FINALE
Yonder the long horizon lies, and there by night and day
The old ships draw to home again, the young ships sail away;
And come I may, but go I must, and if men ask you why,
You may put the blame on the stars and the sun and the white road and
the sky!
--GERALD GOULD.
It is good to look about the world; but always there comes a time when
the restless creature, man, having yielded to the call of the seas and
the stars and the sky, and gone a-journeying, begins to think of home
again. Even were home a less satisfactory, a less happy place than it
is, he would be bound to think of it after so long a journey as that
upon which my companion and I had spent so many months. For, just as it
is necessary for a locomotive to go every so often for an overhauling,
so it is necessary for the traveler to return to headquarters. The
fastenings of his wardrobe trunk are getting loose, and the side of it
has been stove in; his heels are running down in back, his watch needs
regulating, his umbrella-handle is coming loose, he is running out of
notebooks and pencils and has broken a blade of his knife in trying to
open a bottle with it (because he left his corkscrew in a hotel
somewhere along the way). His fountain pen has sprung a leak and
spoiled a waistcoat, his razors are dull, his strop is nicked, and he
has run out of the kind of cigarettes and cigars he likes. One lens of
his spectacles has gotten scratched, his mail has ceased to reach him,
his light suits are spotted, baggy and worn, and his winter suits are
becoming too heavy for comfort as the spring advances. His neckties are
getting stringy, he has hangnails and a cough; he never could fix his
own hangnails, and he cannot cure his cough because the bottle of
glycerine and wild cherry provided for just such an emergency by the
loved ones at home, got broken on the trip from Jacksonville to
Montgomery, and went dribbling down through the trunk, ruining his
reference books, three of his best shirts, and the only decent pair of
russet shoes he had left. The other shoes have been ruined in various
ways; one pair was spoiled in a possum hunt at Clinton, North
Carolina--and it was worth it, and worth the overcoat that was ruined at
the same time; two pairs of black shoes have been caked up with layers
and layers of sticky blacking, and one pair of russets was ruined by a
well intentioned negro lad in Memphis, who thought they would look
better painted red. His traveler's checks are running low and he is
continually afraid that, amid his constantly increasing piles of notes
and papers, he will lose the three books in each of which remains a few
feet of "yellow scrip"--the mileage of the South--which will take him on
his return journey as far as Washington.
Nor is that all. The determining factor in his decision to go home lies
in the havoc wrought by a long succession of hotel laundries--laundries
which starch the bosoms of soft silk shirts, which mark the owner's name
in ink upon the hems of sheer linen handkerchiefs which already have
embroidered monograms, which rip holes in those handkerchiefs and then
fold them so that the holes are concealed until, some night, he whips
one confidently from the pocket of his dress suit, and reveals it
looking like a tattered battle-flag; laundries which leave long trails
of iron rust on shirt-bosoms, which rip out seams, tear off buttons,
squeeze out new standing collars to a saw-tooth edge, iron little pieces
of red and brown string into collars, cuffs, and especially into the
bosoms of dress shirts, and "finish" dress shirts and collars, not only
in the sense of ending their days of usefulness as fast as possible, but
also by making them shine like the interiors of glazed porcelain
bathtubs. But the greatest cruelty of the hotel laundry is to socks. It
is not that they do more damage to socks, than to other garments, but
that the laundry devil has been able to think of a greater variety of
means for the destruction of socks than for the destruction of any other
kind of garment. He begins by fastening to each sock a cloth-covered tin
tag, attached by means of prongs. On this tag he puts certain marks
which will mean nothing to the next laundry. The next laundry therefore
attaches other tin tags, either ripping off the old ones (leaving holes
where the prongs went through) or else letting them remain in place, so
that, after a while, the whole top of the sock is covered with tin,
making it an extraordinarily uncomfortable thing to wear, and a strange
thing to look at. There is still another way in which the laundry devil
tortures the sock-owner. He can find ways to shrink any sock that is not
made of solid heavy silk; and of course he can rip silk socks all to
pieces. He will take silk-and-wool socks of normal length, and in one
washing will so reduce them that you can hardly get your foot into them,
and that the upper margins of them come only about an inch above your
shoe-tops. People who have no business to do so, are thus enabled, when
you are seated, to see the tops of your socks and to amuse themselves by
counting the tin tags with which they are adorned. Also, the socks,
being so short, become better pullers than the garters, so that instead
of the garters holding the socks up, the socks pull the garters down.
This usually occurs as you are walking up the aisle in church, or in the
middle of a dance, and of course your garter manages to come unclasped,
into the bargain, and goes trailing after you, like a convict's ball and
chain.
