateur +literary efforts of a gentleman, but you scarce publish the feeling +to his face. ‘Well!’ they would say: ‘still writing?’ +And the smile would widen into a laugh. The purser came one day +into the cabin, and, touched to the heart by my misguided industry, +offered me some other kind of writing, ‘for which,’ he added +pointedly, ‘you will be paid.’ This was nothing else +than to copy out the list of passengers.<br> +<br> +Another trick of mine which told against my reputation was my choice +of roosting-place in an active draught upon the cabin floor. I +was openly jeered and flouted for this eccentricity; and a considerable +knot would sometimes gather at the door to see my last dispositions +for the night. This was embarrassing, but I learned to support +the trial with equanimity.<br> +<br> +Indeed I may say that, upon the whole, my new position sat lightly and +naturally upon my spirits. I accepted the consequences with readiness, +and found them far from difficult to bear. The steerage conquered +me; I conformed more and more to the type of the place, not only in +manner but at heart, growing hostile to the officers and cabin passengers +who looked down upon me, and day by day greedier for small delicacies. +Such was the result, as I fancy, of a diet of bread and butter, soup +and porridge. We think we have no sweet tooth as long as we are +full to the brim of molasses; but a man must have sojourned in the workhouse +before he boasts himself indifferent to dainties. Every evening, +for instance, I was more and more preoccupied about our doubtful fare +at tea. If it was delicate my heart was much lightened; if it +was but broken fish I was proportionally downcast. The offer of +a little jelly from a fellow-passenger more provident than myself caused +a marked elevation in my spirits. And I would have gone to the +ship’s end and back again for an oyster or a chipped fruit.<br> +<br> +In other ways I was content with my position. It seemed no disgrace +to be confounded with my company; for I may as well declare at once +I found their manners as gentle and becoming as those of any other class. +I do not mean that my friends could have sat down without embarrassment +and laughable disaster at the table of a duke. That does not imply +an inferiority of breeding, but a difference of usage. Thus I +flatter myself that I conducted myself well among my fellow-passengers; +yet my most ambitious hope is not to have avoided faults, but to have +committed as few as possible. I know too well that my tact is +not the same as their tact, and that my habit of a different society +constituted, not only no qualification, but a positive disability to +move easily and becomingly in this. When Jones complimented me +- because I ‘managed to behave very pleasantly’ to my fellow-passengers, +was how he put it - I could follow the thought in his mind, and knew +his compliment to be such as we pay foreigners on their proficiency +in English. I dare say this praise was given me immediately on +the back of some unpardonable solecism, which had led him to review +my conduct as a whole. We are all ready to laugh at the ploughman +among lords; we should consider also the case of a lord among the ploughmen. +I have seen a lawyer in the house of a Hebridean fisherman; and I know, +but nothing will induce me to disclose, which of these two was the better +gentleman. Some of our finest behaviour, though it looks well +enough from the boxes, may seem even brutal to the gallery. We +boast too often manners that are parochial rather than universal; that, +like a country wine, will not bear transportation for a hundred miles, +nor from the parlour to the kitchen. To be a gentleman is to be +one all the world over, and in every relation and grade of society. +It is a high calling, to which a man must first be born, and then devote +himself for life. And, unhappily, the manners of a certain so-called +upper grade have a kind of currency, and meet with a certain external +acceptation throughout all the others, and this tends to keep us well +satisfied with slight acquirements and the amateurish accomplishments +of a clique. But manners, like art, should be human and central.<br> +<br> +Some of my fellow-passengers, as I now moved among them in a relation +of equality, seemed to me excellent gentlemen. They were not rough, +nor hasty, nor disputatious; debated pleasantly, differed kindly; were +helpful, gentle, patient, and placid. The type of manners was +plain, and even heavy; there was little to please the eye, but nothing +to shock; and I thought gentleness lay more nearly at the spring of +behaviour than in many more ornate and delicate societies. I say +delicate, where I cannot say refined; a thing may be fine, like ironwork, +without being delicate, like lace. There was here less delicacy; +the skin supported more callously the natural surface of events, the +mind received more bravely the crude facts of human existence; but I +do not think that there was less effective refinement, less consideration +for others, less polite suppression of self. I speak of the best +among my fellow-passengers; for in the steerage, as well as in the saloon, +there is a mixture. Those, then, with whom I found myself in sympathy, +and of whom I may therefore hope to write with a greater measure of +truth, were not only as good in their manners, but endowed with very +much the same natural capacities, and about as wise in deduction, as +the bankers and barristers of what is called society. One and +all were too much interested in disconnected facts, and loved information +for its own sake with too rash a devotion; but people in all classes +display the same appetite as they gorge themselves daily with the miscellaneous +gossip of the newspaper. Newspaper-reading, as far as I can make +out, is often rather a sort of brown study than an act of culture. +I have myself palmed off yesterday’s issue on a friend, and seen +him re-peruse it for a continuance of minutes with an air at once refreshed +and solemn. Workmen, perhaps, pay more attention; but though they +may be eager listeners, they have rarely seemed to me either willing +or careful thinkers. Culture is not measured by the greatness +of the field which is covered by our knowledge, but by the nicety with +which we can perceive relations in that field, whether great or small. +Workmen, certainly those who were on board with me, I found wanting +in this quality or habit of the mind. They did not perceive relations, +but leaped to a so-called cause, and thought the problem settled. +Thus the cause of everything in England was the form of government, +and the cure for all evils was, by consequence, a revolution. +It is surprising how many of them said this, and that none should have +had a definite thought in his head as he said it. Some hated the +Church because they disagreed with it; some hated Lord Beaconsfield +because of war and taxes; all hated the masters, possibly with reason. +But these failings were not at the root of the matter; the true reasoning +of their souls ran thus - I have not got on; I ought to have got on; +if there was a revolution I should get on. How? They had +no idea. Why? Because - because - well, look at America!<br> +<br> +To be politically blind is no distinction; we are all so, if you come +to that. At bottom, as it seems to me, there is but one question +in modern home politics, though it appears in many shapes, and that +is the question of money; and but one political remedy, that the people +should grow wiser and better. My workmen fellow-passengers were +as impatient and dull of hearing on the second of these points as any +member of Parliament; but they had some glimmerings of the first. +They would not hear of improvement on their part, but wished the world +made over again in a crack, so that they might remain improvident and +idle and debauched, and yet enjoy the comfort and respect that should +accompany the opposite virtues; and it was in this expectation, as far +as I could see, that many of them were now on their way to America. +But on the point of money they saw clearly enough that inland politics, +so far as they were concerned, were reducible to the question of annual +income; a question which should long ago have been settled by a revolution, +they did not know how, and which they were now about to settle for themselves, +once more they knew not how, by crossing the Atlantic in a steamship +of considerable tonnage.<br> +<br> +And yet it has been amply shown them that the second or income question +is in itself nothing, and may as well be left undecided, if there be +no wisdom and virtue to profit by the change. It is not by a man’s +purse, but by his character that he is rich or poor. Barney will +be poor, Alick will be poor, Mackay will be poor; let them go where +they will, and wreck all the governments under heaven, they will be +poor until they die.<br> +<br> +Nothing is perhaps more notable in the average workman than his surprising +idleness, and the candour with which he confesses to the failing. +It has to me been always something of a relief to find the poor, as +a general rule, so little oppressed with work. I can in consequence +enjoy my own more fortunate beginning with a better grace. The +other day I was living with a farmer in America, an old frontiersman, +who had worked and fought, hunted and farmed, from his childhood up. +He excused himself for his defective education on the ground that he +had been overworked from first to last. Even now, he said, anxious +as he was, he had never the time to take up a book. In consequence +of this, I observed him closely; he was occupied for four or, at the +extreme outside, for five hours out of the twenty-four, and then principally +in walking; and the remainder of the day he passed in born idleness, +either eating fruit or standing with his back against a door. +I have known men do hard literary work all morning, and then undergo +quite as much physical fatigue by way of relief as satisfied this powerful +frontiersman for the day. He, at least, like all the educated +class, did so much homage to industry as to persuade himself he was +industrious. But the average mechanic recognises his idleness +with effrontery; he has even, as I am told, organised it.<br> +<br> +I give the story as it was told me, and it was told me for a fact. +A man fell from a housetop in the city of Aberdeen, and was brought +into hospital with broken bones. He was asked what was his trade, +and replied that he was a <i>tapper</i>. No one had ever heard +of such a thing before; the officials were filled with curiosity; they +besought an explanation. It appeared that when a party of slaters +were engaged upon a roof, they would now and then be taken with a fancy +for the public-house. Now a seamstress, for example, might slip +away from her work and no one be the wiser; but if these fellows adjourned, +the tapping of the mallets would cease, and thus the neighbourhood be +advertised of their defection. Hence the career of the tapper. +He has to do the tapping and keep up an industrious bustle on the housetop +during the absence of the slaters. When he taps for only one or +two the thing is child’s-play, but when he has to represent a +whole troop, it is then that he earns his money in the sweat of his +brow. Then must he bound from spot to spot, reduplicate, triplicate, +sexduplicate his single personality, and swell and hasten his blows., +until he produce a perfect illusion for the ear, and you would swear +that a crowd of emulous masons were continuing merrily to roof the house. +It must be a strange sight from an upper window.<br> +<br> +I heard nothing on board of the tapper; but I was astonished at the +stories told by my companions. Skulking, shirking, malingering, +were all established tactics, it appeared. They could see no dishonesty +where a man who is paid for an bones work gives half an hour’s +consistent idling in its place. Thus the tapper would refuse to +watch for the police during a burglary, and call himself a honest man. +It is not sufficiently recognised that our race detests to work. +If I thought that I should have to work every day of my life as hard +as I am working now, I should be tempted to give up the struggle. +And the workman early begins on his career of toil. He has never +had his fill of holidays in the past, and his prospect of holidays in +the future is both distant and uncertain. In the circumstances, +it would require a high degree of virtue not to snatch alleviations +for the moment.<br> +<br> +There were many good talkers on the ship; and I believe good talking +of a certain sort is a common accomplishment among working men. +Where books are comparatively scarce, a greater amount of information +will be given and received by word of mouth; and this tends to produce +good talkers, and, what is no less needful for conversation, good listeners. +They could all tell a story with effect. I am sometimes tempted +to think that the less literary class show always better in narration; +they have so much more patience with detail, are so much less hurried +to reach the points, and preserve so much juster a proportion among +the facts. At the same time their talk is dry; they pursue a topic +ploddingly, have not an agile fancy, do not throw sudden lights from +unexpected quarters, and when the talk is over they often leave the +matter where it was. They mark time instead of marching. +They think only to argue, not to reach new conclusions, and use their +reason rather as a weapon of offense than as a tool for self-improvement. +Hence the talk of some of the cleverest was unprofitable in result, +because there was no give and take; they would grant you as little as +possible for premise, and begin to dispute under an oath to conquer +or to die.<br> +<br> +But the talk of a workman is apt to be more interesting than that of +a wealthy merchant, because the thoughts, hopes, and fears of which +the workman’s life is built lie nearer to necessity and nature. +They are more immediate to human life. An income calculated by +the week is a far more human thing than one calculated by the year, +and a small income, simply from its smallness, than a large one. +I never wearied listening to the details of a workman’s economy, +because every item stood for some real pleasure. If he could afford +pudding twice a week, you know that twice a week the man ate with genuine +gusto and was physically happy; while if you learn that a rich man has +seven courses a day, ten to one the half of them remain untasted, and +the whole is but misspent money and a weariness to the flesh.<br> +<br> +The difference between England and America to a working man was thus +most humanly put to me by a fellow-passenger: ‘In America,’ +said he, ‘you get pies and puddings.’ I do not hear +enough, in economy books, of pies and pudding. A man lives in +and for the delicacies, adornments, and accidental attributes of life, +such as pudding to eat and pleasant books and theatres to occupy his +leisure. The bare terms of existence would be rejected with contempt +by all. If a man feeds on bread and butter, soup and porridge, +his appetite grows wolfish after dainties. And the workman dwells +in a borderland, and is always within sight of those cheerless regions +where life is more difficult to sustain than worth sustaining. +Every detail of our existence, where it is worth while to cross the +ocean after pie and pudding, is made alive and enthralling by the presence +of genuine desire; but it is all one to me whether Croesus has a hundred +or a thousand thousands in the bank. There is more adventure in +the life of the working man who descends as a common solder into the +battle of life, than in that of the millionaire who sits apart in an +office, like Von Moltke, and only directs the manoeuvres by telegraph. +Give me to hear about the career of him who is in the thick of business; +to whom one change of market means empty belly, and another a copious +and savoury meal. This is not the philosophical, but the human +side of economics; it interests like a story; and the life all who are +thus situated partakes in a small way the charm of <i>Robinson Crusoe</i>; +for every step is critical and human life is presented to you naked +and verging to its lowest terms.<br> +<br> +<br> +NEW YORK<br> +<br> +<br> +As we drew near to New York I was at first amused, and then somewhat +staggered, by the cautious and the grisly tales that went the round. +You would have thought we were to land upon a cannibal island. +You must speak to no one in the streets, as they would not leave you +till you were rooked and beaten. You must enter a hotel with military +precautions; for the least you had to apprehend was to awake next morning +without money or baggage, or necessary raiment, a lone forked radish +in a bed; and if the worst befell, you would instantly and mysteriously +disappear from the ranks of mankind.<br> +<br> +I have usually found such stories correspond to the least modicum of +fact. Thus I was warned, I remember, against the roadside inns +of the Cévennes, and that by a learned professor; and when I +reached Pradelles the warning was explained - it was but the far-away +rumour and reduplication of a single terrifying story already half a +century old, and half forgotten in the theatre of the events. +So I was tempted to make light of these reports against America. +But we had on board with us a man whose evidence it would not do to +put aside. He had come near these perils in the body; he had visited +a robber inn. The public has an old and well-grounded favour for +this class of incident, and shall be gratified to the best of my power.<br> +<br> +My fellow-passenger, whom we shall call M’Naughten, had come from +New York to Boston with a comrade, seeking work. They were a pair +of rattling blades; and, leaving their baggage at the station, passed +the day in beer saloons, and with congenial spirits, until midnight +struck. Then they applied themselves to find a lodging, and walked +the streets till two, knocking at houses of entertainment and being +refused admittance, or themselves declining the terms. By two +the inspiration of their liquor had begun to wear off; they were weary +and humble, and after a great circuit found themselves in the same street +where they had begun their search, and in front of a French hotel where +they had already sought accommodation. Seeing the house still +open, they returned to the charge. A man in a white cap sat in +an office by the door. He seemed to welcome them more warmly than +when they had first presented themselves, and the charge for the night +had somewhat unaccountably fallen from a dollar to a quarter. +They thought him ill-looking, but paid their quarter apiece, and were +shown upstairs to the top of the house. There, in a small room, +the man in the white cap wished them pleasant slumbers.<br> +<br> +It was furnished with a bed, a chair, and some conveniences. The +door did not lock on the inside; and the only sign of adornment was +a couple of framed pictures, one close above the head of the bed, and +the other opposite the foot, and both curtained, as we may sometimes +see valuable water-colours, or the portraits of the dead, or works of +art more than usually skittish in the subject. It was perhaps +in the hope of finding something of this last description that M’Naughten’s +comrade pulled aside the curtain of the first. He was startlingly +disappointed. There was no picture. The frame surrounded, +and the curtain was designed to hide, an oblong aperture in the partition, +through which they looked forth into the dark corridor. A person +standing without could easily take a purse from under the pillow, or +even strangle a sleeper as he lay abed. M’Naughten and his +comrade stared at each other like Vasco’s seamen, ‘with +a wild surmise’; and then the latter, catching up the lamp, ran +to the other frame and roughly raised the curtain. There he stood, +petrified; and M’Naughten, who had followed, grasped him by the +wrist in terror. They could see into another room, larger in size +than that which they occupied, where three men sat crouching and silent +in the dark. For a second or so these five persons looked each +other in the eyes, then the curtain was dropped, and M’Naughten +and his friend made but one bolt of it out of the room and downstairs. +The man in the white cap said nothing as they passed him; and they were +so pleased to be once more in the open night that they gave up all notion +of a bed, and walked the streets of Boston till the morning.<br> +<br> +No one seemed much cast down by these stories, but all inquired after +the address of a respectable hotel; and I, for my part, put myself under +the conduct of Mr. Jones. Before noon of the second Sunday we +sighted the low shores outside of New York harbour; the steerage passengers +must remain on board to pass through Castle Garden on the following +morning; but we of the second cabin made our escape along with the lords +of the saloon; and by six o’clock Jones and I issued into West +Street, sitting on some straw in the bottom of an open baggage-wagon. +It rained miraculously; and from that moment till on the following night +I left New York, there was scarce a lull, and no cessation of the downpour. +The roadways were flooded; a loud strident noise of falling water filled +the air; the restaurants smelt heavily of wet people and wet clothing.<br> +<br> +It took us but a few minutes, though it cost us a good deal of money, +to be rattled along West Street to our destination: ‘Reunion House, +No. 10 West Street, one minutes walk from Castle Garden; convenient +to Castle Garden, the Steamboat Landings, California Steamers and Liverpool +Ships; Board and Lodging per day 1 dollar, single meals 25 cents, lodging +per night 25 cents; private rooms for families; no charge for storage +or baggage; satisfaction guaranteed to all persons; Michael Mitchell, +Proprietor.’ Reunion House was, I may go the length of saying, +a humble hostelry. You entered through a long bar-room, thence +passed into a little dining-room, and thence into a still smaller kitchen. +The furniture was of the plainest; but the bar was hung in the American +taste, with encouraging and hospitable mottoes.<br> +<br> +Jones was well known; we were received warmly; and two minutes afterwards +I had refused a drink from the proprietor, and was going on, in my plain +European fashion, to refuse a cigar, when Mr. Mitchell sternly interposed, +and explained the situation. He was offering to treat me, it appeared, +whenever an American bar-keeper proposes anything, it must be borne +in mind that he is offering to treat; and if I did not want a drink, +I must at least take the cigar. I took it bashfully, feeling I +had begun my American career on the wrong foot. I did not enjoy +that cigar; but this may have been from a variety of reasons, even the +best cigar often failing to please if you smoke three-quarters of it +in a drenching rain.<br> +<br> +For many years America was to me a sort of promised land; ‘westward +the march of empire holds its way’; the race is for the moment +to the young; what has been and what is we imperfectly and obscurely +know; what is to be yet lies beyond the flight of our imaginations. +Greece, Rome, and Judaea are gone by forever, leaving to generations +the legacy of their accomplished work; China still endures, an old-inhabited +house in the brand-new city of nations; England has already declined, +since she has lost the States; and to these States, therefore, yet undeveloped, +full of dark possibilities, and grown, like another Eve, from one rib +out of the side of their own old land, the minds of young men in England +turn naturally at a certain hopeful period of their age. It will +be hard for an American to understand the spirit. But let him +imagine a young man, who shall have grown up in an old and rigid circle, +following bygone fashions and taught to distrust his own fresh instincts, +and who now suddenly hears of a family of cousins, all about his own +age, who keep house together by themselves and live far from restraint +and tradition; let him imagine this, and he will have some imperfect +notion of the sentiment with which spirited English youths turn to the +thought of the American Republic. It seems to them as if, out +west, the war of life was still conducted in the open air, and on free +barbaric terms; as if it had not yet been narrowed into parlours, nor +begun to be conducted, like some unjust and dreary arbitration, by compromise, +costume forms of procedure, and sad, senseless self-denial. Which +of these two he prefers, a man with any youth still left in him will +decide rightly for himself. He would rather be houseless than +denied a pass-key; rather go without food than partake of stalled ox +in stiff, respectable society; rather be shot out of hand than direct +his life according to the dictates of the world.<br> +<br> +He knows or thinks nothing of the Maine Laws, the Puritan sourness, +the fierce, sordid appetite for dollars, or the dreary existence of +country towns. A few wild story-books which delighted his childhood +form the imaginative basis of his picture of America. In course +of time, there is added to this a great crowd of stimulating details +- vast cities that grow up as by enchantment; the birds, that have gone +south in autumn, returning with the spring to find thousands camped +upon their marshes, and the lamps burning far and near along populous +streets; forests that disappear like snow; countries larger than Britain +that are cleared and settled, one man running forth with his household +gods before another, while the bear and the Indian are yet scarce aware +of their approach; oil that gushes from the earth; gold that is washed +or quarried in the brooks or glens of the Sierras; and all that bustle, +courage, action, and constant kaleidoscopic change that Walt Whitman +has seized and set forth in his vigorous, cheerful, and loquacious verses.<br> +<br> +Here I was at last in America, and was soon out upon New York streets, +spying for things foreign. The place had to me an air of Liverpool; +but such was the rain that not Paradise itself would have looked inviting. +We were a party of four, under two umbrellas; Jones and I and two Scots +lads, recent immigrants, and not indisposed to welcome a compatriot. +They had been six weeks in New York, and neither of them had yet found +a single job or earned a single halfpenny. Up to the present they +were exactly out of pocket by the amount of the fare.<br> +<br> +The lads soon left us. Now I had sworn by all my gods to have +such a dinner as would rouse the dead; there was scarce any expense +at which I should have hesitated; the devil was in it, but Jones and +I should dine like heathen emperors. I set to work, asking after +a restaurant; and I chose the wealthiest and most gastronomical-looking +passers-by to ask from. Yet, although I had told them I was willing +to pay anything in reason, one and all sent me off to cheap, fixed-price +houses, where I would not have eaten that night for the cost of twenty +dinners. I do not know if this were characteristic of New York, +or whether it was only Jones and I who looked un-dinerly and discouraged +enterprising suggestions. But at length, by our own sagacity, +we found a French restaurant, where there was a French waiter, some +fair French cooking, some so-called French wine, and French coffee to +conclude the whole. I never entered into the feelings of Jack +on land so completely as when I tasted that coffee.<br> +<br> +I suppose we had one of the ‘private rooms for families’ +at Reunion House. It was very small, furnished with a bed, a chair, +and some clothes-pegs; and it derived all that was necessary for the +life of the human animal through two borrowed lights; one looking into +the passage, and the second opening, without sash, into another apartment, +where three men fitfully snored, or in intervals of wakefulness, drearily +mumbled to each other all night long. It will be observed that +this was almost exactly the disposition of the room in M’Naughten’s +story. Jones had the bed; I pitched my camp upon the floor; he +did not sleep until near morning, and I, for my part, never closed an +eye.<br> +<br> +At sunrise I heard a cannon fired; and shortly afterwards the men in +the next room gave over snoring for good, and began to rustle over their +toilettes. The sound of their voices as they talked was low and +like that of people watching by the sick. Jones, who had at last +begun to doze, tumbled and murmured, and every now and then opened unconscious +eyes upon me where I lay. I found myself growing eerier and eerier, +for I dare say I was a little fevered by my restless night, and hurried +to dress and get downstairs.<br> +<br> +You had to pass through the rain, which still fell thick and resonant, +to reach a lavatory on the other side of the court. There were +three basin-stands, and a few crumpled towels and pieces of wet soap, +white and slippery like fish; nor should I forget a looking-glass and +a pair of questionable combs. Another Scots lad was here, scrubbing +his face with a good will. He had been three months in New York +and had not yet found a single job nor earned a single halfpenny. +Up to the present, he also was exactly out of pocket by the amount of +the fare. I began to grow sick at heart for my fellow-emigrants.<br> +<br> +Of my nightmare wanderings in New York I spare to tell. I had +a thousand and one things to do; only the day to do them in, and a journey +across the continent before me in the evening. It rained with +patient fury; every now and then I had to get under cover for a while +in order, so to speak, to give my mackintosh a rest; for under this +continued drenching it began to grow damp on the inside. I went +to banks, post-offices, railway-offices, restaurants, publishers, booksellers, +money-changers, and wherever I went a pool would gather about my feet, +and those who were careful of their floors would look on with an unfriendly +eye. Wherever I went, too, the same traits struck me: the people +were all surprisingly rude and surprisingly kind. The money-changer +cross-questioned me like a French commissary, asking my age, my business, +my average income, and my destination, beating down my attempts at evasion, +and receiving my answers in silence; and yet when all was over, he shook +hands with me up to the elbows, and sent his lad nearly a quarter of +a mile in the rain to get me books at a reduction. Again, in a +very large publishing and bookselling establishment, a man, who seemed +to be the manager, received me as I had certainly never before been +received in any human shop, indicated squarely that he put no faith +in my honesty, and refused to look up the names of books or give me +the slightest help or information, on the ground, like the steward, +that it was none of his business. I lost my temper at last, said +I was a stranger in America and not learned in their etiquette; but +I would assure him, if he went to any bookseller in England, of more +handsome usage. The boast was perhaps exaggerated; but like many +a long shot, it struck the gold. The manager passed at once from +one extreme to the other; I may say that from that moment he loaded +me with kindness; he gave me all sorts of good advice, wrote me down +addresses, and came bareheaded into the rain to point me out a restaurant, +where I might lunch, nor even then did he seem to think that he had +done enough. These are (it is as well to be bold in statement) +the manners of America. It is this same opposition that has most +struck me in people of almost all classes and from east to west. +By the time a man had about strung me up to be the death of him by his +insulting behaviour, he himself would be just upon the point of melting +into confidence and serviceable attentions. Yet I suspect, although +I have met with the like in so many parts, that this must be the character +of some particular state or group of states, for in America, and this +again in all classes, you will find some of the softest-mannered gentlemen +in the world.<br> +<br> +I was so wet when I got back to Mitchell’s toward the evening, +that I had simply to divest myself of my shoes, socks, and trousers, +and leave them behind for the benefit of New York city. No fire +could have dried them ere I had to start; and to pack them in their +present condition was to spread ruin among my other possessions. +With a heavy heart I said farewell to them as they lay a pulp in the +middle of a pool upon the floor of Mitchell’s kitchen. I +wonder if they are dry by now. Mitchell hired a man to carry my +baggage to the station, which was hard by, accompanied me thither himself, +and recommended me to the particular attention of the officials. +No one could have been kinder. Those who are out of pocket may +go safely to Reunion House, where they will get decent meals and find +an honest and obliging landlord. I owed him this word of thanks, +before I enter fairly on the second <a name="citation1"></a><a href="#footnote1">{1}</a> +and far less agreeable chapter of my emigrant experience.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER II - COCKERMOUTH AND KESWICK - A FRAGMENT - 1871<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Very much as a painter half closes his eyes so that some salient unity +may disengage itself from among the crowd of details, and what he sees +may thus form itself into a whole; very much on the same principle, +I may say, I allow a considerable lapse of time to intervene between +any of my little journeyings and the attempt to chronicle them. +I cannot describe a thing that is before me at the moment, or that has +been before me only a very little while before; I must allow my recollections +to get thoroughly strained free from all chaff till nothing be except +the pure gold; allow my memory to choose out what is truly memorable +by a process of natural selection; and I piously believe that in this +way I ensure the Survival of the Fittest. If I make notes for +future use, or if I am obliged to write letters during the course of +my little excursion, I so interfere with the process that I can never +again find out what is worthy of being preserved, or what should be +given in full length, what in torso, or what merely in profile. +This process of incubation may be unreasonably prolonged; and I am somewhat +afraid that I have made this mistake with the present journey. +Like a bad daguerreotype, great part of it has been entirely lost; I +can tell you nothing about the beginning and nothing about the end; +but the doings of some fifty or sixty hours about the middle remain +quite distinct and definite, like a little patch of sunshine on a long, +shadowy plain, or the one spot on an old picture that has been restored +by the dexterous hand of the cleaner. I remember a tale of an +old Scots minister called upon suddenly to preach, who had hastily snatched +an old sermon out of his study and found himself in the pulpit before +he noticed that the rats had been making free with his manuscript and +eaten the first two or three pages away; he gravely explained to the +congregation how he found himself situated: ‘And now,’ said +he, ‘let us just begin where the rats have left off.’ +I must follow the divine’s example, and take up the thread of +my discourse where it first distinctly issues from the limbo of forgetfulness.<br> +<br> +<br> +COCKERMOUTH<br> +<br> +<br> +I was lighting my pipe as I stepped out of the inn at Cockermouth, and +did not raise my head until I was fairly in the street. When I +did so, it flashed upon me that I was in England; the evening sunlight +lit up English houses, English faces, an English conformation of street, +- as it were, an English atmosphere blew against my face. There +is nothing perhaps more puzzling (if one thing in sociology can ever +really be more unaccountable than another) than the great gulf that +is set between England and Scotland - a gulf so easy in appearance, +in reality so difficult to traverse. Here are two people almost +identical in blood; pent up together on one small island, so that their +intercourse (one would have thought) must be as close as that of prisoners +who shared one cell of the Bastille; the same in language and religion; +and yet a few years of quarrelsome isolation - a mere forenoon’s +tiff, as one may call it, in comparison with the great historical cycles +- has so separated their thoughts and ways that not unions, not mutual +dangers, nor steamers, nor railways, nor all the king’s horses +and all the king’s men, seem able to obliterate the broad distinction. +In the trituration of another century or so the corners may disappear; +but in the meantime, in the year of grace 1871, I was as much in a new +country as if I had been walking out of the Hotel St. Antoine at Antwerp.<br> +<br> +I felt a little thrill of pleasure at my heart as I realised the change, +and strolled away up the street with my hands behind my back, noting +in a dull, sensual way how foreign, and yet how friendly, were the slopes +of the gables and the colour of the tiles, and even the demeanour and +voices of the gossips round about me.<br> +<br> +Wandering in this aimless humour, I turned up a lane and found myself +following the course of the bright little river. I passed first +one and then another, then a third, several couples out love-making +in the spring evening; and a consequent feeling of loneliness was beginning +to grow upon me, when I came to a dam across the river, and a mill - +a great, gaunt promontory of building, - half on dry ground and half +arched over the stream. The road here drew in its shoulders and +crept through between the landward extremity of the mill and a little +garden enclosure, with a small house and a large signboard within its +privet hedge. I was pleased to fancy this an inn, and drew little +etchings in fancy of a sanded parlour, and three-cornered spittoons, +and a society of parochial gossips seated within over their churchwardens; +but as I drew near, the board displayed its superscription, and I could +read the name of Smethurst, and the designation of ‘Canadian Felt +Hat Manufacturers.’ There was no more hope of evening fellowship, +and I could only stroll on by the river-side, under the trees. +The water was dappled with slanting sunshine, and dusted all over with +a little mist of flying insects. There were some amorous ducks, +also, whose lovemaking reminded me of what I had seen a little farther +down. But the road grew sad, and I grew weary; and as I was perpetually +haunted with the terror of a return of the tie that had been playing +such ruin in my head a week ago, I turned and went back to the inn, +and supper, and my bed.<br> +<br> +The next morning, at breakfast, I communicated to the smart waitress +my intention of continuing down the coast and through Whitehaven to +Furness, and, as I might have expected, I was instantly confronted by +that last and most worrying form of interference, that chooses to introduce +tradition and authority into the choice of a man’s own pleasures. +I can excuse a person combating my religious or philosophical heresies, +because them I have deliberately accepted, and am ready to justify by +present argument. But I do not seek to justify my pleasures. +If I prefer tame scenery to grand, a little hot sunshine over lowland +parks and woodlands to the war of the elements round the summit of Mont +Blanc; or if I prefer a pipe of mild tobacco, and the company of one +or two chosen companions, to a ball where I feel myself very hot, awkward, +and weary, I merely state these preferences as facts, and do not seek +to establish them as principles. This is not the general rule, +however, and accordingly the waitress was shocked, as one might be at +a heresy, to hear the route that I had sketched out for myself. +Everybody who came to Cockermouth for pleasure, it appeared, went on +to Keswick. It was in vain that I put up a little plea for the +liberty of the subject; it was in vain that I said I should prefer to +go to Whitehaven. I was told that there was ‘nothing to +see there’ - that weary, hackneyed, old falsehood; and at last, +as the handmaiden began to look really concerned, I gave way, as men +always do in such circumstances, and agreed that I was to leave for +Keswick by a train in the early evening.<br> +<br> +<br> +AN EVANGELIST<br> +<br> +<br> +Cockermouth itself, on the same authority, was a Place with ‘nothing +to see’; nevertheless I saw a good deal, and retain a pleasant, +vague picture of the town and all its surroundings. I might have +dodged happily enough all day about the main street and up to the castle +and in and out of byways, but the curious attraction that leads a person +in a strange place to follow, day after day, the same round, and to +make set habits for himself in a week or ten days, led me half unconsciously +up the same, road that I had gone the evening before. When I came +up to the hat manufactory, Smethurst himself was standing in the garden +gate. He was brushing one Canadian felt hat, and several others +had been put to await their turn one above the other on his own head, +so that he looked something like the typical Jew old-clothes man. +As I drew near, he came sidling out of the doorway to accost me, with +so curious an expression on his face that I instinctively prepared myself +to apologise for some unwitting trespass. His first question rather +confirmed me in this belief, for it was whether or not he had seen me +going up this way last night; and after having answered in the affirmative, +I waited in some alarm for the rest of my indictment. But the +good man’s heart was full of peace; and he stood there brushing +his hats and prattling on about fishing, and walking, and the pleasures +of convalescence, in a bright shallow stream that kept me pleased and +interested, I could scarcely say how. As he went on, he warmed +to his subject, and laid his hats aside to go along the water-side and +show me where the large trout commonly lay, underneath an overhanging +bank; and he was much disappointed, for my sake, that there were none +visible just then. Then he wandered off on to another tack, and +stood a great while out in the middle of a meadow in the hot sunshine, +trying to make out that he had known me before, or, if not me, some +friend of mine, merely, I believe, out of a desire that we should feel +more friendly and at our ease with one another. At last he made +a little speech to me, of which I wish I could recollect the very words, +for they were so simple and unaffected that they put all the best writing +and speaking to the blush; as it is, I can recall only the sense, and +that perhaps imperfectly. He began by saying that he had little +things in his past life that it gave him especial pleasure to recall; +and that the faculty of receiving such sharp impressions had now died +out in himself, but must at my age be still quite lively and active. +Then he told me that he had a little raft afloat on the river above +the dam which he was going to lend me, in order that I might be able +to look back, in after years, upon having done so, and get great pleasure +from the recollection. Now, I have a friend of my own who will +forgo present enjoyments and suffer much present inconvenience for the +sake of manufacturing ‘a reminiscence’ for himself; but +there was something singularly refined in this pleasure that the hatmaker +found in making reminiscences for others; surely no more simple or unselfish +luxury can be imagined. After he had unmoored his little embarkation, +and seen me safely shoved off into midstream, he ran away back to his +hats with the air of a man who had only just recollected that he had +anything to do.<br> +<br> +I did not stay very long on the raft. It ought to have been very +nice punting about there in the cool shade of the trees, or sitting +moored to an over-hanging root; but perhaps the very notion that I was +bound in gratitude specially to enjoy my little cruise, and cherish +its recollection, turned the whole thing from a pleasure into a duty. +Be that as it may, there is no doubt that I soon wearied and came ashore +again, and that it gives me more pleasure to recall the man himself +and his simple, happy conversation, so full of gusto and sympathy, than +anything possibly connected with his crank, insecure embarkation. +In order to avoid seeing him, for I was not a little ashamed of myself +for having failed to enjoy his treat sufficiently, I determined to continue +up the river, and, at all prices, to find some other way back into the +town in time for dinner. As I went, I was thinking of Smethurst +with admiration; a look into that man’s mind was like a retrospect +over the smiling champaign of his past life, and very different from +the Sinai-gorges up which one looks for a terrified moment into the +dark souls of many good, many wise, and many prudent men. I cannot +be very grateful to such men for their excellence, and wisdom, and prudence. +I find myself facing as stoutly as I can a hard, combative existence, +full of doubt, difficulties, defeats, disappointments, and dangers, +quite a hard enough life without their dark countenances at my elbow, +so that what I want is a happy-minded Smethurst placed here and there +at ugly corners of my life’s wayside, preaching his gospel of +quiet and contentment.<br> +<br> +<br> +ANOTHER<br> +<br> +<br> +I was shortly to meet with an evangelist of another stamp. After +I had forced my way through a gentleman’s grounds, I came out +on the high road, and sat down to rest myself on a heap of stones at +the top of a long hill, with Cockermouth lying snugly at the bottom. +An Irish beggar-woman, with a beautiful little girl by her side, came +up to ask for alms, and gradually fell to telling me the little tragedy +of her life. Her own sister, she told me, had seduced her husband +from her after many years of married life, and the pair had fled, leaving +her destitute, with the little girl upon her hands. She seemed +quite hopeful and cheery, and, though she was unaffectedly sorry for +the loss of her husband’s earnings, she made no pretence of despair +at the loss of his affection; some day she would meet the fugitives, +and the law would see her duly righted, and in the meantime the smallest +contribution was gratefully received. While she was telling all +this in the most matter-of-fact way, I had been noticing the approach +of a tall man, with a high white hat and darkish clothes. He came +up the hill at a rapid pace, and joined our little group with a sort +of half-salutation. Turning at once to the woman, he asked her +in a business-like way whether she had anything to do, whether she were +a Catholic or a Protestant, whether she could read, and so forth; and +then, after a few kind words and some sweeties to the child, he despatched +the mother with some tracts about Biddy and the Priest, and the Orangeman’s +Bible. I was a little amused at his abrupt manner, for he was +still a young man, and had somewhat the air of a navy officer; but he +tackled me with great solemnity. I could make fun of what he said, +for I do not think it was very wise; but the subject does not appear +to me just now in a jesting light, so I shall only say that he related +to me his own conversion, which had been effected (as is very often +the case) through the agency of a gig accident, and that, after having +examined me and diagnosed my case, he selected some suitable tracts +from his repertory, gave them to me, and, bidding me God-speed, went +on his way.<br> +<br> +<br> +LAST OF SMETHURST<br> +<br> +<br> +That evening I got into a third-class carriage on my way for Keswick, +and was followed almost immediately by a burly man in brown clothes. +This fellow-passenger was seemingly ill at ease, and kept continually +putting his head out of the window, and asking the bystanders if they +saw <i>him</i> coming. At last, when the train was already in +motion, there was a commotion on the platform, and a way was left clear +to our carriage door. <i>He</i> had arrived. In the hurry +I could just see Smethurst, red and panting, thrust a couple of clay +pipes into my companion’s outstretched band, and hear him crying +his farewells after us as we slipped out of the station at an ever accelerating +pace. I said something about it being a close run, and the broad +man, already engaged in filling one of the pipes, assented, and went +on to tell me of his own stupidity in forgetting a necessary, and of +how his friend had good-naturedly gone down town at the last moment +to supply the omission. I mentioned that I had seen Mr. Smethurst +already, and that he had been very polite to me; and we fell into a +discussion of the hatter’s merits that lasted some time and left +us quite good friends at its conclusion. The topic was productive +of goodwill. We exchanged tobacco and talked about the season, +and agreed at last that we should go to the same hotel at Keswick and +sup in company. As he had some business in the town which would +occupy him some hour or so, on our arrival I was to improve the time +and go down to the lake, that I might see a glimpse of the promised +wonders.<br> +<br> +The night had fallen already when I reached the water-side, at a place +where many pleasure-boats are moored and ready for hire; and as I went +along a stony path, between wood and water, a strong wind blew in gusts +from the far end of the lake. The sky was covered with flying +scud; and, as this was ragged, there was quite a wild chase of shadow +and moon-glimpse over the surface of the shuddering water. I had +to hold my hat on, and was growing rather tired, and inclined to go +back in disgust, when a little incident occurred to break the tedium. +A sudden and violent squall of wind sundered the low underwood, and +at the same time there came one of those brief discharges of moonlight, +which leaped into the opening thus made, and showed me three girls in +the prettiest flutter and disorder. It was as though they had +sprung out of the ground. I accosted them very politely in my +capacity of stranger, and requested to be told the names of all manner +of hills and woods and places that I did not wish to know, and we stood +together for a while and had an amusing little talk. The wind, +too, made himself of the party, brought the colour into their faces, +and gave them enough to do to repress their drapery; and one of them, +amid much giggling, had to pirouette round and round upon her toes (as +girls do) when some specially strong gust had got the advantage over +her. They were just high enough up in the social order not to +be afraid to speak to a gentleman; and just low enough to feel a little +tremor, a nervous consciousness of wrong-doing - of stolen waters, that +gave a considerable zest to our most innocent interview. They +were as much discomposed and fluttered, indeed, as if I had been a wicked +baron proposing to elope with the whole trio; but they showed no inclination +to go away, and I had managed to get them off hills and waterfalls and +on to more promising subjects, when a young man was descried coming +along the path from the direction of Keswick. Now whether he was +the young man of one of my friends, or the brother of one of them, or +indeed the brother of all, I do not know; but they incontinently said +that they must be going, and went away up the path with friendly salutations. +I need not say that I found the lake and the moonlight rather dull after +their departure, and speedily found my way back to potted herrings and +whisky-and-water in the commercial room with my late fellow-traveller. +In the smoking-room there was a tall dark man with a moustache, in an +ulster coat, who had got the best place and was monopolising most of +the talk; and, as I came in, a whisper came round to me from both sides, +that this was the manager of a London theatre. The presence of +such a man was a great event for Keswick, and I must own that the manager +showed himself equal to his position. He had a large fat pocket-book, +from which he produced poem after poem, written on the backs of letters +or hotel-bills; and nothing could be more humorous than his recitation +of these elegant extracts, except perhaps the anecdotes with which he +varied the entertainment. Seeing, I suppose, something less countrified +in my appearance than in most of the company, he singled me out to corroborate +some statements as to the depravity and vice of the aristocracy, and +when he went on to describe some gilded saloon experiences, I am proud +to say that he honoured my sagacity with one little covert wink before +a second time appealing to me for confirmation. The wink was not +thrown away; I went in up to the elbows with the manager, until I think +that some of the glory of that great man settled by reflection upon +me, and that I was as noticeably the second person in the smoking-room +as he was the first. For a young man, this was a position of some +distinction, I think you will admit. . . .<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER III - AN AUTUMN EFFECT - 1875<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +‘Nous ne décrivons jamais mieux la nature que lorsque nous +nous efforçons d’exprimer sobrement et simplement l’impression +que nous en avons reçue.’ - M. ANDRÉ THEURIET, ‘L’Automne +dans les Bois,’ Revue des Deux Mondes, 1st Oct. 1874, p.562. <a name="citation2"></a><a href="#footnote2">{2}</a><br> +<br> +<br> +A country rapidly passed through under favourable auspices may leave +upon us a unity of impression that would only be disturbed and dissipated +if we stayed longer. Clear vision goes with the quick foot. +Things fall for us into a sort of natural perspective when we see them +for a moment in going by; we generalise boldly and simply, and are gone +before the sun is overcast, before the rain falls, before the season +can steal like a dial-hand from his figure, before the lights and shadows, +shifting round towards nightfall, can show us the other side of things, +and belie what they showed us in the morning. We expose our mind +to the landscape (as we would expose the prepared plate in the camera) +for the moment only during which the effect endures; and we are away +before the effect can change. Hence we shall have in our memories +a long scroll of continuous wayside pictures, all imbued already with +the prevailing sentiment of the season, the weather and the landscape, +and certain to be unified more and more, as time goes on, by the unconscious +processes of thought. So that we who have only looked at a country +over our shoulder, so to speak, as we went by, will have a conception +of it far more memorable and articulate than a man who has lived there +all his life from a child upwards, and had his impression of to-day +modified by that of to-morrow, and belied by that of the day after, +till at length the stable characteristics of the country are all blotted +out from him behind the confusion of variable effect.<br> +<br> +I begin my little pilgrimage in the most enviable of all humours: that +in which a person, with a sufficiency of money and a knapsack, turns +his back on a town and walks forward into a country of which he knows +only by the vague report of others. Such an one has not surrendered +his will and contracted for the next hundred miles, like a man on a +railway. He may change his mind at every finger-post, and, where +ways meet, follow vague preferences freely and go the low road or the +high, choose the shadow or the sun-shine, suffer himself to be tempted +by the lane that turns immediately into the woods, or the broad road +that lies open before him into the distance, and shows him the far-off +spires of some city, or a range of mountain-tops, or a rim of sea, perhaps, +along a low horizon. In short, he may gratify his every whim and +fancy, without a pang of reproving conscience, or the least jostle to +his self-respect. It is true, however, that most men do not possess +the faculty of free action, the priceless gift of being able to live +for the moment only; and as they begin to go forward on their journey, +they will find that they have made for themselves new fetters. +Slight projects they may have entertained for a moment, half in jest, +become iron laws to them, they know not why. They will be led +by the nose by these vague reports of which I spoke above; and the mere +fact that their informant mentioned one village and not another will +compel their footsteps with inexplicable power. And yet a little +while, yet a few days of this fictitious liberty, and they will begin +to hear imperious voices calling on them to return; and some passion, +some duty, some worthy or unworthy expectation, will set its hand upon +their shoulder and lead them back into the old paths. Once and +again we have all made the experiment. We know the end of it right +well. And yet if we make it for the hundredth time to-morrow: +it will have the same charm as ever; our heart will beat and our eyes +will be bright, as we leave the town behind us, and we shall feel once +again (as we have felt so often before) that we are cutting ourselves +loose for ever from our whole past life, with all its sins and follies +and circumscriptions, and go forward as a new creature into a new world.<br> +<br> +It was well, perhaps, that I had this first enthusiasm to encourage +me up the long hill above High Wycombe; for the day was a bad day for +walking at best, and now began to draw towards afternoon, dull, heavy, +and lifeless. A pall of grey cloud covered the sky, and its colour +reacted on the colour of the landscape. Near at hand, indeed, +the hedgerow trees were still fairly green, shot through with bright +autumnal yellows, bright as sunshine. But a little way off, the +solid bricks of woodland that lay squarely on slope and hill-top were +not green, but russet and grey, and ever less russet and more grey as +they drew off into the distance. As they drew off into the distance, +also, the woods seemed to mass themselves together, and lie thin and +straight, like clouds, upon the limit of one’s view. Not +that this massing was complete, or gave the idea of any extent of forest, +for every here and there the trees would break up and go down into a +valley in open order, or stand in long Indian file along the horizon, +tree after tree relieved, foolishly enough, against the sky. I +say foolishly enough, although I have seen the effect employed cleverly +in art, and such long line of single trees thrown out against the customary +sunset of a Japanese picture with a certain fantastic effect that was +not to be despised; but this was over water and level land, where it +did not jar, as here, with the soft contour of hills and valleys. +The whole scene had an indefinable look of being painted, the colour +was so abstract and correct, and there was something so sketchy and +merely impressional about these distant single trees on the horizon +that one was forced to think of it all as of a clever French landscape. +For it is rather in nature that we see resemblance to art, than in art +to nature; and we say a hundred times, ‘How like a picture!’ +for once that we say, ‘How like the truth!’ The forms +in which we learn to think of landscape are forms that we have got from +painted canvas. Any man can see and understand a picture; it is +reserved for the few to separate anything out of the confusion of nature, +and see that distinctly and with intelligence.<br> +<br> +The sun came out before I had been long on my way; and as I had got +by that time to the top of the ascent, and was now treading a labyrinth +of confined by-roads, my whole view brightened considerably in colour, +for it was the distance only that was grey and cold, and the distance +I could see no longer. Overhead there was a wonderful carolling +of larks which seemed to follow me as I went. Indeed, during all +the time I was in that country the larks did not desert me. The +air was alive with them from High Wycombe to Tring; and as, day after +day, their ‘shrill delight’ fell upon me out of the vacant +sky, they began to take such a prominence over other conditions, and +form so integral a part of my conception of the country, that I could +have baptized it ‘The Country of Larks.’ This, of +course, might just as well have been in early spring; but everything +else was deeply imbued with the sentiment of the later year. There +was no stir of insects in the grass. The sunshine was more golden, +and gave less heat than summer sunshine; and the shadows under the hedge +were somewhat blue and misty. It was only in autumn that you could +have seen the mingled green and yellow of the elm foliage, and the fallen +leaves that lay about the road, and covered the surface of wayside pools +so thickly that the sun was reflected only here and there from little +joints and pinholes in that brown coat of proof; or that your ear would +have been troubled, as you went forward, by the occasional report of +fowling-pieces from all directions and all degrees of distance.<br> +<br> +For a long time this dropping fire was the one sign of human activity +that came to disturb me as I walked. The lanes were profoundly +still. They would have been sad but for the sunshine and the singing +of the larks. And as it was, there came over me at times a feeling +of isolation that was not disagreeable, and yet was enough to make me +quicken my steps eagerly when I saw some one before me on the road. +This fellow-voyager proved to be no less a person than the parish constable. +It had occurred to me that in a district which was so little populous +and so well wooded, a criminal of any intelligence might play hide-and-seek +with the authorities for months; and this idea was strengthened by the +aspect of the portly constable as he walked by my side with deliberate +dignity and turned-out toes. But a few minutes’ converse +set my heart at rest. These rural criminals are very tame birds, +it appeared. If my informant did not immediately lay his hand +on an offender, he was content to wait; some evening after nightfall +there would come a tap at his door, and the outlaw, weary of outlawry, +would give himself quietly up to undergo sentence, and resume his position +in the life of the country-side. Married men caused him no disquietude +whatever; he had them fast by the foot. Sooner or later they would +come back to see their wives, a peeping neighbour would pass the word, +and my portly constable would walk quietly over and take the bird sitting. +And if there were a few who had no particular ties in the neighbourhood, +and preferred to shift into another county when they fell into trouble, +their departure moved the placid constable in no degree. He was +of Dogberry’s opinion; and if a man would not stand in the Prince’s +name, he took no note of him, but let him go, and thanked God he was +rid of a knave. And surely the crime and the law were in admirable +keeping; rustic constable was well met with rustic offender. The +officer sitting at home over a bit of fire until the criminal came to +visit him, and the criminal coming - it was a fair match. One +felt as if this must have been the order in that delightful seaboard +Bohemia where Florizel and Perdita courted in such sweet accents, and +the Puritan sang Psalms to hornpipes, and the four-and-twenty shearers +danced with nosegays in their bosoms, and chanted their three songs +apiece at the old shepherd’s festival; and one could not help +picturing to oneself what havoc among good peoples purses, and tribulation +for benignant constables, might be worked here by the arrival, over +stile and footpath, of a new Autolycus.<br> +<br> +Bidding good-morning to my fellow-traveller, I left the road and struck +across country. It was rather a revelation to pass from between +the hedgerows and find quite a bustle on the other side, a great coming +and going of school-children upon by-paths, and, in every second field, +lusty horses and stout country-folk a-ploughing. The way I followed +took me through many fields thus occupied, and through many strips of +plantation, and then over a little space of smooth turf, very pleasant +to the feet, set with tall fir-trees and clamorous with rooks making +ready for the winter, and so back again into the quiet road. I +was now not far from the end of my day’s journey. A few +hundred yards farther, and, passing through a gap in the hedge, I began +to go down hill through a pretty extensive tract of young beeches. +I was soon in shadow myself, but the afternoon sun still coloured the +upmost boughs of the wood, and made a fire over my head in the autumnal +foliage. A little faint vapour lay among the slim tree-stems in +the bottom of the hollow; and from farther up I heard from time to time +an outburst of gross laughter, as though clowns were making merry in +the bush. There was something about the atmosphere that brought +all sights and sounds home to one with a singular purity, so that I +felt as if my senses had been washed with water. After I had crossed +the little zone of mist, the path began to remount the hill; and just +as I, mounting along with it, had got back again, from the head downwards, +into the thin golden sunshine, I saw in front of me a donkey tied to +a tree. Now, I have a certain liking for donkeys, principally, +I believe, because of the delightful things that Sterne has written +of them. But this was not after the pattern of the ass at Lyons. +He was of a white colour, that seemed to fit him rather for rare festal +occasions than for constant drudgery. Besides, he was very small, +and of the daintiest portions you can imagine in a donkey. And +so, sure enough, you had only to look at him to see he had never worked. +There was something too roguish and wanton in his face, a look too like +that of a schoolboy or a street Arab, to have survived much cudgelling. +It was plain that these feet had kicked off sportive children oftener +than they had plodded with a freight through miry lanes. He was +altogether a fine-weather, holiday sort of donkey; and though he was +just then somewhat solemnised and rueful, he still gave proof of the +levity of his disposition by impudently wagging his ears at me as I +drew near. I say he was somewhat solemnised just then; for, with +the admirable instinct of all men and animals under restraint, he had +so wound and wound the halter about the tree that he could go neither +back nor forwards, nor so much as put down his head to browse. +There he stood, poor rogue, part puzzled, part angry, part, I believe, +amused. He had not given up hope, and dully revolved the problem +in his head, giving ever and again another jerk at the few inches of +free rope that still remained unwound. A humorous sort of sympathy +for the creature took hold upon me. I went up, and, not without +some trouble on my part, and much distrust and resistance on the part +of Neddy, got him forced backwards until the whole length of the halter +was set loose, and he was once more as free a donkey as I dared to make +him. I was pleased (as people are) with this friendly action to +a fellow-creature in tribulation, and glanced back over my shoulder +to see how he was profiting by his freedom. The brute was looking +after me; and no sooner did he catch my eye than he put up his long +white face into the air, pulled an impudent mouth at me, and began to +bray derisively. If ever any one person made a grimace at another, +that donkey made a grimace at me. The hardened ingratitude of +his behaviour, and the impertinence that inspired his whole face as +he curled up his lip, and showed his teeth, and began to bray, so tickled +me, and was so much in keeping with what I had imagined to myself about +his character, that I could not find it in my heart to be angry, and +burst into a peal of hearty laughter. This seemed to strike the +ass as a repartee, so he brayed at me again by way of rejoinder; and +we went on for a while, braying and laughing, until I began to grow +aweary of it, and, shouting a derisive farewell, turned to pursue my +way. In so doing - it was like going suddenly into cold water +- I found myself face to face with a prim little old maid. She +was all in a flutter, the poor old dear! She had concluded beyond +question that this must be a lunatic who stood laughing aloud at a white +donkey in the placid beech-woods. I was sure, by her face, that +she had already recommended her spirit most religiously to Heaven, and +prepared herself for the worst. And so, to reassure her, I uncovered +and besought her, after a very staid fashion, to put me on my way to +Great Missenden. Her voice trembled a little, to be sure, but +I think her mind was set at rest; and she told me, very explicitly, +to follow the path until I came to the end of the wood, and then I should +see the village below me in the bottom of the valley. And, with +mutual courtesies, the little old maid and I went on our respective +ways.<br> +<br> +Nor had she misled me. Great Missenden was close at hand, as she +had said, in the trough of a gentle valley, with many great elms about +it. The smoke from its chimneys went up pleasantly in the afternoon +sunshine. The sleepy hum of a threshing-machine filled the neighbouring +fields and hung about the quaint street corners. A little above, +the church sits well back on its haunches against the hillside - an +attitude for a church, you know, that makes it look as if it could be +ever so much higher if it liked; and the trees grew about it thickly, +so as to make a density of shade in the churchyard. A very quiet +place it looks; and yet I saw many boards and posters about threatening +dire punishment against those who broke the church windows or defaced +the precinct, and offering rewards for the apprehension of those who +had done the like already. It was fair day in Great Missenden. +There were three stalls set up, <i>sub jove</i>, for the sale of pastry +and cheap toys; and a great number of holiday children thronged about +the stalls and noisily invaded every corner of the straggling village. +They came round me by coveys, blowing simultaneously upon penny trumpets +as though they imagined I should fall to pieces like the battlements +of Jericho. I noticed one among them who could make a wheel of +himself like a London boy, and seemingly enjoyed a grave pre-eminence +upon the strength of the accomplishment. By and by, however, the +trumpets began to weary me, and I went indoors, leaving the fair, I +fancy, at its height.