silly boastings which drive silly men and women into this difficulty.
Those who inform us how we should travel continually speak to us as
though German and Italian were known to most of us, and talking French
was as common with us as eating and drinking. But to talk French well
is not common to Englishmen; it is in truth a rare accomplishment.
And then these informants, armed, let us hope, with true knowledge on
their own parts, jeer most unmercifully at us poor tourists who venture
to come abroad in our ignorance. We are ridiculed for our dumbness if
we are dumb, and for our efforts at speech if we attempt to speak.
And then we are talked at, rather than addressed. The accomplished
informant who intends to guide us speaks always to some brother as
accomplished as himself, and warns this learned brother against the
ignorance of the masses. It is not very long since a distinguished
contributor to a very distinguished newspaper advised his readers that
an Englishman at Rome should never know another Englishman there; and
this warning of Britons against other Britons on the Continent is so
common that it has reached us all. It means nothing; or, at any rate,
should be taken as meaning nothing. Not one amongst twenty of English
men or English women who travel, can travel, or should attempt to
travel, after the fashion which is intended to be prescribed by these
counsellors. A few among us may so live abroad as to become conversant
with the inner life of the people with whom they are dwelling,--to know
their houses, their sons and their daughters; to see their habits, to
talk with them, eat with them, and quarrel with them; but to do this is
not and should not be the object of the vacation tourist; and if the
vacation tourist cannot save himself from being made miserable by his
guide-books and pretentious informants, because he is unable to do that
which he never should have regarded as being within his power, he had
certainly better remain at home.
To wander along the shores of lakes, to climb up mountains, to visit
cities, to see pictures, and stand amidst the architecture of the old
or of the new world, is very good, even though the man who does these
things can speak no word out of his own language. To speak another
language well is very good also, and to speak another language badly
is much better than not to speak it at all. All that is required is
that there should be no humbug, no pretence, no insincerity, either
as regards self or others. Let him whose foreign vocabulary is very
limited use it boldly as far as it will go; and let him acknowledge
to himself that he is going to see the outside of things, and not the
inside. It is not given to any of us to see the inside of many things.
Why be discomforted because you cannot learn the mysteries of Italian
life, seeing that in all probability you know nothing of the inner
life of the man who lives next door to you at home? There is a whole
world close to you which you have not inspected. What do you know of
the thoughts and feelings of those who inhabit your own kitchen? But in
seeing the outer world, which is open to your eye, there may be great
joy, almost happiness,--if you will only look at it with sincerity.
There is another grievance, cognate with this grievance of language,
which much troubles some tourists,--a grievance which indeed springs
altogether from that lack of language. The money of these unlearned
ones will not go so far with them as it would do if they could do their
bargaining in French with a fluent tongue. The imperious guide-books
have not failed to throw into the teeth of monolingual travellers their
disadvantages in this respect, and to do all that lay in their power
to add a further heavy misery on this head to the other miseries of
tourists. No doubt my friend the Italian innkeeper would be more easily
pressible--what we generally call more reasonable--in his financial
arrangements if you could argue out the question of your bed and supper
in good Tuscan; but in this matter, as in all others, you must pay for
that which you have not got, and cut your coat according to your cloth.
Are you going to be miserable because you, who have to pay your railway
fares, cannot travel as cheaply as your friend who has a free ticket
wherever he goes? A free ticket is a nice thing; but not having one,
you must pay your fare.
But there are other sources of unhappiness, independent of those
arising from language, which go far towards robbing the English tourist
of the pleasure he has anticipated. He always attempts to do too much,
and in his calculations as to space and time forgets that his body is
human and that his powers of endurance are limited. With his Bradshaw
in his hand and his map before him, he ignores the need of rest, and
lays out for himself a scheme of travelling in which there is no
leisure, no repose, no acknowledgment on his own part that even sleep
is necessary for him. To do all that can be done for the money is the
one great object which he has ever in view; to visit as many cities as
may possibly be visited in the time, to have run the length of as many
railways as can be brought within the compass of his short six weeks,
to tick off the different places one after another on his list, as
though it were a duty imperative upon him to see them all, and having
seen them, to hurry on to new scenes,--this is his plan of action, and
with such a plan of action is it possible that he should like his work?
Must it not be a certain result of such travelling that the traveller
will have but one source of comfort during his journey, and that that
will spring from the blessed remembrance that his labours will have an
end?
If I may venture to give two words of advice to those of my
fellow-countrymen who travel frequently during their vacations, and who
feel on self-examination that they have not hitherto in reality liked
their tourings, in those two words I will advise them both to affect
less and to perform less. What matters it who knows that you cannot
speak two words of French together grammatically? All whom it in the
least concerns probably do know it. Be content to speak your two words
ungrammatically, or, if that be beyond you, be content not to speak
them at all. The mountains and valleys will render themselves to you
without French. The pictures on the walls will not twit you with your
ignorance. Venus and Apollo could not come to you out of their marble,
though they were as many-tongued as Mezzofanti; but they will come
to you if you speak to them out of your own heart with such language
as is at your ready disposal. But, above all things, take your time
in discoursing with these works of nature and these works of art. To
be able to be happy and at rest among the mountains is better than a
capacity for talking French in saloons.
London: Printed by SMITH, ELDER AND CO., Old Bailey, E.C.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:
Obvious printer errors have been corrected. Otherwise, the author's
original spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have been left intact.
End of Project Gutenberg's Travelling Sketches., by Anthony Trollope