For a time you can stand this sort of thing, but presently you begin to
pine for the delicate washtub artistry of Amanda, at home; for vestments
which, when sent to the wash, do not come back riddled with holes, or
smelling as though they had been washed in carbolic acid, or in the tub
with a large fish.
So, presently, you fold up your rags like the Arabs, fasten your
battered baggage shut as best you can, put it on a taxi, and head for
the railway station. No train ever looks so handsome as the home-bound
train you find there. No engineer ever looks so sturdy and capable,
leaning from the window of his cab, as the one who is to take you home.
Up through the South you fly, past many places you have seen before,
past towns where you have friends whom you would like to see again--only
not now! Now nothing will do but home! Out of the region of magnolias,
palmettoes and live-oaks you pass into the region of pines, and out of
the region of pines into that of maples and elms. At last you come to
Washington.... Only a few hours longer! How satisfyingly the train slips
along! You are not conscious of curves, or even of turning wheels
beneath you. Your progress is like the swift glide of a flying sled.
Baltimore, Wilmington, Philadelphia, Trenton. Nothing to do but look
from the car windows and rejoice. Not that you love the South less, but
that you love home more.
"I wonder if we will ever go on such a trip as this again?" you say to
your companion.
"I don't believe so," he replies.
"It doesn't seem now as though we should," you return. "But do you
remember?--we talked the same way when we were coming home before. What
will it be two years hence?"
"True," he says. "And of course there's Conan Doyle. He always thinks
he's never going to do it any more. But in a year or so Sherlock Holmes
pops out again, drawn by Freddy Steele, all over the cover of
'Collier's.' Not that your stuff is as good as Doyle's, but that the
general case is somewhat parallel."
"Doyle has killed Holmes," you put in.
"Yes," he agrees, "and several times you've almost killed me."
Then as the train speeds scornfully through Newark, without stopping, he
catches sight of a vast concrete building--a warehouse of some kind,
apparently.
"Look!" he cries. "Isn't it wonderful?"
"That building?"
"Not the building itself. The thought that we don't have to get off here
and go through it. Think what it would be like if we were on our
travels! There would be a lot of citizens in frock coats. Probably the
mayor would be there, too. They would drive us to that building, and
take us in, and then they would cry if we refused to go to the
fourteenth floor, where they keep the dried prunes."
The train slips across the Jersey meadows and darts into the tunnel.
"Now," he remarks hopefully, "we are really going to get home--if this
tunnel doesn't drop in on us."
And when the train has emerged from the tunnel, and you have emerged
from the train, he says: "Now there's no doubt that we are going to get
home--unless we are smashed up in a taxi, on the way."
And when the taxi stops at your front door, and you bid him farewell
before he continues on his way to his own front door, he says: "Now
you're going to get home for sure--unless the elevator drops."
And when the elevator has not dropped, but has transported you in safety
to the door of your apartment, and you have searched out the old key,
and have unlocked the door, and entered, and found happiness within,
then you wonder to yourself as I once heard a little boy wonder, when he
had gone out of his own yard, and had found a number of large cans of
paint, and had upset them on himself:
"I have a very happy home," he said, reflectively. "I wonder why I don't
seem to stay around it more?"
* * * * *
[Illustration: Charleston is the last stronghold of a unified American
upper class; the last remaining American city in which Madeira and Port
and _noblesse oblige_ are fully and widely understood, and are employed
according to the best traditions]
[Illustration: "Railroad ticket!" said the baggageman with exaggerated
patience. I began to feel in various pockets]
[Illustration: Can most travellers, I wonder, enjoy as I do a solitary
walk, by night, through the mysterious streets of a strange city?]
[Illustration: Coming out of my slumber with the curious and unpleasant
sense of being stared at, I found his eyes fixed upon me]
[Illustration: Mount Vernon Place is the centre of Baltimore. Everything
begins there, including Baedeker]
[Illustration: If she is shopping for a dinner party, she may order the
costly and aristocratic diamond-back terrapin, sacred in Baltimore as is
the Sacred Cod in Boston]
[Illustration: Doughoregan Manor--The house was of buff-colored brick.
