Nobody could have written this book--a London Review recently said of
Longfellow's "Hyperion"--who could have reached the Rhine in a few
hours. It needed the ocean, thought the critic, to make the Rhine and
Switzerland remote and romantic to the poet. But he forgot "Childe
Harold," a book written by an Englishman, which has given to the Rhine
and Italy a more romantic glamour for John Bull upon his travels than
any book he reads. It is not the distance, it is the imagination
susceptible to association which is the secret.
The traveller of to-day is not likely to be affected as his father was
by the melancholy melody of Byron; but it is an interesting illustration
of the power of his genius that Byron has imposed his interpretation of
so many scenes upon the mind of the modern English and American
observer. His view makes Italy, as Sir Thomas Lawrence's portrait of
John Kemble made Hamlet. If we stand in the Capitol and look at the
Dying Gladiator, we must also see "his young barbarians all at play"
upon the Danube. If at Terni we see the Velino "cleave the wave-worn
precipice," the Byronic lines murmur along our lips. As we step into the
gondola and glide gently upon the Grand Canal, memory keeps time to the
measure of the dipping oar with the words whose charm is unexhausted:
"In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more,
And silent rows the songless gondolier."
At "a tomb in Arqua," at "Clarens, sweet Clarens," we are still led,
like Dante, by the singing guide. The Guide-book is full of him. The
travel-books are full of him. He is familiar almost to commonplace. Who
comes to "Belgium's capital" for the first time without listening for
"the sound of revelry"? Who goes to the field of Waterloo remembering
"the unreturning brave," and does not sigh,
"And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves."
Sitting quietly here in a great land which looks to the future, not to
the past, it is pleasant to think of the throngs of travellers who have
gone hence for a summer wandering in Europe. Yet so intense is the
delight of European travel, so freshly remembered is it when almost
another generation of travellers are ready to begin their journey, that
the patriarch who goes to the wharf to say farewell to the newer
voyagers looks at them with tenderness and pity, and there is even a
sadness in his congratulations, not because they are sailing away, but
because he cannot believe that they will find what he found, nor
possibly enjoy what he enjoyed. These newer voyagers will see a France
and a Switzerland and an Italy; they will eat oranges at Sorrento, and
gaze upon the Mediterranean from Capri, and hear the fisher's song at
Amalfi: but they will not hear and see through the enchantment of
lapsed years.
In his lively book of travelling letters Dr. Bellows says that he went
up the Nile in a steamer of seventy berths. An ancient mariner of the
Nile cannot comprehend it. In a steamer? With paddles or screws whisking
the water? And steam blowing off? Making innumerable miles a day? The
round trip to Philæ in two weeks, or a week? But how could you see
Egypt, or feel it? That slow floating southward upon white wings; the
sinking deeper and farther from the world we knew; the sense of infinite
strangeness and distance; the weeks passing with no sign of accustomed
life; slowly, one by one, the temples, the tombs; in the still days the
crew dragging the boat along and singing the wild minor refrain; a
voyage of wonder and of dreams--is that Egypt to be seen in a steamer?
It is useless to say that you may go in the old way if you choose. You
cannot go in the old way, because it is no longer what it was, if there
be a newer. You may drive from London to Oxford. But is that going by
the old English stage-coach when it was the only way, when the guard
wound his horn, and the cherry-nosed coachman threw down the ribbons at
each relay, and the neat inns stood smiling with open doors, and
tra-la-la sped the nimble team by the park gate and the hawthorn hedge?
You may go by sloop from New York to Albany. But is that now the
romantic Hudson voyage which it was when it could be made in no other
way?
No sensible ancient mariner will quarrel with all this, nor desire to
banish the steamer of seventy berths from the Nile. When he shakes a
farewell hand with the youth who are going to run up to Rome by train,
and are _not_ going to stop at a certain point upon the Campagna, and
run forward to the top of a hill whence they can see far away upon the
horizon the faintly outlined dome of St. Peter's--and who are _not_
going from Leghorn to Florence through the grape harvest, their carriage
heaped with the luscious clusters, but are to whiz through Tuscany in
an hour or so, the regret in his tone is not personal or selfish, it is
for a whole order of things passed away.