<br> +<br> +Night had fallen before I ventured forth again. It was pitch-dark +in the village street, and the darkness seemed only the greater for +a light here and there in an uncurtained window or from an open door. +Into one such window I was rude enough to peep, and saw within a charming +<i>genre</i> picture. In a room, all white wainscot and crimson +wall-paper, a perfect gem of colour after the black, empty darkness +in which I had been groping, a pretty girl was telling a story, as well +as I could make out, to an attentive child upon her knee, while an old +woman sat placidly dozing over the fire. You may be sure I was +not behindhand with a story for myself - a good old story after the +manner of G. P. R. James and the village melodramas, with a wicked squire, +and poachers, and an attorney, and a virtuous young man with a genius +for mechanics, who should love, and protect, and ultimately marry the +girl in the crimson room. Baudelaire has a few dainty sentences +on the fancies that we are inspired with when we look through a window +into other people’s lives; and I think Dickens has somewhere enlarged +on the same text. The subject, at least, is one that I am seldom +weary of entertaining. I remember, night after night, at Brussels, +watching a good family sup together, make merry, and retire to rest; +and night after night I waited to see the candles lit, and the salad +made, and the last salutations dutifully exchanged, without any abatement +of interest. Night after night I found the scene rivet my attention +and keep me awake in bed with all manner of quaint imaginations. +Much of the pleasure of the <i>Arabian Nights</i> hinges upon this Asmodean +interest; and we are not weary of lifting other people’s roofs, +and going about behind the scenes of life with the Caliph and the serviceable +Giaffar. It is a salutary exercise, besides; it is salutary to +get out of ourselves and see people living together in perfect unconsciousness +of our existence, as they will live when we are gone. If to-morrow +the blow falls, and the worst of our ill fears is realised, the girl +will none the less tell stories to the child on her lap in the cottage +at Great Missenden, nor the good Belgians light their candle, and mix +their salad, and go orderly to bed.<br> +<br> +The next morning was sunny overhead and damp underfoot, with a thrill +in the air like a reminiscence of frost. I went up into the sloping +garden behind the inn and smoked a pipe pleasantly enough, to the tune +of my landlady’s lamentations over sundry cabbages and cauliflowers +that had been spoiled by caterpillars. She had been so much pleased +in the summer-time, she said, to see the garden all hovered over by +white butterflies. And now, look at the end of it! She could +nowise reconcile this with her moral sense. And, indeed, unless +these butterflies are created with a side-look to the composition of +improving apologues, it is not altogether easy, even for people who +have read Hegel and Dr. M’Cosh, to decide intelligibly upon the +issue raised. Then I fell into a long and abstruse calculation +with my landlord; having for object to compare the distance driven by +him during eight years’ service on the box of the Wendover coach +with the girth of the round world itself. We tackled the question +most conscientiously, made all necessary allowance for Sundays and leap-years, +and were just coming to a triumphant conclusion of our labours when +we were stayed by a small lacuna in my information. I did not +know the circumference of the earth. The landlord knew it, to +be sure - plainly he had made the same calculation twice and once before, +- but he wanted confidence in his own figures, and from the moment I +showed myself so poor a second seemed to lose all interest in the result.<br> +<br> +Wendover (which was my next stage) lies in the same valley with Great +Missenden, but at the foot of it, where the hills trend off on either +hand like a coast-line, and a great hemisphere of plain lies, like a +sea, before one, I went up a chalky road, until I had a good outlook +over the place. The vale, as it opened out into the plain, was +shallow, and a little bare, perhaps, but full of graceful convolutions. +From the level to which I have now attained the fields were exposed +before me like a map, and I could see all that bustle of autumn field-work +which had been hid from me yesterday behind the hedgerows, or shown +to me only for a moment as I followed the footpath. Wendover lay +well down in the midst, with mountains of foliage about it. The +great plain stretched away to the northward, variegated near at hand +with the quaint pattern of the fields, but growing ever more and more +indistinct, until it became a mere hurly-burly of trees and bright crescents +of river, and snatches of slanting road, and finally melted into the +ambiguous cloud-land over the horizon. The sky was an opal-grey, +touched here and there with blue, and with certain faint russets that +looked as if they were reflections of the colour of the autumnal woods +below. I could hear the ploughmen shouting to their horses, the +uninterrupted carol of larks innumerable overhead, and, from a field +where the shepherd was marshalling his flock, a sweet tumultuous tinkle +of sheep-bells. All these noises came to me very thin and distinct +in the clear air. There was a wonderful sentiment of distance +and atmosphere about the day and the place.<br> +<br> +I mounted the hill yet farther by a rough staircase of chalky footholds +cut in the turf. The hills about Wendover and, as far as I could +see, all the hills in Buckinghamshire, wear a sort of hood of beech +plantation; but in this particular case the hood had been suffered to +extend itself into something more like a cloak, and hung down about +the shoulders of the hill in wide folds, instead of lying flatly along +the summit. The trees grew so close, and their boughs were so +matted together, that the whole wood looked as dense as a bush of heather. +The prevailing colour was a dull, smouldering red, touched here and +there with vivid yellow. But the autumn had scarce advanced beyond +the outworks; it was still almost summer in the heart of the wood; and +as soon as I had scrambled through the hedge, I found myself in a dim +green forest atmosphere under eaves of virgin foliage. In places +where the wood had itself for a background and the trees were massed +together thickly, the colour became intensified and almost gem-like: +a perfect fire green, that seemed none the less green for a few specks +of autumn gold. None of the trees were of any considerable age +or stature; but they grew well together, I have said; and as the road +turned and wound among them, they fell into pleasant groupings and broke +the light up pleasantly. Sometimes there would be a colonnade +of slim, straight tree-stems with the light running down them as down +the shafts of pillars, that looked as if it ought to lead to something, +and led only to a corner of sombre and intricate jungle. Sometimes +a spray of delicate foliage would be thrown out flat, the light lying +flatly along the top of it, so that against a dark background it seemed +almost luminous. There was a great bush over the thicket (for, +indeed, it was more of a thicket than a wood); and the vague rumours +that went among the tree-tops, and the occasional rustling of big birds +or hares among the undergrowth, had in them a note of almost treacherous +stealthiness, that put the imagination on its guard and made me walk +warily on the russet carpeting of last year’s leaves. The +spirit of the place seemed to be all attention; the wood listened as +I went, and held its breath to number my footfalls. One could +not help feeling that there ought to be some reason for this stillness; +whether, as the bright old legend goes, Pan lay somewhere near in siesta, +or whether, perhaps, the heaven was meditating rain, and the first drops +would soon come pattering through the leaves. It was not unpleasant, +in such an humour, to catch sight, ever and anon, of large spaces of +the open plain. This happened only where the path lay much upon +the slope, and there was a flaw in the solid leafy thatch of the wood +at some distance below the level at which I chanced myself to be walking; +then, indeed, little scraps of foreshortened distance, miniature fields, +and Lilliputian houses and hedgerow trees would appear for a moment +in the aperture, and grow larger and smaller, and change and melt one +into another, as I continued to go forward, and so shift my point of +view.<br> +<br> +For ten minutes, perhaps, I had heard from somewhere before me in the +wood a strange, continuous noise, as of clucking, cooing, and gobbling, +now and again interrupted by a harsh scream. As I advanced towards +this noise, it began to grow lighter about me, and I caught sight, through +the trees, of sundry gables and enclosure walls, and something like +the tops of a rickyard. And sure enough, a rickyard it proved +to be, and a neat little farm-steading, with the beech-woods growing +almost to the door of it. Just before me, however, as I came upon +the path, the trees drew back and let in a wide flood of daylight on +to a circular lawn. It was here that the noises had their origin. +More than a score of peacocks (there are altogether thirty at the farm), +a proper contingent of peahens, and a great multitude that I could not +number of more ordinary barn-door fowls, were all feeding together on +this little open lawn among the beeches. They fed in a dense crowd, +which swayed to and fro, and came hither and thither as by a sort of +tide, and of which the surface was agitated like the surface of a sea +as each bird guzzled his head along the ground after the scattered corn. +The clucking, cooing noise that had led me thither was formed by the +blending together of countless expressions of individual contentment +into one collective expression of contentment, or general grace during +meat. Every now and again a big peacock would separate himself +from the mob and take a stately turn or two about the lawn, or perhaps +mount for a moment upon the rail, and there shrilly publish to the world +his satisfaction with himself and what he had to eat. It happened, +for my sins, that none of these admirable birds had anything beyond +the merest rudiment of a tail. Tails, it seemed, were out of season +just then. But they had their necks for all that; and by their +necks alone they do as much surpass all the other birds of our grey +climate as they fall in quality of song below the blackbird or the lark. +Surely the peacock, with its incomparable parade of glorious colour +and the scannel voice of it issuing forth, as in mockery, from its painted +throat, must, like my landlady’s butterflies at Great Missenden, +have been invented by some skilful fabulist for the consolation and +support of homely virtue: or rather, perhaps, by a fabulist not quite +so skilful, who made points for the moment without having a studious +enough eye to the complete effect; for I thought these melting greens +and blues so beautiful that afternoon, that I would have given them +my vote just then before the sweetest pipe in all the spring woods. +For indeed there is no piece of colour of the same extent in nature, +that will so flatter and satisfy the lust of a man’s eyes; and +to come upon so many of them, after these acres of stone-coloured heavens +and russet woods, and grey-brown ploughlands and white roads, was like +going three whole days’ journey to the southward, or a month back +into the summer.<br> +<br> +I was sorry to leave <i>Peacock Farm</i> - for so the place is called, +after the name of its splendid pensioners - and go forwards again in +the quiet woods. It began to grow both damp and dusk under the +beeches; and as the day declined the colour faded out of the foliage; +and shadow, without form and void, took the place of all the fine tracery +of leaves and delicate gradations of living green that had before accompanied +my walk. I had been sorry to leave <i>Peacock</i> <i>Farm</i>, +but I was not sorry to find myself once more in the open road, under +a pale and somewhat troubled-looking evening sky, and put my best foot +foremost for the inn at Wendover.<br> +<br> +Wendover, in itself, is a straggling, purposeless sort of place. +Everybody seems to have had his own opinion as to how the street should +go; or rather, every now and then a man seems to have arisen with a +new idea on the subject, and led away a little sect of neighbours to +join in his heresy. It would have somewhat the look of an abortive +watering-place, such as we may now see them here and there along the +coast, but for the age of the houses, the comely quiet design of some +of them, and the look of long habitation, of a life that is settled +and rooted, and makes it worth while to train flowers about the windows, +and otherwise shape the dwelling to the humour of the inhabitant. +The church, which might perhaps have served as rallying-point for these +loose houses, and pulled the township into something like intelligible +unity, stands some distance off among great trees; but the inn (to take +the public buildings in order of importance) is in what I understand +to be the principal street: a pleasant old house, with bay-windows, +and three peaked gables, and many swallows’ nests plastered about +the eaves.<br> +<br> +The interior of the inn was answerable to the outside: indeed, I never +saw any room much more to be admired than the low wainscoted parlour +in which I spent the remainder of the evening. It was a short +oblong in shape, save that the fireplace was built across one of the +angles so as to cut it partially off, and the opposite angle was similarly +truncated by a corner cupboard. The wainscot was white, and there +was a Turkey carpet on the floor, so old that it might have been imported +by Walter Shandy before he retired, worn almost through in some places, +but in others making a good show of blues and oranges, none the less +harmonious for being somewhat faded. The corner cupboard was agreeable +in design; and there were just the right things upon the shelves - decanters +and tumblers, and blue plates, and one red rose in a glass of water. +The furniture was old-fashioned and stiff. Everything was in keeping, +down to the ponderous leaden inkstand on the round table. And +you may fancy how pleasant it looked, all flushed and flickered over +by the light of a brisk companionable fire, and seen, in a strange, +tilted sort of perspective, in the three compartments of the old mirror +above the chimney. As I sat reading in the great armchair, I kept +looking round with the tail of my eye at the quaint, bright picture +that was about me, and could not help some pleasure and a certain childish +pride in forming part of it. The book I read was about Italy in +the early Renaissance, the pageantries and the light loves of princes, +the passion of men for learning, and poetry, and art; but it was written, +by good luck, after a solid, prosaic fashion, that suited the room infinitely +more nearly than the matter; and the result was that I thought less, +perhaps, of Lippo Lippi, or Lorenzo, or Politian, than of the good Englishman +who had written in that volume what he knew of them, and taken so much +pleasure in his solemn polysyllables.<br> +<br> +I was not left without society. My landlord had a very pretty +little daughter, whom we shall call Lizzie. If I had made any +notes at the time, I might be able to tell you something definite of +her appearance. But faces have a trick of growing more and more +spiritualised and abstract in the memory, until nothing remains of them +but a look, a haunting expression; just that secret quality in a face +that is apt to slip out somehow under the cunningest painter’s +touch, and leave the portrait dead for the lack of it. And if +it is hard to catch with the finest of camel’s-hair pencils, you +may think how hopeless it must be to pursue after it with clumsy words. +If I say, for instance, that this look, which I remember as Lizzie, +was something wistful that seemed partly to come of slyness and in part +of simplicity, and that I am inclined to imagine it had something to +do with the daintiest suspicion of a cast in one of her large eyes, +I shall have said all that I can, and the reader will not be much advanced +towards comprehension. I had struck up an acquaintance with this +little damsel in the morning, and professed much interest in her dolls, +and an impatient desire to see the large one which was kept locked away +for great occasions. And so I had not been very long in the parlour +before the door opened, and in came Miss Lizzie with two dolls tucked +clumsily under her arm. She was followed by her brother John, +a year or so younger than herself, not simply to play propriety at our +interview, but to show his own two whips in emulation of his sister’s +dolls. I did my best to make myself agreeable to my visitors, +showing much admiration for the dolls and dolls’ dresses, and, +with a very serious demeanour, asking many questions about their age +and character. I do not think that Lizzie distrusted my sincerity, +but it was evident that she was both bewildered and a little contemptuous. +Although she was ready herself to treat her dolls as if they were alive, +she seemed to think rather poorly of any grown person who could fall +heartily into the spirit of the fiction. Sometimes she would look +at me with gravity and a sort of disquietude, as though she really feared +I must be out of my wits. Sometimes, as when I inquired too particularly +into the question of their names, she laughed at me so long and heartily +that I began to feel almost embarrassed. But when, in an evil +moment, I asked to be allowed to kiss one of them, she could keep herself +no longer to herself. Clambering down from the chair on which +she sat perched to show me, Cornelia-like, her jewels, she ran straight +out of the room and into the bar - it was just across the passage, - +and I could hear her telling her mother in loud tones, but apparently +more in sorrow than in merriment, that <i>the gentleman in the parlour +wanted to kiss Dolly</i>. I fancy she was determined to save me +from this humiliating action, even in spite of myself, for she never +gave me the desired permission. She reminded me of an old dog +I once knew, who would never suffer the master of the house to dance, +out of an exaggerated sense of the dignity of that master’s place +and carriage.<br> +<br> +After the young people were gone there was but one more incident ere +I went to bed. I heard a party of children go up and down the +dark street for a while, singing together sweetly. And the mystery +of this little incident was so pleasant to me that I purposely refrained +from asking who they were, and wherefore they went singing at so late +an hour. One can rarely be in a pleasant place without meeting +with some pleasant accident. I have a conviction that these children +would not have gone singing before the inn unless the inn-parlour had +been the delightful place it was. At least, if I had been in the +customary public room of the modern hotel, with all its disproportions +and discomforts, my ears would have been dull, and there would have +been some ugly temper or other uppermost in my spirit, and so they would +have wasted their songs upon an unworthy hearer.<br> +<br> +Next morning I went along to visit the church. It is a long-backed +red-and-white building, very much restored, and stands in a pleasant +graveyard among those great trees of which I have spoken already. +The sky was drowned in a mist. Now and again pulses of cold wind +went about the enclosure, and set the branches busy overhead, and the +dead leaves scurrying into the angles of the church buttresses. +Now and again, also, I could hear the dull sudden fall of a chestnut +among the grass - the dog would bark before the rectory door - or there +would come a clinking of pails from the stable-yard behind. But +in spite of these occasional interruptions - in spite, also, of the +continuous autumn twittering that filled the trees - the chief impression +somehow was one as of utter silence, insomuch that the little greenish +bell that peeped out of a window in the tower disquieted me with a sense +of some possible and more inharmonious disturbance. The grass +was wet, as if with a hoar frost that had just been melted. I +do not know that ever I saw a morning more autumnal. As I went +to and fro among the graves, I saw some flowers set reverently before +a recently erected tomb, and drawing near, was almost startled to find +they lay on the grave a man seventy-two years old when he died. +We are accustomed to strew flowers only over the young, where love has +been cut short untimely, and great possibilities have been restrained +by death. We strew them there in token, that these possibilities, +in some deeper sense, shall yet be realised, and the touch of our dead +loves remain with us and guide us to the end. And yet there was +more significance, perhaps, and perhaps a greater consolation, in this +little nosegay on the grave of one who had died old. We are apt +to make so much of the tragedy of death, and think so little of the +enduring tragedy of some men’s lives, that we see more to lament +for in a life cut off in the midst of usefulness and love, than in one +that miserably survives all love and usefulness, and goes about the +world the phantom of itself, without hope, or joy, or any consolation. +These flowers seemed not so much the token of love that survived death, +as of something yet more beautiful - of love that had lived a man’s +life out to an end with him, and been faithful and companionable, and +not weary of loving, throughout all these years.<br> +<br> +The morning cleared a little, and the sky was once more the old stone-coloured +vault over the sallow meadows and the russet woods, as I set forth on +a dog-cart from Wendover to Tring. The road lay for a good distance +along the side of the hills, with the great plain below on one hand, +and the beech-woods above on the other. The fields were busy with +people ploughing and sowing; every here and there a jug of ale stood +in the angle of the hedge, and I could see many a team wait smoking +in the furrow as ploughman or sower stepped aside for a moment to take +a draught. Over all the brown ploughlands, and under all the leafless +hedgerows, there was a stout piece of labour abroad, and, as it were, +a spirit of picnic. The horses smoked and the men laboured and +shouted and drank in the sharp autumn morning; so that one had a strong +effect of large, open-air existence. The fellow who drove me was +something of a humourist; and his conversation was all in praise of +an agricultural labourer’s way of life. It was he who called +my attention to these jugs of ale by the hedgerow; he could not sufficiently +express the liberality of these men’s wages; he told me how sharp +an appetite was given by breaking up the earth in the morning air, whether +with plough or spade, and cordially admired this provision of nature. +He sang <i>O fortunatos agricolas</i>! indeed, in every possible key, +and with many cunning inflections, till I began to wonder what was the +use of such people as Mr. Arch, and to sing the same air myself in a +more diffident manner.<br> +<br> +Tring was reached, and then Tring railway-station; for the two are not +very near, the good people of Tring having held the railway, of old +days, in extreme apprehension, lest some day it should break loose in +the town and work mischief. I had a last walk, among russet beeches +as usual, and the air filled, as usual, with the carolling of larks; +I heard shots fired in the distance, and saw, as a new sign of the fulfilled +autumn, two horsemen exercising a pack of fox-hounds. And then +the train came and carried me back to London.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER IV - A WINTER’S WALK IN CARRICK AND GALLOWAY - A FRAGMENT +- 1876<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +At the famous bridge of Doon, Kyle, the central district of the shire +of Ayr, marches with Carrick, the most southerly. On the Carrick +side of the river rises a hill of somewhat gentle conformation, cleft +with shallow dells, and sown here and there with farms and tufts of +wood. Inland, it loses itself, joining, I suppose, the great herd +of similar hills that occupies the centre of the Lowlands. Towards +the sea it swells out the coast-line into a protuberance, like a bay-window +in a plan, and is fortified against the surf behind bold crags. +This hill is known as the Brown Hill of Carrick, or, more shortly, Brown +Carrick.<br> +<br> +It had snowed overnight. The fields were all sheeted up; they +were tucked in among the snow, and their shape was modelled through +the pliant counterpane, like children tucked in by a fond mother. +The wind had made ripples and folds upon the surface, like what the +sea, in quiet weather, leaves upon the sand. There was a frosty +stifle in the air. An effusion of coppery light on the summit +of Brown Carrick showed where the sun was trying to look through; but +along the horizon clouds of cold fog had settled down, so that there +was no distinction of sky and sea. Over the white shoulders of +the headlands, or in the opening of bays, there was nothing but a great +vacancy and blackness; and the road as it drew near the edge of the +cliff seemed to skirt the shores of creation and void space.<br> +<br> +The snow crunched under foot, and at farms all the dogs broke out barking +as they smelt a passer-by upon the road. I met a fine old fellow, +who might have sat as the father in ‘The Cottar’s Saturday +Night,’ and who swore most heathenishly at a cow he was driving. +And a little after I scraped acquaintance with a poor body tramping +out to gather cockles. His face was wrinkled by exposure; it was +broken up into flakes and channels, like mud beginning to dry, and weathered +in two colours, an incongruous pink and grey. He had a faint air +of being surprised - which, God knows, he might well be - that life +had gone so ill with him. The shape of his trousers was in itself +a jest, so strangely were they bagged and ravelled about his knees; +and his coat was all bedaubed with clay as tough he had lain in a rain-dub +during the New Year’s festivity. I will own I was not sorry +to think he had had a merry New Year, and been young again for an evening; +but I was sorry to see the mark still there. One could not expect +such an old gentleman to be much of a dandy or a great student of respectability +in dress; but there might have been a wife at home, who had brushed +out similar stains after fifty New Years, now become old, or a round-armed +daughter, who would wish to have him neat, were it only out of self-respect +and for the ploughman sweetheart when he looks round at night. +Plainly, there was nothing of this in his life, and years and loneliness +hung heavily on his old arms. He was seventy-six, he told me; +and nobody would give a day’s work to a man that age: they would +think he couldn’t do it. ‘And, ‘deed,’ +he went on, with a sad little chuckle, ‘’deed, I doubt if +I could.’ He said goodbye to me at a footpath, and crippled +wearily off to his work. It will make your heart ache if you think +of his old fingers groping in the snow.<br> +<br> +He told me I was to turn down beside the school-house for Dunure. +And so, when I found a lone house among the snow, and heard a babble +of childish voices from within, I struck off into a steep road leading +downwards to the sea. Dunure lies close under the steep hill: +a haven among the rocks, a breakwater in consummate disrepair, much +apparatus for drying nets, and a score or so of fishers’ houses. +Hard by, a few shards of ruined castle overhang the sea, a few vaults, +and one tall gable honeycombed with windows. The snow lay on the +beach to the tidemark. It was daubed on to the sills of the ruin: +it roosted in the crannies of the rock like white sea-birds; even on +outlying reefs there would be a little cock of snow, like a toy lighthouse. +Everything was grey and white in a cold and dolorous sort of shepherd’s +plaid. In the profound silence, broken only by the noise of oars +at sea, a horn was sounded twice; and I saw the postman, girt with two +bags, pause a moment at the end of the clachan for letters.<br> +<br> +It is, perhaps, characteristic of Dunure that none were brought him.<br> +<br> +The people at the public-house did not seem well pleased to see me, +and though I would fain have stayed by the kitchen fire, sent me ‘ben +the hoose’ into the guest-room. This guest-room at Dunure +was painted in quite aesthetic fashion. There are rooms in the +same taste not a hundred miles from London, where persons of an extreme +sensibility meet together without embarrassment. It was all in +a fine dull bottle-green and black; a grave harmonious piece of colouring, +with nothing, so far as coarser folk can judge, to hurt the better feelings +of the most exquisite purist. A cherry-red half window-blind kept +up an imaginary warmth in the cold room, and threw quite a glow on the +floor. Twelve cockle-shells and a half-penny china figure were +ranged solemnly along the mantel-shelf. Even the spittoon was +an original note, and instead of sawdust contained sea-shells. +And as for the hearthrug, it would merit an article to itself, and a +coloured diagram to help the text. It was patchwork, but the patchwork +of the poor; no glowing shreds of old brocade and Chinese silk, shaken +together in the kaleidoscope of some tasteful housewife’s fancy; +but a work of art in its own way, and plainly a labour of love. +The patches came exclusively from people’s raiment. There +was no colour more brilliant than a heather mixture; ‘My Johnny’s +grey breeks,’ well polished over the oar on the boat’s thwart, +entered largely into its composition. And the spoils of an old +black cloth coat, that had been many a Sunday to church, added something +(save the mark!) of preciousness to the material.<br> +<br> +While I was at luncheon four carters came in - long-limbed, muscular +Ayrshire Scots, with lean, intelligent faces. Four quarts of stout +were ordered; they kept filling the tumbler with the other hand as they +drank; and in less time than it takes me to write these words the four +quarts were finished - another round was proposed, discussed, and negatived +- and they were creaking out of the village with their carts.<br> +<br> +The ruins drew you towards them. You never saw any place more +desolate from a distance, nor one that less belied its promise near +at hand. Some crows and gulls flew away croaking as I scrambled +in. The snow had drifted into the vaults. The clachan dabbled +with snow, the white hills, the black sky, the sea marked in the coves +with faint circular wrinkles, the whole world, as it looked from a loop-hole +in Dunure, was cold, wretched, and out-at-elbows. If you had been +a wicked baron and compelled to stay there all the afternoon, you would +have had a rare fit of remorse. How you would have heaped up the +fire and gnawed your fingers! I think it would have come to homicide +before the evening - if it were only for the pleasure of seeing something +red! And the masters of Dunure, it is to be noticed, were remarkable +of old for inhumanity. One of these vaults where the snow had +drifted was that ‘black route’ where ‘Mr. Alane Stewart, +Commendatour of Crossraguel,’ endured his fiery trials. +On the 1st and 7th of September 1570 (ill dates for Mr. Alan!), Gilbert, +Earl of Cassilis, his chaplain, his baker, his cook, his pantryman, +and another servant, bound the Poor Commendator ‘betwix an iron +chimlay and a fire,’ and there cruelly roasted him until he signed +away his abbacy. it is one of the ugliest stories of an ugly period, +but not, somehow, without such a flavour of the ridiculous as makes +it hard to sympathise quite seriously with the victim. And it +is consoling to remember that he got away at last, and kept his abbacy, +and, over and above, had a pension from the Earl until he died.<br> +<br> +Some way beyond Dunure a wide bay, of somewhat less unkindly aspect, +opened out. Colzean plantations lay all along the steep shore, +and there was a wooded hill towards the centre, where the trees made +a sort of shadowy etching over the snow. The road went down and +up, and past a blacksmith’s cottage that made fine music in the +valley. Three compatriots of Burns drove up to me in a cart. +They were all drunk, and asked me jeeringly if this was the way to Dunure. +I told them it was; and my answer was received with unfeigned merriment. +One gentleman was so much tickled he nearly fell out of the cart; indeed, +he was only saved by a companion, who either had not so fine a sense +of humour or had drunken less.<br> +<br> +‘The toune of Mayboll,’ says the inimitable Abercrummie, +<a name="citation3"></a><a href="#footnote3">{3}</a> ‘stands upon +an ascending ground from east to west, and lyes open to the south. +It hath one principals street, with houses upon both sides, built of +freestone; and it is beautifyed with the situation of two castles, one +at each end of this street. That on the east belongs to the Erle +of Cassilis. On the west end is a castle, which belonged sometime +to the laird of Blairquan, which is now the tolbuith, and is adorned +with a pyremide [conical roof], and a row of ballesters round it raised +from the top of the staircase, into which they have mounted a fyne clock. +There be four lanes which pass from the principall street; one is called +the Black Vennel, which is steep, declining to the south-west, and leads +to a lower street, which is far larger than the high chiefe street, +and it runs from the Kirkland to the Well Trees, in which there have +been many pretty buildings, belonging to the severall gentry of the +countrey, who were wont to resort thither in winter, and divert themselves +in converse together at their owne houses. It was once the principall +street of the town; but many of these houses of the gentry having been +decayed and ruined, it has lost much of its ancient beautie. Just +opposite to this vennel, there is another that leads north-west, from +the chiefe street to the green, which is a pleasant plott of ground, +enclosed round with an earthen wall, wherein they were wont to play +football, but now at the Gowff and byasse-bowls. The houses of +this towne, on both sides of the street, have their several gardens +belonging to them; and in the lower street there be some pretty orchards, +that yield store of good fruit.’ As Patterson says, this +description is near enough even to-day, and is mighty nicely written +to boot. I am bound to add, of my own experience, that Maybole +is tumbledown and dreary. Prosperous enough in reality, it has +an air of decay; and though the population has increased, a roofless +house every here and there seems to protest the contrary. The +women are more than well-favoured, and the men fine tall fellows; but +they look slipshod and dissipated. As they slouched at street +corners, or stood about gossiping in the snow, it seemed they would +have been more at home in the slums of a large city than here in a country +place betwixt a village and a town. I heard a great deal about +drinking, and a great deal about religious revivals: two things in which +the Scottish character is emphatic and most unlovely. In particular, +I heard of clergymen who were employing their time in explaining to +a delighted audience the physics of the Second Coming. It is not +very likely any of us will be asked to help. if we were, it is likely +we should receive instructions for the occasion, and that on more reliable +authority. And so I can only figure to myself a congregation truly +curious in such flights of theological fancy, as one of veteran and +accomplished saints, who have fought the good fight to an end and outlived +all worldly passion, and are to be regarded rather as a part of the +Church Triumphant than the poor, imperfect company on earth. And +yet I saw some young fellows about the smoking-room who seemed, in the +eyes of one who cannot count himself strait-laced, in need of some more +practical sort of teaching. They seemed only eager to get drunk, +and to do so speedily. It was not much more than a week after +the New Year; and to hear them return on their past bouts with a gusto +unspeakable was not altogether pleasing. Here is one snatch of +talk, for the accuracy of which I can vouch-<br> +<br> +‘Ye had a spree here last Tuesday?’<br> +<br> +‘We had that!’<br> +<br> +‘I wasna able to be oot o’ my bed. Man, I was awful +bad on Wednesday.’<br> +<br> +‘Ay, ye were gey bad.’<br> +<br> +And you should have seen the bright eyes, and heard the sensual accents! +They recalled their doings with devout gusto and a sort of rational +pride. Schoolboys, after their first drunkenness, are not more +boastful; a cock does not plume himself with a more unmingled satisfaction +as he paces forth among his harem; and yet these were grown men, and +by no means short of wit. It was hard to suppose they were very +eager about the Second Coming: it seemed as if some elementary notions +of temperance for the men and seemliness for the women would have gone +nearer the mark. And yet, as it seemed to me typical of much that +is evil in Scotland, Maybole is also typical of much that is best. +Some of the factories, which have taken the place of weaving in the +town’s economy, were originally founded and are still possessed +by self-made men of the sterling, stout old breed - fellows who made +some little bit of an invention, borrowed some little pocketful of capital, +and then, step by step, in courage, thrift and industry, fought their +way upwards to an assured position.<br> +<br> +Abercrummie has told you enough of the Tolbooth; but, as a bit of spelling, +this inscription on the Tolbooth bell seems too delicious to withhold: +‘This bell is founded at Maiboll Bi Danel Geli, a Frenchman, the +6th November, 1696, Bi appointment of the heritors of the parish of +Maiyboll.’ The Castle deserves more notice. It is +a large and shapely tower, plain from the ground upwards, but with a +zone of ornamentation running about the top. In a general way +this adornment is perched on the very summit of the chimney-stacks; +but there is one corner more elaborate than the rest. A very heavy +string-course runs round the upper story, and just above this, facing +up the street, the tower carries a small oriel window, fluted and corbelled +and carved about with stone heads. It is so ornate it has somewhat +the air of a shrine. And it was, indeed, the casket of a very +precious jewel, for in the room to which it gives light lay, for long +years, the heroine of the sweet old ballad of ‘Johnnie Faa’ +- she who, at the call of the gipsies’ songs, ‘came tripping +down the stair, and all her maids before her.’ Some people +say the ballad has no basis in fact, and have written, I believe, unanswerable +papers to the proof. But in the face of all that, the very look +of that high oriel window convinces the imagination, and we enter into +all the sorrows of the imprisoned dame. We conceive the burthen +of the long, lack-lustre days, when she leaned her sick head against +the mullions, and saw the burghers loafing in Maybole High Street, and +the children at play, and ruffling gallants riding by from hunt or foray. +We conceive the passion of odd moments, when the wind threw up to her +some snatch of song, and her heart grew hot within her, and her eyes +overflowed at the memory of the past. And even if the tale be +not true of this or that lady, or this or that old tower, it is true +in the essence of all men and women: for all of us, some time or other, +hear the gipsies singing; over all of us is the glamour cast. +Some resist and sit resolutely by the fire. Most go and are brought +back again, like Lady Cassilis. A few, of the tribe of Waring, +go and are seen no more; only now and again, at springtime, when the +gipsies’ song is afloat in the amethyst evening, we can catch +their voices in the glee.<br> +<br> +By night it was clearer, and Maybole more visible than during the day. +Clouds coursed over the sky in great masses; the full moon battled the +other way, and lit up the snow with gleams of flying silver; the town +came down the hill in a cascade of brown gables, bestridden by smooth +white roofs, and sprangled here and there with lighted windows. +At either end the snow stood high up in the darkness, on the peak of +the Tolbooth and among the chimneys of the Castle. As the moon +flashed a bull’s-eye glitter across the town between the racing +clouds, the white roofs leaped into relief over the gables and the chimney-stacks, +and their shadows over the white roofs. In the town itself the +lit face of the clock peered down the street; an hour was hammered out +on Mr. Geli’s bell, and from behind the red curtains of a public-house +some one trolled out - a compatriot of Burns, again! - ‘The saut +tear blin’s my e’e.’<br> +<br> +Next morning there was sun and a flapping wind. From the street +corners of Maybole I could catch breezy glimpses of green fields. +The road underfoot was wet and heavy - part ice, part snow, part water, +and any one I met greeted me, by way of salutation, with ‘A fine +thowe’ (thaw). My way lay among rather bleak bills, and +past bleak ponds and dilapidated castles and monasteries, to the Highland-looking +village of Kirkoswald. It has little claim to notice, save that +Burns came there to study surveying in the summer of 1777, and there +also, in the kirkyard, the original of Tam o’ Shanter sleeps his +last sleep. It is worth noticing, however, that this was the first +place I thought ‘Highland-looking.’ Over the bill +from Kirkoswald a farm-road leads to the coast. As I came down +above Turnberry, the sea view was indeed strangely different from the +day before. The cold fogs were all blown away; and there was Ailsa +Craig, like a refraction, magnified and deformed, of the Bass Rock; +and there were the chiselled mountain-tops of Arran, veined and tipped +with snow; and behind, and fainter, the low, blue land of Cantyre. +Cottony clouds stood in a great castle over the top of Arran, and blew +out in long streamers to the south. The sea was bitten all over +with white; little ships, tacking up and down the Firth, lay over at +different angles in the wind. On Shanter they were ploughing lea; +a cart foal, all in a field by himself, capered and whinnied as if the +spring were in him.<br> +<br> +The road from Turnberry to Girvan lies along the shore, among sand-hills +and by wildernesses of tumbled bent. Every here and there a few +cottages stood together beside a bridge. They had one odd feature, +not easy to describe in words: a triangular porch projected from above +the door, supported at the apex by a single upright post; a secondary +door was hinged to the post, and could be hasped on either cheek of +the real entrance; so, whether the wind was north or south, the cotter +could make himself a triangular bight of shelter where to set his chair +and finish a pipe with comfort. There is one objection to this +device; for, as the post stands in the middle of the fairway, any one +precipitately issuing from the cottage must run his chance of a broken +head. So far as I am aware, it is peculiar to the little corner +of country about Girvan. And that corner is noticeable for more +reasons: it is certainly one of the most characteristic districts in +Scotland, It has this movable porch by way of architecture; it has, +as we shall see, a sort of remnant of provincial costume, and it has +the handsomest population in the Lowlands. . . .<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER V - FOREST NOTES 1875-6<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +ON THE PLAIN<br> +<br> +<br> +Perhaps the reader knows already the aspect of the great levels of the +Gâtinais, where they border with the wooded hills of Fontainebleau. +Here and there a few grey rocks creep out of the forest as if to sun +themselves. Here and there a few apple-trees stand together on +a knoll. The quaint, undignified tartan of a myriad small fields +dies out into the distance; the strips blend and disappear; and the +dead flat lies forth open and empty, with no accident save perhaps a +thin line of trees or faint church spire against the sky. Solemn +and vast at all times, in spite of pettiness in the near details, the +impression becomes more solemn and vast towards evening. The sun +goes down, a swollen orange, as it were into the sea. A blue-clad +peasant rides home, with a harrow smoking behind him among the dry clods. +Another still works with his wife in their little strip. An immense +shadow fills the plain; these people stand in it up to their shoulders; +and their heads, as they stoop over their work and rise again, are relieved +from time to time against the golden sky.<br> +<br> +These peasant farmers are well off nowadays, and not by any means overworked; +but somehow you always see in them the historical representative of +the serf of yore, and think not so much of present times, which may +be prosperous enough, as of the old days when the peasant was taxed +beyond possibility of payment, and lived, in Michelet’s image, +like a hare between two furrows. These very people now weeding +their patch under the broad sunset, that very man and his wife, it seems +to us, have suffered all the wrongs of France. It is they who +have been their country’s scapegoat for long ages; they who, generation +after generation, have sowed and not reaped, reaped and another has +garnered; and who have now entered into their reward, and enjoy their +good things in their turn. For the days are gone by when the Seigneur +ruled and profited. ‘Le Seigneur,’ says the old formula, +‘enferme ses manants comme sous porte et gonds, du ciel à +la terre. Tout est à lui, forêt chenue, oiseau dans +l’air, poisson dans l’eau, bête an buisson, l’onde +qui coule, la cloche dont le son au loin roule.’ Such was +his old state of sovereignty, a local god rather than a mere king. +And now you may ask yourself where he is, and look round for vestiges +of my late lord, and in all the country-side there is no trace of him +but his forlorn and fallen mansion. At the end of a long avenue, +now sown with grain, in the midst of a close full of cypresses and lilacs, +ducks and crowing chanticleers and droning bees, the old château +lifts its red chimneys and peaked roofs and turning vanes into the wind +and sun. There is a glad spring bustle in the air, perhaps, and +the lilacs are all in flower, and the creepers green about the broken +balustrade: but no spring shall revive the honour of the place. +Old women of the people, little, children of the people, saunter and +gambol in the walled court or feed the ducks in the neglected moat. +Plough-horses, mighty of limb, browse in the long stables. The +dial-hand on the clock waits for some better hour. Out on the +plain, where hot sweat trickles into men’s eyes, and the spade +goes in deep and comes up slowly, perhaps the peasant may feel a movement +of joy at his heart when he thinks that these spacious chimneys are +now cold, which have so often blazed and flickered upon gay folk at +supper, while he and his hollow-eyed children watched through the night +with empty bellies and cold feet. And perhaps, as he raises his +head and sees the forest lying like a coast-line of low hills along +the sea-level of the plain, perhaps forest and chateau hold no unsimilar +place in his affections.<br> +<br> +If the chateau was my lord’s, the forest was my lord the king’s; +neither of them for this poor Jacques. If he thought to eke out +his meagre way of life by some petty theft of wood for the fire, or +for a new roof-tree, he found himself face to face with a whole department, +from the Grand Master of the Woods and Waters, who was a high-born lord, +down to the common sergeant, who was a peasant like himself, and wore +stripes or a bandoleer by way of uniform. For the first offence, +by the Salic law, there was a fine of fifteen sols; and should a man +be taken more than once in fault, or circumstances aggravate the colour +of his guilt, he might be whipped, branded, or hanged. There was +a hangman over at Melun, and, I doubt not, a fine tall gibbet hard by +the town gate, where Jacques might see his fellows dangle against the +sky as he went to market.<br> +<br> +And then, if he lived near to a cover, there would be the more hares +and rabbits to eat out his harvest, and the more hunters to trample +it down. My lord has a new horn from England. He has laid +out seven francs in decorating it with silver and gold, and fitting +it with a silken leash to hang about his shoulder. The hounds +have been on a pilgrimage to the shrine of Saint Mesmer, or Saint Hubert +in the Ardennes, or some other holy intercessor who has made a speciality +of the health of hunting-dogs. In the grey dawn the game was turned +and the branch broken by our best piqueur. A rare day’s +hunting lies before us. Wind a jolly flourish, sound the <i>bien-aller</i> +with all your lungs. Jacques must stand by, hat in hand, while +the quarry and hound and huntsman sweep across his field, and a year’s +sparing and labouring is as though it had not been. If he can +see the ruin with a good enough grace, who knows but he may fall in +favour with my lord; who knows but his son may become the last and least +among the servants at his lordship’s kennel - one of the two poor +varlets who get no wages and sleep at night among the hounds? <a name="citation4"></a><a href="#footnote4">{4}</a><br> +<br> +For all that, the forest has been of use to Jacques, not only warming +him with fallen wood, but giving him shelter in days of sore trouble, +when my lord of the château, with all his troopers and trumpets, +had been beaten from field after field into some ultimate fastness, +or lay over-seas in an English prison. In these dark days, when +the watch on the church steeple saw the smoke of burning villages on +the sky-line, or a clump of spears and fluttering pensions drawing nigh +across the plain, these good folk gat them up, with all their household +gods, into the wood, whence, from some high spur, their timid scouts +might overlook the coming and going of the marauders, and see the harvest +ridden down, and church and cottage go up to heaven all night in flame. +It was but an unhomely refuge that the woods afforded, where they must +abide all change of weather and keep house with wolves and vipers. +Often there was none left alive, when they returned, to show the old +divisions of field from field. And yet, as times went, when the +wolves entered at night into depopulated Paris, and perhaps De Retz +was passing by with a company of demons like himself, even in these +caves and thickets there were glad hearts and grateful prayers.<br> +<br> +Once or twice, as I say, in the course of the ages, the forest may have +served the peasant well, but at heart it is a royal forest, and noble +by old associations. These woods have rung to the horns of all +the kings of France, from Philip Augustus downwards. They have +seen Saint Louis exercise the dogs he brought with him from Egypt; Francis +I. go a-hunting with ten thousand horses in his train; and Peter of +Russia following his first stag. And so they are still haunted +for the imagination by royal hunts and progresses, and peopled with +the faces of memorable men of yore. And this distinction is not +only in virtue of the pastime of dead monarchs.<br> +<br> +Great events, great revolutions, great cycles in the affairs of men, +have here left their note, here taken shape in some significant and +dramatic situation. It was hence that Gruise and his leaguers +led Charles the Ninth a prisoner to Paris. Here, booted and spurred, +and with all his dogs about him, Napoleon met the Pope beside a woodland +cross. Here, on his way to Elba not so long after, he kissed the +eagle of the Old Guard, and spoke words of passionate farewell to his +soldiers. And here, after Waterloo, rather than yield its ensign +to the new power, one of his faithful regiments burned that memorial +of so much toil and glory on the Grand Master’s table, and drank +its dust in brandy, as a devout priest consumes the remnants of the +Host.<br> +<br> +<br> +IN THE SEASON<br> +<br> +<br> +Close into the edge of the forest, so close that the trees of the <i>bornage</i> +stand pleasantly about the last houses, sits a certain small and very +quiet village. There is but one street, and that, not long ago, +was a green lane, where the cattle browsed between the doorsteps. +As you go up this street, drawing ever nearer the beginning of the wood, +you will arrive at last before an inn where artists lodge. To +the door (for I imagine it to be six o’clock on some fine summer’s +even), half a dozen, or maybe half a score, of people have brought out +chairs, and now sit sunning themselves, and waiting the omnibus from +Melun. If you go on into the court you will find as many more, +some in billiard-room over absinthe and a match of corks some without +over a last cigar and a vermouth. The doves coo and flutter from +the dovecot; Hortense is drawing water from the well; and as all the +rooms open into the court, you can see the white-capped cook over the +furnace in the kitchen, and some idle painter, who has stored his canvases +and washed his brushes, jangling a waltz on the crazy, tongue-tied piano +in the salle-à-manger. ‘<i>Edmond, encore un vermouth</i>,’ +cries a man in velveteen, adding in a tone of apologetic afterthought, +‘<i>un double, s’il vous plaît</i>.’ ‘Where +are you working?’ asks one in pure white linen from top to toe. +‘At the Carrefour de l’Épine,’ returns the +other in corduroy (they are all gaitered, by the way). ‘I +couldn’t do a thing to it. I ran out of white. Where +were you?’ ‘I wasn’t working. I was looking +for motives.’ Here is an outbreak of jubilation, and a lot +of men clustering together about some new-comer with outstretched hands; +perhaps the ‘correspondence’ has come in and brought So-and-so +from Paris, or perhaps it is only So-and-so who has walked over from +Chailly to dinner.<br> +<br> +‘<i>À table, Messieurs</i>!’ cries M. Siron, bearing +through the court the first tureen of soup. And immediately the +company begins to settle down about the long tables in the dining-room, +framed all round with sketches of all degrees of merit and demerit. +There’s the big picture of the huntsman winding a horn with a +dead boar between his legs, and his legs - well, his legs in stockings. +And here is the little picture of a raw mutton-chop, in which Such-a-one +knocked a hole last summer with no worse a missile than a plum from +the dessert. And under all these works of art so much eating goes +forward, so much drinking, so much jabbering in French and English, +that it would do your heart good merely to peep and listen at the door. +One man is telling how they all went last year to the fete at Fleury, +and another how well so-and-so would sing of an evening: and here are +a third and fourth making plans for the whole future of their lives; +and there is a fifth imitating a conjurer and making faces on his clenched +fist, surely of all arts the most difficult and admirable! A sixth +has eaten his fill, lights a cigarette, and resigns himself to digestion. +A seventh has just dropped in, and calls for soup. Number eight, +meanwhile, has left the table, and is once more trampling the poor piano +under powerful and uncertain fingers.<br> +<br> +Dinner over, people drop outside to smoke and chat. Perhaps we +go along to visit our friends at the other end of the village, where +there is always a good welcome and a good talk, and perhaps some pickled +oysters and white wine to close the evening. Or a dance is organised +in the dining-room, and the piano exhibits all its paces under manful +jockeying, to the light of three or four candles and a lamp or two, +while the waltzers move to and fro upon the wooden floor, and sober +men, who are not given to such light pleasures, get up on the table +or the sideboard, and sit there looking on approvingly over a pipe and +a tumbler of wine. Or sometimes - suppose my lady moon looks forth, +and the court from out the half-lit dining-room seems nearly as bright +as by day, and the light picks out the window-panes, and makes a clear +shadow under every vine-leaf on the wall - sometimes a picnic is proposed, +and a basket made ready, and a good procession formed in front of the +hotel. The two trumpeters in honour go before; and as we file +down the long alley, and up through devious footpaths among rocks and +pine-trees, with every here and there a dark passage of shadow, and +every here and there a spacious outlook over moonlit woods, these two +precede us and sound many a jolly flourish as they walk. We gather +ferns and dry boughs into the cavern, and soon a good blaze flutters +the shadows of the old bandits’ haunt, and shows shapely beards +and comely faces and toilettes ranged about the wall. The bowl +is lit, and the punch is burnt and sent round in scalding thimblefuls. +So a good hour or two may pass with song and jest. And then we +go home in the moonlit morning, straggling a good deal among the birch +tufts and the boulders, but ever called together again, as one of our +leaders winds his horn. Perhaps some one of the party will not +heed the summons, but chooses out some by-way of his own. As he +follows the winding sandy road, he hears the flourishes grow fainter +and fainter in the distance, and die finally out, and still walks on +in the strange coolness and silence and between the crisp lights and +shadows of the moonlit woods, until suddenly the bell rings out the +hour from far-away Chailly, and he starts to find himself alone. +No surf-bell on forlorn and perilous shores, no passing knell over the +busy market-place, can speak with a more heavy and disconsolate tongue +to human ears. Each stroke calls up a host of ghostly reverberations +in his mind. And as he stands rooted, it has grown once more so +utterly silent that it seems to him he might hear the church bells ring +the hour out all the world over, not at Chailly only, but in Paris, +and away in outlandish cities, and in the village on the river, where +his childhood passed between the sun and flowers.<br> +<br> +<br> +IDLE HOURS<br> +<br> +<br> +The woods by night, in all their uncanny effect, are not rightly to +be understood until you can compare them with the woods by day. +The stillness of the medium, the floor of glittering sand, these trees +that go streaming up like monstrous sea-weeds and waver in the moving +winds like the weeds in submarine currents, all these set the mind working +on the thought of what you may have seen off a foreland or over the +side of a boat, and make you feel like a diver, down in the quiet water, +fathoms below the tumbling, transitory surface of the sea. And +yet in itself, as I say, the strangeness of these nocturnal solitudes +is not to be felt fully without the sense of contrast. You must +have risen in the morning and seen the woods as they are by day, kindled +and coloured in the sun’s light; you must have felt the odour +of innumerable trees at even, the unsparing heat along the forest roads, +and the coolness of the groves.<br> +<br> +And on the first morning you will doubtless rise betimes. If you +have not been wakened before by the visit of some adventurous pigeon, +you will be wakened as soon as the sun can reach your window - for there +are no blind or shutters to keep him out - and the room, with its bare +wood floor and bare whitewashed walls, shines all round you in a sort +of glory of reflected lights. You may doze a while longer by snatches, +or lie awake to study the charcoal men and dogs and horses with which +former occupants have defiled the partitions: Thiers, with wily profile; +local celebrities, pipe in hand; or, maybe, a romantic landscape splashed +in oil. Meanwhile artist after artist drops into the salle-à-manger +for coffee, and then shoulders easel, sunshade, stool, and paint-box, +bound into a fagot, and sets of for what he calls his ‘motive.’ +And artist after artist, as he goes out of the village, carries with +him a little following of dogs. For the dogs, who belong only +nominally to any special master, hang about the gate of the forest all +day long, and whenever any one goes by who hits their fancy, profit +by his escort, and go forth with him to play an hour or two at hunting. +They would like to be under the trees all day. But they cannot +go alone. They require a pretext. And so they take the passing +artist as an excuse to go into the woods, as they might take a walking-stick +as an excuse to bathe. With quick ears, long spines, and bandy +legs, or perhaps as tall as a greyhound and with a bulldog’s head, +this company of mongrels will trot by your side all day and come home +with you at night, still showing white teeth and wagging stunted tail. +Their good humour is not to be exhausted. You may pelt them with +stones if you please, and all they will do is to give you a wider berth. +If once they come out with you, to you they will remain faithful, and +with you return; although if you meet them next morning in the street, +it is as like as not they will cut you with a countenance of brass.<br> +<br> +The forest - a strange thing for an Englishman - is very destitute of +birds. This is no country where every patch of wood among the +meadows gibes up an increase of song, and every valley wandered through +by a streamlet rings and reverberates from side to with a profusion +of clear notes. And this rarity of birds is not to be regretted +on its own account only. For the insects prosper in their absence, +and become as one of the plagues of Egypt. Ants swarm in the hot +sand; mosquitos drone their nasal drone; wherever the sun finds a hole +in the roof of the forest, you see a myriad transparent creatures coming +and going in the shaft of light; and even between-whiles, even where +there is no incursion of sun-rays into the dark arcade of the wood, +you are conscious of a continual drift of insects, an ebb and flow of +infinitesimal living things between the trees. Nor are insects +the only evil creatures that haunt the forest. For you may plump +into a cave among the rocks, and find yourself face to face with a wild +boar, or see a crooked viper slither across the road.<br> +<br> +Perhaps you may set yourself down in the bay between two spreading beech-roots +with a book on your lap, and be awakened all of a sudden by a friend: +‘I say, just keep where you are, will you? You make the +jolliest motive.’ And you reply: ‘Well, I don’t +mind, if I may smoke.’ And thereafter the hours go idly +by. Your friend at the easel labours doggedly a little way off, +in the wide shadow of the tree; and yet farther, across a strait of +glaring sunshine, you see another painter, encamped in the shadow of +another tree, and up to his waist in the fern. You cannot watch +your own effigy growing out of the white trunk, and the trunk beginning +to stand forth from the rest of the wood, and the whole picture getting +dappled over with the flecks of sun that slip through the leaves overhead, +and, as a wind goes by and sets the trees a-talking, flicker hither +and thither like butterflies of light. But you know it is going +forward; and, out of emulation with the painter, get ready your own +palette, and lay out the colour for a woodland scene in words.<br> +<br> +Your tree stands in a hollow paved with fern and heather, set in a basin +of low hills, and scattered over with rocks and junipers. All +the open is steeped in pitiless sunlight. Everything stands out +as though it were cut in cardboard, every colour is strained into its +highest key. The boulders are some of them upright and dead like +monolithic castles, some of them prone like sleeping cattle. The +junipers - looking, in their soiled and ragged mourning, like some funeral +procession that has gone seeking the place of sepulchre three hundred +years and more in wind and rain - are daubed in forcibly against the +glowing ferns and heather. Every tassel of their rusty foliage +is defined with pre-Raphaelite minuteness. And a sorry figure +they make out there in the sun, like misbegotten yew-trees! The +scene is all pitched in a key of colour so peculiar, and lit up with +such a discharge of violent sunlight, as a man might live fifty years +in England and not see.<br> +<br> +Meanwhile at your elbow some one tunes up a song, words of Ronsard to +a pathetic tremulous air, of how the poet loved his mistress long ago, +and pressed on her the flight of time, and told her how white and quiet +the dead lay under the stones, and how the boat dipped and pitched as +the shades embarked for the passionless land. Yet a little while, +sang the poet, and there shall be no more love; only to sit and remember +loves that might have been. There is a falling flourish in the +air that remains in the memory and comes back in incongruous places, +on the seat of hansoms or in the warm bed at night, with something of +a forest savour.<br> +<br> +‘You can get up now,’ says the painter; ‘I’m +at the background.’<br> +<br> +And so up you get, stretching yourself, and go your way into the wood, +the daylight becoming richer and more golden, and the shadows stretching +farther into the open. A cool air comes along the highways, and +the scents awaken. The fir-trees breathe abroad their ozone. +Out of unknown thickets comes forth the soft, secret, aromatic odour +of the woods, not like a smell of the free heaven, but as though court +ladies, who had known these paths in ages long gone by, still walked +in the summer evenings, and shed from their brocades a breath of musk +or bergamot upon the woodland winds. One side of the long avenues +is still kindled with the sun, the other is plunged in transparent shadow. +Over the trees the west begins to burn like a furnace; and the painters +gather up their chattels, and go down, by avenue or footpath, to the +plain.<br> +<br> +<br> +A PLEASURE-PARTY<br> +<br> +<br> +As this excursion is a matter of some length, and, moreover, we go in +force, we have set aside our usual vehicle, the pony-cart, and ordered +a large wagonette from Lejosne’s. It has been waiting for +near an hour, while one went to pack a knapsack, and t’other hurried +over his toilette and coffee; but now it is filled from end to end with +merry folk in summer attire, the coachman cracks his whip, and amid +much applause from round the inn door off we rattle at a spanking trot. +The way lies through the forest, up hill and down dale, and by beech +and pine wood, in the cheerful morning sunshine. The English get +down at all the ascents and walk on ahead for exercise; the French are +mightily entertained at this, and keep coyly underneath the tilt. +As we go we carry with us a pleasant noise of laughter and light speech, +and some one will be always breaking out into a bar or two of opera +bouffe. Before we get to the Route Ronde here comes Desprez, the +colourman from Fontainebleau, trudging across on his weekly peddle with +a case of merchandise; and it is ‘Desprez, leave me some malachite +green’; ‘Desprez, leave me so much canvas’; ‘Desprez, +leave me this, or leave me that’; M. Desprez standing the while +in the sunlight with grave face and many salutations. The next +interruption is more important. For some time back we have had +the sound of cannon in our ears; and now, a little past Franchard, we +find a mounted trooper holding a led horse, who brings the wagonette +to a stand. The artillery is practising in the Quadrilateral, +it appears; passage along the Route Ronde formally interdicted for the +moment. There is nothing for it but to draw up at the glaring +cross-roads and get down to make fun with the notorious Cocardon, the +most ungainly and ill-bred dog of all the ungainly and ill-bred dogs +of Barbizon, or clamber about the sandy banks. And meanwhile the +doctor, with sun umbrella, wide Panama, and patriarchal beard, is busy +wheedling and (for aught the rest of us know) bribing the too facile +sentry. His speech is smooth and dulcet, his manner dignified +and insinuating. It is not for nothing that the Doctor has voyaged +all the world over, and speaks all languages from French to Patagonian. +He has not come borne from perilous journeys to be thwarted by a corporal +of horse. And so we soon see the soldier’s mouth relax, +and his shoulders imitate a relenting heart. ‘<i>En voiture, +Messieurs, Mesdames</i>,’ sings the Doctor; and on we go again +at a good round pace, for black care follows hard after us, and discretion +prevails not a little over valour in some timorous spirits of the party. +At any moment we may meet the sergeant, who will send us back. +At any moment we may encounter a flying shell, which will send us somewhere +farther off than Grez.