It was low and very long, with wings extending from its central
structure like beautiful arms flung wide in welcome]
[Illustration: I began to realize that there was no one coming; that no
one had opened the door; that it had begun to swing immediately upon my
saying the word "ghosts"]
[Illustration: Harpers Ferry is an entrancing old town; a drowsy place
piled up beautifully yet carelessly upon terraced roads clinging to
steep hillsides]
[Illustration: "What's the matter with him?" I asked, stopping]
[Illustration: When I came down, dressed for riding, my companion was
making a drawing; the four young ladies were with him, none of them in
riding habits]
[Illustration: Claymont Court is one of the old Washington houses. But
in all its history it has never been a happier home or a more
interesting one than it is to-day]
[Illustration: Chatham, the old Fitzhugh house, now the residence of
Mark Sullivan. Washington, Madison, Monroe, Washington Irving, Lee and
Lincoln have known the shelter of its roof]
[Illustration: Monticello stands on a lofty hilltop, with vistas,
between trees of neighboring valleys, hills, and mountains]
[Illustration: Like Venice, the University of Virginia should first be
seen by moonlight]
[Illustration: One party was stationed on the top of an old-time
mail-coach bearing the significant initials "F.F.V."]
[Illustration: The Piedmont Hunt Race Meet--There is a distinct note of
histrionism about many of the rich Americans who "go in for" elaborate
ruralness, and there is a touch of it, also, about ultra-"horsey"
people]
[Illustration: The southern negro is the world's peasant supreme]
[Illustration: The Country Club of Virginia, out to the west of
Richmond, is one of the most charming clubs of its kind in the United
States]
[Illustration: Judge Crutchfield--a white-haired, hook-nosed man of more
than seventy, peering over his eyeglasses with a look of shrewd,
merciless divination]
[Illustration: Negro women squatting upon boxes in old shadowy lofts
stem the tobacco leaves]
[Illustration: THE JUDGE: What did he do, Mandy?
THE WIFE: Jedge, he come bustin' in, an' he come so fas' he untook de
do' off'n de hinges!]
[Illustration: Some genuine old-time New York ferryboats help to
complete the illusion that Norfolk is New York]
[Illustration: "The Southern Statesman who serves his section best,
serves the country best."]
[Illustration: St. Philip's is the more beautiful for the open space
before it, and the graceful outward bend of Church Street in deference
to the projecting portico]
[Illustration: Or, opposite St. Philip's, a perfect example of the rude
architecture of an old French village; stucco walls, tinted and chipped,
red tile roofs and all]
[Illustration: In the doorway and gates of the Smyth house, in Legaré
Street, I was struck with a Venetian suggestion]
[Illustration: Nor is the Charleston background a mere arras of
recollection. It exists everywhere in the wood and brick and stone of
ancient and beautiful buildings, in iron grilles and balconies
unrivalled in any other American city....]
[Illustration: Charleston has a stronger, deeper-rooted city entity than
all the cities of the middle west rolled into one]
[Illustration: The interior is the oldest looking thing in the United
States--Goose Creek Church]
[Illustration: A reminder of the Chicago River--Atlanta]
[Illustration: With the whole Metropolitan Orchestra playing dance music
all night long]
[Illustration: The office buildings are city office buildings, and are
sufficiently numerous to look very much at home]
[Illustration: The negro roof-garden, Odd Fellows' Building, Atlanta]
[Illustration: I was never so conscious, as at the time of our visit to
the Burge plantation, of the superlative soft sweetness of the spring]
[Illustration: The planters cease their work]
[Illustration: Birmingham--The thin veil of smoke from far-off iron
furnaces softens the city's serrated outlines]
[Illustration: Birmingham practices unremittingly the pestilential habit
of "cutting in" at dances]
[Illustration: Gigantic movements and mutations, Niagara-like noises,
great bursts of flame like fallen fragments from the sun]
[Illustration: A shaggy, unshaven, rawboned man, gray-haired and
collarless, sat near the window and uttered convincing imitations of the
sounds made by chickens, roosters, pigs, goats and crows]
[Illustration: Gaze upon the character called Daniel Voorhees Pike!
Observe the manliness with which he thrusts his pink little hands deep
in the pockets of his--or somebody's--pantaloons!]
[Illustration: The houses were full of the suggestion of an easy-going
home life and an informal hospitality. (Back yard of the former home of
General Stephen D. Lee.)]