Such an ancient mariner would, however, be indeed sorry if he supposed
that anybody suspected him of a very common and very odious kind of
remark, against which he kindly warns all the throngs of travellers of
whom mention has been made. The remark in question may be called the
capping remark. Thus one traveller says to another--as Marco Polo to
George Sandys--
"You went to Jerusalem?"
"Yes."
"And to Jericho?"
"Yes."
"And to the Jordan?"
"Yes."
"Did you see the white stone on the bottom near where the river flows
into the Dead Sea?"
"Well--let me see! I don't exactly seem to remember that I did precisely
see that."
"Ah!" replies Marco Polo.
It is a very brief sound, but being interpreted it means, "Then, my
dear George Sandys, you might just as well not have seen the Jordan at
all." Not that the white stone was famous or worth seeing, but that
Marco Polo wished to "rub in" upon George Sandys's mind the conviction
that he, Polo, had seen more than he, Sandys, in the same direction.
This capping process sometimes leads to very droll results. Young Green
heard Gray and Brown comparing their notes of travel. Each was naturally
anxious to have seen and done rather more than the other; but it
appeared that each had been in about the same places, and had had very
much the same experience.
"Lago Maggiore is a lovely sheet of water," remarked Gray.
"Truly exquisite," replied Brown.
"And Isola Bella is most beautiful," suggested Gray.
"Dear me! dear me!" approvingly assented Brown.
"How high is the statue of San Carlo Borromeo?" asked Gray.
"About sixty feet," answered Brown.
"It's a wonderful prospect from his eye," said Gray.
"Whose eye?" asked Brown.
"San Carlo Borromeo's," replied Gray, whose mind instantly suspected
that he had caught the adversary, and who followed up his advantage
vigorously and suddenly. "Of course you went up San Carlo?"
"Up San Carlo? You mean the church at--"
"Oh no! the statue on Lago Maggiore."
"Went up the statue! what do you mean?" snapped Brown, foreseeing
discomfiture.
"Oh! I thought you probably knew," retorted the triumphant Gray, "that
the statue is hollow."
"Oh! ah! yes!" returned Brown, indifferently.
"And you didn't go up?" pressed Gray.
"Not exactly," feebly rejoined Brown.
"Nor sit in his nose?" continued Gray.
"Not exactly," muttered Brown.
"Nor look out of his eyes?" said Gray.
"I thought I wouldn't," murmured Brown, in full retreat.
"Oh!" smiled Gray, with the air of David holding the head of Goliath by
the hair, and displaying it to mankind--"oh!"
Young Green heard all this, and he resolved that whatever he did not do
when he went to Europe, he would at all hazards sit in the nose of San
Carlo Borromeo. The next year he came to Lago Maggiore. He saw the
statue. He remembered the conversation and his high resolve, and he
essayed the deed. It was fearful. He tore his hands; he tore his
clothes; he was half suffocated; and, wedging himself into the nose, he
stuck fast, and was only rescued at the peril of his life. When he told
Gray afterward, and reminded him of the colloquy with Brown, that
experienced traveller laughed until the tears ran down his cheeks. "My
dear Green," said he, "I never went up the confounded thing; but it was
necessary to take Brown down somehow, and I employed the good saint for
the purpose." He laughed again to tears; but Mr. Green soberly resolved
that he would eschew the capping talk of travel. And he chose the wiser
course.
The truth is that Green should not trust too much the tales, nor indeed
the regrets, of the ancient mariners.
"For travellers tell no idle tales,
But fools at home believe them."
Certainly when this one remarks that he feels in saying farewell that
young Green will never see the Europe that he saw, he has not the
remotest idea of dimming his bright hope nor of asserting an advantage.
What is it, indeed, but a way of saying that he is no longer the same
man he was? If he were, what would be the gain of travel? It is not only
an enlargement of the scenery of the mind, not only a richer and more
various memory that he has acquired, but a riper experience. He has
grown wiser; and perhaps all that he feels when he shakes Green's
parting hand is that Green is not so wise as he will one day be.
"EASY DOES IT, GUVNER."