<br> +<br> +Grez - for that is our destination - has been highly recommended for +its beauty. ‘<i>Il y a de l‘eau</i>,’ people +have said, with an emphasis, as if that settled the question, which, +for a French mind, I am rather led to think it does. And Grez, +when we get there, is indeed a place worthy of some praise. It +lies out of the forest, a cluster of houses, with an old bridge, an +old castle in ruin, and a quaint old church. The inn garden descends +in terraces to the river; stable-yard, kailyard, orchard, and a space +of lawn, fringed with rushes and embellished with a green arbour. +On the opposite bank there is a reach of English-looking plain, set +thickly with willows and poplars. And between the two lies the +river, clear and deep, and full of reeds and floating lilies. +Water-plants cluster about the starlings of the long low bridge, and +stand half-way up upon the piers in green luxuriance. They catch +the dipped oar with long antennae, and chequer the slimy bottom with +the shadow of their leaves. And the river wanders and thither +hither among the islets, and is smothered and broken up by the reeds, +like an old building in the lithe, hardy arms of the climbing ivy. +You may watch the box where the good man of the inn keeps fish alive +for his kitchen, one oily ripple following another over the top of the +yellow deal. And you can hear a splashing and a prattle of voices +from the shed under the old kirk, where the village women wash and wash +all day among the fish and water-lilies. It seems as if linen +washed there should be specially cool and sweet.<br> +<br> +We have come here for the river. And no sooner have we all bathed +than we board the two shallops and push off gaily, and go gliding under +the trees and gathering a great treasure of water-lilies. Some +one sings; some trail their hands in the cool water; some lean over +the gunwale to see the image of the tall poplars far below, and the +shadow of the boat, with the balanced oars and their own head protruded, +glide smoothly over the yellow floor of the stream. At last, the +day declining - all silent and happy, and up to the knees in the wet +lilies - we punt slowly back again to the landing-place beside the bridge. +There is a wish for solitude on all. One hides himself in the +arbour with a cigarette; another goes a walk in the country with Cocardon; +a third inspects the church. And it is not till dinner is on the +table, and the inn’s best wine goes round from glass to glass, +that we begin to throw off the restraint and fuse once more into a jolly +fellowship.<br> +<br> +Half the party are to return to-night with the wagonette; and some of +the others, loath to break up company, will go with them a bit of the +way and drink a stirrup-cup at Marlotte. It is dark in the wagonette, +and not so merry as it might have been. The coachman loses the +road. So-and-so tries to light fireworks with the most indifferent +success. Some sing, but the rest are too weary to applaud; and +it seems as if the festival were fairly at an end -<br> +<br> +‘Nous avons fait la noce,<br> +Rentrons à nos foyers!’<br> +<br> +And such is the burthen, even after we have come to Marlotte and taken +our places in the court at Mother Antonine’s. There is punch +on the long table out in the open air, where the guests dine in summer +weather. The candles flare in the night wind, and the faces round +the punch are lit up, with shifting emphasis, against a background of +complete and solid darkness. It is all picturesque enough; but +the fact is, we are aweary. We yawn; we are out of the vein; we +have made the wedding, as the song says, and now, for pleasure’s +sake, let’s make an end on’t. When here comes striding +into the court, booted to mid-thigh, spurred and splashed, in a jacket +of green cord, the great, famous, and redoubtable Blank; and in a moment +the fire kindles again, and the night is witness of our laughter as +he imitates Spaniards, Germans, Englishmen, picture-dealers, all eccentric +ways of speaking and thinking, with a possession, a fury, a strain of +mind and voice, that would rather suggest a nervous crisis than a desire +to please. We are as merry as ever when the trap sets forth again, +and say farewell noisily to all the good folk going farther. Then, +as we are far enough from thoughts of sleep, we visit Blank in his quaint +house, and sit an hour or so in a great tapestried chamber, laid with +furs, littered with sleeping hounds, and lit up, in fantastic shadow +and shine, by a wood fire in a mediaeval chimney. And then we +plod back through the darkness to the inn beside the river.<br> +<br> +How quick bright things come to confusion! When we arise next +morning, the grey showers fall steadily, the trees hang limp, and the +face of the stream is spoiled with dimpling raindrops. Yesterday’s +lilies encumber the garden walk, or begin, dismally enough, their voyage +towards the Seine and the salt sea. A sickly shimmer lies upon +the dripping house-roofs, and all the colour is washed out of the green +and golden landscape of last night, as though an envious man had taken +a water-colour sketch and blotted it together with a sponge. We +go out a-walking in the wet roads. But the roads about Grez have +a trick of their own. They go on for a while among clumps of willows +and patches of vine, and then, suddenly and without any warning, cease +and determine in some miry hollow or upon some bald knowe; and you have +a short period of hope, then right-about face, and back the way you +came! So we draw about the kitchen fire and play a round game +of cards for ha’pence, or go to the billiard-room, for a match +at corks and by one consent a messenger is sent over for the wagonette +- Grez shall be left to-morrow.<br> +<br> +To-morrow dawns so fair that two of the party agree to walk back for +exercise, and let their kidnap-sacks follow by the trap. I need +hardly say they are neither of them French; for, of all English phrases, +the phrase ‘for exercise’ is the least comprehensible across +the Straits of Dover. All goes well for a while with the pedestrians. +The wet woods are full of scents in the noontide. At a certain +cross, where there is a guardhouse, they make a halt, for the forester’s +wife is the daughter of their good host at Barbizon. And so there +they are hospitably received by the comely woman, with one child in +her arms and another prattling and tottering at her gown, and drink +some syrup of quince in the back parlour, with a map of the forest on +the wall, and some prints of love-affairs and the great Napoleon hunting. +As they draw near the Quadrilateral, and hear once more the report of +the big guns, they take a by-road to avoid the sentries, and go on a +while somewhat vaguely, with the sound of the cannon in their ears and +the rain beginning to fall. The ways grow wider and sandier; here +and there there are real sand-hills, as though by the sea-shore; the +fir-wood is open and grows in clumps upon the hillocks, and the race +of sign-posts is no more. One begins to look at the other doubtfully. +‘I am sure we should keep more to the right,’ says one; +and the other is just as certain they should hold to the left. +And now, suddenly, the heavens open, and the rain falls ‘sheer +and strong and loud,’ as out of a shower-bath. In a moment +they are as wet as shipwrecked sailors. They cannot see out of +their eyes for the drift, and the water churns and gurgles in their +boots. They leave the track and try across country with a gambler’s +desperatin, for it seems as if it were impossible to make the situation +worse; and, for the next hour, go scrambling from boulder to boulder, +or plod along paths that are now no more than rivulets, and across waste +clearings where the scattered shells and broken fir-trees tell all too +plainly of the cannon in the distance. And meantime the cannon +grumble out responses to the grumbling thunder. There is such +a mixture of melodrama and sheer discomfort about all this, it is at +once so grey and so lurid, that it is far more agreeable to read and +write about by the chimney-corner than to suffer in the person. +At last they chance on the right path, and make Franchard in the early +evening, the sorriest pair of wanderers that ever welcomed English ale. +Thence, by the Bois d’Hyver, the Ventes-Alexandre, and the Pins +Brulés, to the clean hostelry, dry clothes, and dinner.<br> +<br> +<br> +THE WOODS IN SPRING<br> +<br> +<br> +I think you will like the forest best in the sharp early springtime, +when it is just beginning to reawaken, and innumerable violets peep +from among the fallen leaves; when two or three people at most sit down +to dinner, and, at table, you will do well to keep a rug about your +knees, for the nights are chill, and the salle-à-manger opens +on the court. There is less to distract the attention, for one +thing, and the forest is more itself. It is not bedotted with +artists’ sunshades as with unknown mushrooms, nor bestrewn with +the remains of English picnics. The hunting still goes on, and +at any moment your heart may be brought into your mouth as you hear +far-away horns; or you may be told by an agitated peasant that the Vicomte +has gone up the avenue, not ten minutes since, ‘<i>à fond +de train, monsieur, et avec douze pipuers</i>.’<br> +<br> +If you go up to some coign of vantage in the system of low hills that +permeates the forest, you will see many different tracts of country, +each of its own cold and melancholy neutral tint, and all mixed together +and mingled the one into the other at the seams. You will see +tracts of leafless beeches of a faint yellowish grey, and leafless oaks +a little ruddier in the hue. Then zones of pine of a solemn green; +and, dotted among the pines, or standing by themselves in rocky clearings, +the delicate, snow-white trunks of birches, spreading out into snow-white +branches yet more delicate, and crowned and canopied with a purple haze +of twigs. And then a long, bare ridge of tumbled boulders, with +bright sand-breaks between them, and wavering sandy roads among the +bracken and brown heather. It is all rather cold and unhomely. +It has not the perfect beauty, nor the gem-like colouring, of the wood +in the later year, when it is no more than one vast colonnade of verdant +shadow, tremulous with insects, intersected here and there by lanes +of sunlight set in purple heather. The loveliness of the woods +in March is not, assuredly, of this blowzy rustic type. It is +made sharp with a grain of salt, with a touch of ugliness. It +has a sting like the sting of bitter ale; you acquire the love of it +as men acquire a taste for olives. And the wonderful clear, pure +air wells into your lungs the while by voluptuous inhalations, and makes +the eyes bright, and sets the heart tinkling to a new tune - or, rather, +to an old tune; for you remember in your boyhood something akin to this +spirit of adventure, this thirst for exploration, that now takes you +masterfully by the hand, plunges you into many a deep grove, and drags +you over many a stony crest. it is as if the whole wood were full of +friendly voice, calling you farther in, and you turn from one side to +another, like Buridan’s donkey, in a maze of pleasure.<br> +<br> +Comely beeches send up their white, straight, clustered branches, barred +with green moss, like so many fingers from a half-clenched hand. +Mighty oaks stand to the ankles in a fine tracery of underwood; thence +the tall shaft climbs upwards, and the great forest of stalwart boughs +spreads out into the golden evening sky, where the rooks are flying +and calling. On the sward of the Bois d’Hyver the firs stand +well asunder with outspread arms, like fencers saluting; and the air +smells of resin all around, and the sound of the axe is rarely still. +But strangest of all, and in appearance oldest of all, are the dim and +wizard upland districts of young wood. The ground is carpeted +with fir-tassel, and strewn with fir-apples and flakes of fallen bark. +Rocks lie crouching in the thicket, guttered with rain, tufted with +lichen, white with years and the rigours of the changeful seasons. +Brown and yellow butterflies are sown and carried away again by the +light air - like thistledown. The loneliness of these coverts +is so excessive, that there are moments when pleasure draws to the verge +of fear. You listen and listen for some noise to break the silence, +till you grow half mesmerised by the intensity of the strain; your sense +of your own identity is troubled; your brain reels, like that of some +gymnosophist poring on his own nose in Asiatic jungles; and should you +see your own outspread feet, you see them, not as anything of yours, +but as a feature of the scene around you.<br> +<br> +Still the forest is always, but the stillness is not always unbroken. +You can hear the wind pass in the distance over the tree-tops; sometimes +briefly, like the noise of a train; sometimes with a long steady rush, +like the breaking of waves. And sometimes, close at band, the +branches move, a moan goes through the thicket, and the wood thrills +to its heart. Perhaps you may hear a carriage on the road to Fontainebleau, +a bird gives a dry continual chirp, the dead leaves rustle underfoot, +or you may time your steps to the steady recurrent strokes of the woodman’s +axe. From time to time, over the low grounds, a flight of rooks +goes by; and from time to time the cooing of wild doves falls upon the +ear, not sweet and rich and near at hand as in England, but a sort of +voice of the woods, thin and far away, as fits these solemn places. +Or you hear suddenly the hollow, eager, violent barking of dogs; scared +deer flit past you through the fringes of the wood; then a man or two +running, in green blouse, with gun and game-bag on a bandoleer; and +then, out of the thick of the trees, comes the jar of rifle-shots. +Or perhaps the hounds are out, and horns are blown, and scarlet-coated +huntsmen flash through the clearings, and the solid noise of horses +galloping passes below you, where you sit perched among the rocks and +heather. The boar is afoot, and all over the forest, and in all +neighbouring villages, there is a vague excitement and a vague hope; +for who knows whither the chase may lead? and even to have seen a single +piqueur, or spoken to a single sportsman, is to be a man of consequence +for the night.<br> +<br> +Besides men who shoot and men who ride with the hounds, there are few +people in the forest, in the early spring, save woodcutters plying their +axes steadily, and old women and children gathering wood for the fire. +You may meet such a party coming home in the twilight: the old woman +laden with a fagot of chips, and the little ones hauling a long branch +behind them in her wake. That is the worst of what there is to +encounter; and if I tell you of what once happened to a friend of mine, +it is by no means to tantalise you with false hopes; for the adventure +was unique. It was on a very cold, still, sunless morning, with +a flat grey sky and a frosty tingle in the air, that this friend (who +shall here be nameless) heard the notes of a key-bugle played with much +hesitation, and saw the smoke of a fire spread out along the green pine-tops, +in a remote uncanny glen, hard by a hill of naked boulders. He +drew near warily, and beheld a picnic party seated under a tree in an +open. The old father knitted a sock, the mother sat staring at +the fire. The eldest son, in the uniform of a private of dragoons, +was choosing out notes on a key-bugle. Two or three daughters +lay in the neighbourhood picking violets. And the whole party +as grave and silent as the woods around them! My friend watched +for a long time, he says; but all held their peace; not one spoke or +smiled; only the dragoon kept choosing out single notes upon the bugle, +and the father knitted away at his work and made strange movements the +while with his flexible eyebrows. They took no notice whatever +of my friend’s presence, which was disquieting in itself, and +increased the resemblance of the whole party to mechanical waxworks. +Certainly, he affirms, a wax figure might have played the bugle with +more spirit than that strange dragoon. And as this hypothesis +of his became more certain, the awful insolubility of why they should +be left out there in the woods with nobody to wind them up again when +they ran down, and a growing disquietude as to what might happen next, +became too much for his courage, and he turned tail, and fairly took +to his heels. It might have been a singing in his ears, but he +fancies he was followed as he ran by a peal of Titanic laughter. +Nothing has ever transpired to clear up the mystery; it may be they +were automata; or it may be (and this is the theory to which I lean +myself) that this is all another chapter of Heine’s ‘Gods +in Exile’; that the upright old man with the eyebrows was no other +than Father Jove, and the young dragoon with the taste for music either +Apollo or Mars.<br> +<br> +<br> +MORALITY<br> +<br> +<br> +Strange indeed is the attraction of the forest for the minds of men. +Not one or two only, but a great chorus of grateful voices have arisen +to spread abroad its fame. Half the famous writers of modern France +have had their word to say about Fontainebleau. Chateaubriand, +Michelet, Béranger, George Sand, de Senancour, Flaubert, Murger, +the brothers Goncourt, Théodore de Banville, each of these has +done something to the eternal praise and memory of these woods. +Even at the very worst of times, even when the picturesque was anathema +in the eyes of all Persons of Taste, the forest still preserved a certain +reputation for beauty. It was in 1730 that the Abbé Guilbert +published his <i>Historical Description</i> <i>of the Palace, Town, +and Forest of Fontainebleau</i>. And very droll it is to see him, +as he tries to set forth his admiration in terms of what was then permissible. +The monstrous rocks, etc., says the Abbé ‘sont admirées +avec surprise des voyageurs qui s’écrient aussitôt +avec Horace: Ut mihi devio rupee et vacuum nemus mirari libet.’ +The good man is not exactly lyrical in his praise; and you see how he +sets his back against Horace as against a trusty oak. Horace, +at any rate, was classical. For the rest, however, the Abbé +likes places where many alleys meet; or which, like the Belle-Étoile, +are kept up ‘by a special gardener,’ and admires at the +Table du Roi the labours of the Grand Master of Woods and Waters, the +Sieur de la Falure, ‘qui a fait faire ce magnifique endroit.’<br> +<br> +But indeed, it is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a +claim upon men’s hearts, as for that subtle something, that quality +of the air, that emanation from the old trees, that so wonderfully changes +and renews a weary spirit. Disappointed men, sick Francis Firsts +and vanquished Grand Monarchs, time out of mind have come here for consolation. +Hither perplexed folk have retired out of the press of life, as into +a deep bay-window on some night of masquerade, and here found quiet +and silence, and rest, the mother of wisdom. It is the great moral +spa; this forest without a fountain is itself the great fountain of +Juventius. It is the best place in the world to bring an old sorrow +that has been a long while your friend and enemy; and if, like Béranger’s +your gaiety has run away from home and left open the door for sorrow +to come in, of all covers in Europe, it is here you may expect to find +the truant hid. With every hour you change. The air penetrates +through your clothes, and nestles to your living body. You love +exercise and slumber, long fasting and full meals. You forget +all your scruples and live a while in peace and freedom, and for the +moment only. For here, all is absent that can stimulate to moral +feeling. Such people as you see may be old, or toil-worn, or sorry; +but you see them framed in the forest, like figures on a painted canvas; +and for you, they are not people in any living and kindly sense. +You forget the grim contrariety of interests. You forget the narrow +lane where all men jostle together in unchivalrous contention, and the +kennel, deep and unclean, that gapes on either hand for the defeated. +Life is simple enough, it seems, and the very idea of sacrifice becomes +like a mad fancy out of a last night’s dream.<br> +<br> +Your ideal is not perhaps high, but it is plain and possible. +You become enamoured of a life of change and movement and the open air, +where the muscles shall be more exercised than the affections. +When you have had your will of the forest, you may visit the whole round +world. You may buckle on your knapsack and take the road on foot. +You may bestride a good nag, and ride forth, with a pair of saddle-bags, +into the enchanted East. You may cross the Black Forest, and see +Germany wide-spread before you, like a map, dotted with old cities, +walled and spired, that dream all day on their own reflections in the +Rhine or Danube. You may pass the spinal cord of Europe and go +down from Alpine glaciers to where Italy extends her marble moles and +glasses her marble palaces in the midland sea. You may sleep in +flying trains or wayside taverns. You may be awakened at dawn +by the scream of the express or the small pipe of the robin in the hedge. +For you the rain should allay the dust of the beaten road; the wind +dry your clothes upon you as you walked. Autumn should hang out +russet pears and purple grapes along the lane; inn after inn proffer +you their cups of raw wine; river by river receive your body in the +sultry noon. Wherever you went warm valleys and high trees and +pleasant villages should compass you about; and light fellowships should +take you by the arm, and walk with you an hour upon your way. +You may see from afar off what it will come to in the end - the weather-beaten +red-nosed vagabond, consumed by a fever of the feet, cut off from all +near touch of human sympathy, a waif, an Ishmael, and an outcast. +And yet it will seem well - and yet, in the air of the forest, this +will seem the best - to break all the network bound about your feet +by birth and old companionship and loyal love, and bear your shovelful +of phosphates to and fro, in town country, until the hour of the great +dissolvent.<br> +<br> +Or, perhaps, you will keep to the cover. For the forest is by +itself, and forest life owns small kinship with life in the dismal land +of labour. Men are so far sophisticated that they cannot take +the world as it is given to them by the sight of their eyes. Not +only what they see and hear, but what they know to be behind, enter +into their notion of a place. If the sea, for instance, lie just +across the hills, sea-thoughts will come to them at intervals, and the +tenor of their dreams from time to time will suffer a sea-change. +And so here, in this forest, a knowledge of its greatness is for much +in the effect produced. You reckon up the miles that lie between +you and intrusion. You may walk before you all day long, and not +fear to touch the barrier of your Eden, or stumble out of fairyland +into the land of gin and steam-hammers. And there is an old tale +enhances for the imagination the grandeur of the woods of France, and +secures you in the thought of your seclusion. When Charles VI. +hunted in the time of his wild boyhood near Senlis, there was captured +an old stag, having a collar of bronze about his neck, and these words +engraved on the collar: ‘Caesar mihi hoc donavit.’ +It is no wonder if the minds of men were moved at this occurrence and +they stood aghast to find themselves thus touching hands with forgotten +ages, and following an antiquity with hound and horn. And even +for you, it is scarcely in an idle curiosity that you ponder how many +centuries this stag had carried its free antlers through the wood, and +how many summers and winters had shone and snowed on the imperial badge. +If the extent of solemn wood could thus safeguard a tall stag from the +hunter’s hounds and houses, might not you also play hide-and-seek, +in these groves, with all the pangs and trepidations of man’s +life, and elude Death, the mighty hunter, for more than the span of +human years? Here, also, crash his arrows; here, in the farthest +glade, sounds the gallop of the pale horse. But he does not hunt +this cover with all his hounds, for the game is thin and small: and +if you were but alert and wary, if you lodged ever in the deepest thickets, +you too might live on into later generations and astonish men by your +stalwart age and the trophies of an immemorial success.<br> +<br> +For the forest takes away from you all excuse to die. There is +nothing here to cabin or thwart your free desires. Here all the +impudencies of the brawling world reach you no more. You may count +your hours, like Endymion, by the strokes of the lone woodcutter, or +by the progression of the lights and shadows and the sun wheeling his +wide circuit through the naked heavens. Here shall you see no +enemies but winter and rough weather. And if a pang comes to you +at all, it will be a pang of healthful hunger. All the puling +sorrows, all the carking repentance, all this talk of duty that is no +duty, in the great peace, in the pure daylight of these woods, fall +away from you like a garment. And if perchance you come forth +upon an eminence, where the wind blows upon you large and fresh, and +the pines knock their long stems together, like an ungainly sort of +puppets, and see far away over the plain a factory chimney defined against +the pale horizon - it is for you, as for the staid and simple peasant +when, with his plough, he upturns old arms and harness from the furrow +of the glebe. Ay, sure enough, there was a battle there in the +old times; and, sure enough, there is a world out yonder where men strive +together with a noise of oaths and weeping and clamorous dispute. +So much you apprehend by an athletic act of the imagination. A +faint far-off rumour as of Merovingian wars; a legend as of some dead +religion.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER VI - A MOUNTAIN TOWN IN FRANCE <a name="citation5"></a><a href="#footnote5">{5}</a> +A FRAGMENT 1879<br> +<i>Originally intended to serve as the opening chapter of ‘Travels +with a Donkey in the Cevennes.’<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +</i>Le Monastier is the chief place of a hilly canton in Haute Loire, +the ancient Velay. As the name betokens, the town is of monastic +origin; and it still contains a towered bulk of monastery and a church +of some architectural pretensions, the seat of an arch-priest and several +vicars. It stands on the side of hill above the river Gazeille, +about fifteen miles from Le Puy, up a steep road where the wolves sometime +pursue the diligence in winter. The road, which is bound for Vivarais, +passes through the town from end to end in a single narrow street; there +you may see the fountain where women fill their pitchers; there also +some old houses with carved doors and pediment and ornamental work in +iron. For Monastier, like Maybole in Ayrshire, was a sort of country +capital, where the local aristocracy had their town mansions for the +winter; and there is a certain baron still alive and, I am told, extremely +penitent, who found means to ruin himself by high living in this village +on the hills. He certainly has claims to be considered the most +remarkable spendthrift on record. How he set about it, in a place +where there are no luxuries for sale, and where the board at the best +inn comes to little more than a shilling a day, is a problem for the +wise. His son, ruined as the family was, went as far as Paris +to sow his wild oats; and so the cases of father and son mark an epoch +in the history of centralisation in France. Not until the latter +had got into the train was the work of Richelieu complete.<br> +<br> +It is a people of lace-makers. The women sit in the streets by +groups of five or six; and the noise of the bobbins is audible from +one group to another. Now and then you will hear one woman clattering +off prayers for the edification of the others at their work. They +wear gaudy shawls, white caps with a gay ribbon about the head, and +sometimes a black felt brigand hat above the cap; and so they give the +street colour and brightness and a foreign air. A while ago, when +England largely supplied herself from this district with the lace called +<i>torchon</i>, it was not unusual to earn five francs a day; and five +francs in Monastier is worth a pound in London. Now, from a change +in the market, it takes a clever and industrious work-woman to earn +from three to four in the week, or less than an eighth of what she made +easily a few years ago. The tide of prosperity came and went, +as with our northern pitmen, and left nobody the richer. The women +bravely squandered their gains, kept the men in idleness, and gave themselves +up, as I was told, to sweethearting and a merry life. From week’s +end to week’s end it was one continuous gala in Monastier; people +spent the day in the wine-shops, and the drum or the bagpipes led on +the <i>bourrées</i> up to ten at night. Now these dancing +days are over. ‘<i>Il n’y a plus de jeunesse</i>,’ +said Victor the garçon. I hear of no great advance in what +are thought the essentials of morality; but the <i>bourrée</i>, +with its rambling, sweet, interminable music, and alert and rustic figures, +has fallen into disuse, and is mostly remembered as a custom of the +past. Only on the occasion of the fair shall you hear a drum discreetly +in a wine-shop or perhaps one of the company singing the measure while +the others dance. I am sorry at the change, and marvel once more +at the complicated scheme of things upon this earth, and how a turn +of fashion in England can silence so much mountain merriment in France. +The lace-makers themselves have not entirely forgiven our country-women; +and I think they take a special pleasure in the legend of the northern +quarter of the town, called L’Anglade, because there the English +free-lances were arrested and driven back by the potency of a little +Virgin Mary on the wall.<br> +<br> +From time to time a market is held, and the town has a season of revival; +cattle and pigs are stabled in the streets; and pickpockets have been +known to come all the way from Lyons for the occasion. Every Sunday +the country folk throng in with daylight to buy apples, to attend mass, +and to visit one of the wine-shops, of which there are no fewer than +fifty in this little town. Sunday wear for the men is a green +tailcoat of some coarse sort of drugget, and usually a complete suit +to match. I have never set eyes on such degrading raiment. +Here it clings, there bulges; and the human body, with its agreeable +and lively lines, is turned into a mockery and laughing-stock. +Another piece of Sunday business with the peasants is to take their +ailments to the chemist for advice. It is as much a matter for +Sunday as church-going. I have seen a woman who had been unable +to speak since the Monday before, wheezing, catching her breath, endlessly +and painfully coughing; and yet she had waited upwards of a hundred +hours before coming to seek help, and had the week been twice as long, +she would have waited still. There was a canonical day for consultation; +such was the ancestral habit, to which a respectable lady must study +to conform.<br> +<br> +Two conveyances go daily to Le Puy, but they rival each other in polite +concessions rather than in speed. Each will wait an hour or two +hours cheerfully while an old lady does her marketing or a gentleman +finishes the papers in a café. The <i>Courrier</i> (such +is the name of one) should leave Le Puy by two in the afternoon and +arrive at Monastier in good on the return voyage, and arrive at Monastier +in good time for a six-o’clock dinner. But the driver dares +not disoblige his customers. He will postpone his departure again +and again, hour after hour; and I have known the sun to go down on his +delay. These purely personal favours, this consideration of men’s +fancies, rather than the hands of a mechanical clock, as marking the +advance of the abstraction, time, makes a more humorous business of +stage-coaching than we are used to see it.<br> +<br> +As far as the eye can reach, one swelling line of hill top rises and +falls behind another; and if you climb an eminence, it is only to see +new and father ranges behind these. Many little rivers run from +all sides in cliffy valleys; and one of them, a few miles from Monastier, +bears the great name of Loire. The mean level of the country is +a little more than three thousand feet above the sea, which makes the +atmosphere proportionally brisk and wholesome. There is little +timber except pines, and the greater part of the country lies in moorland +pasture. The country is wild and tumbled rather than commanding; +an upland rather than a mountain district; and the most striking as +well as the most agreeable scenery lies low beside the rivers. +There, indeed, you will find many corners that take the fancy; such +as made the English noble choose his grave by a Swiss streamlet, where +nature is at her freshest, and looks as young as on the seventh morning. +Such a place is the course of the Gazeille, where it waters the common +of Monastier and thence downwards till it joins the Loire; a place to +hear birds singing; a place for lovers to frequent. The name of +the river was perhaps suggested by the sound of its passage over the +stones; for it is a great warbler, and at night, after I was in bed +at Monastier, I could hear it go singing down the valley till I fell +asleep.<br> +<br> +On the whole, this is a Scottish landscape, although not so noble as +the best in Scotland; and by an odd coincidence, the population is, +in its way, as Scottish as the country. They have abrupt, uncouth, +Fifeshire manners, and accost you, as if you were trespassing, an ‘Où’st-ce +que vous allez?’ only translatable into the Lowland ‘Whaur +ye gaun?’ They keep the Scottish Sabbath. There is +no labour done on that day but to drive in and out the various pigs +and sheep and cattle that make so pleasant a tinkling in the meadows. +The lace-makers have disappeared from the street. Not to attend +mass would involve social degradation; and you may find people reading +Sunday books, in particular a sort of Catholic <i>Monthly Visitor</i> +on the doings of Our Lady of Lourdes. I remember one Sunday, when +I was walking in the country, that I fell on a hamlet and found all +the inhabitants, from the patriarch to the baby, gathered in the shadow +of a gable at prayer. One strapping lass stood with her back to +the wall and did the solo part, the rest chiming in devoutly. +Not far off, a lad lay flat on his face asleep among some straw, to +represent the worldly element.<br> +<br> +Again, this people is eager to proselytise; and the postmaster’s +daughter used to argue with me by the half-hour about my heresy, until +she grew quite flushed. I have heard the reverse process going +on between a Scotswoman and a French girl; and the arguments in the +two cases were identical. Each apostle based her claim on the +superior virtue and attainments of her clergy, and clenched the business +with a threat of hell-fire. ‘<i>Pas bong prêtres ici</i>,’ +said the Presbyterian, ‘<i>bong prêtres en Ecosse</i>.’ +And the postmaster’s daughter, taking up the same weapon, plied +me, so to speak, with the butt of it instead of the bayonet. We +are a hopeful race, it seems, and easily persuaded for our good. +One cheerful circumstance I note in these guerilla missions, that each +side relies on hell, and Protestant and Catholic alike address themselves +to a supposed misgiving in their adversary’s heart. And +I call it cheerful, for faith is a more supporting quality than imagination.<br> +<br> +Here, as in Scotland, many peasant families boast a son in holy orders. +And here also, the young men have a tendency to emigrate. It is +certainly not poverty that drives them to the great cities or across +the seas, for many peasant families, I was told, have a fortune of at +least 40,000 francs. The lads go forth pricked with the spirit +of adventure and the desire to rise in life, and leave their homespun +elders grumbling and wondering over the event. Once, at a village +called Laussonne, I met one of these disappointed parents: a drake who +had fathered a wild swan and seen it take wing and disappear. +The wild swan in question was now an apothecary in Brazil. He +had flown by way of Bordeaux, and first landed in America, bareheaded +and barefoot, and with a single halfpenny in his pocket. And now +he was an apothecary! Such a wonderful thing is an adventurous +life! I thought he might as well have stayed at home; but you +never can tell wherein a man’s life consists, nor in what he sets +his pleasure: one to drink, another to marry, a third to write scurrilous +articles and be repeatedly caned in public, and now this fourth, perhaps, +to be an apothecary in Brazil. As for his old father, he could +conceive no reason for the lad’s behaviour. ‘I had +always bread for him,’ he said; ‘he ran away to annoy me. +He loved to annoy me. He had no gratitude.’ But at +heart he was swelling with pride over his travelled offspring, and he +produced a letter out of his pocket, where, as he said, it was rotting, +a mere lump of paper rags, and waved it gloriously in the air. +‘This comes from America,’ he cried, ‘six thousand +leagues away!’ And the wine-shop audience looked upon it +with a certain thrill.<br> +<br> +I soon became a popular figure, and was known for miles in the country. +<i>Où’st que vous allez</i>? was changed for me into <i>Quoi, +vous rentrez au Monastier</i> and in the town itself every urchin seemed +to know my name, although no living creature could pronounce it. +There was one particular group of lace-makers who brought out a chair +for me whenever I went by, and detained me from my walk to gossip. +They were filled with curiosity about England, its language, its religion, +the dress of the women, and were never weary of seeing the Queen’s +head on English postage-stamps, or seeking for French words in English +Journals. The language, in particular, filled them with surprise.<br> +<br> +‘Do they speak <i>patois</i> in England?’ I was once +asked; and when I told them not, ‘Ah, then, French?’ said +they.<br> +<br> +‘No, no,’ I said, ‘not French.’<br> +<br> +‘Then,’ they concluded, ‘they speak <i>patois</i>.’<br> +<br> +You must obviously either speak French or <i>patios</i>. Talk +of the force of logic - here it was in all its weakness. I gave +up the point, but proceeding to give illustrations of my native jargon, +I was met with a new mortification. Of all <i>patios</i> they +declared that mine was the most preposterous and the most jocose in +sound. At each new word there was a new explosion of laughter, +and some of the younger ones were glad to rise from their chairs and +stamp about the street in ecstasy; and I looked on upon their mirth +in a faint and slightly disagreeable bewilderment. ‘Bread,’ +which sounds a commonplace, plain-sailing monosyllable in England, was +the word that most delighted these good ladies of Monastier; it seemed +to them frolicsome and racy, like a page of Pickwick; and they all got +it carefully by heart, as a stand-by, I presume, for winter evenings. +I have tried it since then with every sort of accent and inflection, +but I seem to lack the sense of humour.<br> +<br> +They were of all ages: children at their first web of lace, a stripling +girl with a bashful but encouraging play of eyes, solid married women, +and grandmothers, some on the top of their age and some falling towards +decrepitude. One and all were pleasant and natural, ready to laugh +and ready with a certain quiet solemnity when that was called for by +the subject of our talk. Life, since the fall in wages, had begun +to appear to them with a more serious air. The stripling girl +would sometimes laugh at me in a provocative and not unadmiring manner, +if I judge aright; and one of the grandmothers, who was my great friend +of the party, gave me many a sharp word of judgment on my sketches, +my heresy, or even my arguments, and gave them with a wry mouth and +a humorous twinkle in her eye that were eminently Scottish. But +the rest used me with a certain reverence, as something come from afar +and not entirely human. Nothing would put them at their ease but +the irresistible gaiety of my native tongue. Between the old lady +and myself I think there was a real attachment. She was never +weary of sitting to me for her portrait, in her best cap and brigand +hat, and with all her wrinkles tidily composed, and though she never +failed to repudiate the result, she would always insist upon another +trial. It was as good as a play to see her sitting in judgment +over the last. ‘No, no,’ she would say, ‘that +is not it. I am old, to be sure, but I am better-looking than +that. We must try again.’ When I was about to leave +she bade me good-bye for this life in a somewhat touching manner. +We should not meet again, she said; it was a long farewell, and she +was sorry. But life is so full of crooks, old lady, that who knows? +I have said good-bye to people for greater distances and times, and, +please God, I mean to see them yet again.<br> +<br> +One thing was notable about these women, from the youngest to the oldest, +and with hardly an exception. In spite of their piety, they could +twang off an oath with Sir Toby Belch in person. There was nothing +so high or so low, in heaven or earth or in the human body, but a woman +of this neighbourhood would whip out the name of it, fair and square, +by way of conversational adornment. My landlady, who was pretty +and young, dressed like a lady and avoided <i>patois</i> like a weakness, +commonly addressed her child in the language of a drunken bully. +And of all the swearers that I ever heard, commend me to an old lady +in Gondet, a village of the Loire. I was making a sketch, and +her curse was not yet ended when I had finished it and took my departure. +It is true she had a right to be angry; for here was her son, a hulking +fellow, visibly the worse for drink before the day was well begun. +But it was strange to hear her unwearying flow of oaths and obscenities, +endless like a river, and now and then rising to a passionate shrillness, +in the clear and silent air of the morning. In city slums, the +thing might have passed unnoticed; but in a country valley, and from +a plain and honest countrywoman, this beastliness of speech surprised +the ear.<br> +<br> +The <i>Conductor</i>, as he is called, <i>of Roads and Bridges</i> was +my principal companion. He was generally intelligent, and could +have spoken more or less falsetto on any of the trite topics; but it +was his specially to have a generous taste in eating. This was +what was most indigenous in the man; it was here he was an artist; and +I found in his company what I had long suspected, that enthusiasm and +special knowledge are the great social qualities, and what they are +about, whether white sauce or Shakespeare’s plays, an altogether +secondary question.<br> +<br> +I used to accompany the Conductor on his professional rounds, and grew +to believe myself an expert in the business. I thought I could +make an entry in a stone-breaker’s time-book, or order manure +off the wayside with any living engineer in France. Gondet was +one of the places we visited together; and Laussonne, where I met the +apothecary’s father, was another. There, at Laussonne, George +Sand spent a day while she was gathering materials for the <i>Marquis</i> +<i>de Villemer</i>; and I have spoken with an old man, who was then +a child running about the inn kitchen, and who still remembers her with +a sort of reverence. It appears that he spoke French imperfectly; +for this reason George Sand chose him for companion, and whenever he +let slip a broad and picturesque phrase in <i>patois</i>, she would +make him repeat it again and again till it was graven in her memory. +The word for a frog particularly pleased her fancy; and it would be +curious to know if she afterwards employed it in her works. The +peasants, who knew nothing of betters and had never so much as heard +of local colour, could not explain her chattering with this backward +child; and to them she seemed a very homely lady and far from beautiful: +the most famous man-killer of the age appealed so little to Velaisian +swine-herds!<br> +<br> +On my first engineering excursion, which lay up by Crouzials towards +Mount Mezenc and the borders of Ardèche, I began an improving +acquaintance with the foreman road-mender. He was in great glee +at having me with him, passed me off among his subalterns as the supervising +engineer, and insisted on what he called ‘the gallantry’ +of paying for my breakfast in a roadside wine-shop. On the whole, +he was a man of great weather-wisdom, some spirits, and a social temper. +But I am afraid he was superstitious. When he was nine years old, +he had seen one night a company of <i>bourgeois et dames qui faisaient +la manège avec des chaises</i>, and concluded that he was in +the presence of a witches’ Sabbath. I suppose, but venture +with timidity on the suggestion, that this may have been a romantic +and nocturnal picnic party. Again, coming from Pradelles with +his brother, they saw a great empty cart drawn by six enormous horses +before them on the road. The driver cried aloud and filled the +mountains with the cracking of his whip. He never seemed to go +faster than a walk, yet it was impossible to overtake him; and at length, +at the comer of a hill, the whole equipage disappeared bodily into the +night. At the time, people said it was the devil <i>qui s’amusait +à faire ca.<br> +<br> +</i>I suggested there was nothing more likely, as he must have some +amusement.<br> +<br> +The foreman said it was odd, but there was less of that sort of thing +than formerly. ‘<i>C’est difficile</i>,’ he +added, ‘<i>à expliquer</i>.’<br> +<br> +When we were well up on the moors and the <i>Conductor</i> was trying +some road-metal with the gauge -<br> +<br> +‘Hark!’ said the foreman, ‘do you hear nothing?’<br> +<br> +We listened, and the wind, which was blowing chilly out of the east, +brought a faint, tangled jangling to our ears.<br> +<br> +‘It is the flocks of Vivarais,’ said he.<br> +<br> +For every summer, the flocks out of all Ardèche are brought up +to pasture on these grassy plateaux.<br> +<br> +Here and there a little private flock was being tended by a girl, one +spinning with a distaff, another seated on a wall and intently making +lace. This last, when we addressed her, leaped up in a panic and +put out her arms, like a person swimming, to keep us at a distance, +and it was some seconds before we could persuade her of the honesty +of our intentions.<br> +<br> +The <i>Conductor</i> told me of another herdswoman from whom he had +once asked his road while he was yet new to the country, and who fled +from him, driving her beasts before her, until he had given up the information +in despair. A tale of old lawlessness may yet be read in these +uncouth timidities.<br> +<br> +The winter in these uplands is a dangerous and melancholy time. +Houses are snowed up, and way-farers lost in a flurry within hail of +their own fireside. No man ventures abroad without meat and a +bottle of wine, which he replenishes at every wine-shop; and even thus +equipped he takes the road with terror. All day the family sits +about the fire in a foul and airless hovel, and equally without work +or diversion. The father may carve a rude piece of furniture, +but that is all that will be done until the spring sets in again, and +along with it the labours of the field. It is not for nothing +that you find a clock in the meanest of these mountain habitations. +A clock and an almanac, you would fancy, were indispensable in such +a life . . .<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER VII - RANDOM MEMORIES: ROSA QUO LOCORUM<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Through what little channels, by what hints and premonitions, the consciousness +of the man’s art dawns first upon the child, it should be not +only interesting but instructive to inquire. A matter of curiosity +to-day, it will become the ground of science to-morrow. From the +mind of childhood there is more history and more philosophy to be fished +up than from all the printed volumes in a library. The child is +conscious of an interest, not in literature but in life. A taste +for the precise, the adroit, or the comely in the use of words, comes +late; but long before that he has enjoyed in books a delightful dress +rehearsal of experience. He is first conscious of this material +- I had almost said this practical - pre-occupation; it does not follow +that it really came the first. I have some old fogged negatives +in my collection that would seem to imply a prior stage ‘The Lord +is gone up with a shout, and God with the sound of a trumpet’ +- memorial version, I know not where to find the text - rings still +in my ear from my first childhood, and perhaps with something of my +nurses accent. There was possibly some sort of image written in +my mind by these loud words, but I believe the words themselves were +what I cherished. I had about the same time, and under the same +influence - that of my dear nurse - a favourite author: it is possible +the reader has not heard of him - the Rev. Robert Murray M’Cheyne. +My nurse and I admired his name exceedingly, so that I must have been +taught the love of beautiful sounds before I was breeched; and I remember +two specimens of his muse until this day:-<br> +<br> +‘Behind the hills of Naphtali<br> +The sun went slowly down,<br> +Leaving on mountain, tower, and tree,<br> +A tinge of golden brown.’<br> +<br> +There is imagery here, and I set it on one side. The other - it +is but a verse - not only contains no image, but is quite unintelligible +even to my comparatively instructed mind, and I know not even how to +spell the outlandish vocable that charmed me in my childhood:<br> +<br> +‘Jehovah Tschidkenu is nothing to her’; <a name="citation6"></a><a href="#footnote6">{6}</a> +-<br> +<br> +I may say, without flippancy, that he was nothing to me either, since +I had no ray of a guess of what he was about; yet the verse, from then +to now, a longer interval than the life of a generation, has continued +to haunt me.<br> +<br> +I have said that I should set a passage distinguished by obvious and +pleasing imagery, however faint; for the child thinks much in images, +words are very live to him, phrases that imply a picture eloquent beyond +their value. Rummaging in the dusty pigeon-holes of memory, I +came once upon a graphic version of the famous Psalm, ‘The Lord +is my shepherd’: and from the places employed in its illustration, +which are all in the immediate neighbourhood of a house then occupied +by my father, I am able, to date it before the seventh year of my age, +although it was probably earlier in fact. The ‘pastures +green’ were represented by a certain suburban stubble-field, where +I had once walked with my nurse, under an autumnal sunset, on the banks +of the Water of Leith: the place is long ago built up; no pastures now, +no stubble-fields; only a maze of little streets and smoking chimneys +and shrill children. Here, in the fleecy person of a sheep, I +seemed to myself to follow something unseen, unrealised, and yet benignant; +and close by the sheep in which I was incarnated - as if for greater +security - rustled the skirt, of my nurse. ‘Death’s +dark vale’ was a certain archway in the Warriston Cemetery: a +formidable yet beloved spot, for children love to be afraid, - in measure +as they love all experience of vitality. Here I beheld myself +some paces ahead (seeing myself, I mean, from behind) utterly alone +in that uncanny passage; on the one side of me a rude, knobby, shepherd’s +staff, such as cheers the heart of the cockney tourist, on the other +a rod like a billiard cue, appeared to accompany my progress; the stiff +sturdily upright, the billiard cue inclined confidentially, like one +whispering, towards my ear. I was aware - I will never tell you +how - that the presence of these articles afforded me encouragement. +The third and last of my pictures illustrated words:-<br> +<br> + ‘My table Thou hast furnished<br> + In presence of my foes:<br> +My head Thou dost with oil anoint,<br> +And my cup overflows’:<br> +<br> +and this was perhaps the most interesting of the series. I saw +myself seated in a kind of open stone summer-house at table; over my +shoulder a hairy, bearded, and robed presence anointed me from an authentic +shoe-horn; the summer-house was part of the green court of a ruin, and +from the far side of the court black and white imps discharged against +me ineffectual arrows. The picture appears arbitrary, but I can +trace every detail to its source, as Mr. Brock analysed the dream of +Alan Armadale. The summer-house and court were muddled together +out of Billings’ <i>Antiquities of Scotland</i>; the imps conveyed +from Bagster’s <i>Pilgrim’s Progress</i>; the bearded and +robed figure from any one of the thousand Bible pictures; and the shoe-horn +was plagiarised from an old illustrated Bible, where it figured in the +hand of Samuel anointing Saul, and had been pointed out to me as a jest +by my father. It was shown me for a jest, remark; but the serious +spirit of infancy adopted it in earnest. Children are all classics; +a bottle would have seemed an intermediary too trivial - that divine +refreshment of whose meaning I had no guess; and I seized on the idea +of that mystic shoe-horn with delight, even as, a little later, I should +have written flagon, chalice, hanaper, beaker, or any word that might +have appealed to me at the moment as least contaminate with mean associations. +In this string of pictures I believe the gist of the psalm to have consisted; +I believe it had no more to say to me; and the result was consolatory. +I would go to sleep dwelling with restfulness upon these images; they +passed before me, besides, to an appropriate music; for I had already +singled out from that rude psalm the one lovely verse which dwells in +the minds of all, not growing old, not disgraced by its association +with long Sunday tasks, a scarce conscious joy in childhood, in age +a companion thought:-<br> +<br> +‘In pastures green Thou leadest me,<br> +The quiet waters by.’<br> +<br> +The remainder of my childish recollections are all of the matter of +what was read to me, and not of any manner in the words. If these +pleased me it was unconsciously; I listened for news of the great vacant +world upon whose edge I stood; I listened for delightful plots that +I might re-enact in play, and romantic scenes and circumstances that +I might call up before me, with closed eyes, when I was tired of Scotland, +and home, and that weary prison of the sick-chamber in which I lay so +long in durance. <i>Robinson Crusoe</i>; some of the books of +that cheerful, ingenious, romantic soul, Mayne Reid; and a work rather +gruesome and bloody for a child, but very picturesque, called <i>Paul +Blake</i>; these are the three strongest impressions I remember: <i>The +Swiss Family Robinson</i> came next, <i>longo intervallo</i>. +At these I played, conjured up their scenes, and delighted to hear them +rehearsed unto seventy times seven. I am not sure but what <i>Paul +Blake</i> came after I could read. It seems connected with a visit +to the country, and an experience unforgettable. The day had been +warm; H--- and I had played together charmingly all day in a sandy wilderness +across the road; then came the evening with a great flash of colour +and a heavenly sweetness in the air. Somehow my play-mate had +vanished, or is out of the story, as the sages say, but I was sent into +the village on an errand; and, taking a book of fairy tales, went down +alone through a fir-wood, reading as I walked. How often since +then has it befallen me to be happy even so; but that was the first +time: the shock of that pleasure I have never since forgot, and if my +mind serves me to the last, I never shall, for it was then that I knew +I loved reading.<br> +<br> +<br> +II<br> +<br> +<br> +To pass from hearing literature to reading it is to take a great and +dangerous step. With not a few, I think a large proportion of +their pleasure then comes to an end; ‘the malady of not marking’ +overtakes them; they read thenceforward by the eye alone and hear never +again the chime of fair words or the march of the stately period. +<i>Non ragioniam</i> of these. But to all the step is dangerous; +it involves coming of age; it is even a kind of second weaning. +In the past all was at the choice of others; they chose, they digested, +they read aloud for us and sang to their own tune the books of childhood. +In the future we are to approach the silent, inexpressive type alone, +like pioneers; and the choice of what we are to read is in our own hands +thenceforward. For instance, in the passages already adduced, +I detect and applaud the ear of my old nurse; they were of her choice, +and she imposed them on my infancy, reading the works of others as a +poet would scarce dare to read his own; gloating on the rhythm, dwelling +with delight on assonances and alliterations. I know very well +my mother must have been all the while trying to educate my taste upon +more secular authors; but the vigour and the continual opportunities +of my nurse triumphed, and after a long search, I can find in these +earliest volumes of my autobiography no mention of anything but nursery +rhymes, the Bible, and Mr. M’Cheyne.<br> +<br> +I suppose all children agree in looking back with delight on their school +Readers. We might not now find so much pathos in ‘Bingen +on the Rhine,’ ‘A soldier of the Legion lay dying in Algiers,’ +or in ‘The Soldier’s Funeral,’ in the declamation +of which I was held to have surpassed myself. ‘Robert’s +voice,’ said the master on this memorable occasion, ‘is +not strong, but impressive’: an opinion which I was fool enough +to carry home to my father; who roasted me for years in consequence. +I am sure one should not be so deliciously tickled by the humorous pieces:-<br> +<br> +‘What, crusty? cries Will in a taking,<br> +Who would not be crusty with half a year’s baking?’<br> +<br> +I think this quip would leave us cold. The ‘Isles of Greece’ +seem rather tawdry too; but on the ‘Address to the Ocean,’ +or on ‘The Dying Gladiator,’ ‘time has writ no wrinkle.’<br> +<br> +’Tis the morn, but dim and dark,<br> +Whither flies the silent lark?’ -<br> +<br> +does the reader recall the moment when his eye first fell upon these +lines in the Fourth Reader; and ‘surprised with joy, impatient +as the wind,’ he plunged into the sequel? And there was +another piece, this time in prose, which none can have forgotten; many +like me must have searched Dickens with zeal to find it again, and in +its proper context, and have perhaps been conscious of some inconsiderable +measure of disappointment, that it was only Tom Pinch who drove, in +such a pomp of poetry, to London.<br> +<br> +But in the Reader we are still under guides. What a boy turns +out for himself, as he rummages the bookshelves, is the real test and +pleasure. My father’s library was a spot of some austerity; +the proceedings of learned societies, some Latin divinity, cyclopaedias, +physical science, and, above all, optics, held the chief place upon +the shelves, and it was only in holes and corners that anything really +legible existed as by accident. The <i>Parent’s Assistant, +Rob</i> <i>Roy, Waverley</i>, and <i>Guy Mannering</i>, the<i> Voyages +of</i> <i>Captain Woods Rogers</i>, Fuller’s and Bunyan’s +<i>Holy Wars</i>,<i> The Reflections of Robinson Crusoe, The Female +Bluebeard</i>, G. Sand’s <i>Mare au Diable</i> - (how came it +in that grave assembly!), Ainsworth’s <i>Tower of London</i>, +and four old volumes of Punch - these were the chief exceptions. +In these latter, which made for years the chief of my diet, I very early +fell in love (almost as soon as I could spell) with the Snob Papers. +I knew them almost by heart, particularly the visit to the Pontos; and +I remember my surprise when I found, long afterwards, that they were +famous, and signed with a famous name; to me, as I read and admired +them, they were the works of Mr. Punch. Time and again I tried +to read <i>Rob Roy</i>, with whom of course I was acquainted from the +<i>Tales of a Grandfather</i>; time and again the early part, with Rashleigh +and (think of it!) the adorable Diana, choked me off; and I shall never +forget the pleasure and surprise with which, lying on the floor one +summer evening, I struck of a sudden into the first scene with Andrew +Fairservice. ‘The worthy Dr. Lightfoot’ - ‘mistrysted +with a bogle’ - ‘a wheen green trash’ - ‘Jenny, +lass, I think I ha’e her’: from that day to this the phrases +have been unforgotten. I read on, I need scarce say; I came to +Glasgow, I bided tryst on Glasgow Bridge, I met Rob Roy and the Bailie +in the Tolbooth, all with transporting pleasure; and then the clouds +gathered once more about my path; and I dozed and skipped until I stumbled +half-asleep into the clachan of Aberfoyle, and the voices of Iverach +and Galbraith recalled me to myself. With that scene and the defeat +of Captain Thornton the book concluded; Helen and her sons shocked even +the little schoolboy of nine or ten with their unreality; I read no +more, or I did not grasp what I was reading; and years elapsed before +I consciously met Diana and her father among the hills, or saw Rashleigh +dying in the chair. When I think of that novel and that evening, +I am impatient with all others; they seem but shadows and impostors; +they cannot satisfy the appetite which this awakened; and I dare be +known to think it the best of Sir Walter’s by nearly as much as +Sir Walter is the best of novelists. Perhaps Mr. Lang is right, +and our first friends in the land of fiction are always the most real. +And yet I had read before this <i>Guy Mannering</i>, and some of <i>Waverley</i>, +with no such delighted sense of truth and humour, and I read immediately +after the greater part of the Waverley Novels, and was never moved again +in the same way or to the same degree. One circumstance is suspicious: +my critical estimate of the Waverley Novels has scarce changed at all +since I was ten. <i>Rob Roy</i>, <i>Guy Mannering</i>, and <i>Redgauntlet</i> +first; then, a little lower; <i>The Fortunes of Nigel</i>; then, after +a huge gulf, <i>Ivanhoe</i> and <i>Anne of Geierstein</i>: the rest +nowhere; such was the verdict of the boy. Since then <i>The Antiquary, +St. Ronan’s Well, Kenilworth</i>, and <i>The</i> <i>Heart of Midlothian</i> +have gone up in the scale; perhaps <i>Ivanhoe and Anne of Geierstein</i> +have gone a trifle down; Diana Vernon has been added to my admirations +in that enchanted world of <i>Rob Roy</i>; I think more of the letters +in <i>Redgauntlet</i>, and Peter Peebles, that dreadful piece of realism, +I can now read about with equanimity, interest, and I had almost said +pleasure, while to the childish critic he often caused unmixed distress. +But the rest is the same; I could not finish <i>The Pirate</i> when +I was a child, I have never finished it yet; <i>Peveril of the Peak</i> +dropped half way through from my schoolboy hands, and though I have +since waded to an end in a kind of wager with myself, the exercise was +quite without enjoyment. There is something disquieting in these +considerations. I still think the visit to Ponto’s the best +part of the <i>Book of Snobs</i>: does that mean that I was right when +I was a child, or does it mean that I have never grown since then, that +the child is not the man’s father, but the man? and that I came +into the world with all my faculties complete, and have only learned +sinsyne to be more tolerant of boredom? . . .<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER VIII - THE IDEAL HOUSE<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Two things are necessary in any neighbourhood where we propose to spend +a life: a desert and some living water.<br> +<br> +There are many parts of the earth’s face which offer the necessary +combination of a certain wildness with a kindly variety. A great +prospect is desirable, but the want may be otherwise supplied; even +greatness can be found on the small scale; for the mind and the eye +measure differently. Bold rocks near hand are more inspiriting +than distant Alps, and the thick fern upon a Surrey heath makes a fine +forest for the imagination, and the dotted yew trees noble mountains. +A Scottish moor with birches and firs grouped here and there upon a +knoll, or one of those rocky seaside deserts of Provence overgrown with +rosemary and thyme and smoking with aroma, are places where the mind +is never weary. Forests, being more enclosed, are not at first +sight so attractive, but they exercise a spell; they must, however, +be diversified with either heath or rock, and are hardly to be considered +perfect without conifers. Even sand-hills, with their intricate +plan, and their gulls and rabbits, will stand well for the necessary +desert.<br> +<br> +The house must be within hail of either a little river or the sea. +A great river is more fit for poetry than to adorn a neighbourhood; +its sweep of waters increases the scale of the scenery and the distance +of one notable object from another; and a lively burn gives us, in the +space of a few yards, a greater variety of promontory and islet, of +cascade, shallow goil, and boiling pool, with answerable changes both +of song and colour, than a navigable stream in many hundred miles. +The fish, too, make a more considerable feature of the brookside, and +the trout plumping in the shadow takes the ear. A stream should, +besides, be narrow enough to cross, or the burn hard by a bridge, or +we are at once shut out of Eden. The quantity of water need be +of no concern, for the mind sets the scale, and can enjoy a Niagara +Fall of thirty inches. Let us approve the singer of<br> +<br> +‘Shallow rivers, by whose falls<br> +Melodious birds sing madrigals.’<br> +<br> +If the sea is to be our ornamental water, choose an open seaboard with +a heavy beat of surf; one much broken in outline, with small havens +and dwarf headlands; if possible a few islets; and as a first necessity, +rocks reaching out into deep water. Such a rock on a calm day +is a better station than the top of Teneriffe or Chimborazo. In +short, both for the desert and the water, the conjunction of many near +and bold details is bold scenery for the imagination and keeps the mind +alive.<br> +<br> +Given these two prime luxuries, the nature of the country where we are +to live is, I had almost said, indifferent; after that inside the garden, +we can construct a country of our own. Several old trees, a considerable +variety of level, several well-grown hedges to divide our garden into +provinces, a good extent of old well-set turf, and thickets of shrubs +and ever-greens to be cut into and cleared at the new owner’s +pleasure, are the qualities to be sought for in your chosen land. +Nothing is more delightful than a succession of small lawns, opening +one out of the other through tall hedges; these have all the charm of +the old bowling-green repeated, do not require the labour of many trimmers, +and afford a series of changes. You must have much lawn against +the early summer, so as to have a great field of daisies, the year’s +morning frost; as you must have a wood of lilacs, to enjoy to the full +the period of their blossoming. Hawthorn is another of the Spring’s +ingredients; but it is even best to have a rough public lane at one +side of your enclosure which, at the right season, shall become an avenue +of bloom and odour. The old flowers are the best and should grow +carelessly in corners. Indeed, the ideal fortune is to find an +old garden, once very richly cared for, since sunk into neglect, and +to tend, not repair, that neglect; it will thus have a smack of nature +and wildness which skilful dispositions cannot overtake. The gardener +should be an idler, and have a gross partiality to the kitchen plots: +an eager or toilful gardener misbecomes the garden landscape; a tasteful +gardener will be ever meddling, will keep the borders raw, and take +the bloom off nature. Close adjoining, if you are in the south, +an olive-yard, if in the north, a swarded apple-orchard reaching to +the stream, completes your miniature domain; but this is perhaps best +entered through a door in the high fruit-wall; so that you close the +door behind you on your sunny plots, your hedges and evergreen jungle, +when you go down to watch the apples falling in the pool. It is +a golden maxim to cultivate the garden for the nose, and the eyes will +take care of themselves. Nor must the ear be forgotten: without +birds a garden is a prison-yard. There is a garden near Marseilles +on a steep hill-side, walking by which, upon a sunny morning, your ear +will suddenly be ravished with a burst of small and very cheerful singing: +some score of cages being set out there to sun their occupants. +This is a heavenly surprise to any passer-by; but the price paid, to +keep so many ardent and winged creatures from their liberty, will make +the luxury too dear for any thoughtful pleasure-lover. There is +only one sort of bird that I can tolerate caged, though even then I +think it hard, and that is what is called in France the Bec-d’Argent. +I once had two of these pigmies in captivity; and in the quiet, hire +house upon a silent street where I was then living, their song, which +was not much louder than a bee’s, but airily musical, kept me +in a perpetual good humour. I put the cage upon my table when +I worked, carried it with me when I went for meals, and kept it by my +head at night: the first thing in the morning, these <i>maestrini</i> +would pipe up. But these, even if you can pardon their imprisonment, +are for the house. In the garden the wild birds must plant a colony, +a chorus of the lesser warblers that should be almost deafening, a blackbird +in the lilacs, a nightingale down the lane, so that you must stroll +to hear it, and yet a little farther, tree-tops populous with rooks.