[Illustration: Her hands looked very white and small against his dark
coat. He was gazing down at them, his features distorted by a shockingly
sentimental smile]
[Illustration: As water flows down the hills of Vicksburg to the river,
so the visitor's thoughts flow down to the great spectacular,
mischievous, dominating stream]
[Illustration: Over the tenement roofs one catches sight of sundry other
buildings of a more self-respecting character, and, far off, the cupola
of Vicksburg's old stone court house]
[Illustration: Vicksburg negroes. Whether drowsing in the sun, doing a
little stroke of work, or sitting gabbling on the curbstone, they were
upon the whole as cheerful and comical a lot of people as I ever saw]
[Illustration: In some of the boats negro fish-markets are conducted,
advertised by large catfish dangling from posts and railing]
[Illustration: The old Klein house, standing amid lawns and
old-fashioned gardens on the bluff overlooking the river]
[Illustration: Citizens go at midday to the square where they buy
popcorn for the squirrels and pigeons--Memphis]
[Illustration: Hanging in the air above the middle of the stream]
[Illustration: These small parks give Savannah a quality which
differentiates it from all other American cities]
[Illustration: The Thomas House in Franklin Square in which Lafayette
was entertained]
[Illustration: You will see them having tea, and dancing under the palm
fronds of the cocoanut grove, when the electric lights begin to glow in
the luminous semi-tropical twilight]
[Illustration: Cocktail hour at The Breakers]
[Illustration: Nowhere is the sand more like a deep warm dust of yellow
gold; nowhere is there a margin of the earth so splashed with spots of
brilliant color; nowhere is water less like water, more like a flowing
waste of liquid emeralds and sapphires edged with a thousand gleaming
flouncing strings of pearls]
[Illustration: The couples on the platform were "ragging," their
shoulders working like the walking-beams of side-wheelers]
[Illustration: Harness held together by that especial Providence which
watches over negro mendings]
[Illustration: It was a very jolly fair, with the usual lot of barkers
and the usual gaping crowd]
[Illustration: The mysterious old Absinthe House, founded 1799]
[Illustration: St. Anthony's Garden, where duels originating at the
quadroon balls were fought]
[Illustration: Courtyard of the old Orleans Hotel]
[Illustration: The little lady who sits behind the desk is more than
ninety-five years old, and came to New Orleans as the bride of Antoine]
[Illustration: The lights are always lowered at Antoine's when the
spectacular Café Boulot Diabolique is served]
[Illustration: Passing between the brilliantly illuminated buildings,
under festoons of electric lights the Mardi Gras parades, with their
floats, their bands, their torch-bearers, their masked figures, are
glorious sights for children from eight to eighty years of age]
* * * * *
Transcriber's Notes.
Page 82: changed "Ridgleys" to "Ridgelys" (of present
Ridgelys)
Page 83: changed "her serious, eyes" to "her serious
eyes"
Page 138: Added missing word "we" (said as we were about
to leave)
Page 161: removed hyphen from "one-course" (prescribed
one course)
Page 169: changed "not" to "now" (now know that I did)
Page 172: added missing quotation mark (such a long
telegram.")
Page 209: changed "Virgina" to "Virginia" (in Virginia,
save,)
Page 217: changed "it" to "in" (harm in it)
Page 217: added missing quotation mark (raised with
niggers around him."")
Page 245: removed superfluous quotation marks from end
of two lines (Yass, Jedge, drunk. _Always_ drunk.)
(he come so fast he untook the do' off'n
de hinges; den 'e begins--")
Page 283: added missing quotation mark (you very
definitely don't.")
Page 287: changed "Okrakoke" to "Ocracoke" (legend
around Okracoke)
Page 295: changed "seem" to "see" (them to see him)
Page 328: changed "new York" to "New York" (New York
"Sun,")
Page 334: changed "coffe" to "coffee" (coffee, hot and
iced.)
Page 355: changed "maried" to "married" (were married in
the dining room)
Page 438: changed "corporaton" to "corporation"
(corporation I have scandalously)
Page 449: changed "constructon" to "construction" (With
the construction)
Page 450: changed "conversatons" to "conversations" and
"wth" to "with" (telephonic conversations with a)
Page 453: changed "objectons" to "objections" (brushed
aside our objections.)
Page 514: changed " to ' ("'Yes,' said Ed.)
Page 518: added missing quotation mark (town in the
Southwest.")
Page 521: changed "repreduction" to "reproduction" (is a
photographic reproduction)
Page 527: changed "crusing" to "cruising" (was still
cruising in the South)
Page 528: added missing word "a" (officer of a naval
vessel.)
Page 532: changed "stading" to "standing" (and silver
standing on the)
Page 538: added missing word "ago" (years ago he
conducted)
Page 542: added missing quotation mark (innumerable
squirrels.")
Page 590: changed "redout" to "redoubt" (last redoubt
held)
Page 631: changed "hardly" to "hardy" (hardy pioneers
from Canada,)
Page 640: added missing ) ("mosquito bar.") The)
Page 649: changed "This, situation is" to "This
situation is" (This situation is)
Page 649: changed "may" to "my" (it was my chance)
Page 655: added missing quotation mark (the Jolly
Roger.")
Page 657: changed "well-know" to "well-known" (too
well-known "Last)
Page 669: changed "is" to "it" (that it bears the
relation)
Page 670: changed "that" to "than" (even than the
pageants)
Page 734: changed "coconut" to "cocoanut" in image
caption (palm fronds of the cocoanut grove,)