Travelling Sketches. Trollope Anthony
minute geographical inquiry, are the points to which it is intended that attention shall be given. And of these much is learned. A true love of scenery is common to almost all who will take the trouble to seek it. I think that it is, at any rate, common to all English men and women. Of pictures the knowledge acquired is most frequently what may be called dead knowledge. Carry soon learns to know a Rubens from a Raphael, and almost learns to know a Titian from a Tintoretto. She stores her memory with facts as to individual pictures, remembers dates, and can tell you who was the teacher of whom. She is sometimes a little restless and mildly impatient during her labours in the galleries, and rejoices often when the hard day's work is done and the custodian bids her depart. But her toils have not been barren, and she enjoys after a fashion what she has learned. Architecture comes easier, as the time given to it is necessarily less, and the attention may be more vaguely applied. But, on that account, less is carried away, and the memories of the cathedral have dwindled to nothing, while the positions of the world-famous pictures are still remembered. As to the geography, it comes unsought, and remains unappreciated; but it is not on that account the less valuable. How few of our young ladies can define the position of Warsaw; while so many know accurately that of Wiesbaden!
Many accusations have been made against travelling English families, touching that peculiarity of theirs in going hither and thither without an attempt to see and know the people of the countries they visit; and it is alleged, and truly alleged, that Frenchmen and Germans coming here do make efforts to come among us and see us, and learn of what like we are. But I think that we can defend ourselves on that score. We travel among Frenchmen and Germans in bulk, while they come among us by twos and threes. Our twos and our threes see as much of them as they see of us. With them families do not go abroad because it is the thing to do. How many an Englishman stays in Paris two days to see the city; whereas no Frenchman comes to London for such a flying visit, unless he be a commis voyageur, or has some business in hand.
The family that travels because it is the thing to do, is, I am sure, in the right. Fanny understood her point when she said that it was education. It is education; but if one can judge from the faces, voices, and manners of the persons undergoing it, it is not often pleasure. The work has been too hard, the toil too unremitting, the endeavour to make the most of the short six weeks too unrelenting, to allow of much of the softness of summer enjoyment. The stern Fanny, who, as she has gone on her way, has made the foreign Bradshaw all her own, has allowed no rest to her weary father, no ease to her over-driven mother. "If we don't do Munich now, we shall never do it," she has said with energy. And thus the sullen father and the despairing mother have been dragged along further dusty railroads, to another hot city of pictures, in which Paterfamilias found nothing to comfort him but the beer, and mamma no alleviation but the excessive punctuality and neatness of the washerwoman.
But, at last, they are at home, – the penance is over, and the true pleasure begins. They have done the work and have garnered the wages. Papa is sufficiently happy in feeling that he cannot be again taken away from his dressing-room and cellar, at any rate, for ten months; and mamma, as she once more creeps into her own bed, thanks God that she has been enabled to go through her duty. Carry and Fanny hide their travelling gear with some little feeling of shame, and, as they toil at their journals for the first week of their return, take pride in thinking that they have seen at any rate as much as their neighbours.
THE MAN WHO TRAVELS ALONE
Men who travel alone may be divided into two classes. There is the man who cannot get a companion, and the man who does not want one. There is also, between these two solitary men, an intermediate solitary man, who travels alone because he cannot find the companion that would exactly suit him. But, whatever may be the cause of his solitude, the man who travels alone is not, I think, to be envied.
If he be a studious, thoughtful man, taking delight in museums and houses of assembly, given to chemistry and the variations of European politics, fond of statistics and well-instructed in stuffed vermin, he may be as happy travelling alone as he would be alone in his library; but such a man is exceptional, and I am not now speaking of him. He is a student and not a tourist. He is going to school and not out for a holiday. The man who travels alone, with whom we have to do, is one who goes abroad for a little health, for a good deal of recreation if he can find it, and for the pleasure of looking about him and seeing the world. The improvement in health he may find; but the recreation will be doubtful, unless he be one by nature averse to gregarious habits.
When we see such a one, – and such a one is often seen straying along the Rhine or wandering listlessly among the mountains, – we always suppose him to be alone because he cannot help it. We are never kind enough to give him credit for a choice for solitude; and we avoid him sedulously because we have it in our power to give him that one thing that he wants. Such is the human nature of tourists, which in this respect is very like to the human nature of people who stay at home. We like to have at our houses those whom it is difficult to obtain, and do not care to entertain those who are always ready to come to us.
It must be admitted that the ill-nature of tourist parties in this respect is justified to a great degree by the experienced results of any exceptional good-nature into which soft-hearted persons may be occasionally betrayed. Who among us that has been thus soft-hearted on an occasion has not repented in sackcloth and ashes? The solitary tourist when once taken up can hardly be dropped; he appears, and reappears, and comes up again till the original friends of the original good-natured sinner become gloomy and sullen and talk of strong measures. Whispers of an enforced separation are murmured about, and Jones, who has picked the man up, and who "found that there was something in him" as they sat next each other in a railway carriage, is made to understand by Smith and Walker, that unless he can contrive to drop Mr. Robinson, he must be dropped himself. It is not so easy to drop Mr. Robinson. The paths of Switzerland, and the roads into Italy, are open to all the world.
Poor Robinson! we will cling to him for a while, and endeavour to show the nature of the misery which he suffers. At home he is an honest fellow, and those who know him best say that he is a gentleman. He is quite equal to the men whom he meets on his tour, and who look down upon him because of his solitude. The time will probably come when he will be no longer alone, when he will have a wife and children, and a house into which Jones would think it a blessing to be admitted.
But at present Robinson is alone, and has known himself to be thrown aside by the men whose society he coveted. He had come out on his tour with much compunction, dreading his solitude, believing in his heart of hearts that it would be better for him to go with his sisters to Broadstairs. But he had accused himself of being unmanly, he had buckled on his armour in the shape of a Murray's guide, a vocabulary, and a Bradshaw, and had started by the Ostend boat, assuring himself that many others had done the same before him, and had returned home proudly to tell the tale of their wanderings. On the railway to Cologne he had picked up with Jones, and for twenty-four hours the prospects of a blessed union had cheered him. He had followed the friends to their hotel with some half-word of excuse. He had sat by Smith at the first dinner, dividing Smith from a pretty young countrywoman, and had found Smith to be somewhat unpleasant. Had he understood his game he would have taken himself to the other side of Smith. Wanting to gain much, he should have surrendered something. In the evening he had smoked with Jones, whose good-nature had not as yet been outraged. Then had Walker and Smith roundly brought their friend to task, and Jones having asked the poor fellow which way he meant to travel on the morrow, had plainly told him that he and his party intended to take another route.
Some chance reader of these words may, perhaps, one day have felt such rebuke, and be able to understand its harshness. "Ah, yes! very well," said Robinson. "Then I dare say we shall not meet again. I couldn't very well alter my plan now." There was a dash of manliness about him, and he could show some gallantry before the traitor friend who had become his foe. But when he went up to his room, the tears were almost in his eyes, and as he turned into bed, he resolved that on the morrow he would betake himself home.
But on the morrow his heart was higher, and he persevered. He saw the three odious men as they started from the inn door, and was able to perceive that they were not gentlemen. Smith he thought he had seen behind a counter. As for Walker, he had caught Walker tripping with his hs, and was glad to be rid of him. Before his breakfast was over he had taught himself almost to believe that he had dropped