<br> +<br> +Your house should not command much outlook; it should be set deep and +green, though upon rising ground, or, if possible, crowning a knoll, +for the sake of drainage. Yet it must be open to the east, or +you will miss the sunrise; sunset occurring so much later, you can go +up a few steps and look the other way. A house of more than two +stories is a mere barrack; indeed the ideal is of one story, raised +upon cellars. If the rooms are large, the house may be small: +a single room, lofty, spacious, and lightsome, is more palatial than +a castleful of cabinets and cupboards. Yet size in a house, and +some extent and intricacy of corridor, is certainly delightful to the +flesh. The reception room should be, if possible, a place of many +recesses, which are ‘petty retiring places for conference’; +but it must have one long wall with a divan: for a day spent upon a +divan, among a world of cushions, is as full of diversion as to travel. +The eating-room, in the French mode, should be <i>ad hoc</i>: unfurnished, +but with a buffet, the table, necessary chairs, one or two of Canaletto’s +etchings, and a tile fire-place for the winter. In neither of +these public places should there be anything beyond a shelf or two of +books; but the passages may be one library from end to end, and the +stair, if there be one, lined with volumes in old leather, very brightly +carpeted, and leading half-way up, and by way of landing, to a windowed +recess with a fire-place; this window, almost alone in the house, should +command a handsome prospect. Husband and wife must each possess +a studio; on the woman’s sanctuary I hesitate to dwell, and turn +to the man’s. The walls are shelved waist-high for books, +and the top thus forms a continuous table running round the wall. +Above are prints, a large map of the neighbourhood, a Corot and a Claude +or two. The room is very spacious, and the five tables and two +chairs are but as islands. One table is for actual work, one close +by for references in use; one, very large, for MSS. or proofs that wait +their turn; one kept clear for an occasion; and the fifth is the map +table, groaning under a collection of large-scale maps and charts. +Of all books these are the least wearisome to read and the richest in +matter; the course of roads and rivers, the contour lines and the forests +in the maps - the reefs, soundings, anchors, sailing marks and little +pilot-pictures in the charts - and, in both, the bead-roll of names, +make them of all printed matter the most fit to stimulate and satisfy +the fancy. The chair in which you write is very low and easy, +and backed into a corner; at one elbow the fire twinkles; close at the +other, if you are a little inhumane, your cage of silver-bills are twittering +into song.<br> +<br> +Joined along by a passage, you may reach the great, sunny, glass-roofed, +and tiled gymnasium, at the far end of which, lined with bright marble, +is your plunge and swimming bath, fitted with a capacious boiler.<br> +<br> +The whole loft of the house from end to end makes one undivided chamber; +here are set forth tables on which to model imaginary or actual countries +in putty or plaster, with tools and hardy pigments; a carpenter’s +bench; and a spared corner for photography, while at the far end a space +is kept clear for playing soldiers. Two boxes contain the two +armies of some five hundred horse and foot; two others the ammunition +of each side, and a fifth the foot-rules and the three colours of chalk, +with which you lay down, or, after a day’s play, refresh the outlines +of the country; red or white for the two kinds of road (according as +they are suitable or not for the passage of ordnance), and blue for +the course of the obstructing rivers. Here I foresee that you +may pass much happy time; against a good adversary a game may well continue +for a month; for with armies so considerable three moves will occupy +an hour. It will be found to set an excellent edge on this diversion +if one of the players shall, every day or so, write a report of the +operations in the character of army correspondent.<br> +<br> +I have left to the last the little room for winter evenings. This +should be furnished in warm positive colours, and sofas and floor thick +with rich furs. The hearth, where you burn wood of aromatic quality +on silver dogs, tiled round about with Bible pictures; the seats deep +and easy; a single Titian in a gold frame; a white bust or so upon a +bracket; a rack for the journals of the week; a table for the books +of the year; and close in a corner the three shelves full of eternal +books that never weary: Shakespeare, Molière, Montaigne, Lamb, +Sterne, De Musset’s comedies (the one volume open at <i>Carmosine</i> +and the other at <i>Fantasio</i>); the <i>Arabian Nights</i>, and kindred +stories, in Weber’s solemn volumes; Borrow’s <i>Bible in +Spain</i>, the <i>Pilgrim’s Progress</i>, <i>Guy Mannering</i> +and <i>Rob Roy</i>, <i>Monte Cristo</i> and the <i>Vicomte de Bragelonne</i>, +immortal Boswell sole among biographers, Chaucer, Herrick, and the <i>State +Trials</i>.<br> +<br> +The bedrooms are large, airy, with almost no furniture, floors of varnished +wood, and at the bed-head, in case of insomnia, one shelf of books of +a particular and dippable order, such as <i>Pepys</i>, the <i>Paston +Letters</i>, Burt’s <i>Letters from the Highlands</i>, or the +<i>Newgate Calendar</i>. . . .<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER IX - DAVOS IN WINTER<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +A mountain valley has, at the best, a certain prison-like effect on +the imagination, but a mountain valley, an Alpine winter, and an invalid’s +weakness make up among them a prison of the most effective kind. +The roads indeed are cleared, and at least one footpath dodging up the +hill; but to these the health-seeker is rigidly confined. There +are for him no cross-cuts over the field, no following of streams, no +unguided rambles in the wood. His walks are cut and dry. +In five or six different directions he can push as far, and no farther, +than his strength permits; never deviating from the line laid down for +him and beholding at each repetition the same field of wood and snow +from the same corner of the road. This, of itself, would be a +little trying to the patience in the course of months; but to this is +added, by the heaped mantle of the snow, an almost utter absence of +detail and an almost unbroken identity of colour. Snow, it is +true, is not merely white. The sun touches it with roseate and +golden lights. Its own crushed infinity of crystals, its own richness +of tiny sculpture, fills it, when regarded near at hand, with wonderful +depths of coloured shadow, and, though wintrily transformed, it is still +water, and has watery tones of blue. But, when all is said, these +fields of white and blots of crude black forest are but a trite and +staring substitute for the infinite variety and pleasantness of the +earth’s face. Even a boulder, whose front is too precipitous +to have retained the snow, seems, if you come upon it in your walk, +a perfect gem of colour, reminds you almost painfully of other places, +and brings into your head the delights of more Arcadian days - the path +across the meadow, the hazel dell, the lilies on the stream, and the +scents, the colours, and the whisper of the woods. And scents +here are as rare as colours. Unless you get a gust of kitchen +in passing some hotel, you shall smell nothing all day long but the +faint and choking odour of frost. Sounds, too, are absent: not +a bird pipes, not a bough waves, in the dead, windless atmosphere. +If a sleigh goes by, the sleigh-bells ring, and that is all; you work +all winter through to no other accompaniment but the crunching of your +steps upon the frozen snow.<br> +<br> +It is the curse of the Alpine valleys to be each one village from one +end to the other. Go where you please, houses will still be in +sight, before and behind you, and to the right and left. Climb +as high as an invalid is able, and it is only to spy new habitations +nested in the wood. Nor is that all; for about the health resort +the walks are besieged by single people walking rapidly with plaids +about their shoulders, by sudden troops of German boys trying to learn +to jödel, and by German couples silently and, as you venture to +fancy, not quite happily, pursuing love’s young dream. You +may perhaps be an invalid who likes to make bad verses as he walks about. +Alas! no muse will suffer this imminence of interruption - and at the +second stampede of jödellers you find your modest inspiration fled. +Or you may only have a taste for solitude; it may try your nerves to +have some one always in front whom you are visibly overtaking, and some +one always behind who is audibly overtaking you, to say nothing of a +score or so who brush past you in an opposite direction. It may +annoy you to take your walks and seats in public view. Alas! there +is no help for it among the Alps. There are no recesses, as in +Gorbio Valley by the oil-mill; no sacred solitude of olive gardens on +the Roccabruna-road; no nook upon Saint Martin’s Cape, haunted +by the voice of breakers, and fragrant with the threefold sweetness +of the rosemary and the sea-pines and the sea.<br> +<br> +For this publicity there is no cure, and no alleviation; but the storms +of which you will complain so bitterly while they endure, chequer and +by their contrast brighten the sameness of the fair-weather scenes. +When sun and storm contend together - when the thick clouds are broken +up and pierced by arrows of golden daylight - there will be startling +rearrangements and transfigurations of the mountain summits. A +sun-dazzling spire of alp hangs suspended in mid-sky among awful glooms +and blackness; or perhaps the edge of some great mountain shoulder will +be designed in living gold, and appear for the duration of a glance +bright like a constellation, and alone ‘in the unapparent.’ +You may think you know the figure of these hills; but when they are +thus revealed, they belong no longer to the things of earth - meteors +we should rather call them, appearances of sun and air that endure but +for a moment and return no more. Other variations are more lasting, +as when, for instance, heavy and wet snow has fallen through some windless +hours, and the thin, spiry, mountain pine trees stand each stock-still +and loaded with a shining burthen. You may drive through a forest +so disguised, the tongue-tied torrent struggling silently in the cleft +of the ravine, and all still except the jingle of the sleigh bells, +and you shall fancy yourself in some untrodden northern territory - +Lapland, Labrador, or Alaska.<br> +<br> +Or, possibly, you arise very early in the morning; totter down stairs +in a state of somnambulism; take the simulacrum of a meal by the glimmer +of one lamp in the deserted coffee-room; and find yourself by seven +o’clock outside in a belated moonlight and a freezing chill. +The mail sleigh takes you up and carries you on, and you reach the top +of the ascent in the first hour of the day. To trace the fires +of the sunrise as they pass from peak to peak, to see the unlit tree-tops +stand out soberly against the lighted sky, to be for twenty minutes +in a wonderland of clear, fading shadows, disappearing vapours, solemn +blooms of dawn, hills half glorified already with the day and still +half confounded with the greyness of the western heaven - these will +seem to repay you for the discomforts of that early start; but as the +hour proceeds, and these enchantments vanish, you will find yourself +upon the farther side in yet another Alpine valley, snow white and coal +black, with such another long-drawn congeries of hamlets and such another +senseless watercourse bickering along the foot. You have had your +moment; but you have not changed the scene. The mountains are +about you like a trap; you cannot foot it up a hillside and behold the +sea as a great plain, but live in holes and corners, and can change +only one for another.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER X - HEALTH AND MOUNTAINS<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +There has come a change in medical opinion, and a change has followed +in the lives of sick folk. A year or two ago and the wounded soldiery +of mankind were all shut up together in some basking angle of the Riviera, +walking a dusty promenade or sitting in dusty olive-yards within earshot +of the interminable and unchanging surf - idle among spiritless idlers; +not perhaps dying, yet hardly living either, and aspiring, sometimes +fiercely, after livelier weather and some vivifying change. These +were certainly beautiful places to live in, and the climate was wooing +in its softness. Yet there was a later shiver in the sunshine; +you were not certain whether you were being wooed; and these mild shores +would sometimes seem to you to be the shores of death. There was +a lack of a manly element; the air was not reactive; you might write +bits of poetry and practise resignation, but you did not feel that here +was a good spot to repair your tissue or regain your nerve. And +it appears, after all, that there was something just in these appreciations. +The invalid is now asked to lodge on wintry Alps; a ruder air shall +medicine him; the demon of cold is no longer to be fled from, but bearded +in his den. For even Winter has his ‘dear domestic +cave,’ and in those places where he may be said to dwell for ever +tempers his austerities.<br> +<br> +Any one who has travelled westward by the great transcontinental railroad +of America must remember the joy with which he perceived, after the +tedious prairies of Nebraska and across the vast and dismal moorlands +of Wyoming, a few snowy mountain summits alone, the southern sky. +It is among these mountains in the new State of Colorado that the sick +man may find, not merely an alleviation of his ailments, but the possibility +of an active life and an honest livelihood. There, no longer as +a lounger in a plaid, but as a working farmer, sweating at his work, +he may prolong and begin anew his life. Instead of the bath-chair, +the spade; instead of the regulated walk, rough journeys in the forest, +and the pure, rare air of the open mountains for the miasma of the sick-room +- these are the changes offered him, with what promise of pleasure and +of self-respect, with what a revolution in all his hopes and terrors, +none but an invalid can know. Resignation, the cowardice that +apes a kind of courage and that lives in the very air of health resorts, +is cast aside at a breath of such a prospect. The man can open +the door; he can be up and doing; he can be a kind of a man after all +and not merely an invalid.<br> +<br> +But it is a far cry to the Rocky Mountains. We cannot all of us +go farming in Colorado; and there is yet a middle term, which combines +the medical benefits of the new system with the moral drawbacks of the +old. Again the invalid has to lie aside from life and its wholesome +duties; again he has to be an idler among idlers; but this time at a +great altitude, far among the mountains, with the snow piled before +his door and the frost flowers every morning on his window. The +mere fact is tonic to his nerves. His choice of a place of wintering +has somehow to his own eyes the air of an act of bold contract; and, +since he has wilfully sought low temperatures, he is not so apt to shudder +at a touch of chill. He came for that, he looked for it, and he +throws it from him with the thought.<br> +<br> +A long straight reach of valley, wall-like mountains upon either hand +that rise higher and higher and shoot up new summits the higher you +climb; a few noble peaks seen even from the valley; a village of hotels; +a world of black and white - black pine-woods, clinging to the sides +of the valley, and white snow flouring it, and papering it between the +pine-woods, and covering all the mountains with a dazzling curd; add +a few score invalids marching to and fro upon the snowy road, or skating +on the ice-rinks, possibly to music, or sitting under sunshades by the +door of the hotel - and you have the larger features of a mountain sanatorium. +A certain furious river runs curving down the valley; its pace never +varies, it has not a pool for as far as you can follow it; and its unchanging, +senseless hurry is strangely tedious to witness. It is a river +that a man could grow to hate. Day after day breaks with the rarest +gold upon the mountain spires, and creeps, growing and glowing, down +into the valley. From end to end the snow reverberates the sunshine; +from end to end the air tingles with the light, clear and dry like crystal. +Only along the course of the river, but high above it, there hangs far +into the noon, one waving scarf of vapour. It were hard to fancy +a more engaging feature in a landscape; perhaps it is harder to believe +that delicate, long-lasting phantom of the atmosphere, a creature of +the incontinent stream whose course it follows. By noon the sky +is arrayed in an unrivalled pomp of colour - mild and pale and melting +in the north, but towards the zenith, dark with an intensity of purple +blue. What with this darkness of heaven and the intolerable lustre +of the snow, space is reduced again to chaos. An English painter, +coming to France late in life, declared with natural anger that ‘the +values were all wrong.’ Had he got among the Alps on a bright +day he might have lost his reason. And even to any one who has +looked at landscape with any care, and in any way through the spectacles +of representative art, the scene has a character of insanity. +The distant shining mountain peak is here beside your eye; the neighbouring +dull-coloured house in comparison is miles away; the summit, which is +all of splendid snow, is close at hand; the nigh slopes, which are black +with pine trees, bear it no relation, and might be in another sphere. +Here there are none of those delicate gradations, those intimate, misty +joinings-on and spreadings-out into the distance, nothing of that art +of air and light by which the face of nature explains and veils itself +in climes which we may be allowed to think more lovely. A glaring +piece of crudity, where everything that is not white is a solecism and +defies the judgment of the eyesight; a scene of blinding definition; +a parade of daylight, almost scenically vulgar, more than scenically +trying, and yet hearty and healthy, making the nerves to tighten and +the mouth to smile: such is the winter daytime in the Alps.<br> +<br> +With the approach of evening all is changed. A mountain will suddenly +intercept the sun; a shadow fall upon the valley; in ten minutes the +thermometer will drop as many degrees; the peaks that are no longer +shone upon dwindle into ghosts; and meanwhile, overhead, if the weather +be rightly characteristic of the place, the sky fades towards night +through a surprising key of colours. The latest gold leaps from +the last mountain. Soon, perhaps, the moon shall rise, and in +her gentler light the valley shall be mellowed and misted, and here +and there a wisp of silver cloud upon a hilltop, and here and there +a warmly glowing window in a house, between fire and starlight, kind +and homely in the fields of snow.<br> +<br> +But the valley is not seated so high among the clouds to be eternally +exempt from changes. The clouds gather, black as ink; the wind +bursts rudely in; day after day the mists drive overhead, the snow-flakes +flutter down in blinding disarray; daily the mail comes in later from +the top of the pass; people peer through their windows and foresee no +end but an entire seclusion from Europe, and death by gradual dry-rot, +each in his indifferent inn; and when at last the storm goes, and the +sun comes again, behold a world of unpolluted snow, glossy like fur, +bright like daylight, a joy to wallowing dogs and cheerful to the souls +of men. Or perhaps from across storied and malarious Italy, a +wind cunningly winds about the mountains and breaks, warm and unclean, +upon our mountain valley. Every nerve is set ajar; the conscience +recognises, at a gust, a load of sins and negligences hitherto unknown; +and the whole invalid world huddles into its private chambers, and silently +recognises the empire of the Föhn.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER XI - ALPINE DIVERSIONS<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +There will be no lack of diversion in an Alpine sanitarium. The +place is half English, to be sure, the local sheet appearing in double +column, text and translation; but it still remains half German; and +hence we have a band which is able to play, and a company of actors +able, as you will be told, to act. This last you will take on +trust, for the players, unlike the local sheet, confine themselves to +German and though at the beginning of winter they come with their wig-boxes +to each hotel in turn, long before Christmas they will have given up +the English for a bad job. There will follow, perhaps, a skirmish +between the two races; the German element seeking, in the interest of +their actors, to raise a mysterious item, the <i>Kur-taxe</i>, which +figures heavily enough already in the weekly bills, the English element +stoutly resisting. Meantime in the English hotels home-played +farces, <i>tableaux-vivants</i>, and even balls enliven the evenings; +a charity bazaar sheds genial consternation; Christmas and New Year +are solemnised with Pantagruelian dinners, and from time to time the +young folks carol and revolve untunefully enough through the figures +of a singing quadrille.<br> +<br> +A magazine club supplies you with everything, from the <i>Quarterly</i> +to the <i>Sunday at Home</i>. Grand tournaments are organised +at chess, draughts, billiards and whist. Once and again wandering +artists drop into our mountain valley, coming you know not whence, going +you cannot imagine whither, and belonging to every degree in the hierarchy +of musical art, from the recognised performer who announces a concert +for the evening, to the comic German family or solitary long-haired +German baritone, who surprises the guests at dinner-time with songs +and a collection. They are all of them good to see; they, at least, +are moving; they bring with them the sentiment of the open road; yesterday, +perhaps, they were in Tyrol, and next week they will be far in Lombardy, +while all we sick folk still simmer in our mountain prison. Some +of them, too, are welcome as the flowers in May for their own sake; +some of them may have a human voice; some may have that magic which +transforms a wooden box into a song-bird, and what we jeeringly call +a fiddle into what we mention with respect as a violin. From that +grinding lilt, with which the blind man, seeking pence, accompanies +the beat of paddle wheels across the ferry, there is surely a difference +rather of kind than of degree to that unearthly voice of singing that +bewails and praises the destiny of man at the touch of the true virtuoso. +Even that you may perhaps enjoy; and if you do so you will own it impossible +to enjoy it more keenly than here, <i>im Schnee der Alpen</i>. +A hyacinth in a pot, a handful of primroses packed in moss, or a piece +of music by some one who knows the way to the heart of a violin, are +things that, in this invariable sameness of the snows and frosty air, +surprise you like an adventure. It is droll, moreover, to compare +the respect with which the invalids attend a concert, and the ready +contempt with which they greet the dinner-time performers. Singing +which they would hear with real enthusiasm - possibly with tears - from +a corner of a drawing-room, is listened to with laughter when it is +offered by an unknown professional and no money has been taken at the +door.<br> +<br> +Of skating little need be said; in so snowy a climate the rinks must +be intelligently managed; their mismanagement will lead to many days +of vexation and some petty quarrelling, but when all goes well, it is +certainly curious, and perhaps rather unsafe, for the invalid to skate +under a burning sun, and walk back to his hotel in a sweat, through +long tracts of glare and passages of freezing shadow. But the +peculiar outdoor sport of this district is tobogganing. A Scotchman +may remember the low flat board, with the front wheels on a pivot, which +was called a <i>hurlie</i>; he may remember this contrivance, laden +with boys, as, laboriously started, it ran rattling down the brae, and +was, now successfully, now unsuccessfully, steered round the corner +at the foot; he may remember scented summer evenings passed in this +diversion, and many a grazed skin, bloody cockscomb, and neglected lesson. +The toboggan is to the hurlie what the sled is to the carriage; it is +a hurlie upon runners; and if for a grating road you substitute a long +declivity of beaten snow, you can imagine the giddy career of the tobogganist. +The correct position is to sit; but the fantastic will sometimes sit +hind-foremost, or dare the descent upon their belly or their back. +A few steer with a pair of pointed sticks, but it is more classical +to use the feet. If the weight be heavy and the track smooth, +the toboggan takes the bit between its teeth; and to steer a couple +of full-sized friends in safety requires not only judgment but desperate +exertion. On a very steep track, with a keen evening frost, you +may have moments almost too appalling to be called enjoyment; the head +goes, the world vanishes; your blind steed bounds below your weight; +you reach the foot, with all the breath knocked out of your body, jarred +and bewildered as though you had just been subjected to a railway accident. +Another element of joyful horror is added by the formation of a train; +one toboggan being tied to another, perhaps to the number of half a +dozen, only the first rider being allowed to steer, and all the rest +pledged to put up their feet and follow their leader, with heart in +mouth, down the mad descent. This, particularly if the track begins +with a headlong plunge, is one of the most exhilarating follies in the +world, and the tobogganing invalid is early reconciled to somersaults.<br> +<br> +There is all manner of variety in the nature of the tracks, some miles +in length, others but a few yards, and yet like some short rivers, furious +in their brevity. All degrees of skill and courage and taste may +be suited in your neighbourhood. But perhaps the true way to toboggan +is alone and at night. First comes the tedious climb, dragging +your instrument behind you. Next a long breathing-space, alone +with snow and pinewoods, cold, silent and solemn to the heart. +Then you push of; the toboggan fetches way; she begins to feel the hill, +to glide, to, swim, to gallop. In a breath you are out from under +the pine trees, and a whole heavenful of stars reels and flashes overhead. +Then comes a vicious effort; for by this time your wooden steed is speeding +like the wind, and you are spinning round a corner, and the whole glittering +valley and all the lights in all the great hotels lie for a moment at +your feet; and the next you are racing once more in the shadow of the +night with close-shut teeth and beating heart. Yet a little while +and you will be landed on the highroad by the door of your own hotel. +This, in an atmosphere tingling with forty degrees of frost, in a night +made luminous with stars and snow, and girt with strange white mountains, +teaches the pulse an unaccustomed tune and adds a new excitement to +the life of man upon his planet.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER XII - THE STIMULATION OF THE ALPS<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +To any one who should come from a southern sanitarium to the Alps, the +row of sun-burned faces round the table would present the first surprise. +He would begin by looking for the invalids, and he would lose his pains, +for not one out of five of even the bad cases bears the mark of sickness +on his face. The plump sunshine from above and its strong reverberation +from below colour the skin like an Indian climate; the treatment, which +consists mainly of the open air, exposes even the sickliest to tan, +and a tableful of invalids comes, in a month or two, to resemble a tableful +of hunters. But although he may be thus surprised at the first +glance, his astonishment will grow greater, as he experiences the effects +of the climate on himself. In many ways it is a trying business +to reside upon the Alps: the stomach is exercised, the appetite often +languishes; the liver may at times rebel; and because you have come +so far from metropolitan advantages, it does not follow that you shall +recover. But one thing is undeniable - that in the rare air, clear, +cold, and blinding light of Alpine winters, a man takes a certain troubled +delight in his existence which can nowhere else be paralleled. +He is perhaps no happier, but he is stingingly alive. It does +not, perhaps, come out of him in work or exercise, yet he feels an enthusiasm +of the blood unknown in more temperate climates. It may not be +health, but it is fun.<br> +<br> +There is nothing more difficult to communicate on paper than this baseless +ardour, this stimulation of the brain, this sterile joyousness of spirits. +You wake every morning, see the gold upon the snow-peaks, become filled +with courage, and bless God for your prolonged existence. The +valleys are but a stride to you; you cast your shoe over the hilltops; +your ears and your heart sing; in the words of an unverified quotation +from the Scotch psalms, you feel yourself fit ‘on the wings of +all the winds’ to ‘come flying all abroad.’ +Europe and your mind are too narrow for that flood of energy. +Yet it is notable that you are hard to root out of your bed; that you +start forth, singing, indeed, on your walk, yet are unusually ready +to turn home again; that the best of you is volatile; and that although +the restlessness remains till night, the strength is early at an end. +With all these heady jollities, you are half conscious of an underlying +languor in the body; you prove not to be so well as you had fancied; +you weary before you have well begun; and though you mount at morning +with the lark, that is not precisely a song-bird’s heart that +you bring back with you when you return with aching limbs and peevish +temper to your inn.<br> +<br> +It is hard to say wherein it lies, but this joy of Alpine winters is +its own reward. Baseless, in a sense, it is more than worth more +permanent improvements. The dream of health is perfect while it +lasts; and if, in trying to realise it, you speedily wear out the dear +hallucination, still every day, and many times a day, you are conscious +of a strength you scarce possess, and a delight in living as merry as +it proves to be transient.<br> +<br> +The brightness - heaven and earth conspiring to be bright - the levity +and quiet of the air; the odd stirring silence - more stirring than +a tumult; the snow, the frost, the enchanted landscape: all have their +part in the effect and on the memory, ‘<i>tous vous tapent sur +la téte</i>’; and yet when you have enumerated all, you +have gone no nearer to explain or even to qualify the delicate exhilaration +that you feel - delicate, you may say, and yet excessive, greater than +can be said in prose, almost greater than an invalid can bear. +There is a certain wine of France known in England in some gaseous disguise, +but when drunk in the land of its nativity still as a pool, clean as +river water, and as heady as verse. It is more than probable that +in its noble natural condition this was the very wine of Anjou so beloved +by Athos in the ‘Musketeers.’ Now, if the reader has +ever washed down a liberal second breakfast with the wine in question, +and gone forth, on the back of these dilutions, into a sultry, sparkling +noontide, he will have felt an influence almost as genial, although +strangely grosser, than this fairy titillation of the nerves among the +snow and sunshine of the Alps. That also is a mode, we need not +say of intoxication, but of insobriety. Thus also a man walks +in a strong sunshine of the mind, and follows smiling, insubstantial +meditations. And whether he be really so clever or so strong as +he supposes, in either case he will enjoy his chimera while it lasts.<br> +<br> +The influence of this giddy air displays itself in many secondary ways. +A certain sort of laboured pleasantry has already been recognised, and +may perhaps have been remarked in these papers, as a sort peculiar to +that climate. People utter their judgments with a cannonade of +syllables; a big word is as good as a meal to them; and the turn of +a phrase goes further than humour or wisdom. By the professional +writer many sad vicissitudes have to be undergone. At first he +cannot write at all. The heart, it appears, is unequal to the +pressure of business, and the brain, left without nourishment, goes +into a mild decline. Next, some power of work returns to him, +accompanied by jumping headaches. Last, the spring is opened, +and there pours at once from his pen a world of blatant, hustling polysyllables, +and talk so high as, in the old joke, to be positively offensive in +hot weather. He writes it in good faith and with a sense of inspiration; +it is only when he comes to read what he has written that surprise and +disquiet seize upon his mind. What is he to do, poor man? +All his little fishes talk like whales. This yeasty inflation, +this stiff and strutting architecture of the sentence has come upon +him while he slept; and it is not he, it is the Alps, who are to blame. +He is not, perhaps, alone, which somewhat comforts him. Nor is +the ill without a remedy. Some day, when the spring returns, he +shall go down a little lower in this world, and remember quieter inflections +and more modest language. But here, in the meantime, there seems +to swim up some outline of a new cerebral hygiene and a good time coming, +when experienced advisers shall send a man to the proper measured level +for the ode, the biography, or the religious tract; and a nook may be +found between the sea and Chimborazo, where Mr. Swinburne shall be able +to write more continently, and Mr. Browning somewhat slower.