Dickens's Rogue Riderhood, who says "Easy does it, guvner," was a very
practical man. But there is no motto which is more susceptible of
perversion. Mr. Seward said the same thing in his last great speech. "I
early learned from Jefferson that in politics we must do what we can,
not what we would." It is not only plausible, but it is true. Yet its
truth can be most readily abused to defeat everything for which it is
urged.
"'I weep for you,' the walrus said;
'I deeply sympathize.'
With tears and sobs he sorted out
Those of the largest size,
Holding his pocket-handkerchief
Before his streaming eyes."
It was necessary that the walrus should eat, and it was very sad that
the oysters should satisfy the necessity. But it is obvious that wicked
walruses who have no intention whatever of not eating oysters would sob
aloud with heart-rending vehemence as proof of a virtue which they do
not possess. The foes of progress are always anxious that its friends
should go easily. "Easy does it, guvner." But meanwhile they are
anything but easy in obstructing. In the race, the sly gentleman who
bets on Tom whispers confidentially to the jockey who rides Jerry that
he had better "go easy." The friends of the saloon hope that the true
friends of temperance are aware that the only way of success is to avoid
fanaticism. But they omit to hide their bodies as well as their heads,
for they are unsparing fanatics on their own behalf.
When Gustavus, in deference to his dear Griselda, promised to begin to
reform the baleful habit of smoking, his Griselda was jocund as the
dawn. But at the end of a week she did not observe that there were fewer
cigars consumed, and she pleasantly asked him if the good resolution had
escaped his memory. "By no means," he answered; "quite the contrary.
But you remember what Rogue Riderhood said, 'Easy does it, guvner.' We
must move warily upon the intrenched enemy, dearest Grizzle. Remember
that Rome was not built in a day." Griselda remembered faithfully. But
still the cigars continued, and upon a further gentle remonstrance
Gustavus rejoined: "Certainly; but we must be reasonable. There are many
steps, my dear Griselda. In siege operations the great masters of war
approach by parallels, after making ample and thorough preparation. That
is what I am doing. I am beginning to prepare to begin. Easy does it,
you know. Don't forget Rome."
Still Gustavus smoked, and still Griselda waited, and at the end of six
months she asked with a smile how far he had advanced in abandoning the
habit of smoking. "Dear Grizzle," he answered, "you remember the weeds
that sprang up and soon withered because they had no depth of soil. I
wish my reform of this naughty habit to be well rooted, that it may long
endure. None of your spasmodic virtue, your superficial goodness, for
me! Great reforms, even in personal habits, my dear Mrs. Gustavus,
cannot be accomplished in a day. Even Rome was not built in that time. I
am working for great results, to which all my tastes and habits must
conform. I must lay the foundations broad and deep. Easy does it, my
rose-bud."
Gustavus continues to smoke, and Easy continues to do it. But there is
another saying quite as wise as that of Rogue Riderhood, which exhorts
him who puts his hand to the plough not to look back. The trouble with
Riderhood's apothegm is that it supplies an endless excuse for not doing
it. If the habit is too strong, and will not budge, you can soothe your
conscience and make the most plausible of pleas by insisting that human
nature and long custom and uniform tradition and the honest doubt
whether smoking is, after all, injurious, must all be carefully
considered. That is what Dickens also calls the great art of how not to
do it. "My son, if you wish a thing done, do it yourself; if not, send,"
said the wise father; and the pioneers, the men without whose one idea
and uncompromising energy and conciliation nothing would be
accomplished, say with Sumner. "There is but one side," and with Cato,
"_Delenda est Carthago_."
It is true that everything cannot be done at once, but something must be
done all the time; and you will observe that it is not when the work is
advancing, but when it stops or goes backward, that we hear the familiar
wisdom of the Rogue that Easy does it. That is what makes it a
suspicious saying, "What are you doing, sir?" thundered the master to
the boy. "Nothing, sir," replied the frightened pupil. "Just as I
thought, sir. Don't you know that your business is to do something?"
When a man says "Easy does it," he may be doing all that he can but the
immense probability, the almost absolute certainty, is that he is doing
nothing, or, like the amiable Gustavus, he is "beginning to prepare to
begin."