<br> +<br> +Is it a return of youth, or is it a congestion of the brain? It +is a sort of congestion, perhaps, that leads the invalid, when all goes +well, to face the new day with such a bubbling cheerfulness. It +is certainly congestion that makes night hideous with visions, all the +chambers of a many-storeyed caravanserai, haunted with vociferous nightmares, +and many wakeful people come down late for breakfast in the morning. +Upon that theory the cynic may explain the whole affair - exhilaration, +nightmares, pomp of tongue and all. But, on the other hand, the +peculiar blessedness of boyhood may itself be but a symptom of the same +complaint, for the two effects are strangely similar; and the frame +of mind of the invalid upon the Alps is a sort of intermittent youth, +with periods of lassitude. The fountain of Juventus does not play +steadily in these parts; but there it plays, and possibly nowhere else.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER XIII - ROADS - 1873<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +No amateur will deny that he can find more pleasure in a single drawing, +over which he can sit a whole quiet forenoon, and so gradually study +himself into humour with the artist, than he can ever extract from the +dazzle and accumulation of incongruous impressions that send him, weary +and stupefied, out of some famous picture-gallery. But what is +thus admitted with regard to art is not extended to the (so-called) +natural beauties no amount of excess in sublime mountain outline or +the graces of cultivated lowland can do anything, it is supposed, to +weaken or degrade the palate. We are not at all sure, however, +that moderation, and a regimen tolerably austere, even in scenery, are +not healthful and strengthening to the taste; and that the best school +for a lover of nature is not to the found in one of those countries +where there is no stage effect - nothing salient or sudden, - but a +quiet spirit of orderly and harmonious beauty pervades all the details, +so that we can patiently attend to each of the little touches that strike +in us, all of them together, the subdued note of the landscape. +It is in scenery such as this that we find ourselves in the right temper +to seek out small sequestered loveliness. The constant recurrence +of similar combinations of colour and outline gradually forces upon +us a sense of how the harmony has been built up, and we become familiar +with something of nature’s mannerism. This is the true pleasure +of your ‘rural voluptuary,’ - not to remain awe-stricken +before a Mount Chimborazo; not to sit deafened over the big drum in +the orchestra, but day by day to teach himself some new beauty - to +experience some new vague and tranquil sensation that has before evaded +him. It is not the people who ‘have pined and hungered after +nature many a year, in the great city pent,’ as Coleridge said +in the poem that made Charles Lamb so much ashamed of himself; it is +not those who make the greatest progress in this intimacy with her, +or who are most quick to see and have the greatest gusto to enjoy. +In this, as in everything else, it is minute knowledge and long-continued +loving industry that make the true dilettante. A man must have +thought much over scenery before he begins fully to enjoy it. +It is no youngling enthusiasm on hilltops that can possess itself of +the last essence of beauty. Probably most people’s heads +are growing bare before they can see all in a landscape that they have +the capability of seeing; and, even then, it will be only for one little +moment of consummation before the faculties are again on the decline, +and they that look out of the windows begin to be darkened and restrained +in sight. Thus the study of nature should be carried forward thoroughly +and with system. Every gratification should be rolled long under +the tongue, and we should be always eager to analyse and compare, in +order that we may be able to give some plausible reason for our admirations. +True, it is difficult to put even approximately into words the kind +of feelings thus called into play. There is a dangerous vice inherent +in any such intellectual refining upon vague sensation. The analysis +of such satisfactions lends itself very readily to literary affectations; +and we can all think of instances where it has shown itself apt to exercise +a morbid influence, even upon an author’s choice of language and +the turn of his sentences. And yet there is much that makes the +attempt attractive; for any expression, however imperfect, once given +to a cherished feeling, seems a sort of legitimation of the pleasure +we take in it. A common sentiment is one of those great goods +that make life palatable and ever new. The knowledge that another +has felt as we have felt, and seen things, even if they are little things, +not much otherwise than we have seen them, will continue to the end +to be one of life’s choicest pleasures.<br> +<br> +Let the reader, then, betake himself in the spirit we have recommended +to some of the quieter kinds of English landscape. In those homely +and placid agricultural districts, familiarity will bring into relief +many things worthy of notice, and urge them pleasantly home to him by +a sort of loving repetition; such as the wonderful life-giving speed +of windmill sails above the stationary country; the occurrence and recurrence +of the same church tower at the end of one long vista after another: +and, conspicuous among these sources of quiet pleasure, the character +and variety of the road itself, along which he takes his way. +Not only near at hand, in the lithe contortions with which it adapts +itself to the interchanges of level and slope, but far away also, when +he sees a few hundred feet of it upheaved against a hill and shining +in the afternoon sun, he will find it an object so changeful and enlivening +that he can always pleasurably busy his mind about it. He may +leave the river-side, or fall out of the way of villages, but the road +he has always with him; and, in the true humour of observation, will +find in that sufficient company. From its subtle windings and +changes of level there arises a keen and continuous interest, that keeps +the attention ever alert and cheerful. Every sensitive adjustment +to the contour of the ground, every little dip and swerve, seems instinct +with life and an exquisite sense of balance and beauty. The road +rolls upon the easy slopes of the country, like a long ship in the hollows +of the sea. The very margins of waste ground, as they trench a +little farther on the beaten way, or recede again to the shelter of +the hedge, have something of the same free delicacy of line - of the +same swing and wilfulness. You might think for a whole summer’s +day (and not have thought it any nearer an end by evening) what concourse +and succession of circumstances has produced the least of these deflections; +and it is, perhaps, just in this that we should look for the secret +of their interest. A foot-path across a meadow - in all its human +waywardness and unaccountability, in all the <i>grata protervitas</i> +of its varying direction - will always be more to us than a railroad +well engineered through a difficult country. <a name="citation7"></a><a href="#footnote7">{7}</a> +No reasoned sequence is thrust upon our attention: we seem to have slipped +for one lawless little moment out of the iron rule of cause and effect; +and so we revert at once to some of the pleasant old heresies of personification, +always poetically orthodox, and attribute a sort of free-will, an active +and spontaneous life, to the white riband of road that lengthens out, +and bends, and cunningly adapts itself to the inequalities of the land +before our eyes. We remember, as we write, some miles of fine +wide highway laid out with conscious aesthetic artifice through a broken +and richly cultivated tract of country. It is said that the engineer +had Hogarth’s line of beauty in his mind as he laid them down. +And the result is striking. One splendid satisfying sweep passes +with easy transition into another, and there is nothing to trouble or +dislocate the strong continuousness of the main line of the road. +And yet there is something wanting. There is here no saving imperfection, +none of those secondary curves and little trepidations of direction +that carry, in natural roads, our curiosity actively along with them. +One feels at once that this road has not has been laboriously grown +like a natural road, but made to pattern; and that, while a model may +be academically correct in outline, it will always be inanimate and +cold. The traveller is also aware of a sympathy of mood between +himself and the road he travels. We have all seen ways that have +wandered into heavy sand near the sea-coast, and trail wearily over +the dunes like a trodden serpent. Here we too must plod forward +at a dull, laborious pace; and so a sympathy is preserved between our +frame of mind and the expression of the relaxed, heavy curves of the +roadway. Such a phenomenon, indeed, our reason might perhaps resolve +with a little trouble. We might reflect that the present road +had been developed out of a tract spontaneously followed by generations +of primitive wayfarers; and might see in its expression a testimony +that those generations had been affected at the same ground, one after +another, in the same manner as we are affected to-day. Or we might +carry the reflection further, and remind ourselves that where the air +is invigorating and the ground firm under the traveller’s foot, +his eye is quick to take advantage of small undulations, and he will +turn carelessly aside from the direct way wherever there is anything +beautiful to examine or some promise of a wider view; so that even a +bush of wild roses may permanently bias and deform the straight path +over the meadow; whereas, where the soil is heavy, one is preoccupied +with the labour of mere progression, and goes with a bowed head heavily +and unobservantly forward. Reason, however, will not carry us +the whole way; for the sentiment often recurs in situations where it +is very hard to imagine any possible explanation; and indeed, if we +drive briskly along a good, well-made road in an open vehicle, we shall +experience this sympathy almost at its fullest. We feel the sharp +settle of the springs at some curiously twisted corner; after a steep +ascent, the fresh air dances in our faces as we rattle precipitately +down the other side, and we find it difficult to avoid attributing something +headlong, a sort of <i>abandon</i>, to the road itself.<br> +<br> +The mere winding of the path is enough to enliven a long day’s +walk in even a commonplace or dreary country-side. Something that +we have seen from miles back, upon an eminence, is so long hid from +us, as we wander through folded valleys or among woods, that our expectation +of seeing it again is sharpened into a violent appetite, and as we draw +nearer we impatiently quicken our steps and turn every corner with a +beating heart. It is through these prolongations of expectancy, +this succession of one hope to another, that we live out long seasons +of pleasure in a few hours’ walk. It is in following these +capricious sinuosities that we learn, only bit by bit and through one +coquettish reticence after another, much as we learn the heart of a +friend, the whole loveliness of the country. This disposition +always preserves something new to be seen, and takes us, like a careful +cicerone, to many different points of distant view before it allows +us finally to approach the hoped-for destination.<br> +<br> +In its connection with the traffic, and whole friendly intercourse with +the country, there is something very pleasant in that succession of +saunterers and brisk and business-like passers-by, that peoples our +ways and helps to build up what Walt Whitman calls ‘the cheerful +voice of the public road, the gay, fresh sentiment of the road.’ +But out of the great network of ways that binds all life together from +the hill-farm to the city, there is something individual to most, and, +on the whole, nearly as much choice on the score of company as on the +score of beauty or easy travel. On some we are never long without +the sound of wheels, and folk pass us by so thickly that we lose the +sense of their number. But on others, about little-frequented +districts, a meeting is an affair of moment; we have the sight far off +of some one coming towards us, the growing definiteness of the person, +and then the brief passage and salutation, and the road left empty in +front of us for perhaps a great while to come. Such encounters +have a wistful interest that can hardly be understood by the dweller +in places more populous. We remember standing beside a countryman +once, in the mouth of a quiet by-street in a city that was more than +ordinarily crowded and bustling; he seemed stunned and bewildered by +the continual passage of different faces; and after a long pause, during +which he appeared to search for some suitable expression, he said timidly +that there seemed to be a <i>great deal of meeting thereabouts</i>. +The phrase is significant. It is the expression of town-life in +the language of the long, solitary country highways. A meeting +of one with one was what this man had been used to in the pastoral uplands +from which he came; and the concourse of the streets was in his eyes +only an extraordinary multiplication of such ‘meetings.’<br> +<br> +And now we come to that last and most subtle quality of all, to that +sense of prospect, of outlook, that is brought so powerfully to our +minds by a road. In real nature, as well as in old landscapes, +beneath that impartial daylight in which a whole variegated plain is +plunged and saturated, the line of the road leads the eye forth with +the vague sense of desire up to the green limit of the horizon. +Travel is brought home to us, and we visit in spirit every grove and +hamlet that tempts us in the distance. <i>Sehnsucht</i> - the +passion for what is ever beyond - is livingly expressed in that white +riband of possible travel that severs the uneven country; not a ploughman +following his plough up the shining furrow, not the blue smoke of any +cottage in a hollow, but is brought to us with a sense of nearness and +attainability by this wavering line of junction. There is a passionate +paragraph in <i>Werther</i> that strikes the very key. ‘When +I came hither,’ he writes, ‘how the beautiful valley invited +me on every side, as I gazed down into it from the hill-top! There +the wood - ah, that I might mingle in its shadows! there the mountain +summits - ah, that I might look down from them over the broad country! +the interlinked hills! the secret valleys! Oh to lose myself among +their mysteries! I hurried into the midst, and came back without +finding aught I hoped for. Alas! the distance is like the future. +A vast whole lies in the twilight before our spirit; sight and feeling +alike plunge and lose themselves in the prospect, and we yearn to surrender +our whole being, and let it be filled full with all the rapture of one +single glorious sensation; and alas! when we hasten to the fruition, +when <i>there</i> is changed to <i>here</i>, all is afterwards as it +was before, and we stand in our indigent and cramped estate, and our +soul thirsts after a still ebbing elixir.’ It is to this +wandering and uneasy spirit of anticipation that roads minister. +Every little vista, every little glimpse that we have of what lies before +us, gives the impatient imagination rein, so that it can outstrip the +body and already plunge into the shadow of the woods, and overlook from +the hill-top the plain beyond it, and wander in the windings of the +valleys that are still far in front. The road is already there +- we shall not be long behind. It is as if we were marching with +the rear of a great army, and, from far before, heard the acclamation +of the people as the vanguard entered some friendly and jubilant city. +Would not every man, through all the long miles of march, feel as if +he also were within the gates?<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER XIV - ON THE ENJOYMENT OF UNPLEASANT PLACES - 1874<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +It is a difficult matter to make the most of any given place, and we +have much in our own power. Things looked at patiently from one +side after another generally end by showing a side that is beautiful. +A few months ago some words were said in the <i>Portfolio</i> as to +an ‘austere regimen in scenery’; and such a discipline was +then recommended as ‘healthful and strengthening to the taste.’ +That is the text, so to speak, of the present essay. This discipline +in scenery, it must be understood, is something more than a mere walk +before breakfast to whet the appetite. For when we are put down +in some unsightly neighbourhood, and especially if we have come to be +more or less dependent on what we see, we must set ourselves to hunt +out beautiful things with all the ardour and patience of a botanist +after a rye plant. Day by day we perfect ourselves in the art +of seeing nature more favourably. We learn to live with her, as +people learn to live with fretful or violent spouses: to dwell lovingly +on what is good, and shut our eyes against all that is bleak or inharmonious. +We learn, also, to come to each place in the right spirit. The +traveller, as Brantôme quaintly tells us, ‘<i>fait +des discours en soi pour soutenir en chemin</i>’; and into these +discourses he weaves something out of all that he sees and suffers by +the way; they take their tone greatly from the varying character of +the scene; a sharp ascent brings different thoughts from a level road; +and the man’s fancies grow lighter as he comes out of the wood +into a clearing. Nor does the scenery any more affect the thoughts +than the thoughts affect the scenery. We see places through our +humours as through differently coloured glasses. We are ourselves +a term in the equation, a note of the chord, and make discord or harmony +almost at will. There is no fear for the result, if we can but +surrender ourselves sufficiently to the country that surrounds and follows +us, so that we are ever thinking suitable thoughts or telling ourselves +some suitable sort of story as we go. We become thus, in some +sense, a centre of beauty; we are provocative of beauty, much as a gentle +and sincere character is provocative of sincerity and gentleness in +others. And even where there is no harmony to be elicited by the +quickest and most obedient of spirits, we may still embellish a place +with some attraction of romance. We may learn to go far afield +for associations, and handle them lightly when we have found them. +Sometimes an old print comes to our aid; I have seen many a spot lit +up at once with picturesque imaginations, by a reminiscence of Callot, +or Sadeler, or Paul Brill. Dick Turpin has been my lay figure +for many an English lane. And I suppose the Trossachs would hardly +be the Trossachs for most tourists if a man of admirable romantic instinct +had not peopled it for them with harmonious figures, and brought them +thither with minds rightly prepared for the impression. There +is half the battle in this preparation. For instance: I have rarely +been able to visit, in the proper spirit, the wild and inhospitable +places of our own Highlands. I am happier where it is tame and +fertile, and not readily pleased without trees. I understand that +there are some phases of mental trouble that harmonise well with such +surroundings, and that some persons, by the dispensing power of the +imagination, can go back several centuries in spirit, and put themselves +into sympathy with the hunted, houseless, unsociable way of life that +was in its place upon these savage hills. Now, when I am sad, +I like nature to charm me out of my sadness, like David before Saul; +and the thought of these past ages strikes nothing in me but an unpleasant +pity; so that I can never hit on the right humour for this sort of landscape, +and lose much pleasure in consequence. Still, even here, if I +were only let alone, and time enough were given, I should have all manner +of pleasures, and take many clear and beautiful images away with me +when I left. When we cannot think ourselves into sympathy with +the great features of a country, we learn to ignore them, and put our +head among the grass for flowers, or pore, for long times together, +over the changeful current of a stream. We come down to the sermon +in stones, when we are shut out from any poem in the spread landscape. +We begin to peep and botanise, we take an interest in birds and insects, +we find many things beautiful in miniature. The reader will recollect +the little summer scene in <i>Wuthering Heights</i> - the one warm scene, +perhaps, in all that powerful, miserable novel - and the great feature +that is made therein by grasses and flowers and a little sunshine: this +is in the spirit of which I now speak. And, lastly, we can go +indoors; interiors are sometimes as beautiful, often more picturesque, +than the shows of the open air, and they have that quality of shelter +of which I shall presently have more to say.<br> +<br> +With all this in mind, I have often been tempted to put forth the paradox +that any place is good enough to live a life in, while it is only in +a few, and those highly favoured, that we can pass a few hours agreeably. +For, if we only stay long enough we become at home in the neighbourhood. +Reminiscences spring up, like flowers, about uninteresting corners. +We forget to some degree the superior loveliness of other places, and +fall into a tolerant and sympathetic spirit which is its own reward +and justification. Looking back the other day on some recollections +of my own, I was astonished to find how much I owed to such a residence; +six weeks in one unpleasant country-side had done more, it seemed, to +quicken and educate my sensibilities than many years in places that +jumped more nearly with my inclination.<br> +<br> +The country to which I refer was a level and tree-less plateau, over +which the winds cut like a whip. For miles and miles it was the +same. A river, indeed, fell into the sea near the town where I +resided; but the valley of the river was shallow and bald, for as far +up as ever I had the heart to follow it. There were roads, certainly, +but roads that had no beauty or interest; for, as there was no timber, +and but little irregularity of surface, you saw your whole walk exposed +to you from the beginning: there was nothing left to fancy, nothing +to expect, nothing to see by the wayside, save here and there an unhomely-looking +homestead, and here and there a solitary, spectacled stone-breaker; +and you were only accompanied, as you went doggedly forward, by the +gaunt telegraph-posts and the hum of the resonant wires in the keen +sea-wind. To one who had learned to know their song in warm pleasant +places by the Mediterranean, it seemed to taunt the country, and make +it still bleaker by suggested contrast. Even the waste places +by the side of the road were not, as Hawthorne liked to put it, ‘taken +back to Nature’ by any decent covering of vegetation. Wherever +the land had the chance, it seemed to lie fallow. There is a certain +tawny nudity of the South, bare sunburnt plains, coloured like a lion, +and hills clothed only in the blue transparent air; but this was of +another description - this was the nakedness of the North; the earth +seemed to know that it was naked, and was ashamed and cold.<br> +<br> +It seemed to be always blowing on that coast. Indeed, this had +passed into the speech of the inhabitants, and they saluted each other +when they met with ‘Breezy, breezy,’ instead of the customary +‘Fine day’ of farther south. These continual winds +were not like the harvest breeze, that just keeps an equable pressure +against your face as you walk, and serves to set all the trees talking +over your head, or bring round you the smell of the wet surface of the +country after a shower. They were of the bitter, hard, persistent +sort, that interferes with sight and respiration, and makes the eyes +sore. Even such winds as these have their own merit in proper +time and place. It is pleasant to see them brandish great masses +of shadow. And what a power they have over the colour of the world! +How they ruffle the solid woodlands in their passage, and make them +shudder and whiten like a single willow! There is nothing more +vertiginous than a wind like this among the woods, with all its sights +and noises; and the effect gets between some painters and their sober +eyesight, so that, even when the rest of their picture is calm, the +foliage is coloured like foliage in a gale. There was nothing, +however, of this sort to be noticed in a country where there were no +trees and hardly any shadows, save the passive shadows of clouds or +those of rigid houses and walls. But the wind was nevertheless +an occasion of pleasure; for nowhere could you taste more fully the +pleasure of a sudden lull, or a place of opportune shelter. The +reader knows what I mean; he must remember how, when he has sat himself +down behind a dyke on a hillside, he delighted to hear the wind hiss +vainly through the crannies at his back; how his body tingled all over +with warmth, and it began to dawn upon him, with a sort of slow surprise, +that the country was beautiful, the heather purple, and the far-away +hills all marbled with sun and shadow. Wordsworth, in a beautiful +passage of the ‘Prelude,’ has used this as a figure for +the feeling struck in us by the quiet by-streets of London after the +uproar of the great thoroughfares; and the comparison may be turned +the other way with as good effect:-<br> +<br> +‘Meanwhile the roar continues, till at length,<br> +Escaped as from an enemy, we turn<br> +Abruptly into some sequester’d nook,<br> +Still as a shelter’d place when winds blow loud!’<br> +<br> +I remember meeting a man once, in a train, who told me of what must +have been quite the most perfect instance of this pleasure of escape. +He had gone up, one sunny, windy morning, to the top of a great cathedral +somewhere abroad; I think it was Cologne Cathedral, the great unfinished +marvel by the Rhine; and after a long while in dark stairways, he issued +at last into the sunshine, on a platform high above the town. +At that elevation it was quite still and warm; the gale was only in +the lower strata of the air, and he had forgotten it in the quiet interior +of the church and during his long ascent; and so you may judge of his +surprise when, resting his arms on the sunlit balustrade and looking +over into the <i>Place</i> far below him, he saw the good people holding +on their hats and leaning hard against the wind as they walked. +There is something, to my fancy, quite perfect in this little experience +of my fellow-traveller’s. The ways of men seem always very +trivial to us when we find ourselves alone on a church-top, with the +blue sky and a few tall pinnacles, and see far below us the steep roofs +and foreshortened buttresses, and the silent activity of the city streets; +but how much more must they not have seemed so to him as he stood, not +only above other men’s business, but above other men’s climate, +in a golden zone like Apollo’s!<br> +<br> +This was the sort of pleasure I found in the country of which I write. +The pleasure was to be out of the wind, and to keep it in memory all +the time, and hug oneself upon the shelter. And it was only by +the sea that any such sheltered places were to be found. Between +the black worm-eaten head-lands there are little bights and havens, +well screened from the wind and the commotion of the external sea, where +the sand and weeds look up into the gazer’s face from a depth +of tranquil water, and the sea-birds, screaming and flickering from +the ruined crags, alone disturb the silence and the sunshine. +One such place has impressed itself on my memory beyond all others. +On a rock by the water’s edge, old fighting men of the Norse breed +had planted a double castle; the two stood wall to wall like semi-detached +villas; and yet feud had run so high between their owners, that one, +from out of a window, shot the other as he stood in his own doorway. +There is something in the juxtaposition of these two enemies full of +tragic irony. It is grim to think of bearded men and bitter women +taking hateful counsel together about the two hall-fires at night, when +the sea boomed against the foundations and the wild winter wind was +loose over the battlements. And in the study we may reconstruct +for ourselves some pale figure of what life then was. Not so when +we are there; when we are there such thoughts come to us only to intensify +a contrary impression, and association is turned against itself. +I remember walking thither three afternoons in succession, my eyes weary +with being set against the wind, and how, dropping suddenly over the +edge of the down, I found myself in a new world of warmth and shelter. +The wind, from which I had escaped, ‘as from an enemy,’ +was seemingly quite local. It carried no clouds with it, and came +from such a quarter that it did not trouble the sea within view. +The two castles, black and ruinous as the rocks about them, were still +distinguishable from these by something more insecure and fantastic +in the outline, something that the last storm had left imminent and +the next would demolish entirely. It would be difficult to render +in words the sense of peace that took possession of me on these three +afternoons. It was helped out, as I have said, by the contrast. +The shore was battered and bemauled by previous tempests; I had the +memory at heart of the insane strife of the pigmies who had erected +these two castles and lived in them in mutual distrust and enmity, and +knew I had only to put my head out of this little cup of shelter to +find the hard wind blowing in my eyes; and yet there were the two great +tracts of motionless blue air and peaceful sea looking on, unconcerned +and apart, at the turmoil of the present moment and the memorials of +the precarious past. There is ever something transitory and fretful +in the impression of a high wind under a cloudless sky; it seems to +have no root in the constitution of things; it must speedily begin to +faint and wither away like a cut flower. And on those days the +thought of the wind and the thought of human life came very near together +in my mind. Our noisy years did indeed seem moments in the being +of the eternal silence; and the wind, in the face of that great field +of stationary blue, was as the wind of a butterfly’s wing. +The placidity of the sea was a thing likewise to be remembered. +Shelley speaks of the sea as ‘hungering for calm,’ and in +this place one learned to understand the phrase. Looking down +into these green waters from the broken edge of the rock, or swimming +leisurely in the sunshine, it seemed to me that they were enjoying their +own tranquillity; and when now and again it was disturbed by a wind +ripple on the surface, or the quick black passage of a fish far below, +they settled back again (one could fancy) with relief.<br> +<br> +On shore too, in the little nook of shelter, everything was so subdued +and still that the least particular struck in me a pleasurable surprise. +The desultory crackling of the whin-pods in the afternoon sun usurped +the ear. The hot, sweet breath of the bank, that had been saturated +all day long with sunshine, and now exhaled it into my face, was like +the breath of a fellow-creature. I remember that I was haunted +by two lines of French verse; in some dumb way they seemed to fit my +surroundings and give expression to the contentment that was in me, +and I kept repeating to myself -<br> +<br> +‘Mon coeur est un luth suspendu,<br> +Sitôt qu’on le touche, il résonne.’<br> +<br> +I can give no reason why these lines came to me at this time; and for +that very cause I repeat them here. For all I know, they may serve +to complete the impression in the mind of the reader, as they were certainly +a part of it for me.<br> +<br> +And this happened to me in the place of all others where I liked least +to stay. When I think of it I grow ashamed of my own ingratitude. +‘Out of the strong came forth sweetness.’ There, in +the bleak and gusty North, I received, perhaps, my strongest impression +of peace. I saw the sea to be great and calm; and the earth, in +that little corner, was all alive and friendly to me. So, wherever +a man is, he will find something to please and pacify him: in the town +he will meet pleasant faces of men and women, and see beautiful flowers +at a window, or hear a cage-bird singing at the corner of the gloomiest +street; and for the country, there is no country without some amenity +- let him only look for it in the right spirit, and he will surely find.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Footnotes:<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote1"></a><a href="#citation1">{1}</a> The Second +Part here referred to is entitled ‘ACROSS THE PLAINS,’ and +is printed in the volume so entitled, together with other Memories and +Essays.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote2"></a><a href="#citation2">{2}</a> I had nearly +finished the transcription of the following pages when I saw on a friend’s +table the number containing the piece from which this sentence is extracted, +and, struck with a similarity of title, took it home with me and read +it with indescribable satisfaction. I do not know whether I more +envy M. Theuriet the pleasure of having written this delightful article, +or the reader the pleasure, which I hope he has still before him, of +reading it once and again, and lingering over the passages that please +him most.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote3"></a><a href="#citation3">{3}</a> William Abercrombie. +See <i>Fasti Ecclesia Scoticanae</i>, under ‘Maybole’ (Part +iii.).<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote4"></a><a href="#citation4">{4}</a> ‘Duex +poures varlez qui n’ont nulz gages et qui gissoient la nuit avec +les chiens.’ See Champollion - Figeac’s <i>Louis et +Charles d’Orléans</i>, i. 63, and for my lord’s English +horn, <i>ibid</i>. 96.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote5"></a><a href="#citation5">{5}</a> Reprinted +by permission of John Lane.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote6"></a><a href="#citation6">{6}</a> ‘Jehovah +Tsidkenu,’ translated in the Authorised Version as ‘The +Lord our Righteousness’ (Jeremiah xxiii. 6 and xxxiii. 16).<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote7"></a><a href="#citation7">{7}</a> Compare Blake, +in the <i>Marriage of Heaven and Hell</i>: ‘Improvement makes +straight roads; but the crooked roads, without improvement, are roads +of Genius.’<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, ESSAYS OF TRAVEL ***<br> +<pre> + +******This file should be named esstr10h.htm or esstr10h.zip****** +Corrected EDITIONS of our EBooks get a new NUMBER, esstr11h.htm +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, esstr10ah.htm + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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